He said, cold: ‘If you say so, I’ve got to believe you.’ Then he leaped over at me, and grabbed my shoulders and shook me: ‘I hate you for being normal, I hate you for it. You’re a normal human being. What right have you to that? I suddenly understood that you remember everything, you probably remember everything I’ve ever said. You remember everything that’s happened to you, it’s intolerable.’ His fingers dug into my shoulders and his face was alive with hatred.

I said: ‘Yes, I do remember everything.’

But not in triumph. I was aware of myself as he saw me, a woman inexplicably in command of events, because she could look back and see a smile, a movement, gestures; hear words, explanations — a woman inside time. I disliked the solemnity, the pompousness of that upright little custodian of the truth. When he said: ‘It’s like being a prisoner, living with someone who knows what you said last week, or can say: three days ago you did so and so,’ I could feel a prisoner with him, because I longed to be free of my own ordering, commenting memory. I felt my sense of identity fade. My stomach clenched and my back began to hurt.

He said: ‘Come here’ — moving away and gesturing towards the bed. I obediently followed. I could not have refused. He said, through his teeth: ‘Come on, come on,’ or rather, ‘Come’n, come’n.’ I realized he had gone back some years, he was probably about twenty then. I said No, because I did not want that violent young male animal. His face flared into grinning derisive cruelty, and he said: ‘You’re saying no. That’s right, baby, you should say no more often, I like it.’

He began stroking my neck and I said No. I was nearly crying. At the sight of my tears his voice changed into a triumphant tenderness, and he kissed the tears, like a connoisseur, and said: ‘Come’n, baby, come’n.’ The sex was cold, an act of hatred, hateful. The female creature who had been expanding, growing, purring for a week, bolted into a corner and shuddered. And the Anna who had been capable of enjoying, with the antagonist, combative sex, was limp, not fighting. It was quick and ugly, and he said: ‘Bloody Englishwomen, no good in bed.’ But I was freed for ever by being hurt by him in this way, and I said: ‘It’s my fault. I knew it wouldn’t be any good. I hate it when you’re cruel.’

He flung himself over on his face and lay still, thinking. He muttered: ‘Someone said that to me, just recently. Who? When?’

‘One of your other women said you were cruel, did she?’

‘Who? I’m not cruel. I’ve never been cruel. Am I cruel?’

The person speaking then was the good person. I didn’t know what to say, fearful of driving him away and bringing the other back. He said: ‘What shall I do, Anna?’

I said: ‘Why don’t you go to a witchdoctor?’