III

Davit was sitting on his porch watching half-heartedly for a pirogue with a Western Union logo on its sail when Claudia came around the corner of his cabin. ‘Hey!’ he grinned. ‘There you are.’

‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Here I am.’

‘Any luck?’

‘Sure.’ She climbed up on to his porch, sat upon the balustrade and swung her legs. ‘I ask my friends. They say this pirogue belongs to Thierry and Alphonse. They say they take two foreigners with them, a man to Eden, a woman on to Tulear.’

‘Eden?’ asked Davit.

‘You have a map?’

Boris had hired himself a motorbike after breakfast, had headed off on some mysterious errand; but he’d left his guidebook on his porch. Davit fetched it now, opened it up to a regional map as he returned. Claudia came to stand beside him when he sat back down, leaning against his thigh. Braids spilled like a bead curtain over her face as she looked down. She pointed away to their south. ‘This is my orphanage I was telling you about,’ she said.

‘And Eden?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Her finger moved with deliberate slowness, stretching out the moment. ‘This is Eden here.’ Her leg felt gloriously warm against his own. He glanced up at her. She scooped her braids back behind her head with her left hand. ‘You like a massage, maybe?’ she said.

‘You give massages?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘Yes. I give massages.’

He glanced around. There was still no sign of Boris, and with Knox in this Eden place, there seemed little point watching out for him. Besides, what harm could a massage do? ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That would be great.’

‘I get my oil.’

He went inside, stripped down to his shorts, lay facedown upon the bed. Claudia came back in, took hold of the door. ‘Open or closed?’ she asked.

‘Open,’ he said.

She knelt beside him and set to work on his neck and shoulders. Her fingers were weak compared to the sports massages of his rugby-playing days, but it was pleasant all the same. She tapped his shoulder; he turned on to his back. The mosquito net glowed around them in the halflight, lending a certain medieval grandeur to the moment. She massaged his chest and arms and thighs, then sat herself at the far end of the bed, took his foot and set it against her chest, the better to work his ankle. He could feel the warmth and softness of her breast against his sole. His foot tugged down her top a little way, revealing a glimpse of nipple. She gave him a look of mock reproach and adjusted herself, then ran her thumbs hard down his metatarsals, as though trying to empty a tube of its toothpaste. ‘Is nice, yes?’ she murmured.

‘Very nice,’ he agreed.

She slid her hands up past his knee to his thigh. She did it again, and then a third time, going a little further on each occasion. He felt that strange numbness of mind setting in, the kind that made men forget about things like shame and consequences until it was too late. ‘How old are you?’ he asked; and his voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

‘Twenty-three,’ she told him. ‘You want to see my card?’

‘No,’ he said.

She nodded and set down his leg, then went to close and bolt the door. Then she walked back towards him, stripping as she came.