THE THIRD LESSON

 

4.1

The door to Tomas’s apartment stands open in anticipation. Rike has had to hurry, and she makes it to the top of the stairs a little breathless. Tomas sits ready, his notebook open on his lap and a dictionary at his feet. He leans over the notebook and reads with a singular focus. Rike pauses at the door before knocking. It was wrong, she concedes, to call him unhandsome, or to say that he is not handsome. His face is masculine, angular, his mouth, full and slightly pronounced (in profile), has the same effect on her as his hands – a slight out-of-kilter difference in scale, so small in this instance it could easily be imagined.

She knows nothing about him, and realizes that Tomas has offered her no real information. In fact he’s shown little interest in speaking with her about his life, in sharing details, or in impressing her. His one interest is in learning English, a language he already commands.

Rike knocks on the door, steps in, says hello. She takes the seat offered. Once again they chat in German before the session starts.

‘You should have stayed yesterday. Downstairs, in the basement. You should have come. It was very strange.’ The landlord, the janitor, a supervisor, perhaps even someone who has rented the basement, uses the space to store Christmas decorations.

Rike smiles and allows the conversation to settle her.

‘There were reindeer and…’ Tomas clicks his fingers because he can’t remember, then does a dance, something like a dance, he turns about, waddles with his arms at his side. ‘Penguins?’ He pulls a face. ‘Do they have an ass?’

Rike isn’t sure what he’s asking. ‘An S? Penguins. Plural? I think so. Yes.’

It’s endearing to see his enthusiasm. The first real evidence of warmth. Again Tomas offers Rike a drink. He has sparkling water this time, cold, if she would like. He brings the bottle and two glasses to the room.

‘There are figures which move – you can see they have moving parts. You should take a look before you go today. I don’t think anyone would mind.’ Tomas smooths his hand over the notebook, flattening it. He gives an exaggerated frown. ‘Did you see the police?’

‘See?’

‘The police?’

‘No. I just arrived.’

‘They were here just a little before you. The Kozmatikos boy is missing again. The mother is very upset. She was shouting. You didn’t hear her? It was very bad.’

‘She must be worried. How long has he been missing?’

‘Since this morning.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘Why he runs away? I think it’s something boys do at a certain age.’

Rike smiles and shucks off her shoulder-bag and pointing at the bottle says that she would like a glass of water, please.

‘The news today from Syria is very bad. The government have destroyed two villages in the mountains above Damascus. Two journalists were wounded. They were housing the rebels so they just—’ He makes a magician-like gesture that might mean something exploding or something disappearing.

Today she does not need to steer, and Tomas begins to speak in English without being asked.

‘First, this morning, I took a walk. There are businesses on the side of the building. A café. The supervisor lives in an apartment opposite the speech therapist and the doctor. This morning she was arguing with the people outside as they were unloading a van. She is a midget.’

‘He,’ Rike makes the corrections, ‘is a dwarf,’ although this sounds wrong. The supervisor was short, she saw him herself. Calling him a dwarf is a little harsh. She reminds Tomas that today she would like him to speak in the simple past tense. She encourages him to stop reading from his notes. ‘Try without them.’ She gestures toward the book. ‘Your notes are holding you back.’

Tomas disagrees. ‘She? The supervisor is a woman.’

‘But yesterday, we met the supervisor?’

‘That was the agent.’ Tomas continues. ‘Christos is a nice man. But he is also a difficult man. This morning there is an argument between Christos and the judge’s driver. The man in the street who waits – with his car. The judge’s driver.’ Tomas pauses to make sure that Rike has understood him.

‘The argument was very quick, and very aggressive. Christos comes, came, as usual to the café. He was there five minutes and the driver arrives. He’s never spoken to his man before and the driver speaks to him, he says, “Good morning,” and asks for a coffee, and sits at the same table. Christos has no idea what to say. He sees the man every day but has no idea what to say to him. When the coffee arrives, the driver drinks his quickly, then he says to Christos, “It always tastes better away from home.”’

Rike asks Tomas to repeat the sentence to make sure she understands him.

Tomas speaks in German. ‘It always tastes better away from home. This is what he said. Unusual, no? A little strange. Christos thinks the man is somehow mocking him. He is telling him, he thinks, that he is with his wife.’ And again in German, ‘Christos believes the driver is having an affair with his wife.’

‘Why would anyone think this?’ Rike can’t follow the logic. ‘And after?’

‘And after, Christos returns home and accuses his wife of having an affair. Which she denies, and naturally he doesn’t believe her.’ Tomas settles back. ‘I can tell you the driver isn’t having an affair because I’ve seen him with a young woman who comes to his car. Sometimes they drive away together. I think Christos has the wrong idea. He sees only what he wants to see.’

Rike moves the session along with a simple instruction. ‘Today, like yesterday, we will ask and answer questions. I want lots of questions.’

Tomas nods and says that he will start. ‘Have you heard from your brother-in-law?’

‘He calls every morning.’

‘From Syria?’

‘Yes, from Syria.’

‘And he is safe?’

‘He is staying at a hotel. I think the hotel is very safe.’

‘And the man he is looking after?’

‘I think he is safe also. Now.’

‘Is he very ill?’

‘Yes, he is seriously ill.’

‘And they don’t know who he is?’

‘They have an idea, which makes his recovery important.’

‘Who do they think he is?’

‘They think he is a contractor from Iraq. A man called Stephen Sutler.’

Tomas admits he’s heard the name. He looks puzzled. ‘There was news recently, I think?’

Rike nods and admits it’s confusing. ‘There are Sutlers everywhere. Henning doesn’t see how it’s possible.’ She explains to Tomas how the man is supposed to have walked across the desert, from Iraq to Syria, and how he’s responsible for millions in lost money, for absconding with reconstruction funds. The internet sings with ideas. There are fan sites, and sites which condemn him. Others see him as part of a global anti-capitalist struggle. While everyone argues over his identity, none, yet, know that he will shortly be brought to Cyprus.

Rike stops herself. ‘I didn’t say that. I’m not supposed to know.’

Tomas says it doesn’t matter. He won’t mention it to anyone. There isn’t anyone he could tell. ‘So I think the information is technically still a secret.’

Rike has embarrassed herself.

Tomas assures her. ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’ Information like this will pass around quickly. Too many people are involved. She shouldn’t worry.

‘Henning is sceptical. One man can’t be responsible for such a thing.’ Once you know the name, she says, you’ll find it everywhere. Henning met the man who was killed by a train in Rome. He met him in Istanbul. So Henning is involved in all of this, tangentially of course.

Tomas isn’t to say a word. He must promise. Not one word.

*   *   *

Once the lesson is complete Rike again has the feeling that Tomas would like her to leave as quickly as possible.

His vocabulary, she says, is exemplary. Today he has managed to switch between tenses and had no difficulty expressing complex and conditional ideas. In three sessions he has become infinitely more confident. In fact – if she’s honest – she’s not entirely sure why he needs these lessons.

Tomas smiles at the question and says that he’s mostly interested in conversation.

Rike, uncertain that he has completely understood her, states carefully, ‘It would help if you could tell me what you want from these sessions. Rosaria said that you asked for me directly?’

Tomas shakes his head. ‘No. I asked for a new teacher. I think she misunderstood me.’ He opens his hands, a little apologetic. ‘My problem isn’t vocabulary, but practice. Conversation.’

And there it is, a simple misunderstanding. The answer is disappointing. Rike sits a little forward and asks if she can look at his notebook. She senses Tomas’s reluctance, but he hands over the small notebook. She finds the pages he was referring to, the notes on his neighbours are almost word for word what he has told her. The discussion is anticipated, studied, rehearsed. Aware that she is being watched she tries not to react and becomes unconfident about her expression. Her face is a little flushed. ‘See. What you are doing is good, but I’m not sure what you want from me exactly?’

‘I want you to correct what I’m saying.’

Rike holds the pages open.

‘You’re managing this by yourself. Is there something specific you want me to help with?’

‘I need to practise speaking.’

She closes the book and hands it back. Still unclear. ‘But you speak very well. Very little of what you say needs to be corrected. What you need is practice with a variety of people so you can gain confidence, pick up small details, colloquialisms.’ Rike points to the balcony. ‘Everything you’re asking for you’d get from an advanced class, from being around native speakers. I’m very happy with the sessions,’ she says, ‘I only want to be sure that you are as well.’

Tomas shakes his head and becomes silent.

Rike apologizes, she can’t read his response, not sure what the issue is she picks up her bag and says that she should go, and maybe he should think about what he wants.

Tomas walks with her to the door. ‘Unless I have something specific to do, something I can’t avoid, I don’t go out,’ he says.

His expression, flat, matter of fact, surprises her, and she realizes that this is the crux of the matter.

‘You don’t go out?’

‘Unless there is something specific I have to do.’

Can’t or don’t – there are different intentions behind these words. She wants to know how he manages the café, how he speaks with Christos?

‘I don’t like to go out.’ Tomas closes his eyes for a moment.

Rike suddenly understands that what she had taken for a holiday isn’t a holiday at all, but some kind of recuperation. Now embarrassed, she bows her head and apologizes. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t need to explain anything.’

Tomas opens his hands. The gesture is genuine, intimate. ‘I have to decide the kind of work I want to do. I have to decide if I should continue or if I should change. And if I decide to change then I need to think about what that change might be.’ Tomas folds his arms, his face up and expression open. ‘I know that what I’m doing right now doesn’t work. But I don’t know anything else.’ The man straightens up. ‘Most of what I do, I do because I have to. Not because I choose to. And if you do that for long enough then you get to an age where you think there isn’t anything else you can do. I have to give this a lot of thought. I’m thinking seriously that this is the right time to make a change.’

‘How can you decide if you can’t go out?’

‘It isn’t that I can’t go out. I choose not to. I need a reason. Something to do.’

‘If I set you an assignment, to go to a museum for example?’

‘Then I would go.’ If this is what she wants, Tomas agrees, he’ll do this. ‘I had another story for you today. I meant to tell you about what happened here. They had something happen here a couple of years ago. An incident which involves the basement.’

They agree to take this up later. Rike wants to go, and is happy to leave now the subject has changed. This is an easier place to stop.

4.2

Rike walks back to the apartment with two things on her mind: cats and Tomas Berens. Cats because she has to walk along the small street beside the hotel development, and Tomas because she wants to challenge him, or help him, but has no idea for the moment how she might achieve this. The sun is pleasantly warm. She walks through the narrow street, a little ashamed of her clumsiness during the session. Tomas, in his way, has let her know that he is managing some kind of problem – who knows what – and she’s trying hard not to think of him as someone damaged or vulnerable.

Rike checks the road to make sure there are no dead cats, and finds, happily, no cat, but a new bag of cat food. Again, the bag is slit open. She picks it up, thinking this is another plan to lure cats out into the open, and comes into the apartment through the back entrance, and notices a smell, which could, just might be, jasmine.

Isa stands at the kitchen counter. Legs braced slightly apart. In front of her a spread of oranges. Rike’s job is to keep her busy until Henning returns. And for god’s sake keep her away from the television. Don’t let her watch the news.

‘The fruit. It’s exceptional here.’ Isa rolls an orange across the counter to Rike. ‘Seriously, you should try one. I’ve already had three. They go right through me.’ She quickly shifts topic. ‘You noticed how no one speaks about the other Sutler? Number two? The middle man?’

Rike says she hasn’t thought about it much. ‘When is he back?’

Out of habit Isa looks at the clock although this question involves days not hours. ‘Henning? The day after tomorrow. He thinks. Once everything is ready.’

‘So he isn’t here? The man from the hospital?’

‘Mr Crispy?’ Isa shrugs. ‘Not yet. Henning said that he was stable, and everything’s ready. As long as he can survive the flight, they can bring him over.’ Isa brushes back her hair, a thought catching as something remembered. ‘You know not to say anything.’

‘Who would I speak to?’ Rike shakes her head as she peels the orange.

Isa describes how the man is kept cool, how he has to be spritzed with water and kept in a sterile environment. Seriously disgusting. Chunks of him are flaking off. ‘Mr Hamburger.’ She takes an orange segment even before it is fully peeled, then reaches behind her for a stool, for somewhere to sit. ‘No one’s managed to speak with him yet. No lips – I’m joking. I don’t know that. But the hospital have kept him sedated and he does need to have all of these operations now. They keep him in a tent in a room, no one sees him but doctors and nurses. She tuts playfully. ‘Henning is hopeful that no one knows about Cyprus. Once he’s here the situation will be contained.’ Isa deepens her voice at the last phrase. ‘Absurd. Anyway. That’s what he said. Something like that? Sometimes I can’t believe people actually talk like this. Can you imagine a room full of these people? How pompous they are. It isn’t the real world. They have no knowledge of it. No understanding. They still believe in spies and Russia. Everything is back like it was in the seventies. Iron curtain. Walls. Poison pellets, suits and guns. The good old days.’

‘And Henning.’

‘He’s loving it.’ Isa bites through half a segment, catches the juice before it runs to her chin. ‘He’s in his element. Don’t they taste amazing?’ They look to each other in agreement. ‘You know what they’ve called this whole operation?’

Rike shakes her head.

‘Guess.’

Rike takes the last piece. Her sister’s eyes follow her hand to her mouth.

‘Go on. Guess.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But guess. You’ll never guess.’

Again, Rike shakes her head.

‘Operation Lazarus. Lazarus. Honestly. Lazarus. Someone gets paid to come up with these ideas.’

They walk into the garden, and it strikes Rike that the space seems more intimate in the softer afternoon light than at any other time: a small walled arbour with orange trees, branches heavy with fruit. A deep mottled shade just broad enough for the two of them. A dry heat hits her shoulders as soon as she steps onto the patio.

‘Do me a favour and pick some more.’ Isa points at the branches. ‘They fruit so much they break their own branches. You wouldn’t think anything would do that, would you?’

Rike agrees, it does seem strange. She walks behind the fig tree, careful where she’s treading to avoid the cats or any cat mess. Except there are none. Not one cat. ‘There’s something about the sun here,’ she says. ‘It just doesn’t feel Mediterranean.’

She reaches into tree, holds the branch as she plucks the fruit, and aims to keep her voice uninflected as she asks her sister if she has seen any of the cats.

Isa holds one hand to her forehead, the other on her hip. ‘You know what? I haven’t. There’s food here as well. Do you think something’s happened?’

They look to each other, disturbed by the possibility.

‘I’ll go look.’

‘No.’ Isa waves her hand. ‘You know what? Don’t. It’s better not to know. If we think about this too much it will become something upsetting.’ And then, decisive, ‘Let’s go out instead.’

Rike tucks three oranges into the cleft of her arm. She can smell the cats, cat urine and rotting lemons, and makes her way cautiously back to the path.

4.3

Within the hour Rike sits with her sister in the quadrangle in front of the Palestinian café. In the square behind them students begin to gather. Isa doesn’t quite understand why Rike has become so agitated. Rike doesn’t quite understand herself. The conversation with Tomas has changed in her mind, and mulling through the bare facts the causal tone of the conversation has become lost to the single idea that Tomas is learning English because he doesn’t know what he wants. The man, in a word, is lost.

‘So he tells you stories about his neighbours? If you ask me it sounds boring.’

Rike shakes her head and sinks forward. That isn’t it. Not quite. ‘He does everything I ask, and that’s the problem. Everything is practised. Everything he says. He keeps a notebook and he writes everything down, word for word.’

Isa shrugs. ‘Surely that’s what you want a student to do?’

‘But everything. He writes out the conversations. The sessions are one long monologue.’

‘And you correct him?’

‘There’s nothing to correct. Tiny, tiny, small things, maybe. But he writes himself a script.’ She shakes her head. ‘I asked him why he’s taking the lessons, and what he wants from them, from me. I told him that everything he needs he could find in an advanced class with other students. But he said that he doesn’t like to go out.’

‘He doesn’t like going out?’ Confused, Isa shakes her head. ‘I don’t follow. He’s uncomfortable going out? Or he doesn’t like speaking English in front of other people?’

‘He said he doesn’t go out – he avoids going out. He gets his food downstairs at the café. Otherwise he stays in, he watches people from his balcony early in the morning, then works on what he wants to say until the lesson.’

‘I don’t get it. What’s he doing in Cyprus?’

Rike shifts uneasily in her seat. ‘He works for the UN.’

‘But where? What does he do?’

Rike shrugs. ‘That’s the other thing. I don’t think this is a holiday exactly. He’s learning a language because he’s taking time off work.’

‘But what’s he doing here? And what’s the problem?’

Rike looks to Isa with an expression meaning take this seriously.

‘So, why is he taking time off work?’

‘Stress.’

‘Stress?’

‘Stress. I think it’s stress.’

‘He’s suffering from stress?’ Isa pulls a face and turns away, actively uninterested.

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with it. People have trouble with work all the time. But stress? It’s a little unimaginative. Why would you learn a language if you’re stressed? If you’re stressed you take a holiday, you get away from everything.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t have a choice?’

‘It still doesn’t make sense.’

‘Maybe,’ Rike breathes in to summon patience, ‘he doesn’t know how to relax? Maybe that’s why he’s so stressed?’

‘Seriously? Rike, everybody knows how to relax. Men especially.’

Rike gives a small groan of frustration.

Isa looks hard at her sister. ‘I’m just asking questions. Is he comfortable when he’s talking with you?’

‘Why?’

‘I’m just asking. I’m making conversation.’

‘He can be funny. He notices things. He has a good eye. He’s sympathetic. He isn’t like most men, he doesn’t have an instant opinion on everything.’

‘So he isn’t shy?’

‘Not especially, after three lessons he seems very confident. And he talks with his neighbours.’

Isa nods. ‘But he’s been here for a month already so maybe he feels they are familiar.’

‘Are you going to tell me he’s crazy and that I shouldn’t be alone with him?’

‘No. I don’t understand really why he’s here? You said he works for the UN?’

Now Rike has doubts. ‘He said he isn’t sure he wants to do this kind of work now.’

‘Maybe it isn’t stress per se, maybe it’s anxiety, and maybe he wants to work on this. People tend to develop coping mechanisms for anxiety. With stress people shut down. Perhaps this is why he’s having lessons, so that for at least part of the day he’s forced to socialize.’ Isa looks out across the road, caught on a thought.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re frowning. Why?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘But nothing about what?’

‘Seriously, nothing. I’m just wondering how you got him to talk so much?’

‘It’s a language lesson. You talk.’

‘But yesterday I asked about the lesson and how he was and you knew nothing. Today you know everything. Why is he talking so much about this? In one day?’

‘I asked him why he was learning English and it all came out.’ Rike is suddenly upset. Frustrated, she leans forward and covers her face. She shakes her head, a little surprised at her reaction. ‘I don’t know why it’s so complicated. I don’t understand why anyone would learn a language they are already fluent in, and I don’t understand why they would stay only in one room. And I feel stupid because I should know what to do.’ Rike wipes her eyes and sits back in her chair. ‘That’s it,’ she says, sweeping her hands out. ‘I will never make a good teacher.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re upset. It sounds like you’re helping him. It’s not going to help if you’re getting upset.’

‘Because it shouldn’t be so difficult. It should be easy. And straight-forward. And simple.’

‘But you’re the best person he could be working with.’ Isa says this as an inarguable fact. ‘I’m serious. He needs to talk with someone he can trust. You did a good thing challenging him today. Now he has to consider the next step. Isn’t this more interesting than a boring language lesson? Anyway.’ Isa pushes forward her glass. ‘You can probably really help him. You know what’s good for anxiety? Sex.’

Isa laughs and Rike laughs with her.

‘I gave him an assignment. He said he would go out if I gave him a reason.’

‘I’m serious. Tell him you’re going to teach him something French. You both need it. See. You can help each other.’

Rike draws her hands in a line and closes the subject. She asks Isa if she is going to eat.

‘I was sick this morning. Twice. I told you this? Then yoghurt, then I ate those oranges. So now I have an acid stomach.’

In front of the café runs a low and cropped hibiscus bush behind which a photographer poses a young couple. The woman straddles a parked motorbike, the man stands beside her with an idiot grin, like a man who can’t believe his luck. The photographer arranges the woman’s hair over her shoulder. The pictures are for an album that will show how and where the couple met, a picture book of recreated memories.

Isa scowls at the couple. ‘She’s so out of his league. Look at that hair.’

*   *   *

They return to the apartment by taxi. Isa sober, Rike a little woozy on beer. Rike drops her purse getting out of the cab, then her keys in the lobby and laughs as she tries to pick them up.

‘Are you expecting a delivery or something?’

Isa says no and asks her to hurry.

‘There’s something in the hallway.’ Rike finds the key and manages to open the door with Isa giggling beside her telling her to hurry. ‘It’s Henning.’

Isa rushes through as soon as the door is open. ‘Henning? Henning!’ She hurries to the front room in quick short steps. ‘Oh, oh, oh. Rike, go see where he is.’ Then slips into the bathroom without closing the door.

Rike comes slowly into the apartment, feeling happy – because she likes Henning, and because her sister has missed her husband so much – but also a little excluded, because this is not her reunion, and her time with her sister is now effectively over.

‘Where is he?’ Isa calls from the bathroom. ‘Henning?’

Rike walks through the apartment but can’t find him. His bags are in the hallway, but the man is not in the apartment. And now, confusingly, she feels disappointed at having to explain this to Isa. On the table, in a large vase, stands a bouquet of roses. Small pink heads. The colour and the quantity are extravagant. The pink buzzes against the white walls.

The situation resolves quickly. As Isa comes out of the bathroom, adjusting her clothes, Henning comes to the front door, a shopping bag in one hand, hooked on one finger. Isa is upon him before he can close the door. Arms up then locked about his neck.

Henning stoops to receive his wife’s embrace. They rock together, eyes, at first, closed. And then, because this is looking to become drawn out, he opens his eyes, sees Rike and offers her the shopping bag – the same finger that is holding the bag wiggles to call her forward. As Rike takes the bag Henning gives her a smile, a wink, then wraps both arms about his wife.

Rike doesn’t know what to do with herself. It’s awkward, the two of them in the hallway holding tight, so she walks into the garden and startles the black cat. While she dearly loves her brother-in-law, his return, unannounced, points out that she has no one who will return to her.

If Henning is here, then so is the man from the desert. Mr Crispy. Sutler Number Three.

The cat scampers then freezes at the wall, mid-stride, ready to disappear. Rike holds herself still, and the woman and cat eye each other, the cat won’t look her in the eyes, and then suddenly, after a moment shoots up the wall, its tail flicks as it disappears.

4.4

Gibson waits in the lobby of Laura’s hotel on via Miano, opposite the Parco di Capodimonte. The walk has left him hot, and he is sweating through his shirt. While it is a bright day, the sun holds little heat.

Instead of Laura another woman comes down the stairs, and explains, with an apology, that Laura is sleeping. She introduces herself as Sarah. ‘I know everything,’ she says. ‘I can answer any questions you might have.’ Gibson doesn’t catch if she is a friend or someone from the family. She asks if Gibson would prefer to walk or find somewhere else to go. Gibson looks about the lobby. He has no idea where they should go. Hasn’t considered the mechanics of the day in any way.

Sarah walks ahead to the door, then pauses. The papers Gibson asked for, she’s left them in the room.

‘The day he left,’ she explains, ‘Laura moved hotels. They agreed to stay near the park.’ She points to the city to their right. ‘There’s an observatory. He liked the view. You can see the Albergo di Poveri, the Duomo, Vesuvius. Capri, I think. When she arrived he brought her here. Made the taxi drive by and wait.’ Sarah steers Gibson across the road. ‘The park,’ she says.

They walk through the gates, kept lawns lousy with dogs spill out from the museum. ‘It’s probably easier if I describe everything. I think that’s easier. If I show you his papers you’ll think less of him. You’ll find out anyway. You’ll need to consider what you want do with this. With what I’m going to tell you.’ They come to an avenue, trees on either side with mast-like trunks. They agree it’s surprising in such a crowded city to have such a vast and private park.

‘It was all invented. Almost all. Most of what he told you. He was never close to finding Sutler. Not in Turkey, and not in Malta. The truth is he didn’t want to return to Iraq. So when Sutler came up it was his opportunity to leave. I don’t think he knew that at the time. The longer he spent chasing Sutler the less he wanted to return to Iraq. He just wanted to come home. That’s all he wanted.’ She pauses, waits for a troupe of motley dogs to pass in front of them. Abandoned by their owners, these dogs become wild, she says. They run about the park and nobody stops them.

‘At some point he realized that no one was interested in finding Sutler. Not really. They wanted Sutler to disappear, especially HOSCO. They wanted the whole thing to die down. So he started booking hotels under Paul Geezler’s name, as if he was Sutler, as if he had a point to make. I think that’s all it was. Making enough noise to keep up interest, to keep the story alive, and as long as the story was alive he wouldn’t have to return to Iraq.’

Their pace slows to a standstill halfway down the avenue. At one end a gate, at the other a stone statue of Hercules: the paved road runs straight in a soft descent.

‘He knew it wouldn’t last. When he heard Sutler was in Malta he followed him there. Then he invented a route from Sicily across the southern mainland. After Laura’s surgery she joined him as soon as she was able. She didn’t have much to do with it, she would have, but he spent all of his time creating a false trail. He said you have to invent the whole story, but only give out small pieces to make it credible. I think he enjoyed this. He had Sutler stay in Puglia for a while, so he hired a car, drove down, worked everything out – where he’d stay, what he might do from day to day. I think he sometimes pretended to be him – to leave evidence.’

Through a break in the trees Gibson can see another avenue, and beyond that an open field. Sarah clears her throat. She asks if Gibson has followed her so far. ‘In the last three weeks there have been changes. Laura wanted him to return to England with her. He thought someone was following him. He was convinced. He thought it was Paul Geezler, or that he was somehow behind it. Laura didn’t believe him. But there was an occasion when they went to the museum and they both felt that they were being followed. There’s one exhibit for which you need a separate ticket. They bought tickets but didn’t go inside. You could see people going in from the stairwell. So they waited. There was one man. He went into the exhibition but came out, so it was obvious that he wasn’t interested. The thing is, Laura is certain that she’s seen him before. There’s a café on via Toledo close by the hotel. I don’t know the name.’

Gibson asks if she can describe the man.

‘Laura took a photograph. I have it on my phone if you want it. I sent it to the police, I can send it to you.’

*   *   *

When they return to the hotel, Gibson accompanies Sarah to the room. She asks him to wait and holds the door as she enters so that he can’t see inside the room. He hears voices, a small conversation, and when Sarah returns she slips out, and offers Gibson a selection of papers. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘Here you go. Laura will email you the photo.’ She closes the door and walks down the corridor with him to the lift. The carpet absorbs their footfalls. Sarah sees Gibson to the lobby. ‘She doesn’t want to see you again. I can’t imagine any situation in which you would need to be in contact.’

Gibson can’t think of a response. Instead he nods, as if this is deserved.

The walk back to the centre is downhill and he walks with the sun in his face. By the time he reaches the historic centre his back and knees ache and he is ready to sit down. This information, Parson’s deception, his suspicions about Geezler, Laura’s instruction to stay away, are too large to take in. He stops at a café on via Mezzocannone but finds nowhere to sit, the small room overtaken by students from the Orientale. Out of sorts he leans against the counter, surrounded by the buzz of Italian. It was a job, a simple job. If Parson disliked Iraq so much why wasn’t this discussed? He knows the answer even as he asks the question. He would have fired him, or otherwise obliged him, because no one else would do the work.

4.5

Henning prepares to cook steaks out on the patio. A master with the grill he sets the fire, heaps the charcoal and waits for it to burn red and the flames to die down. He walks about the living room a little lost himself, the tongs in his hand, and clicks them together in time to the music he’s playing – soft American rock. All of this time together Rike and Isa have not played any music, and the apartment feels different. Not only because of Henning and because there is something undeniably Henning about his presence, but because he has brought with him dominant habits which make noise, break concentration, demand attention. Henning is a pacer, a cogitator. He’ll circle the living room, absorbed, for any length of time, appearing to chew over one thought, and then without doubting that someone will pay attention he’ll ask a question or make a statement.

‘You know Udo? You know what he said today? He said, and this is after an entire day with us, an entire department, waiting on the result of a piece of work he was supposed to do, that it didn’t matter if he did or didn’t do it.’ Henning looks to Isa. Isa looks to Henning, she lowers the magazine she’s almost reading. His expression is mock disbelief.

‘Tell me. What was this thing he didn’t do?’

‘He said it didn’t matter. When, in fact, this is key to everything we have been working on.’

‘Is this about Sutler?’

‘I’m being deliberately non-specific.’

‘Which one? One? Two? Or three?’

‘I remain unspecific on this subject.’

‘But the general area?’

‘The general area would be about security.’

‘Then it has to be number three. And did it matter, this thing he didn’t do?’

‘You’re missing the point.’ Henning clacks the tongs. ‘As it happens. It didn’t matter.’

‘So he was right? I don’t see the problem. So I take it he’s here?’

‘Last night.’

‘You were here last night?’

‘They flew him in yesterday, before midnight.’

‘So you were here at yesterday. You would have been here. You would have come with him.’ Isa purses her mouth, threatening a shift in mood.

‘We have three units watching this man. Can you imagine the cost? Do you know what he calls him? Udo. Did I tell you what he calls this mystery man?’ Henning steers the conversation to safer ground.

‘Mr Crispy?’

‘No, that’s our name. Kraiz came up with that.’

Isa closes the magazine, folds it over her knee. ‘I’m not going to guess.’

‘You’re not interested.’

‘No, tell me.’

‘But you aren’t listening.’

‘My magazine is closed. I’m listening.’

‘He calls him burger-head.’

‘Burger-head?’

‘Mr Tartare. Because of his face.’ Henning gestures at his face with the tongs.

‘You tell me this before we eat?’

‘He’s going to need a new face. His nose. Gone. They have to make new eyelids. It looks like he’s been in a fire. And this is just from being in the sun for so long. He smells like he’s been cooked. The doctors have a name for this…’

‘And we’re having steak tonight?’

‘You like steak.’

‘I do like steak. But I don’t like stories about men who look like steak. Tell me a nicer story. Tell Rike the horror. Tell me happy things.’

Chastised, Henning points the tongs at her stomach. ‘You have to eat.’

‘So you were here last night and you didn’t call?’

Rike, fingers in ears to signal her dislike of such stories, tells Henning she seriously doesn’t want to hear anything graphic about this man. How he looks. How he suffers. Not one word. It’s bad enough thinking about the man on the train.

‘They take skin in strips from your back. Like bacon.’ Henning clacks the tongs after his wife.

The fire, ready for the meat, is spread across the pan. Rike catches Henning’s eye as he places the grate on top of the grill, and again he gives her a smile and a wink. This is his thank you. This is his appreciation. Meat. Gin. Conversation.

Isa wants to know when he has to return to Nicosia, what the plan is? She speaks to Rike in an aside. They have to make decisions because they are running out of time. ‘It’s getting close now.’ She runs her hand slowly round her stomach. ‘I don’t think he’s really thought it through.’

‘So why don’t you ask him?’

‘I don’t want to spoil things. Not on the first night.’

Rike watches Henning through the glass and Henning smiles back with a small salute-like nod. Everything has changed, in one day. The grill is outside. The cats are gone. But more than this the house has slipped from being theirs to being his. She remembers now how simply Henning manages to take over, and how little he appreciates this.

*   *   *

At the dining table they sit with a full bowl of salad, artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, the steaks, the frikadelle and bratwurst Kraiz brought from Frankfurt. Isa wears a pink T-shirt with an American flag and the slogan: ‘Never Fuck a Republican’, which Henning, for the moment, ignores.

No one has asked about Damascus. The bowls and plates end up within Henning’s reach. He takes food from his plate, picks up a steak from another, prongs a tomato from the salad, chewing all the time, eating without pause, feasting.

‘So Udo—’

‘Not again.’ Isa sets down her knife and fork in real irritation.

‘No, this is different.’

‘Now I have it back in my head.’

‘No, this is another story. Udo says that Rudi has another woman.’

‘And you are all how old?’

‘Rudi is fifty-seven.’

Isa explains to Rike that Rudi and Udo were the men they saw in the hospital. The disagreeable-looking man was Rudi.

‘You saw him? Here? In Limassol?’

‘At the hospital. Before my last appointment.’

Henning raises his eyebrows as if this is something he didn’t know.

‘Why the face?’

‘What face?’

‘You’re making a face.’

Henning holds a sausage close to his lips. ‘Because he shouldn’t be here. He has work in Nicosia. This has nothing to do with him.’

‘We’re talking Sutler again? Mr Three. So why was Rudi here?’

‘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.

‘So when do we get to see you?’

Mattaus gives a vague response. He’ll speak with Isa, speak with his friend. He says friend deliberately – the man won’t be given a name – to keep everything in its compartment. But yes, hasn’t he already explained all of this? They flew in to Paphos, what, four, five days ago. Oh god, he can’t remember, was it last week already or longer? He asks the question to some third party and waits for a response. Must have been. He asks her not to tell Isa just yet. ‘We’re hoping to spend a couple of days on the beach, and take it easy before we bring in any family. No offence, but it’s nice to have time to ourselves.’

No offence taken, she assures him. Take all the time you need. She won’t whisper a word.

Rike can’t wait to tell Isa, to see how it feels to be on the other side of Mattaus’s manipulations for a change. She can’t wait either to see Henning’s reaction. It would be worth bursting into their room right now to share the news. Guess what? He’s here already. Henning would explode. Only she won’t do this. Would never go that far. Besides, Isa has probably had the same conversation with Mattaus. Don’t tell Rike. You know how she is. We just want a couple of days to ourselves. The only person she can be certain to be left out of Mattaus’s complex machinations is Henning. It’s almost worth the trouble.

She wants to ask him more about Franco. Not only because she would like some information, but because she wants to remind him of the damage he’s caused. She would appreciate some acknowledgement, a reference to the man he’s shared his life with for the past five years and dropped for a new, doubtlessly younger flash, an architect no less. She can imagine the scene too easily, Mattaus telling Franco, and probably not face to face.

In the night a helicopter cuts over the house, the sound wavers, bounces so she can’t determine the direction of travel, if it’s coming from the British base or heading toward it.

4.6

A fire alarm at the hotel sends Gibson out to the street halfway through the call.

Geezler isn’t happy at the news, and becomes irritated at the confusion as Gibson moves about to secure a better signal.

‘It’s nonsense—’ that Geezler would have Parson followed. ‘It doesn’t make sense—’ why Parson would invent any of this. The pure aimlessness of his travels, his ambling. To what end would Parson fabricate lies about Sutler? Why would he take advantage of HOSCO, of Geezler, when there is no obvious profit from it?

‘I don’t see why she would lie.’

‘She’s lost her husband. She wants to sow doubt.’ It is, Geezler suggests, an accentuated part of the process. ‘She’s angry at us all.’

Gibson does not explain that he didn’t speak directly with Laura.

He stands separate from the staff, who lean against the blue shutters of the enoteca opposite the hotel, and smoke and look a little intense, like arsonists. There is no fire, he’s assured. The manager, a lean man, unshaven, appears disappointed with the news. The guests bustle out with a little more urgency, wait for a break in the traffic to cross, and stand together at the steps of the church, Purgatorio ad Arco. Some take photographs of the front of the hotel and the long and narrow strip of via Tribunale, of scooters bouncing and skidding across the black street slabs, a few sit at the steps. All of them rub their hands, one at a time, over the four bronze skulls mounted on bollards in front of the church.

Gibson walks to via Mezzocannone, returns to the café where there are fewer students, a place to sit. He sets out the papers and reads each of the hotel bookings to Geezler: the phone numbers, the dates, the reference numbers. He looks up at the long grey wall opposite. The university. ‘These are all in your name. There’s no doubt that this is Parson’s work.’

Geezler is less happy, but somehow not surprised, with the news about the man following Parson and his wife. ‘It can’t be true. These are paranoid fantasies. Of someone who –’ the connection falters ‘– desperate. I fail to see the logic.’ It is absurd.

‘She has a photo of the man. She recognizes him from other occasions.’

The line becomes silent.

‘I said she has—’

Geezler asks him to send the photograph. Can it be emailed? He asks Gibson to describe the man.

‘Well,’ Gibson tries to recall the image, ‘the picture shows very little. Something of a staircase and there is a man in a doorway. It’s very clear.’

The stairway might be marble, there is a suggestion that it is vast and grand. A curved wall. A doorway in which a figure hesitates, his right hand raised. On a small screen the image appears deceptively clear. This is a European male. Light skinned. Light hair, shorn but not shaven. An angular face, with strong features, Gibson thinks, with a new or trimmed beard which emphasizes his mouth.

Enlarged, the image shows nothing new, and what appears distinct begins to lose definition. The most striking element is that the man knows he has been caught. His eyes look directly at the camera.