The Marks of Cain Read online

  It was a ghastly idea, yet unavoidable. Was Granddad complicit with the Nazis? If not, how did he get the money? And why was he so evasive at the end? Why the mystery?

  David sat down on a stone bench, then stood up. The dampness of the moss was soaking into his jeans. Everywhere in this rotten and syphilitic place was so fucking damp. The walls were sodden with medieval humidity. The garden rioted with unlovely life: David had seen a fat torpid slow-worm the first day, sliding brazenly into the kitchen.

  It was detestable. The filthy Cagot house. It made David detest them: the Cagots. He wanted to flush away the grime from the countless Cagots who had hid here, slept here, fucked in here, cooked their stupid Cagot meals…

  David calmed himself. The Cagots were being killed. They deserved pity.

  How easy it was to hate.

  A kestrel swung through the sky, which was fast clouding over. David heard a noise, and turned: Amy was at the door. She frowned his way; he smiled back. She and he had been forced to sleep, these last few nights, in the same dark musty bedroom – forced by the nastier, damper, more rotted state of all the other available rooms. They had bedded down beside each other, in adjoining bunks. Nothing physical had happened between them, yet…something had happened between them.

  They had talked long into the nights, alone, by the flickering candlelight. Faces inches from each other: like kids hiding under the sheets.

  And here she was: open, ready, prepared. His very close friend. Something good had come out of this terror and darkness: his deepening friendship with Amy Myerson. But then he realized: she was frowning.

  ‘What’s wrong? Is it José?’

  ‘No. He still won’t say a word. No –’ The frown was urgent and serious. ‘It’s Eloise.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s disappeared. At least I think she has. Can’t find her anywhere.’

  The first spatters of rain were cold on David’s neck.

  He ran into the house at once. And they started looking. They found José and Fermina in the damp sitting room, sullen and silent. Like peasants in a medieval Flemish painting. Like two ragged survivors of a terrible winter, huddled against the enduring cold.

  ‘José. We can’t find Eloise. Have you seen her?’

  José mumbled a ‘No’. His face was set in the same expression he had worn since they came here. Self-pitying and resentful, and barely concealing his sorrowful fears. Of what?

  Amy gasped with exasperation.

  ‘Let’s try upstairs.’

  But there was nothing: Eloise really was gone. They tracked through all the many bedrooms. Nothing. They explored the garden, the front garden, the back garden. They walked a few nervous paces into the darkening woods, that fed into the ravine, whose stern and brutal stone walls rose behind the house.

  Nothing.

  Slowly, a cold unpleasant idea overcame David. Had she been snatched? Had she wandered into Campan proper? Eloise had said several times that she desperately wanted to use email and she desperately wanted to go to church for confession. Either of those tasks would have taken her over the bridge. Had she taken a stupid risk? Had she gone into the village?

  They stood in the dim light of the hallway and discussed their options. They had no choice. They had to go and get her and bring her back. Amy volunteered to explore the village; David insisted he would do it.

  He ran out, and up the rutted road that led to the bridge. He was in the centre of the cagoterie, the ruinous ghetto. Calling Eloise’s name, he sprinted past the shattered houses and barns. Was she inside one of the ruined Cagot hovels? But surely not: the black sockets of their empty windows were silent. The battered doors of the cagoterie hadn’t been opened in fifty years. Rusted scythes lay in the grass unused. A larger house had a goose foot painted on the wall: crudely spray-painted. And next to it a cackling teenage graffito:

  Fous les camps Cagot!

  David crossed the bridge. The rain was drenching now but he didn’t care. He was at the end of the lane. By the walled churchyard. He walked past a slumped and grinning rag doll, with its head burst open, showing the yellow straw stuffing inside; he pushed the gate, negotiated the path, and entered the church.

  It wasn’t a Sunday, so he was surprised to see a service.

  The congregation was tiny, half a dozen old people and a geriatric priest. And four mansized rag dolls. The service was some kind of harvest festival. A dismal little collection of tomatoes, corncobs, and tinned Del Monte pineapple was arranged by the altar. It took David two seconds to work out Eloise was not amongst the worshippers. The priest was staring at David but he ignored the hostile glare.

  Striding outside the church again, he pushed the squealing gate, then ran through the punishing rain to the one place where Eloise might have gone, to maybe use the internet, a small tabac with a terminal or two.

  The shop was shut; there wasn’t even a rag doll in the window. Eloise had gone, completely gone. David felt a mixture of anger, worry – and an ardent empathy. Eloise’s sadness, the terrible sadness of the newly orphaned, reminded him all too easily of his own sadness, his own orphaning. She was like him. She had suffered like him. He thought of her proud, defiant, silent tears, as she drove them away from Miguel in Gurs.

  Eloise was brave. She deserved so much better than this. He had to find her before Miguel did. But he didn’t know where to turn. Where had she gone? And why? What was happening to them all?

  There were so many questions, falling on them, drenching them all, like a Pyrenean cloudstorm. They were drowning in puzzles and mystery. And they had to reach for the only answer, their only lifesaver.

  José.

  David ran through the teeming rain, past the war memorial, down to the bridge and the river, and the gutted cagoterie. The wetness slid down his neck, it damped his shirt to his chest. He didn’t care. He was angry now: the flickering idea that Eloise had been taken by Miguel was all too gruesome and too angering.

  He found Amy in the hall of the Cagot house, waiting: her blonde hair bright in the gloom. They talked for one minute, the conclusion of their debate was immediate. Amy agreed: they had to confront José. And David was the man to do it, because the conversation could be brutal and Amy was too close to the Garovillos.

  David prepared himself as he crossed the hall: he focussed his angry thoughts. He was going to extract the truth. Whatever it took.

  22

  By the time David found José, after searching the many rooms of the old house, the shower had turned into a pelting mountain rainstorm, hammering the ancient slates of the Cagot refuge.

  José Garovillo was alone in the kitchen, hunched over the stove, and pouring olive oil into a large earthenware dish. His wife was apparently locked in her room. José seemed locked in himself, just as he had been since they first found him hiding in the refuge house.

  ‘Angulas,’ said José, pointing to a saucer piled with slimy white worms.

  David gazed at the dish, perplexed. His shirt was cold and wet on his back. He shivered and asked, ‘An…gulas?’

  ‘Elvers. But frozen of course. Fermina went into Campan – to the shop.’

  ‘She left the house?’

  ‘Do not worry. She was careful.’ José turned from his cooking, and stared, momentarily, at David. His eyes were grey, and hollowed with sadness. Then the old man switched his attention to the earthenware casserole, adding some transparent slices of garlic, followed by a small half of red chilli pepper. He turned up the gas. The garlicked spiciness filled the air.

  ‘I just wanted to try them, Davido, angulas bilbaina. One more time. Just one more time.’ José was trembling, visibly. ‘The best little eels come from the Deva river, they are fished when there is no moon, and the water is tainted with tobacco…’ His old hand reached out, with a weary flourish of expertise, and picked up the elvers, and poured them into the dish. For a minute the eels sizzled; José spooned them over.

  ‘This is the crucial process. Too soon and they are no g
ood, too late and they are ruined. Here we are…’

  He picked up the casserole dish, and poured the fried angulas into a waiting sieve. A strange smell filled the kitchen – half fish, half mushroom. José concluded by draping theelvers onto a couple of plates.

  ‘You will try.’ He reached out and took some green herbs from a bowl, and sprinkled them on top. ‘Fermina is not hungry. Join me?’

  ‘I guess…OK.’

  ‘You must use a wooden spoon, the metal of cutlery corrupts the flavour.’

  There was nothing for it: the old man wanted to eat. The two men carried their plates into the gloomy sitting room, where an acrid fire in the humble hearth was giving off a pungent smoke.

  José winced as he spooned the slithery little eels into his mouth.

  ‘Aiii…Frozen. Not so good. But better than the fake ones. You know they now make fake angulas? Sí. It is true – they fake them because these real ones are so expensive, fifty euros for half a kilo.’

  The impatient anger was rising inside David. The time had come.

  ‘José…we need to talk. Now.’

  ‘They make them from reconstituted…cod innards. Mackerel. Meat. Who knows.’ José sighed, quite lyrically. ‘All the real angulas are dying out, like the poets, like the Basque songs, like everything that is good…’

  ‘José –’

  ‘They even paint little eyes on the fake eels! Did you know that, Davido! Fake little eyes on the txitxardin!’

  ‘Enough!’

  José stopped.

  Setting down his plate on the dusty floorboards, David began: ‘Listen to me. Eloise’s grandmother told me…something. It is painful, José. But I need to know.’

  José shook his head, and examined his food, apparently ignoring David’s questions.

  ‘José! She said you were known at Gurs.’

  The old Basque man gazed at his silvery angulas.

  David persisted. ‘They said you were known, by some people, as the traitor. Is it a lie? Or is it true? Is this why you have been silent these last days? Why all the mystery? What are you ashamed of?’

  José sat motionless, the plate on his lap. Then he raised his watery eyes. The intensely anguished gaze made David flinch: something terrible had happened to José. Or maybe José had done something terrible.

  ‘José?’

  ‘It is…it is because…’ His lips were almost white, his face the grey of morning mist on a river. ‘Because it is true. Something happened at Gurs.’

  ‘Were you imprisoned with my grandfather?’

  José rocked back and forth, on his damp wooden chair.

  David tried again: ‘Were you imprisoned with my grandfather?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, José. Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?’

  ‘Because of…things. That happened. I cannot trust anyone. When you know the secrets I know, the secrets I learned in Gurs, then you understand to be very careful. Forever.’ He gazed mournfully at David. ‘And yet…When I saw your face that day, when you came to the cottage…then I remembered my old friend Martinez and I wanted you to know the truth, as much as I could risk.’ The old man was sighing. ‘I felt you deserved to know who your grandfather was. A Basque. But you needed to be protected, as well.’

  ‘From Miguel?’

  ‘From Miguel. From many others like him. But especially Miguel.’

  ‘Did he kill my parents?’

  The air was filled with the sounds of the downpour outside.

  ‘Yes…’

  This reply seemed to wrench something out of José, who closed his eyes and shuddered. Then he looked away from David: he was staring at the broken window beyond his questioner’s shoulder. David spun, in sharp alarm – was that a shape in the woods beyond the garden?

  The misty rain was deceptive: maybe it was just a pottok, one of the wild horses, drifting in that ghostly way, through the forest – but David couldn’t help imagining it was…Miguel. Scoping them out, whispering to an accomplice, the rain dripping off his cap as he cocked his gun.

  No: that was impossible. No one knew they were hiding out here. No one even knew they were in Campan, let alone concealed in the cagoterie over the river. And the house was incredibly sequestered: you only knew it existed, behind its screen of firs, by the time you knocked your head on the ancient stone lintel, with its goose foot carved cruelly and brutally into the granite.

  But that raised another question. How did José know about this house? It was the ancient home and refuge of the Cagots, not Basques. How did José Garovillo end up here?

  And then a cold new possibility gripped David – a claw around his thoughts. If José knew about the house, why shouldn’t Miguel?

  David sat forward. His interrogation needed some urgency. Maybe threats.

  ‘José, does Miguel know about this house?’

  ‘No. I never tell him, not the house. If he knew I would not be here! One day I knew I would have to run away from him, that I would need somewhere to escape, when he came looking, or when the police came hunting.’

  ‘But how did you know about a Cagot safe house?’

  José quickly spooned a tiny morsel of elvers into his white-lipped mouth.

  David gripped José’s other arm. Hard.

  ‘Tell me. What happened at Gurs? Why did Miguel kill my parents?’

  A frown of pain. David gripped harder. José grimaced, and exuded an answer:

  ‘Because of what they were about to find out.’

  ‘You mean what happened at Gurs. Your treachery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  David now realized, with an upwelling of contempt mixed with pity – that José was crying. Two or three tears tracked down the old man’s face, as he explained: ‘Yes I did something at Gurs. Things happened there. Miguel did not want people to know…’

  ‘José, what did you do?’

  The old man mumbled a reply; David leaned forward, unhearing. José said again, ‘They torture us. You have to remember, they torture us.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Eugen Fischer.’

  David shook his head.

  ‘I’ve heard him mentioned, by Eloise’s grandmother. Who is he?’

  ‘A Nazi doctor.’

  ‘And what did he do?’ David felt the tingle of a bittersweet excitement: he sensed he was getting closer to the tragic core of this mystery. He was far from sure he wanted to know the answers; yet he wanted the answers more than ever.

  ‘What did they do? José? How did they torture you?’

  ‘They tested us. Many tests of the blood. And the hair and the…the blood. Testing the blood.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘There were other doctors. And then the Catholics, many priests.’ José was shivering. He was shivering like the oak leaves in the garden, pelted with cold mountain rain.

  ‘What did the priests do?’

  ‘They burned us. Some of us. Killed us.’

  ‘Why did they do this?’

  José took one more mouthful of the cooling, greasy baby eels. And then he said, ‘They thought we were not human, they thought we deserved to be exterminated, like snakes. To die like pagans, or witches. Once they finished their blood testing…Eugen Fischer would hand some of us over to the priests and the criminals…’ José waved a hand, despairingly. ‘And they took us, and burned us. Many many people. In the swamps at the edge of the camp.’

  ‘But why did they torture you?’ David said. ‘Was it like the witch burnings? Zugarramurdi? The burning of the Basques?’

  José gazed with a profound sadness at David. And said, ‘No.’

  David’s shoulders slumped. The mystery still eluded him. He was angry now. Angry at himself for not working it out, and angry at his grandfather. And most of all David was angry at José. This old man could tell David everything, blow away the mist, trap the wild horse of the truth. José would have to confess. David had to know now.

  Gripping José’s arm, once more, David press
ed on.

  ‘José, people are dying. They’re dying right now. What happened at Gurs? Why were you called the traitor?’

  The brown eyes were closed, but José was nodding, muttering.

  ‘Sı…you are right. It is time. Sı…’

  David wasn’t letting go of José’s arm, not this time. He didn’t care if he was hurting the old man. José spoke, his words dry and croaked: ‘They did tests on us all, David. Many tests of blood types and skull sizes. The Cagots and the gypsies, the communists and the Basques, the French and Spanish too…’

  José looked down at David’s hand, wrapped around his upper arm. The old man spoke again: ‘Fischer had tests from Namibia, his tests on the…Baster people. And of course the Bushmen. He told us all this…he told me this. Specially.’

  ‘Don’t get it. What’s this got to do with Basques? Why you?’

  ‘Because I became…’ A tremble shook through Garovillo. ‘I became his ally. Fischer’s friend and helper.’

  ‘That’s why you are ashamed? Cause you helped Fischer!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought I was Basque.’ José was crying again. ‘I was brought up Basque, speaking Basque. Proud to be Basque…’

  A bright light shone on the puzzle. David saw.

  ‘José, did they test you too? Test you…racially?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did they tell you that you weren’t a Basque?’

  The whispered reply was almost inaudible.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did they tell you that you were a Cagot?’

  The rain pattered on the windowsill. Then José Garovillo looked at the plate of half-eaten angulas on his lap – and he lifted the plate, and hurled it at the fire. The squidge of fried eels nearly doused the remaining flames.

  José was babbling now.

  ‘Sı. Sı sı sı sı sı! They told me I was not Basque, that in fact my descent was from the Cagots. The cursed people. The people of the goose, the goitre. The madness. The Saracens. The web-footed untouchables. Yes!’

  David suppressed his shock and pursued the question.

  ‘That’s why you are here? In the Cagot house? That’s why you knew where it was?’