As Vida drove down Eighth Avenue, the former guerrillas started chanting, ‘Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!’ The sound followed Vida and Rosa Adair for quite some distance.

Saskia Hargrave, who had been watching the Independence Day revellers for some time, followed them at a safe distance as they travelled up Eighth Avenue. When they began chanting, ‘Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!’ she, for reasons she could not quite fathom, decided to join them. She let the throng, on its way to Grey Street, carry her down Eighth Avenue. When she got to Grey Street, she would dislodge herself from the crowd and resume her journey to Flat 2A at the Prince’s Mansions.

The revellers seemed happy to have her in their midst. She understood why. She was the white woman who authenticated their right to happiness. She was the one who made it possible and necessary for most of them to chant ‘Independence is for us all!’ Saskia soon found that one could not be part of something so joyous without being affected by it, and so she joined in the chant. ‘Independence is for us all!’

By the time the throng arrived at City Hall, Saskia was feeling something very close to satisfaction. With the crowd of revellers cheering her on, she found herself climbing up a flagpole. Her initial thought had been to shock the onlookers by removing her T-shirt and waving it. However, when she got to the top of the flagpole, she surprised herself and the onlookers by removing the Union Jack instead. After a stunned silence that lasted long enough for Saskia to feel almost afraid of what she had done, the crowd erupted with applause and good cheer. Situated high above them, Saskia was for a brief moment their heroine. She relished the moment for all it was worth and basked in its glory.

As she looked down at the City of Kings and its inhabitants, Saskia thought that perhaps this thing called independence would not be an altogether lamentable thing – that perhaps the Great Stuffer of Things was at that very moment emptying all of them out and leaving them as bags full of promise and potential, bags that could – from this moment on – choose what kind of miscellany they wanted to hold.

From her vantage point, Saskia saw a magnificent red vehicle circle the roundabout surrounding Cecil John Rhodes’s statue before continuing along Main Street, and she allowed herself to share in its unbounded feeling of freedom.