Richard House - The Kills

The people who come to the club, Sol has to admit, aren’t so pretty, and charging a higher entrance fee has done nothing to improve the clientele. The talent is seriously lacking. His own compatriots aren’t much to go by. Entrance at least requires footwear, shorts or a skirt, some kind of top, but every night they turn away boys in fancy dress or shirtless, stag parties, hen parties, girls in thongs, and one time, a girl in sandals and gold makeup, nothing else. The police in both towns are regular visitors, known by their first names. Kolya has a talent for looking after them. Kolya is a hulking Cossack, hairy shoulders, broad and solid, the man is both architectural and animal, which makes him what? Some kind of a machine. Vast and bald. Sol admits that Kolya looks after him, makes sure he keeps out of trouble. Kolya knows Sol’s father, they’ve worked together, which either enhances or complicates their association, although this link is deliberately under-discussed.

Sol’s monologue runs freestyle, but returns to Lexi, his pet hate. Tomas wants to know why the manager of the club at Larnaca is here in the evening in Limassol, instead of watching over his own business.

Sol doesn’t know the answer, but that’s exactly what he’s talking about. ‘Like there’s a specific way everything has to be done.’

The people who know him (namely Kolya, Matti, Max) know not to ask Sol about boarding school, but Lexi won’t leave it alone. It’s as if Sol’s schooling in England, in the US, in Switzerland, is what makes him interesting, when in fact, everybody knows, the school you go to is just about how much money your parents are prepared to spend. Sol’s dislike is long established. It isn’t that Lexi likes him, not in that way. Sol doesn’t have to worry about that. Lexi goes with the dancers, the boys, the ‘go-go’s’, as a consequence Lexi’s year, so far, has been a series of sulks and pointless crushes, except now he’s met this Fritz, this German and everything’s hunky-dory. Sol isn’t judgemental, he really doesn’t mind people like Lexi. That isn’t his problem. His problem is that the man doesn’t partake in the way everyone else partakes in substances and pleasure, and nothing dampens a buzz more than a superior govno constantly giving you the disapproving eye. And so what if Lexi really runs the place? You know, it’s not like Sol is looking for a career. All he wants, until he starts university, is some major distraction.

Sol asks if Tomas would like a drink. Tomas says he has an idea. He’d like to play cards with the manager. What was his name? Kolya?

Sol looks at him, a little astonished. ‘You can’t win.’

‘Perhaps. I’d like to figure out how he does it.’

The boy appears to understand but doesn’t move.

‘I’m serious. Go see if he’s interested.’

‘You’ll lose.’

Tomas shrugs. ‘I’ll lose,’ he says, ‘but I’ll learn how he does it.’

Kolya agrees to a game. He sends over drinks, then sits with him. Sol sits separately and watches as Kolya and Tomas become acquainted. The small booths at the back of the club are intimate enough, under-lit against the cavernous dance floor, but the sound bounces, is so enhanced, so deep and penetrating, that every conversation is busy with head ducking, repetition, gestures.

He follows Sol and Kolya through the club to the lower office. They each walk in pace to the beat. Once Sol notices this he breaks his stride. Kolya holds the office door open and asks why Sol is smiling.

Lit by a line of fluorescent light, the office is small and cluttered with equipment, buckets, and crates, and the smell reminds Tomas of boiled cabbage. He gives small answers to Kolya’s questions but clearly wants the game to start. When it does start, he loses every hand.

Kolya asks Sol to accompany Berens to the ATM. As they walk they make small talk.

He asks Tomas if he learned anything.

‘How he does it?’

Tomas nods, thoughtfully. ‘Possibly. I have an idea.’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Mind?’

‘Losing?’

Kolya has no respect for losers, not in the club, and not out of it. Sol holds the same ideas. ‘We own this island. They don’t even know how much. They have no idea. They like this,’ he can’t think of the word, ‘ half-ness. They like to be known only for their disagreement. Everyone in this country is an amateur.’

The national debt is a subject of deep distaste to Kolya and Sol alike. Both value business and business ethics, and deeply mistrust the idea of compounded debt. That an entire nation would impoverish itself without knowing what it is doing is pathetic. A kind of death. It’s worse that they accept help, and seem happy to be weak. He calls them zombies. Undead. It isn’t that Europe is corrupt, so much, as weak and slothful. Yes, sloth. This is the nature of their greed. There have been demonstrations, which makes Sol suck in breath between his teeth. Water cannon. Rubber bullets. Hoses. When people lose their houses they will properly understand their folly.

Tomas takes the money from the machine, counts it into Sol’s hand. He tells him to be careful walking back. Sol thinks this is funny, how some men speak to him as if he were still a boy.

11.4

On the Monday Rike comes to the apartment early, deliberately, she says, because she wants to try out a new café. Her sister has rated the mozzarella as unsurpassable. It’s the real thing, proper buffalo mozzarella. Isa is an authority, and now she is pregnant she’s not allowed to eat cheese with any kind of live culture. In this café they keep the mozzarella in a clear plastic barrel filled with briny-looking milt (it actually looks like breast milk). According to Isa this is the freshest mozzarella outside of Italy. If you want it any fresher you’d have to lay under a buffalo’s teat.

She looks tired. Tomas asks her how she is, says that she doesn’t look her usual self, and gives a good smile, as if it might matter to him that she is out of sorts.

‘My brother,’ Rike delivers the news without emphasis, ‘came over on Saturday.’ She rubs her face, runs her hand alongside her nose. It’s an ungracious gesture, a range of expression he hasn’t seen from her before. ‘It was awful. Just awful.’

‘What happened?’

‘I can’t describe it. Just, horrible. And my sister. I couldn’t believe it was happening. When he left he was really angry. We don’t know where he is.’ Rike grimaces. ‘This is just like him. He makes a mess of everything then disappears, and leaves everyone else to clear up. When I first arrived, Henning warned me about things I shouldn’t do while I was in Cyprus. His work is sensitive. If things even look wrong he could be sent back to Germany and they would never return to Syria. It’s a huge pressure for him. Even Isa takes this seriously. On some level it just doesn’t register with Mattaus. He just doesn’t care how much it matters to other people.’

Mattaus has always been selfish. That’s his problem. But nobody sees this. Everybody likes him. (She just can’t believe this. How does it happen?) Everybody sees what he wants them to see. He manipulates people and they just don’t get it. He attracts the nicest men, and it always ends badly. Always.

Tomas agrees. She’s probably right. But this is family, right? Don’t sisters always disapprove?

‘I didn’t even know he was in Cyprus.’ Rike shrugs. ‘We’ll not hear from him, and then one day, out of the blue, he’ll show up, expecting everything to be forgiven. He’ll make a joke out of it. A story. Remember that time …’