Richard House - The Kills

* * *

Rike holds on to the idea of the man in her head. The third Sutler. Mr Crispy. She’s walked him from his car into the desert. Had him loose and alone for two days, in which he’s almost driven himself insane with fears over what might happen: a realization that things don’t always work out for the best, that there will come a time when he just runs out of luck. Soon, irrevocable events will occur, prompted by thirst, hunger, heat, and exhaustion, his decisions will no longer be sound, but even so, he wavers between desperation and hope.

He begins to make bargains because he believes that if he changes in some way he will survive this crisis. He can live a simpler life. He can be kinder, certainly this is manageable. Still walking, he becomes giddy with a sense of hope, joyful now, because he is descending, and he feels certain of an arrival.

* * *

Rike sits at the kitchen table with her sister, she doesn’t know which is worse, the threat of rats or the growing stink. Uncollected trash sits in the adjoining alley and the stench fills the garden.

Isa has bought a gift for Henning. She doesn’t know what it is precisely — some kind of ceremonial staff. It’s African, so it will go with his other pieces. The staff is smooth, polished, ebony, she thinks. ‘I did like it,’ she says, her expression now undecided. Isa shrugs. ‘I’ve been thinking. There needs to be some adjusting in this household.’ Isa runs her hand over her belly. Most of her conversation is about the coming baby or her appetite. ‘This needs to be a girl.’

Rike attends to the coffee. Isa signals that she doesn’t want one.

‘A boy wouldn’t be so bad.’

‘No.’ Isa is absolute. ‘I don’t want to be around more men. Henning is enough.’

‘You’re fretting.’ Rike stirs sugar into her coffee mindful that her sister doesn’t appreciate being told what she is like. ‘I can’t stop looking at you.’

‘I know. I’m so fat.’

Round is the word that occurs to Rike. Her sister, who has always been angular, is decidedly round. She wants to say something like: You suit a little weight. This at least would not be a lie, and it would be appropriate payback for the times her sister has told her that very same fact. Instead, she says, vaguely, that Isa looks gorgeous.

‘Don’t. I’m too heavy.’ Isa changes her mind and takes a taste from her sister’s cup, anything more will start off her stomach. She tuts and shakes her head and takes a second sip, a third sip, and gives a small hum of pleasure. ‘Don’t even ask what I’ve eaten today.’

A car horn sounds immediately outside. Isa pays no attention and picks absent-mindedly at the washed grapes. ‘I still haven’t unpacked everything. I keep thinking we’ll be going back soon so what’s the point.’ She shakes the thought away. ‘God. So? How did it go today? How was your man?’

Rike settles, stretches her legs: her turn to become pensive. ‘His English isn’t bad. He’s out of practice, and beyond that it’s…’ She pauses. Advanced isn’t the word she wants. ‘Good. I guess. I don’t know. He can express himself. I don’t know what he wants. I’ve asked him to prepare a report on his neighbours.’

‘Is he interesting?’

‘He has a nice voice. I like his voice.’

‘Is he handsome?’

Rike shakes her head, brisk and decisive. ‘No, he’s not handsome.’

‘Shame. Why his neighbours?’

‘He told me a story about one of his neighbours. He said his neighbour strangled a dog that belonged to a boy. He thought it was going to attack the boy.’

Isa, laughing, points a segment of apple at her sister. ‘No. Wait. Don’t tell me. With his bare hands? Outside a mosque after prayers?’

‘A church. You know this?’

‘Of course. It’s a famous story. It isn’t true.’

Rike doesn’t understand.

‘It’s one of those stories. You must know it? The men come out of the mosque after evening prayers, and a mad dog runs into the group. And right in front of them, right in at the steps to the mosque, it kills another dog, or a small dog, or a cat. Whatever it is it rips it to pieces, then it goes for one of the people in the crowd, but one of the men catches the dog, and before anyone can stop him he strangles it or kicks it or beats it to death with a stick. And then, too late, he sees it wasn’t a small dog or a cat that it had killed at all, but a very, very large rat. The mother of all rats. And the boy it was going to attack is the owner of the dog.’

‘He said his neighbour told him this. Christos. He has a scar on his hand.’

‘It’s a story. It isn’t true. How could it be? Dogs are different here, people generally don’t keep pets in the Middle East, they have livestock.’

‘Cyprus is Greece.’

‘Cyprus is in the Middle East. Greek- ish, at least this part.’

‘But the scar?’

‘What about it?’ Isa shrugs.

Rike begins to clear the table. She rubs at sticky fingerprints with the heel of her fist. An orange stain imprinted on the Formica top. ‘Then the story doesn’t make sense. If people don’t keep dogs, why does the boy have a dog?’

‘You’re brooding.’

‘I’m not brooding. I knew it wasn’t true. I asked him for a story.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re disappointed. You feel deceived. Maybe he didn’t know it was a story? Or maybe he’s a little more interesting than you think? Anyway, you’ve missed the point. The story isn’t about the dog, it’s about the man who kills the dog. It’s a story about how you shouldn’t interfere. It’s a story about the Turks. It’s basically a little piece of cultural stereotyping.’

Rike stops at the sink, mouth compressed, disappointed but she doesn’t know why. Alongside this runs the irritation of Isa knowing better, of how, after less than a month, she has some kind of insight already. ‘I’m not sure what he wants. I don’t think he knows either. That’s probably the problem, he’s just taking language lessons because he can.’

Rising slowly, Isa dusts off her hands. ‘If he’s paying, does it matter? You need the money. Just let him talk.’

Outside a helicopter cuts over the building with a deep percussive shudder, loud enough to momentarily erase every other sound. This could be the coastguard, she doesn’t know for sure, but makes the assumption that every vehicle is a military craft heading for the hospital at Akrotiri. She crowds the sky with possible stories.

* * *

She dreams about the man: she’s in a supermarket and Tomas Berens is fucking her from behind, only it isn’t fucking, or maybe it is, in any case his hands, stupidly huge, firmly grasp her hips, and she’s jolting so much can’t keep her shopping in her arms. This isn’t Rike’s kind of dream — sex, shopping — and she knows this, even while it’s happening. It’s like she’s channelling her sister, who is having the most extraordinary dreams these days. At some point she gives up resisting the idea, and there’s fruit bouncing out of her hands, a pair of limes rolling across a linoleum floor, it’s more like a bumpy car ride than sex, and her mind is solidly on her shopping, on fruits spilling from her hands, until a sudden blossom of heat spreads through her. She wakes herself laughing, but also embarrassed because she never has dreams like this, never so explicit, and is relieved to find that she is alone in the apartment, the screen doors open, the same path of sunlight on her and the cat, that sleek black cat sleeping under the fig tree, paws twitching, is sharing the same dream.