The Collector of Names (7 page)

"What do we need water for?" grinned Max. "You're by the sea. You can wash when you swim, and as for drinking - we're bringing the booze!"

And he had only one small moan about their present situation:

"It really is heavy, but worth the bother. Just think how pissed we can get tonight!"

*

Ana was still secretly observing her uncle and beginning to hope that the two months just might be bearable. What she had worried about most was that he would be one of those people who never stopped talking, always asking questions and telling stupid stories. But even before they reached his house, dragging her heavy suitcase, she was able to stop worrying as he only asked her the usual pleasantries about the journey (Fine, thank you.) and then remained silent. He seemed a bit shy to her, even though he did look her in the eyes when he talked to her. She could not get rid of a feeling that he was only pretending to be insecure. Not pretending in a negative sort of way, but as if he had been given a role which he was now trying to act out to the best of his abilities, even though it was not best suited to his character. The role of a guardian, who had to play host to an underage relative for whole two months.

On the way, he had explained to her that the monument had been put there in memory of all those who had died in the Second World War. Ana expected him to start imitating a tourist guide, but he stopped. He had told her about the only unusual thing in the village about which he thought she might have some questions. Everything else was completely self-explanatory.

But that funny hairstyle of his! It somehow did not quite fit the stereotyped image of an elderly islander, with his dark brown skin which looked as if it was not just tanned but as if it had been that colour from the day he was born. He could have either cut his hair off completely or worn a cap - a fisherman's cap would have quite suited him. And he could have worn a checked shirt or something similar, like all the other pensioners who were sitting on the bench. But as it was, he really stood out in his short-sleeved white linen shirt and wide trousers of the same material.

She wondered why he bothered with his appearance on an island, where there could not be more than a hundred inhabitants and where everybody had to know each other as well as if they shared the same house; where the campsite had only been opened that year - or so she had heard them saying back home; and where the passengers she saw on the ferry were probably among the first tourists ever. Was he doing it for her? She thought about the winter when the presently seductively sparkling blue sea must turn into a matt-grey surface and she felt cold at the thought of it. At least in the summer the ferry came once a day and provided an opportunity for everybody to gather for the event of the day. It all seemed very strange.

Her uncle carried the suitcase up the three stairs leading to his house by himself and she had another good look at him. He certainly was not a weak old man, even though he was completely grey and quite wrinkled.

The only trace of a woman in the house was a photograph in an honorary spot behind the glass of a cabinet. Ana was overcome by sadness. That overwhelming, all inclusive feeling that ends as a pressure on the left side of her chest. A man's room with memories of a woman. A photograph, memories - enough for a moment of melancholy, from which she was aroused by that most basic of smells: the smell of good food.

Her uncle smiled:

"I'm making dinner. You must be hungry after your long journey."

She had been eating sandwiches on the ferry and until now she had not been aware of the emptiness in her stomach. So much saliva filled her mouth that she found it impossible to speak and she just nodded.

"I got your room ready. Do you want to see it?"

"Thank you, Uncle."

"Just call me Aco."

After a few embarrassing smiles they agreed on Uncle Aco. But the agreement did not last long. Ana soon returned to calling him just Uncle and he did not correct her.

The room faced the sea and the window was wide open, covered with a green mosquito net. Her bed seemed too short at first glance because of the wooden frame. The open window did not have any effect on the stuffiness of the room, even though Ana was sure Uncle had been airing it ever since her visit was first arranged.

Ana's mood was very fragile and it did not take much to tip the balance. The smell of the room carried her over to the dark side and she again started thinking about the longevity of the two months ahead.

A romantic image: caught on a small island, amongst natives who seem friendly enough but rather clumsy.

They sat down in the kitchen and she accepted tea which seemed a strange choice for a summer drink. It had a very full and sweet flavour. Her uncle explained without prompting that it came from the herbs he had made it with and that there was no sugar in it at all.

Ana looked into her cup while sipping the lukewarm liquid. She was expecting to find a hair-line crack running from the bottom up to a small chip on the edge of the china cup. But there wasn’t one. The cup was intact and very old looking. Wide and thick, a smaller version of the bedpans from silent comedies.

Uncle asked her how she had done at school and she gave him a brief rundown of her results. He praised her and then concentrated on his tea.

She finished the last sip and wondered what would happen next. Well, what happens next is that I am here and the two months begin, she answered herself. She should have been happy to be at the seaside on her own, for the first time without her parents. On her own! Up until then she had always gone away with her parents, who spent a part of every summer in the village where her mother had been born. There Ana's only company were the village teenagers with their cruel pursuits - from tearing wings off flies to teasing the goat - which invariably made her stomach churn. She had voluntarily changed her holiday activities to babysitting, as there was nothing better to do.

But this time she was on her own. Probably the last one to achieve this privilege amongst all the girls in her class who had long ago lost their holiday virginity, both literally and metaphorically. Maybe her parents were aware of the fact that she was now grown up and that was the reason for suggesting this trip. To a deserted island, admittedly, but even that was more than she had dared ask for in her wildest dreams. But on the other hand, maybe... She remembered the boys on the ferry, especially the thin one. Maybe...

Her finger slid to the bottom of the cup and rubbed against something which felt different from the porcelain. She turned the cup and looked. There was a label stuck to the bottom, saying in faint handwriting:

A COFFEE CUP

ACO LENT IT ON

RETURNED TO ACO ON

The second date was unreadable whereas the first one referred to a day three years ago.

She looked at Uncle and he blushed.

"I lent the cup for the wedding of my neighbour's granddaughter and afterwards I forgot about the label."

He rose from his chair and reached for the cup and then remembered that it would be rude to just snatch the object of his guest's interest from her hands and he sat down again.

Ana took another look at the label. Very neat writing with an obvious desire to make the letters look beautiful. Very old fashioned.

Uncle was still hesitating and she realised she was embarrassing him, so she put the cup back on the table and - almost too briskly - moved her hand away.

"There were quite a few tourists on the ferry," she said and Uncle visibly relaxed when she showed no intention of asking him about this friend of his who put labels on borrowed things so as to remember who they belonged to.

"Yes, they opened a campsite this year," said Uncle not very enthusiastically. "I suppose it was inevitable," he added, more to himself.

"Is that the only place to stay on the island?"

"Yes, there's nowhere else."

"No bed and breakfast?"

Cheerfully:

"No."

A pause.

With resignation:

"They'll probably start up one day soon, just like on all the other islands."

He got up and walked over to the cooker, opened the oven and let out a new wave of the wonderful smell. He bent over and with a fork gently and very carefully turned each fish on the roasting tray. The fish sizzled with submission when turned and Ana remained silent as she observed the operation which looked more like a ritual than cooking.

"It'll soon be ready," he said and smiled at her.

She returned the smile and asked:

"What's on the other side of the island?"

A sudden seriousness, a very brief and sharp smile, which seemed like something her imagination projected onto her uncle's face.

He stared at her.

"I ..." she opened her mouth.

"Nothing. There's nothing on the other side of the island."

She closed her mouth and said nothing. And then... she herself did not know what came over her. She certainly was not used to answering back at home where she had been trained right from the moment she was born to swallow anything which might be interpreted by her parents as answering back. Maybe it was the sea, the feeling of freedom and independence, maybe it was the wind left behind by the ferry which still seemed to be blowing through her head.

"The boys were going to the villa," she said.

The fork rattled onto the floor and neither of them followed it with their eyes. Her uncle's eyes became strange, huge and perfectly circular; she couldn't stop looking at him.

"H-h-h-h-h-h..."

He stammered. Her parents never mentioned that to her.

"H-how d-do you k-know?"

Then she saw the wave. It travelled across his hair, lifting it. It looked like a field of wheat, the memory of which suddenly filled her head but she was unable to put a date to it or any other proof of it ever having been real.

His hair lifted from the back towards the front and it stayed up. His eyes: she could swear they were looking at her but she could not see her reflection in them. Only something terrible, which she was to her horror nearly able to distinguish but did not want to see.

She did not scream. She let out her breath in a clear staccato of As, which at least halted if not removed the scene forming in her uncle's eyes.

Maybe she was louder than she thought? The rattle of the glass in the cabinet confirmed her suspicion.

"We didn't tell... we didn't tell anybody..."

What was he saying? What was happening?

Oh, my God, suddenly she realised. Her first day on the island and her uncle would die. How old he was! She remembered all the heart attacks she had heard about which happened to people as young as forty. Or even younger. Any moment he could be struck and it looked as if it was happening right now. She would stay there alone with his body among strangers. With a tray of nearly-ready fish cooking in the oven, the smell of which drove away her fear.

"They told me," she repeated very slowly and carefully, "today on the ferry."

"On the ferry?" he asked almost immediately, comprehending what she had said much later. "On the ferry? Who told you?"

"The boys."

His stiffness passed but he was still acting very strangely. He stared at her, moving at the same time in very slow motion as if he was moving through chewing gum.

Quickly and jerkily she told him about the group of boys on the ferry and their invitation to the old villa. When she had finished, she noticed his hair was not as upright anymore but she could not remember when it had changed.

Maybe she was not going to be stuck with a corpse after all?

Her uncle turned round, picked up the fork, took it over to the sink and put it in. Ana watched him move away and come back again, wondering what had changed. There was something different about him.

He was silent during dinner. She did not take her eyes off him, but it did not seem to bother him. She felt forgotten. He filled two plates with large portions of fish, put on the table a bottle of wine without a label, put a glass in front of himself, then for a moment noticing his guest, he went over for another glass and again lost himself in his thoughts, turning the glass in his hand as if not knowing what to do with it.

She said grace on her own whilst Uncle stared at his plate with his head bowed. During her prayer she remembered the thin boy from the ferry. Was he religious? She was cross with herself for not having looked at his neck; he might have been wearing a chain with a cross. Quite exciting: a secret sign from the times of the first Christians. Maybe he wore his money and documents round his neck as well, a secret sign of young tourists?

She took the first bite out of politeness, only to be straight away overcome by hunger. The first two fish she devoured in big forkfuls, each one catching the previous one still in her mouth, then her manners finally surfaced successfully. Ana looked at her uncle guiltily but he had not even noticed her. He was not eating; he was just staring at the fish in front of him.

*

"Wow," said Samo, as usual impressed by anything big.

"Mama," said Raf, immediately becoming aware of having said it. Nobody had heard him. They stood amongst the last few pine trees looking at the villa in the middle of a meadow, surrounded by the woods in a sharp semi-circle. On the left gleamed the sea and the sun had dropped down just above it. The building was closer to the sea than to the trees and from the veranda a path led to the beach, finishing in small pebbles mixed with sand. On the border between the grass and the sand stood square concrete platforms, probably the last remnants of beach huts.