The Marks of Cain Page 28

  Angus was shouting:

  ‘What’s the point, Miguel? You can’t hide it, we know it. Everyone fucking knows you are a cack person. Look at your twitching eye. What Cagot syndrome is that? What disorder do you have? Alperts? Hallervorden? What? Fasciculation. Twitching eye. That’s Cagot. The madness of the mountain –’

  Garovillo struck Angus hard across the face, so hard a flash of blood spat from the Scotsman’s mouth, a gobbet of blood and spittle that glistened in the dust, illuminated by the car headlights. Then the terrorist barked.

  ‘Torch the black. Now.’

  Alphonse was dragged to the stake. David watched, horrified, mesmerized. They were really going to do it.

  Amy cried out: ‘Miguel. Stop. Please. What’s the point?’

  ‘The Zulo speaks? Yes? Bai? Ez? Tell me where Eloise Bentayou is and I will stop. Until then, I shall burn the fucking half caste – like they burned my people – tortured them – burned the Basques like witches –’

  ‘You’re not a Basque, you fucking moron.’ Angus spat the words. ‘You’re a Cagot. A shit person. Look at you –’

  ‘Angus, help me! Help me please!’

  It was Alphonse, calling and wailing. He was now lashed to the stake; the sky was dark behind him. Amy’s face was wrenched with anger:

  ‘Stop this – Miguel –’

  ‘Only if you tell me. Where Eloise is? Eh?’

  Angus spat: ‘Why? Cagot asshole. Why should we give her to you? You’ll just kill her, too. Won’t you?’

  Miguel motioned a hand.

  ‘El fuego. Mesedez…’

  David stared, appalled. One of the accomplices was stooping to the dry timber gathered around Alphonse’s feet. David noticed that Angus’s boyfriend was wearing Nike trainers. He found himself wondering if they would melt. David clenched himself for what he was about to witness. Enoka was flicking a Zippo. The tiny flame began to catch.

  ‘Angusss!’

  Alphonse was screaming, his voice carrying like a church-bell, echoing up the canyon.

  The first flames licked, hesitantly, as though they were investigating Alphonse – testing the flesh. Young predator cubs.

  ‘This will keep us warm,’ said Garovillo. ‘The roasting of the bastard. The toasting of the sinotsu.’

  The flames rose, gaining confidence; they rose higher. The desert wood was very dry. The flames crackled in the cold clear air. A smell of woodsmoke filled the night. The desert moon shone down. Alphonse was crying out, shrieking, stretching against his bonds.

  Garovillo sighed, expressively.

  ‘So there we are. Angus Nairn, the scientist Angus Nairn. Now you must tell me where she is. Alphonse is about to be die, to be cooked, pot roasted. You won’t want him then, will you? When he’s just a side of beef? So much…crackling?’

  Angus looked directly at Miguel.

  ‘You’re going to kill us anyway. You can do what you like. What does it matter?’

  Alphonse cried out. He was writhing, and yelling: ‘Angus – no, Angus – please tell him’!

  Miguel smiled again.

  ‘He wants to live, Doctor Nairn. He doesn’t want to have his…boyish limbs toasted and grilled. And I feel sympathy. I am vegetarian. Barazkijalea naiz!’ He sighed. ‘So tell us.’

  Angus said nothing. David saw a profound tremor in Angus’s cheek: the grinding of his teeth. Alphonse was wailing.

  ‘It hurts! Angus! I’m burning! Please!’

  The flames were higher, a stray spark had caught in Alphonse’s hair; his hair was smoking, singeing, the smell of burnt hair mixed with the woodsmoke. Alphonse was catching: catching on fire. He was beginning to burn.

  The seconds of waiting dilated in the darkness.

  ‘OK! Stop it!’ Angus was shouting. ‘I will tell you where she is! Eloise. Stop the burning.’

  Miguel spun – and snapped:

  ‘Tell me now!

  ‘She’s in the Sperrgebiet.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Twenty-six kilometres due south of Diaz Point! Stop him burning, stop it –’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘The Tamara Minehead. The Rosh road. Disguised as mine offices. Garovillo –’

  Miguel smiled. And pivoted.

  And gestured at his men.

  ‘Pour a little gasoline, onto the flames. It’s going to be a very cold night and we need a nice big fire.’

  The following hour was the most grotesquely prolonged and awful hour of David’s life. It was worse than anything he had yet witnessed these last violent weeks.

  Alphonse burned, slowly, and profoundly, and agonizingly. First his trainers smoked, and charred, and melted into stringy plastic, and then his cotton trousers dropped, blackened, from his brown limbs: charring rags of smoking cloth. Finally the flesh began to roast. Obscenely. The brown skin flashed away, showing the fat and muscles. And then the fat of the boy’s thighs began to melt, spitting in the fire. And all the time Alphonse screamed. The shrillest, cruellest scream David had ever heard. A shriek that carried across the silent desert, a man being slowly burned alive.

  Then the screaming stopped, and resolved into a low, sussurating moan. The flames were big and monstrous but Alphonse was hymning his own death, almost singing. The hair was a mass of burned and charring black dreadlocks, the smell of roasting flesh was evil and sweet: a crematorium smell, a barbecue smell.

  Bats winged about the smoke. David saw the eyes of desert animals attracted by the smell and the glow – jackals skulking in the gloom. Hoping for food. The smell of burning meat was attracting the shiny-eyed jackals.

  Standing hard by the fire, Miguel gluttonously inhaled the smoke. The terrorist leaned to the roaring flames, and poked at the blackened body with a stick. Alphonse twitched. Still alive. Still alive. The fire roared.

  ‘Puerca? Urdaiazpiko?’

  Amy was puking. She was leaning to her side and vomiting. David felt the same gag reflex. On his left, Angus had his eyes shut. The Scotsman’s face was blank and impassive. And yet it somehow expressed the deepest emotion. Utter desolation.

  And then, at last, Alphonse died. The dark head lolled. The fire had wholly engulfed him. The deed was done. The fire began to subside. The body was a mass of red embers, glowing bones and meat. A black and scarlet effigy of a man, in the black desert night. The ribcage had collapsed and the heart was exposed: a vermilion knot of muscle.

  Miguel was still greedily inhaling the smell of burning flesh. And Angus was watching him. Eyes narrowed. There was a cold yet incandescent fury in the Scotsman’s gaze, a shrewd and calculating anger. Ferocious anger.

  David noted that even Miguel’s accomplices seemed repelled by the immolation.

  They were looking away, glancing surreptitiously at each other, and shaking their heads. But they were obedient. There was no sense of disloyalty. More like fear. They were scared of the Wolf.

  Garovillo gazed at David, assessingly.

  ‘That was impressive, Martinez.’ He ran fingers through his long black hair. ‘You are a man of some…courage. Or uncaring cruelty. Only you watched the whole show. Only you. And you did not vomit like Amy. You have a strong stomach. Strong constitution. You are stocky, like a bull. A wild boar.’

  Then Miguel glanced at the sky. The woodsmoke was drifting across the heavens, turning the moon into the pale face of a young widow – veiled with funeral grey. The smoke was dwindling, the fire was nearly done.

  ‘We need to build another fire. Yes we are all warm and tostada now. But the flames are nearly gone. So we need a big new fire. To barbecue our next course. The big man…the American Basque-burger.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘Ain’t got no wood, Mig.’

  ‘But we need to burn him. Burn him next!’ Miguel’s voice was stilted: with a hint of frustration. ‘If we kill and burn the Amerikako then Eloise will be offered up to us.’

  David felt the rough hands of Miguel’s accomplices drag him to his feet. His knees were weak, he was sagging with th
e horror.

  He was going to be burned alive. Like Alphonse.

  37

  The journalist stood there, utterly stunned. And trapped. ‘You know my name?’

  ‘Heck.’ The monk laughed. ‘You think we don’t read the newspapers? You wrote about those murders in England, didn’t you? Seen the photo.’

  He sagged: ‘But…’

  ‘I’ve been watching you since you got here. We’ve been warned that someone might come…Name’s McMahon. Patrick. Paddy Thomas McMahon.’

  Simon leaned against a stack of books. Now he stared around: he saw that many shelves were bare: it was like the library had been ransacked.

  The bald monk nodded.

  ‘And…hey…as you can see, you’re too late anyway.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The papal authorities came two months ago. Took nearly everything.’ He lifted a bottle of wine from the side of his chair and poured into a steel cup. ‘Want some?’

  Simon shook his head, and gazed across. Right now Brother McMahon looked less like a monk than anyone he had ever seen: with his old brown corduroys and a scruffy jumper, dirty sneakers. And quite obviously drunk.

  ‘They took all the documents?’

  ‘All the important files, yep.’ McMahon laughed, unhappily. ‘All the stuff that would make you go hmmm. They said they were a security risk. They had permission from the Vatican. So important, the Pope agreed! And when they were here they said that some people might come looking for the documents, and if they did I was to tell the authorities. And here you are. Welcome to my pleasuredome. Not much left to see.’ The monk took a confirming gulp of wine. His gaze narrowed, as he surveyed the high wall of empty shelves. ‘You wanted to know what was in the documents. Right?’

  ‘That’s why I came. And I’m too late.’

  ‘Sure…’

  McMahon’s expression was drunkenly sardonic.

  Simon felt a twinge of hope, returning.

  ‘You can tell me, can’t you?’

  Silence.

  The journalist repeated. ‘You can tell me? Can’t you? You know what was in the documents, correct?’

  ‘Well…’ He sighed. ‘I can tell you some. What does it matter now…’

  ‘Tell me about the Basques? The Cagots? The Inquisition stuff?’

  The monk nodded. And tilted his head. For a second he seemed to think, to consider his options. Then he said:

  ‘Don’t recall the whole lot, but I can tell you the reason they stopped the Basque witch burnings. That was one document they were very keen to take away.’

  ‘And?’

  A mournful, tannin-stained smile.

  ‘They did it…Because the church was worried that the Basques might become the second Jews. More sons of Ham.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s church speak.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘The Inquisition and the cardinals were worried by…“Divisions in the indivisible choir of man.” That was one phrase I read in the archives. Striking right? Of course the fear’s based on those…hidden ideas in the Bible, and the Talmud. Patristic texts.’

  ‘Curse of Cain? Serpent Seed?’

  ‘Yup.’ McMahon smiled, drunken giddiness mingled with melancholy. ‘You got it in one, good man. For two thousand years scholars and priests and cardinals have wrestled with the terrible and…’ He burped, politely. ‘Terrible and confounding implications of Serpent Seed, of non-Adamite humans. A different line of man. But they have never resolved it. Indeed their explorations made things worse.’

  ‘The physical tests, on the Cagots?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘What did they discover?’

  ‘Again, challenging stuff.’ The librarian gargled some wine, and went on. ‘The king’s physicians even tried to test the Cagots’ blood. But that proved zilch. Didn’t have the science – this was the seventeenth century. But the physical examination of the Cagots caused consternation with the clerics and bishops. The precise line I remember was: “It is feared the class known as Cagots may not be of the children of God.” That was the Bishop of Bordeaux, to the King of Navarre. After he’d seen the results from the doctors.’

  The phrase resonated in Simon’s mind, he could sense it echoing along the bleak concrete cloisters. Doors opening one by one.

  He had a final question – then he had to leave. He really had to leave. He couldn’t help remembering Tomasky. The tooth embedded in his cheek. If he was found here by someone less affably drunk than Brother McMahon, then anything was possible; the very worst was very possible. He needed to get out fast – after he’d asked one more question.

  ‘So. What is it that made you lose faith? You encountered something, in here, that made you lose faith.’

  ‘Did I…?’

  ‘What was it?’

  The strange concrete pyramidal space seemed to shrink around them. The mad angles, the intensely leaning walls, seemed to narrow and darken. And at the centre of it: this burbling, drunken monk, who no longer believed in God.

  McMahon rubbed a sad hand across his eyes.

  ‘In 1942, the Pope did a deal with Hitler. Kind of peace treaty.’

  ‘What?’

  The monk’s voice was soft.

  ‘The archives about the arrangement were kept here. Alongside the Basque and the Cagot documents. Because…they were related.’

  ‘What kind of treaty?’

  The librarian kept rubbing his eyes. Obsessively. Like he wouldn’t look at anyone.

  ‘You ever wonder why Pope Pius the Twelfth stayed so quiet during the Holocaust? Throughout World War Two?’

  Simon frowned.

  ‘Yes. I mean, of course. Yes.’

  ’Exactly! It’s been seen as one of the great shames and scandals of the Roman church ever since. Maybe the greatest ever. There was total inertia in Rome when Hitler slaughtered the Jews. The Catholic church didn’t even condemn the Holocaust, just made vague noises of…unhappiness.’

  Simon asked again.

  ‘So, this treaty?’

  ‘Hitler discovered something. Through his scientists, in the camps in southwest France.’

  ‘You mean Eugen Fischer at Gurs?’

  The monk nodded, and sat back in his chair and stared upwards at the tapering mad roof of the pyramid. As if staring at his own disappearing faith.

  ‘Yes. The deal was just that. Hitler agreed not to reveal what his scientists had found. Because what they had found somehow confirmed, scientifically, what the Inquisition and the Cagot examinations had previously implied. This thing that had so embarrassed the church, centuries ago – stuff so embarrassing they needed to keep it locked away. First in the Angelicum. Then here. Stuff that kept sending the archivists mad, or crazy. Stuff that made the monks neurotic, at least – those poor bastards that weren’t deranged by the building in the first place. Stuff too disturbing to understand, yet too important to destroy.’

  Simon interrupted: ‘So you don’t know what it actually was? The revelations from Gurs?’

  ‘Nope. After the last librarian at Tourette joined that bunch

  – the Society of Pius – the deepest secrets were locked away in a further box, in here. Personally, I never saw them. Not directly.’

  ‘But you know some of the background.’ Simon was unravelling the knot in his mind. ‘You know that, in return for Hitler not revealing this secret – what they discovered at Gurs – the Pope agreed to stay silent. During the Holocaust? Right?’

  The librarian lifted a steel tumbler full of wine and did the bitterest of toasts.

  ‘That’s it. You got it. The Pope did a deal with Hitler, he did a deal with the very Devil, and six million fucking people died.’

  Then the monk added:

  ‘By the way, you’ve got one hour. To leave. I can’t just pretend you didn’t fetch up. I still have a job here. I may think these weird zealots who took the documents are a shitload of mothers, I may think the whole damn thing is a hateful
charade, and the treaty a grotesque betrayal – but I’m sixty-five and I don’t want to go anyplace else. What would I do? Live in Miami?’ He shook his head. ‘So. I’m gonna tell them you broke in and overpowered me. That means you need to run away from here very quick. I will call them in an hour. In return, for my being so good as to not turn you in…I want you to tell me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you ever find the truth – what Hitler found – what scared the church. Tell me? I spent a life believing in this shit and serving the Dominicans and suffering in this fucking madhouse of a building and hell’s teeth I’d like to know why I’ve lost my faith. Because I was born a believer, I was meant to believe. And yet now I am alone. So very alone.’ He stared at the metal cup of wine in his hand. ‘Blood of Christ, body of Christ, body of lies. Cheers.’

  38

  Miguel’s expression was distinct; weary yet sated yet triumphant. David realized it was the same expression the terrorist had worn just after copulating with Amy in the witch’s cave of Zugarramurdi.

  ‘Wait. Wait wait…I am sleepy,’ said Miguel. His breath was visible in the cold night air. ‘We can wait. Bukatu dut! The American will warm us in the morning.’

  Angus gazed at the terrorist.

  Miguel gave orders for his men: Angus, Amy and David were tightly chained to an acacia tree, with their backs to the trunk. Guards were allotted. Then the terrorist very suddenly bedded down: so fast it was as if he had fainted. He was now lying deadweight on a canvas sheet, by the dying fire, faintly warmed by the glowing body of Alphonse.

  ‘Klein Levin,’ said Angus, blankly, and quietly.

  David whispered to Angus, who was right beside him, chained with his back to the same tree.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The syndrome, Garovillo’s condition…Hypersomnia, facial tics. Violence. I think it is Klein Levin.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s just…interesting.’

  Silence. Then Amy spoke. Her voice tremulous with emotion:

  ‘Angus. Whatever. We need – need – need to do something – just something –’

  Angus nodded. ‘I know. But…what? What can we do?’