‘Not to anywhere. To nowhere.’

‘And the people?’

Jacob turned and looked at her. Didn’t she know anything? ‘They had to go,’ he said.

‘Why?’ Rika asked.

‘The university was built,’ he said, and from the hunch of his shoulders she realised that whoever had lived here had been forced out, made to move on.

‘Show me,’ she said.

He cut through the trees to a cleared patch of scrub. Jacob didn’t know how many people had been displaced. She looked at the crushed wood, the sheets of rusted roofing, splintered crates that had once been furniture, a broken chair. An old man and a boy were scavenging on the other side. Jacob called out to them. The people had moved to a settlement near the airport, the man said. He hadn’t lived here. He was looking to see what he could use. At the edge of the clearing, growing into the bush, were sweet-potato vines. Jacob pointed to them with his foot. ‘Not ready,’ he said, and then nothing more as she followed him back to the track that led to the swamp. The sun still cast its golden beams, and all around birds were calling, swoops of colour through the shadow of trees. In the distance, the mountains were purple against the sky.

At the swamp, Rika stood beside Jacob, looking into the marshy water where tree roots bent and curled. There was a sweet, slightly fetid smell. Birds were scrapping in the trees, some great, raucous squabble going on above her, and she laughed. How could she have thought this swamp a lake? How could she have seen it at all?

‘The sky,’ Jacob said. ‘You saw the sky.’ He too was laughing.

‘You tease me?’

He shook his head. No, he wasn’t teasing. ‘The sky catches the water,’ he said, ‘and makes it what you saw.’ But still she felt the edge of doubt.

She took the Leica from the bag of woven bush-string that she’d bought the day before. She and Leonard had been at a market beside the harbour early in the morning, when fresh-caught fish were hanging from lines under the trees. The water was shining, reflective. She’d have to learn her camera all over again to accommodate its brightness. Its shimmer. Here at the swamp the water was stained, shades of brown and dark green. She took out her exposure meter. Even here she’d have to stop right down.

‘Not much to look at if you’re not a swamp-dweller,’ Jacob said, and yet through the lens she could see that this grey-green world was alive.

‘What do you see?’ she asked him.

‘Mud,’ he said. ‘And you with your camera.’

She laughed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Really?’ She leaned forward, focusing down low. Pattern and texture, that’s what she saw, the roots of swamp trees, the tracery left in the mud by crabs. She focused in tight, handed the camera to Jacob. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s like art.’

‘Art,’ he said, handing it back. ‘Why is everyone so interested in art? My roommate writes plays.’ There was exasperation in his words. A severity. Then he smiled, a wide, straight smile that lifted his eyes so they no longer seemed hooded. ‘Shall we go up? Look at the sky,’ he asked, pointing to the nearest of the hills.