“She shifted to Livingstone for secondary school,” Margaret replied.
“Do you know why she moved to Lusaka?”
Margaret pursed her lips. “Vivian got sick and couldn’t make her baskets anymore. She told me a man offered Charity a good job.”
Zoe was instantly curious. “What man?”
Margaret shrugged. “Ask Godfrey. All I know is that he was wealthy.”
“Does the name Jan mean anything to you?”
Margaret looked puzzled. “I remember it, but I don’t know why. Sometimes we have white doctors who help in the clinic.”
“Do you know how long Charity kept the job in Lusaka?”
The tour guide shrugged. “She sent money until three years ago. That’s when Godfrey obtained his twelfth-grade certificate. Other than that I can’t say.”
So no word of Charity’s life as a prostitute ever reached the village, Zoe thought. “Did you know she had a daughter named Kuyeya?”
“A child? No! How old is she?”
Zoe shook her head. “We’re not sure.”
“What do you mean? Why don’t you ask …?” Suddenly, Margaret understood. “Is Charity dead?”
Zoe nodded. “She died a couple of years ago.”
Margaret looked confused. “You said you had news from her.”
Zoe glanced at Joseph. “The news is about Kuyeya,” she said. “A few weeks ago, she was raped. We’re prosecuting the man who did it.”
When the words sank in, Margaret’s expression turned bleak. She looked out over the rooftops of the village and then spoke again. “There was once a medicine man who lived near Vivian. After her husband died, the nganga raped her. She told the chief, but the chief sided with the nganga. When Vivian’s children died young, people said the nganga had cursed her family. Now only Godfrey and Cynthia are left.”
Zoe noticed that Margaret’s words had unsettled Joseph. “Do you really believe that?” she asked. “That the deaths could be linked to witchcraft?”
Margaret responded indirectly. “I am a Christian. I do not visit the ngangas. But there is a proverb I have heard. ‘A riddle made by God has no solution.’ I think that about Vivian.” She paused. “Godfrey is a good boy. I pray that God will let him live a long life.”
Zoe shivered in the breeze. “So do I.”
They drove to the falls in silence, the only sounds in the cab generated by the truck and the wind. As they approached the river, the air lost its restlessness, becalmed by the dense thicket of forest surrounding the cataracts. Joseph parked in the lot beside a line of stalls offering everything from woodcarvings of rhinos, elephants, and giraffes to malachite jewelry and tribal drums. They made their way to the ticket office and joined a line of tourists waiting for admission to the park.
“I came here when I was a boy,” Joseph said. “My father wanted us to take pride in Zambia’s wonder of the world.”
“I was ten when I came the first time,” Zoe replied. “My mother brought me. We stayed on the Zimbabwe side.”
Five minutes later, they stepped into the ticket office and saw two Zambian men and a woman dispensing tickets and guidebooks. Zoe moved toward the younger man. “Are you Godfrey?” she asked.
He glanced nervously at the older man. “Yes.”
She placed a pair of fifty-pin bills on the counter, more than enough to cover the cost of tickets. “I know you’re busy, but I need to talk to you about your cousin, Charity.”
His eyes widened. “Do you know how she is? We haven’t heard from her in two years.”
She nodded, keeping her expression neutral. “When can we meet?”
“I take a break at ten o’clock,” he said, handing her tickets and maps. “I’ll find you at Knife Edge Point.” Then he turned to a Chinese couple standing behind them and acted as if the conversation had not happened.
After browsing in the merchant stalls, Zoe and Joseph followed the signs to the Knife Edge trail. Before long, the thick tangle of forest gave way to loamy grass, and Zoe caught sight of the Eastern Cataract across the chasm. The majesty of so much water roaring over the edge of basaltic rock and plunging into the Zambezi far below took her breath away.