Jacob was still at the boulder, halfway down. He was watching her, though he’d angled his head as if he wasn’t. When she slipped down on her arse, grateful for the jeans, she grasped the rough grass to stop the slide. Fine lines of blood appeared on her palm and Jacob came fast up the hill, offering his hand. A small smile, an apology, and his face became clear again. That’s what she liked about him – the way he smiled, when he did. He knew as little as she did. A different little, but still, it was little. This new world coming.

‘My clan-brother was at university in Australia,’ he said. They were leaning against the rock into the shade, resting. Her breath was coming fast. She wiped her face but it made no difference – the air was heating up, its wetness settling on her. She took off her hat and took out the Leica.

‘Is he still there?’ she asked, lifting the camera, focusing tight on his face. It was a good lens. It’d manage this light.

‘No. He’s in Europe. Doing an MA.’ A note of pride.

‘What subject?’

‘History. Colonial trade. Copra. Rubber. The trade in art. Plumes.’

She thought of her father at the museum in Leiden. ‘Has he been to my country? The Netherlands?’

‘Maybe. To Germany. You can ask him yourself. He’s coming home.’

‘To your fjords?’

‘No. To here. He has a job at the university. In the history department.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Aaron.’

‘Like the bible.’

‘His father was a catechist. We all had mission names.’

‘Jacob and Aaron. They were brothers?’ She tried to remember the story. Her father hadn’t believed. The stories he taught her came from the museum, not the bible.

‘No. That was Esau.’ Jacob laughed. ‘The hairy one. Jacob was the smooth one.’ He put out his arm. It was as smooth as a girl’s. ‘He had twelve sons.’ He raised a thumb as if the achievement was his. ‘Twelve tribes.’

‘And Aaron?’

‘He came later. With his rod.’

‘I remember. It turned into a snake.’

She lifted the camera, adjusted the exposure. Click. Click, click, click. A fluke, she said when she developed the film, cropped in further and pinned his image on the line strung above the sink in the library’s makeshift darkroom. Jacob’s face, soft as putty.

‘Time to go,’ he said. ‘It’ll be hot soon.’

‘And this isn’t?’

She put her hat back on, pulled it low, tucked her plaits under.

They slipped and skidded their way down the rest of the hill back to the path, through the scrub, past the desolate wreck of a camp, retracing their steps until the houses came into view, the graded road, cars driving children to school. When they reached the bald house on the building site, Leonard was up and coffee was brewing.