by Richard Gwyn
Like a man nursing a sword-thrust through the groin, he lay doubled-up and shivering. He was waiting, and was prepared to wait. The more total his emptiness became, the less the waiting bothered him. He allowed it to envelop him, to make of him a void creature. He was weightless, impassive, and, in a strange sense, nurtured by this emptiness. He in turn nurtured the emptiness so that nothing might touch him. Anything that attempted to get close would vanish into the same void he himself had disappeared into.
He was roused by the rustling of keys in the lock of his cell door. A light came on, and he saw that there was a bare electric bulb above the doorway, evidently controlled by an outside switch. The door opened, and Zaco appeared, carrying a large pitcher of water and a tray, which he placed on the floor. Somebody behind him passed Zaco a blanket. Lucas called out to them to wait, but they were gone before he could rouse himself from the floor. The light stayed on, a small consolation. In the far corner of the cell there was a hole in the rough stone floor, which must have been intended to serve as a toilet. Lucas went to the door and hammered on it uselessly for a minute, then settled down to the contents of his tray, which consisted of a thin vegetable soup and bread, and a slice of goat’s cheese.
He swallowed the soup greedily and had begun to nibble on the cheese when he heard footsteps once more in the corridor. This time there was one person, and the door did not open, but the light was extinguished, leaving him again in sudden and pitch darkness. He shouted after the retreating footsteps in vain, and then finished his bread and cheese in the remorseless silence that ensued. He guessed it was already dark outside but had no way of knowing. It was certainly colder now, and he wrapped himself in the blanket and lit a cigarette. It was important for him to conserve the fuel in his lighter. Not that there was anything to do in the cell. He simply felt that having access to some light would prevent him from going completely crazy. He was sure they had not intended him to have a light, and that a failure to search him must simply have been an oversight, or laziness on the part of Zaco and Le Chinois, rather than an act of charity.
He could not recall how many times food was delivered to him over the next few days. However, apart from the fragmentation of the hours by unpredictable meals, he was treated to occasional glimpses of daylight: from time to time a hand reached down and the metal grill, set into the wall just below the ceiling, was opened, allowing a trickle of light to enter the room. While bringing him an almost joyful release from the utter darkness, and a hint of fresh air, it was not kept this way permanently and during the night no light entered the room anyway, whether the grill was open or not.
After the first half-dozen visits, he was not sure whether he was being brought an evening meal or a morning meal, since the menu remained much the same. Occasionally he would be given some rice or pasta in place of the soup. The portions were meagre and rarely warm, but sufficient to keep him from starving. A couple of times he was certain they had brought him two meals within the space of an hour, and conversely, he was once left alone for what seemed like an eternity. On that occasion he was so weak he could barely crawl to the door when his food was eventually delivered, and had to chew the bread slowly, aware that bolting it might make him vomit.
Nothing was provided for him apart from the bare meals, for which he was absurdly grateful. While he was able to use the primitive toilet, there were no washing facilities, and he could not spare much of the drinking water for that. After a few days the problem of sanitation ceased to bother him. He could not live without food and water, but he could live with his own stench.
The process of gradual mental de-stabilisation set in early. He had read about political and religious prisoners kept alert and compos mentis by their tenets and faith. He had none to resort to. He was completely alone, with no God and no creed. His unexpected flirtation with Christianity had come via the born-again Cathars (whose authenticity he was now in no way prepared to accept) and had ended as abruptly as it had begun. He took no pleasure in contemplating the future, let alone an afterlife, sitting as he did amid the cognitive rubble and detritus of his current one, but he was given to occasional outbreaks of demented laughter. This laughter was his only means of communication, and there was no recipient except the bare walls. Frequently his laughter disintegrated into tears. He wept until he was devoid of all feeling, which he supposed was the purpose also of his laughter: to empty himself of emotion. Laughter, tears, then silence. He hallucinated sounds that would have brought him comfort—birdsong, a waterfall, the wind—promising himself that he would never again take these sounds for granted, a promise whose fulfilment was as uncertain to him as his release from this cell. He began to cherish the memories of food, of a comfortable bed, of a sunlit beach.
Inevitably, he pined for Nuria. What he could not come to terms with was her apparent and declared sense of enjoyment in his company, her eagerness to seduce him and be seduced, her perfect enactment of a young woman in love. He revisited in his imagination every meal they had eaten together, every conversation they had shared: above all, he passed hours in the detailed reconstruction of their abundant sex life. These harrowing reflections sometimes led to bouts of prolonged and inspired masturbation, followed by troughs of inevitable and incremental misery. He found it impossible to believe, in spite of all the evidence, that Nuria could have maintained the fiction of being in love as convincingly as she appeared to have done. He tried to convince himself that Pontneuf had hypnotised her, that he had drugged her, that he held some terrible power over her which she was incapable of escaping. But still his doubts remained, a subterranean well of distrust and resentment that he would draw on in his moments of deepest anxiety.
After an eternity of such days and nights, he was awakened rudely from a deep sleep by Zaco and Le Chinois, who carried a mop and a bucket. Zaco indicated that he was to clean up his toilet corner. Le Chinois made idiotic mopping movements, as though explaining the task to one as cretinous as himself. He set about the task enthusiastically—physical work, and the dim light, providing a novel break for him—and when he had finished, sat for a while regarding his new pine-fresh world in silence before hammering on the door of the cell with the mop handle. Zaco appeared almost at once. He signalled down the corridor and within a few seconds Nuria was in the doorway. Zaco stood aside and let her in. He must have stayed by the closed door, as his footsteps could not be heard echoing down the passage.
Lucas looked at Nuria in surprise. She seemed anxious and jittery. He had certainly not been prepared for this visit. She reached up and touched his hair, and he instinctively pulled away from her.
She slid down the wall to the floor, and sat there, knees pulled up to her chest. Then she began to apologise profusely and tearfully. She said she had had to bribe Zaco to allow her to visit, a comment which incited Lucas to sneer about the nature of such a bribe. She sighed, but made no retort. She told him that only since his incarceration had she truly come to realise how much he meant to her. He became angry. For days and days he had been bottling everything up in solitude, and now Nuria had appeared, seeking out his compassion and understanding.
“What’s gone wrong with your plans?” he asked. “Can’t the old man get it up? Or have you got tired of being a Christian? Well?”
He looked across at her. Her arms were hugging her knees and she was rocking to and fro. She looked up at him and her face was wet with tears. He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“I get weeks, a month, who knows how long in this shit-hole…” he began.
“Three weeks,” she muttered. “Twenty days. I counted them.”
“…and rot here in oblivion, but the moment you get an attack of guilt, long overdue I should add, you come running to see me, overcome with self-pity. What, or who, exactly, are you crying for?”
She brushed her face with the sleeve of her jersey, then looked him in the eyes.
“Please. Stop. They’re going to kill you, Lucas. You won’t believe how crazy things are getting.”
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He suddenly felt sick. He had suspected something very bad was going to happen, but to hear it put so bluntly into words still came as a shock.
“What? Why?”
Nuria spoke softly and quickly, her voice breaking with a convincing tearfulness.
“They’re going to have a show trial. They’re going to try you as Raymond Gasc and find you guilty of treachery, of selling out Rocher and his followers to the Inquisition. André’s told the others that Raymond betrayed the whole group in 1247 because he, Raymond, believed that Rocher and Clare were conducting a—you know—clandestine affair. There was an ambush in the mountains on the second day out of Mélissac. Raymond had informed the Inquisition of the group’s route.”
“But what of the leap into the unknown? The pact. The Cathar disappearing trick?”
“It never happened. But he’s told everyone slightly different things. The one thing that remains constant is that there was an agreement of some sort, that the group would fulfil their common destiny in a future incarnation. According to the current version, everyone except Raymond was taken back to Toulouse and burned alive.”
“I’ve been arguing with him for days,” she continued. “I think he knows I’ve turned against him. Ever since that day you were slung in here, I’ve been trying to find my way out of this mess, and back to you.”
She got up off the floor and put her arms around his neck, nestling her head against him, holding on tight. She was still shaking. He felt himself soften, and started stroking her hair, experiencing in rapid succession most of the emotions he had endured over the past three weeks: anger, bitterness, sorrow, and now this sudden warmth.
“How are they going to kill me?” he asked, finally.
A few seconds’ quiet. Then she said: “They’re going to burn you at the stake.”
16. IN WHICH THE “PAST” CLOSES IN
Lucas stopped stroking Nuria’s hair at this piece of information. Those few words put everything into perspective. He was at the mercy of a power-crazed psychopath obsessed with living out his medieval fantasy. As the prospect of his imminent death made its nest in the battered cave of his understanding, Lucas became absolutely terrified.
Before he had a chance to respond, however, Nuria spoke again. “I’m going to help you escape. If we succeed, and can both get away, will you promise to try and trust me again? I know it’s a lot to ask, after what’s happened. God, I’m so sorry. And asking favours of a condemned man, it should be the other way around, no? But certain things have happened since you’ve been in here. I can’t go into them now, no time.”
Lucas didn’t feel up to promising her anything. But then, nobody else was volunteering to help him out, and if the situation was as Nuria described, he was going to need a lot of help. He left her request unanswered.
“How can you trust Zaco not to tell Pontneuf you’ve met with me?”
“I can’t, but it’s my only option. Actually, of the four of them, Zaco’s the best, or rather the least moronic. And he owes me a favour.” She glanced at Lucas’s face and continued rapidly, “I helped him out once. He went absent without leave one day, hunting wild boar with some of the locals. I covered for him.”
But Lucas wasn’t taking this in.
“Can you tell me precisely what they’re going to try me for? I need to prepare myself in some way.”
“You will be tried as a traitor to Catharism, a papal spy. He’s deadly serious. I think he’s probably mad.”
“Well, that’s bloody useful.”
Nuria got to her feet.
“The thing with André is this: he thinks he can rationalise everything, while disregarding any rational criticisms of himself. He’s been, I don’t know, ruling my life. But I simply can’t take it anymore. My compliance has seized up. Hell, I’m so fucking confused. Look, I have to go. I’ll be missed. The trial is today, in the evening.”
“I’ve no idea what evening means.”
“Of course. No light. It’s morning now, around eleven. Listen: I will cause a distraction during the trial or immediately afterwards. I’ll sort something out, even if it does mean getting help from Zaco. You must get as far away as possible. Head west at first, then down through the forest. I’ll meet you, let’s see, it’s August the fifteenth today. God, I don’t know when. It might not be possible for me to go straight back to Barcelona, but I’ll get there. But we can be together again, I swear, if you could bring yourself to forgive me. But whatever you do, don’t come back for me. And don’t get the local police involved. André claims he has them eating out of his hand. Here, you’ll need some money. Take this.”
She handed Lucas a roll of bank notes, and his bank card, which she must have retrieved from his wallet. She also gave him a full pack of cigarettes and a lighter, his old one having expired days before. He stuffed the money and the card deep in his jeans pocket. As he did so, it occurred to him that if Nuria were really telling the truth about her plan, she was putting her own safety at risk.
“But what if they find out that you’ve helped me to escape? Pontneuf would know immediately. Won’t they take it out on you? Collusion and conspiracy. Christ, they’ll probably burn you instead!”
Nuria stared at him very hard. “No,” she said, unhesitatingly. “André wouldn’t lay a finger on me.”
He said it before he could stop himself: “That’s funny. I thought he’d already done more than that.”
Nuria began to get angry, her cheeks flushing, then drew herself up.
“It isn’t like that. One day I’ll try to explain everything. I guess I owe you a lot of explanations. But you just have to trust me. Please, let’s leave it there for now.”
But Lucas had been starved of any sort of contact for so long, and there was so much he needed to know. He couldn’t bear for her to leave, and should her plan for his escape misfire, possibly not see her again.
“No, Nuria. You’ve been holding stuff back from me for far too long. It was obvious that morning after the roof people came. Was that a sign then, that cross? That the plan would take place that night?”
Nuria looked at the wall, nodding her head.
“Christ almighty. And for those two weeks that we were together in Barcelona, were you seeing Pontneuf then, too? Were you fucking him?”
“Oh dear God. Lucas. No, I wasn’t even seeing him. Or anybody else. You, you…idiota. I was trapped, or rather inhabited by him. A younger him. Like carrying a second face on the back of my head. Do you remember?”
Lucas recalled the story she had told him in the Café de l’Opera.
“I believed what André told me to the extent that I agreed to take part in the Miró Foundation meeting. I never told you this, although I always meant to. Gradually it seemed to lose importance, after that day we met. You see, I had received a postcard also, identical message to yours, except mine had a picture of the sculptures on the roof garden.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? No wonder you found the story of my own postcard so amusing.”
“I wanted to. I even tried to, twice. But I had promised André not to tell you. He had such a grip on me. I had become dependent on him in a way I simply can’t find words for. I don’t know. How can I explain to you something that you’ve never known? It’s just not explainable. Of course I knew the postcard had come from André. Perhaps mine was also delivered by the roof people. There was no postage stamp. André had a connection with some of them a while back. I got the feeling that things didn’t work out the way he planned; they were free agents, didn’t succumb to his charms, but accepted his money. A few still do, apparently. In any case, he used me to lure you to him. I had no idea what precisely he had in mind, and I certainly hadn’t counted on falling in love with you. That wasn’t part of André’s plan.”
“Couldn’t he have predicted it? Knowing what he knew of Clare and Raymond Gasc? If we are their incarnations, aren’t we supposed to be in love?”
“The one thing the fortune teller can’t pre
dict is what’s right under his nose. André’s ego is so massive that he probably thought he could control everything. That’s his biggest flaw.”
“Tell me, Nuria. Are you sleeping with him?”
“No,” she said. “It’s never been like that.”
Nuria stopped, suddenly looking weary. She was not exactly presenting herself as a victim, which was some relief under the circumstances; but Lucas could tell, or thought he could tell, that she had been through a terrible personal struggle that stretched back years. Pontneuf had in some way marked her, had been active in forging the person she had become, and the imprint was still there.
An insistent rapping on the door brought Lucas back to his own ghastly reality.
Nuria started, then turned towards him.
“Whatever happens tonight, promise me you won’t give up on me. That we’ll meet up again. When we’re both ready. Will you?”
He had nothing to lose.
“I promise,” he said.
“Remember. Just be your usual charming self at the trial.” She almost smiled. “They’re going to find you guilty whatever you say.”
“Is that meant to reassure me?”
“I’ll make certain you have the chance to get away. That’s my promise.”
And with that, she put her arms around him and hugged him tight, brushing her lips against his throat. Then she knocked sharply on the door. Zaco opened it at once, and his face appeared in the doorway, leering. Lucas could have sworn he winked at him over Nuria’s shoulder as she left. The door remained open only for as long as it took for her to slip out, then closed quietly.
That was the longest day Lucas had ever known, waiting in his cell for the summons to whatever fate Pontneuf decreed for him. He had a meal of soup and bread shortly after Nuria left, brought to him by Le Chinois, and then was left alone. He paced the cell, something that he had developed into a fine art during all those dark days. He knew precisely where the walls were, through a kind of internal radar device, and was even able to sustain a fractured jog around the square room. He practised push-ups and sit-ups. He sank into a fit of deepest despair, followed by jubilant fantasies of escape and of meeting again with Nuria in Barcelona; of the two of them taking up their lives where they had left off. Finally he wrapped himself in his blanket, slipping into bouts of restless sleep. While he had not fully absorbed Nuria’s warning that he was to be burned at the stake, at times, between snatches of sleep, he felt the full impending dread of such an outcome.
