The Hired Man

by Aminatta Forna

Laura arrived and took over the blue house and things began to change. In a very short time it seemed certain people forgot what had been agreed for so long, or perhaps they thought it no longer applied, or no longer applied to them, that the pact we had held to for sixteen years was somehow over.

Never ask a question you don’t need to, my father told me. To which he may as well have added: and never answer a question that hasn’t been asked.

But Anka, Anka was born with joy in her soul, to which they feel she has no right. Behind it all, as with so many things in life and in death, lies envy. In the end it gets the better of them.