‘Well, well done.’
Rike gives her sister a small angry glance.
‘And did he talk?’
‘Just about the room.’
‘He didn’t start talking about himself?’
‘A little. He told me he was assaulted. He was in hospital. He was attacked.’
Isa nods as if this is not uncommon.
‘Now he’s talking about it, he probably won’t shut up.’
‘You think?’
‘That tends to be the case. Uncork something like that and you won’t be able to shift the discussion to anything else.’
‘Oh, god.’
This is perfect, exactly what she wants, a daily rehashing of today’s discussion. An endless speculative loop of loss. ‘Thanks,’ Rike says flatly.
‘What for?’
‘For getting me this job. Thanks. Thanks a whole lot.’
‘So this is the cause of his stress? You’re going to have to take him.’
‘Oh god. Isa.’
‘I’m serious. Ride it out of him. Distract him. Men can only think of one thing at a time.’
‘I’m his teacher.’
‘Oh, like this has never happened. You’re both adults. Give him back his money if it troubles you.’
‘It’s not going to happen.’
‘You haven’t said you don’t want it to happen. The idea doesn’t horrify you.’
‘It’s always the same with you. Why is everything about sex.’
‘Because everything is about sex. But I’m right aren’t I? Would you?’
‘Would I what?’
‘I’m being serious. Would you? You like him? You must like him, and he must like you if he’s telling you all this information.’ Isa whispers conspiratorially. ‘He’s confiding in you. He trusts you.’
Rike rolls her eyes.
‘I’m serious, if he’s telling you about his deep emotional scars then he trusts you. Just don’t do what you usually do and turn him into a friend.’ Isa won’t drop the subject. ‘Is he handsome?’
‘No. You already asked.’
‘But you like him?’
Rike points out the sea. She parks the vehicle and they walk in silence across the sand. Rike lays the towels side by side and wonders if Isa will be able to sit down and get back up.
‘Is he muscular?’
‘Who?’
‘Your Norwegian. They’re outdoorsy, those Nords. I bet he’s muscular.’
‘He keeps himself fit.’
‘Fit? Sounds old.’
‘Not so much. But he keeps himself in shape.’
‘So, you’ve been checking him out. Eyeing him up between his conjugations? I like them muscular, not too much. Henning could use some muscles.’
‘You’re complaining already?’
‘I’m just stating a fact. Henning is in need of some muscle.’ Isa kneels on the towel. ‘So if Henning and your Norwegian were in a fight who do you think would win?’
‘Tomas.’
‘He has a name!’ Isa clasps her hands heavenward. ‘Is he smooth or hairy?’
‘I don’t know, I think smooth?’ Rike takes the question semiseriously. ‘He has a little hair on his arms. But I think he’s smooth.’
‘Take the opportunity, Rike, I’m serious. Just don’t screw it up.’
Isa settles onto her elbows and looks out at the bay, middle distance, with a wince at some subterranean movement, the child unsettled inside her. Sometimes Rike finds her sister unbearable.
* * *
Rike checks her computer for messages. She checks for messages from her brother.
Isa asks if Rike has spoken with Mattaus yet.
‘I’m trying to find out what his plans are. Is Franco still in the apartment?’
‘I think that’s what he said. He — obviously — wasn’t saying much. It isn’t as black and white as you think.’
‘Good.’ Rike resists the urge to defend Franco.
‘Listen.’ Isa’s voice remains flat, rational. It is the voice she uses when she needs to explain something that might, in any other circumstances, be unreasonable. ‘About Mattaus. Has he said anything about the man he’s seeing? What has he told you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘The man he’s seeing has paid for a house somewhere, he’s rented a villa, but I don’t think he’s staying there. The villa is in Larnaca, but I think he works in Limassol.’
Rike doesn’t understand. ‘The apartment is shared with Franco and Mattaus. They both bought it?’
‘I’m talking about where he is now. He’s living in a villa.’
‘Where?’ Rike settles in the seat, turns to see her sister. ‘He’s here on holiday, no?’
Neither of them know where Mattaus is exactly.
‘Look.’ Isa is hesitant. ‘There’s no good way to say this. But why is he living in a villa that another man is paying for? I mean. What does that make him?’
Isa pauses again, she has warmed a plate of pastries and the air tastes of hot butter.
‘Who pays for somewhere they don’t live?’
‘What are you thinking?’
Isa is uncharacteristically slow in coming to the point.
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I think Mattaus’ new boyfriend must be married.’
Rike laughs. The idea that her brother is seeing a married man is neither shocking nor a surprise. ‘It’s possible, but Mattaus would have said.’
‘Would he?’
‘Of course. It’s another man on his team. We would know. You’d have it on a T-shirt already.’
‘What if he didn’t know? Or what if he was lying to us?’
‘But why would he lie?’
‘That’s what Henning says, but usually he tells us everything, every last detail. We only have what Mattaus says. There’s nothing else to go on, no other information.’
Rike laughs at the absurdity. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so worried?’
‘Because it’s strange. Even for Mattaus. And it’s strange that he would lie to us or keep something hidden and that’s what I think he’s doing.’
Rike shuts the computer and says that there’s no reason to doubt him. ‘All you ever have is what someone tells you. That’s normal. That’s what we do.’
‘But I think he’s lying.’
For Rike the problem isn’t why her brother would lie to them, but why he would share with them the details of his life. Unlike Isa she isn’t so certain that they are the kind of family who share confidences.
6.4
Rike wakes in the early pre-dawn to a heavy rainfall, her mind too active to return to sleep. It’s a clean awakening, right out of sleep, and if this hadn’t happened most nights since her arrival she’d think that there was a reason for this, some disturbance, some problem, something to fret over.
She checks her emails and finds a message marked MFP with a link to a website. It doesn’t make sense that work like this would be happening in Cyprus, and not New York or Berlin, although some of their events, when she checks them online, have occurred in similarly offbeat places: an airport lounge at Kuala Lumpur, a lakeside beach on Fraser Island, a castle courtyard in northern Italy.
Three videos are already online. One at Kolossi, right by the castle, no more than five kilometres away. The man wears a mask, not a mask so much as part of a costume, a fake panda head, round and black and white, with crosses for eyes as if it might be blinking, or maybe even dead. The man is wearing shorts, slightly baggy and blue, with a white cord. Shirtless, his body seems American to her: thick, broad-shouldered, a man who works out perhaps, or works out but doesn’t particularly watch his weight. In this first video, the man picks up a stone from one side of the path, in front of the entrance to the castle, carries it to the other side of the path then stands back, in position, right in the centre of the path and faces the camera.