The Collector of Names (23 page)

He started to shake his head.

"I have to tell you something, I’ve learned this with my friend and it’s true about love too: a person is more that just a sum of his or her parts. Believe me, I know!"

*

Raf ran without stopping. He did not look left or right so as not to waste energy unnecessarily. His heart was rebelling, his lungs felt as if they were full of razor blades, but he did not give up.

*

Ana heard fast steps above her head and thought:

"Help is on its way!"

The steps came and then went again. Was there really no way out of that hell? Was she really completely alone and nobody would come to help her? Did she still have any real hope or was she just fooling herself? She would have to deal with the monster herself.

The worst thing was that she knew what she would have to do if she wanted to get him completely on her side: she would have to touch him. But she could not make herself do it. She imagined how she would slowly raise her hand and stroke his cheek. The lumpy surface on which little streams of drying blood alternated with lumps of already dried blood. She could not do it.

Alfonz tried again. He touched the ends of her hair lying on her shoulders and it was much worse than the touch on the knee. Not because she could feel the touch more on her hair but because his bloody hand, covered in dirt and all sorts of unidentifiable bits, had to travel so near her face that she could smell the decaying flesh. The smell of death helped her go on.

"You’ve got to tell me what you feel for me," he kept saying and Ana surprised herself when she sensed a desire to kill and started to imagine grabbing the axe, hitting her tormentor and screaming: "This is what I feel for you! THIS! THIS! THIS!"

A beautiful dream.

"I’ll tell you," she said instead.

"Tell me."

"It’s not that simple. You have to give me time to think."

He nodded.

"Yes, you’re right. I don’t want to be a nuisance. It’s only because I’ve changed and I’m now smiling that I dare speak to you, I would’ve been too embarrassed before. They were right. A holiday on the seaside really does change you. I can just imagine the look on my mother’s face when I come home. Oh! And come home with you!"

He was reaching with his hand again. This time he touched her in the middle of her right cheek. A short and gentle touch. The first direct contact between the two bodies and Ana was at the very edge of fainting and vomiting at the same time.

He moved away and got up. A few more bits of his friend fell off him. He said:

"Think about what you feel towards me and when I come to ask you, tell me in clear sentences. You know, I’m not very familiar with a woman’s soul. Please, tell me soon and don’t torment me. Every second of uncertainty hurts right here," he tapped the left side of his chest with the axe. "Now I don’t need a friend anymore, just you. Please, tell me soon! You’ve completely confused me. Your smile and your eyes are telling me to come near you, but whenever I touch you, you shudder instead of just giving in to my touch."

He looked at her sharply and Ana pushed her head low between her shoulders.

"You’re not one of those flirts, are you?"

He went on without waiting for her answer:

"No, I don’t think so. You look like a decent girl. I’ll go and you think until I come back."

In three jumps he was on the road and outside the reach of her eyes. It took a while before she comprehended.

He had just gone.

The killer had left her alone, alive and (
nearly
) untouched!

She got up slowly, looking around. She could not see much beyond the hollow, so she was getting ready to climb out when she suddenly became aware that she was still holding the heart and the hand. She felt like throwing them away with a scream, but she was frightened that those crazy eyes were watching her from somewhere in the darkness. She hesitated, wondering how to get rid of those things. Finally, she just dropped them without looking as she crawled out, like a child slyly dropping a sweet wrapper.

A few metres later she collapsed in a fit of crying, vomiting and diarrhoea. She only just managed to pull off her jeans and pants before squatting at the edge of the road, excreting all sorts of fluids, still wishing she was unconscious.

9

It was starting to get light. Raf staggered onto the meadow in front of the villa and fell to his knees. He gasped for breath, looking around, but there was nobody there. The moon was still large and nearly full, only its brightness was diminished by the greyness of the early morning. There was complete silence everywhere - among the trees, in the tall grass - even the surface of the sea was completely smooth, like a pane of glass.

When he opened his mouth to call her, he stopped helplessly. He did not even know her name! He had never had an opportunity to ask her, apart from that time on the ferry when she would not speak to him. His heart missed a beat and he was not sure whether that was just because of all the running. She would not even turn around then and now he was trying to save her. Anyway, it did not matter - that night he had allowed too many people's lives to be ruined (as if his own was not enough!) and this time he would not repeat his previous mistakes.

How should he find her when he could not even call her name? Should he shout HEY THERE! or HEY YOU? Impossible, it would frighten her and she would not answer. If you wanted to earn somebody's trust you had to know their name and you had to use it at the right moment. When I see her, I must first ask her her name, he decided and then remembered the woods behind him and the other being with the same intention. It frightened him.

He walked around the meadow, whispering repeated reassurances about his friendship and harmlessness - just in case she was hiding somewhere, watching him. He walked around the house and confirmed the feeling which had accompanied him ever since he had first seen the villa that morning: she was not there. Maybe she had hidden from him when she heard him or...

... he remembered Alfonz covered in blood and started trembling. Not that, please, not that. Send him to me, God, if you have to send him to somebody, just don't send him to her.

I keep repeating God's name and thinking of him, thought Raf. I'm in danger, that's why. But do I really believe or do I just not want to be on my own? Can I believe in something I can't quite imagine? Is schizophrenia an atheist’s redemption? Do I believe in something that's just a name I keep repeating as if bewitched? Was that why he saved me with his name?

And what about the girl he was trying to save? Did she believe or not? He had noticed a leather purse hanging around her neck. And what was underneath? A cross? He went back to thinking about her name. What sort of a name could she have? He tried to read it from her face which he suddenly saw very vividly in front of him, but he soon gave up.

It did not matter, there was no time for thinking, he had to act.

He looked at the dark windows above him and decided to look inside, in spite of an uneasy feeling.

*

Ana kept on walking towards the villa, constantly looking back. The monster could be anywhere, he could be watching her that very minute. Earlier, while she was walking fast, his skull suddenly appeared from behind a tree and asked her if she had decided yet. She shouted:

"NO!" and he disappeared. But she could not swear she had not imagined it. It happened so quickly and it could have just been her imagination responding to her frayed nerves.

The rumble behind her back was getting louder and louder. Just before it caught up with her she stepped off the road and hid behind a tree. This time she made sure she was alone in her hiding place.

The tank was making its way along the narrow track, squashing the undergrowth and any trees that stood in its way. Ana pressed herself against the tree and gawped. The tank! The monument! And there was Luka looking out of the turret! She wished he would send her back and she was just about to jump out of her hiding place and call to him. But then she saw the expression on Luka's face and the tears running down his cheeks.

"As if somebody had died," thought Ana.

The vehicle was now parallel with her and she looked at the two other heads looking out of the bottom part of the tank, just underneath the turret, separated by the barrel. The left head belonged to an old man with a helmet on his head and the right one to a very beautiful child. They were going to leave her behind and then they took a six-year old with them! She leant forward in order to see better and for a moment her eyes met with those of the child. She felt a pressure in her temples and then the tank rumbled past and she wiped her forehead. What sad eyes the child had!

*

Luka was crying. He knew that as a good commander he should check out the machine gun next to him but he had other worries. Old age happened when you could not lift the sort of weight you used to be able to and when you had to be wary of every cool breeze. But death started with forgetting. He still knew the names of M4A3E8 below him and M2 next to him but he could not remember his own name. So that was what the end was like and it started from within! And all that time he had thought that forgetting would start outside him and then slowly progress inwards. He had thought the world around him would collapse bit by bit while he stood in the middle, catching the bits and pressing them to his heart. After all those years of preparation it caught up with him and surprised him. The first thing he forgot was the most important one - himself. And what use was the rest of the world with all those names on labels - the traps he had set for forgetfulness, when he was not a part of that world anymore?

Adriano had even accused him of trying to preserve himself forever. How could he be friends with a man who did not understand him and who had nothing in common with him?

*

Raf stood in the nursery, holding the photograph of the Indian woman he assumed to be the boy's mother.

In the features of her face he tried to find some reasons or an explanation. He found out nothing even though he spent a long time waiting for the answers.

"She turned him into a weapon," he said, opened his hand and the frame smashed onto the floor, the fragments of glass flying all over the room. The woman was still looking at him with a smile on her face; with the top of his spear he turned the photo around and did not look at it again.

The noise of the tank came very near. Raf thought he had to hide in the woods as they were bound to come into the house. He ran to the ground floor and peeped out through the front door.

Too late. The tank came to the edge of the clearing and stopped. All the barrels were aiming at the house and Raf knew he did not stand a chance if he ran out now. He remembered Max's body disintegrating in the floodlight and decided to stay indoors. It was not really a decision as there were no other options.

He retreated inside, knelt under the kitchen window and watched the rescuers. Three old men came out of the tank, together with the child and started walking towards the house. Two of the men held machine guns, the third one had a pistol. They were arguing, which made them walk slower and slower. The child took no notice of them, he overtook them and Raf got scared of another meeting with him. Was he safe now or would the boy ask him his name again and finish him this time? How did he know which names he already had and how did he recognise the people he still had to ask? By their eyes, their behaviour, their smell?

*

Ana stood some fifty metres behind the tank, watching it. They came out and their behaviour seemed strange to her. Because of the noise of the engine she could not hear their conversation but it had to be pretty heated as it looked as if they would start fighting any minute. Only the child was calm and deep in thought. A fragment of normality among all the madness she encountered that night. She wanted to talk to the little boy, to give him a hug.

"I'd like to talk to you," she heard a gentle voice behind her. She knew who it belonged to and she could not turn around, even though she knew she would have to sooner or later.

"Tell me what you feel for me."

Ana ran as fast as she could. The tree branches kept hitting her face but she made no effort to protect herself. The monster was sure to be faster than her, but the tank

(looked)

so near.

She could almost feel the creature behind her, right behind her neck, but she succeeded nonetheless. She jumped onto the back of the tank, nearly lost her balance, her trainers tapped on the metal, she did not stop, she jumped over some sort of bars, pushed herself up, landed on the turret and dropped inside without looking back. She fell hard, hurting her back on the metal but she did not moan, just grabbed the handle above her head and pulled it towards her. The trap door closed and she continued hitting the locking mechanism even after it had done its job of separating her from the world outside.

*

Raf saw her jump into the tank and immediately recognised her even though she looked very unkempt and dirty. At first he did not know why she was in such a hurry but then - long after the door had closed - he saw the naked figure covered in blood standing on the bottom part of the tank.

It did not look as if Alfonz was trying to catch the girl - he started doing something outside the reach of Raf's eyes. When Alfonz straightened up again he was holding a long, shiny axe in his hand, probably a part of the equipment belonging to the tank, and he threw his own small axe on the grass.

"I hope she knew how to lock that door," Raf thought while holding onto the handle of his spear. The name collector was walking towards the house and if Raf wanted to save the girl he would first have to deal with him. He put his forehead on the wood. God, why are you forcing me, a coward, to make these decisions, why don't you give them to somebody braver, who deserves them.