Later that night, a full moon hung in the sky. Theo’s was bustling with people, the bouzouki was playing and Nisha was lying on her side looking up at the sky. She wanted all the lights off: she felt cooler that way, she’d said. The moon-light was cool. She stared at it, her eyes glazed, as if she was staring at the space between her and the moon.
After what felt like a long time, she sat up, folded her legs, and faced me. I did the same. She looked at me straight in the eyes.
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’
She nodded.
‘You’re pregnant.’
She nodded again. ‘We were so careful,’ she said. I could make out no obvious expression on her face, it was as blank as a stone. But then she leaned into me and rested her head on my chest and we lay down together.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
‘I think it’s great.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes.’
She turned on her back, took my hand and placed it on her stomach, then she rested her hand on top of mine. I’d never felt as close to anyone as I did in that moment. Our bodies connected – mine, Nisha’s and this little foetus that was growing inside her. Our baby. Mine and hers. A wave of happiness came over me, like someone had opened a window that overlooked the landscape of my childhood and reminded me of what it felt like to be filled with love and wonder. What would this child look like? Perhaps these were premature thoughts, but I imagined that he or she would be everything like Nisha. These images fell into my mind as fresh and cool as rain in the heat of that room.
‘What are you thinking?’ she said again.
‘I think it’s wonderful. I love you.’
‘That’s because you’re feeling and not thinking.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘My feelings and thoughts are perfectly in sync!’ Then I added, ‘For once!’ And I laughed at how often we’d both said the words feelings and thoughts.
But Nisha didn’t laugh. She gently lifted her hand from mine, lifted my hand from her stomach and continued to gaze out of the window. Finally, she said: ‘I will lose my job. Nobody wants a pregnant maid.’
‘We’ll find a way. I’ll help you find something else to do. Or I’ll take care of you. Whatever you want, we’ll make it work.’
‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What about Kumari? I have to send money. If I lose my job, how will she live? I have debts to pay off. I have debts with the agency, Yiannis – I’m still paying them for bringing me here. And what about my mother? She is relying on me, too. It’s because of the work I do here that they have money to eat and live and go about their everyday lives. What would happen if I lost this job? It’s not just you and me and this baby.’
She said all this in one breath and her voice broke, though tears didn’t come: she seemed to swallow them.
‘I understand,’ I said. I brought her closer to me, held her. ‘What if I helped you financially? What if I gave you money to pay off your debt and also to send back home?’
‘With what?’ she said. ‘Wild asparagus and snails?’ Her voice held an edge of derision.
And she was right, because if that was the whole truth then I’d be nothing short of a lunatic. I wanted to tell her about the songbirds. But if I told her, it would break her heart.
‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘if I didn’t have this debt, I probably would have been able to go home by now, and we wouldn’t be here . . . we wouldn’t be in this situation anyway.’
She was matter-of-fact, decisive; her words a brutal blow to a fragile dream. But then she took my hand again, and this time pressed it down onto her stomach so that I could feel the weight of her love in that small push.
The following evening, I decided to tell her about the songbirds. It was the only chance I had to get her to believe that I had the means to help her financially. I wanted this baby, our baby, more than anything. It was late when she appeared at my door – we were back to our usual 11 p.m. rendezvous, since Petra and Aliki had returned from the beach. After Nisha had made them dinner and put Aliki to bed, she came up to my flat. I took her by the hand and led her to the spare room. I unlocked the door and for a few moments she stood there, confused, looking around, resting her eyes on one of the industrial fridges.
‘What is all this?’ she said.
‘I have another way of making money,’ I said. ‘I want you to know that I’ve saved enough and I can support you, Kumari, and your mother.’