Soft, more like descending than falling, the captain returned to the warm sweetness of the fragrant grass. He stayed on one knee. His face touched the kofil that softly caressed him, almost next to his eyes. He also lowered the other knee to the ground. He still held his carbine, a reward from the all army competition held in Graz in 1912, in the summer, just at this time, maybe even on this date, he thought, and he vividly remembered that moment as he had received this very carbine from the hands of colonel Schtal, and that sweet madchen Paula smiled at him with her shiny eyes, golden hair, snowy white blouse and the little dress with suspenders red a forest strawberries, standing in the first row, in the middle among her distinguished mama und papa, who would become, as early as the fall of that same year, his mother and father in law, and they would all warmly and happily clap…
Captain Franciscus Trakl spread his arms as never before, so much that he even surprised himself; as if made of rubber, or without bones or ligaments, his spread arms stretched more and more before his eyes, across the borders of this battlefield, and just like that reached the horizon itself, which seemed easy to hug, if only he wanted. He felt that he had left somewhere, that this is the way to leave you own life.
Now, he could still do whatever he wanted. He touched the lips of his beloved gently with his lips, at the same time knowing that this feeling would never repeat, nor be replaced with some other. All senses slowly extinguished, died out, as if his hand stiffens leaning on a pillow too soft. As if he had stopped his own life, and still he had soundness enough to notice, in wonder, how he completely clearly followed the more and more distant flight of those eagles, sharply marked in the transparency of the sky, that looked like the air itself had been sucked out of it.
He was especially surprised that despite the stronger and stronger feeling that he himself was sinking in the sky abyss, and that he had become one of those small, distant points the eagles had turned into, still, perfectly clear, from close range, immediately next to his eyes, he saw the blossoms of the blue encijan, golden glow of the mountain heather, the thick bunch of sky blue crocus that pierced through the bushes of moss like an ikebana, and that he quite clearly recognized the striking, bitter fragrance of the spruce tree.
Captain Franciscus Trakl realized that his suddenly overflowing yearning for future faced his sudden discovery that here, on this beautiful meadow he would soon lie dead! Or that he was already lying…
All the feelings through which he knew of his body, joy, enthusiasm, hunger, passion, thirst, had disappeared as fester running out of a pressed wound. He felt that he was getting weaker suddenly and carelessly, just like butterflies get weaker in early fall.
He thought that his senses had sharpened beyond any understandable limit, that they grab and shape the lights, smells, sounds… with a fullness and magic with which the secrets hidden in the land reveal themselves through the crown of the spring sour cherry. A lightning hit the embellished crown of the April sour cherry that, a minute before, revealed itself before some inner eye. An awful sharp pang of pain hit him. It seemed that the pain would never stop, that the pain could not pass till the end of time and world, it was so dense, concentrated, as if created of a pre-matter that would never disintegrate and that can not be destroyed by anything.
No pain lasts longer than life! He thought in relief.
Not much longer afterwards, the pain calmed down, and then passed completely. The perfect, liberating force of the knowledge that life had passed removed from captain Franciscus Trickle the load of all other thoughts.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … …
Martin Lupino lied behind a big rock, high above the battlefield. Sweaty, but unhurt, he was still gasping for breath while he was staring at the place of the disaster. His whole unit was destroyed. All of his friends were dead. He saw when captain Franciscus Trakl, his dear friend Franzi, quietly got down on the grass after he had hit one of the attackers who dared to run out of his shelter with a precise shot. Now one of the bandits yelled something in an unknown language exactly from the place where the captain remained lying. Leaning on the grass for a while, the bandit rose and happily, triumphantly started waving with Trakl’s captain’s dolama. Everywhere on the battlefield there were human figures moving in dark clothes of rough wool fabric, occasionally leaning over the dead. They undressed the uniforms from the dead, searched their pockets, collected the weapons and the ammunition, with the same seriousness, concentration and indifference with which they had shot them a while ago. It seemed that they were at work and that they were performing their everyday tasks where they lived.
When it got dark, Lupino left. He never discovered where exactly he escaped on the way to Restelica. He remembered that he had fallen into a crack so narrow that for a while he had quite accepted the idea that he would die stuck like that. In those awful moments, he thought that the feeling of tightness, fear of closed space probably came from the memories of the horrors of the birth. The one who was born, got through the smallest crack he would ever get through, and if the delivery was especially long, man gets fed up with tunnels, cracks and gorges for his whole life. Still, Martin somehow got out and late in the night he entered the remote mountain village at more than 1.800 meters above the sea level.
He was taken by the first people who found him wandering though the narrow street. He did not say anything, he had lost his speech. They did not bother him with questions. They had apparently seen people in similar situations before. He dined at the same table with the host and he spent the night in the common room where the whole family slept. The next day, while he was sitting at the tea house trying to communicate with the locals, some of the attackers entered. To buy food. The one who wore the mundir of captain Franciscus Trakl, the leader if the thieves, approached him smiling kindly and patted him on the shoulder. He even gave him three gold coins.
Nothing personal against anybody. This is just my job. I live on this. And one does not live easy or long like this. When you survived now, you will live. Of course you will outlive me. Here you are three ducats. They’ll come handy, For luck. And remember me when you find out that I’m gone.
Then laughing loudly, he rode away with his three companions. In the saddle and on the horse of captain Franciscus Trakl.
Martin understood all of this later. He stayed at Restelica for three years. He worked as the village cook. His recipes have remained until nowadays, La cuisina Italiana di Restelica – sometimes laughed Martin, explaining the passers-by the strange food that none of them had seen or tasted before. But the locals, the people of Rastelica got used to his specialties quickly and accepted them, although they mostly asked for their nomadic, shepherds meals.