6
Lamia had been counting on the presence of the taxi driver to help convince Yola of her bona fides – if a total stranger asks you to accompany them in a taxi, it is marginally less threatening than if they appear, out of the blue, and try to inveigle you into their own vehicle. Fifty kilometres short of Samois, however, she changed her mind and ordered the taxi driver to take her to the car rental section at Orly Airport. It simply wouldn’t do for Yola and her to be connected in any way at all in the mind of a third party.
She rented herself an inconspicuous Peugeot, and then drove the remaining forty kilometres to Samois, arriving in the village at a little after 7.30 in the morning. She intended to ask for directions to the encampment at the bakery – which was inevitably the first shop open in a village, and the font of all gossip – but almost immediately she saw a young Gypsy woman single-mindedly picking her way through the early morning shoppers to the public telephone booth.
Lamia parked her car in the village square. She got out and stretched. Then she wandered, as if unintentionally, towards the booth.
The Gypsy woman was having difficulty coordinating the dialling of a number she had written on a piece of paper, the use of her phone card, and the control of the handset.
Lamia pretended that she was waiting for the booth to be free. ‘Can I help you? I could hold the piece of paper and call out the number for you while you dial.’
The Gypsy woman looked Lamia over. Lamia forced herself not to look down, in return, at the woman’s stomach. It was too early yet for much to show, so a glance in the wrong direction would give her away before she even had a chance to establish herself as a potential friend. And maybe her hunch was wrong? Maybe this woman was not Yola, but another person entirely? At least, then, she would be able to find out the location of the camp.
Yola took in Lamia’s birthmark and the non-assertive clothes. She had seen her pulling up in the Peugeot, and knew that she was alone. A well-meaning payo, then – they turned up all the time. Some even wanted to become Gypsies themselves, and live the so-called romantic life. What a joke.
Yola nodded, although without smiling. ‘Yes. Please do this.’
Lamia studied the sheet of paper. It was a 001 number. France to the United States. She decided to take a calculated gamble, even though she had no idea whose the number really was. If the woman wasn’t who she thought she was, then nothing would be lost. ‘But this is Adam Sabir’s number, isn’t it?’ She hesitated, as if unsure of her ground. ‘You must be Yola, then? Yola Samana?’
‘I am Yola Dufontaine.’
‘Oh yes. Of course. You’re married now. To Alexi. Adam told me.’
Yola frowned. It was early in the morning. In a small village miles from anywhere. It was impossible that she could have been followed – she had only made the decision to walk down to the phone booth at the very last moment. What did this woman with the marred face want from her? Why was she here? ‘You know Adam?’
‘I’m his girlfriend.’
Yola blushed. It was a rare thing for her, but the strawberry birthmark on the woman’s face was so categorical – so impossible to miss – that it was almost as if it spoke to you of its own accord. The birthmark was telling her that, yes, you thought I could not attract the attention of a man. Summon up his desire. Seduce him. But you were wrong.
‘His girlfriend?’
‘Yes. We’ve just been in Mexico together. I came back yesterday. I came out here especially to find you. So it’s incredibly lucky we’ve run into each other. I can tell you now that you won’t find Adam at home. He’s still in Mexico with Joris Calque. They are trying to arrange for temporary passports, after their own passports were stolen. But the only place to get such things is in Mexico City, at the American and French Consulates. And the two of them are stuck in Cancun. I still had my passport, so Adam asked me to come out here and find you. I was just on my way up to your camp. But I wanted to buy some croissants first. To bring as a present.’
‘Yes. In the absence of flowers. I have been driving all night.’
‘Flowers?’ Yola was feeling nonplussed. Who was this strange woman who appeared to know so much about her? And what extraordinary stroke of chance had brought her here, just as Yola was preparing to contact Sabir for the first time in three months? ‘Why did Damo tell you to contact me?’
‘Oh. Damo. That’s your Gypsy name for him, isn’t it? He told me about it.’
‘Are you really his girlfriend?’ Yola was staring at Lamia as if she might be able to sense if the other woman was lying simply through some antediluvian, beyond rational, female instinct.
‘How can I prove it to you?’ Lamia smiled to hide her uneasiness. Yola’s eyes were stripping her bare. No Frenchwoman would ever have looked at her with such a frank and unremitting gaze. She realized that she would have to dig deep in order to come up with something capable, in and of itself, of breaking through the reserve that one race sometimes feels in the presence of another – that one woman can sometimes feel in the presence of another, when both, without being previously acquainted, are nonetheless intimately connected through their mutual love of a third party. ‘I’ve got it. This will sound silly, I know. But have you ever seen Adam without his clothes on? I don’t mean in the obvious way, of course. I know you two were never involved like that. But casually. Like a brother.’
Yola shrugged. But her eyes held Lamia’s in a level gaze. Woman to woman. ‘Yes. I have seen him. On a number of occasions. Both sick and well. Once, even, when I was going to castrate him. When I thought he had killed my brother.’
Lamia’s breath caught in her throat. ‘He never told me about that.’
‘He wouldn’t have done. It is something we both have forgotten.’ Yola cocked her head to one side. ‘Why have you asked me this?’
‘Because you would know about his scar.’
‘Go on.’
‘I, too, know about it. For obvious reasons.’
‘Where is the scar?’
‘There are two. One is the main scar. The other is a drainage scar. From when he lost a kidney in his late twenties thanks to a congenital malformation. The drainage scar is below the main scar. Both are very beautiful.’
Yola laughed. ‘You finds his scars beautiful? Damo really must have closed your eyes.’
‘He finds my face beautiful.’
Yola gave a slow nod. The expression on her face began to transform itself from one of wariness into one of acceptance. ‘Your face is beautiful. In our tribe, if a person has a mark on their face or body, we say that they have been touched by O Del’s own hand. That it is a mark of His especial favour.’
‘O Del?’
‘It is our name for God.’
‘Do you really say that?’
‘I promise you.’
‘It is nice to hear such a thing.’
Both women stood looking at each other. Still measuring each other up. Yola was the first to break the silence. ‘Why does Damo want you to speak to me?’
‘Can we talk in a less public place? I can drive you somewhere.’
‘No. We must talk here.’
Lamia glanced around. The longer she remained in the public arena, the more likely someone was to remember her – she was not, after all, inconspicuous. She decided that she must get her point across as swiftly as possible – get Yola out of there and into an isolated location without further ado. She had bought herself a lock-knife back at Madrid airport, in a hardware store situated just outside the main departure gates – rather surreally, for an airport shop, the place specialized in locally sourced Toledo steel.
Milouins had shown her exactly where and how to strike when she, and Madame, her mother, had been preparing their plans. The way he had explained it, it would only take one blow. Both child and mother would be dead in seconds, with very little pain. All she’d have to do would be to curl Yola’s hand about the haft of the knife, and then leave the mess for the police to sort out. Suicide as a result of pre-natal depression? Internecine Gypsy feuds? There was fertile ground for potential obfuscation.
‘The Corpus Maleficus are after you. We encountered them in Mexico. Through a terrible piece of bad luck, they learned who you are and who you are carrying.’ Lamia motioned with one hand towards Yola’s stomach. ‘Adam sent me out here to warn you. To get you away from the camp and to a safe place. He will be over here himself in maybe two days, when he gets the passports sorted.’
All the colour drained from Yola’s face. ‘What did you say? About who I am carrying?’
‘Listen to me, Yola. During a hallucinatory experience in a touj, deep in the Yucatan, Adam inadvertently let slip that you were to be the mother of the Second Coming. He was half crazy with datura at the time. And we had been the subject of a number of extreme experiences in the run-up to the séance, so he wasn’t in his right mind to start with. The drug just made it worse. We thought we were finally amongst friends. That all the people present would be instrumental in welcoming the birth of your child. In promulgating the good news. But a member of the Corpus Maleficus was also in the room. He heard Adam’s words. Now he is coming over here to kill you. I am just ahead of him. I need to take you to a safe place where we can wait for Adam and Calque. You do believe me, don’t you?’
‘I believe that you are Damo’s lover. I can see it in your eyes. Women can’t lie about such things. Emotions like that go deeper with us than they do with men.’
Lamia could sense the blood flushing into her face. She tilted her head a little to one side, in an old habit she had of protecting herself when she felt particularly threatened. ‘Yes. They do.’ Lamia could sense that this was her moment. If she blew this chance, she would be forced to act prematurely, and in a public place. It would be a disaster. It would mean exiling herself for life from everything she knew and cared for – but it would be a sacrifice Madame, her mother, would expect her to make. ‘Will you come with me? We can go back to the camp if you want. Fetch whatever you need. We would only need to be away for a few days.’
‘Can’t Captain Calque and his people protect me?’
‘He is no longer a policeman. He retired, Yola. A little while after you met him. He is helping Sabir now. But on a strictly private level. They are both working together on this. We travelled in a group through Mexico. Captain Calque is a good man.’
Yola nodded. ‘Yes. He is. For a payo he is a good man. He let me collect my brother’s hair from the morgue so we could bury him within the allotted time.’
‘Yes. He told me that.’
Yola straightened up. Early comers to the bakery were already eyeing both women with suspicion. One was a Gypsy, and one was freak. Yola felt an unexpected degree of kinship with Lamia. She understood only too well from her own experience why the other woman might not want to remain in the full public gaze. ‘Okay. I go with you. If Damo says I should trust you, I will trust you. He would never do anything against my interests. But first we go to my caravan. We collect Alexi. He goes with us.’
‘Of course.’
Yola hitched her shoulders. ‘Maybe I should call this number anyway?’
‘There’s no one there. I promise. You can call it if you want to.’
‘And Damo? Does he not have a phone he carries?’
‘It was stolen. Along with his passport, his money, and his credit cards. And Calque never uses a cell phone anyway. He’s a technophobe.’
‘A what?’
‘He hates modern technology. He works entirely from his mind.’
‘Yes. Yes he does. That is what Damo told me. That is what I have seen for myself. Come. Let us go to your car. I don’t need to call the number.’
The two women headed for Lamia’s Peugeot. On a whim, Lamia darted into the bakery and bought a large bag of croissants and three baguettes. She was counting on them to provide her with a further level of camouflage. How could anyone think that a young woman loaded down with bread and croissants could possibly be a threat?
It was this five-minute delay, however, that dictated the way future events would pan out. For Athame, catching the fragrance of freshly baked bread wafting towards her from the bakery, blithely stuck her head above the door frame of the car she and Aldinach were sleeping in, and wound down her window.