The body was bound in white cloth.
Tourists, they were hiking.
The mineshaft filled up with water after the rain.
Yes, that’s what I heard too!
And it brought the body up.
Yes. The body came up.
I could see Nisha as if she were standing in front of me: in flip-flops and shorts; a soft sprinkling of dark hairs on her thighs; the plait that reached the base of her spine; beads on her wrist – bracelets that her daughter had made and sent in a tattered envelope. My thoughts expanded: Nisha pulling off yellow rubber gloves, spreading orange marmalade on toast for me, stirring coffee on the stove with a long spoon, questioning me with eyes that were always curious, always sombre, dark with the past.
Far away, across the land, church bells rang. They rang again and again, but I could still hear the voices of the crowd.
The body is decomposed.
They will have to do DNA tests.
I didn’t dare to say the thing that was on my mind, but I knew that Yiannis was thinking it too, because when I finally turned to look at him, he was pale and shaking.
The next moment, he had left my side. I saw him slip through the crowd, heading towards the gallows frame. I lost him for a while, then I heard a commotion. I pushed my way closer to the front and saw Yiannis having an argument with a police officer: he had managed to get over or under the rope into the investigation zone. The officer was holding his arms out, creating a barrier; another was approaching from the right. This second officer placed a hand on Yiannis’s shoulder and gestured for him to calm down.
‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘Leave him alone! It’s OK. He’s knows her. It’s OK, he knows her.’
It wasn’t until they all turned to look at me – the police, the people in the crowd – that I understood what I had said.
*
We left the lake without knowing. The police told us to go home, they would have to do tests, something about DNA, testing the bones – I could barely distinguish the words.
We were driving now, and I looked over at Yiannis. He looked like the shell of a man. His eyes were sunken, his lips pressed in. He was a shrivelled bird, something featherless and old.
I was just about to take the turn off for Nicosia, when he spoke, his voice dry and hoarse, as if he hadn’t used it for centuries.
‘Petra,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Will you go somewhere with me?
‘Where?’
‘I can’t go back yet.’
‘But where?’
‘To the woods.’
‘Why?’
‘I have to check something. Will you come? Will you drive me there?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
Following Yiannis’s directions, I drove us to the west coast of Larnaca, near the village of Zygi. I was hit by the smell of wild thyme and rosemary. In the distance I could see the beautiful oranges and yellows of the citrus plantations. He directed me to a sheltered spot by the side of the road and I parked the car. He got out and headed down a narrow path through the trees, motioning me to follow him. We were walking into a dense and dark forest of eucalyptus and acacia trees. We walked for a few minutes, picking our way among the brambles, until we came to a clearing.
There, swarming with flies, was a mouflon ovis. I took a step closer, but Yiannis grabbed my arm with his good hand.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not this.’
I followed him further into the woods and began to hear a cacophony of birdsong. I’d never heard anything like it, so many songs overlapping. There were thousands of them, above our heads, surrounding us, thousands and thousands of birds writhing in nets that stretched the length of the glade.
‘What is this?’ I asked, in horror.
‘The mist nets,’ he said, in a hollow voice. ‘Yesterday we were hunting—’
I shot him a sharp look.
‘Yes,’ he said, turning down his eyes. ‘We were hunting. Seraphim and me. We left so quickly after my arm was injured. I didn’t know if Seraphim had come back. It looks like he didn’t.’
I looked up again. It was a cacophony. The song of thousands of birds trapped in one place. I wanted to throw up. Thousands of birds stuck in the net, trying to fly away.
‘Will you help me?’ Yiannis asked, ‘to release the birds?’
With one hand, he began to yank at the net until each side dropped gently to the earth. He knelt down and tended to each bird, one at a time. He was struggling, working with only one arm, so I went to help him.
‘My god,’ I said. ‘My god.’ Some were dead, but those still living, I cradled in my palms, stroking the birds’ feathers with my fingers, placing them on the ground, waiting to see if they would move. Some hopped away, others flew up into the leaves of the trees or into the sky. One by one. One by one. Yiannis worked beside me, though clumsily and mostly ineffectually. I saw his frustration in his failed attempts, but I knew better than to tell him to step aside.