contour of a woman through the rain
——
The rain fell down all at once. In the distance thunder broke into shards of sound and exploded in the vast open skies above the Mekong, and lightning flashed blue against grey. Joe stared out of the window, watching a barefoot child run through the puddles, a large green leaf, as large as a serving-tray, held above his head against the rain. The air was humid and smelled of vegetation and earth, and Joe knew that later, in the night, the snails would come out and glide across the road like sedate locomotives, leaving their rails behind them as they passed, and that the frogs would be luxuriating in the pools that were, to them, grand palaces of water. A burst of song came and went on the wind, bookended by static. A solitary bird flew high overhead, swooped and disappeared out of sight, little more than a black dot on the horizon.
It was when the rain had began to ease, and sunlight streamed down through the fresh incisions in the cloud cover, that he first saw her. She was crossing the road, head bent, intent on the path she was following. There was no traffic. Light rain fell and sunlight came through behind her, but he couldn’t see her face. For a moment it seemed to him the whole world was still, a frozen backdrop, the moving girl the only living thing inhabiting it. Then the clouds closed overhead and the girl was gone, and Joe sighed, and turned away from the window and reached for his cigarettes.
‘Hello,’ a soft voice said, close by, and Joe started, dropping the Zippo lighter he was in the process of picking up a half-inch above the table. He looked up. She looked back at him. The window was behind her, and behind the glass the sunlight was passing through the rain, and for a moment the raindrops seemed like thousands of miniature prisms hovering in the air. ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he said. He glanced at the half-open door. The girl smiled. ‘You looked thoughtful,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’ She had long brown hair and was quite petite, with eyes that were slightly almond-shaped, and though she was clearly European, she looked more like an Asian girl in her build. She looked like a girl who would always have a problem buying the right-size clothes in Europe, and no problem at all here. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes when she smiled, and he wondered if they were from laughing or crying, though he didn’t know why. He said, ‘Can I help you?’
‘You are a detective?’ She didn’t sit down and he didn’t offer her a seat. She seemed comfortable standing there, while rain and sun clashed behind her. He wondered what her accent was. He said, ‘I –’ and shrugged, his hands encompassing the bare office, the silence of the rain. Then he said, ‘What is it you want?’
She came closer then, standing against the edge of the desk, looking at him. She seemed to study him, as if there were more behind his question than he understood. Her hand fell down to the surface of the desk, resting on the paperback that lay there, and she turned. Her fingers felt the book’s spine and cover, and she picked it up, taking a step back from the desk, her back still to the window. She opened the book and leafed through the yellowing pages.
‘The Hilltop Hotel stands on Ngiriama Road in downtown Nairobi,’ she said, reading. He realised she had no problem pronouncing the road name correctly. ‘On the busy street outside are shoe-shiners and scratch-card stands and taxi-drivers —‘
‘No, that’s wrong,’ Joe said.
‘No?’ She looked taken aback, for some reason.
‘I think there is a pause there, not an “and”,’ he said. It reminded him of something, as if he had once known someone to do this, to substitute words for punctuation when reading a book out loud. Someone who liked to read out books; it made him uncomfortable. ‘It’s just a pulp novel,’ he said, feeling defensive. ‘It helps pass the time.’ He didn’t know why he was apologising, or trying to justify himself to her. The girl closed the book and laid it back down on the desk, doing it carefully, as if handling a valuable object. ‘Do you think so?’ she said. He didn’t know what to answer her. He remained silent. She remained standing. They looked at each other and he wondered what she saw. Her fingers were quite long and thin. Her ears were a little pointy. At last, she said, ‘I want you to find him,’ and her fingers caressed the book; he couldn’t put a name to the look she had in her eyes then; he thought she looked lost, and sad, and a little vulnerable.
‘Find who?’
‘Mike Longshott,’ she said, and Joe’s surprise became a laugh that exploded out of him without warning.
‘The guy who writes this stuff?’
‘Yes,’ she said, patiently. Behind her the rain was petering off. Her voice seemed to be growing quieter, as if she were standing farther away than she was. Joe went to pick up the book and his fingers touched hers. He looked up, suddenly without words. She was bending down, her hair falling around her face, only a small gap of air separating them now, and she moved her hand over his, and there was something terribly intimate, intimate and familiar about it. Then she straightened up, and her hand left his, and she shook her head and gathered her hair behind her shoulders. ‘Expense is not an issue,’ she said, and she reached into a pocket and brought a slim, square object out and put it on the table.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘It’s a credit card.’
He looked at it, shook his head, let it pass. Instead he said, ‘How will I contact you?’
She smiled, and again he noticed the fine lines around her eyes and wondered.
‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you.’
He picked up the card. It was matte-black, with no writing on it, merely a long string of numbers. ‘But w –’ he said, looking up, and saw that, just like that, she was gone. Behind the window the rain had finally stopped, and the sun shone down through the breaking clouds.