“What about the devil?”
Aco hissed with contempt:
“Ach, names!”
Then he shook his head:
“Let’s leave this, I’ve strayed. I’m glad to have you with me. If I was alone I’d go mad with fear. That’s one advantage of being in the army: you’re never alone. You’ve always got somebody with you and I’m the sort of person whose courage feeds on someone else’s fear and thus smothers his own. But let’s forget this. We’ve got to talk about that thing out there walking towards the campsite. It must never get there! It mustn’t! It would bring to them the madness and the slaughter it brought to you. And then it would go to the village. The ferry comes again tomorrow and it would get on it. And so on. We’ve got to destroy it! Here! Tonight!”
“The child?”
“NO! THAT’S NOT A CHILD! The child died in front of my eyes. This is a thing which which is doing what it was created for. Don’t you ever forget that! It’s not a child! IT’S NOT! It’s not alive either! IT’S NOT! It’s a machine, that’s what it was made to be. I was an army instructor and I’m telling you, I made machines like that, according to my best abilities and within the means at my disposal.”
“Yes, but”
“I’ll tell you things about which I’ve heard and which are coming true tonight. When I travelled the world I talked to many people. I made friends in the Indian regiment. I heard about a sect whose priests collect names and who believe that when they’ve collected every name there is, these names will embody God. They believe that God divided himself among all living beings during creation. And I heard rumours that heretics from that sect who’d split away many years ago and who claimed that the names found, remembered or written down by a priest are not the names of real people, but are just the priest’s imagination. They said that every collected name had to come from a real living person and that it had to be taken from them. I’m surprised they left this thing here and not in America where they have a name for everything. Anyway, God had divided himself among his creatures. And everything that exists has a name. Because if there is something new, really completely new, that does not come from God because it hasn’t got a name. That’s why some people say that something really new can never happen. If it ever did, there’d be no God. The thing from the villa asks people their name. You heard how your friend Max keeps shouting how he hasn’t got a name anymore, and Alfonz said something like that too. But all this is just philosophising. Maybe it isn’t true and I’m telling you made up stories. But even those are better than nothing.”
Raf felt a disbelief which vanished the moment he remembered Alfonz’s grinning face.
“So, this thing goes around collecting names?”
“Yes. He asked both victims for their names and they told him. You saw what happened to them. Listen, they both said he didn’t open his mouth when he spoke to them.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“That’s what’s worrying me most. Those strange abilities. I don’t know, but it seems that he can read peoples’ minds, at least from nearby, and I’m afraid we’ll have to destroy him without coming close to him or we’ll have to distract him somehow, entrap him.”
“We haven’t got”
“We haven’t. The gun is lost and we can’t wait till the morning. All we’ve got is this knife and a plan. I’ll tell you about it later. My niece is waiting in the village to wake my friends.”
“The girl from the ferry?”
“Yes. They will”
“What’s her”
“There’s no time for that now. My friends will come and they’ll be armed. But they’ll be too late and the thing will already have done its job in the campsite so we can’t rely on them. Maybe it wasn’t a sensible thing to call them at all. They’ll be expecting monsters and all they’ll see is a child. If you see them you’ll have to explain that to them.”
“How”
“ will you recognise them? Oh, that won’t be difficult. You’ll hear them as soon as they start off, they’ll come with a lot of noise. Do you remember the pensioners on the bench?”
“Them?”
“Yes, them.”
Raf’s head just fell forward. Four pensioners, four senile old men, who had spent their whole life stretching on the bench, moaning about their various ailments, will be the rescue party.
Aco smiled.
“Young people, young people, always judging by appearances. Don’t worry, I’ve been expecting tonight’s events for a long time, so we have worked hard to acquire weapons.”
He became serious and got up.
“Let’s go, it’s time to attack.”
“What about Max?”
“We’ll leave him here.”
“Alone? Tied up?”
“Yes, we won’t carry him with us because we haven’t got the time. We can’t untie him because he’s dangerous. There’s two of us and we can protect ourselves from him. What if he finds somebody who’s alone and weaker than him and he suffocates them with his outpourings of love? He stays here.”
Raf looked towards his tied up friend who called him father and he nodded.
“What if”
“Questions kill actions,” said Aco. “If we die, he’ll probably die too. But then there will be so many others dead too Let’s leave that now and go.”
Ana turned round. The shining roofs seemed so beautiful and above all inhabited, as opposed to the pine-trees around her. Only five lights were on and she remembered that when she had left Aco’s house she had not even looked at the light switch. Maybe so that she would see her way back. Didn’t they use to leave a lit candle in the window for travellers and sailors returning home? She trembled and looked around. Crickets were singing and every now and again she could hear a strange noise which she ascribed to birds. Was it much further and above alclass="underline" was it going to get even more isolated?
Looking at the village, she thought about going back. Luka was probably still pottering around and she could go back and wait under the light. Nobody would even notice her escape and humiliating return.
They would send her to bed because she was a woman.
She knew that was her last chance to go back but she chose to go on.
His father had deserted him. No, not for ever, fathers always came back.
Max remembered previous occasions on which his father had left him, particularly one of them, when he had tied his hands behind his back – just like now! – and shut him in a wardrobe. Max did not dare even sob, let alone try to loosen the belt around his wrists. When his father finally returned, he pulled Max out and when he saw the belt, he kicked him and gave him a few blows on the head and then threw him back into the wardrobe. He told him never ever to forget the following lesson: he had to learn to save himself and not wait for anyone else’s help!
Aha, his father was testing him again! This time he’d be ready for him! His father would be pleased with him! He would wait for his almighty father to come surrounded by light whilst his nameless son sits in the darkness. Father, big and mighty like a mountain, so that the ground rumbled under his feet!
Max would be ready for him. He would not disappoint him again.
He started jerking wildly to release his bonds as quickly as possible.
They did not talk on their way through the woods. They walked very fast, from time to time almost running. Raf started off at full speed, then stopped himself, thinking that the old man would not be able to keep up with him. But after a while, it was Raf who was out of breath and looking at the old man’s back. Aco kept up the same rhythm and proved to be very fit.