They walk along the path, away from the town. The beach stretches for nine miles, a wide expanse of white sand, edged by the clear blue waters of the Baltic Sea. He grew up by the Indian Ocean with its gigantic waves and churning currents, vast and powerful, fringed by palm trees, yet today the sun here is as gloriously bright, the water is as blue.

They walk for at least a mile, absorbing the warm rays. To one side, the path now hugs a wide, flat, grassy area, only two snack bars in sight. One is still closed; the other, serving kettwurst, has six people crowded around the hatch, four of whom sport the khaki uniforms of border guards. He reminds Lolita that they will have to take Clara back the same distance and so they take off their shoes and drop down from the path onto the soft, deep, sand, warm under their bare feet. Now, away from the path, as if heralding the true nature of today’s outing, he presses one hand to the small of Lolita’s back, as he points the direction. He has not done this before and it is thrillingly sensuous to feel the complex lattice of muscles around her spine beneath his fingers.

There is a quiet spot, a cove, beyond which the coast curves around a cluster of rocks, and here they settle with a view of the open water. He throws down the blanket he packed into his bag and takes out Clara’s assortment of playthings. There is no one in sight: they have the sand and water to themselves. His daughter is hopping in excitement from foot to foot, pulling at his hand, eager to enter the water, even though the parent-and-child swimming classes at the local pool have not been a success. If he could, he would teach Clara himself, but even if the pool timetable intersected with his working hours, his presence would be scandalous and will cause Petra further embarrassment. At least, that is what she believes. Now he does not challenge his daughter’s bravado, only unbuttons Clara’s dress and lifts it over her head.

“I promised Mami if it’s too cold we won’t swim. We’ll try a little bit.”

He looks up at Lolita.

“Will you come in?” he asks before pulling his shirt over his head, then unzipping and stepping out of his jeans.

He sees that she looks suddenly self-conscious, unsure of where to look, and he understands. From meeting in short bursts, mostly in the dark, bundled up in wools and denims, they are now flinging off their layers in bright sunlight, and parading their bodies to each other. He scoops Clara up with a whoop and jogs away, away from Lolita and down the sand into the water.

The sea is outrageously cold. He keeps a tight hold of his daughter, marvelling, as always, at the hardness and softness of her tiny, wriggling body. Now, in her excitement, she kicks at his ribs and he exaggerates the pain, pretends he will stumble backwards into the water, and she screeches in fear and delight. He splashes some water onto her chest, and she squeals again, clapping her hands against his ears. He tosses his daughter up in the air before catching her, then trailing her feet in the water, her toes funnelling through the waves.

From the corner of his eye, he can see that Lolita has slipped off her jacket, is unbuttoning her dress and he watches as she lets it fall to the sand. He does not watch as she runs towards them and splashes into the water, now swilling around her knees. She gasps and he laughs.

“Can you believe it’s so warm outside and the water is still so cold?”

He keeps his gaze trained on her face, but when she bends to dip her hands in the swirling, grey-blue water, he allows his eyes to move swiftly over her body.

“Be a horse! Be a horse!”

Clara is now on his shoulders, pulling at his ears, and he obeys immediately. He charges up the sand with a whinny, Clara yelping with delight.

The dry sand feels luxuriously warm in comparison to the icy water. A nearby circle of rocks forms a perfect shallow pool for Clara. He takes out the sunhat that Petra has packed for her, ties the straps under her chin, and watches as she runs to the pool.

“Wait for me,” he calls out, but she is immediately intent on a project, squatting on the sand at the water’s edge with her plastic spade and a small red bucket.

“Don’t go in the water alone,” he calls out again, but she does not respond.

“Filha!”

She looks up now, and his heart turns over at the sight of her heart-shaped face and the frown between her eyebrows.

“Don’t go in the water without Papa.”

She nods, impatiently, and resumes her task. How long will it occupy her?

He is hoping for a half hour at least, to enable a conversation with Lolita, and with this thought he looks around for her. She has pinned her hair up high on her head to avoid it getting wet, and while she is dipping herself in and out of the shallows, she only once swims a few strokes into the wave. Now she looks up and sees him watching her. “I can’t feel my toes anymore,” she calls out and then wades out of the water.

He bends over, in a pretence of rummaging in his bag, but when she has covered half the distance between them, he gives in to temptation. He straightens up and watches her, frankly, his eyes taking her in. He has imagined her many times without her clothes on, but she is truly a vision: the blue triangles of the bikini are single, vivid brushstrokes on the golden-brown canvas of her skin. She has noticed him watching her, and so, to lighten the mood, he collapses on his knees as if in defeat, then falls forward clutching an imaginary arrow to his heart.

“Papa, what are you doing?”

Clara’s voice from the rock pool is high-pitched with disapproval, and clutching her spade, her orange sun hat slightly askew, she makes for a furious, tiny adjudicator.

“Lolita is trying to kill me, that’s all,” he says, getting to his feet.

“Pardon?”

“Nada, nada,” he calls out, and Clara frowns and squats down on the sand again.

By now, he can see that Lolita has understood his cryptic message even if his daughter hasn’t, for she is blushing furiously. He smiles at her, widely, foolishly widely, to hide the fact that he is abashed, mollified by his daughter, the chaperone.

“Sorry,” he says under his breath.

He picks up her towel and hands it to her, averting his eyes as she dries herself vigorously. But then he cannot help watching her, he hopes discreetly, as she unclasps her hair, so it falls in a shiny black pool over her shoulders, before reaching into her bag to pull out a light cotton shawl. It cascades from her hands like a vivid fountain of magenta and turquoise and, dotted with tiny mirrors, shimmers in the sun. She tucks the shawl around her shoulders, modestly, but the soft diaphanous material clings to her body, and only draws attention to her long bare legs. She looks beautiful. He waits for her to sit down on the blanket, demurely pressing her knees together, before he lowers himself next to her and touches the ends of her shawl.

“This is nice.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s from India?”

She smiles. “Yes.”

The breeze is now stiff. The weather is capricious, clouds are scudding across the blue sky from nowhere, casting a shadow over the sand. They watch Clara.

“She notices everything,” he mutters.

“She’s very bright.”

“Yes, she is.” He can hear that his voice is full of pride and to avoid sounding boastful, he adds, “Of course, she gets her brains from Petra.”

Clara’s mother, about whom Lolita has received a short biopic – six years Armando’s senior and a journalist.

She is smiling mischievously: “And her looks.”

He laughs. “Yes, that too,” he says, even though he knows that Clara bears more resemblance to his second-oldest sister.

“You must be very proud of her.”

“I am. I only wish that I could see more of her.”

At this, he can see her eyes darken, in sympathy or confusion, for he can see also that she does not know how to respond. Only a few minutes ago, he was eyeing her up, brazenly, and now he is alluding to his role as a weekend father.

So, he grins at her. “Tiago wanted to come today.”

She takes to the topic of Armando’s wayward friend with obvious relief.

“Did he?”

“He’s very jealous I’m with you.”

She laughs. “Was he even awake when you left the house?”

“He wasn’t back from his night out.”

“With whom?”

“I’m not sure. He has a lot of success with women.” He grins. “But lucky for me, not with you.”

He watches her blush again, but she keeps her chin up defiantly.

“I’m not his type.”

“I think you are.”

“Well, he’s not mine.”

“Again, lucky for me,” he smiles at her.

Unforgettable exchanges, he will replay them later that night. But too brief, fleeting, for when his eyes move over her shoulder to find his daughter, he sees that Clara’s two high curly bunches are wobbling in the stiff breeze that is now blowing off the sea and that she is upright, tugging excitedly at something, so intent she has placed one foot against a rock and is using both hands, unaware of the water pooling at her ankles.

He gets to his feet.

“Clara,” he is now half-laughing at her single-mindedness, but as he nears his daughter, he can see more clearly what she is doing and he calls back to Lolita.

“She’s found something.”

He tries to prise his daughter’s fingers from a strap attached to a small bag which is caught under a rock. By now, Clara is incensed that her discovery has been taken away from her. He feels her little hands smack at his legs.

“It’s mine!”

“Espera,” he replies firmly, and something in his tone stills her.

Lolita arrives at his side, and he sees her take Clara by the hand. When he finally pulls the bag free, he sees that it is more like a pouch, clipped to a belt. The clip is hanging broken, but the pouch is not misshapen from the water. It is not old; it is nearly new. He opens the zip and glances inside.

“What’s wrong?” Lolita asks, for the astonishment must show on his face.

Clara has stopped whining and is staring at her father as he walks his fingers through the contents. He zips up the pouch and lobs it into the air so that it lands on their blanket. And then he scans the water around them.

He hears Lolita behind him: “Armando?”

But he does not answer her, only wades into the waves, towards the cluster of rocks just before the bend, where he can see now that there is something in the water. Something long and dark grey, bumping up and down with the waves, beckoning him and warning him at the same time.

Excerpted with permission from The Others, Sheena Kalayil, Westland.

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