Lovers and Husbands

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A woman aged forty reflects on her life - reaching as far back as memory allows. The writer's sister, her junior by two years, plays a major role in Lovers and Husbands. It soon becomes clear that she is the dazzling protagonist in an endlessly twisting and turning tale. From the beginning, the lives of the two siblings are intricately interwoven. Love, jealousy, envy, loyalty, range, anger and all sorts of imagined and actual fears are tossed together in a big salad bowl the moment the two sisters face a serious event in their multicolored lives. Already as children it becomes apparent that there are considerable differences between them. The older one is physically courageous, if not reckless, and has a quick tongue that often hurts her little sister. The younger child is cautious, reflective and anxious. She is touching in her devotion to her older sister, whose footsteps she follows everywhere. She wants to be loved by her sister, but the older sibling hates to be bothered by her. Only as teenagers, when the older girl realizes how bright and sweet her sister is, do the two of them form a close relationship. They cling to each other when the shouts of their ruthlessly fighting parents ring through the house. Sharing a bedroom, the girls nightly whisper their little secrets to each other. Both teenagers take great comfort in being near each other. Each morning, summer and winter, they ride their bicycles together to their different classes. Talking non-stop, they pedal across a high railroad bridge that leads from the suburbs to the center of town where their school is located. At sixteen they take mandatory ballroom dancing instructions. As soon as the younger sister has caught up with her lessons, they share their dance partners, giving each boy a new name. One moment they giggle together, a habit that enrages their father, the next instant they become serious and plunge into common intellectual endeavors of which their progenitor highly approves. They constantly fall in and out of love not only with male admirers but also with the arts, with literature and music. Learning to sing, the younger sister reveals that she has perfect pitch. Then the older sister leaves their parental home to train as a nurse at a city hospital before she embarks on a sojourn for England. The bodily separation of the siblings creates a rift between them that is never repaired. The younger sister feels betrayed and bitterly resents that her sibling has abandoned her. She must deal by herself with a newly divorced, distraught father and diverse household chores she is unable to take care of properly. In a motherless home only a young brother is left with her. The abyss between the two sisters sharply increases when both of them fall in love with the same man. Not once but twice. By then the older sister has moved to Ethiopia, has married and became the mother of two fine children. When the younger sister visits her sibling at the Horn of Africa, serious and continuing trouble brews between them.