veranda of their new home in Longacres, hunched over her big belly to shave the hair on her feet so that she could paint her toenails. And out of the corner of her eye, she had caught Federico looking at her from a window, his mouth open, his eyes narrow.
Before he saw her see him, before his face crinkled into a smile, Sibilla had felt three things at once. One was déjà vu: the threads of time went slack and two moments pressed against each other like cat’s-cradle palms. The second was embarrassment: she thought she had been unseen in her awkward crouch over her belly. The third was an epiphany: she realised that her husband’s love for her had absolutely nothing to do with her, that it never had. It was as indifferent to her as his brother’s had been. This is not so strange. Love often turns out to be a test and a confirmation of separateness. Around then, Sibilla had started sleeping in another bedroom. She simply no longer wished to touch him.
No, Sibilla did not mourn Federico’s death and only later would she come to mourn the loss of him over the years, the sense of something familiar receding millimetre by millimetre, like a warm bath draining around you. At the funeral, she felt sad only for Isabella, who had not been ready for him to die. Sibilla reached out and put her hand on her daughter’s jolting shoulder. Isabella, in too-tall, too-shiny heels and an ill-fitting dress, was weeping ferociously. Her fiancé stood on the other side of her, offering her his big hand, which she alternated between gripping tightly and rejecting outright. Sibilla watched him endure. Balaji could do no right by Isabella Corsale. He would learn that soon enough.
Sibilla had decided that she liked her new son-in-law, or in any case, that she could tolerate him. She would be moving with Isabella into his home in Kamwala after the wedding, to help take care of the grandchildren to come. The house in Longacres that had come with the Colonel’s sinecure with Kariba Dam was too large for a widow anyway. In truth, Sibilla wouldn’t have stayed even if she could afford it. She wanted nothing to do with that house, or the stolen job – the stolen life – that had paid for it. She was done with mercenary secrets.
* * *
The day before the wedding, Sibilla ran into Balaji outside Isa’s childhood bedroom. He was closing the door, shutting off the racket of sobs within.
‘Sorry-sorry, just dropping off jalebi. Our Bella is not well—’ A muffled cry came from behind the door. Balaji looked distraught, a giant child who has lost his toy. ‘She is crying the whole day—’
‘Balaji,’ Sibilla cut in.
‘Yes, Madam?’
‘Will you cut my hair, as you do in your town? I wish to go to your wedding without a veil.’ She hadn’t planned this request, but she realised now that she’d been harbouring the idea ever since he had first told them about the temple and the barbers and the carpet of wet hair on the floor.
‘Are you sure, Madam?’ he asked with his rolling nod.
‘Isabella, she cuts it,’ Sibilla explained. ‘Or what do you say? Trim. Since she was small, she trims it.’ She swept her hands over her face and neck. ‘Could you trim for me? For the funeral – I mean, for the wedding.’
‘As you wish.’ Balaji bowed solemnly.
She led him out to the veranda. It was one of Lusaka’s contrarian June days, when the sun is fire and the shade is ice. The lawn, bracketed by its low white wall, was patchy, already thirsty for rain. The fruitless guava tree juddered pitifully in the wind. Sibilla sat under the lip of the veranda, her tufty feet stretched out to reach the sunlight. Beside her was a small table that Enela had set out with scissors and razors and a bowl of hot water, its steam diagonal and hesitant in the wind.
Balaji fingered the instruments, then chose a pair of scissors. First, he cropped great swathes of hair from Sibilla’s head and face. When he had got it down to a staticky afro, he wet the halo and carefully snipped it into commas that fell onto the embroidered chest of her boubou. Finally, he picked up a razor and deftly scraped the remaining bristle. They were close enough to inhale each other’s breath, absorbed in the ritual. The fretful wind dried the cut hair, gusted it