She took the journal from my hands and opened it, flicking through, glancing at the pages. ‘I will do it, madam,’ she said. ‘I will read this for you.’
I was in a hurry so I thanked her and left, and she watched me from the large window and waved as I continued down the street.
I walked past the church and caught wafts of lavender from its garden. The sun was still low in the sky in this early part of the day, and it promised to be a sunny and crisp autumn afternoon. A maid swept the path in front of the church, clearing it of leaves and cockroaches. She looked up and nodded as I passed.
There was a sculptor’s workshop further down the street: a terraced property with no front wall or door or window, just a large mouth of an entrance that was always open – there was not even a shutter which came down at night to secure the premises. The cavernous space was strewn with broken planks, rusty nails, boxes of tools and twisted tree branches scattered about like severed limbs. From time to time the owner, a middle-aged man called Muyia, appeared in there, working, but more often than not it looked like a ramshackle, abandoned garage. However, Muyia was there this morning and I could see that he was focused on a piece of wood, chipping away, shaping something that seemed to mean very much to him: his concentration was so intense, his brow was furrowed and his lips were pressed together tightly.
Hearing my footsteps, he looked up and then raised his hand in greeting. ‘Petra! How was your trip to the mountains?’ he called.
‘Mountains?’ I said, coming up to the entrance.
‘Yes, Nisha said she was going with you to the mountains. Come in, come in! Let me show you something.’
I stepped over bits of twisted wire and scrap wood. The space was deep and should have been dark but he had two bright lamps over his work station. This was the first time I’d been inside, and I realised that it wasn’t as much of a mess as I’d thought. In fact, there was a gigantic shelf that held beautiful, carved wooden sculptures. They were mostly faces of people, but also animals: a snake, an elephant, three dragonflies hovering on invisible strings. There were finely carved flowers and various birds and fish, even a globe of the Earth – all crafted intricately with minute, precious details. They were unpainted, so they retained their soft honey colour and you could see the wood’s grain. I felt as though I’d stepped into some kind of magical forest.
‘Do you like them?’ he said.
‘They are extraordinary.’
He smiled at the compliment, and said, ‘Have a look at this.’
I turned to see the piece he had just been working on. It was a Madonna and child, enormous, almost life-sized. There was a quiet beauty to the woman, to the curve of her cheek bones and the soft sweep of her eyes and nose, her heart-shaped face. A strand of hair fell down over one eye, and a small owl perched on her shoulder. But what truly struck me was how life-like she was – not just in her fine appearance, but in her essence, her energy; her strength and practicality. It was in the soft but certain gaze of her eyes as she looked down at the child in her arms, the firm and tender touch of her fingers on the child’s thigh.
‘She is holding her child,’ he said, deeply emphasising the word her.
He looked at it now, staring at his creation, as though he had forgotten that I was there. Squinting his eyes, he ran his thumb over the wing of the owl. ‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘I need to fix that bit. Do you see how the angle there is too sharp, in the wing? It gives the character of the bird the wrong quality, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I wouldn’t know what quality the owl is supposed to have.’
At that point he looked at me for a moment, then creased his brow and nodded slightly, as if he had understood or remembered something. Then he said, ‘You know, we’ve never really spoken before. Imagine, all these years as neighbours and this is the first time we’ve said more than a few words to each other.’
I looked again at the statue and saw something I hadn’t noticed before: there was a deep sadness in the woman. It emanated not just from her eyes, but from everywhere, her posture, her enduring silent touch, even her stillness; it was even in the grain of the wood. And there was something else about her – she looked remarkably like Nisha.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ he said. ‘I can bring another stool for you to sit down.’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m afraid I’m out on an errand and I don’t have much time.’
Suddenly, I felt a desperate urge to leave. My mind was rattling with questions, but I wasn’t ready to ask them. Did she pose for this statue, was she his muse? How many other men in the neighbourhood did she know? I had started to become worried about what else I might discover about this stranger who had lived in my house, brought up my daughter, orchestrated our lives, made our house a home after Stephanos died. Who was this woman who I had previously seen only as a shadow of myself ? A dark and beautiful shadow, who rattled around in old sandals and with fire in her eyes.