Heaven's Edge Read Online Free PDF Page B

pools of set sun, running the blade of her butterfly knife – a sharp sliver of steel hidden in twin hinged sticks of black wood and oxidised copper – right up against the swollen seed inside.
    I admired her pluck, the hidden strength of what she described as her natural filaments.
    â€˜My genes,’ she smiled. ‘The women in my family have always nurtured our inner wings. My mother, Rosa, became a legend here.’
    â€˜What was she? An eco-warrior?’
    â€˜More a kind of ornithologist. Like you, looking everywhere for the bird of paradise.’ She glanced at me, covertly, to check my reaction, and then broke into a chuckle.
    I reached for her, but my fingers barely brushed her tarsus as she rose. Her heels drummed me completely to her song.
    â€˜Would you ever leave this place? Break free from all the hassle,’ I asked her afterwards.
    â€˜That would be impossible,’ she said.
    Above the sea-line the light was eroding fast. Uva mopped the fruit juice and our commingled resin off the groundsheet with a piece of silk. She sniffed at it and smiled to herself. She folded up the sheet into a tiny square and buckled it to her bag. Then suddenly she was gone, leaving behind only the scent of her ardour.
    The next time I saw her was when she turned up on her tricycle. She came with a big box full of fresh eggs and untainted fruit – rambutan, guava, star-apple – all concealed under a tray of buff envelopes. She rode up to the terrace and rang her bell. I was in a hammock outside. She pushed back her hair and tossed me a clutch of rambutan. ‘Catch.’ The rest of the fruit she handed to the sweeper sprawled by the pool. The eggs she gave to the cook, in the kitchen, to make into an omelette. All their faces seemed to lift each time she came around. She even managed to get the hotel jeep for our use and promised to take me to one of the ancient ruined cities that the military, apparently, no longer bothered with. She chortled when I asked whether it was dangerous for her to bend the rules of the hotel so freely. It worried me even though by then I was pretty much settled in the place.
    â€˜Why? I am allowed to come here. Deliveries is what I do. Your lady mail. It’s just that I am not meant to be a guest here.’ She grinned. ‘But tonight maybe I will stay with you. The people who do the work here like me. I give them fruit whenever I can, no? Tusker, in the bar, is the only spy, and he is much too fond of my sweet sapadilloto report me. Even Nirali, whenever I see him, says he likes to talk only to you.’ She laughed effortlessly and ran her fingers over mine.
    She made me rejoice despite the dour surroundings. I wanted to hold her hand for ever. ‘Mutual self-interest, is it?’
    Her smile ran amok briefly, before vanishing from her face. Her bright eyes dampened. The light sank as if into a pit. ‘We all lived
for
each other once, not in need of each other,’ she replied. ‘The world was made out of love. You have to believe that, don’t you?’
    Although younger than me, she seemed to have a grasp of the past which reached far beyond the confusion of mine.
    I heard the baying of hunting dogs in the distance. ‘What are they hunting?’ I asked her.
    Her face darkened, ‘I hope not your Nirali already.’
    I felt a chill inside. I hadn’t seen him for two days.
    Breakfast came and we ate silently. Then, just as I started to ask her more, we heard a motorbike puttering up the drive. ‘Hide everything. Pretend I was never here,’ she hissed and slipped into the garden. Fortunately we had finished the omelette and the fruit. I chucked my serviette on the table, over her cutlery and glass of juice. There was nothing else I could do. I heard someone march around the reception area and then a man burst out onto the terrace. He was armed: the gun was in its holster and he carried a crash helmet in one hand. He