“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.
