‘Because he works with Iraq. His field is the entire Middle East. Because he becomes involved in things which shouldn’t concern him, and when he does everything becomes difficult.’ Henning sets the sausage on the plate. ‘Things with the British are complicated. They really want this man. They aren’t sure he’s the person they think he is, but want him, and if they take responsibility for him they’ll give him to the Americans.’ Henning looks at Isa. ‘Anyway I was explaining about Rudi. He has a Cypriot girlfriend.’
‘And this means…’
‘And this means he won’t go home. He’ll stay. And if he stays then we stay — until this is over. He won’t go back to Berlin. So we won’t go back to Berlin.’
‘I don’t see how this works?’
‘As long as Rudi stays in love, we stay in Cyprus.’
The fear held by Isa and Henning is that a return to Berlin would mean reassignment. If they can’t return to Damascus, then they might be deployed elsewhere. The spectre of a single posting, of Henning unaccompanied in Iraq or Afghanistan, again raises its head.
‘And how long has he being seeing this person?’
‘Udo says it’s been going on for a while now. She also worked in Damascus.’
‘The public service,’ Isa grimly shakes her head, ‘is run by deviants and schoolboys.’ She picks up her cutlery. ‘So we stay as long as he stays.’
‘Unless everything resolves beforehand.’
‘But this won’t happen. It’s never going back to what it was. It’s not going to happen. I don’t think it’s anywhere near started yet.’
Henning pauses as if thinking, he looks at Rike, places his fork at the side of his plate and rises from the table without fuss.
‘Udo is ugly.’ Isa nods at her plate. ‘I mean, how long has he been snooping on Rudi? It’s not right. He’s like one of those blackmailers. Like in the movies. Ugly inside and out.’
Henning, out of the room now, disagrees.
‘I don’t think he was snooping.’
‘He’s spreading rumours.’
‘Udo’s job is to make sure we’re fit for purpose.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘That we can work. That we do nothing foolish.’
Rike watches Henning in the hall, he unzips his bag, opens the top and unfolds his clothes, searching.
‘Of course. But to pry.’ Isa looks square at her sister. ‘Don’t you think it’s sneaky? Maybe it’s not? Maybe it’s just me?’
Henning returns to the table with a package in his hand which he offers to Isa. ‘I was back at the apartment.’
Isa looks up, mouth slightly open, enough to show her surprise. ‘You went back?’
‘I made sure everything is safe.’
Isa looks down at her hands, then opens the package, carefully unfolding the paper.
‘I didn’t know what to bring. I didn’t have much time. I made sure that everything was put away, that the shutters were closed. I asked Etta to keep an eye on everything.’
‘They’re still there?’
‘They’re still there, and everything is all right. He’s keeping an eye open. Everything is OK.’
Isa sets the package on the table. A framed photograph of Isa and Rike’s grandparents, separate portraits in the same frame. Isa wipes her eyes, and softly touches the frame. She reaches for Henning’s hand and holds it, silent for the moment.
‘I brought a suitcase also. There were clothes in the basket which you wanted to bring. I didn’t have much time to look for anything else. I just checked the apartment and made sure that everything was OK.’
It surprises Rike that Henning is so hesitant. Worried perhaps that this subject should be completely avoided, and concerned that he has returned with the wrong things. Isa, apologizing, sets the photograph face down on the table and leaves for her room. ‘It’s too much,’ she says, a quick gasp for breath. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just too much right now.’
* * *
With Isa and Henning in bed Rike finds herself confined to her room. It isn’t that she has to stay in the room, but their goodnight was an agreement that the day was over, and while she had felt tired, she isn’t sure that she can sleep now.
Rike lies on top of her bed, fully clothed. A window runs alongside the bed, starting at her knees and ending at her chest. She can’t see why the bed is placed here, right beside the window so that lying down, if she keeps the blind up, anyone in the garden can see her. All she can see is the white wall that makes up one of the sides of the garden, and the edge of a fig tree with its big, deep green, hand-like leaves.
The doors and windows are open to draw in the evening breeze, but the air in the room is still. The rooms are too broad and too empty. She decides to set Tomas assignments. Museums, outings, cultural events organized by the school, she will ask him to eat with her. They will go to the café where she will encourage him to speak, to interact, to open his world a little more every day.
She watches part of a movie on her computer and picks up twenty minutes into the film. She lies on her side, earplugs in, but can’t settle, just isn’t tired. There are no emails, nothing to reply to, no messages to send, so when she opens the browser she types in Damascus and checks the news-streams.
There’s nothing here either, nothing more than conjecture.
She types in Sutler and again finds a long list of sites, some reports from papers, Grenoble, an entry in Wikipedia, his name connected on every hit with a business, HOSCO, now failing because of the contested sum the man has embezzled from them: thirty, fifty, sixty million. Speculation on Parson now focuses, implausibly, on the Mafia, and how, in pursuing Sutler, Parson had exposed himself to dangerous elements. While there is no mention of Sutler Number Three, ideas about Sutler Number Two are rife. The man, positively identified in Grenoble, is connected to crime syndicates in Marseilles. In a separate strand, a car delivery service in Westphalia is accused of providing cover for him. Each strand, hydra-like, generates new heads. With that much money what would you do? It’s no surprise that Henning, the British, and the Americans are interested in him.
* * *
She takes a shower before bed. She binds her hair and pins it back, and watches her reflection in the hallway mirror — and notices a message on her phone. The message is from her brother. Leaving a new local number he asks her to call as soon as possible.
She calls Mattaus and is surprised when he picks up. Her brother keeps the conversation smooth, away from trouble. She catches up with his news. He’s told her all of this, hasn’t he? Surely? When did they last speak?
Rike asks after Franco. She’s sorry, she says, to hear of his breakup.
Mattaus dismisses the comment. It’s history. Ancient.
‘And who is the new man?’
She doesn’t like her brother’s voice. Sour and lazy, deception nests in his slow and calculated intonation. He sounds younger than he is, and smarter. It’s hard to see how men like him, unfathomable. The kind of men they are, journalists, architects, doctors, teachers, all of them affable, clever, handsome. A type. They trust him. They adore him. They even find him funny. And his treatment of them leaves them startled and wounded. Mattaus’s sexual history is a field of debris from which he alone walks free.
Rike checks herself in the mirror. She taps the glass with her fingernail. She is nearly thirty, it will be her birthday in under a month.
‘When are you arriving?’ she asks, making sure there is no measure of welcome in her voice.
‘We’re already here,’ he answers, smug and precise.
Her brother is here already, ready to interfere in any plans she has with Isa, ready to take over — because this is what he does.