The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (117 page)

Tomas shrugs, matter of fact.

Pleased, Rike leans forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped. ‘Now,’ she demands, ‘let’s practise conversation. OK. I will ask you questions and you will answer me. Tell me about your parents.’

Tomas asks blankly why she is interested in his parents.

Rike isn’t sure how to answer. ‘I want to hear you talk. You can say anything. Tell me specific events. Something you remember? Your parents. Where are they from?’ She smiles in encouragement.

‘They are from Norway. And your parents?’ Tomas asks.

‘My father was an academic.’ She answers, deliberately, in the simple past tense. ‘He taught at the university in Freiburg. My mother was Italian and she was a student at the university at the same time. She was a little younger. Tell me, did you grow up in Norway? What is your first memory of Norway as a child.’

‘My first memory?’

‘Something from the past.’

Tomas looks up, reflecting, his chin set out.

‘A birthday? A holiday?’

‘My birthday is in the summer. I don’t remember anything special.’

‘A party, then. Describe a party.’

‘I don’t remember a party.’

To counter Tomas’s resistance Rike offers her own example. ‘My sister is five years older than me. When she was eleven we had a birthday party for her. We lived in an apartment – in Freiburg – and I don’t remember why, but I wasn’t happy about this party. I don’t think I did this deliberately – my sister would probably tell this differently – but I remember standing beside a table, there were other children, and there was a cake, but I had a glass, a beaker, and I must have been drinking juice, and somehow I bit off the lip of the glass. I remember it coming off.’ She gestures holding a glass to her mouth and biting.

‘And what happened?’

‘My parents were busy, but when my mother noticed she became very worried. She took the glass from me, and I remember very clearly that she thought that the missing piece from the glass was in my mouth. But it wasn’t. I remember it breaking off, but I don’t remember anything else about the glass. My mother became very upset, and it was the end of the party because they had to take me to hospital to make sure I hadn’t swallowed the glass.’

‘And did they find it?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know. I hadn’t swallowed it, and I had no cuts. So they thought that I’d done this deliberately for attention. We didn’t have any more parties after that.’

‘Is this true?’

A little surprised Rike says yes, the story is true, of course. ‘And you?’

‘Me?’

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

Arms folded, Tomas gives a firm no.

‘And now, in Norway, where do you live?’

‘I don’t spend much time there.’ Tomas shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Tell me about your school.’

Of all questions, this seems the most innocuous, but his reaction, how he moves his weight from his left side to his right, unfolds his arms, tucks his hands away, and looks, she has to admit, a little irritated.

Tomas compresses his mouth, appears to be thinking. He shifts back into his original position. ‘I left school early.’

Rike isn’t sure why the conversation has become so tense. ‘If I’m asking things you’d rather not answer, please change the subject. Speak about anything you like – or ask me questions.’

‘You have one sister?’

‘One sister and one brother.’

‘And where does your brother live?’

‘He lives in Hamburg.’

‘You are the youngest?’

‘Then my brother, and my sister is the oldest. Yes. In fact I’m here for my sister. She is about to have a child.’ She stops herself from saying
first
, a noticeable hesitation. ‘Which is why I am here.’

‘When is your sister having the baby?’

‘Soon, in eighteen days.’

‘Why is she here?’

‘She worked until recently for the diplomatic corps.’

‘And her husband?’

‘The same. At the moment he works for the German consulate in Nicosia. He was working in Damascus but they were evacuated. He has had to go back because there is a man in hospital.’

Tomas doesn’t appear to understand.

‘There is a man in hospital in Syria, in a serious condition. It’s complicated because they don’t know who he is.’ She makes a gesture implying movement. Picking up an object and placing it somewhere else.

‘And your brother is helping him?’

‘It’s part of his work – when people are in trouble, if they’re in hospital, if they have an accident, they lose their money and passport, or if there’s trouble or a problem back home with their family. He travels all around the Middle East helping people. German people.’

‘Your brother?’

Rike gives a small corrective laugh. ‘No. Sorry. My brother-in-law.’

‘How long were you in England?’

This question surprises her, and she asks why he’s asked.

‘You have a slight English accent. You are German, though?’

Rike nods again. She doesn’t think of herself having an accent, and finds the comment interesting. She wonders how many Scandinavians there are in Limassol, and what it would take to bring a man from Norway to Cyprus – if this situation is usual or unusual. When she asks why he wants to practise his English the man smiles.

‘How will you use your English?’

His smile broadens. ‘To be honest,’ he says, ‘it’s about keeping active.’ He taps his head and Rike completely understands. After all it is a muscle, they agree.

‘How long are you here?’

‘It depends, six or seven weeks.’

‘And then you go to London?’

‘No. I’ll go back to Germany. To my brother’s apartment in Hamburg.’

‘You have work?’

‘I’m not sure what I’ll do. I haven’t decided.’

‘But you won’t stay here?’

Something about the suggestion makes her laugh. While she hasn’t considered remaining in Cyprus, it could be a possibility.

‘It depends on what happens. My sister and her husband will return to Damascus. Unless things become worse. I don’t know what they will do if that happens. The consulate won’t keep them here indefinitely. Henning has said as much. If this looks like a permanent situation they will withdraw the staff and have them return to Germany. Some will be reassigned to Turkey, but Henning, almost certainly, will be recalled to Berlin.’

‘And you would you go with them?’

‘No. I’m only here while she has the baby. Do you know Germany?’

Tomas nods. ‘Berlin. Frankfurt. I don’t know Hamburg.’

‘And what were you doing there?’

‘The same work I’ll be doing here. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and no parents.’ Tomas finishes the thought in German. ‘Just me.’

The air in the room appears to have thinned, become delicate, without a clear reason. Every conversation, she understands, is a kind of currency, or at least an expenditure, but this discussion, being so scattershot, is uncertain, and Rike isn’t sure what is being brokered. She breathes carefully unsure how she should proceed. It is his decision to exchange personal details or not. This happens, she tells herself. Everyone has history, and not everyone is comfortable sharing.

3.2

At the end of the hour, Rike writes down what she has asked, with the growing sense that Tomas is impatient for the lesson to end. He stands up and takes the paper when she offers it, then accompanies her to the door.

‘I have a meeting now,’ he explains, ‘I should go.’

He has, she thinks, an exceptionally disarming smile. They talk as he accompanies her to the door. ‘Cyprus must be a disappointment after London?’

‘London?’

‘Yesterday you told me that you lived in London.’

‘I worked for a charity for a short while, freelance to start with.’ She can’t help but make a face. ‘But that was for a very short time.’

‘You didn’t like the work, or you were unhappy?’

Rike is taken aback by the question. ‘It wasn’t home. And it didn’t feel like it would ever become home. Anyway, I’m here now.’ Rike reaches to her shoulder and realizes that she has left her bag. Tomas returns to the room to fetch it for her.

‘Thank you. I’m always doing that.’ Rike closes the bag and shucks it over her arm. ‘And you?’ she asks. ‘Why Cyprus?’

Tomas leans into the doorframe. ‘It’s a long story. It’s possible I’ll be reassigned to Cyprus. I came to see if I like it.’

‘And do you?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know. Careful as you go down,’ he warns. ‘There might be pieces of glass.’ He pauses, clicks his finger to prompt himself, his hand attempts to shape a word. ‘This morning the Kozmatikos boy smashed his mother’s ornaments. Little figures. Figurines? He lined them up and dropped them over the steps.’

They both look at the landing. The floor, swept clean, shows no sign of the morning’s tantrum.

‘I think this is why he ran away.’

‘You saw this?’

‘I saw a little. It was deliberate. He put them on the steps and pushed them over, one at a time. He wanted to make her angry.’

‘And then he ran away?’

Tomas nods, and she notices the faint trace of a smile.

‘Is he back?’

‘Yes. Now she isn’t shouting.’ Tomas shrugs, and now they both smile.

No sign on the door, no sound, no bustle or trouble. Safe enough to assume that the boy is home.

‘It’s strange,’ she says, ‘how ordinary you take everything to be, but when you look there are a lot of unordinary things.’ Rike isn’t sure she’s making herself clear. ‘Like pets. You don’t see people with too many pets here. Not as many as in Germany. There aren’t many dogs, so much.’

Tomas folds his arms and says that there is a lot to be said for this.

‘You don’t like dogs?’

‘They don’t like me.’

*

Tomas has agreed to meet the rental agent immediately after the lesson. The man comes up to find Rike and Tomas on the landing. The three of them walk down the stairs to the courtyard. The agent is brash and short and Rike talks with him as they come down the stairs. The man seems misproportioned, with small fat hands, a thick neck, and plump body unbalanced by a broad head, and oddest of all, a puff of thinning grey hair with a purplish tinge. The man walks in a stiff side-to-side sway, a little out of breath; keys hang from a chain fastened to his belt. He wears a pair of sunglasses which give him a suspicious air. Rike takes the stairs one at a time and grips the rail.

The windows overlooking the playground are shuttered and as they walk the agent describes the basement. Most of the space is open, although there are some smaller rentable units. These units are good for storage and safe. No one ever goes down there. The agent speaks in a voice which sounds bored and exhausted. The main area is used by a designer.

Rike’s ears are suddenly itchy. A roll-down shutter protects the basement door. Before they open it, Rike makes her excuse. She has promised to meet her sister.

3.3

The sisters wait in the corridor on a flat-backed bench, school-like, or hospital-like, which is exactly where they are, in a hospital. Isa comments on their surroundings: the benches, long slats of lacquered wood, orange and sticky, run the length of the wall. The walls are painted marine blue to eye level (when seated) and run minty-green above. Isa can’t see the logic, except the blue being gloss is wipeable, easy to clean.

‘You think I don’t know.’

Distracted by the nurses Rike doesn’t hear her sister’s comment. Nurses hurry down the corridor.

‘It’s strange seeing everyone here.’

‘The nurses?’

‘No. People like him.’ Isa nods to the end of the corridor where the doors stand open to show two suited men; one leans forward as if to listen, the other, taller and bald, leans back with his arms folded. Rike can’t quite see but thinks that the bald man is Udo.

‘Ordinarily you wouldn’t see them talking.’

Rike asks why. They talk about anything except for the reason they are at the hospital. The reason why Isa requires so many check-ups.

‘He doesn’t approve. The one with his arms folded got rid of his wife about a year ago. After twenty years of marriage he sent her home. The rumour is that he was having an affair, but he hasn’t been seen with anyone. The other one, Udo, is Henning’s section boss, and they can’t stand each other. Henning is hoping he’ll leave, but they won’t offer him another post.’ Isa yawns and rubs her stomach. ‘He can’t stand him.’

Rike takes another look, but Udo is out of sight.

‘Back in Damascus you’d never see those two in the same room. Now you see them together the whole time. It’s just how it is. Crisis makes for strange bedfellows.’ Isa yawns harder, like the first yawn was a warm-up. This time she shows her teeth before she covers her mouth. ‘Creepy. Creeps.’

‘How long will this take?’

‘I don’t know. It could take ages. They’re going to weigh me. It’s insulting. They give me a paper gown, make me take off my clothes and have me stand on a scale. Then they’ll take blood, because they always take blood. They weigh, they measure, then they take blood.’

Isa’s eye follows the nurse as she returns; her dress zipping between her thighs, her soft shoes making no sound on the red tiled floor.

‘Do British women deliberately try to look like that?’

Rike follows her sister’s gaze, but can’t see the problem.

‘They don’t care about themselves. Look. There isn’t any dignity. Look at those shoulders. See how she walks. Like a cow heading to a barn. I hate these places. I know about the cats, by the way.’

Rike looks to her sister. Eye-to-eye.

‘Of course I know.’

‘The cats?’

‘The cats. The cats. I spoke with Henning this morning.’

‘He told you?’

‘I made him.’

The sisters look to each other for some kind of measurement or assurance.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you.’

‘I’m not upset. Honestly. This is the last thing to worry about. I’m not going to cry over a neighbour who’s taken a dislike to three cats.’

‘Two.’ Rike can’t judge if Isa is sincere. Sometimes there’s no way of reading her.