‘Will you tell me about your bird-catcher uncle?’ she asked one night in the last week of term.

‘You don’t think it strange?’

She smiled, and shook her head.

He looked at her, a long pause as if he was testing her, or maybe himself, before he told her that the best birds weren’t in his village, on the edge of the water. They were found up higher, in the forest behind his mother’s village. They looked across to the fire, where Jacob was standing, on the edge of the dance and the talk, watching them. He’d been there when, as small boys, they went with their uncle into the forest, to the trees where paradise birds collected at dawn and dusk. He didn’t want to climb up; even then Jacob didn’t believe. It was Aaron who went after his uncle and sat on a branch near him as he made the sound of the red-plumed raggiana. H-hu-how-how-how-how-how-how-how-how-HOW-WHAIWIH. There on the steps, Aaron’s voice transformed itself into the call of a bird. Jacob looked across, recognising the sound. Rika saw the flash of his eyes before the lids came down, and he walked off in the direction of the road that led into town.

‘He knew the habits of birds,’ Aaron was saying. ‘He shared their spirit. And now he’s gone, and I don’t know who has that knowledge. The knowledge of generations. It may be that it’s gone. Too many of us went out to school.’

His hand was open, outstretched. Rika’s hand lifted, fluttering for a moment like a shy bird, but it didn’t land. She brought it back to her side, held it in her lap. Aaron closed his gently, as if a bird had landed there.

Without warning, or reason, Rika wanted to cry.

THE HEARTS OF WHITE-SKINNED MEN

THE FIRST RIKA HEARD OF TROUBLE ON THE mountain was when Gina knocked on the darkroom door. ‘Let me know when I can come in,’ she called. She wanted a private place to talk. No listening ears. She’d had a letter from Alex Penrose. She made no pretence – yes, they were lovers. Rika had known that for weeks. These things happen. Children, families – sometimes not everything fits.

‘How does Leonard seem?’ she asked when Rika let her in and had pulled out a stool from under the bench. The only light was from a pale-red bulb.

‘Fine,’ she said. A plane had been up with supplies and returned with letters.

‘Has he written about Don?’

‘Not much.’ She made a show of concentrating, running film through the enlarger.

‘Rika, listen. Alex is worried. Don’s interrupting the filming.’

‘Yes,’ Rika said, still looking through the enlarger. ‘Leonard said.’ She was finishing the last of the shots from the South African ambassador’s talk to the university politics club. She was looking down on Eremiah standing on a chair calling for a protest.

‘So will you go up?’ Gina asked.