The Marks of Cain

21

The wound in his hand was healing, but the pain was still there. And the anxiety was relentless.

David was standing in the sunlit garden of the Cagot house, winding bandages around his blooded hand. The garden was overgrown, with fallen trees and ivied paths and flowers growing from the tumbledown walls. But the garden was also big, and hidden from everywhere, and it got the air and light, unlike the damp and sinister hallways of the ancient Cagot house. A good place to talk. A good place to think about your beloved grandpa's Nazi connection.

As he tied the last bandage, David felt a grief, inside him, not far from the surface, from the conversation with Madame Bentayou. He had been mulling over their remarkable dialogue, and every time he reached the same inevitable conclusion. It did make horrible sense. They must all have been prisoners, at Gurs — Jose, Granddad, Eloise's grandmother.

The facts certainly pointed to incarceration at the Nazi camp; moreover, the hidden wealth of his grandfather, the guilt and the furtiveness, seemed to imply some kind of profiteering. Or something. Even collaboration.

It was a ghastly idea, yet unavoidable. Was Granddad complicit with the Nazis? If not, how did he get the money? And why was he so evasive at the end? Why the mystery?

David sat down on a stone bench, then stood up. The dampness of the moss was soaking into his jeans. Everywhere in this rotten and syphilitic place was so fucking damp. The walls were sodden with medieval humidity. The garden rioted with unlovely life: David had seen a fat torpid slow-worm the first day, sliding brazenly into the kitchen.

It was detestable. The filthy Cagot house. It made David detest them: the Cagots. He wanted to flush away the grime from the countless Cagots who had hid here, slept here, fucked in here, cooked their stupid Cagot meals…

David calmed himself. The Cagots were being killed. They deserved pity.

How easy it was to hate.

A kestrel swung through the sky, which was fast clouding over. David heard a noise, and turned: Amy was at the door. She frowned his way; he smiled back. She and he had been forced to sleep, these last few nights, in the same dark musty bedroom — forced by the nastier, damper, more rotted state of all the other available rooms. They had bedded down beside each other, in adjoining bunks. Nothing physical had happened between them, yet…something had happened between them.

They had talked long into the nights, alone, by the flickering candlelight. Faces inches from each other: like kids hiding under the sheets.

And here she was: open, ready, prepared. His very close friend. Something good had come out of this terror and darkness: his deepening friendship with Amy Myerson. But then he realized: she was frowning.

'What's wrong? Is it Jose?'

'No. He still won't say a word. No — ' The frown was urgent and serious. 'It's Eloise.'

'What?'

'She's disappeared. At least I think she has. Can't find her anywhere.'

The first spatters of rain were cold on David's neck.

He ran into the house at once. And they started looking. They found Jose and Fermina in the damp sitting room, sullen and silent. Like peasants in a medieval Flemish painting. Like two ragged survivors of a terrible winter, huddled against the enduring cold.

'Jose. We can't find Eloise. Have you seen her?'

Jose mumbled a 'No'. His face was set in the same expression he had worn since they came here. Self-pitying and resentful, and barely concealing his sorrowful fears. Of what?

Amy gasped with exasperation.

'Let's try upstairs.'

But there was nothing: Eloise really was gone. They tracked through all the many bedrooms. Nothing. They explored the garden, the front garden, the back garden. They walked a few nervous paces into the darkening woods, that fed into the ravine, whose stern and brutal stone walls rose behind the house.

Nothing.

Slowly, a cold unpleasant idea overcame David. Had she been snatched? Had she wandered into Campan proper? Eloise had said several times that she desperately wanted to use email and she desperately wanted to go to church for confession. Either of those tasks would have taken her over the bridge. Had she taken a stupid risk? Had she gone into the village?

They stood in the dim light of the hallway and discussed their options. They had no choice. They had to go and get her and bring her back. Amy volunteered to explore the village; David insisted he would do it.

He ran out, and up the rutted road that led to the bridge. He was in the centre of the cagoterie, the ruinous ghetto. Calling Eloise's name, he sprinted past the shattered houses and barns. Was she inside one of the ruined Cagot hovels? But surely not: the black sockets of their empty windows were silent. The battered doors of the cagoterie hadn't been opened in fifty years. Rusted scythes lay in the grass unused. A larger house had a goose foot painted on the wall: crudely spray-painted. And next to it a cackling teenage graffito:

Fous les camps Cagot!

David crossed the bridge. The rain was drenching now but he didn't care. He was at the end of the lane. By the walled churchyard. He walked past a slumped and grinning rag doll, with its head burst open, showing the yellow straw stuffing inside; he pushed the gate, negotiated the path, and entered the church.

It wasn't a Sunday, so he was surprised to see a service.

The congregation was tiny, half a dozen old people and a geriatric priest. And four mansized rag dolls. The service was some kind of harvest festival. A dismal little collection of tomatoes, corncobs, and tinned Del Monte pineapple was arranged by the altar. It took David two seconds to work out Eloise was not amongst the worshippers. The priest was staring at David but he ignored the hostile glare.

Striding outside the church again, he pushed the squealing gate, then ran through the punishing rain to the one place where Eloise might have gone, to maybe use the internet, a small tabac with a terminal or two.

The shop was shut; there wasn't even a rag doll in the window. Eloise had gone, completely gone. David felt a mixture of anger, worry — and an ardent empathy. Eloise's sadness, the terrible sadness of the newly orphaned, reminded him all too easily of his own sadness, his own orphaning. She was like him. She had suffered like him. He thought of her proud, defiant, silent tears, as she drove them away from Miguel in Gurs.

Eloise was brave. She deserved so much better than this. He had to find her before Miguel did. But he didn't know where to turn. Where had she gone? And why? What was happening to them all?

There were so many questions, falling on them, drenching them all, like a Pyrenean cloudstorm. They were drowning in puzzles and mystery. And they had to reach for the only answer, their only lifesaver.

Jose.

David ran through the teeming rain, past the war memorial, down to the bridge and the river, and the gutted cagoterie. The wetness slid down his neck, it damped his shirt to his chest. He didn't care. He was angry now: the flickering idea that Eloise had been taken by Miguel was all too gruesome and too angering.

He found Amy in the hall of the Cagot house, waiting: her blonde hair bright in the gloom. They talked for one minute, the conclusion of their debate was immediate. Amy agreed: they had to confront Jose. And David was the man to do it, because the conversation could be brutal and Amy was too close to the Garovillos.

David prepared himself as he crossed the hall: he focussed his angry thoughts. He was going to extract the truth. Whatever it took.