Capcir Spring

by Jean de Beurre

  "They are false witnesses and they have deceived many good souls. They are beyond our forgiveness for they make no effort at repentance. They may not swear or lie or speak evil of others or even kill anything neither man nor beast but doing all these things and rejecting Jesus Christ the one who gives life assures them of their place on the slippery pathway to eternal damnation.

  "May Almighty God have mercy on their souls."

  The service seemed to be over with these words. All the voices had now fallen silent and the sun was almost at the point of rising in the sky and the clearing was bathed in the pre-dawn light. Silence. It is a deep and awesome silence.

  The people in the church ruins are kneeling in silent prayer and the village people are standing still and waiting for the next move.

  A messenger, one of those who had been close to the bishop stood up and walked out to stand by the fire. He made the sign of the cross in front of the bonfire pile and then turned and nodded with a gentle gesture at the inquisitor.

  This must be the signal the inquisitor is waiting for. He moved swiftly. He dismounted his horse in one easy movement and moved quickly across to the edge of the pile of faggots. There he turned and looked into the crowd behind him. At once a flaming torch is carried out and handed to him.

  He bent over and lit the kindling nearest to him raising swiftly to his feet and moving round the whole enormous pile lighting it at regular intervals. The fire caught hold swiftly with a noisy cracking and a flying of sparks and pieces upward.

  The pitiful tethered creature, whose screams had become subdued during the church service as if calmed by the rhythmic chanting, emitted an ear piercing wail of an intensity as yet unsurpassed. I stood still though feeling the heat, breathing in the smoke, feeling the warmth on the inside of my lungs. But still I felt compelled to utter no word or cry. Then as the amount of smoke increased my eyes started to water and it is becoming difficult to breathe. I seem to recognise that my last breath is almost upon me and I took a huge gasp and coughed out the words "Into thy hands O lord I commit my spirit". The light grows brighter and the heat warmer and warmer. And whiter and warmer. Until the light is pure white and the sweat is pouring out of every pore on my body.

  But instead of terror there is peace. perfect, calm and unbelievable tranquillity.

  The sun was pouring brightly into the bedroom. Mary and her bedclothes are again soaked in sweat but the sense of peace is still there. She lifted her head from the pillow and looked around the room. Nothing was altered. She got out of bed and moved across to the window. The world is waking up to its usual early morning rhythm, the flurry of activity outside the bread shop. but the peace still remains. Why? All her previous historical nightmares have left her terrified? She doesn't understand what has happened but goes to the shower. There is still some work to do at the ruin and this will definitely be the last day there. And today I will have a helper with me. The thought of who was going to be with her for the day produced a warm glow in her heart and a spring I her step as she jumped out of bed.

  9

  John woke early after an untroubled sleep. The sun was shining brightly into the room as he lumbered across to the window and stared out at the valley below. It was beautiful here. Perhaps at the height of the ski season with all the chalets and apartments occupied it would be different but today it was very quiet and peaceful. He felt more relaxed than he had for a long time. Perhaps last night something very important had happened after all and it wasn't just the good feeling that comes from recalling a good day. He slumped into his favourite chair, reached for his missal and turned to his daily office. He then realised that for the first time in a long while he had opened the book with a sense of lively expectancy rather than in a state of disciplined resignation. The familiar words resonated with him in a new and fresh way and the set Psalm seemed to have been chosen especially for him on that very day. He read,

  "Some were living in gloom and darkness,

  fettered in misery and irons

  for defying the orders of God,

  for scorning the advice of the Most High;

  who bent them double with hardship,

  to breaking point, with no one to help them.

  Then they called to The Lord in their trouble

  and he rescued them from their sufferings;

  releasing them from gloom and darkness,

  shattering their chains.

  Let these thank The Lord for his love."

  Yes, thought John, I was fettered in chains of my own making and now I feel a glorious sense of freedom and release.

  He ate his breakfast slowly, savouring the fresh flavours of the bread and jam that he seemed to notice for the first time. And as he walked to Mary's flat the flowers beside the pathway seemed to have a new brightness about them. Even his step as he paced along seemed to have a new spring in it. He realised how much he was looking forward to spending time in Mary's company and helping her with her work. He thought about Kate again, but that seemed a long time ago and a long way away. It was all so different too. He could remember his feeling as he waited to meet her. He would be excited and anxious and emotional but there had never been this sense of heightened awareness of reality and this feeling of extreme well-being. It was different. It was strange. But most of all it was better than almost anything he had experienced before. It was like the sensed of elation he had experienced on his ordination and at his first mass but then it was also different and strangely above and beyond these fondly remembered occasions.

  As he came into sight of her flat he could see that Mary was already loading her bags into her car. He shouted "Hi" and waved from a long way down the street and she turned and smiled a real smile of warmth and waved back to him. After they had bundled themselves and their gear into the car and set off a silence fell on them both, as if they both were savouring something of the moment and didn't want to spoil it with words.

  After a short while John felt that he had to try to put into words how he was feeling. He began tentatively, "I feel really... good today. Things seem right. It is as if I have found the peace that I came away to find, that deep peace which has eluded me for a long, long time."

  Mary turned her face round towards John, her grin beaming, "Perhaps you have forgiven yourself at last" she volunteered. "Or perhaps it is just that the peace and beauty of the mountains have worked their magic on you as well. I certainly feel the same."

  She pulled the car into the familiar lay by and after switching off the engine turned her whole shelf round to face John, as she slipped off her seat-belt and continued. "I've not told you before but ever since I came here I have had experienced bad dreams, well nightmares really. They have been absolutely terrifying. I even asked the doctor to give me something to help me sleep better, but then you know about that. These dreams have mixed up the present with my past and the historical stories I have been researching in these parts. In my dreams I have been back in a medieval story and I am one of the Cathar heretics. I have worshipped in the little chapel before it was a ruin, I have been singled out by the mob as one of them, I have experienced the inside of a cell and I have been taken before the inquisitor and was tried for heresy. Last night the climax came. I was taken out of my cell and transported up to the site of the chapel and after various ceremonies and rituals from the Bishop I was burnt at the stake. But instead of being a horrifying climax it seemed to purge me and it left me feeling calm and rested. It is really weird. I cannot explain it rationally, and perhaps I don't want to, but now I fell at peace at last and for that I am grateful. Perhaps it is like Andre and Mark were saying last night and the peace of the place has worked its magic on me too."

  They got out of the car and started to walk up the track. After several hundred metres John stopped in his tracks and said sharply, "Stop!”

  Mary stopped and turned to look and find out the reason for his command. He moved over close to her in one stride and took her in his arms and gave her a big strong hug. She, aft
er her initial surprise lifted her arms and hugged him back. They remained locked in each other's arms for a few moments, both unsure of what to do next. At length they pulled apart and stood close looking into each other's eyes.

  "I hope you don't mind," began John "But that was the best way I could express the way I feel today. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world." He had a childish look on his face.

  "No need to apologise," she giggled, "Why do you think I squeezed you back you silly sod."

  She held out her hand and he took it in his and they walked along closely side by side. Mary too felt that the moment had summed up perfectly how she had felt at that particular moment. And this felt good, to be walking along together as one but where was it all leading? John and Mary were both unprepared to make any plans or even articulate to themselves any hopes for the future and so they both for own reasons decided to enjoy the moment for what it was and let the future sort itself out.

  Their reverie only lasted for the length of the walk for as they arrived at the clearing they saw fresh tracks of 4x4 on pathway up to the ruin. They dropped hands and proceeded cautiously, each of them now ready for a confrontation with Edouard or his assistant.

  After last night Mary was now almost convinced and John almost persuaded that Edouard was trying to spoil her site for some perverse reason of his own.

  But when the parked vehicle came into view it was not Edouard or his assistant's jeep. It was a big blue Land Rover with Spanish number plates that neither of them had seen before.

  "The B" said John, studying the plate carefully, "indicates I believe that it's from Barcelona."

  They looked around the clearing and soon they spotted two men wearing what appear to be white boiler suits high up on one side of the valley, tramping about in the undergrowth. They were using a theodolite and ranging poles. Mary looked down at her feet and saw some fresh wooden pegs hammered into the floor of the valley. She and John noticed them together and as their eyes scanned up the slope they saw similar pegs at various points where the undergrowth was thin enough to show them, right up the hill side to where the men were working.

  "Lets see what they are up to", Mary suggested and before John could reply she had started out, leading the way up the side of the valley to where they were working.

  As they arrived alongside the men they realised that they could see little more than they could see from the floor of the valley. The men were using the very latest and expensive laser sighted theodolite and ranging equipment. As they looked down the hill side they realised that the pegs were in an almost parallel pair of straight lines.

  Mary and John both tried to question the surveyors to find out what they were doing but was very soon apparent that they could only speak Spanish. Mary could speak a little Spanish but their thick local accent meant she could hardly make out a word they were saying. But they were not antagonistic towards the English pair and make friendly gestures with their hands seeming to explain that they are surveyors making a map. The surveyors responded with totally blank faces when asked questions in either English or French. After five minutes of useless though good natured attempts at conversation Mary wished them "Buenos Dias" and with smiles of incomprehension all round Mary and John returned to the site of the chapel.

  John and Mary worked efficiently together to take the required measurements. They quickly developed an easy rapport and understanding so that with few words each seeming to comprehend instinctively what the other wanted.

  "I think we should tell Andre about these new visitors to the valley" Mary said as they completed the last measurement and were rolling up the tape measure. "I am sure that he should be able help us to find out what is going on." She looked up and noticed that the surveyors were returning down the slope towards their Land Rover. Much of their equipment was left high up on the hill side so she thought they must be coming back to their vehicle for the Spanish equivalent of a tea break. Packing her notebook into the top of her rucksack they set off to walk back to the car. The surveyors were standing at the door of the Land Rover drinking from a huge litre bottle of Coke. As John and Mary passed they smiled and waved in a friendly and innocent manner, offering a drink from their shared bottle to the passing foreigners. John and Mary declined with a smile.

  "Whatever is going on those two guys look like genuine surveyors," begun Mary. "They don't give me the creeps in any way. The atmosphere of confrontation here yesterday morning between Edouard and his assistant on one side and the travellers on the other had to be felt to be believed."

  "Our instinctive impressions about the attitude of people to us are very deeply embedded in the subconscious." John replied, "Perhaps it is part of our animal survival mechanism. But I know for a fact that it is possible to sense anger, danger, fear or attraction. Those two were simply genuine surveyors. Perhaps we are more like other animals that we like to believe after all they say dogs can smell danger."

  Mary listened with interest to John's philosophising and wondered if he was always like this. He seemed to have a deep wisdom that fascinated her. When he spoke it seemed to come from an understanding of life seen from the viewpoint of suffering. But on the other hand she thought he also sounded pompous, verging on becoming a boring twat! What on earth would it be like living with someone who was always coming out with profound philosophical statements and didn't expect to be contradicted? Now why had she thought that? She closed her mind down instantly and returned to the concern of the moment."

  "Let's go straight up to the travellers camp and see if we can see Andre. He will know what to do next. Perhaps he could come across here and he might be able to speak to these guys and get them to tell him what they are up to." she suggested.

  They were surprised to find it was not yet eleven when they got back to the car. Twenty minutes later they pulled up in the clearing of the camp. It was quiet. The children must have gone off somewhere and most of the vans and tents looked deserted. The echo of the car door slamming seemed to shudder round the clearing. But still there was no movement.

  "Another wasted journey" said John, staring round for signs of life. "I wonder where they have all gone?"

  Just then the door of the coach opened and Mark emerged blinking into the sunlight. He was wearing just a pair of shorts. He fumbled round by the door for some slippers for his feet and then shuffled sleepily over to John and Mary.

  "Hi" he said, "I guess we had a very late night last night. After you left we talked and talked. Then Andre went off early this morning, and he left me to sleep in. And it seems as if everyone else has gone off too."

  "We were looking for Andre" began John. "There are some strangers surveying round the old chapel and we wondered if Andre could help us find out what's going on. We tried but they only spoke heavily accented Spanish and we couldn't understand what they were on about."

  "If you've just been there its funny that you didn't see him. He usually goes up there in the very early morning. He cuts across the hills from here so as not to have to take his car. He usually leaves his car in the village and just picks it up down there when he needs it. He knows all the shortest tracks trough these forests and hills. Strange you didn't see him though?"

  "Where's everyone else?" asked Mary.

  "Its market day today in Font Romeu. They have some stalls down there and sell mountain herbs and basket weaving that they have made and one or two other things in the craft line for the tourists. Its all a bit hit and miss but it brings in some cash for buying petrol."

  "Have you any idea when Andre will be back?" Mary asked, "I think it is really is quite important that we speak to him as soon as we can."

  "All I can say for sure is that he will be back for his meal tonight. He never misses that. Most days he is out all day. I don't know where he gets to but then that's his job. He can be anywhere on the hills or in his office or at one of the tourist offices or anywhere. Sometimes he comes in midday but that's a rarity. Your best bet is to come back this evening."

/>   John turned to Mary. "What shall we do?" he asked, unsure of Mary's priorities for the rest of the day. He had no other plans and was happy to follow her wherever she wanted to go.

  "Let's go down to the village. Perhaps we will see Andre. We may be able to spot his car parked in the village square or in one of the side streets off it. With those big nuclear free stickers on the sides it should be easy to spot. See you later Mark."

  They got back into the car leaving Mark, still looking half asleep, making his way back to his bus.

  "The other attraction of the village is a visit to a café. I am starving and I could murder a long, cool beer!" They both grinned a smile of agreement as the car turned round and started its slow descent down the bumpy track to the village. Maybe it was this week that the owner thought the summer season started but the café which had been closed was now open.