To see it written about now, you might almost think it was a political screed, but in fact it was what its author called more of a little elegy, a love song to my native land , plainly but gorgeously written. There was Kate, the obedient one, the incurable romantic, and Baba, her alter ego, determined to smash the conventions and defy the strictures of church, priests, nuns and parenthood, she later wrote. I was, in a sense, both of those girls, though I kept the rebellious side of my nature a secret. My crime, however, did catch up with me.