Her legs trembled as if no longer under her command, yet somehow she walked on behind the boys with their boxes of kago, down another steep path with a hand for help as her balance lurched, then up, until they came at last to a long ridge and she could hear voices coming from the narrow valley below. The guides hollered and when an answering yodel reached them, Albert picked up his pace, whooping down to the river. Only Obi waited, slowing his pace to Rika’s.

At the river women and children were washing, water beading their hair as they shook themselves, calling out to her and waving. Rika waded waist-deep into the pool where they were and fell back in the water, her heart like a caged animal pacing inside her ribs. Hands came to her, stroking her arm, touching her head, a reception of angels. A young woman stretched towards her, a shampoo bottle in her hand, but even as she came forward through the water, she was called back, a name rising up – Josephine – and she was absorbed into a group of girls calling out their names, too many to remember. Rika sank back into the river. Above her the land rose in a rocky scarp where even the trees seemed to have difficulty clinging. When she lifted her head from the water to the sound of more people singing out their names, at that moment she wanted only to sink back under the cool water, let go her hold on the rocks at the edge of the pool and allow the current to pull her down the mountain, all the way to the sea, where she could rest, quiet and contented, until the tides carried her gently along the coast, eastwards to Aaron’s village.

A man was standing on a rock at the edge of the river. He was wearing a shirt she recognised as Leonard’s, shouting to her over the roar of the current. An older woman with eyes like dark jewels took her hand and steadied her through the running current to the rock where he stood.

‘Boja is my name,’ he said in formal English. He was a stocky man with a broad nose and round, prominent eyes. ‘The chiefs are waiting. You must come. The women bring you.’ And then he was gone, up a waterfall that seemed also to be a path.

On the last steep ascent, she was overtaken by small children light on their feet, and women with string bags heavy with vegetables. She could hear the kundu drums in the village on the ridge as people gestured ahead, encouraging her forward.

‘Leonard?’ she asked, a single word, a name, all she could say over the beat of her heart.

At the top, the land flattened onto a spur that widened like a stage, the forest dropping away on either side, peaks forming an amphitheatre across the steep valleys. Ahead, a hedge marked the start of the village. Two pigs, one behind the other, were trying to find their way through. The gateway was closed by crossed saplings, and from them hung a large bark-cloth of mountains painted in browns and rusty reds. Something about the irregularity of the peaks made Rika draw in her breath.