Black Sun Rising

by Mathew Carr

  All this was so unexpected and astonishing that she could not think how to respond to it. During their walk in Montseny, Ferrer had said that anarchist love should not be possessive, the way it was in bourgeois novels. Was this what free love meant? Was Ferrer’s wife aware that he behaved like this? Was this how he would have behaved had Pau still been alive? Whatever anarchists were supposed to do, Esperanza felt angry and embarrassed by this unwanted contact, and powerless to do anything about it. She tried to concentrate on the conversation, but it was impossible to ignore the furtive movements of Ferrer’s little finger brushing against her thigh as she sat rigid as a statue with her hands clasped primly on her lap. Just then she saw two men coming toward them in derby hats and gray suits. Even from a distance they had the shifty hostile arrogance of police or militia, as they headed towards their table.

  “Lieutenant Ugarte,” said Ferrer. “It’s been a while.”

  The table immediately fell silent and Esperanza recognized the name of the officer Mata had visited in Montjuïc. Her embarrassment gave way to revulsion and anger as she looked back at Ugarte’s scarred cheeks.

  “I heard you were back in the city,” Ugarte said. “I assume you know what happened at the harbor? Decent Catholic ladies,” he glanced darkly around him to make it clear that none of the women in the café belonged to this category, “mocked and insulted by the mob. Rifles and medals thrown into the sea. A disgrace.”

  “I didn’t know this,” Ferrer replied. “But I haven’t been anywhere near the harbor. You can ask my companions.”

  “And why would I ask them that? We all know you don’t have to actually be present when these things are happening.”

  Ferrer’s owl-like expression did not change. “I’m flattered that you think I have magical powers, Lieutenant. But I’m a free man in my own country. A subject of the king, in the company of my friends. And I’ve committed no offense.”

  Ugarte scowled. “You dare mention the king? Just because you weren’t proven guilty doesn’t mean you’re innocent.”

  “The law says otherwise,” Ferrer replied calmly.

  The café had fallen silent now, and most of the customers were following this confrontation with obvious interest.

  “You should go back to your farm, Ferrer,” Ugarte said. “It would be better for you and better for all of us.”

  Ruben had been shaking his head throughout this exchange, and now he jumped to his feet as if he could no longer contain himself.

  “Maybe you should go back to the castle, Lieutenant. Instead of threatening innocent men for no reason.”

  To Esperanza’s amazement Arnau and the other members of the Invincibles got to their feet and gathered round Ruben in a protective cluster, and some of the men at the surrounding tables were also on their feet now. For a moment Esperanza thought she should stand up, too, as Ugarte’s colleague reached for his pistol, but Ugarte shook his head and his companion immediately lowered his hand. The lieutenant looked past Ruben as if he had not seen him.

  Ferrer had removed his hand from Esperanza’s thigh now, and she took advantage of this distraction to establish some distance between them. Ugarte glanced at her with a faintly knowing smile. For a moment his black eyes looked into hers, and she had the disconcerting realization that he knew her, before he turned away. Ugarte’s companion also seemed to recognize her, and it was only then, as he followed his boss out of the café, that she remembered the driver’s hateful face looking at her from the carriage that had driven Pau to his death, and she realized with a shock that she might know him, too.

  15

  From the moment the train pulled out of the Estación de Francia, Lawton felt as if a weight was lifting from his shoulders. A few minutes later the factories and white buildings thinned out and the sea appeared once again. He already felt exhausted, and the medication and the rocking of the train added to his drowsiness. Finally he surrendered to it and closed his eyes. He woke up to see the mountains stretching out in the distance to his left and the sea on the other side of the railway line to his right. An hour later he arrived in Portbou for the second time in two weeks and waited for the change of gauge.

  At three o’clock he arrived in Perpignan once again, and shortly afterward he caught the next train inland to Villefranche. The Raval seemed a long way away now as the two-carriage train puffed its way through a sun-drenched landscape of narrow valleys and steep hills, dotted with beige and white villages, churches, walled towns, and military forts, interspersed with forests, gorges, rivers, and fields of wheat and barley. Soon the mountains appeared once again on each side of the narrow river valley, looming up in a green wall, broken by patches of rock and gnarled rust-colored cliffs. Most of his fellow passengers were English tourists sitting among imposing piles of holiday luggage, whose plummy accents echoed around the carriage to the point when it was almost possible to imagine that he was in Richmond or the West End if he closed his eyes.

  In the late afternoon the train arrived at Villefranche-de-Conflent station, where a line of porters was waiting to load their luggage onto the waiting carriages. Lawton carried his own suitcase to a coach, and sat waiting with an English couple and their two children while the driver lifted their trunk and suitcases onto the roof. As the carriage wound its way slowly up the paved road past an ancient-looking walled city with a military fortress of more recent construction overlooking it, the children talked excitedly about their holiday plans while their mother shot occasional wary glances at the bandage on Lawton’s forehead and his scruffy appearance. They made no attempt to speak to him, and he had no desire to speak to anyone. Half an hour later the carriage reached the outskirts of Vernet-les-Bains, and the road followed the line of a river into the village. Lawton looked up at the whitewashed and terracotta houses and villas with red slate tiles that tumbled down the forested mountains. High above the church and castle, a fluted rock face curved upward and outward like a giant shell toward a curved ridge. The Englishman pointed toward one of the bumps along the ridge and said that this was Mount Canigou, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, and that they might try to reach the summit.

  As the coach came into the center of the village Lawton noticed the larger villas on the other side of the river; the ladies in long white dresses and parasols and gentlemen wearing top hats and carrying canes, and French and British army officers in dress uniforms. Apart from the occasional French peasants in clogs and berets it really did feel like Surrey-in-the-Pyrenees. Lawton followed the directions across the bridge to the Hotel du Portugal, and soon recognized the casino from the postcard Foulkes had sent to his wife. The Hotel du Portugal stood directly opposite, and he walked into the turret-like entrance and across the marble floor to the reception desk, where the receptionist greeted him in perfect English and took his details.

  “Will you be visiting the baths, Monsieur?” he asked. “We can arrange that for you.”

  “I won’t. But I’m looking for a friend of mine who sometimes stays here. Dr. Franz Weygrand. Do you know him?”

  “Of course!” the receptionist said brightly. “Everyone knows Dr. Weygrand. But he’s in Barcelona now.”

  “Would you believe I’ve just come from there?” Lawton shook his head ruefully. “Never mind. There are two other friends of mine you might know. Randolph Foulkes and Madame Babineaux?”

  “I don’t know any woman by that name. But Dr. Foulkes used to stay here with his wife. He has a little house outside the village when he comes to Vernet now. I haven’t seen him since the meeting last month.”

  “What meeting is that?” Lawton asked.

  “The Club des Explorateurs,” the receptionist said. “It met at the Casino at the beginning of June, as it usually does. Dr. Weygrand is also a member.”

  “Is that so? You know I’m a bit of an explorer myself. I’d be interested to know a bit more about this club. I might like to join.”

  “You would have to ask Dr. Foulkes about that, Monsieur. But there’s also a pho
tographer in the village, Monsieur Béchard. He took pictures of their meetings. Perhaps he can tell you something about the club. You’ll find his studio just off the main square.”

  * * *

  Lawton thanked him and went up to his room. That night he ate supper in the hotel and afterward he ran a bath from a tap in his own room for the first time in his life. He doubted whether Mrs. Foulkes would have approved of a trip to Vernet, but already he sensed that the extra expense was worth it. As he luxuriated in the warm soap suds he thought of the photograph of the 1906 Greenland expedition from Foulkes’s study. Unlike Foulkes, it was difficult to imagine Weygrand as a polar explorer, but then both he and Zorka had talked a great deal of nonsense during their performance about a kingdom somewhere in the Arctic, which suggested that they might have something in common with the Englishman apart from music.

  Lawton had no doubt that Weygrand was more than he seemed to be. He already believed that the Austrian was responsible for Foulkes’s death. But if what Mata had told him about the murdered anarchists was true, then Weygrand had not only had Foulkes killed; he had also murdered the bomber, and killed another man and an innocent cretin who did not seem to have any connection to Foulkes. Why would he do such things? Why were the Barcelona police so reluctant to follow up on what Mata and the anarchist girl had told them? What interest could the political police have in covering up such crimes? Lawton was still mulling over these questions as he lay in bed, listening to the hoot of a nearby owl and the sound of genteel laughter from the casino. Whether it was the fresh mountain air or the distance from the city, he had no difficulty falling asleep and he slept throughout the night, undisturbed by nightmares or strange dreams. He woke up feeling refreshed enough to perform his morning calisthenics, and afterward he shadowboxed on the carpeted floor, ducking and weaving in front of the mirror with some of his old lightness and grace.

  His night of weakness in the Raval seemed like a freakish aberration now and he felt so alert that he decided not to take his medication. Instead he ate a hearty breakfast of bacon, croissants, and coffee, and crossed the bridge in search of Monsieur Béchard. He soon found the studio, with its rows of photographs displayed in the window. All of them seemed to have been taken in Vernet, and most of them were portraits of men and women of obvious wealth and distinction. Lawton was surprised to find Lord Roberts, his former commander in the Transvaal, standing in full uniform with his drooping white moustache alongside a uniformed French general and various men and women in civilian clothes. Other pictures showed groups of ladies in walking boots with their skirts tied up just below their knees; family portraits taken against a canvas painting of the mountain overlooking the town, and men and women sitting on benches by a lake filled with swans that looked like a miniature version of Hyde Park. He went inside and found a youngish-looking man in his early thirties sitting behind a counter.

  “Monsieur Béchard?”

  “I am.” Béchard replied in English. “How can I help you, Monsieur?”

  “I was wondering, do you keep copies of the photographs you’ve taken?”

  “Some of them.” Béchard looked at him curiously. “Why do you ask?”

  “I understand you photographed a meeting of the Club des Explorateurs this year.”

  “I did. And the year before. The club has met here in Vernet for the last two years.”

  Lawton looked pleased. “Well that is good news. You see I’m working for the London Illustrated News. We’re writing a story about Vernet—what makes it so special?”

  “It is special,” Monsieur Béchard agreed. “They don’t call it the Paradise of the Pyrenees for nothing. We get all kind of people here. Generals, counts, bankers…”

  “So I’ve heard. But I don’t think many people realize that some of the world’s great explorers also come here. We’d really appreciate a picture of the club to go with my piece. You would be credited, of course.”

  Béchard said he would take a look. He disappeared into a back room and returned with some negatives and two photographs. Both portraits showed the same group of eight men sitting around a long table, with a banner bearing the name of the Club des Explorateurs and the same sig-rune symbol that Lawton had seen in Foulkes’s Greenland expedition. At the far end of the table Foulkes sat stiffly upright in a dark suit and high collar, looking back at the photographer with a slight frown. He was sitting next to Weygrand and a man who looked about the same age, with a thin, hatchet face and a mane of silvery hair that was combed back behind his ears. To Weygrand’s right, Lawton recognized one of the men from Foulkes’s Greenland photograph. Unlike the others, he was smiling faintly, and without his parka, Lawton could see what looked like a dueling scar on his right cheek above a well-trimmed beard.

  “Do you know this man?” he asked.

  Béchard shook his head. “I only know Dr. Foulkes. And Dr. Weygrand and his lovely assistant, of course. But I believe he was German. I heard him speak to Dr. Foulkes in German. It was a very international gathering. I heard French spoken also. And Spanish.”

  “Do you know what they talked about?”

  “I didn’t attend the meetings, Monsieur. But I believe they discussed geography, archaeology, and travel. They brought slides and photographs with them, which I saw when I was taking my own photographs of the group. Very interesting pictures, Monsieur. Tibet. South America. The Arctic. Negroes and Eskimos. It was obvious to me that they were well-traveled men. I told Dr. Foulkes he and his friends should give lectures here in Vernet. We have such distinguished visitors here, who would certainly be most interested in such things. I told him I could arrange some public lectures with the mayor.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was not very keen.” Béchard replied. “I’m not sure if he thought my suggestion a little vulgar. He said these meetings were intended for scholars and men of science—not for entertainment. Of course I never mentioned it again. Would you like me to make copies of these pictures for you? I can have them ready this evening.”

  * * *

  Lawton thanked him and asked for directions to Foulkes’s house. Any residual guilt about spending Mrs. Foulkes’s money had vanished now, as he walked up through the winding streets and white houses overlooking the main square and asked at the town’s hotels for Marie Babineaux. No one knew the name. Some receptionists remembered Foulkes’s wife, but no one had seen him in any other female company. In the afternoon Lawton decided to go to Foulkes’s house. He walked out of the town and up the main road through the forest. Apart from South Africa, he had never been in real mountains, and he had spent most of his time there being shot at, marching, or looking out for ambushes. Now the woods on either side of the road exuded peace and serenity, as he listened to the chirruping birds, the trickle of running water, and the faint rustle of leaves.

  After about twenty minutes he followed a narrower track that led up through the forest to his left behind a group of houses overlooking the road, as receptionist at his hotel had told him to do. Even after a few minutes it was obvious why Foulkes’s widow had stopped coming to Vernet. The path was too narrow for a carriage and it was not an easy track for neurasthenic ladies. He had been walking for about ten minutes when he heard the whine of a motorcar coming up from the direction of the town. He continued walking as the engine died away, till the path began to open up and he saw a small two-storey white house in the middle of a wide clearing up ahead. The house looked as though it might once have been a farm, but its window shutters were all closed. He walked around behind it, to a large dirt yard that reached back toward the looming wall of trees. At the center of the yard a round firepit surrounded by stones had been dug into the ground, and a pile of chopped wood was stacked in a wooden log store in the far corner.

  Beyond the yard the forest was so dense that he could barely see through the trees at all. He wondered why Foulkes had chosen such an isolated house when there were so many more well-appointed villas in the town itself. The back door was locked
and the windows were also shuttered up, but as he walked back and forth he noticed that one pair of shutters was slightly ajar. He slipped the fingers of both hands under one of the shutters and pushed them deeper into the space before wrenching the shutter back. The wooden flap flew open, and he bent down over the firepit and picked up a stone. As he did so he noticed the remains of Russian cigarettes lying in the ashes, and what appeared to be some white chicken’s feathers scattered near the stones.

  Even as he approached the window he knew he had no right to do what he was about to do, but he had not come this far to look at an empty house. He turned his face away and smashed the stone against the glass just above the window latch. There was a sudden flutter of wings from the forest before the silence returned and he slipped his hand in through the hole to open the window.

  He climbed over the window sill and found himself in a small, low-ceilinged living room furnished with a sofa and armchair, a chair and a table with a pile of notebooks where Foulkes had obviously been working. There was also a well-stocked bookshelf near the table with three skulls on the top shelf. Through an open doorway he heard the buzzing of flies and he saw the remains of a stale baguette on a kitchen sideboard, and another door that led off to a little hallway and a flight of stairs.

  As far as he could see the house had no lighting, except for the kerosene lamp on the table. He looked through the notebooks on the table and recognized Foulkes’s tiny crablike handwriting. Some of the books were unused, but others were crammed with drawings and notes. One book contained sketches of skulls, noses, foreheads, eyes, and ears, with some of the same incomprehensible classifications that Lawton had seen in Foulkes’s study.

  In London Lawton had found Foulkes’s interest in such things incomprehensible and vaguely distasteful. Now he felt unsettled by them as he went out into the little corridor to see what other artifacts the house contained. At the top of the stairs he saw a marble bust of a male head on a window ledge that looked like an ancient Roman or Greek, and had clearly been placed in front of the window to catch the sun’s light. Lawton was about to go upstairs when he noticed the doorway leading off the stairwell. He slipped the latch and opened it, and peered down the steep flight of wooden steps into a dark basement that smelled of dust, rotting vegetables, and something curiously sweet.