‘My junior, Lieutenant Macron, will arrange all that. You won’t have to put yourself to any additional trouble on our behalf. That, I promise you.’
‘Well, all right then. But please take care. It is a miracle she was not damaged in the fracas of last night.’
‘You behaved very well. It is entirely to your credit that the Virgin has been restored.’
The gardien hitched his shoulders. ‘You think so? You really think so?’
‘I am entirely convinced of the fact.’
***
‘Look, Macron. Come over here and tell me what you make of this.’ Calque was staring at the base of the Virgin. He allowed his thumb to travel over the deeply incised letters that had been chiselled into the wood.
Macron took the Virgin from his hands. ‘Well, the carving was certainly done a long time ago. You can tell that by the way the wood has darkened. Quite unlike these other marks on her breast.’
‘Those were probably done in the Revolution.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Neither the Protestants, during the Wars of Religion, nor our revolutionary ancestors, approved of graven images. In most of the churches of France they destroyed statues of Christ, the Virgin and the Holy Saints. They tried that here too. Legend has it that they tore off the silver which originally covered the Virgin and then were so astonished by the dignity of what was revealed below, that they left her alone.’
‘You don’t believe in all that rot, do you?’
Calque took back the Virgin. ‘It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of listening. History keeps its secrets on open display, Macron. Only someone with eyes to see and ears to hear can disentangle their real essence from the flotsam and jetsam that fl oat alongside them.’
‘I don’t understand what you are talking about.’
Calque sighed. ‘Let’s take this as an example. It’s a statue of the Virgin and Child, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘And we know that this particular Virgin protects sailors. You see that bell up there? When it suddenly tolls of it’s own accord, it means a sailor has been miraculously saved from the sea by the Virgin’s intervention. Or that a storm will come and a miracle occur.’
‘That’s just the wind, surely. Wind usually comes before a storm.’
Calque smiled. He spread some paper over the base of the statue and began to trace over the letters with his pen. ‘Well, Isis, the Egyptian goddess, wife and sister of Osiris and sister of Set, was also believed to save sailors from the sea. And we know that she was frequently depicted seated on a throne, with her son, Horus the Child, on her lap. Horus is the god of light, of the sun, of the day, of life and of good and his nemesis, Set, who was Isis’s sworn enemy, was the god of the night, of evil, of darkness and of death. Set had tricked Osiris, chief of the gods, into trying out a beautifully crafted coffin and had sealed him inside it and sent him down the Nile, where a tree grew around him. Later, he cut Osiris’s body into fourteen pieces. But Isis found the coffin and its contents and reassembled them, with Thoth, the mediator’s, help and Osiris came back to life just long enough to impregnate her with Horus, their son.’
‘I don’t understand…’
‘Macron, the Black Virgin is Isis. The Christ figure is Horus. All that happened was that the Christians usurped the ancient Egyptian gods and transformed them into something more palatable to a modern sensibility.’
‘Modern?’
‘Osiris was resurrected, you see. He came back from the dead. And he had a son. Who pitted himself against the forces of evil. Doesn’t that sound familiar to you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Both Jesus and Horus were born in a stable. And their births are both celebrated on the 25th of December.’
Macron’s eyes had begun to glaze.
Calque shrugged. ‘Well. Anyway. Here is what Sabir and your eye-man were looking for.’ He held up the sheet of paper.
‘It’s in gobbledegook.’
‘No it’s not. It’s written in reverse. All we need to do is to find a mirror and we should be able to disentangle it.’
‘How do you know they were looking for it?’
‘Logic, Macron. Look. They broke in here for a purpose. That purpose was to steal the Virgin. But the eye-man was also here. They succeeded in driving him away, though, leaving Sabir, the gypsy and the gardien alone in the Sanctuary. But the old man is bewildered by it all and is too old to take charge, so he obeys Sabir and trots off back to the office to phone. The two of them could easily have managed to take the Virgin with them then. She’s only around seventy centimetres tall and hardly weighs anything. But they don’t. They leave her behind. And why do they do that? Because they already have what they came for. Bring me that torch.’
‘But it’s evidence. There may be fingerprints on it.’
‘Just bring me the torch, Macron.’ Calque turned the paper over. ‘Now we’ll shine it against the writing.’
‘Ah. That’s clever. No need of a mirror.’
‘Take this down in your notebook:
‘Il sera ennemi et pire qu’ayeulx Il naistra en fer, de serpente mammelle Le rat monstre gardera son secret Il sera mi homme et mi femelle’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Don’t you understand your own language?’ ‘Well, of course I do.’ ‘Then you decipher it.’
‘Well, the first line reads “He will be an enemy and worse…’’ ’ Macron hesitated. ‘ “…than anyone before him.” ’
‘ “He will be born in iron…” ’
‘ “…of Hell’, Macron. Enfer means Hell. Ignore the fact that it’s been split in two. People aren’t born of iron.’
‘ “…of Hell,’ then, ‘with the nipple of a serpent…” ’
‘ “…he will suckle from a serpent’s breast.” ’
Macron sighed. He exhaled loudly, as if he had just hefted a set of massive weights in the gym. ‘The monstrous rat will hide his secret…” ’
‘Go on.’
‘ “ He will be half man and half woman.” ’
‘Excellent. But the last line may also be read as “He will be neither man nor woman.” ’
‘How do you work that one out?’
‘Because of the clue given in line one. The use of the word ‘ ennemi ’. It implies that when mi reappears, the em should be changed to en.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘Have you never done crosswords?’
‘They didn’t have crosswords in medieval France.’
‘They had better than crosswords. They had the Kabbalah. It was normal practice to disguise or codify one word by using another. Just as the author has done in line three, with rat monstre. It’s an anagram. We know that because the two words are followed by the word secret, which acts as the pointer. Just like in crosswords. Again.’
‘How do you know all these things?’
‘It’s a little thing called a classical education. Linked to another little thing called common sense. It’s something they obviously failed to teach you people down in that bidonville of a school of yours in Marseille.’
Macron allowed the insult to wash over him. For once in his life he found himself more interested in the case than in himself. ‘Who do you think wrote this stuff? And why are these maniacs after it?’
‘Do you want my honest opinion?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Devil.’
Macron’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’re not serious?’
Calque folded up the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket. ‘Of course I’m not serious. The Devil doesn’t bother to write people billets-doux, Macron. Hell always comes by Express Delivery.’
52
Yola sat up higher in her seat. ‘Look. There’s going to be a wedding.’ She turned and stared critically at the two men. ‘I shall have to wash and mend your clothes. You can’t appear in public like that. And you’ll need jackets and ties.’
‘My clothes are fine as they are, thank you.’ Sabir turned to Yola. ‘And how the Hell did you work that one out about the wedding? We haven’t even arrived in the camp yet.’
Alexi let out a snort. He lay sprawled across the back seat, with his bandaged head propped comfortably against the window. ‘Are all you gadjes blind? We’ve already passed four caravans on the way here. Where do you think they’re going?’
‘To a funeral? To another of your Krisses?’
‘Did you notice the faces of the women?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if you used your eyes for once – like a gypsy – you would have seen that the women were excited, not sad.’ He ran his finger around the inside of his mouth, testing the new geography. ‘Have you got fifty euros on you?’
Sabir switched his attention back to the road. ‘That will scarcely be enough to buy you a new set of gold teeth.’
Alexi grimaced. ‘Have you got them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well give them to me. I’m going to have to pay someone to watch the car.’
‘What are you talking about, Alexi?’
‘Just what I said before. If you don’t pay someone to watch it, someone else will strip it clean. They’re thieves, these people.’
‘What do you mean, “these people”? They’re your people, Alexi.’
‘I know that. That’s why I know they’re thieves.’
***
Sabir and Alexi had been allocated the corner of one of Alexi’s cousins’ caravans. Alexi was recuperating on the single cot, with Sabir seated below him, on the floor.
‘Show me the pistol, Alexi. I want to see why it misfired.’
‘It didn’t misfire. It just didn’t fire at all. I would have had him. Straight through the nose.’
‘You know about safety catches?’
‘Of course I know about safety catches. What do you think I am? An idiot?’
‘And you know about cocking?’
‘Cocking? What’s cocking?’
‘Ah.’ Sabir sighed. ‘Before you can shoot an automatic pistol, you have to pull back this catch here and cock it. It’s called locking and loading in the military.’
‘ Putain. I thought it worked like a revolver.’
‘Only revolvers work like revolvers, Alexi. Here. Try it.’
‘Hey. It’s easy.’
‘Stop pointing it at me.’
‘It’s all right, Adam. I’m not going to shoot you. I don’t hate gadjes that bad.’
‘I’m very relieved to hear it.’ Sabir frowned. ‘So tell me, Alexi. Where’s Yola gone?’
‘To be with the women.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that we won’t see her so much for a while. Not like when we’re on the road.’
Sabir shook his head. ‘I don’t get this gypsy split between men and women, Alexi. And what’s all this about impurities and polluting people? What did she call it? Mah… something or other.’
‘ Mahrime.’
‘That’s it.’
‘It’s normal. There are things that pollute and things that don’t pollute.’
‘Like hedgehogs.’
‘Yes. Hedgehogs are clean. So are horses. They don’t lick their own genitals. Dogs and cats are filthy.’
‘And women?’
‘They don’t do that either. What do you think? That they’re contortionists?’
Sabir slapped the sole of Alexi’s foot. ‘I’m serious. I really want to know.’
‘It’s complicated. Women can pollute when they’re bleeding. When that happens, a woman can’t hold someone else’s baby, for instance. Or touch a man. Or cook. Or walk over a broom. Or do anything, really. That’s why a woman must never be above a man. In a bunk, say. Or in a house. He would be polluted.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I tell you, Adam. In my father’s time it used to be worse. Gypsy men could not travel on the Paris Metro, in case, by accident, a gypsy woman would be on the pavement above them. Food had to be placed outside the house, in case a woman walked on the floor above it. Or touched it with her dress.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I’m very serious. And why do you think Yola asked me to be in the room with you when she showed you the coffer?’
‘Because she wanted to involve you?’
‘No. Because it is not right for an unmarried woman to be alone in a room with a bed in it, in company with a man who is not her brother or her father. Also you were a gadje and that made you mahrime .’
‘So that’s why the old woman back at the camp wouldn’t eat with me?’
‘You’ve got it. She would have polluted you.’
‘She would have polluted me? But I thought I would have polluted her?’
Alexi made a face. ‘No. I was wrong. You haven’t got it.’
‘And then all this stuff with women wearing long dresses. And yet Yola doesn’t seem to mind baring her breasts in public. I’m thinking of during the funeral.’
‘Breasts are for feeding children.’
‘Well I know that…’
‘But a woman shouldn’t show her knees. That’s not good. It’s up to her not to inflame her father-in-law’s passions. Or those of men other than her husband. Knees can do that.’
‘But what about all the women here in France? You see them in the street all the time. Hell, they bare just about everything.’
‘But they are payos. Or gadje. They don’t count.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Now you are one of us, Adam, you matter. Not as much as a real gypsy, maybe. But you matter.’
‘Thank you for that. I’m very relieved.’
‘Maybe we even get you a wife some day. Someone ugly. Whom no one else wants.’
‘Fuck you, Alexi.’
53
‘There’s going to be a wedding.’
‘A wedding?’ Calque looked up from the library book he was working on.
‘Yes. I talked to the chief of the Gourdon gendarmerie just as you suggested. There have been caravans arriving for three days now. They’ve even drafted in two extra officers in case of disturbances. Drunks. Trouble with the townspeople. That sort of thing.’
‘Any movement of our trio?’
‘None. I suspect they’re going to be here for the duration. Especially if one of them is injured. Their car is parked at the periphery of the camp. Frankly, they must be mad. A brand-new Audi in that place? It’s like waving a pair of used panties in front of a teenager.’