collateral
A dobel-doppel or treble-tripfel cobra, or copper-wrapped package, is how it was described to us — or how we heard it — which is, the cartridge for a gun placed in a mortise doorlock, fitting precisely in its place, for which it is intended. A cartridge containing bullets of the nuclear kind. And what is the place we are headed for? A sort of resort? Or farm, in the country? Which country?
We had been there often, with father, long ago. We were required now to get back, with the new nuclear assembly, that had been placed on order after such an undisturbed silence. This, coming at an inconvenient time for us, certainly, after we had just got back home. But now, had to go out again. Out, driving or walking or taking a bus, some form of public transportation: a bicycle, a scooter; back into that landscape, so familiar from our childhood. While they all, there, knew our father, they might have remembered us only from the time we were a small boy at our father’s side, secure in the grip he had on us, accompanying him on trips all over. All over that countryside, for the purpose of deliveries.
What had it been, his mission? The eggs? No, we think it was the other business, one he conducted alongside the business of eggs, that involved packages wrapped up ahead of time so that we couldn’t see what was in them. Stowed in secret in the rear compartment of the vehicle. Packages that perhaps he did not want any others to see, either, the ones we met along the way. But surely, the traders and buyers must have known? Would have been able to see what was concealed, in the packages? Packages unwrapped right in front of them, to assure them of what they were getting. The items passed from hand to hand were so valuable, so vital, there could be no secrets of any kind. These men — presumably men — had other businesses elsewhere, in foreign lands, about which something was dark. But then again, we were involved in the same business as they. A business complementary to their business, dangerous in its way, of handling and tending to the devices.
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