AND SO MY JOURNEY INTO YOUR life and work started.

I followed your traces, searched for your scattered left-behinds of works and of deeds. I ordered and structured, compiled, edited and published. I had to think for you and about you, had to act in your stead, whether you liked it or not.

All the while I could feel you somewhere close by, watching me, listening, smiling at times or smirking, howling out loud or just nudging me gently from the side, grinning: ‘Serves him right – don't trust that one!’

Full of pride you were with every text that saw the light of day in the world, with every researcher who delved into the richness of your universe, with every critic who applauded your ingenuity. Full of spite at those who belittled you. Definitely throwing tantrums at me, your mighty ‘executor’, when you felt I was mishandling your precious imaginative offspring.

My search was like a jigsaw puzzle, or a detective story – more or less the same thing – as I followed clues, picked up traces, hunted for names and addresses.

To my surprise, wherever I knocked on people's doors, they reacted as if I was the tax collector. A shock of guilt and disbelief was in their faces.

What do you want? Have I not …? Oh, I am so sorry, I will certainly … They immediately thought that they had not done enough to help the poor genius – a genius he had certainly been, they agreed – and I had now come to hold them responsible for their omissions.

Some answered my questions with long-winded defences, others with self-irony, some guiltily but with affection. For others, you had been their alter ego, the person they would have wanted to be but did not have the courage, the stamina, the unperturbed mind to stand up to.

‘People talk about themselves when they talk about him,’ Peter H., one of my interlocutors, said. You had been together with him at the University of Rhodesia. Both of you had been Best Student in your year. ‘I suspect that there are many who, in their regret for the loss of Dambudzo, find themselves facing the atrocious truth that his death made it easier to love him safely, without fear of abuse or rejection.