The Collector of Names

by Miha Mazzini

  He stood in the middle of the squad, turned towards the men and shouted:

  "M4A3E8?"

  "Ready!" shouted Bruno.

  "M2?"

  "Ready!" said Miro.

  Luka nodded. Good.

  "M 1919A4?"

  Silence. He looked towards Adriano, who stared ahead with his lips tightly shut. Miro leant towards him and whispered: "M 1919A4?"

  Miro had to repeat it in a much louder voice before Adriano replied with a shout:

  "READY!"

  Good, Luka was pleased. Maybe he should make an up-beat speech before they started their rescue mission?

  *

  Alfonz was becoming sadder and sadder.

  *

  Raf stood under a thick branch, keeping the spear close to him and watched Aco at the top of the cliff. Aco had his right side turned towards him and did not throw even one glance at Raf’s hiding place, his attention being constantly divided between two points: the part of the beach where the thing should first appear and the distant light of a fishing boat on the horizon.

  To be there! thought Raf. Somewhere else, in the middle of the sea, in the middle of a job, in the middle of everyday life.

  The child would come and he would kill it. And then it would all be over. They would have survived and could go home.

  That was how it was going to be.

  The man at the top of the cliff was not whistling, he had probably just joked about that.

  *

  Aco looked at the point of light in the distance. It seemed to him as if their positions were reversed and that he was approaching the town, but this time the lights were not scattered like stars, but concentrated in one single burning point, on a spot big enough for just one person. He remembered his woman, but not just her photograph in the kitchen, as he usually did. Pre-battle nerves? Saying goodbye to his dearest? No, he felt more like he was just about to do something he had been delaying for such a long time that it had turned into a moral obligation. He tried to stop remembering her but without success. Memories of women are like mice, they can squeeze in anywhere. Even when they are women from other countries, other times and – this was how it felt at that moment – from other lives. Even when they were dead.

  There, beyond that light, was Africa with its desert sands and unpronounceable place names. He had lived through all those events, met all those people and now he was where he had first started.

  He looked down, towards the sea. It was a long fall. After that first experience which had got him into all this, he was no longer afraid of heights. The dark rocks below him surrounded by the golden sand looked like flowers. Where the sand ended, a path went up some terraced stairs to the grass. There was no way he could miss that thing in its dark clothes on the light background. He expected it to enter his visual field in a narrow passage between two rocks, which looked somehow lonely because of the distance between them and the other rocks lying in the sea, the surface of which was periodically raised by the waves.

  He wished that moment could become eternity. The night, the silence, the sounds of the trees in the distance, the light on the ship, the splashing of the waves. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing superfluous.

  He took off his beret and rolled it between his fingers. Its material full of memories. No wonder it made his head feel so heavy. He threw it towards the sea and it flew off in a wide arch. He did not have enough strength to stop his eyes following it, but luckily the darkness soon swallowed it.

  He listened. There were no sounds coming from the village. Even if the rescuers took off at that very moment they would be too late. He felt guilty and could not find anything that would absolve him of that guilt. Really, he had asked for help before he had known what the enemy would look like and if the ambush failed, they would come, find a helpless child and tell him their names. After all the battles they had fought together they would just utter their names and die. Adriano had once been captured and tortured, they had even burst his eardrum with a handle of a gun, but he had not told them a thing. This time he would be asked a polite question and he would not be able to resist answering.

  He secretly hoped that Ana was not as obedient as she seemed and that she would disobey his instructions. But of course, she would not, his first impression was correct: she would have a hard life ahead because of the way she was. If that boy in the bushes gave her a life, that was. For the first time, he thought about the young man behind him and his heart did not exactly sing out. Raf seemed clumsy and confused. The latter was hardly surprising after the events of that evening but the former lay like a heavy weight on his chest. Maybe Raf would not even jump up, let alone attack? He would have to give his name to the dark forces and the tree branches would remain undisturbed.

  However, it was too late to choose his companion. You take what you are given and you try and make the best of it, that is what he had learnt as an army instructor. You just have to rely on them in battle.

  A dark shadow covered the sand between the two rocks.

  "There you are!" said Aco and looked at the light on the horizon for the last time.

  *

  Ana was getting more and more frightened and she had to stop. I mustn’t look at the trees any more, I see too many monsters in them, I must look at my feet, she said to herself. I’ll count my steps.

  One two three four five.

  I won’t think of monsters hiding in the woods because they don’t exist. Fear is a hollow surrounded by nothing - as my mother, who’s always watching over me, would say.

  I won’t count, I’ll pray:

  Saint Stanislas, my guardian, protect me from the woods and the monsters which don’t exist, which I know very well don’t exist and that’s why I’m begging you

  *

  Max could feel that his bonds would soon be loose enough and he gurgled with pleasure. What sort of a kiss would he get from his father for a job well done?

  *

  Raf waited and his determination was unshaken. The monster would come and he would stab it. He remembered a picture depicting George’s fight with the dragon on a wayside altar he had seen by a path one day.

  And then he noticed that the man on the cliff had stopped turning towards the sea and was now looking only towards the beach. Raf had to move a bit to his left to be able to see past the tree trunk and it was a minute before he spotted the child on the sand, still clutching the toy. It took an unbearably long time before the child finally came to the rocky bit where he had to turn towards the meadow. He stopped on the last stony terrace and Raf could only see the top part of his body. He put the toy down, lay on his tummy and kicked his legs up onto the ledge. He then got up, brushed the soil off his knees, picked up the toy elephant and slowly went on.

  Raf suddenly saw the truth: all that talking earlier about destroying monsters and dragons was just theory, and that there, that child brushing dirt off his knees, was reality.

  He did believe that the being on the meadow brought madness and death but he could not really comprehend it. The child looked so vulnerable, so lost. Raf was an only child and he had never had much experience in dealing with small children. He had never had to baby-sit and nobody expected him to mess around with the neighbours’ little brats.

  A possibility occurred to him about which he desperately wanted to talk to Aco. What if they had left the child there because he was unfinished? Had Aco’s scream disturbed their ritual that night, driving away the demons and interrupting the procedure? What would the boy have been like if he had been more successfully transformed? A machine, which would walk from person to person, without stopping, without calling for his mother and without moments of being lost. How easy it would be to destroy such a robot in human form! But as it was, the child’s best weapon was his vulnerability, his humanity. The machine inside him awakening just for a moment, carrying out its murderous task and then retreating and leaving the body to the child.

  He looked at the small figure slowly approaching the middle
of the cliff and he groaned to himself, feeling with every step the child made that he probably would not be able to do what he had promised to do.

  Even worse: what he had to do.

  *

  "Alright?" said Luka, "are we ready? As you are aware, I’m the leader in Aco’s absence and although I may not be as clever as he, you have to obey my orders. Shall we go?"

  "YES!"

  Soon the moment Luka liked most would come.

  *

  The receptionist opened his right eye and listened. Complete silence and undisturbed peace. He asked himself how much longer it would be before the mayhem started. He looked at his watch and could not believe just how late it was. He looked at the glass wall but could see nothing but the lit up semi-circle in front of the reception.

  Why hasn’t he come yet, the receptionist asked himself. What is stopping him causing havoc around the campsite?

  Whenever it happened, the receptionist would be ready.

  But until then he could have another sleep.

  *

  He’ll just go past me, thought Aco as the thing crossed the cliff lower down without looking towards the top. The final reckoning would have to be postponed for another time.

  "Hey, boy!" he shouted, "where are you going?"

  The child stopped and looked at him. Aco felt a weak pressure on his temples and thought: so that’s what it’s like. He became aware of an image of Raf sitting behind a pine-tree and Aco wanted to shout to him to wait a bit longer until the monster bit into its bait fully. But he managed to control himself and suppressed any thought that could jeopardise the ambush.

  The thing walked towards him and it looked so gentle and vulnerable, whilst its eyes got bigger and bigger, completely out of proportion with the rest of its body.

  "Come, come!" repeated Aco.

  The name collector obeyed.

  *

  Now he had to get up and run. He could not delay any longer. He could not.

  First the muscles on his hands and arms which were clutching the spear started shaking, then it spread to the whole of the top part of his body. Aco stood right at the edge of the cliff and the child was half way there.

  I HAVE TO!

  I HAVE TO!

  He bit his lip and could feel blood on his tongue. The most earthy flavour possible.

  Think of something banal and do what you have to do!

  He could not think of anything. He was looking at that tiny back which looked so helpless in front of the figure from which it was now only ten steps away. It was repeating something but Raf could not quite make out what. He aimed the spear at the middle of the dark jacket.

  If he had a gun he would only have to press the trigger and that would be it.

  A jacket, it was just a jacket; without a head, without a body, without anything.

  He leapt forward, a branch hit him in the face, he ran, looking past the tip of the spear at the garment coming nearer and nearer. A wild piece of material, impersonal and belonging to nobody, jumping up and down because of stones, small ridges and thick bunches of grass.

  *

  Now he’ll ask me, realised Aco. The pressure at the side of his head did not get stronger, it just spread towards the back of his head. So that was how it felt. He tried to tear his look away from the all embracing eyes, black, nicely shaped and with a small V in the middle.

  He’s not as strong as I thought, he’s not!

  Somewhere behind, as if behind a thick curtain, Aco sensed a shadow approaching rapidly.

  "Dear God, dear God! Thank you. He has found the strength!" Aco thought and suddenly the pressure in his head vanished.

  *

  Raf’s nose dug into the grass and because of his eagerness and speed he did an elegant somersault before landing with a dull thud.

  He had fallen.

  He felt a pressure in his head and the black eyes above him sucked him in. The boy stood above him, looking at him.

  I tripped! groaned Raf aloud. It was all over. He lay on his back like a turtle with his arms spread wide, the spear had flown to god-knew-where and there he was – a helpless victim.

  He waited for the question and he could not tear his eyes away.

  This was the end, everything was finished.

  *

  Ana stood at the junction looking down towards the camp. How peacefully the receptionist dozed at his desk! She wished she was there, in the light and the safety.

  No, I have to continue with what I have started, I cannot give up half-way!

  With envy she looked at the picture of calm in the valley and set off along the overgrown path with the electric wire running alongside.

  *

  Aco nearly collapsed. With a single glance he understood what had happened. The thing took no notice of him anymore as it stood over Raf and Aco could see Raf starting to open his mouth to tell it his name.

  The spear stuck into the grass far away and the handle was still swaying to and fro.

  Aco would have to carry out his task with his bare hands. He jumped forward, two long jumps and felt that the thing sensed him and turned towards him – he’s slow, thought Aco, it had been a good plan and could have succeeded. The thing would not have had time to turn around. A terrible feeling of pressure hit his head and with fingers like talons Aco grabbed at something and pulled.

  The foreign body in his head did not go away, but he could sense a great surprise emanating from the monster in front of him.

  Aco took two steps back and looked at the thing in his hand. The toy elephant looked back at him with its sad, dark, glass eyes, which looked like a promise of things to come.

  "HA!" shouted Aco. "HA! Come, come and get it!"

  The pain in the middle of his brain was unbearably sharp. As if the monster had sucked out every bit of fluid from his head with its eyes and now his nerve endings banged against his skull with an incredible force every time he moved.

  I can’t stand this, I can’t!

  My God, where is the end, how much further is it to the edge, how many steps, how many more blows to the inside of my head?

  ?

  *

  Raf looked up and the child was not there anymore, he was not inside his head either. He saw his back a few metres away and in front of the child Raf saw Aco with a terribly contorted face, offering something to the child just out of the reach of his hands.

  "The elephant!" breathed Raf seeing immediately what Aco intended to do. He would lead the child to the edge, grab him and take him down with him.

  "NO! NO!" he shouted and jumped up. Neither of the two figures at the edge heard him. He looked around to see where the spear was and saw it very far away. He panicked and he turned around three times. What should he do?

  Pull yourself together, pull yourself together!

  Aco would know what to do!

  A cold voice said to him: this is one more chance to retake the test. Run and push the child over the edge! But Aco was standing in front of the child and he would get pushed too. Aco would certainly do it if the roles were reversed.

  No, Raf shook his head, what if. And then realised that it was too late for anything. Aco’s leg waved in the air and his eyes widened. He looked relieved which seemed inconceivable to Raf. Aco lifted his right hand high in the air and invited the child another half a step closer.

  Aco opened his mouth and uttered his name, which was followed by a short moment of stillness and after that everything happened quickly and irrevocably.

  Aco lost his balance and leant far back, tried to stop himself falling without letting go of the elephant in his right hand, realised that it was too late and then, in the last sway before falling, tried to reach for the creature in front of him with his left hand. The hand moved through the air as if it was moving through honey, lowered itself past the child’s head and moved ten centimetres in front of his face, without achieving anything but a slight breeze which disturbed a small strand of hair in the boy’s perfect parting.


  Aco disappeared over the edge and the elephant was the last thing Raf saw. He ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Aco’s body hit the rocks and broke apart. The waves immediately washed over him and the merciful night hid the rest in spite of the moonlight.

  Raf thought: there’s a murderer standing next to me, looking down there too. Maybe he is mourning for the toy. What if I grab him and push

  Raf turned quickly and decisively and started to lift his arms.

  He sank into the boy’s eyes, heard the question through the unmoving lips and whined:

  "Too late, too late, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"

  The name collector thanked him and left.

  *

  The receptionist opened his right eye again. Still nothing? Good.

  *

  Raf was crying at the edge of the cliff. The waves carried the two halves of the body in different directions and he did not want to look at it anymore. He should move his head, look in a different direction, think of something else but of his guilt, his powerful and infinite guilt. With his own clumsiness, panicking, hesitating, thinking and fear he had killed a man, who was now dissolving down below. He had killed everybody in the campsite, on the island and in the whole world.

  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!" he sobbed, during a breath in.

  He had killed himself.