Revelations of the Law

Another moment with Petina Gappah, showing a different side, a different mood:

from "The Annex Shuffle"
in An Elegy for Easterly
Petina Gappah

Only outside this window is there change, yet even there, a repetitive pattern asserts itself. On Second Street Extension, the cars, buses, emergency taxis are filled with people going about the business of living, the occupants within unaware of the gazes without. One time, two times, five times a day she sees the van and cars from her suspended life. Up and down goes the little green bus, moving between the city center and the university. UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE, a white station wagon says in blue lettering, FACULTY OF LAW. The car is so close that she can make out the faculty motto below the university crest FIAT JUSTICIA, RUAT CAELUM. The motto is more than just the words of Caesoninus on a crest, it is a song in her soul, the reason she is a law student, the meaning she wants to give to her life. "Let justice be done though the heavens fall," she says aloud. Outside, the traffic, golf course, the houses. Inside, the Annex shuffle.