The Spanish torture Basque radicals, but Miguel tortures them right back. He frightens the fuck out of the Spanish police. Even the anti terrorists.’
Amy leaned to look at the graffito. David asked:
‘What kind of tortures?’
Her fringe of blonde hair was dewed with water in the mist. ‘He buried one Guardia Civil guy in quicklime.’
‘To destroy the evidence?’
‘No no no. Miguel buried the man alive, in quicklime, up to his neck. Basically he dissolved him. Alive.’
Abruptly, she walked on. David jogged after her, together they walked down a damp stony path, between two of the older Basque houses. David looked left and right. Brown and thorny sunflowers decorated the damp wooden doors, hammered fiercely to the planks. Some of the wayside thistles had been made into man shapes. Manikins made out of thistles.
The silence of the village was unnerving. As they paced through the clinging mist, the echo of their footsteps was the only noise.
‘Where the hell is everyone?’
‘Killed. Died. America.’
They were at the end of the lane. The houses had dwindled, and they were surrounded by rocks and thickets. Somewhere out there was France, and the ocean – and cities and trains and airports.
Somewhere.
Abruptly, a church appeared through the mist. Grey-stoned and very old, and perched above a ravine which was flooded with fog. The windows were gaunt, the location austere.
‘Not exactly welcoming. The house of God?’
Amy pushed at a rusty iron gate. ‘The churches are often like this. They used to build them on older sites, pagan sites. For the ambience, maybe.’
David paused, perplexed. Odd circular stones, like circles balanced on squares, were set along the path to the church door. The stones were marked with lauburus – the mysterious and aethereal swastika. David had never seen circular gravestones before.
‘Let’s try inside,’ he said.
They walked down the slippery cobbled path to the humble wooden church door. It was black, old, wet – and locked.
‘Damn.’
Amy walked left, around the side of the church – shrouding herself with mist. David followed. There was a second, even smaller door. She twisted the rusty handle; it opened. David felt the lick of moisture on his neck; it was cold now, as well as gloomy. He wanted to get inside.
But the interior of the church was as unalluring as the exterior. Dank and shadowy, with unpainted wooden galleries of seating. The reek of rotten flower-water was intense; five stained glass windows filtered the chill and foggy daylight.
‘Curious,’ said Amy, pointing up. One of the stained glass windows showed a large bull, a burning tree, and a white Basque house. Then she elaborated, still pointing at the window.
‘The Basques are very devout, very Catholic. But they were pagan until the tenth century, and they keep a lot of their pre-Christian imagery. Like that. That house – there –’ she gestured to the main window ‘– that’s the exte, the family house, the sacred cornerstone of heathen Basque culture. The souls of the Basque dead are said to return to a Basque house, through subterranean passages…’
David stared. The stained glass tree was burning in the cold glass light.
‘And the woman? In the other window.’
‘That’s Mari, the lady of the witches.’
‘The…’
‘Goddess of the witches. The Basque witches. We do not exist, yes we do exist, we are fourteen thousand strong.’ She looked at him, her eyes blue and icy in the hanging light. ‘That was their famous – or infamous – saying. We do not exist, yes we do exist, we are fourteen thousand strong.’
Her words were visible wraiths in the chill; her expression was obscure. David had a strong desire to get out; he didn’t know what he wanted to do. So he made for the little door, and exited with relief into the hazy daylight. Amy followed him, smiling, and then immediately headed left. Away from the path, disappearing behind the stage curtains of fog.
‘Amy?’
Silence. He said again:
‘Amy?’
Silence. Then:
‘Here. What’s this? David.’
He squinted, and saw her: a vague shape in the misty graveyard: female and slender, and elusive. David quickly stepped across.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Another graveyard…With derelict graves.’
She was right. There was a secondary cemetery, divided from the main churchyard by a low stone wall. This cemetery was much more neglected. A crude statue of an angel had fallen onto the soggy grass; and a brown cigarette had been contemptuously stubbed out – in the angel’s eye. Circular gravestones surrounded the toppled angel.
A noise distracted them. David turned. Emerging from the mist was an old woman. Her face was dark. She was dressed in a long black skirt and a ragged blue jumper, over which she was wearing a T-shirt imprinted with Disney characters; Wall-E, The Lion King, Pocahontas.
The woman was also deformed. She had a goitre the size of a grapefruit: a huge tumorous growth bulging out of her neck, like a shot putter holding the shot under his chin, getting ready to throw.
The crone spoke. ‘Ggghhhchchc,’ she said. She was pointing at them, her goitre was lividly bulging as she gabbled, her face vividly angry. She looked like a toad, croaking.
‘Graktschakk.’ She pointed at them with a long finger, and then at the neglected graveyard.
‘What? What is it?’ David’s heart was pounding – foolishly. This was just an old woman, a sad, deformed old woman. And yet he was feeling a serious fear, a palpable and inexplicable alarm. He turned. ‘Amy – what is she saying?’
‘I think it’s Basque. She’s saying…shit people,’ Amy whispered, backing awkwardly away.
‘Sorry?’
‘She says we are shit people. Shit people. I’ve no idea why.’
The woman stared. And croaked some more. It was almost like she was laughing.
‘Amy. Shall we get the hell out?’
‘Please.’
They scurried up the path, David tried not to look at the woman’s enormous goitre as he passed; but then he turned and looked at her goitre. She was still pointing at them, like someone accusing, or denouncing, or laughing.
They were almost running now; David stuffed the map in his pocket as they escaped.
The
