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irritably into her handbag, got out of the vehicle with an unconscious and characteristic haste, and literally ran to her office on the third floor of the building. This morning, she did not even bother to find out whether the lift was working. Since if it was, it would have been maybe only the sixth or seventh time the whole year, and most probably the last time before the end of the century.
    Once in her office, she sat down, first to get her breath back. Then she just sat, uncharacteristically doing nothing at all. She became aware that she was in no hurry to do any work inside her office, or go out and meet anybody. In fact, she was rather surprised at the degree of lethargy she was feeling. She could not remember when last had she felt so clearly unwilling to face the world... and then with a kind of shock, she realised that in spite of the second bath she had had before leaving home, she was still not feeling fresh or clean.
    Clean? It all came to her then. That what she had gone through with Oko had been marital rape.
    â€˜Marital rape?!’ She began to laugh rather uncontrollably, and managed to stop herself only when it occurred to her that anyone coming upon her that minute would think she had lost her mind, which would not have been too far from the truth. In fact, her professional self was coldly telling her that she was hysterical. And isn’t hysteria a form of mental derangement? At that she got up and went to lock the door.
    She could hardly remember what commitments were on her schedule for the day. Yes, there was some data analysing she and her colleague had to do for the Minister. But that, mercifully, was for three o’clock that afternoon.
    Marital rape. She sat down again, this time almost making herself comfortable. As if the state paid her to come and sit in her office to try and sort out her personal life! One part of her was full of disapproval, while the other — a kind of brand new self — could not have cared less.
    Marital rape. Suddenly, she could see herself or some other woman sociologist presenting a paper on:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  ‘The Prevalence of Marital Rape in the Urban African Environment’
    to a packed audience of academics. Overwhelmingly male, of course. A few women. As the presentation progresses, there are boos from the men, and uncomfortable titters from the women. At the end of it, there is predictable hostile outrage.
    â€˜Yes, we told you, didn’t we? What is burying us now are all these imported feminists ideas
    â€˜And, dear lady colleague, how would you describe “marital rape” in Akan?’
    Igbo? … Yoruba?’
    â€˜Wolof? ... or Temne?’
    â€˜Kikuyu? ... or Ki-Swahili?’
    â€˜Chi-Shona?’
    â€˜Zulu? ... or Xhosa?’
    Or …
    She was caught in her own trap. Hadn’t she some long time ago said in an argument that
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  ‘you cannot go around claiming that an idea or an item was imported into a given society unless you could also conclude that to the best of your knowledge, there is not, and never was any word or phrase in that society’s indigenous language which describes that idea or item’?
    By which and other proof, the claims that ‘plantain’, ‘cassava’ and other African staples came from Asia or the Americas could only be sustained by racist historians and lazy African academics? And both suffering from the same disease: allergy to serious and honest research. … African staples coming from the Americas? Ha, ha, ha! … And incidentally, what did the slaves take there with them by way of something to grow and eat? … What a magnificent way to turn history on its head! … She told herself that when it came to poor history getting turned on its head, there was too much of that sort of thing going on around Africa and Africans anyway …
    But