gentleman beside her had shifted surreptitiously to the other side of the carriage. And now she can’t remember anything after that single line.
Finally, Liyana takes a deep breath and summons the spirit of BlackBird. Be brave, be bold. She strides up the stone steps and through the heavy oak doors. In the glittering foyer, Liyana ruffles her feathers, tucks in her wings, and marches towards the front desk.
Standing behind the front desk is a striking woman, with shining blond hair and a bright red pout, humming to herself. It takes a moment for Liyana to recognize the tune. The Beatles. “Blackbird.” And, all at once, it returns to her. This was the song her mother used to sing.
Liyana stands for a few moments, singing the lyrics silently to herself, thinking of her mother. She exhales. It will be okay. It will all be okay.
“Good morning,” the woman chirrups, as Liyana steps into her sightline. “Welcome to the Fitzwilliam Hotel.”
Liyana hesitates.
“How may I help you?”
“I, um, I’m looking for . . .” Liyana struggles with her script. “. . . My sister. She works here.”
The woman—Cassie, according to her lapel—regards Liyana with a sceptical eye. “And what’s your sister’s name?”
“I, um, well, we’ve not seen each other for a long time and . . .”
Cassie waits for Liyana to complete her sentence. Liyana attempts a confident smile. What happened to brave and bold? Where has her courage gone? Suspicion starts to tweak Cassie’s smile. “So, what’s your sister’s name?”
“Right, yes, I . . .”
Cassie’s fingers hover over a computer keyboard. “What’s your name?”
Lie, lie, lie. “Um—Ana, Liyana.”
She starts to tap. “Li-ya-na what?”
“Oh, yes, sorry, I—Chiweshe.”
“I’m afraid you must be mistaken,” Cassie says, after consulting the computer. “We don’t have any members of staff by the name of Chi-we-she.”
“Ah, okay, but she . . .” Liyana trails off until, finally, inspiration strikes. “She doesn’t have my surname. We’re half-sisters. Different mother, different name . . . She’s very pretty, blond curls, blue eyes . . .”
At this description, recognition lights the receptionist’s eyes and Liyana knows she’s found the right place.
“And yet you don’t even know her first name?” Cassie’s smile thins, lips tighten. She has a parched look, Liyana thinks, as if she needs a long drink of water. “Which tells me that I shouldn’t be giving you her details, but I should be inviting you to leave.”
“No.” Liyana frowns. She wonders if—no, she doesn’t wonder—she knows that if she were white and her sister black, this conversation would be developing very differently. “Please,” she says, hating herself for begging. “Please, it’s just—we’ve never met.”
Cassie narrows her eyes. “You’ve never met? Then why are you so sure she works here?” She shifts in the direction of the telephone. “Have you been follow—”
“No!” Liyana interrupts. “No, of course not. I—I . . . I saw her in my . . .”
Cassie reaches for the phone. “I’m sorry, Ms. Chi-we-she, but either you’re going to leave right now, or I’m going to call the police.”
Liyana shakes her head, eyes filling with tears, and backs away from the desk. She pushes open the ancient oak doors, her sight so blurred by now that she trips and falls down the stone steps.
5:15 p.m.—Liyana
Having spent the afternoon wandering hopelessly around town, past Saint Catherine’s College, then King’s and Gonville & Caius, feeling that the latticed windows were watching her, glittering, winking, jeering that she won’t find her sister in this city if she looks for a thousand years, Liyana climbed the staircase of Great Saint Mary’s medieval tower, puffing and heaving up the 123 steps before stumbling out into the slanting rain, the weather having shifted from sunshine to cloud while she was trudging up the stairs. Which made it worth the trip, for the city was resplendent in the rain.
Below her, Cambridge seemed to rise out of the water like Atlantis: eddying streets shimmering like rivers, rippling flags snagged like seaweed on the tops of towers, gleaming turrets and filigree spires, burnished gargoyles and glistening wrought-iron gates, lustrous lawns spreading like algae on the seabed. Liyana imagined her sister as a mermaid, flitting unseen between the submerged buildings, and stood on the tower hoping to catch a glimpse of her, until she was thoroughly soaked through.
After exhausting every effort, Liyana returned to the streets to slump onto a bench overlooking the pillared entrance of the Fitzwilliam Museum, just past the hotel. An hour later, when Liyana’s trying to decide whether to go straight home to