It is unlikely that I can remain here. There is a good chance that following Paul’s conversation certain people will begin to feel they can find me. I doubt they will discover my location because of the precautions we have in place.
However, it may be time to leave again. A nagging sense in the back of my head that has stood me in good stead in the past. I am sure leaving is the best idea but at my age, I am not confident I am able to do it again.
The phone call could be seen as the final argument to convince me to leave here. In all honesty, I won’t mind if I need to leave, the people here are vacuous cosmopolitans with no morals. It’s time to prepare.
Christmas In Savoy
Tuesday, 24 December 1985
Today has been the first day since we arrived at Janko’s cottage in snowy Savoy that the longing for my parents has almost overwhelmed me. My cosy bedroom induces cloying claustrophobia, aided by the heavy duck down duvet. I peek out of the covers at the clock on the wall at the foot of my bed which states it is seven in the morning.
I quickly jump out of bed and dress into tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt. I lightfoot my way across the hallway and out of the front door. Forty metres ahead is the lake, sugar-frosted with a layer of ice. The temperature must be minus ten but I’m glad of the bracing air and the dearth of wind.
The beautiful, chalky lake is entrancing and I dip my right foot in, easily breaking the thin layer of ice. The water makes me gasp but I hold my foot in as long as I can. I’m tempted to take off my clothes and jump in but Janko says I should only take one full-body ice bath a week.
I decide that two dips in two days won’t kill me and I slip out of my clothes, take eight deep breaths and then bomb into the water. I gasp as the exhilarating cold envelopes my body and immediately reduces my body temperature. The coldness thrills me and I start laughing at the sheer madness that is me wallowing in this random lake in France.
I pull my arms out of the water and examine the bruises dotted along each arm like filthy brown smudges. The bruises are painful all across my body but at long last, I am beginning to notice my muscles develop and my body evolve from a skinny teenager into that of an athletic woman.
My toned body is becoming my shell, my protective layer against homesickness. A year ago today my family celebrated Christmas together in Ljubljana. It’s no exaggeration to say that was a lifetime ago.
A year ago I was a quiet girl helping my mother put up the decorations on the Christmas tree. I would take over from Dad putting the figures in the nativity scene, his clumsy hands knocking over the three wise men making them look like a bunch of village drunks. My Dad would pretend to be annoyed at this and then pat me on the head as I told him I would sort it out.
Now I’m running eleven kilometres five or six days a week, swimming three days a week, lifting and chopping logs five days a week, sparring seven days a week with Gunari. Occasionally I even cook a hearty home cooked dinner for Janko and Gunari.
In all honesty, Christmas last year was more mundane than when I was a little kid. At seventeen, it doesn’t mean much, a festival for kids and the religious. Yet, the thought of my dad lighting the yule log on Christmas Eve in our toasty-warm front room makes my belly swirl. The same ripping hole in my gut I felt on the morning I was taken away by the two men.
I have been surprised at how easy the acclimatisation to my new life has been. Gunari told me that exercise is good for the brain and the body and he’s right. My thoughts have been lucid and clear-cut. The self-discipline that I applied to my studies has now swapped over to my physical regime. I have enjoyed running different routes around the hills and lakes and the changing of the seasons. The first beautiful snowfall coincided with my first week of running ten kilometres.
My body is beginning to numb now, a sure sign that I’ve been in the water for long enough at this temperature. The icy water is healing my bruised body, I dip my face in the pool. The bruise below my left eye stings and I pull my head out of the water.
In yesterday’s one-on-one combat training, Gunari had whacked me full across the face after I failed to duck one of his punches. He knocked me down and I must have lost consciousness. In what seemed to be the very next moment, he was handing me a cup of coffee.
“There’s whiskey in it,” he said, his face stonily impassive.
I couldn’t speak, my whole head was still ringing, bright sparkles in my vision. I took the mug and sipped at it.
“My hand travelled a fair way there Ana, you should have seen it coming,”
“I know,” was all I could say and the tears were welling in my eyes, more from the deadening sense of failure rather than the actual blow.
“All it takes is one drop in concentration and you’re dead. You know this Ana. The last week you have been slacking,”
“I haven’t,”
“This isn’t an argument, I’m not engaging in a discussion about each individual point I make. I’m stating facts,”
“I didn’t see it,”
“And next time you will do. Your improvement has been rapid since you came here but I won’t tolerate a drop off in performance,”
“I’m sorry, Gunari,”
“Don’t apologise. Learn.”
I continued to sip at the coffee, tolerating the burning of the top of my throat and enjoying the queerness as it travels down my chest and warms my insides.
“Every time you train,” Gunari took the cup away from me, sat on his haunches with his eyes barely twenty centimetres from my face, “Remember why you are doing this, if you remember the hurt and the prejudice every single day you will need no more motivation. It’s what I do every day.”
Gunari stood up and began to walk back to the cottage, he turned back to me and said:
“It helps with the penance too. Our actions compel us to silence. The Lord tells us that silence eats our bones away. The responsibilities are a burden but if you embrace that responsibility it helps day-to-day.”
Gunari’s ominous pronouncements would sound absurd from Janko. From Gunari, the Old Testament has burst back to life and is repeatedly smashing my head in. I’m sure one day I will see him stoning a blasphemer outside the back door.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready,” I replied.
“You will, Ana. But it will take time and discipline, which is what we have at the moment. You can look at this as a vocation. In a few years, you may even be glad of these times,”
“What, you clobbering me around the chops? I remain very sceptical of that Gunari,”
Gunari laughed and walked back into the house and left me nursing my aches.
I’m shivering a tremendous amount, I need to get out of the water. As I spin around I see Gunari wearing his running clothes at the edge of the lake holding a towel. He nods at me, places the towel down and sets off around the lake for his morning jog.
I doggy paddle back to shore and exit the water. It’s even colder than inside the water so I wrap the towel around me and scamper back to the cottage and back inside where I sit by the fire.
Janko is also up and about and sat in his tattered red chair with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate with toast and jam in the other.
“Help yourself Ana, I’ve made a bit too much hot bread,”
“Thanks,” I say and begin buttering some toast, “I’ll head to the shop afterwards, do you need anything?”
“Only the newspaper, princess. You know how I like to keep myself abreast of current affairs in the world,”
This conversation is now a ritual. I ask Janko if he needs anything from the shop and he replies with a remark about his love of the news. It has become a reassuring aspect of my time here in Savoy.
I finish my toast, change into jeans, t-shirt and a big furry white parka I found last month in the back of one of the wardrobes. The walk to town is a couple of miles uphill, most days I try and jog it but this morning I amble absent-mindedly. Snow-dipped trees escort me along the well-paved road.
No tra
ffic passes by and with it being the festive season the chances of a vehicle passing me by have reduced to almost zero. I stick to the centre road marking and try to line my steps up with the non-painted sections.
My low-tempo steps are virtually the only sounds I can hear. I spot a couple of pine martens burrowing around in the muddy snow-sludge at the side of the road but that is the only other sign of life. I can see why Gunari likes living here by the lake, a sense of peacefulness simply washes over me when I walk to town.
The town itself is called Criément, not far from Chamonix and the borders with Italy and Switzerland. It is more of a village in all honesty but compared to life at the cottage it is a bustling metropolis. The silence remains as I pass by cottages on both sides of the road. I can see the shop in the distance and the “Ouvərt” sign is lit up. I’m not even sure how a neon sign can have the letter ‘E’ dangling upside down and remain lit up but it does gladden my heart each time I see it.
I enter the shop and wave at the shopkeeper, a man with a tremendous comic-book walrus moustache called Xavier. The man is called Xavier, not the moustache. I don’t think he has named his ‘tache. He waves back cheerily.
I walk to the counter and see his face turn from cheer to concern.
“Everything OK Xavier?” I say,
“I am well young lady, but what about you? Your face?” he replies. I realise now that the heavy bruising around my eye will look shocking to strangers. A sign of my otherworldly existence I now inhabit. I raise my hand up to the brown mark on my cheek.
“Oh yeah, I’m OK. I’ve been doing some boxing training,”
“Hmm, girls shouldn’t box,” Xavier says, disbelief etched around his eyes.
“Why not? I like it,”
“It’s not ladylike, you could hurt yourself,”
“Don’t be so old-fashioned Xavier,” I say, giggling, and start shadow-boxing in front of the counter, “It keeps me in shape. I’ll be ready to take on Clubber Lang soon.”
“Who? Does he live around here? Lang, you say? Sounds like a German name to me,” Xavier now looks completely nonplussed, “You’re crazy, young lady. How is Janko? I do worry about my older customers when it comes to this time of year,”
“He’s good thank you. He told me you would be open today even though it’s the day before Christmas. I thought you would be closed.”
“I only open in the mornings for the next few days, you would be surprised how many people forget things. I’ve got a couple of the papers in that Janko ordered,”
Xavier handed me the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the British Sunday Times and Le Monde, a French newspaper. I hand over twenty francs and with the change, I buy myself a bottle of Orangina to drink on the journey home.
“Goodbye Xavier, have a lovely Christmas,” I say. popping my hood up on my parka in the doorway.
“See you soon Ana, enjoy the rest of the festive season,”
Instead of rushing home I sit on the bench outside the St Symphorien church to drink my Orangina. Fair play to the French, they know how to make a nice soda. It’s much nicer than the Cockta I would occasionally drink when doing my homework.
I glance at the French newspaper and it has some boring news about politics. The English one seems to be more of the same. The Swiss one has a story about some scandal-ridden politician trying to avoid resigning and a story about some stolen artwork being found in Germany which might be worth millions. Shame I didn’t find that on my walk to the shop.
I set off back towards the cottage, downhill this time so a very easy journey. I check in my jacket pocket and touch the first weapon that Gunari gave me last month, my tiger claw.
As well as the strength training Gunari has been teaching me how to use weapons. He’s not trusted me with a gun yet but we have been using a variety of weapons used around the world. My favourites have been the Japanese shuko which is a claw-like weapon which you wrap around your hand. The iron claws rest on the palm and you can rip a man’s face off with ease. Gunari taught me that it’s also an effective defensive weapon which can counter a knife attack.
The instrument that I have practised with the most is the bagh nakh, from an Indian word for ‘tiger claw’. Janko told me that it is an old Roma weapon from the days before our people migrated West.
It is quite similar to the shuko in that it is a claw weapon. Instead of the claws resting on the palm, they nestle against the underside of the fingers, akin to having talons.
Much of the training is not to do with striking but in using the body to generate the momentum used to perform stealth kills. Gunari has shown me how to balance and move with the grace of one of those Romanian Olympic gymnasts. He said in boxing it is the movement of the feet rather than the hands that often proves decisive. I would suggest it is equally important not to be punched in the face.
Many days I have headed to the shop spinning around and swiping at imaginary enemies. I have to remember to leave the bagh nakh in my pocket when I go into the shop. The last thing Xavier needs to see is me slicing open the bags of pasta on the shelves.
The gradient of the road increases and the downhill walk becomes even easier. Two weeks ago I went on my first assignment with Gunari. Sadly I didn’t even have the chance to use my tiger claw but I did see the potential power we hold.
Hearts and Minds
Tuesday, 24 December 1985
I see the pine martens again frolicking in the snow. Tiny little creatures that are so vulnerable to nature. Predators wanting to kill and eat them. The weather conspiring to freeze them or drown them. The fragility of their lives. The fragility of all life.
Three weeks ago and as usual Janko was sat in his chair and commentating on whatever articles he was reading in the newspapers. No one listens to him but he seems to enjoy narrating the day’s current affairs. Suddenly he jerked out of the chair. Gunari, who was sat at the table cleaning his pistol snapped round.
“What’s up Janko?” he said, “Are you ill?”
Janko is waving his copy of Le Progrès and pointing at something on one of the pages. It was a tremendously comical image. His cheeks were red and he was spluttering.
“Jesus, Janko,” Gunari said, “Calm down and tell us what you’ve read,” Janko looks at us both and then almost turns off an internal switch, calming immediately and re-taking his seat.
“There is an article in this newspaper today about a man aiming to be elected as the new mayor of a town called Meyzieu, close to Lyon,” Janko said, once more waving the paper above his head from his seated position, “He has pledged to, and I quote, ‘deal with the recent infestation of gypsy thieves’ in the commune.”
“Infestation,” I said, “Like flies?” I looked to Gunari who nodded.
“The wonderful new mayor has blamed a spate of stolen cars in the area on a group of Roma who have moved to a camp near the Grand Large reservoir. There are other quotes but I’m not reading them to you, I’m too angry,”
Janko stood up, waved the paper around one more time and walked out of the room with it. Gunari turned towards me and said:
“Well, Ana. This could be your first chance to see what we do,”
Two days later, Gunari and I set off on the road to Lyon in Janko’s battered Argenta. Janko remained at the cottage. We arrived at the Roma campsite at lunchtime and we were welcomed by four of the men from the camp. One of the men embraced Gunari in a way that suggested they had known each other for a while.
The camp was in a state of disarray, out of the twelve or so caravans and motorhomes a couple had been burnt out. The smell of oil and smoke lingered in the air. The camp itself was in a car park in the middle of an industrial estate. A couple of young boys ran past me playing tag. Aside from the four men we were walking with, other adults were talking to each other in hushed tones and periodically looking at us.
There was a palpable tension, you would have to be emotionally crippled not to be able to sense the bubbling anger. I was immediately conscious of being fa
r, far out of my depth. These people were looking to Gunari and me for answers. I kept my head down as we walked up to a sparkling new motorhome parked at the back of the lot parallel to the wall of the warehouse behind.
The six of us walked in through the back towards a table that seats four people. Gunari and I parked ourselves on one side and two of the guys sat opposite. The other two guys; one a rat-faced young man of about twenty-five and a man who could have been his father stood up squarely behind the seated ones.
“Gunari,” the man nearest the window said, his eyes betrayed his lack of sleep. Dark marks ringed his eyes and edged down his nose, “It’s been a long time,”
“Yes, far too long Jean,” Gunari reached his hand out and the man gave it a quick, yet warm squeeze, “What happened to the caravans?”
“Last night, after we spoke, a couple of men turned up in the early hours and petrol bombed us,”
“There were children in the caravans,” the bald, intense-looking man next to Jean blurted out angrily, flecks of spit flying from his mouth, Both men are at least in their fifties, “Can you believe it? We woke up when we heard screams. What a scene, God only knows how many bombs were chucked at us,”
“Did everyone escape?” Gunari asked.
“Yes, we managed to rescue everyone,” Jean gestured to the men behind, “Gabrielle, Mondine’s mother and Tony’s grandmother, she suffered from the smoke. We took her to the hospital this morning and she is still there.”
“Bastards,” the younger one, Tony said.
“Why don’t you two go back to the hospital and check on her? I can sort out everything here,” Jean said. The two men eyeballed me suspiciously and then left the vehicle. I could sense Jean’s gaze on me and I was reluctant to lift my head up.
“This is Ana,” Gunari said, “She is working with us now, Jean,”
“She’s very young,” Jean replied, “and scrawny,”
The Wind and the Rain Page 4
