Intrusion

Recen returned to the cabin shortly before noon with six catfish in the box. None had the gray ring.

He examined them one by one on the cleaning table, first with his hands, then with the tip of his knife. He lifted gills, slit bellies, and pulled out entrails that were still warm. He was looking for a mark, something foreign beneath the skin, anything to prove that what had happened on the lake was more than a dizzy spell. He found only flesh, bones, and blood.

He worked until the last fish was clean. Then he washed the table three times.

At two in the afternoon, he heard a bicycle bell.

Ten appeared on the path with the little trailer attached to the rear axle. He was a slender young man of indeterminate age, with black hair combed back and a face that seemed unchanged since the first time Recen had seen him. He wore the same blue jacket he wore every day, fastened to the neck. His boots were clean.

Recen looked at the path. The mud was almost ankle-deep, yet neither the wheels nor Ten’s boots seemed to have touched it.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Skantranovic,” the young man said. “I hope the fishing has been satisfactory.”

He always said the same thing. With the same intonation, the same pause after the surname, and the same movement of his head at the end.

Recen pointed to the box.

Ten dismounted. Before coming closer, he glanced at the lake. It was not curiosity: his eyes moved over the dock, the boat, and the mountains as though checking off a list.

“Six specimens,” he said, lifting the lid. “The fishing has been satisfactory.”

“I just told you that.”

The young man took a moment to reply.

“You haven’t said anything, Mr. Skantranovic.”

Recen watched him. Ten met his gaze without discomfort and began transferring the fish to the container in the trailer.

“Did you see the sunrise this morning?” Recen asked.

The young man’s hands stopped inside the box.

“I see every sunrise.”

“This one was different.”

“In what way?”

The question came too quickly. The rehearsed friendliness had vanished from his voice, and for the first time Ten seemed wholly attentive.

Recen was about to tell him about the motionless sun, but changed his mind. A certainty he could not account for warned him not to describe what had happened. Instead, he pointed to the boots.

“You didn’t get dirty.”

Ten looked down. A second later, his boots were covered in mud.

Recen blinked.

He had not seen the young man move his feet. He had heard no splash, no scrape. The mud simply covered the leather now, thick and dark, as though it had always been there.

“The path is in poor condition,” Ten said.

“They were clean a moment ago.”

“No anomaly was recorded.”

The young man closed his mouth. A tiny tremor appeared beneath his left ear, a pulse too regular to be a muscle.

“What did you say?”

“I said you haven’t looked closely.”

The pulsing stopped.

Recen felt the urge to seize him by the throat and make him repeat those first words. The thought was so immediate that his hands had already clenched before he realized what he was imagining. Ten, however, did not step back. He looked at Recen’s fists with a composure that seemed less like courage than an absence of fear.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Take the fish.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

Ten finished loading the container. Then he took two dozen eggs, a small sack of rice, three apples, and a bottle of vodka from the front basket. He arranged them on the outdoor table in a perfect line.

“Mr. Cat sends your payment.”

The bottle was not part of their agreement. Recen picked it up and checked the seal.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Mr. Cat thought you might need it.”

“Why?”

Ten looked at the lake again.

“Because you’ve had a difficult morning.”

For several seconds, the only sound was water lapping against the dock pilings.

“I didn’t tell you that.”

“No,” Ten replied. “You didn’t.”

He mounted the bicycle and put one foot on a pedal. Before leaving, he seemed to remember something.

“Mr. Cat will come tomorrow. He wishes to speak with you.”

“Tell him not to.”

“Tomorrow, at two in the afternoon,” Ten repeated.

He pedaled down the path. The wheels passed through the mud without leaving tracks.

Recen stood beside the table until the sound of the bell faded among the trees. Then he opened the bottle and drank straight from the neck.

The vodka was water.

He spat it onto the ground. He sniffed the bottle and tasted it again, and this time the alcohol burned his tongue and throat. He hurled it against the wall. The glass did not break.

It bounced once and came to rest upright.

That night Recen did not sleep. He sat before the stove with the bottle between his hands, waiting for some sign that would tell him whether he was awake. Around midnight he thought he heard breathing on the other side of the room. Then a little girl whispered “Daddy” from beneath the bed.

He did not move.

At five he prepared his tackle, but did not go fishing.

He stayed at the table until dawn. Breaking his routine caused a physical unease, a pressure that began behind his eyes and spread through his skull. At six, the pain moved down his neck. At seven, every inch of his skin was burning.

He fell to the floor.

He did not know how long he lay there. He saw white flashes, metal surfaces, and several figures leaning over him. One voice asked for the intensity to be reduced. Another insisted on maintaining it. Between them came a little girl’s sobbing.

When he regained consciousness, he was lying in his bed. His tackle was back in its place by the wall. His boots were damp, and fish scales clung to his coat.

In the wooden box he found four freshly caught catfish.

Recen did not remember going out.

At two o’clock sharp, someone knocked on the door.

Mr. Cat was a tall man of about fifty, with neatly cut gray hair and a coat far too elegant for the lakeside path. He took off his gloves before greeting him. He did not offer his hand.

“Recen Skantranovic,” he said, as though verifying an identity. “At last we meet.”

Recen leaned against the doorframe.

“You buy my fish.”

“And have for many years.”

“Seventeen.”

Cat gave the faintest smile.

“Seventeen, exactly.”

Recen waited for an explanation. The visitor looked inside the cabin but made no attempt to enter. He surveyed the stove, the table, the bed, and the tackle in the same methodical order Ten had used to examine the dock.

“What do you want?” Recen asked.

“To know how you are.”

“I’m alive.”

“That isn’t always a sufficient answer.”

Cat studied his face. His eyes paused first on the pupils, then on the tension in his jaw, and finally on his hands.

“Ten says you were unsettled yesterday.”

“Ten talks too much.”

“Ten reports only what is necessary.”

The remark stirred an irritation in Recen that was hard to explain.

“What did he report?”

“That the fishing was satisfactory.”

Cat smiled again. This time there was weariness in it, as though they were taking part in a conversation he had repeated many times.

“My wife thinks it’s disgraceful to do business for so many years with a man we’ve never invited to our table,” he continued. “I explained that you don’t go into town. So she has suggested bringing the table here.”

“I don’t need visitors.”

“No one needs them. Sometimes, though, they can be beneficial.”

“Beneficial to whom?”

Cat did not answer at once.

“To everyone involved.”

Recen looked at the woods behind him. There was no car, horse, or bicycle. The path was empty.

“Did you walk here?”

“My means of transport is where it belongs.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” Cat admitted. “It isn’t.”

Rather than seeming uncomfortable, he appeared pleased by the observation. He took a black notebook from the inside pocket of his coat but did not open it. He merely stroked its spine with his thumb.

“My wife’s name is Lila. We have two daughters, Violeta and Rosa. We’ll come tomorrow evening and bring the food. You won’t have to prepare anything.”

At the last name, Recen felt a tug beneath his breastbone. It was not as strong as when he had said Celeste beside the footprints, but it came from the same place.

“Rosa,” he repeated.

Cat stopped stroking the notebook.

“The younger one.”

“How old is she?”

The visitor hesitated. Only for a fraction of a second, but Recen saw it.

“Eight.”

Something changed in Cat’s eyes. It was not affection as he spoke of his daughter, but attentiveness. He was waiting for a reaction.

“Don’t come,” Recen said.

“Is that a definitive refusal?”

“It’s a closed door.”

Cat put the notebook away.

“I’ll take that as a defensive answer, not a definitive one.”

“Take it however you like.”

“Tomorrow at eight, then.”

He put on his gloves and turned toward the path.

“I won’t let you in.”

Cat kept walking.

“The hostility index…” said a voice, far away.

Cat stopped.

Recen had heard it too. The visitor slowly turned his head.

For a moment they looked at each other without pretending the voice had been the wind.

Then Cat smiled.

“Try to sleep tonight, Mr. Skantranovic.”

He continued down the path and disappeared among the trees.

Recen closed the door.

He stood with his back to it, listening. He heard no retreating footsteps, no snapping branches, no engine. Only the lake, unchanging behind the cabin.

He went to the cleaning table and laid out his knives on the wood. The short one for opening bellies. The flexible one for separating flesh from bones. The thick-bladed one for cutting off heads. He added the small axe and the machete he used in the woods.

He brought the sharpening stone to life with a few drops of oil.

Outside, night was still several hours away, but through the window the sky began to darken.

Recen set the first blade against the stone.

Tomorrow four people would come.

One of them was named Rosa.