street outside.
Half-tame, half-wild, he’s a walking riddle,
Playing both ends against the middle.
And so Man hangs between Truths he must fear
And the murderous animal under his hide.
The Dog’s by nature the best of his friends,
Playing the middle against both ends.
PROLOGUE
The moonlight almost did not penetrate through the narrow lancet windows of the medieval Bohemian church. Small candles dimly lit old frescoes depicting Saints. The church was quiet and deserted. Only an old priest was dozing over his book. Almost noiselessly the door opened, letting in an icy wind. The young man lingered in the doorway, as if thinking of his next move, and then closed the door and went along the aisle straight to the altar. Snowflakes sparkled in his blond hair and melted, leaving wet stains on his white coat. In his hand, he carried a long canvas package. The sound of his footsteps echoed from the stonewalls. The man knelt before the altar, put the package in front of him and unfolded the cloth. Ancient sword with engraved words glistened in the candlelight. The young man folded his hands, bowed his head to the side and looked at the image of the crucified Christ.
“So here I came to you,” he said in English with a slight German accent. His voice was quiet. “You know, this time I did everything I could.” He fell silent, thinking of something, but then spoke again. “I want to ask you only one thing – take care of them.”
PART I
1
I was born on a cold rainy day in October of the year nineteen eighty six. My mother told me once in a fit of candor how she was getting to the hospital that day, in a pouring rain, all by herself, just because the father worked. As usual. As long as I remember him, he was always working, day and night. Days, he spent at timber-works, nights he served as loading hands at several companies. Of course, with such a schedule, he didn’t have time to give it to his family. As for my mother, she wrote for the local newspaper, giving tips on how to build relationships or grow gladioli. Here’s a perfect example – to give advice you don’t have to be specialist in something. In our family, everyone was on their own; actually, we were not even a family in its primary sense – just a collection of people under the same roof.
So, no wonder that I became a troubled teen in a sort of way. I was not a brawler or a drug addict. Oh, no. I studied well and came home on time. My whole “trouble” was that nobody knew how to communicate with me. People around me were so boring that I kept silent most of the time simply not understanding why bother open your mouth at all to discuss such simple things as weather, football or the film I had watched last Sunday. In a sort of way I was a rebel, I didn’t give a damn to the public opinion. I was living in my own world with my own rules. I did what I wanted and the way I wanted.
The only person, who could bear me, was Sunny. His real name was Robert, but nobody, neither his parents, nor the teachers, called him like that. I don’t remember how did he get this nickname – Sunny. Maybe because of his red hair and freckles.
Sunny was pretending to be a pacifist and always stayed away of any conflicts. It was so important for him that everybody adored him! And people did adore him! Positive, friendly, like a ray of sunshine in this gray world. The first and the last mask he had to try on.
Nobody understood why he connected with me. It seemed we had nothing in common, but it was not true. Our wild imagination gave no rest to his parents. They scolded him, put under house arrest, prohibited to communicate with me and watch TV. My parents, in general, had little interest in my life. It was good enough if I came home before dinner or, at least, before breakfast.
We lived in southern Germany, in a small house in the outskirts on the edge of the forest. Here we spent our childhood. At dawn, Sunny and I took bikes and went into the woods. We built a hut, filled it with some stuff, like dishes, blankets and even some food. We made a fire and cooked fish that we caught in the Danube. Once, after reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, we built a raft and wanted to take a journey by the river, but it fell apart after a couple of miles. It was a miracle that we managed to get back to the shore. I remember I feared the water perhaps for a month.
Actually, we made a lot of wild things. We jumped off the roof, just for a bet and always went around with skinned knees and elbows. We were riding bikes like madmen trying to find out who was the fastest. We were shooting birds with wyes. Once Sunny took his father’s air rifle and we shot a thrush. It was so small, so defenseless. I remember very well that moment of first acquaintance with death. And that strange feeling of pity and frustration, and the question: why? Just like that? For fun? But there was nothing funny, it seemed too cruel. We buried the thrush and since then never hunted animals. At least, then, in the childhood, together.
Sunny was kind of leader among the two of us, but I tried to keep up the pace. Looking back at those days, I notice that Sunny was always walking a tightrope, always tempting fate. Who knows if he had a real chance to get old.
When we have slightly grown up, we started playing football at the school backyard with other guys, but I did not make friends with them and did not share their interests. To tell the truth I was not really fascinated by kicking the ball. Much more interesting for me was to sit in the early morning on the rocky shore of the Danube covered with milk haze and dream about the future.
“When I grow up,” Sunny told me. “I’m gonna become an archaeologist like Indiana Jones,” his eyes gleamed when he talked about it. “I will hunt for artifacts and get into adventures.” I was dreaming, that in a couple of years I would find some job and move away from parents, start making money, first to buy a car and then I would meet a beautiful girl and marry her. And my life will be ordinary and simple, as it should be. What a naivety! Sunny’s head was always in the clouds, but I stood firmly on the ground. I was convinced that miracles never happen to those who are waiting for them. I could only rely on myself and was almost ready to live a long and boring life, like my parents did and their parents before them, and their grandparents, and so on to Adam, or from whom we descend.
Life went on, and when we were fourteen we fell in love with one and the same girl. Her name is Anna. She came from Berlin. She was fostered by her grandfather, after her parents died in a car crash. Anna’s life was tough, but she didn’t give up. She was always smiling. I still remember that cloudy winter morning when she first walked into our class. She seemed to come from some other world: her cheeks were rosy from cold, her big blue eyes were shining and sandy-colored curls were covered with snowflakes. And her smile… For that smile I was ready to give everything in the world, if only she smiled at me.
Sunny was the first to make friends with her. At break, he sat down at her desk and they started laughing at something. That upset me so much that after classes I caught him at the school backyard and nailed him to the wall ready to give him a fight.
“Leave Annie, find some other girl”.
“But I like this girl,” he pushed me slightly, but I continued to hold him by the collar of his jacket.
“I like her too”.
“You will never come up to her!” Sunny pushed harder, so I almost lost my balance. “You will never do anything,” he pushed again. “You’ll better suffer alone than come up to her…”
And then I hit him. For the first time in my life. With my fist. Right into his face. He was taken aback and looked at me surprised. But I was in fury and struck him again, and only then he hit back. His first blow landed on my jaw, second – somewhere near my eyebrow. We fell down. We
