And it was then she had her only real row with her mum. It ended just like all the other minor sins Ana committed, but only after a long fight. Ana had to repent in her heart. Sometimes she would wonder if this repenting in her heart ever had any effect. Maybe it did and that was the reason why she did not remember much from her childhood?
And she suddenly realised that repenting in her heart was not such a terrible punishment. What she had to do was to lean her head on her mother’s chest, her mother then embraced her with her left arm while putting her right hand on Ana’s forehead. So Ana repented in nearly complete darkness. During the last few years she had really used the time to think about this and that. Sometimes about her mother’s scent. It was a cleanly-washed scent, without any perfume. Her schoolfriends…
No, there was no point in thinking about her ex-schoolfriends. They were gone now, scents and all.
So, this repenting always seemed like a very small price to pay for her sins. God knew when you repented for real, when you were just faking it and when you did not bother at all, her mother would always say. But Ana often doubted that, secretly to herself. There was never any proof of Him really knowing.
Somebody else’s letter.
Your uncle loves you.
He must be out of his mind. People like that could not be responsible for their own actions. Therefore:
She opened the letter with a single move.
THE KIDS FROM THE FERRY WENT TO THE VILLA. I’M GOING AFTER THEM. I HAVE A FEELING IT DIDN’T ALL END THAT NIGHT.
ACO
That night?
I did everything a Christian could do to make sure I did not live this long.
She looked outside. Peace and quiet everywhere. When had he gone and why had they not bumped into each other? Should she go after him and try to find the villa, the existence of which he had so vehemently denied? Should she go and find this Luka and try to get him to give her the key to this puzzle?
The letter to her was from her uncle. In the absence of her parents he was her superior, so to speak. An older relative who gave her an order. All her life she had been taught to respect her superiors.
She would wait.
“Where is that Alfonz?” mumbled Max and lifted the empty bottle high above his head.
“ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!”
He shouted louder than the music and the effort made him almost choke. He hit the cassette player angrily a few times until it stopped and expelled the cassette.
“ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!”
Samo put down his bottle and both he and Raf looked towards the door.
“ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!”
Samo joined in for the last few OOOOs, but quietly and only as a sign of solidarity.
Raf was beginning to get dizzy and his head had already fallen backwards a few times. So he had to concentrate in order to hold it still and turn towards the door, which was beginning to look double from time to time.
“Where is the peasant?” Max stopped shouting. “Somebody ought to go and get him.”
His friends did not move. Max looked at them with contempt and tried to get up.
“I’ll go, you paralysed fuckers!”
Getting up took some time and the other two shifted their concentration to Max’s attempts at lifting his legs off the table. He accompanied his efforts with ample swearing and guesswork.
“He must be throwing up somewhere, the fucking peasant, or he’s fallen asleep. Or he wants to keep all the brandy to himself! Fuck…”
Suddenly his face spread into a contented smile. He was looking at something behind Raf and Samo and said:
“There you are, Alfonz! Why didn’t you say something?”
Aco leant on a pine-tree and pressed his palm onto his heart. He had to wait and calm down. He would not be doing anybody any favours if he died in the middle of the woods. What he found worst was that it was not the physical effort which made his heart race, but the fear. He did not even try to pretend it was not there, he was far too busy just trying to control it.
Maybe he would not do anybody any good by dying there in the villa either, he thought and tried to concentrate on long slow breaths in through his nose and short breaths out through his mouth.
“Eh?” said Alfonz.
Max was suddenly in a very good mood.
“Alfonz, Serious Alfonz, smile! Where’s the booze, man?”
“Eh?”
“The booze, the booze!?”
“Here,” said Alfonz and put the two bottles on the table and then pulled the beer out of his pockets.
He’s so pissed, thought Raf. He’s completely gone. Or does he just seem like that to me?
“Alfonz, sit down,” Raf said to him.
He did not hear.
“Alfonz! ALFONZ!” repeated Raf, each time a bit louder but Alfonz took no notice.
Raf leant forward and tugged at his trousers:
“Hey!”
“What? What?”
“Sit down. Are you deaf?”
“No, no.”
Alfonz sat down and took hold of the bottle but did not have a sip.
“This one’s dead already,” Raf dismissed him and turned towards Max, who was pressing a new dose of alcohol to his heart with a blissful expression on his face. Samo had returned to his original position — looking at the bottle in his hands.
Suddenly Alfonz spoke.
“I saw somebody.”
Raf turned to him and said:
“What did you say?”
“I saw a strange…”
Max shouted from the other side:
“What’s he saying?”
“He saw somebody in the cellar,” replied Raf and woke Samo.
“Who did you see?”
“A strange…”
“A strange what?” prodded Raf.
Alfonz thought hard before answering.
“A brat. A strange one.”
“You saw a child? In the cellar?” jumped in Max, his mouth already widening.
Raf gave him a look of warning, but it had no effect; Max was far too drunk to notice anything so subtle.
“Yeah,” confirmed Alfonz.
“And what happened then?”
Max leant forward expectantly, suppressing laughter only because he was hoping to get even more first-rate fuel for it.
“He asked me what my name was.”
“And?”
“Then he thanked me.”
“HE ASKED YOU WHAT YOUR NAME WAS? IN THE CELLAR? A BRAT? AND HE THANKED YOU?”
Alfonz nodded.
Max burst out laughing so loud that the walls shook. He roared so much that he drowned Alfonz’s next sentence, which only Raf could hear because he was next to him. And he found it so odd and meaningless that he thought it must have been a mistake.
“He didn’t open his mouth.”
What was that supposed to mean?
He took a good look at Alfonz who fell silent, looking towards his thighs.
“He really is legless! HA HA HA HA! Sad Alfonz has become a comedian! HA HA HA HA!” roared Max and Samo joined him.
Raf’s confused eyes moved from one side of the table to the other. He remembered the nursery and the toy elephant on the bed. A child?
He shook his head and concentrated on his drink. Soon, he would be drunk enough to get Max to give him his first cigarette of the night. In the morning he would be more hung over from the tobacco than the alcohol. So what!
“How long should I wait?” Ana kept asking herself. Maybe her uncle often had a turn like this and the villagers then had to look for him all over the island. Maybe there really was some danger and those boys were in trouble. If only she knew what time her uncle had left and where he was. Should she go and see Luka? After two he had said and she could almost see his hand underlining those words.