nothing is
wrong, where a chamois comes to greet us, and he’s the emissary of something
sublime, unearthly, not of flesh and blood, and every tree is singing and we
are singing along too – how can you find any reason to say Still, all the
same ?”
My wife recovered
her composure: “You’re right, I take it back,” and there and then she launched
into “Tipperary”, an optimistic song in which all our affection was invested.
We crossed a woodland clearing carpeted with dense, natural grass, trimmed not
by the hand of man and smelling pungent. I sang at maximum volume, or rather, I
meant to sing so loudly that the trees would shake on their foundations, but I
didn’t get the chance. At that moment, a strident, unsteady voice was heard,
commanding:
“Halt!”
I turned round. A tall,
thin man was pointing a heavy pistol at me from a range of less than five
paces. He was clutching the shiny weapon in both hands, which shook and made
the pistol shake. It was obvious there was no empathy between him and the gun.
The two of us, the man holding the pistol and aiming it at me, and I, stood
face to face, perplexed by the unnatural situation, supposedly forced upon both
of us to the same catastrophic extent, which caused the one holding the gun to
shake more erratically than ever. Perhaps a second passed, perhaps a minute.
The gunman fired, I heard the whistle of the bullet (it wasn’t the wind). A
fraction of a second later, a burst of automatic fire was heard, and before I
knew what was going on, I found myself lying on the fragrant grass, which
seemed to smell poisonous to me, and I’d have preferred some other grassy
pillow, enclosed, artificial, in a small but quiet garden, even a plastic lawn.
What propelled me to the ground, was a strong and decisive hand, full of
unexpected and irresistible strength, despite its diminutive, almost childlike
size – the hand of my wife, who fell together with me on that pungent carpet,
repellent in its luxuriance.
“What are you doing!” I
protested, trying to give a human dimension to the picture.
“Putting into practice
what I’ve read in the thrillers and seen in the mafia movies that you hate so
much!”
I almost laughed aloud –
how lucky I was to have this woman! – I told myself. A few more sporadic shots
heralded the end of the show.
I seemed to hear the
high-pitched whine emerging from the blank screen, telling me – We’ve
entertained you long enough, so please change the channel or turn off the set
and go to sleep .
Someone approached us with
stealthy tread.
Without moving a limb, I
took a sidelong glance. It was the investigating officer. He saw me looking at
him and declared in his hideously accented English:
“You’re still causing problems,
to yourselves and to us. Go home, for everyone’s sake and yours in particular.
Or you’ll go home in coffins. You can get up now!”
The last sentence sounded
like an order. I got up slowly, held out a hand to my wife and pulled her to
her feet. Her festive sweater, my waistcoat, were covered with tiny leaves,
grains of dust and all kinds of mites. I brushed off quickly, as much as could
be brushed off quickly, from my wife’s sweater, before she could realise the
state she was in – with consequent change of mood. I forgot, she takes her mood
from the state of my clothing too.
We accompanied the young
police officer, whose name turned out to be Heinrich Zimmerman. About five
metres from the place that we fell, lay a tall, thin man, looking out of place in
the Swiss landscape. Heinrich pointed at him with his angular chin, jutting
forward like the prow of a ship in a storm:
“Olaf Olsen, holding a
Norwegian passport, of mixed Norwegian-Swedish parentage.” He pulled a
handkerchief from the pocket of his tight trousers, picked up the pistol which
lay impotently beside the corpse of Olaf Olsen, and I saw at close quarters the
heavy “Zig Zauer” which a few moments before had been aimed at me.
Maggie Brendan
Barbara O'Connor
Jan Washburn
Terri Blackstock
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Barry Kemp
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Alan Cumyn
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