Richard House - The Kills

Tomas Berens steps aside, and speaking in German invites her in. ‘A bird,’ he says, ‘just now. I had a bird fly into my room.’

Rike looks up at the high ceiling in the hallway. ‘A bird?’

‘Very nervous. It came into the room.’

A thin face. Hard grey eyes. A clean jawline. A small head with a boxy nose: cut features, compact, definitively Nordic. Tomas Berens’s complexion is a little bloodless, arms and face pale and smooth as a shoreline stone, and while he isn’t handsome he is at least interesting. In Cyprus such a look is distinctive as brown eyes, dark skin, dark hair are the norm. Nevertheless, in his white shirt and khaki trousers the man is a type — in Europe or America you might see any number of men like him buzzing about offices, banks, and airports. If she found Tomas Berens on a late afternoon at a table in any one of the smarter restaurants she would single him out and dream up some story for him. His manner is curiously formal, as he shakes her hand he almost gives a small bow. At least, there’s a pause, a hesitation where this gesture might be offered. There’s a prideful leanness to him despite his age (he must be forty, forty-five?). Tomas Berens clearly looks after himself.

They face each other in an otherwise empty room. The balcony door, wedged open, allows in a light breeze and the noise and smell of the traffic, a pinched view that leads eventually out to the sea. She speaks first in German, a language they share, and tells him from now on, as agreed, they will speak in English throughout the session.

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Let’s start. I would like you to tell me a story.’ A variation of the usual: where are you from / what do you do / tell me something about yourself / why do you want to learn English? These facts will come later. She wants to start with a story. Rike carefully pronounces each word so he can understand, and makes a gesture indicating that it is his turn to speak.

‘A story?’

Over his shoulder, trapped between buildings in a bright slit of sky hangs the silhouette of a passenger plane. It glides sideways across the gap toward his ear. Noise cooks in the street below them: men, always men, bullish and loud, car horns, a bevy of sirens as ambulances approach the hospital.

Tomas takes a moment to think. He coughs, he turns his head slightly. ‘A story?’

Rike nods.

The sun slides along the aircraft’s white belly as it veers away.

‘OK.’ He coughs again, then straightens his back, decided. ‘My neighbour takes photographs for weddings and wedding parties. He comes from a small village. He is friendly.’ His voice is supple and intimate; his English is a little unpractised. ‘There is a scar on his hand.’ Tomas says ‘scar’ in German and holds up his right hand to draw a crescent that runs from his thumb to his wrist. ‘Because, one year ago, he killed a dog. The dog is a very big, a crazy dog, and it comes from the square and attacks a smaller dog.’ He looks at Rike to clarify his thoughts. ‘The big dog kills the smaller dog in a square outside the church. He is waiting in his car before a wedding, and he sees this. And the dog, this big dog, looks like it now wants to attack a boy outside the church, a little boy. So he goes to it, he runs to it, and he takes the dog by the neck, like this.’ Tomas holds up his arms. His hands start out of his shirt cuffs and grip at nothing. He looks up, thinking, then switches to German. ‘He lifts it up by its neck and he kills it.’

Rike nods and asks him to speak in English, only English. She will help with the words.

‘He strangles the dog. Does that make sense? With his hands. But the dog has only killed a rat. It wasn’t going to attack the boy. It belongs to the boy. The boy is its owner. You understand?’

Rike smiles at this, which is intended to be polite, but shows that she’s a little nervous. The truth is she’s a little alarmed by the size of his hands. Tomas Berens has large hands, heavy and rubbery, and these hands, once noticed, distract her.

Tomas gives a concentrated nod. He asks if she would like to hear more stories and Rike indicates that he should continue. ‘Tell me another story about your neighbour.’

‘Another story?’ Tomas switches back to English. ‘My neighbour isn’t lucky. Last week he was in a car accident. He’s OK, but he cannot drive his car for work.’

They nod, slowly, in unison.

‘He and his wife are unhappy. They fight every day. In the morning they argue about work. In the evening they argue about money. They are loud and the building is,’ he struggles for a word, ‘loud.’ He shrugs, matter of fact. ‘Everyone can hear. All of us.’ To prove his point the sounds of running water and the chatter of a TV echo from the stairwell in competition with the noise from the street.

‘What is your neighbour’s name?’

Tomas says he has no idea, then, quickly remembering, says: Christos.

* * *

Immediately out of the apartment Rike hurries downstairs. She will remember many details about this meeting: the adhesive light, the empty room, his clothes, his winter-pale skin, the aircraft, long gone, and the martins skimming level with the window and wheeling out over the flat roofs and how their sharp calls sound of alarm. As she crosses the landing below Tomas’s floor she catches sight of Christos’s name on a small plaque under a doorbell. The name has been scratched over. She switches her phone back from silent and checks her messages. On the last landing she passes a woman with a young boy, they both have the same round unhappy faces. The woman fans herself with one hand and shepherds the child ahead and tells him to mind his business. While the mother is slight, the boy is fat. His elbows are scabbed, rough with some skin complaint.

Her sister won’t be home for another hour, but Rike heads back in any case and walks under the palms that line the front of the hospital.

The city is busy with men. Boys jostle a football across the road and workmen unload flat-packed stalls and awnings onto the sidewalk. They watch her out of habit, not because she is pretty or because they desire her, but because this is what men do.

2.2

Rike calls the school and asks to speak with Rosaria. Tomas Berens, she reports, already speaks English. In fact his English is very good.

Rosaria is a little dismissive. She reminds Rike to bring in her passport. The contract is ready to be signed and there are a few details about the programme she’d like to explain. She asks Rike how the first lesson went, and if she is happy.

‘He’s out of practice.’ Rike makes sure there is a pinch of doubt in her voice. ‘But he’s a serious student.’ She doesn’t want to admit that she’s out of her depth. Besides, it’s too early to give a proper assessment. In a few days, once they are less nervous with each other, she’ll have a better idea. She tries not to sound perfunctory, and anyway, Rosaria is only asking because they have nothing else to discuss.

‘Did he mention why he’s taking the lessons?’ It’s hard to make this question sound casual. ‘Did he give any particular reason?’

The smallest hesitation makes Rosaria sound cunning. ‘Practice. He said he wants to practise. Ask him. Have him tell you.’

‘I was just wondering, because he seems so advanced already.’

‘Well, he specifically asked for you.’

The idea makes Rike laugh. This, she is certain, is a polite invention. After she has hung up Rike sits with the phone in her lap and scans the yard hoping to spy a cat.