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It was the same exact house. If there were wax figures imitating the lives of celebrities and stars, if there were painters responsible for copying the paintings of the greatest artist, a genius must have been hired who built the same exact house kilometers from the original.

Melquiades gasped. This had to mean that Jacob missed both of them, that he remembered those times spent at home when they were kids, that there was still something good in his heart. Leaving the car, he sprang into the house.

'I have been waiting...'

He heard a voice. His heart stopped. He stared.

Jacob was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping wine from the glass, a little tired but still astonishingly attractive.

'I have been waiting for years, Mel,' he said coldly and encouraged him with a gesture to sit down opposite the table. Jacob took the glass and poured some wine inside. He passed it to Melquiades.
'I have been waiting for years. No news, nothing. And then, when everything was peaceful and quiet, you decided to come back and mess around with what I had accomplished with such a huge effort. You played for a while, nothing came of it, you sacrificed one little girl, you did nothing of importance and there you are. The last resort. When there is no success, you come to me for a rescue...'

'I didn't come for a rescue. What happened to Gemma?'

Jacob shrugged.

'She was punished. She wasn't the first one. She isn't the last one. Drink. It's the wine from the harvest of the year you left. I'm getting sentimental. I store memories. I have some questions I would like to ask you...'

'So do I. I also have questions.'

'Oh. We met for the same reason. So, what would you like to ask me about? How did I manage to create such a magnificent country? Or how is it possible that you are still alive and I didn't order your execution the day you came here in the first place?'

'You knew that I came?' Melquiades was surprised.

'Of course, I knew. My little brother flew back to his beloved country. I was informed by the consulate. I was afraid that you will hurt yourself. See, we aren't as young as we used to be. And then I was waiting for your next step. But nothing happened. You were so much concentrated on yourself that the only thing that you did was to stay at home and occasionally invite our peers for a drinking party. And then you started to be involved in politics, which I found hilarious. Condoms, schools... Idealist. I must say I was enjoying myself. You wanted to repair something that was destroyed...'

'By you?'

'By me?', Jacob laughed 'You really think I would be able to destroy the whole country on my own? You think like the father. You think it was my fault. How was it that it was my fault when K. actually destroyed itself? I wanted to rebuild it. I couldn't rebuild all of it, so I rebuilt it for a limited number of people.'

'What happened to the father?'

'He was killed. He didn't like what was going on, let's say he didn't like my ideas. I couldn't allow myself to have a family member question my authority. I was afraid. They asked me to choose, to make a choice between K. and N. So I chose. The father died a short and peaceful death. Unlike many of us in those times...'

Melquiades' heart was pounding. His father was killed by his own brother. If there had been anything that would stop him from his plan, it disappeared instantly.

'What times?'

'Well, that for me is even more shocking, Mel. You behave as if you had lived in a state of complete ignorance. Your life was hidden from so much... While you were there, schooling yourself, learning unnecessary facts, we were in a state of war.'