Chapter II.XI

- I hope you don't mind, - the prisoner took a break. - If from now on I return to a detailed description of the events that happened to me?

- Well, you go right ahead, - mister inspector Galbraith nodded understandingly.

⁂

The day after he and Delia returned from Japhet, Jo was awakened by a phone call. He, having forgotten about getting dressed and washed, walked up to the telephone as he was and put the receiver to his ear. It was his neighbour, missis Yonce herself. He, as if fighting with the feeling of dissatisfaction that overwhelmed her, notified mister Thurlow that while washing her daughter's underwear, she noticed something strange and therefore in the afternoon she would take her daughter into town on business. Then she took a short pause, apparently waiting for Jo's answer, but he could not find anything in response to these words. In a breaking voice, Ivette added that mister Thurlow was very lucky that her spouse and Delia's father was at work at the center at that time. Jo's internal organs appeared to be filled with liquid nitrogen. He felt that above him, like above Damocles - the favourite of the Syracusan tyrant - was hanging the sharpest sword of justice, which threatened to fall down and cut his unfortunate head into two halves...

He continued to hold the receiver to his ear, although only beeps could be heard from it. Finally, having mastered his numb limbs, he dropped it next to the telephone and, feeling the ground disappearing from under his feet, managed to grab the table top with his hands. In such a pose, vaguely similar to the figure of a son from a famous painting by Rembrandt, Jo spent, according to personal feelings, no less than two hours. Then he stood up and, feeling that he needed fresh air, almost ran out into the street. Thank God that not a single member of the Yonce family caught his eye...

Standing near his gate and turning his head from side to side, mister Thurlow was convinced that it was still possible to walk calmly on this earth. And he, still feeling the cold in his back, decided to walk to the store. No, not for the sake of shopping, but in order to, in an environment where there are a lot of people, try to get rid of the loneliness that tightens his soul. Trying not to break into a run, Jo directed his steps to where the entire population of the Parkrose Neighborhood was purchasing essential goods. Having reached the first tents under which fresh fruit was sold, he suddenly heard his name. It turns out that two old women, who at that time were taking red apples from the merchant, were engaged in a lively dialogue with each other. Mister Thurlow tried to stand behind the awning so that they could not see him and strained his ears.

- You know, Patricia, I have a suspicion that this scoundrel Jordan obviously did something to the pharmaceutist's daughter, - the old woman with a white scarf on her head spoke, muttering her lips.

- What makes you think that, Elsebeth? - her younger friend asked.

- Because I just met Ivette this morning, - exclaimed the interlocutor. - She was as pale as death!

- Oh, the poor... They were connected with what?

- Well, she said that she asked her daughter to put on new drawers and, while taking her old underwear to wash, she noticed that they were red with blood.

- What, has the baby started her period? At eight years old?

- Ivette couldn’t believe her eyes, and forgetting about the laundry, rushed at the girl with questions. And she told her that yesterday she visited certain ajussi Jo and ajussi Japh.

- Two murderers... My God... They should sit together!

- The pharmaceutist's wife has the same opinion. I barely persuaded Ivette to go and get checked by a doctor before calling the police.

- So what's next?

- She went home after that. Maybe she really did that, or maybe she couldn’t stand it and unleashed police bloodhounds on the bastards

- Dear God!

Patricia - old lady who was younger - noticed hiding Jo and started screaming. He immediately rushed as fast as he could away from the shops, hearing the words "Ordinary, scabby, pitiful fiend!" flying after him. That's it, he thought, goodbye freedom... And at the same time he asked himself the question of what was happening. He never committed any lewd acts with Delia, avoided kisses and did not even embrace her, and here on you... There is clearly something wrong here, he thought, being already halfway to the house. Meanwhile, clouds began to gather in the sky. Without slowing down, mister Thurlow glanced at the far ahead clearing full of tall grass. It was already the end of September, and now the previously green ocean of plants was coloured in shades of yellow and orange. Thick clouds that had already filled the sky with might and main created a very interesting conjunction.

And then Jo remembered what the landscape spread out before him looked like - the nature of his native village was almost completely a living embodiment of the cover of the very record that he gave to his young neighbour back in August... He remembered her story about how she gave the record to Jerry, and he supposedly responded to her gift with only "Thank you", but deep down Jo felt that Delia, in telling him about this incident, was simply limiting herself to only the first half of what actually happened - at the same time, she didn’t lie, but she didn’t fully tell the truth either. Returning his thoughts to the present, he began to think that if he could trust the words of those two old gossips, then when interrogated by her mother, Delia also did not denigrate him and Japhet. All the same for her reverent parents - for the father in particular - one fact that their little daughter was in the company of two adult men in an unfamiliar apartment, was reason enough to hand Jo over to the court butchers, who will pass his mortal body through the knives of the bureaucratic meat grinder. Honestly, it would be better if they killed him right there on the spot than subjected him to such torture - death is clearly more desirable than such a life...