Summary

In Chapter 10, Shiri tells Zenzele that she has the “gift of the third eye,” which is the “ability to create the world that you wish to live in” (170). According to Shiri, someone with a third eye is someone for whom “knots can be untied, chains can be broken, walls can be smashed, and doors can be pushed open” (170). Now, she tells the story of her cousin Rudo, who used to come to their home whenever her husband beats her. Shiri and Linda bathed her, and while Shiri is sympathetic, Linda is angered by Rudo’s servile spirit. Shiri has since realized that Linda’s toughness and hardness were parts of her “revolutionary mind-set” (174).

Shiri then recalls a conversation about fate with her husband. Shiri says that she believes in a predetermined universe in which people are simply “scattered puzzle bits” (175). While Shiri no longer...