She took the first bite out of politeness, only to be straight away overcome by hunger. The first two fish she devoured in big forkfuls, each one catching the previous one still in her mouth, then her manners finally surfaced successfully. Ana looked at her uncle guiltily but he had not even noticed her. He was not eating; he was just staring at the fish in front of him.
“Wow,” said Samo, as usual impressed by anything big.
“Mama,” said Raf, immediately becoming aware of having said it. Nobody had heard him. They stood amongst the last few pine trees looking at the villa in the middle of a meadow, surrounded by the woods in a sharp semi-circle. On the left gleamed the sea and the sun had dropped down just above it. The building was closer to the sea than to the trees and from the veranda a path led to the beach, finishing in small pebbles mixed with sand. On the border between the grass and the sand stood square concrete platforms, probably the last remnants of beach huts.
From behind the house, peeped the wall of a small overgrown garden shed.
The longer side of the villa was turned towards the sea whilst the front door with a porch supported by two pillars faced the boys. The villa really did look big in comparison with the village houses. It was built of wood which seemed totally dried out. Some of the wooden planks had warped and there were gaps between them. Only the bottom part of the house was built of heavy pale stones. The two cellar windows, boarded with wood, were almost completely obscured by the tall grass.
These details did not escape Raf, even though he was busy thinking why he had uttered the word which was almost prohibited amongst the teenagers. Mama, he had said Mama. He tried to remember what had made him say it, but those few moments were swallowed by darkness and uncertainty. Yes, darkness! When they had been walking through the last trees he had thought: at last! His sigh of relief was overcome by a strange feeling, first of agreement, then loneliness and dense darkness as if a coat had been thrown over his head. He felt a restriction and pressure all over his body, which left him unable to move and he could only say the word in his mind.
Mama.
Whatever it was, had passed. A moment of weakness because of all the physical strain. Not surprising, after the long journey on a hot day. Luckily the others had not heard his foolishness.
“So this is what your old man bought?”
Samo could not conceal his admiration.
Neither could Max, for a change. Alfonz did not say anything and Raf wiped his forehead trying to tear himself away from thinking about his little outburst.
As they approached the house he watched it intently, especially the windows, but he could not see anything which would explain what had happened to him and the memory of it became more and more distant and pale.
The atmosphere in the kitchen was becoming increasingly unpleasant and Ana could not really blame it on her uncle. He was not doing anything, but that was what was wrong. He was just staring at the fish — which had by now gone completely cold — and was completely still. She used his absent-mindedness to do something very daring, something she could only do far away from home: she did not eat everything on her plate.
She left a bit of bread next to the plate, secretly looked at her uncle — he did not move — and then bravely took the leftovers to the rubbish bin and put them in. Food really was a gift from God, but she was on holiday, on her own. That little piece of bread was just a visible sign of her determination to follow her own free will rather than a result of her stomach being too full.
Ana had difficulty in remembering anything from when she was very young and sometimes — when she was talking to her schoolfriends — she got seriously worried that she was not normal. But it was interesting how one thing always remained fresh in her memory — the cult of the empty plate. Heavy verbal downpours under which she always gave in and ate up that one morsel. And then another one. And the one after. They became more and more difficult to swallow and her parents had to use more and more authoritative arguments to persuade her. The first morsel for mother, the next one for father and the last one for God.
She could not swear to it, but it seemed to her that right at the beginning of her memories the first morsel belonged to her sister, who later ran away from home and took not just her rucksack but Ana’s first morsel too.
“Uncle…, Uncle Aco…”
She reached out with her hand as if trying to wake him up but she changed her mind. Epilepsy? Maybe he was having a fit? No, he wasn’t screaming and rolling on the floor with foam around his mouth, which was what she had heard about those attacks. She resumed her contemplation of old age. She herself would be twenty in two years, which seemed like a serious age, but the age of thirty, she had always thought, meant a rapid decline into old age. One day you were young, then came your birthday and in a moment you became old. Just like her Uncle. He had looked quite normal, even cheerful, and then suddenly…
She cleared her throat a few times in succession until it hurt. No effect.
“Uncle,” she said as loudly as if she was trying to strike a conversation with someone who was nearly completely deaf, “Uncle, that monument to the war victims. How many villagers died in the war?”
She was not expecting an answer and it caught her unprepared.
“None,” he said.
None?
“Just one of my friends died a few years ago.”
He raised his head swiftly and looked at her. She was expecting a remote, foggy, far away look in his eyes, but all she could see was a weary sadness.
“I did everything a Christian could to make sure I did not live this long,” he said.
Max was like a tourist guide at a place he had never visited before, but who knew every last detail from having heard descriptions of it and was now sharing the excitement of the first visit with the tourists.
“Well, the villa was built by some diplomat who moved in when he retired. Soon after he had a stroke and the villa was deserted until my old man bought it.”
They were standing on the porch and Raf could not help wishing Max’s speech was shorter — he did not seem in any hurry to look for a key in his pockets.
“Oh,” thought Raf, “what if he forgot to bring it?”
Well, the door did not look too solid and if needs be they could smash a window.
Max got the key out of his pocket and put it in the lock. He stopped talking and they all held their breath. The lock clicked noisily and the door creaked.
“Those builders didn’t seem to have oiled anything,” said Max, “but it’ll be alright. Let’s go.”
They stepped into a hall covered with a thick layer of dust, full of footprints made by the builders’ heavy boots.
“I hope they sorted out the electricity,” added Max “not just trampled all over the house.”
Just enough light was coming through the dirty windows to create a stuffy semi-darkness. Raf was expecting it to smell musty but it was just hot and dry as if all the different smells had burnt away a long time ago.
Slowly, they went a few steps further and Samo looked through the half-closed door on the right. It was surprisingly dark and cool in there compared to the room they were standing in.
“What’s down here?” Samo asked.
They crowded round the door, blocking the light so that they could not see anything but the first part of a staircase.
“A cellar,” said Alfonz. “There’s no light switch anywhere. Somebody did go down though, look here, footsteps.”
He pointed.
“He hesitated or something on this stair and then came back up.”
“Well, what did you expect, did you think he would wait for us down there or something?” Max interrupted. “Sad Alfonz, the Scout. Let’s close the door and that’s that. Fuck it, we don’t have to go down there anyway.”