The two main characters of the novel—Zaynah and Amira—are sisters and so,  it was inevitable that sisterhood would be a strong theme holding the pages together. And yet, the sisterhood referred to in this piece's title is not just about born siblings. It instead refers to a connection presumed to be felt between all women, by  way of shared experience. In the geopolitical setting of The Whispering Jacarandas—a Zimbabwe only recently emerging into independence from commonwealth and white, western interference—this sisterhood is one we are supposed to presume will be stronger than ever. Out of necessity, if nothing else. This is not the case. Sisterhood in the novel is as much about family as it is the sisters we choose or are bound to; an ecosystem of femininity. When you assume the shape of ‘woman’ in this world, regardless of the pronouns you use, society expects a certain kinship of you. This, one might think, is no bad thing. And yet to what extent is this bond a result of necessity or of safety through numbers? When women work to protect each other, it is a bond to be cherished. This does not change the fact that like any relationship it can be corrupted until it curdles into something foul. There are many reasons for this, not least of which are the benefits patriarchy gains from infighting. Sometimes, however, it is the result of inner struggles that, too ‘shameful’ to be verbalised or shared, get cannibalised into power plays and a denial of vital protection. Jacarandas displays this tug of war with a reality that is both confronting and empathetic. At one point, the women of the Ashraf family are described as a “river”.¹ This comes only moments after the same women have spent hours sniping about their daughters and sisters-in-laws, making unnecessary comments about who has failed to introduce enough male heirs into the family. This is a sisterhood that has to be worked at and tended to. United, yes, but as much through death and misfortune as life.

Jacarandas is a book that focuses as much on segregation as it does unity. Dayal makes it clear that just because Zimbabwe has clawed back its independence, by no means has racism or segregation vanished. The generational span of this book, giving us insights from young Zaynah and Amira as well as mothers, aunts and cousins, makes it clear that prejudice is a virus that evolves almost as quickly as it is stamped out. Instead of receding, it mutates. For the older members of the Ashraf family, segregation has been lived so long that it is as familiar to them as their own palms. Not normal but certainly mundane. So much so, it has crept into their own vocabulary. We hear an aunt casually make a deprecating remark about another member of the family for having darker skin than her. Colourism is just one of the many scars scratched across Zimbabwe and Dayal is not afraid to shy away from the reality of a people trying to move forward from an injustice that the rest of the world is happy to gloat about being over. Zaynah and Amira go to a supposedly newly desegregated school, yet their Black classmates are still expected to sit at the back of a classroom. Jacarandas embeds the sinister into the ordinary, reminding us that memory lasts longer than whatever flag is flying in the playground. For ordinary citizens, a war can often be won without the battle ever actually being truly over.

The separation of the Zimbabwean population is cleverly mirrored by that of our two sisters. Plainer than Amira, with hair that refuses to hang “straight and shiny”, Zaynah has always felt like a second fiddle to her sister.² And though Amira never uses her beauty or bestowed favouritism against Zaynah, this does not prevent Zaynah from feeling like she will never be enough; a natural second to her sister. This sense of division collapses into a chasm when Zaynah is sexually assaulted by a member of her family, someone who was supposed to be safe and whose word she knows will be trusted over that of a young girl. Filled with shame and a feeling that the event is somehow a result of some innate wrongness within her, young Zaynah withdraws further from her family and the natural bond she used to share with Amira. Long before the language of the #MeToo movement, Zaynah is left with no form of coping mechanism or means of achieving justice. Still a child, her hatred turns towards herself and her seemingly perfect sister as much as it does the actual perpetrator of the assault. And yet, Amira has her own invisible troubles to deal with that she feels just as unable to share. The beauty that Zaynah longs for and sees as proof of perfection is a burden under the head of its actual owner. Feeling as though she can never meet the  expectations placed upon her as a result of an external image granted purely by chance, Amira’s thoughts spiral dangerously. Faced with a future that everyone but her seems to be deciding, she desperately searches for something that she can control: food. Here is something that she does see herself as being able to earn. Ironically, given all that she is praised for, Amira feels that Zaynah rather than her is their mother’s favourite daughter. And so, the self-punishment begins. Though initially Amira does not know why her eating disorder begins, “only that purging unfurled her stomach muscles”.³ Mental illness, however, has a cruel sense of irony and the closer Amira gets to feeling in control, the wilder she is viewed by those who knew her. As such, a reversal of roles happens. Each sister envying the other for what feels beyond their reach, each feeling trapped and finding different ways to escape the confines of body and brain. 

For all the undeniable heaviness of the book, Jacarandas is not without hope. It is merely realistic. There are no fairytale endings here and some divides become too deep to be paved over without cracks. But, without wanting to spoil anything, the thread twined between our two sisters is too strong to wither completely. Years pass and they grow older, becoming women in their own rights and with it gaining an independence and education denied to their mother and aunts. Life is still undeniably hard for each, but they learn to listen. Learn to share the stories of their youth and realise, for better and certainly worse, how similar the two have always been. Pride is not easily surmountable, nor years of isolation and ignorals dismissed. This is not a case of sisterhood being a natural cure-all for years of miscommunication and misplaced resentment. It is a story of love being performed as listening and realising that bravery is not a matter of having no fear, but placing value on something that overwhelms that fear until it becomes smaller with each swallow. For Zaynah and Amira, that value is finally found in each other, not just as sisters but as individuals pitted against each other merely for growing up female in a world with false foundations. 

The Whispering Jacarandas is a tale of two tragedies, the national and the personal. Of a love that needs constant watering and a unity that is chosen rather than ready-made. Sisterhood, just like any love or person, is not perfect. But in the case of the Ashraf family, when it prevails—whether that be in the slightest of smiles or the biggest of sacrifices—it is a barrier against the sands of time and tribulations that threaten to swallow all of us, though some more than most. “It took only one — one woman to set off a chain reaction”.⁴ And throughout it all, their matriarch Maryam watches. Perhaps as a ghost, but I prefer to think of her as the collective soul of the thousands of women getting to see a forgiveness in Amira and Zaynah that they were never able to grant each other, let alone themselves.