III

Davit lay on his back, his arm around Claudia, and looked up at the walls of the tent above him, the way they flapped in the occasional gusts of breeze, the way the moonlight glowed through the blue fabric. Things scuttled outside; things screeched and crept. He turned to look at Claudia, kissed her on her brow.

‘I don’t want to be here any more,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to be part of this.’

‘It’ll be okay,’ he assured her.

‘No, it won’t,’ she said. ‘Why has your friend brought a gun? What has he done, this man you’re looking for?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘You mean you don’t want to tell me,’ she said. ‘You mean you’re ashamed of what you’re doing here, but you’re still going to do it anyway.’

‘You don’t understand. My life back home …’ He shook his head. ‘I have to change it. I have to.’

Her body began to heave and hump against him; he could tell that she was sobbing. It distressed him to hear her so unhappy. He tried to comfort her by stroking her hair, but she only shook her head. ‘Why don’t you want to change your life here?’ she asked. ‘Why don’t you want to change it with me?’

Davit didn’t reply at once. He’d thought about staying on a few days, enjoying Claudia, the sea, some sunshine. But he’d never thought about staying on for good. He was a Georgian through and through; he couldn’t give up his homeland and family and friends. But then he realised with a jolt that he’d already given them up; or, rather, they’d given him up. He just hadn’t accepted it yet, like the ghost who refused to leave his corpse. ‘What would we do?’ he asked. ‘How would we survive?’

A moment’s silence as they both contemplated this. ‘Work, work, work?’ she suggested.

Davit laughed. ‘Work, work, work,’ he agreed.