‘You’re not doing them any favours. You’re prolonging the inevitable.’ Henning makes no secret of the fact that he doesn’t want Isa feeding these creatures. ‘You shouldn’t be near them. They have scabies, this is why they are bald, fleas, and ticks, and god-knows-what. You should think about what you’re doing.’ He hopes to be home soon. Udo is coming round to his idea.
Rike can hear Henning’s exasperation. Doubt roils in his classic pauses (Henning is known for his pauses). He can make you feel stupid, he can posit doubt — all with the briefest pause. When Isa hangs up she ambles back to Rike’s room, hand on her belly, a slow wading walk. ‘They give them training: How to Manipulate People.’ She makes bunny-ear quotations with her fingers, then, walking away, casually drops the complaint. ‘You know where he’s staying? He’s staying in the Hyatt. Where we were engaged. The Hyatt. Some covert operation.’ While Henning is not a spy, there is, nevertheless, some truth to the fact that the intelligence community prefer the Hyatt, Henning would confirm this. The Hyatt, it’s a standing joke among the staffers, is always the last refuge in a coup.
Rike has to agree about the cats. It might not sound rational, but who knows if there’s rabies on the island, or if a cat scratch could open some improbable complication in the last trimester. She knows you can get lockjaw, or that allergy where you grow hard buboes in your neck or armpits. Jesus. Cats aren’t as friendly as they appear: fur, teeth, instinct, selfishness and cunning. Essentially they’re just big rats. Unlike Henning, Rike can’t speak about her fears without sounding ridiculous. Henning is always certain. Not one gram of doubt or self-consciousness. Everything about the man announces confidence, the silences and withdrawals, his assured authority. And he is back in Syria, secretly, to help identify a man found in the desert. A man in a coma. A man hooked to drips and machines. A man they are pumping back to life so they can transport him to Cyprus. A man everyone has been looking for: Stephen Lawrence Sutler. Sutler Number Three.
* * *
Rike follows the news about Rome on the internet. The man who died was seen running along the tracks before he was hit. There are rumours, and rumours about rumours. There are photographs of men standing on railway sidings, an aqueduct beside them, captions explaining that the evidence was spread over two hundred metres. The men are wearing sunglasses and they look down, about, concentrated on their task.
* * *
Isa spoons cat food into one of five bowls, her face set in a grimace. The sisters play a game: how did the man get to the desert? Sutler Number Three.
‘Dumped.’
‘Bad business…’
‘Drugs.’
‘… ran out of fuel. Walked in the wrong direction.’
‘Asked a Russian for directions.’
‘Punishment. A quarrel. Bad love.’
‘Stag night.’
‘Outcast. Because people hate him.’
Three books sit in a line across the counter, Isa is undecided on which thriller she wants to read. She tells Rike that she can’t work out her mood this morning, and Rike knows well enough not to pester her. It’s important to match the right book to the right mood. Isa is wearing one of her brother’s T-shirts: ‘Show Me Your Junk’, which she claims not to understand. Her favourite reads ‘It Isn’t Going to Suck Itself’. Henning dislikes the T-shirt almost as much as he despises her brother. ‘It’s a point of fact,’ Isa likes to say, which only makes him shake his head. She’s not to be seen within a hundred kilometres of anyone from the embassy wearing those T-shirts. ‘I’ll take it off,’ she agrees, ‘before I answer the door.’ Isa studied psychology before switching to the diplomatic service (two reasons why she will always finish an argument). She reminds Henning that there are more present worries, for example: the apartment is owned by a Russian company. Russian. She found this out today. Karnezis Property is owned by Palakov International. Andrei Palakov is a self-styled community investor and biznizman. What percentage of their rent, she wonders, is going to fund the trouble they’ve so recently fled?
On Rike’s first evening Henning had warned her that there were bars she shouldn’t frequent, a casino, a good number of the nightclubs and hotels, all owned by a Russian consortium, little more than a mini-Mafia, and she should avoid them — not because they are corrupt, and not because of the known drug-trafficking, but because of the ‘current tension’. The situation. She should do nothing to embarrass him. Does she understand? It’s just about OK to shop in the Russian market, and maybe, if she has to, there’s the hair salon and nail bar, but where possible she shouldn’t patronize Russian businesses. Just to be sure. Isa spoke with Rike afterward and said that she should do whatever she likes, within reason, and isn’t it amazing how seriously Henning takes himself. Mini-Mafia? Situation? Seriously? ‘Just don’t bring a Russian home, OK?’
Isa has her own reservations about Russians, since, in their first week, a cargo ship loaded with arms for the Syrian government weathered a storm in Cypriot waters. Customs wouldn’t check it, she said. Wouldn’t go near. Imagine that happening anywhere else. Isa has a theory about Cyprus. How everything is falling apart because it benefits Europe and Russia to allow the country to ruin itself. It’s all about minerals. It’s all about untapped off-shore gas. She has other ideas about Syria, about situations which involve direct conflict.
Isa retrieves another can of cat food from the cupboard and asks Rike if she can guess what they’re calling the man they found in the desert. She pauses, a beat. ‘Mr Crispy.’
She holds up the can to read the label, ‘What do you think is in this?’ Reads Greek then English. ‘It says chicken. I don’t think it’s chicken. I think they mean pony. Or dog. That’s why they like it so much.’ She sets the bowls side by side on the patio and waves her arm for balance. She hasn’t forgiven Henning for the Hyatt. ‘He’ll be swimming laps. Like he needs to.’ She reaches out for her sister to help her up. ‘Still, I’m glad you’re here.’ She strains on the words as she rises. ‘If people knew half the stuff about pregnancy that I know now, nobody would bother.’ Isa collects bad birthing stories. Not stories where sad and terrible events occur, but stories of indignity, people fouling themselves, assaulting husbands and partners, slapping midwives. Women addled by sedatives, convinced they’re giving birth to a monkey or a piece of fruit. Not stories, so much, as tools to mortify Henning. Given the circumstances, Rike finds this a little distasteful.
Once upright Isa tells Rike that they need to talk, her voice becoming darker. The older sister about to set her right.
‘I’ve been thinking. I know Henning wants you to look after me. I know. But you can’t spend the whole time stuck in the house with me. It will drive you crazy and it will drive me crazy. You can’t do nothing.’ And then the news. ‘I think I’ve found you a job.’
Rike watches her sister pick one of the books from the counter. On the cover a graphic of a man in a coffin buried alive. Black and red and angular. Two weeks, that’s as long as Isa could manage before changing the terms of Rike’s stay.
In the garden the cats stir from their hiding places, little divots scratched in the dust beneath the fig trees. Their paths avoid the lemons fallen either side which mould and soften and send out a sharp soapy tang. A familiar movement of cats emerging then stretching, one leg, two legs, a yawn, and tails, if they have them, curling back and shivering. They each do this and the women watch with pleasure. Among them a black cat moves silkily along the wall. Wary, but loose. There must have been two, Rike tells herself, unless, of course, it’s the same cat claiming its other lives.