I couldn’t eat that night, but I made a light meal for Aliki. I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with Keti and the things Nilmini had said. I walked in and out of Nisha’s room, hoping to spark a memory, a revelation. Was there something I had missed? Had she mentioned anything that I’d forgotten? It was like attempting to recall a half-forgotten dream.
I kept hearing Keti’s words: You’ve got to go and search for her yourself. Heavy words; words that hit me hard with the weight of responsibility. And last night Aliki had asked me to find her.
Yes, this was something I had to do, although I hadn’t the slightest idea how.
*
I decided that I would speak to more of Nisha’s friends. It seemed like a place to start. I wondered if they knew anything – and if they did, whether they would tell me.
I knew Nisha was friends with the maids at the gated mansion at the end of the street, the one with two hunting dogs so, on Friday afternoon, I shut my practice early and headed home. The rain had finally stopped, but very few customers had come in – I had been alone in the shop, as Keti studied at university on Fridays.
I decided to make dinner early, then walk over to the gated mansion down the street. But before I’d even started cooking, while Aliki was in the garden attempting to empty the boat of water, the doorbell rang.
It was Yiannis from upstairs. The light from Yiakoumi’s shop glowed around him and he stood there staring at me for a moment too long before he spoke.
‘Petra,’ he said, ‘sorry to disturb you. I am wondering . . .’ There was a pause, and a shuffle of his feet, as if he was about to change his mind and walk away. ‘。 . . is Nisha in?’ He was almost a silhouette, so I couldn’t see the expression on his face, but there was something guarded, uncertain, in the tone of his voice.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Yiannis, but she’s not.’
He ran his hand through his hair, streaks of silver illuminated in the light that poured from the display window behind him. His movements were so hesitant that I could almost hear all those clocks ticking.
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Why?’ I said, perhaps too quickly, and he brought his hand to his face and rubbed his stubble. Then he looked over my shoulder, into the open-plan living room, his eyes scanning.
‘Well . . . because I haven’t seen her,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen her all week, and I’ve been worried.’
There was a desperation in him now that I didn’t understand. He was lost and vulnerable, like those stray dogs that wander the neighbourhood looking for someone to love. Why was he so concerned about Nisha? There was something niggling at me, something I think I had known for a long time but refused to believe, and it was this thought that made me invite him in.
He was dressed nicely, as if he was heading to a bar for a drink – a perfectly ironed black shirt, opened slightly at the collar, a pair of dark blue jeans – but mud covered his shoes. Mud that hadn’t yet dried and crusted.
He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room: it was the first time he’d been inside, and he glanced left and right at the furniture, the photographs on the console table, the dining table. He looked over to the kitchen, where Nisha had spent so much of her time, scrubbing and cooking. It was strange, though – he looked around like he knew the place.
Now, in the light, I could see clearly the desperation that I had sensed in the darkness; it was mainly in the deep crease of his brow and the restlessness of his eyes. We stood there for a moment, neither of us speaking. He was a good-looking man: very dark eyes with thick lashes, and a soft beard that was neatly trimmed, partly black, partly grey. It was strange to have him standing in my living room. We hardly ever spoke, apart from short pleasantries in the garden about the chicken pen or the weather or how the tomatoes and prickly pears were doing.
I wanted to understand his connection to Nisha. I had seen them talking many times in the garden; I had seen the looks they gave each other, of course I had – a touch of the hand, low whispers in the evening . . . but, if there had been something going on between them, I may have needed to dismiss Nisha, even though I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Nobody allowed their maids to have sexual or romantic relationships – it was almost unheard of, apart from those maids who ended up marrying their employers.
I couldn’t help glancing down at the mud on his shoes, wondering where he’d been. I suddenly realised I should have told him to take them off at the door – It’s not as though Nisha’s here to keep the floors clean. And that thought alone made me suddenly feel so alone, the house so empty without her.