DURING OUR HOLIDAY IN GERMANY, travelling here and there, seeing many different friends and family in various places, Dambudzo moved into the back of my mind. I was not worried about him, I was not yearning for him, I did not think much about him. Even when I heard from someone that a writer had been detained during Zimbabwe Book Fair and that apparently it had been him, I remained largely unaffected. I probably just shrugged my shoulders and made a comment like ‘Oh, what kind of scene did he stage this time?’

However, already on our flight back from Frankfurt to Harare, the butterflies were starting to dance in my belly. I had told myself to wait for a while before going to see him. I wanted to keep the distance. I was afraid I would get sucked in again into the whirlpool of unresolved emotions, of a love that remained an illusion – that even, perhaps, was insincere?

My intent was useless. It did not take more than a day or two – in fact on my first drive to the shops to stock up our supplies – before I found myself making a detour to Dambudzo's flat.

‘How are you?’ I said, embracing him. ‘We only got back yesterday.

I cannot stay. But I am glad you are in. I just needed to see you. I have missed you so much.’

Dambudzo was strangely distant. My emotions flying out towards him, my desire that had flared up again, seemed to drop down to the floor where he was standing.

‘So, you are back,’ he said. ‘I did not expect you.’

I asked what had happened at the book fair.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed, ‘they detained me. I spent six days behind bars.’

A day before the fair had started, he said, he had been sitting in the lounge of the Meikles Hotel giving an interview to two Swedish women journalists. All of a sudden, two undercover policemen, CIO, walked up and arrested him. They confiscated the journalists’ tape and camera.

There was less of the usual rage in Dambudzo's voice as he told me what had happened. What had hurt him most, it seemed, was that his fellow writers had not done anything to come to his rescue.