I remember when Malova ran away from home. It was the only time I ever saw my father cry. He was filling up the bathtub with water for me. I would have a bath early in the evening, after which it was Eric’s turn. My father broke into sobs as the warm steam filled the room. I remember him mumbling something about how it was dark outside and Malova would be all alone.

Eric would ask me later if he had been crying. And for whatever reason, I said, “No.”

Malova’s bedroom was next to the bathroom. Out of all the rooms and bedrooms in our house, I liked his room the most. It was a small room with dark blue walls when everyone else’s were white. I was the shy little sister that he invited into his sanctuary with a smile – to touch and read whatever books and comics I enjoyed. Sometimes, I’d sit quietly with him for hours as he picked up a screwdriver and opened the transistor radio to see how it worked. He’d remove and scatter over thirty tiny pieces of plastic and metal parts from inside the radio onto his desk. The following day, he would put the pieces back in the radio and make it work. He had lined his walls with his paintings and the wooden bookshelves were cluttered with fraying, discoloured soft cover books and magazines he bought from the second-hand store. It was the only book shop of its kind in our town, near that dusty street corner close to the city market. His room was filled with the musty smell of browning paper, stacks of torn, colourful comics and scratched 33rpm records that would skip and endlessly repeat one line on the turntable before a gentle thumbing prompted the tune along. And then there was a pile of exercise books in a corner, several lined, light blue note books in which he’d scribbled illegibly. He was forever writing. I’d later learn that these were words to songs and poems he had composed to express some of his deepest feelings. In the familiar comfort of Malova’s room, I would learn this art of scribbling and would read and write poems that made me laugh, think or soothed me.