Songbirds(2)

Yes, I remember it all very well, the way that Aliki was munching and yawning and shouting out the answers, the way that Nisha kept her attention on my daughter, saying hardly a word to me. The TV flickered in the background. The news was on with the volume turned low: footage of refugees rescued by coastguards off one of the Greek islands. An image of a child being carried to the shore.

I would have forgotten all of this, but I have been over it again and again, like retracing footsteps on the sand when you have lost something precious.

Aliki lay on her back and kicked her legs up in the air.

‘Sit up,’ Nisha scolded, ‘or you will be sick in your mouth. You’ve just eaten.’ Aliki made a face but she listened: she perched on the sofa and watched TV, her eyes moving over the faces of people as they trudged out of the water.

Nisha refilled my glass for the third time, and I was starting to get sleepy. I looked at my daughter then; a monster of a child, she’s always been too big for me, even her curly hair is too thick for me to get my hands around. Curls so thick, like the tentacles of an octopus; they seem to defy gravity, as if she lives in an underwater world.

In the light of the fire, I noticed that Nisha’s face was pale, like one of those figs blanched in syrup that have lost their true colour. She caught my eye and smiled, a small, sweet smile. I shifted my gaze over to Aliki.

‘Do you have your bag ready for school?’ I asked.

Aliki’s attention was on the screen.

‘We are doing it now, madam.’ Nisha got up hastily, gathering the bowls from the coffee table.

My daughter never really spoke to me anymore. She never called me Mum, never addressed me. At some point a seed of silence had been sowed between us and it had grown up and around and between us until it became almost impossible to say anything. Most of the time, she would talk to me through Nisha. Our few conversations were functional.

I watched Nisha as she licked a handkerchief and wiped a stain off Aliki’s jeans and then took the bowls and spoons to the kitchen. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the trip up to Troodos, but I was feeling more tired than usual, a heaviness in my mind and my limbs. I announced that I was going to bed early. I fell asleep straightaway and didn’t even hear Nisha putting Aliki to bed.





3

Yiannis

T

HE DAY THAT NISHA VANISHED, before I even realised she’d gone, I saw in the forest a mouflon ovis. I thought it was odd. These ancient sheep, native to the land, are wild and rare. With a yen for solitude, they usually roam secluded parts of the mountains. I’d never seen one on flat terrain, never this far east. In fact, if I told anyone that I saw a mouflon on the coast, nobody would believe me; it would make national news. I should have known at the time that something was wrong. A long time ago, I understood that sometimes the earth speaks to you, finds a way to pass on a message if only you look and listen with the eyes and ears of your childhood self. This was something my grandfather taught me. But that day in the woods, by the time I saw the golden ovis, I’d forgotten.

It began with a crunch of leaves and earth. A late October morning. I’d returned to collect the songbirds. I’d driven out to the coast, west of Larnaca, near the villages of Alethriko and Agios Theodoros where there are wild olive and carob groves and plantations of orange and lemon trees. There is also a forest of dense acacia and eucalyptus trees – an excellent spot for poaching. In the small hours of the morning, I’d put out the lime sticks – a hundred of them strategically placed in the trees where the birds come to feed on berries. I’d also hidden amongst the leaves devices that played recordings of calling birds, to lure my prey. Then I found a secluded spot and lit a fire.

I used olive branches as skewers and toasted haloumi and bread. I had a flask of strong coffee in my backpack and a book to pass the time. I didn’t want to think about Nisha, of the things she had said the night before, the stern look on her face when she left my flat, the tightness of the muscles in her jaw.

These thoughts fluttered around me with the bats and I waved them away, one by one. I warmed myself and ate and listened to the birdsong in the dark.

So far, it was a normal hunt.

I fell asleep by the fire and dreamt that Nisha was made of sand. She dissolved before me like a castle on the shore.

The rising sun was my calling. I had a last shot of coffee to wake myself fully and threw the rest on the fire, then stamped out the remaining flames and forgot about the dream. The thick woods began to stir, to wake. I usually make more than 2,000 euros for each hanging, and this one was a good one – there were around two hundred blackcaps stuck on the lime sticks. They are worth more than their weight in gold. Tiny songbirds migrating from Europe to Africa to escape the winter. They fly in from the west, over the mountains, stopping here on our island before heading out to sea, towards Egypt. In the spring, they make the return journey, coming from the southern coast. They are so small that we can’t shoot them. They’re also endangered, a protected species.

I was always frightened at this point, looking over my shoulder, expecting that this time I would be caught and thrown in jail. I’d be totally screwed. This was always my weakness – the fear, the anxiety I felt before killing the birds. But the woods were quiet, no sound of footsteps. Just the birdsong and the breeze through the tree branches.

I removed one of the attached birds from the stick, gently prying its feathers from the glue. This one had tried hard to free itself, it seemed. The more they try to escape, the more stuck they get. I held it in my palms and felt its tiny heart racing. I bit into its neck to end its suffering, and dropped it, lifeless, into a large, black bin-liner. This is the most humane way to kill them – a quick, deep bite to the neck.