The Black Madonna (27 page)

‘Playing with you? I hardly think so. Besides everything I said was perfectly true – even about me having been a keen Réal Madrid fan. But in one respect you are not wrong: I was prompting you, not as a tease or a joke, but to see if our, if my suspicions, might be correct. I think the image that was unearthed in Gaza is indeed a figure of Kybele that at some stage was confounded with the Virgin Mary. And it may not be just any figure of Kybele.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The Marian cult and the worship of Kybele have such strong links to Rome. The worship of Kybele – like the worship of the soldier god Mithras’ – Marcus immediately heard in his head the words of the American Marine Colonel in the Madrid hotel room – ‘became prevalent in Rome in the third century BC, but never more than when the city was in mortal danger.’

‘Such as?’

‘When the troops of Hannibal were at the gates, of course. Leading citizens demanded that the most holy of all images of Kybele, a black statue carved of stone, be fetched from Phrygia and brought into the city. One of the foremost
matronae
of Rome allegedly bore it from Ostia harbour into the city herself.

‘When Rome was spared and Hannibal put to flight, the goddess was given the credit. Great temples were built to her all over Italy, the most famous on a hill outside Naples. The poet Virgil retired
there. The ancient Romans called it Mons Sacer, the holy mountain, but in the seventh century it was christened – quite literally – Monte Vergine. A nice touch because some local folk confused it with the Virgil connection. It was dedicated to the Madonna, but the ruins of the original temple to Kybele are still there.’

Marcus and Nazreem exchanged glances. He could read in her face astonishment to hear so much of what she had obviously been trying to deduce confirmed from the mouth of a Roman Catholic abbot.

‘The greatest temple,’ the abbot continued, ‘was built on the summit of the Esquiline Hill to house the black statue of Kybele and act as a home to her priesthood. It stood there for half a millennium.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘A church was built there in the middle of the fifth century AD, a church that was later greatly expanded to become the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest church in the world dedicated to the Virgin Mary.’

‘And the statue?’

‘The figure of the goddess disappeared. It is widely believed that it was taken to Constantinople, when the capital of the empire was moved, and simply lost en route. Or later disregarded as just another pagan idol. But some of us have always thought that that was most unlikely, given its importance. The other possibility is that it was hidden, deliberately. To protect her until a more civilised age when men would no longer destroy such sacred things. But it may be that such an age will never come.’

There was a cold fire in Nazreem’s eyes as she listened to him and then with ringing scepticism in her voice she said: ‘I’m not sure whether to be impressed with your intellect or horrified by your cynicism. You knew that your precious Madonna here might be a copy of a pagan idol?’

‘That’s not exactly what I said.’

‘Not exactly, but pretty close and that still makes you a hypocrite,’ Marcus joined in.

The abbot raised his eyebrows. ‘Am I? I would have thought I was being anything but hypocritical.’ Then abruptly he wiped his mouth with his napkin, discarded it on the table top, and said: ‘Come. It is late. We can discuss all this in the morning.’

He signalled to the head waiter who bowed low indicating that
he regarded payment as unnecessary. Immediately another waiter appeared behind the abbot’s chair pulling it back to make it easier for him to rise, while a second did the same for Nazreem. Marcus, it was clear, would have to help himself. He took Nazreem’s arm unable to help noticing she was unsteady on her feet. There was a glare behind the glazed film of her eyes as they watched the abbot’s back retreating towards the Gothic arch that led into the monastery cloister.

‘You can’t leave it alone, can you,’ Nazreem called after the old man. ‘Any of you. That’s why you tried to steal it.’

‘He’s right. It’s time for bed,’ said Marcus putting an arm around her. He could feel her slim frame shaking, but whether it was from the sudden chill of the night air or some repressed rage, he could not be sure. Her eyes remained fixed on the door in the far corner long after the abbot had closed it behind him. For not the first time since she had come back into his life, Marcus was worried about her. He was also worried by the final taunt she had flung at the elderly
clergyman.
‘
Tried
to steal it’. Was she accusing the church? And if not, who? And what did she mean by ‘tried’?

‘Psst! Get up! We’re getting out of here.’ Marcus stirred in his sleep, then opened his eyes to a darkness that was total. Heavy wooden shutters on the windows were designed to keep out the noonday sun; they had no problem with moonlight. There was someone shaking his arm, then the next thing he knew the duvet cover was thrown back off him.

‘What the …? Who the …?’ he all but shouted aloud, reaching up and pulling the light cord that dangled above the bed. At once the room sprang into illumination to reveal Nazreem standing there above him, fully dressed and with her light travelling bag slung over her shoulder.

‘Don’t!’ she said urgently. ‘Someone will see.’ And pulled the light cord again, plunging them back into darkness.

‘Stop it, will you. This is getting ridiculous,’ said Marcus, pulling the cord again and flooding the room with light. ‘Who or what are you talking about. Besides, those shutters are completely lightproof.’

She glanced across at them and nodded uncertainly. ‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Get up, get dressed. We have to go.’

‘What is this? Why?’ said Marcus sitting up and instinctively pulling the duvet back over the boxer shorts that were all he slept in. Nazreem threw it back again.

‘There’s no time,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

Reluctantly Marcus began to do as he was told, if only to humour her for the moment. ‘Will you tell me what this is all about?’ he said.

Nazreem shushed him. ‘Not so loud. Everyone is asleep. Even on the reception. If we go now, we can sneak out before anyone notices.’

‘And why on earth would we want to do that?’

She raised her eyebrows impatiently. ‘You weren’t listening to a thing, were you? He knows. That means he knew all along. If we leave it too long they won’t let us leave.’

‘What makes you think …?’

‘It’s obvious. We talked, back in Munich, about who would have
reason to steal the statue. We dismissed the Catholic Church because if an independent museum had discovered the oldest image of the Virgin Mary, it would have been universally hailed as a miracle. Gaza would have become a point of pilgrimage for the whole
Christian
world. It would even have been a threat to the dominance of Islam in the area, that’s why we decided that Muslim extremists might be after it too.’

‘Yes, but … you’re saying now that it’s not Christian at all.’

‘Precisely, don’t you see. And they knew that. That’s why they’re so worried. Compare the statue from Gaza with the one here and you start to expose the whole Black Madonna cult for the sham it always has been: a cynical takeover of the old earth mother
religions
. The link between the Gaza statue and Kybele is clear. It would blow Marianism out of the water, and a good proportion of Catholic devotion would disintegrate.’

Marcus remembered the ‘Texan Taliban’ and their phobia about the spreading cult of the Mexican Madonna. If that were proved to have been all along just an old Aztec cult given a makeover …

‘But that doesn’t mean we’re in any danger.’

‘Doesn’t it? I’m not waiting to find out.’

‘But if the original is still missing,’ Marcus said, climbing into his trousers and doing up the belt, ‘what does it matter?’

She gave him a pointed look and said simply: ‘Hurry up.’

‘But … I know you said that if you found out what the statue really was you could …. Wait a minute!’ The realisation came over him like a cold shower: ‘You know where it is! You’ve known where it is all along. It wasn’t really stolen, was it? It’s still there, back in Gaza. Hidden. By you!’

‘Come on, Marcus, let’s get going. There’ll be time enough for questions and answers later.’

Even the smallest Spanish towns go late to bed. In the bar on the corner of the square below the steps that led up to the great
monastery’s
façade they were still stacking chairs inside while a few locals lingered over a last
pacharán or anis
with the late-night waiters. The dumpy little man Marcus had seen salivating over his tripe earlier in the restaurant was smoking a cigarette at the counter poring over horse-racing form in the local paper.

Marcus and Nazreem crept by like thieves in the night or illicit lovers doing a moonlight flit, but if anyone paid them any heed there was no sign of it. The reception at the Parador had been deserted and they had left their keys in their rooms. The desk clerk had again swiped Marcus’s credit card on arrival so he did not have the excuse of worrying that they hadn’t paid. Even so, he felt more foolish than clever creeping out of a plush hotel in the small hours of the morning, uncertain of where they were headed or why.

Beyond the square the dark streets were empty, the Gothic
pinnacles
and parapets of the monastic fortress a brooding presence over the little low dwellings. The main road out of town led past a post office, a few shops and a bus station, but a cursory examination of the timetable revealed the first bus passing through was the daily service to Cáceres, the provincial capital, at five-fifty a.m., in more than two hours’ time. There was no sign of a taxi firm, and even if there was, Marcus wondered where they would go. It was a long drive back to Madrid. And then what? Whatever was in Nazreem’s mind, she wasn’t sharing.

On the far side of the road in an entry next to the small row of shops, an ambling figure who had obviously not long left the bar on the square was throwing a tarpaulin over the back of a pick-up truck, which the light of his cigarette revealed to be filled with large round dark objects Marcus took to be watermelons. In a second Nazreem had crossed the road and was doing her best to
communicate
in an elementary Spanish that she had somehow acquired with her customary facility. Not that it seemed to be doing her any good.

‘
Mañana
,’ the man was insisting, waving his cigarette airily at the darkness.

‘
Ya es mañana
,’ Nazreem tried back.

‘
Si, si
,’ the man said, hiccupping good-humoredly, obviously amused at being accosted by a pretty young woman in the early hours of the morning. ‘
Pero mañana en la mañana
,’ he replied, smiling broadly but slightly wearily.

‘
Donde
?’ Nazreem was trying. Where was he going? Nowhere, thought Marcus, except to bed. At least if he’d any sense.

‘Donde? Cáceres. Mañana. En la mañana.’

‘
Hoy, ahora
. Now.
Por favor
.’

‘
No, no es posible
.’

Then suddenly Marcus felt Nazreem reach for his wallet, and the next second she was holding two large green hundred-euro notes in her hand and the situation seemed to have subtly altered. The man was scratching his head and wavering, and then Nazreem was putting the money away again.

‘
No, momento. Momento
.’

‘
Ahora
,’ she said again. ‘
Pero no Cáceres. Avila. Norte
.’

Marcus was doing his best to follow, reluctantly admiring her haggling skills in a language she barely knew, but then she had grown up in Cairo.

‘
Avila
?’ the man seemed more perplexed than ever and was shaking his head again, holding up his fingers, three of them. ‘
Tres. Tres horas
.’ Three hours, the same time it had taken them to get from Madrid?

‘
Tres
,’ Nazreem responded, and pulled out a third green note. Marcus realised it hadn’t been driving time the man was talking about.

‘
Y media
,’ the man said, smiling now, holding out his hand

‘
No media, no más
,’ Nazreem said, proferring the notes, but still holding them tight. ‘
Ahora
?’

‘
Bueno
,’ the man shrugged, threw his cigarette butt away shaking his head and holding out his hand. ‘
Vamos
. Let’s go,’ he said,
suddenly
discovering a bit of misplaced English as he shook Nazreem by the hand and pocketed Marcus’s money, throwing open the door of the pickup cab.

‘You do realise this is completely crazy,’ said Marcus, deliberately scrabbling up into the middle seat. It was bad enough being driven
God knows where in the dead of the night by some drunk Spaniard without the man getting distracted and letting his hands wander over towards Nazreem. She piled in next, banging the door in after her. The man behind the wheel coughed, the engine spluttered into life and they were off, an improbable threesome in an old Toyota with a loosely wrapped cargo of watermelons bouncing behind them. The moon disappeared behind a cloud and Marcus wished he knew a prayer worth saying.

For the first few kilometres their driver made a brave attempt at conversation, a torture Marcus was prepared to suffer if only to keep the man awake. But the limited amount of their common
language
gratefully restricted any actual exchange of information to a few brief semi-understood comments on watermelons, monasteries (both
bueno
) and what Marcus took to be a last-ditch attempt to persuade them to change their minds and go to Cáceres because it was nearer. This mostly consisted of Nazreem and the driver
swapping
the names of their preferred destinations, a bit of
disconcerting
hand gesturing during which the steering lurched alarmingly, and only ended definitively when they came to a main road and the driver one final time made a plea for left and Cáceres, only to be told a firm no and Avila. A resigned ‘
Por qué Avila
?’ brought the limited explanation. ‘Train?
Ah, treno, bueno
.’ And that was that.

As far as the driver was concerned anyhow. For the first time Marcus realised that Nazreem’s intention went beyond simply getting away from Guadalupe and the black Madonna she had been so keen to see in the first place. He had been loath to ply her with too many questions in the cab of the pickup, both of them taking it in turns to grab a few minutes’ sleep while the other made sure the driver stayed on the road. But as they rattled over the last sierra down onto a long straight road that had obviously been laid out when the main traffic was the rhythmic slap of Roman legionaries’ sandals, he forced his reluctant brain back into gear.

‘We’re catching the train from Avila. Where to? And why?’

‘There was no point in going back to Madrid,’ she said. ‘Besides that’s what anyone would expect. I checked the timetables in the hotel. From Avila there’s a good connection to Valladolid, where we can pick up the international line north.’

‘North?’

‘Yes, of course north. To Paris, and then London. For you: home.’