Ana made a decision. She would disobey her uncle and go to the village earlier. Straight away? She looked at the open drawer — yes, this was another thing she had started doing, rummaging through somebody else’s things. She was looking for an explanation but she found nothing. Maybe it was in the middle part of the cupboard, which was locked. There in the drawer lay only the reminders of her uncle’s life, which was filled with a single hobby: medal collecting. He had filled a whole box with them and they came from all parts of the world.
OK, so what did that tell her? Nothing. Nothing. She felt that this was one of those decisions she had to carry out without a mistake. Should she go straight away, or wait for the hour her uncle had stated in his letter? The more she hesitated, the nearer that time would be and soon no decision would be necessary. She wanted to do what was best and therefore she turned to God. She started to pray but could not finish the prayer. God told her to wait. Or was it just his representatives, those who spoke about respecting one’s elders and obeying orders? This was too much for her and she wished God had given her less free will.
To do nothing was doing something too and that was why she left without turning back.
The hand without a middle finger or a body, which was still holding the door handle on the inside of the shed, swayed gently.
Raf approached the shed and put his ear on the door. Silence. He began to open it very slowly and cautiously, just for an inch to begin with, just enough to have a look inside and then a bit more. There was nobody there. He noticed the collapsed back wall and the branches that had been trampled on.
He started to imagine Samo taking refuge in there and then noticing the back wall. The screams he had heard confirmed his theory but there was no body, which filled Raf with the hope that Samo had managed to escape.
Let’s hope so, he said to himself and closed the door.
A strong hand covered his mouth, another held his arm. They pressed him against the body behind him. Raf tried to scream and free himself from the embrace but he could not.
“Don’t scream, don’t scream, I won’t hurt you!” somebody hissed in his ear.
Slowly Raf calmed down. What else could he do?
“Are you calm?” continued the voice, “Don’t shout, we’ve got to talk. You won’t shout?”
Raf tried to nod.
The hands gripping him relaxed a bit in order to test him. Raf took some deep breaths and waited. The hands loosened their grip but did not move away.
A man who seemed familiar to Raf stepped in front of him. White hair sticking up rather funnily. This was the man who had met the girl who would not speak to him on the ferry.
“I won’t harm you,” the man said. “Let’s hide by the side of the shed. We’ve got to talk.”
Raf followed him without hesitation. The feeling that he was no longer alone in the middle of that night was incredibly pleasant. He would do anything to keep that feeling for as long as he could.
Thick tufts of dry grass from the year before grew along the wooden boards and the old man with white hair sat down and motioned to Raf to do the same.
“It’s best if we’re not very visible.”
Raf leant on the wood with his back and slid down slowly right next to the old man.
“I’m Aco,” he said.
“Raf.”
They nodded to each other without shaking hands.
“What happened?”
Raf answered with a question:
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s not important, just tell me what happened.”
The man may have been old but he was undoubtedly strong, radiating a decisiveness which Raf could not ignore. It felt so good to let somebody else do all the thinking and agonizing. Maybe Max had worked that one out four years ago and that was why he had spent all his school life copying from Raf.
He quickly gave Aco a resume of what had happened: they were having a party when Alfonz suddenly went crazy and mutilated himself and then went on to attack the others.
Aco did not want to believe that that was all. He prodded and prodded until Raf managed to tell him all he could remember about Alfonz’s visits to the cellar and his strange talk about a child who had asked him his name.
Raf was surprised to see the old man cover his eyes with his hands and start to tremble. Slowly and only just visibly at first and then the shaking got stronger and stronger. Even his hair stood up more and seemed to move.
Raf did not know what to do. Should he touch the old man, comfort him? He sat there silently and waited, constantly observing Aco.
Loud laughter came from the house. Perversely joyful and relaxed, a real contrast to the atmosphere of that night. Max, without a doubt. Letting them know in his own way that he was still alive.
Aco raised his head.
“What’s that? Is there anybody left in the house?”
“Yes, I did think earlier that there was somebody on the first floor. That must be Max.”
“There were four of you on the ferry: you’re Raf, Alfonz has gone crazy, Max is laughing, what about the fourth one?”
“Samo. I don’t know where he is. Alfonz was trying to get him, I could hear screams, I fear…”
The laughter stopped for just a second and then continued with renewed strength.
Aco looked towards the villa with trepidation.
“Let’s go and see,” he said.
“I’m sure it’s Max.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is. But he’s not the one we’re looking for. We’re looking for the fifth person.”
“The fifth? You yourself had said that there were four of us…”
“On the ferry! In the house there were five of you.”
“Five?”
“There was that thing, whatever it is.”
Raf moved away, looking at Aco with expectation.
“That thing?”
“The former child, I’ll explain later. Let’s go!”
Aco’s impatience grew and he kept looking towards the source of the laughter, which would not subside.
Aco jumped up without leaning on anything. Raf tried to imitate him, but when the wood behind his back, which he tried to use for support, started creaking he decided to lean on the stone next to his left thigh, which he had noticed earlier.
He got up and went after Aco, who had already set off for the house. He wiped his left hand on his T-shirt. The stone must have been wet.
In the middle of the dry grass?
He looked at his palm and the dark stain on it.
Suddenly he did not want to go back and see what the stone next to him really was.
But he had to do it. With one long movement he leapt back, moved the tall tuft of grass and looked at the empty head which used to sit two rows behind him. He started choking, ran into the bushes to throw up and stepped into two piles of something he did not really want to recognise, but the moonlight winked back at him from the gouged-out eyes lying on a heap of flesh. He turned back, running up and down, vomiting.
He screamed and rolled on the ground.
He received two such strong blows that it sounded as if he had church bells in his head.
He calmed down.
He let the fluids flow from every possible opening in his body.
“Now you know what happened,” said Aco calmly, holding Raf’s shoulders, “you know what it all looks like but you’re wrong in thinking you know who did this. Wipe yourself and let’s go. It’s going to be a long night, there’s a lot to do.”
Raf nodded, remembered the scene behind the bushes, collected himself, took a deep breath and wiped himself with his T-shirt, which was getting full of stains. He remembered his father, and a little observation Raf had made first about him and then about all the other men who put weight on around their waists and then stick their big stomachs out proudly: they can never finish a meal without dropping some of their food on their front. Always and everywhere. The memory of his parents was both calming and unreal. They were so grey and average, so boring that he suddenly realised what home meant. Home is where you feel safely bored.
“Alright? Shall we go?”
Raf got up and stumbled. Knowing that next to him was a man who knew what it was all about helped him.
Aco hoped deeply that that was how Raf felt about him. If he was on his own he would die from fear, run away in a panic, but as soon as there was somebody who needed his help, he was able to control himself completely. He was a born soldier.
The villa was silent. There were no more sounds of laughter. The dining room light was still on and when they walked round the house they could just about discern some light escaping through the nursery shutters.
Raf hoped they would not have to go into the house. They stood in the middle of the meadow, waiting. It felt like a very long time.
They heard some steps and then the door opened. Max stepped out, saw them and nodded.
Raf nodded back, surprised at how casual their meeting seemed. As if they were somewhere else, at some other time.
“Let’s go,” said Aco and pulled Raf by his sleeve.
“I thought we were going in?” asked Raf, visibly relieved.
“No, not yet. We don’t know enough. Let’s go to the woods.”
Raf noticed the old man watching Max as he joined them, unusually silent.
“Max,” said Raf, “hey man, why did you laugh like that earlier?”
Max was looking at the top of his trainers and did not move a muscle.
“Max?”
Raf noticed the dark patches on the inside of Max’s thighs, the traces of vomit on his chest and thought his friend was embarrassed so he stopped quizzing him.
“Let’s go to the woods,” said Aco impatiently, waved Raf off in the direction he wanted him to go and waited for him to start walking. Max followed Raf and Aco went last. He stopped behind the first trees and turned back as if expecting something whilst not taking his eyes off Max for more than a few seconds.
“He’s scared of him,” realised Raf. And at the time when Max was at his most harmless, just a small shadow, one of many amongst the trees.
They waited for a long time, or that was how it seemed to Raf. He knelt, lent on a tree with his hips and felt something sticky on his T-shirt. How it frightened him! He took a long time to pluck up the courage to feel it was just tree sap.
He looked towards the house. It was a beautiful night and the previous events seemed like a dream. He would wake up. The crickets and the moon would still be there but all the memories would be gone.
Aco was hiding behind the tree next to Raf’s and suddenly he took a sharp breath in through his nose as if he had a cold and was trying to keep the snot in. Raf expected to hear a breath coming out and when it did not, he bent forward slightly to get a better view of the figure in front of him. The crickets’ song suddenly became strangely different or so it seemed to him.
He looked towards the house. The door was already closing.
On the veranda stood a small boy, who reminded Raf of a child prodigy, standing on stage waiting for a sign from the conductor. His suit, his bow tie and glowing white shirt, his eyes which travelled from left to right as if he was embracing the audience lovingly. Letting everybody feel that he was performing just for them. He even held something in his hand, but in spite of the moonlight Raf could not really make out what it was, though it did not look like an instrument.
The boy turned his head towards them and Raf looked at Aco, who seemed to be frozen — he was so pale and motionless. He only moved when the boy’s head continued its journey without stopping.
Raf noticed with horror that Aco had produced a pistol from somewhere and was now pointing it at the boy. The barrel looked frightfully steady in the moonlight. Aco would not miss, he looked like a man used to shooting. His left hand was supporting his right hand which was resting on the tree trunk. He was going to kill the child, Raf thought, I must stop him. How could anybody be as calm as this crazy man he had only known for half an hour? I’ll jump, now. Twigs broke under his feet as he got up.
The finger on the trigger started to bend.
Too late, said Raf.
Something big flew through the air and covered Aco. At first Raf could only see a writhing mass on the ground but then Max flew away as quickly as he had flown in. Aco had somehow thrown him off and something small, barely recognisable flew with Max, quickly disappearing amongst the trees.
The pistol.
The child was saved, thought Raf even before he could feel surprised at Max’s jump. His friend crashed on the ground, picked himself up straight away and looked around for another victim. He noticed Raf, who thought he looked like a dog, on all fours with sparkling animal eyes. Max took another leap. At first on all fours, panting, and then springing up and jumping onto Raf, knocking him down. Raf opened his mouth to shout for help but immediately felt somebody’s tongue upon his.
Ana had no difficulty finding the house her uncle had described in his note. The place was right but the time was not. She looked at the name-plate on the door. If nothing else she could at least find out Luka’s surname. The thought that it was strange that there was a name-plate on that door only and on no others she had passed on the way came to her very casually and did not really take a proper form. It was logical: the villagers all knew each other and name-plates were quite unnecessary.
On Luka’s door it said:
DOOR: WOOD
BOUGHT ON:
INSTALLED ON:
At first, she was surprised at the age of the door, then recognised the writing, which she had already seen on the tea-cup she had drunk from earlier, and then she wondered about the man who stuck labels on every object, however insignificant and common it was.
She would knock on the door and see. She hoped he would not have a label with his name and birth details on his forehead.
She was trying to guess what his reaction would be. She had a few scenarios and her favourite was the first one: Luka waves his arm, telling her all about her uncle’s madness and tells her to stop worrying and go to bed. It would not matter to her even if he slammed the door in her face or shouted at her. She would not mind at all.
Luka was obviously a light sleeper. Immediately after the first two nervous knocks of her knuckles on the wood a light came on in the window above her head and an old, thin and wrinkled man with a nose like an eagle’s grumbled at her.
“Aco sent me,” she said.
“Alright, I’m coming,” he groaned and closed the window. From the length of time he kept her waiting, Ana concluded that the old man was not in any hurry. He did not open the door fully, just enough to have a good look at her. Maybe he was trying to hide his funny pyjamas with their wide vertical stripes?
She handed him Aco’s letter.
He opened it and read it, moving his lips with a whisper
-AND!
Weird, Ana said to herself in astonishment. All her imagined scenarios disappeared like a puff of smoke.
The man became like a blowfish. He straitened up, threw his shoulders back, spread his arms so that the door crashed against the wall, took a deep breath into his lungs and in an overflowing mixture of relief and enthusiasm roared:
“ACTION, AT LAST!”
Max suddenly realised just how much he loved his father. He was nothing without him, he did not even have a name. He had had to come that far, he had had to wait all that time to realise it.
Father!
A son’s love for his father!
He kissed and hugged him tightly.
Became one with his father.
Father!
I’m coming, here I am!
I’m yours, father!
Father!
Raf would have thrown up this time, too, if there was anything left to throw up. He turned on his side, choking and struggling for breath. Above him stood Aco who had kicked Max a few metres away and was now observing him as he slowly got up again, groaning.
“It’s started,” said Aco without sounding worried or frightened. His fear had only showed when he looked at the child and earlier, behind the shed, when Raf had told him about the villa. Raf said:
“He nearly killed me. I couldn’t breathe!”
“With a kiss,” added Aco and Raf was not quite sure if he just imagined the ironic smile on his face.
Max was on his feet again.
“How much I love you!” he said opening his arms wide.
In two jumps he was beside Aco, leapt onto him and knocked him down. He attached himself to Aco’s mouth. And a second later he again flew up in the air. The old man seemed well versed in the martial arts, noted Raf.
Aco wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“We’ve got to tie him up otherwise he’ll cover us both in his saliva.”
Max was up again.
“Father! FATHER! Just a kiss, father. What’s bad about that? Just one kiss?”
“Here he comes, watch out,” Aco got ready.
Max opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and jumped. The old man received him with a kick between his legs, a knee-blow on his chin and a fist in his ear. It sufficed.
Aco jumped over to Max lying on the ground, and folded both his arms behind his back
“We’ve got to tie him up,” he shouted to Raf, who had only just got up, “take off his trousers!”
Raf did as he was told and when he finally managed to pull the jeans off the unconscious Max, he caught a worried look on Aco’s face.
“You’re a bit clumsy,” said Aco.
Raf nodded willingly. What else could he do? With resignation, he accepted Aco’s expression of displeasure at having such a companion.
“We’ll manage.”
Aco pulled a fishing knife out of his pocket, cut the jeans into strips and used them to bind Max.
Max started gurgling and Aco turned him on his side and gave him a good blow on the back. The captive blew a balloon of blood onto the pine-tree needles and Raf groaned.
“It’s alright, he just bit his tongue,” Aco comforted him. “I hope he’ll be able to talk. We’ve got to wake him up.”
He started hitting him and after a while Max opened his eyes and immediately recognised the person leaning over him.
“Father!” he breathed.
Ana had to knock on Adriano’s, Bruno’s and Miro’s doors. She surprised herself by never mixing up or forgetting the instructions given to her by Luka. They were all sleepy and bad tempered when they first opened the door and then became full of energy as soon as they heard Luka’s message which Ana conveyed to them word by word:
“Action, boys!”
She soon realised she was gathering the whole team who had been sitting on the bench at her arrival. She did not wait for them to get dressed but returned to Luka’s house. The light was on inside and the door was open. She did not dare go in and waited outside in the light from the naked bulb, around which moths immediately started flying. Suddenly, something moved on the wall and one of the insects disappeared. Ana stepped nearer and only after a thorough inspection discovered some lizards, sitting on the stone, their colour matching that of the background, making them impossible to spot. She moved away in revulsion.
From time to time she could hear rattling noises, the slamming of drawers, the odd curse in a quick dialogue between a man and a woman coming from inside.
She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked louder.
Luka opened the window and looked at her:
“What?”
He was not in his pyjamas any more, judging by the arm holding the shutter. He had put on some sort of green hunting shirt.
“Could you tell me what’s going on?”
“Action, what else.”
“I mean with my uncle?”
“He’s the boss. He’s much cleverer than I, and after what happened
(what?)
much braver too. Didn’t he tell you anything?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t tell you anything either. A conspiracy, that’s us.”
He was about to go back in when she stopped him pleadingly:
“Please, tell me at least if it’s something serious?”
“Serious? Why the hell do you think I’m running around in the middle of the night? And Aco too?”
He closed the window, leaving her to wait.
Alfonz was walking around the woods with his friend in his arms, explaining to him his very special attitude to trees.
Aco and Raf were watching the child who was by now quite far away on the beach, right next to the sea and suddenly it occurred to Raf just what it was he had been clutching all that time. The cuddly elephant from the nursery.
“We’ve got to find the gun, all is not lost yet!” said Aco.
He started desperately rummaging through the undergrowth and the thick layer of pine-tree needles, looking behind tree trunks. Once he stooped swiftly to pick up something black, but it was only his beret, which had fallen off his head during his fight with Max. After Aco gave him a sharp look, Raf joined him in his search even though he was not quite sure what he was supposed to do if he found the gun.
But he was spared that trial. The darkness on the ground was thick and impenetrable and their search was futile. Aco stopped, pressing the palm of his hand onto his forehead.
“So this is it. This is it.” he said. Raf did not know what he meant.
The child was still on the beach staring at the horizon, all the time in the same direction. Whilst searching for the gun Aco kept looking at the child and when the boy slowly walked off along the beach out of sight Aco stopped.
“He’s going to the campsite,” said Aco. “If he keeps walking along the sea that’s where he’ll end up. We’ll cross the island and we’ll have at least half an hour, maybe more, advantage over him. It’ll do. In the meantime, we’ve got to find out as much as we can about how to destroy him.”
“Destroy him?” Raf moved away from Aco.
“Yes, of course. We can’t kill him.”
“Well, I should hope not.”
Raf was not sure if he really understood the joke.
Aco nodded:
“He’s been dead for a long time and I was there when he was dying. Now we’ve just got to destroy him. And before that we’ve got to find out as much as we can from this one.”
He pointed to Max who was lying there, his tongue pointing up into the air, as if he were licking an invisible ice-cream.
“Father, just a little kiss!”
Aco sat on Max’s stomach, put his hands on Max’s shoulders and pushed him down. Max was trying to lift himself up, desperate to kiss the figure above him.
“Just a little kiss, a little kiss, that’s not much, just a little kiss!”
The captive was lifting his head and reaching for the face above him with his tongue. Saliva stained with blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.
“You’ll get a kiss,” said Aco, “You’ll get one. You just have to tell me something before.”
“I will, father, I will!”
“Did you see the child?”
“Yes, I did. In that room, in the dark. You weren’t there, father, and I was scared. I’m not scared now. Just a little kiss!”
“You’ll get it. What did the child say?”
“Mama, he said. That was the first thing he said. But mothers don’t matter, just fathers! Mothers come and go! That’s what they’re like!”
“Mama? And then?”
Max, in between pouring out his emotions, finally managed to tell them what had happened to him in the villa. He did not forget to mention how the boy did not have to open his mouth while he spoke and Aco asked him to repeat that bit twice.
Slowly, Max started losing the plot more and more and talked only about love and kissing his father. He kept jerking forward with his tongue out, trying to lick his interrogator, until Aco got up and moved away. Max writhed on the ground, tirelessly repeating his litanies.
Raf watched him and after a long absence that cynical voice which had been so active on the ferry but had then vanished, as if it had returned to the mainland, reappeared. He remembered their form-teacher’s words spoken during the final celebratory speech. He had asked them to look at each other as that was the last time they would see each other as they were then. Next time they met, a few years later, they would be different, something would have happened to them. It’s true, said the little voice. Just look at that body on the ground, remember Alfonz’s face, remember yourself. Who would have thought that you would become like this in just a few days.
Aco came over to Raf and said to him:
“It’s time to talk.”
Ana realised how everything she had done in her life had been guided by rules and reason. At the same time, she knew that that was the way which suited her best, but she still wondered when the last time was that she had done something instinctively, under an impulse, on the spur of the moment.
Her instinct was telling her to leave. The whole night she had been waiting, the whole night. Some strangers came and told her to wait. Just like that.
She knocked on the door firmly and decisively.
“What now?” the window opened.
“Will you take me with you when you go after my uncle?”
Luka looked at her in astonishment.
“But how, you’re a woman?!?”
She swallowed thickly.
“Where are you going?”
“Well, to the villa.”
“The one on the other side of the island?”
“Where else?”
“The one near the campsite?”
“No, the campsite is in between. A different path leads to the villa. Further than the camp!”
“How”
“I haven’t got time for this! It’s time for action!”
He slammed the shutters and started to clatter around, moving things again.
So that was it! Even if she waited there until the morning or even until doomsday, they would not take her with them because she was a woman! So!
She remembered her mother who was always waiting for something: with lunch for her husband, with a towel for her when she was having a bath. Always. The first signs of puberty manifested themselves in Ana’s wondering when her mother would rebel. She would have been able to respect her a lot more if she had ever raised her voice or done anything her own way. Stopped waiting.
It’s night and I’m free, she told herself.
I’ll go. Now. On my own. They’ll be sorry for not taking me with them.
Behind them, Max was calling for his father while Raf and Aco sat next to a bent pine tree. Aco talked and Raf listened:
“I’ll tell you just the most important details, we haven’t got enough time for the rest. When I was eight I looked through the cellar window of that villa,” he pointed in the right direction, ” and I saw”
He had to take a deep breath and lean his head back before he was able to continue.
“ something. A woman killing her child. Slowly, drop by drop, she took his blood as if he was an inkpot and with each drop she wrote down a name in the steam from the glowing amber. About the others who were there, the strange demons, I won’t talk. Towards the end, I screamed. I don’t know if I’d interrupted their ritual or not. I don’t know. It probably doesn’t matter anyway. The next morning the woman disappeared and everybody thought she’d left with her son. She was from India, her husband had been born over on the mainland and he’d brought her here when he retired. He died before his son was born. There were lots of rumours going around the village about the child not being his. The child was born exactly nine months after the husband’s death. I was too young to understand it all then, but the rumours stayed around till I grew up.
I never told anybody what I’d seen. Nobody. Not even those who took me there that night. But it got out somehow and the villa became a no go area for the villagers. I believe that new generations of young boys have all tested their courage there. How many small boys must have stood there swallowing hard and trembling. But nobody ever went really close. There was no talk about the villa being haunted or anything like that, we just never mentioned it at all. The whole village wiped it out of its memory. It wasn’t there anymore, do you understand? I know, we should have gone there and burnt it down. I thought of it many times, but our daily life here is so boring and uneventful that it puts you to sleep. Whatever you can put off till tomorrow, can’t harm you.
I became the leader of a gang of those boys, together we joined the forces and fought for the allies during the last war. I became a professional soldier later. What else could I have done?
I got a whole load of medals. I’ve still got them somewhere. I survived everything. Everything. I was brave only because I wanted to die. But all along I knew I would have to come back one day and deal with what I saw as a child. But I didn’t have the courage! I was afraid! AFRAID! That’s why I was always in the first lines of attack, the most exposed positions. That’s why. I received wounds and medals but never an absolution from that original duty. God is very generous with the former but he finds it hard to give the latter. Once, when I was at the peak of my strength, during the Korean war, I even wished for the demons to return that very moment. But I knew they wouldn’t listen to me and I’d have to meet them when I was weak again.
Do you believe in God?”
“Me? No. I’ve never even thought”
“I was brought up to believe. After what I saw in the cellar I often thought about God. For some time, that was all I thought about. This is how it is, I think. The only time we’re in contact with him is when we sleep. And dreams are our defences, our earthiness, trying to lead us away from Him. If we fight them and break through them we come into contact with Him. That’s what we call a nightmare. The more horrible the nightmare, the closer to Him we are. And that’s why in our everyday life it doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not: but when your life starts becoming a nightmare that belief is the only thing that can save you. There are no decisions when you’re in contact with God. There’s no free will. And that’s what makes the nightmare so horrible. Things happen to you. Horror is the prayer of our time.”
“What about the devil?”
Aco hissed with contempt:
“Ach, names!”
Then he shook his head:
“Let’s leave this, I’ve strayed. I’m glad to have you with me. If I was alone I’d go mad with fear. That’s one advantage of being in the army: you’re never alone. You’ve always got somebody with you and I’m the sort of person whose courage feeds on someone else’s fear and thus smothers his own. But let’s forget this. We’ve got to talk about that thing out there walking towards the campsite. It must never get there! It mustn’t! It would bring to them the madness and the slaughter it brought to you. And then it would go to the village. The ferry comes again tomorrow and it would get on it. And so on. We’ve got to destroy it! Here! Tonight!”
“The child?”
“NO! THAT’S NOT A CHILD! The child died in front of my eyes. This is a thing which which is doing what it was created for. Don’t you ever forget that! It’s not a child! IT’S NOT! It’s not alive either! IT’S NOT! It’s a machine, that’s what it was made to be. I was an army instructor and I’m telling you, I made machines like that, according to my best abilities and within the means at my disposal.”
“Yes, but”
“I’ll tell you things about which I’ve heard and which are coming true tonight. When I travelled the world I talked to many people. I made friends in the Indian regiment. I heard about a sect whose priests collect names and who believe that when they’ve collected every name there is, these names will embody God. They believe that God divided himself among all living beings during creation. And I heard rumours that heretics from that sect who’d split away many years ago and who claimed that the names found, remembered or written down by a priest are not the names of real people, but are just the priest’s imagination. They said that every collected name had to come from a real living person and that it had to be taken from them. I’m surprised they left this thing here and not in America where they have a name for everything. Anyway, God had divided himself among his creatures. And everything that exists has a name. Because if there is something new, really completely new, that does not come from God because it hasn’t got a name. That’s why some people say that something really new can never happen. If it ever did, there’d be no God. The thing from the villa asks people their name. You heard how your friend Max keeps shouting how he hasn’t got a name anymore, and Alfonz said something like that too. But all this is just philosophising. Maybe it isn’t true and I’m telling you made up stories. But even those are better than nothing.”
Raf felt a disbelief which vanished the moment he remembered Alfonz’s grinning face.
“So, this thing goes around collecting names?”
“Yes. He asked both victims for their names and they told him. You saw what happened to them. Listen, they both said he didn’t open his mouth when he spoke to them.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“That’s what’s worrying me most. Those strange abilities. I don’t know, but it seems that he can read peoples’ minds, at least from nearby, and I’m afraid we’ll have to destroy him without coming close to him or we’ll have to distract him somehow, entrap him.”
“We haven’t got”
“We haven’t. The gun is lost and we can’t wait till the morning. All we’ve got is this knife and a plan. I’ll tell you about it later. My niece is waiting in the village to wake my friends.”
“The girl from the ferry?”
“Yes. They will”
“What’s her”
“There’s no time for that now. My friends will come and they’ll be armed. But they’ll be too late and the thing will already have done its job in the campsite so we can’t rely on them. Maybe it wasn’t a sensible thing to call them at all. They’ll be expecting monsters and all they’ll see is a child. If you see them you’ll have to explain that to them.”
“How”
“ will you recognise them? Oh, that won’t be difficult. You’ll hear them as soon as they start off, they’ll come with a lot of noise. Do you remember the pensioners on the bench?”
“Them?”
“Yes, them.”
Raf’s head just fell forward. Four pensioners, four senile old men, who had spent their whole life stretching on the bench, moaning about their various ailments, will be the rescue party.
Aco smiled.
“Young people, young people, always judging by appearances. Don’t worry, I’ve been expecting tonight’s events for a long time, so we have worked hard to acquire weapons.”
He became serious and got up.
“Let’s go, it’s time to attack.”
“What about Max?”
“We’ll leave him here.”
“Alone? Tied up?”
“Yes, we won’t carry him with us because we haven’t got the time. We can’t untie him because he’s dangerous. There’s two of us and we can protect ourselves from him. What if he finds somebody who’s alone and weaker than him and he suffocates them with his outpourings of love? He stays here.”
Raf looked towards his tied up friend who called him father and he nodded.
“What if”
“Questions kill actions,” said Aco. “If we die, he’ll probably die too. But then there will be so many others dead too Let’s leave that now and go.”
Ana turned round. The shining roofs seemed so beautiful and above all inhabited, as opposed to the pine-trees around her. Only five lights were on and she remembered that when she had left Aco’s house she had not even looked at the light switch. Maybe so that she would see her way back. Didn’t they use to leave a lit candle in the window for travellers and sailors returning home? She trembled and looked around. Crickets were singing and every now and again she could hear a strange noise which she ascribed to birds. Was it much further and above all: was it going to get even more isolated?
Looking at the village, she thought about going back. Luka was probably still pottering around and she could go back and wait under the light. Nobody would even notice her escape and humiliating return.
They would send her to bed because she was a woman.
She knew that was her last chance to go back but she chose to go on.
His father had deserted him. No, not for ever, fathers always came back.
Max remembered previous occasions on which his father had left him, particularly one of them, when he had tied his hands behind his back – just like now! – and shut him in a wardrobe. Max did not dare even sob, let alone try to loosen the belt around his wrists. When his father finally returned, he pulled Max out and when he saw the belt, he kicked him and gave him a few blows on the head and then threw him back into the wardrobe. He told him never ever to forget the following lesson: he had to learn to save himself and not wait for anyone else’s help!
Aha, his father was testing him again! This time he’d be ready for him! His father would be pleased with him! He would wait for his almighty father to come surrounded by light whilst his nameless son sits in the darkness. Father, big and mighty like a mountain, so that the ground rumbled under his feet!
Max would be ready for him. He would not disappoint him again.
He started jerking wildly to release his bonds as quickly as possible.
They did not talk on their way through the woods. They walked very fast, from time to time almost running. Raf started off at full speed, then stopped himself, thinking that the old man would not be able to keep up with him. But after a while, it was Raf who was out of breath and looking at the old man’s back. Aco kept up the same rhythm and proved to be very fit.
Finally, they stopped at the top of a hill, out of breath. Below them shone the lights of the campsite.
“Everything is quiet,” said Raf.
“Yes, we got here in time!”
They saw the receptionist dozing at his desk, scratching his ear from time to time.
“We may have another five, ten minutes. Listen! Can you see that cliff? On the right, a short distance from the campsite?”
Raf nodded. The cliff looked like a slide pointing the wrong way. It slowly ascended from the flat part of the island towards the sea and then stopped suddenly.
“He can’t go past there along the sea. It’s all sharp rocks sticking out of the sea around there. He’ll have to turn towards the island and cross the cliff on its middle part. That’s where we’ll wait for him.”
“The plan” said Raf.
“Don’t expect too much. I’ll go and stand at the top of the cliff and I’ll whistle old tunes quietly. When the thing crosses the cliff it’ll see me and come to me to ask my name. I’ll try to distract him while you run from behind that last tree there before the clearing and stick this in his back.”
He pulled out the knife and let the blade catch the moonlight.
Raf swallowed thickly. The plan! The plan! How proud and redeeming that word sounded! As if to save them it would be enough just having a plan, without actually carrying it out.
“I”
” shall do that, is what you say to yourself. Repeat that while you’re waiting, repeat and repeat! And then do it!"
“But”
“DO IT! If you don’t, I’ll die first, then you, then the whole of the campsite, the village in the morning, everybody on the ferry at midday, the mainland in the afternoon and in the end, the whole world. Who the hell would shoot at a polite child, who walks the streets asking people their names and then thanks them. And leaves death behind. It isn’t a child, it isn’t alive, it is a walking virus! Just think that and you’ll do it!”
Raf pictured the girl from the ferry instead of a crowd of people. He was talking to her uncle while she was waiting in the village. Maybe she was even asleep? He imagined her in bed, a sheet pulled up to her neck, her right hand lying on top of it. Next to her stood the child looking at her. She opened her eyes and he asked her her name.
Raf trembled.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
“Good. My only worry is this. The thing has special abilities for sensing things. And when you come near him he may catch your thoughts. Look at his back, concentrate on something banal, run towards him and stab him with all your strength. Wait, I’ve got an even better idea!”
He got up and started looking at the trees. He cut off the longest and straightest branch he could find, hewed it roughly, cut off most of the top and made a five inch incision in the middle. He pushed the knife handle into the gap, took off his shoes, pulled out the shoe laces and wrapped them around the wood above the knife handle.
“Here, a spear. It’ll give you a distance of two metres between you and it. Maybe those two metres mean nothing, maybe everything!”
He gave Raf the spear and Raf grasped it with both hands. The bark scratched his palms and the sap on the cuts to the wood felt cold.
He looked at Aco’s bare feet. Aco smiled:
“Don’t worry. If you do your job properly I’ll gladly walk to the village barefoot. If not, I won’t need them anymore. I may be running around with an axe in my hands or I’ll go and kiss the one in the woods. Or whatever else the loss of my name would make me do. I certainly won’t be worrying about my shoes.”
He looked at Raf and put his hand out:
“It was a pleasure,” he said, “whatever the outcome.”
Raf felt a big lump in his throat.
They shook hands.
“What about”
Aco looked up. The child couldn’t be seen anywhere.
“What about?”
“If I go and stand on the cliff? You’ve got more experience, more training, you”
“Yes, I’ve killed more people then you can imagine. But it’s more dangerous up there. Just look at the distance you’d have to run and judging by your figure you’re no sprinter. I may have to tell him my name. Whereas you just run and run. When the spear stops, you’re done.”
“What if he really does ask your name?”
“Are you worried you’ll have another madman to cope with?” He looked towards the sea, “don’t worry. Have you ever seen a cook around here prepare a fish before cooking it? She cuts it open and puts it on a rock for the waves to rinse out all the entrails and blood. If needs be, the sea down there can wash my sins away.”
“But”
“No buts. This is a private thing I’ve been putting off for fifty years. I’m going up there and that’s it. In addition”
He smiled cheekily. How inappropriate such a smile seemed to Raf on the wrinkled face, at least forty years too late. Is it possible that the brain sometimes forgets what sort of body it’s in?
” if we swapped roles and we failed and I was on my own, I’d die of fear.”
“And I”
“And you’ll do everything to the best of your abilities and how it should be done!”
“You think so?”
“Yes, I believe in you.”
Aco turned and stepped out of the trees. He would go and leave Raf on his own. On his own, with Aco’s trust.
“You’re lying,” Raf half shouted after Aco, who looked back and smiled.
“Even if that was true I wouldn’t say so now.”
He nodded and walked in the direction of the cliff. Raf looked after him, knowing that the talking was over. It was time for action now.