vehemently to refuse, but Khanduri intervened and, after a rather lengthy explanation, the woman accepted, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed Anson briefly on the cheek.
'Take care of yourself, Dr. Anson,' she said. 'My husband lives in you.
'My body will be a temple to his memory, Mrs. Narjot,' Anson replied.
'So, Dr. Joseph,' Khanduri said as they were driving back to the airport, 'was the meeting with your benefactor's widow all that you expected it to be?'
'I do my best to avoid expectations,' Anson said, 'but it certainly was an enlightening experience. One that I shall never forget.'
Anson's fists, held at his sides where neither Khanduri nor St. Pierre could see, were so tightly clenched that his nails nearly cut into the flesh of his palms.
It was three thirty in the morning when Anson slipped out the back window of his apartment. The jungle, cleansed by a light rain, was aromatic and mystical. Keeping low, and avoiding the security cameras, Anson took a long arc through the dense undergrowth, and then headed to his right, toward the access road to the hospital. The road was patrolled at night, but infrequently.
The flight home, with two connections, had taken most of a day. Anson had used his trusted friend, Francis Ngale, to set things up for him. Then he had showered, rested, dressed in clean, dark clothing, and finally set out through the window. After twenty minutes, he arrived at the road, paved by the government in gratitude for the work of the clinic. It took a few seconds to orient himself and determine that Ngale would be waiting a short distance to the south.
Anson was a brilliant man and loved solving puzzles of all kinds. The puzzle that was perplexing him now, however, was continuing to defy his logic. He did know that the journey he was taking to the village of Akomv limba would be a crucial step toward the solution. There were those, he knew, including Elizabeth, who considered him overly vigilant and suspicious. Now, it seemed possible that he hadn't been paranoid enough.
The rain clouds kept the unlit road quite dark, but there was some light reflected off them that sparkled on the wetness of the pavement.
'Francis,' he called softly as he rounded a bend.
'Right here, Doctor,' the security guard answered. 'Just keep coming.
The massive man, as dark as the night, was waiting by the road, holding up the fourteen-speed bicycle that had once been Anson's, but now more or less belonged to anyone at the clinic or lab who might want to take it out for a ride. For Anson this would be the first time in two years, although his surgery had been so successful that he had no worries about using it now.
'You remember how to ride?' Ngale asked.
'I expect it will be as easy as riding a bicycle.'
'Very funny. I have oiled the chain and the axles, as well as the gearshift and brakes. If you fall off, you will have only yourself to blame.'
Anson patted his friend on the shoulder, and started pedaling. Ngale trotted beside him for a few concerned paces, then veered to the side of the road.
'I'll say hello to the mayor for you,' Anson called over his shoulder.
'I already did that myself. Platini is waiting up for you.'
As usual, the fragrances and sounds of the jungle were hypnotic, and twice Anson had to force his attention back to the road. The five-mile ride to the village of Akonolimba, on the banks of the Nyong River, took just over half an hour. The dirt road that eventually bisected the town was too muddy to ride, so Anson walked the last quarter mile. Many of the huts were made of cinderblock and corrugated aluminum, but some were still reed and thatch. The village had running water and electricity as well as telephone service, but few of the inhabitants could afford to take advantage of them, and some of those who could simply didn't want to.
Platini Katjaoha, the mayor of the village, ran a general store, and lived in the most opulent house — stucco and cinderblock, two stories, with a carport, several rooms, and a cistern. There was also a satellite dish protruding off one of the outside walls. He answered Anson's gentle knock barefooted, wearing red Bermuda shorts and a button-up Hawaiian shirt that stretched tightly over his royal girth. His smile showed perfectly white teeth that seemed almost phosphorescent against the ebony of his skin.
'Mr. Mayor,' Anson whispered in French, 'thank you so much for doing this for me.'
'You are always welcome in my home, Doctor,' Katjaoha boomed, punctuating his greeting with a handshake and bear hug. 'The door is closed upstairs, so you will awaken no one. My wife sleeps like a cow, anyhow, and the children are exhausted from getting underfoot all day. Can I get you some wine, tea, anything?'
'Just a phone.'
'I heard that you had a successful operation. We are pleased.'
'Thank you, my friend. I have a new lung.'
'From someone in India, I heard.'
'Actually, that's what I am here to find out. Did Francis tell you I would be making a long-distance call?'
'For all that you have done for the people in our village, you could call the moon if you wish.'
'Thank you. Please write your number down. I will need my friend to call me back here.'
'No problem.'
'And I may have to wait for that call.'
'Also no problem.'
'You are a wonderful man, Platini Katjaoha.'
'Then you are the idol of wonderful men. I will be upstairs. Call my name out if you need me.'
Anson thanked him again, then settled into a frayed easy chair by the telephone and pulled a folded paper from his pocket. There was a five-hour difference between Cameroon and New Delhi, so he had some uncertainty as to whether Bipin Gupta would be at home or at his office. Knowing the head of the editorial page of the highly regarded Indian Express newspaper as well as he did, Anson dialed the work number first. Not surprisingly, Gupta answered on the initial ring.
'Greetings from Cameroon, old friend,' Anson said in near-fluent Hindi.
'Joseph, Joseph, what a pleasant surprise. You must call more often, though. Your South African accent is getting more pronounced.'
The two of them had roomed together for two years during college in Capetown. Even though Gupta was quite fluent in English, Anson insisted from day one that they speak only Hindi to each other. He had always had a knack for learning languages and quickly added Gupta's native tongue to his English, Afrikaans, Dutch, French, Spanish, and German.
He was surprised during the trip to Amritsar to realize that he had never shared the fact of his fluency in Hindi with Elizabeth. At first he was a bit embarrassed sitting by while Sanjay Khanduri translated Ianguage that he understood perfectly, but he was also amused, and he fully intended not to allow his humorous little deception get too far. However, that was before Narendra Narjot, or whoever she was, asked, 'How do you like my performance so far?' and Khanduri shockingly replied, 'Just keep your answers simple and straightforward, and I will do the rest.'
'Bipin,' Anson said after some initial courtesies, 'I need you to check on two things for me. If it is possible, I will wait here for your reply. The first is a man by the name of T. J. Narjot, Sultan Road, Amritsar. About forty. He reportedly died at Central Hospital sometime during the week of July eighteenth.'
'And the second?'
'Sometime around that date there was allegedly an in-hospital epidemic at Central Hospital and others in Amritsar with a germ named Serratia marcescens. I need to know if that epidemic actually took place.'
The journalist had him spell the bacterium, then said, 'You know that it is more difficult to determine that a person doesn't exist or an event didn't happen, than if they did.'
'What I know is that my friend Bipin Gupta can do anything.'
'Give me a number to reach you,' Gupta said, 'and an hour.'
CHAPTER 28
