THE FOURTH DAY TO ETERNITY
Ondřej Neff

He did not have to look out the window to know what Dusenberg Villa looked like.The moss on the cone-shaped slate roof was green,the brass eaves had blackened and the plaster,once a solid,uniform gray,was covered in zigzaggy cracks.In several places it hung from the brickwork. These red bricks,already almost throughly eroded away,as if the rain had washed over them for several years,ran with the white dust falling from the plaster,reminding one of a bloody wound.And the windows!They were covered in a film of dust like a blind man’s eye and were slowly beginning to disappear behind the veil of the cobwebs.Tens of spiders had worked from the break of day so that the webbing would be its thickest. Perhaps they wanted the windows to disappear,to blend in with the gray walls.The spiders worked quickly and without a sound.
       I wondered if I walked outside and listened carefully,maybe I could hear the hum of their legs swinging through the fibers.The spiders’steps also put off a sound.It isn’t possible for a spider simply to move without a sound at all.
       It only depends on…
       Angrily he pressed his lips together.These are not the right things to be concerned about on the fourth day.It is already 8am.Dusenberg Villa is now almost ready and the spiders’pitter-patter is racking my brain.I should work,really I should.It would be so beautiful if I could manage to finish the work before noon…It would not have to be today.I could manage it on the next fourth day or the fourth day after that,in short any fourth day which will come.The victory would be twice as sweet.
       And what about when…what about when today is the last fourth day? What about when there is not another remaining?
       He stepped up to the window and hatefully looked at the Dusenberg Villa.Work,stamp,get prepared!But I will get prepared as well.
       He noticed that the cracks were wider today than last time and there were more shedded strips of plaster.The house had visibly been deteriorating,time had been working on it with modest,reserved resolve.
      Perhaps one day it will fall,flashed across his mind.Quite commonly it will have fallen apart even before I finish work.
      What a solution!
      The thought made him laugh.In laughter he had a feeling of relief and also gained [SŰR1]self-confidence.
      As long as I am able to laugh,it is not so bad,he realized.
      He went to the bathroom and took a long shower with hot and cold water that he had drawn from the rainwater collector situated in the loft. He did not trust tap water any longer,he had not trusted it since the fourth day when the faint scent of bitter almonds warned him of a nearing death. At that time he saved himself and possibly could have used more of the tap water because no attack was ever repeated in the same way.However… what about when the novelty of the attack on one of the next fourth days will consist of repeated attacks like those of the past.No,I cannot leave anything to chance,he repeated.There’s too much at stake.My life and mainly my work.My calculations.How I would like to sacrifice my life,if I only knew that it would mean redemption!Such a death would mean the same as victory,as if I had finished the work.And the price would maybe even be less,because what I experience cannot be called life.I am much worse off than any of the dead,however many have died anywhere in the world.
       The buzz of the short-wave station disturbed him from these gloomy reflections.He made sure that the green light of the decoder was on and only then did he take the receiver out of the telephone cradle.
       “Schwarzenneger,”he said.
       “Brodski,”a voice answered him into the receiver.“Can I come?”
       “You must,”answered Schwarzenneger.“Do you have everything for me?”
       “Everything,”said Brodski,and after a short hesitation added:“Only I did not find infra.”
       “Damn,”Schwarzenneger swore.
       “I will have it next time,rely on it!”
       “But in this case it might happen that there will be no next time!” answered Schwarzenneger enraged.“Really,you don’t understand at all what is happening here.
       ” Brodski was silent.Clearly,he did not want to argue.
       “Fine,fine,”continued Schwarzenneger after a moment.“Pay attention, Brodski.This time the mine field is in sectors A 6,B 1,C 8,D 3…”
       In an indifferent voice he dictated the location of the spaced-out mines to Brodski,and he hoped that from the tone of his voice it was not possible to hear the quivering wings of his desperate thoughts flying madly in his mind:one of these days it will be possible to break the code successfully… one fourth day…
       “Scale the wall where there is a loose brick at the top.It is to the immediate left of the semi-dry poplar…
       “The semi-dry poplar?”repeated Brodski astonishedly.
       After all he was a greengrocer and he associated the term “semi-dry” with champagne rather than with poplars.
       “Half-withered,”Schwarzenneger impatiently corrected himself...........

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