‘Wow, stunning! Come! Come and give us a kiss!’ the mulatto shouted theatrically, spreading wide his arms, his eyes on the passage behind Lomba. Alice had appeared. She did look stunning; she was dressed for going out, most likely to a party: a very short miniskirt, a body-hugging top underneath a red blazer; her red handbag trailed from her hand negligently. She looked self-conscious. The man stood up and engulfed her in his arms; he planted a deep, wet kiss on her lips.

‘Alice, someone to see you,’ the other girl announced. In his confusion and discomfort, Lomba noticed that the girl sounded churlish, piqued, like a child who had been suddenly upstaged by the arrival of another. Still in the man’s arms, Alice looked over her shoulder at Lomba.

‘My classmate, Lomba,’ she introduced. ‘This is Mike, and this is Nike, my flatmate.’

Lomba smiled at everyone.

The next semester when I saw you knocking on my door, I had a mind to turn and walk away. I stood a long time on the verandah of the opposite block debating. I knew if I came to you, if I called your name, if I let you into my room, nothing would ever be the same again. Why did I hesitate? Was this not what I had wanted ever since the day I first saw you in Dr Kareem’s office – to be entangled with you, to twine my life around yours like vine around a post? But I was hesitant, because now I knew there were other dimensions to you that I had never guessed at, that I had only glimpsed the day you left me with your flatmate and walked out with your boyfriend. I had avoided you from that day, treated you like any other classmate, hiding the ache in my heart, the way my heart leaped each time you walked into class … Now you were knocking on my door. I could turn, I could walk away; but like a moth approaching aflame, I fluttered to you.

‘Alice,’ Lomba called. She had raised her hand to knock again when he called. He saw the relief on her face when she turned and saw him.

‘Lomba, I was just about to go. I was passing and I stopped to say hi,’ she said, trying to sound cool. He opened the door and asked her in. The room looked scattered, as he and his room-mate had left it in the morning: dirty teacups on the table, papers on the floor, the radio still on. He opened the window and let in the hot air and the weak evening light.

‘We left in a rush this morning. We were late for 202.’ He pulled out the chair next to the table for her – the only chair in the room. ‘Sit down. You are not in a hurry to leave, are you? Sit down, let me get you a Coke.’