‘Of course,’ he said.
Then I remembered Seraphim’s father. A prominent heart surgeon and hunter. Always suited and booted, even when he had a gun in his hand. He had hard eyes, that man, and a quiet but harsh tone that left Seraphim and me trembling.
Before I could say anything more, Seraphim continued on down the hallway. At the end of the long corridor was a wooden door that he unlocked with a silver key. The door opened up into a large garage, which looked more like a showroom. Three beautiful cars gleamed like water beneath halogen lights.
‘Extraordinary,’ I said, in spite of myself. I hadn’t come here to see his cars. I wanted to talk about Nisha. He was distracting me, I could tell. He had a habit of doing this, throwing you off course.
‘This one is a Lamborghini Miura. A mid-engine supercar.’ He waved his hand at the nearest car, and beamed. I decided to humour Seraphim in all this, to get him in a good frame of mind.
‘Metallic green,’ I said, ‘with tan leather seats. Very stylish.’
‘Now take a look at this one,’ he said.
‘Wow. The Porsche 911.’
‘Magic! Special order Lava Orange.’
I looked inside at the black leather interior with orange stitching and seat belts.
‘This beauty has a 7-speed PDK transmission.’
‘And a switchable sports exhaust system?’
‘Of course.’
‘Impressive,’ I said.
We walked around to the silver Mercedes SL 300 Gullwing. It was beautiful. He put his hand into his pocket and pressed a fob, the lights flashed and he opened the doors on both sides, asking me to step back as if it were about to explode.
‘Now, look at it,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Doesn’t it look like it’s about to fly?’
‘Higher than an eagle. This is a car dreams are made of.’
He smiled in the way he had when he was a boy, after he killed Batman.
‘Now the ice will be melting.’
‘The ice?’
‘Our whiskies. We almost forgot them.’ He closed the doors of the car and clicked the fob in his pocket to lock it.
‘I want to talk about Nisha.’
‘Sure,’ he paused, waiting. When I stayed silent, he said, ‘Go ahead.’
‘She came to see you the night she vanished?’
‘She didn’t arrive.’
His evasiveness was making my blood boil. He was playing with me. ‘But she’d arranged to meet you?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes remained fixed on mine.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this, when I asked you this three days ago?’
‘She’s got guts, your girl, I’ll tell you that. She called me, said she’d got my number from you. Said she needed to speak to me about you – she wanted me to let you go. I told her, of course, that that wasn’t possible and reminded her kindly to mind her own business. That this was not the kind of thing she should be getting involved with, that she’d get herself into trouble. She insisted – she doesn’t give up, your girl, I’ll tell you that. She said she had something to offer me that I wouldn’t be able to refuse.’
‘What?’
‘I have no idea. She never showed. She was meant to meet me at Maria’s late that night. I waited. She never showed. I didn’t mention it because your loyalty to us is solid, is it not? I didn’t want to open up a pointless conversation, you know what I mean? I expect your girl will turn up in no time.’ Before I could say anything, he waved his hand and smiled like nothing fazed him. ‘Now, which is your favourite car?’ he asked.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Which of these three cars do you most admire?’
‘I don’t have a preference’ I said.
‘Choose one, will you?’
‘The Gullwing.’
‘It’s yours.’
I remained silent.
‘Stunned, huh? Never thought you’d be in possession of such a beautiful specimen? Now look, if you exceed your target before the end of the season, it’s yours.’
‘I don’t want your car,’ I said.
‘Consider it yours already. You’ve never let me down.’
‘Seraphim,’ I said, fixing my eyes on his, ‘I’m telling you now that I don’t want your car. Or any other reward, for that matter.’
‘I see,’ he said, nodding, and I saw a slight twitch beneath his right eye.
I glanced at my watch.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said.
‘There’s whisky and snacks,’ he said, but I told him that I had to get going. I needed to get out of there.
*
When I got back to the neighbourhood, it was just past midnight. I was about to go upstairs to my apartment, but something stopped me. I looked about the street almost as if I could see Nisha’s footsteps, as if she’d left prints in the sand for me to follow, or crumbs for a little bird. I started walking down the street. This is the way she would have gone, heading toward Maria’s.
Silver moths flew below the street lamps. Theo was just closing up for the night. He lifted his arm to greet me; I nodded. I watched the road ahead, imagined her walking. What had she been wearing? Would she have held a handbag? Hair up or down? Why hadn’t I asked Spyros? I painted a picture of her for myself. Nisha in jeans and an orange jumper, the one with the sunflower on the front. She was wearing her new black trainers, the ones Petra had bought her. Hair in a ponytail. She was concerned, serious, on a mission to sort my life out. I saw her walking ahead of me, turning right onto the street where I had seen Spyros; the street lined with lemon trees where corrugated metal sheets spilt the island in two. There weeds grow. There is a dead apple tree. There is a row of mostly abandoned shops and workshops, shutters always drawn, doors bolted, some don’t have doors or front walls – they were once cloth and carpet stores; some sold copper, and now they are empty.
Then Muyia’s studio, dark, no one in there, his sculptures covered in white cloth. It had been a while since I’d spoken to Muyia. Could he have been there that night?
And there, at the end of the street, Christos lived in his old shack – might he have seen her? Could he have been outside? Would she have waved or stopped? The windows were dark now. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. Then footsteps, shuffling around. ‘Who is it?’
‘Yiannis!’
He didn’t hear. ‘I said who is it?’ The door opened and he stood there in boxer shorts, pointing a hunting rifle at me. When he saw my face, he lowered it. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Fuck you!’ The few hairs he had stuck up on his tanned head.
‘I’m sorry, Christos. I know it’s late, very late.’
He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Come in,’ he said.
The living room and kitchen were one room. There were doilies everywhere – on the coffee table, the mantlepiece, the back of the sofa. People in black and white photos stared out at me from all directions. We’d spoken many times in the front yard, but I’d never been inside.
‘Take a seat.’ He pointed at an armchair next to the unlit fireplace. It was cold in there, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘I’m sorry I woke you.’
‘I’d just gone to bed. No big deal. Can I offer you a drink and a sweet?’
‘Just some water,’ I said. I was parched after the whisky.
‘When did you take up smoking?’ he asked, filling up a glass from the tap. ‘You fucking reek.’
‘I was at Maria’s.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ He raised his eyebrows, placing the glass on a doily on the coffee table.
I gulped it down.
‘Still poaching?’
I nodded. Christos was a hunter, not a poacher. He followed the rules of the hunting seasons, was respectful of regulations, and made a measly living.
‘I need to ask you a question,’ I said.
‘Go ahead. Figuring it’s as important as fuck for you to knock after midnight.’
‘Can you think back to three Sundays ago. Were you home?’
&nbs
p; ‘Well, let me see.’ He rested his glass of water on his huge hairy gut. ‘Last Sunday I was in Larnaca, I know that. The Sunday before I was cleaning the car.’ He leaned forward, placed the glass on the table and picked up his phone. He scrolled through. ‘So the one before that would have been the thirtieth?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was home that day.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I have here: Loula visiting with lunatic kids. Yes. My sister came to visit with her crazy grandkids. I made us all lunch. She left around eight o’clock that evening.’
‘After that?’
‘I sat outside with Pavlo from down the road. I remember it well because it was the night he’d got the all clear. He had cancer, poor chap. We played backgammon for a couple of hours.’
‘Did you see Nisha that night?’
‘Who?’ Christos asked.
‘Oh, um, Petra’s girl. Her name is Nisha.’
‘Well, let me see . . .’ He glanced up at the ceiling. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw Spyros with that stupid dog of his, because he stopped to ask Pavlo about his results. It was a quiet night, not much going on. Then there was the maid. Yes, it was Petra’s girl, I think. She was rushing past here like she’d missed an appointment.’
‘Before or after Spyros?’
‘Actually, just before. By a couple of minutes. Pavlo commented, I remember – he called out, “Come here, my little girl! You’re a stunner! I’ll do you when my dick works again.” He’d had too much to drink. Way too much.’ He laughed, his belly shaking under his T-shirt.
I paused for a moment and tried to empty my head of those words, but they’d already gotten under my skin and I could feel my palms sweating.
‘Did she say anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Do you remember what she was wearing?’
‘I seem to recall black . . . Yes, a black dress. When she left, Pavlo said he wanted to get under it. Unzip it like the night, see the light underneath – those were his exact drunken words.’ I flinched. Christos laughed even more now, rubbing his stomach, a throaty phlegmy laugh.
‘Was her hair up or down?’
‘Down. Ahhh, that thick, long hair. Who could not notice that? Imagine rubbing your face in it. I bet it smells like apples.’
I felt the anger again. I got up, apologised for getting him out of bed and quickly took my leave.
On my way home, I retraced Nisha’s footsteps again. I could see her more clearly now. Black dress, hair down, the way it would have shone under the streetlights, light waves. I could see her rushing, turning the corner . . . Pavlo calling out, Come here, my little girl! You’re a stunner! I’ll do you when my dick works again. Then laughter. There must have been laughter. And Nisha’s eyes, narrowing, lips tight, head up, thinking she wanted to belt him. That’s how I imagine her. And let’s take Seraphim’s word for it and assume she didn’t make it to Maria’s. Then what? What happened to her between Christos’s and Maria’s? Could she have climbed over the fence? Gone into the buffer zone? But why? There was no reason for her to do this.
I could see her fingers now, dangling by her side. Calf muscles, lean and strong as she walked. I could smell her, the faint whiff of gardens and spices and bleach.
Then she might have seen Spyros, greeted him, bent down to pet the poodle. Probably laughed at whatever silly outfit Spyros had put the dog in that night. Maybe he’d hummed the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark, maybe she’d hummed it back. Perhaps she’d had it in her head as she turned the corner.
I could hear her heart beating. A clear and cold night with a full moon. Why was she rushing? Seraphim wasn’t the type to have left if she was late. Unless there was another reason.
*
When I got home, I put all the birds into their rightful containers for the last time. I worked like a madman. I would never do it again. I should have stopped the moment I had promised Nisha and faced the consequences. She had been trying to help me, she had been trying to free me and then she was gone. If I had stopped like she’d asked me to, Nisha would have still been here. I was sure of that. My body felt heavy; I felt like there were weights on my wrists and ankles.
It took me a few hours to complete the job, working through the night. The entire time my mind retraced Nisha’s steps, over and over again. I saw her in her black dress. Every time, at the end of Christos’s street, she vanished. I couldn’t place her after that. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. It was like the ground had swallowed her up, and I remembered again Nisha’s retelling of her husband’s death: The earth has swallowed him up the earth swallowed him up he has been swallowed whole by the earth.
*
As soon as the tablet rang I jumped up to answer it. The sight of Kumari in her uniform, hair tied up in a ponytail like her mother, purple rucksack on her shoulders, sent a sharp pain through my head.
‘Is Amma looking after the chickens again?’
‘That’s right.’
She looked up at the sky. I could see that she was outside this time. She took a sip from a drink with a straw.
‘Are the chickens sick?’
‘Yes. They seem to be.’
‘Mr Yiannis, you are lying!’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes. I know when a person is lying.’
‘How?’
‘Because they say silly things that they don’t realise are silly things.’
‘What did I say that was silly?’
‘You said Amma was looking after the chickens.’
‘That’s because you asked me if she was.’
‘But my question was a lie. Because I knew you had a lie in your sleeve. It is five o’clock in the morning where you are. I know that Amma wouldn’t tend to the chickens in the middle of the night!’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Your English is very good.’
‘I know. Amma teaches me on the iPad and I learn at school too. And I have an auntie who is married to an Englishman up in the cold mountains and they teach me too.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s excellent.’
‘Today I have my favourite subject at school.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘History.’
‘Lovely. What do you like about it?’
‘I like it because I see how people were silly in the past.’
‘Like my lie with the chickens?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled that cheeky smile again. Then her face became serious. ‘So, where is my amma?’
‘I don’t know, Kumari.’ I couldn’t lie to this girl anymore. ‘I’m not sure. Usually she speaks to you on my iPad from my home, but she hasn’t come to see me for a while.’
‘That’s unusual.’ Though her voice was light, her eyes were suddenly heavy and dark.
‘Why is that then?’
‘Well, because you are Mr Yiannis and my amma said she loves Mr Yiannis very much because he is such a good and kind man. Why would she not come to see you if she loves you very much?’
I couldn’t answer her question. In spite of her confusion and anxiety her eyes sparkled once more.
‘I will call again tomorrow and I hope that she is there. You be good at work now, Mr Yiannis,’ she said, and then she was gone.
21
Petra
‘S
TILL NO SIGN OF NISHA?’
Keti was leaning on the counter, staring at me. I filled Keti in about Nisha’s relationship with Yiannis, about our discovery that Nisha had been going to visit Seraphim, and how Yiannis was going to confront him.
‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘That’s a lot to take in. So, she was on her way to meet this man, Seraphim, about poaching birds and she disappears into thin air?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t like it.’
Her words made me sink into a nearby chair.
‘And Yiannis – can you trust him?’
‘I think so.’
‘You look exhausted,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t sleep last night.’
She examined the bracelet so closely, as if she was determined to find an answer within it. Then she sighed, seemingly at a loss. She placed the bracelet in my palm and squeezed my hand. ‘Go home,’ she said, ‘get some rest. If you burn out it won’t be helpful for anyone.’
*
My head was pounding with a dull ache, my eyes bleary. I needed to sleep. Aliki was still at school for a few hours, Mrs Hadjikyriacou had dropped her off in the morning. I could get in a good nap before I had to go and collect her.
But after I parked the car, my feet wouldn’t carry me to my front door. Instead, I found myself walking in the direction of Muyia’s workshop.
‘Hello?’ I called, but no one answered. As I’d hoped, Muyia wasn’t there. People in Cyprus used to leave all their doors open in the past, and it was as if Muyia was stuck in those bygone days. But that was good, as it wasn’t him I was here to see: it was Nisha. I quickly headed over to the sculptures next to the worktop. I pulled the white sheet off and there she was, the mother and child. I put my hand on her hand and leaned my head on the worktop. Nisha had sacrificed so much to come here and I had never allowed myself to know that. Now she was gone.
I imagined the wood being hollow, and her trapped inside. I thought that if I found the seam in the wood that I could lift it and open it up like a Russian doll, and find her there.
‘Petra,’ a voice said, sharply.
I opened my eyes to cold light, a breeze and a person standing above me.
‘Petra. What are you doing here?’
I straightened up. Muyia was staring at me, perplexed.
‘How long have you been here?’
I stood up and backed away from him. His eyes were fixed on me.
‘Not long,’ I said. I glanced at the statue and he followed my gaze. ‘Is that Nisha?’ I managed to say.
‘Yes. And the little child is her daughter, Kumari.’
‘Why?’
His brow creased and I saw something moving at his side: he was scratching his arm.
‘Nisha visits me a couple of times a week. You know, on her way to the grocery store – that sort of thing. She brings me fruit from your garden, whatever’s in season. Until recently she brought me oranges. Still a bit bitter, but they were fine.’
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