The Third Antichrist (22 page)

Maja’s brother’s ‘cousin’ – known to all as ‘Driver’ Kol – dropped Radu off some distance outside the village. Kol’s eighteen-wheeler was far too big to venture any further down the narrow, cart-friendly streets, so Radu was forced to complete the final leg of the journey under his own steam. Kol simply turned his rig round on the village football field and disappeared into the murk.

Radu picked his way through the empty, echoing lanes of Brara. He had never liked being alone – now he felt bereft and abandoned. What was he doing out here in Romania, far from his family and his people? His arms, his back, and his neck hurt, and his left shoulder had almost completely seized up. With each step he felt like falling to the ground and lying there, come what may.

The trip to Brara had meant a deviation of more than 100 kilometres from the truck’s formal itinerary – but this had presented no problem to Driver Kol. He had doctored the logbook and disconnected the hubometer. Even though European law dictated that he drive no more than fifty-six hours in any one week, and a maximum of ninety hours in a fortnight, the only way to make any real money for a man owning his own rig was to expand those times by a third. If that meant driving on marijuana or Red Bull, so be it. When electronic on-board recorders became mandatory, the long-haul drivers would find a way around that, too. Or so Driver Kol had told Radu on at least six occasions during their fourteen-hour journey.

Once, because of his useless arms, Radu had had to kick Kol, who had fallen asleep at the wheel, on the calf. Kol, however, had taken the blow in good part. ‘Thank you, Radu. Thank you. I am a little tired. I am seeing everything in sets of four. I would not like to wreck my truck. It is uninsured.’

Radu had felt uncharacteristically grateful when Kol had let him off at the edge of the village without insisting they both go for a farewell drink. Radu would have been duty-bound to honour Kol’s wishes in this matter, even though he wanted nothing more than to find his cousins and explain to them all that had happened in the two weeks since they had been away from the camp. The way he felt now, drinking with Kol might easily have turned into an all-night affair. As well as the pain from his arms and back, Radu’s head, too, ached from the noise of the lorry. The drink would have been very welcome. Too welcome. He would probably have drunk himself into a stupor and been of no use to anyone for days.

Radu breathed in the night scents of the village. Above him the stars shone in unfettered splendour. There were no street lights to spoil his view of the sky, just as there were none back at his home camp in Samois. Tears of joy trickled down Radu’s face when he realized that this was the same sky that his wife, Lemma, and his sister’s children, Bera and Koiné, would be sheltering under on their way out to Romania to join him. Radu offered up a prayer of thanks to O Del that his family was now safe from the bad people, and that he was, to all intents and purposes, still intact enough to anticipate their arrival.

But one immediate problem remained to be overcome. Radu had not the remotest idea where in the village Alexi and Yola were living. And the village was large and well spread out. So Radu did as he always did when he felt anxious – he switched his concentration to the sounds surrounding him. Perhaps the village would condescend to speak to him? Reveal its secrets that way?

The village’s subtle clamour eddied about him in concentric circles. First came the domestic sounds – the tinkling of crockery and the gurgling of drains. Then came the rise and fall of muffled voices. After that came the animal sounds – the susurration of chickens settling in for the night, and the mutter of roosting pigeons. Then came the natural sounds – the whisper of the wind in the trees, and the distant hum of insects. Radu even fancied that he could hear the swish and whirr of the short-winged bats as they surged in predatory loops through the moonstruck sky. In the far distance, and underlying everything else, Radu was convinced that he could hear water flowing. He grinned triumphantly. The village had indeed talked to him. Gypsies loved water. He would undoubtedly find Alexi and Yola lurking nearby. He switched direction and headed instinctively for the river, no longer feeling quite so lonely.

Once Radu thought he heard wolves howling. He stopped for a second and listened. Yes. It was definitely wolves. This part of the Maramure
ş
was indeed a strange place. He had heard stories, too, of predatory bears that would only pass you by if you pretended to be dead. Radu shivered as he imagined what it would be like to play possum with a bear nosing at your trousers, deciding whether or not to take a bite out of your rump.

Some of the houses he passed had electric lights on inside them, but Radu ignored these. Alexi would not be living in such a house. A thing like that went against nature. If Alexi was ever given a house of his own, he would probably pitch a tent in the garden and use the house to keep his animals in. And these people in the houses wouldn’t know where the Gypsies lived anyway. And if they did, they wouldn’t tell him. They would probably shoot him as an intruder instead, and hang him out on their garden fence like a dead crow.

When he was near the river, Radu stopped and listened again. Might the bad man and his brother and sisters have somehow worked out the name of the village from the snippets of information he had given them in the car? Radu thought back to everything he had said during the journey from Samois. No. He had only mentioned the distant town of Sighetu. And an unknown village somewhere in the north of Romania. It was impossible that they could have worked it out from that. His friends were still safe. Surely they were?

He was just about to start across the ford when he heard a noise to his left. It was the sound of a woman laughing. Radu gave a broad grin. He struck himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand to acknowledge his good luck. It was Yola’s voice. She was expecting a child, just like Lemma – he could recognize this in her voice and the quality of her laughter.

Radu decided that it would please him very much to see Yola again. When Radu’s brother-in-law, Flipo, brought Lemma to the village – together with Bera and Koiné and their mother, Nuelle – the three women would be able to help each other out in the run-up to the parallel births. This was a very good thing. It wasn’t correct for a man to be involved in the birthing of his children. Such a thing was woman’s work.

Radu screwed up his eyes. He could just make out a lighter-coloured tent, partially lit from within, pitched in the garden of a rundown house. Yes. This was where they would be.

‘Yola.’ Radu kept his voice low, in case Alexi or Damo or the ex-policeman might be lying in wait for him with a weapon. ‘Yola.’

Yola stepped out of the tent. ‘Who is that? Who is talking out here? Who is calling my name?’

‘It is I. Radu.’

‘Radu? What are you doing here?’ Yola hesitated. ‘Alexi. It is Radu. You do not need your knife.’

Alexi came out of the tent after her. Both stood squinting into the darkness.

‘I am over here. Shall I come to you?’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then come.’

Radu walked into the circle of light thrown by the paraffin lamp Alexi and Yola were using inside their tent. He noticed that, despite Yola’s pleas, Alexi was holding one of his throwing knives flat against his leg.

‘I am alone, Alexi. On my oath.’

Alexi relaxed. He walked up and gave Radu a bear-hug. Radu grimaced in pain. Yola scowled and bobbed her head at Radu. Then she ducked back inside the tent.

‘Help me to sit down, Alexi. I still can’t use my arms properly.’

‘You what?’

Yola emerged from the tent carrying a saucepan. ‘Alexi. Help Radu sit down by the fire. Can’t you see he has been injured? You nearly squeezed the life out of him a moment ago. Radu. I shall heat you up some of this goulash soup. The meat is good. And there is much paprika. It will give you strength. Then, when you have eaten, I will fetch Damo and Calque from the house, and you will tell us everything that has occurred. Why you have appeared amongst us – injured, without warning, and alone.’

Radu nodded his head. He allowed Alexi to help him to the ground.

Trust Yola to pick up on his anxiety. And that he was injured. And that he was pale from lack of food. Alexi wouldn’t notice a duck in a hailstorm.

Nothing ever changed.

38

Radu, Alexi, Yola, Sabir and Calque were seated around the rekindled campfire. Radu had eaten Yola’s goulash, accompanied by a plateful of
sarmale
– which is stuffed cabbage with rice, onions, and root vegetables – and
mamaliga cu brinza
– which is cornmeal porridge with sheep cheese. He had also drunk a considerable quantity of the
horinca
that Alexi kept in a glass jar outside his tent. The
horinca
was made locally every autumn in the nearby village of Rozavlea, and contained – alongside its grounding of plum mash – fruit fly larvae, worms, and the distilled essence of any insect unwise enough to venture into the fermenting tub. Alexi swore by it.

‘Now you tell us why you are here, Radu. Why your arms are hurt. Why you come to us at night, without calling on the moveable phone Calque gave you. But first you tell us, are we in danger?’

Radu smiled. It was typical of Alexi and Yola to insist that he be fed first, before asking him the actual purpose of his visit. Or whether his unexpected appearance had put them all at risk.

‘You are not in immediate danger. No. But bad things have happened since you left the camp. Listen without speaking. Then you must question me.’

Radu described the last five days in as much detail as he could. When he had finished he turned to the assembled company and attempted to respond to their questions. After a few tense moments he waved his good hand at them as though he were flagging down a bus. ‘I think now is the time for you to stop asking questions and to start answering them. You must first of all explain to me why this is happening. It cannot be revenge. Or some sort of blood feud. These people are
payos
. They are French. Only Corsicans, Sicilians, and Maghrebins do these sorts of things in France. Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe these are Corsicans pretending to be French people? Can you explain this to me please, Captain Calque? You are the only policeman I have talked to in my whole life who is not trying to hit me over the head or put handcuffs on me.’

Calque acknowledged Radu’s observations with a rueful inclination of the head. ‘You are not wrong, Radu. And we certainly owe you an explanation. We have inadvertently put your family at risk, and caused you to be injured on our behalf. We are very sorry. This was not intended. The way you escaped from the Corpus was incredible. And we thank you, also, for not giving us in to them, when it might have gone easier for you if you had.’

Radu inclined his head in response. It was clear that he was gratified by Calque’s encomium, and the formal language in which it was couched. ‘They would still have killed me. A dead hero looks no different from a dead traitor. That is what my grandfather has told me.’

‘True. Very true. But thank you nonetheless. Many would not have gone so far to protect their friends.’ Calque straightened up and lit a cigarette from the fire. He squinted through the smoke at the assembled company. ‘Now it is our turn to talk. There is a secret we have been keeping from you all. We thought we were doing it for everybody’s good. But now it seems that we were wrong. Just as we have been wrong so many times recently.’ He drew in a lungful of smoke and let it drift into the gloom behind him. ‘I feel that the time has now come to bring all this out into the open. Don’t you agree?’ He looked first at Sabir. Then at Yola.

‘Secret? What secret?’ Alexi had caught the direction of Calque’s gaze. He scowled at his wife. Then he switched his attention to Sabir and gave him a scowl too. ‘Have you two been keeping a secret from me? I don’t know of any secrets. What is this secret? Who does it concern?’

Sabir’s face was lit from below by the flames from the fire. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes. His hair was unkempt. His chin was unshaven. It was some days since he had last permitted Yola to wash his clothes. It was clear to everybody that he was in mourning for something – but what, exactly, was hard to fathom. Was it for his lost love, Lamia, who might – or might not – have betrayed him? Was it for his mother, who had committed suicide knowing that her son and her husband would be the first ones on the scene to find her? Or was it for his own sanity, which had been tested beyond endurance a few weeks before in the Yucatan?