“Fifty!”
Samo picked himself up and applauded himself with the excuse of brushing the dust off his hands. He was not out of breath and there was not even the smallest drop of sweat on his forehead.
“Right,” he said, “and now the party!”
He pulled the table back and sat down. Max immediately put his feet on the table, saying:
“This is quite posh, eh?”
They had split into two groups without really thinking, realised Raf. On the one side of the table there were Samo and Max and on the other him and Alfonz. Max picked up a candle and lit his cigarette.
“I’ve just realised what seems so strange in this house,” said Raf and they all turned towards him.
Ana was fully aware that she had to return to her uncle’s and that was precisely the reason why she was still wandering around the lighthouse. The night was magical, like nights can only be in a strange place, far from home, away from people, when you are lonely and out when you should not be. Considering how many conditions had to be just right, it was no wonder that moments like that were so rare.
The moon had finally overtaken the cloud, revealing itself in all its glory, reflected on the surface of the sea. It was nearly full and Ana wished she could remember which side was full when it went up and which side when it went down.
The light on the lighthouse winked again, but Ana stood outside its reach, in the safety of the shadows. She had walked around the lighthouse a few times trying to work out what the red and white lights were supposed to mean. Slowly, she turned towards the village and stopped next to two fishing boats, which were being prepared for departure. The fishermen nodded to her in a friendly manner and she nodded back. They did not seem to mind her watching them. They arranged the nets, explaining to Ana that the catch would be bad that night because it was nearly full moon and there was no point in using a light to attract the fish. They showed her around one of the boats and the flood lights on it, but above all they kept talking to her in their melodic dialect, which made everything they said sparkle so much that the meaning of their words did not matter at all.
A lazy night. The first stars, the sea and a wonderful feeling that time was hers and she was in no hurry.
“Do you remember when we walked around the house?” started Raf.
They nodded.
“And here too, look! Don’t you find it strange?”
“No.” said Max.
“There are candle holders, cutlery, paintings… Everything.”
“Yes, so?”
“They didn’t steal anything. That’s what seems strange to me.”
“Who?” asked Alfonz and he looked really worried or at least different from Samo and Max who just stared ahead, expressionless.
“Well, I don’t know, the villagers. This house was deserted for…, how long did you say?”
Earlier Raf was turned towards Max but now he looked him straight in the eyes.
“Fifty years?”
Max nodded.
“Something like that, yes.”
“Well,” continued Raf, “all these things sit here for fifty years and nobody takes anything. Nobody! I saw a fluffy toy elephant in the nursery upstairs. I don’t think the villagers have toys like that even now, let alone fifty years ago. But nothing! They didn’t come and take it! Isn’t that strange?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” agreed Alfonz. “They didn’t steal anything, even though everything is just sitting around.”
He shook his head in disbelief.
Max took a sip for strength and said:
“Maybe they’re so behind, maybe they’re bonkers, maybe they’re…, how do you call it…, honest?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. They can’t all be weirdos!” Alfonz shook his head. “No, no!”
Raf was quite grateful to him for his support.
“Look,” said Max,” when my father came to see the place, the key hung from a nail in the doorframe on the outside! How mad he was when he saw that! Look, they’ve got the sort of monument that everywhere else was got rid of ages ago. Except maybe somewhere in the middle of Siberia, eh? Maybe they’re frightened of each other and nobody dares steal. In a village like that everybody knows about everything everybody else gets up to!”
“No, Max, that’s not right. They could have all been in on it and taken everything out of the house and nobody would have known.”
“Raf, don’t talk rubbish! These peasants can’t even agree on what time of day it is, otherwise they’d know by now how far behind they are!”
He was overcome by laughter which he interrupted only for his last remark:
“Anyway, what do we care about them anyway? Are we here to party or to attend a summer school for prospective detectives, eh? Ha!”
Raf nodded and gave in. There was no point in going on, but he still thought it was odd. He pushed the puzzle to the back of his mind but only after he had noticed that Alfonz looked like somebody who was getting ready to mention something which bothered him a lot. He opened his mouth a few times, looking towards the cellar (why there?) but when he heard Max asking if anybody else had any other crap to discuss, Alfonz shut up. After the bottle travelled around the circle again, Alfonz started talking, but Raf was certain it was not what he was going to mention earlier. He was telling them about somebody from his village who was a thief and was found out. Raf started listening, first with one and then both ears. He had always liked cruel stories.
Their voices travelled around the cellar, in a gentle murmur and it seemed as if the sound was coming from the names on the ceiling.
Samo stretched his fingers and took hold of the bottle. He could have cracked it in his hands if he wanted to. Just crushed it with his fingers. He glanced around and all his friends seemed busy. Raf and Alfonz were talking. Max was messing around with the cassette player, turning the cassette and cursing and swearing.
Samo squeezed the bottle. Not too much, just a bit. He could feel the glass under his skin and he was hooked. He always avoided alcohol in bottles or glasses because whenever he took a sip from something made of glass it always aroused in him a desire which he found hard to resist. To squeeze, to crush. His muscles would flex, the liquid would splash, his blood would flow freely. When it was all mixed up on the floor it would be impossible to say which was wine and which used to be a part of him.
But he would not do it that night. He would not. Only once had he lost control of himself in the presence of others, and they had taken it as proof of his hard-to-control strength. They bandaged his hand with a handkerchief and took him to the doctor’s. An accident.
Yes.
It was just like what was to him the saddest parting imaginable: the cutting of his nails. He would lock himself in the bathroom, open a newspaper, kneel down and do the business with the little scissors incorporated in his Swiss army knife. Whenever a nail or a fragment of it flew across the bathroom he never gave up until he found it and put it next to the others on the newspaper. When he had finished, he would pick up the paper and get up slowly without moving his eyes away from the crescents. Slowly he would let them slide into the toilet, look at them once more and then flush the toilet. They disappeared in the whirlpool! They no longer existed! Parts of him that used to be and then ceased to be. On him or anywhere else. Or maybe they were everywhere! Somewhere where his mind could not follow.
This was a shock which he needed to live through again and again.
He had just a hint of the same feeling when he had his hair cut and when he defecated, but only a hint, like a shadow, a brief flash, a thought. But nails…, how shocked he had been when he first read that nails continued to grow after death! So independent — neither one’s brain nor one’s willpower could control them. Even when everything else stops, they just go on. In death and beyond. Whenever he heard about the afterlife he always thought of nails.