And anyway, how could anybody without a name ever be happy?
That was what those shouting in the house were thinking. But what did they know about darkness, woods, fear and the pain of those who were different? What did they know! Nothing! Nothing!
Shouting, that was the only thing they could do.
He would show them that even the nameless could be happy. Those pushed away, the outsiders could enter with a smile. Break with the past and change. Start again!
With a never-ending smile.
He went over to the window of one of the rooms, which was in darkness, and had a look at his face in the glass. Whoever he was, he really did look sad. It was time for laughter, like the laughter Max, Samo and Raf were capable of. Mouth wide open in joyfulness.
He would laugh and join them. They would accept him as one of their own.
Those who laugh are always popular.
Looking at himself in the mirror, he took his bottom lip and pulled it with all his strength. Then he cut it off with one single sweep of his knife.
There, that was better.
He tried holding his top lip but it kept escaping from his fingers, slimy with blood. He tried a few more times,
- they were still shouting from time to time in the house; he said: I’m coming, I’m coming, but they probably did not hear him, just the glass in front of him got sprayed with tiny red droplets -
and then he realised that that was not the way to do it. He would swap hands. He was able to get a good grip on his lip with his right hand, but his left hand was not quite so adept with the knife and he had to create his smile in stages.
He tried to wipe the drops off the glass with the palm of his hand to see himself better, but all he did was make it even messier. He decided to bend over and look at himself in the corner of the window pane which had no blood on it yet.
Excellent.
“SAD ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!!!”
“No more, no more,” he spat on his image again and added: “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
“He’s coming,” whispered Max, “get ready.”
Raf too could hear steps in the hall.
“I’m ready,” he said.
“Shhhhhh” came from the other side of the darkness through which a few shapes were just beginning to become visible.
The steps halted in front of the door. Raf had his finger on the switch, waiting. Outside the crickets sang, he could hear his heart beating in his ears and his own breathing sounded very loud.
Hey, he said to himself, this is a pleasant surprise, not an ambush. There is no need to feel worried.
The door opened a little.
Alfonz was surprised by the darkness. A ribbon of moonlight stole into the room.
Then Alfonz opened the door fully. Raf saw the outline of the shadow with a gentle light behind it and there was something strange about it.
He needed time to think, to take a good look.
“Come on,” hissed Max from the right.
Raf switched on the light.
All three shouted simultaneously from the bottom of their lungs just before the light came on fully:
“SURPRISE!!!!!!”
Aco was resting at the junction. Below him shone the lights in the campsite: a few lamps, in two rows with tents under them. The receptionist was reading the newspaper.
Peace and quiet. Normality. A glimpse into another world.
Maybe he would find something similar at the villa and the boys would call him a senile old lunatic. Let it be so, he said.
5
That’s what they’re like, realised Alfonz with disappointment. You come to them with a smile on your face and they still don’t accept you. They scream, shriek and cover their eyes. They move away from you and one of them, that Max, even throws up. That’s what they’re like. He told them he only changed because of them and they rejected him in spite of that.
How they had disappointed him! Cut right into his heart.
That’s what they’re like.
They had hurt him.
Enough was enough, he would not stand for it any longer. Enough was enough.
They had no respect for him or his property. They did not even look where they trod, running around like headless chickens. They had knocked his rucksack over. How did they think he would get to his name without his rucksack, without proper tools?
Everything came out, the pliers, the axe, everything. They trampled on the fuses. What a lovely name those had: 1,5A. What he would not give for a name like that!
Was it possible that they were just clumsy? No, no, they were evil and wicked!
All of them.
He picked up the axe and looked around the dining room.
There was nobody there. They had left him on his own. Is that how a friend should be treated?
“Where are you?” he shouted, surprised to see the spray of red droplets filling the air, “Yoo hoo, where are you?”
They were hiding. His last hope. Maybe they were playing with him, maybe they were not wicked after all?
“Yoo hoo, where are you?”
He looked past the table lying on its side and saw Samo, cowering on the floor with his head between his shoulders.
Slowly Alfonz reached with his hand over the edge of the table, coming closer and closer to the shoulder. But before he touched it a few thick drops fell off his fingers and onto the white T-shirt.
Samo looked up.
“Tag, you’re it!” said Alfonz in a friendly manner, covering the face in front of him with blood.
Samo screamed, jumped up, pushed Alfonz away and ran towards the door.
They’re pushing me away, thought Alfonz. They don’t want to play, they’re shoving me away just as they’ve been doing for years. The new wave of fury was not like the quickly extinguished flash of the previous ones, this one grabbed him and would not let go of him.
“Samo, Samo, I’m coming,” he said and went out.
Really, he may be angry but he was fair, too.
“I know, Samo,” he said, “I know, you’re not completely bad. There’s something good in you too.”
Raf was hiding behind the kitchen door, listening. At first he did not know what the strange bubbling noises were and it was only after Samo’s screaming and escape that he realised what Alfonz was saying and that frightened him even more.
What had happened? Suddenly and without any reason his friend had changed into a madman, who first mutilated himself and was now after them.
Raf felt nauseous and he had to use all his self-control to stop himself vomiting.
Where was Max? Raf had not really noticed him in the panic but he had a vague idea that he had run out. So, was Raf alone in the house?
Slowly he tiptoed to the window and looked out.
Alfonz walked right in front of him and Raf nearly screamed.
He had not seen him, he was looking for Samo.
Raf looked towards the shed and he thought Samo could be there.
And that was exactly where Alfonz went.
Samo grabbed the door handle and flexed his muscles. From the first time he had lifted a weight he had always believed that the strength he was trying to build would come in very handy one day. If all the loose ends in one’s life did not get tied up at some point, would there be any sense in it all?
He had never thought he would need his strength to escape a lunatic. But this was for real, a fight for survival that only the strongest would win. So many times he had said: there is no mercy. They had been sitting in a bar, the sun shining, that strange thing which throws a different light on everything and which now seemed beyond reach; anyway, they had been sitting in a bar and he had said: fight for survival. Stay alive. Without mercy. And now his words had become reality. And they lay heavily on his stomach.