Songbirds

by Christy Lefteri

  ‘I want Nisha to come back so much.’

  ‘I know baby, so do I.’

  Slowly she ceased crying. Now and then she whimpered and then her breathing slowed. We remained there in silence. I stroked her hair and watched the cat jump down, glancing at us one last time before it skulked off into the dark.

  28

  Yiannis

  I

  T WAS DAWN WHEN I finally slept, haunted by images of the red lake and memories of Nisha. When I finally woke up, late in the afternoon, there was a cacophony in the street below. I went out onto the balcony as hundreds of protestors filled every inch of the road, and flowed along it like a river. People marched with banners, passing the trees where Nisha’s flyers hung, away from the border and into the city, to find the root of the problem and stand before it, defiant and strong.

  Here we are, they were saying. We do not simply appear from nowhere in a taxi with a suitcase and disappear once more to nowhere.

  We are human.

  We love.

  We hate.

  We have pasts.

  We have futures.

  We are citizens of countries, in our own right.

  We have voices.

  We have families.

  Here we are.

  The little bird was on the table beside me and it fluttered up to the nearest tree and watched the crowd below with black eyes. Then it flicked its head back to me. Something came over me. I felt such a sadness. Such a painful despair.

  ‘Go,’ I said to it, though I wanted to hold onto the bird and all that it meant, forever. ‘Go. Go fly. Go.’

  In that moment, as if it understood, it opened its wings and took off into the sky.

  Watching the bird leave, knowing it would probably never come back, suddenly woke me up. I dressed myself with purpose and went out onto the street. I caught a glimpse of Mrs Hadjikyriacou at her front door, watching with those observant but cloudy eyes.

  I allowed myself to be taken by the current. I could hardly see for tears. I allowed myself to be taken until eventually we reached the presidential palace and I sat down on a bench, unable to stand any more. I had no strength in my legs.

  I sat there and watched the women, their faces lit up by the candles they held in their hands. There was pain in those faces, and real fear, and, in the light, an anger that allowed them to stand straight and say Here we are.

  There was a reporter beside me, and a cameraman. They were interviewing one of the women. She was probably in her twenties, with a round milky face and a French plait that hung over her right shoulder. She stood there looking straight into the camera and because she was so close, I heard her voice above the crowd: ‘I am one of lucky ones,’ she said. ‘I have a great employer, a good woman, she treats me well. My sister, she was sexually abused by her sir. She went to the police and they did nothing to help so she left her job. Now she has just three more months to find work or she will have to return to Nepal. We need to send money to my parents, they are very sick. But when I think about the women in the lake, and the children . . .’ She paused and took a deep breath.

  ‘Where does it end?’ A taller, darker woman standing beside her said. ‘Are we the “lucky ones” because we have not been killed?’

  A strong wind blew and some of the candles went out. I saw Ruba amongst the crowd, and the two maids from Theo’s without their rice hats, their hair long and dark. Ruba relit her candle from the flame of a woman standing beside her. She then passed her flame to a child. The sun set further into the earth.

  Where was Nisha to tell her story? What would I do without her? What would Kumari do without her mother? And Aliki?

  I could barely breathe. I felt like I was in the middle of a burning world. But in this moment, I imagined that it burned with gold.

  It was certain. Nisha had vanished and turned to gold.

  She turned to gold in the setting of this winter sun. Now, for a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of her, and I think I heard her, in the burning faces and voices of the women that surrounded me.

  This is where Nisha exists.

  Here.

  And, in the moment, she kissed me, high up in the mountains, when she had been partly with me and partly in the world from which she had come.

  The red lake at Mitsero reflects a sunset, captures it, holds it, even when the sun has died. Red lake, toxic lake, copper lake. Mothers and fathers tell their children stories about it, tales of deep passages underground, where men crawled like animals and died in darkness.

  Never go near the red lake at Mitsero!

  The sunset holds the expectation of the hush and darkness of the night, that time when we close our eyes and meet our true selves. The lake is at the verge of this darkness, always.

  It holds all the sunsets from the beginning of time.

  A helicopter hovers above like a dragonfly. Four orange rescue crafts glide on the water. Divers enter. There are three, secured to the boats with bright yellow ropes.

  They will not get lost down there; they have their colleagues at the ready to pull them out.

  They slide in, and once again the lake is still.

  In the village, the widow stands in her front garden holding a lit candle. To protect the flame from the breeze she cradles it in her palm.

  The barley fields and wheat fields are gold beneath the setting sun. The woods are alight. A hare runs out of a bush and tentatively approaches the crater, keeping its distance.

  After a while, a diver emerges from the water. He signals to the people in the boat and they throw down some ropes with hooks at the end. He goes down again and when he comes back up, he raises a thumb and the people in the boat pull until a suitcase is dragged to the surface.

  29

  Petra

  A

  LIKI WANTED ME TO HELP her get ready. At first, she took her time choosing what she would wear, then she stood still while I pulled the jumper over her head – Nisha’s orange jumper with the sunflower. I put her feet into her jeans, pulling them up. She stared out of the glass doors at the boat in the garden, at the orange tree, at the chickens that roamed out of their pen. Then I took the bracelet out of my pocket.

  ‘Look at this,’ I said.

  She turned to me now, caught my eye for a second and there I saw a depth of sadness as vast as the sea.

  ‘That was a present from me.’ She smiled, sadly.

  ‘Yes. You know she never took it off. She wore it every single day.’

  I secured the bracelet onto her wrist and she twisted her hand around so that the bracelet glimmered in the late afternoon sun that streaked through the glass doors.

  We went outside to sit in the boat and wait for the others. First, Mrs Hadjikyriacou came with Ruba, then Soneeya and Binsa, then Nilmini, followed by Muyia, who arrived as the sun was setting.

  Apart from brief greetings, nobody spoke. We all knew why we were there – to say goodbye to Nisha. I wondered where Yiannis was. His kitchen window was shut and dark. I helped Aliki pass the candles around and when I looked again, he was standing at the foot of the stairs with his hands empty at his sides. Face pale, lids heavy, shirt buttoned up to his neck.

  He stood there and watched us light the candles, hold them in front of us to light the darkness on our faces. A hush enveloped us all; the boat was empty and I imagined Nisha sitting in it.

  ‘Nisha is going away,’ Aliki said suddenly, and for a moment all eyes rose from the ground and rested on her face. ‘She is drifting away on the soft waves of the faraway Sea Above the Sky.’

  I put my hand on Aliki’s shoulder and I felt her body shake. It wasn’t a cold night, but she trembled as if an icy wind was blowing.

  Then the wind did pick up and we moved back into the protection of the house, Aliki leading everyone into the warmth.

  ‘Give me a second,’ I said to her.

  I walked over to the stairs where Yiannis was still standing. ‘Are you coming in?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve booked a flight to
Sri Lanka. I’m leaving tomorrow.

  I caught his eye, inhaling deeply, not knowing what to say.

  ‘I’m going to see Kumari,’ he said.

  I squeezed his hand and he began to cry. With his chin down and his eyes scrunched up, and his chest shaking, he cried, and I held onto his hand as Nisha drifted away on the Sea Above the Sky.

  *

  Later, I sat in the garden with Aliki and Nilmini. She opened her friend’s journal and began to read. We sat there for hours, listening to Nisha’s words. Tomorrow I would be giving Yiannis the journal to take to Kumari – its rightful owner.

  Nisha’s true story began to unfold. I heard the story of Kiyoma’s death and the owl. I heard about how she travelled to Rathnapura, how she met her husband and the day he died in the mines. I heard about how she’d worked day and night at the market in Galle, how she had made the difficult decision to leave, and how she had felt that first year away from home, unable to hold her beautiful daughter, Kumari.

  There was so much more I wished I could know. These letters were merely a handful of stars in the entire universe of her heart. But it was too late. If only I could have understood before it was too late.

  Dear Kumari,

  When I held you as a baby, close to my skin, and looked down into your eyes, I saw everything I loved and everything I feared. Within them, I saw the sunset over the Sri Pada (there’s a story about this! Keep reading and you’ll find out!). I saw rivers and waterfalls at dusk (this too!). I saw my own mother’s eyes, and myself, walking beside her through the rice plantations at the end of the day. I saw peppers laid out in rows to dry in the sun, and steaming meals with lemon-grass and cardamoms and cinnamon. I saw my sister’s eyes, all those years ago, when she would laugh with so much glee (you remind me of her, Kumari). I saw the dress I wore on my wedding day and your father’s smile and his arms around me as we danced.

  I also saw your future. This made me afraid.

  In the house where I now live there is a garden and in that garden there is a small wooden boat. The boat is from far away, because there is no sea nearby. We are in the city, a very old city, with four old gates that are so big they look like they were made for giants.

  I look after a baby girl called Aliki, who is two years younger than you.

  Kumari, the garden is such a special place. A place that reminds me of who I am. It has an orange tree (like the ones back home, except sweeter), a cactus with prickly pears, lots of flowers, and a chicken pen. I wish you were here to see it. I’ve drawn pictures for you in this journal! You would love the chickens. They are so funny. One of the hens always manages to get out of the pen. She comes into the living room when we forget to close the door. She sits under the coffee table and watches TV with us. I make sure my boss doesn’t see her so that she doesn’t throw her out. Sometimes the hen comes up to bed with me, crawls under the duvet as if it’s a paper bag, and talks to herself. She has feathers that grow over her eyes so she can’t see much, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

  By the time you are old enough to read this you will probably know all this stuff already, but I need to write it down so that I can feel close to you when I’m alone.

  When I first arrived here, I could hear you crying. You might find it hard to believe, but it was you that I heard, I know that now. I thought it was a young child in another house, but then I realised that the sound was coming from the earth, the trees and the sky, that you were sending it to me as a gift. Kumari, somehow, you found a way to send me your tears. So, I sat in the little boat in the garden and sent you stories and love through the night sky.

  You didn’t get to know your father. I am sure you would have loved him as much as I did. I will tell you about him – although I’m sure your acci will tell you plenty as you grow up.

  Your acci won’t mention this because she doesn’t like to talk about it, but life can change in a second. From sunlight to sudden rain, just like the weather during the monsoon when the rain comes down like the sea. But one thing your father always said was that rain doesn’t last for ever, and when the sun shines again everything will gleam. He was an optimist.

  Your father should have been an actor. He did impressions of people and animals, flicked his hand when he spoke, had a twinkle in his eye. In real life, he worked in the gem mines, that’s where we met! He went down into the dark while I cleaned the gravel in the reservoir to find the gems.

  I have so much to tell you. But be patient. Reality and truth need time to unravel.

  Acknowledgements

  I have so many people to thank for helping me to understand more deeply the sensitive issues I was researching in order to create this novel.

  Thank you, firstly and especially, to Menaka Nishanthe Ramanayaka for all the work you did over the years, for all your strength, for becoming a friend, for making me lovely Sri Lankan tea, for sharing your feelings and memories with me, for listening to me and for being such a beautiful and caring person. It is because of you that I wanted to write this novel in the first place.

  Thank you so much to Marissa Begonia for being such an inspiration with your insight and determination and for inviting me to visit the Voice of Domestic Workers in Holborn. You are extraordinary and the work you have done, what you have achieved, is honestly phenomenal. I’d like to thank all the women at the centre who welcomed me with so much love, for sharing your delicious food with me and allowing me to hear your stories. I’d also like to thank Loucas Koutroukides in Limassol, Cyprus, for all the wonderful humanitarian work you have done to help domestic workers on the island, for speaking with me for so many hours and for introducing me to so many wonderful people. Thank you too for all the interesting, informative and courageous articles you wrote and shared with me, for being brave enough to seek the truth and speak the truth when so many others turned a blind eye or remined silent. Thank you also to all the women at the Blue Elephant, who spoke to me, who trusted me with their stories, who shared their emotions and fears with me – thank you, I learnt so much.

  Thank you to George Konstantinou at NGO Protection of the Natural Heritage and Biodiversity of Cyprus; thank you so much for answering all of my questions, for all your help and advice, and for the wonderful photographs you took and sent to me. I wish I could have attended one of your wildlife tours if we hadn’t been in lockdown, but speaking to you nonetheless was so informative. Thank you also for the wonderful and important work you are doing to protect the forests and the animals on the island.

  Thank you Eva Spanou for helping me to progress with my research. Thank you so much Nicolas and Sotiroulla Simou for sharing information with me about poaching.

  Thank you to Peter Louizou and Tassos Louizou, for talking to me for so long last Christmas about hunting, for sharing all your knowledge with me about the poaching of songbirds and the very specific technique of making lime-sticks. Thank you to my lovely brother, Mario Lefteri, for giving me so much advice and information about Cyprus and about poaching locations, for being one of the first to read my novel, as you always are, and for all your help and suggestions. Thank you to Angela Stella Monaghan for your help and for introducing me to your parents. Equally, thank you to Panayiotis and Andriana Michael for spending so long talking to me about poaching and for all the useful information you shared with me.

  Thank you to Nishan Weeratunge and Sajeewa Dissanayake for all the information you gave me about Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan food and culture and Sri Lankan history. It was immensely helpful and so great that I made new and wonderful friends from it. Thank you to Maryvonne and Antony for inspiring me with all of your stories and for introducing me to Nishan.

  Thank you to my beautiful friend, Anna Petsas, who I should have thanked last time, for encouraging me to volunteer, to take thoughtful risks, and for sending me the article about domestic workers in the first place and alerting me to what was happening. You are so inspirational; I have often found myself taking huge steps in my life after just talking to you!

  I w
ould like to thank my friend Paul Lewis for all the inspirational writing chats. I would also like to thank Conway Road Writing Group – it means the world to me to be part of this group. Thank you all for being such great, supportive and talented and lovely people!

  Thank you to Mehr at Salt and Sage Books for your thoughtful and insightful authenticity read; it was a real privilege to receive your helpful feedback on the manuscript. Thank you to my agent, Marianne Gunn O’Connor – you are my guiding star. Thank you for your love, care, support, encouragement, vision, for being such a beautiful, inspirational person, for caring so much about the world and for also being a friend. I would never have been able to do this without you.

  Thank you to my foreign rights agent at MGOC, Vicki Satlow, for being so amazing, and for everything you have done for me over the years.

  Thank you so so much to my publishers at Manilla Press. Thank you Kate Parkin for your constant and unwavering support and for everything you have done, for being so caring, insightful and passionate. Margaret Stead – you have been absolutely amazing – all those conversations we had over the phone during lockdown, your insight, your suggestions, your imagination and creativity, and absolutely everything you have done to help make this novel happen.

  Thank you to Perminder Mann for all of your support. Thank you Clare Kelly, Felice McKeown and Katie Lumsden – you are all so great to work with; thank you for all the hard work you have put into bringing this novel out.

  Thank you to all my friends and family for your love and support over the years. Thank you to my brother, Kyri, and his wife for always encouraging me and being there for me. Thank you to Maria and Antony for being the best friends anyone can ask for. Thank you to Stellios Arseniyadis for listening to all my ideas during the editing process, and for being so helpful and supportive. Thank you to Claire and Sam Afhim for your friendship and support. Thank you to Louis Evangelou for your advice, for being so helpful, caring and endlessly patient. Thank you to the whole Evangelou family – Katerina, Tina and Chris – for all your support and help and lovely food and love, always.