The yellow room was warmer than the corridor, yet Emmett couldn’t tell whether it was actually the higher temperature or merely the effect of the wallpaper and furniture, whose muted shades of yellow and orange softened everything gently.
The room as a whole appeared like a painted continent within a European house: yellow silk on the walls, ochre-coloured curtains, ceramic bowls with orange geometric patterns, a bedspread in saffron, sand and black, and cushions with embroidery that wavered between a North African souk, an Ethiopian church and a colonial collector’s passion. On a low table stood a small bowl of dried flowers that smelled of honey, dust and something resinous. The yellow towels and yellow tiles in the bathroom framed the soap in a bowl whose glaze looked like desert sun.
Brian paused on the threshold and looked around, as if the room had personally invited him on a safari.
Emmett stepped inside more cautiously. He still wore the expression of a man who, in the dining room, might not have been manly enough in his support of Mary’s accusation against Sun. The yellow colour did not make him any happier. It made him more conspicuous. Most of the time, he loved the role of a colourful character who wasn’t to be taken entirely seriously, but this evening he wanted to be a knight, not a court jester. He hoped that the matriarch would take this seriously too – the only awe-inspiring person at the table apart from the Cardinal. But Sun hadn’t bowed to pressure: she, the only one who hadn’t been with the group at the time of the murder, had smiled at Emmett’s seriousness.
Brian closed the door completely, as Vittorio had requested. Then he took off his jacket and draped it over a yellow upholstered armchair.
“I’d just like to point out that this room looks as though someone ordered Africa onto an opera stage and then forgot to read the libretto. I’ve got nothing against yellow; I’ve got something against houses that fold continents like napkins. Still, the bed’s big enough, and after this evening, function is more important than authenticity.”
Emmett stopped in the middle of the room. He looked at the bed, then at the door, then back at Brian. His gaze was curious, exhausted and full of guilt that hadn’t yet decided whether to stay or flee.
“I don’t know whether you’re criticising the décor or trying not to talk about Justin. Nor do I know whether I should sleep in this room, confess or apologise, because all three options suddenly seem equally appealing. And if you’re planning to pretend that this evening is just a particularly exquisite party with a dead body, then I’d at least like to know beforehand what role I’m supposed to play in it.”
Brian undid his cufflinks with that dangerous calm that Emmett had known for years and could never quite figure out.
“You need to stop looking as if you’re wavering between a peacock and a vulture, because you were afraid of the Korean woman at the table. You suspected her, got Wolfgang insulted, and then chivalrously defended Mary. It’s not nice, but it’s no Greek national tragedy either, and I’m too tired to listen to another three hours of your moralising about how we should have tied the girl to the table straight away to prevent further murders.”
Brian turned the key in the lock before taking off his shirt. “You’re safer now.”
Emmett didn’t laugh. In the past, he would have laughed so that Brian wouldn’t realise the remark had hit home. Today he was too tired for old habits.
“I didn’t just suspect Sun, Brian. I made that suspicion socially acceptable because I want to be a hero and because, at this moment, Mary Carson seems like the only person who still knows which way to turn. I attacked Wolfgang’s credibility because he’s a Russian small-time crook from Berlin, a handsome thief whom I’d otherwise hire for some German-Polish-Russian themed party.”
Brian took off his socks. His gaze shifted briefly to the door, then back to Emmett.
“You’re no executioner, Emmett, and you’re no Maid of Orleans either. Mary can save herself from Bak quite well enough without your flattery. You’re a man in a yellow room who’s about to either go to sleep or carry on talking, but I’m calling for a third option, now that we’re locked in here.”
Emmett understood immediately. He blushed, not like an innocent boy, but like a grown man who sees a door behind which someone might be eavesdropping.
“Brian, I’m curious, and I’d be a very poor liar if I pretended I hadn’t been for years. But Justin’s out there in that house, and he looks at you as if you were both a lover and a landscape he can never finish painting. I don’t know if I can live with being nothing more to you than a sleeping pill in a yellow frame.”
Brian moved closer; physically, as if closeness were a decision that didn’t need to be discussed, because he alone makes it.
“Justin knows who I am, even if he sometimes paints as though he could improve me by doing so. I don’t love him because I’ve suddenly turned into a man who murmurs vows of fidelity by candlelight in antique stairwells. I want to sleep, Emmett, and my body knows better ways to drift off than Compline, mocha or conversations about Australian inheritance disasters and African wildlife romance.”
Emmett didn’t back away. His hands trembled slightly, but he stood his ground.
“That’s the most unromantic invitation I’ve ever received, and unfortunately, it’s exactly what one would expect from you. I don’t want to be the man who betrays Justin, even though I know full well you won’t use the word ‘betray’. But I don’t want to lie either: part of me wants to know whether, up close, you’re really as impossible as you seem from a safe distance.”
Brian placed a hand on Emmett’s neck, not as a sign of possession, but rather to check his pulse. Emmett drew in a sharp breath. Out in the garden, a lynx let out a soft cry, but Emmett’s curiosity had been piqued.
“I’m worse up close. I’m impatient, not particularly pious, and I won’t be pretending tomorrow morning that we were just counting sheep or impalas in this room.”
Emmett looked at him. Long enough that the decision didn’t seem easy. Then he raised his hand and placed it on Brian’s wrist.
“I don’t need any affection, but I need a moment when I’m not fooling myself into thinking I’m only here by chance. I’ll probably be ashamed tomorrow, and I’ll hardly be able to look at Justin without feeling a hurricane of guilt inside. But tonight I’m tired, scared and alive, and perhaps that’s a dangerous mix, but not a dishonest one. I’m neither a peacock nor a vulture; right now I feel more like the indecisive pigeon facing the snake.”
Brian kissed him to silence him. It was a grasp at the present moment, quick and dry at first, then lingering, because Emmett wasn’t as soft as Brian had expected, and Brian wasn’t as cold as Emmett had feared. The yellow room took them in, without understanding what sort of African heat had just been entrusted to it.
They made their way to the bed, stumbling, not elegantly. Emmett laughed once against Brian’s shoulder, a nervous, brief sound that Brian stifled with a second kiss. Clothes came off not dramatically, but practically: jacket, tie, shoes, shirt. Brian remained in his own world of restraint, Emmett in his own of wonder. What happened next was less tenderness than release, less a promise than a body asserting itself against the night.
In between, as they caught their breath, changed positions and the yellow lamp seemed too bright, Emmett lay on his back staring at the ceiling. Brian sat beside him, his hand on his own knee, as if he’d stopped after a run to get his bearings.
“We still need to talk about Bak, because my brain apparently won’t stop wanting to support Mary, even in the midst of horizontal disaster. The Korean woman was alone in the courtyard, she can fight, she was kneeling next to the body, and I hate that Mary’s suspicion isn’t being given the credit it deserves by the others. But Bak had no motive, and that makes things uglier, because a good suspicion without a motive is like a perfectly laid table without any food.”
Brian turned his head towards him. He didn’t look amused. With Brian, that was sometimes the highest form of engagement.
“Do you have to talk about this right now? Bak had no motive, as far as we know, but she had the opportunity and, as a martial artist, is practically a weapon in her own right. Mary had no motive and no opportunity; Meghan probably didn’t either; Justine, perhaps; and Fiona has likely repressed more than this house can wrap up in its blue towels. If the Korean woman really was involved, someone must have paid her, persuaded her or drawn her into it in such a way that she acted not as the murderer, but as a tool. “Now turn round so I can carry on!”
Emmett sat up slightly and counted the ostriches on the yellow lampshade.
“Or it wasn’t murder at all, but one of those dreadful situations that look like murder in hindsight because nobody wants to recount the embarrassing start. Valeria might have come into the courtyard, in the dark, perhaps drunk, perhaps on the run, perhaps with a new threat on her lips, and Bak might have encountered her like a gatekeeper. If Valeria had pressured her – physically, sexually, or simply in a way that the Korean woman perceived as a threat – then a defensive reaction that turned out to be stronger than it should have been would be conceivable.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. Only after he’d turned Emmett into the right position and resumed his actions did he say, breathlessly:
“I’m not saying that lesbian women in Greece jump out from behind rocks at night and harass Korean bankers, before your inner cynic calls me out. I’m simply saying that so far we’ve only known Sebastienne as a dead woman. If she got too close to Bak in the dark, touched her, threatened her or took her by surprise with some mixture of desire and aggression, then the banker-kung fu specialist might have fended her off, and a case of legitimate self-defence would have turned fatal.”
Brian gasped for a moment without saying a word, until he’d found his rhythm. Still, his thoughts turned to Bak, to her gaze, to the way Bogdanov sat beside her as her bodyguard without being her lover. Then he threw his head back, not entirely dismissing the idea, but rather weighing it up, and snorted with relish.
“That’s the first theory of the evening that doesn’t paint Bak as a mercenary ninja assassin, yet still explains why she was by the body. It has its weaknesses, because we don’t know how the dead woman got from the top to the bottom whilst still alive, why the bag was lying against the wall, and why the Korean woman didn’t simply say she’d been attacked. But shame is a pretty good reason to keep quiet, and we’ve been served that in various flavours today – with and without burning ice cream. Wait, that’s better!” He manoeuvred Emmett onto his back so that their eyes could meet.
Emmett looked at him. The thought of shame brought Justin back into the room, even though Justin wasn’t there.
“You should say now that Justin would never forgive you for this, so I don’t have to think it on my own. You should also say that I’m currently lying in a bed I shouldn’t be in, and yet I’m coming up with crime theories because I can’t deal with what we’re doing any other way. I’d be grateful if you could be the responsible adult for a moment, but I know I’m in the wrong bed for that.”
Brian leaned over him. His face was very close, but his voice remained clear.
“Justin doesn’t forgive me because I’m well-behaved, but because he sees me for who I am, and that’s worse, if you need it to be poetic. You’re not here because I lied to you, and I’m not here because I’ve forgotten Justin. We’re here because the room is too yellow, Africa is too hot, and some people are too sex-crazed not to scream.”
Emmett didn’t reply straight away. Then he pulled Brian towards him, more cautiously than during their first kiss, without breaking the flow of the moment.
“At least we won’t be screaming too loudly. The yellow room has already seen enough cultural misunderstandings as it is, and I wouldn’t want an Italian cardinal, an Australian tragedienne or a Canadian painter to walk past this door and hear my name mentioned in a context that would be difficult to explain. Besides, despite everything, I still have enough decency not to think of Mary Carson whilst you’re having an orgasm.”
Brian laughed. It was brief and dark. Then the laughter was gone.
What followed was straightforward in the usual pragmatic, unromantic sense. It was focused. Brian got what he’d been looking for: breath, rhythm, exhaustion, that brief forgetting of the house. Emmett gave more than he’d planned, because curiosity doesn’t always remain a small flame once it’s finally given free rein.
The yellow lamp with the ostrich pictures cast warm shadows over shoulders, pillows and the crumpled blanket. Outside, the corridor held its breath.
Justine came back from the stairwell because Vittorio had asked her to check whether everything was quiet in the rear corridor. She’d had enough of doors, but the night had evidently decided that she, of all people, had to keep standing in front of them.
Then she heard Brian: a deep, involuntary sound so unmistakable that she froze, as if she’d peered into a stranger’s changing room. For a fraction of a second, she didn’t know whether to laugh, run away or cover her ears. Then she blushed, which annoyed her even more because no one was there to see it, and yet it happened anyway.
Back in the room, after a while, Brian said something, his voice hoarser than before.
“That was efficient. I’d submit it as a therapeutic measure, but the Catholic administration probably has a form against it. Go to sleep now, before you start thinking about guilt, the Korean girl or the décor of this yellow ‘Africa’ room again.”
Emmett’s reply came muffled but clearly enough through the half-open door. Justine wanted to leave, but stayed anyway.
“I can’t sleep when my mind has just come up with a theory that’s both reasonable and horribly embarrassing. If Sebastienne Bak made lesbian advances towards her in the dark—perhaps because she thought her an easy target, or because she mistook her own lust for Asian desire—then the Korean woman wouldn’t really be a murderer in the legal sense, but a woman who had defended herself too fiercely. That would explain why she was so calm: not because she’s cold-blooded, but because she’s learnt to meditate first after an act of violence.”
Justine stood in the corridor and felt the embarrassment fade from her face. The words had transformed the yellow door. A moment ago it had been a boundary to something private; now it was once again a source of dangerous truth.
Brian replied wearily, but not indifferently.
“Perhaps. Or maybe you want to save Mary because you feel guilty for not having blamed the Korean woman enough, and I want to like the theory because it doesn’t involve paid lesbian hitwomen.”
Justine stepped back slowly.
She’d heard enough, more than enough. Brian’s body, Emmett’s guilt, Sun’s possible defence, Valeria not just as a blackmailer but as a communist-lesbian boundary-breaker lurking in the shadows? That was yet another possibility, one that even smelled different from Mary’s xenophobic suspicion. More like a harassment charge, less like a samurai attack.
She returned to the stairwell, more quietly than she had come.
She stopped beneath Phaedra and Hippolytus and fixed her gaze on the madly loving figure. Was Sebastienne such a Phaedra? But what did she love: possessions, young women, collective property, or the suffering of three generations of Cleary women? She hadn’t wanted to eavesdrop. She really hadn’t wanted to eavesdrop. But this house revealed its truths through keyholes, door cracks and the shame of people who believed themselves to be alone.
It grew quieter in the yellow room.
Emmett lay next to Brian, his eyes open. Brian had turned onto his side, ready to finally sleep. Between them lay neither love nor romantic memory, only gentle aftershocks of their encounter. Nor was there any simple guilt, just a complex, warm, exhausted, disorderly human remnant that did not quite fit into the Cardinal’s nocturnal order.
After a while, Emmett spoke again, very quietly, but in three clear sentences, as if he had to prove it to himself.
“I’ll have to look at Justin tomorrow, and I don’t yet know what face I’ll need for that. I’ll have to look at Bak, and I’ll have to remember that I almost turned her into a murderer before I could come up with a lesbian self-defence story. And I’ll look at you, Brian, and probably realise that you’re still you.”
Brian replied without opening his eyes.
“Go to sleep, Emmett! Tomorrow you can feel ashamed, sort things out, apologise, or go for another little morning walk with me. You’ve talked enough tonight.”
Emmett turned his head towards him. He smiled faintly, though Brian didn’t see it; he’d already fallen asleep. Emmett fell silent and watched the dark shadows against the yellow backdrop.
And beneath the yellow light of the bedside lamp, in a room meant to evoke Africa yet harbouring only two exhausted men, the new possibility of Bak’s guilt was expanded to include an alternative.
