The Living and the Dead in Winsford

47

At Dawn

But I’m on the wrong track already. The distance between darkness and light is short, and there is hardly any dawn as such. The sun is rising over crests of the mountains in the east like a gigantic red balloon, while we are still standing outside the wall, waiting for H and Gusov. I don’t know what we are letting ourselves in for, but there is something I can’t explain driving us on.

Me and Soblewski. Grass and Megal. The Frenchman looks to be near the point of collapse, there is no trace left of his air of superiority. He’s older than the other three of us, considerably older: perhaps he suspects what this theatrical performance is all about. Perhaps he’s been through it before — I have that impression. None of us says anything, I am feeling more and more the after-effects of that drug we smoked. Both Grass’s and Soblewski’s pupils are very dilated. Megal is wearing sunglasses.

When we have been standing there waiting for about five minutes H comes out of the front door. He is on his own, one of us asks about Gusov and H explains that he will join us later.

Before we set off we have something to drink. It is a dark red, strong drink that almost burns your throat, and it seems to contain a mixture of tastes: I can identify anise, mint and bitter almonds. H serves it from a bottle into plastic mugs which we eventually leave in a pile next to the wall. H hands out our revolvers, explains that they are loaded but the safety catches are on, and asks us not to speak during the short walk that lies ahead of us.

‘Twenty minutes,’ he says. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Let me thank you already for taking part.’

And so we set off along a well-trodden path. It slopes gently upwards, and we are heading out into the desert-like countryside, directly towards the sun. Lizards scamper back and forth in front of our feet, and in the far distance an ass is braying. It’s getting warmer by the minute.

We come to a little copse of trees, halfway up the slope, and make a short pause in the shade and relative coolness. I check my watch and see it is still only half past six. H explains that we shall soon reach our destination, and asks us to have our guns ready. We drink some more of the red liquid, this time directly from the bottle. There is no doubt that doing so helps to reinforce our feelings of solidarity. I haven’t had a wink of sleep all night, and feel that most of all I would like to lie down here in the shade and doze off. I can see that the others feel similarly. All we want is to lie down and close our eyes, that would be for the best. When we set off again Grass has to support Megal, who hasn’t the strength to walk unaided.

But the drink is burning in our throats, and in our minds as well: and it is speaking a different language. The same language as H, presumably: keep going, keep going!

We follow a path that seems to be leading round the mountain, and after a while we have the sun directly behind us instead of in front of us, which makes matters a bit easier. Then the path suddenly heads downwards, into what looks like a dried-out ravine, and we stop when we come to a little plateau. I check my watch again and see that we have been walking for twenty-five minutes in all. It feels like longer. H serves some more of the red drink, but also produces some water from his rucksack and gives us some to drink. My head is spinning, and I have the feeling that I have no idea what is going on.

Then he points at a clump of bushes not far in front of us on the plateau.

‘The monster,’ he says. ‘That’s where the monster lives. Get ready to kill the monster.’

Soblewski bursts out laughing, he obviously thinks it sounds too absurd. H goes up to him and punches him in the chest. Soblewski stops laughing and apologizes. I look at Grass and see that he has raised his revolver, but is just standing there, trembling. I feel an urge to run away, but another impulse yells at me that if I do so I’ll get ten bullets in my back. I really have no idea about what’s going on.

We stand in a line about ten metres away from the bushes. They are parched and covered in grains of sand which have turned them grey: it’s impossible to see through the branches. I have the impression that I can see something black inside there, but can’t make out what it is.

‘The monster is the rapist,’ says H. ‘He must die. We shall all share the responsibility for the rapist’s death. That’s why we’ve come here.’

He pauses. Nobody says anything.

‘Cock your guns,’ he says. ‘Stand by.’

We release the safety catch and aim into the bushes. The clump is no more than four metres wide, the vague black outline is exactly in the middle.

‘Fire!’ shouts H.

And we all fire every bullet we have into the bushes. Thirty in all. The sound echoes around and lingers on for several minutes.

Then we all go over to the bushes and pull out that black thing. It’s a few large pieces of cloth, now riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood. Inside is a body. It’s Gusov.

We have killed the monster.

We have killed the rapist.