Songbirds(80)

Kumari picked up the tablet again.

‘What is the lady’s name that they found inside the lake?’

‘Her name is Rosamie Cotabu.’

‘Was she one of the missing ladies that you told me about?’

‘Yes, she was.’

‘One of the five missing ladies.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was she a maid like my amma is?’

‘Yes.’

Kumari was silent now. I could hear the old lady in the other room, still talking.

‘You think they will find Amma like they did this other lady, don’t you Mr Yiannis?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think that.’

‘But she was also a missing lady, like Amma. Isn’t that right, Mr. Yiannis?’

*

It turned out that Rosamie Cotabu was Christian and church bells rang for her departure to the next world. Meanwhile, anger was brewing. The maids were not just scared, they were livid. Rosamie Cotabu had, after all, been reported missing and the police had ignored her employer’s pleas and concerns. Then she had been found in a mineshaft, wrapped up in white cloth.

The women walked by on the street below, always in pairs now, keeping their heads close together in muffled conversation, but their eyes were always roving, on the lookout for the next threat. It felt like the hours and days after a massive earthquake, where people walk around expecting it to happen again at any moment, where the walls and the ground beneath one’s feet no longer seem solid and there is no certainty of safety anywhere.

A man was in custody but his name had not been released to the public and Tony had no idea of it either.

*

During that week, at some point one evening, Seraphim knocked on my door. This was the first time he’d ever come to my place and the first time he had arrived unannounced.

I opened the door for him and without saying anything I stepped aside to let him in.

‘How is your arm?’ he asked, glancing at the bandage. I’d released it now from its sling.

‘Better.’

‘I heard about the woman found at the Mitsero mines,’ he said.

I nodded and offered him a seat.

‘Have you heard from Nisha?’

‘No,’ I said.

He looked out of the balcony doors but said nothing.

Then he unzipped a rucksack that he’d placed by his feet and took out a wad of money. From the look of it, it was much more than what he owed me for the previous hunt.

‘That looks around 10,000 euro,’ I said.

‘You’re spot on.’ He put it on the coffee table between us. ‘It’s yours,’ he said.

‘A bribe?’

‘Why would I need to bribe you?’

‘To keep my mouth shut.’

The little bird hopped up onto the table now and inspected the wad of notes that lay upon it. Seraphim frowned and glanced at me straight on.

‘You have a pet bird now?’

‘It’s not a pet,’ I said. I had no energy to say more.

‘The money is to help you get by, until you figure out what you’re going to do.’

I just stared at him blankly.

‘We go a long way back, don’t we?’ he said.

I nodded, apprehensive, wondering what dirty plan he had up his sleeve this time.

‘I remember when I used to come visit your farm with my dad, do you remember?’

I just shrugged, but he went on.

‘I loved being there, getting out of the city. I saw the kind of life you had and I was jealous. I was always so jealous of you and all that freedom you had. The only time I got to be out in the open was when I had a rifle in my hand.’

His eyes had drifted away for a while and they flicked back to me now.

‘The other day, when I saw how you reacted to the death of the mouflon, it . . . it reminded me of . . .’

I waited, but the sentence was never finished.

‘I’ll tell the bosses that you’ve been badly injured in an accident and won’t be able to work anymore.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I’ll reassure them that we won’t need to keep you quiet.’

I nodded.

‘You know, I wasn’t always such a pig. Don’t you remember?’

What I remembered was Seraphim running down that mountain holding the crow he’d killed by its feet.

He must have seen the doubt on my face as he said, ‘Come on, Yiannis! Don’t you remember? It was as soon as they placed that gun in my hands, that’s when I changed. Before that we played in the woods. You showed me all those creatures that crawled amongst the leaves. You showed me how to catch a snake and release it. We played dominos in the olive orchard. We made an igloo out of twigs and explored the North Pole! We fought sharks in the Pacific Ocean!’

He was right, of course. I remembered all of it. Those memories were exactly what had stopped me from despising him completely. I had a sudden image of him now, standing on the fallen trunk of a tree, encouraging me across a treacherous river of grass.

‘We made a catapult to knock the ripe apples off the trees,’ he said, ‘so that we could eat and survive in the Amazon.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You do know.’

I nodded, slowly.