The Alphabet of Birds

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The two men arrive simultaneously from opposite directions. Their taxis disappear down the street. They stand in silence in front of a steel door set in a long wall.

The drive from his hotel on the other side of the city to these streets, with their warehouses and grey industrial yards, has left Chris dizzy. He gauges the other man’s accent when he speaks into the intercom. The vowels between his American ‘r’s are flat enough to be South African (Afrikaans?). The American South African (or South African American) is impatient, his shoulders pushing against the steel before the bolt retracts electronically. Behind the door is a concrete yard and a row of trucks. In the fading light, the man walks purposefully to a second steel door. Another intercom: the shoulder wedged in again, legs like levers.

Chris is unprepared for the scene behind the second wall: a villa, 1920s or ’30s, in a large, treed garden, torches on the lawn. Light falls over them from the open windows. In the tall front door, Chris’s friend Frederike appears. Her shadow shrinks when she walks out to him, cheeks lit by torch flames, arms stretched out.

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