Chapter 7 (pages 436-463) Summary

As the days pass the narrator continues to feel isolated and paranoid without Nelson to turn to and suspicious of the motivations of the women in the village. She wonders if their support in the past was simply an act something they displayed in hopes she would someday take Nelson with his troublesome interference away. Now she suspects that the women and Dineo in particular may want to keep him a founder with connections who is also completely passive and easily manipulated. She even considers the idea that Nelson did murder Hector and then went out in the desert as a punishment for himself. The women she is closest to in the village brush aside her concerns and treat her as though she is the person whose mental condition is in question.

The narrator goes to talk to Dineo...