He slid his soles slowly along the floor, still leaning on the wall. He sort of fell from one side of the corridor to the other rather then crossed it. Luckily, the moonlight was bright enough to enable him to distinguish a door. The nursery, if he remembered rightly. Had he not noticed a baseball racket in the corner?
What a weapon! Whoever came up the stairs and was hit with it on the head would be a goner, however crazy he might be.
He opened the door slowly and the complete darkness surprised him. He stopped and waited.
Suddenly he heard steps downstairs. Somebody was coming. He ducked into the nursery, closed the door behind him and leant on it.
Were the steps getting nearer or further away? Whoever it was must have heard the door slamming and hidden.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Darkness.
His father… NO! NO! That was not happening now, that was in the past. He must not succumb to the memories.
Not a trace of light. Had the moon gone behind a cloud? He remembered the tightly closed shutters. Where was the baseball bat? In the right corner behind the wardrobe or the left corner behind the bed?
Try to remember! Try to remember!
He could not. The only thing he could remember from the tour of the house that afternoon was turning on the lights and looking at the Indian woman. Would it matter if he turned on the light and got the bat?
The shutters were closed and if the light could not get in, it could not get out either. He would be very quick. Grab the bat — he remembered it now, it was small, for children, but hard enough for a weapon — and switch off the light. Wait till his eyes got used to the darkness again and return to the landing. And then…
He had to last till the morning. And the bat would help him.
Raf waited but he could not hear any more noises from upstairs. Maybe it was Max upstairs? He was too afraid to go and see.
He crept towards the door and looked around. He could not see anyone. Where should he go? What should he do?
The woods looked dark and Alfonz could be hiding behind any tree.
What had happened to Samo? The screams from the shed were not very promising. Raf took a deep breath, flexed his diaphragm and made a decision. He would go and have a look.
Max was trying to remember where the light switch was. Somewhere on the right, he was sure. Leaning on the door he slowly started feeling towards the wall.
He could feel the dried-out wood under his fingers, from time to time a tiny splinter would bend under the pressure of his skin.
The doorframe. The tips of his fingers slid into a crack, he pulled them out and started sliding them again across the solid wood. Over a slight curve on the edge of the frame towards the wall.
He was overcome by a desire to hit the wall haphazardly until he found the switch and turned on the light. But he controlled himself, he could not afford to make a noise.
He had to continue over the centimetre deep edge of the frame and onto the wall. The rough plaster stuck to his fingers.
He stopped. Could he hear something? Breathing?
He held his breath as long as he could. There was nobody there. But he still tried to breathe slowly without making an audible noise.
He moved his hand again and he could feel every tiny lump in the plaster. His hand began to slip down and slowly he directed it up again.
Another noise. This time a recognisable one. Somebody was opening the front door, the creaking could not have been anything else. He stopped breathing as well as moving.
After a long spell of silence, he continued to move his hand up the wall. He had to be very near.
A feeling that he was not alone in the room came suddenly and very clearly.
Again, he failed to hear any breathing. Just once he thought he could hear something but it sounded like a rustle, the origin of which he could not establish.
It was all too much for his nerves. He would turn on the light and have a look.
He swiftly slid his palm up along the wall, found the switch, put his hand on it and…
… paused for a moment.
Will I?
I will, he said to himself, taking the switch between his thumb and index finger.
I’ll turn it now.
A gentle palm lay on his hand.
Max felt his urine trickling down his thighs. He did not move, just pushed his head low between his shoulders.
Waiting for a blow. It did not come.
That gentle hand resting on his. He could hardly feel it, there was no pressure, he was sure it could not stop him moving his hand away. Again, he tried to make out somebody else’s breathing.
The waiting went on and on. The hand did not move. Max’s two fingers on the switch started to hurt.
He only had to turn them and he would see everything.
Was that what he really wanted? Or should he try to remove his hand and run for it? Very slowly, he started to move his fingers but the hand increased the pressure accordingly. It was still very gentle.
He did not dare go on.
“I give in,” he whispered but even that sounded piercingly loud.
“Please, please!”
There was no reply.
Do I really want to see, he asked himself. Do I?
I’ll turn on the light and what happens happens. He remembered Alfonz’s grinning face and changed his mind. He could not take that.
How much longer could he stand there, motionless?
What would his father do? He would grab that hand without a body, without a face, push it away, turn on the light and give whoever was there three good punches. Max bitterly and clearly realised for the first time that he was not his father. He did not have a book of prescriptions, a catalogue of solutions for every conceivable situation, which decision to take in every dilemma — you just turn the pages until you find the appropriate advice, clear and short so that you can read it in a hurry.
Would such a book describe the situation Max was in? You are standing in impenetrable darkness, holding the light switch with somebody else’s hand resting on yours. Gently and patiently.
He started crying without moving. He pleaded and begged.
Nothing happened. No ruin, no salvation. The urine had cooled down and his thighs began to feel cold.
He pulled himself together slowly, stopped crying and tried to make out as much as he could about that hand. It was small and papery. Yes, that was the right expression. It was not damp with sweat or smooth. He remembered from school — where was Raf? — that the pores in the skin excrete grease or something like that to make the skin smoother. That hand was not like that.
It was inevitable. He knew that sooner or later he would find out whose hand it was. It had to happen. It was just like going to a dentist, a visit he always delayed beyond the first aches right to the swelling and the puss. In the end he always gave in. Dentists were inevitable, just like this thing waiting for him in the darkness.
It was better to do it now than torturing himself endlessly.
He screamed and turned the switch.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Everything was red. Why was that?
It only took a split second before he realised that his eyes were closed and that they had probably been closed in the darkness, too. And then he thought that all the waiting and agonising would have to happen all over again before he opened his eyes. He overtook his thoughts: he had to ride on the wave of decisiveness, he could not afford to repeat all the suffering he had just been through.
He looked.
Another split second, a new wave of thoughts, events and observations.
In front of him stood a brat, a strangely funny brat who held his hand on Max’s with his eyes closed. Was he asleep standing up or what? He was wearing a black suit which looked shiny as if it had been waxed or something. And a bow tie! That was the last straw for Max. A bow tie!