But what, Mr Eyob? asked her mother. Saba is a woman now and I want to protect her reputation. Honour is what we have left. I urge you not to come here again.

Saba followed the businessman’s eyes as they settled on Hagos. Hagos’s hair quivered in the breeze. It was as if the moon and stars shone only for him. It was as if everyone else around him vanished. Eyob took a deep breath. Okay, he said to the mother, without looking away from Hagos. As you wish. I would like to ask for Saba’s hand.

That night, Saba listened to Hagos weeping until he fell into a restless sleep. The following morning, she opened her eyes to his stare, eyes that showed the same anger she remembered from those early days of her school life. Red eyes that pursued her as she washed her face, combed her hair, ate breakfast, put her books in her bag, and then walked to the gate and turned towards him to wave goodbye.

Good morning, Hagos-ay, Saba said, now sitting up on her blanket. Adding the -ay, attaching Hagos to her, mine, my Hagos, mine like the air, mine like the skin around my bones. She was engaged but nothing was going to change between them. She wanted to tell him this, if he only would sit and let her talk to him.

Many nights of crying, many silent mornings followed. And one morning, Hagos waited for her to wake up, a pen and paper in his hands.

Do you want to continue our English lessons? Saba asked.

He nodded, his head moving up and down in a rapid jerk, as if, Saba thought, a language could be learnt that fast.

Let’s eat first, the mother said.

Hagos shook his head.

He hasn’t been eating for days now. Don’t you want to eat? Saba asked.

Hagos, though, put the pen and paper in her hand. Okay, let’s start then, Saba said, leaving her own breakfast untouched.

And when Hagos returned later that evening, he hurried past Saba and lay on his blanket, facing the wall without changing or taking off his shoes.

Saba turned up the wick of the lamp. It was raining outside, yet Hagos was barely wet, as if he’d been sheltered during his walk.

The silence inside the hut was broken by the occasional rumble in the sky. Saba sat up and pulled out the painting from Hagos’s jute sack and leaned against the wall. The closer she looked at the portrait this time, the more Saba discovered similarities between the white woman and herself. All the time it hung on her wall back home, all the time she held it in this camp ever since she discovered it, all this and it never occurred to her that this might have been her. That it could have been Hagos and not the landlord who’d painted this portrait. And that Hagos disguised her under an unblemished white skin.

But the square face, the dimples on the cheeks, the long neck, the long, narrow almond eyes, the broad shoulders, the slender breasts, the wide hips all resembled her, Saba. The white skin was diversion, a buffer against possible accusations that a man had dared to paint his own sister naked.