35
Sabir sat down on the motel walkway. He hunched forwards like a man with stomach cramp and rested his head on his knees. Would he never again manage to sleep a night straight through? The constant waking up and drifting off was draining him of his strength. And yet he feared pills and their effects – he had seen what they had done to his mother.
The temperature on the outskirts of Corpus Christi at 2.30 that morning was a balmy twenty degrees, and Sabir could clearly pick up the scent of the sea on the incoming breeze. When he straightened up he could hear the surf pounding against Padre Island, and the shriek of distant seabirds as they fought over a school of sardines.
He sat for a long time listening to the murmurings of the night, secretly hoping that Lamia would come out and join him, just as she had done two nights before. He regretted having drawn away from her when she had reached out to comfort him, and he was looking for an opportunity – any opportunity – of putting things right with her again.
If only Calque would begin snoring. Or sleepwalking. Or throwing himself around in his bed. But when Sabir had tiptoed out of their communal bedroom, the former policeman had been sleeping like a well-fed baby
As far as the trip was concerned, the three of them appeared to have settled into a comforting routine, sharing jokes and playing car games. Somewhat to Sabir’s surprise, Calque was wildly competitive in anything that involved intellectual exercise, to the extent that he would even bend the rules a little when it suited him. Sabir had decided that this might have something to do with Calque’s previous profession as a policeman, but he kept the thought firmly to himself. One consequence, though, was that there had been no opportunity for any private conversation with Lamia.
Sabir was just about to head back inside and try for a little sleep when the door behind him opened. Lamia edged through it, one hand held up to shade her eyes against the glare of the safety light.
Sabir did his best to mask his delight at her miraculous reappearance. ‘Don’t tell me. Calque has started snoring again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are we whispering? Nothing will cut through that racket of his and wake him up.’
Lamia laughed. She had brought a blanket out with her, as before, but this time she settled herself on it, with her legs drawn up and to the side, and then folded it across her like a four-leaf-clover. She was wearing an old-fashioned flannel nightdress, and Sabir found himself marvelling anew at her unselficonsciousness. Lamia was unlike any French woman he had ever met in that respect, in that she appeared to have so convinced herself of her fundamental undesirability that, beyond making sure that she was neatly turned out, her fashion sense erred disarmingly on the side of a studied and rather grey neutrality.
‘So what’s new?’ Sabir grinned at her, not really expecting a serious answer to his question.
Lamia shook her head. ‘I haven’t told Calque yet. But this afternoon, as we were driving through Houston, I am convinced that I saw my sister Dakini following us in a car.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I couldn’t be sure, because she was wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap.’
‘Dark glasses and a baseball cap?’
‘Yes. It doesn’t sound much like her, does it? I’ve since managed to convince myself that I was wrong. Which I probably am. But Dakini has a face that, once seen, is never forgotten.’ She blushed and turned away, as though fearing that her own face might reasonably be considered to fall within that category as well.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, in addition to having very long hair – I mean really long, falling to well below her waist – Dakini also has a sort of unfortunate rictus to her features, that gives her a malevolent look, as though she is permanently angry.’ Lamia hesitated, uncertain whether to go on. Then she sighed. ‘Sometimes I wonder about Madame, my mother, endlessly adopting children with disastrous tics or disabilities. Why did she never have us seen to? Surgically, I mean? In Rudra’s case she could have had his club foot treated. And in Berith’s case his harelip. I agree that Athame’s near dwarfism is incurable, as is Alastor’s cachexia, and Aldinach’s hermaphroditism. But she could have put Asson on a diet, instead of encouraging and funding his gourmandism – I mean they now say that excess weight is not necessarily genetic, don’t they?’
‘Then why didn’t she? Have you treated, I mean?’
Lamia let out another long sigh. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? She must have wanted us this way. We must have suited her.’
Sabir shook his head despairingly. He glanced over at Lamia, but she was avoiding his eyes. ‘Can’t you have your face fixed now? There have been enormous advances in dermatology since you were a child. Surely there’s something that can be done?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m scared to. Haemangiomas like mine need treating early. The longer you leave it, the more danger there is. If they catch you as a baby, they can sometimes use liquid nitrogen on the discoloration. That is not available later, however. Because my haemangioma did not threaten a vital organ, the nuns simply left it – or so I was told – hoping that it would go away of its own accord. But it didn’t, as you can see. Maybe they even thought that as God had made me this way, who were they to change it? Nowadays, to treat it, they would have to use steroids, or interferon, or a pulse-dye laser treatment. In my case, because of the sheer size of it, they might even have to operate, with all the associated risks. I might end up looking even worse than I do now.’
‘You don’t look bad now. In fact I think you’re beautiful.’
‘Thank you, Adam. But I’m too old to believe in fairytales any more. I’m twenty-seven. Not eleven.’
Sabir sensed that it was time to change the subject. ‘What about the twins?’
Lamia shrugged. ‘At least Madame, my mother, had the grace to have them surgically parted. Or maybe, come to think of it, that was the nuns too? Either way, I’ve seen the scars on their torsos. I believe they must have shared a kidney or something when they emerged from their mother. Now they merely share an attitude.’
Sabir laughed, although he didn’t really find the twins in the least amusing. ‘Do you love them? I mean, do you love any of them? Your mother? Or your brothers and sisters?’
Lamia appeared to consider for a moment. ‘There was a time when I was close to Athame. She is the one of my sisters who suffers from dwarfism. I mean she isn’t really a dwarf, she is just very small indeed. She suffers from Ellis-van Creveld Syndrome, like some of your Amish people over here. She’s a polydactyl, too.’
‘A what?’
‘She has twelve fingers.’
‘Jesus. And she uses them all?’
‘As well as you or I.’
‘And are you still close to her?’
‘We fell out over my attitude to the Corpus. I’ve been steadily easing back on my commitment for some years now. None of the others suspected, because they were not close to me – but Athame understood. And she couldn’t condone it. She believes the Countess, my mother, to be a sort of goddess figure. She worships her, like the Jews of the Old Testament worshipped graven images – the golden calf, or what have you. She believes the Countess to be a sort of golem. And sometimes I think she’s right. My mother is not entirely human. It is perfectly feasible that some force created her out of primeval clay, and simply gave her the face and body of a normal human being. To trick people.’
‘To trick people? How?’
Lamia met Sabir’s eyes straight on for the first time. ‘Into believing that she was like them.’
36
Vau could hear every word of their conversation from his prone position on the increasingly hostile concrete surface of the motel parking lot.
He was starting to feel the cold in his back, and imagining all sorts of scenarios, like him sneezing, or him dozing off and then sitting up and bashing his head against the Cherokee’s undercarriage and having to stifle his screams. The total nightmare scenario was the o
ne in which the pair of them decided to go off for a sex assignation in the car together – for Vau was perfectly convinced from the sound of their voices, and the intimate way in which they were talking, that there was something more going on than a mere friendship of convenience – more than merely the random companionship of fellow travellers.
Abi could make fun of Lamia’s face and her near sexless way of dressing all he wanted, but Vau knew that there were men out there who found Lamia attractive. Take that oaf Philippe, for instance. The dead footman. He had been sniffing after Lamia for years, hadn’t he? It was only Madame, his mother’s, complete lack of interest in matters sexual that had allowed the man to continue in his job. And much good it had done him. He was now languishing below six feet of reinforced concrete at a new Catholic girls’ school the Countess was subsidizing at the Couvent des Abbesses de Platilly, near Cavalaire-sur-Mer. Nothing like keeping things cosy and in the family.
Still, Vau had all but decided that there was no way he was going to try breaking into the car again after this recent little contretemps. He would simply lie through his teeth to Abi and pretend he had planted the tracker in the spare tyre well. Instead he would attach it to the underframe of the car, and hope for the best. He had identified the perfect spot whilst lying prone beneath the Cherokee’s skirts. He would do the deed the minute the two lovebirds stopped babbling and went back inside again, and to hell with the consequences.
37
Abi watched his twin brother climbing back into the rental. ‘You’re filthy. What have you been doing all this time? Rolling around in a midden?’
‘What’s a midden?’
‘A shit heap.’
‘Then why don’t you say it the first time, instead of showing off how clever you are?
‘Answer my question, Vau.’
‘The answer is no. I haven’t been rolling around in a shit heap. If you want to know what I’ve been doing all this time, I’ll tell you. I’ve been lying underneath Sabir’s car, in the parking lot of the motel, listening to his cosy late-night conversation with Lamia.’
‘You’re kidding me? You’re not serious?’
‘Deadly serious. Plus she recognized Dakini earlier on today, while we were transiting Houston.’
‘Christ.’
‘It’s all right. She’s managed to convince herself that she was seeing things. Your trick with the baseball cap and the dark glasses worked a treat. It was so unlikely a disguise, that Lamia thinks she was simply imagining the vision from hell that Dakini represents, and not really seeing it.’
‘She is plug ugly, isn’t she?’
‘That’s the understatement of the year.’
Abi laughed. ‘Did you plant the tracker?’
Vau shrugged. ‘Of course I did. What do you think?’
‘Where?’
‘Where? In the tyre well of course. Where I usually plant them.’
‘Which key did you use to get in?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because I’m not stupid, Vau. You got surprised on the job and you were forced to hide. Then you were constrained to listen to the pair of them yakking on about Dakini for half an hour. You’re lying under the car, at this point, pissed off to the nines. Don’t tell me it didn’t occur to you to take a shortcut?’
Vau hesitated. He was briefly tempted to try and compound his felony. Then he aimed a frustrated punch at the stowaway compartment. ‘Okay, Abi. Okay. You got me. As you always do. I slipped the fucking thing underneath the chassis, not in the tyre well. Between you and me there was no way in hell that I was going to break into that car with the pair of them wide awake inside their bedroom fantasizing about each other.’
‘What are you talking about? Fantasizing about each other?’
‘I heard Lamia’s voice. She’s my sister, remember. I’ve never heard her speaking like that to a man before.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like she gives a damn about what he thinks of her.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘I’m convinced she’s got the hots for Sabir.’
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Yes, it does stretch the imagination a little. When you think of all the millions of women with unblemished faces out there. I mean, why take second best when you don’t need to? Anyway, either she’s kidding herself, or Sabir must have detached retinas.’
‘Seriously. Does Sabir have the hots for her?’
Vau made a face. ‘Sabir hides it better, but I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He grinned at his brother, pleased that he was contributing something of value for once. ‘Can you use that knowledge in some way, Abi?’
Abi shrugged reflectively. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m sure as hell going to give it some thought.’
38
That morning saw the trio crossing the Rio Bravo at the Puente Nuevo, and driving through into Matamoros from Brownsville, Texas. They paid their $2.25 toll, and arranged for their temporary vehicle permit from the CIITEV office. Then they headed south down Highway 101 towards San Fernando.
Abi and Vau, who had crossed by foot earlier that morning, and secured a new, Mexican registered rental for themselves, picked up the Grand Cherokee about two miles out of town. The tracker was working fine, so they were able to follow the Jeep at a distance of about three quarters of a mile, with no possibility of a surprise sighting. The nine remaining members of the Corpus had been detailed to hire themselves two people carriers, one for the men and one for the women, and to keep in touch with Abi and Vau via cell phone. They would rendezvous every night near whatever motel the trio had chosen for themselves.
Abi had decided against concealing the existence of the tracker from his brothers and sisters for the simple reason that keeping a close tail on a car you don’t really need to follow is a smart way of asking for trouble. And to hell with Madame, his mother’s, worries about her children feeling she didn’t trust them any more. If the others didn’t tell her and trigger the predictable scene, then he certainly wouldn’t. And who in their right mind trusted anybody anyway?
Any further cock-ups, and Abi knew that the Countess would take him off the case. Christ, she might even give the job to Brain-of-Europe Vau – or, even worse, to the next man down the list in the seniority stakes. Mr Harelip himself. Bullshitter Berith. The world’s greatest Pseudologist.
Abi knew that his best bet with the Countess always lay in seducing her into liking him face to face. Alongside Oni and Athame, he was undoubtedly her favourite. But keeping in touch with her by cell phone was a sheer disaster. The Countess hated using telephones, and was always constrained in what she said. She started in on the offensive and stayed there. And wasn’t it always so much easier to cashier somebody when you didn’t have to look them in the eye?
Abi decided that he would tread very carefully indeed for the next few days. When the perfect moment came to move in on Sabir, he would be ready. He wouldn’t blow things twice in a row.
39
‘I think it’s time you told us a little more about the Corpus Maleficus.’ Calque was luxuriating across the Grand Cherokee’s rear bench. Sabir was driving, and Lamia was beside him on the passenger seat.
The air conditioning was working at full stretch, and Sabir could feel the deterioration in the car’s power as a result. He was sticking to a steady sixty-eight miles an hour on the assumption that any contact with Mexican traffic cops this close to the border could only lead to tears. This was drug country. Everyone was corrupt in one way or another. It was simply a matter of scale.
‘Why now? Why did you not ask me this before?’ Lamia glanced back at Calque. It wasn’t a suspicious look so much as an old-fashioned one. The sort of look that says ‘You’d better not be trying to spin me a line, matey.’
Calque straightened up. The expression on his face was that of a man who suddenly means business. ‘We are maybe two, or at the most, three days’ driving away from where we need to be. Sabir has chosen
not to share with us the key element of his revelatory quatrain – although I should have thought he would have learned to trust us both by now. It has occurred to me that if you showed good faith, Lamia, in opening up the skeletons in your family’s cupboard, then the ever elusive Sabir might prove more amenable to also confiding in his friends.’
Sabir rolled his eyes. ‘Artfully done, Calque. Artfully done. I can’t fault you. You got a dig in at just about everybody with that little speech of yours. Hell, you must have been a policeman in a former life.’
Before Calque could respond, Lamia turned towards both men, fixing first one and then the other with her gaze. ‘I don’t mind you quizzing me. I trust you, even if you don’t trust me. I’m here with you because I’ve got nowhere else to go. And because I don’t want to be alone, now that my family have excommunicated me. It’s as simple as that. To have you both on my side – to be able to share my fears with you – is very precious to me.’
Chalk one up for the distaff team, thought Sabir. He checked out Calque’s face in the rear-view mirror. The man was as pink as a sand shrimp. Unprecedented. That was the only word for it. He had never seen Calque colour up to an even mildly roseate tinge before. The bastard had seemed impermeable to normal feelings of guilt and embarrassment.
Sabir realized that he was feeling pretty guilty, too. It was becoming ludicrously obvious that both he and Calque had been holding out on Lamia through some sort of misplaced survival instinct. Maybe now was the time to bring things out into the open a little?
Sabir cleared his throat. ‘Right. Me first. Cards on the table. I’m sorry I’ve appeared so elusive. The verse you are all feeling hurt and resentful about goes as follows:
“In the land of the great volcano, fire
When the rock cools, the wise one, Ahau Inchal Kabah,
Shall make a hinged skull of the twentieth mask:
The Mayan Codex as-2 Page 20
