Nervous Conditions (Nervous Conditions #1)

by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Lucia, who had grown shrewd in her years of dealing with men, denied that the foetus was Takesure’s. She accredited it instead to my father, although this could not have been true. My father, doing his best not to offend Babamukuru, had sensibly not allowed himself to enjoy Lucia’s voluptuousness until after she had fallen pregnant. From this feat of self-control Lucia had deduced that my father had marginally more stamina than Takesure and for this reason would make a better father. For his part, my father was quite taken with the idea of having Lucia as a second wife. Although she had been brought up in abject poverty, she had not, like my mother, been married to it at fifteen. Her spirit, unfettered in this respect, had experimented with living and drawn its own conclusions. Consequently, she was a much bolder woman than my mother, and my father, who no longer felt threatened by a woman’s boldness since he had proved his mettle by dispiriting my mother, was excited by the thought of possessing a woman like Lucia, like possessing a thunderstorm to make it crackle and thunder and lightning at your command.