She saw Darious for a year and a half, whenever he had the fancy or the need. Sometimes they went to his flat, other times to a hotel. Once in a while, he went home with her, and she put Kuyeya to sleep in the bathroom. He treated the matter of payment as if it were a gift. He gave her talktime and designer clothes, perfume and jewelry, and occasionally wads of kwacha. He didn’t ask what she did when they were not together; he never inquired about the other men she saw. He was predictable—he wanted sex and then he wanted to talk.
The talking was what made her fear him. He spoke of abstract things, like a philosopher. Many of the names he mentioned were unknown to her, but sometimes she recognized one—Nietzsche, for instance, Lenin, Mussolini, Mugabe. He admired their power and their disdain for anyone who exercised borrowed authority. He loathed democracy, the messy elections, the way officials kowtowed to constituents. But he loved Western media. “Television is a god,” he said. “Those who rule the mind rule the world.”
He also talked about mukwala—African medicine—and the influence of the spirit world on the world of men. He wore an amulet on his neck and was obsessed with hexes. He knew many ngangas and consulted them often. He despised the influence of modern medicine in Africa—he called it “neocolonialism”—and he had contempt for the Westerners who put so much stock in it. Mukwala and people who understood it were the things he missed most during his studies in London. In his mind, mukwala was the truest form of power.
On a rainy night in January, he called her on her mobile and asked to meet at Alpha, as they always did. She heard something peculiar in his voice, a tension that belied his usual calm, but she agreed without hesitation. Kuyeya’s myopia was getting worse, and the ngangas were demanding payment for the herbs she took to treat her rashes. She hitched a ride with a friend—she never seemed to make enough money to buy a car—and arrived just before midnight. He greeted her with a kiss, but she saw agitation in his eyes.
“Something wrong?” she asked in Nyanja.
“Nothing you can’t cure,” he said enigmatically. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You don’t want a drink?” He had never broken their ritual before.
Instead of answering, he took her arm and escorted her to his SUV. She hesitated at the door, trying to work out what could be bothering him. She felt a twinge of apprehension, an intuition that she shouldn’t go with him tonight, but she suppressed it. She was getting older and sicker, and she needed his money.
The drive to his flat was brief. She walked beside him up the steps, ignoring his too-tight grip on her bicep. A light was on in the kitchen, but the rest of the flat was dark. He keyed the door and pushed her into the hallway.
“What’s going on?” she asked, alarmed. She searched his face in the shadows, but she could see only the whites of his eyes. “Something’s wrong.”
“You deceived me,” he said after a pause. “Charity Mizinga.”
A bolt of fear shot through her. She had never told him her real name.
“You didn’t really get your nursing diploma, did you?” he said, advancing on her.
She backed down the hallway. “How did you …?”
It was then that he hit her—a painful blow to the cheek. Through a burst of stars, she saw him clearly for the first time: the anger submerged beneath the polished surface of his personality, the hidden capacity for violence. She turned and ran into the kitchen, looking for the block of knives beside the stove. He caught her before she reached the counter and wrapped his arm around her neck. She twisted from side to side as he dragged her into the living room, but the harder she fought, the harder she found it to breathe.
“You’re going to pay for what you did,” he hissed, grabbing her hair and shoving her face into the rug. “You’re going to feel what I felt.”
She didn’t know how long he spent raping her. It might have been a minute or half an hour. The pain was all consuming, as was the terror that flooded her mind. Afterward, he sat back on the couch and stared at her silently. She curled into the fetal position and wept, wondering if he was going to kill her. When he made no move to stand, she collected herself enough to stumble toward the door. She was barefoot and her dress was torn, but she didn’t care. She wanted only to escape.
As she struggled with the heavy deadbolt in the darkness, he came up behind her and held it fast. The touch of his fingers sent a shockwave through her body.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She gave up fighting and swiveled around, pressing her back against the door. He turned on the light and she saw his face above her, his cat-like eyes. Siluwe. She had been right to call him that.
“You still don’t understand,” he sneered. “Let me give you a hint. Livingstone General Hospital. 1996.”
At once she realized the truth she had been missing all along. She couldn’t believe it, but it was right there in front of her, written in the shape of his nose, the way his lips hung open after he spoke, the frankness with which he appraised her. So many other things were different, but these were the same.