The Marks of Cain

46

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.