Richard House - The Kills

‘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?’