July, 2011
She was there, he knew she was, closeted away in the back of the flat. Doris had kept her after Bella’s death. He had confirmed it with the girls at Alpha. But he hadn’t seen her on the street. Doris came and went, as did her girlfriends and her daughters and the men who paid her for sex. But Kuyeya remained out of sight. The thought of her made Darious seethe with hatred. Memory, her name meant. The keeper of all wrongs.
He made regular passes by Doris’s flat, scouting the area and hoping Kuyeya would appear. Most of the time he stayed in his SUV, staking out the building from a spot across the road. Occasionally, however, he struck up conversations with the street vendors or shared a smoke with men from Doris’s complex. He asked about their families, and about the children who lived in the building. He waited for one of them to mention Kuyeya, but none of them did. It was as if she were a ghost. To them she didn’t exist.
As the weeks passed, he grew irritable. There were thousands of girls in Lusaka, but only one was the daughter of Charity Mizinga. That worthless nganga, Amos, didn’t have the brains to appreciate the medicinal power of symmetry. Fire needed to be fought with fire, a hex with another hex. There was danger in that, of course. If the original curse was supported by stronger mukwala, the whole plan could backfire. But Darious had no choice. The alternative was a shame he could not bear—his father’s rejection.
One day near the end of July, he parked in his customary spot and watched Doris’s flat. Traffic was heavy at the end of the workday, which reassured him. Chilimbulu Road was a commercial thoroughfare. But the neighborhood was working class, and a Mercedes was an uncommon sight. Eventually, people would start to talk. And if they talked, they were more likely to remember. He didn’t want to give the police an unnecessary lead.
He focused on Doris’s flat. The smokers were in their usual place. An old woman on the third floor was hanging clothes out to dry. Doris herself was probably still asleep, but her daughters were no doubt awake. The older one might be out with her boyfriend. She was a pretty girl. Before long, she would end up at Alpha, making more money than her mother.
After a while, Darious grew tired of sitting still. He left the SUV and approached a girl selling fritas. His skin itched as he walked. He was tired of the sickness, tired of being exhausted, tired of the runs and the weight loss and the cough. He had to find a way to get Kuyeya out of the flat. Everything after that would be simple.
He took a bag of fritas from the vendor and chatted with her about her family. He invented a story about three sisters and two brothers and their many children. After a few minutes, he mentioned his sister’s “difficult” child. He described the girl—the round face and flat nose, the eyes set wide apart, the limited speech.
The vendor began to nod. “My cousin has a child like that. It is very hard.”
“My sister doesn’t know what to do with her,” Darious replied. “She keeps her in the back room, out of sight. I tell her to take her outside, but she’s afraid of what people will think.”
“My cousin is the same. People say the child is bewitched, but I don’t think so. She is just like other children. She likes to play and laugh and sing.” Suddenly, the vendor pointed at Doris’s building. “There is a girl like that who lives there. She sometimes comes to play at my building. You should talk to the woman who takes care of her. Her name is Doris.”
“She comes outside sometimes?” Darious asked, hiding his satisfaction.
“After dinner. Doris sends her with her younger daughter, Gift.”
Darious returned to the Mercedes and touched the amulet on his chest. In winter, dinner ended after sunset. It was the perfect opportunity.
He cast a parting glance at Doris’s building and his heart skipped a beat. A woman was staring at him across the distance. Her dress was more conservative than the outfits she wore to the bars, but he recognized her immediately. It was Doris. He clutched the steering wheel and watched her scamper into her flat. She was afraid of him for good reason, given the lesson he had taught her. But there could be no doubt.
She had seen him.
chapter 23
Lusaka, Zambia
January, 2012
As soon as Zoe made the decision to embrace her feelings for Joseph, he took her out for a celebratory dinner at the Intercontinental, ignoring her protest that it was too expensive. He insisted that she dress for the occasion, and he did the same, showing up at the Prentices’ in a gray suit and blue tie that complemented his dark skin and eyes. When she met him on the porch, he looked her up and down and grinned at her red shift dress and heels.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said. “Why don’t we skip dinner?”