The Collector of Names

by Miha Mazzini

  With headphones?

  Her fear suddenly subsided and the trap-door remained firmly shut.

  With headphones? was that possible?

  She pictured herself on the ferry, the rail, the white wall, the seagull in the air. A figure walking away from her, soon to disappear behind the corner.

  Was it possible? Could something so silly really have happened?

  She ran her fingers through her hair, touching her ears. Maybe he had spoken to her, but she had not heard him?

  Too silly. But... His look as she was getting off the ferry. Offended?

  Oh, men, they're always sulking about something or other, at least that was what her schoolfriends said.

  What if...

  She would go and look for him and ask him. She would come up with an excuse for going to the other side of the island in spite of her uncle's strange behaviour. She would ask somebody else for directions, they could not all be strange.

  She went back to the path leading towards the village. Only a few houses still had lights on, the others were lit only by the moon. For a moment, she thought she could see something moving among the first trees on the slope but when she looked closer she could not see anything.

  *

  Max shouted:

  "Alfonz, Serious Alfonz! Go and get the drink! We're running out of everything."

  Alfonz got up obediently, took the torch from his rucksack lying next to the wall and left the dining room. The cassette player was screeching its tune, Samo was staring at the bottle in his hand thinking, and Raf was wondering why he had come in the first place. He had known exactly how it would all look and he was not wrong. Why did we do predictable things? Because that was when any unforeseen event turned out to be really exciting?

  Oh balls, he said and reached for the bottle.

  *

  Alfonz went into the cellar and remembered the fear which had attacked him when he first went in. He stepped very carefully onto the fourth step but there was just a very faint repetition of what had happened earlier - it was not like an attack this time, it just seemed as if he had gone through a broken shell. Whatever it was, the danger had passed. He continued his descent and three vivid images appeared simultaneously. They were so real that it seemed as if he was actually there that very moment. Alone in the middle of the pine forest. In church just as the altar boy waves the censer. By the village road onto which the workers had just spread the hot asphalt, getting it ready for the roller. He stood in the middle of the stairs, manically shining the torch all around him. Everything looked just like it did at his first visit. But...

  The smell.

  The cellar was filled with a smell which evoked all three memories at the same time. Alfonz tried to find its source but could not see anything unusual. Could it be that that was how the woods surrounding the house smelt in a summer night? Was that possible? Could so many scents come through the few gaps in the wooden planks on the windows?

  He directed the light onto the ceiling and immediately moved it away again. The drops were gleaming, all in their usual position - they could not have been the source of the smell.

  What was happening to him? That sadness! He had to carry out the task he had been given.

  He went over to the crate of beer and took out four bottles. He was struggling with them and the torch which was throwing its light haphazardly through the darkness.

  In the end, he put each bottle into a separate pocket. His trousers really were not much to look at, but they had deep pockets. Under one of the regular pockets there was another, hidden one that he had sewn in himself, pricking himself with the needle quite a few times in the process.

  He went over to get a bottle of brandy when he noticed that the row of bottles along the wooden box with the amber was not undisturbed. Two bottles were lying on the floor, luckily unbroken. He put the torch closer to examine the rubber bottle-top covers and saw that out of one of them a few drops had escaped, leaving a centimetre-wide trail in the dust.

  They could not have fallen long ago. But why? The floor was made of stone and he had made sure to put all the bottles onto a smooth and even surface. He had also checked each bottle to see if it stood firmly enough.

  He picked them up and felt something irregular under his fingers. He shone the torch onto the drops which had stuck to the glass. Amber? There were drops all over the floor too and they were all still warm. Quite a bit warmer than the wooden crate...

  The crate?

  He lifted the torch and directed it into the crate. The lid was still leaning against the wall, just as he had left it.

  "Oooooh," he sighed, with his eyes wide open. Quietly, just to himself; his escaping breath making a noise without any effort by his body.

  He had found the source of the smell. Heavy, dense, sleep-inducing vapours were coming from the crate. There was a warm glow above the surface and it looked as if the stuff had melted earlier and was now cooling again into its former firmer state.

  But the surface lay about a third lower then before.

  He reached with his hand: it was too hot to touch. He would have burned himself.

  It seemed to him that the light was getting through the amber more evenly as if the thing in the middle was no longer there. The whole of the surface was light yellow, probably because of the higher temperature.

  How? From what?

  Alfonz got up, shining the torch along the side of the crate. The two overturned bottles had stood by the bottom third of the box and that was where most of the drops were too. The bottles had fallen away from the box as if somebody had pushed them and the ribbons of amber were pointing in the same direction. He shone the light on the floor around his shoes. Among his own footsteps there were some smaller ones, which he had managed to almost completely destroy by trampling all over them. They pointed in the same direction as the bottles and the amber.

  To behind his back.

  The footsteps suggested a stupid scenario: Alfonz was looking at a bed out of which somebody had just got up and the first move of his feet had knocked the bottles over.

  A feeling tickled on his neck and then spread towards his cheeks.

  He was not alone.

  A crazy idea. How many times had he waded through the snow and the woods... The familiar woods, said a voice inside him, the woods near your home. He knew everybody there and everybody knew him. But here he was a stranger.

  And he was not alone.

  I'm alone, said Alfonz but the feeling would not disappear.

  I'll turn around and shine the torch. And I'll be alone.

  Alone.

  Alone.

  He turned and shone.

  He was not alone.

  4

  Ana returned quietly. She did not know what to expect.

  She thanked God - there was nothing unusual. The only light which was still on was the one above the table and all the kitchen corners were in semi-darkness, which her eyes were still able to penetrate. There was nobody in the kitchen. She could not see the moon through the window, just its image on the sea.

  She noticed a folded piece of paper on the table and immediately thought it had to be a message. It was. Not just one but two. The first sheet of paper was folded so that it had writing on the outside and the message started with her name.

  ANA!

  IF I'M NOT BACK BEFORE TWO IN THE MORNING GO TO THE VILLAGE, FIRST HOUSE NEXT TO THE BAR. WAKE LUKA. GIVE HIM THE OTHER MESSAGE ON THE TABLE.

  YOUR UNCLE LOVES YOU.

  ACO

  Capital letters and pencil? The effort which he must have put into the writing was almost palpable. Why did he underline "two in the morning" so much?

  She looked at the other sheet of paper, folded inwards, with the traces of the writing visible on the other side as a result of too much pressure on the pencil. There were even a few places where it had perforated the paper. The sheet was not sealed in any way, just one move and she could open...

  ...somebody else's letter.

>   And become just like her mother. Ana never got any letters, only post which it seemed right her mother opened and read first: junk mail, advertising brochures, subscription invoices for various children's magazines and such like. Once - with her schoolfriends - she gave in to what was then a fashionable thing to do and wrote to a girl who was looking for a pen-pal and whose address she got from a magazine. She soon got a reply. It had been opened and read.

  And it was then she had her only real row with her mum. It ended just like all the other minor sins Ana committed, but only after a long fight. Ana had to repent in her heart. Sometimes she would wonder if this repenting in her heart ever had any effect. Maybe it did and that was the reason why she did not remember much from her childhood?

  And she suddenly realised that repenting in her heart was not such a terrible punishment. What she had to do was to lean her head on her mother's chest, her mother then embraced her with her left arm while putting her right hand on Ana's forehead. So Ana repented in nearly complete darkness. During the last few years she had really used the time to think about this and that. Sometimes about her mother's scent. It was a cleanly-washed scent, without any perfume. Her schoolfriends...

  No, there was no point in thinking about her ex-schoolfriends. They were gone now, scents and all.

  So, this repenting always seemed like a very small price to pay for her sins. God knew when you repented for real, when you were just faking it and when you did not bother at all, her mother would always say. But Ana often doubted that, secretly to herself. There was never any proof of Him really knowing.

  Somebody else's letter.

  Your uncle loves you.

  He must be out of his mind. People like that could not be responsible for their own actions. Therefore:

  She opened the letter with a single move.

  THE KIDS FROM THE FERRY WENT TO THE VILLA. I'M GOING AFTER THEM. I HAVE A FEELING IT DIDN'T ALL END THAT NIGHT.

  ACO

  That night?

  I did everything a Christian could do to make sure I did not live this long.

  She looked outside. Peace and quiet everywhere. When had he gone and why had they not bumped into each other? Should she go after him and try to find the villa, the existence of which he had so vehemently denied? Should she go and find this Luka and try to get him to give her the key to this puzzle?

  The letter to her was from her uncle. In the absence of her parents he was her superior, so to speak. An older relative who gave her an order. All her life she had been taught to respect her superiors.

  She would wait.

  *

  "Where is that Alfonz?" mumbled Max and lifted the empty bottle high above his head.

  "ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!"

  He shouted louder than the music and the effort made him almost choke. He hit the cassette player angrily a few times until it stopped and expelled the cassette.

  "ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!"

  Samo put down his bottle and both he and Raf looked towards the door.

  "ALFOOOOOOOOOONZ!"

  Samo joined in for the last few OOOOs, but quietly and only as a sign of solidarity.

  Raf was beginning to get dizzy and his head had already fallen backwards a few times. So he had to concentrate in order to hold it still and turn towards the door, which was beginning to look double from time to time.

  "Where is the peasant?" Max stopped shouting. "Somebody ought to go and get him."

  His friends did not move. Max looked at them with contempt and tried to get up.

  "I'll go, you paralysed fuckers!"

  Getting up took some time and the other two shifted their concentration to Max's attempts at lifting his legs off the table. He accompanied his efforts with ample swearing and guesswork.

  "He must be throwing up somewhere, the fucking peasant, or he’s fallen asleep. Or he wants to keep all the brandy to himself! Fuck..."

  Suddenly his face spread into a contented smile. He was looking at something behind Raf and Samo and said:

  "There you are, Alfonz! Why didn't you say something?"

  *

  Aco leant on a pine-tree and pressed his palm onto his heart. He had to wait and calm down. He would not be doing anybody any favours if he died in the middle of the woods. What he found worst was that it was not the physical effort which made his heart race, but the fear. He did not even try to pretend it was not there, he was far too busy just trying to control it.

  Maybe he would not do anybody any good by dying there in the villa either, he thought and tried to concentrate on long slow breaths in through his nose and short breaths out through his mouth.

  *

  "Eh?" said Alfonz.

  Max was suddenly in a very good mood.

  "Alfonz, Serious Alfonz, smile! Where's the booze, man?"

  "Eh?"

  "The booze, the booze!?"

  "Here," said Alfonz and put the two bottles on the table and then pulled the beer out of his pockets.

  He's so pissed, thought Raf. He's completely gone. Or does he just seem like that to me?

  "Alfonz, sit down," Raf said to him.

  He did not hear.

  "Alfonz! ALFONZ!" repeated Raf, each time a bit louder but Alfonz took no notice.

  Raf leant forward and tugged at his trousers:

  "Hey!"

  "What? What?"

  "Sit down. Are you deaf?"

  "No, no."

  Alfonz sat down and took hold of the bottle but did not have a sip.

  "This one's dead already," Raf dismissed him and turned towards Max, who was pressing a new dose of alcohol to his heart with a blissful expression on his face. Samo had returned to his original position - looking at the bottle in his hands.

  Suddenly Alfonz spoke.

  "I saw somebody."

  Raf turned to him and said:

  "What did you say?"

  "I saw a strange..."

  Max shouted from the other side:

  "What's he saying?"

  "He saw somebody in the cellar," replied Raf and woke Samo.

  "Who did you see?"

  "A strange..."

  "A strange what?" prodded Raf.

  Alfonz thought hard before answering.

  "A brat. A strange one."

  "You saw a child? In the cellar?" jumped in Max, his mouth already widening.

  Raf gave him a look of warning, but it had no effect; Max was far too drunk to notice anything so subtle.

  "Yeah," confirmed Alfonz.

  "And what happened then?"

  Max leant forward expectantly, suppressing laughter only because he was hoping to get even more first-rate fuel for it.

  "He asked me what my name was."

  "And?"

  "Then he thanked me."

  "HE ASKED YOU WHAT YOUR NAME WAS? IN THE CELLAR? A BRAT? AND HE THANKED YOU?"

  Alfonz nodded.

  Max burst out laughing so loud that the walls shook. He roared so much that he drowned Alfonz's next sentence, which only Raf could hear because he was next to him. And he found it so odd and meaningless that he thought it must have been a mistake.

  "He didn't open his mouth."

  What was that supposed to mean?

  He took a good look at Alfonz who fell silent, looking towards his thighs.

  "He really is legless! HA HA HA HA! Sad Alfonz has become a comedian! HA HA HA HA!" roared Max and Samo joined him.

  Raf's confused eyes moved from one side of the table to the other. He remembered the nursery and the toy elephant on the bed. A child?

  He shook his head and concentrated on his drink. Soon, he would be drunk enough to get Max to give him his first cigarette of the night. In the morning he would be more hung over from the tobacco than the alcohol. So what!

  *

  "How long should I wait?" Ana kept asking herself. Maybe her uncle often had a turn like this and the villagers then had to look for him all over the island. Maybe there really was some danger and those boys were in trouble. If only she knew what tim
e her uncle had left and where he was. Should she go and see Luka? After two he had said and she could almost see his hand underlining those words.

  She looked at her watch. Half-past eleven. What should she do?

  The waiting was killing her. A few times she stopped herself at the last minute before putting her fingers in her mouth and biting into her nails. After all the trials and tribulations of getting rid of the habit!

  She got up and went to her room. She took her clothes out of her suitcase and arranged them neatly, quite automatically and without thinking, her hands working while her mind was miles away.

  The last thing she took out of her bag was the walkman. She put it on the bedside cabinet and arranged the cassettes next to it. Then she put her hand to her chest, just below her neck, but soon changed her mind. No, she was not going to take her purse off except when she was in bed. That was what she had promised her mother.

  "Finished. And now?"

  She would get changed into her jeans.

  She closed the window shutters and took off the white linen trousers which had in some places - especially at the bottom, on the inside - acquired a greyish tinge. She thought she would have to wash them. She picked them up by the waist and held them straight.

  A stain. Big and black. Why had she not sensed it?

  She just could not remember. Had she leant on the tank? Maybe it was from earlier, from the ferry? Oh, no! Maybe he had seen it too. What must he think of her?

  *

  Alfonz could not remember his name. The one in front of him was Max, the one next to Max was Samo, Raf was the one on his side of the table and...

  He looked at Raf. He was drinking brandy, the brandy he had stolen from his parents. He had talked about theft earlier; he distinctly remembered Raf talking about thieves and about all they had stolen. Raf! What sort of a name was that? A nickname, yes. Alfonz remembered how Raf had acquired it: he had been hanging, head down, from the rings, then still Peter. Suddenly, he had let go and crashed almost vertically onto the mat. He had picked himself up immediately and said a name. Jesus, yes, that was what he had said. Max had started teasing him that that was how the Royal Air Force planes took aim. The day before, they had been watching an English film about the Second World War and Peter became Raf. That bony earwig next to him had two names and he did not have even one. Nothing. How was that possible? Max had a name, the gym had a name, and the school, even the film and every person in the film. Everybody. Except the ones who just walked on and off the set and did not say anything. Just like him. He was not allowed to speak. He was nameless. Oh, how could Raf talk about theft. Theft? What did he know about theft?