She handed him Aco’s letter.
He opened it and read it, moving his lips with a whisper
-AND!
Weird, Ana said to herself in astonishment. All her imagined scenarios disappeared like a puff of smoke.
The man became like a blowfish. He straitened up, threw his shoulders back, spread his arms so that the door crashed against the wall, took a deep breath into his lungs and in an overflowing mixture of relief and enthusiasm roared:
“ACTION, AT LAST!”
Max suddenly realised just how much he loved his father. He was nothing without him, he did not even have a name. He had had to come that far, he had had to wait all that time to realise it.
Father!
A son’s love for his father!
He kissed and hugged him tightly.
Became one with his father.
Father!
I’m coming, here I am!
I’m yours, father!
Father!
Raf would have thrown up this time, too, if there was anything left to throw up. He turned on his side, choking and struggling for breath. Above him stood Aco who had kicked Max a few metres away and was now observing him as he slowly got up again, groaning.
“It’s started,” said Aco without sounding worried or frightened. His fear had only showed when he looked at the child and earlier, behind the shed, when Raf had told him about the villa. Raf said:
“He nearly killed me. I couldn’t breathe!”
“With a kiss,” added Aco and Raf was not quite sure if he just imagined the ironic smile on his face.
Max was on his feet again.
“How much I love you!” he said opening his arms wide.
In two jumps he was beside Aco, leapt onto him and knocked him down. He attached himself to Aco’s mouth. And a second later he again flew up in the air. The old man seemed well versed in the martial arts, noted Raf.
Aco wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“We’ve got to tie him up otherwise he’ll cover us both in his saliva.”
Max was up again.
“Father! FATHER! Just a kiss, father. What’s bad about that? Just one kiss?”
“Here he comes, watch out,” Aco got ready.
Max opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and jumped. The old man received him with a kick between his legs, a knee-blow on his chin and a fist in his ear. It sufficed.
Aco jumped over to Max lying on the ground, and folded both his arms behind his back
“We’ve got to tie him up,” he shouted to Raf, who had only just got up, “take off his trousers!”
Raf did as he was told and when he finally managed to pull the jeans off the unconscious Max, he caught a worried look on Aco’s face.
“You’re a bit clumsy,” said Aco.
Raf nodded willingly. What else could he do? With resignation, he accepted Aco’s expression of displeasure at having such a companion.
“We’ll manage.”
Aco pulled a fishing knife out of his pocket, cut the jeans into strips and used them to bind Max.
Max started gurgling and Aco turned him on his side and gave him a good blow on the back. The captive blew a balloon of blood onto the pine-tree needles and Raf groaned.
“It’s alright, he just bit his tongue,” Aco comforted him. “I hope he’ll be able to talk. We’ve got to wake him up.”
He started hitting him and after a while Max opened his eyes and immediately recognised the person leaning over him.
“Father!” he breathed.
Ana had to knock on Adriano’s, Bruno’s and Miro’s doors. She surprised herself by never mixing up or forgetting the instructions given to her by Luka. They were all sleepy and bad tempered when they first opened the door and then became full of energy as soon as they heard Luka’s message which Ana conveyed to them word by word:
“Action, boys!”
She soon realised she was gathering the whole team who had been sitting on the bench at her arrival. She did not wait for them to get dressed but returned to Luka’s house. The light was on inside and the door was open. She did not dare go in and waited outside in the light from the naked bulb, around which moths immediately started flying. Suddenly, something moved on the wall and one of the insects disappeared. Ana stepped nearer and only after a thorough inspection discovered some lizards, sitting on the stone, their colour matching that of the background, making them impossible to spot. She moved away in revulsion.
From time to time she could hear rattling noises, the slamming of drawers, the odd curse in a quick dialogue between a man and a woman coming from inside.
She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked louder.
Luka opened the window and looked at her:
“What?”
He was not in his pyjamas any more, judging by the arm holding the shutter. He had put on some sort of green hunting shirt.
“Could you tell me what’s going on?”
“Action, what else.”
“I mean with my uncle?”
“He’s the boss. He’s much cleverer than I, and after what happened
(what?)
much braver too. Didn’t he tell you anything?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t tell you anything either. A conspiracy, that’s us.”
He was about to go back in when she stopped him pleadingly:
“Please, tell me at least if it’s something serious?”
“Serious? Why the hell do you think I’m running around in the middle of the night? And Aco too?”
He closed the window, leaving her to wait.
Alfonz was walking around the woods with his friend in his arms, explaining to him his very special attitude to trees.
Aco and Raf were watching the child who was by now quite far away on the beach, right next to the sea and suddenly it occurred to Raf just what it was he had been clutching all that time. The cuddly elephant from the nursery.
“We’ve got to find the gun, all is not lost yet!” said Aco.
He started desperately rummaging through the undergrowth and the thick layer of pine-tree needles, looking behind tree trunks. Once he stooped swiftly to pick up something black, but it was only his beret, which had fallen off his head during his fight with Max. After Aco gave him a sharp look, Raf joined him in his search even though he was not quite sure what he was supposed to do if he found the gun.
But he was spared that trial. The darkness on the ground was thick and impenetrable and their search was futile. Aco stopped, pressing the palm of his hand onto his forehead.
“So this is it. This is it.” he said. Raf did not know what he meant.
The child was still on the beach staring at the horizon, all the time in the same direction. Whilst searching for the gun Aco kept looking at the child and when the boy slowly walked off along the beach out of sight Aco stopped.
“He’s going to the campsite,” said Aco. “If he keeps walking along the sea that’s where he’ll end up. We’ll cross the island and we’ll have at least half an hour, maybe more, advantage over him. It’ll do. In the meantime, we’ve got to find out as much as we can about how to destroy him.”
“Destroy him?” Raf moved away from Aco.
“Yes, of course. We can’t kill him.”
“Well, I should hope not.”
Raf was not sure if he really understood the joke.
Aco nodded:
“He’s been dead for a long time and I was there when he was dying. Now we’ve just got to destroy him. And before that we’ve got to find out as much as we can from this one.”
He pointed to Max who was lying there, his tongue pointing up into the air, as if he were licking an invisible ice-cream.