
FLUMINATI

FLUMEN OBSCURA

FLUMINATI are (in alphabetical order)

Tamara Crnko, Goran Gluščić, Irena Hartmann, Zoran Krušvar, Antonija Mežnarić, Igor Rendić and Dajana Šalinović

PUBLISHER  
Fluminati

EDITOR

Milena Benini

COVER ILLUSTRATION

Korina Hunjak

COPY EDITOR & PROOFREADER

Antonija Mežnarić

TRANSLATION FROM CROATIAN

Igor Rendić

We would like to thank the City of Rijeka for funding the English translation of the book.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE (by order of appearance)

Rijeka – Ree-YEH-kah

Rječina – Ree-YEH-chee-nah

Malatinszky – Mah-lah-TEEN-skee

Chiesa – Khee- YEH – sah

Margitic – Marr-GHEE-teek

Sušak – Soo-SHAAK

Ružić – ROO-zeec

Maršanić - MAHR-shaa-neek

Debeljuh – Dhe-bell-YUH

Jakov – Ya-khoff

Piljan – PEE-yahn

Školjić –SCHKOL-eech

Lešnjak – LESH-nyaak

Žabica – ZHA-bee-cah

Beli Kamik – BEH-lee KAM-eek

Brajda – BRAY-dah

Lopača – Loh-PAH-cha

Kantrida – Cun-TREE-dah

Miruna – MEE-ruh-nah

Janko – YAN-koh

Petar – PEH-tahr

Crekvina – TSREH-quee-nah

Lopača – Loh-PAH-chah

Prišlići – PREE-slee-cee

Gordan – GHOR-dahn

Zoran – ZOH-rahn

Zrinka – ZREEN-kah

Nenad – NEH-nahd

Vižin – VEEZH-een

Aždaja – AAHZ-dai-ah

Cinić – TSEE-neech

Czinka – CHEEN-kah

Kosić – KOH-seech

Buje – BOO-yeh

Vida – VEE-dah

Mátyás – MATT-yash

Viškovo – veesh-KOH-voh

Veli Vrh- WEY-lee WURH

Pulac – POO-lats

Jarilo – YAH-reeloh

Morana – MO-ranah

# 1.

The ship and its cargo of vermin sailed into the port of Rijeka about two hours after midnight, slinking through a forest of masts and hawsers at Fiumara and docking directly in front of the Adamich palace.

The sight of the ten meter long ship gently slowing down, using no lights whatsoever, a black shadow among spars and sails, the slap of oars and creak of rain splattered boards, was a sight Miss Beatrix Lever would remember very well. Hidden in a dark room, her forehead pressed against the windowpane and her hand sliding under her sleeping gown, she waited for the relaxation tincture to take effect.

The opium supply was running low and she wondered if the shipment from Constantinople would arrive on time or if she would have to make do with Bayer's new cough medicine which, it transpired, also did her well. Her fingers had just found the right spot when a flash of lightning illuminated the docks, the bridge to Sušak and the Kontinental hotel on the other side of Rječina river. Total darkness followed immediately. The electric lights of port Baroš had gone out, as well as the gas lamps all along Fiumara, while rain savagely pelted the streets and windows, chasing away any trespassing onlookers.

No one except Miss Lever kept peering into the storm and darkness.

No one witnessed thousands of tiny legs charging over the hawsers, the flickering antennae, the gleaming shells.

Beatrix felt a shiver across her back; it was as if the room had suddenly gone colder. She lay down and proceeded to massage herself just like the physician from London demonstrated to her, until she felt the medicine take her over and drifted off into the surreal. The thoughts that now came to here were disturbing and made her body shake in ways she never felt before. Later she had dreams she would not speak of and very soon the servants would start to talk of her unusual habits.

Only one passenger disembarked, after which the ship sailed on before dawn.

That same night in the Sv. Duh hospital nine people died, which led to a brief panic that the cholera of 1886 had returned. Especially disturbing was the fact that twelve women in various stages of pregnancy sought medical aid because of bleeding or spontaneous abortion.

That night, in the hospital front yard, in the building known as Manicomio, Erzsébet Luppi, née Malatinszky also died.

***

Julia's tutors and her governess, signora Lucia, had, on countless occasions, reiterated that the city's coat of arms contained the inscription "Indeficienter", Latin for inexhaustible. As far as Julia had been concerned, "inexhaustible" referred to the rain. This was a city that flowed, that spilled into myriad colourful rivulets down the rooftops and streets and into the muddy pools through which their carriage trundled on. They weaved their way from Kozala cemetery towards the gorgeous new Governor's palace, an edifice admired throughout the city, and finally entered the Via Clotilde superiore street. Home, where she could shut herself into her room, stare at the painted patterns of the rug, comb her hair and pretend her parents had gone someplace far away.

Today they had really gone too far.

Julia couldn't remember much of aunt Erzsébet before the aunt had left. Besides, she had been barely two years old when Mother's sister had snuck out under the cover of the night and had done something so disturbing that it had never been mentioned in front of Julia, after which her aunt had boarded a ship set for the Suez channel. The reasons for her sudden departure were not spoken of in Chiesa manor. But there was much whispering and the servants would cross themselves and touch their earrings, depicting a man with a black face and a white turban.

Still, her mother had told her and a maid had confirmed that aunt loved her little Julia very much and so the idea of a bygone closeness with a mysteriously absent family member was always present in the back of Julia's mind. She would fantasize about her beloved aunt travelling the distant lands and witnessing their wonders, breathing in the salty ocean air and the pollen of exotic plants, drinking the sweet juice of wild fruits, and all along thinking of her niece being bored stiff at her lectures in Latin and proper conduct. Until one day, on a ship carrying silks, rice and unusual items made of shiny, black wood, also came aunt

Erzsébet. Several days prior, as her aunt's ship passed through the Strait of Otranto, Julia bled for the first time. She had witnessed her aunt's disembarking with a whirlwind of emotions in her head and a bloodied rag between her legs.

She remembered well the chaos that ensued in her home when a cabin boy appeared at the front door, breathing heavily and wet from both rain and sweat, delivering the captain's letter to her father. Aunt Erzsébet was aboard, alive but "of peculiar mental state" and they had been forced to lock her in her cabin so she would not disturb the crew. The letter begged Mr. Giuseppe Chiesa to come aboard and take charge of the lady passenger. He should come with a carriage and bring one of his wife's veils. Father planned to go, accompanied by a male and a female servant and, in his own words "take care of the matter." Mother, however could either hardly wait to see her sister or was apprehensive (and Julia thought this the likelier matter) of Father "taking care of the matter" and so she ran to their neighbours, the Meynier family and borrowed their carriage in which she proceeded to take her daughter, the governess and a servant who could drive the carriage.

And so two carriages arrived at the port, delivering the entire Chiesa household. Julia remained in the other carriage, the one that carried the aroma of new leather and not of Father's cigars. She watched Father on deck, followed closely by Mother, keeping her balance with the aid of her umbrella. She never found out what they had said to each other on the deck but their lively motions and the silence that was to last several days would give her some inkling. They waited for a long time, until the incessant rain watered down the crowds that form around every newly arrived ship. Finally, the traveller to far-off lands appeared in a grey raincoat, her hair covered with a veil, followed by Julia's parents, servants and two sailors. This procession was overseen by the visibly concerned captain who had been playing with his earring.

She approached the carriage with slow, small steps. Julia wondered how far you could get with steps like those. Had she really spent all these years at the ends of the Earth?

They had put her aunt in the first carriage and Julia had to wait to return home so she could finally meet her. But even then she had to wait for Father to leave the house on business because he expressly forbade his daughter seeing "that madwoman", mumbling under his breath something about sick Hungarian nobility. As soon as he left the house, Mother appeared, holding her anger tightly sealed behind her lips and tear-filled eyes and said: "Jules, dear, come meet your aunt."

She held her by the shoulder and led her down the hallway towards the guest room in front of which stood a servant with a platter.

The lights were dim, the sounds muffled and the expressions on peoples faces were those of mourners at a wake. As the door opened Julia readied herself for the sight of a dead woman who had, by some alien magic, been made to rise and leave the ship, just as if in some morbid tale of apparitions and corpses rising from their graves. At that moment Julia, in her heart and mind, bid her first farewell to her aunt.

However, once they'd entered the room, it transpired that Erzsébet was very much alive, even lively. She was sitting in an armchair and drinking her tea with grace and poise of true nobility. Still, her fists and arms made Julia stare agape while at the same time binding her throat. Aunt Erzsébet was covered in bands, lines and symbols written all over her skin while her face had been covered in minute scars carefully placed so as to form shapes and patterns.

It was as if black lace had been sewn onto her skin. Only her eyes glowed, clear blue eyes, just like Julia's and Mother's. As the face moved so the lines danced upon it, changing shapes and meanings. Symbols became threats, curses and lamentations. If a cannibal ghoul that gnawed on the bones of wayward travellers through distant wastes ever wore a face, it was this face. Julia had never seen anything like it and her hand reached for the hem of her mother's dress of her own will, forgetting she had entered girlhood and was so expected to behave in the manner of a grownup. That horrible, ugly mask made of human skin tightened into a smile and revealed perfectly aligned teeth, yellow from God knows what smoke and poisonous draughts and said: "Julia...my Julia...how you've grown..."

And that was all she said, or at least it was all Julia remembered was coherent. The rest was a medley of words, syllables and sounds, ever faster, taking over one another and tangling each other up so Mother stopped it and sent her sister to bed and her daughter out of the room. Later that night the entire house was woken by aunt's horrible screams, caused by whatever nocturnal demons roosted in her dreams.

The very next day Father made arrangements for aunt Erzsébet to be admitted to Manicomio, where she spent the next three years screaming in the night, until finally, last night, she had gone silent.

The carriage that trundled from Kozala graveyard to the city seemed to Julia a far more uncomfortable place than her aunt's casket.

Julia's father looked through the window, lost in thought, counting factory smokestacks and the smoke that coiled from them. He thought of every pencil line trail of smoke across the canvas of the grey sky as a crack through which gold coins poured straight onto the rooftops of every palace in the city of Rijeka and from them into the pockets of hard working industrialists and skilled merchants. He was building his own palace in his head, vast and resplendent, erected by his work and skill and not the noble heritage of his stubborn wife Katherina.

Katherina, Julia's mother, was not looking through the window. Her eyes faced the glass on the opposite side of her husband's but her face spoke of deep thoughts and not of observing the world. She had just buried her sister for the third time.

The first burial was when she wrote to her of having found her a handsome young man in the beautiful city of Rijeka so she should do as Grandfather said and come to the seaside. Aunt came and this is how it had all ended. Had she remained in Segedin, none of this would have happened.

The second burial was three years ago, when she was interred between the bare and cold walls of the asylum, where dwelled only those who gave signs of life but were dead to the world.

And now, the third burial. Madam Katherina Chiesa nee Malatinszky did not cry. She had cried that morning, briefly, after the news of the death had arrived. She had mourned her sister already, when she'd boarded the ship and vanished and again when she'd returned. Perhaps she would have shed more tears on her mourning dress if not for the plentiful anger that the burial was held the same day her sister died, without any notice, without a funeral procession and without a priest. Fast, secretive, so that no one would arrive in time for it. So that it may be completely forgotten that mad Erzsébet had ever existed or had had anything to do with the honourable house Chiesa, even though Chiesas were no honourable house of Rijeka, were in fact no house at all but just an Italian upstart married into Hungarian nobility because it was good for business.

Her husband considered dark secrets something to be buried at the cemetery; even though the departed woman had already once proved that buried secrets do not always remain such.

Katherina hated herself for allowing, without any struggle, her sister being taken to the hospital where she had rotted away in solitude. And most of all she hated herself for marrying such a man at all and for coming to live with him in Rijeka. The newspapers recently wrote of a young couple poisoning themselves because they could not remain together. It had seemed simple to her. After all, was she also not unhappy in love? She could poison both him and herself. Or at the very least him.

The loathing she felt towards him and herself, the hatred, those things had to come out, to take form in some act that a clear thinking individual would never commit. If not a poison that destroys the body then at least one that eats away at the soul, she concluded and allowed an idea to take root in her mind. Julia's mother knew she should have thought twice before she left her daughter with such memories of her aunt but all she could see was her husband's face as he said he wanted his daughter to have nothing to do with "that madwoman." Her only sister, the one she had not even been allowed to bid farewell. Well then, let it come out, what was once buried.

The patter of rain on the carriage made her firm in her decision and the trundling down the road shook any sense from her.

***

When they'd arrived home and scuttled like cockroaches through hallways and into rooms, Julia finally hoped for some solitude and respite from the unpleasant atmosphere her parents spread around themselves. But it was not long before her mother appeared in the doorway, carrying something large and covered with dark red brocade. The key clicked inside the lock and the two of them had been set apart from the world. Julia's eyebrows rose in surprise when Mother sat beside her on the bed and placed the strange object between them.

"Sweetheart," her mother had said with great affection in her voice but also steely determination in her eyes, "I know you did not know your aunt Erzsébet but...what I mean is, my sister was a warm, dear woman. She was not...was not fortunate. Horrible things happened to her...when you were very, very young, she loved you very much. She would play with you, make you laugh...you do not recall, I know, you were young, very young..." A tear still escaped her eye and she brushed it from her cheek with an angry motion.

"Mother, I remember aunt coming down from the ship..."

"Don't...that...that was her but it also wasn't...what I wanted...your father, he believes your aunt should be forgotten. But she is our blood, Julia. Yours and mine. Blood is thicker than water, especially ours. You see these blue eyes of ours...remember? Your aunt's were the same. We're bluebloods, don't ever forget that. This...this is what remains of aunt Erzsébet, she brought it from her...travels. It was very important to her. I wish you to have it, as a keepsake. To remember my unfortunate sister, who loved you so very much." She pulled off the brocade.

It was a box, almost rectangular, the size of a picnic basket. It seemed to be made of lacquered wood, white but covered in dense drawings like the ones on her aunt's face. Julia shivered lightly as she regarded them. Unknown symbols, doodles that perhaps hid the shapes of animals or some unusual, unknowable creatures. They seemed alien, strange and hostile. A single, round, glass eye was pointed at Julia as if it was watching her, studying her.

"What is it?"

" _Camera obscura_." Mother drew her fingers over the box and then suddenly pulled them back. The object radiated unease as if here, with them, sat the ghost of a dead mentally unstable woman with a tattooed face. "It is for drawing, you see...you lift this lid and put the paper on this glass here...the light enters through this hole and displays the image on the paper...then you can trace over the image. And if you put it like this and open this mirror here...see..."

The glass eye was turned towards the window, outside a rain soaked tree swayed in the wind. By some magic the branches had snuck into the room and had covered the opposite wall. It was as if they raked at the room's air and the cold wind entered with them. This was a _camera obscura_ , the legacy of her dead aunt.

Since the object was to be kept a secret, Julia kept it in her closet. Perhaps the floorboards creaked with extra vigour or the funeral and her parents had exhausted her but Julia dreamt that night of her aunt, standing in the room, the lines on her face dancing and realigning, creating meanings she almost deciphered before she woke up covered in sweat.

The next day at school she had been careless and lost in thought and it was the same when she returned home. It seemed all of her attention was given to the hands of the clock. When Victoria, her friend and classmate, appeared at her front door around five that afternoon, Julia was eager for a walk.

"Wait," Victoria whispered, "first the books."

They snuck quickly into Julia's room, where Julia removed a volume from inside a pile of rarely worn clothes and handed it to her friend. Her friend took it with an impish smile: "So, what did you think of Marquis de Sade?" she giggled.

"To be honest, _La philosophie_ _dans le boudoir_ was a problem to me occasionally, I am not that well versed in French. But some other parts...were...very exciting," she lowered her head and looked innocently at Victoria, making them both laugh.

"Well," Victoria opened her purse and removed another book from it, "this one is in German so you should have fewer problems with it. The author would not put his name to it. It is that good."

Julia read the title: " _Schwester Monika_. It sounds interesting. Your parents have a truly amazing library."

"A good library is the heart of every good house, my dear. But did you find anything for me?"

"Yes, wait... I hid this one in my school supplies." They burst into laughter again, covering their mouths to quiet down. Julia removed the book from a drawer of the writing desk and said: " _Ewige Jugend_ , by a Mr. Sacher-Masoch. My mother likes to say that Countess Bathory was a relative of ours and this book is about her. I suppose it is why we have it in the library. At least there is some use of it."

"I hope it is not some boring history book, I get enough of history at school."

"Oh, do not worry. Have faith in my relatives. It is quiet...special."

They laughed again and then hid the forbidden literature in a purse and hurried out of the house.

The governess, Signora Lucia, had said it was wet outside and still drizzling but Victoria simply _had_ to buy her father cigars because he had none left. And so the girls had left the house, promising to return soon. However, as soon as they'd reached the Korzo promenade, they hugged and parted ways. Victoria hurried west in the direction of hotel Deak and Julia hurried towards the Piazza delle Erbe square. They had both bought a box of cigars along the way.

***

Ivan Margitić stood at Piazza delle Erbe, leaning against the wall of former city hall, and hiding from the drizzle that soaked the now empty merchant stalls. He rubbed this thumb against the rough skin of his palm; gentlemen count coin in their palm, workers count calluses. He looked at his fists, scarred from the fights. In the last few days they'd once again engaged in fistfights with those Italian brats, the ones that would shout: "Damn savage Croats, why do you throw stones at the streetcar!?" even though a lot of _their_ parents spoke against Hungarian signs on the streetcars and secretly gloated at every broken sign. To be honest, Ivan did throw the stones and had no intention of stopping until there were Croatian signs along with Hungarian and Italian, but he also took great care not to get caught by the guards. The Italian youths had no way of knowing it was him and yet, they had found out. He'd had a reputation. Fortunately, he'd also had a quick hand, a body steeled by manual labour and the stories of the late Erasmo Barcic Junior for inspiration. The Italians will learn they are not alone in this city, he thought, but then also remembered that she who he awaited so impatiently was also of Italian blood and so he felt ashamed for his thoughts. Seen through his grey eyes the only Italians were the ones he fought in the dark alleys of the Old Town part of Rijeka. The others he did not see the same way.

Julia appeared in the passage under the clock tower, her face hidden under a green umbrella, an ivory handle in her hand and her green dress billowing like the sea with every step. Why a girl from a fine family would meet up with someone like him was something only a person with good insight into the minds of sixteen year old girls could understand. She crossed the square without stopping, stood right in front of him, smelling mildly of perfume and showing the teeth behind her soft, pink lips. She went to a Hungarian State high school for girls and he was a Croatian patriot so it made complete sense to greet each other in Italian, even though both spoke Croatian and German and Hungarian and Julia was also learning French. This was still Rijeka, Fiume, where any bum could curse you in four different languages.

"I brought you something!" she'd said merrily and offered him the box of cigars.

"Oh, Virginias! That's a gentleman's tobacco, will I even know how to smoke it? My lungs are accustomed to shag from Herzegovina," he laughed. "Thank you, thank you. But I also have a present for you, come!"

Together they walked towards the old Roman gates. He considered taking her by the hand or holding her umbrella, as would be proper, but was not sure if such an action in the public would seem too forward of him. She wondered how she should act if his present was to be found in some bedroom. He walked cracking his knuckles and she walked lifting the hem of her dress so as not to get it wet but was actually squeezing the fabric in her fingers because it relaxed her. Her palms were sweaty in kidskin gloves.

They passed under the old stone arch and approached the doors of one of many densely packed houses in the old part of city. Julia knew that Ivan does not live here and so she stopped, hesitated.

"Andria...you know him, I've introduced him to you. He provided me with a little job. Come, I'll show you," he explained and took her into a darkened building entrance. It smelled of dust, damp and sauerkraut. There was a staircase that led upstairs but Ivan took her down into the cellar. From below there came the dim light of a gas lamp and the sounds of scraping stone. A long-armed and fingered shadow crawled along the wall and Julia had been startled and she stopped, her feet becoming one with the stone floor. Ivan smiled and offered his hand: "Come, don't be afraid, it's just Andria."

She would not enter the cold insides of the building, slink between its stone bones and elongated shadows where centipede legs flaked the plaster off the walls and spider webs swayed silently but she very much wanted to hold Ivan's hand and so she let him take her there. His grip was firm, the heat penetrated her glove. Her body shivered pleasantly. With her other hand she clumsily held onto the folded umbrella while also lifting her dress so as not to drag it along the dusty steps that led them into a space filled with discarded items, boards and crates. In the middle of it all there was a hole the size of a bed in which she could see the skinny form of Andria, bare to the waist and sweaty from digging.

"Oh, _signorina_ has arrived," he greeted them, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

"So she has, and now you must be civilized, so Julia will not think I spend my time with bums!"

"Here, I'll bow to you as I dig."

"Oh, stop it, you two. But what are you doing here?"

Ivan approached a crate that had on it a lamp and a row of carefully placed items.

"Look. Andria's cousin works for Count Artur Nugent and Andria had him show the Count a coin and some other titbits he'd found when they were digging holes for plumbing. The Count said they were relics from the Roman times and that he would pay very handsomely for more."

The light fell on shards of ceramic, several rusted objects of unknown purpose and a few coins. Andria called, from the hole: "My grandmother always said, see a coin and don't pick it up..."

"Gjuro Ružić will take it and turn it into a palace," Ivan finished. "Croatian women are so obsessed with Ružić's riches that he's all they talk about. Once we're rich, maybe they'll talk of us that way too," he joked. Or perhaps did not.

Julia had an inkling of what riches looked like and this was not it. She had decided to keep quiet.

"All of this you dug out in this cellar?"

"No. We've already been to several other houses and their cellars. In one we found this." He showed her a stone relief which displayed a young man with an unusual cap or helmet slitting a bull's throat. Such a violent image made her heart beat faster and her cheeks flush. Ivan took the dagger that lay beside the relief: "We also discovered this...I'll keep it for myself." He raised the blade and looked at it. It was old, irregularly shaped, appeared blunt and had a green tint but he seemed spellbound by it. "Should a streetcar guard attack me with his sabre," he laughed.

"Ivan, please! Stop with the streetcars, you'll be killed..."

"Let them try. Here, now I am armed as well! But that's if the guards come, the Italian brats will make do with my fists."

"Are those bilingual signs really that important?"

"They are a disgrace! How many Croats live here and yet we do not merit a streetcar sign in Croatian?"

"But if you understand Italian and Hungarian, why does it matter if it's also in Croatian? Is it not enough that we understand each other?"

"You do not understand..."

"What does it matter which language...here, I like Croatia too..."

"Julia..."

"If the signs were in Croatian I would not be throwing stones at the streetcar!"

"It's not just the signs on the streetcars, it's them closing our schools and..."

"Yes, I'll shed many tears for school," Andria said as he bent his aching back. It cracked.

"...and they act as if we do not exist, as if we are all Italians when we're not..."

Andria climbed out of the hole and stopped Ivan's ranting by tapping him on the shoulder: "Lovebirds, I'll be going now. Ivan, it's nice of you to bring a girl here to give her a political speech. I don't much care for it, at least not while I'm sober. I'll be going home; I've had enough digging for one day...see you tonight at the tavern?" He took his shirt and started dressing. Julia caught a whiff of his sweat. She was in a dim cellar with two young Croats, so inappropriate, two muscled labourers. One was bare-chested, the other had hands scraped from street fights. If her noble mother knew this, she would have probably fainted and her father would have reached for a gun. She bit her lip; she liked that thought.

Ivan nodded: "Yes, I think I'll come. Take these with you."

Andria buttoned his shirt, picked up the antiques from the crate and wrapped them in a scarf. Ivan kept the dagger.

"Did you take...that thing as well?" Andria nodded towards Julia. She just then remembered Ivan saying he had something for her.

"Yes, I have it in my pocket."

"Good, I'm leaving then, and you two go chase each other!" he grinned.

"Go away, you fool!" Ivan laughed and slapped him on his back. "Wait! Julia brought us cigars, have some!"

Andria thanked them, bowed flamboyantly and left with a fistful of cigars. Julia and Ivan were left alone in the cellar.

"What...what did he say? You two...what?"

"Chase each other. Forget it. He spent some time with his cousins in Lika and they have this custom, chasing. It's a sort of...a village game...for young men and women."

"A game?" Julia raised her eyebrow. "And how do you play it?"

He made to speak but no words came out. He stammered: "Well...it is...I mean, they don't...they..."

"Seems like a complicated game."

"They touch each other," he sighed. "They touch each other a lot."

"Ah...I see."

"Yes."

Julia removed one glove and then the other. Ivan's posture revealed he did not know what to do.

She said: "Touching is better without gloves."

He took her fingers, so white they almost shone in the dim light and put them to his lips. She shivered, placed a hand on his cheek. He caught her by the waist, pressing the wires of her corset into her skin and pushing her against the crate. They stood like that for a moment and she was completely stiff and had forgot how to breathe; his pupils were wide as he looked at her lips and then her eyes, seeking permission. She looked away, as if she did not know, was afraid, and he thought it is now or never and finally their lips touched. He smelled of tobacco smoke and vegetable stew he ate that day, she smelled of soft perfume and powder. She closed her eyes and shivered as his hand slid down her dress, caressed her thigh, his kisses were wet, her chin moist and her head swam. Goosebumps as he kissed her neck, she ran her fingers through his hair the colour of dark oak and pressed his head against herself and he grabbed her like a doll and sat her on the crate and then slid his hand under her dress.

Her hat fell off her head, landed somewhere behind her. Her legs went stiff; she could not feel them as Ivan wrestled with her petticoat, found his way up the stocking and between her thighs.

She shook, squeezed his hand between her legs, pressed her cheek against his and whispered: "Stop..."

His hand burned against her skin, heating her thighs, her belly, all the way up to her chest. The corset was tight; her fingers ached from grasping his collar. "Stop..."

Julia's knees pressed together like two bone towers blocking a passage. Ivan's hand was stuck between them, pinching her flesh. Her silken skin teased him, made him grab and squeeze. His body rubbed against her hip, she felt something hard in his trousers pressing against her leg.

"Stop!" she said and pushed herself away, sliding off the crate. Her heart beat fast, she gasped for air. She saw his chest heave as well, his mouth was half-open and his eyes reflected the gas light. They'd gleamed like sin itself.

"I have...have to go. My parents will worry," she started smoothing her dress, it was vital she appear as if nothing happened.

"Can't you stay a little longer?" he took her by the shoulder.

"I really shouldn't....if my father comes looking..."

A moment later she had her arms around his neck and was sucking on his tongue. With one hand he held her around the waist, with the other he squeezed her bottom, the folds of her underwear teased her sensitive spots. He was aroused, she could feel it through the clothes, felt it press against her waist, rub against her corset. A wave of heat spread between her legs. She shook and pushed herself away from Ivan: "No...I must...I really must..." she smoothed her dress once more, wiped the saliva from her mouth and started pulling on her gloves. Her movements were clumsy and alarmed, her eyes cast down.

"Well...I am sorry you have to leave." His voice bore disappointment, which had scared here even more. Had he expected the two of them, here, in this basement...? Should she have let him?

"Yes, I'm sorry as well...but...I have to..." She grabbed her umbrella, held it against her chest like a shield and made for the exit.

"Hey, wait...I have something for you." From a pocket he removed a small bundle, opened it and offered it to her.

She paused. On his palm lay a thin metal object, ravaged by age and covered in green patina.

"What is it? It looks like a leaf?" She approached him with apprehension, afraid of being overcome by lust once more. She took great care to leave a space between their bodies but her eyes still stole a glance towards his trousers. There was not enough light, she could not see anything and yet he noticed her looking: "Yes...laurel. Bronze. We dug it out in the cellar of that building over there. I don't know...I thought...maybe some Roman lady wore it as jewellery."

"It is very lovely."

"Take it. I wanted...I thought I'd save some money and give it to some goldsmith to make it into a brooch or a pendant...but...that would take some time."

She took it carefully, trying not to think of touching Ivan's skin. She had already pulled on her gloves and now regretted it for a moment but then decided it had been for the best.

"Thank you, it's beautiful. I can go to Mr. Agostino Gigante and ask him to do it...but, oh, I can't say where it's from, he is my father's friend."

"Perhaps...perhaps not Gigante," he rubbed the knuckles of his right hand, "because...I think his son Riccardo still has a black eye and his nose is also not well..."

"Ah...well...perhaps not...but thank you, it's really...special. Oh my, where's my hat?"

Ivan noticed it by the crate, shook the dust from it and placed it on her hair. He leaned in for another kiss but her hand had stopped him and she repeated she had to go, mumbled something about seeing him again and then she ran from the cellar, from the building, into the fresh air and rain. In the dark, among the boards and crates, her departing form had been reflected in thousands of lenses, followed by the eyes of cockroaches, bedbugs and centipedes.

***

The letter arrived after school. It was delivered by Andria, his face serious, behaving as if he did not know her. "Pardon me, Miss, but you dropped a paper from your notebook!" he touched the brim of his hat and left, leaving the yellowed folded sheaf of paper to eat away at her glove. She had wanted to pretend, in front of her friends, that it had been nothing, that the Earth spun as before, that the Copernican system was still true but her cheeks had been like overripe tomatoes and her silence had spoken volumes. _Eppur si non muove piu!_ The Earth stood still and the stars and planets circled around the paper in her hand.

She walked faster. Looks prodded at her back, writing question marks on it. Who was that? What did he give her? Had she really dropped it? Look how she blushes! Does she like that young rapscallion? She had been fortunate that her house was nearby so she survived the three hundred long footsteps it took to reach it, slammed the great door and almost ran straight into her mother who stood in the middle of the hallway, absently looking at a closed box of rat poison. Julia's onslaught had startled her and she put the box away in a hurry, mumbled a greeting and went about her business. Julia had been equally distraught, and so had simply said hello and all but ran down the hallway and closed herself in her room, alone with Ivan's letter. She took off her gloves and ran her fingertips over the paper as if to feel the minute particles of Ivan's skin and the absorbed moisture of his breath. She had read the message once and then several more times. She had reread it repeatedly and when she hadn't been reading she thought of him. She knew the letter by heart, the entire page covered in large, round, slightly askew and perhaps a little insecure letters. She thought of him sitting by the window late in the afternoon, catching the golden rays of the sunset (even though it had rained the last few days but what does imagination know of meteorology) and pouring his love into ink. Every letter and every symbol, every space between words and every new line, every serif and ink blot had whispered to her gently and filled her chest with sighs. She would close her eyes and return to him in the cellar, to his scent and the sensation of his body under the clothes, him pressing against her, conquering her, breaking down her walls.

At night she'd take the letter with her to bed. She'd gently kiss the signature at the bottom, imagining his fingers touching her, undressing her. In her fantasies she went further than she would dare in reality. She was sweaty and her breathing was loud from the images that came to her.  Her thighs clenched tight the pillow and she caressed herself as she would have him do it. She never spoke to anyone of the dreams she had. She had not even put down in her secret diary all of the details, the diary she'd kept hidden among her old toys, right alongside the handkerchief in which she had wrapped Ivan's bronze laurel leaf.

She would put herself to sleep in this manner every evening, eagerly awaiting a new encounter or at least another letter.

She had replied to him in the same manner. Andria would pass by her school, playing at a random passer-by and she would leave him a letter for Ivan.

For days she had been absent, gazing through the window, daydreaming. She would barely lift her head to acknowledge a greeting, at school she had been mostly silent or brusque when she wanted to be left alone. Only while her gaze was lost in the distance and her spirit had given in to carnal desires in some dark corner, only then would a faint smile cross her face and her eyes would gleam. Often she imagined Ivan hiding in her wardrobe and her coming inside, to him, there in the wardrobe, in the dark, doing things that made her shiver and her voice crack. Of all the fantasies that had been her favourite and she would always return to it, making it so vivid that she would sometimes sit by the open wardrobe almost expecting Ivan to appear. She would caress the wood, the silk skirts and blouses, rub her cheek against the red brocade that covered her aunt's strange box.

***

Giuseppe Chiesa did not feel well but he had still gone out to meet his friends. After all, he would not have felt any better had he stayed at home. A stage magician by the name of Ophioneus il Magnifico was performing at the Teatro Fenice theatre. It was nothing special, really. The programme was not nearly as interesting as the films that were presented there last week by a Mr. Josip Stančić, an associate of the Lumiere cinematographers. But, thought Chiesa, every entertainment has its purpose. They were five in the wooden lodge; Mr. Robert Whitehead was escorted by a certain redheaded Miss Lever from Bolton, England, sent here to recover in a milder climate. Whitehead was acquainted with her family so he had promised to keep an eye on the young lady, and since he was an older gentleman there was nothing improper in him taking her to a magic show. Luigi Ossoinack came with a business partner, some dark skinned Egyptian merchant who dealt in expensive fabrics and other luxuries. His name was Khalid Kek and he wore a white turban and a yellow cloak of finest cotton from the Nile delta. He'd invited them all to feel the exquisite softness of said cotton and remarked that a shipment of it would arrive very soon and that they could, should they make an order now, very soon have their own very comfortable cloaks. "Invest, friends, it's quite the opportunity!" he had assured them, nodding his head so his golden earrings would sway. His voice had gone low and had become strangely melodic and his pupils dark and bottomless. They had all ordered the fabric.

Miss Lever had quickly learned Italian even though her pronunciation had still been quite rough. Perhaps that was why she had been mostly silent and smiled. The Egyptian was, it appeared, fluent in all the languages he could sell something in and so he was fluent also in Italian, even though he would occasionally speak to Whitehead and Miss Lever in English. After all, Egypt had for the past twenty years been under British rule. Chiesa had felt guilty because Whitehead had invested in an airship, one that was to be built according to plans that Chiesa acquired. He had bought them, using connections of his wife's distant relatives, from a certain Melanie Schwarz.

But it had become known that that damned Kraut Zeppelin had made great strides in developing his own craft and that his could quite possibly take to the air much sooner than the one Chiesa had been in charge of. It was because of that that he would view Whitehead's every mention of work as castigation. Even though they would all often spend time together, eat and drink together, Whitehead's age and possessions gave him a special authority. All the Venetian _bajcoli_ biscuits they'd eaten together in Whitehead's parlour (the house had also been built following a Venetian recipe) would not make them equals and so Chiesa had been uncomfortable. The others were relaxed. They'd just seen the magician pull doves out of thin air and then turn them into balls of red or green flame or puffs of white smoke. Different parts of the audience would see that as a depiction of either the Italian or Hungarian tricolour flag and would applaud or frown accordingly.

Ossoinack had, just like Chiesa, drank the bitter Vlahovac wine from the city of Zadar, while Miss Lever joined Whitehead in drinking Sans Souci champagne and the Egyptian had abstained from alcohol but instead filled his mouth with Elefant chocolates. The magician guessed what cards people chose, tied knots in handkerchiefs and performed other old tricks while the rain soothingly pattered on the canvas over their heads. Whitehead had wanted to know if they could possibly install torpedoes on their airship. Was it technically feasible, was it practical, and was there money to pay for it? Chiesa had been of the opinion that, even if there were currently only few airships in existence that could be viable targets for the torpedoes, there would always be ground targets, military forts and weapons factories, to which Whitehead responded by worrying that his own factory might one day become such a target.

"Gentlemen," Luigi Ossoinack interjected, "I do believe you will bore the lady should you continue with this discussion of technical matters, and I myself also do not find you interesting." He refilled Whitehead's glass by way of an apology. Chiesa had, not without envy, noticed that this man had no qualms about saying to Whitehead that he bored him. Ossoinack was the richer one and could do what he wanted. To be honest, Chiesa was the church mouse of their small group. A boy among serious men, which is how he felt as he watched the stage out of the corner of his eye, where a young and scantily clad assistant used the pause between acts to demonstrate sword swallowing. Ophioneus il Magnifico stood several steps away from her, smiling contently, watching her throat relax and the sword go in, deep, deep, and she was taking it with ease, without her face contorting. The grey haired industrialist shrugged amiably and apologized to all present for boring them and searched for another topic: "Well, I'm certain we will take care of our affairs...but say, Giuseppe, why are you so glum?"

Chiesa waved off the question. He did not feel like talking about personal issues but still, better to change the subject than to continue with talk of business running late: "Nothing pertinent...I have some domestic...oh, it's my little Julia. Never mind..."

"Surely your daughter is not ill?"

"No...actually, I do not know. I do not know what is wrong with her. She is acting strangely, constantly makes trouble at school, at everything. She is moody, listless...and when not listless then agitated. The school staff complained of her lack of attention and focus. When I mention it to the governess, the governess falls to tears, says she will resign, that she cannot endure it any longer, that the child is wilful beyond reason, utterly lacks respect... which is all true, I am aware. I have seen it. And she is rude to her professors, why, she argues with them! She argues that we are a country of our own, under the crown of St. Stephen, that Fiume is Hungary's equal... I know, here, our own Luigi would say the same yet it is not proper that a girl should argue with her professors in such a manner! It is not proper, she should...be obedient! Talking back to professors, who ever heard of such a thing!"

"Oh, Giuseppe... but that is not all!" Luigi Ossoinack clasped his shoulder in a friendly manner. Friendly and patronizing but he was so successful in everything so how could he not be patronizing? It had been Ossoinack's way, except perhaps when meeting with Messrs Rotschild from Vienna.

Chiesa would have wagered that Luigi would not be so patronizing with the shoulder of Albert Solomon von Rotschild, he would have wagered his wife's entire estate on it. He moved his shoulder and asked the rich man: "And what do you mean by that?"

"I mean that a maid told me she had seen your daughter in the Old Town. And, Giuseppe, do not take offence, but the girl was not alone."

"Well, who was she with?"

"The Margitić boy, son of late Anton Margitić... Robert, you may remember his father, he had worked for you some ten years ago."

"Margitić, Margitić... hm, I am not certain, it does sound familiar... if he is the one I think of, then he was a good worker."

"Quite possibly. His son is also hardworking, but only when there are anarchist pamphlets to be handed out, ones that praise Lucheni, and when he demands rights for Croats or fights in the streets. This is why I've let him off and I don't know where he is currently employed. Quiet possibly nowhere."

"Come, don't say such things! Praise to Lucheni? And my daughter in the company of such a man..."

On the stage the magician had prepared for the main part of the show. A large rectangular object covered in a sheet was brought onto the stage, resembling a wardrobe on wheels, after which Ophioneus gave a dramatic speech in a grave voice, warning the audience that what was to follow was not for the faint of heart for they were about to witness the most terrifying and potentially deadly trick they will ever see. Some of the ladies in the audience grew restless in their seats and their husbands put protective arms around them or held their hands.

However, the men and woman in the lodge had been less than impressed. Whitehead spoke in an agitated voice: "I am not surprised. Not surprised in the least! I don't know what is happening but the children of my workers are not what they used to be! Once they'd appreciated receiving bread and care from me! When cholera came I organized a lazaretto, treatments, wine... I took them on picnics, always allowed them to celebrate that May the First of theirs and look what happens now! The Japanese order torpedoes and I have strikers in my factory!"

Ossoinack nodded understandingly and spoke again to Chiesa: "I am sorry, Giuseppe, but they were seen walking together. It is certainly not a mistake, I've had my people keep an eye on the youth, and you know how it is – today pamphlets, tomorrow bombs. Your girl is keeping company with a Croatian rebel and it would not surprise me to find out he is one of the ones who throw rocks at streetcars."

"I don't know, perhaps it is because I am English but I have lived here for a long time now but still do not understand these Croats of Rijeka! Why do they rebel? What do they want? All they have had been given to them by Hungary, the roads, the port, the railroad... why, were you to let them rule themselves they'd spend the next hundred years using this same railroad rather than building a new one!"

Ophioneus il Magnifico and his assistant had removed the sheet and revealed a glass box filled with snakes. The audience gasped in fear and disgust as the adders slithered across the glass, dark, forked tongues flickering, bodies contorting. You could hear them hissing softly.

Even Ossoinack lowered his voice and replied to Whitehead while looking at the stage: "My dear Robert, believe me, the Croatian trait dearest to my heart is them having no love for the Hungarians. And, truth be told, this business with Hungarian signs in the streetcars is nastiness, to be sure."

"Well, the Hungarians will have their way..."

"But Robert, this is not Hungary! This is Fiume! Qui si parla Italian!" No Fiumano worth his salt should ride a streetcar carrying a sign in Hungarian; it is a matter of identity, just as with the eagle that they will not allow us back on the clock tower. Do they hope we will forget it? No good comes of those people... Here, Chiesa put his daughter in one of their schools and now wonders why the child is making problems."

Chiesa felt called on and he replied nervously: "Listen, Luigi, it is no joking matter! I do not know what to do, I fear... I fear she has lost her mind. A Croat, you say, and an anarchist to boot? Terrible..."

The magician said they could see venomous snakes from all over the world in the box and that, should any snake escape its confines, the audience is to immediately leave Teatro Fenice with greatest haste possible. To demonstrate the gravity of the situation he also brought a cage filled with live rats. They clung to the bars with teeth and claws but Ophioneus opened the bottom of the cage and shook it vigorously so that all the rats fell down into the coiled snakes. The squeals had been horrifying. Bodies stirred like a stormy sea. Venom and blood spattered the glass as the cold blooded reptiles performed a massacre, coiling over each other, and grinding scale against scale, racing to be the first to sink their fangs in, to poison, and to kill. Then came the time for the magician to remove the venomous snakes from the box with his bare hands, display them to the audience, lift them high above his head, and drape them around his neck. Many in the audience had been uncomfortable at the sight; some of the ladies had covered their eyes and peeked through their fingers.

Ossoinack had slurped the last drops from his glass and advised Chiesa: "What are you to do? Why, lock her in her room, get a doctor or a priest..."

"A priest?"

"Certainly – some can be helped in such a way!"

"Surely she is not possessed!"

The Egyptian trader bowed with his hand on his chest, as if swearing fealty and spoke in a deep, soft voice: "Oh, there are such things, my friend! I have seen it once, in Egypt, and again, in Tunisia. A foul matter, most foul. It is no jest."

Giuseppe shuddered. Suddenly a vision appeared to him of an old Gypsy woman hissing unintelligibly, spitting the words just as the snakes on the stage spat venom as he threw her out of his guest room, out of his house. Once again his nose was filled with the stench of cholera, and then, from the dark, from somewhere deep in the bones of his skull where he'd exiled it, locked it away; once again he heard the faint cry of a newborn baby, slowly becoming louder... He chased the ghosts from his mind: "Gentlemen, please, stop disturbing me. I am beside myself as it is."

"Dear God! Chiesa, do not fear," Whitehead comforted him, "just keep a better eye on the girl and take note of what she says in school, for if that rascal filled her head with all manner of propaganda and she should let slip some of it, she might end up in court. Is that not so, Luigi? Like that fellow, what was his name, Zanella?"

"Yes, yes... Zanella, Zanella," Ossoinack confirmed. "He is to stand trial for the streetcar matter. If you haven't read the articles her wrote for La Difesa, be sure to do so! That young man is quite promising, mind my words."

The high point of the act came when Ophioneus il Magnifico chose a completely black snake which he coiled around his arm and then let it put its head in his mouth and flicker its tongue while inside. The audience applauded enthusiastically once the snakes left the stage without inflicting any casualties.

There had been some drunken boys in the next lodge who had during the entire show been louder than was proper and who now, in their enthusiasm, had tipped over some glasses and a bottle. There was much noise and shouting, Whitehead remarked upon their behaviour and others in the audience began calling for them to settle down.

Miss Beatrix, who had until then just smiled and appeared to watch the show, now touched Giuseppe's arm with her gloved hand and spoke in Italian: "Mr...Chiesa, if I remember correctly?"

"Yes, you have."

"I good with names. What you...say of your daughter, I know this... you know? I know this. Same as me. I also make problem...not anymore but before. All same. Same, same. Same! Hysteria, this is what doctor in London tells me. They send me here, Mediterranean climate. Rest. Is good now."

Her freckled face had seemed warm and full of understanding. He felt the need to trust her: "Oh my, Miss...what am I to do with my daughter?"

"Send her to me. Doctor in London teach me massage. I show daughter Julia. Is easy. Is good. Daughter good."

"Massage? Like the Swedes? Are you certain? I would not..."

"All certain, all easy. Julia good, you be sure. London, good doctor. Top of the line. My card," she offered a piece of paper that had her name and an address on Fiumara printed upon it. Whitehead invited them all for drinks in his parlour, which invitation Chiesa turned down politely, not being in the mood for it. Beatrix said goodbye to him and added: "Mr Chiesa, all good."

He had been about twenty meters away, walking uphill by the Italian school for boys when the Egyptian called after him to stop and approached him with quick steps.

"My friend, for your daughter the best cure is a holy man cleansing her. If there is no such man around, then this," he offered him a silk bag, so small that nothing larger than a bottle cap would fit inside. "This I give as a gift, if you would have it, and I can get more at good price."

"What is it?"

"It is a cure, my friend. A cure. It is immortality in a powder. It is life. Put it in the girl's drink...this should make four doses, a dose a day. My friend, trust me. It is an Egyptian secret."

"But what is it?"

"Crushed finger of Egyptian mummy, five thousand years old. It is an immortal body, my friend, cures all. It will help your daughter and you. Five thousand years, my friend! Five thousand!"

"It's...it's a human..."

"It is a pharaoh! It is a god on Earth! Egyptian magic, secretly used as medicine by Queen Victoria, that is why she has ruled this long, my friend! What, did you believe it was accident? Nothing is an accident," and then his voice gained a singing quality and the pits in his eyes opened and swallowed the street lights, the school building and the garrulous murmurs in front of Teatro Fenice. "Take it and speak to no one about it, take it, it will help."

Giuseppe Chiesa was left alone in the rain, holding a crushed corpse in his palm.

***

After the last of the guests had left Teatro Fenice, the stage became empty and dark. The magician and his assistant gathered the snakes and threw the burnt pigeons into trash while the widow Catterina Ricotti, the owner of the theatre, counted the money with satisfaction. She paid the performers and offered them some wine. They sat in the empty theatre and listened to the rain.

"Good wine," the magician knocked on the glass with his fingernail. "Can I offer you something, madam?"

He took out an ivory pipe, beautifully carved with snake and bull's head motifs and began filling it.

"Is it opium?"

"Yes, madam. Nothing else relaxes me so well after a show."

The pipe exchanged hands and the three of them soon inhaled intoxicating puffs of smoke. The young assistant looked up, into the canvas, listening to the patter and directing the raindrop orchestra. The widow Ricotti traced the carvings with her thumb: "Lovely craftsmanship on this pipe...the bull's head...it looks alive."

"Yes. I've bought it in the Far East. How do they slaughter bulls here?"

"How...I have no idea, butchers do it."

"Don't talk about that, you two, listen to the rain..." the assistant had said softly, weaving a web of curves in the air with her fingers. They did not listen: "A bull is a special kind of animal, madam. Do you not have a traditional way of slaughtering here?"

"The old people say there was, long ago, the custom of chasing a bull through the city streets. But they'd outlawed it more than a hundred years ago."

"Be quiet...be quiet..."

"Would they chase a white bull or a black one?"

"I don't know. Does it matter?"

"It always matters. You should kill it by the river. Best if you kill it in a cave or a tunnel under the ground..."

"Stop, you'll ruin it..."

"There is a railroad tunnel here. Under the ground are the graves. They'd found them while digging the railroad..."

"...some today do it with a hammer but you should use a knife, across the throat..."

"...the graves are Roman, but there are newer ones. All the way to the sea. Who knows how far they go..."

"Shut up! Shut up both of you! You're terrible! My rain is bleeding because of you!"

She turned the other way, closed her eyes and sank into sleep.

***

Julia Chiesa entered Beatrix Lever's lodgings. Her governess Lucia insisted she be present also but Miss Lever would not hear of it, saying it was a medical matter. Singora Lucia would later rationalize it as Miss Lever being some sort of physician who should be obeyed. After all, she got the afternoon off.

Miss Lever's drawing room was filled with the scent of ethereal oils and melted candle wax. Its drapes hid them from the world and the sofa nestled gently against Julia's thighs and back. Beatrix sat beside her, setting a tray down on a table by the sofa. The silver surface of the tray reflected two glasses, two spoons, a glass sugar bowl, a small pitcher of fresh water, a bottle of some green liquid and another bottle of a distinctly medicinal appearance.

Julia felt her palms sweat in her gloves and something persistently itched under her hat. Her right leg shook uncontrollably and she was, generally speaking, uncomfortable with coming to this strange woman's lodgings, who was to, in some way, help her with her so-called problems that only other people saw as problems. Beatrix was peculiar, quite peculiar. _Cento rossi, nessun buon_ , the women used to say about redheads. And she barely spoke Italian and so Julia had not idea whether it would be better if they both were to say nothing. Strangest of all were her clothes. Miss Beatrix had been dressed properly when Julia entered her lodgings but then had excused herself, went to her bedroom and had returned dressed in slippers and a dark housecoat. Was it some English custom? She had never heard of it. Beatrix rolled up her sleeves lightly as she busied herself with glasses and bottles. Her skin was cream sprinkled with cinnamon. She poured the green liquid into the glasses and said: "You, Julia, no fear. You good. You just...just a woman. Young woman. Me the same. They say, I no good, I hysteria. But no, I good. They say nonsense. Hysteria...not ex...not exist? Yes? Not exist? That is how you say?"

Julia nodded.

"Good. Hysteria not exist. But cure for hysteria good, cure very good. Young woman like."

She placed a spoon across the glass and on the spoon she placed a sugar cube. Then she carefully poured water, as if performing some science experiment, just as it would be proper for a woman Julia had come to for a treatment. Sugar melted before their eyes, dripping from the spoon into the glass, swirling in the green. She added water and sugar until the liquid had become hazy white. Then she reached for the small apothecary bottle and added several red drops to the contents of each glass. To Julia she offered the one with fewer red drops in it.

"Cheers," the hostess had said with a smile and took a sip.

Julia tasted it. It was sweet and cool, the taste similar to that of black liquorice and yet you could also taste the alcohol. She grew warmer still.

"This...this is the medicine?"

"First this. Also medicine. But...the main...cure still to come. Massage."

"Massage? I do not understand..."

"Massage. Is very good. Doctor in London teaches massage, very good doctor. The doctor!" she laughed and raised her glass, as if that doctor could see them. She emptied the glass and motioned Julia to do the same. She took the empty glasses and started to refill them, this time just mixing the ingredients without the complicated procedure and without those red drops.

"Take off hat and gloves, is hot. We alone here."

Julia had waited for that invitation. She cooled her palms on the glass and sipped, feeling the drink begin to relax her.

"You live alone here, madam?"

"I alone. You call me you, not madam, old madam. I not old madam. I a friend. You now do as I say, good?"

"Good."

"I now doctor in London, you listen to doctor, always listen to doctor, good?"

Julia had noticed the walls had suddenly become unusually funny. There was a line running along the walls, just at the top and there were painted flowers and the line went around and around the room, returning to where it started and again and again, Julia could laugh at it all day long. Beatrix, dear Beatrix, she wanted to be the doctor from London. Julia said, in a deep and serious voice: "Yes, doctor! Is it serious? Did the patient...die?" she laughed. Beatrix knelt beside her on the sofa and caressed her cheek: "Not dead, patient good. The cure good. Now, massage."

"Oh, doctor...what is a massage? Sounds like _assagio_."

Butterflies landed on her face where Beatrix would touch her. Julia inclined her head and pressed it against her palm, as if diving into the sea, it smelled of sea and seaside plants, the thumb caressed her lips and she kissed it.

"Beautiful Julia," another hand undid her collar, "take it off. Take it all off."

"All of it...?"

"For massage. So good. Doctor show you, you listen," she whispered, brushing Julia's ear with her lips. The chandelier glittered, light refracted in its crystals that hid tiny rainbows that would appear and disappear from one moment to the next. Her dress had likewise disappeared, and the butterflies had undone her corset as she took a deep breath of the red hair and her nose nuzzled against Beatrix's freckled neck. Beatrix had eyes that could glitter just like the chandelier, only green. Same colour as the drink she poured them again, as various articles of clothing disappeared one by one. Julia writhed upon the sofa, taking in a warm breath full of the taste of aniseed, tasting lips sticky from sugar and shivering as her nipples hardened under the Englishwoman's tongue. The books, Julia thought, this is just as in Victoria's books! Miss Lever was naked under the housecoat that had effortlessly slid off and all the hair on her body was red. Her skin was warm and soft as she rubbed against Julia, as if a cat, breathing in her ear: "I show you massage, cure for hysteria."

Her palm caressed Julia's body, first her neck and then it slid down her breasts, waist and hips.

Julia closed her eyes and gave in to her inner heat. Nimble fingers danced across her skin, between her thighs, forcing muscles to tighten and relax, turning her into a shivering, wet jellyfish floating on waves of delight. Her eyelids were now covered by red locks that wiped the rain from her forehead and left behind only the burning sun.

When Beatrix's tongue slid into her ear, as her hands caressed just the right spot, Julia's delight transformed into a soft, uncontrolled gasp.

"Here," Beatrix whispered, "so. Massage. Very good medicine."

"Yes...very...very...ahhhh..." she wrapped her arms around the Englishwoman, embraced her tightly and held fast. The flutters in her muscles turned into cramps and the air had thinned out and in the dark behind her eyelids stars twinkled.

They lay on the couch, limbs intertwined, and their breaths becoming shallower. Sounds echoed and returned to them, as if the room was enormous and occasionally spun, smearing the colours in the manner of modern French painters. Somehow, who knows when, the sounds had become short and regular. Beatrix moved and grabbed her housecoat: "This special addition. You stay."

Sounds transformed into heartbeats, then into knocks at the door and finally into stumbling steps as the hostess left the room. Julia watched the reflections on the ceiling, searching for logic and story in them while the voices in the anteroom felt pleasant. Slowly they turned to relaxed laughter and then once more into footsteps.

"Look who I bring," Beatrix had giggled from the doorway, "I remember the name and I find." Julia turned her head languidly, because Earth turned with her and once the flashes ceased and the silhouettes aligned she saw Beatrix approach her with her housecoat undone, leading Ivan by the hand. Julia rubbed her eyes, astonished. Ivan stood before her, smiling, as Beatrix handed him a glass.

"Julia..." he spoke softly and she realized she was naked and, horrified, sat up on the sofa. She made to cover herself with her hands, to turn and run, to disappear but Beatrix was already hugging her and whispering: "Easy...no fear. Only love here. Ivan, come!"

She heard a glass clink on the tray and then felt another pair of hands on her body. Their skin had been rougher but pleasant in their confident touch. She was being touched everywhere, bodies surrounded her, warm and friendly. Beatrix moved behind Ivan, helped him with the buttons of his shirt as he kissed Julia's face, lips and neck. They were the familiar kisses that made breath catch in her throat and heart beat frantically and so she pressed her palms against his torso and felt the muscles under the skin, a body that was different, stronger. Their hostess did not waste time and Ivan's trousers were now on the floor as well. A naked, aroused man stood before her. A familiar face and yet an unfamiliar sight. Perhaps she would haven been afraid of his stiff erection, larger than she had imagined, had her body not been overcome by a desire for more of what she'd felt before. He leaned over her now but Beatrix pulled him back: "Easy...do as I say."

They'd placed a blanket under Julia. Their hands and lips covered her body, touching everywhere at once. Beatrix caressed her leg and showed to Ivan: "Here, kiss here," she crossed the ankle with her fingertip and Ivan's lips followed suit. "Now here," she pointed at the calf. He liked this game and kisses followed the finger, deeper and deeper between Julia's legs until they'd reached the wet peak: "Kiss here, a lot."

Julia felt the stirrings of an imminent earthquake inside her as her fingers squeezed the blanket she lay on as Ivan kissed and licked her between the legs and the Englishwoman played with her breasts. Julia's breath grew faster and irregular. Beatrix pulled Ivan by his hair: "Now, come now."

He raised his face up to Julia's. His lips, chin and cheeks were wet and she had wanted to drink it in, to suck those juices. She embraced him and pulled him in for a long kiss, feeling something hot and hard touch her between her legs.

"Now, slowly," Beatrix said, caressing the insides of his thighs, grabbing his balls. "Slowly!"

Julia felt herself open up, felt something smooth slide into her. It didn't hurt at all, perhaps just for a moment, and even that she liked. All was wonderful at that moment. Her legs pressed against Ivan's hips. Beatrix massaged his balls with one hand while with the other she held the bottle. She poured green drink down his back and licked it off as he thrust into Julia faster and deeper.

"Beatrix..." Julia's voice was all whispers and squeals. She reached for the Englishwoman: "Lick my ear..."

Ivan moved inside her, filling her from within. Firm hands embraced her skin that gleamed from sweat and saliva while in her ear a warm tongue hissed and she was coming undone in an infinity of quivers.

She wanted to become one with those bodies, to wear the same shell, to open up so they may touch her, caress her and squeeze her all over at once, to squeeze her through their fingers as if she was clay. She dug her fingernails into his back, gripped tighter while his muscles came alive. She bit his shoulder and moaned into his flesh. The tangle gained speed, the pressure increased, air had disappeared but she did not need it, she needed nothing except for this moment to last forever as her spasms faded away in Ivan and Beatrix's arms.

When she'd opened her eyes, Ivan lay on top of her with a blissful smile, breathing deeply. Beatrix was kneeling by the sofa, sucking on his fingertip and touching herself between the legs. She caressed Julia's neck and said: "Now me. Both of you."

***

Maria Maršanić brought a small bag of lavender into Miss Julia's room. It would soon be twenty years since she was first employed by the Chiesa family as a maid and if she knew anything, she knew that moths were not welcome in a wardrobe. Several weeks past she'd removed a dead spider from it. It was nothing unusual. However, her eyebrows rose more than once when, in that very same closet and in the days to come, she'd discovered another dead spider, a dead centipede, three dead bugs of unknown sort and lastly, two dead moths. Their bodies lay on the dark red brocade which Maria only lifted a fraction and saw under it some type of box, perhaps for a hat or a pair of shoes. Moths had alarmed her and so she'd come back with the bag of lavender, before any holes appeared in the expensive clothes. She opened the wardrobe, moved the dresses apart and looked apprehensively at the brocade covering. There were bodies upon it again. She moved closer and realized they were white worms, at least six or seven of them. She folded the dark red fabric so the vermin would stay inside and then lifted and with some revulsion ejected the dead worms through the window. Then she returned to the closet and finally took a good look at the uncovered box.

Even though it was covered in strange tracings and decorations there was something in the size and the shape of it, in the slant of its edges that she'd found familiar. It's as if I've seen this box already somewhere, she thought as she looked at it and placed her fingers on it. As if I'd already held in my hands such a box...

She went pale and her mouth was agape. Her hand recoiled and she stumbled and almost fell on her back but instead just painfully hit the edge of the desk with her hip, turning over the family portrait and then she left the wardrobe wide open and the brocade crumpled on the floor as she ran out of the room.

She came back some time later in the company of another servant, Lorenzo Debeljuh. Grasping tightly the black head of her locket in her right hand, she stood in the doorway and pointed towards the open wardrobe: "There! There it is! Oh dear, there it is!"

Debeljuh slowly waddled towards the wardrobe. He lifted the turned over photograph, picked up the brocade covering and looked into the _camera obscura_ at the bottom of the wardrobe. Then he, without speaking a word, covered the box and closed the wardrobe. Maria and he left the room in silence. They returned two hours later. That was how long it took Debeljuh to find and bring with him Jakov, the carpenter. He'd found him in a tavern on Sušak, playing cards with a friend while eating biscotti and drinking. It was no easy task getting him out and the carpenter was still grumbling. "And? Is it?" Debeljuh asked as the carpenter scratched his head while looking at the box.

"Well, I can't say...what is this glass, I don't understand...and these markings, what is that...nothing, really. Someone made some cuts here, added something, I've nothing to do with that..."

"Alright but what of the wood? The boards? The construction?"

"The wood...yes, the wood could be local. And the measurements are alright. But see, we usually lift it up a bit, make it look nice, and we sand on the sides, we don't just make a box...unless...during cholera. We had a lot of work back then...look, we couldn't make it. We had to work fast. But when was that, ten, fifteen years ago."

"Alright then, Jakov, don't...is it or isn't it?"

"Well...that's the boards, and the shape and the measurements. I don't know what they did with it afterwards but I'd say it is. It could be a baby's casket. Yes."

***

Luigi Ossoinack did not come to the Chiesa house often but this time he had to. Even though both men owned a telephone, this was a matter that required a personal meeting. Khalid Kek, Ossoinack's guest was of the same mind, explaining to him that he had much experience with these matters because he employed men from all over Africa and he'd seen much. Ossoinack's men had discovered that Ivan and Julia would regularly meet in the lodgings of Miss Lever, which certainly had not been part of the treatment Mr Chiesa wanted for his daughter.

Their host was not himself completely, had drank too much cognac. They ate chestnut and cinnamon pastry while Chiesa, his face red, spoke of how he had had to kill the freak on the spot, how there had been no other way. Neither Ossoinack nor Chiesa's old manservant, Lorenzo Debeljuh, who'd brought the item he'd discovered in the wardrobe, showed any sign of wondering what he meant. Even Khalid Kek, the Egyptian merchant, nodded his head as if he knew what they spoke of. Chiesa mumbled: "Gypsy business! Damn the Hungarian nobles, Duke Joseph and all his Gypsies!"

"Giuseppe, never mind that! Never mind the nobles, cholera, Gypsies and the dead. What of the living? What of Julia? And this thing is best thrown in the fire." Ossoinack frowned contemptuously at the box. But the Egyptian objected, waving his hands: "No, no. Do not burn it! My friend, a holy man. That is who is needed now, someone to cleanse the girl and this...thing. It's no good burning it, this I know," and as he spoke the others were silent and nodded their heads in rhythm with the Egyptian's hands.

"A holy man...where would I find one?" Chiesa buried his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the desk, an empty cup in front of him. "Who should I bring? The Pope?"

"No, my friend, no...better to bring someone who know of these things...dark things."

"Who, then? Who?"

The Egyptian turned to the manservant and showed his white teeth: "You know. Don't you? You know of someone, I can see it in your face."

"Sir...I...I'm from the country... You know this..."

"Speak, Lorenzo, if you know anything!"

"Back home, in Istria, we call them _stroligas_ or _krsniks_ _._ There is a young priest in Peroj and a woman near our village, people would go to her for help...with hexes. I could find her..."

"Can she be trusted?"

"All from our village go to her..."

"There! My friend, it is settled."

"So be it. Lorenzo, bring us this woman. And you, Luigi, help me free my daughter from that little anarchist!"

***

Ivan Margitić entered the building on Fiumara at the usual time, approaching the lodgings of Beatrix Lever. He shook the raindrops from his jacket and moved towards the steps that someone was just descending. The doors to the building opened and closed behind him. Men came in. Footsteps stopped. This was not good. His fingers slid into his pocket and wrapped themselves around the bronze dagger's hilt.

***

Zvana Piljan did not like to leave Istria even though she fondly remembered the Velebit mountain or some of the places that were known only to those well versed in Velebit's topography. In Rijeka, full of smoke from steam engines and the new, petroleum powered ones, full of noise, shouting merchants, moving cargo, factories making this or that, she did not feel comfortable. Her world was the forest and the silence. Still, business was business and the gentlemen had promised good payment so Zvana gave in to greed and crossed the mountain of Učka.

The first thing she'd demanded from her employers was that they find her a suitable place. Crossroads were good, but some were better than others. Also, Mr Chiesa did not wish them to be seen or heard so they had to find an enclosed space, a building. Fortunately, the gentlemen were rich and so when Zvana found a good place, they'd paid the owner to lend them the house. He'd immediately taken them to the cellar and shown them pieces of smooth stone slabs: "This is a holy place! There was some ancient graveyard here, ever since Charlemagne and before...ever since the Roman Caesar!"

Zvana had been content. The railroad and a path crossed nearby, that was one of the crossroads. But once an old Roman road also passed through here, and the graveyard was a road also, just not one for carts but rather souls of the deceased. This was a good place, a good crossroads.

The second thing she'd have to do was to remove that damned Egyptian trader, who was, she was certain of it, some witch, vampire, the Unholy One himself or at the very least Attila come back from Hell. Khalid Kek had been polite, courteous, ever smiling and everything he would suggest the gentlemen would accept. In fact, she noticed, even she chose this house only after the Egyptian suggested they walk by it. She did not like his company in the least and so she went alone to fetch water and had spent the entire day in search of seven different wells in Rijeka, even though they were not that difficult to find.

Besides the water from Rječina river she also took water from the washing place at Školjić, from the Lešnjak brook, from the Mustacchione fountain, from the Žabica well, Beli Kamik well and from the brook at Brajda. As she collected water she took great care not to return the same way, because that would turn the entire undertaking fruitless.

The only thing that remained was to return to the cellar and wait for them to bring the girl.

***

Julia Chiesa tried her best to resist her father's invitation to come see some Egyptian fabrics for a dress. A new dress sounded marvellous but Father wanted them to leave this instant and she had already arranged a meeting with Ivan and Beatrix. The quarrel attracted her mother, who immediately realized something was amiss. And how could she not: Giuseppe had never been interested in dress fabrics while on the other hand, Julia would never refuse such an invitation. But her mother's mouth was agape as Father's friends appeared in the hallway, Ossoinack and his Egyptian associate, escorted by Debeljuh who carried the _camera obscura_ in his hands.

"Where...what do you think you're doing? Where are you taking that?"

"Woman, it's none of your business. We're going to show it to a certain madam. Julia, come."

"Giuseppe, Julia needs to see Miss Lever, for therapy!"

"I'll show her therapy, that English whore, therapy at the end of a stick if she ever comes near me again! Julia, enough, come!" he grabbed his daughter's arm and pushed past his wife, moved towards the door. The manservant followed. Katherina tried to stop him, pressed her palm against his chest: "Lorenzo, stop."

"I cannot, madam. Orders," he replied coolly and moved past her. The Egyptian exited with a smile, a small bow and a softly murmured goodbye while Ossoinack was quiet and frowning, trying his best not to meet her eyes and get himself involved in other family's affairs. The short procession left the house and proceeded down the street. Mrs Chiesa ran after them but her husband loudly demanded she return inside. She, however, did not. She remained standing in the rain, watching them proceed to the crossroads and then downhill. She followed them, observing them increase their pace. Giuseppe held Julia the whole way, as if he feared she would run off. They turned right by the Manasteriotti house and vanished from sight. She ran, forgetting her manners and a lady's proper conduct. Mud spattered her dress, rain soaked her gloveless hands and uncovered hair. Through her mind a thought echoed: "I should have poisoned him!"

Julia had just been taken to a modest looking house and pushed through the door when her mother appeared between the neighbouring buildings. Her father handed Julia off to Ossoinack and told them to wait until he'd "taken care of the matter" with his wife. He approached her with quick steps and slapped her, this was all Julia managed to see before Ossoinack dragged her inside and closed the door.

They took Julia to a cellar where several lamps burned and there was a weak fire in an improvised hearth. There had been no chimney and so smoke had weaved up the stairs and out the ground floor window. The cellar was quite smoky because of that while the flickering light and shadows created strange images. The _c_ _amera obscura_ had been placed on a rough board table and Julia had been given a chair and told to sit down. Zvana mumbled something in her dialect and poked at the coals. Soon Father returned and said: "Alright, we may begin."

Zvana inclined her head, squinting out of an ember-illuminated eye: "Soon. And you could have told me the girl was pregnant."

Chiesa's face turned rigid. Mouth agape, he reminded Zvana of a stone head on the Mustacchione fountain. His daughter's face had gone through several expressions: surprise, fear, tears. Perhaps those of joy, Zvana could not tell.

***

Katherina Chiesa was locked in a room. She had considered jumping through the window but that would achieve nothing. And there was much to achieve, because killing a husband is no small matter. He'd struck her, publicly humiliated her in the streets. It had not been a busy street, true, but all it took was a single idle hag peeking through her blinds and tomorrow the whole of Rijeka would talk of that Fiumano Giuseppe finally putting that Hungarian noblewoman of his in her place. Only, it was not to be, not as long as she drew breath, not as long as blood of the Countess Bathory flowed through her veins – true, much diluted and never officially recognized in heraldic archives but still. This had been the last drop. Since she did not do it before, she would do it now. Angrily she paced the room as a tiger in a cage, trying to think of a plan. How to get out, how to get revenge. _I should have done it ages ago, pour_ _ed_ _poison in his drink and watch him writhe, foam at the mouth and die like a dog, I should have, both him and those friends of his!_ Was anything less than death appropriate for the bastard who'd ruined her life? The image of Giuseppe Chiesa, naked, his skin torn, running through the woods while she, just as her ancestors did, chased him with a pack of hunting dogs was an image that brought a smile to her face.

There was noise from the ground floor. Someone pounded on the door. Then a lower sound, voices she could not make out and then a clear shout: "Speak whore, where is she?!" followed by a terrified woman's squeal. Footsteps thundered up the staircase and through the hallway leading to her room. She heard heavy breathing and soft moaning from the other side of the door. The knob turned but the doors had been locked. Then there came a curse from the other side and the door cracked loudly, the lock broke off, pieces of wood flew one way and the knob the other and Maria and a young man came into the room.

Maria's hair was ruffled, as if someone had pulled at it, and tears streamed down her face. The young man was bleeding from the nose, lips and scalp. One of his eyes was closed, the clothes dirty and torn, the knuckles of his left fist had been scraped in a fight.

In his right hand he held a bloody knife.

He spat bloody saliva on the expensive Constantinople carpet and asked: "Where is she?"

"Ivan, I presume?"

"I am Ivan and I asked you something! Speak!"

"She is near, I will take you there. But there are at least four of them and you are hurt. If you can wield a duelling pistol, I can offer my husband's. They were a wedding gift from my late grandfather. It would give me great pleasure if you were to kill him with it." Katherina could almost hear the hooves clattering and the hounds baying.

***

Julia wanted to leave, now, anywhere. Her tears had had no effect on a father who'd decided to finish this. The news of her pregnancy turned him to stone, for a moment she had been certain he would produce a razor and cut the baby out of her womb but he only eviscerated her with his eyes. He motioned to Zvana, who Julia was now certain was some sort of witch and she brought the water jar closer to the embers. Julia jumped to her feet, wanted to run upstairs, turn into a puff of smoke, escape the cellar and the house but Debeljuh grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her back into the chair. Never had a servant been so rough with her. No one had. She wept helplessly as bony hands held her tight. Her father stared wordlessly while Zvana began mumbling, grabbing the embers with a poker: "Will say Our Father an' Hail Mary for they who are evil. Will look t' Saint Kuzam an' Demian an' Benedict an' Holy Mary who 'as thirteen graces 'fore God. Will now say thirteen Our Fathers for this holy girl, our Julia. Our Father, who art in Heaven..."

As Zvana prayed, the Egyptian performed an incantation in his mother tongue. His words were silent and unintelligible but they flowed, flooding the cellar. The rhythm and rhyme splashed on Julia's ankles, spilled across her knees. Long, muffled vowels slithered up her waist, weaving a spider's web over it. Her insides tingled where the baby now was, deep tones echoed in her chest, clenched her throat. Khalid's dark face hid in the smoke and darkness, only his eyes gleamed. Eyes and shiny teeth.

Julia begged for mercy, for help. She looked at her father but his eyes were set upon the coals, his head nodding lightly to the rhythm of the stranger's voice. Ossoinack was on the other side of the table, studying the _camera obscura_ under the lamplight. He lifted the lid and the device caught a flicker of light. Hidden mirrors played with it and reflected the flame across the room, through bitter smoke, on the wall between Julia and Khalid.

Zvana dropped an ember into the jar with the water from the seven springs. It whistled as it sank. Suddenly Debeljuh said: "Wait, I can hear something from upstairs..."

Quick footsteps across the floor boards, down the stairs.

"...someone is coming..."

A flash from the shadows, a gunshot, more smoke. Debeljuh fell, taking with him both the chair and Julia, his eyes wide, mouth moving as a fish on dry land. Life flowed from his chest. Julia's ears were filled with din. Down the stairs, form the smoke, came Katherina and Ivan, bearing pistols instead of peace flags, drunk with rage. Katherina moved, aiming at her husband, spitting Hungarian curses at him: "Miserable bastard, this is the last time you've ruined my life!"

"Stop!" Ossoinack shouted in vain.

"Woman, don't be a fool, get that thing away!" Giuseppe Chiesa put his hands up as if to stop a bullet. The Egyptian hissed, his words rang, digging into their brains. Ivan threw the empty pistol at him, drew the bronze dagger and went for Julia. Zvana was in his way. She grabbed the poker to defend herself from this unknown assailant, she waved it and sprayed coals and embers across the barrels and the old furniture and other assorted trash.

Khalid's syllables raked the dust, tore through the stone slabs, echoed inside buried Roman skulls, thundered down the ancient road. Something appeared, moved soundlessly and then with a louder and louder hiss, smacking of lips and tapping of feet.

"Move or I'll strike you down!" Ivan screamed at Zvana as Katherina aimed the pistol at her daughter's father's face, crying and cursing. Ossoinack tried to get away from it all but had nowhere to go while Khalid's chants grew ever louder, his voice inhuman from maniacal zeal as he moved towards Julia.

Katherina's hand faltered and Giuseppe grabbed the weapon, twisted her wrist and punched her in the face. The image with which the _camera obscura_ had illuminated the wall between Khalid and Julia now changed colour, becoming a shade cooler while the curtains of smoke began to twist as if there had been a draught.

Shivering, terrified and in shock, Julia stumbled to her feet. Khalid reached for her, stepping into the projected light.

The air whistled as if an ember had been dropped into water. Ossoinack felt the pressure in his ears, as if diving deep under the sea and his skin crawled. His mouth was dry and his heart thundered, attempting to escape, first his chest and then this cellar where something was terribly wrong, more than just armed men and spilled blood.

Khalid Kek's illuminated face now appeared to change. Rays of light peeled his humanity away and revealed black, shrivelled tissue sewn onto his face and an animalistic grin. Julia screamed and tried to escape but he caught her by the dress. Ivan jumped forward, slammed his shoulder into Zvana and sent her flying backwards so that she hit the edge of the table and fell to the floor as if she had been a rag doll. A moment later he was in the light, with Khalid Kek, swinging the dagger. The Egyptian shouted something unintelligible but the word was muffled by a bang. Giuseppe Chiesa had, after taking the pistol from his wife, shot at Ivan. Falling down, Ivan Margitić managed only to slam the ancient bronze blade into Khalid's chest.

Julia's scream tore at eardrums and hearts. She threw herself at Ivan, trying to stop the bleeding from a wound she could not even see from all the shadows, smoke and tears, only feeling her fingers wet and the warm fluid flowing, leaving her beloved, taking him away. The body she adored lay motionless, a sack of meat in her arms. So unnatural that he, who was so full of life, energy, ambition, would now lie so...dead. Then she felt his fingers on her arm. He was alive! One after another his fingers tickled at her, dozens of them, but a man does not have that many fingers. She wiped her eyes and raised an arm covered in horrible slithering creatures.

The ground beneath their feet boiled as a tide of tiny bodies flowed up from it. Centipedes, cockroaches, spiders and all other manner of vermin burst from the earth, down the walls, out of the cracks. In their hundreds and thousands they swarmed over shoes and feet, up the ankles, into trouser legs. They sank their pincers and teeth into skin, sucked the blood and laid their eggs. Julia could not stop screaming, her voice cracked as if her throat was being torn to pieces.

Katherina Chiesa was covered in blood from her nose and her sight grew dim but still she managed to grab the petroleum lamp from the table, swing it as forcefully as she could and smash it against her husband's head. Giuseppe Chiesa fell to his knees as his head burned like a torch. Some of the trash caught fire. Something in those cans and barrels and boxes had burst into flames and a new cloud of black smoke poured up the stairs.

The cellar had now become chaos wreathed in an opaque curtain. Burning objects fell and got tangled in people's feet, biting at the flesh, setting clothes on fire. Lungs burned from the heat, the exit was behind the wrong side of the table, the chairs, the dead bodies, the living bodies in panic and fire. The sea of insects undulated, crackling in the fire. It moved, slithered, evaded, stabbed and savagely bit. The insects climbed, penetrated the ears, nose, mouth, seeking shelter from the fire inside human bodies.

Before the flames had engulfed the entire house and before the bells had rang for the firemen, Luigi Ossoinack broke through the flames, coughing and stumbling. With one hand he half dragged and half carried Julia Chiesa. With the other he held the unusually decorated box.

Eyewitnesses did not see anyone else leave the burning house. They'd refused to believe there was anyone inside besides those whose bodies had been uncovered. No one would ever mention Luigi Ossoinack. The finances of all the eyewitnesses noticeably improved over the following months.

The eyewitnesses had mentioned seeing a dog run out of the house, however there had not been a consensus whether the dog was black or white. Some said white, the others swore it was black.

In the end, it was officially confirmed that in the cellar were found three male and one female body, all of them completely burned. The investigators concluded it was the bodies of the Chiesas and their manservant Lorenzo Debeljuh, while the final body was possibly one Ivan Margitić, allegedly an acquaintance of the deceased couple's daughter, though it was unknown exactly what manner of acquaintance. Julia Chiesa could not give a statement because the family tragedy had left her completely broken. A maid was to take care of her, with the aid of family friends, the respected gentlemen Whitehead and Ossoinack.

Julia Chiesa recovered in isolation, hidden from the prying eyes in one of Ossoinacks country houses. She would move into the Chiesa house on Via Clotilde superiore street only four years later, after Ossoinack's death, leading her son by the hand. Rumours of the child's father and the possibility of it being Ossoinack would be followed by the rumours of Julia spending most of her time looking at an object she had inherited from her late aunt – the _camera obscura_. The poor thing apparently believed she could see her child's late father in it.

After the death of the Chiesas Luigi Ossoinack's nerves weakened. He did not sleep well and would often wake up in fear. Finally, four years later, he could bear it no longer and would take his life at his manor in Lopača.

His death took many by surprise.

# 2.

The night wind was mild, warm and would splash the occasional raindrop across his face.

"Mario, you're mad!!! Get down here now!!" his mother's voice echoed up the stairwell and through the attic. Surely she wouldn't raise such an alarm if it were the middle of the night but now the entire city must have been awake. Leaning through the attic window he could see people leaning out of their windows and coming out on their balconies and into the streets and looking up at the sky.

"Quickly now, we're off to the port, we'll see it from there...houses are in the way here..." a voice in the streets had said, followed by footsteps, many footsteps. From the top of Chiesa house Mario could see well enough and so did not have to leave. Against the western sky, somewhere over Kantrida where the Danubius shipyard was and maybe even further than that, an airship floated. It shone like an elongated moon, as if a gleaming cloud that rained bombs instead of rain. Another explosion echoed somewhere beneath the airship and Mario could se a flash and he shook, after which hands dragged him away from the window: "Idiot! Didn't I tell you to go?!" She slapped him but in his excitement he did not notice it. An airship, a zeppelin attacking and bombing the city? He'd never heard of such a thing, let alone witnessed it!

"Julia, we better hurry...we don't know how fast it can fly here..." Mr. Andrea Ossoinack hurried them. He was a family friend who'd appeared at their door as soon as the explosions woke them from their sleep. "Let us go to a safe place."

They exited the house in a great hurry. Mario kept stopping and turning his eyes to the sky and so Mother had to grab his shirt and drag him along. People ran past them, descending towards Korzo and the port, searching for a better view.

"Madmen," Ossoinack said, "the world could be ending and still they'd ask for the carnival and the fireworks!"

The safe place Ossoinack had mentioned was just one street from their own, in a building from which stone owls, snakes, dog heads and other wonders regarded them. Their host hurried them through the entrance and then led them downstairs to the cellar, where there was a large five-pointed star on the floor, with "Sirius" inscribed around it. Julia wondered if it were a coincidence that the Italian-oriented organization "Giovine Fiume" also used the five-pointed star as a symbol? Still, she kept it to herself. Cellars made her uncomfortable and the stairs led ever downward. The Masonic lodge was underground, had burrowed into the foundations of Rijeka.

There was company of note in the lodge; all the gentlemen were in suits and their ladies in expensive dresses. Mario knew only some of their names but he'd recognized all their faces from various festivities. The mood was far from festive, the men spoke softly and sombrely, women sighed and whispered among themselves. It was quiet, no sounds reached the lodge and neither did the distant explosions. Mother found a place on a bench placed against the wall and there they huddled together.

"Andrea, they shouldn't be targeting this place, should they? You said they would not..." a man with long, grey moustache asked. Ossoinack shrugged: "They should not. At least my sources told me so, that the _Citta di Ferrara_ would target the industrial compound outside city borders. You see I have not left Rijeka...but you know...better not risk it." He smiled and clapped the man on the shoulder. "Hah, what did it come to, being bombed by the Italians! Who'd have guessed?"

"Listen, Ossoinack, there's a war on. Industrial sites are a common target during wartime, Kantrida is a military target..." another, younger gentleman spoke up as he sat with two other gentlemen close to him in years. The moustachioed gentleman gave him a stern look: "What, will you now defend those who attack us? People live at Kantrida! Whose side are you on?"

The young man grew agitated: "They're still Italians, our brothers..."

"Brothers?! You ass, I know both your father and grandfather! You're Croats! What Italian brothers, what are you prattling about?!"

Mario felt his mother shiver at this and grab him by the hand. Her sudden fear confused him but he ascribed it to the bombing, the war and the people arguing. The accused youth jumped to his feet and pointed: "Do not insult me, old fool! What Croats? We're Fiumani!" His friends also rose to their feet.

"Calm..." Ossoinack stepped between the youth and the moustachioed gentleman but the youth pushed him aside.

"Fiumani!? You're mercenary shits, not Fiumani!" The old man's moustaches shook, his face was red from anger. "Where are your leaders, Bellasich and Bacich? Ich, ich, ich! Some Italians, with surnames ending in ich!" The three youths moved towards him, the first one spoke: "Old man, if you do not apologise this very instant..."

Some woman cried out: "Gentlemen, stop!" She rubbed the black head on her pendant with her fingers. Someone else shouted: "Keep them apart!" and Julia buried her face in her son's shoulder and shivered.

Mario did not know what to do and so he had covered his mother's head with his palm while his eyes jumped from her to the men and back. It seemed as if the youths were preparing to attack the moustachioed man. They stood in front of him and one of them jabbed a finger in his chest. The old man stumbled backwards and then deftly reached into his jacket and produced a gun. Some women screamed, some men shouted. The old man raised the gun and fired at the ceiling.

The cellar. The screams. The gunshot. Chaos. Julia shook like a leaf in the wind. She grabbed Mario with both hands, clenched tightly to his shirt, her tears soaked the fabric and her breath was all irregular hisses. Mario hugged her, trying to calm her. Andrea Ossoinack was trying to calm the armed gentleman down: "Please, put the gun away, surely we're not to kill each other?"

The moustachioed man stood rigid for a few moments, only his gun moving slightly. Under his breath he cursed and lowered the gun: "Andrea, you are a good man. But you've chosen poor company. I am leaving now but I thank you for your hospitality. And you brats better beware! You and that traitor, Gigante, who joined the Italian army, tell him not to come back because I have a bullet for him too!"

He left, slamming the door, followed by the entire room breathing a sigh of relief and several people thanking the heavens.

As the din in the improvised shelter slowly died down, Mario could hear his mother whisper: "Ivan..."

# 3.

Mario had once considered the Governor's Palace to be a magnificent building. Cecilia would often talk about it. She would say it was the heart of Rijeka's culture and a monument that would last for centuries. Millennia. Maybe even for eternity.

These stories would frighten him when he was a child because he didn't like to think of eternity. It would just make him aware of his own mortality. One day, his own faded gravestone would mean nothing. If he was to have one at all.

But his Hungarian blood would be forever embedded in the concrete of the magnificent palace. The ghosts of his legacy would remain there, instead of hiding behind empty epitaphs.

So when some tourist, two centuries from today, stood before the palace, he would feel a piece of him, a piece of a man that might have been lost to history but was preserved in eternity.

The thought gave him strength to conquer his fears.

At least it had been so about a year ago. In the meantime, the Governor's palace had become a harem.

He spat on the ground before coming inside. The _a_ _rdit_ _o_ on guard gave him a stern look but said nothing. He wouldn't' say anything to a member of Michelangelo's invincible heroes, as _Duce_ himself had named his personal pirates. They were, after all, the heroes of Rijeka's new Italian renaissance.

In just a year they'd attained the level of heroes from Greek myths. Poems were being written about them, women would chase them and men seethed with jealousy. It was so because _Duce_ wanted it so. All men were just puppets in his show.

Inside the palace female sighs and orgasmic screams melded into a joint melody. The best song in the world, many would say. D'Annunzio's masterpiece.

The interior of the Governor's palace contained many hidden fantasies and desires, dreams both erotic and perverse. But not everyone was allowed to visit the palace.

The requirements were an Italian heritage, the love of d'Annunzio's rule and poetry and, perhaps most important of all, a body pleasing to both eye and genitals. Others would have to seek satisfaction elsewhere. Art brooked no compromise.

As always, the young blonde legionnaire ran into the palace first. The gun and knife at his belt were making quite the noise as he moved.

"Fuck!" Bart exclaimed and grinned from ear to ear. "This is the best place in the world!" At that moment a naked woman passed by them, her skin bronze, her hair long and coal black. Her large, full breasts bounced with every step while her buttocks swayed like waves. "Would you like to join us?" She glanced at Bart as she passed by him, taking a bite from a green apple that no one had noticed until then. A drop of juice slid down her lips and chin. The drop, which everyone had noticed, she wiped away with her thumb and then put the thumb in her mouth and licked it.

"Fuck...Yes! YES!" Bart exclaimed and moved towards her.

"Stop!" Drago said. "First we go see _Duce_ , then you can do as you like. Understood?!"

Bart clenched his fists and took a deep breath. "Understood," he mumbled and returned to the group.

They moved down the main hall, and the melody would occasionally be complemented by words in languages Mario didn't understand. There hadn't been enough handsome young Italians in Rijeka to make this erotic fantasy look as intended.

In the end it did not matter where you came from. You just took your clothes off and, if you've worked on your body long enough, no one would ask you exactly what part of Italy you were from.

"I will do all the talking," Drago said after they'd climbed the stairs and reached _Duce's_ office. "I don't want drama like the last time. The sooner we finish, the better." Mario just nodded. He didn't have anything to say to his ruler. He was there to listen, not talk.

They entered an office with walls decorated with nudity. Young women lay one beside another in the corners, some draped in red velvet, others simply nude. Many were asleep and those who weren't had eyes dull and empty from opium. Their gazes wandered the room, not reacting to anything at all. They were in their own world now. In d'Annunzio's world.

And in the middle of it all, upon a tall chair sat Gabrielle d'Annunzio; _Duce_ , self-appointed superman, immortal poet and the current ruler of Rijeka. The lower part of his body was covered with a white sheet but not enough to hide his erection.

Behind the chair stood a tall young woman whose long black hair draped her body in waves. Miruna, apart from other women in the palace, was not naked. Her body was covered in a yellow dress decorated in black symbols, clothes that weren't a rare sight in the city these days. She regarded the legionnaires with dangerous, feline eyes. When it was Mario's turn, he shivered and felt naked and weak, as if the woman in yellow knew all his secrets. Her tightly closed lips relaxed for a moment and spread in a barely noticeable smile that vanished as soon as her gaze moved to the next legionnaire.

"Michelangelo's invincible heroes," d'Annunzio said, jumped from the chair and approached them with arms wide open.

"Good day to you, _Duce,_ " Drago said and bowed his head. "The mission was a success. The ship is ours, as is the loot."

"Excellent," d'Annunzio sang in a high voice. "You truly make all Italians proud. I could not have chosen better warriors. Marinetti once told me of the beauty of destruction, the magnificence of war and how art can only be violence, cruelty and injustice. But you know why that is so, don't you, my dear heroes? It is so because we must destroy the past to create the future. Because every end is the beginning of something new and more beautiful. You, my darlings, are the tools of that idea. You are the children of the future!"

"Beautifully spoken, _Duce_."

"I am glad you agree!" d'Annunzio laughed. "It is why we must destroy the kingdom of these dirty Slavs and create something new out of its remains. When we've gathered enough soldiers, it will pose no problem whatsoever. It is only a matter of time. Our rule is barely in the making. I fear to think about what we will become one day. Something beautiful, I do not doubt it. Magnificent!"

"I also do not doubt it, _Duce_."

"Well, good then," d'Annunzio waved his hands and sat on the chair again. "You did excellent. Now you can spend the rest of the day enjoying yourself. Do as you please. And do not miss tonight's concerts, especially Marco Donati's. He may be young but his fingers have been trained by a thousand generations. To miss his performance...it would truly be a sin."

"We won't, _Duce_!" Drago replied, bowed his head once more and left the room. The other legionnaires followed.

"It's done, boss? I can live it up now?" Bart asked.

"You can. Do as you please. See you tomorrow!"

Mario just waved and went towards the exit. There was already a crowd of faithful fans sitting in front of the palace, waiting for _Duce_ to appear on the balcony and read them dreams from his dream journal. They were killing time by listening to a violin whose melody danced through the air. Music and poetry. Drugs and orgies. Fights and robberies. These were the city's foundations now. Many enjoyed it but he hated every moment of it. He hated only the Italians having it good while all the others were treated like scum, here to be killed or robbed. He hated the entire grand idea being dependant upon theft and donations. He hated everyone going along with it as if they'd considered _Carta_ _del_ _carnaro_ a good idea.

The Chiesa family was, for the moment, saved by their Italian surname but it was just a matter of time before someone knocked on their door. D'Annunzio's dream could also fall apart at any moment and so every safe day meant a lot.

And this was why Mario Chiesa became Michelangelo's invincible hero. A traitor who robbed his neighbours and hijacked ships. A legionnaire who would beat up young sailors in the name of an idea he was forced to celebrate. He did it all to give his family a few more moments of security or at least an hour more than he would normally get if he were to publicly say what he really believed.

Some of the neighbours had called him a bastard when he returned to Rijeka with his mother, whom they'd called a whore. The hatred he had felt for them he kept bottled inside for years and then, one day, he'd realized it would never stop. Not unless he did something. On that day he stomped his boot on their faces as blood gushed from their loud mouths and deaf ears and eyes that saw only what they chose to see. It only took one savage beating of a Croat to make people realize you were a true Italian and you deserved to be a legionnaire. No one cared if there were any personal reasons involved. As long as you had Croatian blood on the boots, you were one of them.

When he was sixteen, Cecilia took him to see the magnificent two-headed eagle being placed on the City clock tower. The statue was over two meters tall and its wingspan was even larger and it weighed at least two tons. He could still remember the celebration that followed. The people of Rijeka had finally got what they'd asked for.

Thirteen years later and from the very same spot, he'd watched a d'Annunzio's _ardito_ cut one of the eagle's heads off and place an Italian flag in its place. There had been a party, fuelled by hatred.

Even though he'd acted happy, it was important never to forget there was Hungarian and Croatian blood beneath his Italian surname. The blood of Rijeka.

From the Governor's palace balcony, d'Annunzio sang: "O Fiume, o morte! O Fiume, o morte!"

People repeated after him, unaware how much _Duce_ really wanted that to happen.

D'Annunzio was soon stopped by the sound of thunder and it didn't take long for the first raindrops to hit the ground. Mario loved the rain, mostly because it destroyed the current plans of the people of Rijeka. A day without fireworks seemed like a blessing now.

He waited for the rain to start and then slowly walked home. If the evening went well, maybe he would not need to visit the _camera obscura_ room.

***

He couldn't really recall his stay with the Ossoinacks, but the change that took place when he returned with his mother to Via Clotilde took deep roots in his memory. His surroundings had become cold and dark. Their maid Cecilia noticed it but Julia did not. She was a prisoner of her own world, one her surroundings had no effect on. After Cecilia died, it became worse and the villa turned into a luxury cave filled with bad memories.

As soon as he entered the dark hallway he was hit by a blast of cold air. The only source of light was the candles on the wooden beams under the portraits of long deceased Chiesa and Malatinszky family members. Their dead eyes followed him.

Some portraits would always give him the chills as he passed by them.

Bernardo Chiesa, his great-grandfather Carlo's brother was the only smiling face in this graveyard of memories. In the portrait he seemed benevolent but something utterly different had been hiding beneath that smile. Bernardo was hanged after it became known he had raped and killed several local boys and Carlo never got over his younger brother's death and so he kept the memory of him as best as he could. It was the only reason why Bernardo's portrait still decorated the walls of the villa.

Next to the murderer was the stern, haggard face of Carlo Chiesa who'd personally witnessed the deaths of almost all family members. Because of this he'd started believing he was cursed. He'd committed suicide believing he would save his children's lives in that way.

Cecilia, who'd faithfully served the Chiesa family for years would often tell him about those faces and so he was well acquainted with them since youth.

The Malatinszky portraits were even more numerous but most were a mystery to him. Cecilia did not know much about them and his mother wouldn't waste words on them.

The only face he knew well was the face of Countess Erzsébet Báthory. The Bloody Countess was a distant relation of his grandmother's family but if Mario had had any say about it, the distant relation would not ever be mentioned. After all, the Malatinszky family was just moss on the Countess' family tree. Cecilia had considered it to be in poor taste but Julia would not allow any changes to the house and so the portrait remained.

He quickened his pace and left the past behind.

At the end of the hallway a lamp light appeared. It was a common sight now, since d'Annunzio suggested their use so as to save money by a decreased use of electricity.

"Who's there?" The lamp light reflected off the bronze leaf she always wore around her neck.

"It's me."

"Ivan?"

"Yes."

Julia immediately ran to him. Twice she almost tripped on her wide dress but before it could happen a third time Mario ran to her and caught her before she fell.

"Ever my saviour." She smiled wide and put the lamp on the floor.

"Ever." He returned her a smile that might have seemed fake in daylight but the dark helped to hide secrets.

She touched his cheeks and regarded him silently for a moment: "I love you, Ivan..."

"I love you too," he spoke the words she wanted to hear. Words he'd repeated to himself a hundred times just to make them sound honest. He did nothing else half as good as that. He knew by heart every strike of tongue against the roof of his mouth, every necessary breath and movement of lips; he knew all that was needed to say those words perfectly.

She touched her lips to his and began to suck on his tongue. When she felt him go hard, she took him by the hand and started leading him towards the room.

"How is the little one?"

"He's alright. Asleep. Don't think about him, you're all mine now!"

"I should wash..."

"Later!"

As soon as they entered the room, Julia took off her dress with several deft moves, gently placed the necklace on the night stand and jumped into the double bed naked. She bit her lower lip and started caressing her breast. She pinched her nipple twice and lifted the palm of her hand to her face and bit the thumb. Her gorgeous body would have been perfect were it not for the burn scars, gleaming in the light. But even that had made her special. On her left hip a small heart gleamed and just above the belly button, a cat's paw. The mark between those two was larger and harder to compare with something but it seemed to connect the entirety of her into something beautiful. Julia's body was like a filled canvas, a masterpiece.

Mario unlaced his vest and pulled it over his head. He took off the uniform as fast as he could and threw it into a corner, crumpled.

He lay down on the bed and bit the marked nipple. He ran his tongue across her breast and then marked her neck all the way to her face. He slowly proceeded towards her ear and then took it in his mouth and bit her earlobe. She always loved that the most.

"Yes, that!" Julia gasped as if she was drowning in the sea, sinking deeper and deeper. Her moans became louder, her fingernails raked his back and their sweat was becoming one.

"Now," Julia said and pushed him away. "Now do only what you did at Beatrix. Remember?"

"I remember," he nodded. He knew every detail of her body, precisely as the letters described it. He began with his fingers...

"That...Do that. All the way."

He obeyed.

***

Julia slept with one arm across his body. Her face was peaceful. As if what had happened was completely normal.

Now he felt the need to rise from the bed and drink a glass of something hard or perhaps sniff some of that white powder the legionnaires sometimes partook of. He would sometimes leave the house and fight someone, anyone. He would never try to win, not really. He'd fight only enough to incite his opponent. After that he would simply take the hits, swallow blood and lie on the ground. Only then would he feel better. Sometimes he wished it would be like long ago, when she had been distant. They'd communicated so rarely that he had barely considered her his mother. Julia had been just a woman that lived with them. Just another ghost haunting the mansion.

Julia would spend most of her time in the _camera obscura_ room. He would sometimes go there when she was in there but those moments would only confuse him more. Julia would not look at him. It didn't seem she had even been aware of his presence. Instead, all her attention had been given to the yellow square the _camera obscura_ would project on the wall. He would spend hours watching it with her but he never saw anything. Only the yellowness.

He was fifteen when Julia started spending less time in her cell and more with him.

The often empty, eternally depressed look in her eyes had been replaced by smiles and happiness. They'd go to the city together, walk along the shore, cook and had finally started living together. They did not need Cecilia to lead them through their confused and strange lives. Holding hands, finally together, they could walk in daylight and pass through the ravenous darkness that had infiltrated them.

Until one day Julia pressed her hand against his cheek and kissed him in a way that no mother should kiss her son. "I've missed you, Ivan," she had said and started crying.

And he just stood, lips quivering and legs shaking so hard they'd barely held him upright. There were no proper words to say. He'd suffered the incoming kisses in silence. He had swallowed them, digested them and expelled them. He had acted as if nothing was wrong even though every part of his body rejected the idea.

It was obvious his mother was insane. He considered calling for the doctor and let them take her away but Julia had a mortal fear of mental institutions and so he couldn't do such a thing to her. Often she would talk of her aunt being killed by the insane asylum and how she feared she would end up there herself.

And even if it weren't so, he'd have probably done nothing. Deep inside he'd always loved her and her transformation was something he'd always yearned for. Even this was preferable to old Julia.

And so he had returned her kisses.

When she became pregnant, Julia stopped mentioning the _camera obscura_ room. That same day his turn came. And so it would be for years to come. Forever.

He wiggled from under her arm and rose from the bed. On the night stand, under the bronze leaf, were some letters. All from the same person, Beatrix Lever. Julia would read them daily. The strange Englishwoman would visit them when he was a child but had stopped five years ago, once she'd learned that Julia and Mario had become lovers. The letters kept coming but their arrivals had grown rarer and it was just a matter of time before they'd receive Beatrix Lever's final message.

He put on the first clothes he'd found that weren't a military uniform and left the room. Every part of him yearned for the _camera obscura_ room. He could feel his fingertips tingle and the weight of the air in his breath. He'd soon have to sate the addiction that had been eating at him for years.

Nevertheless, first he went the opposite way. He opened the door to the children's room and peeked inside. His brother, his son, was tightly hugging a large teddy bear he'd bought him last Christmas. He was already four years old. He'd grown up so fast.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, it's me. I'm sorry, I thought you were asleep."

"I heard mommy before. She was screaming. I'm scared..."

"You shouldn't be. I've checked and she's alright."

"She is?"

"You don't believe me?"

"No," Pietro laughed. "What was it?"

"Nothing," he said in a serious voice. "Really."

"Alright," Pietro said.

"I love you, little one," Mario approached him and kissed his forehead. Pietro shook and wiped the spot.

"Can you leave the door open and the lights on?"

"I can't turn on the lights but the candles are still burning. Will they do?" Pietro nodded. "Well then I can," Mario smiled, patted his head and left the room.

Now was the time for the _camera obscura._ He wanted to lie next to Julia and finally get some sleep but the need for the _camera's_ company was incomparably stronger.

Every morning he'd wake up believing that that evening would be different. Every evening he'd realize he was weaker than he believed.

The _camera obscura_ room was almost empty. There were just an armchair and a table with the _camera obscura_ on it, white and covered in symbols.

The _camera's_ glass eye was turned towards the window but he rarely used daylight. They'd both preferred the night.

He placed a candle in front of the eye and sat in the armchair.

He watched the shining box on the wall and waited for it to start taking shape. Something was bound to happen. And every day he'd think he was perhaps mad and that today was finally the day he'd accept it. Today nothing would happen. Today he'd go to sleep laughing at himself. Today...

The projected image exploded and its light flooded the room. He could suddenly feel fingers of light touch his face, move across his nose and enter his body through the mouth. His entire body began to glow. He'd become part of the illusion and wherever he was now, it was certainly not the room.

Two figures stood before him, facing each other, their arms poised for an embrace. Their faces grew clearer by the moment.

The man to his right was his father. He'd never seen a photograph of him but the _camera_ would often show him to Mario. The resemblance was such that it was no wonder Julia believed they were the same person.

Opposite him was a monster with a black, wrinkled face and a fang-filled mouth open in a pained scream.

He could walk around them, see and feel every detail. He was nowhere and everywhere. He could smell smoke, hear screams, recognize his mother's scream even though now it was milder, gentler, and more childlike. He was not in the room, he _was_ the room. He was the entire space and all that was in it.

With both hands, Ivan pushed the dagger into the creature's heart. Mario had seen the very same dagger in his house. The handle was different, new but the blade, even though it was sooty, was identical.

He could feel Ivan's hand on the dagger. He could also feel the dagger stabbing into the monster's body. He could hear a bullet tear through the air.

The figures began to change. Ivan's face did not change much but enough so he would recognize himself in it. His hands still held the dagger but it was no longer stabbing the enemy's body.

The monster had experienced a far more drastic change. Its ugly, terrifying face had become cleaner. Prettier. The black tissue that covered it parted in the middle and transformed into long dark hair.

It was a face he knew well. _Duce's_ muse, the devil in yellow, Miruna. The candle suddenly went out and darkness filled the room. Mario cursed and lit a match in a hurry. Once the light set the _camera_ in motion once again, the image displayed was quite different. In it, Mario was kneeling, his face bloody and distorted by grief. Beneath him lay Pietro and Julia. Both were dead.

Their open eyes stared at him with blunt gaze. Not the him in the image but the real him, the one still in the armchair, frozen and with mouth agape, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. The dead eyes seemed to become larger by the moment.

***

Out of one nightmare and into the next. He would often fall asleep in the armchair and wake up to find the _camera_ still active. He would then blow out the candle and finally go to bed, next to Julia. It had been a routine but now things were changing.

On the wall, instead of a projected nothingness there was Ivan's face, shining and almost completely resembling his. They shared cheekbones and a prominent jaw, grey eyes and hair the colour of dark oak. Their faces were so similar and yet Ivan's was completely alien to Mario. He had never seen the man in person or in photographs nor had he heard any stories about him. He was a total mystery.

He never discovered his last name, what he liked or disliked, was he a good man or not... He knew nothing except that his name was Ivan and that once he had shared a bed with Julia and Beatrix. Because of that he could think nothing good of him. He also knew that he'd killed the shrivel-faced monster that wore a white turban and that only a few moments after that a bullet tore his lungs and sent him to his grave.

And here he was once more, in front of him. Ivan was looking at Mario from the image and smiling as if enjoying his misery. The face took up half the wall and it seemed to regard him with arrogance. As if it had laughed at him, so pathetic he could not even have an identity.

"Fuck you," Mario whispered. "You died, not I. You left, not I."

But whatever he'd said, Ivan's face still watched him. Still smiled.

"Fuck you!" he growled. "You were weak, not I! You are nothing!"

He did not understand why the _camera_ was showing him this, why it tortured him with the presence of a person who did not matter any more.

He could have left at any time, just rise from the armchair and exit through the door. He'd never again have to look at what _camera obscura_ showed him.

But he couldn't do that. It was not an option. Because the face...Ivan's face. _Camera's_ face. It wanted to win and he couldn't have that. The real Ivan left but Mario would not.

"I hate you," he whispered and shut his eyes tightly.

"Are you well?" Julia's voice startled him and he dug his fingernails into the armrests. The wall still displayed Ivan's face.

"Can you see it?" he asked and nodded towards the wall.

"What?" Julia asked and looked over the room.

"Can you see something in the projection?"

She just shook her head and gave him a questioning look. Ivan smiled the whole time. He seemed to enjoy Mario's folly and Julia's confusion.

"It doesn't matter," Mario said and rose from the chair. "What do you want?"

"I was just wondering when you'd be back in bed," she said softly and bit her lip. "I hoped we'd spend some more time together."

Ivan smiled as if he could see what was going on in the room and enjoying every moment of it.

"Why wait?" Mario approached her and without any romance whatsoever proceeded to undress her. She did not complain. Ivan was still smiling.

"I love you," Julia said and kissed him.

"I love you too," he replied, not even trying to sound right. He pushed his mother against the table and pulled down his trousers.

Julia leaned against the table and he lowered her head onto the top of the _camera obscura_. With his other hand he pushed his cock into her crotch.

"Ivan," she whispered.

He pushed faster and faster. Harder and harder. His palm was still on her face and he pressed it harder against the _camera_.

"Ivaaaaaan," she wailed.

His dead father still smiled as his face shook along with the table.

"Ivaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn," she screamed.

Ivan smiled. Mario pushed faster. Harder.

"And did you ever love _me_?!" he shouted and it seemed Julia did not hear him. Ivan still smiled.

"Ivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnn..."

"Did you? Or just him?!" Faster. Harder. The creaking of the table grew louder. "I never meant anything to you, did I?! Only he?!"

"IVAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

The face smiled. It watched him. It degraded him. Destroyed him. Possessed him. He was the face on the wall and that was nothing new. It had always been him. He never had the opportunity to be someone else. Mario was the one who'd died from the bullet and Ivan just switched to a new body. That was why it had felt so good to fuck Julia. She had never been his mother, just a portal that returned him to life. He'd seen the blackness, tasted death and smelled nothingness. And then he returned to destroy the monster that had killed him once already. It was the only way to keep protecting Julia, the love of his life.

And if he should die, Pietro would become the next victim of the demon called Ivan.

Mario started to cry and removed his palm from his mother's face. "Go," he said and turned away so she wouldn't see his tears.

"What is wrong?" Julia asked, touching his shoulder.

"Just let me be... Just for a little while. I'll come back to bed soon."

"Alright," she lifted her clothes from the floor and kissed his neck. "I love you."

He did not reply.

Once he was alone again, he turned towards Ivan's face. "I hate you," he growled and punched the glowing cube on the wall. "Just leave me alone! You're not me. I am not you. And Pietro..."

He slammed his fist against the wall again. "Leave us be. You're dead! Fucking stay dead! I'll take care of everything, I don't need you!"

He kept punching until blood drops spattered the wall and, it seemed, Ivan's face.

"I hate you," he whispered and then he sat with his back to the wall and shed tears that the projection had coloured yellow and decorated with Ivan's features.

***

Pietro sat on the carpet, playing with wooden toys he'd been given that morning. Mario wanted to wait a few days more and give them to him for Christmas but under d'Annunzio's rule it was just a matter of days when all they'd had would vanish in flames. Good fortune was to be taken advantage of at every opportunity.

"Why are you looking at me?" Pietro asked.

"What?" Mario smiled. "Am I not allowed to?"

Pietro shook his head.

"Everything is alright; your mom is just a little ill. I don't think we'll be seeing her for a while."

"She's going to the doctor?"

"Yes," Mario replied and tried to smile. "She'll spend some time at the doctor's."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing to worry about. It'll soon pass. You just play and don't leave the room, alright?"

"Alright, daddy."

Mario knew Pietro would not come out, no matter the noise. They had taught him not to. All around were evil people who didn't like him, nor did they like his parents. No one was to see him, no one was to hear him and most of all, no one was to find out who his father was.

It was because of that that he, while buying toys, had to be sure no one he knew was around. Only then did he put the items in his bag. He'd pretended to go out for bread but all around him were prying eyes that knew the truth. There is no help when you're a demented man with an abomination for a child. He had trouble controlling himself. He felt the need to run at them, beat them with the bag. Beat them until they'd forgotten they'd ever laid eyes on him. Him and his son and Julia.

But he didn't do it. Because what he was about to do to his family would be far worse than anything they'd ever done to him.

Julia lay naked on the bed, hugging his pillow. He sat next to her and stroked her cheek.

"Good morning, my love," he said softly.

"Hey," she smiled. "You didn't go to work?"

"Later. I had to take care of some matters."

"Alright... What matters?"

"Come with me to the front of the house and I'll show you. Let it be a surprise..."

"I love surprises," she said and hugged and kissed him. "Give me just a moment to get dressed."

She put on a dress he'd bought for her birthday and twirled once in front of him. She always wore it with pride. He loved seeing her this happy and lively. Even though she was much older than him, there was no other woman he'd found half as attractive. Julia looked as if she'd always be in her twenties. Time appeared to stop around her, preserving her beautiful forever. Finally she picked up the necklace from the table and put it around her neck. "There, I'm ready!"

He put his hands on her hips and kissed her. "I love you... I always will."

"I love you too, Ivan... Forever!"

"Come now." He took her by the hand and led her towards the main door. He stopped before the door and took a deep breath.

"Don't stall!" Julia shouted and hit him on the shoulder. "I can't wait any longer!"

"Here, here," he said and opened the door.

There was an automobile in the courtyard, a red cross on its hood. In front of the automobile were three men in white uniforms.

"What is this?" Julia asked as her eyes glanced from him to the yard and back.

Without saying a word the men approached and hands grabbed her lithe body and started dragging her away.

"Ivan, what is this? What? Why? Why?!"

"It's the only place you will be safe," he whispered and his words were lost in the air. He watched them drag her from his life. "And Pietro...this is best for him too."

Tears streamed down her beautiful face, mixing with snot. She tried to resist but it only led to a torn dress. Her always immaculate hair was now tousled.

She managed to free one hand and point at Mario. "Ivan, help me! Please! PLEASE!"

The three orderlies had to push her into the automobile. "IVAAAAAAN!" she screamed before they closed the door. He couldn't hear anything else, only the scream that echoed through the courtyard.

"Sir," one of the doctors spoke. "Her current condition can be ascribed to panic and it is not necessarily symptomatic of madness. Are you certain you wish to proceed?"

"My name is Mario," he answered without looking at the man.

"I understand." The doctor bowed his head and strode towards the automobile.

Once he was alone in the courtyard, Mario collapsed on the ground. He curled in a ball and started crying. The neighbours watched him but he did not care. They could finally see him break. They'd waited so long maybe they'd earned the right. He did not care if they enjoyed it or not. If they laughed or shrugged. He only cared about two people in the entire world and he'd just abandoned one of them. Even if they survived d'Annunzio's rule and even if the _camera obscura_ never projected anything ever again... Even if he were to be struck with inspiration about how to make Pietro's life easier... Even if he changed his mind and saved Julia...

She would not be the Julia he wanted in his life. Twenty years prior something had broken her and there was no way of collecting all the pieces and putting them together. Nothing could make things better. It could only become worse.

He was broken in the same way. Irreparably broken.

And even if a miracle should occur that would put things in place and make them normal...

They still could not live the life he'd wanted. Even unbroken they would never be in love as a mother and son and a wife and husband.

This was the reason he didn't wish for a miracle. Nor a new life.

He only wished to die.

***

"Traitor!" d'Annunzio screamed, tightly clenching his fists. He flailed his arms as if he was in a play while standing on the stage in front of a full Teatro Fenice.

In front of him, the _arditi_ and legionnaires sat in complete silence. No one dared make a sound. The first several rows were full of _Duce's_ colleagues, artists and politicians who'd agreed with his politics. Apart from them there was also Miruna and several of her followers in yellow robes. Mario could not stop looking at her. He'd clenched his fists tightly to suppress the desire to draw his pistol and shoot her in the back of the head.

"Traitor!" d'Annunzio screamed again. "I allowed Zanella in my domain and this is how he repays me?! Vilest traitor the world has ever seen! Such behaviour is contrary to our homeland and our people! But I know God is on my side. I know it very well, my friends," he pulled a dagger from his belt and cut the air with it. "This dagger I gave to Reginald Romualdi a year ago and he has returned it to me blessed! Even God knows Zanella must die for what he's done! And he will, that time has come... I've long waited for this but finally we'll do God's bidding!"

D'Annunzio stepped down from the stage and began to pace from one side of the front row to the other. His breathing was so loud everyone in the room could hear it. This was how he'd started every speech he'd been preparing for a long time. He cleared his throat and shouted loudly:

"Rijeka has been sold and her Porto Sauro and Delta are to be handed over to the enemy. Her docks, her shore, her warehouses, all her riches and splendour are to be given to a gang of foreign leeches. She was betrayed by lackeys whom she gave birth to and who will, with money from their foul deals, finance even more conspiracies. We will crush them. Today all have a single duty: to stand!"

The entire room burst into shouts, fists and weapons raised into air.

"We few, citizens and legionnaires, are on this day Italy's greatest power. Hear me, Italian scoundrels," d'Annunzio spread his arms and looked up, "I am still alive and indomitable!"

The entire room was now standing, people stomped their feet and clapped. _Duce_ jumped back on the stage and shouted louder: "Zanella and other enemies would cast us out with the treaty of Rapallo! They say Rijeka does not belong to us!"

"It's ours!" came several shouts from the audience.

"Yes, it is ours! Several days ago we instated martial law. Today the Italian army stands at our gates! I do not know what madness has come that an Italian should fight an Italian, brother ready to slay brother. But we do what we must! They wanted war and war is what they shall have! And we will not lose easily, my friends!"

"We won't!" the audience shouted.

"We won't! And should they overpower us, we will not go to our deaths alone!"

"We won't!"

"This city is ours and if we are destroyed, it must go with us! We will not give it up to traitors!"

"We won't!"

"And now to battle, my friends! _O Fiume, o morte_."

" _O Fiume, o morte!"_ the audience repeated.

People shoved each other trying to get to the exit. In this moment they'd all seemed completely prepared to die for their ruler.

Mario was still in his seat. Just like Miruna and her followers. Teatro Fenice was growing emptier by the moment and Gabrielle d'Annunzio soon left the stage.

Mario clenched his teeth and fists, took a deep breath through the nose and rose from his seat. He walked in the opposite direction of everyone else, each step bringing him nearer to the yellow-clad death in the front row.

He did not know what he would do. His fingers cramped as he wondered if he should move them closer to his holster. There was a chance he would die instantly and it was not something he could allow. Pietro was home alone and he still could not think of a safer place for him. He had almost no acquaintances and this was a time when you could not trust anyone.

Before he became aware of what he was about to do, he stood in front of Miruna. He stuck his chest out and waited for her to notice him. She and all four of her men in yellow robes looked at him at the same moment.

"I know what you want," he said through gritted teeth. "I know what you came here for."

Miruna's face smiled at him but her eyes remained dangerous and focused. She did not speak, nor did any of her followers, all of them watching him intently.

"I have a son," he said and laughed briefly. He wasn't certain he'd ever spoken those words out loud. "I don't want anything to happen to him. Nothing else matters, I just want him to be safe. I have what you want and I will give it to you without causing problems."

"Will you?" Miruna asked in a deep, scratchy voice, both authoritative and feminine.

"I will," he nodded.

"Good. Come to the communal slaughterhouse near Rječina tonight. Do you know where it is?"

"I do. I'll give it to you there –"

"Give what?" Miruna interjected.

Mario just looked at her in confusion.

"Give us what? What do you call it?"

"The _c_ _amera obscura_ ," the words were like nails in his mouth, tearing his vocal cords.

"I see," Miruna simply smiled. "Good. I think we have a deal."

To this he simply nodded and made his way to the exit. It went better than he had expected. It would have been even better had he not put the _camera obscura_ on the first ship that had left Rijeka.

"Where to?" he'd asked a dirty faced sailor.

"Tangiers, friend. The door to Africa." His breath stank of sour wine. He made a deal with the sailor to take the _camera_ and sell it at the local bazaar. The sailor would give Mario half the money once he was back in Rijeka. The sailor was more than happy to agree to the deal. And why shouldn't he, since his ship was not on a regular line to Rijeka and as such he had no reason to return there. Mario acted as if he was not aware of this.

***

The letter was pushed under the door of Chiesa's villa for the first time since d'Annunzio took over the rule. Mario was not even certain the post office was open at that hour.

The envelope was wet and damaged but the letter was intact. He did not have to look at the sender's address to know it was from Beatrix Lever. No one else ever wrote to them. He sat on the floor in the hallway, leaned against the wall and began to read.

"Have arrived in Rijeka and took Pietro with me. Should you wish to say your goodbyes, there is still time. We leave for England in six hours time. You are probably aware that I do this for his benefit. Do not do anything foolish!"

After reading the letter he crumpled it in his hand. He remained sitting there for hours.

***

The windows were closed, the streets deserted, there were no fireworks or music, there was nothing. Over night Rijeka had become something completely different. After part of the Governor's palace exploded many had hoped d'Annunzio was buried under the stone rubble and mortar. Legionnaires, _arditi_ , Italians, Croats... All had prayed that Rijeka's ruler would become a thing of the past. But once he appeared on the balcony, alive and well, and shouted, " _O Fiume, o morte,"_ they'd known Rijeka would be destroyed and reshaped into a tomb for all those dumb enough not to have ran away in time.

As the final ships prepared to depart, the port had become the only place where you could see another human being. All the desperate people formed a heaving and clawing mass, begging and crying, doing all they could to get aboard and escape; it did not matter where as long as it was away from here.

Mario was part of that mass. He searched for an English ship, hidden among the people and the overcrowded ships raising their anchors.

"Chiesa," someone grabbed his arm, "you're leaving as well?"

"Bart?" he asked and the young man just nodded. "Where to? Legionnaires shouldn't run."

"Fuck the legionnaires! Where are you going?!"

"I'm looking for my son... He has arranged passage. I'm staying here."

"Please," Bart shouted, trying to be louder than those around him. "Get me on that ship. I don't want to die here, man. If the legionnaires get me, I'm dead."

"I'm sorry," Mario pushed his arm away and moved deeper into the crowd.

"Mario! Mario, please! I'm not a fucking dog!"

He moved towards the sea. He pushed as hard as he could, striking all those around him with fists and elbows. People grabbed at him but he kept deflecting them.

"Beatrix," he shouted as loud as he could. ""Pietro! Beeeatriiiiiix! BEAAATRIIIIIX!"

Ships were sailing out and people were jumping after them and drowning. Gunshots echoed; ships' guards firing off warning shots to scare away desperate people. Chaos grew thicker by the moment.

"BEEAAATRIIIX!"

It was then that he saw someone wave at him from one of the ships. It had been years since he'd seen her but he knew her face almost as good as Julia's. He ran, not caring if he'll push somebody to the ground or trample them. He arrived in time.

Two armed guards moved aside as he approached. On the ship, next to Beatrix, was Pietro. He grabbed him and hugged him tightly but his son did not respond in kind. Instead he asked: "Where is mom?"

"She is still in the city. But she'll come to you. And so will I, one of these days."

"No! I want mom! I miss mom!"

"She'll come, Pietro! I promise!"

"Mom! I want mom!"

"Pietro."

"Come here," said a female voice he did not recognize. When he raised his head he saw a young woman, about his age, one who he'd definitely never seen before but who seemed very familiar. Her hair was the same colour as his, eyes as well...

They had many features in common.

Pietro ran to her.

"I'm sorry about this. I'm good with children," she said and smiled.

"Who are you?"

"This is Isabel," Beatrix said. "My daughter. It has been a long time, Mario."

"Yes. I'm not certain if it was too long or too short."

"I neither. Where is Julia?"

"Don't waste thoughts on her. Julia is at peace, alive and safe. Don't worry about her; she would be happy if she knew what you are doing for Pietro."

"And you? What of you now?"

"I'll return to the city. I still have matters to attend to. Don't think of me either. I no longer matter."

"You do to Pietro," she said and stepped closer to him. "And no matter what you believe, you matter to me too. I know Julia had her problems but you did not. All you did, you did for love. It's how a good man acts."

"Trust me, I am not good. I'm broken and fucked up. I'll do more ill than good to Pietro. He's still young, let him get away from all of this; let him have a new life. I see you've raised Isabel well. At least you can be trusted."

"Thank you, I do my best. You know who she is?"

"I do," he nodded. "But I am not getting into that. Some parts of my life must be left behind. If things had been different... Perhaps. But they're not."

"If things had been different," Beatrix smiled and made another step. "I am sorry they are not."

"I as well. But not everyone can be happy."

"No," she said and hugged him. "Ivan, I love you."

"My name is Mario," he whispered while trying to hold back the tears. "And you know this well."

"I do. But you were always more him than yourself. And he was a good man. Just as you are. Don't be ashamed of him."

"I'm not. He is... He is my father."

"Goodbye, Mario," she kissed him on the cheek.

"Pietro," he said and crouched by his son, who was still hugging Isabel. "Listen, little one. I know you're upset and I am sorry but you'll be better off now than you've ever been. Just remember that I love you. And that I know you'll be well... If I'd learned anything it's that Chiesas do not lead boring lives. See you around, kid," he tousled his hair and rose.

"He will be fine," Isabel smiled.

"I know. I'm glad to have met you. At least something normal came out of our father."

"Don't say that, he's also normal," she stroked Pietro's shoulder.

"True," Mario smiled, sincerely after all those years. For the first time life may have gone as it should have. ""I'm leaving. You should too, the sooner the better."

He turned around, passed by Beatrix once more and started down the stairs, towards the port. In front of the ship was a mob, begging to be allowed on board. The guards held rifles at the ready, the ship's only protection.

"Mario," a voice called out to him, a voice he'd heard daily. Three legionnaires, fully dressed for combat, pushed their way through the mob. His whole body shook. "Deserting?" "No, boss," he replied and stepped down to Drago who now towered over him. "Just saying goodbye to my family. I'll return to service immediately."

"I see... Do as you will but we are leaving this hellhole. We're Italians; we won't fight against our own country. They can tear this place down as far as I care. We need a ship bound for Italy."

"Maybe there's another one..."

"Of course, no one is going there. All the Italians in this city are too big pussies to return home. But not we. We are going. And so, we need a ship."

"Not this ship," Mario shook his head. "This one is bound for England."

"I don't give a fuck where it's bound for and who is on board. It's ours now. You forget we were quite good at hijacking ships."

"Drago, please. I'm a legionnaire, at least leave this ship alone, for me."

"You are nothing! I don't recall you being particularly useful. You're just an opportunistic, traitorous pig! Chiesa. Are you Italian at all? Move before we shoot you and all others on this fucking ship."

Mario drew his pistol and aimed it at his former captain.

"I see..."

There was a flash and a bullet hit Drago in the face. The legionnaire's rifle fired and some of the buckshot tore into Mario's arm. Buckshot from a guard's rifle hit a legionnaire in the chest and broke his ribs. A man from the mob jumped on the other legionnaire, bit his neck and shoved his fingers in it.

Drago fell to his knees, Mario fell on his side.

When he turned around, the ship was already moving. It was still close but soon, any moment now it would be far away from danger.

Next to him were the guards, both of them dead. His own pistol could not have been far but was out of reach of his wounded arm.

"You're dead," Drago shouted and rose. Blood flowed from the remains of his right cheek. Pieces of flesh hung from his face, wiggling with every step he made towards Mario. "I'll burn you."

The captain in front of him suddenly flew to the side and fell to the ground. "Mario, run," his saviour shouted as he ran past him. "Run, now!" Bart ran faster, jumping with all his might from the end of the pier and grabbing hold of the ship's railing.

If anybody could do it, it was him. Mario had seen him climb a hundred times; he was faster than all others, almost animal-like in his dexterity. They'd spent a year hijacking ships together and now, in this moment, aboard that small, almost insignificant English ship, the final charge of Michelangelo's invincible heroes took place.

The ship was moving away slowly but it was far enough away to prevent anyone else from attempting something similar. Pietro was safe.

But Mario still was not.

"You are dead," Drago growled as Mario pushed himself up with his good hand and started running from the mob that had thinned out after shots had been fired.

His right arm hung limply and with every step the pain returned. He held it tightly with his left hand and tried to immobilize it as best he could.

"No point in running!" Drago shouted but still he ran.

As the number of people in the streets dwindled, so both of them ran faster. Drago was always just a few steps behind him. With every step there was less and less blood in their bodies.

The entire city shook from an explosion. Not long after it, another. And another. Fireworks returned, more explosive and destructive than ever before.

"Maybe I'll get hit too," Drago shouted. "It's the only way I'll ever leave you alone, Chiesa!"

They could only walk through the city mired in chaos. One with a torn arm, leaning his shoulder against walls, the other, still armoured, lifting his army boots with increasing difficulty as the cold air burned his face.

"Chiesa...stop... Just die already!"

He considered obeying. It would be so easy to just lie down. Perhaps he'd die before the legionnaire reached him. Perhaps he'd stay alive long enough for Drago to break him apart piece by piece until he finally set him on fire, still alive. He kept walking.

Only when he saw the abandoned slaughterhouse did he remember yesterday's deal. He slowly approached the door and opened them with his good arm. Beyond them was only darkness, darkness that swallowed him now.

"Chiesa! Where are you?! Are you hiding?!"

Mario walked deeper into the darkness and occasionally he would feel his shoulder brush against someone. When he fell to his knees someone helped him up, pushed him forward. When he'd forget where to go, someone's palm on his back would push him onward.

Occasionally he would hear screams. Distant and muffled but still cutting.

"Chiesa, don't be a coward!"

"That is enough," someone else said.

"Who is that?" Drago asked, almost in fear, and then coughed. He sounded as if he was drowning, fighting for breath. He whimpered once and then fell silent.

"Just move forward," someone else said to him. "You are safe now."

He obeyed. There was nothing else he could do.

There was another scream. He could not say if it had been a woman or a man. Or something else.

A door appeared in front of him, transformed into light. It took him a few moments to realize there were people in the light, dressed in yellow robes, hoods over their heads. In front of him, six of them. Among them, Miruna.

"We're glad you came," she said. "We're gladder still you did not die on your way here. Tell me, where is the object you promised us?"

Mario took a deep breath and swallowed the saliva that had pooled in his mouth. "I don't have it. I'm sorry. I sold..."

"I see. Well, that was to be expected. The object is of less importance to us than you are. We'll get our hands on it yet."

"Why do you want me?"

"Oh, we don't need you exactly. We need someone of Erzsébet's blood. You are just one of the options. There are also your son and Julia."

"Leave them alone!"

"Well, we will... This is why we have you. And it would be best if you did not resist, because if we accidentally kill you, we'll go after Julia next."

"I won't resist, I promise. Do as you will, just leave them be."

"Excellent," Miruna smiled. "This will not be pleasant."

"I don't care. I welcome death."

"Death? Oh, no, no. Quite the opposite. You will be our guest for a long time, until our master has recovered completely."

A high pitched scream filled the room. It sounded more animal than human. Monstrous.

"What is it?" Mario asked.

"It is he. Would you like to meet him? There is a small window on the door, don't be afraid. Greet him."

He made a few steps towards the heavy metal door with a small round window set into it. His palm pressed against the cold metal and he stood on his toes to see what was inside.

Inside the empty refrigerator he saw something black in a corner. It resembled a large ball although it could have been something curled up.

The black heap did not move. It was completely still.

"What exactly am I..."

The blackness was suddenly in front of him. A humanoid form with no human features. A featureless face spread open and revealed a large mouth filled with rows of sharpened teeth. A scream issued from that mouth.

Mario pushed himself away from the door and fell to the ground. "I know him, I know him," he said through heavy and painful breaths. "I know him! The monster! It's him!"

"Yes, it is he. Our master. But you knew that already, didn't you? You only did not know he was real. He is still recovering from what your father did to him. He will return one day, and we will wait."

"Mario," one of the men in yellow said. "I know what you're thinking. You have the dagger at your side, the one Ivan almost destroyed our master with. You want to draw it, attempt something, and perhaps even destroy him for good. But know that it is not a good idea. The best you can do is give up and do what must be done."

"How...how do you know all this?"

"We know everything, Mario," the man replied. "We've known all along. Ossoinack tried his best to act upon our instructions. He even killed himself so you could be here. Of course, we did not know all the details but we knew enough."

Mario pressed his palm to his face. He tangled fingers in his hair and started pulling. "This is too much..."

"Mario, give me the dagger," Miruna said and extended her hand.

He reached for his belt, grasped the hilt and drew the dagger.

"Do what is right," she said.

"Do what is right," the man next to her echoed.

"Do what is right," everyone repeated, one after another.

Mario raised the dagger and placed it down on Miruna's palm.

"Julia believed you were Ivan," Miruna put the dagger into her robe. "The truth is that you are but his shadow. You are weak."

She raised her arms and started taking off her yellow robe. She was naked under it but over her breasts, sewn _onto_ them, was a face, contorted in a pained scream.

"Do you know who it is?" she asked.

Everyone in the room began taking off their robes, revealing human skin ornaments they'd sewn onto their bodies.

"Surely you know. Her name was Zvana and she was there when your father died. Her body contained power, power few men possess. And now, with her body a part of us, even we, lowly mortals can feel the master. Even we, lowly mortals, can become powerful and be worthy of serving him."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Mario said through gritted teeth. "I don't care. Just do what you must."

"It makes no difference, Miruna. You could talk to him for days and he still would not accept it. He will break either way. He would always break before and this is no exception. He never wanted to be saved."

"So it seems. I expected more of him."

"Just do it," Mario growled and rose. "Do what you must."

"You chose the harder path," the man said and showed his teeth in an imitation of a smile.

"I chose what I chose. And I regret nothing. Now do what you must."

Six naked men and women surrounded him and placed their palms on his body. Their bodies grew brighter by the moment. More silver, more white.

The monster screamed once more and the echo died the moment Mario was swallowed by the whiteness.

# 4.

The men and women in the room had been of different age, descent and most definitely social status. There were those who were rich and noble and those who would be called "common". What truly united them were the yellow robes they wore. The low tinkling of fashionable cutlery (that was also radium-enriched, because the Master's servants availed themselves of only the finest of current fads) and the smacking of lips (the red wrapped chocolate in front of his plate also contained radium) were the only audible sounds for quite some time. The silence that had descended over the dining table had lasted for weeks and every gathering had been grimmer – because their search for the Master seemed more and more pointless.

And yet Miruna would call them here every week and they would sit around the long table – they were so numerous now that the table had grown crowded even though they'd at first joked about installing a telephone line between the head and the bottom of the table.

Miruna was absent tonight even though they had been told she would make an appearance. He looked around: all present were mostly engaged with food and drink and only a few would occasionally exchange words or glances.

The woman to his right was an older lady of Hungarian and Italian descent and her posture clearly declared her belief that at least two thirds of those present did not belong at the table. The man to his left would occasionally glance at a young girl across the table and it was obvious he wondered what curves she hid under her robe.

This was not what he had agreed to all those years ago. The yellow robe was a promise of influence and a better life but also of becoming a part of something that was exclusive and that _mattered_. The Master was powerful but he also, so it was said, did much for the whole world. He was promised meaning and purpose and at first it had really been so but then – then the Master had vanished and for a long time they'd just run around like headless chickens.

They'd tried to find him or at least contact him; they'd desperately searched for answers...

The door opened and Miruna strode in, followed by four of his brothers in yellow. That was that – now literally all of Master's servants were in this room. Once the air would almost crackle with energy and the feeling of power their unity gave them. Now there were only silence and a nauseating tension.

"My dears," Miruna said and all heads lifted, all eyes looked at her. "Had a nice meal? A few drinks? Excellent."

She stopped by her chair at the head of the table and then climbed onto the table. "The Master is gone."

A wave of fear washed across the room. What was she talking about?

"He is gone because he has abandoned us."

Low voices from around the table, a murmur in the making.

"He has abandoned us because – honestly, I would as well. Because among us there is vermin and chaff that has poisoned what he has built."

The creak and dull thumps of chairs being pushed back and tipped over, shouts.

"SILENCE!"

All stopped.

"But never mind," she said lightly. "For some time I have been aware that the Master left because not all of you are worthy of serving him. And so it falls upon us, his true servants, to cleanse the rest of you from liars and rot."

Voices intertwined, _who do you think you are, do you have any idea who you're talking to, where were you when I joined his service, whore, people, what is wrong with you, can't you see she is mad_

"I said ENOUGH!" she shouted and waved her arms and a colourless light flashed from something in her hands, brining with it a silence he'd never witnessed before.

He could not move. His stomach burned.

"Do not worry, it's only temporary," she said. "At this moment your stomach hurts. It is only poison but not a lethal dose. Do not hope for a quick death."

The light vanished and he could move again but all he could feel was something burning and wanting to claw its way from his stomach. He heard yells and cries for help from all around him, heard some people get up and others fall to the floor.

Suddenly three men were by his side, including the man who had sat to his left. They pulled the chair under him, threw him to the floor.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman to his right being beaten to the floor, three men falling upon her, holding her and tearing her robe, their eyes hungry and furious.

One of the men that held him pulled a dagger and began to rip his robe – he felt the cold blade against his skin and several of its brief, shallow bites.

Only one thing remained. He screamed.

***

"At least you can scream. Look at the little Miss over there," Miruna's follower said to him as he pushed his head. The events of the supper had melded into a nightmare of torture and unconsciousness, the world had been reduced to this chamber and the board they'd tied him to and then positioned at a forty-five degree angle, so that he became part of a wide circle, facing all the others bound like him. "Oh how she would scream, if only she was able to."

The symbols drawn on the floor around the wooden board the girl was tied to and the symbols carved into her skin pulsated in harmony with each other and they would glow brighter every time the girl tensed and started to thrash against her bonds. There was no sound even though her body spoke of a scream that would bring down the ceiling.

Every waking moment he was forced to witness what had been done to her with magic, the same magic the Master had given them so they might survive. Her eyeballs twitched under eyelids that had been fused together, engulfing her in darkness. Her jaw moved but to no avail because Miruna had first butchered her lips with countless small cuts and then used magic to meld her lips together, as if the girl had never even had a mouth. She left her nostrils intact and so the only sound the poor girl could make was an irregular and pained hiss.

"You brought this on yourself," the follower repeated. He repeated it to him every day. Or hour? How long had they been suffering here? The follower moved and for a moment he felt the stench of rotting meat. The bodies of those who had been killed during supper and those who had been showed mercy by Miruna after being bound in the circle and even the bodies of those lucky few who'd died despite the healing magic – all those bodies were piled in a corner of the chamber, somewhere behind his back.

From an entire table of people, from the entire brotherhood he'd joined now only two handfuls remained. A handful of those convinced of being "true servants" and a handful of tortured souls yearning for oblivion.

"You can scream," the follower repeated, "and you can beg forgiveness. Just reveal which of you –" the follower coughed but it didn't matter what he was about to say. Every day they wanted something different: reveal the name of your leader, reveal all who plotted to force the Master to leave or even remove him from power, reveal all who plotted to poison Miruna... It did not matter what they asked because the answers did not matter. Only their suffering mattered and if the questions would add to it or give them false hopes just to then be taken away... Miruna only cared about pain, this he'd come to realize.

For a while he'd hoped the Master would return, bring salvation. But they'd beaten that hope out of him with every broken and then magically healed bone, every cut they'd made sure would leave a scar after healing. Now he only hoped for death, the sooner, the better.

He heard the chamber door open. He knew her footsteps. Miruna appeared at his side. She held in her hands, as always, the dagger; the same dagger she'd carried for years as, so she claimed, a vow of vengeance against the one who'd used the dagger to hurt their Master. And as always, she smiled.

In that smile and in those eyes he yearned to see his hope fulfilled.

She came closer, raised the dagger.

Maybe today...

# 5.

It was true what Janko had told him once: at a certain point you stop feeling pain but only because you've become so numb by it you don't feel anything else.

But them he noticed: when they'd walked into the room and brought a gust of fresh, cool air and the smell of...coffee?

Pietro opened his eyes, the left one completely, the right one as much as the swelling would allow. At some point the other two had left the room and he had been alone for some time. Maybe they went to wash the rubber hose they'd been beating him with.

He took the deepest breath he dared, enduring the stabbing of probably cracked ribs just so he could smell the coffee. And it was worth it because just for a fleeting moment the pain and ropes disappeared and he was back in Lorenzo's coffeehouse with its comfortable chairs, newspaper in wooden reading frames and wisps of steam curling from the white cups of Arabica coffee on every table. But it was just for a moment and then he was back to being nude and barefoot in a chair in a hot and stuffy cellar, ropes cutting into his arms and legs, covered in bruises from rubber hose beatings.

He ran his tongue over his swollen gums: good, all teeth still in place and none loose.

"Good evening," one of the two newcomers said in fluent Croatian with a hard German accent.

He looked up. They seemed somewhat surreal under the bare light bulb's glow: uniforms pressed and clean in stark contrast with the dirty, dusty floor and walls with huge chunks of plaster missing, not to mention the stains, some from damp, others from... It was obvious he was not the first one to be held here. The dark hue of their uniforms devoured the light; the light that was reflected only off the polished skull on their caps. And finally, there was the bright red armband on the left arm, in the middle of which was a white circle with a black symbol inside it; the red drew the eye, just as any other open wound through which a tumour could clearly be seen.

Something squirmed in his gut and he'd become dimly aware this was in fact the moment when he'd finally abandoned all hope. He had been dragged from his apartment with a hood over his head and brought here, where he was beaten by two men in Wermacht uniforms: one was a real Jerry, the other, judging by his speech, of German descent but from the Croatian city of Osijek. He spent the entire time thinking he could get away, that the police had him confused with someone else or that any second now some Oberstsomethingorother would barge in and rip these two to shreds for beating on the wrong man \- but they hadn't asked him a single question yet! – but now... now he looked at the newcomers and it was crystal clear that this was it because of who they were.

_Schutzstaffel._

The slap wasn't particularly hard – the other two had beaten him much harder – but it was like a needle: sharp and piercing. And there was something else besides the pain – the smell of coffee, potent and intoxicating, as if the man used it as a hand cream. Maybe he did. His vision swam and everything slid away –

_\- coffee, coffee was great in Lorenzo's coffeehouse_ _. The coffee was always a great start to the day, to some even its_ _high point_ _and so even the worst day had a single bright highlight._

_On that day she had become a highlight brighter than Lorenzo's coffee. It was not the first time he'd seen her: she used to walk the Korzo promenade, escorted by friends or parents; he remembered it only later. But on that day he'd really noticed her._ _Locks of hair teasingly peeking from under a yellow hat; her elegance and poise as she talked to her friends and yet so full of energy at the same time, as if at any moment she might burst into a waltz or start running; and to top it all, a ringing laugh, most unladylike, but this she'd realized on her own, you could see that as she_ _would suddenly stop laughing_ _it but it would ring in his ears for hours._

_The week had become just a_ _set_ _of days between Sundays and coffee and waiting to see her walk in front of Lorenzo's coffeehouse._

_Ana. It took a while to find out her name, he'd imagined a hundred longer and more elaborate names but as soon as he'd found out his head was free of the nonsense because_ _what_ _else could she be called but Ana..._

A slap, this time somewhat restrained, snapped him out of it, brought him back into the cellar.

"Attention, please," the SS officer in front of him said.

Through partially closed door he could hear the other SS officer screaming at the two soldiers outside and even though he could only make out a word here or there, the overall message was clear: _idiots, morons, why did you beat him so much, don't you understand 'don't overdo it'..._

"You are in pain," the SS officer said lightly, as if commenting on the weather. He crouched beside Pietro and took a metal bottle from an inside pocket.

"Unfortunately, you are of no use to us in this condition." He removed the bottle cap.

"But this should help, at least for a few hours."

He grabbed Pietro's head with one hand and plugged his nose while with the other he shoved the bottle's neck in Pietro's mouth before Pietro had time to react. The fluid poured into his mouth as firm fingers clenched his jaw, he couldn't breathe, tried not to swallow, it tasted horribly sour but then he did swallow and the SS officer let him take a deep breath and cough and shake, trying to see what was going on through teary eyes.

"It will be horrible the first few minutes but then it will feel very nice," the SS officer said.

And he was right.

Pietro felt the heat in his mouth and throat and his stomach burned harder and more painful than any heartburn he'd ever experienced. His throat tightened, every muscle in his body pulsated, bones ached and burned and it seemed to go on for hours but when he stopped screaming and sensation returned to his limbs the SS officer closed his pocket watch and returned it to his pocket.

"Four minutes and twenty seconds, interesting," he said as if he was making a note.

Pietro...was alright. Actually, he felt great. He could still feel every bruise and cracked rib and broken lips but he simply did not care and his head was also clearer than he'd ever expect it to be in a situation like this – the fluid must have been some painkiller that didn't cause the fuzziness such medicines usually caused.

"You know why you are here," the Jerry said and that was exactly what he was, Pietro thought, the prototypical Jerry. He was blonde, of athletic build and gave Pietro a cold, almost reptilian gaze.

Pietro just looked at him, kept quiet and tried to figure out what they might want from him. His sweat ran cold when he realized Janko might be in another cellar room like this, maybe getting the same treatment as Pietro. If that was so, then it was all over.

"Don't act ignorant," the SS officer said. "You are not dumb, this we know."

Pietro took a slow breath and prepared himself for the inevitable. He wondered if the twenty ninth year of his life would end this night, between a wall and a firing squad or if they'd just shoot him in the back of the head here in the cellar and get rid of his body. He felt sorrier for Janko and Janko's family.

"You're silent?" the SS officer asked, tilting his head in a motion so mechanical that Pietro could almost hear cogs whirr. No, if it had to end this way then he'd find solace in pride because he did not regret doing it... He knew what it was like to be a stranger, what it was like when the locals turn on you without provocation and how it feels not to be one of them; it was like that in Rijeka now, neighbours had long ago started breaking other neighbours' shop windows and destroying their shop signs. Luckily, there had been Janko, an artist with ink and paper, a true wizard of the false identification paper who'd found a kindred spirit in Pietro and together they'd made it possible for many people to escape Rijeka before it was too late.

Too late, as it was for Pietro and Janko now. Even if he should make it out alive, Pietro was sure he'd end up on the street because it was certain he would lose his job at city hall – the same job that allowed him to help Janko save all those lives.

The SS officer was still looking at him and there was no mercy in those eyes, no matter how deep you searched for it. Pietro felt something grab his gut, twist and turn it and all that he saw and all he could think about was her. He was completely certain he'd never again see Ana, that she would never know where he'd gone. That thought struck like a cold spear. He wanted to scream, beg for a chance to see her one more time or at least leave her a message.

"You will give us the box," the SS officer said. The world stopped.

The moment stretched to eternity as Pietro tried to convince himself the Jerry wasn't really talking about what he knew he was talking about.

"B-box?" Pietro said.

"Yes, _Herr_ Chiesa. The box. The _c_ _amera obscura_ is in your possession and the Thule society will gladly take it off your hands."

***

"What's in the fucking box?" Bart tried to be quiet because he and Isabel had put Pietro to bed only ten minutes ago but Pietro, even at this young age, doubted Bart was ever quiet. Pietro was cold: the hallways of the house aunt Beatrix gave to Isabel, Bart and him to live in "for a while since the owners wont' be back any time soon" were colder than he could recall Rijeka ever being. He was cold but he decided to endure it. He'd spent every night for a week now eavesdropping on Bart and Isabel's conversations. He'd cried when they travelled to this faraway place called England, wanted to see mom and dad again but Bart and Isabel were good to him. He knew it was not nice to eavesdrop but there were things they wouldn't tell him about his father and what had happened in Rijeka and why they had to go here and so he eavesdropped because he'd realized that, every night after putting him to bed, they talked about those things. He stood barefoot in the hallway and watched Bart and Isabel through partially open door. She was lounging on the divan; he was sitting in an armchair.

"It does not matter," she said. "The box is far away and cannot hurt the boy."

"Fine, but how could a fucking box hurt anyone?"

"Bart, it doesn't matter. The boy is safe and..."

"Wait, you can't just..."

"Oh, Bart, enough. Come here and kiss me."

Pietro saw Bart stop in the middle of the sentence, tense but smiling. A funny smile he'd seen before but could never quite understand.

"Oh, so that night on the ship wasn't just a one time..."

Isabel smiled. "It will be if you keep this up."

Bart rose and approached her slowly.

Then they stopped talking and Pietro was now so cold he didn't want to wait and so returned to his room, wondering what was the box they were talking about and how and why would it hurt him.

***

The SS officer number two appeared in the doorway and Blondie nodded at him, to which the officer in the doorway barked an order and a group of soldiers walked into the room, including the two who'd beaten Pietro, both of them now a bit flustered. They untied him, dressed him in the same trousers and shirt they'd taken off him...an hour, two hours ago? Then they took him upstairs towards the back exit. The fresh air was like a drug and the only thing he regretted was that the exit had a cover and so he couldn't feel the rain on his skin. What he wouldn't give for a shower, a cold one or a hot one, it didn't matter, just as long as it's water, washing all of this away.

The soldiers weren't part of Rijeka's garrison, he noticed this as they took him upstairs. The garrison was small and even though it was possible he just never saw one or two soldiers, it was hard to believe he'd not recognize all ten of them. Also, they had that newcomer air. He was well acquainted with that mental and physical state and it was easy for him to recognize it in others. Which would mean the soldiers had come with the SS officers.

Thule society, the SS officer had said. Pietro could dimly recall Isabel mentioning them, how she'd once had, as she'd called it, 'an encounter' with some of their members. And there was something else. That night in Morocco, when he and Bart searched through the alleys, they knew they had competition, fluently German-speaking competition. _Did they know back then_ – a strong shove snapped him out of his thoughts as the soldiers pushed him into the back of an automobile. There was a soldier to his left and one to his right, and two more in the driver's and passenger seats. The SS officers were in the automobile in front of Pietro's. Pietro saw the rest of the soldiers climb into a small truck and then they were off, down Rijeka's streets, following the pouring rain. They were the only thing moving in the streets, under the streetlights and raindrops pounding on the metal roof of the automobile.

Something exploded and the vehicle turned over. Smoke and a fire crackling nearby and hands that grabbed him and pulled him out as gunshots echoed...

Rain, beautiful, cool rain. A moment in the rain, no one was holding him, he just lay there and listened to the voices saying things, shouting, and there was just the rain, so welcome...

They pulled him up and started pushing him towards some van and under the dim streetlights he could see they did not wear army uniforms – _yellow shirts, yellow_ ___kerchiefs. Yellow, yellow, yellow, Ana had a yellow scarf when he'd approached her and she smiled and he forgot what he was about to say but it did not matter, he just wanted to look at her, listen to her..._

***

Light – dark – light – dark – light – dark...

He slowly came to his senses, tried to stretch – without success, his hands were tied in the front, his legs also bound. Again. He was on his back, light and dark danced through the window of this van he was in. Shapes surrounded him, sat next to him, some were watching him intently. Men and women, all dressed in yellow: scarves around necks or heads, shirts.

Whatever Blondie gave him still had an effect because he'd been in a car crash before and he knew that after it you did not feel as fine as he did now. He was quiet and so were they: they rode through the night in silence.

The van suddenly stopped, the back door opened, hands grabbed him and he was carried out into the cold and the night. They carried him as if he was a log, not a man. It was much colder than when he came out of detention and he thought he could hear a sound. Running water? A moment later he connected the cold and the breeze with the sound of water: he was in Rječina canyon. He caught glimpses of surrounding buildings and then he was carried into one of them, the one in which hallway a lantern flickered.

They carried him into a room with lanterns hung on the walls and he was placed on the floor, in the middle of a large drawn circle. They untied his legs and lifted him to his knees but when he made to stand up he felt strong arms press his shoulders and push him back into kneeling position.

She appeared before him, a person in a yellow robe covered in an unknown script and dirty in several places, caked with something dark. His eyes met hers and he felt a primal urge to run as far away as he could and crawl into the deepest, darkest pit. The SS officer scared him but he was just cold, _clinically_ alive. Her eyes burned, but the fire was borne of madness, not passion.

"Chiesa," she said softly, breathily, he could see beads of sweat on her neck and forehead. "Chiesa," she repeated and leaned over him. She placed her palm on his cheek; icy skin and fingernails that grazed his beard. "Chiesa," she repeated contently with something that would, on anyone else be a serene, calming smile.

"Did you give them the _camera_?"

He silently cursed his father and the box and himself but said nothing.

"Chiesa, did you give them the _camera_?"

He was aware of other people being present; he turned around as much as he could, twelve men and women in a circle around him and the madwoman. Twelve pairs of eyes watching him intently, almost hungrily.

"Chiesa, don't play the fool."

He looked at her and despite all urges he kept his gaze locked with hers. "I didn't. And I'm not handing it over."

For a moment she closed her eyes, her jaw tightened and she shivered trying to keep control but then she just smiled a smile that would terrify a shark and said: "You will, because it is the smartest thing to do."

She crouched in front of him. "Chiesa, you don't need the _camera_. It brought nothing but misery to your family and our master just wanted to take it from them, to prevent the pain and suffering the Chiesas had been subjected to without need. Give us the _camera_ and you will live in peace."

"You're insane and all the others are too. And the Jerries are insane. And maybe I'm insane for doing this but I'm not giving the box to anyone."

"You want it for yourself?" She took his face in her hands; he felt her fingernails dig into the skin around his ears. "Chiesas don't' understand it is not for you, it is for our master."

He thought he heard a sound from outside, a thump. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two Yellows talk between themselves and then leave the room in a hurry. He felt tension in his gut. Germans? If they'd managed to find them, maybe... Well, yes, that would be going from bad to worse and round and round in circles but he'd rather face Blondie again than this woman who he wasn't sure wouldn't start devouring him any moment now. And if the Jerries came charging in, maybe he'd get a chance to escape in the inevitable chaos.

"I don't want it for myself," he said, "I don't use it." He was stalling, hoping for an opportunity.

"Why keep it then, if you do not use it?"

He started swallowing but he tasted blood so instead he spat. "It's simple," he said. "It doesn't matter if I use it or not. _You_ or _them_ wanting it is reason enough not to give it away."

He smiled at her look of derision. "Yes, that's me, childish."

She squeezed his neck with one hand, digging fingers into it as she scratched his face with the other hand. With the thumb and middle finger of her right hand she spread open his eye, placing the tip of her index finger's nail a hair's breadth from his eyeball. "Give. Me. The _camera_ ," she breathed.

"I won't," he said.

"The Master will return if you hand it over, I am sure of it," she said. "I want him back and if need be, I'll pluck out your eyes."

There was the thump again.

She let him go suddenly, rose and left the room in a hurry, followed by most Yellows. Pietro closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deep.

Footsteps approached. One of the Yellows stood over him, looked at him with worry in his eyes. "Tell her where the box is," he said softly. "The Master has left us because we did not get it for him the first time, this is true. There were many who did not believe her but them we removed, all of them. We may be few but strength lies not in numbers but in faith." The same zeal burned in his eyes but there was much less madness. The Yellow leaned over Pietro, looked around the empty room and spoke in low, conspiratorial tones: "But he will return if you give us the box. There is no need for you to suffer, even though you should. But just give us the box and your death will be quick and painless, I promise. She can be merciful."

***

The nightmares began when he was sixteen. Every few weeks at first, rare enough to be ascribed to various life problems; but after several months they'd come more often: once a week and then a sudden increase. Every night he'd wake the same way, sweaty and with his heart hammering and feeling the urge to scream as soon as he opens his eyes but he would not make a sound because his throat would close so tight he could barely breathe. Then he'd wait for his sight to be clear of the black spots that swarmed it soundlessly.

The nightmares weren't just nightmares, this he had finally admitted to himself. Some things repeated, sounds, voices, the image of a dagger piercing skin, male and female screams, fire, and eyes trying but failing to see him. He knew it was only temporary, that every time they looked they were just about to see him, would soon see him. And the box. The wooden, carved box in the middle of the nightmare vortex.

When he finally told Bart and Isabel about the nightmares he'd expected them to laugh or send him to a doctor.

Instead, Bart and Isabel packed their bags and took him to the train station. That night, on the train, he dreamed about the box again but this time the dream was not a nightmare but merely unpleasant.

***

"Alright," Pietro whispered. The Yellow smiled happily, as a child expecting a Christmas present would smile. Pietro started murmuring nonsense but the Yellow couldn't understand it. He leaned in closer and Pietro surged forward, grabbed the yellow shirt with tied hands and pulled. If Bart had tried to teach him anything it was to fight. He pulled with all his might and threw the Yellow off balance and a moment later the man hit the stone floor face first. Pietro pulled out his hands from under the man, closed his fists and struck the man in the back of the head once, twice, three times, smacking his face into the floor.

He pulled his legs from under the motionless body with a bloody face and suppressed panic as he searched through the man's pockets. He'd never been happier to find a knife in someone's pocket. The knife was razor sharp, the handle roughly carved with symbols.

He got up on his feet. _Now what_ , he thought. He approached the door, opened it slightly. An empty hallway and at the end of it a sliver of moonlight seen through another door. And gunshots. That was it. He removed a lantern from the wall and shone a light in the hallway: a single door, about ten paces forward. He dimmed the light and moved down the hallway. Gunshots continued. The door led into an empty room but gunshots could be heard even better now. Three closed windows faced the street. He could hear screams alongside the gunshots, shouts in German and Croatian. He approached a closed window and peeked through a slit in the wooden slats. Lights, the headlights of the automobiles and a small truck. He saw both SS officers take cover behind one automobile's door and he recognized several of the soldiers who'd led him out of the basement. The Yellows took cover behind some carts and crates and busied themselves exchanging fire with the Jerries. Several bullets hit the window but Pietro was already on the floor, planning his escape.

What if the entire garrison comes down on him? He stopped. An alarm should have been raised but hadn't been; the entire garrison should have been here but hadn't been. Just the SS officers and their two cars and truck, which meant only the ten soldiers... What if the officers never told anyone else what they were up to here? Maybe the Thule society wanted to get their hands on the _camera obscura_ without anyone else finding out?

He stopped guessing (it was pointless, really) and reached for hard facts. _Only_ two SS officers and their ten soldiers plus twelve Yellows and their demented mistress were after him, and currently both sides were busy slaughtering each other.

He couldn't go out the window but he couldn't stay here either. He heard voices approach the entrance. He illuminated the room, there were two doors leading into darkness. He chose one at random and ran through them, hearing voices and gunshots coming nearer.

He moved deeper into the building and even though the gunshots died down, he could still hear voices and footsteps.

"Find him, you fools!" the madwoman shouted.

"Mistress, the door, we must"

"Leave the fucking door, they'll come in through the window!"

"We lost five, the Master did not –"

"The Master did not protect them because they were fools! Find Chiesa!"

Pietro heard footsteps approaching and he crouched in a corner, behind a desk. He thought he was in some kind of storage room. The footsteps were near now but he'd also heard a distant thumping: it seemed the Jerries were trying to break down the door.

They finally entered the room.

As he waited in the dark for the Yellows to, if he was lucky, move into the next room, he thought he finally knew what it must have been like for the Moroccan man that night, as Pietro and Bart searched for him through the moonlit alleys. He hoped he would not end like the Moroccan, beaten up so badly he practically begged to tell them where he'd hidden the carved wooden box.

The _c_ _amera obscura_. All the days and weeks they'd spent searching for it. With each day the dreams became gentler and had served almost as a beacon, guiding him. Neither Bart nor Isabel could tell him much about the _camera_ except that it had been sent far away by Pietro's father, as far away from his son as he could send it, fearing it would bring only pain and misery to his only child. Pietro never rejected his father's belief. After all, that which can give you nightmares cannot be something happy and joyful. He had no choice: either he would find the _camera_ or he would go insane, maybe even die.

And so they searched for it, the three of them, Isabel using her connections and skill at manipulating people, Bart by beating up anyone who'd try to deceive them or send them down the wrong path. No matter what they believed, they had been good teachers.

Three Yellows, he knew their footsteps now. He could see the light of their lantern as it shone on the desks and closets. Pietro crawled deeper under the desk. A few moments later they moved on. Pietro finally took a breath.

Detonation and screams, clenching Pietro's gut. Jerries had started throwing grenades.

He thought about where he could go now, still fighting the rising panic and then pain stabbed through his lungs and stomach and he fell to his side, biting his fist so as not to scream from the pain that was now fading away. Through the pain and the contortions only one thought held him firmly to this side of consciousness.

_Ana. Ana who always walked with her friends, with whom every moment alone was a reward_ _worth_ _fight_ _ing_ _for. Ana who_ _had_ _kept her guard up against his compliments, Ana who was won over only when she realized his persistence wasn't because_ _he wanted to add another notch to his bedpost. Ana with whom he'd always felt relaxed._ _Ana, who finally erased all that remained of Isabel..._

***

He heard glass clinking and then she turned and placed a crystal glass in front of him. The green liquid had a seductive glow under the candlelight. "Have you ever tried it?" she asked as she removed sugar cubes from a bowl.

"I haven't," he said. He'd tried other drinks but not absinth, mostly because his friends couldn't acquire it.

"Bart hates absinth," she smiled. "I hope you do not share his taste in drink."

As it turned out, he did not. Only a few minutes later he felt himself simultaneously float and sink without ever leaving the armchair, in fact, it seemed the armchair was expanding around him, soft and comfortable, ready to swallow him gently.

She asked something and he replied but had no idea what and it did not matter. He mumbled. It was not important.

Her touch pulled him closer to consciousness, her silk skin sliding across his cheek. His eyes focused on what was in front of him. Isabel was there, kneeling, smiling gently but in her eyes was something else: greed, predation.

Her fingers slid down his neck, down his shirt and then stopped and squeezed lightly. "I think it's time," she said as water babbled somewhere and her smile widened; the eyes and smile of a she-wolf.

_Bart, Bart was going to come in at any moment,_ he thought and wanted to run. _No, he won't, he's not home I can't remember where he is, travelled somewhere._

Why is she doing this?

Oh god, Bart, if he ever finds out he'll hate me, I can't do this to him.

"I've added something," she whispered through kisses that burned his skin, "just to relax you." The fabric slid away from his body, her kisses and touches were hot like fire. His arms and legs went numb, his body burned, his thoughts swam in a whirlpool of green drink, red hair and blue eyes and...

_Why are you doing this_ , he asked but it came out a murmur. Her response was just a quiet "I know this feels good."

She lay beside him on the couch now, curled against him, caressing his face. "There," she said softly.

***

Pain still coursed through his body but he rose to his feet.

Gunshots and shouts echoed through the building. Pietro decided to take a chance. He ran into the room through which windows he looked out not long ago and as he ran he saw a corpse in the hallway; it was an SS officer but not Blondie. Through the main hallway he could hear screams and someone begging so he vigorously applied himself to opening the window. He jumped out into the rain and heard: "HALT!"

He dashed to the right, alongside the wall as bullets tore through the window. His breathing was heavy, his legs felt like lead but the adjacent building had an open door. He ran inside.

***

Bart, on his deathbed, holding him by the forearm gently but not letting go, as if Pietro was an anchor keeping him tied to his world.

"Hey kid, what's the matter? Why the tears? If I'm not bawling, and I have a fucking reason to, why the fuck are you crying?" Bart smiled as much as he could. Hairless, sallow-faced, his body wracked by both disease and treatments, a living dead man.

_Just say it. Let it out. He's done so much for you, he deserves to know. He'll forgive you._

He could have told him. He should have told him about Isabel and absinth and all the other things that happened through the years, about the gazebo and how every night he'd hear her open the door to his room and about that one time he'd finally refused her and told her to get out, terrified by her declaration of love.

He should have told him but he'd stayed silent.

And then there was no one to say it to.

They'd buried Bart the next morning. That night, when Pietro returned from the legal office he found his large steamer trunk in the hall, all his clothes and shoes crammed in it. The carved wooden box was placed beside it. There had been fresh soil stuck in the carvings. A paper was attached to the trunk. "BEGONE" it said.

***

It was a large warehouse with several stacks of wooden crates and metal containers. He ran deeper inside and stopped only when there was a wide metal post between him and the door. He leaned against it and took a ragged breath.

The warehouse had two entrances, both were open. He could hear movement from both.

***

"Look, kid," Bart had said as he cleaned Pietro's face with a damp cloth. "There's nothing wrong with getting a beating every now and then. It builds character and you learn a lot about yourself."

A swollen lip, a half-closed eye, the occasional stab as he took a breath. Pietro wondered what exactly the lesson here had been.

"How many were there?"

"Four," Pietro said, unable to unsee the faces that cursed him and spat on him through the beating.

"You don't say," Bart said. "Do you know them?"

"They've pushed me around a few times."

"And you didn't tell me."

"I wanted to but..."

"But you wanted to handle it yourself?"

"Yes."

"I understand. Well, do they just not like you or did you give them some other reason?"

"I'm a foreigner. An Italian and a Slav."

"A _dirty_ Slav?"

"Yes. And I live with a witch."

Bart's face darkened for a moment and his jaw clenched. "Alright," he said in a measured voice. "Alright."

"It's just a shame," he added with a smile, but it was a forced smile, "that you didn't get any scars, girls love them." He tapped Pietro's back and grinned. "But there's still time."

Then he got up, approached the door and turned to Pietro. "Well, are you coming?"

"Where to?" Pietro did not want to go anywhere, especially somewhere Isabel might see him in this state.

"Outside, into the garden. You strike the iron while it's hot and those bastards warmed you up real nice."

Pietro wanted to say no but Bart's posture sent a clear message, we are doing this and we are doing it _now_. He walked alongside Bart down the hallway, with Bart's hand on his shoulder as the man said: "So, first off, never use your fists if there's something else available, especially if the fuckers come at you in a pack. Fair fight is only one on one and even that is a matter for discussion..."

***

Soft footsteps from both sides of the warehouse. A stack of crates in the middle of it blocked both groups from seeing each other so Pietro felt as if he was in a comedy movie scene.

Three Jerries, four Yellows and there was Pietro, huddled in the dark behind the post; hiding like a rat.

He searched with his eyes for something, anything, a chance. His fingers felt a board on the floor, a piece of a broken pallet and just the act of picking it up gave him a measure of peace.

_It's not seven of them_ , he heard Bart's voice in his head, _but three on one and four on the other side and they all want to fuck the other guys over in order to get to you._

Seconds passed and no matter how quiet the Jerries or Yellows were, one group would soon notice the other. Yellows had guns and knives, Jerries had two rifles and a machine gun.

He stepped out of the dark, enough so the Jerries would notice him. His appearance took them by surprise but then they gave chase.

The Yellows heard footsteps and counted on their prey running straight into their hands and so, when Pietro ran out from behind the crates, all four of them grinned and then their eyes went wide as they saw the pursuing Jerries. Pietro used their moment of confusion and the fact they wanted him alive to fight his way through them, swinging wildly with the board and hitting one of the Yellows on the shoulder while ploughing his own shoulder into the other Yellow.

He ran, two steps, five, seven while behind him voices shouted in German and Croatian and then he heard what he'd hoped for: the machine gun. Luckily he was near the exit when bullets started flying past him, those few that hadn't hit the Yellows. Pietro ran into the cold night and rain.

***

Pietro had been lying to them for days now. Yes, the nightmares and the unpleasant dreams had stopped that very night when he took the _camera obscura_ in his hands, removing it from the Moroccan man's hiding place. This he told to Bart and Isabel. But he'd also claimed it had been the only change since he'd come into possession of the carved box, that he did not feel anything else and that nothing else had happened.

The dreams had not stopped, they had just changed; the box was still their centre, the axis upon which the images, sounds and sensations spun.

_Birds flying becoming leaves on the wind raised by a whirlwind into the sky becoming a sea through which a school of fish speeded that turned into bullets breaking the aquarium glass that water poured from and slammed_ _into_ _and broke the dam..._

_A den_ _se forest of interwoven branches that are actually bars of a cage and the tiger is a lion is a rhinoceros slamming itself against the bars and breaking them..._

_Someone that could very well be his father and someone that could very well be his mother, embracing each other, happy, locked in a room, the doors and windows cracking, they are running happy hand in hand, their faces fade away but they're still holding_ _hands, running_ _, running..._

The _camera_ wanted freedom.

***

He ran but the pain forced him to stop, he staggered and gulped air. He'd never make it somebody would catch up to him – an automobile. There had been two in front of the building, yes, riddled with bullets by now but they just might start. He moved towards them, every step was painful but there was no other way to survive, to return to Ana... He'll get the box and – and what? The _camera_ sent him dreams for years and for years he acted as if he didn't understand them. The dreams would sometimes become unpleasant but it seemed his mind had adapted to the _camera_ , that the dreams did not bother him as before. Had he become resilient or had the _camera_ weakened he couldn't tell but he would often dream of escape and freedom, broken cages and cracked dams. This night he could finally relate: all he wanted to do was escape.

He rounded a corner and saw automobiles and corpses, both Jerry and Yellow. Somewhere guns were still being fired. He sat in the first automobile, tried to start it, the engine coughed but that was it.

And then something exploded and fire burst from the building. In disbelief he stared at the burning building, its walls and roof collapsing. Did the Yellows have a stash of explosives? He could smell petrol and gunpowder; he forced himself to run to the other automobile. He saw three figures jump out of a window, one fell to the ground screaming, wreathed in fire, begging for help from the other two who had stopped for a moment, regarded it, unsure what to do. Both Yellows now raised their eyes straight at Pietro. The younger one, much younger than Pietro, had a shaved head while the other one had an ugly scar across his face. Pietro had just now become aware of how helpless they were. And then they ran in the other direction, into the dark and rain, leaving behind both the burning building and the burning body.

Somebody coughed and Pietro felt something sharp and hot hit him on the head, dropping him to his knees. Blondie. His face was spattered with blood, his uniform was torn, and his eyes were colder than the rain that soaked them both.

" _Herr_ Chiesa," Blondie said through gritted teeth. Then he collapsed to the ground with a bayonet buried deep in his back. In front of Pietro now stood the woman, raining blows on him.

_Kid, this is what it comes down to and fuck all that nonsense about a brave heart and clean head, tactics and strategy. The basic, the most fundamental thing that all others mean shit without is this: how bad do you want to live? Have a reason to live and it doesn't matter if you haven't even got a dick to swing at them and they have a machine gun,_ Bart was saying somewhere.

Whoever possesses the _camera obscura_ will not have a happy ending. He knew this for a long time but had postponed worrying about it.

_Hair barely tamed, yearning to give itself to the wind but bound by clamps, her hand holding his forearm and occasionally squeezing, for him this was a sign of affection greater than a hundred words she'd whisper to him at nights, the first, clumsy kiss full of tension and expectation and then a kaleidoscope of kisses to follow, soft and passionate, her skin under his fingers, her hair on his cheek, the lasting flame that was there when he'd close his eyes at night and open them in the morning and would be him the entire day, burning brighter every time he saw her..._

Ana was the reason. The only true reason.

He grabbed her forearms and dug his fingers into them, regretting that as a man it was not proper having long fingernails because he would so gladly tear her flesh with them but this would have to do. She screamed as he started not only squeezing but also pulling, as if to strip the flesh from her arms. And then a punch straight to the nose. He could hear her cartilage crack. She screamed again and this time she reached for her belt. She pulled something from it. Pietro felt a sharp pain.

She held the dagger and it seemed ancient. Pietro was bleeding from the hip. The wound was superficial but it stung so much he was afraid the weapon was poisoned. She came at him again and Pietro let Bart's training and his own survival instincts guide him.

Knees kicking and fists punching and fighting over the dagger and then silence pierced only by her short and sudden sigh.

"No, no, no..." she said quietly as she fell to the ground, pulling the dagger from Pietro's hand. Blood spurted over her chest, dark red and yellow.

***

The return to Rijeka had not been hard on him and this had surprised him. Had it been because of the childhood he'd spent here and the pleasant memories or had it been because he was almost a continent away from Isabel?

He quickly found room and board and also a job because it seemed some people still had fond memories of his family.

Isabel never contacted him again.

***

The second automobile started. Pietro drove slow and insecure but would not stop. If he was fast maybe he would make it, he had to find Janko, he would need papers, he would need Janko's wife, she was a nurse and then, then...

***

The message had been written in a quick, unsteady hand, a hand that obviously struggled to follow the instructions of the writer's mind. The paper had been torn from some dusty notebook and there were tear stains on it, perhaps even a few drops of dried blood.

_Ana,_

_I must leave_ _Rijeka_ _. I can't tell you why and I can't tell you where I'm going but I'll return, I promise I will, just and only for you. I've realized nothing in my life matters except you. Melodramatic, I know, but it's the truth._

I'll try to write to you as much as I can. I hope the letters will reach you and this war will soon end without harming us further.

I know it's unfair to ask so much of you but please, wait for me. I'll return.

Yours and yours alone,

P.

# 6.

Drip, drip went the rain, from the cypress down to the two black umbrellas and on to the two pairs of black shoes. One was a pair of fine lady's shoes, made to be delivered by taxi to the entrance of a London art gallery where they would walk among works of art, stop in front of a Francis Bacon painting or perhaps one by that American, Jackson Pollock and ponder its dynamics and form. Pollock's drops of colour were now replaced by drops of mud and Bacon's terrifying heads by a painful graveyard visit. The other pair was men's shoes of cheap design, that had long ago given up on keeping their shape and their many scuffs had been ineptly masked by black paste. They had been intended for worker's mess halls and public gatherings where male and female comrades would sing songs about the working class. Petar Crekvina didn't believe in showing off by buying new shoes as long as there was still a sliver of life in the old ones.

Isabel smelled of imperialism, capitalism and expensive cosmetics and there was a fox fur draped around her neck. There was scorn in her voice: "I cannot believe this is your first time at her grave."

"I didn't know she died." His English was still excellent even though time had eaten away at his accent a little.

"I cannot believe you did not know she'd died. It's been four years."

"Look, no one notified me. We are not officially related."

"Pietro, she is your mother!"

"Mother...she's too many things to me. I don't think I've thought of her as mother for a long time."

"Still. You could have expressed interest. If I had not asked..."

"If you had not come here, I wouldn't have tried to find her. I'm certain of it. Look, I didn't want to think about her. Nobody wants such a past."

"It is so sad, all of it."

"Did I tell you where she died?"

"Yes, in some tuberculosis hospital. At least it was not an insane asylum."

"Lopača. The hospital is in Lopača, Ossoinack's former estate. She died on the same estate where she'd given birth to...my father."

"Terrible."

"Which part of it? That she died or that my father was born?"

She did not answer him, only pulled her coat tighter and blew a tiny cloud of steam: "Alright, Pietro...perhaps we should leave."

They walked among the gravestones towards the exit; she was looking out for puddles, he was looking over his shoulder. His nervousness made the silence even more uncomfortable so she asked: "Are they watching you?"

He was silent. His cheeks quivered, preventing wrong words from coming out. He swallowed and said in a low voice: "No. Pietro Chiesa left Fiume towards the end of the war, Petar Crekvina moved to Rijeka after the war. They haven't put two and two together. Those that knew me had left. After all, I've helped people, procured falsified documents...and there were some communists in hiding that I'd helped. That must count for something, somewhere."

He did not stop looking around even though now he was less conspicuous about it, as if being both afraid of being pursued and of that fact being known.

"Do you think...but what could the government have against you, even if they knew who you are? As you've said, you helped them..."

"Yes, I have but...I don't know if it was enough. Italian surname, my father served with d'Annunzio, I worked at city hall during the German occupation...but worst of all I think is the fact that we are an old family. And this is now a new city, there's no place here for those that remind people of old things."

They walked among scents of melted wax and rotten flowers, this woman of rotten capitalism and this man of a world as shifting and malleable as wax. Isabel watched the graves as she passed by them. The old ones, magnificent little temples of patrician families and rich people but also the new ones, shaped like slabs. Practical. There were stars upon the new graves, a constellation in the making. Lights in the night, symbols of victory over the dark. She spoke then, also softly, so as not to be heard by the bones of buried soldiers: "You sound as if you're not fond of this people's government."

"Look... Nazis and fascists were bastards. What they did...I have to hand it to the partisans, someone had to put an end to it. That is why I'd helped them with the documents. You know the Germans arrested me too. I had some problems with them, almost died...but it wasn't they who bombed my house but the Allies. The good guys. And not just my house, many houses were destroyed in the bombing. And when they left, when the people's government came to power, people were hungry like they'd never been during the war..."

"Maybe not all think that way. You still voted for the communists and Yugoslavia, Rijeka held elections..."

The cypresses faded into the greyness of the sky. Some woman was trying to chase away a large white dog that had wandered into the graveyard. Pietro or Petar took a few shallow breaths, as if he could not expand his lungs: "Yes...the elections. Some elections. All candidates were theirs. I'd love to have seen them go against Zanella...but they wouldn't let us have him. And ninety five percent. If all that was necessary was to come and sign your name at least five percent of people would do even that wrong. And here, in a city that was half Italian, ninety five percent of people vote to join Yugoslavia?"

It was her time to turn around and see if anyone was listening and then touch her glove to her lips as if to hide a smile: "Now I understand why you're worried they are following you. You worry too much about politics."

"I don't care about politics...this simply isn't my city anymore," he stopped and looked at her face, seeking confirmation of understanding in her wrinkles and mascara. "I don't know anyone here anymore. Sometimes it feels they've all left...all the people I used to know. They've closed shops, coffeehouses...some were accused of profiteering, tried, their assets seized...others wouldn't accept new politics or had been threatened...and so they left. And yes, some had been fascists...it was the ruling party...anyone who wanted a job in government service had to be a party member. Even I joined so I could get a job...they'd ran away in fear for their lives." He waved in the general direction of Trieste, Zone A. His shoulders sagged and he appeared smaller. Isabel realized how old they'd both become and he turned and moved on, walking slowly and speaking softly: "I do not know how many Fiumanos left but sometimes it feels as if all the people here are...the word is _prišlići_ , newcomers...they come from god knows what village, just yesterday they'd slept in a hut, on the floor and now they're in some citizen's apartment...they can't even speak Italian. There used to be a time you couldn't find a local man who couldn't speak Italian."

"Now you sound like a proper fascist."

"Don't...it's not like that, I didn't mean...I wanted to say that it was our language. It's what was spoken here, long ago. But no more. And the city has grown so much. I don't recognize it anymore. They should have renamed it and be done with it."

Isabel felt the need to console him: "It cannot be bad that the city is growing. The newcomers must find it agreeable."

"Of course they do, to them Rijeka is as if they'd arrived in America. But they don't know any better, they don't know what this city used to be. And those that do know have either already left or are preparing to. They're breaking Italian signs now, tearing them down from the storefronts and shop windows. Less than a month ago there were some gatherings, something about Trieste...they went down the street, destroying everything Italian. Some idiots even broke into factories and damaged the machines just because they were of Italian make. People are afraid and so they leave, what else is there to do. My wife's cousin has a six year old son; he played in his room and broke the lamp. Then he snuck out to the courtyard, took a stone and planted it in his room, claimed the Croats threw the stone from the road and broke the lamp. A six year old child and already his head is full of such nonsense. Of course they're leaving, who would raise children here? Only those who come from greater misery."

They walked past the church of Saint Romuald and All Saints, a temple raised in honour of fallen Italian soldiers and legionnaires and then headed for the Kalvaria steps, passing by the remains of the Antic wall that was supposed to have protected the Roman empire from barbarian onslaught. Ruins were all that remained. The stairs led them to the Kucich corner building and the prison that was still called Via Roma even though the street itself had changed its name. But what do the prisoners care, to them all the countries and regimes are the same.

She grabbed his sleeve and looked him in the eye: "Will you come to London with me?"

Images flashed through his mind: the old house, his room, the doors creaking open in the night and the soft sounds of Isabel approaching his bed. He waved it away: "I can't. Because of Ana and Gordan."

"Perhaps it would do them good to come too?"

"Don't worry, we'll manage. Thank you. It's not that bad for us, you know. We're not hungry, we have a home...there's work now. I'll work on a ship. Nobody is threatening us."

She let him go. Her own hand seemed to her uncomfortably empty so she put it in a pocket. "Do you still...have it?"

He moved away and frowned: "The _c_ _amera obscura_?"

"Yes."

He looked around and then nodded confirmation. Isabel tried coming closer to him but he stepped back, as if he was about to run away. She did not waver: "Sell it to me," she said, her voice two tones deeper than usual. "You could use the money."

"No," he threatened her with a shaky finger. "No, no, no! Out of the question. Is that why you've come? For the _camera_?"

"I can give you a great sum of money and..."

"No! Look, I will not..."

"But what use do you..."

"I won't sell it!"

"...don't be..."

"Isabel, I don't want to..."

"...dumb!"

"...talk about it!"

"Mother sent me for it!"

He fell silent, the rain washed anger from his face. "Beatrix?"

"Yes. She's ill. She believes the box to be magical and that it could save her."

"I'm sorry..."

"...but still you will not help. I see. You are so sorry."

He shook his head and the head kept twitching as if he'd never stopped shaking it: "I can't. It...calls to me. We talk..."

"Beatrix called you? She never mentioned..."

"No, no...not Beatrix...the _camera_..." he was still shaking his head.

"The wooden box calls to you?"

The movements of his head transferred to this torso, his entire body swayed: "You don't understand...it's not... look, it's different. They're inside...all of them... I can't send it to England because, what if he comes back and I don't have the _camera_? How then, would I chase him away? And he will return one day..."

"What are you talking about, Chiesa? Are you mad?"

"Do not speak that surname! You provoke him! Look, we're at the crossroads! There's the church, under our feet is the buried well...holy places! Be quiet! And if you are not, I won't hear the bells if the other one is approaching! And he's no better, there's not just black and white, there just isn't!"

His umbrella no longer covered his head, he pointlessly waved his arm and his eyes scanned his surroundings with increased alarm. Isabel finally understood: he wasn't looking around in fear of government or secret agents. His soul had been haunted by something else, something that did not care for borders or politics.

Isabel could not bear more madmen, no matter how much her mother wanted to believe in magical healing. She would have to try something else, water from Lourdes, Tibetan singing bowls or that orgon accumulator, currently so popular among her strange friends.

She left him an envelope with a thousand pounds inside, a gift he did not deserve and then she sought a ship and headed back to England.

# 7.

Gordan Crekvina did not at first notice anything was wrong. Zoran had left for school, mom was out shopping and he worked afternoons and so he stayed in his room preparing that day's lessons for completely disinterested pupils, about the seven enemy offensives and the seven secretaries of Yugoslavia's League of Communist Youth. _Might as well talk about The Magnificent Seven or the seven dwarves. You see, kids, the dwarves represent our workers' collective, where a young female comrade arrives. She is a LCY member, name of Snow, alias Snow White and she is being pursued by foreign occupation forces and domestic traitors. Only that prince of hers doesn't fit, that'd never get past the censors. We'll put some working class hero in his place, say a miner._ He did his best to ignore the noise his father was making in the living room. He was doing something to the top of the shelves there, he'd even dragged in the large wooden ladder as if he was about to paint the ceiling while he was, in fact, looking for old documents and photos that had been just there and he cant find them now, someone must have moved them, why do people always go through his stuff, there's no order in this house and so on and so forth. The old man had busied himself with his _camera obscura_ the last few days and when he was like that he was always a little crazy. And he was like that often lately. Gordan couldn't wait for Maria and him to get married and find an apartment and finally leave this madhouse.

Mom returned from the shop, he could hear her heavy breathing as if she'd been running back, talking to herself "oh dear, oh dear..." He thought milk must have once again leaked into the bag or something like that. She entered the living room but didn't start yelling right away about the ladders in the middle of it and papers everywhere but just said to dad: "Pero...look...such tragedy...horrible!"

There was the rustle of newspaper.

And then chaos.

Mom shouted crying: "Calm down! Petar, come down!"

He was hitting the furniture, throwing down books, raging like a bear. In three quick steps Gordan was at the living room door, watching his father wave about the special edition of Novi List newspaper. There was a photo of the maternity hospital on the front page, along with a headline that read "24 NEWBORNS DIE." But mom wasn't crying because of Rijeka's great tragedy but because of dad, who was shaking as if being electrocuted and his eyes shone and spit was flying from his mouth as he ranted hysterically: "IT'S HIM!!! HE'S BACK!!! THIS IS HOW HE'S COME BACK!!!"

"Calm down, please! Sit down!"

But he didn't calm down. He was shouting, red in the face. His voice cracked, his face shifted, this was a different man.

Mom grabbed Goran by his T-shirt: "Quick, call the ambulance!"

A few moments later he was on the phone in the hallway, spinning the dial and speaking his family name and address into the green phone handle. Meanwhile mom was wrestling with dad and there was a loud noise when he pushed her out of the room and slammed the door.

"Gordan, he's locked himself in!"

"Dad! Dad, open up!" Gordan slammed his fist on the door. From inside he could hear furniture being moved and a voice talking about a black face and a cursed family.

"Should I break in?" he asked mom.

"I don't know... I don't know... is the ambulance coming?"

"They said they're on their way... dad!"

"Petar! Petar, open up! Oh my son, what are we to do?"

"I have no idea...come on, dad! Open up!"

They decided to break down the door only after the ambulance arrived. The orderly put his shoulder to the job, just like in a movie. The scene behind the door was equally movie-like.

Opposite the door was a large window, the milky white light of a cloudy day streaming through it. Between the door and window, in the middle of the room were the wooden ladders, resembling a giant letter A. Gordan immediately saw in that the logo of Spain's Federal council, from the days of the First International. From the top of the ladders, like a pendulum that was running out of time, hung the body of Petar Crekvina.

Gordan's mother screamed and fell to her knees. The orderlies rushed to pull Petar down, to untie the electric cable and try to resuscitate him.

Gordan remained still and unmoving. His eyes went to the table on his right. There was dad's _camera obscura_ , its glass eye staring at the tragic scene. Its mirror reflected the drama against the empty wall of the room, over the faded floral pattern wallpaper.

And Gordan could clearly see that in the projection his father was not alone.

# 8.

Zoran wouldn't often reach for the bottle outside of his nights out at Kont, Aleksinac or Palach. He'd once got drunk before school, the day dad killed himself. Since he'd spent the rest of that day throwing up, drinking was now firmly reserved only for nights on the town. Curled in a foetal position on his bed, his pants dirty from mud and a book of Grimm's fairytales under his feet, he felt like a Valium would go down really well with a bottle of beer right about now.

"Piece of shit," he said through gritted teeth.

He stared at the dirty plastic it was wrapped in. His mind still echoed with the rain that fell as he carried it form the garden like a treasure chest. He had a persistent feeling it could at any moment give birth to something that would then crawl out of the dark corner of the room where he'd thrown it. He realized he was shaking. He dug his icy fingers into his wet cheeks. Rain, sweat and tears dripped down his neck and his pyjamas were soaked. "Selfish. Piece. Of shit." His breath slid between his fingers. He didn't take eyes off the box.

Of course he'd bury it there. Of course. Why would Gordan ever think of anyone but himself? He stood up and the wound in his left leg stung. With his right he kicked Brothers Grimm and their fairytales under the bed and started pacing the room. He wanted to curse and cry from stress and rage.

The only thing that stood between him and his need to break every piece of furniture in the room were the muffled sniffling and sobbing from the room next door. He didn't have the strength to go and comfort her and mourn with her. Reminiscences about Gordan's greatness, his intelligence and sensitive soul were not something he could stomach at the moment. He buried the damned box next to Muki! There was the entire garden to choose from and he buried it next to Muki! And he sent him there. Intentionally. And he knew he loved that cat.

At least mom had Valium. He didn't even have that.

***

A child's yelp woke him up. The sky was shrieking white and trying to claw his eyes out with fingers of mist. He managed to rise from the bed and pull the curtains. Through his head still skittered the memories of children's feet running, kicking a ball. As he sat on the bed, still in the midst of a hangover, the dream slipped out of his mind's reach. Good, because he knew who he had been dreaming of. He'd had the same dream for several nights now.

He couldn't recall falling asleep. His left leg pulsated to remind him of it and the memory of the last night's expedition was still very much alive in his subconscious.

Even though he wasn't given to early morning existentialist crises, bitterness soon boiled over in his abdomen and spilled through the rest of his body. The box was in the corner, victorious. A piece of tarpaulin peeked from the trash can; wet clothes were strewn across the floor. He probably only had himself to blame. Who else was there? His dead brother? Who had sent him coded instructions with the location of the hidden box through his own wife? Who'd buried the box in the garden, in a garden bed just next to their cat? Who had believed that someone wanted the box so bad they would actually dig through someone's garden to get to it? He only had himself to blame. Gordan was a paranoid schizophrenic set on torturing him even after death.

The paper with the coded message rustled as he crumpled it and threw it away. He felt a dull pain inside as disgust coagulated in his throat. The memories of carefree childhood games and books and of leaving each other coded messages, those memories were now tainted by his brother's madness. He'll get rid of Gordan's optical box later. He won't think about this anymore.

He could hear the TV whisper from the hallway. "The Sound of Music" again. Sounds from the TV or the tape recorder were a good sign lately. Engagement with the media and the smell of coffee and the noise of household appliances were guarantees that his mother had reached a lucid state. As he entered the kitchen and watched her drink her coffee and slouch over the crossword puzzle he caught himself wishing for a dark phase. He hated himself for it but he had a vivid memory of running frantically through the yard last night and leaving in the garden bed not only the shovel but also his right slipper.

She looked at him only once he sat down at the table, slurped the bitter coffee and took a bite of stale bread with cheese.

"We'll have to go to Trieste." She looked at him over the rim of her glasses. "For coffee."

"And cheese and olives. Wine and mortadella salami. Detergent." He thought about new clothes, Chuck Taylors that wouldn't put his toes on display and skinny jeans without any holes. And the K15 he'd buy it all with and maybe even save up for a summer holiday.

"There's mud in the hall," she announced coldly, watching the squares in the top right corner of the crossword puzzle.

"Led Zeppelin."

"Hmmm?"

"The answer is Led Zeppelin."

She misspelled it while Zoran tried to chew the dry sandwich and leave as soon as possible.

"Maybe you should..."

"No. I shouldn't go see a doctor... I shouldn't take pills... I shouldn't be in counselling. I'm not crazy," he repeated automatically.

The Countess only shrugged. Resigned. Zoran pushed himself from the table. She'd always act cold and disinterested while inside she would be stewing. As much as he wanted to explain to her that he wouldn't start singing with the mermaids like his father or how he won't go mad about ideologies like Gordan, he didn't have the strength to understand what was actually going on with him. Explaining to her how he dug out the bones of his brother's madness in their garden wouldn't help the case for his brother's mental health. Sudden incoherent dreams of his brother wandering the tunnels, staring at towers and pushing a ball across the carpet were, as far as he was concerned, caused by stress and sorrow. The fact that he simultaneously hated and gloated over his mother's fixation with his mental state, after she'd done the same to Gordan, was not something he had any intention of explaining to anyone, including himself. For someone in his shoes the only logical course of action was to run away. The planned burning of the objects of his brother's obsession he could perform somewhere else instead of their courtyard, for his mother's sake if not for the neighbours'.

"The Agnelli girl called." He was in the doorway. He froze at the mention of her name. Feeling inexplicable dread, he turned on his heel, half expecting bad news. The police called, grandma called, someone else called... The list of deaths was stopped by the image of Maria's wide and tearful dark eyes.

"She wouldn't tell me anything."

They looked at each other, stuck in a stalemate. Zoran grabbed hold of the doorway as if holding on to reality. Something in his mind tore like an old sheet. He felt as if someone was peeking from somewhere behind him. He recalled a dream. Hazy. His mother almost reached out with her eyes to grab him. That dream. It was his turn to say something. Before she falls over the edge once more.

"I'll...I'll call her immediately," he mumbled. He was suddenly very calm. He knew nothing had happened to those two. He could feel Maria's breath, her heart beating through the veins in her neck.

She retreated, over the rim of her glasses, back beyond the wrinkled skin and heavy eyes. Sometimes he was terrified of his mother's eyes.

He shivered as he dialled the number of Meri Crekvina, nèe Agnelli. White rays of sunlight scattered through the window and over the crossword puzzle, the wooden table and his mother's glasses. It seemed to him he was floating in those rays.

***

She was watching him.

"She keeps asking about him." Lucia was restless in Zoran's lap. She dipped her lollipop in a glass of Cockta and her chubby fingers had covered half the table and the entire check with sticky liquid. "I don't know, I honestly don't know. What am I supposed to say..."

"Papi, papa... da-da," the high pitched voice floated over the table and spread through the air, "DA-DA! PA-PA! PAPI!" Words fell through the air like axes. Her tiny fists slammed against the table, punctuating every word.

" _Ma cosa fai?_ Lucia!" Maria was jittery. She tried to grab at her across the table, calm her down. " _Basta, dai!_ " Meri looked as if she would burst into tears at any moment while Zoran's gut was clenched and aching.

"Everyone is asking about him. At the Circolo, at the kindergarten, _anche_ at the antique shop. _Non posso piu, Madonna Santa, non posso..._ "

The pensioners and the fancy ladies on the Kontinental coffeehouse terrace were watching them. "Meri, come on, what's wrong?" He embraced his niece protectively, watching her heavy eyed mother. He was afraid of what she might say. A whirlwind of memories, thoughts and fog pushed against the membrane of his consciousness. He wanted to hear. He didn't want to be overwhelmed. Almost as if the entire structure of this reality depended upon it.

He felt goose bumps as she spoke. Her every word painted an image he'd seen before. Her apartment had been a mess, papers and bed sheets strewn across the floor. He saw her sniffle, wipe her nose with her forearm, drag Lucia from the apartment and vanish. He saw hands turning things over, fingers searching the papers and under the bed, feeling, prying.

"You didn't call the police?" He tried to collect his thoughts. He knew what had happened. He'd dreamed it.

"I didn't. No. Oh...I don't know anymore."

"Don't bother... No use." He seemed calm and rational. Puzzle pieces aligned themselves in his mind. The police was not one of them. "Stay with your mom. And let it go. We'll deal with it. The only thing the police could do is, well, you know."

"Just come into the apartment and...snoop around. Damn incompetents... _Maledetti_!" She hissed under her breath as despair dripped from her face. She was playing with the ring on her index finger, the one she'd bought at the antique shop she loved to frequent. Once she'd bought an old cigarette case for Zoran there, before he'd both stopped smoking and took it up again. To the same shop she'd sold stuff from her aunt's store, the one that ran from Rijeka to Trieste after the city that had previously been hospitable to her suddenly started destroying her windows and writing horrible graffiti on her walls.

He couldn't make the police a piece of the puzzle. The entire affair was connected with a message, a code and a box in a garden bed. Someone really wanted that tarp-wrapped piece of crap. He'd have to hide it. Gordan had known something.

"He didn't... kill himself. I know he didn't." She watched him sternly. Her eyes were no longer warm, soft and teary. They were sharp. Eyes who knew they were not being told everything but would allow him to do his thing. He loved her pragmatism. Looking at them both he felt a sad and exhausting envy towards his brother. He'd had a loving family, a secure job at a school, a damn Zagreb university diploma, a mother who doted on him and he'd destroyed it all with his ravings about politics, utopias and revolution.

They said goodbye to each other. It was his duty to find out why Gordan's body was found in Mrtvi kanal channel and why his brother had left him an old family artefact that somebody was looking for. No police, no Countess, no Meri.

He didn't want to open that cellar door. Whatever banged on the door was far worse than disturbed childhood personified. If he kept digging then whatever it was that scared him, drove him mad and caused almost painful interest would catch up to him.

As he rushed home he wondered if he had any choice at all.

***

He descended the Trsat steps towards the city centre. He made his way through the crowd slowly being drenched by rain at Kont, waved to King and the rest of the Termite crew, and then left behind the punks, the chemists store, the laughter, and alcohol and anarchist graffiti. They seemed disinterested, like beetles crawling along the kitchen floor. Untouched until a boot stomps on them, usually a policeman's. Don't have ID, get a slap in the face.

He intentionally avoided Korzo and the Mrtvi kanal street. He wanted to forcefully repress the memory of his brother's wet and bloated body soaked in water and blood from the upstream slaughterhouse. He forced himself to think about cigarettes, the songs of a band called Parafi and the melody he was working on. He rushed through the Nikola Host park towards Vladimir Nazor park where he knew she would be waiting for him. Some white stray dog ran after him, the same dog he would occasionally see around Rijeka. His eyes slid over the state archive building where his uncle worked, the building reminding him of his mother and the hysterical accusations she shouted at him as he left the apartment. _You lying little shit_ , the words echoed in his head, punctuated by the slam of a heavy calculator being thrown at the door as he closed them.

What was he supposed to have said? That he believes Gordan was not a victim of violence and police as she claimed, that maybe he wasn't as crazy as everyone thought and that it seems to him that the stupid family heirloom he's currently lugging around in a bag had more to do with his brother's madness than he'd like. He saw her sitting on the bench. She sat under a red umbrella, staring at the lake. He didn't feel much desire to talk to Zrinka. Still, he needed her. And if Gordan had gone so far as to bury that damned box in their yard and someone else had gone so far as to rifle through a widow's belongings then maybe it hadn't been _that_ crazy to hide the box and try figure out what was going on. At least it seemed that was what his brother had wanted.

Zoran knew she wanted him precisely where he was now. In many ways she was still the predictable kid living in a naïve world of romance, music and infatuation with rock musicians from Kont. As he'd expected, after some tears and resentment, emotional blackmail and being reminded of the fact his brother had died (as if that excused him half-drunkenly getting all handsy with other girls) Zrinka's skinny hands finally embraced him, she leaned her head against his leather jacket and rested her legs (in torn stockings) over his. "Wanna go light one up?"

She rolled one up after sex. Zoran's lust was soon replaced by exhaustion. Zrinka's wild, quivering, naked body got lost in the intoxicatingly trivial conversation. The lust with which he'd pinned her against the edge of the bed as he'd penetrated her had weakened, flickered and vanished. It would be so much better if it was permanent. And if it brought along oblivion. He watched her blonde hair, the black fingernail polish and her mouth, red with smeared lipstick. He imagined them then and there, beer and music flowing at Kont, the sun warming them and she driving him crazy with her eyes, body, smile and carefree attitude.

He didn't like coming to her room anymore. Posters with musicians, drummer's sticks, walls covered in lyrics and anarchist symbols, torn clothes and a tap recorder always playing punk music, all this would become a temple to youth that had become confining and that he'd grown out of. Yet sometimes he almost ached for it to return and move him back into existence.

"Are you okay?" Her eyes, rimmed with thick makeup, widened in concern at his silence. He didn't want to talk to her about the brother who'd already been, along with the box, a permanent fixture in his consciousness. _A madman with a box_ _,_ his family's rock ballad.

Floating up from her egocentricity would always lead to him unnecessarily entering his own emotional theatrical stage. The devastation that would ensue there, performed by the members of his psyche's band would be significantly greater than a joint show by Parafs and Termits in the Crystal Hall, sans rabid female fans rushing the stage. He felt the need to light one up and forget it all. He was afraid he might once again start hallucinating his brother in the tunnels, Utopias and boxes.

"What do you have there?" Her eyes went to the bulging bag, ready to give birth to the horror that loomed over his head like a gravestone.

He removed the object from the old, shabby backpack. "A child's coffin." He laughed at the expression on her face. An image of someone else, screaming slashed through his mind.

He told her about the _camera obscura_. About the family heirloom, the object being kept as a memento of the family. He skipped over those details he'd always considered nonsense. Dead children, coffins, magic and other stories, all of which now seemed creepy and terrifyingly true. He didn't mention cholera, Gypsy witches cursing some long dead members of his family, murders of freak children and the downfall of a Hungarian noble family whose blood flowed through his veins. In his research Gordan had discovered many things. Also, every tale about the aunt who sailed to the edge of the world carrying her dead child in the very same object he was now being tortured by seemed crazier than the last one. He'd love not having to believe any of it. He was glad he hadn't personally read Julia Chiesa's diary. Another family madwoman.

"Your old man was a sailor?" She was intrigued. "Mine used to say the sailors always visited the La Grotta whorehouse."

Zoran was amused by the way she was interested in his story. His father Petar was a sailor, his brother a teacher, his mother a woman of many aristocratic manners, clearly visible in her eyes and posture. Something inexplicable had reduced them all to incoherent mumbling, bloodshot eyes, hysterics and dealing with situations outside the constraints of everyday logic. His family was broken and destroyed. Still, he recalled his father's smile with pride, as well as his mother's fortitude and his brother's unimaginable goofiness. If thoughts of whoring ever even crossed his father's mind the Countess would have lobotomized him with just a glance. Only once did she shout, when Gordan had made a scene because dad was leaving on a ship and so he pushed the _camera_ to the floor and caused a storm. Later they'd concluded that it was the way his semi-autistic brother showed his sadness at his dad leaving to make money. Zoran was now much more aware of the real cause of his brother's tears.

"And why did you bring the coffin to me?"

If he'd told her it was because he'd decided it would be safest here, that he'd seen hands in yellow raincoats searching Meri's apartment, and that he believes the box was influencing him and his dreams she'd probably think he was already properly high.

"It bothers mom. It reminds her of..." She let out a silent _oh_ and interrupted him.

"It's a deal... of course. I understand."

They sat in silence and she was all gentleness and understanding while Zoran was tense and restless, his eyes pinned to the horror that had destroyed his family. He wanted to be rid of it, burn it in the yard or throw it from the pier and sink it. Knowing he couldn't, if he wanted to find out what had happened to Gordan the night he didn't come back home ate at him like a stone lion from the Trsat fort come to life.

He closed his eyes and sank into a haze of numbness and exhaustion. A strange woman was crying, her face tattooed with lines. His brother was sneaking through tunnels. A yellow cloak flickered on a wall beside a flaming torch. His father sat on a ship's deck mumbling something to himself. Gordan spilled a cup of tea when the wall with grandma's needlepoint on it suddenly began transforming into orange sky.

She was writing in her diary. The tape recorder played music from the tapes sent to him by some distant cousin from London.

He thought about the tunnels and strange hoods and his brother falling through cracks in space-time.

***

For the first time since he could remember, Zoran had no appetite for _birdies_. Meri was picking disinterestedly at the fried chicken while his mother struggled to explain to Lucia that it wasn't a Korzo pigeon filled with pickles and eggs.

All the work they put into these attempts at a carefree lunch slowly turned to despair. After trying to get Zoran to finish college and become a gentleman and a doctor the conversation turned to lighter matters. His mother went on a tirade against current politics, it obviously being the reason for Gordan losing his mind.

Zoran did his best to think about Zrinka's warm, playful breasts, perfectly snug in the palm of his hand but he was being increasingly overcome with images of Gordan and his insanity.

"Do you remember what happened to the Vizin kid? They threw the poor boy from a window."

" _Cara_ , calm yourself." Maria took his mother's hand in concern. The poor woman was rubbing at a piece of family jewellery that hung around her neck.

"It's pretty. _Bello_ _Morro..._ "

"For luck."

"It's worked so far," he added cynically. He could never understand how a piece of gold with an exquisitely ugly black face and a turban could bring anyone luck. Especially to a person who'd lost half her family in inexplicable ways. His mother was now watching him carefully, her hand protecting the pendant. It seemed to him those eyes were looking at him through his mother's thin fingers, malevolent and monstrous and powerful eyes.

He was suddenly flooded with panic and a desire to hold his brother's box and it paralyzed him as the face regarded him. The twisted, rotten face stretched in a vicious grin. The horror movie mask contorted its muscles and reached for him. Every atom of that thing wanted the _camera obscura_. Sharp pain seared through his head. The face exploded into nothingness. Zrinka was sitting near the _camera_ , writing in her diary. Hands in yellow dug through the papers, bit the silence, spilled the coffee, and caught themselves on the sharp edge of the drawer, cursed in the shadows. The folded drapes rustled in the wind behind Zrinka's back. A shadow detached itself from the blood red curtains like a scab. To bite the body, to crush it, to take it.

He wasn't aware of the moment he'd snapped out of it. Meri was pushing a small glass of cognac at him with a trembling hand.

"Not her apartment," he mumbled, half aware of his surroundings.

Instead of a shadow the only thing falling on Zrinka's back was the sunlight through the window, tired from the rain. The cramp had become a series of tingles. His head hurt as if it had been split in two. The Countess watched him from across the table. Her mouth was a line of anger. Her eyes saucers of concern. What was that horrible face? What was going on? Questions banged at his brain as he fought the vertigo.

" _Prendi, dai._ "

His throat burned and his body was recovering from shock and pain. Meri was holding her daughter, sitting calmly in her chair.

"I'll make us some _kafe_ ," she mumbled softly, breaking the silence charged with suspicious looks.

Zoran stumbled up from the table as if he was a freshly birthed calf. His ears rang. "I just...I just wanted to..." his mother was saying, "To get them for him too. For Gordan. To get signatures for him."

Something inside Zoran broke. He didn't have the courage to tell her that Gordan wasn't thrown out of life's window by the aggressive policemen who didn't like him the same way they hadn't liked Nenad Vižin, whom they'd thrown from a window of the Kontinental hotel. There would be no rockers or compassionate young rebels protesting his brother's death. Gordan was killed by something far worse than a fascists police force.

He held her by the shoulder.

He exited the dining room.

He had to call Zrinka.

That night Zoran took Meri to the Trsat fort. This time there were no jokes, no conversation and no smiles. Zoran's thoughts were with the papers, spilled coffee and Zrinka's back. The box was safe. But why had that apartment seemed familiar to him?

Rijeka frowned at him through the moist air. They walked the fort breathing in the scents of times long gone. Zoran watched the port that spread in front of him, the sea that reminded him of his father and his grin, the bright slit in his face that had over the course of years become more and more hollow and empty and mad. They returned to his Citroen Spacek, parked in front of the house. Today was the day that even car registration numbers were allowed to drive so Luci and Meri were delivered to Meri's mother's apartment without any problems.

She had wordlessly given him a sign she would wait.

***

He held her as she wept. Through wet window panes he observed the Governor's palace shrouded in greyness, confused and angry. The rain outside was louder than Zrinka's crying as he felt goose bumps and tingles. His eyes tracked the _camera obscura_ on a desk in the corner. A black bug wiggled under the old wood. While she, beside herself and desperate, told hi about her parent's plans of dragging her to Germany, he and the menacing box engaged in a parallel dialogue. In front of his eyes flashed images, fantastical and supernatural, thundering through him like drumbeats. The glass that looked at the apocalyptic storm outside had become like a canvas from another dimension. He held onto Zrinka's body as if she were an anchor to this reality. The thought of her leaving left him with an unexpectedly bitter feeling of ominous emptiness. Maybe he should leave too.

***

He jumped out of a bush and into the street. "What the fuck are you shouting for?"

"They broke into my apartment! My apartment! Our apartment! You heard me...while I..."

"Why the fuck are you shouting...the whole street will hear you! Idiot." Zoran looked down the street that glittered like a worm. The rain had chased away prying eyes. Only his mother's bone white face peered through the curtains.

"You have to burn it. All of it"

Wood crackled in his mind.

"What are you talking about?" The _camera_ was still at Zrinka's. Safe.

"The Manuscript, the texts. Everything." The image of the burning _camera_ flickered and faded away. The cramp was gone. He knew the man before him. It was one of Gordan's anarchists.

"What of the Manuscript?" He wiped the rain from his eyelids, tired and nervous.

"The police came into our apartment..." his said through gritted teeth.

Spilled coffee and dry fingers, the drawer and the curse. And yellow cloaks. Now he understood whose apartment he saw in the vision. The apartment where they would gather, write and think up pamphlets, plan provocations and imagine they were actually making a difference.

"Burn it all. So the police won't find it."

"They weren't looking for your dumb texts. Nobody cares about that anymore..."

"Don't be a stupid brat, burn the book." Before he knew, the man's fist moved for Zoran's neck and pinned him against the stone fence.

For a man who had avoided confrontation and whose appearance and musical tastes had earned him with an assortment of slaps Zoran reacted with considerable cool. He calmly lowered the crazed man's hand from his throat. "I'll do it. But tell me this. If they've been to your apartment, what does Gordan's text have to do with me?"

In his mind's eyes he was already in the apartment he'd never been to but which he was familiar with. His thoughts ran through the rooms like mice. His saw the various moments Gordan had spent with this man, with all those people in that apartment. He leaned against the wet wall, half dazed. How many other people's memories roosted in his head through all the years. How terrifying and monstrous was the power of his brother's _camera obscura_. He can't lose it! He must take it from Zrinka. What if it's not safe there? He searched her room and saw it on the desk. Dominating the room.

"Can you hear me?" His face was in front of his nose. The urge to bury his fist into the moist skin that danced in from of his face trembled inside him like the ground in an earthquake. Terrified by the avalanche of rage that took hold of him, he tried to pull the strings and connect the pieces of that which had once been a civilised and calm Zoran.

"They also came to the widow's door."

"If they came to her, they'll come to you and yours too. You better protect yourselves."

He wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.

He dug out the manuscript from a chest in his mother's room. She followed him around with eyes bloodshot with tears. He knew she was fighting the urge to jump at him, to claw at him and take it from him, to hold the book given birth by her son's autistic mind, to curl up alongside that word salad and cry.

"It's not the police, mom." She had the right to know. "Just madmen. Just madmen who won't leave us alone."

She looked at him with suspicion and sorrow, as if she still did not understand how these things could happen to her.

He patiently waited for him, in the dewy mist coloured silver by the streetlights. Zoran approached him with a lighter and the book.

"I'll do this. And then you'll leave."

Zoran had no desire to explain to him just how pointless this was. How nobody cared anymore about Gordan's writings, how a single book burned in the author's family's yard wouldn't mean a thing. He let the flames turn the paper into cinders on the ground, sighing from pointlessness.

Destroying the text to which his brother had sacrificed his sanity and family had a certain touch of ceremony to it. Zoran would have loved to add the box to the flames and let them devour it.

"He made me promise nothing would happen to you," he mumbled staring at Zoran, almost as if accusing him of something. "They've already been to the tunnels your brother haunted. They've searched everything."

Finally he saw them. Searching by torchlight.

"You all went into the tunnels," he said with disgust.

The man looked at him with honest shock. "Just Gordan. And just the Italian section. Near _Liceo_. We'd only go into the tunnels if there was a crisis."

Why then was Zoran forced to burn the book in his own yard if this was not a crisis?

"My brother. He was at the apartment before he... Before he died?" He had to force the question from his lips. He hadn't been at Meri's. He was never there.

In the end Zoran let the man go. He stood there for a while, staring at the empty road and the ominous graveyard across the street. Helpless, he twitched when his mother appeared beside him, like a ghost in her white nightgown, and grabbed his arm.

Even though she couldn't know what crossword puzzle he was trying to solve her eyes gave him a consoling look from behind bags that resembled coffee residue.

Where was Gordan before he died in the channel? Obviously not with his anarchist group.

It seemed to him the tunnels with the attackers in yellow were his brother's last location.

Why, in the name of god? And what for?

***

He couldn't call Zrinka. It was too late.

Still, he could reach her. He only had to reach just a little beyond the borders of this reality and he could see her. The box showed him what he could have been doing years ago.

He reached for her. He whooshed past the carpet in her room, a wind made of consciousness, climbed on the table and condensed beside the _camera obscura_. Zrinka wasn't present in this room. In his mind he caught the image of her dark eyes, eyebrows and the taste of her lipstick. A silken and painful cut in space-time ejected him somewhere crowded and noisy. It took him only a second to realize he was inside Palach night club, that noisy, smoky and cosy room. She laughed loudly, the air tasted of bitter beer and sweet tobacco. The pain cut deeper.

A drop of sweat slid down his hot neck and returned him to the dim light of his room. The pulsating pain in his head and the sick feeling in his stomach reminded him of the type of fire he was playing with.

He walked into the kitchen arguing with himself. Should he be using this? What if Gordan had done the same? What if that is why he'd died? What if he could see why he'd died?

He sat on the chair, holding a cup of cold milk. He couldn't remember pouring the milk or spreading Eurokrem on a piece of bread.

What were those men in yellow looking for? Was it some cult? What if he reached out for them? Who was hiding behind that ugly face on his mother's pendant?

He had to dig his fingers into the table to suppress the urge to dive after them. What if he drowned? Oh god, what if Gordan had drowned diving like this?

He couldn't' eat.

He got to the bathroom just in time for the wave of sickness to overcome him.

He concentrated on Meri. Her smart face and sweet scent of her skin. She was hugging her child and singing softly and absentmindedly. Her words were like kisses but he felt as if in a whirlpool of restlessness. He tore himself away from her and sat on the toiled, tired and desperate.

After spending what seemed like hours there, surrounded by moist ceramic tiles and the sound of dripping water he stumbled out of the bathroom and into the hallway. The house was empty. He could crawl along its insides, buzzed from insomnia and tension and try his hardest not to see the ghosts of past or some other present.

On the other hand, he needed to understand.

Hands in yellow, scruffy sleeves rifled through papers and closets. Voices hissed unintelligibly. Fingers caught on objects, penetrated. He felt them yearn for the _camera obscura_ , so much that his skin crawled. He recognized the dress Meri wore when she went out with him on a walk and Gordan's shoes. He saw them in the apartment where the anarchists would meet, digging through the beer cans and cigarette butts, throwing texts aside. He saw them crawl into a tunnel. They slithered down the stone entrance and vanished into the dark. He wanted to follow but the damp darkness that smelled of moss repelled him. He was sweaty and his breathing was shallow. He plucked himself from the darkness. His gaze flickered to the blue-grey sock and the contorted legs he'd recognized as his own. He greedily swallowed air and chased away the black snowflakes that gathered in front of his eyes.

He knew Gordan had entered the tunnels and left the texts and pamphlets inside. He saw him pass between damp walls aided by torchlight. He felt his fear in his own bones every time the light would fall on a dirty yellow hood hanging on the wall. The fear and panic that had filled Gordan now thundered through his body as well.

He called up his brother's green eyes in his mind. He felt a cold hand grab him as mother fell apart in incoherent screams after their father had killed himself. Confused looks at Zoran's torn jeans and the beer bottle in his hands at Kontinental. The spark of happiness in his eyes when Meri gave birth. The fire of delight in those moments when he would explain Utopia to them at lunch. The folds of worry around his mouth when he would talk to Meri. He paused on the moment when his wife left him, tired, wearing that veil of disappointment she always wore when Gordan would leave her to put the baby to sleep alone. His hand shook around the teacup, his lips moved in a furious whisper. Fear tied his gut in sailor's knots and he could barely draw breath. Gordan grabbed his denim jacket, the one they'd found him in and peeked into the room where Meri sat by the small bed. Her lips were tightly pressed together, her forehead frowned, and the words Gordan's voice trembled with were drowned by the hiss inside Zoran's head. He grabbed the _camera obscura_ and left.

Zoran couldn't breathe. He was witnessing his brother's last moments. His heart beat painfully, echoing in his mind. His stomach pushed itself in his throat as tears mixed with sweat.

His entire body wanted to reject the vision that Zoran was trying to force. Gordan walked furiously, his pants caked with mud, his hair and jacket wet, dirt under his fingernails. He walked like a dead man, looking at the wet asphalt of Korzo promenade. A fever shook Zoran as electricity crackled about Gordan's head. His brother seemed untouchable while Zoran watched in terror as lightning tore the sky, buildings were ripped apart by chasms and reality fell apart all around him. The _camera_ was already buried. His brother had walked to his own death.

His body strained to stop the vision while his consciousness painfully persisted. Everything cracked and tore with agonizing noise. Gordan ripped reality apart, letting the orange sky and slim white towers hover over Rijeka. Under the large city clock reality was tearing like a picture on the wall. Rijeka was being peeled into meaningless strips as Gordan's Utopia flashed into existence.

He crawled into the tunnel next to _Liceo,_ the Italian high school.

He rushed after his consciousness, pressed himself against it. He had to see. The thundering deafened him, the light gnawed at his eyes as an axe of pain severed the link.

For a moment he blinked in confusion as his room slowly took shape around him. His head felt like a piece of molten iron while his stomach poured bile and pieces of bread onto the carpet.

The blue-grey socks spun on the floor and he was suddenly facing the ceiling. A part of his consciousness was aware he'd fallen into his own vomit.

***

"You didn't tell me everything." He was at Circolo, where Meri worked as a secretary.

Four times that night he'd tried seeing Gordan's death in his mind. It was fruitless. He glanced through the manuscripts and essays. His brother was familiar with the underground tunnels near Saint Vid church and the _Liceo_. Zoran saw him enter that tunnel.

"Why did Gordan leave the apartment with the _camera obscura_ that night, Meri? What happened?!"

Her lip quivered as she swallowed the tears.

"Because he was crazy. _Pazzo_." Anger was taking hold in her, which had hurt him at that moment. That and the callous ease with which she stressed his insanity.

He retreated, crestfallen and sad. "The antiques store, Maria. You told him they'd been asking for it." He'd solved the Rubik's cube. He was sure of it.

She covered her mouth with her tiny hands. What was to her just an amusing relic her husband loved, to the people who'd touched and experienced it was everything.

Maria talked too much, loved to impress people with knowledge and possession of objects such as the _camera obscura_. Not out of greed but out of pride for the past such objects held.

"Of course," he mumbled looking through the open door of the shop which smelled of old things, through which the sweet scent of ancient books flowed and which shelves were full of various objects. The fascination Meri had for such antique shops was to Zoran only comparable to a record store.

It was only logical. Whoever wanted to have the _camera obscura_ , that ancient box full of malice, had to work in a shop like this. Gordan must have figured out that the owner and his apprentice, whom Zoran both now looked at through the dirty window, must have been more interested than they'd let on. They knew the box was a piece of work. They knew what you could do with it. His crazy, paranoid brother was on to them. And he stopped them.

So how could Zoran now burn, sink and destroy that thing that rested on Zrinka's table. That damned box.

The faces from the shop's window he had connected to the visitors that came to their door. He should have made the connection sooner. His mother thought they were Jehovah's witnesses. She'd screamed so hard at them that they'd turned white and Zoran was convinced she would throw the phone or a calculator at them. He remembered trying to talk to them. A skinny young man stood in front of the house, an older man was about ten meters away from him, standing with a boy who might have been six or seven. Both the boy's ears were pierced and he wore a white cap on his head. There was something wrong with his face, it was covered with a large black scar. Zoran nodded at him and softly asked the young man: "What's happened to him?"

He was treated to a look usually given to idiots: "Nothing. It was meant to be so. He himself ordered it done; otherwise it wouldn't be worth it..."

They're all demented. Gordan was crazy but these guys would get strange looks even in Lopača asylum.

The madman's old companion prowled the street as if on a lookout. The boy was throwing rocks at some white dog that was wandering about; it ran away with its tail between its legs. He remembered that scene well. He remembered the way the boy looked at him. The way he smiled.

Jesus, these people know where I live? They know where Gordan lived? They'll find out about Zrinka sooner or later.

How could he stop these people? What if it had been them who killed Gordan?

He walked like a madman, passing the Ri emporium, cursing the sky that seemed ready to rain once again. It seemed impossible that an old man and his fragile apprentice could kill Gordan. They didn't attack, they searched, frightened others and whispered but they did not break things, did not kill.

Besides, the last thing he saw through Gordan's eyes was the rift and that fucking Utopia of his and not some old man and a kid.

Maybe Gordan was killed by the _camera obscura_? Maybe it rejected him just like it rejected their father. Gordan was insane but he loved life or at least he loved his child and the box. Perhaps even too much to kill himself. The _camera obscura_ , that monstrous abomination from a parallel universe. It would explain why Zoran could, like some detective with special powers, see other people's secrets, thoughts and memories but not that key moment when his brother said goodbye to his own life.

Between Gordan's little expedition to the garden bed and his mad race through the tunnels, the rift that burned orange and his death in the channel there was something unknown, a huge nothingness that could not be filled with anything.

He passed under the city clock that had the two-headed eagle spilling a pot of water and he was angry at the city. He was angry at the wooden box that controlled the lives of his family. He hated the old man and the kid, the yellow hoods, himself and his demons, his demented mother, his possessive girlfriend and his brother's widow whom he'd already loved too much.

Mist was forming over the Kobler square and the street to the Saint Vid church was slippery and tiring. His smile turned sour as he walked uphill towards the church. He himself felt a bit like Saint Vid. He saw both things he did and did not want to.

He formed a plan. It was crazier than a snake that wanted to play in a punk band but he'd long ago decided normal stuff did not happen to him anymore.

When all this was done and if he isn't jailed for disturbing the peace or disseminating anti-government propaganda, he'll go to Germany. That was for certain. _And Gordan could have gone too_ , he thought with sadness and jealousy. If he didn't like it here so much that he had opened rifts in space and dreamed of utopian lands of justice, equality and other such nonsense, then he could have left. Zoran couldn't wait to leave Yugoslavia and Rijeka, to run from a place where he felt everything was working against him and only wanted to drown him in the Mrtvi Kanal channel or stuff him full of pills until he went crazy.

He wasn't interested in cults, antique shops, tunnels, rich family history nor communism, anarchism or Yugoslavia but all that caught up to him when he least needed it. The people were right: when Tito died, it all went to hell!

***

His grand scheme, the operation that would end it all, consisted of Gordan's old text about the tunnels, a chest full of pamphlets borne of a forbidden marriage between anarchism and Marxism, and bitter, sharp hope that logic and reason had fallen apart.

Even though, according to the plates number, he wasn't allowed to drive Speedy, his Citroen Spacek, today he put the old chest in the bunker after he'd stuffed the chest with his brother's texts, old cooking books and his father's books about sailing, Carpathia and Yugoslavia.

His mother walked him out offering only incoherent disapproval, knowing the last remains of her dead child were being taken away from her. As he held the steering wheel tightly and pressed the accelerator pedal he couldn't remember his mother's word salad nor himself leaving the house. He was half-demented but resolute. He hoped he'd said something comforting and gentle to her, that he had maybe held her hand or hugged her and not, as it seemed, pushed her away in anger.

"Greetings, gentlemen," he said as he dumped the chest on the smelly antique shop's counter. They probably recognized him, just like true voyeurs and hunter stalking their prey. Their eyes devoured him.

"I want to get rid of some stuff. You know how it is, you feel choked by stuff, and it takes up a lot of space and only gathers dust. Totally boring."

"You see, this is an old chest, at least a hundred years old. My mom's heirloom, they used to be rich and influential. This is interesting, there's a crest," he laughed. "There's books inside. You'll see."

Their eyes questioned him. The old man with care, the young one visibly excited.

"I've also brought some records. You buy music? Oh yes, and there's something else," he went on and on. He couldn't stop now even if he tried. After crawling into the tunnels in the middle of the day, burning the yellow hoods, the texts and the books, living through that fear, alarming both the city and the police, he knew he could and had to go on.

"I have something here, it's my brother's, and it's been in the family a long time, some kind of optical device. I can't remember its name. It's like a box you could bury a small dog in. Yeah, only kidding. And you know, the box, it's got some memories attached to it. I've been having these feelings, these dreams. My brother died, you know."

Their eyes were like flesh-eating plants, opening in hunger and greed. He recognized their hands. "I'll bring it to you. I couldn't carry it along with everything else. It's heavy, you'll just have to wait." He waved his arms. Menacing. "And then we'll make a deal."

He ran from the antique shop, shaking. He barely drove his car to the Governor's palace.

Zrinka was back from school already. He kissed her quickly, pressing his body against hers and feeling excited by all the rushing around. She seemed confused, biting her lip and saying something. He wasn't listening, he was looking for the phone she'd called him from so many times and then he dialled the police.

He said he was an honest citizen of Yugoslavia. He reported civil disobedience and gave the antique shop's address. "A large quantity of anarchist and anti-government material. Yes. Saw it myself."

He kissed his girlfriend one more time, victorious.

"Just a prank, honey."

"Zoran, sweetie, get lost," she laughed in confusion. "My parents are coming."

"Keep that thing safe for me." He saw it on the desk.

***

He returned to his room. The Brothers Grimm book was in the corner, by the bed. The room seemed to echo with children's laughter.

Only when his mom came in did he realize he was laughing out loud.

She looked at him warily and then turned and left.

He focused his vision towards the tunnel, now ravaged and abandoned and the antique shop, empty and quiet. He saw the police taking them away and for the first time he'd appreciated living in a land of political paranoia. He didn't know how many more yellow-wearing freaks were walking around. But at least he'd slowed some of them down.

He decided not to think about exactly how he'd managed to do all of it. Some things were better left alone. He would have to go to Meri and say goodbye. Survive the war against his mother, who'll want him to stay. Do his best to find a way to get her out of here as well but still first and foremost leave this place. The only thing he wanted right then was to listen to Azra's songs, _Sunny side_ and _The shine in her hair._ Sun was already something severely lacking in Rijeka.

_Nobody controls me_ , he thought as he drove towards a new country. And a new life.

_Nobody_.

# 9.

"Ticket."

"What?"

"Your ticket! We don't have all day."

Greta looked down at her hands and realized the fingers of her right hand were clutching a piece of paper. Black and bolded words **Rieka – New York** were the only ones she could read. The rest shimmered restless and hazy and only when she squinted did she recognize _cunard, steamer,_ and something that seemed to be _aurania_ and _adria_ , while the rest of the text eluded her. The letters had a mind of their own and as much as she tried they still ran around, hid from her, made love to each other; a veritable orgy of intertwining lines, dashes and quotation marks.

The woman in front of her was losing her temper and Greta was certain she wasn't giving off the impression of a particularly intelligent person. But between her being aware of it and knowing what she had to do there were obstacles, as if someone had removed her brain over night and replaced it with jelly. She dimly recalled selling off all of her possessions – _her house? The field? The orchard? The sheep?_ – and paying one hundred and eighty kronas for a piece of paper that she now clutched in her hand. _Szilard's letter, all has been prepared, we only need to arrive._

She gave the woman her ticket.

Wait a minute.

They were touching her face, fingers pried open her eyes, someone is mumbling, she's in her underwear, people, so many limbs, lips smacking, nervous giggles, oh so many people behind her, an entire column.

Who is Szilard?

"This woman is ill." A voice from somewhere. "Trachoma." Whispers, notes scribbled, someone is leading her through hallways. A room with beds, tired men, women coughing, following her around with infected eyes. She wants to turn and leave but they won't let her.

"Where am I?" she asks but simultaneously hears the answer in her head – _quarantine,_ again and again, repeating and endlessly echoing and she isn't sure why but it makes her body shiver, creates pressure against her chest, makes her breathing harder. She wants to touch the wall, white, cold, a distant goal as she is followed by laughter, uncontrolled and soulless, mirthless. Someone is breathing down her neck, she can feel the wet touch of a tongue against her skin.

"Azra!" shouts, somewhere at the edge of consciousness, this is what finally snaps her from the dream, as suddenly as if she broke the surface after diving, only she doesn't have a seashell to show for it.

She could hear scratching on the floor. A cold muzzle on her neck. Thirty kilograms of thick fur lay atop her, pressing her down into the bed and suddenly she understood why she thought she couldn't breathe.

"Rosie, down." The red retriever sighed despondently but obeyed her owner and through the dark Greta watched the mass of coagulated darkness slide away from her. King of Hearts was still scratching at the door and a glance at the cell phone told her she hadn't slept through the alarm, wasn't late for anything, that she woke at least an hour earlier than necessary but the confusion and the feeling of being lost remained with her while awake and as much as she tried she couldn't find either courage or the nerves to get back to sleep. She felt strange, as a person who would avoid something for a day and another day and then the days would become months and then years and once time has passed the person remembers and realizes it's late, far too late and that time has been irretrievably lost and that what remained was the taste of failure, guilt, self-pity and self-derision, bitter like smoke on the tongue. She rubbed her eyes and got up to make coffee. At least she didn't have to analyze the dream into too much detail, she only had to take a look at her desk, covered in papers, books, illustrations and photographs – and look, there's the ticket for a voyage to America from the port of Rijeka of all things \- that had all been part of her doctoral thesis research project. Who needed Freud when dreams were so logical? Disturbing perhaps, but still logical.

"Hearts, zip it! Rosie! What's gotten into you?!" The retriever was restless and never before did she make so much trouble just putting on the leash while the pit bull terrier growled at the door. They were both agitated and, it seemed, scared. She realized why only after she'd opened the door. On the floor, in front of her apartment, somebody had left a child's casket.

Dad?

Don't touch it!

It hurts, don't, I'm sorry...

Don't you...ever...do...that...again!

Camera obscura.

She lost moments just looking at the white surface of the wood carved with symbols. At one point she opened the door and then Rosie was pushing her muzzle against her palm and in between those moments there was just an emptiness of thought, a complete lack of everything, and silence in her head.

The _c_ _amera obscura._ A baby's coffin turned into a camera's ancestor, a family heirloom handed down through the generations like a bad gene. Her father would have never just dumped it on her like this. Not the man who'd guarded it so jealously, cleaned it, doted on it, loved it, hid it, and hated it. Which meant that something must have happened but no, that wasn't her stomach clenching, it was just that she'd had a heavy breakfast and she drank strong black coffee at a time when she should have still been asleep. She supposed the answers would be found in the yellow envelope under the box, signed _Azra_ in an apparently drunken handwriting. She didn't recognize the handwriting but there was a limited number of people who still called her that and she was certain she didn't want to see what was inside. Not now. Not yet. She'd have time yet for papers, explanations and resentment...later. For a start she put the _camera_ on the table and took a hatchet that had been placed near the stove. She decided nothing would warm her on this autumn morning like some old white wood.

The _camera_ begged to differ. She swung with all her might, letting loose the rage that she'd been bottling up for years, hiding it under layers of calm and rationality, a safety mask she'd wear every time she held her father shaking from panic, the cold calm with which she'd wait on him in the hospital. But no matter how hard she struck, _fucking camera_ , struck with the blade, _die,_ screamed at every strike, _diediediedie_ , the wood remained intact.

She stopped only when fatigue and muscle pain made her unable to swing anymore. Chips of wood from the desk that took the occasional hit were everywhere, covered her sweaty skin, wet hair and dirty t-shirt and only the _camera_ was the same, completely intact. She spread her fingers, let the hatchet fall to the floor with a loud _clink_. She leaned on the chair, out of breath but calmer now and decided it was time for a change of tactics.

Because why make it easy...

She needed to calm down. The _camera_ wasn't' going anywhere, not now she'd found it, _I'm the next generation, sound the trumpets and the horns!_ It would spend some time with her, it would try do to her what it did to her ancestors. But it just arrived so there's time. Time she lost doing nonsense.

If the hatchet won't do...fire probably won't either. Nothing that simple. _Magic for a magical object_. Made sense.

In her mind she slowly laid out a plan, organized her day. It seemed her work would have to wait. Besides, she'd have problems handing it in if the _camera_ makes her kill herself. And the dogs needed walking. King of Hearts and Rosie were patiently waiting to go wee-wee.

She looked at her watch. _Well,_ she thought as she took the dogs outside, _at least this is a good day to get up early._

***

_When you step in_ _shit, Azra, and you don't clean it up right away, you_ ___only spread it around_ _._

They were following her again. She realized that as she walked down Ružić street; Rijeka didn't exactly have a park where you could go for a romantic stroll and start an epic love story with the owner of another dog but she did have abandoned warehouses and buildings with rich history and forefronts that were falling apart. She liked that little piece of city edge at the very centre of the city, a feeling of almost total isolation from the people rushing across Korzo and the chock full bars. The railroad was like a border, cutting the city in two and jealously guarding the other half of it. The solitary greyness of industrial history. She lived nearby and so it made perfect sense to walk there and convince herself the walks actually gave her inspiration for the research. Large half-empty buildings, shady bars, nightclubs and a dry cleaner. On the other side of the river was the slaughterhouse that had been off limits to citizens, _I wonder if there's somebody in there now, if anybody comes there at all, or if it's just illusions, spectres of slaughtered bulls chasing the living_. She loved to stand on the Plodine shopping centre's parking lot, where everyone who didn't want to pay for parking in the city centre crammed their car in. Torn down building complexes, a sea of stones, glass on the ground and an abandoned couch. Her grey raincoat creaked as she walked; she leaned over the bridge and watched the muddy river surge and mix with the clean waters from Zvir wellspring. If only she could go under the wellspring's dome, disappear into another world, just her and the water surging below her and the dome above her while outside the world was ending.

She saw them on the other side of the bridge, a tall tanned man and a white sheep dog. They walked slowly, but there was no doubt they were following her. King of Hearts was tense as he watched the other dog's movements, ready to be let off the leash. Her hands still ached from wielding the hatchet. She'd barely woken up and she was already tired; the day had barely started and already she wanted to be back in bed, to sleep until she got a headache. If she rubbed her eyes she'd feel sand in them, purple arches under them, and calluses on her palms. She bit her lip and tried to breathe deep, calm herself, return the same way she came and catch the dog's eye but that's okay because the dog's as real as the white crescents on her thighs, belly and right arm. As long as they're real then so are the jaws that can make such marks, as real as the blood she could draw from the fur covered throat with a knife. Her vision went red, she could feel phantom fur in her mouth, and it made her retch. She'll lose her nerve, she knows it, but she can't help herself. She kept it in for years and now she can't stop it, the rush of a river swelling from the rain.

"You think I don't know;" she didn't care how it would sound to a possibly completely innocent passer-by, she just wanted her message be clear, "that I'm a fucking retard? What is this, _Harry Potter_?" She shouted over the water and the rustling of the rain on he raincoat, "Or do you think you're so original because you remembered to add an owner?" The man looked at her but did not respond. His hands were in his pockets; her hands were on the pit bull terrier's leash clasp. "I dare you...come on, I dare you, I'm having a crap day and I need something, something to just relax. Get it?"

The guy seemed ready to say something, he opened and then closed his mouth; his eyes were wide open, he was frowning and if she hadn't been so angry she would have laughed. _But why are you angry_ , _nothing unexpected happened. In fact, to be honest,_ but the man just shrugged, as if that would chase this crazy woman away, _you should really, really take a good look at your decisions and choices_ , and he continued walking towards the mills, _you should know this was something you'd been preparing for._

It still doesn't mean I should be less angry.

Maybe just less crazy.

She turned around and walked down Vodovodna street, leaving behind the man with the white dog, aware that they weren't planning on following her after what had just happened. She though only of one thing, one goal.

Aždaja.

It was time to go see Aždaja.

By the time she got to Aždaja's it was barely eleven in the morning and _good god when did I get up if it's still not noon_ , but she had to go back home, take the _camera_ and leave Rosie in the apartment, but not the King of Hearts – he was fast, strong and trained to fight other dogs, so she took him just in case, you never knew, she already had enough scars and didn't need new ones. She didn't feel any need or desire to hold in the annoyance that now burst out of her at the very moment she entered the small gallery.

"I hate _krsniks_ , may they all get the fucking cholera and be buried alive!"

"Hartmann," a red eyebrow arched, "and a good morning to you too. Overdoing it a bit?"

"Please explain how it would be overdoing it?"

"Well, maybe it's got something to do with Mi..."

"Fuck you. No, this has got nothing do with her but it's got everything to do with them following me again."

"Let me guess, it's also about..." she pointed at the _camera_ in Greta's hands, wrapped in a Christmas-patterned tablecloth. The first one she found in the closet. She nodded and placed the bundle on the counter.

"I need help."

"And I'm guessing not with _krsniks_."

She shook her head, _blood on palms, blood on lips in eyes_ , "No, _krsniks_ I can handle," _a knife in her right hand, fur covered muscles in her left_ _._

"Too bad. I love to pay them the occasional visit. Unfortunately, they don't dare hunt in my territory and, you know, I'd prefer not to go against them without a good reason, it's not good for business.

"Thanks, I appreciate the offer. I really do. It warms my heart. Now the important stuff."

She pointed at the _camera_ to emphasize the reason for coming there. Even though it wasn't necessary. Aždaja couldn't stop looking at the Christmas decorations – the golden and blue balls, the green Christmas trees – on the red fabric ever since the wrapped box was placed on the counter.

"Leave the mutt outside."

She told King of Hearts to wait in front of the gallery and locked the door. This wasn't the first time she did this, she already knew the drill. They left the white room, smelling of turpentine and abstract paintings, and entered the one smelling of rotting paper and moth-eaten wood. Greta carefully manoeuvred between various objects, pretty certain that even a paper cut would end with an infection and agonizing death. When she'd reached the table in the middle Aždaja was already watching the box under the lamplight and through an antique silver magnifying glass whose base was shaped like a dragon's claw – Greta might have said an eagle's but Aždaja had the last word and if it wasn't a dragon then it wasn't' anything else.

"Hmmm, these symbols. They look...necromantic. Reminds me of their language but I'm not sure..."

"You, not sure about something?"

She was certain Aždaja's eyes flashed in the dim light when she lifted her eyes from the box.

"Necromancers guard their secrets jealously... oh, why do I bother, you know this. Stop messing with me. Besides," she pointed at the carved surface, "this is old, very old. And it's been changed. It...shouldn't look like this. I think..."

"Lazarus complex?"

Aždaja sighed and pulled a camera from one of the piles that surrounded her.

"Yes, well, you know how all those situations end, so I'm not sure."

"Precisely. It fits. That story about the crazy aunt and the baby, all the Lazarus projects end spectacularly bad. Aždaja, this thing's been passed down through generations and it's been eating away at us and haunting us all that time. Like some...rabid tapeworm." She was thinking out loud.

"You think someone tried to revive a baby?"

"Why else would they use a coffin as part of a ritual? And the diary did mention a baby."

"The diary you only half translated because you can't speak Hungarian or the one..."

"I can speak it well enough to know there was a dead baby." She didn't mention the letters in Italian she'd managed to read and which had confirmed that Erzsébet's baby had been stillborn and that after it she'd lost her mind.

Why didn't she remember that sooner? It seemed such an easy solution. Failed necromancy. Erzsébet disappeared after the birth, returned with a coffin turned into a _camera obscura_ , the problem at hand. Somewhere between those two events she'd found someone who tried to give her back her baby. And not just reanimate the body but revive it completely; a true resurrection. Except that nobody could get a Lazarus. Those rituals always failed. She might as well suspect Erzsébet's plan failed and instead of her child she received _this_. Whatever it was. _Greta, you idiot, it's obvious._ She had all the clues. True, she never before had the chance to study the _camera, except once, briefly, by accident, sorry dad,_ and the descriptions she managed to pull from the Italian and Hungarian family letters and diaries were brief and unhelpful. Also, Erzsébet's story was concealed between the lines, a family shame that was only hinted at.

"I can send the photos for further consultations," she heard in between the flashes, "of course it will cost extra, but..."

"I'm not interested in the symbols." It all started to fit together, an idea formed in her mind, all the things she knew, had heard her father rave about or had read in the texts her ancestors had written, "We can guess what happened. Somebody wanted to revive my crazy aunt's baby. This failed, naturally. And I even think I know who...," she touched her right hip, thinking of the tattoo covered skin, "...well, it doesn't matter. The other thing that happened was obviously unplanned. I sincerely doubt this text will help us."

"You think the _camera_ is cursed?" Aždaja didn't seem convinced but she let Greta reach the conclusion on her own.

"Hmm, no, that's not how cursed objects work. This, this...it's evolving! Yes, evolving. I think...even before all of this I'd thought it was trying to communicate with us but...but I never had the chance to test the theory because, well, my father. He was very much against me and the _camera_ being in the same room together. It's obvious why. But it's also a shaky theory, built from scraps and random utterances of certifiably insane people." But she had to start somewhere and this fit the best so far.

"While we're at it, you haven't told me how..."

"I don't know. It doesn't matter, not now, not yet, please. Aždaja, please. I want to know what _this thing_ is and, more important, I want to know how to destroy it."

"You're not in a friendly mood."

_Blood, so much blood,_ _dripping from wounded arms and covering the white tiles; slippery. She falls down. She can hear the soft patter of rain against the window, it gives a beat to her breathing. Not now, don't go away now, I need you still, I'll always need you, don't leave. I'm scared._

Dad, did you take your pills today? Dad?

You're just like him, just like him, those eyes, oh Azra, those eyes...

_I've always wanted..._ _I_ _always hoped... but it doesn't matter now._

But through all the memories, the loudest was a woman's voice in the background. _You're crazy! You're just like uncle Zoran, just like my father, you'll just jump off a bridge one day but you know what's worse? You want to drag me with you! You already have! I never...I'll never forgive myself...and it's all your fault!_

"I want to see the _camera_ burn."

***

A little rose I was,

And rose I'll be no more...

_She watched Lucia's hair shine. The older girl was still standing_ _in sunlight_ _while Azra danced in the shadows of the trees._

"You're scared?"

_Lucia nodded. Her eyes rimmed with tears, her lips quivering. He_ _r_ _palms across her flat belly. But she still pressed on._

_"Don't be afraid. It's just the woods." Azra came closer, felt the gold on her skin. She touched Lucia's che_ _ek, soft, full, silken and pink. She stood on her toes, a little more, a little more and they'll be the same height. A little more and she'll be able to kiss her gently on the lips, give her an ounce of her strength. Just so they can move on._

"It's just the woods. It's just trees. And I'm here. I'm here with you."

"I...I'm not scared of the woods."

The rest was left unspoken: "I'm afraid of what's waiting for me."

So to keep the summer here

Bloom I will no more.

_The cabin was_ _made of_ _dark wood and there was a dog on a chain. It slept under the rays of sunshine piercing the treetop._

"How... how did you..."

Azra shrugged.

"When I need someone I just find them. Just like that."

"Azra."

"Lucia, don't be afraid. I'm here."

She knocks on the door with her free hand. Lucia holds the edge of her skirt tightly. Her knees shake but this is the road she chose herself, Azra only pointed the way.

The man at the door reminds her of a wolf as he licks his cracked lips. Rough fists, Lucia could almost feel them on her neck, squeezing and breaking it. Fragile like a clay vase full of dead flowers.

"Well, well. Which one of you? Hope it's not you, Little Rose. You're still too young."

"Her," Azra says and nods at Lucia. She doesn't say a thing, her mouth is dry, her skirt crumpled in her hand. The lupine face regards her, smiles, displays white teeth. There's a tattoo on his neck, reminds her of a snowflake.

"Well, either in or out, girl. And be sure you want this. I can't decide for you."

And so I cannot wait

For the lovely days of spring

Ludolf sits on the bed, bare skin covered with tattoos but it can't be, he stayed behind in Germany and she returned to Croatia with a father who had nothing, no job, no money, no wife, no hope, no pride, came back with the tail between his legs because it was the only thing left.

"I left."

"That you did, Little Rose."

_The_ Lebensborn _on his chest he wears with pride because Ludolf always knew who he was and who he wasn't and what his name was._

"I need help."

"You? Little Rose? You don't need help, you never did."

"That's a lie."

"Maybe. But you still need my help. Come."

He rose from the bed and took her to the mirror. He stood behind her, his hands on her hips, his lips on her neck, just below her ear. A stranger's face watched her from the mirror.

"Mirror, mirror..."

A man with dark, dried out skin sewn onto his face.

"Those that wear placenta..." Ludolf began.

"...become strong."

_To make me_ _oh so_ _merry_

_With the flowers_ _that it_ _bring_ _s_

_A cabin in the woods; where Lucia left the blood of her undeveloped foetus, and Azra left the blood of her childhood._ _She was leaning against the door, petting the mutt._

"How do you know who you are?"

She remembered asking him that before she left.

_"How I've always known. I'm not just a kid taken from a pram and given to other parents. That Davorin lasted for seven months and then he became Ludolf. Now I'm a sum of those experiences, both the seven months and the sixty years_ _that followed_ _. It's not who I am, Little Rose, it's that lost potential of what I could have been._

"I'm not here, am I?"

_"No. But_ I _always_ _will_ _be."_

Roses I'll pick

On my fingers I'll wear

_The smell of alcohol, lavender and rosemary. An angry mob. She's being dragged, she wants to stop but the hands are strong and they push her onward._ This isn't me, somewhere else, far in the background but it's important she know this, this isn't her, it's never been her, this is just a stray memory and

She falls to the ground, they hold her, they spread eagle her, they're pressing against her. They take their turns with her, one after another as women prepare the rats, the needles, the threads and the fire.

She screams.

She begs.

She cries.

Father. Where are you? You promised I would be fine. That all would be fine. You promised.

She carries a rat in her womb, and someone else's seed, her lips are sewn together so nothing can come inside. This is her end.

_This is her punishment._ __

All with thoughts of you

_My dove_ _without compare_

Her whole body shook and she almost choked on the dust she had breathed in. The sudden awakening was something she welcomed after that last image, still burning in her mind; she wanted to erase the whole memory of pain, the scratching from within, the slow and painful death, squirming in her own bile and bodily fluids while dozens of eyes just watch, interested, content, with derision and anger.

"What did you see?" The first thing she heard was Aždaja's voice. When she moved her head she could see the eyes glowing in the dark above the fire. She could smell incense and other herbs – some she recognized, others the woman had kept a secret. She couldn't remember falling to the floor. She glanced over the rest of her body to see if there was a spider there, an earwig or, even worse, a centipede. Aždaja wasn't that worried and so she remained in her seat, almost naked under her burned tatters while her shadow fell on the crashed wall behind her. The shadow displaying her real form.

"Lucia and Ludolf. But that's not strange. Considering the circumstances. And some girl, her last moments before...well, before an entire village murdered her."

"Why did they do it?"

They were inside the remains of a _tornica_ in the abandoned village of Cari but despite sitting right next to the hearth Greta could feel the cold seeping in through the cracks in the walls and spider webs. Also, Aždaja's magic started to subside and the visions retreated, giving way to reality that also brought physical problems.

"Punished for...her father. He was a mage or something like that, I didn't really get that part. Her emotions were...well, turned to other things."

"You think it mattered?"

"I think it was connected with the creation of the _camera_ , yes. But it's just an idea I have to check on." Like everything else about the object. "But it's not connected to a way of destroying it. But, what happened?

"I tried to save the _camera_ with my own blood. It caused something, some surge of power and it knocked us both out."

The _camera_ was still by Aždaja's feet. Undamaged.

"Did you see anything? Aždaja...what happened?"

She saw the answer on her face, in the squinting eyes and frowning nose. Aždaja was not happy, she could tell as much, but it could only mean one thing.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know. What I do know," she raised her voice as well as her arm, as if she thought Greta was about to interrupt her, "is that it's not of this world. Like, really not of this world, and I don't mean some afterlife or something like it. If your theory about necromancy is correct...well, they managed to drag something in but it was not what they'd had in mind. This is something that doesn't belong to our reality. Something...much older than me and my blood. You'll have to find someone else to give you answers.

"Don't worry, I won't have trouble with that. I can find everyone I need. How do you think I found you?"

"I got recommended by a satisfied customer?"

"It's my gift, Aždaja. But thank you for everything."

"Although I'd be happier if I could tell you everything."

Greta tried to look like she didn't care but she was aware her dissatisfaction was seeping through, uncontrolled and unbridled.

"I'd be happiest if the _camera_ never came to my family. Or that at least my retarded ancestors figured out how to deal with it better."

"Don't say that. They didn't have your knowledge or education. They were just fallen nobility, pushed into a world they didn't understand."

"I know. Still, they weren't the smartest bunch."

"Your father did well."

"My father protected me well, but it doesn't mean that he could take care of himself."

Straight, white cuts on his veins were the best evidence of that.

Aždaja nodded contently: "I also warded you. Right now. Or at least I think I did."

She showed her left breast. Blood was drying beneath it, a thin, fresh red line. It was crooked like a drawn smile.

"This ward should be really strong, you know. But as I spoke the words, this _camera_ of yours did something, I could feel it. I don't know what it did or if it did anything at all and if it's good or bad...but it seems everything's okay. You should be safe from all those who would try to hurt you."

Greta left the building, turned her face up towards the clouds and let the tiny raindrops fall on her skin as she studied the dark branches against the backdrop of blue sky. Dogs were restlessly waiting for her near the abandoned well and she agreed that this entire place, in the middle of the woods, empty of life and full of decrepit houses, gave everyone the chills. Someone could think that nature was in harmony with her romantic soul, all rain and darkness and weirdness, an outside parallel to her inside. But when they returned to Rijeka the weather became worse, a rain storm pouring from black clouds. As was to be expected. She wore a grey raincoat instead of an umbrella that would only break under the strong wind. She wore boots instead of trainers to keep her feet dry but she still came home in wet socks.

She walked her dogs once more around the block, fed them before she fed herself – she couldn't cook lunch, not with that nausea that made her vomit and with the memory of the dream about death, and so who could cook at all now, especially something heavy and meat-based. All she ate was a piece of bread with chocolate spread, just to calm her stomach, keep it from getting worse, _the last thing I need is to faint from hunger_ – and only then did she pull the chest from under the bed. She traced her fingertip over her grandmother Ana's old family crest and thought about that simpler side of her family, no necromancy or murderous entities from another dimension. It sounded funny, like a Marvel comics script but in that case the creature inside the _camera_ – _or the camera itself is a creature, does it live inside or is the camera its outer_ _shell_ _?_ – would have some banal name and instead of Greta it would be opposed by real heroes with functional powers like telekinesis or superhuman strength and not someone whose ability was to find anyone she needed. As if that brought her any good, _it's all your fault, I'll never forget this,_ _and I_ _don't want to see you ever again_. Papers, photos, rows of notes and translations, diaries, all this she slowly pulled out and studied and read. She had to remind herself of it all, it had been a few years since she'd last dealt with that stuff. Ever since her father's condition worsened, since he'd caught her with the _camera_ and began to rave more and more, Greta had begun collecting everything she could that had to do with her family's history, to explain to herself what was wrong with them. But it was mostly so she could understand and avoid the same fate. Ignorance is your biggest enemy, this was the first thing Ludolf had taught her and Greta wanted to be sure she'd have a way to defend herself if the _camera_ ever came into her possession. Greta didn't exist just so something else, something undefined and alien could manipulate and ruin her life. Nobody ran her life but she herself. _If there's going to be anyone to blame for my downfall, it's going to be me. You hear me? There has to be some sign here, something I overlooked the first time._

Several thousand words later, once she'd started mixing Italian, Hungarian, English and Croatian and it was way past midnight, she got up from the desk and took a look at the papers that covered the floor around her. Wrong tactics, she thought as she placed the _camera_ in the living room, on the only piece of furniture that wasn't covered in her clothes or papers. They couldn't give her anything useful anyway; there was the frustrated woman from the patriarchy; a girl who wasn't that much older or different than Shakespeare's Juliet and whose name she quite appropriately bore; an utterly realistic, sarcastic and sceptical British woman who wouldn't have any of that nonsense about magic boxes forcing people to commit incest , and an autistic uncle; all these people were too wrapped up in their own world to be involved in discovering the truths of this one. If she wanted to know more, she would have to try something else.

A little experiment, she thought as she projected light on the wall. She wasn't sure what was about to happen. From the letters she knew that Mario saw the face of his late father, the third man in the marriage who wasn't spoken of and her father's late night stories told her that the _camera_ had allowed him to live through his brother's experiences. For a moment she was worried some cruel joke was about to take place and she would see Julia and Mario's or perhaps even her own father's sexual escapades because once was enough thank you very much, but what she did see was actually worse than any of that. A complete lack of content, just the surface of the wall illuminated by the _camera_ 's rays.

"This isn't right. Are you messing with me?" She spoke to the _camera_ and slammed her fist down on it, as if it was a broken TV or a printer that just needed a good whack to start working again. The scene didn't change. Maybe her theory about communication wouldn't work.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. She'd been having a headache for a while and it was only getting worse, squishing her brain down to a useless pulp. Lacking ideas she walked into the rays and watched light slide across her palms, through her spread fingers and crash into the wall. For a moment it felt like something was bound to happen, that she'd see blood on her fingers and realize they were being slowly cut until there's just strips of meat on the floor. But she was still breathing, still complete and the _camera_ hadn't transformed into tentacles, teeth and eyes. She sighed and squinted, felt the grit of fatigue under her eyelids; somewhere from the back portion of her mind that still dealt with her physical needs came the thought that it must be late and her brain must have stopped working properly.

She turned around, ready to go to bed – she hoped the night would pass without dreams of raging mobs and rape or endless stacks of paper, she only wanted darkness without any images, a little respite, to rest and have a clear head in the morning without pauses between thoughts and sentences – but then she saw a blot on the wall out of the corner of her eye. She approached it slowly, ready for disappointment, _probably just a stain from some dead centipede, fly or spider I've forgotten about,_ but as she got closer the blot grew in size and started taking shape. If she squinted she could see a balustrade with oil lamps in it, people strolling and engaging in conversation she couldn't hear because she only had picture but no sound. An inner voice that she recognized as her own (but scientific and without any stress caused by supernatural events, completely immersed in academia) whispered to her that what she was seeing was the terrace of the emigrants' hotel. She broke the silence with her laughter, unceasing and vibrating, piercing her body and forcing her to lean against the wall. She was hysterical, she was aware of this while she shook as if in an earthquake but she still couldn't stop laughing and for a moment it seemed she would die like that, bent at the waist, teary-eyed and only half-done with the whole business.

"Are you alright?" a voice spoke up behind her back, calming, androgynous but when she turned around she still wasn't sure of the speaker's gender.

"Hahaha, yes, haha, I'm fine," she said while simultaneously shaking her head and wiping her face. _Hah, look at that, it's wet._

"Just take it easy. There appears to be a good story behind all this."

She shrugged and started calming herself down by taking deep breaths. She couldn't put her finger on it but maybe it was the fact it seemed she was looking at the world through a yellow camera filter, or the people around her not paying her any attention or maybe that she was no longer in her room but on an open terrace that reminded her of Opatija's promenades.

_Oh yeah, that could be it_ , there was no sun in the sky but still everything had a sepia tone, the air, the rocks, smoke and people's faces.

"Where am I?"

"It would be hard to explain. In a place that is neither here nor there, neither yesterday nor tomorrow and especially not today. Let's take a walk. Enjoy your little excursion. Mortals don't often have the opportunity to wander into such places."

She should be panicking, she was dimly aware of that. It would be a perfectly rational reaction; the _camera_ had removed her from her room, of this there had been no doubt, and then had shoved her somewhere that was neither her space nor her time. What other explanation could there be for what was going on around her, the terrace she was on? She was certain she didn't sleepwalk to the Emigranti Hotel and if she had, it was way past the age where its halls would be full of lost people searching for a new life, waiting for a steamship. Still, there was a distinct lack of worry or panic. Instead she was calm and even somewhat inexplicably happy.

Maybe it was Aždaja's drugs but whatever it was she decided to play along as if all this was perfectly normal.

"I am Greta Hartmann."

She remembered it was polite to introduce yourself to the person you're talking to and you haven't met yet. While smiling in a way she could only hope seemed nice.

"And you may call me Orlando. Although you also know me as Death. But it's somewhat unappealing, isn't it? Orlando will do much better."

"Alright... Orlando? What are you doing here?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'here'." She took his arm, as if he was a long time lover taking her for a Sunday stroll. They weren't that different from other people on the terrace, except for their clothes; and the languages she could hear were mostly Hungarian and Italian. She couldn't make out the colour or the material or the cut of her interlocutor's suit but she was certain she herself was wearing a dirty grey T-shirt and an old track suit she wore around the house. She ran her palm across his sleeve and a piece of thread remained in her hand. "If you meant to ask what was I doing before, I was working." He waved his free hand towards the other walkers. She didn't need to look for hidden meaning in his words, this was the topic of her doctoral thesis, and she knew very well what had happened to the emigrants. Why they had been kept isolated from the rest of the city, on one side by the railroad, on the other by sea and the only thing left for them was to wait here and not mix with other people of Rijeka, to keep their diseases, filth, prostitution and hunger as far away as possible. But she also knew that most deaths occurred in the trains bound for Rijeka or aboard ships, during the twelve day voyage to America. And that it was mostly women and children, dying from stress and hunger, forcibly removed from their homes and villages, placed among people with strange language and customs.

"Was there work here?"

They entered the hotel and passed through full sleeping rooms unnoticed. Men were separated from women and children but they shared dining rooms and entertainment rooms. People were strewn across beds very much like her papers. How many had a disease hiding inside them and how many would be infected during the voyage, be checked by a doctor in New York and then sent back where they came from?

"Not much, I'll admit but this place was always dear to me." She looked around several times and Orlando was gone. _Faded away like all other proper ghosts._ In her fingers she still held the thread from his sleeve and as much as she tried she couldn't see its colour and it seemed its length was changing from moment to moment. She continued absently rubbing it between her thumb and index finger. The only thing left was to investigate this... _what? Illusion? Hallucination? Dream?_

_Memory, this is someone's memory and I've activated it,_ she thought as she walked down hotel's hallway. Alright, she didn't do it herself, she had used the _camera's_ power but she still wasn't sure what that actually meant. And if anyone could actually do it. She knew Mario had seen projections on the wall, that her father could dream what her uncle lived through but this was a completely new experience, walking through a memory made corporeal and, it seemed, the memory of a city and not a person. What if she could do more? Use the _camera_ to enter other worlds? What if she could tame it? Train it to obey her commands. It was tempting, a little revenge for all that the _camera_ had done to her family through the generations.

But for now she had to find out how to go back from where she came. That was the problem with instinct-based magic; it was hard to replicate a spell if you had no idea what you did the first time. In the meantime she wandered around the hotel, trying to memorize all the details, the way people looked, acted, talked – even though she couldn't understand most of what they said – the decorations in every room, the food that was being served, the speed and efficacy of medical examinations – this was the second examination, there would be another on the far side of the ocean. Nobody reacted to her presence, these were just the ghosts of past with whom Greta could not communicate.

She didn't approach the quarantine where those less fortunate would end up, the sick travellers whose dreams of America would come to an end inside these walls. Instead she left the hotel, unobstructed by ghosts to whom other rules applied. The refinery complex was at the back of the port, a world of its own. She walked towards the sea, thinking of home, uncertain how long she would remain here, how far this memory stretched. Would she stumble upon some invisible obstacle that would mark the end of the road, like in some videogame? Or would she reach the edge of the world and see the blackness of the universe?

"IVAN! Ivan, fucking come here!" She heard a voice from the Orlando dock, shouting towards the open sea. There was something different about the man who was shouting; his colours and lines were sharper, he resembled a collage paper leaf pinned to a sepia-tone landscape photograph.

She stopped nearby, drawn by curiosity, _I wonder what's next_ , and this drew the man's attention.

"YOU!" The man screamed in her face, foaming at the mouth, reminding Greta of a rabid dog. "I know you! You're Erzsébet, I've seen your portrait! But..." he stopped, saliva hanging from his beard, "where are your facial tattoos? The weird ones?"

"I don't have them, because I'm not Erzsébet? You've mistaken me for someone else," she was ready to take a step back, her body tense and her voice calm, doing her best not to provoke the unstable man.

"Where are we? It's always something else, always, now a port, the last time it was a church and, and, the belly of a dragon, I watched the Devil build the steps...did you see the Devil, what am I saying, of course you did, you've talked to him."

"I did?" Greta froze, tense. A single thought, an idea passed through her mind, paralyzed her with a simple truth. This man was not from this place, he wasn't a ghost of the past; he was, just like her, a prisoner of a memory.

"Yes, yes, yesyesyes. The Devil promised the people steps, they promised him their souls, but instead they gave him a goat. Later you came upon him and asked him for a baby but he gave you tuberculosis."

"How long have you been here?" she tried, speaking softly.

"How long? I've been here for...I'm not here, I'm everywhere, this isn't right, this isn't proper, the picture is to blame for everything. Erzsébet, why is the picture to blame?"

"I'm not...my name is Greta. What is yours?"

He didn't seem older than her, at least physically but his attitude, his eyes and the agony of his face spoke of an eternity lived.

"Name, name, name, Ivan, no, no, wrong, I'm not Ivan, do you know Ivan? He's quiet, he's always quiet, I find him and he's just walking around and not doing shit and I've watched him fuck the British woman, taking a cock up his ass, but I shout and talk and jump and beat him, punch his head but he doesn't react, doesn't move, just ignores me. He's Ivan, he's a syphilitic dick, he's a father, he's the stick and the scales."

"Ivan..." she felt retarded as she repeated his words but an image started taking form in her mind and she had to check, "if you're not Ivan...who are you?"

"I...I'm...I'm...," he put his hands on his head, started pulling at his hair, "I'm not Ivan."

"We've been through that. What is your name?"

"I do not know."

He seemed lost, distraught. She had to get him out of there, this wasn't a place for mortals. How did he end up here at all?

"Alright. It's okay, but we have to find a way out. Understand?"

"Outside, there's darkness outside. The darkness is the _camera_. The _camera_ is the father. The father is shit. The shit is Mario. And Ivan. And d'Annunzio and the guardian angels. I know who you are. You are the darkness."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You are not Erzsébet, no, no, that's wrong, you are the darkness, you are the rock, you are the flooded land and fire. Fire in the sky. You. Did. All. This. All of it, the death, the darkness, such deep darkness. Who gave you the right? Who gave you the right to choose what would happen, who would happen, where it would happen? You are the Devil."

"O-okay." She started moving backwards; stretching her arms behind her, _why do I always have to run across madmen and why do they always have to blame me for everything?_

"Where is my mother? What have you done to her?"

"How should I know?" a raised voice, a bulging vein on the forehead, fists clenching, _easy, take it easy, stay calm, just because he's nuts doesn't mean you have to be too, honey_. "This here, where we are, this is not reality. I don't know how you ended up here but you have to listen to me, I'm looking for a way out, we'll get out and then..." Yes, then what? What do you do with someone out of his time and place, someone who lived at the turn of the last century, suddenly dumped among TVs, cars, computers and videogames. How do you take care of someone like that. _Oh gods, who's going to take care of him? What am I to do? Where do I put him? Just what I needed, a big baby from outside of time._

"Devil, you will not tempt me," _oh yes, there's that too,_ "you're just like him. A whore."

He moved faster than she expected, grabbed her arm, her muscles hurt, her fingers clenched. "Hah! Whore! Where is your daddy now? You miss his cock, that's why you're so tense, hah."

Several things passed through Greta's head. _I'm done with all of this_ _, this was all a big mistake, I knew no one in this family was sane, maybe I should put myself in an asylum and wait a minute, why am I taking this? What did you say? WHAT DID YOU SAY?_ Her eye twitched, squinting for just a moment and then she was breathing in and instead of moving backwards she stepped forward, reducing the space between herself and the man, their faces close enough for a kiss but instead: "WHAT?! You're the one to talk! You've literally fucked your mother! And you know what! You were fucking bad at it!"

It was Mario, because it was obviously him and look how she'd found the only person she didn't care about, and his expression was either rage or confusion, she couldn't tell.

"Yes, yes, precisely that. I've read Julia's letters, you know. Beatrix. It was all in there...oh, such juicy details. Quite graphic. And do you know what I've learned from it? That you're fucking useless! At everything. A useless son, useless man and useless father. You're a mistake and Julia always knew, deep down, that you're not Ivan, because Ivan knew how to fuck."

She was brutal and maybe unnecessary cruel but she was also tired and under attack and she had no respect for the man who assaulted her verbally and physically. In spite of him being mentally unstable.

"Liar!"

"Oh, now you understand? This is what you understood, from all of that. WELL YOU CAN'T FUCK WITH ME LIKE THAT!"

Once, not so long ago, she had been attacked by dogs. Three white sheep dogs, conceived in a woman's womb and born with placenta on their face. Once, not long ago, she trusted one of them, woke up next to her and laughed at the TV next to her. Once, not long ago, she stuck a knife in their necks and was covered in their blood. She still bore the scars on her body, her thighs, her hip and her right arm. She learned a few things after that. After that, she could hit Mario in several places and leave him twitching on the ground, curled and clutching at his crotch.

"Enough! You had one job! You think I don't know? You could have destroyed it, you had the chance! You had the perfect chance! But you did not and so my uncle killed himself... and my father... my father's brain is fried! And now it's my turn and you know what, honestly, I know I should help you, like, get you out of here, that would be the humane thing to do but honestly, I don't give a fuck! You're just words on a piece of paper. A name on the family tree. As far as everyone's concerned you've been dead for years, generations. As far as I'm concerned," she turned to the sea and closed her eyes, "I've never met you."

She ran for the edge, nothing here was real, nothing here could influence her life, not the port, not the sea, not the ships, the emigrants, not Mario and not Death, none of it could be real. If she believed it, she thought as she jumped from the pier, if she accepted it as the objective truth and not just her delusion, then she had done nothing wrong. She hadn't left Mario in his limbo because it was easier to do that; it was all a hallucination, she thought as her feet hit the water, it's all just the _camera's_ influence, she could feel the cold on her arms, she opened her eyes, her sight was blurry, salt scratched at her eyes.

This was all her fault.

The _camera._

It was the first thing she saw in the morning when she opened her eyes. A piece of paper was stuck to her face and she had a direct view of the empty projection on the wall. She felt nauseous and hungry, she could still see a contorted face, the suffering and madness, a deranged mind that should have died long ago, the blood she herself shared and she realized there was a piece of thread of indeterminable colour and length in her hand and this made her go to the toilet, spend the entire morning vomiting as dogs licked her face, they knew something was wrong, they squealed.

She was hiding in bed, under the sheets, for two days, not wanting to think about what had happened or what the thread meant. She tied it to a leather bracelet, an inconspicuous knot of non-existing colour right next to wooden beads and pieces of amber. It was all so unreal and all she wanted was to use the most of it but it can't always be like that. This wasn't her and maybe she didn't even know her own name, even though she signed it as Greta, even though that's who she claimed to be, she'd still occasionally think of herself as Azra but it didn't matter, because if nothing else, she knew what she _wasn't._

And so she left the house in her grey raincoat, through rain and wind, dealt with _krsniks_ who followed her, called Mirna and warned her that nobody wanted a repeat of the last time, the jaws and the bites and the slaughter, the fish and sheep dogs in the channel. She talked to Aždaja, read the papers once more and saw that she'd overlooked something, something so simple, something Mario had hinted at. Her mother wore a Moretto around her neck for luck and his face was imprinted on her skin in black ink, so that luck would always be with her.

She waited.

She would make herself a cup of coffee every afternoon, strong, Turkish, no sugar and she would watch the _camera_ , and there had been no more strange dreams because she wouldn't let it give them to her. She had had enough of experimenting. Only silence remained. The only thing she wanted to do with this entity was to remove it from her life forever.

She wanted everything to go back to normal. The doctoral study and the dog walking. Occasional trips to the gallery, drinking white wine with Aždaja. Only the headlines in the news: a war here, unrests there. Local news, in Rijeka a memorial plate with Macedonian Cyrillic inscription was destroyed. Apart from that, another brutal murder, the police still clueless, surveillance cameras only caught the victim's blood stained hair and yellow dress, only dead pixels instead of the murderer. The weather: rain and more rain.

The yellow envelope was still unopened.

She dripped some of Aždaja's blood over the Moretto pendant in the ritual bowl, _bronze, carved with bull heads, dug from the ground in the Old Town part of Rijeka,_ then a few drops of her own, _so he know who's calling,_ and then burning it all.

And waiting.

While outside days pass and ash trees lose their leaves after the rain.

***

"About time," was the first thing she had said to the stranger as she opened the door. The first thing she noticed was something quite banal: the expensive three-piece white suit and a hat to match. Only then did she notice his face lacked the sewn-in dried skin although, to be fair, she didn't think he would appear to her in his true form.

"I expected a turban, now I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest."

"I beg your pardon?" By his slightly open mouth and raised eyebrows and the way he inclined his head it was obvious he didn't quite understand what was going on.

"Come in. What should I call you?"

"Uh...that's it? Come in? What's your name? That's it?"

He was speaking Croatian smoothly, without an accent and really, what kind of monster is that, no disfigured face or exotic speech.

"What should I be doing?"

There was mirth in those amber eyes and no magical illusion could hide their millennial age.

"I expected a knife to the heart. I don't have many nice experiences with the Chiesa family."

She shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair, a nervous tic for when she didn't know what to do with her hands.

"I'm not Chiesa. I mean, I am but I'm not. Greta, Greta Hartmann. That's my name. But what should I call you?"

"Anything you wish."

He entered the apartment keeping his guard as if, regardless of her words, he expected an attack from behind. The dogs sniffed at the stranger, curious, and he immediately bent down and scratched one dog behind the ear and then the other.

"There's mention in the letters of a Khalid Kek. Other names I've come across are Monster. Even Devil."

"And which will you choose?" He glanced around the room, moved slowly among the books on the floor and wooden furniture and there was something in his movements that reminded her of a cat. Elegance, calculation, silence and predatory instinct.

"None. None of those fit."

"Curious. And what do you think fits?"

"It's silly. Or dumb. But I'd call you Adam."

"Adam."

"Yes. In any case, it's better than Moretto, isn't it?"

At this he smiled and it seemed so weird, having a living legend in her apartment but he was there, the monster her entire family had feared, smiling at her lame jokes; so simple – so human.

"Yes, I agree."

"So what is the truth? The Turks? The curses? The dead children?"

"A bit of everything. Why am I here? Why did you summon me?"

"I've read the letters, the old documents, diaries and I have a general idea what happened. But then I realized something. Something about the nature of things. About belonging. And simply...I've thought about all of it and concluded that, if something had been dragged into this world but it doesn't belong here, then it's best to send it back. And the person who will send it back...well, who better than the one who dragged him here in the first place. Coffee? I just made a fresh pot."

"I never say no to coffee, thank you. Milk and honey."

"How much honey?"

"Two spoonfuls."

He sat at her desk and watched her every move and, even though his face was inscrutable, she guessed he was analyzing her whole, her tousled blonde hair, her height and weight, searching for hidden intent in her actions, watching if she's put poison in the coffee. Rosie and King of Hearts sat next to him. She wondered whose side they'd take if she had to fight Adam. _Traitors_.

She couldn't help herself, she was fascinated by this new mystery and regretted not summoning him sooner. But it was hard to pick out solid facts from the texts that even those who'd written them didn't quite understand. Only a throwaway line, a statement from a witness who'd seen a black dog leave the building on the night they'd first tried to destroy the _camera_ , had alluded to what might be the truth about Khalid Kek. The other hint was the vision she'd received in the village of Cari. It took her an embarrassing amount of time to put it together but she blamed it on the frenzy of the first few days after receiving the _camera_. She'd hoped that, after legally changing her name, she'd also left behind the family history that had marked her against her will. She spent that time walking around with stitched wounds and a headache, broken and alone and all she could think about was that it was her family name to blame. If she hadn't been a Crekvina, the _krsniks_ wouldn't have wanted her dead. She wouldn't have had to defend herself from anyone, _it's so easy to shove a knife in your attacker's neck_ , Mirna wouldn't hate her because of everything that happened and maybe they'd still be together.

But the name change was just a thin cover over her connection with the Chiesas and hadn't really freed her of anything. Now was the time to do what her ancestors hadn't been capable of doing.

"Tell me, why did you seek me out?" Her guest smiled as if he had just offered to build steps in exchange for the first soul that walked over them.

"Once, long ago, on another continent, a woman came to you. This woman had a request. Her baby had died and she desperately wanted it back. Isn't that so?"

"The coffee is good but I think I'll need something stronger."

"I've got honey schnapps."

She wondered if he was stalling because he didn't want to listen about his sins or because he didn't like people pointing out his mistakes or because this had all been a part of some test. But she still got up and placed the bottle in front of him, along with two glasses.

"Alright, continue."

"And that's how all _this_ started. You tried doing the undoable. To bring back life to something dead. Something made you sure you could do it. What?"

He downed a glass of honey schnapps but whatever he'd been thinking remained hidden behind a calm gaze and an expressionless face. She'd seen more emotion in a sculpture. Did it have something to do with his illusion or was he really so well trained in concealing his thoughts, she couldn't say. And she couldn't' help but think how different it made him from Ludolf and her father, whose faces were always full of emotion.

"I'm not just anyone, Greta. I can do many things."

He said it casually and, if she didn't know how the story had ended, she'd have believed him.

"But not raising the dead. That entire experiment blew up in your face so epically. Instead of Erzsébet's baby we got something new. What's in the _camera_ , Adam? A real Kinder Egg surprise. Was it your first time? Or are there countless other objects holding extradimensional creatures as prisoners?"

He smacked his palm against the desk and it was the first reaction she'd gotten out of him. _Excellent_ , she already though she'd be drinking with a statue.

"Don't worry, it was the only attempt," he answered after several seconds of silence, as she drank her schnapps and kept her eyes locked with his, waiting. He sighed and bent down to scratch King of Hearts behind the ear.

"I think I deserve more."

"You do? How come?"

"Because my entire life is marked by this shit that you've caused!" She spread her arms, _look at me not giving a damn about your status or power or_ _the fact you could probably twist my neck or curse me for a thousand years,_ she didn't choose this, she wasn't to blame for anything that happened with the _camera_ and yet, all the bad things came back to her.

"What generation am I? It's been a hundred years and still it's me being punished for something I didn't even do! Erzsébet carries part of the blame but she wasn't alone. She wouldn't have done anything if you hadn't given it to her. And now you tell me I don't deserve to know everything?"

"And here you are, you say you are not a Chiesa and you know what, you are right, you are Malatinszky to the bone, head to tail. Do you know how much you resemble your great aunt? Not even so much physically, I'm not referring to hair or eye colour or body type, no, nothing so superficial. She was also a bundle of concealed rage from which she drew her power, always fearless, reckless, not caring about her life in the least. Ready to find the devil himself and threaten him with hell and damnation if things don't go her way. Her own father in law raped her. Did you know that? They tried to stop her while she travelled, rob her and destroy her. And you know what? Every time she would get up and move on, burning the path behind her. Her head held high, fire in her steps. You ask me why all that happened? It all happened because your aunt could persuade mountains to move if she wanted so and I, I was naïve enough to believe that with the proper components and power I could do the impossible. Obviously, I was wrong. And what latter happened to Erzsébet, that might be the worst of all."

Greta paused for a moment, surprised at being given the entire story. It might have been full of questions she'd probably never get the answers to but it was still more than she'd expected. She refilled both glasses, ready to face the devil himself and open up hell with her next sentence.

"You're a _strigoi_. With a Lazarus complex. You know what occurred to me? Nobody plays with resurrection if he doesn't have someone he wants to bring back. _Really_ wants to bring back. You say you were convinced the right components would allow you to do the impossible. What was Erzsébet then? A test run? And what, you just gave up after that?"

He leaned back and blinked and for a moment it seemed to her the mask would break but that would have been too easy. She couldn't forget who this man before her really was, how old he was and how powerful he was and she couldn't, even for a moment believe she was the one leading the conversation. She had to assume all he had said to her was just to lead her in a direction he desired. _Would someone_ _lose_ _his_ _humanity once the time of_ _his death has come and gone, yet he_ _stubbornly remain_ _ed_ _alive?_

"I wasn't in a rush to repeat my attempt. And the story didn't end with me and Erzsébet, it continued through the _camera_ and, well, you know how bad it went for me."

An eternity of solitude while others are born and die and he remains, passes through this world and does _what exactly_? Studies, gathers powers, riches and knowledge or is there a greater purpose to his never-ending life? She could have asked but she already knew that she wouldn't be satisfied with his answer, whatever it might be. Not really. Maybe she didn't know all the details but what pieces of the grand picture she'd gathered allowed her to guess his story was one of permanent disappointment and tragedy.

The vision of a girl dying in agony, punished not for her actions but for the sins of her father. She could never forget it, only put it aside until she remembers it again.

"You had a daughter, didn't you? Long ago. A daughter that was killed because of you. And you can't forgive yourself," not really, her killers were to blame, not him but she knew it wasn't important, "you should have been there, you promised you would always protect her, that nothing bad would happen to her but we both know that, when she needed you most, you weren't there."

A movement too fast for her eyes to see and before she could make out what was happening. A palm against her throat, fingers gently squeezing yet firm enough to leave no room for doubt: he would choke her if he decided to.

Sparks in the air. A deep tone in her ear and the smell of ozone, like fresh air after the rain, only crisper. His eyes suddenly opened wide, fingers retreat as if burned.

"How...?"

"I have magic too, didn't you know? I'm warded."

She sat down calmly, not in the least disturbed by the situation she herself caused. Behind her a dog was growling, although she still wasn't sure who at. Eyes were looking at her, slowly, taking in every detail, she could feel the warmth slowly descend to her belly. Finally his hand moved again, slow but steady and his fingers crossed her face, stopped at the forehead.

"Interesting," he concluded and then leaned back in his chair. Only then did she notice the dogs had been growling at him and not her, and that they moved to her side. It seemed she still had their faithfulness and so she'd reward them both with their favourite treats as soon as this ordeal was done.

"Why did you bring me here? What do you hope to accomplish?"

"I want to know, to understand before I make any definite conclusions."

"What conclusions? I thought you summoned me to help you get rid of the _camera_."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I trust you." She got up and approached his side of the table. " _I_ want to destroy the _camera_ , but I'm also aware this doesn't necessarily mean we're on the same side."

Especially not when the _camera_ itself had powers others could use.

"Believe me, I'd be the happiest person in the world if that creature were to return to wherever it came from."

"Why should I believe you?"

He shrugged as if he didn't care what she chose.

"The _camera_ is a mistake, my mistake, and it's up to me to fix it."

"Why haven't you already?"

At this he laughed, a throaty, sincere and unbridled laughter.

"Why haven't I? I had the perfect opportunity and then that idiot ancestor of yours almost killed me! Do you know how long it took me to recover? I may have magic but I'm not omnipotent! And then, once I'd finally recovered, there were two factions vying for the _camera's_ possession: a group of complete nutjobs dressed in yellow and the _krsniks_ ," that last word was followed by an silent curse, "and the last thing I needed was to run into a crossfire."

"In the meantime, whatever is in the _camera_ grew."

"You can see it too?"

"It's pretty obvious."

He confirmed it and sighed as he leaned against the table.

"Let me guess, you believe all this is just me manipulating you to get to the _camera_ and use it to increase my power."

"I've seen what it can do," she admitted, feeling no need to lie, she'd summoned him, she'd insisted on a frank discussion, "so it's not that hard to believe it. After all, maybe the _camera_ is the real component."

He shrugged.

"And why should I believe _you_? You admit you know what the _camera_ can do and so what if this is all a trap of your own making, something to ensnare me and finish what Ivan started? Kill the monster?"

"Do you have any idea what the _camera_ means to my life?" She raised her voice, she was aware she was losing control but there was here father, she had witnessed him fall apart like a house of cards, a face growing older twice as fast as the body, ravaged by time, paranoia and schizophrenia, and so she couldn't control herself and she said: "Do you have any idea what it's like to be me? To grow up with a father who keeps losing himself in the _camera_ 's influence, paranoid that it would go after me after he's gone? There were days when he didn't know who he was or who I was, just a zombie roaming the house and talking nonsense! I was twelve when I accidentally found the _camera_ and he beat me so hard I was black and blue for months."

Mother couldn't take it and so she just left, found herself a normal German businessman with whom she had normal and healthy children and not the products of incest.

"This one time I came home from school and he was in the living room holding a knife and telling me, _I can't take it anymore, Azra, I can't_ and then he cut his arms _in front of me._ His blood was all over my clothes and hands and face and hair, I sat in the hospital waiting room and cried the whole night through, _alone_ , thinking this was it – this is how it would always be."

_The worst part wasn't his_ _insanity but the lucid moments, all those days during_ _my_ _early childhood when he was still fine, he could still take care of me, help me, support me, as opposed to those moments when he would come to his senses afterwards and realize what he'd done. So much pain I could not relieve because he wouldn't let me._

"But no matter how many times he'd leave, he never stopped protecting me, he thought, he thought that all he was going through was necessary so the _camera_ wouldn't pass on to me. And you know how I repaid him? By abandoning him. Because I couldn't take it anymore. Because I have my limits and there's only so many times I can go through the same stuff again and again and take care he takes his pills and not be a danger to himself or others. And so now he's alone, in a hospital and always so sedated he's more plant than man...just a plant in a window. And I can't describe how much" _I hate myself for it, how angry I am,_ " I'm disappointed in you."

"It's not your fault."

"No, of course it's not!" she snapped and accidentally knocked a cup from the table and the cup shattered loudly into tiny pieces but it was still softer than the sound of her own heartbeat she could hear in her ears. "It's the _camera's_ fault! Just as it's its fault the _krsniks_ tried to kill me!" And with that she rolled up her right sleeve and showed him some of the scars that day left her with, "Because I'm an abomination, a monster whose blood is bound to a great evil and they believe I should be destroyed along with the _camera, for the greater good._ To return balance to the nature."

" _Krsniks_ ," he repeated softly, tracing his fingertips over her scars, "why am I not surprised."

"And you ask me why I wouldn't use the _camera_ for myself? Yes, I'll admit, it's tempting but everything, _everything_ that I want from the _camera_ is to see it _burn_."

"Do you believe me then?"

"First of all," she leaned towards him, knocking off his hat and she wasn't sure why but she had this bizarre idea of not being able to do it, that Moretto always wore a headpiece and who was she to mess with that particular legend. She cupped his face in her palms. "I want to see your real face."

"It's not pretty," he said but he let the illusion slide off and Greta couldn't move from shock, thinking she'd never seen something that was both so terrifying and yet so exciting as this man who had a dry placenta sewn to his face. She leaned forward and before she could even think about it she ran her tongue over his chin, cheek and finished with a kiss on the forehead. His hands were suddenly on hers, he was pushing her away forcefully and she knew she'd surprised him with her action as much as she did herself.

" _What_ are you doing?"

"I wanted to taste it."

"And?"

"It tastes of dead skin sewn to living skin."

Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware of what she was doing but that rational part of her was quieting down and leaving her to her sudden need to have this man and the power that kept him alive long after he should have died, the power that made him famous, that gave him legendary status, allowed him to play with the fates of others, walk as strong as the old gods, make him unstoppable. And she was aware he could see it, notice it in her eyes, the naked hunger and desire but she didn't care, there was no reason to hide, nothing to be ashamed of.

"So what are we to do now?"

And even though she knew what he meant, she said: "We'll destroy the _camera_."

He didn't miss his chance even though Greta thought he wasn't crazy enough to pass on the offer, not when the eternity is so long and it needs to be filled with something. But as his fingers traced the tattoos on her legs and torso she couldn't not recall Erzsébet and wonder if he'd fucked her too while the dead baby lay at their feet and if all of this wasn't what he'd been planning all along. What if all this time she had been playing right into his hands, her free will just an illusion like the one he'd worn over his face.

But even if that was so, she thought as she looked at his real body and not at lies, it was too late now to start another game. She would have to see this to the end.

She moans, she nibbles, she licks the salty skin, rakes the back, pushes things off the table, and ignores the deep tone and the smell of ozone.

The day was long and before night fell, because they couldn't start while there were still people outside, not when the location for the ritual was a crossroads in the centre of the city, she'd opened the envelope to check on the final unsolved mystery that had arrived with the _camera_.

And just as she'd suspected it would, everything went to hell.

She didn't want to but her legs still led her to Trsat, to her grandma's house where, according to the message, she would find Lucia.

"You find me and instead of looking me in the eye and tell me grandma died you leave the papers and the _camera obscura_ in front of my door?"

She started screaming at her the moment Lucia opened her door but the woman did not even blink, only stood there and looked at her with obvious derision.

"Azra. I wondered when you'd show up. You're a month late."

"Fuck you very much. Why all this? And why the _camera_?"

Her cousin just shrugged but there was contempt in her eyes. Nothing had changed. Greta could see that.

"I found that old piece of junk while I was cleaning the house and you know what, first I wanted to throw it away but then I remembered how much you _love_ the old family stuff and thought to myself, okay, maybe you'd like something of your father although when was the last time you visited him..."

"Yeah, sure," she interrupted and punched the doorway and pain lanced through her arm to her brain but she ignored it and said, "you know how much I hate that thing, you what my father and your father went through..."

"How dare you!" Lucia snapped and stepped forward, got in Greta's face as Greta thought this was perfect evidence they were related, "Neither of us know _my_ father but we both know _yours_."

An image that she doesn't want to see but it still appears to her. The orchard behind their house, Lucia pressed against the tree, looking aside with empty eyes and tight lips, with her dress raised up to her thighs and Zoran between her legs. Lucia never told her about it and Greta never admitted she knew.

"That's right, because the _camera_ is magic and so it's to blame for him acting crazy. It's not that he's actually crazy. Never thought of that, did you, Azra?"

"Don't call me that. I'm not Azra anymore, I have a right to a life, _my own_ life, not something dictated by the _camera_."

"Can you hear yourself? What you're saying just now? Azra, really, it's obvious insanity is hereditary. _Cameras_ and magic, that's all you two could talk about."

"How can you say that? After all we've been through. After I was there for you..."

"AFTER YOU WERE WHAT? You mean after you took me to that madman in the woods, terrified and lost!"

"Lucia, it's what you wanted, stop blaming me for your decisions!"

A slap. Lucia was storm incarnate and Azra could feel her cheek burn but she just bit her lip and reined in the desire to strike back because she still, as her cousin glared at her with murder in her eyes, loved another woman and did not want to hurt her.

"I was a kid! I didn't know what to do and you, you, you just jumped in with that bright idea of yours, saw it all as some adventure, because that's what you are, if you could do something, you'd do it. It was all just a big game to you!"

_It's your fault,_ her head echoed, _I'll never forgive you._

Lucia slammed the door in her face. No response because Greta had nothing to say to her, they've said all they had to and now they could only repeat themselves ad nauseam.

Nothing changed. Lucia still didn't' believe her, she still hated her and all the emotions that Great felt didn't allow her to think there might be something wrong with her, that she wasn't acting as meek as her usual self, and that _we both know what_ _your father is_ was a clear message.

Ciotta street was empty at that time of night and the only sound was the patter of rain on some piece of tin. Nearby was the house where Adam had once tried to destroy the camera only for his plans to be foiled by Ivan but the house had been destroyed by fire and to enter any other building at the crossroads for the purposes of the ritual would be a waste of their time when they had this whole open space at their disposal.

What will you do when this has passed?

Get back to my thesis, my everyday life.

_So...banal. Greta, you have magic. The world is a big place, bigger than_ _Rijeka_ _._

They hid at the crossroads, between the kiosk and the fence that ran along the railroad pass; they had the view of the church, a holy place. They huddled like a pair of junkies and he cast an illusion to hide them from potential passers-by or drunken idiots that might wander around, to prevent them from being stopped or someone calling the police.

I won't lie, this can be dangerous to you.

I could die?

Perhaps. You can never tell with blood rituals.

But this must happen, she thought as she stood opposite him, extending her arm, ready to bleed over the _camera_.

The first ritual, the one that created the camera bound me, your ancestor and the entity together.

_Is that why th_ _e camera has an influence on us?_

Yes. And it is why, to destroy it, I need not only myself and the camera but also Erzsébet. But since she is long gone, you can take her place.

She closed her eyes, lost herself in Adam's voice and finally heard something exotic instead of Croatian, an unknown language that seemed full of rhythm and singsong. It grew louder by the moment, her blood vibrated; she could feel the sun on her skin and the sand between her toes and the rain on Lucia's cheeks as she cried on that day they'd argued for the first time. Even then she had been more scared than angry, no, anger was something that belonged to Azra, something hidden deep in the bones, something that was not right, the _camera_ was always silent with her but that was because Azra was no longer reachable but it didn't mean the entity was just idling as she planned its destruction and what if...

...sparks, stronger, becoming...

...a flash...

...a deep tone thundering in her ears...

...a connection violently severed...

...she could no longer hear Adam's voice...

An emptiness.

The buttons of her shirt scraping against the wet asphalt of the sidewalk. One arm in a puddle, the other stretched towards the place he'd occupied just a moment ago, now struck down by the flash from the _camera_. Tendrils of smoke coiling around his head and palms.

Greta turned on her back, faced the sky and thought

fuck this, all of it...

# 10.

248, 249, 250...

Lucia counted the Trsat steps along the way even though she knew there was no point, she'd miscount and they'd end up with the wrong number. This was the curse, the devil's punishment. Everyone knew the story of how the people of Rijeka made a pact with the Devil himself for him to build them the steps in exchange for a single soul, but once the Devil finished building the steps he found at the top only a goat. _Or was it a sheep?_ Lucia wasn't sure anymore. Angry that the people had tricked him, the Devil made the number of steps ever changing, so that no matter how many times people counted them they would never get the right number. Everything was punishable but if you asked her, this punishment did not fit the crime and the Devil should have done much worse.

In her dreams, while she was a child, the Devil was a man with a disfigured face. Now the Devil was Azra herself. _Don't call me that._ She told her this the last time they met but how she _should_ call her, Lucia did not know. She'd found her address in granny Ana's stuff – Azra probably left her contact information in case something happened to uncle Zoran – but not the new name nor anything else about her new life.

A new life – this is what Azra was fighting for as if she had a right to it, as if someone owed it to her. _And if I don't deserve a new life, neither does she. We should all be punished for our crimes. Sooner or later._

She was on the three hundredth step (or was it two hundred and ninety ninth or perhaps three hundred and first) when a man with a dog passed by her. The dog growled at her and the man apologized. _Stupid dog._ The man was smiling with his lips but not eyes, Lucia noticed. _He knows_ , she moved on ignoring the man and the dog but it was difficult because he came back to her with every new step, every new number, three hundred and nine, three hundred and ten, he came back to her and his eyes saw her sins as if they'd been branded on her forehead. _They all knew._

315, 316, 317, 316, 317, 318...

The steps connected Delta to the Saint Mary's Church on Trsat and Lucia knew pilgrims would occasionally climb the steps on their way towards redemption. People would climb, praying and counting the steps, ignoring the beggars that would appear on them during Holidays, especially during Assumption when all the believers from Rijeka and the rest of the country would gather at Trsat in search of miracles, blessings and forgiveness. She wasn't a believer, as far as she knew she wasn't even christened, but she still climbed the wet steps, carefully and slowly so as not to trip and fall all the way down. Prayer did not come to her naturally and so instead of it she faithfully counted.

_401, 402..._ heartbeats... _404, 405_... the ticking of a clock... _409, 410..._

When she appeared in the church she was tired, freezing and soaking wet from the rain and she still didn't know what she wanted, what she desired, what she expected from this little pilgrimage. Did God hear the suffering of the unchristened? Could he see the weights around Lucia's neck? The Christians that were troubled could seek help in a confessional booth – all the sins were forgiven to those who asked forgiveness from God, even Lucia knew that. But could an unbeliever ask for forgiveness? For a moment it seemed to her she wouldn't even be able to walk into the church, that she would encounter an invisible shield, that she would be chased out, that smoke would start pouring from her body as it sizzled on the floor in agony. She entered and sat and waited...but nothing happened. Some old ladies still prayed, kneeling, rosaries in hand. They didn't look at her but had they turned around they would also know, just as the man with the dog knew, that death followed her... Towards the end her mother had found God, just like many others in a desperate situation. She made pilgrimages to Trsat with votive gifts, placing her candles on the wall with the others. God had obviously decided it wasn't enough because cancer kept killing her until one day it finished the job.

And Lucia was dying now too, it's just that she wasn't sure from what. She only knew the time of her punishment was approaching. She could feel it in the air every time she'd felt goose bumps for no apparent reason and her left eye twitched. Several months ago wild roses started growing in her garden. She plucked them out on the first day and cut her palm on the thorns. They reappeared the next day. She plucked them again and reopened the wounds. On the third morning she discovered them again, untouched, permanent. That night she set them on fire and salted the earth. Tomorrow morning they were there again, indestructible, mocking her. She knelt in front of them and let them grow.

_I'm dying_ , she said softly and hoped her words would reach God, _and even though I don't know how, I know why. All I want...all I want is..._ But she didn't know what she wanted. That was the trick. Did she want forgiveness? Salvation? Eternal life?

If the Catholics were right, once she died she'd end up in Hell. She probably had a reserved space, in fact, her entire family probably had a circle all of their own. She'd finally meet her father. Be reunited with her mother and grandma Ana. And one day, Azra would come.

Don't call me that.

She wanted to forgive her. She had wanted to for years and had finally realized she could stand in front of her and say: _it's not your fault, not your father or my child, we were both kids, and you were my little sister._ But then granny died and she found the _camera_ among her things and it all came flooding back, all the emotions, all the pain and tears, and the emptiness she still felt had now become heavier. In her mind she was back in the cabin, with the lupine faced man whose name she never knew and whose help she sought twice, first taken there by her cousin and the second time going on her own. _Are you certain_ , he'd asked both times. And both times she had said yes. First time because she had been terrified, inexperienced and young, the second time because she had been certain she never again wanted to be responsible for destroying an innocent life. _My family is cursed, why should I bring a child into it? They'd just be miserable their whole life. None of us stood a chance... No, I don't want it. I'm certain._

She was dying and her father's blood would die with her and if Azra ( _don't call me that_ ) had an ounce of conscience and goodness in her then she'd see to it that their rotten family tree died out with her. But knowing her cousin, Lucia was certain she would defy both fate and curse and bloody history and unfortunate future and have a child just to show that she can.

_Azra_... While the _camera_ was in her possession she'd dreamed about the same boy for days, the boy she knew was the son she'd never had...she'd never have. They were at the beach, waiting for the ferry to take them to the slender white towers whose tops touched the orange sky. They had fun building a sandcastle and Lucia was aware it was a dream, not because of the sky or the sandcastle or the boy but because she could feel the sun on her skin and the last time she'd seen it was back in Germany, leaving it behind once she'd returned to Rijeka. Still, she kept playing until Azra came, in a red cloak and matching shoes, blood caked on her golden hair that shone like a beacon in the night and only then did Lucia realize it was dark and Azra was the only light in that darkness. She reached for the boy and he ran to her, kicking over the sandcastle while Lucia could only watch helplessly. They moved through the woods, branches raked Lucia's skin, whipped her head and back, she was trying to shout _stop, don't go, come back_ , but she had no voice and could only swallow fear and take care not to choke on a lump of anxiety. First she'd hear growling and then she'd see black fur and finally the teeth tearing the boy apart, the wolf devouring him slowly as Azra stood nearby and observed her sacrifice to the gods while Lucia was drowning in despair, deeper and deeper into the woods and the last thing she heard was the distant sound of bells at the edge of darkness. The dreams stopped after she left the box in front of Azra's door but the memory kept eating at her like a tumour, more and more each day, feeding on the quiet fear that she couldn't get rid of. She vomited bile and saw thorns in it. _This is all Azra's fault_ echoed in her head, softly at first and then louder and louder like some twisted echo, until it exploded when Azra appeared at her door. After that there was just the silence in her head but in the garden there were still wild roses and no matter what she did, she knew she was dying and there was no stopping it.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the church. In the end she'd asked for forgiveness, from God if he really did exist and from Azra and she could feel the tears dripping down her cheeks, the only thing she had to offer at the altar. From outside she heard the church bells and every toll and every tone she felt on her skin. _Marking my last moments._

She went outside, into the dark and rain and the ringing of the bells followed her all the way to the woods. Church bells... or not... something else, something familiar but so distant in memory...a parade through the centre of the city, people, masks, winter and spring, children with faces painted black and white turbans on their heads, the gold, the Devil, the goats and Azra and the boy in her dream _come back don't go stop don't call me that wild roses and Little Rose and the lupine faced man..._

She didn't fight it when someone pulled her hair. She didn't fight the powerful arms and gravity. She fell to the ground, _white and a tongue sticking out and horns and now she remembered where she'd heard the sound,_ and she swallowed a cry because that was it, her time had come, the bells had marked it and punishment awaited them all.

She closed her eyes at the sight of a raised mace.

Before her skull was crushed and her brain splattered over grass and mud, her only thought was that she regretted not dying in the sun.

# 11.

Adrian Crekvina was chewing his mom Greta's lasagnes and waiting for something bad to happen. By that he didn't mean an argument with his parents that would usually happen when he'd come for lunch or dinner but something more serious. Rain pattered on the window panes whose liquid crystals spread out to let as much light into the apartment as possible. The clock hands moved stiffly as he listened to people chewing, counting down the minutes to that moment when it would be polite to get up from the table, say goodbye to his parents and go home.

China, that dumb shaggy dog they'd never managed to teach not to beg for food rose from under the table, whimpering and restless.

"She's been going crazy the last few days," Greta noticed with concern.

"Shit's about to go down," Aždaja concluded, pointing at the dog with her fork. Dad wasn't fazed by any of it; he was busy fighting his daily battle with lunch. While Adrian watched his father try to get food into his mouth without spilling all of it over the napkin and feeder, he felt a tremor. The dusty LED chandelier was now swaying over their heads and the glasses Adrian himself designed, 3D printed at school and then hand painted when he was a kid were now clinking in their special place in the cupboard. A piece of pasta dropped from his father's fork and his scarred face smiled, as if to say: _"It's the earthquake, I'm not as helpless as a baby with a feeder, it's the earthquake making my food fall off_ _the fork_ _..."_ Only when the earthquake intensified and the flower vase exploded, showering the floor tiles with petals and crystal shrapnel, did both Adrian's moms jump up from the table. China ran into the hallway, whimpering. Greta went for dad's wheelchair but he was faster than anyone expected and grabbed the commands, started the motor and deftly moved away from the table. Only Aždaja was looking at the mess on the floor as if searching for fractal patterns.

Tremors. Pause.

A stronger tremor followed by shorter and shorter breaks. Mom Greta and dad moved back to the load bearing wall, shouting for them to take shelter, to run. Mom Aždaja and Adrian just stood.

Noise came from outside, thunder and the crack of concrete. Streetlights went out. Then a pause and absolute silence; the rain either stopped or Adrian's ears couldn't hear it anymore because they rang. Instead he could hear his own heart beat a rhythm in his eardrums.

Suddenly the floor danced under Adrian's feet and he grabbed the window board and glanced at the city whose strongest tremor so far shook its buildings like his dad's hands. Lights in distance flickered and remained on long enough for him to see the luxury hotels around the Delta marina collapse into the sea, see the cable car's end at Trsat snap off and fall over the rooftops, see the buildings disappear.

***

He knew it was alive and possessed a consciousness. Later he'd reject that idea as nonsense but in moments like these he was sure of it. The _camera obscura_ was on the ceiling, under the web of cracks made by the earthquake. It hung from the steel rods that were now visible since a piece of concrete fell from the ceiling. Since Adrian used his apartment as an atelier, the damage the earthquake made had allowed him to create another _site specific_ installation. The _camera_ spun in a circle, surrounded by myriad small coloured mirrors and mom Greta's old music CDs that he'd never listened to because the devices that could play them could be found only in the music pavilion of the "Peek&Poke" museum complex. Marta guessed from the names and images on them that it was rock music and she was supposed to know since her grandfather played guitar in some local rock bands before Yugoslavia was broken apart and he'd have surely been a great star, she claimed, if the war hadn't broken out and fucked it all up, including grandpa.

By rotating, the myriad objects on the ceiling created a mosaic of light all over the room, also illuminating Adrian's wide pupils, the tiny wooden marionettes covered in papier-mâché and Marta's empty spot on the bed. _Is she here or did she go home?_ _Was she here at all yesterday? The day before?_ He couldn't remember. He kept thinking about her guitar-playing grandfather. Who knew if that was true at all?

He sat up and put two more berries in his mouth. He swallowed them with the last sip of mom Aždaja's herb concoction and lay back down again, waiting for cold sweat to break over his forehead. The vacuum cleaner he'd named "Nom Nom" went active. He knew which days it would activate to clean but he couldn't recall them at the moment. It made a pleasant drone as it manoeuvred through the mess. It seemed the cleaner didn't react at all to the woman with a dead baby in her arms who once again started walking around the room. She was pretty, dressed in vintage city clothes, just as if she'd stepped out of a Stevens painting. She was also infinitely sad, made the rain fall between his four walls and the _camera obscura_ projected a sliver of darkness through the veil of her suffering. He rose, took a brush and approached the canvas. He _had_ to paint now, while the woman was in the room, while he could still see her. He chose the shades on his colour mixer screen until the machine gave him a nice transition from grey to indigo blue he could use for the backdrop. The cleaner had stopped droning a while ago. Dali's clocks and minutes melted away, he was unfazed by the passage of time, it had become irrelevant. The brush was an extension of his body; his nerves went from his brain all the way to the tiny hairs leaving their mark on the canvas. There was music to his painting; a soft shading was the soft tone of a flute, frantic layering of colour to the backdrop reminded him of a counter-bass' agony, promising an imminent crescendo. Adrian felt his mouth was dry, his throat was dry but he had no intention of stopping until the portrait was done. The person on the canvas started having realistic face lines. His spectral model approached him and looked at the portrait and then appreciatively nodded. She liked the vermillion and ochre of her dress.

The dead baby started crying and worms flowed from its eyes. Adrian was like a conductor, waving his arms in ecstasy as the canvas thirsted for paint, wanting more. The portrait was finished; he was alone in his atelier.

"Erzsébet. Your name is Erzsébet," he said as he observed the hundred paintings leaning against the walls, all created thanks to hallucinations like the he'd had one today.

***

The doors to Adrian's apartment and atelier never opened on the first knock; it didn't matter if Marta knocked with her hand or boot. It would be pointless to try calling him online because he kept turning his iLens off, saying he couldn't make out the difference between virtuals and hallucinations. Marta started wearing heavier boots. After the fourth series of knocks she heard a key move in the lock and was relieved she wouldn't have to come in through the window.

"Hey, I wondered where you are. It's raining, eh?" he asked scratching his tousled almond coloured hair. Marta was drenched and felt no need to answer him. She came in, breathed in the paint and immediately looked at the painting on the easel: "Wow, is this a new one?"

"Yes, painted it this morning, you like it?"

She inclined her head in appreciation: "It's wonderful."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah...very real. As if she's gonna blink at any moment."

"You don't think it's morbid? Like, her baby's dead."

"Listen...well, at least it doesn't scare me like those Minotaurs..." she pointed at the canvases against the wall: a crimson painting of a burning house, Adrian's father, his mothers, German soldiers surrounding a young man, orgies in the Governor's palace, the _camera obscura_ on the ground, crushed to pieces...and in the background of every image a terrifying humanoid shape with a bull's head. In some it was holding up a threatening hand. Sometimes it held an axe or a club or a large knife. Mata shivered and looked back at the woman with the baby: "I just feel sorry for her. She's sad. It should be placed in an exhibition."

"I thought...maybe, not just the Minotaurs but use them as one part of it and the other part can be something else..."

"What do I keep telling you!"

"I mean, you're probably right...could be for the best."

"Right? Minotaurs and...madams."

"Ariadnes. Minotaurs and Ariadnes."

"And that would be...?"

"Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and helped him slay the Minotaur."

"Ooh, then it's like, paintings I like defeating the paintings I don't like! Deal!"

"Yes, good, good... the concept's there. I have portraits of women, of moms, of you, this one... We'll pair them up in the gallery, like, one horned one and one lady...and I'll make a digital spatial installation for iLens, like a labyrinth... you know? Like, have the audience pass through the gallery like through a labyrinth...but with physical pieces of art on display. Oh, and we'll place ropes on the floor, like, real ropes, like, Ariadne's thread."

"Great. Ooh, I linked up with that woman today... Melita... she agreed to make you a virtual speech for the exhibition!"

"Excellent!"

"Yes, she'll write the speech, record herself reading it... you can then put her in the gallery like a hologram or on the web so everyone can watch through iLens."

"That's...genius! You took care of it all...thank you...like, forever!"

"Yes, yes... and she asked if you could take care of something for her. You know. Seems there's been a shortage since the earthquake, nothing's coming in."

"Oh come on... I'm not a dealer!"

"Look...you've got it, she needs it..."

"She doesn't need it...what I've got she definitely doesn't need. Even I don't know what all that stuff Aždaja picks is, fuck me, there's some poisons in there I've been taking my whole life so I've built up some tolerance, if I give her some of that the idiot will probably overdose and I'll have her on my conscience!"

"Just give her a little, like you gave me..."

"I watched over you when you took it, like a mama bear..."

"You did? Looked after me?"

"Fuck yes..."

She kissed him and pressed herself up against him. His saliva was bitter from Aždaja's herbs. She wanted to get wasted and ride him as the world dissolves in front of her eyes and the universe is massaging her brain.

"Give it to me..." she whispered.

"To you I'll give anything."

"Even this box hanging from the ceiling?" she asked smiling.

"Once you've earned it," his hands slid to her hips. She felt tingling.

"Do I have to beg on my knees?"

"Interesting idea. Something like that came to my mind too," he said and took out handcuffs from his back pocket.

***

The ground shook again, but it wasn't from the drugs. There'll be more quakes here but he had no idea how he knew that. His thoughts were heavy and slow, as if someone had tethered them to the ground. The sky was black like his sketching coals; it seemed it was night already. Part of him was lost among the clouds, far away from everything, only then could he see and know. He listened to the whispers. Dozens of voices, ancestors, descendants... they called to him. _Just a little more_ , they said. Some moments it would feel like he was drowning in madness but they looked out for him, gave him only as much as he could take.

_It's all about the dosage_ , mom Aždaja used to say when she would pack his herb mixture that kept him alive. The herbs had saved him when mom Greta was pregnant and her warded body considered Adrian growing insider her an enemy and wanted to kill him. Since then he'd been taking them regularly but carefully dosed because they were technically a poison.

The voices did the same thing with the madness.

He felt himself split in two. He cried but his eyes were dry. The other Adrian, the one down there, his tears were flowing but that Adrian had no idea why. Without an emotional reaction they weren't tears, just salty water. The free Adrian screamed and tore at his hair but his vocal cords didn't even twitch. Here there was always silence. The one down there had hair falling all over his pillow and floor. _It was autumn, it wa_ _s normal. Even leaves fall._ He could see through the walls; it was raining hard. It was watering the seeds of depression and melancholy in the people and the seeds grew. The alley cats were gone, the flying rats, the seagulls and pigeons had become rare. The drones had chased them away. The police increased surveillance after the riots on May the 3rd. The people of Rijeka talked and looked more tired than ever. Somewhere among them a bull-headed apparition walked.

Another quake, stronger now. The cracks in the wall opened wide, paintings fell from the walls, the _camera obscura_ spun and danced. Children screamed outside. He wanted to close his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch but he had no eyelids. His sight penetrated everything, everything vibrated at an all-powerful frequency that the panicked people couldn't fathom. A masterfully shaped melody of Marta's Gypsy ancestress, dedicated to Earth's womb. And to him. Korzo was like a cemetery, the squares of Riccardo Zanella and Svetozar Nilovic a grotesque diptych of broken umbrellas, turned over tables and broken ads. Hundreds of drones took to the skies; police, fire department, emergency services, bloggers, insurance companies, curious citizens, they all searched for a better view of the disaster. The buildings toppled over, both the new printed-out ones and the old, secession style ones. The earthquake did not discriminate.

The sea poured from the cracks, took back what was its. It ruled the streets, bus stops, cars, ground floors. The underground parts of Mlaka underpass became a whirlpool of muddy water that tore out trees and washed away dumpsters, cars, people. And then it all calmed down, colours slowly shifting to blue or grey of the rainy sky. It all vanished in the blink of an eye like a broken hologram. Water swallowed the city. The earthquake stopped, it was too late now. There was almost no one who'd breathe a sigh of relief. Only the drones zipped across the sky unimpeded.

***

Adrian woke up startled, gasping for air. The _camera obscura_ was active, spinning around its axis and projecting light. He wasn't sure if he'd dreamt it or if it had been a hallucination. His body was covered in sweat, his muscles were cramping, his heart raced. He looked at the bed, Marta had gone again... _again, didn't she.... Yes. Last time I looked at the bed like this, she'd come after that? Or did she?_ Her pillow was crumpled; he saw a long, brown hair on it. _Then she must have slept here_ _?_ He stumbled over to the window and chased away the liquid crystals; outside there was water everywhere. It took him a few moments to recognize it was just the usual deluge outside, to be sure the images from his dream weren't about to become reality. Manhole covers floated, garbage slid down the streets. It was like déjà vu, his hands were shaking and his bare feet stepped on cellophane and coloured pieces of paper. _Didn't Nom Nom clean this? When was that? When was Marta here?_ He took another canvas and started painting. Voices kept calling to him every time he touched the brush and the call was getting stronger. _Blue, blue,_ his finger tapped on the mixer's screen. He needed more blue; it was all lost in the blue.

***

When she appeared at his door, for a moment he'd thought it was Erzsébet. He thought: _she wouldn't bang on the_ _door;_ _spectres don't have problems with locked doors._ Sweat poured down his throat and neck, Marta took out a handkerchief and grabbed his arm: "Hey, you okay?"

He nodded: "I worked a lot."

Behind him, on the floor, were new canvases. They weren't finished paintings, only sketches, incomplete depictions of various events – a car crash, a protest in front of a factory, his father holding the _camera obscura_ in his hands, a city in ruins and the sea devouring it. To Marta it seemed to be too many new canvases in such a short amount of time, he must have worked like a madman, one sketch after the other, a flow of ideas for scenes of chaos, accident and doom, all in shades of blue. Then several portrait sketches, more women with dead babies, only one had a detailed face. The images were making her nauseous.

"Listen," she said, "Melita Kosić sent you a recording so hook up the virtual and see if it's OK. Looks great to me. And I've talked to the guy from Kastav Gallery, he's giving me some crap about not really loving the hypnorealism..."

"Ugh, the guy's such a square, I could immediately tell he's all into concepts and abstraction... like, stuck in the twentieth century, it's good he doesn't live in a cave!"

"Hahahah, ain't it? Oh, and I've told him about the concept, the Minotaur, the labyrinth and all that. Seemed neat to him..."

"Of course, as long as there's a concept... aargh, backward people!"

"...but I think what won him over was when he asked me if my folks were from Buje. Like, Cinić."

"Hahaha... so did you tell him you're Hungarian Gypsies?"

"I'm not stupid! My folks had a good reason to change the family name. Yes, sir, we're from Buje, _mebbe we're r'lated?_ We got the gallery for a month right away and he's gonna pay for the setting up."

"You're a legend! You're the best. Let's go celebrate, Aždaja sent me a fresh batch of herbs." His eyes glowed green like some hallucinogenic weed.

"Oh...I'd rather..."

"Wait... YOU don't want to? You okay?"

"Well... I don't know... maybe my stomach's a bit... I'll skip it today..."

""As you wish...but, thank you so much... really. Without you I'd never make it."

"I'm good, ain't I?"

"The best...hey, wait. Let's get this over with."

He dragged the chair into the middle of the room, jumped on it, wobbled a little but kept his balance and then used a pair of scissors to cut the ropes that attached the _camera obscura_ to the ceiling.

"Here, it's yours. Take care, it's some crazy stuff."

"Ooooooooh, thank you!"

"Well, since you like it so much...and you've earned it."

They kissed, the _camera obscura_ and Marta's belly between them.

***

He called her to tell her he couldn't come. She hated when he did that, it made her cringe. Of course everyone could see where he was and what he was doing, she frequently passed the recordings around and over the virtual, but just the knowledge that someone could see them without the use of any device, any machine, just using the naked brain behind a scarred face, _that_ scared her. That he'd been sending her video messages, twisted and unstable recordings made by an equally twisted and unstable mind. Such things shouldn't exist. Still, she kept quiet and did what he'd asked. She had to.

The door was unlocked when she came, he was waiting for her. His wheelchair was at the window, his gaze was pointed outside, towards the city covered in scaffolding, tarpaulins, and self-moving 3D printers spitting connecting materials into the cracked walls, rebuilding fallen balconies and raising new floors. It was pointless: another earthquake and it would all end up like one of Adrian's paintings.

She walked into the room, silent. The wheelchair turned towards her and Adrian's father spoke: "Marta, what nice thing did you bring us..."

"What I had to. Here, the _camera_. Now what?"

The wheelchair buzzed and drove up to her. The old man extended his shaking hands.

"I don't know...maybe Ms. Greta is right, maybe..."

"Just give it to me. Come on. Never mind Greta, Greta's afraid... she's right, it's dangerous but it's also my only chance and I'm the only chance for all of you. Greta doesn't understand, she thinks it will all be okay if she pretends it is so. And it's not. Give it to me."

Marta dropped the box into his hands. For a moment it felt like the air was crackling, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

"How will that thing help you?"

"It ruined me in the first place." He caressed the strange ornaments on the lid. "The _camera obscura_... three times it pushed me to the very edge. I'm in this wheelchair because of it. That is why Greta is afraid; she thinks I'll die if I try again. But the _camera_ can do much; you only need to find a way. And if I don't have it, then I can't find it. It's with me now so I'll find it... I'll discover it", all the time he spoke he didn't take his eyes off the box, "It and I are connected, it will reveal to me its secrets eventually."

The box seemed mute and dead, as if it had no intention of giving up anything to anyone. Marta wanted to believe what he'd said but couldn't. She swallowed and asked: "Then...what Adrian saw, what he painted...?"

His fingers traced a pattern in the wood and then opened and closed the mirror as if he was checking everything was in place. He sounded satisfied and assured: "We have a chance. With the _camera_ , if I can heal myself I could heal the city. I could stop the earthquakes. Then Adrian's paintings would be just that, paintings."

"And the woman with the dead baby?"

"That's the past, not the future."

"Even if she has my face in one of the portraits?"

Now he raised his eyes. He sized her up, from her eyes to her belly and smiled: "Your baby will be fine, just keep her away from Aždaja and her herbs. You see, I need the _camera_. I have to get out of this wheelchair; I should soon be pushing my granddaughter's pram around."

"A girl...?"

"Yes. Choose a nice, local name. Huh, never saw myself as a grandpa. Are your grandparents still alive?"

"One of them. On my dad's side."

"Are you close?"

"Not really. Grandpa is... I guess he was always a bit of a problem. He wanted my grandma but she didn't want him. Then he came back from the war, from operation Storm...victorious and all that. He came to my grandma tipsy, carrying loot: a VCR and a monitor..."

"A TV. A VCR was connected to a TV."

"Right, right. A TV. He gave her that...and she was supposed to...and she didn't really want him but since he'd come back from the war and there was general euphoria about the victory and liberation and she kinda got swept up in it and she couldn't say _no_ to a Croatian knight. So she said _yes_ and fucked herself over."

"It was that bad?"

"Well...he was good to me...most of the time. In fact, when he was good, he was really good, he'd tell me stories and sing to me... But when he wasn't good, then he was at the hospital and I wouldn't see him. A hardcore case of PTSD. Depression, aggression, hand grenades and all that. My old man grew up with it, which is why he's also... Well, in the end grandpa's nerves went completely to hell. He's in Lopača now."

He frowned when she mentioned the place.

"Lopača is a bad place. Your father's side of the family, you said? Cinić?"

"Yes."

"Good, but you're not connected to the Istrian Cinić's, right?" It didn't exactly sound like a question, it seemed to her he knew very well who her family was and so she didn't see the point in lying: "No...not really. They told me some grand-grandfather took that last name because before that they had an Italian one but even that one wasn't the real one because they took it when the fascists came to power. Grandpa used to say the real family name was Czinka."

"Hungarians, eh. And you've been in Rijeka for how long?"

"Grandpa only knew his folks had already been here when World War Two started."

He nodded, satisfied, and knocked on the _camera obscura_ : "Don't worry. You did a good thing. Now leave it to me."

***

He started on the canvas. It was a mass of blue but there was no purpose to it. In the past several days he'd painted a lot of water and sea... it seemed to him it was something he could build upon. Maybe he could place the woman with the child or the Minotaur somewhere? But he didn't really know what to do next. It was all hollow. Hollow whites and hollow blues and the dead wood of the brush in his hand. Nothing. No images came to him.

He took the mug in which herbs, leaves and berries floated. He took another sip. His legs already felt like chewing gum and his mouth was dry but there was no image. He smeared paint on the canvas from pure habit, he could feel something coming, just behind his eyelids but when he closed his eyes it wouldn't be quite there and he needed more, more, another sip, more berries. The blue paint was now dripping down the cracks in the walls and his field of view narrowed, there was a hissing noise in his ears and somebody else was guiding his hands. Somebody else, that was good, another perspective but that person couldn't paint, it made him angry, it was wrong, he needs to take more, more, more... until the paints move to the canvas, the image becomes clear, the nerves extend, bud, go mad, ground themselves through the brush and into the canvas, make a direct route, a highway, a return ticket to America where the island with the Statute of Liberty was, holding an empty notepad in one hand and a thick brush in the other. A really thick brush, one stroke could paint the entire room, the entire canvas blue... The Statue is a woman, like the one that walked through his room but she's gone now and there's nothing for him to paint, nothing for him to see, his vision grows dark and his stomach rebels, vermin crawl over his skin, hundreds of thousands of tiny legs, antennae, more, he needs more...

***

Marta had to come in through the window. It wasn't the first time. It also wasn't the first time she'd found him on the floor, covered in paint, a brush in his hand and the canvas fallen on top of him, nor was it the first time she had to slap him back to consciousness but this time she was afraid more than ever, this time she cried as she shook him uselessly, as she turned on the virtual and called his mom Greta, who'd answered also in tears and told her she and Aždaja were already on their way because they'd felt it, they'd known.

_But they didn't know in time! Why didn't they? All those freaks, witches, madmen... and nobody knew in time!_ She swallowed tears that dripped from her nose over her chin. She called to him, slapped and pushed him but it did no good.

He's been taking it his whole life! He knows how much he should take, he knows the dosage! Nothing could happen to him, he's in control, all...

At one point a black dog stood beside her or maybe two dogs, she couldn't tell, and then there were people there, Greta and Aždaja. She could remember a dog licking Adrian, she could remember Aždaja shouting something in rhythm, repeating words and syllables. Greta was holding him and he wasn't moving.

On the floor beside them was a large bag. It wasn't there when Marta came in, Greta and Aždaja had brought it. It was empty. Beside it was what they'd brought in it; the _camera obscura._ It was open and it seemed to give off light.

_There's much that the camera can do,_ Adrian's dad had said. Aždaja was topless. Her body was still slim and muscled, wiry but the skin was wrinkled and thin. She cut herself with the knife, she bled on the _camera_ , on Adrian. Greta was lost, she reached for the _camera_ , she touched it, she wrapped her bracelet around Adrian's hand... nothing happened; he was still on the floor.

Motionless.

Greta looked at her own face on her son's last painting and cried.

***

The door survived the first strike of the mace against the lock, by the second it was seriously damaged and when he finally pushed the door with his foot it shattered and let the uninvited guest into the apartment. The wheelchair did not move from the window. The man in it spoke first: "I'm sorry our apartment isn't tidier since we have guests but you've come at a bad time. A death in the family."

His interlocutor wore old but sturdy shoes. His pants were scuffed, his torso wrapped in a dirty sheepskin. In one strong hand he carried a wooden mace with a thick, round tip, the handle carved and painted in the likeness of a hoof. His head was hidden inside a mask made from a bull's skull and from his belt hung three plain metal bells.

"How did you find me?"

"We follo'ed tha little one," said the deep, muffled voice.

"Ah...Marta. The gallery owner from Kastav?"

"'e's ours."

"You've come in vain. They've already taken the _camera_ from me, no loot for you. Mind you, had they not taken it away this conversation might have gone in a different direction."

"We wooldnae be talkin'. Zvana told me wha' I needed ta 'ear."

"If only you'd come when I was at my peak... I'm so sorry I didn't have more time so I could greet you as is proper."

"Ye had plen'y time, _strigoi_. Ye've lived a cent'ry too long."

The old _strigoi_ waved a shaking hand as he hissed an incomprehensible phrase. A cloud of dust rose from the floor and whirled towards the Bellman but the Bellman did not stand meekly. Bells clattered once, twice, their sound echoed through the empty room, filled her with tones that reflected from the walls and ceiling but that couldn't hide the other noise. A dull crack of wood against bone, the host's face and skull being crushed again and again and again.

The surveillance cameras helplessly tracked him as he left the building and proceeded down the street until they'd lost him in the ruins of an apartment building. There was only static in the recordings.

# 12.

An excerpt from the text written for the planned opening of Adrian Crekvina's solo exhibition "Minotaurs and Ariadnes":

_We could say that Adrian Crekvina's paintings represent the finest tradition of realism that can be seen in the early works of Radovan Kunic – to limit ourselves only to_ _role models from Rijeka – but it is clearly evident that Crekvina's view of art surpasses both local and quite possibly even national role models. His artistry is subtle and layered and it powerfully affects_ _the viewer._ _Even though_ _the composition of his works is sometimes harmonious and sometimes explicitly and disturbingly disharmonious the author creates a very clear construct, using associations that nullify formal limitations and the foundations can be seen in the three main motifs: the Minotaur, Ariadne and the sea._

_Persistent in his use of_ _clear_ _figurativism_ _, Crekvina introduces motifs subject to multiple interpretations that also entice us to create our own narratives. The most noticeable and most obvious central character is the Minotaur itself. It takes the mythological central place in the labyrinth just as it is the centre point of Crekvina's opus. The Minotaur unifies the human and the animalistic, the man and the bull. The bull symbolizes power, strength, aggression and penetration. Arturo Di Modica used bull sculptures as symbols of economic prosperity, e.g. at Wall Street, where share trading takes place and 'bulls' represent a prosperous economy and the rise in share value. The bull is masculine and fertile. A man with the head of a bull recalls the horned deities such as Volos, who was the protector of shepherds and their flocks which were a great 'treasure' to the people. On_ _Mount_ ___Velebit_ _even at the start of 20_ th _century the shepherds would use a bull's skull as a ward against evil._ _In mythology_ _Volos_ _is located underground and near a body of water, which has a conceptual link to Crekvina's sea. In Christian mythology horns are also associated with Satan, to whom_ _we_ _can_ _ascribe_ _material riches. When testing Jesus in the desert, he offers him kingdoms and all their treasures, all the silver and gold._

_The Minotaur also represents something else. It symbolizes the Minos culture, a civilization lost in a natural catastrophe which the artist represented using the image of turbulent sea. In Adrian Crekvina's paintings the sea destroys_ _Rijeka_ _(a city named after water, is this_ ___another link to_ _Volos_ _?) just as it did the Minos culture. However, Crekvina offers another possible interpretation:_ _in the myth, the young men and women are sent to_ _Crete_ _as tributes to Minotaur. The ship, that is, the sea, is the enemy here, the sea that comes for human sacrifices for the monster in the labyrinth._

But the myth also tells of a saviour, Theseus. In Crekvina's art there is no Theseus but we do have a site specific installation in the gallery, a thread that leads us through the labyrinth. The young tributes had no aid, only Theseus received it. Thus the visitor to the exhibition is placed in the role of Theseus, the victor and liberator. While the person who was key to the victory over the Minotaur is presented in the paintings as a counterpoint: it is the woman, Ariadne.

_Only a single "E" would be required to turn Crekvina's name from_ _Adrian_ _to an anagram of Ariadne which might hint at the author's desire to represent his Jungian anima, his feminine side through the use of these motifs. They represent triumph and tragedy just as the mythological Ariadne became a tragic character after escaping the labyrinth._ _In contrast to the raw, animalistic, masculine, aggressive symbolism of the Minotaur, the woman represents the spiritual, the mystical, the gentle and_ _the_ _seductive. Again, feminine elements are earth and water,_ _precisely_ _the same ones connected_ _with_ ___Volos_ _, the horned god. The symbols used by Adrian Crekvina are as intertwined as the mythological Ariadne's ball of thread unravelling at the exhibition visitor's feet._

Melita Kosić, art critic

# 13.

"Quiet." Vida lifted a finger. Mátyás regarded her with concern and a mild frown. Then he twitched his head towards the north.

" _Baszd meg!_ What..."

Vida's throat was closed by panic.

" Mátyás, run!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him through the red mist of the woods. Metallic sounds echoed through the canyon that surrounded them, the woods absorbed some of them but not all. Not nearly all.

He couldn't catch them. Not now. Not when they were so close.

Blood thundered in her ears. His fingers were sweaty, dirty, just like hers but it didn't matter. They were both tired, exhausted, travelling over hill and dale for weeks now. Fatigue ate away at her muscles and mind and bones but she couldn't, she couldn't think about it.

They ran downhill, following a goat trail that weaved and threatened them with broken legs and twisted joints. She could hear Mátyás cough behind her, felt she was more pulling him than he was actually running.

"Vida..."

She shook her head without turning towards him, there wasn't time. Maybe they'll escape him. It should be dark soon anyway and his kind has trouble moving through the woods. All that fur – and the horns – must get stuck in the branches...

...which would still be surrounding them had they not suddenly run onto a road.

"Shit!" She let go of Mátyás' arm.

" _A kurva isten bassza meg..."_ He coughed again.

He kept cursing under his breath, bent double, head between knees. She wiped wet hair from her forehead with her hand. This wasn't what she'd wanted. Roads may have been empty and abandoned but they weren't safe. Far from it.

Heavy, metal bells echoed over the hills. Vida gritted her teeth.

Roads. This is one of the two that pass through the canyon. And they'd been moving along the west bank of Rječina. She knew well which road it was. And where it led.

"Vida. _Kurva szar!_ What...? What the fuck was that?"

She didn't want to move south, not by this route. But what were their options? To go down to Rječina and hope it could be crossed? Not this late in the year. To go up the hills and hope _he_ won't catch up to them? And that they'll find some path to the top, if there was one any more? Hardly. Especially after all the earthquakes and landslides, which reduced the old mountain paths to an occasional red-white dot on the occasional tree.

"Vida. Vida?"

The bells once again echoed in the distance. They couldn't stay here. And the nightfall wasn't helping. They'd have to go down the road, south. Gods help them.

"Later." She extended her arm, palm up. He swallowed and shook his head.

" _Szar napom van_ , it's easier if I move on my own..."

She nodded. Without a word she turned around and ran down the cracked, muddy asphalt, despite all the instincts that screamed at her not to go anywhere near the place. She focused on her breathing so she wouldn't pay attention to the dull, heavy metal that echoed somewhere behind them. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She suspected he'd been following them for a few days now. First she thought she was imagining things. At night, after they'd make camp, she would lie in the dark and listen to the woods and it would seem to her she'd heard them. Bells. A distant clatter of bells. But she told herself it was just some half-feral goat,  abandoned here back when most of the population left.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

She was certain she was hearing things. Nobody knew the paths she led them down. They'd been careful. They kept away from the roads. They didn't leave any trace of campfires behind.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

There shouldn't have been a way for them to be found in these hills. In the woods. Especially since the _camera obscura_ wasn't with her. They wouldn't let her near the damn contraption, not after the incident.

Breathe in.

A crossroads emerged from the mist ahead. No, not a crossroads, a T-intersection. She felt tears swell in her eyes. _Control yourself_. It was jut a crossroads.

She ran right without stopping, without looking at the left path, the one that ran slowly uphill and into a curve, she knew well that curve and everything that came after it, all the way to the top of the hill... No, they'd go right, following a stone wall covered in vines and bushes and then onwards, into the woods. She cut the mist with her hands and every breath burned her lungs. How long before he catches up to them?

"Vida, stop!"

She twitched and waved her arms. Mátyás grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back from the edge of a cliff.

_"Hát ilyet én még nem basztam..."_ He kept mumbling to himself and shaking his head. The road stopped like it was cut off with a knife; beneath the crumbled asphalt they could see layers of dirt and rock. The rusty metal fence hung over the edge, twisted and torn. The remains of the road were somewhere down there, in the deep and the mist that was growing darker by the minute. If they'd had more light maybe they could have attempted a descent – but now, in the mist, at the edge of the night they'd had a better chance at survival just by sitting on the edge and waiting for _him_ than to try going down. The ground was slippery from the mist and rain that'd been following them for days, it was too risky to go down during the night.

"Never mind, we can go the other way, can't we?"

Vida swallowed. She turned back towards the crossroads.

Her stomach churned and it didn't have anything to do with the panic and the fatigue and the stress. She shivered. It was just a road. That place was no more. She took care of it. All three of them did. Lopača was just a burned ruin and nothing else.

"Okay. Okay. We'll go the other way. We have to go the other way. It's only logical."

Just a burned ruin. Just a burned ruin. It'll be fine.

Mátyás looked at her with concern. "Vida..."

She shook her head, resolute, ready to run, she knew that, if they don't move right now she won't be able to force herself to even look that way, let alone walk there... And then the mist echoed with the familiar howl of something larger than a dog and stronger than a wolf. She covered her face with her hands and her shaking legs finally gave way and her knees hit the road covered in a thin layer of wet, rotten leaves.

"What..." Mátyás stared at her in bewilderment.

"It's all right. We don't have to go there. We don't have to go there..."

The heavy clatter could not be heard any more. They were safe, for now.

***

Vida opened her eyes. The dreams of fire were replaced by the cold, wet morning. It was raining again and large, heavy drops showered down on her from some leaf of the tree she lay under.

"Good morning."

She looked up. Mátyás was already sitting under his tree, his legs under him, his hair wet and with bags under his eyes that could probably match her own.

"Good morning." She pulled herself up from her pile of leaves. "Did you sleep at all?"

Mátyás just shook his head. She got up and stretched her aching arms and legs. You'd expect that after all that time she'd be in good enough shape not to be sore after a whole day of walking.

"You should have. I've told you last night, we're safe for a few days. And we don't need that many, it's maybe half a days walk to Rijeka now, even in this weather." She went down to the road and looked into the chasm. At least there was no more mist and she could see the landslide. The road was completely gone but the torn trees had already been covered in vines and moss. They'd be able to make their way through, somehow. "Even through this."

"And the road?"

She didn't look at him. "We're not taking the road."

"Why not?"

"Because that's where we came from. Why should we go back?"

"You know very well that I don't mean that road." She could hear the accusation in his voice. She turned and twitched when confronted with his face, too close to hers. His green eyes, so alike her own, regarded her seriously. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Vida. It may be distant, but we're still related. You know you can tell me."

She made an inarticulate sound similar to a growl and turned away. What was there to say? That as a child she'd taken the wooden box in her hands and had almost gone mad because of it? The _camera obscura_ had a different effect on everyone; each of her blood carried a different aspect of the curse. What she'd experienced...weren't memories. Not memories of events. It was just raw, unfiltered emotions.

She never found out which of her may mentally unstable close and distant relative's memories she had stumbled upon, so agitated, so unhappy, tortured at Lopača. But that single touch, those few seconds had been enough to give her nightmares and cramps and insomnia and problems with eating and thinking for years to come – until she convinced her grandmas to take her to that place.

It burned the whole afternoon and half the night. And she felt better. But she couldn't force herself to go back there.

"No. It doesn't matter."

She stepped closer to the edge again and looked down. Yes, it was doable. They'd only have to take care to get back up onto the old road to Viškovo, if it was still there. It should have been, the landslides there were weaker and the road was maintained while there'd still been enough people in Rijeka to make repairs sensible.

It took them almost an hour to get down to Rječina through the dense woods. Remains of the road mixed with deep mud that'd suck them in to their knees. Rain was falling in sheets, impeding their movement but at least it was also washing away any trail they'd left behind. At one point they'd started climbing over the remains of the road and finally they were back on the asphalt, cracked, twisted but relatively safe to walk on. It started raining again, strong enough that they had to talk louder, over the sound of rain on the leaves and the gurgling soil.

"Where to now?"

She twitched her chin towards the hill above them. "Up."

"And we'll meet the rest of the family there? What's left of your Malatinszky branch?"

"Uh-huh." She swallowed. She didn't look at him. She kept staring up, where she knew the remains of Veli Vrh fort and the old chapel still stood. Pick up the _camera_ and then go via Pulac down to what was left of Rijeka after all the earthquakes and collapses. Which was almost nothing.

"And that pile of stones there?"

"That?" She looked where he was looking at. Ah. "The remains of Grobnik city. Too bad it collapsed; it was a nice fort..." She shook her head sadly. She didn't mention those few people that still lived on the Grobnik plains. Wild and proud and isolated for far too long. You would give Grobnik a wide berth because they were more dangerous than any wilderness the two of them had been passing through in the last few weeks.

The only thing worse were those psychos that had allegedly taken over the Governor's palace in Rijeka. _Neoarditi_. _Michelangelo's invincible heroes. Idiots whose thing was d'Annunzio_.

"We go on?"

"We go on."

The deluge lasted until they'd reached the top. The pathetic pretext of "family heirloom" was good enough for Mátyás to break into the chapel and lift the slabs ( _there's no people here anyway, nobody comes here anymore, nobody thinks this is a sacred place.... Who're we gonna_ _offend_ _?)_ She didn't touch the _camera_. Grandmas were careful enough, they'd wrapped it in cloth and placed it in a metal box. Grandma Aždaja probably placed one of her wards over it. Maybe it would all have been good if they hadn't grown tired of the rain.

"Bunkers? And it's safe to enter them?"

Vida shrugged. "Maybe we'll run across someone but it's not likely."

"I mean, there's no bombs or anything like that inside?"

"Oh, that. No. Some twenty years ago they'd organized a cleaning, some people wanted to turn it into a museum, a monument, something like that. To connect the bunkers and the underground tunnel system with Rijeka. But then earthquakes started and a lot of the tunnels collapsed and the entire project was cancelled."

They stood near a pile of rocks that Vida said was called Katarina.

"So. You coming or not? See, we can even sleep here. Dry." She raised her eyebrows and inclined her head. "Hmmm?" She spread her arms. Rain dripped from them. And it dripped from her hair into her eyes and mouth.

Mátyás was as drenched as she. "Oh, okay," he gave up.

Once they'd stepped under the roof, it was only sensible they move a bit farther in, away from the wind and rain and wet concrete. To where it's dry. Just behind the first corner, so the wind wouldn't howl around their heads.

Vida didn't notice when she fell asleep.

She didn't notice when the rain stopped.

She didn't notice when the wind died down.

She didn't hear the bells clatter in the hills. Not until it had been too late.

She snapped out of her half-sleep. The bells echoed through the hallway. Time... stopped.

He was either at the entrance or already inside. One. Maybe more of them. There was no way out. They could try to go deeper into the tunnels. Maybe they'd manage to escape. Maybe, if she didn't have the _camera_ with her. With the _camera_...hardly.

Slowly, as if through water, she blinked and looked at Mátyás. Maybe... maybe she wouldn't have to wait for her grandmas and go down to the crossroads in the city. A tunnel intersection could be enough. After all, it was all just symbols, wasn't it? And she knew the ritual. She could perform it herself. But only if Mátyás lived long enough for the ritual to be performed.

Déjà vu.

" Mátyás! Run!" She screamed at him and pulled him to his feet. Mid-run she turned on the portable lamp that now shone worryingly weak. The bells echoed through the hallways, their sound doubling, tripling in volume, bouncing off the walls and filling her ears and head and the blood in her veins. She pushed him in front of her, deeper into the darkness of the tunnel.

"Come on, run, run, run!" Knife, knife, she needed something sharp, it's all blood magic... Frantically she searched her pockets as she ran – twice she'd almost dropped the _camera_ as she tried to bend low enough to the pants leg under which she finally felt the familiar weight.

Mátyás was running in front of her, tripping once, twice but never falling. The Bellman was somewhere behind them and she could hear, through the deafening clatter, the thunder of leather against the bell and the gruff, deep voice... Was he saying something to them? She didn't stop to hear, they had to move deeper, deeper into the dark.

The air stank more and more, stale and musty. She wanted to retch as she swallowed it, because this wasn't breathing, it was swallowing. She felt veins bulge in her neck as she ran and pushed Mátyás and ran. A turn, a curve, a straight section... and then finally. Ahead of them, an intersection.

"Stop!"

"What? What? Vida, we have to go, he's behind us!" Mátyás grabbed her arm and tried pulling her but she tore away.

"No." She opened the box, removed the wrapped object from it and threw the metal box to the side. A metallic clang mixed with the clatter that echoed all around them. She threw the portable lamp on the floor between them and the lamp flickered but did not turn off.

"Vida, what the fuck! We have to go! What are you doing?!" He tried grabbing her arm again but she'd evaded him.

" Mátyás. Listen. You have to trust me." His face was twisted in the shadows, twisted by fear. "You have to trust me; it's all going to be okay." No, it wouldn't. She knew well the risks the ritual bore. And she didn't have the time to prepare him.

"What..."

She didn't understand the flurry of curses and the rant, all in Hungarian. With a trembling hand she touched the _camera_.

Pain. Pain and humiliation and fatigue and the cold, poison in her mouth and the dark and the slaps and so many injuries, so much fear, so much pain and the smell of coffee and _pain_...

Mátyás pulled her hand off the _camera_. Vida rocked on her feet. Yes, mom Aždaja's wards had some control over the _camera_ but this...this was almost acceptable, even though still extremely unpleasant.

"Vida. Move! He's coming!"

Mátyás was still holding her hand. She blinked. This was her only chance.

She dropped the _camera_ between them. With one hand she grabbed his palm, with the other she pulled the knife.

"I hope this will do." With a decisive stroke she sliced the blade across the veins in his wrist.

"Bassza meg a kurva eltebe!"

He screamed something else in Hungarian and tried to tear away – but after too many days with too little sleep and bad diet he wasn't strong enough. She gritted her teeth and squeezed his hand tightly as he thrashed. Blood spurted over both of them.

The knife fell heavily to the concrete floor but the sound was lost in Mátyás' screams in Vida's ear and the clattering so loud the Bellman had to have been just behind the corner. She pushed her sticky fingers into the wound she'd opened in his arm. She smeared hot blood over her eyelids, both ears and, after just a moment of hesitation, her lips. She blinked heavily. She pushed the fingers of her other hand into the wound and then let him go. Mátyás fell to his knees, holding one hand with the other and still screaming at her, screaming and from all the cursing she could only understand the occasional _kurva, kurva_...

But it did not matter anymore. She crouched and once again touched the _camera_. For a moment she was lost in the tracings on it – no, those weren't tracings, every line had meaning and sense, she traced each one and knew them better than her own body and she knew exactly who had held it and how, some had been too rough, others gentle, so gentle... but this time the _camera_ didn't force other people's emotions on her, it let her touch it on hew own, without obtrusion.

Through a haze of concentration and the intoxicating effect of the _camera_ , Vida noticed the clattering had stopped. Now she could concentrate, that was key; she had to do this right. She pressed her palms against the _camera_ and started chanting, the forgotten words that grandma Greta pulled out of ancient history with much effort and a lot of sacrifice.

And then she felt a rough hand on her throat. She didn't have time to react, she didn't have the strength to fight back: the powerful hand pulled her back. The Bellman pressed her against himself and the warm, musky fur. She felt the pressure of his forearm on her neck. The _camera_ remained on the floor, out of reach, just like her knife. Vida grabbed his arm with sticky palms. She couldn't breathe.

"Shouldnae 'ave done it, girl. Wouldnae work'd." She looked at Mátyás, motionless on the floor. Did he faint from shock? Or blood loss? Was he dead? Maybe he'd wake up and help her. Mátyás, wake up!

"He ain't of th' Blood. Ain't worth it. But ye're perf'ect!"

She was thrashing in the Bellman's grip. She couldn't break free.

"You'll...see...when...grandmas...get you..."

The Bellman's laughter echoed down the hallway. He held her with both arms now. She felt her ribs crack and pierce her burning lungs. She was still trying to breathe. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth started mixing with the stink of the Bellman's animal skin. A black veil was narrowing her field of vision down to a tiny dot.

"Le' 'em try," he whispered in her ear. "Don't need ye alive fer this."

She didn't hear her neck finally snap under the pressure as her head was twisted at an unnatural angle. The Bellman spread his arms and let Vida's body fall to the floor. He raised his mace. In two steps and a single clatter of the bells he stepped over both Vida and the _camera_ and the portable lamp that still shone weakly on the floor. With a powerful blow of the mace he crushed the head of the man on the floor.

He turned around. He kicked the lamp into the entrance of one of the four tunnels, deepening the darkness in the remaining three. With the mace he gently pushed the _camera_ to the other side.

He took Vida by the arm and dragged her to the centre of the dark, underground intersection. He took her knife and cleaned it thoroughly of the stranger's impure blood. He pressed his right hand against her forehead ass he carved symbols on her cheeks with his left. Life and death. White and black. All double, all in twos. She and the _camera_.

It didn't take him long to finish the job on her face, even in the half dark. He carved her palms and the backs of her hands and then used the bloody knife to tear her leather shirt open and proceeded to carve the complex, detailed patterns into her white skin, over skinny breasts, around protruding ribs. He could see bruises from where he'd held her but it didn't matter.

He positioned her as if she'd been asleep. He placed her head over her shoulders. Details mattered. The old ways needed to be respected. It was the only way to survive.

All was ready.

He grabbed the _camera_ and added lines to it with the bloody knife, carved them deftly as if painting the white wood with a brush. He leaned down and whispered the Words.

And then a long howl echoed through the narrow hallway, followed by dogs barking.

The Bellman allowed himself a smile under the bull mask. They were here. Excellent.

***

Ever since she'd sent Vida to find her cousin, a family tree leaf grown from the ancestral branch of Erzsébet Malatinszky herself, Greta had not spoken to anyone. Apart from a few words to the dogs.

They came into a clearing and continued their frantic run towards the tunnel entrance through the starless night. They'd heard the bells in the hills less than half an hour ago, and then they'd suddenly gone silent. It could only mean one thing. The female dog she rode let out a long scream, half bark and half wolf howl, calling upon the forces of nature and the gods to give her strength. The sound had chilled Greta. Jarilo and Morana barked in response, running alongside them, one to her left and the other to her right.

She gritted her teeth and pressed herself against the warm body when they ran into the tunnel. The black, cold and reeking darkness enveloped her and then she breathed in the stink of blood and death.

Behind the last turn there was a long, straight section. An intersection, a weak light and a tall, massive shadow with broad shoulders and sharp horns. In one hand he held a knife, in the other a crude wooden mace. The dog beneath her growled.

Vida lay on the ground behind him, motionless and half naked. Black outlines covered her body.

Greta growled in unison with the dog and rolled from her back. Jarilo and Morana ran towards the Bellman but he deflected their attack with two swings of the mace, throwing one dog against the left and one against the right wall.

But he didn't have time to defend himself from the huge, black female dog. She bit the hand he held the mace with. He let it go on reflex and tried pushing away the giant mass of fur. He failed: she pushed him to the ground, the mace rolled out of his reach and they continued wrestling on the ground.

Greta ran to Vida and desperately searched for any sign of life. But her body was broken, covered in bruises and blood that seeped slowly from many cuts. Tainted. Dead. And her blood was on Greta's hands.

How many more? How many more ruined lives? She stumbled to her feet, seething with rage, feeling every scar, every crescent pulsate. And most of all she felt the tattoo on her thigh, the one that had not faded in the least after all these years.

The black dog and the Bellman still wrestled on the floor, just a few meters away from Greta. The black fur mixed with the dirty white sheepskin. And then the dog howled. He'd stabbed a knife in her ribs once, twice, three times. She snapped her jaws at his neck but just a moment of weakness was enough for him to stab the black fur once more and throw the dog against the wall, next to the Hungarian's body.

But it wasn't the huge black dog that hit the ground but Aždaja. Naked, her long red hair streaked with grey. Motionless.

He turned towards Greta, who stood trembling and staring at him.

"Ye're late, Azra. The girl's dead and the words 'ave been spoken." He twitched his head towards the _camera_. It would have looked the same as before had there not been dark red lines burning through the paint and the wood. The stink of death was growing stronger and only then had she realized it wasn't the stink of the Hungarian's or Vida's death. It was the _camera_ itself. Something had finally hurt it. Finally it had been wounded. But not at that price. Not at the price of her family.

Smoke curled from that damned box, a tendril barely visible in the dark. The entire device shook wildly, resisting the blood magic that was part of it. It bled smoke and stink and light – and the shadows on the walls doubled, tripled. Faces came into focus, lines that had been passed down through generations. Julia Chiesa's narrow lips she'd recognized from the family portraits. There was a young man with Julia, offering her a dagger.... She felt a pang. Where had she seen it? She wanted to pause at it but the images changed faster and faster, the child grew into a young man stunningly resembling the first man, he must have been his son.

And only then did she remember where she'd seen that face.

The _camera_ kept projecting her family's history. Some faces she recognized from her research, in some she recognized the lines of her own.

But nothing else drew her attention the way he did. The young man with Julia. Because his face had been painted alongside hers. On one of Adrian's paintings – and when she thought of Adrian, his skinny frame flashed in the projection, an image of him in front of a canvas, a brush in his hand.

The canvas was a work in progress, the same one she'd seen herself: Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur. Ariadne could be no one else but Greta. Theseus was the nameless ancestor that stood by Julia's side. Bound together with a long thread...

But the images kept changing and they were showing Vida now. The entire family passed before her eyes, all those the _camera_ had affected. Generation upon generation of a family driven insane and destroyed, barely holding to the edge of an abyss of emptiness and death. Vida was supposed to avoid that fate. None of it had been her fault. The wrong blood in her veins hadn't been her fault.

Greta snarled. "You'll pay for this."

Adrian, addicted to the _camera_ , addicted to the images it had showed him, gave himself to it completely. It all led to this moment and thanks to Adrian she knew what she had to do.

She reached for the bracelet she never took off. She'd had enough. Three lifetimes were enough.

She tore the piece of thread from it, the colourless and multicoloured one, the one that now untied itself, moved by her will alone. She'd never dropped it, it never fell off, she'd never lost it. She held it in her hand for a moment. Then she opened her palm and turned it and let the thread float to the ground.

The Bellman's laughter stopped, cut off. Even he could recognize the thread, a piece of fabric that wasn't of this world, that had no place in the world of the living. But it could cut an opening into the world of the dead.

"...and don't call me Azra."

The thread was still falling, impossibly slow, floating, tracing lines in the air. And then it started growing in length, longer and longer, taking the shape of a ball, spreading and elongating and knitting itself into cotton and silk and wool, forming a humanoid shape.

The sharp smell of ozone joined the stink of the _camera_ and the underground hallways as the thread was uncoiling faster and faster, a bridge between worlds.

"Ain't possible."

The Bellman stumbled backwards. Greta bared her teeth. Oh yes. It was possible. She closed her eyes in concentration, feeding him her power, making herself his connection to the world of the living so he wouldn't disappear as soon as he stepped into a foreign plane.

She could hear fabric rip. Her head spun and her stomach churned, she dropped to one knee but she kept her concentration. This was the moment she'd finally have her revenge, if not for anyone else then for at least one member of her family. At least for Vida.

Through the haze and shadows and fatigue she watched the Bellman charge at her but he couldn't touch her: the thread from the sleeve of Death itself existed in parallel to magic, to the forces she'd wielded all her life; forces that were useless and inert when compared to it. At least for this moment, for this sliver of timelessness she was safe.

The shadow that formed beside her took on a human shape. She knew who it was even before she saw him. It was the only thing that made sense, for him to be here, he who was there at the beginning. Julia's young man was exiting the world of the Dead for one of the Living. Ivan.

She reached with her fingers, her hand was terrifyingly calm as she reached for Ivan's hand, stretched out towards her. The Bellman was still swinging at her but so slow. Time stretched, lazy as resin... and then she touched the shadow's hand.

She opened her mouth in a silent scream, her eyes tightly closed. Every piece of her skin burned with cold fire, her veins and heart groaned under a blood pressure that made her ears and head ache. She felt as if her brain was pressing against the inside of her skull, filled with memories of two people now. She was filled with his determination, his rage, his love for Julia – and her lips and scent, that soft scent of her perfume – his entire being existed in parallel with her own in her body. For a moment he fought Greta for control, lusting to be the one to end it all. But, being blood of his blood, Greta had overpowered him. He retreated and returned to her control over her own mind, even though he remained present, with her, part of her. They were one.

Greta opened her eyes and took a breath and it was as if she was breathing for the first time, reborn. All the tense muscles relaxed, the pain and fire were gone.

She looked at her hands, expecting to see his labourer's calluses but she could only see her own fingers and, under the light from the _camera's_ projection, black looking blood.

Vida.

The Bellman.

She blinked at him, just as he was swinging Vida's knife. It was actually Ivan's dagger, the same dagger he'd found under the bull relief. Back then the blade had been dull, green from rust and irregularly shaped but Julia had been impressed, she could still remember that – and she could remember what had happened afterwards...

Greta gritted her teeth and willed the image of Julia removing her white gloves out of her mind. She dodged the dagger but she couldn't dodge the Bellman's other hand. She took the punch in her shoulder and then used her elbow to disarm the Bellman. The dagger flew to the side and she dove after it, fuelled by both her own and Ivan's rage; Ivan, who was still a shadow coursing through her veins.

Her shoulder pulsated, the pain had been forgotten, had become immaterial somewhere under the adrenaline and pure hatred towards the Bellman. She grabbed the dagger with sticky fingers, Vida's knife, a repurposed dagger that was passed down through the generations just like the _camera_.

She turned towards the Bellman, who also mad a grab for the ancient dagger – a fraction of a second too late.

The Bellman failed to defend himself. Ivan was faster and younger and older and more experienced than him. He guided Greta and she allowed it. Three slashes later she was behind the Bellman's back and with a clean stroke she drew a long line under the bull's head – she was Ivan, she was Mithras slaying the bull – and then she pushed it all from her mind and then there was only Greta. Greta who finally had her revenge. This was her moment, hers alone. Only hers. With a dead calm hand she finished the surgical cut, all the way to the fur covered hairy ear. Only then did she lift the blade and let go of the Bellman.

The Bellman raised his hands to his throat, tried to stop the bleeding as blood gushed between his fingers, down his elbows. He fell to his knees with a final clatter and then he was on the ground, facedown in his own blood.

Greta let the knife slide from her fingers. That incomparably softer metallic sound was like the echo of the bells, dully ringing through the hallways after dropping into the blood.

Along with the dagger, Ivan left her as well. He was once again a shadow in front of her, nothing more. He smiled. He did not thank her. He did not ask forgiveness. He nodded and touched his fingers to his brow in a greeting as his shadow began to lose form and fade. A moment later he was gone.

Greta's eyes finally filled with tears. She stumbled, exhausted. Dots danced in front of her eyes, her broken shoulder was half numb but not enough to not hurt like hell every time she moved her arm. She crawled to Aždaja. Dead. Vida. Dead. The Bellman. Dead. The thread and the fabric it spun, gone with the young man.

She took Aždaja's head and lay it down in her lap. She rocked left-right, couldn't help herself. Tears streamed down her face and she screamed, furious, tired, hurt. She hugged Aždaja and kissed her forehead, wet from her tears.

The _camera_ was still shaking and then it rose into the air, half a meter, a meter, higher and higher, all the way to the low ceiling.

Greta raised her eyes and laughed through the tears, still holding Aždaja in her lap. "Yes, and where are you gonna go now, you damned thing? Where will you run? You can't save yourself."

And then light flashed from the _camera_ , a vertical shaft of white light, unbearable in the darkness. Greta shielded her eyes with her good arm but she could still see. A white tongue of flame cut like a sword through the _camera_ and the stone and the dirt and the concrete, higher, higher, all the way to the surface under the black, clouded sky. The _camera_ kept rising through this new opening and then it was gone.

Outside there was the sound of thunder. Through the hole in the ceiling raindrops began to patter on Vida's corpse.

The lamp finally turned off. Greta was left in the dark. Alone.

# 14.

The land was desolate and empty; darkness spread over the ruins of Rijeka and the _camera obscura_ floated over the waters. Thick clouds drowned out the moon and stars, no light was to be seen in the heavens or below them.

Apart from one.

Persistently, a shaft of golden light poured from the _camera's_ glass eye as it hung in the air, firing shining photons into the night. At the speed of three hundred million meters per second, sparks flying every time they'd hit a raindrop and breaking them into invisible nocturnal rainbows, the waves and particles made their way to the horizon and beyond. For three days and three nights the _camera_ floated above the trees, the ruins and the hills, shining perpetually.

Finally, at the end of the third night, the light flickered and then went out. The _camera obscura_ remained aloft a moment or two and then crashed into the ground beneath it, as if it were nothing more than a piece of old carved wood. Two handfuls of dust and a pile of twisted bones now mixed with the mud. There was nothing human about them, just sorrow and darkness that dripped from a tiny deformed skull.

The rain turned to the occasional drip and then stopped completely. The clouds parted and sun peeked from the east.

The landscape of a ruined city appeared; fish swam through its main streets, seahorses pranced in its squares.

There was broken concrete, cracks in the ground, lush greenery and rich brooks flowing into the sea.

A ship appeared, docking at the shore.

People came down from it, men and women, the old, the young, the children. Hundreds of them crawled out from among the rusted metal plates, from the decks or the stuffy dark under them, where they had sailed whipped by rain and wind. They blinked in the morning sun, the tired children shivered, feet tried to grow accustomed once more to solid ground. They found fresh water, a river, and so they gathered together and washed their faces. Their murmur floated over the ruins. Excitement. Laughter. Life.

Greta watched them, still numb from what had happened only days ago, not thinking whether she should approach them or run. But they knew what to do. As soon as they'd noticed her they called upon one of their own who then approached her and spoke in passable English: "Good day.

"Good day."

"Are there people here?"

She shook her head: "Not really. A few here and there but...it's mostly empty."

"We sailed for Italy...but some ports there are destroyed and some people shot at us. Then the storm tossed us around and the instruments stopped working. We didn't know where we were...last night we saw the light and we sailed towards it."

"There's no one here any more who could shoot at you."

"It looks like a nice place...there's water here. This was a city before the earthquake?"

"Yes. Rijeka."

"Rijeka. A nice city? Big?"

Greta smiled: "It had its good days."

He looked around. The bay of Kvarner glistened in the sun. "Maybe we could stay here."

She pointed them towards some of the more stable buildings, a temporary shelter. She watched them carry their backpacks and plastic bags in which they'd stuffed their lives. Their teeth were white, their faces black. They wore earrings and white caps and turbans on their heads.

They looked just like the face imprinted on her skin and every one of them brought Greta happiness.

THE END

# Acknowledgements

Even though "Flumen Obscura" is a work of fiction and should not in any way be seen as a source of accurate historical information, the authors did make use of certain sources. On multiple occasions they used the information available on following websites:

<http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/rijeka_history.html>

<http://www.lokalpatrioti-rijeka.com/>

<http://libraries.uniri.hr/liste/002n/>

and others.

Extremely valuable sources of information were multiple articles published in "Sušačka Revija" magazine, written by Irvin Lukežić, Daina Glavočić, Ljubinka Toševa Karpowicz and many others.

Must-read literature included "Kako čitati grad" by Radmila Matječić and "Rijeka, prešućena povijest" and "Rijeka između mita i povijesti" by Goran Moravček. We also read "Štorice od štrig i štrigun" by Drago Orlić and had found Tomo Vinšćak's "O štrigama, štrigunima i krsnicima u Istri" exceptionally helpful.

We were also aided by living witnesses of bygone times who were kind enough to share their memories with us.

To all of them and to all those we didn't mention by name but who helped create the body of publicly available knowledge we offer our sincerest thanks.

We would like to thank our beta readers for their concentration and comments as well as the "Kreativni odjel" marketing communications agency for hosting our site <http://flumenobscura.com/>

We would also like to thank Rijeka City Library and the Peek&Poke museum for providing us with a place where we could meet, discuss and plan our novel and to Robert Vrbnjak for doing the book's layout.

Fluminati

# Family tree

# Notes

[←1]

The skinny, glassy eyed apothecary offered her the bottle: "Here. It helps with coughing and other maladies. Trust me, I use it myself." The label shad aid, in small print, "Farbenfabriken vorm Friedr, Bayer & Co. Elberfeld" and in large calligraphy "Heroin". She paid for it and put the medicine in her purse.
[←2]

Medical records show that a single healthy baby was born on that night. A tiny boy named Bartolomeo Spadoni, weighing only two kilograms and eight hundred grams, forty-nine centimeters long.
[←3]

The noble family Malatinszky had owned almost nothing. It was only when Katherina's grandfather, Istvan Malatinszky made a name of himself by slaughtering Romanians in Transylvania in 1848 and 1849 that he had, in return for services rendered, been awarded land near Segedin. He planted plums there. He used to say that there was "A tree for every dead Romanian". To little Katherina it always seemed the rows of trees went on forever. Also, he had brought from the war a collection of guns and a cavalry sabre that he had been especially fond of. It had hung over the fireplace and Grandfather had made sure it was always sharp. Grandmother would say Istvan took better care of that sabre than of his wife. When Grandmother died of pneumonia, Grandfather moved the sabre into his bedroom.

His son, Katherina's father Sandor, was born in 1837. Before him, Istvan had lost two children to childhood disease so Sandor had been spoiled rotten. Istvan sent him to school and then employed him in his merchant company. The business was sometimes good and sometimes bad but they would usually cover their losses with the sale of plum brandy.
[←4]

Gjuro Ruzić lounged in the armchair, in the drawing room of his villa on Sušak. His guest, a certain Mister Weiss of Zagreb, was very interested in a monument, the so-called "Pyramid" that stood near his house: "They are ancient symbols, you know. Powerful symbols. A German acquaintance of mine, Mister Franz Hartmann...do you know of his work? The _Lotusblüthen_ magazine?"

"No," Ružić admitted with a modest smile. Weiss nodded amiably: "Yes. I've encountered several people here who are very interested in such matters so I thought, maybe...but they are from the other side of Rječina river." Then he shrugged and changed the topic.

"I've heard the citizenry has a high opinion of you. I was told there is even a saying about you, that every time someone finds a coin..."

Ružić laughed: "My dear Weiss, if I had a coin for every time someone said that...I'd have not one, but five palaces!" Then he waited for the maid to fill the glasses and remove herself and then added in a low voice: "And I would keep a harem of peasant girls in the biggest one. The rich and noble women think too highly of themselves."
[←5]

Ferdinand von Zeppelin was restless in his bed, fruitlessly searching for a position that would allow him to fall asleep. His wife lovingly caressed his shoulder: "Again, darling?"

"Isabella, we've invested so much... Should they... Whitehead and his people... should they succeed... should they use that blasted Schwarz's designs to make an airship that can fly, I... we're done for. Done for."

They greeted the dawn holding each other, awake, letting their worries fade away in the sunlight.
[←6]

In 1879 Segedin had been completely destroyed in a flood. Katherine's father Sandor managed to arrange a contract with the state for city renovation. In 1882 a scandal broke out as it transpired that Sandor had embezzled part of the funds intended for said renovation. Before city guards came for him, Sandor hanged himself. His wife, Katherine's mother, vanished with most of the money and another man. Their two daughters, Katherina and Erzsébet remained in the custody of their old grandfather Istvan. Fearing loss of his estate due to his son's embezzlement, Istvan quickly sold off all the lands. Then, using contacts from his army days, he married off both his granddaughters, sending them into the province of Rijeka and giving them money as dowry. Soon after, his heart gave out and his death was immediately followed by the villagers burning his house.
[←7]

The walls of the cell were cold. A man could forget that, in the dark, were it not for the occasional drip of water and the damp that could be felt under the fingers, on the skin, in the bones. Geneva was always cold to him. Where was the warm sun of Napoli from his army days? And Africa! Oh to ride once more through Somalia, at least to rid his bones of the dampness. Luigi Lucheni sighed. _Perhaps I should not have killed the Austrian empress Sissy, should not have stabbed her in the chest with a thin, sharp rasp and let the rich whore die? No. Let her die.Freedom to the workers, death to the rich men!_ He slammed his fist against the wall. It hurt, and the wall remained standing.
[←8]

As the men parted company after the show, Whitehead was approached by one of the young, intoxicated men who then apologised for their behaviour: "Forgive me, Mr. Whitehead. My name is Georg Johannes von Trapp. I've finished the naval academy here and in Pula I'm..." his eyes gleamed drunkenly and his tongue had some problems forming words but apart from that he'd seemed like a polite young man.

"An academy man, you say?"

"Yes...you know, I'm to board the _Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia_ in Pula and I had to...meet my colleagues before setting sail...you know, to China...there is a rebellion there...so we had a little celebration."

"Oh, if that is so, then I cannot hold it against you. It is a fine ship, but China is so far away."

"No big matter, I've sailed around Australia...as long as we have your torpedoes we shall fear no man. I apologise once more...I have to go, my friends await me."

"Best of luck. So long, my boy! Farewell!" Whitehead laughed and clapped the young man on the shoulder. The young man swayed a little and nodded once more to Beatrix and then to the rest of the men: "So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen and goodbye!" he bowed and ran to his friends. The young men left into the night, embracing each other and singing _No go le ciave_ _del_ _partan_ with a strong Austrian accent. The young man sang beautifully and when all was said and done, Whitehead concluded that it was a proper young man.
[←9]

December 12th, 1919. The front page of the newspapers contains an photograph. Twelve men, side by side, dressed in Italian uniforms, the middle one wearing gloves and carrying a stick. Above the photograph: "Gabrielle d'Annunzio and Michelangelo's invincible heroes, saviours of Rijeka.
[←10]

July 19th 1918. The newspaper headlines read: "Italian man, B.S. (18) arrested for destroying Croatian signs."

December 12th 1919. Under the photograph are eleven initials. Among them: "B.S. (20)"
[←11]

June 4th 1917. Newspaper headline: "Italian pyromaniac D.C. (35) arrested after setting fire to a Croatian ship."

December 12th 1919. In the photograph one of the legionnaires has a thick, black beard. Under the photograph, before the initials: "Legionnaires led by Drago Carraci are to be thanked for the current exemplary state of affairs in Rijeka."
[←12]

July 27th 1919. Newspaper headline: "Underage youth of Italian nationality, M.C. (19), arrested for brutal attack on a Croatian family."

December 12th 1919. In the photograph, one of the legionnaires is not distinctive at all. Beneath the photograph there are eleven initials. One of them is: "M.C. (19)"
[←13]

Germans had been especially tense in the last few days, because one of their local informants had been found dead, his head smashed. The bloody pulp was all over the street, the wall, the victim's yellow coat. The murder was so savage that women at the city market talked about it for weeks after. The attack was blamed on the partisans even though it would have been extremely unusual for them, since they usually carried out assassinations by firearms.
[←14]

So great, in fact, that he'd sometimes wonder if Lorenzo would maybe put something in it that the patrons wouldn't necessarily welcome. But if there were some narcotics or an exotic herb involved, he did not mind.
[←15]

He would occasionally receive a letter from Beatrix. He tried to write back but every time it would feel as if he was being crushed by things he wanted to mention but could not; thoughts of Isabel, of searching for _camera obscura_ and returning to Rijeka after he'd found it. And another thing he tried to avoid giving thought to, even though every letter from Beatrix would remind him of it: the building whose address he knew, the room whose number he knew, the doctor whose name he knew and whom he only had to talk and he would be allowed to see his mother, the madwoman. He didn't know what to do or say, how to deal with it. Isabel never really replaced her nor did she try to, just as Bart never tried to replace Mario but only now, in his twenties did Pietro realize just how much Bart did replace him; he'd owed a lot to Mario, Bart had told him and Bart always paid his debts. The fallen legionnaire became a surrogate father to Pietro while his only real mother figure was still the woman who at this very moment screamed and clawed at the walls of some white room, the woman he tried not to think of. He'd avoided visits for a week, two weeks, three weeks after his return to Rijeka and the weeks turned into moths and then years. Then war came and people needed his help to escape, to be saved, all that took over his thoughts, his time...so he buried the thoughts of his mother deep down, hoping to one day redeem himself for all those weeks and months and years.
[←16]

Ivo Robić crooning, Vikend magazine and "Opatija" cigarettes were a favourite pastime of Mrs Ana Crekvina. Her son preferred somewhat livelier sounds of rock music, imported through the semi permeable membrane of the Yugoslavian rock committee.
[←17]

While the old man was alive the K15 his mother would receive along with the salary wasn't all that important. However, it also wasn't necessary to make frequent trips to Trieste for milk, coffee, bananas or butter. Zoran sometimes thought Yugoslavia was crumbling away slowly, like a stale loaf of bread.
[←18]

Their neighbour Snježana, who was a doctor, had given his brother a written recommendation for a nice gentleman psychiatrist while Gordan was still a kid. "A forgetful young man suffering from manic depression and with a natural predilection for depression and hallucinatory states that might indicate a developing schizophrenia." His mother never again spoke to Mrs Snježana.
[←19]

Among the notes his brother left behind Zoran had found an old paper his brother did for school titled: "Underground tunnels and Rijeka's wartime architecture". He believed Gordan had made the entire story up because he spun a tale about myths, Italians and the Second World War and all of it took place beneath the city Zoran had lived his entire life in and hadn't seen a single hint of such a story. The dreams of his brother crawling through the tunnels like some comic book villain Zoran had ascribed to this strange text.
[←20]

The police had other matters to attend to anyway. That winter they'd found three bodies in an abandoned bunker near a retirement home, two male and one female. It was two pensioners from the home (they'd easily identified them since they both wore yellow housecoats and had been of an advanced age) but the third person was not identified. They all had their heads smashed. The old people started spreading rumours about bells being heard from the woods at night and so the inspectors suspected the killer may be someone who owns sheep and has them graze near the retirement home but no clues were found that would corroborate the theory.
[←21]

"Anarchism = utopia project!", "State = shackles of freedom!" "Capitalism, institutionalized socialism, fascism = violence against the individual!", "Guerrilla = modus operandi!" His brother loved to think of himself as the heir of the great revolutionaries and anarchists; a child of Kropotkin and the heir of Che Guevara who Ana Crekvina personally saw walk around Rijeka.
[←22]

A cut-out from Novi list newspaper (found in his mother's drawer along with the obituary): "Yesterday, on the 25th of April, 1982 during the morning hours a body of a thirty year old man was discovered in Mrtvi kanal, in the city of Rijeka. The police have investigated the crime scene. The body was identified through personal identification documents. G.C. (31), a history teacher in "Josip Brusić" elementary school died under unexplained circumstances in the early morning hours. Further investigation will discover the cause of death. The police are suspecting suicide."
[←23]

The encrypted letter Gordan had left to his brother via Meri and which Zoran threw into the garbage in a fit of despair and then took out of the trash can after the talk with Meri said the following: "Zoran, they want my Utopia. If you've received this letter, then I've failed in stopping them. Take it and protect it. It's by the hibiscus, north garden bed." The methodology Gordan used to convert the message into a string of numbers was the old method they'd used as kids. A page number, a line number, a word and letter number. Additionally you had to take note of the order of words and their letters and they'd long ago agreed upon the order being back to front. The biggest problem was figuring out which book Gordan had used. Taking into consideration the dose of narcissism Zoran had noticed in his brother, he first reached for Gordan's texts and the Manuscript. Since that translated only to nonsense, even greater than those to be found in the Manuscript, he reached for the Brothers Grimm book, the one they'd trained using the code on when they were kids. It had turned out Gordan believed Zoran would sooner reach for the fairytales than his theories.
[←24]

A reference to the cult British TV series "Doctor Who", about a time-travelling alien in a blue police box. Zoran spent a lot of time watching the Doctor's adventures on Italian TV. He'd also perfected the language Meri thought in, dreamed in and fantasised in. The Doctor's adventures made him want to explore space. And leave. When an episode would end he'd be caught by a feeling of nostalgia, the same one he'd used to get when he was a kid, although only on rare occasions. And it was always connected with the Partizan cinema and his father buying him ice cream and carrying him on his shoulders, his mother smiling and him playing with his older brother.
[←25]

"Even as a child I could glimpse the outlines of a world beyond the ken of the socialism and liberal capitalism dichotomy. The structures of freedom, at that time just architectural constructs scraping the red sky and rising in the air like spindles, had evolved into the foundations of a theory I am laying out in the Manuscript you are now reading. What was to a child just a vision of a parallel, perfect Universe, rising above the incompetence of existing political and economic systems, has now become the start of a Utopia in this reality." An excerpt from the foreword to "Utopia Manuscript" by Gordan Crekvina, 1981. Zoran had read most of his brother's manuscript, especially after his death. The only things Zoran could understand was that his brother had wedded Marxism, insanity and anarchy and that it had been an unfortunate marriage. The dreams of a boy playing and falling into a world of orange sky and thin ivory towers were suddenly easier to understand. But why or how Gordan came upon the idea of writing a two hundred page text was beyond Zoran's understanding.
[←26]

"Nenad Vižin's death in June of 1981 was anything but an accident or a suicide. By signing the petition for an investigation into the circumstances of his death we've clearly shown we won't take oppression anymore." This was written by a young female journalist involved with the gathering of signatures for the petition. Zoran had signed that petition, feeling incredible disgust towards the society he lives in. His brother wrote an article that was rejected and the government then applied pressure to Gordan. "The murder in front of Kontinental is irrefutable evidence of repression and of the establishment's crypto fascism breaking the individuals back with a steel boot under the guise of security and order. The illusion of the individual's freedom and safety is destroyed by this chauvinistic and xenophobic assault upon an individual who dared to move away from uniformity." Zoran's contribution was, apart from participating in a procession and signing the petition, a single rebellious SHIT written in thick felt tip pen across the official article published in the daily newspaper. Unfortunately the only person this had irritated was his own mother. 
[←27]

During a long ago conversation over lunch Gordan had mentioned how in one section of the tunnel complex near Via Roma (the tunnels which Zoran at the time still believed were just a figment of his imagination) the prison guards were growing mushrooms for the prisoners. He always believed his brother was making stuff up just to be interesting but now it seemed to him he may have really been to the tunnels.
[←28]

"The tunnel that can be entered through the back yard of the Italian _Liceo_ is connected with the entrance at the 17th century Saint Vid church. The street entrance near _Liceo_ and the former Whitehead residence, in the street that leads towards Partizan cinema has a locked gate. The tunnel branch beneath the church has branch that leads to the tunnels under the prison and a branch that passes by the _Liceo_."
[←29]

Mrs Ana Crekvina loved telling her children how she was descended from a wealthy patrician family. Zoran had concluded they were all crazy.
[←30]

The ticket said: Royal Hungarian steamship society "Adria" in Rieka. **Rieka –** **New York**. Direct steamship line to North America. "Cunard-Line" from Liverpool. The largest English steamship society. HEAD AUTHORITY FOR THE ENTIRE KINGDOM: Royal Hungarian steamship society "Adria" in Rieka. Passage in salon and III. Class from Rieka to New York. Service for Croatian passengers available in their mother tongue. First departure from Rieka on 14th of October in the morning on the large steamship AURANIA. Maximum number of passengers: 1600 III. Class and 400 salon. For all reports and instructions please contact Royal Hungarian steamship society "Adria" in Rieka.
[←31]

Greta loved using a wood furnace since it reminded her of her childhood in Germany, while her father was still relatively sane.
[←32]

Her father taught her that one, in one of his lucid moments, when he wasn't lost in thoughts of the _camera_.
[←33]

Few people knew what exactly happened to Greta when she visited her girlfriend in Trieste. But back then she was still Azra Crekvina and her name would, in certain circles, be immediately recognized and connected with the _camera_. When she returned she was hurt and she changed her name and the only thing she told Aždaja was that _krsniks_ had targeted her, thinking that, because of her connections with a great evil, she should be eliminated for the good of mankind.
[←34]

A _tornica_ is a semi-circular room added to an existing building where an open hearth would be placed.
[←35]

_Long ago, the story went, there lived a young girl in the_ _village_ _of_ _Cari_ _, a girl whose name meant peace but who had been born with a hole in her heart. She had dreams too big for a village girl and she wanted to go to the city, she wanted riches and power but she knew she could have none of it. And she might have lived out her life in poverty and anonymity, among the hay and farm animals and ash trees had her neighbour, a boy called David, not been a krsnik. Unlike her his heart was full of love, he was the favourite of the entire village but unfortunately he fell deeply in love with a girl that could not love him back. But in his kindness he was always there to help her, creating for her the most beautiful flowers and the juiciest apples. Seeing David's great power the girl begged him to teach her his magic. And he, overjoyed at her showing interest in him, explained to her all that he could and when there was nothing more to teach the girl slit his throat, cut his body to pieces and ate it. And as long as there was flesh to eat, his power would flow through her veins, the power with which the girl gave herself beauty and strength and riches but as time went on the flesh had begun to run out and with it the magic. And so, in a desperate attempt to retrieve her power she sacrificed the entire village, apart from her father. And they say that the death of all the villagers filled the village with magic that the girl, weak as she was, could not touch. In her rage and disappointment the girl left the village. They say that eventually she killed a krsnik woman and, to ensure she held onto her magic, instead of eating her she had sewn the woman's skin to her body._ Greta wasn't sure if the story was true but she knew Aždaja frequently visited the abandoned village to use the power that really was embedded deep in the ruins and so at least some of it had to be true.
[←36]

Guided by the paranoia that his daughter might become the _camera's_ next victim and by his belief in magic (based on personal experience), Zoran somehow found an old pagan priestess in Germany who blessed Greta when she was only two months old and also bestowed some gifts on her – to always be able to find who and what she needs. Later, after she'd lost her virginity, Ludolf blessed her for the second time, this time with her own blood so that her mind would always be safe from any outside attack.
[←37]

The county police department public relations officer officially denied rumours of sheep hair being discovered at the crime scene and refused to give any further information concerning the investigation.
[←38]

It wasn't hard for Azra to change her name once she'd concluded that she neither wanted nor could be Azra Crekvina anymore. She took the name Greta from the German fairy tales she'd grown up with and the surname Hartmann after Ludolf, her mentor and first lover, the one who'd taught her magic and the importance of names.
[←39]

Their love story lasted only a few months and it was, so far, Greta's only serious romantic entanglement which was another reason she couldn't get over the relationship's spectacularly bad end.
[←40]

Later, as they lay on the floor, he was playing with her bracelet: "Where did you get this thread?" "I brought it back from... I don't know what to call that place," she shrugged. He watched it intently: "It's linked with death, with the other side..." She sat up and asked: "You think you could use it to bring dead babies back to life?" He shook his head: "No. It is not that simple. Once you cross over, you are far away. The thread is an ornament, an illusion...it can be linked with other illusions, neither here nor there, stuck somewhere in between. And whatever I did with it, it would not last. It would be as temporary and unstable as its colour." Then his fingers left the bracelet and slid down Greta's forearm, towards her shoulder and once again busied themselves with her breasts and nipples.
[←41]

Adrian's legal name was Hartmann, after his mother, but to him it was a hollow name without history that Crekvina name bore and so he'd decided his pseudonym in the art world would be Crekvina. Still, he didn't tell his mother who'd been adamant that family name made them recognizable to those who would destroy them for the actions of their ancestors. _Krsniks_ were to him a distant and obscure threat and so he saw no reason not to use his old family name in the art world.
[←42]

Mom Aždaja was especially proud of his interest in the arts even though she never got completely over him choosing popular figurativism over her favourite, classical abstract expressionism. Still, she was glad that he was painting and she found solace in the fact that every generation had to have its own trends.
[←43]

Marta had some crazy stories about her family. Once she claimed her real surname wasn't Cinić at all and that they weren't from some small village in Istria, near Buje but that her ancestors were called Czinka and had been distant descendants of Panna Czinka, the most famous Gypsy violinist that ever walked into a Hungarian tavern and broke everyone's heart with her strings.
[←44]

Adrian's moms were very interesting models. Even though both were over fifty and would use make up never and other cosmetics very rarely, they still looked like they were in their thirties. Aždaja claimed it was because of the herbs she collected and boiled and put in their food while Greta only smiled mysteriously, not giving any explanation. Adrian always tried to paint them like that; mysterious and wondrous.
[←45]

Aždaja brought a new potion – she had to punch up the dosage once again – and found Greta on the floor, tears caked on her face and her eyes an inflamed red. "Hey, hey," she scanned her for blood or injury but instead found a newspaper article about the brutal murder on Trsat a few days ago. "Nobody knew they should inform me. Greta Hartmann and Azra Crekvina aren't the same person after all." She explained in a soft voice. She took the mug from her hands but didn't start drinking right away. Aždaja was afraid, not because of the article, _Greta is safe, we're safe, this house is warded, nobody can find her_ but because of Greta's empty eyes. "Is there any point?" she said as she held the mug, "maybe it'd be better if...don't you think...it would be better to let him go? Is there any point...what kind of life is he in for?" All Aždaja could do was hug the woman on the floor and gently stroke her hair. "Whatever you decide, I'm here for you. Always. If you think it's for the best, I'll stop with the herbs and...that'll be it...but if you decide you want to carry it to term...you can bet I'm not leaving you, I'm here for you and we'll fight this together, whatever comes our way. We'll find a way, together." Greta dripped tears into her tea but then she finally drank it, cold and salty. When she finally got up she crumpled the newspaper and threw them in the trash can while flames reflected in her eyes.
[←46]

The police report stated the incident occurred when a part of the people celebrating the hundred-year anniversary of Rijeka's liberation from fascism physically assaulted the group of people in the parade that celebrated the hundred-year anniversary of Rijeka becoming occupied by Yugoslavia. The direct cause to the altercation were insulting phrases both groups shouted at each other and independent observers claimed the police weren't properly prepared to prevent this type of incident and that there hadn't been nearly enough officers present. In the unpleasant events that followed an innocent passer-by by the name of A. Kiselich (56) fell down the steps by hotel Bonavia and sustained heavy and life threatening injuries.
[←47]

"You're being an idiot again," Greta was helping him bathe in a wide bathtub, because he couldn't manage himself and she knew his ideas stemmed from helplessness and handicap but understanding him did not mean giving in to him.

"I tell you I'm sure I can figure out how. I just need the _camera_."

"Like you could have destroyed it? Like you could have revived a dead baby? Like you could have..."

"Alright, enough, I know you think I'm powerless and useless but...

"Adam, please," she kept calling him that because she had to call him something and he still refused to tell her his real name and so she'd sometimes wonder if he even knew it anymore or had forgotten it after so many other names he'd acquired over time or maybe even intentionally kept it a secret from her to maintain a last shred of mystery because in front of her he was naked, plain and mortal, "we'd long ago agreed we won't try anything unless we're certain."

"But..."

" _Absolutely certain_ , and neither I nor Aždaja are certain it would work. Besides, what do you want, something to happen to me or Adrian?"

"Out of the question!"

"Or that it hurts you _again_? I can't allow it. As long as I live, I won't let anything happen to you."

"I am not your father."

She hugged him from behind and kissed his neck. "Of course you're not. But you've still almost died three times already because of the _camera_ and the next attempt could be your last and I won't allow it. I'm not giving anyone else to the _camera_ and that's final."
[←48]

Tomislav Cinić, Marta Cinić's father was conceived the same night his father came back from Operation Storm. This was why he always saw the operation's anniversary as a birthday of sorts, which culminated with heavy drinking in a public place and having his stomach pumped during the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Knin.
[←49]

On the canvas was a hallway in which Ariadne stood. The Minotaur was charging at her, his muscles, veins and fur bulging. She held the thread that spanned half the painting. One end was tied around her wrist; the other was in the hand of the young hero, Theseus. He was armed with a short sword or a dagger, its blade slicing the monster's throat. It was hard to make out any details because the image was twisted, badly drawn. The strokes were made by an unconfident hand and the colours were wrong. Only the faces were clear, Greta as Ariadne and an unknown young man as Theseus.
[←50]

The apartment was warded against _krsniks_ and _strigoi_ , he had to give it that but nothing could survive the clatter of his bells.
[←51]

The translation for the Croatian term "zvončar" (ZEE-VON-char), part of Croatian folklore (Translator's note)
[←52]

As all other Hungarians Matyas was very eloquent when it came to profanity, which he'd employ occasionally.
[←53]

The little Hungarian was their only hope of destroying the _camera_ and seeing it burn once and for all. Using Vida as a blood sacrifice had been out of the question. The curse had lasted for generations and centuries and had been too strong to give up without a fight and Vida would not have survived that fight. Apart from her granddaughter and Aždaja, Greta had no other family. Marta died in childbirth. She'd breathed Vida's name and kissed her bloody forehead before passing to that other world. Adrian was dead. Moretto was dead. Lucia was dead. All dead. Dead. Dead.

Greta hugged the furry, strong neck of the female dog that carried her through the dark. She'd let her ride, if you could call holding on to fur and body of a powerful, large dog without any control riding. They'd managed to send the Bellman down the wrong path and once even chased him away once he'd gotten too close to Vida and the Hungarian. Greta had hoped it would be enough and she let them climb towards Veli Vrh on their own. Greta and the dogs continued circling them, guarding them against the Bellman.

But he'd found them. Somehow he was now between Greta and Vida. Magic? Deception? Had she been careless? Maybe she should have travelled with them instead of keeping her distance. She buried her face in the thick fur. Because of her. Because of Greta. And because of the damned _camera_ , that they'd been unable to destroy for three centuries; because of all that her granddaughter was now in danger.
[←54]

They were aided by her two dogs, Jarilo and Morana. Aždaja...talked even less than Greta.
