IN MY PRIVATE TALE, THE ‘confinement’ at Lake Mcllwaine was the time I received the deadly virus. On that first night at the lake, at the peak of sexual satisfaction. Only then was my body ready for the ‘gift’.

Dambudzo might have been carrying the virus for a long time already.

He could have passed it on to me on that first night at the Seven Miles Hotel.

And apparently did not.

I cannot prove that it happened that night. I cannot prove anything.

When many weeks later the chagrin of my steep downfall had passed, I knocked at his window again. Though I knew the end had come and we could not be a loving couple anymore, I lay in his arms once or twice more after our trip to Lake Mcllwaine.

In April came the illness. The virus had settled.

My tale had found its closure.