In the end, she decided that since she had always been unafraid, there was no reason to be otherwise now, and ripped open the white envelope with awfully little care, tearing the sealed seam in several places – not because she was anxious about what news her husband had sent, but because she was angry that he had sent any news at all. She removed the letter, which, she was happy to note, contained the entirety of what it wanted to say on a single sheet. The letter was written on a page of a lined school exercise book. Knowing him, he had had children with the woman he had married in Johannesburg. The paper was folded into two equal parts, and the single fold told Dikeledi that her husband took what he had written as news that could be shared with all and sundry. Many folds would have meant that a secret was passing between them, and she was happy to see that he was not assuming any such familiarity and intimacy. The letter was written with a deliberate hand that took itself so seriously that it rounded and separated each individual letter. The combined letters made for few words and an appallingly short letter, which read:

Dear Dikeledi,
I am coming home. Prepare for my return.
Your Husband,
Immanuel

This was something truly surprising – something that Dikeledi potentially could not handle. Out of seemingly nowhere, the smooth running of her life had decided to take an unfortunate turn and she would have to do much to steer it back on course again. Dikeledi was grateful for one thing, though: that he had not signed the letter ‘Your loving husband’. At least she could still be sure she had chosen him well.

As a child, Dikeledi had known three things for certain: she did not want to be like her mother; she did not want a husband or children; and she did not live in a community that would allow her to be unmarried and childless. Dikeledi had always been a very perceptive and intelligent child, but knowing these three things had made her an exceedingly shrewd child indeed, because she had had to imagine and think of ways to be free in the future.

When other girls had spent their playing hours dreaming up families and imagining future husbands, Dikeledi had prepared for her freedom. When she cooked in make-believe pots, she always cooked for one. When the boys of her youth would make clay cattle and offer them to her as a pretend bride price so that she would start playing house with them, she would take the cattle and continue cooking for one.