The Templar Succession

by Mario Reading

  THIRTY-TWO

  Lumnije loved the springs at Crn Drim. To her eyes, they were the most beautiful place on earth. They were situated on the opposite side of Lake Ohrid to her house. The shortest way to get to them would have been through Albania, but that was impossible. For her it was impossible.

  So she drove the long way round the lake in her little Simca, through Struga, through Ohrid, past Peštani. All safely inside Macedonia. She’d made the journey a hundred times before but still she loved it.

  When she arrived at the springs she parked her car and walked down to the restaurant for lunch. As she ate she watched the tourists being ferried by rowing boat the length of the springs. She could hear their cries of delight when they saw how crystal clear the water was. When they saw the springs bubbling through the silt underneath them like tiny volcanic eruptions. When they spotted a snake circling away through the riffle, perhaps, or a water rail flitting ahead of them through the dappled light given by the trees.

  All year round the water temperature remained at a constant ten degrees centigrade. Look deep into it, and you could see every detail of the bottom. Every curl of leaf. Each rib of weed. Forty-five separate springs, half from Lake Prespa, 148 metres higher and eighteen kilometres away, and half from somewhere deep inside the Galicˇica Mountains. Constantly feeding the springs and keeping them pure. It was a miracle.

  Later, after lunch, the musicians came and played the Czardas, Jovano Jovanke, and then Black Eyes, when no one could think of any more Macedonian folk songs. Two violins, an accordion, a guitar and a bass. People slipped banknotes in between the strings of the lead violinist as a tip.

  One of the tourist parties made a circle, with more and more people joining in as the music rose in intensity. Lumnije joined it too, and danced the Hora with them, her head held high, three steps forward and one back, her dress bouncing to the rhythm. The simplest of all the Macedonian dance steps. But satisfying for all that.

  Later that afternoon she slept a little in her car. Then, when she saw the tourist buses leaving and the souvenir shops being shut, she moved her car out of the main car park and a few hundred metres towards the St Naum Monastery. She knew there were cleaners there who came in at night. Her car would not be noticed in amongst theirs.

  When dusk fell she crossed the open expanse of grass towards where they moored the rowing boats at Crn Drim. They were chained. She had expected this.

  She sorted through the keys she had brought with her until she found one that fitted the padlock of the prettiest of the boats. She unshipped the single oar and stood on the oarsman’s platform. Then she pushed away from the shore.

  The rowing boat glided through the water. Lumnije enjoyed the sound her oar made as it kissed the surface. The moon was rising. Soon everything would be clear as day.

  She waited a little at the picnic place near the tiny chapel at the far end of the springs. Waited for the moon. She ate the sandwich she had brought with her, and drank a little rakia for strength. She could feel the spirit burning her throat. She felt alive. So alive. As if every sinew, every nerve in her body was attuned to this miraculous place.

  When the moon was at its highest, and full to bursting with light, she eased the rowing boat away from the shore. Soon, almost too soon, she reached her private place and anchored the boat. She dipped her hand in the water and felt the cool springs caressing her fingers beneath the surface. She smiled. She felt like a young girl again. Like the girl she had once been before the Captain and his men came to her village and killed her mother, and her father, and her brother, Azem. Before the Captain stole her off to his rape house and used her like a discarded piece of rag.

  She looked up at the moon. It was beautiful. Very beautiful. Lumnije stepped over the side of the boat and let herself sink into the water. She could feel her dress ballooning beside her. The springs below her tickled her feet. It was easy to stand. The water was nowhere more than four feet deep, so even she, at a little over five feet tall, felt secure. Even so, she attached herself to the side of the boat with a loop of rope.

  She reached across the gunwale for her bag. She felt inside. Yes. There was her father’s razor. She had rescued it from their house after she left Visoki Decˇani Monastery, and before she came to Macedonia, all those years ago, alongside some photographs and a few trinkets that hadn’t been looted yet. She had had to be silent and furtive. There had been only Serbs left in her village. Katohija had been ethnically cleansed of all Albanians. Not a single one had been left behind. The village had been struck by a human whirlwind whose winds were driven by hate.

  She looked at her wrists. They seemed so thin. So vulnerable in this white light.

  She cut downwards as she had been told, and saw the blood well up out of the artery, as if it, too, was fed by secret springs deep in the mountains. When she touched bone, she withdrew her father’s cut-throat razor and moved to the other arm. Just looking at the blood made her feel weak.

  She botched the other side at first. She had not counted on the strength in her cut arm melting away so fast. But finally she had it.

  She dropped the razor and watched it float away beneath her. Then she lay back in the water and let it take her.

  Ah, it felt so good. Her head felt light, as if she were about to faint. She looked to her left and to her right. It was so beautiful here. The most beautiful place on earth. She had chosen well.

  The blood pulsed away from her in the water. She felt part of the water.

  Slowly, without meaning to, she tipped onto her front.

  Soon she could scarcely breathe. But that didn’t matter. The springs were taking her. She was becoming part of them. They would never forget her.

  Later, just before the end, she heard the cry of an owl. Heard something rustle behind her, as if an animal were coming down to drink.

  She closed her eyes. How soft the water was. How delicate its lapping sound. How sweet its grip.

  THIRTY-THREE

  John Hart cursed himself all the way to Skopje. He cursed him- self in London when he boarded the plane. He cursed himself in Vienna, where he had his stopover, and he cursed him- self on the final leg when the plane cut down through the clouds and drifted to a halt.

  What would he and Lumnije find to say to each other after sixteen years? Even when they were together, they had spoken little, as if they were two beings swept up on a deserted island but speaking different languages. Why had she chosen to call him to her now, with so much water under the bridge? What did she have to give him?

  Hart thought back to London and to the satisfaction he had just started taking in life again. Well. One good thing had already come out of Lumnije’s call. He had been due to visit his dementia-suffering mother and her semi-deranged lover, Clive. That had had to be cancelled. He loved his mother. But Clive? Clive came as part of the package, unfortunately. The prospect was a nightmare. Seeing Lumnije again was infinitely preferable. Anything was preferable to Clive.

  As his flight progressed, though, and their meeting loomed, Hart was grudgingly forced to admit that he had wondered about Lumnije many times over the past decade and a half. How had she dealt with the past? What had happened to her? Where had she gone? What had she done with her life? There was a certain satisfaction to be had in readdressing the past. In unlocking its mysteries.

  Hart looked round the Arrivals section of Skopje Airport. He sensed that he would recognize Lumnije immediately. You don’t change that much between sixteen and thirty-two. Do you?

  He waited an hour. He had no number for her, of course, because she had put down the phone so quickly after he had agreed to come, almost as if she had feared him changing his mind. And he would have, given half the chance. When he had eventually thought to dial BT Call Back the automated voice had told him, in so many words, to go to hell. They didn’t give out international mobile numbers.

  He waited another hour. Par
t of him was tempted to arrange for his open return to be used again that day. An instant turnaround. Maybe he would stop off in Vienna for a day or two and do the museums. Take in an opera. Drink some coffee and eat some cake. Chalk the whole thing down to experience.

  Damn it all to hell. He couldn’t do that. He owed Lumnije. Owed her big. And her out-of-the-blue call had piqued his curiosity. He couldn’t deny it. The girl had been a force of nature. He was more than a little tantalized to know what the woman had become.

  He walked across to the nearest car-hire desk. What had she said? I live on Lake Ohrid. Near Struga. A village called Rad something or other. Shouldn’t be so hard to find. What had her surname been? Burdin? Burdem? No. Wait. Dardan. Lumnije Dardan. It was all coming back to him now.

  He cast one more look round the airport and went out to where they allocated the cars. Macedonia. He was standing in Macedonia on a sunny day in June and he didn’t know anyone. Had no connection here whatsoever. It was like the sort of practical joke they foist on you on some godforsaken TV programme at number 643 on the list of satellite channels. Sad man standing in sad country looking sad. Then everyone bursts out of the undergrowth and tells him he has been taken for a god almighty sucker. And expects him to join in the joke.

  In the end he stopped at Ohrid, a few miles short of his destination, and booked himself into a hotel overlooking the lake. Time enough to go looking for Lumnije tomorrow. Maybe she had stepped under a bus? Had a stroke? Fallen off her bicycle and lost her memory?

  Hart went to bed at nine o’clock and slept the sleep of the disenchanted. When he awoke again two hours later he couldn’t even be bothered to go down to the hotel lobby and order himself a drink. He lay in bed and thought his way back to Kosovo and the rape house, and the girls he had seen there. Thought back to the Captain and the monastery and to the callousness of youth that had seen him intervene and then run away from his intervention at the first available chance. That was it, wasn’t it? That was the crux of the matter. He had been a moral coward. The action stuff was all very well. But when it came to cementing some sort of real human relationship, he was a blast.

  He drifted off to sleep again around three in the morning, his brain tired through with thinking, and his conscience stricken.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  He tried Radolišta first. The name of the village began with Rad. And it was about five kilometres inland from Struga.

  He walked around town and asked whoever looked remotely amenable to questioning if they knew of a Lumnije Dardan. No one did. He went to the football pitch. Watched the game for a few minutes. Made the circuit of the spectators, asking the same question. No. No one had heard of her. Some pricked up their ears at the name Dardan, as if at the mention of a one-time historically important figure who has now been forgotten. Sir Cloudesley Shovell. Someone like that. Where the name is more memorable than the activities the person themselves engaged in. But no one knew of a Lumnije.

  Hart began to wonder if Lumnije had taken on a new identity following her move to Macedonia. Maybe she was walking past him on the street at that very moment and he would never find her. Never recognize her.

  ‘You should try Radožda,’ an old woman told him. ‘That starts with Rad. It’s ten kilometres away. Right on the lake. Tight up near the Albanian border. You can’t get any closer.’

  What had Lumnije said? I live in Macedonia now. On the shores of Lake Ohrid.

  Not in the bloody hinterland.

  Hart thanked the woman who had given him the information.

  As he attempted to step away from her, she caught his arm. ‘Wait. Maybe I am wrong about this. Lumnije Dardan is an Albanian Muslim name. Here, in this village, we are all Albanians. All Muslim. In Radožda they are all Christians. Macedonian Christians. No. She won’t be there. On second thoughts do not bother to go. I misled you. I did not think.’

  Hart drove to Radožda anyway. Straight away he could see that the old woman was right about the village demographics. The place was oozing churches. Hart counted at least seven, for a population of, what, seven or eight hundred? Why would Lumnije move here, amongst people who were both ethnically and religiously different from her? It didn’t make sense.

  Then he saw the Muslim graveyard tucked away inside a curve in the hills, instantly recognizable thanks to its low grave markers and to the lack of crosses and other Christian accoutrements. A funeral was taking place. Four men were carrying the body of the deceased, which was wrapped in a kafan cloth to protect its modesty. Three other men were processing behind them. A single young woman stood off to one side, well beyond the borders of the graveyard, and watched as the body was laid in the grave, while verses from the Quran were read out over it. Then the grave was covered and more prayers were intoned. Some of the men stamped the earth down onto the grave as this was happening.

  Hart didn’t at first understand what kept him watching. True, one of the mourners, by definition Muslim, might know of Lumnije’s whereabouts. But the truth was far simpler than that. It was because he couldn’t rightly think of what else to do. What sort of person, he tried to tell himself, walks up to mourners straight after a funeral and starts asking them questions about their community? They’d probably stone him.

  For some reason, though, he still hung around. Made himself as inconspicuous as possible. Blended into the landscape.

  Finally, only the young girl remained. The seven men walked off in the direction of the village without seeming to acknowledge her presence at all. Maybe they were paid mourners? The Macedonian equivalent of a rent-a-crowd funeral cortege? Hart heard two cars start up. Then the men drove past him and back towards Struga. Hart checked out the number plates. OH. Not local then. These men came from way across the lake in Ohrid.

  The girl stood for some time staring down at the grave. Then she walked towards him.

  Hart looked around himself in consternation. He wasn’t on any normal track. Neither was he particularly near the road. When he’d noticed the cemetery he’d made a point of picking his way across an abandoned piece of scrubland to position himself beneath a convenient and relatively inconspicuous sycamore tree. Inconspicuous, my arse.

  He watched the girl approach with a sinking heart. Yes. She was making straight for him. No ifs or buts about it. He wondered whether to turn round and head swiftly back for his car. Jog even. Or should he attempt to brazen it out? The worst that could happen would be for her to upbraid him for his voyeurism. He’d respond by saying that he’d never seen a Muslim funeral before. Which was why he’d been standing three hundred yards away from the cemetery. Under a tree. He hadn’t meant any disrespect. Thank God the men hadn’t seen him. Seven against one didn’t bear thinking about. He could surely handle the girl via a mixture of grovelling apology and playing the dumb foreigner.

  The girl stopped directly in front of Hart and looked up into his face. ‘So you’ve come then?’

  ‘I’ve come?’ Hart said. He had never been more surprised by an opening line in his life.

  ‘Majka said she’d called you.’

  ‘Majka?’

  ‘It means mother in Macedonian.’

  ‘Ah. And who is your mother?’ But Hart already knew. The girl looked enough like Lumnije had looked at her age to cement the recognition. He’d have staked his life on it.

  ‘Lumnije Dardan.’ The girl seemed irritated more than anything. There were few signs of mourning on her face. In fact she looked as if she had just come from a job interview that had not quite gone according to plan. Whoever she had been burying – grandmother? Grandfather? Distant uncle? – had clearly not meant much to her.

  Hart nodded. Might as well act normal, he decided. Pretend that he had known who the girl was all the time. ‘And where is she, your majka? She was meant to pick me up yesterday at the airport. I waited three hours, you know.’ He hadn’t meant to sound petulant. Especially in the prevailing circumstance
s. But guilt can do that to a man.

  The girl watched him for a moment. She appeared to be weighing him up. Measuring him in some way. Then she hitched her chin over one shoulder.

  ‘She’s in there. In that grave. Now you know why she didn’t pick you up at the airport yesterday.’ She turned away and started towards the road. ‘Still. I’m sorry indeed for your wait.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Hart followed along behind her. He felt a little sick. What had he got himself into? Should he climb back into his car and head straight for Skopje? He had nothing whatsoever to do with this angry young girl. No possible connection. His business had been with Lumnije. Now that was over. The fact that Lumnije had a daughter was irrelevant to him.

  ‘Will you drive me?’ the girl said. ‘Our house is just outside the village.’

  Well. He couldn’t very well say no, could he? There was nothing for it then. Hart opened the car door for her and she got in.

  ‘My name is Biljana. It means herb.’

  ‘My name is John Hart.’ He was tempted to add ‘which doesn’t mean a thing’, but he didn’t.

  ‘I know that. My mother told me all about you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Hart was tempted to ask what Lumnije had said. How far she had gone. Instead he said. ‘How did your mother die? I can hardly believe it. I only talked to her two days ago. She could only have been in her early thirties. What happened? A car accident?’

  ‘She cut her wrists and drowned,’ said the girl. ‘Just across the lake from here. In Islam suicide is a sin, you know. This is why no one came to her funeral.’

  ‘She committed suicide?’ Hart gripped the steering wheel a little harder. He looked sideways at the girl, more shocked than he cared to acknowledge. Each person whose life you save becomes a part of you. Lumnije had been a part of him. It was as simple as that. What was it she had said to him that last time he had seen her at the monastery? ‘But the Captain will win in the end. Such men always do.’ ‘What? Against me?’ he had answered, naively. ‘No, John,’ she had said. ‘Against me.’