‘The father grabbed the stake and took aim at the old man — his very own dad! And the grandfather ran out of the cottage and was gone. So they all went to bed.
‘Well, the wayfarer tossed and turned in bed, and told himself he’d be better off getting out of there, but then he remembered the beautiful girl. Then he heard a sound — tap! — at the window. The little lad sat up in bed. It was the old man tapping at the window, and he was ever so pale, and he said, “Grandson, come out to play.” So the boy climbed out of the window. This family is weird, thought the wayfarer to himself.
‘In the morning, the lad couldn’t walk straight. He was all pale and he picked up the sharpened stake and tossed it down the well, making a splash. Then the boy died.
‘“There’s something odd going on here!” the wayfarer told himself. He wanted to leave for the Eastern Empire and go back to his czar — without the weapon — but he also wanted the girl. He asked her to come to the lumber room, just for a quick word.
‘The girl came and the wayfarer prevented her from leaving. She stayed there all night, and in the morning the wayfarer left.
‘He travelled home, and stood before the czar, who commanded him, “Come thou not back without the weapon!” So back went the wayfarer.
‘The land was dark. The villages were deserted. Not a dog barked and no bird sang. The wayfarer met a priest, who asked him where he was going. The wayfarer told him he was going to Bohemia.
‘“Turn around and go back!” cried the priest, but the wayfarer said he wouldn’t. So the priest blessed him and gave him a crucifix. The wayfarer hung it around his neck, then off he went.
‘He heard wolves howling, and by now it was getting dark. He arrived at the cottage and there was nobody anywhere. He entered the building and behold: the girl was sitting on her stool, sewing, but what was she sewing, what was she mending? A shroud made from the pelt of a wolf. Strong was the odour of wolf from the skin.
‘The girl smelt strange, she smelt earthy. She stood up at once, opened her arms to embrace him, and drew him to her tight. The wayfarer couldn’t catch his breath!
‘And the girl said, “Come, my dear, our little one is crying.” She led the wayfarer into the darkened parlour. And what was that in the cradle? A dragon’s egg! And the egg was making a tapping sound and changing colour.
‘And at once the wayfarer knew that this was what he should take to the czar. He grabbed the egg and wrapped it in the wolf-skin shroud. He no longer wanted the girl. He was in a hurry to return to his native soil, to his czar.
‘The girl was pale. She asked for a kiss. Her lips were motionless and her face cold, as if she were not alive. She held the wayfarer tight in her embrace, and then she said, “They’re here!”
‘The wayfarer looked and behold! Outside the window he saw the old man, his son and daughter-in-law, and his grandson as well. They were scratching at the windows with their nails. They wanted to come inside. And they were all dreadfully pale.
‘The girl hugged him so powerfully that she was crushing his ribs. “My name’s Czechia,” she said. The wayfarer grabbed the crucifix at his throat — the priest’s gift — and the girl leapt away, as if cut by a sword.
‘The wayfarer rushed out of the cottage and he jumped on his horse and galloped away.
‘Soon he heard pounding footsteps behind him, and he heard wolves howling. They were all running after him: the old man, his son, the woman, the boy and the girl called Czechia. And now the grandfather had overtaken the horse and was blocking the way, but the wayfarer rode over him! He clasped the dragon’s egg, our wayfarer! Then the father leapt at the wayfarer, who knocked him down, his horse stamping at the dust. Then the woman grabbed her little boy, whirled him round and around in the air and hurled him. And the lad went flying and landed on the horse, and sank his teeth in it. The horse shook the lad off and stamped a hoof, then galloped onwards. And now the lad’s mother came flying through the air, howling like a she-wolf. She leapt towards the horse, but it ducked and she smashed her skull on the ground. Finally, the girl called Czechia came flying through the air, descending on the horse’s rump, just behind the wayfarer! She bit the wayfarer and the horse dropped, breathless, to the ground, followed by our wayfarer. And he clutched the crucifix at his throat, but the girl had gone. The horse was dead. And the wayfarer’s hand leapt away from the cross of its own accord — the flesh was burnt!
‘The dragon’s egg in the wolf-skin had gone! He had lost the love of Czechia, and the czar would chop off his head. He was all alone in that ill-fated land.
‘The wayfarer thought, “Am I still me? After all I’ve seen?” He didn’t know. And at that very spot he pledged to erect a church.’
I was glad he’d finished! Páta was too, I reckoned. But Mr Cimbura went on, ‘And I’ve honoured that pledge. Fair busted my guts on that church, too. Anyway, it’s Catholic now.’
Then he started mumbling something into his blankets, and grunting and groaning, and it would have been nice if he’d been quiet at last, but on he went: ‘The shooting’s died down outside, right? There, we’ve come through safe and sound.’
I looked at Páta, and Páta looked at me.
‘Okay, lads, you might be thinking I’ve been making fun of you! I’d happily show you the scars where that girl bit and scratched me, but here’s the rub — my flesh being burnt, you can’t see ’em.’ And Mr Cimbura raised himself up on one elbow on his couch of rags.
I sat down. I looked at Páta. Had he heard? Cimbura had said that he was the wayfarer: non-human, tooth-marked. It crossed my mind that we ought to kill him straight away. Then it occurred to me that if Mr Cimbura was the wayfarer, we couldn’t kill him anyway. It wasn’t going to be easy! Anyway, he was probably just talking rubbish again… I glanced at him. He was staring at me too — staring right into my soul through the candles. It gave me goose pimples all over. Mr Cimbura knew what I was thinking. He didn’t want to bite me, though he could have long before now! A thousand times. Yet he used to look after me so nice, like, when I was a defenceless kid. That was ages ago!
Mr Cimbura dropped his sharp gaze, lay back, wriggled a bit in his blankets and carried on talking: ‘Right then, for crying out loud, you black-arsed moo, get a move on with them last rites!’ And Sister Alberta stirred, though not towards Mr Cimbura; instead she came and sat with me, as if nothing had changed since the days of the soap store, except that now Sister Alberta was horribly fat and old. I was older too. I was so big I wouldn’t fit in her arms any more. ‘God brought you to us,’ she said, ‘let’s have a cuddle the like of which the world has never seen!’
Afterwards she stood up and went over to Mr Cimbura.
There was this huge silence throughout the whole cellar, because nobody was talking. Páta was also next to Mr Cimbura, and he knelt down beside him. Mr Cimbura was lying there and he was quiet, which was one for the record books. I stood up and made a move into the darkness to where I remembered the door was. I went through it and climbed the steps, along the passage and past the kitchen and the best room and, hey presto, I was outside.
Mr Cimbura’s storytelling had crumpled time. The thing is, he had us caught in his fairy story as if in a noose. This explains why I ran back out into the night. Was it the same night as when I was hiding in the plane? Or the next one? I didn’t know.
There were no lights anywhere. I spotted a cat on the roof of a house, which was odd. They don’t like to be seen. The cat shrieked and knocked a big black tomcat off the roof. He fell on the hard soil, leapt sideways and vanished into the weeds that propped up a fallen fence… Otherwise, not a soul in sight, but it was obvious there was life in Siřem… The tanks of Kozhanov’s army had to be around somewhere. I sniffed the air for a whiff of petrol and listened for the growl of engines. If I bumped into the guards unit’s sub-machine-gunners, running bent double with their Kalashnikovs at the ready and clearing the ground for a tank assault, that would be the end of me. All I could do was advance by leaps and bounds between the dark cottages, and so I got to the square, which is where I wanted to be.