‘Hence the Spanish connection.’
‘Perhaps. Elazar ibn Yehuda was part of the military expedition led by the infamous Tariq ibn Ziyad – invader of Spain and defeater of King Roderick of the Goths. Tariq got almost as far as the Pyrenees but then he was beaten off by the Basques.’
The professor turned back to August. There was a new vivacity to his countenance as well as an anguish. ‘What do you know of the reputation of Yehuda?’
‘Nothing. I’d never heard of him until this morning.’ This morning. Already it felt as if his life had accelerated into an unexpected but exciting detour. For the first time in months nothing felt predictable. Trepidation stirred in him like a bud unfurling into leaf. I am alive again.
The professor, reading his face, sighed heavily. ‘My dear young man, I fear someone is drawing you into a web.’
The comment only excited August further.
‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘Not at all, I have my pipe. As I have given up women and bridge, I consider it the last of my vices.’ Copps smiled indulgently.
‘Bridge I’ve yet to discover but the other two I know well – to my detriment,’ August joked.
He pulled out the packet of Lucky Strikes and lit one up, exhaling then studying the older man before him. Since the estrangement from his father, there had been few mentors in his life. Professor Copps had been one, Jimmy van Peters another – of an entirely different calibre but one August felt had also understood his true nature; more than that – accepted it, and that had been rare in the American’s life.
‘Professor, I fought in Spain because of what I believed in, but to be frank, by the time the Second World War came around I knew I just liked the combat, the strategising. I guess that’s why I went into the SOE. It’s more than an addiction – it became a philosophy, not knowing if you would live to see another hour, another sunrise. It pins your mind back so that you absorb everything around you like it’s going be the last thing you see. I guess you could call it the ultimate existentialism. Since I’ve returned to civilian life everything is a series of greys, of goddamn monochrome.
‘Now someone has asked me to return an antiquity to Spain, to the family to whom it belongs. As a listed member of the International Brigade, I risk execution if I go back, but you know what, I would welcome it. This antiquity, this chronicle, is the key to a puzzle I mean to solve. It could be the adventure that just might save my soul.’ He leaned back in the armchair, embarrassed by the grandeur of his own words. Copps knows me, knows what I was once, how high my dreams went. The arrogant Icarus, the world at his feet.
The academic sucked on his pipe, the intensity with which he gripped it giving away his true emotions. He had been fond of the boy, had seen his younger self in him once, the burnished mirror of possibility, and didn’t want to see him sacrificed before his time. But the man is naive, suicidally so, the professor thought, while keeping his expression tight and bland.
‘Be careful. Remember Aristotle said, “Fear is pain rising from the anticipation of evil.”’
‘Yes, but Mark Twain said, “Do the thing you fear the most and death of fear is certain”,’ August countered.
‘Personally, I’ve always regarded caution as a most underrated emotion, a philosophy that has served me well, until now that is.’
August realised that the conversation had digressed entirely from the original question. Was the professor skilfully evading his query? If so, why?
‘Elazar ibn Yehuda, what else do you know about him?’
Copps turned back to the window. After nervously glancing at the street, he pulled down the wooden shutters, plunging the room into a twilight. He moved to the fireplace and stirred at the burning coals with a poker.
‘Yehuda was considered one of the greatest physicians of his era. The Caliph had been reluctant to let him join General Tariq’s invading army but Yehuda was anxious for medical resources, and he was convinced the expedition would take him into territories that would provide wonderful new herbs, plants and trees he could use in his practices. He persuaded his benefactor and left with Tariq and his men. But halfway through the great invasion Yehuda changed. He began to neglect his medical duties and became obsessed by the possible existence of a great treasure he was convinced would unleash itself upon humanity – either condemning it or saving it, depending on how the great gift was used.’
‘Did he literally mean treasure?’
‘You have to understand that Yehuda was also what we would consider nowadays somewhat of a kabbalist, a follower of the early Jewish mystic text the Sefer Yetzirah – roughly translated as the “Book of Creation”. And he was a disciple of the fourth-century great Greek philosopher and herbalist Bolus of Mendes. He also deferred to Al-Birum’s Tahfim, which was one of the great grimoires of its day. All of this meant Elazar ibn Yehuda would have had a huge understanding of the mystic and magical properties of plants. When Yehuda wrote “great treasure”, I understood him to mean more – a great spiritual or magical gift, an unnatural power from God – and here he referred to both Allah and Yahweh.’
‘Did he find the treasure?’
‘I’m not entirely sure Yehuda hadn’t simply gone a little mad – after all, the horrors he must have witnessed alongside Tariq’s ruthless invasion beggar the imagination. However, when the Caliph demanded to see this great treasure, Elazar ibn Yehuda claimed it had been stolen from him. And naturally the Caliph, believing this a convenient excuse not to hand over the treasure, had the physician put to death – end of story. Except that through the centuries the story seems to have snowballed in its authority. There have been several fanatic movements and individuals over time that have perished searching for the treasure and there are still people looking today; dangerous, deluded and willing to go to any measure to solve the mystery.’
Outside, they heard the sound of a car horn and the faint ringing of church bells.
‘You should be careful, dear boy. It would be stupid to throw one’s life away after surviving so much.’
‘I’m far too sensible for that.’ August threw his cigarette into the fire. ‘Can you remember the exact dates of Yehuda’s life?’
‘Hard to forget, I was fascinated by him for two whole years – a lifetime ago now, of course. AD 670 to 725. He was executed in Constantinople.’
Standing on his balcony, Copps wrapped his old cardigan around him and shivered as he watched August climb onto the motorcycle and drive off into the thick afternoon smog that had descended. Winthrop had been one of those rare students who’d displayed an early gift for imaginative lateral thinking, capable of insights that had surprised even him, who, then in his late middle age, had found himself drowning in a wellpool of disillusionment. August Winthrop had bought him hope, a renewed belief in the importance of the Classics, of its relevance to contemporary philosophy, thought and governance. Then his protégé had squandered it all by joining the International Brigade to fight with the American battalion. Noble but ultimately wasteful, the professor thought, and now in his late thirties, August still displayed the same rash idealism. He was the original haunted enthusiast, a doomed adventurer, his old mentor concluded. But did August have any idea how perilous a mission he’d just embarked upon? Did he even understand how powerful the object was that he might have in his possession? Copps doubted it. And even if he did, Copps had the uncomfortable feeling great danger would only inspire the American further.
As he watched the silvery wheel of the Triumph disappear around the sweep of the crescent he had a premonition that this would be the last time he would see August E. Winthrop. Dismissing the sensation with another shiver, he walked back into the apartment, closing the large French doors behind him, then picked up the telephone. To his faint surprise he found that he remembered the telephone number perfectly, and watching himself dial the number he tried to control his shaking hand.
‘Olivia Henries.’ The voice answering the telephone was hers, the same rich alto, the same slightl
y ironic inflection that always suggested profound intelligence, the same voice that he always used to find so erotic – but what he found even more disturbing was that she sounded exactly as she did thirty years ago.
Back in the studio flat in Kensington August pulled off his motorcycle helmet and searched his leather jacket for a spare shilling. He found one stuck in the lining, sandwiched between an old book of matches marked with the insignia of a jazz bar he occasionally frequented and a stale cigarette. He breathed out; it was so cold in the flat his breath misted. Stomping his feet and rubbing his hands to stay warm, he stepped out into the corridor and slipped the shilling into his gas meter. There were some luxuries he could do without – chocolate, nice soap, cologne, Jack Daniels – but not heat or cigarettes. Yet even he was tiring of the constant lack of things, a state of affairs that seemed ongoing since the end of the war. He had to face the fact that freelancing as a would-be writer and academic was beginning to lose its appeal. As they had before, the faint charms of the civil service beckoned like a middle-aged harpy on a rock, threatening to dash all his dreams.
Kneeling, August lit the gas fire. He liked being in the dark. It made him feel invisible and somehow more integral to the environment around him, whether it be forest, savannah or house. It was a trick he’d learned fighting, a way of momentarily stepping out of the chaos and conflict around him. Many times he had stood in the dark leaning against a tree to gaze down upon a burning village, preserving his sanity only by willing himself to be without thought – nothing but his senses pinned back as sharp as the night around him.
The sight of blue-green flames spluttering into life pulled him back into the room. He squatted down on his heels watching the fire flicker up. There hadn’t been a message slipped under the door from Cecily. He’d half-expected one, it wasn’t the first time she’d left him, but this time had felt different. Finite. Have I lost her? Have I? He’d never seen her so angry or distressed. Why had he slept with the Russian girl? He hadn’t meant to, but she’d been beautiful and transporting – she’d broken through the grey, for a moment. The charm of the hollow man: the chase, the sex, the distraction, it filled him, at least long enough to forget what he’d become.
Could he stop? Perhaps not, at least not until he stopped running. Maybe this trip back to Spain would change him, but then he wasn’t the same man he was before the war – he never would be; to try would be like catching at mirages.
Enough. He knew if he kept staring into the flames analysing the stupidity of his actions he would fall into a deep depression and he had better things to think about. He got up and switched on the desk lamp.
She stood in his doorway, her long hair still russet but she had thickened around the waist. By Copps’s calculations she must be in her early fifties, even so that air of dangerous sexuality still shimmered about her, a dark vivaciousness that had always enticed and repelled.
‘Hello, Severin,’ she said, stepping past him in a cloud of musk. She’d used his tribal name, his secret moniker that had marked him as one of them, one of the circle.
‘Olivia, still haunting I see.’
‘If you’re asking whether I still practise, the answer is yes, but I think you knew that, why else would you have rung?’ As she walked around the flat her long pale fingers fluttered like flickering light over various objects: a closed diary, a framed photograph, an embroidered cushion, a fossil he’d taken from a site in Egypt. He swallowed nervously, filled with a danger that was disturbingly stimulating. He knew what she was doing, she was reading the room, absorbing the memories trapped inside each artefact, gleaning as much information as she could about the last thirty years of his life.
‘Why else indeed, and I’m known as Julian these days.’
Finally she settled on the edge of the armchair, the curious ring she always wore catching the lamplight – Aleister Crowley’s unicursal hexagram – to some a pretty, almost decorative pattern but to those who recognised the symbol a portal to a whole other world.
She studied him very carefully, the heat of her gaze travelling from his feet to his head. Once, as a young man, he’d found this cool objectification arousing, and, now again, to his deep chagrin, he discovered that his body still responded. Her blatant sexual nature took him out of his intellect, and he would always love her for that – nothing else did or had since.
‘You’ve changed.’ She reached for the long heavy gold chain that hung around her neck and began twisting a length of it around a finger – a habit of hers he recognised. ‘But I still want you. Isn’t that refreshing?’
Professor Copps sank into the chair opposite and was silently thankful it was Mrs O’Brien’s evening off.
‘Is it?’ he said, faintly.
‘Absolutely, to know that the essence of desire doesn’t change, I would say it was positively inspiring – a kernel of immortality, we could all do with one of those, Severin.’ She placed her hand on his thigh. Was she going to seduce him or kill him? He couldn’t decide but he was beginning to question his own motive for calling her. Was it because she was the only other person he knew who understood the great potential August had stumbled across or was it because he’d finally found an excuse to see her one last time?
‘Las crónicas del alquimista, you think they have surfaced?’
‘An old student of mine contacted me earlier today. He mentioned he’d stumbled upon a great antiquity, one that might secure his repetition as a historian, then he started asking a lot of questions about Elazar ibn Yehuda. The nature of the questions seemed to point towards the chronicle.’
‘And yet you always maintained the chronicle was a mythical construct, just one of those many rumours born out of the Inquisition. How do you know this isn’t just another wild goose chase?’
‘He was my most gifted student and he also mentioned Shimon Ruiz de Luna. He even knew about his execution.’
She looked up sharply, an uncharacteristically unguarded movement for her. Standing, she seemed to float towards him, an effect assisted by the numerous diaphanous scarves draped around her neck and shoulders.
‘And your student’s name?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t give you that, that would be a complete betrayal,’ he answered, as firmly as he could, but she had already settled astride his lap, his walking stick falling to the ground with a clatter.
‘Oh, I think you could, if I was very, very nice to you,’ she murmured, seductively, her heavy bosom now leaning into his chest, her scent overpowering.
Mrs O’Brien paused at the landing to catch her breath. It was past ten and she’d only just managed to catch the last bus back from Putney. She glanced over at the front door of the apartment. The professor was always in bed by nine-thirty and she didn’t want to wake him. Treading carefully, she made her way to the door and slipped her key into the lock. To her surprise it was already open. She tried to push the door but something heavy seemed to have fallen against it on the other side. Panicked, she pressed her shoulder against the oak and pushed. It opened halfway before revealing a body slumped against the door. The housekeeper recognised the slippers immediately.
‘Professor?’ Now worried the old man might have had a fall, she pushed harder and the door gave way, revealing what lay beyond. Mrs O’Brien began to scream.
August laid out two blank sheets of paper on the desk and placed the chronicle above them. At the top of each sheet he wrote the two sets of dates: 670–725 for Elazar ibn Yehuda and 1578–1613 for Shimon Ruiz de Luna. He studied them. They were linked by region and religion, and it was safe to assume that Shimon had been some kind of follower or believer in Elazar’s great mystical treasure. Was it this that had driven him to England and to King James? Had he actually found Yehuda’s secret? If so, according to Professor Copps, the chronicle would be incredibly valuable to a lot of people. Just then Jimmy’s account of the massacre in Irumendi surged back into August’s mind. There was a detail that had been gnawing away at his subconscious ever since he heard the sto
ry, and it merited investigation. He reached for the telephone.
In five minutes he’d arranged to have lunch at the Reform Club with his old SOE employer, Malcolm Hully. A man who always seemed to be in the hub of the latest diplomatic and political scandals in London, Malcolm also possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of most military operations of the allies – legitimate or not – and he’d sounded pleased to hear from August, even if they had some dubious history. August had briefly seduced Malcolm’s wife-to-be on an R & R from his spy duties during the war, but, as far as he knew, Malcolm had never found out.
August replaced the receiver then searched his desk for another shilling. If he was to have a bearable night’s sleep, he needed to find more money for the meter. There was none. He glanced around the flat – there was still his collection of jazz records, many of them rare pressings and quite valuable, and also the engagement ring he’d given Cecily two years earlier, an heirloom from his grandmother – a sizeable diamond that was testimony to the old moneyed Mayflower family. It was still sitting on the mantelpiece. Next month’s rent was due and he needed cash fast. A small inheritance from an aunt had been almost extinguished and he was tired of dodging debtors. He made a mental note to remind himself to ring his publishers the next morning and visit the pawnbroker – if he sold the ring, he would have enough money for almost a year. This was no time for sentimentality, he decided.
In lieu of a blanket he placed an old winter coat on top of the bed, still lying unmade from the night before, then stripped down to his boxer shorts and climbed in. The sheets smelled from the lovemaking and there was lipstick on the pillow. This was life, the remnants of a clandestine night and the ruins of a relationship the morning after, but, heck, I still love her.
August stared at the ceiling and for a moment was transported back to the white sands of a beach and someone’s tanned legs folded up next to him. Looking across the room, he wondered how the four years he’d lived in the flat had slipped by; the rows of books faintly outlined by shadow, the portable gramophone, a battered saxophone propped up in a corner, his campaign desk, the photographs on the mantelpiece the only touchstones to a younger self. It was a poignant reminder of the reinvention that was now his life. Everything except the framed photographs seemed transient. All of his aliases and codenames danced like butterflies across his retina – Joe Iron, Tin Man, Gus, Dr A. E. Winthrop – cast-off identities, like he was a Russian doll, each persona carefully hidden inside the shell of the next, and right at the heart of him a rotting secret. Who have I become? Who am I becoming?
The Map Page 7