*
I realised I had hardly touched my dinner. I got up and put it in a Tupperware box to store in the fridge. I gave the little bird some more water and it drank, drop by drop. I had put out a plate of seeds in the morning and it had eaten quite a bit. Then I nestled it in my palms and took it out, once again, to the balcony to wait for 11 p.m. I watched it as its jet-bead eyes opened and closed, its feathers fluffing up as it settled in my hands. I had an image in my mind of the other birds, the dead ones, thousands of them in the black bin-liners, feathers stuck together with their own blood and the blood of the other birds. Beady eyes open forever to the darkness.
I was even more uneasy that night. Below, on the street, the light from Petra’s living room shone on the cobblestone street. There were shadows on the stones, the movement of people within. Yes, one was Petra’s – long and slim, hair up. The other was Aliki’s – shorter and broader – coming to the window intermittently to stand silently, no doubt, beside her mother. Then, on one occasion, there was a third, softer, rounder – standing alone. This must have been Nisha. But I could hardly go and check. I rang her, and once again it went straight to voicemail. I could think of no good reason to knock on their door at this hour. But I kept thinking – She’ll be back. Unless she went back to Sri Lanka . . . No, I was sure that Nisha would knock on the back door at eleven, like she always did, and the memory of waiting for her would fade into the past and be forgotten.
Mrs Hadjikyriacou was outside again, talking nonsense to the cats. I couldn’t hear was she was saying, though – the bouzouki wasn’t playing that night; instead, a girl was singing in another language, and the foreign words flew in their hundreds over the streets and consumed them. I’d never seen her before, and she was beautiful: dark, with dark eyes. Her right hand was smaller and seemed damaged in some way, perhaps a birth defect. It remained scrunched up, close to her breast. Her left hand, however, danced as she sang, rose and fell with the mesmerising tone of her voice, her fingers tapping the air as if she was playing an invisible instrument. Her voice was extraordinary, clear as glass. On the tables around her, the men, many of whom had once been officers in the military, who probably had medals and flashbacks locked away somewhere, knocked back shots of ouzo, sucked snails with their gums, laughed – and ignored her. She was merely background noise.
I saw Yiakoumi come out of his shop. He sat down on a wicker chair to drink coffee and hear the music. The clocks behind him were lit up – it was 10.30 p.m.
I sat there holding the bird, listening to the music, waiting for the next half hour. But Nisha didn’t come.
*
At 5 a.m. I was awakened by the sound of my iPad ringing. I jumped up to answer it, thinking it was Nisha, but the name that was flashing brightly on the screen was Kumari. I stood and watched it for a while not knowing what to do. What would I say to her?
In a moment it stopped. But not even ten seconds later, it began to ring again and once more I could do nothing but stand there, imagining the little girl on the other end, waiting eagerly to speak to her mother.
8
Petra
T
HE NEXT MORNING, AS SOON as the cockerel started to crow, I made myself some tea and toast and went to Nisha’s room. I looked around, without knowing what I was searching for. Her makeup was on the dressing table, neatly lined up. The brushes sparkled with rouge. Then I noticed a journal and, resting on top of it, a gold engagement ring. I had never seen her wearing this before – it was simple, with a decent sized diamond in a raised clasp. I placed the ring on the dresser and opened the journal. On the first page was a rough sketch of the garden – there was the boat and the orange tree. The rest of the pages were full of writing in Sinhalese.
In the drawer of her bedside cabinet, I found a gold locket. It was heart shaped and inside were two, roughly cut out photographs – one of her, and one of a young man. She never wore this locket but sometimes, in the evenings, when she sat down to rest and watch TV, she held it tightly in her palm or coiled the gold chain around her finger, like a Christian would their rosary.
In another drawer, I found a lock of hair.
‘That’s my Sri Lankan sister’s hair.’ I turned and Aliki stood in the doorway. ‘Her name is Kumari. She is two years older than me – she’s eleven.’ She stared at me. ‘Did you know that?’
‘Not really,’ I said. It occurred to me that I had never bothered to ask about her daughter, about what she looked like, what she was like, how she was doing without her mother by her side. When did Nisha even speak to Kumari?