Keeping pace with her, Zoe filled in the details of Godfrey’s story. When she concluded, Dr. Luyt took out her mobile phone. “That’s what he told me. I’m sure he will meet with you.”
The telephone conversation was brief. Afterward, Dr Luyt regarded Zoe again. “There is a coffee shop called Sun Garden outside Cosmo City. He will meet you there.” She shook Zoe’s hand. “I am sorry for delaying you.”
Zoe nodded. “I hope you get your funding. It could change the face of Africa.”
Dr. Luyt looked suddenly wistful. “It could, indeed.”
Zoe found the coffee shop inside a plant nursery in one of Johannesburg’s northwestern suburbs. She left her car in the gravel lot and walked through the showroom, taking a seat on a bench beneath a shaded trellis of vines. At eleven in the morning, the place was mostly empty. A waitress approached her, and Zoe ordered a cappuccino.
On the drive, she had worked out a strategy for her talk with Dr. Kruger, but she was not excited about it. In fact, she felt a strong sense of guilt. She thought of Kuyeya, and the guilt became sorrow. If only Charity had finished her nursing degree, if only she had never met Darious, if only she had sought treatment in time, Dr. Kruger could have been left in peace.
She reached into her backpack and extracted Bella’s journal, placing it at the center of the table. The waitress brought her coffee, and she sipped it, looking toward the entrance. A few minutes later she saw him. He was as Godfrey recalled—fair-haired and blue-eyed. He caught sight of her and walked briskly to her table.
“Ms. Fleming,” he said, glancing at the journal. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Dr. Kruger,” she said, “thank you for your time.”
He sat down across from her. “How is Godfrey these days?” he asked, his pronunciation that of an educated Rhodesian.
“He’s trying to make a life for himself,” she replied. “Most of his family is dead.”
A shadow darkened the doctor’s face. “I’m sorry to hear that. How did they …?”
“AIDS, mostly.”
He shook his head. “We have so far to go.”
She took a breath to calm her racing heart. “I’d like talk to you about Charity Mizinga.”
In the silence that followed, she studied his face, searching for traces of pain or remorse, but she saw none. Either you are an excellent actor, or you came prepared for this.
“Charity,” he said eventually. “She was a talented student.”
“I’ve heard that before.” Zoe pointed at the journal. “She left you a gift.”
Dr. Kruger’s eyes narrowed, but he recovered quickly. “What do you mean?”
She gestured at the book. “See for yourself.”
He stared at her, ignoring the journal. “You asked me here on the pretense that you wished to speak about Godfrey. I don’t like being deceived.”
Zoe struggled to control her frustration. “Would you rather I’d told you that the student you regarded so highly spent the last years of her life as a prostitute in Lusaka? Would you have preferred me to say that she wrote hundreds of letters describing her debasement? Every single one of them is addressed to you. I want to know why.”
He turned his eyes toward the journal, wavering. Finally, he opened the cover. He scanned a number of pages and then set the book down again. “I don’t know why she wrote these,” he said quietly.
“When did you last see her?”
He fingered the journal. “She dropped out of school in her second year. I can’t recall which month. It came as a shock to all of us.”
“She didn’t give you a reason?”
“She didn’t even say goodbye.”
“Yet she wrote you hundreds of letters.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes students have infatuations. You understand that, I’m sure.”
Zoe looked at him skeptically. “Did you ever get the sense that she had feelings for you?”
The doctor shook his head. “Our relationship was strictly platonic.”
“How friendly were you?”
“We saw each other almost every day. She was very dedicated to the research. When Godfrey contracted malaria, she helped me save his life. I knew her fairly well.”
“Did you know she had a daughter?”
“What?” He appeared genuinely shocked. “She had a daughter in Livingstone?”
“You tell me.”
He shook his head. “When I knew her, she never talked about a child.”
“So her daughter was born after she dropped out of school?”
“I have no idea. How old is the girl?”
Zoe paused, meeting his eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
He sat back in his chair, his expression thick with mistrust. “Who are you?”
“Charity’s daughter was raped in Lusaka,” she replied, laying all of her cards on the table. “We believe the perpetrator is a young man named Darious Nyambo, son of Frederick Nyambo, the industrialist. I’m one of the attorneys working on the case.”
As soon as Zoe spoke these words, she knew she had lost him.