THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES
Page 17
Gavril hesitated, his hand hovering over one pocket.
Sabir could see that Gavril had worked himself up into thinking that he could deal with Alexi once and for all - and that Sabir’s presence between him and Alexi was not something that he had made any allowances for. Sabir felt the cold weight of the Remington in his pocket. If Gavril came at him, he would pull out the pistol and shoot a warning round at his feet. End the thing there. He certainly didn’t fancy taking a knife-thrust through the liver at this early stage in his life story.
‘Why are you talking for him, payo? Hasn’t he got the balls to talk for himself?’ Gavril’s voice had begun to lose its urgency.
Alexi was lying face down on the ground, with his eyes shut and was obviously way beyond talking to anybody. He had clearly moved from fighting drunk all the way through to dead drunk without bothering to visit blind drunk in between.
Sabir pressed home his advantage. ‘As I said - you can both sort this out another time. A wedding is certainly not the place to do it.’
Gavril clicked his teeth and gave a backwards thrust of the head. ‘All right, gadje. You tell that prick Dufontaine this from me. When he comes to the festival of Les Trois Maries, I shall be waiting for him. Sainte Sara can decide between us.’
Sabir felt as if the earth was gently rocking beneath his feet ‘The festival of Les Trois Maries? Is that what you just said?’
Gavril laughed. ‘I forget. You are an interloper. Not one of us.’
Sabir ignored the implied insult - his eyes were fixed on Gavril’s face, willing him to answer. ‘Where is that held? And when?’
Gavril turned as if to go, then changed his mind at the last moment. It was clear that he was relishing the sudden turnaround in the dynamics of the conversation. ‘Ask anyone, payo. They will tell you. The festival of Sara-e-Kali is held every year at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargues. Four days from now. On the 24th of May. What do you think we are all doing here at this piss-pot of a wedding? We are making our way south. All French gypsies go there. Even that eunuch lying next to you.’
Alexi gave a twitch, as if he had registered the insult somewhere deep inside his unconscious mind. But the alcohol proved too powerful a soporific and he began to snore.
64
‘Why John Wayne?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why John Wayne? Last night. At the wedding.’
Alexi shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. ‘It was a movie. Hondo. I saw it on my grandfather’s television. I wanted to be John Wayne when I saw that movie.’
Sabir laughed. ‘Strange, Alexi. I never had you down as a film buff.’
‘Not any films. I only like cowboys. Randolph Scott. Clint Eastwood. Lee Van Cleef. And John Wayne.’ His eyes shone. ‘My grandfather, he preferred Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, but to me they weren’t real cowboys. Just Italian gypsies pretending to be cowboys. John Wayne was the real stuff. I wanted to be him so bad it gave me heartburn.’ They both fell silent. Then Alexi glanced up. ‘Gavril. He said things, didn’t he?’
‘Some.’
‘Lies. Lies about Yola.’
‘I’m glad you realise they were lies.’
‘Of course they’re lies. She wouldn’t tell him that about me. About that guy kicking me in the balls when he was tied up.’
‘No. She wouldn’t.’
‘Then how would he know? How did he get this information?’
Sabir closed his eyes in a ‘God give me patience’ sort of a way. ‘Ask her yourself. I can see her coming through the window.’
‘Vila Gana.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Does vila mean vile? Is that it?’
‘No. It means a witch. And Gana is Queen of the witches.’
‘Alexi…’
Alexi threw off his blanket dramatically. ‘Who else do you think told Gavril? Who else knew? You saw that diddikai sniffing his fingers, didn’t you?’
‘He was winding you up, you idiot.’
‘She’s broken the leis prala. She’s not lacha any more. She’s not a lale romni. I shall never marry her.’
‘Alexi, I can’t understand half of what you’re saying.’
‘I’m saying she’s broken the law of brotherhood. She’s immoral. She’s not a good woman.’
‘Jesus Christ, man. You can’t be serious.’
The door opened. Yola tilted her head around the frame. ‘Why are you two arguing? I could hear you from the other side of the camp.’
Alexi fell silent. He contrived a look on his face that was both peevish, angry and prepared for chastisement at one and the same time.
Yola remained on the threshold, looking in. ‘You’ve argued with Gavril, haven’t you? You’ve had a fight?’
‘That’s what you’d like, isn’t it? For us to fight? Then you would feel wanted.’
Sabir started towards the door. ‘I think I’d better leave you both to it. Something tells me we’re not a long way shy of a quorum here.’
Yola held up her hand. ‘No. You stay. Otherwise I must go. It wouldn’t be right for me to be here only with Alexi.’
Alexi slapped the bed in mock invitation. ‘What do you mean it wouldn’t be right? You spent time alone with Gavril. You let him touch you.’
‘How can you say that? Of course I didn’t let him touch me.’
‘You told him the man in the church bit off my balls. After he punched out my teeth. You think that’s right? To tell someone that? To make a fool out of me? That bastard will spread it all around the camp. I’ll be a laughing stock.’
Yola fell silent. Her face flushed pale underneath her sun-darkened skin.
‘Why aren’t you wearing your dikló, like a proper married woman? Are you telling me Gavril didn’t kidnap you last night? That the spiuni gherman didn’t take you behind the hedge and turn you on your side?’
Sabir had never yet seen Yola cry. Now large tears welled up in her eyes and overran her face, unchecked. She dropped her head and stared fixedly at the ground.
‘Sacais sos ne dicobélan calochin ne bridaquélan. Is that it?’
Yola sat down on the caravan step, with her back to Alexi. One of her girlfriends approached the door of the caravan but Yola shooed her off.
Sabir couldn’t understand why she didn’t respond. Didn’t refute Alexi’s allegations. ‘What did you just say to her, Alexi?’
‘I said “Eyes that can’t see, break no heart”. Yola knows what I mean.’ He turned his head away and stared fixedly at the wall.
Sabir looked from one to the other of them. Not for the fi rst time he wondered what sort of a madhouse he had stumbled into. ‘Yola?’
‘What? What is it you want?’
‘What exactly did you say to Gavril?’
Yola spat on the ground, then teased the spittle with the point of her shoe. ‘I didn’t say anything to him. I haven’t spoken to him. Except to trade insults.’
‘Well, I don�
�t understand…’
‘You don’t understand anything, do you?’
‘Well, no. I suppose I don’t.’
‘Alexi.’
Alexi glanced up hopefully when he heard Yola addressing him. It was obvious that he was fighting a losing battle with whatever it was that was eating away at him.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry for letting Gavril take out your eyes?’
‘No. Sorry for telling Bazena about what happened to your balls. I thought it was funny. I shouldn’t have told her. She is hot for Gavril. He must have made her tell him. It was wrong of me not to think how it might harm you.’
‘You told Bazena?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t speak to Gavril?’
‘No.’
Alexi swore under his breath. ‘I’m sorry I questioned your lacha.’
‘You didn’t. Damo couldn’t understand what you were saying. So there was no questioning.’
Sabir squinted at her. ‘Who the heck’s Damo?’
‘You are.’
‘I’m Damo?’
‘That’s your gypsy name.’
‘Would you mind explaining that? I haven’t been renamed since my last baptism.’
‘It’s the gypsy word for Adam. We are all descended from him.’
‘So’s just about everybody, I guess.’ Sabir pretended to weigh up his new name. Secretly, he was delighted at the change in tone of the conversation. ‘What’s your word for Eve?’
‘Yehwah. But she’s not our mother.’
‘Oh.’
‘Our mother was Adam’s first wife.’
‘You mean Lilith? The witch who preyed on women and children? The woman who became the serpent?’
‘Yes. She is our mother. Her vagina was a scorpion. Her head was that of a lioness. At her breasts she suckled a pig and a dog. And she rode on a donkey.’ She half turned, measuring Alexi’s response to her words. ‘Her daughter, Alu, was originally a man but he changed into a woman - it is from her that some gypsies have the second sight. Through her line, Lemec, the son of Cain, had a son by his wife Hada. This was Jabal, father of all those who live in a tent and are nomadic. We are also related to Jubal, father of all musicians, for Tsilla, Jubal’s son, became the second wife of Lemec.’
Sabir was about to say something - to make some pungent comment about the infuriating way gypsies played around with logic - but then he noticed Alexi’s face and it suddenly dawned on him why Yola had started on her discourse in the first place. She had been way ahead of him.
Alexi was transfixed by her story. All anger had clearly left him. His eyes were dreamy, as if he had just received a massage with a swansdown glove.
Perhaps, thought Sabir, it was all true and Yola really was a witch after all?
65
That morning Sabir walked from the encampment into the outskirts of Gourdon. He was wearing a greasy baseball cap he had liberated from a cupboard in the caravan and a red-and-black stitched leather jacket with lightning stripes, a plethora of unnecessary zips and about a yard and a half of dangling chains. If anybody recognises me now, he thought to himself, I really am done for - my credibility is shot for ever.
Still. This was his first time alone and in a public place since the camp at Samois and he felt awkward and nervous. Like an impostor.
Carefully skirting the main streets - in which the market was in full swing and law-abiding people were taking their breakfast in cafés, like regular citizens - Sabir was suddenly struck by how detached he had become to the so-called real world. His reality was back in the gypsy camp, with the dusty children and the dogs and the cooking pots and the long dresses of the women. The town seemed almost colourless by comparison. Up itself. Anally retentive.
He bought himself a croissant at a mobile stand and stood eating it on the town ramparts, looking back over the market, enjoying his rare taste of solitude. What madness had he let himself in for? In little more than a week his life had changed tack in its entirety and he was now certain, in his heart of hearts, that he would never be able to return to his old ways. He belonged to neither one world nor the other now. What was the gypsy expression? Apatride. With no nationality. It was their word for gypsyhood.
He spun abruptly around to face the man standing behind him. Did he have time to reach for his pistol? The presence of innocent bystanders in the square decided him against it.
‘Monsieur Sabir?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Capitaine Calque. Police Nationale. I’ve been following you since you left the camp. In fact you’ve been under continuous observation ever since your arrival from Rocamadour, three days ago.’
‘Oh Jesus.’
‘Are you armed?’
Sabir nodded. ‘Armed, yes. But not dangerous.’
‘May I see the pistol?’
Sabir gingerly opened his pocket, stuck two fingers in and retrieved the pistol by the barrel. He could almost feel the sniper scopes converging on the roof of his skull.
‘May I inspect it?’
‘Hell, yes. Be my guest. Keep it if you want.’
Calque smiled. ‘We are alone here, Monsieur Sabir. You may hold me up, if you wish. You do not have to give me the pistol.’
Sabir ducked his head in wonder. ‘You’re either lying through your teeth, Captain, or you’re taking one heck of a risk.’ He offered Calque the pistol, butt first, as if it were a piece of rotting fish.
‘Thank you.’ Calque took the pistol. ‘A risk, yes. But I think we’ve just proved something quite important.’ He hefted the automatic in his hand. ‘A Remington 51. Nice little pistol. They stopped making these in the late 1920s. Did you know that? This is almost a museum piece.’
‘You don’t say?’
‘It’s not yours, I take it?’
‘You know very well that I took it off that guy in the Rocamadour Sanctuary.’
‘May I take the serial number? It might prove interesting.’
‘How about the DNA? Isn’t that what you people swear by these days?’
‘It’s too late for DNA. The pistol has been prejudiced. I simply need the serial number.’
Sabir exhaled in a long, ragged outpouring of breath. ‘Yes. Please. Take the serial number. Take the gun. Take me.’
‘I told you. I’m alone.’
‘But I’m a killer. You people had my face splashed all over the TV and newspapers. I’m a threat to public safety.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Calque put on his reading glasses and took down the serial number in a small black notebook. Then he offered the pistol back to Sabir.
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘I’m very serious, Monsieur Sabir. You will need to be armed for what I am about to ask you to do.’
66
Sabir squatted down beside Yola and Alexi. It was more than obvious that they were on speaking terms again. Yola was roasti
ng some green coffee beans and wild chicory root over an open fire in preparation for Alexi’s breakfast.
Sabir handed her the bag of croissants. ‘I’ve just had a run-in with the police.’
Alexi laughed. ‘Did you steal those croissants, Damo? Don’t tell me you got caught first time out?’
‘No, Alexi. I’m serious. A captain of the Police Nationale just picked me up. He knew exactly who I was.’
‘Malos mengues!’ Alexi slapped himself on the forehead with his flattened palm. He reared up, prepared for flight. ‘Are they already in the camp?’
‘Sit down, you fool. Do you think I’d still be here if they really intended to take me?’
Alexi hesitated. Then he dropped back on to the tree stump he had been using as a seat. ‘You’re crazy, Damo. I nearly threw up. I thought I was going straight to prison. It’s not funny to joke that way.’
‘I wasn’t joking. You remember that guy who came to talk to you in the camp at Samois? With his assistant? About Babel? While I was in the wood-box?’
‘The wood-box. Yes.’
‘It was the same guy. I recognised his voice. It was the last thing I heard before I blacked out.’
‘But why did he let you go? They still think it was you that murdered Babel, don’t they?’
‘No. Calque doesn’t. That’s his name, by the way. Calque. He was the police officer Yola saw in Paris.’
Yola nodded. ‘Yes, Damo. I remember him well. He seemed a fair man - at least for a payo. He accompanied me down to the place where they keep the dead to make sure that they allowed me to cut Babel’s hair myself. That they didn’t give me somebody else’s hair. Otherwise Babel wouldn’t have been properly buried. He understood this, when I told him. At least he pretended to.’