Dr. Chulu nodded and turned to Joy. “I need to keep her overnight to monitor her. But I can’t put her in the ward without knowing her HIV status. I need you to keep her still while I conduct the test.”
“Do you have any music?” Joy asked. “It might soothe her.”
The doctor gave her a puzzled look. “I have a CD player in my office.”
“I have an iPhone,” Zoe interjected, taking it out of her pocket. “What about Thomas Mapfumo?” she asked, referring to the celebrated Zimbabwean artist.
“Try it,” Joy said. “Your ring worked like a charm.”
Zoe selected a song from the album Rise Up and pointed the speaker toward the girl. At the sound of the traditional Shona thumb piano the girl’s protests lost their shrillness and she began to bob her head with the rhythm.
Joy looked at Dr. Chulu. “Do what you have to do.”
The doctor reached out for one of the child’s hands and cleaned the middle finger with a cloth. He put pressure on the fingertip and pricked the skin with a lancet. The girl stiffened, but the doctor held her finger firmly, dabbing drops of blood with a pad before collecting a sample in a vial. He handed the vial to his assistant who placed a drop in the window of the test display.
“Non-reactive,” the nurse said.
“At last some good news,” Dr. Chulu replied. “Get me ten-milligram bottles of Zidovudine, Lamivudine, and Lopinavir in suspension and some pediatric Tylenol.”
Nurse Mbelo returned a minute later with the pain medication and what Zoe guessed were antiretrovirals—ARVs—designed to prevent the transmission of HIV.
Dr. Chulu looked at Joy. “If I give you the medicine, will you administer it?”
Joy nodded and helped the girl to sit, speaking softly in her ear. “I have some juice to give you. I need you to open your mouth. I know you can do it.”
When the doctor handed her the first medicine dropper, Joy showed it to the girl and then gently inserted it between her lips, squeezing out its contents. The child swallowed the liquid easily. Joy repeated the procedure with the remaining three droppers, all of which the child took without complaint.
She understands medicine, Zoe thought, feeling a surge of affection for the girl.
Dr. Chulu took Joseph aside and Zoe joined them. “I’ll contact Social Welfare in the morning,” he said. “I need you to find her family.”
Joseph nodded. “I’ll go to Kanyama tomorrow. Someone will know her.”
Zoe took a deep breath, debating with herself. “If it’s all the same to you,” she said, “I’d like to stay with her tonight.”
The doctor stared at her. “That’s not necessary. We can sedate her if we need to.”
“I understand,” she said. In truth, she had deep misgivings about spending hours in the sickness-laden air of the admissions ward, but she couldn’t imagine leaving the girl alone after the trauma she had suffered.
Dr. Chulu smiled wearily. “If you want to give up sleep, I’m not going to stop you.”
chapter 2
The hours of the night felt like days in the admissions ward, and Zoe never quite fell asleep. She sat on a metal chair beside the girl’s iron bed and rested her head against the wall, trying to ignore the cloying odor of the place. The girl slept fitfully, troubled by nightmares Zoe could scarcely imagine. The night nurse—a middle-aged Zambian—stopped by on occasion and brought Zoe a glass of water. She drank hesitantly, hoping the water had been boiled or taken from a borehole. Even after a year in Lusaka, her stomach had yet to conquer the witch’s brew of bacteria and parasites that thrived in the city’s water system.
At seven in the morning, Dr. Chulu reappeared holding a stuffed monkey. Zoe had been dozing when she heard his heavy footsteps.
“I bought this for my daughter,” he said. “It’s not much, but maybe she’ll take to it. I imagine you’d like to keep your ring.”
“I got it back,” Zoe said with a yawn, turning to look at the child. She was lying on her side, her eyes closed and her knees tucked under her arms. “She made sounds for a long time during the night. But an hour ago she fell into a deep sleep.”
Dr. Chulu stepped to the bedside and felt the girl’s carotid artery. “Her pulse is thready, but not weak enough to trouble me. She’s going to be uncomfortable for a while, but she’ll heal. She’s one of the lucky ones.”
Zoe looked at the doctor, and he answered her unspoken question.
“I had a child rape case last month,” he said. “The victim was an eight-year-old with mental retardation. She was severely underweight and had all kinds of complications from malnutrition. Her parents weren’t feeding her. I see it all the time. Eighty percent of kids with disabilities die before the age of five.” He pointed at the girl. “At least someone’s been taking care of her. And now she has you.”