Another page was turned.
‘Then, in 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power. He had avidly devoured Fischer’s books during his imprisonment as a young man. Now, as
Der Führer
, Hitler had the means to employ Fischer properly. First, Hitler made Fischer a rector of Berlin University. Then, in 1940, he despatched Fischer to a new German concentration camp at Gurs, near the genetically fascinating Basque corner of France.
‘Adolf Hitler had a job in mind for the great scientist. To validate Nazi race science. And so, in Gurs, Fischer was told to gather the most interesting human genetic specimens in
one place, for intense medical testing: gypsies and Jews, French and Basques, Spanish and Cagots.
‘By comparing the data derived from these subjects, with the data already derived from Fischer’s Namibia research, the Führer hoped that his prize scientist would provide a definitive, authoritative and genetically provable racial hierarchy: final evidence that Germans were at the top, and Jews were at the bottom.
‘Fischer was gratifyingly successful in these endeavours. In the first year, ably assisted by some brilliant German doctors, he discovered DNA. The basis of all modern genetics.’
Simon closed his notebook.
Amy said: ‘But what did Fischer discover
then
? In his second year at Gurs? The frightening and terrible discovery? What was
that
?’
Angus was no longer smiling, he was frowning.
‘Well…that’s the motherlode, the ultimate question. And that is what we are about to find out.’ He scanned the rainy road ahead. ‘If we don’t die first.’
Twenty minutes down the Czech motorway, they found the turning for Zbiroh. It curved between the hills and the woods and the scrappy Czech farms. David buzzed down his car window, feeling the need for cold wet air on his anxious face. Anything to drive away the deeper worries. He actively wanted some kind of physical pain – to mask the mental pain.
‘Take a left here.’
They exited the motorway, swept around a final wooded turning: and they saw: Zbiroh Castle.
It was enormous. A vast, ugly, yellow, neo-classical palace, haughty and angular, sitting atop a rocky rise. The village of Zbiroh was sprawled in the dripping valley below, like a peasant prostrate before a Tsar.
David slowed the car as they stared.
Amy said: ‘So…why is it so special?’
Angus provided the answer: ‘The castle is medieval, and built on great silicic rock formations veined with jasper. When the Nazis occupied Bohemia they discovered that this stone, the jasper, perfectly reflects radio waves. So the SS installed a concealed headquarters for monitoring radio
traffic. And after the war the Czechoslovak Army did
exactly
the same thing – used it as a secret tracking station. Following NATO aircraft. The castle was only opened to the public in the late 1990s.’
Simon spoke up: ‘But why did the Nazis use it to
hide
stuff?’
‘Can tell ya that too. Over many centuries that impervious stone beneath the castle has been turned into a complex of underground passages. And, at the very end of the war, the SS did something very strange. They plugged it all up, filled the passages with thick layers of concrete – nobody has been able to pierce it, even with big modern drills. The communists tried to dig through, but they failed.’
The castle gazed pompously across the village roofs. Angus continued: ‘Of course many people have speculated as to the reason for the SS constructions. Why all the damn concrete? Was it stolen treasure the SS might have concealed? Some think the Russian amber room is down there. Who the fuck knows.’
There was a silence.
‘Pskov,’ Amy said. ‘Remember we have to go to Pskov. The synagogue.’
Pskov turned out to be a little village in the shallow hills, just two klicks away. It was a dismal place comprising an orange-painted church, a small beer-hall with a grubby neon sign for Budvar, a few ancient and mouldering houses, and a Spar supermarket advertising London gin.
And that was that. It took them all of five minutes to walk the main streets, and walk back again.
They sat in the shelter of a bus stop. Amy asked the obvious question: ‘Where is the synagogue?’
The rain was remorseless; it was a damp and ghastly October day. An elderly dog squatted across the road, defecating. David looked nervously at the church, which dominated the silent
village. The church seemed deserted; but maybe someone was in there, right now, looking at them – and telephoning Miguel.
Miguel.
The awful memory returned to David, with an extra tang of horror. He recalled how Amy had once said David looked like Miguel. ‘Only Miguel is older and thinner.’
Could it be? Could he and the Wolf be…
related
?
Two Cagots together. Two cannibal cousins.
He shuddered. It just kept getting worse. Like he was drowning in vile truths, being sucked into the cess pit of reality. Deeper and deeper until he could no longer breathe.
Shit person.
He stared up and down the dismal grey road. And cursed his despair.
‘Nothing. There’s
nothing
. We’re stuck. There is no synagogue – it’s been
destroyed.’
Simon agreed, the resignation raw in his words: ‘You’re right. That’s it. We’ve lost.’
A decrepit Trabant sedan belched black exhaust fumes as it trundled down the road. Amy was wandering away from the bus stop, disconsolate in the wet, looking anxiously this way and then that.
Even Angus looked downcast.
‘So we drink. Ach, if we’re all gonna die, let’s have a fucking drink.’
It was a ludicrous idea, it was a farcical idea, it was an idea. Their situation could not get any worse. Surely Miguel would find them, if not today, then soon. He would get them. So have a fucking drink.
They walked across the damp road and jangled the bell of the tavern door.
The interior of the pub was almost as dour as the neglected facade: a few wobbly tables furnished the bare space, with a single old farmer eating bacon in the corner. Four large
steel barrels of Budvar and Staropramen comprised the selection of beverages.
At least the beer would be good, David thought. Czech beer. Good Czech beer. A final beer. A fine drink to help them forget, to help them accept their fate. David realized he was dog-tired, bone-tired, spiritually tired: he was tired of running away. Let it happen, let it come, let it hurry up. He was tired, he was shattered, maybe even a touch suicidal. If he was a Cagot with maybe the worst of Cagot urges, he wasn’t sure he wanted to live.
So drink.
The publican was unshaven, jowly, sixty-something and spoke a smattering of German. He served up four foaming lagers. Simon hesitated, and then he took a beer.
They sat at the table. Only Angus was talking. Only Angus had the energy. He was talking of Czech beer, in between gulps of Czech beer. ‘The best pilsner should taste very slightly like horseradish. You know that? This one is a cracking example. You’ve gotta love Czech beer. The food is shite, they put whipped cream on everything, but, fuck, they know how to brew. They even have breakfast beers here, special beers for breakfast. Hah!’
Amy stood up and walked to the door.
‘I need fresh air.’
David let her go. He could see why she wanted to be away from him, away from the cursed Cagot. Who would want to be his girlfriend? As the door shut behind her he realized that it was now sealed, the deed now done: he was utterly and finally
alone.
Everyone had left him, everyone had quit. He was lost in the desert of his own life. Like those solitary trees on the Skeleton Coast, living off the dew in the fog.
So let Miguel come and kill him, Cagot slaying Cagot, brother killing brother. It didn’t matter any more.
Angus was talking about the Holocaust. He was on his second or third large glass of Staropramen and his conversation was seasoned with lunacy, a drunken nihilism.
‘You know, what gets me is the fact that the Germans did three holocausts in the twentieth century. Not one, not two, but three: the Herero and the Witbooi and then the Jews.’ Angus smiled angrily across the pub. ‘So what’s going on there then? I mean, OK, one holocaust, fair enough, we all make mistakes, could happen to anyone. Sorry my zyklon slipped. But then…two holocausts? Hm. That’s a bit odd. That’s a bit of a theme. Isn’t it? Maybe we should try something a bit less holocausty next time?’ He paused. ‘And then…you do it
again
? For a third time?
Three holocausts in a row?
How does that work?’
He drank some more beer. Simon was staring down, staring at his shoes, staring at darkness.
Angus drank, and he ranted. ‘And here’s another thing. You know they built the best hotel in Luderitz right opposite Shark Island. That’s nice, isn’t it? So you get a view of the extermination camp from your balcony. So you can look at the graves – as you operate the trouser press. Do you think this was a deliberate feature, incorporated by the architects? I’d like to have been at the design meeting when –’
‘Angus,’ said Amy. She had returned to the bar. A determined expression on her face. ‘Angus. Just shut the fuck up.’
The Scotsman laughed. And then he apologized. And then he laughed – sourly – and fell silent.
The talk of Shark Island reminded David of Namibia. That last scene, crouched in the hut. The Herero Skulls.
The obscene Nazi joke.
‘You know…’ he said, very slowly. ‘Maybe…we’re being…a bit
stupid
. There is no way a synagogue would still be standing here. In Pskov. The Nazis killed all the Jews.’
Amy said: ‘But it’s on the map. If it was demolished then why indicate it? I don’t get it.’
David leaned nearer.
‘So…maybe it wasn’t demolished. It was turned into something else, probably before the war. The synagogue will be disguised as something else.’
‘Like what?’ ‘Something insulting? Another joke, like in Luderitz.’
Angus nodded, firmly.
‘Yes.
This is true.
The Nazis turned some synagogues into pigsties, some into nightclubs. To insult Jewish faith. Of course…’
Amy shook her head.
‘There’s no nightclub in Pskov. It’s tiny – there’s nothing bloody here, no dancehalls, no pig farms, no nothing.’
The farmer on the next table belched robustly as he finished his pig knuckle. And Simon was pointing.
‘So what about that?
Look.’
They all turned. At the top of the front wall was a small and grubby old window. It wasn’t letting in much light because it was paned with dark stained glass, the colour of fortified wine.
But the dusty light, thrown by the Budvar sign outside, was sufficient to illuminate the window’s leaded design.
It was a Star of David.
The publican was entirely uninterested in their bizarre request, and stranger questions – until David offered him three hundred euros.
Then he quickly brightened and took them to the back of the pub: where steel barrels concealed a wall.
It was painted with Hebrew script.
‘Move the barrels,’ said Amy. ‘The Tabernacle must have been here.’
The steel barrels boomed and clanked as they were shifted. Under the barrels was…nothing. David felt a miserable disappointment, tinged with faint relief. Part of him actively didn’t want to know what was under the castle.
The proof of his blood.
And part of him needed to know immediately.
The publican was staring at them. His arms were crossed. Beer stains dotted his white jacket. Then he said: ‘
Die Juden Tur?
’
‘Yes!’
‘
Hier.
’
He led them down into a dark corner of the back room. A small wooden door was set low in the wall. The publican
gabbled an explanation in gruff German. Amy interpreted, her voice rising with excitement:
‘He says…this is the door from the war. There is a cellar behind, a passageway beyond that. He used the cellar to store…something he doesn’t want to talk about. Contraband maybe? He doesn’t know where the passage ends. He has never explored further. Too bloody scared of the communists in the castle.’
Another hundred euros elicited an agreement to open the door – then to close it behind them. And to tell no one
.
Another fifty euros bought a torch.
The door was creaked open. David felt a surge of queasiness as he peered through. Another small door, a little door, like a Cagot door. The door he was always meant to pass through.
Inside, a few steps led down into a room full of damp darkness and cobwebs – and stacks of beige and grey Marlboro cigarette cartons, and a dozen garden gnomes. The gnomes leered in the sudden light; one of them was frozen in a fishing position. With grinning scarlet lips.
‘OK?’ said David, trying to quell his nerves. Now he could almost sense Miguel – nearing. Hunting them down. Blood finding blood.
‘OK,’ the others replied, as one.
They stepped inside the low chamber; the bar owner looked at them for a final second, shrugged as if they were obviously mad, then shut the tiny door.
Darkness enshrouded them. Apart from their one feeble torchbeam. David flashed it down the chamber, which went on, and on. A long passage into the chilly blackness.
‘Let’s go.’
They knew they had two kilometres to walk: the distance to Zbiroh. They began in silence. The sound of their footsteps slipping in the mud was the only noise they made. No one spoke.
Their hurried pace at last brought them to another door. An iron door. It was shut.
David slumped to the side. He could feel clammy mud on his back. He didn’t care.
‘Christ.’
Angus swore. Simon shook his head. David had his head weighed in his hands.
Another door. Just another door. That would stop them? He remembered all the doors he had been through these last weeks: the Cagot doors, the door in Navvarenx church, the door to the Holocaust museum, José’s door in the Cagot house, all the many doors. And now another door, defeating them. Just one last door, one door too far.
Amy stepped forward, she turned the handle to the door. It opened.