Tyson swore and pulled out a handkerchief, wrapping it tightly around his bleeding hand. He’d jumped down from the balcony into a small back alley, a narrow road that led into the town. He got to his feet hurriedly, dusting down his trousers, then adopted a casual saunter as he started walking towards the promenade de la Plage. He needed the ocean to clear his head; he needed to think. The classicist was heading towards the Pyrenees, he was sure of it. Was it possible he was visiting Irumendi? Perhaps Jimmy van Peters told Winthrop something, a clue he didn’t know. Tyson was convinced the chronicle hadn’t been hidden in the family house of La Leona all those years ago. He’d gone through the farmhouse, tearing up cupboards, walls, even floorboards. It had been a tense situation, the men beneath him were close to mutiny, still traumatised from what they had just had to do – they would have shot him too if they’d known why he’d taken the mission in the first place. As it was, they had nearly turned their own guns upon him, their commanding officer, when he’d given the command to shoot La Leona and her men. It had taken every possible argument to convince them he was only following orders sent from Washington. It had been easier to justify the house search, telling the men they were looking for proof the Basques had betrayed them to the Soviets. A ridiculous hypothesis but the four young soldiers believed him.
Even after Tyson realised Jimmy van Peters had returned to the camp then fled to Paris, Tyson wasn’t entirely convinced Jimmy had the chronicle, or even believed in its existence. Van Peters had been so dismissive that night around the camp fire of La Leona’s passionate conviction that the chronicle held magical powers – why would she give the heirloom to her cynical lover for safekeeping? Nevertheless, over the years, Tyson had arranged certain burglaries at van Peters’s Parisian apartment, burglaries that had ransacked the place. He’d even had a mock electrician bug the place, but after three months of impromptu jazz sessions and noisy lovemaking with the young prostitutes the musician favoured, Tyson had pulled the surveillance. Besides, Jimmy had become paranoid and taken to changing his locks weekly, even to playing the same record over and over ridiculously loudly to drown anything that might have been said in the apartment. Tyson still couldn’t listen to Perry Como’s ‘Prisoner of Love’ – and he had never found the slightest evidence of the chronicle.
So why had Jimmy visited August Winthrop in London? There was no doubt the classicist was the perfect candidate to decipher the alchemist’s symbols and maps. Pondering the connection between the two men, Tyson watched the streetlights reflected in the lapping waters of the harbour. There was no moon, he noticed. A good night to travel unnoticed. No, all he needed to do was to follow and to watch, then make his next move. A large man stepped out of the shadows. Vinko, he was early.
‘Everything okay, boss?’
Tyson looked back across the ocean. To his great satisfaction, a seabird, night fishing, swooped down and caught a small fish in its beak.
‘Perfect.’
Looking around him, August felt completely and profoundly alone. He stepped into the clearing. Now he could see the glittering arc of the Milky Way and it was as if he were looking up into a window that opened out into eternity. His eternity. He shivered – the night had arrived at that preternatural moment when the earth’s surface had reached its coolest. His Spanish comrades used to say it was the hour that belonged to the spirits. Those who still walked without knowing they had died. There were many in that war. Young men from cities and countries, who had never seen a vineyard before, plucked the hard fruit of an olive from a tree, felt the relentless sun burn their skin and yet they were killed, shot down, amazement still frozen on their faces. We left fields of foreign ghosts. Charlie one of them. Don’t think, walk, August told himself, rubbing his arms and legs. He had to keep moving – determined to empty his mind, he strode purposefully across the clearing and found his way to the rock marking the new path, then plunged back into the dark.
The riverbed was narrow, covered in stones and small scrub that had pushed its way through the water-worn pebbles. Already blisters chafed at his ankles and his neck and back ached from the two heavy bags. There was thin snow on the ground and the temperature dropped steadily the higher he climbed. Without warning, the path narrowed dramatically as two walls of rock loomed up, broken only by the now extinct stream that must have cut its way through over aeons. The wind rustled the trees that overhung both banks, bringing with it the faint sound of voices. It was coming from the left of him. August froze. He peered up through the snow-laden trees, squinting to see more clearly in the darkness. Slowly, the outline of a checkpoint tower came into focus, framed in one of the windows the silhouette of two guards. August looked behind him and in front. He had no choice, he had to keep moving to make the rendezvous point. Lifting the two bags onto his shoulders, he began to wriggle sideways through the narrow gap between the rocks, his feet down in the thin trickle of water that was the remnants of the stream. Inch by inch, he manoeuvred forward, his arms aching from the supernatural effort of balancing the rucksacks. Just then one of his shoulders dislodged a small rock, causing a small cascade of pebbles and stones that bounced noisily against the banks. Again he stopped still, motionless, willing himself into rock.
In that instant the top of the forest was illuminated by a light coming on in the tower. Now August could see the two young Spanish border guards clearly, and with a sickening rush realised how close the tower actually was, far closer than he had calculated. One of the guards pushed open one of the windows. He peered blindly down into the forest, his rifle pointing out.
‘What was that?’ The Spaniard sounded young, his accent thick and rustic, some naive rookie following orders August thought. The second guard, moustached and older-looking, came up behind the first, rubbing his eyes as if he’d just woken up.
‘Nothing, maybe a wolf, there’s plenty around here, you know.’ Indifferent, he turned his back to the window. The young guard didn’t move. Instead he swung his rifle point down across the top of the forest.
‘Maybe I should kill it,’ he ventured, and August tensed. He didn’t like the nervousness in the guard’s voice.
‘Why, you scared of wolves? If so they shouldn’t have given you this posting, my friend.’ The older guard laughed. ‘Wolves are nothing. What you should be afraid of is the Basque wild mountain man – they say he has hair all over his body and teeth like a demon, and he eats Spanish boys like you for breakfast.’
‘Even so, I still think we should check.’ There was a click and a searchlight cut through the branches and leaves creating a band of vivid colour in a monochrome landscape. It began to sweep across the stream, falling on a tree trunk near August. He crouched as low as he could without making any noise and held his breath. If they saw him, they’d shoot and probably shoot to kill. The water had begun to seep into his mountain boots and his toes were freezing. Consciously, he took himself out of his body, allowing himself to become one with the night sky, with the frigid air, with a moth that danced inches away, a solitary acrobat drawn towards the eye of the light.
The beam now swept closer, brushing the edge of his jacket. August closed his eyes, waiting for the sharp slice of a bullet to hit him. Instead, there was silence. He opened his eyes again. The beam had passed over him and was now filtering through the branches on the opposite bank.
‘I think you’re right,’ August could hear the young guard tell his companion. ‘Just some dumb animal.’
August stayed down until the light went off again in the tower and finally when he was convinced the guards were settled again, inched his way forward and clear to the other side of the narrow ravine.
Fifteen minutes later, after climbing higher and higher, the dry riverbed petered out into a flat broad shallow mouth of pebbles, and he emerged onto a windswept plateau. A short stooped figure was waiting.
‘Tin Man?’ The voice was genderless, the accent Basque.
August, too cold and numb to speak, nodded. Joseba’s contact stepped forward.
Now he could see that it was a woman, an older woman in perhaps her sixties, weathered by poverty and hardship. She took the bag Joseba had given him, then put his gloved freezing hand into her own, rubbing it vigorously.
‘Come, we need to resurrect you.’
8
There was a dull clanging. August, barely conscious, lay dozing on the hard wooden bunk bed. For a moment he forgot where he was, but the sharp cold air laced with the smell of fresh coffee, and the persistent ringing that he now recognised as goats’ bells, brought the events of the night before flooding back. Remembering how Joseba’s contact had guided him to a mountain hut then given him a strong glass of txakoli and a sheepskin blanket, he reached under his pillow for the Mauser he vaguely recalled hiding before passing out. The pistol wasn’t there. Startled, he sat up, narrowly avoiding banging his head on the bed above him. Cursing his own stupidity he climbed out into the room. Shivering and dressed in just his boxer shorts and singlet, he pulled on his trousers and glanced around the simple mountain hut. It had a small wood-fire iron stove against the back wall, upon which a pot of coffee was brewing. Long wooden skis that looked as if they dated from the twenties were resting up against a wall and apart from the bunk beds, there was only a wooden table and bench set under a window. The Mauser lay on the table. He walked over. Someone had cleaned and oiled it, the old woman no doubt. He picked it up and cocked the trigger. The action was smooth, super smooth. It was now almost as good as brand-new. He smiled to himself and bent to look out of the window. Outside stretched a spectacular view of the Pyrenees. It was overwhelmingly beautiful.
August went to the door and pushed it open, and immediately the chilly breeze, fragrant with the smell of long grass and flowering blooms, swept across him, infusing his lungs and limbs with new vigour. On the plateau that stretched out before him new grass was springing up between patches of snow. Several goats grazed on the bright-green tufts, domesticated, judging by the bells hanging around their necks. Sitting at some distance on a large flat rock was the woman. She appeared to be staring out over the valley, standing guard over her goats, he guessed, but also looking out for intruders, unwelcome guests. He waved; she waved back but didn’t move. After glancing up at the sun, he realised it was late, perhaps even mid-morning. They needed to get going. August went back inside and poured himself a coffee into a large tin mug. Bitter but warming. He pulled open his bag and took out his notebook. Here was his rough sketch of Shimon Ruiz de Luna’s rendering of the first of the secret locations the Spaniard visited following Elazar ibn Yehuda’s ancient map. There was the small round bulge that indicated the village Cabo Ogoño, from where Shimon Ruiz de Luna’s wife Uxue came, positioned close to the fishing village of Elantxobe. Inland from that was the actual location itself. To the left of a village named Mañaria, near Gernika, was marked a small village at the foot of the three mountains – Irumendi. Underneath, August had written a translation of Shimon Ruiz de Luna’s own Latin quote: ‘The first of Elazar ibn Yehuda’s sacred locations lays here between the silver birch and oak near the Goddess’s cave.’
August laid his hand on the sketch. He knew Irumendi must be within ninety miles of where he was now sitting. The rush of the explorer, of the researcher who places two disparate facts together and suddenly sees an extraordinary synchronicity gripped August’s senses. A tentative knock on the door interrupted him. He managed to close his notebook just before the woman entered, a goatherd’s switch still in her hand and a thin straight tree branch stripped of its leaves in the other, her weathered face as wrinkled as a prune.
‘You have your coffee?’ Her Spanish had a heavy Basque accent.
‘Thank you, it is good, and thank you for cleaning my gun,’ he answered, with a smile. She did not smile back. Instead, she closed the door of the hut, placed the switch and the tree branch beside it and poured herself a coffee.
‘It is an old pistol. You’ll need a new one if you intend to use it.’
‘I’m happy with my old one. It’s just an archaeological research trip. But I have history with Franco,’ he lied, determined to cover his tracks.
She swung around with her coffee in her hand.
‘I don’t need to know why you are here. Now that you have delivered, you are no longer my responsibility,’ she snapped back.
‘I understand,’ he said and pulled the other chair out for her. She sat down, careful to keep her eyes on the front door. ‘We should leave in the next half-hour. That will give us time to get to the next village.’
‘Just one other question.’
She looked up enquiringly, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
‘Have you heard of a village called Irumendi?’ He studied her face. She looked away, but for a moment August caught a glimmer of something in her eyes.
‘No, I do not know of this village,’ she replied, her voice guarded and low. He sensed immediately that she was lying.
‘In that case would it be possible to get me to San Sebastián?’
‘Donostia?’ she queried, using the Basque name. ‘This I can do, but I’m telling you, this village of the three mountains, it does not exist, or maybe only in American tourist guidebooks,’ she added, cynically, convincing August that not only did the village exist, but she did not want him to visit it, an observation that simply fuelled his curiosity.
‘We will travel as goatherds. You must put these clothes on.’ She threw him a long, roughly woven hooded smock he remembered the local shepherds wearing over their trousers, and a pair of abarkak. ‘If we meet any roadblocks, you are my nephew from Galicia, but you must keep your blond hair under your cap.’
August began pulling on the smock then reached for the abarkak. The soft leather fitted snugly over his feet, and he tied the lacing up over his ankles. The woman watched, a bemused expression playing over her severe features as he stood and adopted a gait he thought appropriate.
‘Good, you know how to change yourself, like a demon. Maybe you’ve worked as a spy?’
August said nothing, merely smiled enigmatically. The less she knew the better.
She shrugged and continued talking. ‘We will rendezvous with a driver who will take us into Donostia – your San Sebastián. The meeting place is only an hour’s walk from here, but if anyone stops us you are not to speak. Your very presence is suspicious, there are so few men left. They have gone, either murdered by the fascists or exiled. This is a region run by women. You will be popular.’ Now she smiled for the first time, a mischievous wit crackling in her black eyes.
‘I’m here only for my research. I do not intend to get into any kind of trouble,’ he replied, amazing himself by blushing.
The woman shrugged disbelievingly, put her coffee down and fetched the thin sapling branch back to the table. After reaching into a pocket in her voluminous skirt, she pulled out a switchblade and snapped it open with professional ease. The blade gleamed in the sunlight. For a second August wondered whether he should be thinking about defending himself, but to his relief she picked up the sapling and began whittling at it.
‘When we arrive in Donostia you are on your own.’ She looked up from her carving. ‘Entirely on your own.’
‘I understand.’
‘The letter Joseba sent with you said that you fought with the Republicans, that’s why you could not be here officially,’ she said, concentrating on her handiwork.
‘This is true.’
‘Then, with respect, comrade, you must understand the danger you will bring to any Basque village if you are found by Polícia Civil. They are brought in from the South; they are Spaniards, not Basques. They watch us like hawks, they beat us for speaking our own language. We have no news coming into the country except for Franco’s propaganda, so we are isolated. Be careful, my friend, but not only with your own life.’ She finished carving and handed August the new goatherd’s switch she’d just made out of the sapling.
August sat in the open with the ten goats they’d herded onto the truck back on the mountain
slope, watching the road recede behind him. The pick-up had happened without a hitch. The truck driver took the package Joseba had sent then helped the woman and her goats onto the truck. He and the old woman exchanged a few brusque words, but in Euskara – incomprehensible to August – and the two moved quickly and efficiently in a way that suggested they worked together in this manner all the time. The driver – an old florid-faced man – glanced at August only once and that was to indicate he should pull his hood further down over his beret to conceal more of his hair.
The drive down from the mountains to the coast and San Sebastián had been beautiful, but the scars of the war and the resulting poverty were still evident – bombed-out cottages, barren fields and, as Franco had withdrawn much of the funds of the province, in many ways it looked less prosperous than the last time August was in Gipuzkoa in 1938. The most noticeable difference was the lack of men – everywhere August looked it was women, old men and boys cutting down grass with scythes, working stoically in lines as they moved through the small fields.
The country lane had become paved, then narrowed as they entered the outskirts of the port city. To the left of him snaked the majestic Río Urumea, the opposite bank lined with elegant nineteenth-century palaces and various government institutes. San Sebastián was evidently one of the commercial and administrative centres of the region. Yet it had the air of a wealthy city that had reached its zenith in the last century, and the apartment blocks along the wide avenue on his side of the river boasted balconies and ornate façades. The old woman nudged him – a sudden blast of garlic and goat.
The Map Page 18
