The Third Antichrist (14 page)

Abi smiled. Dakini was the weakest link. She would be the first to believe him if he managed to call it right. The first to come back to his side of the fence. ‘Yes, there is. Because I arranged it. Because all three of you owe your lives to me. Only you don’t know it yet.’

‘Bullshit.’ Rudra fingered the bruise above his eye. ‘You’re fishing. How we got out had nothing to do with you. You simply abandoned us all to drown.’

‘No, I didn’t. And I’ll prove it.’ Abi mouthed a silent prayer. He felt like a cliff-diver trying out a new plunge-route for the very first time. But without having been able to test the bottom for rocks beforehand. ‘An old man and a boy found you. They arranged to get you out of there. They sent down the hosepipe.’

Nawal and Rudra exchanged loaded glances. Dakini cocked her head to one side so that her hair hung down in sheets, like the Angel Falls.

Abi caught the look that passed between Nawal and Rudra. He felt a flush of triumph. He’d called it right. ‘I know this because I told the old man and the boy where to find you. They were standing at the entrance to the plantation when I drove past. I was being pursued by the
cacique’s
men. But still I slowed down and shouted “Cenote! Cenote!” at them. I knew that would be your only chance.What Abi had actually done had been to bunch his fingers at the pair and pretend to shoot them, but why split hairs at this stage of the proceedings? He knew he was taking a calculated gamble by assuming that it was the old man and the boy who had discovered the trio floating in the cenote. But nothing came from nothing. He had to clear the emotional logjam. With everybody gunning for him, he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting near his mother for another attempt on her life – or of ensuring that he was her sole legatee – unless he squared things with his siblings. If he needed to massage a few egos on the way to attaining his goal, he would do that too.

‘Yes. It was the old man and the boy.’ Dakini was staring at Abi as if he had transformed on the spot from a demon into an angel. ‘That’s true, Rudra. How else could Abi have known? He saved our lives.’

Strike two for the black sheep.

Abi could see that the whole thing still sat badly with Rudra. But his inspired guess had effectively whipped the carpet out from under everybody’s feet. They would have to believe him now. Would have to take him back into the fold.

The Countess tapped the table with the bottom of her glass. ‘We will put an end to speculation then. Abiger has just proved to everybody’s satisfaction that he behaved well – or at least as well as the situation permitted. Now I intend to move on to other business.’

There were grudging nods from around the table. Abi particularly enjoyed watching Milouins’s face. It was a sight to behold. Just like Richard Nixon’s face when he learned that he had lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy by 0.1 per cent of the vote.

Madame Mastigou’s Mont Blanc fountain pen flew across her Florentine paper at a feverish rate. Abi wondered who would ever get to read the minutes. Maybe they would be sealed in a lead capsule and buried for posterity? Or whatever constituted posterity after the apocalypse the Countess was so intent on calling down on everybody’s head?

The Countess leaned forward. Her face seemed lit by an unholy glow. ‘I know the identity of the Third Antichrist.’

It was as if she had just reached inside Abi’s skull and plucked out his thoughts with a pair of pliers. He felt as if he had been blindsided by a lorry. Abi gave a vehement shake of the head. ‘No. That’s impossible. Athame told me every word that Sabir said both inside and outside that Mexican sweat-bath. Sabir confirmed that Yola Dufontaine was the mother of the Second Coming. Yes. But at no time did he reveal the identity of the Third Antichrist. I would have told you immediately.’

‘But it wasn’t to Athame that he revealed it.’

Abi glanced at the other three. They were watching the Countess intently. It was as if everything were being decided in that room. Everybody’s fate.

Yes. That’s what this is, Abi thought to himself. The old crone is dooming us all. She wants a Götter-dämmerung. Not content with overseeing the death of nine of her children, she’s busy piling up the tinder beneath the remaining four. And when she’s got it just so, she’s going to set light to the whole damned shooting match with one final flourish of her torch.

Well, I’m not about to allow myself to be immolated quite so easily. If she wants to act like Brünnhilde, good luck to her. I’ll simply find a way to slide out from underneath the shit-fall.

‘To whom did he reveal it, then?’

‘To whom do you think, Abiger? Sabir revealed it to Lamia the afternoon they shared a hotel bedroom. The same afternoon he stole her virginity.’ The Countess’s voice thickened.

The truth hit Abi like a slap in the face. Never before had he been able to get a handle on the Countess and Lamia’s ambiguous relationship. Now he knew for a racing certainty.

The Countess had been in love with her own adopted daughter. It was as clear as day. But her love hadn’t been reciprocated. And finally Lamia had cheated on her mother with Adam Sabir, the person the Countess hated most in the world – and a man, to boot. It was irrelevant that Lamia had not betrayed the Countess in terms of the Corpus. The emotional betrayal had been the thing.

Abi glanced at Madame Mastigou. The woman’s face was gaunt but triumphant. Well. That figured.

‘Why would he do that?’ Abi didn’t fully understand his own motives. He only knew that he needed to see his mother squirm.

‘Why do you think? Why are men susceptible to women? Why do they talk in bed and say things that they would never normally dream of saying when they are in their right minds? Because they are weak, that’s why. Look at you. You are a prime example. You’ve nearly managed to bring our entire family down with your litany of botched decisions.’

Abi shrugged. What did he care anymore? He was home free. Madame, his mother, still needed him or she would have ordered him killed on the spot earlier that morning. ‘That’s predictable. But it’s not fair. If you had trusted me with the fact that Lamia was working for you, I would have acted differently from the start. You caused this yourself. Because you can’t bring yourself to trust those you should. And because you trust those you shouldn’t.’ Abi only half understood what was driving him to say these things. As a rule he never talked back to Madame, his mother. But a feeling of outraged virtue now suffused him – possibly triggered by his frustration at not having brought off the financial coup of the century by murdering the she-viper in her bed.

‘How dare you speak like that to me.’

Milouins, who had been patrolling the doorway like a nightclub bouncer, took a pace forward in response to his mistress’s tone.

Abi knew he was treading a fine line. If his mother decided, on a whim, that she wanted him dead, he would to all intents and purposes have called his fate down onto his own head. As far as the authorities were concerned, he was in Boston, not in France. Nobody would look for the body of the non-existent Pierre Blanc out here on the peninsula. And, clearly, you couldn’t be charged for the murder of a man who didn’t exist.
Ubi est corpus –
wasn’t that what lawyers called it? When the missing Abiger de Bale’s green card needed renewing, the US authorities would simply tear up Battery Wharf instead of Cap Camarat in their search for a non-existent French Count.

‘I’m sorry, Madame. Vainglory got the better of me. I apologize. It shall never happen again.’

Milouins looked crestfallen.

It occurred to Abi that his antipathy to Milouins was probably returned in spades. After all, Abi was the Countess’s eldest child – not Milouins. He held all Monsieur, his father’s, honorary titles. He would inherit a quarter of all Madame, his mother’s, money. While Milouins would never amount to anything more than a jumped-up footman.

Abi decided that he would enjoy giving Milouins his marching orders when the Countess finally popped her clogs. Then, if he still felt like it, he would put a contract out on Milouins’s head and have him killed. With extreme prejudice. Like in
Apocalypse Now
.

Abi summoned up his best rendition of a filial smile. It was powerful enough to bathe the entire room in sunlight. ‘What do you wish for us to do, Madame? We are at your entire disposal.’

Cenucenca, Orheiul Vechi, Moldova
21 March 1986

23

Dracul let a week go by before he moved up, lock, stock, and barrel, to the Orheiul Vechi cave monastery. He let it be known that it was his father’s disappearance that had prompted this move. His father’s abandonment of his children. That he was grieving for both his parents’ sins. That he wished to do penance in a holy place.

Meanwhile he sent Antanasia around to all the surrounding
cr
îş
mas
, canteens and drinking dens – those, at least, where she was not known. Once there, she would dance, and tell stories. She was clearly half-Gypsy. This was not so odd, then. A normal Moldovan girl would have run a mile from such places. But Antanasia loved her brother, and wished to please him.

Later, when the men were deep in their cups, Antanasia would whisper to them of the rumours going around that a young man had moved into Orheiul Vechi – that he had become a hermit there whilst awaiting His Father’s orders.

‘A young man? His Father’s orders? What do you mean?’

‘It is only a rumour. But it is said the Metropolitan himself is interested.’

‘The Metropolitan? Why should he be interested?’

‘He has told the Patriarch. It is said, too, that the Roman Pope is following events.’

‘Events? What events?’

By this time a small crowd would have formed around her, for Antanasia was as beautiful as she was persuasive. Men were drawn to her despite themselves. There was a knowingness about her that belied her innocent demeanour. It was a seductive combination.

‘That the boy is...’ Antanasia would hesitate here, following Dracul’s instructions to the letter. ‘That the boy is... the Second Coming.’

The men would cross themselves. Antanasia understood, perhaps better than her brother did, that drinking makes men credulous. She also knew that when men returned home, feeling guilty about their excesses, it would often behove them to have some juicy titbit of gossip with which to placate their angry wives and mothers. The fact that a person who might be the Second Coming was now in situ at Orheiul Vechi fit that bill completely.

For centuries there had been a rumour that the Second Coming would be born somewhere in Eastern Europe. Moldova had very little to recommend it. It was by far the poorest country in the Eastern Bloc. It was squashed between dominant neighbours. It was landlocked, junta-ridden, and corrupt. A rumour such as this might transform the country from a sleepy backwater into a vibrant place of pilgrimage. It might provide the country with a higher status vis-à-vis the Romanians and the Russians, both of whom despised little Moldova, and wished to engulf it. A full 96 per cent of Moldovans, despite their communist appurtenances, still considered themselves Eastern Orthodox. Still adhered to the Moscow Patriarchate. It would be a triumph.

‘Why should the Catholic Pope be interested? The Second Coming is one of us. He is Eastern Orthodox.’

‘Yes. Yes. Of course he is. But don’t you see? His existence would bring the Churches back together again. It might heal the schism between us. But this time around, we would emerge the stronger.’

Later that night, the men would return home from the
cr
îş
mas
intent on placating their wives. They would pass on the story of the Second Coming. The women would be sceptical.

‘Who told you of this thing? Some whore, perhaps?’

‘No. No. A visiting priest. He came to the
cr
îş
mas
to persuade us to change our ways. He told us of this boy at Orheiul Vechi. That he would be an example to us. The old hermit who lived there – he recognized the boy for what he is. Now he is dead, and the boy has taken his place.’

‘You are drunk. This is nonsense. There is no Second Coming.’

‘Yes. There is. And he is Moldovan. You should be proud, not angry. It has almost made me give up the drink.’

‘You? Give up the drink? That would indeed be a miracle.’