The Dark Circus

by Ana Ballabriga

“I will not tolerate this lack of respect.” The old bishop picked up the bell, but Elías’s quick reply stopped him from ringing it.

  “You have the Cross of Caravaca, and you have no intention of returning it to its rightful owners, the people. What kind of legacy is that? The legacy of a thief?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “The cross has never been the property of the people. It belonged to only those few true Christians aware of its power, those who worshipped it as an emblem of the life of Jesus the Christ. The common people long ago forgot its true meaning, turned it into a motley object of mockery, an excuse for their odious popular rituals with brass bands and tambourines. They dress up like Moors and Christians, staging battles and stonings as if to honor the cross upon which our Lord suffered and died. They deck broken-down old nags with ribbons for horse races, then they drink and carouse, giving free rein to all their passions. Don’t you see? The cross no longer belongs to them. They use it as a totem for their pagan rites, for the sacrilegious blessing of all their sins.”

  “Sins?”

  “Lust in drunkenness. Envy to see who’s the best dressed. Pride in winning a stupid horse race. Gluttony during a festival that should be focused on fasting. Anger in the meetings of the municipal council. They’ve lost their way. They’ve forgotten the legacy of centuries and centuries.”

  “The antics of some ignorant people at festivals are no excuse for your keeping the cross from the sanctuary where it belongs. You do not have the authority to decide who should or shouldn’t have access to it. How dare you sit in judgment on us all?”

  The man furiously rang the bell and the gatekeeper appeared instantly. She must have been waiting just outside.

  “It’s your choice,” Elías said as he rose to his feet. “I’ll be back tomorrow. If you don’t give me the cross, I’ll publish the document and a transcript of this interview.”

  The bishop gave him a glassy look. Suddenly, despite their age, Elías found him and his nieces terribly menacing, even the woman with the knitting needles. The old man rose from the rocker with no apparent difficulty. He was quite small and his hands looked like claws. The book slid forgotten to the floor. Elías was seized by a sudden panic that they would not let him leave. “I have a microphone that’s being monitored by my associate outside. He heard everything. It’s all recorded.”

  The man waved a crooked finger at him. “Do what you think you must. There have been many martyrs throughout history. But I warn you: I don’t have the sacred relic in my possession. It was returned years ago to the city where it belongs. But not to the public.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The cross rests in safekeeping at the Convento de las Madres Carmelitas Descalzas in Caravaca.” He smiled. “And I doubt the sequestered nuns will want to talk to you.”

  “We’ll see about that. And I warn you, if you’re deceiving me, I’ll be back. And next time, I won’t be alone.”

  Elías felt ridiculous and ashamed of threatening a centenarian, a personage who, although kindly in appearance, was nevertheless capable of driving him right up the wall. He left without waiting to be shown out, marching through the halls and down the stairs under the vigilant gaze of innumerable Virgins and Christ figures. He threw open the front door and escaped into the street where, safe and sound, he inhaled the chilly night air.

  25

  When Damián and Doris went off to shower, L slipped into their trailer in search of Flora’s pendant. She covered her hand with a plastic bag and picked it up very carefully so as not to smear any fingerprints or leave her own. Then she sprinkled dirt on it and dragged the chain through leaves in the forest. Before they departed, she left it hanging on the door of the town bar.

  When they reached their next stop, a town near Logroño, L was still thinking about it. She’d wanted the guilty to pay for what they’d done to Flora, but now she was feeling less confident. She wondered whether she’d done the right thing betraying her people like that.

  Isabela pulled her aside with a bitter smile. “How are you?”

  “Okay, I guess,” L said, looking away.

  “Me, too. But I think the community is really wrong about this.” Isabela began shuffling her tarot deck. “Loyalty can’t be more important than justice. That breaks down the moral order. Nothing good can come of it.”

  “I knew the woman.” L almost broke into tears. “She was lovely. She told me about the goose foot on our sign, how it symbolized the Agotes. Have you ever heard of them?”

  Isabela shook her head.

  “A group of people who were outcasts. They were probably our ancestors.”

  “Our ancestors? Outcasts?”

  “We practically still are. People don’t despise us, but we do live outside of society.” She touched her ear. “She told me the Agotes had no earlobes.”

  Isabela checked her own. “Imagine that. I never noticed.”

  “All of us in the circus share that trait. Just like the Agotes.”

  “I’ll read your cards if you want.” She offered the deck to L, who stared at it for a few seconds, distracted by the word read. Flora had intended to give her books about yoga and the Agotes. She jumped up.

  “You think there’s a bookshop in this town?”

  “I have no idea.”

  L took off.

  “Hey, what about the cards?”

  “You can read them for me this afternoon. Actually, I have some things to consult with you about.”

  L walked into town, stopping people until someone pointed her to a bookshop next to the school. The little building was as shabby as most of the books inside. She found an encyclopedia and looked up the word Agote: Term used for a member of a race of people that originated in the Valley of Baztán.

  She approached the owner of the shop. “Excuse me, do you have a book about the Agotes?”

  The woman had heavy makeup and an elaborate hairdo. She looked up from her knitting with an indifferent expression, surveyed L from head to toe, and sniffed at her red miniskirt and low-cut blouse. “A what?”

  “I mean, I want to know if you have a bigger encyclopedia or any books about people of the Basque Country and Navarra.”

  “Everything we have is on the shelves.” She went back to her knitting.

  “Is there another place with books in this town?”

  That prompted a glare. “Yes, there is. But it’s private.”

  “Can you tell me where?”

  “Don Isidoro’s library. Known throughout the region.”

  “And how do I get there?”

  “Top of the hill. Has his name on it.”

  “Does the gentleman live alone?”

  “He’s been a widower more than twenty years.”

  “Okay. Thanks very much.”

  It didn’t take long for L to climb the hill and reach the stone wall at the top. She pressed a button on the intercom at the gate.

  “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested,” a man’s voice replied. He hung up.

  She buzzed again.

  “What do you want?”

  “I came to talk about your books.”

  After a few seconds of silence, the door clicked open. L walked across a weed-choked garden, looking out over vineyards stretching in every direction. A man came out of the house.

  His eyes opened wide at the sight of her. The wrinkled face behind his glasses lightened and seemed to grow ten years younger. A bright white shirt and pleated trousers gave unexpected elegance to his thin and somewhat stooped form.

  “Come in, come in,” he welcomed her warmly. He couldn’t keep his eyes off L as he accompanied her into the house. “You must be the offspring of some virgin birth.”

  L knitted her brow.

  “An escaped work of art from some museum, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “And I have to get back before eight.” His playful tone told her she already had the upper hand. In the liv
ing room, she took a seat on the sofa.

  “I’ll get something to drink,” he called back from the next room. “Considering your age, that’ll be a glass of milk.”

  “No, hold on a minute—”

  He soon returned with a plate of cheeses and a bottle of wine.

  “Didn’t have any milk left, so I brought some grape juice.” She smiled and was about to reply, but Don Isidoro anticipated her. “No need to thank me. If there’s one thing I’m happy about today, it’s the fact I’m not your father.” He filled two glasses and set one before her. “There’s nothing better than a fine wine to stimulate conversation. And that’s no metaphor. Wine raises one’s eloquence to great heights.” They toasted, and L emptied her glass in a single long swallow. He looked surprised, but refilled it with a smile. “I find fascinating the unstable equilibrium suggested by your behavior. Where did you come from? Are you some species of nymph?”

  “They tell me you’ve got the best library in town.”

  “Is that so? Well, they’ve misinformed you with the greatest accuracy.”

  She looked back at him, a bit offended. Was he teasing her with these cryptic expressions? “Do you have a library or not?”

  “In fact, it’s the library that has me.” Don Isidoro gave her a wry smile, and this time she returned it. “Have you ever enjoyed the feel of parchment, the smooth touch of fine leather?” He picked up a book from the table and held it out. He ran one finger across the cover, and she followed his example, closing her eyes to appreciate the sensation. “Books are my life. And my death as well.”

  “What’s that mean?” L squinted at the curious man.

  “For many years, my only life has been through them. I am dead to the world of reality, alive only within these yellowing pages.”

  “That’s a good choice.”

  “It’s not a choice; it’s an inescapable obligation.”

  “Imposed by who?”

  “By time itself. I’m not allowed to die until I’ve read all the books I own.”

  “Then I hope you don’t have too many left.” L’s attempt to mirror her companion’s ironic tone came out sounding a bit harsh.

  He chuckled in delight and stood up. “Come with me and bring your glass.” Don Isidoro collected his own glass and the bottle of wine as well. He led her through a doorway into a room two stories tall and twice as wide as the living room. Every inch of wall space was lined with bookshelves.

  “Wow, what a crazy place!”

  She saw a ladder attached to a rail that ran along all four walls. There were two armchairs, each with a standing lamp next to it and a little table. The books seemed to be arranged according to age, with the newest ones toward the bottom and the oldest practically touching the ceiling. Like a metaphor for life itself.

  “Welcome to my temple to ignorance.”

  “To wisdom, you mean.”

  “Do you think?” He smiled. “This is a temple dedicated to the ignorant, to those in search of answers. Only those who think they already know everything do not need the service of books. What is your particular field of ignorance?”

  “I’m looking for information about a group of people who came from the Valley of Baztán, a race that was cursed and shunned.”

  “Ah, that would be the Agotes.”

  “That’s it exactly!”

  Don Isidoro pushed the ladder to a position next to the door and asked L to look for a title in the uppermost shelves: Gafos, from Albi to Baztán. She climbed up, noticing how he peered up her skirt.

  “I don’t see it,” she complained after a long search. “Are you sure it’s here?”

  Don Isidoro ran a finger along the bookcase in front of him. “Aha—you’re right, I was mistaken.” He pulled a book from a shelf right in front of him. “It was down here all the time! My brain must not be getting enough blood just now.”

  L descended with a smile to examine the heavy leather volume. They settled into the armchairs, and he paged through it.

  “The Agotes came from France. There, they were known as Cagots, a race of people ostracized for many centuries. Here, they were referred to by different names, such as Agote or Gafo.” He looked up. “Giving us the word gaffe, but I’m sure you knew that already.”

  L shook her head in surprise.

  “Legend said they had bad breath and spread their stench around them wherever they went. Contagion spread with the merest contact of their hands and feet. For that reason, they were forbidden to engage in any work involving food, agriculture, or animal husbandry, or to do anything that posed the risk of transmitting infection. They were allowed to own land but not to sell produce from it, so they generally turned to construction, architecture, music, and dance. A few of the women were healers. They were looked down upon, and whenever they turned up in a village, the inhabitants set fire to bundles of straw to ward off the plague they supposedly carried. It was thought the malady known as the gafo caused hands and feet to curl up like claws.”

  L glanced at her hands and assured herself they looked nothing like that.

  “As a distinguishing mark, they were forced to wear an embroidered goose foot on a red cloth badge sewn onto the shoulder.”

  “But why were they ostracized?” L was agog. “Were they really contaminated?”

  “In a manner of speaking. They were afflicted by someone’s malevolent decision to convince everyone, including the Agotes themselves, that they were carriers of evil and disease.” He closed the book and handed it to her.

  Opening it at random, she found herself looking at an engraving that showed a group of persons stooping to enter a church through a tiny door.

  “Lots of information in there,” he said. “Including the fact that birth records identified children as Cagots, marking them for life. Cagot children weren’t even baptized in the same water as others. They were permitted to enter a church via a back door so low it forced them to bow and humble themselves. Once inside, they were kept as far as possible from the altar, sometimes behind a grille. In those churches where they were allowed to receive communion, it was extended to them on a long stick. And to add insult to injury, they were forbidden to bury their dead in sacred ground.”

  “So, the Church was determined to make sure that everyone knew about their untouchable status,” L concluded.

  “Yes. How fortunate for them that the Catholic Church didn’t have much power back then.”

  “Didn’t have much power? In the middle ages in France and Spain?” L saw his smile and realized he was teasing again. “Right. Still, though, I don’t understand. What was the point of excluding those people?”

  “Precisely the most important question, my dear! If you read the book, you’ll see that there are various theories, but as often happens, the most absurd is the only one that makes sense. It corresponds perfectly to the era when the Cagots appeared.”

  “What theory is that?”

  “That they’re descendants of the Cathars.”

  “Cathars? You answer one mystery with another.”

  “You don’t know about the Cathars?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that book is even more boring. And much older.” He stood up. “You’ll have to climb the ladder again.”

  “If that’s all it takes, I don’t mind.” L gave him a flirtatious look, licking her lips as she passed close by. Don Isidoro was momentarily dumbstruck. She went to the ladder, and he came to stand next to her.

  “Climb about halfway up and look for a book titled The Albigensian Crusade.”

  “I almost fell off the ladder last time. I think I’ll get a bit more comfortable, just in case.” She put her hands beneath her miniskirt and slowly slipped her panties down. She let them fall and stepped out of them. “There, that’s better.”

  Don Isidoro’s face was the funniest thing she’d seen in years. The man was transfixed, his eyes like saucers. L turned and languidly climbed the ladder, swaying her hips, legs wide apart. She didn’t need to look down
to know that Don Isidoro was about to have a heart attack. She came down with the book in hand and gave it to him. He nervously held it before his bulging crotch, then hurried back to the armchair and sat with the book covering his lap.

  “Where were we? Oh, yes, the Cathars.” He handed her the book. “You can have that; I’m already familiar with it. The Cathars were Christian zealots—Gnostics. They rejected the material world as impure, for in their eyes nothing was true but the world of the spirit. Amazingly, in spite of such a severe doctrine, they began to attract so many disciples that the Catholic Church felt threatened and condemned them as heretics. Pope Innocent III called for the Albigensian Crusade. The pope’s reward for Jesus’s most faithful followers ever was to have them massacred and sent straight to heaven. The few Cathars who survived were obliged to convert to Catholicism. They were baptized as Cagots, or Agotes.”

  L waited a few moments for him to continue the story. “And then?”

  “What ‘and then’? If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the books.”

  L stood up, leaving the two books behind on the chair that still bore the warm imprint of her rear. She went to him. “Then I suppose you won’t mind if I take them with me.” She leaned over Don Isidoro and stroked his cheek. He put a hand between her knees and slowly slid it up into the hidden region beneath her miniskirt. She rewarded him with a moan.

  “I’ve already read them. You can borrow them, as long as you bring them back.”

  “No, I don’t think you understand.” She knelt before him, pushed his knees apart, and unzipped his trousers. Don Isidoro shook as if afflicted by a sudden chill. “Let me explain to you why you’re going to give them to me.”

  “I fear I am outmatched!”

  L returned to the circus with three books. Don Isidoro had been so pleased that he also gave her a copy of the self-help book The Oxymoron, Learning to Live a Life of Irony. She ran into Isabela, who reminded her of their planned card reading, but L begged off with the excuse that it was late and she hadn’t made dinner yet. She rushed back to the trailer to read.

  L shut herself up with the books for four days, emerging only to appear in the magic act. After she’d finished reading, she decided to speak to her uncle. She needed an explanation, and she knew he could provide it. However, just when they’d finished the act and she was about to raise the subject, Isabela turned up in a huff.