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?’