With all the majesty of the consummate thespian, Oriol crosses himself twice and opens his arms wide.
‘Let the performance begin!’
He shouts.
‘God! Forgive me, but I desire company – as Adam yearned for Eve – Give me someone who could understand! So I prayed. And God? Always mysterious, forever testing me! He sent you. Witch. No! Do not faint. Listen! Lift your face when I speak to you. Woman! I have brought you here to understand and then send you to your maker – below ground, this is the gateway to your return. It is my duty to stamp out heresy, it is the single greatest struggle which now remains to man, the refutation of those heresies which have sprung up in our own day – and introduced confusion! Great confusion! For it seems expedient that we, making an onslaught upon the opinion which constitutes the prime source of contemporary evil, should prove what are the originating principles of this heresy, in order that its offshoots, becoming a matter of general notoriety, may be made the object of universal scorn. And then – if silenced, burnt, destroyed, we will have played a role in ensuring that they should be forgotten.’ Zeal glistens on his forehead.
‘Have you ever studied the muscles of a tongue or given thought to its power? Our soul rests in our hearts, but language comes most often from the larynx, embodied by the tongue. Each one is perfect, every muscle pure – have you ever seen a human tongue?’
I shake my head.
‘I will show you yours.’
‘How many have you seen?’
He pauses. ‘Of my own, twenty-three. Of others – well . . .’
He grins, gesturing to the shelves.
‘I have a wealth of resource. I am the sole collector. The last custodian. One hundred and seventy-nine witches. I’m proud to say I have been the most effective.’
He moves closer to the knives on the table.
‘And Natalia?’ I ask, switching tack. How far to the door? He hasn’t tied me down. ‘Did you not love her?’
Oriol’s face darkens, his eyes swell.
‘Don’t ask me that.’
‘But I was certain you loved her – she writes that you loved her, and that she – Oriol – that she loved you?’
Oriol picks up a knife from the table.
‘Yes,’ he whispers. ‘But she betrayed me.’
He bends his head as if to pray, focusing his eyes on the knife he holds in the palm of his hand. My wounds throb. ‘Which one?’ he asks me, gesturing at the table. ‘Which appeals to your taste? This one is good for pricking – this the sharpest, the cleanest – this the most effective – this the slowest, the most laborious.’ He picks the jar off the table – holds it up to the light before my eyes, the colourless solution glints like gold. ‘Your formalin is already prepared. Your tongue goes in here. But only for a week. I use formaldehyde to lock the tissues in the muscle. Every tongue is unique and I strive to preserve the details.’ He opens the jar, holding the fumes beneath my nose, a sharp burning sensation in my nostrils – I gag. ‘The liquid is toxic. Once your tongue has set I will rinse it with water. I will hang it and drain it and store it in alcohol with the complete collection.’
He places the jar, open, on the table and shows me the ornamental blade with the antler handle.
‘When did you learn?’ I ask.
‘When I was very young. A boy.’ Oriol comes closer, trailing his finger along my cheek. ‘Do you understand? I find you more beautiful than the finest ballet. How you will move. How the body responds to pain.’
He picks the smallest boning knife off the table, idly, toying with it in his hand. Gently he watches me – lips open, serene.
‘I’ll make the choices for you,’ he says, pushing the knife into the flesh of my knee; the pain mounts, he pushes the knife edge along the fat of my thighs and looks up beyond my legs, into the dark shadows.
‘It is good that you don’t fight.’
Oriol breathes deeper.
‘You are an enlightened woman . . .’ His hands move up my thighs, edging closer and closer to my pelvis. ‘You will understand that tongues are power – but people? People abuse their instruments. They sully them – they darken them. Women seek the forbidden languages, the devil’s language, like all the fallen, you eat from the tree of knowledge and learn a false language – and so your gift is forcibly removed; as God struck the Serpent dumb, I shall do the same to you.’ His hands creep higher – his lips close to my ear, breath moist on my neck. ‘Women have two mouths – both easily seduced.’
I close my eyes and let him smell me, let him kiss me – and summoning my courage, wait, his hands tender, wait, I shift my weight towards him very slowly, I reach with my hand and touch his hair. He sighs like a child and moans softly, running my fingers through his hair, he breathes deeper, the cold pressure of his knife against my thigh pushing harder, persistent, calm, soon he’ll break the flesh – it is a dance, one he has practised – I let him enter the trance slowly – overwhelmed by pain, I slump forward, my hand reaching down his back, towards the table, straining, ever so gently – until there! I am there! My fingers straining, the glass is mine! The searing rage of my wounded palm burns harder but it is mine! Raising my arm above his head I pause, muscles tense: Let him lift his face! Oriol looks up as I bring the jar crashing down with all the strength in the world, onto the Roman chiselled one, the Siren, the Botticelli Angel of Death – those warm and luminous eyes – shattering the glass on his forehead – he roars! The smell is overpowering – the yellow liquid burns my hands – his blood runs with formalin as he jerks backward – the fluids roll into his pupils, the gas rises, his hands go immediately to his eyes – the knife clatters to the ground. His body topples, he roars again, one hand to his eyes and lunges at me, desperate, eyes stuck shut with the milky liquid, I scrape the knife from the floor and lunge away from him, not waiting to help as he rights himself, run, leaping out of my chair! Adrenaline drives me forward. I veer down the passage, and I hear a crash, and footsteps pounding after me, stumbling, unsure, but faster! Faster! The fool! The fool! There is not a millisecond of doubt as I run with the weight of the fear against my chest! Desperate for the night I run, for the dark mouth of the cave, driven to the glow of moonlight, searching for an exit as I careen through the curving tunnel I run! I run like hell, lungs yearning for the clean air, the cold night air, my bare feet skidding on damp stone, feeling my way through the tunnel, the cold pressure of fear against my chest, not thinking of the blood, not thinking of the pain – the forest throws up her arms to me – and – No! I do not turn back! I do not look to see the mouth of the cave or if that beast has followed me, though I can hear his breath behind me – I am certain – so faster I run, past the statues, the fountains, across the lake and into the forest I go, pushing into the dark woods, breaking the branches of trees! Now! Sirens! The whirling scream of sirens! I run faster, following the sounds, the crunch of footsteps and the swaying lights, barking dogs attack the forest as I stumble towards the lights! Then – THWAAACK like a bullwhip! Echoing! Careening off stone edges! An explosive ear-cracking barrel-of-a-gun cry!
A singular-definitive-death-whoop shrieking into the forest!
The moon reels. A flutter of wings roars from their nests as I reach the moving shadows and their lights, the ravenous bloodhounds, Fabregat’s wolf face stern before the black-coated army – the heavy boots snapping twigs – here come the dogs baying! Yapping! Blood wet against my chest – I keep my secret, stumbling towards them sobbing, holding up my hands. The colour drains from their cheeks.
Epilogue
Island
Boat tickets to Mallorca in winter are not expensive. From Barcelona you can get to the island for twenty euros on a good day. All that I have left on myself is the pain in my hands. A low throbbing hum, a sharp needle through my palm, fingers swollen. Listless and heavy. They have been bandaged awkwardly for a day, and still I struggle to move them without hurting, though the sting itself can bring a certain kind of pleasure. I stand on the deck of the
ship, and watch Barcelona disappear on the horizon. Insomnia has taken hold and it is difficult to sleep more than five hours. This sleeplessness lends itself to a wild breathless state, coupled with the adrenaline of escape. Time. You’ll need a lot of that for this job. I return to my cabin. Take a glass of water. Try and sleep. I look to my bandaged hands, holding them up, above my face as I lie on my back. They smell of disinfectant. I move my index finger slowly. Sting. Sting. But I like the feeling. I am alive. The cuts he made were clean, very surgical, carving out each line of two simple drawings made in flesh – the snake on my left hand, the cross on my right. Stiches in both, but I may keep the scar. Once the wounds heal they tell me I can cover them up – hide them – but first we hope my body will rinse itself of these marks until they are just fine little lines. Fingers twitching, I rifle through the plastic bag I had filled at the chemist, pull out the weapons of a new arsenal. Perhaps this will help? I line each eye with a thick black rim, adding smoke to my lids, and heavy strokes of mascara. Trying to hide the bruise. A rich, tinted foundation and a light gold bronzer, giving my freckles a more luminescent tan. The crack in my lip unnerves me but I am determined not to recognize myself. I do not want to see him on me. I do not want to feel his hands or smell his breath. I do not want to think it is my fault, and I hate the voice inside me that threatens to pull me down. Down down down. Brown powder around the rim of my eyelashes darkens the earth in my eyes. I will not let him dictate my form. I go to the ship bar to test my disguise. I am electric and drunk, stepping out of my skin again and again, inventing an entire story for myself – the region in Barcelona this false me comes from, her reasons for going to the island. I order three rum and Cokes and drink them too quickly, one after the other, and then a coffee. The bartender asks about my hands. I broke a mirror. Bad luck. At the bar I read the evening paper. Across the front page they’ve splashed Oriol Duran with the tagline: ‘FACE OF A KILLER? INQUIRY INTO FATAL SHOOTING’. I scan the lines. Coroner reports that Oriol Duran’s death was instant. Shots fired in self-defence, claims deputy commissioner. Protects rights of officers to anonymity.
What does a liar look like? I stare at the photograph of Oriol Duran. A liar looks like you. A liar hides as much as they reveal. A liar is not afraid to con. A liar tells no one, not even themselves, who they are.
I order another drink. Maybe my hands will stop hurting then. A liar looks like the face of Inspector Fabregat behind a man with a smoking gun.
‘Couldn’t have asked for more.’ Fabregat had said, when he broke it down into beats. They came to take me to the airport, and I was missing. Luckily they already had Oriol’s name from the blood. So it was an easy correlation. But what they did not factor in was where Oriol had gone. His family home in the woods. And so there were unexpected delays.
Delays that cost me my hands.
‘You have to understand that Oriol Duran always touched everything.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me?’
Fabregat edged closer.
‘Before I could sink my teeth in that summer of 2003, the whole thing had been turned off. Duran pushed back, began to put the screw on. Said I was fucking up his reputation. Said I was orchestrating a witch-hunt in the theatrical community. In this city he has power. His friend Sánchez is a rich and influential man. Eventually the calls came in from the top.’ Fabregat’s face tightened. ‘I was wasting time and resources in the wrong places. I had lost my cool. I needed a break. You know the drill. But retired? Did I say that, Nena?’
He had smiled, wolf-like.
‘No. I never retired.’
You shot him. I want to shout. And what will you do with his cave full of women’s tongues?
Fabregat looked through me into something else.
‘When you contacted us, I seized the chance to do something bold. Something big, Nena.’
And he wants me to know that he’s grateful. My stomach turns. Fabregat was never interested in the meaning of ancient symbols or coded poetry, or the long-dead memories of an English scholar. But he was intrigued by what I represented. A lone girl who matched a profile. Who could be given a cap and cape and sent into the forest.
‘Of course I knew we could keep you safe.’
My hands throb louder.
‘We were just waiting. We wanted to know which one of them would emerge. Would come out to play. Because I was certain he would. You were so like the others, Nena. I knew when I met you . . . You were made of the same stuff.’
The words stick to me. Consume me.
When I return to my room on the ship, I throw up twice in the toilet. On the deck of the ship, after a restless night, I am recovered now, if one can call it that. I watch the sunrise on the landing. This deck is empty. All the sea is mine. Dawn kisses the Mediterranean with light you can only have on water, where the abyss stretches to either side and the sun rises over a straight horizon. The sun already warming, the only thing cold is the sharp wind off the sea, like the thoughts that stalk across my mind, made stronger by the speed of the boat, and the spray lashing up from the waves. Spring is coming, cardigan loose over my shoulders. My bags are packed in the room below, apartment emptied of my belongings. The island of Mallorca rises on the horizon, a blue mound before lilac turrets of cloud. Seagulls flock overhead and there are powdery crests on the waves. The smell of salt and smoke, a rising billow from a bonfire near Dragonera that blankets the white capped waters.
At the port I see him waving. Down where the ship comes in! He calls and laughs, flapping his hat in the wind. Home. I am home. Dirt under fingernails, warm hands. When I emerge from the ship, walking down the gangway, he comes running, more stiffly than usual, lifting me up in his arms he kisses me firmly on the lips, then puts me down, blushes and apologizes. I reach out to touch him. His face spattered by a multitude of red scabs, the remnants of cuts made by the broken glass of his windshield. Francesc winces and gently catches my hand, moving it away from his cheek and looks at the bandages. The mark where the blood has begun to soak through.
‘Who did this to you?’ Francesc asks, his voice colour-tinged. I embrace him, my lips hot on his mouth, I pull him towards me and he picks me up in the air and I feel the hard full chest of him, the mountain earth on his skin, the hint of rosemary in his hair. I do not want to talk about it. Not here. Not ever. I want to pretend it never happened. You have been working in the garden, his hand firm on my chest, my dress tugging at his belt. Was it worth it? he whispers. I don’t tell him yet, but I have made sure it was.
At home I settle into my own desk, my proper desk, my lair facing the garden and the yawning mouth of the valley. Then ritual. I open my brown satchel and remove, with all the tenderness of a lover, my Serpent Papers. The work will be translation. I have not told Fabregat. I have no intention of doing so. I have caught them a killer and paid for it with my hands; I touch the papers, the vellum so delicate – so frail! Francesc interrupts me, standing in the doorway. I can feel him, sandalwood and ash, fresh spring onions and mud from the garden, sage and turmeric, and the musky odour of work, of sweat, of muscle. I turn around. His face very still, his eyes very gentle.
‘Let me hold you,’ he says. ‘I’ve missed you.’
That night he takes me walking. The moon blinks as we traverse steep shale, snaking through the wood until we reach a ledge above the village. Looking out to the emerald bell tower. Calm. For once. For a night at least. Maybe more? Then I will tell Bingley. Then I will tell all of them. Storm clouds part overhead, disintegrating into thin streaks of soot on the sky, pulled back like a fine grey powder. Our waxing moon strikes the spindly Mediterranean trees, illuminating the mound of a ruined mill. Francesc touches a stone cross beside us, a beacon of history emerging from the rock above his village. He encourages me to do the same. I decline.
‘You would do well to forget what you have seen in Barcelona.’ Francesc’s mouth warm behind my ear.
In the afternoons I wander to my desk and sit with the pages of Natalia’s
parchment – I will do nothing with them yet. There are certain requirements of recovery, both physical and mental, that will keep me from embarking on the project of translation. For the moment I find them comforting. Knowing that they are safe, that we are bound up in each other. From our sanctuary, the papers and I look to the village, the Charterhouse’s bell tower coloured a lovely emerald green in bright contrast to the yellow stone of the walls. The bells chime merrily to count the hours, while the leaves of the neighbouring trees have begun to sprout, a smattering of fresh buds against the pines. The hills nestle us to either side, never sheer, never fierce, such that the stillness beckons me; the soul breathes deeply on this mountain. Nothing is fenced in. Nothing is grey. The village emerges from the hills as an organism, a quiet thing at ease with its foundations, and the respect of the breeze and the billowing clouds lend certain wonderment to my walks in the evenings. Where I scramble up the hedgerow, the earth is farmed in terraces. The farmers wind their tomatoes into conical structures resembling a tepee; the orchards filled with apple trees and olives. On a picnic blanket stretched out beneath a bare apple tree, Francesc feeds me two tablespoons of olive oil to ease my digestion. He rests his hands on my back and I feel the warmth, the hot circles of energy.
‘You need to learn control,’ Francesc says, running his hands through my hair. To listen better. Take advice. Admit you live with it. I can feel my heart improving despite the cold.
Each night after dinner we receive a call.
Francesc puts his hand over the receiver. ‘It’s the inspector again.’
‘Tell him I need time!’ I shout from the bed.
Not yet. I need to drown him out. To heal. To forget.
The Serpent Papers Page 38