“The baby. They snatched it from me and flew away.”

The nyanga nods and sighs. “It is as the ancestors have said. You wage a war with yourself by following the wrong path. You have only yourself to blame that you are now expecting this child who will bring you even greater misery.”

“What can I do?”

“About the baby . . . only you can decide.” The nyanga shrugs. “I can give you herbs to try to take care of it. About the other matter . . . the ancestors say that you must walk the path that is intended for you. Only then will you find peace.”

Zodwa can’t think of that now. Any peace she could wish for in that regard would only follow a termination of her pregnancy, which is the more urgent of her problems. “I will take the herbs.”

“It may already be too late.” The nyanga’s face is inscrutable as she turns and hobbles to the table laid out with dozens of pots and baskets.

She moves assuredly between them, picking sprigs from some and roots from others, as she sets about making her infusion, adding water to a three-legged cast-iron pot and emptying the ingredients into it, before setting it over the coals in the middle of the room. Stirring it occasionally, she brings the mixture to a boil and then removes it, straining the liquid through a cloth.

“Drink,” she says, handing Zodwa a gourd filled with an acrid-smelling brew.

Everything makes Zodwa nauseous these days but the concoction is especially vile. She struggles to drink it, gagging a few times and almost bringing it up.

When she’s swallowed the last drop and wiped her mouth, the nyanga takes the gourd back. “Now we wait.”

CHAPTER TWO

Delilah

22 April 1994

Goma, Zaire

The letter that changed everything arrived as Xavier and I were coaxing the generator back to life after the power had gone out again. Considering that the orphanage housed more than two hundred children, the lack of electricity for lighting and heating was bad enough, but not being able to pump water out of the borehole was a potential crisis.

Everyone’s nerves were already on edge after the plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents was shot down two weeks before. Thousands of Rwandans were fleeing for their lives, the Tutsis streaming across the border into Zaire. We were all on full alert and had to be ready to make a run for it if the Rwandan military sent incursions across the border. It seemed more and more likely that it would.

As it was, the generator was useless without fuel, every last drop of which had been poured into the Land Rovers’ tanks in case we needed to evacuate. I’d had to siphon off some of it for the machine but the cantankerous beast was still refusing to accept the offering and start.