Free The Collector of Names by Miha Mazzini

light so that they could not see anything but the first part of a staircase.
    "A cellar," said Alfonz. "There's no light switch anywhere. Somebody did go down though, look here, footsteps."
    He pointed.
    "He hesitated or something on this stair and then came back up."
    "Well, what did you expect, did you think he would wait for us down there or something?" Max interrupted. "Sad Alfonz, the Scout. Let's close the door and that's that. Fuck it, we don't have to go down there anyway."
"I've got a torch in my rucksack," said Alfonz, "we can go and have a look later."
There was no real enthusiasm.
He lifted his rucksack, unfastened it quickly and took out the torch.
"What else have you got in there?" asked Max.
"Anything I thought we could use," answered Alfonz with embarrassment.
"Oh, yeah, pliers, fuses and look! a handy camper's axe. Are you going camping, Sad Alfonz?"
Alfonz blushed, searching for an excuse.
"Let's look here and on the first floor to begin with," said Max still with a grin on his face.
    They decided to have their party in the dining room. It had the right sort of table: long and sturdy. They took off the dust sheet and almost suffocated in the cloud of dust which forced them to open the window. The sun had touched the surface of the sea and the sky was red.
    The light switch worked and Max proudly remarked that his father had promised to cut the builders’ balls off if they did not sort it all out properly.
"Can you imagine," he added, "if there were balls there instead of the light bulb?"
"Illuminated balls," quipped Samo.
"Hot ones," Alfonz joined in.
    Raf missed his turn and this time they did all look at him. He tried to redeem himself with a smile, desperate to hide his embarrassment. He went back to looking around the room which was what he had been doing while the others were trying to be witty. He could not quite establish what it was that seemed so peculiar.
    They examined the other rooms. In the kitchen, they were amused by the old fashioned water pump, the handle of which had to be pushed down a good few times before some smelly brown liquid came out. Max repeated his usual commentary. As for the toilet, they decided that they would go outside on the grass instead. On the first floor they walked around the bedroom and the study full of memorabilia belonging to the old diplomat - they established that the man had to have travelled all around the world and laughed at his portrait on a dried out old photograph which must have been taken in a desert, judging by the clothes he was wearing and the background.
    Only the nursery shutters were so tightly closed that almost no light came in. Max tried to put the ceiling light on - like he did everywhere else. The successful cooperation of the lightbulb was accompanied by his mumble of approval. He thought how the only thing he respected in his father was his ability to bully anybody who worked for him. Max had never seen any of them do anything but their best. But maybe the secret was his father's knack of recognising the right people in an instant. Just as he managed to choose his short-term female companions after a single glance.
    The fluffy elephant on the bed under the nursery window looked very sorry for itself. The heat and the dust seemed to have got to it. None of them touched it. Max started going on about how filthy the place was. In the corner they noticed a baseball bat and agreed on a short game the next day. If any of them still felt like it.
    Max was the first to notice the framed photograph of a young and extremely beautiful woman, the Indian woman, judging by her appearance and clothes. He started his predictable speech, which Raf found obscene, as it concerned a woman who had undoubtedly been dead for a long time, and Max talked about things which belong to the living only, the very things that make us alive.
    Samo sneezed a few times and suggested they went outside otherwise they would suffocate in all that dust. Max agreed