“Another buzzword? Just what we need.”

“It’s an acknowledgement that the struggles of all oppressed people are linked and that one cannot be free without all being free. It is recognising that different people face different challenges based on their race, class, gender, sexuality, culture, and so forth. The privileged white feminist who argues with her husband about whose turn it is to load the dishwasher does not face the same challenges as the black lesbian living in a rural village in the Transkei.”

“I fail to see what that has to do with my book.”

“You can’t declare the country free and ready to move on from apartheid on the back of a woman who has been raped. Your analogy itself is oppressive. Can you see that?”

He thinks about this, staring into the mug of murky rooibos he has made for himself. I wonder where he got it from. Do the delis of Adelaide boast boxes of rooibos teabags? Did he bring a supply from South Africa with him? What will he do when it runs out?

“I see what you mean,” he says. “Women have been the victims of violence long enough. It is deeply misogynistic to use the rape of a woman as an analogy for the just and necessary punishment white people have to endure to atone for their sins. I see where I went wrong.”

Is he pulling my leg? Making fun of my earnestness?

There are tears in his eyes as he contemplates the injustice he has done to all South Africans with his book. He blinks, and a tear runs down the seams of his lined face.

“I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”

Now I am crying too. He lurches to his feet and I am almost blinded by tears as I stand up. I fling myself into his arms and he strokes my hair, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” For the first time since the rape, I feel at peace.

* * *

I don’t have the money for a ticket to Adelaide. I can barely afford an Uber into the City Bowl. I am now so agoraphobic, I am about as likely to fly to Australia as I am to fly to the moon.

When you have an intense and vivid interaction with someone in your head, it is hard to believe that person remains untouched by it—that they can be unaware of the ferocity with which they have occupied your thoughts. Part of me believes that Coetzee knows I have been thinking about him.