The Garden of Burning Sand (19 page)

Every other day for the next three weeks, Zoe patrolled the aisles of the Shoprite at Manda Hill. She conducted her surveillance between eight thirty and ten in the morning, bracketing the time she had last seen the housekeeper there. She kept watch for Dunstan Sisilu but never saw him. Inside the supermarket, she played the role of the indecisive shopper, meandering through the store and occasionally placing things in her cart. She waited for a glimpse of the old woman’s wrinkled face, but each time she was disappointed.

“Maybe your timing is wrong,” Joseph suggested one evening.

“Or she’s shopping somewhere else, or someone is shopping for her,” she said. “The possibilities are endless. I’ve been thinking about staking out the house again.”

He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I could take Carol’s Prado. I could dye my hair.”

“You can’t color your skin.”

Exasperated, she said, “I’ll keep trying.”

When October turned to November, tall clouds started to gather in the late afternoons. For days the rains only threatened, but then, at last, the sky opened up and poured out such a torrent that the streets swam with mud and refuse. The advent of the rainy season had a paradoxical effect, darkening the sun but brightening faces—including
Zoe’s—that had grown weary of the sweltering air. Overnight, the parched plains broke into bloom. It was Zoe’s favorite time in Africa, when all things tired and worn became new again.

She settled easily into the routine of living with the Prentices. They treated her more like a neighbor than a guest, yet every evening she found her laundry cleaned and her bed made. Their housekeeper, Rosa, was exacting, scrupulous, and a genius in the kitchen. Carol Prentice sang her praises and trusted her implicitly. On workdays, Joseph escorted Zoe home to ensure she wasn’t followed. Often he stayed for dinner, and the Prentices grew fond of him.

On Sunday afternoons, Zoe visited Kuyeya. Her affection for the girl deepened with each meeting. Though slow at first, Kuyeya’s therapy with Dr. Mbao began to bear fruit. The psychiatrist probed the girl’s memory for stories she learned from her mother and used them to piece together details about her past. Kuyeya’s favorite tale involved a bee-eater who made friends with a hippopotamus. Whenever she said “bee-eater,” she burst into a fit of laughter.

In the middle of November, Zoe at last conceded that her strategy to flush out the housekeeper had been an abysmal failure. She considered staking out the residence without telling Joseph, but the memory of Dunstan Sisilu and the black mamba tempered her enthusiasm. One morning when she sat down to breakfast, she heard Rosa washing dishes in the kitchen, and an idea came to her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked Rosa.

“Of course,” the woman replied, drying her hands on a towel.

Zoe gave her a sketch of the case and told her about the search for the Nyambos’ housekeeper. “If you were trying to find her, what would you do?”

Rosa thought for a moment. “Does her mistress wear
chitenge
or Western clothes?”

Zoe searched her memory for details about Patricia Nyambo. She had only seen her once—at the Subordinate Court on the day of the arraignment. Had she been wearing a business suit? In a flash Zoe remembered. She had been wearing a dress made of green
chitenge
.

When she told Rosa this, the woman asked, “Is the cloth expensive? Is the color rich and the pattern fine?”

“I think so,” Zoe guessed, figuring Patricia Nyambo would settle for nothing less.

Rosa nodded. “There is a woman at the City Market who sells the finest
chitenge
in Lusaka. She keeps a stall on Saturday only. My last mistress often sent me there. I saw many other women like me.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Zoe said, and asked Rosa how to find the stall.

Early on Saturday morning, Joseph and Zoe drove downtown. The largest of Lusaka’s markets, the City Market, sat on a parcel of land wedged between the Cairo Road commercial center and the more pedestrian Soweto Market. The nicest stalls were housed in an enclosed arcade with tributaries branching off the main hall like side streets in an urban grid. Zoe had visited the market only once in her year in Lusaka, but most Zambians she knew were frequent customers.

On any given day, downtown Lusaka was a bustling place. On Saturdays, however, the commercial district had a festival atmosphere. The streets were jammed with traffic, and the sidewalks were crawling with shoppers hungry for a deal. They parked beside a
salaula
stand brimming with secondhand clothing from the West. Joseph took Zoe’s hand and navigated the labyrinth, sidestepping moving bodies and merchandise laid out along the roadside.

They slipped into the covered arcade and joined the stream of customers
shuffling through the main hall. The diversity of goods on display beggared imagination –shoes, boots, leather, bags, textiles,
chitenge
fabric, rugs, woodcarvings, jewelry and clothing. All around customers haggled with vendors. The noise and commotion made Zoe’s head spin.

“Rosa said the stall is on a side aisle halfway down,” she said. “The woman’s name is Chiwoyu. She said we should expect a crowd.”

They found the stall exactly as Rosa had described. The fabrics were beautiful and the queue extended down the aisle. Most of the customers were Zambian women over fifty—many no doubt employees of the elite. Zoe searched their faces but didn’t see the housekeeper.

“Where should we wait?” Zoe asked.

Joseph led her toward a stall stuffed with racks of men’s shoes. Outside the stall was a folding chair. “Sit here,” he said. “Pretend you’re pregnant.”

Zoe took a seat and watched Chiwoyu dispense bolts of fabric while Joseph struck up a conversation with the shoe vendor. Eventually, her back started to hurt. She stood up and walked toward the exit, stretching her muscles. As she neared the end of the aisle, an old woman entered from the outside. The woman glanced at Zoe and stopped in her tracks.

It was the housekeeper.

“We met before,” Zoe said quietly, making no move toward the woman.

The housekeeper’s eyes darted around, as if seeking a way out.

“I understand why you don’t want to talk to me, but I need your help. Kuyeya needs your help. Can I show you a picture of her?”

Zoe took out her iPhone and found an image of Kuyeya at St. Francis. The woman stared at the screen and tears came to her eyes. Still, she didn’t speak.

“I think you know her,” Zoe said. “Or maybe you knew her mother.
Her name was Charity Mizinga, but she also went by Bella. She died two years ago.”

At last the old woman found her voice. “There is nothing I can do for you. Even God cannot change the past.”

You do know her!
Zoe thought. “Perhaps,” she said, keeping her excitement in check. “But the truth is easier to come by.”

The housekeeper regarded her sadly. “What would you do with the truth?”

Zoe steadied her breathing, certain she was close to a breakthrough. “I would tell it to the judge and let justice take its course.”

The old woman shook her head slowly. “Your justice would change nothing.”

“It would change everything,” Zoe countered. “Darious raped a girl before.”

The housekeeper’s eyes filled with fear. “I need to go.”

“Please. We can offer you protection.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” the old woman replied.

She clutched her handbag and headed toward Chiwoyu’s stall. For excruciating seconds, Zoe held out hope that the woman might reconsider. But the housekeeper took her place at the rear of the queue and acted as though the exchange had never happened.

“What did she say?” Joseph asked, meeting Zoe in the aisle.

“She knows something, but she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

He angled his head thoughtfully. “I’m not sure you’re right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I watched her face. She listened to you, but she’s afraid. She has your number, right?”

Zoe nodded. “I gave it to her at Shoprite.”

“Give her time. She may come around.”

As the days passed, Zoe checked her iPhone regularly for a message from the housekeeper, but nothing came. She distracted herself with half a dozen new case referrals from Dr. Chulu. All were horrifying—the youngest victim was six years old—but the perpetrators were family members or neighbors, and the process of compiling evidence was fairly straightforward.

She tried several times to reach Cynthia Chansa by phone. She left her husband a number of voicemails—each time dropping a bit of information about Kuyeya and the obstacles faced by the prosecution—but she received no response. After three calls a disembodied voice informed her that the mailbox was full. She tried Godfrey again, but he didn’t answer.

One morning in December, Zoe was sitting in the office editing an appellate brief for the High Court when Maurice appeared in the doorway to the legal department. He crossed the floor to her desk and stood silently until she looked up at him.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

He nodded. “There’s a woman at the gate looking for you.”

She felt burst of excitement. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

The housekeeper!
She walked through the office and steadied her breathing.
Be cool
, she told herself.
Don’t frighten her
.

She left the bungalow and headed down the lane toward the gate. She nodded to the guard, and he beckoned to someone standing on the far side of the barrier. A woman in a pale pink suit and high heels stepped through the opening, and Zoe stopped in shock.

She was not Zambian. She was American.

“Hello, Zoe,” said Sylvia Martinelli, surveying the landscape around the CILA office. “Is everything in Lusaka so lovely?”

Zoe stared at her, paralyzed by the unexpected collision of worlds.
She hadn’t seen or spoken to Sylvia since the dinner they had shared in Cape Town at the conclusion of her clerkship. The détente she had forged with her father over the disbursal of funds from her charitable trust had not extended to his second wife. If ever the conditions had been right to build a bridge between them, that had been the moment. But Sylvia had squandered it by defending Atticus Spelling.

“Why are you here?” Zoe finally managed.

Sylvia smiled. “It’s almost noon. Let me take you to lunch. The concierge at the Intercontinental told me about Rhapsody’s. It sounded very nice.”

“It is. But you haven’t answered my question.”

Sylvia glanced at the guard. “This isn’t the best place.”

Zoe felt suddenly anxious. “Is something wrong with my father?”

Sylvia laughed. “No. He’s as indefatigable as ever. But my visit does relate to him. Please, Zoe. I know we’ve had our disagreements. I’m only asking for an hour of your time.”

Zoe was ambivalent, but she didn’t have it in her to be cruel. “Okay.”

She grabbed her backpack from inside the office and followed Sylvia to a waiting SUV. A Zambian driver opened the door for them and they climbed in. Ten minutes later, they entered Rhapsody’s, a trendy South African import with electric-blue mood lighting. The hostess greeted them and showed them to a table.

“Is the steak good?” Sylvia inquired, scanning the menu.

“Yes,” Zoe replied evenly. “But I want an answer to my question.”

Sylvia gave her an inscrutable look. “Will there ever be peace between us?”

Zoe met her eyes. “Peace without reconciliation is a lie.”

“Okay, then tell me about reconciliation.”

“It starts with the truth.”

Sylvia looked puzzled. “What truth are you talking about?”

“You were raised Catholic,” Zoe said, keeping her expression neutral. “You remember the thirty pieces of silver.”

Sylvia frowned. “Come now. Must you be so melodramatic?”

A dozen responses came to Zoe’s mind, but she held her tongue, staring at Sylvia until the silence became uncomfortable.

At last Sylvia spoke again. “You know how committed Jack is to winning the election. He’s the right man for the job. Our country desperately needs his leadership.”

Zoe nodded. “I’m well aware of his ambitions. And yours.”

Sylvia softened her tone. “It doesn’t matter what you think of me. I never tried to fill your mother’s shoes. I couldn’t have, anyway.” She gave a little laugh. “But Jack loves you. He’s your father. He’s made mistakes and he regrets them. He’d really like your support.”

Zoe shook her head. “I can’t support him. His solution to the budget crisis is to gut the programs that benefit the people I work with every day.”

“That’s hardly true. You know better than I do how much Jack cares about the poor. He gives generously to your mother’s foundation. In times of crisis, everyone has to cut back.”

Zoe’s eyes flashed. “You take a billion or two from the Pentagon, and people will complain, but they’ll get over it. You take that money from AIDS relief and thousands of Africans will die. There’s a difference between cutting and killing.”

Sylvia put up her hands. “Look, I didn’t come here to talk about policy. I came because Jack is going to win the New Hampshire primary. It would mean the world to him to have you on stage with Trevor when he gives his victory speech.”

Zoe considered this, knowing Sylvia was right. In the end, however,
her conscience wielded an absolute veto. “I can’t do it. Tell him I’m very sorry.”

Sylvia raised her eyebrows. “Even if it means he won’t make the call to Atticus?”

Zoe felt as if she had been sucker-punched. “He gave me his word.”

Sylvia shrugged, allowing the silence to inspire doubt.

Zoe stood up. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

“Wait,” Sylvia protested. “Please don’t go.”

But it was too late for rapprochement. Zoe walked out of the restaurant, ignoring the waiter who was bringing them bread. She thought of her father as he was before her mother died—the Harvard-educated child of a Midwestern insurance salesman; the savant who ascended to the pinnacle of Wall Street but never lost the middle-class chip on his shoulder; the sailor who taught her how to hoist the jib on his yacht and rescued her from drowning when she fell overboard in a squall; the husband whose love for Catherine Sorensen-Fleming sent him into clinical depression when she died.
Why didn’t you find another woman like her, Dad? Why did you have to marry Sylvia?