22

By the time David found José, after searching the many rooms of the old house, the shower had turned into a pelting mountain rainstorm, hammering the ancient slates of the Cagot refuge.

José Garovillo was alone in the kitchen, hunched over the stove, and pouring olive oil into a large earthenware dish. His wife was apparently locked in her room. José seemed locked in himself, just as he had been since they first found him hiding in the refuge house.

‘Angulas,’ said José, pointing to a saucer piled with slimy white worms.

David gazed at the dish, perplexed. His shirt was cold and wet on his back. He shivered and asked, ‘An…gulas?’

‘Elvers. But frozen of course. Fermina went into Campan – to the shop.’

‘She left the house?’

‘Do not worry. She was careful.’ José turned from his cooking, and stared, momentarily, at David. His eyes were grey, and hollowed with sadness. Then the old man switched his attention to the earthenware casserole, adding some transparent slices of garlic, followed by a small half of red chilli pepper. He turned up the gas. The garlicked spiciness filled the air.

‘I just wanted to try them, Davido, angulas bilbaina. One more time. Just one more time.’ José was trembling, visibly. ‘The best little eels come from the Deva river, they are fished when there is no moon, and the water is tainted with tobacco…’ His old hand reached out, with a weary flourish of expertise, and picked up the elvers, and poured them into the dish. For a minute the eels sizzled; José spooned them over.

‘This is the crucial process. Too soon and they are no good, too late and they are ruined. Here we are…’

He picked up the casserole dish, and poured the fried angulas into a waiting sieve. A strange smell filled the kitchen – half fish, half mushroom. José concluded by draping theelvers onto a couple of plates.

‘You will try.’ He reached out and took some green herbs from a bowl, and sprinkled them on top. ‘Fermina is not hungry. Join me?’

‘I guess…OK.’

‘You must use a wooden spoon, the metal of cutlery corrupts the flavour.’

There was nothing for it: the old man wanted to eat. The two men carried their plates into the gloomy sitting room, where an acrid fire in the humble hearth was giving off a pungent smoke.

José winced as he spooned the slithery little eels into his mouth.

‘Aiii…Frozen. Not so good. But better than the fake ones. You know they now make fake angulas? Sí. It is true – they fake them because these real ones are so expensive, fifty euros for half a kilo.’

The impatient anger was rising inside David. The time had come.

‘José…we need to talk. Now.’

‘They make them from reconstituted…cod innards. Mackerel. Meat. Who knows.’ José sighed, quite lyrically. ‘All the real angulas are dying out, like the poets, like the Basque songs, like everything that is good…’

‘José -’

‘They even paint little eyes on the fake eels! Did you know that, Davido! Fake little eyes on the txitxardin!’

‘Enough!’

José stopped.

Setting down his plate on the dusty floorboards, David began: ‘Listen to me. Eloise’s grandmother told me…something. It is painful, José. But I need to know.’

José shook his head, and examined his food, apparently ignoring David’s questions.

‘José! She said you were known at Gurs.’

The old Basque man gazed at his silvery angulas.

David persisted. ‘They said you were known, by some people, as the traitor. Is it a lie? Or is it true? Is this why you have been silent these last days? Why all the mystery? What are you ashamed of?’

José sat motionless, the plate on his lap. Then he raised his watery eyes. The intensely anguished gaze made David flinch: something terrible had happened to José. Or maybe José had done something terrible.

‘José?’

‘It is…it is because…’ His lips were almost white, his face the grey of morning mist on a river. ‘Because it is true. Something happened at Gurs.’

‘Were you imprisoned with my grandfather?’

José rocked back and forth, on his damp wooden chair.

David tried again: ‘Were you imprisoned with my grandfather?’

‘Yes.’

‘But, José. Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?’

‘Because of…things. That happened. I cannot trust anyone. When you know the secrets I know, the secrets I learned in Gurs, then you understand to be very careful. Forever.’ He gazed mournfully at David. ‘And yet…When I saw your face that day, when you came to the cottage…then I remembered my old friend Martinez and I wanted you to know the truth, as much as I could risk.’ The old man was sighing. ‘I felt you deserved to know who your grandfather was. A Basque. But you needed to be protected, as well.’

‘From Miguel?’

‘From Miguel. From many others like him. But especially Miguel.’

‘Did he kill my parents?’

The air was filled with the sounds of the downpour outside.

‘Yes…’

This reply seemed to wrench something out of José, who closed his eyes and shuddered. Then he looked away from David: he was staring at the broken window beyond his questioner’s shoulder. David spun, in sharp alarm – was that a shape in the woods beyond the garden?

The misty rain was deceptive: maybe it was just a pottok, one of the wild horses, drifting in that ghostly way, through the forest – but David couldn’t help imagining it was…Miguel. Scoping them out, whispering to an accomplice, the rain dripping off his cap as he cocked his gun.

No: that was impossible. No one knew they were hiding out here. No one even knew they were in Campan, let alone concealed in the cagoterie over the river. And the house was incredibly sequestered: you only knew it existed, behind its screen of firs, by the time you knocked your head on the ancient stone lintel, with its goose foot carved cruelly and brutally into the granite.

But that raised another question. How did José know about this house? It was the ancient home and refuge of the Cagots, not Basques. How did José Garovillo end up here?

And then a cold new possibility gripped David – a claw around his thoughts. If José knew about the house, why shouldn’t Miguel?

David sat forward. His interrogation needed some urgency. Maybe threats.

‘José, does Miguel know about this house?’

‘No. I never tell him, not the house. If he knew I would not be here! One day I knew I would have to run away from him, that I would need somewhere to escape, when he came looking, or when the police came hunting.’

‘But how did you know about a Cagot safe house?’

José quickly spooned a tiny morsel of elvers into his white-lipped mouth.

David gripped José’s other arm. Hard.

‘Tell me. What happened at Gurs? Why did Miguel kill my parents?’

A frown of pain. David gripped harder. José grimaced, and exuded an answer:

‘Because of what they were about to find out.’

‘You mean what happened at Gurs. Your treachery?’

‘Yes.’

David now realized, with an upwelling of contempt mixed with pity – that José was crying. Two or three tears tracked down the old man’s face, as he explained: ‘Yes I did something at Gurs. Things happened there. Miguel did not want people to know…’

‘José, what did you do?’

The old man mumbled a reply; David leaned forward, unhearing. José said again, ‘They torture us. You have to remember, they torture us.’

‘Who?’

‘Eugen Fischer.’

David shook his head.

‘I’ve heard him mentioned, by Eloise’s grandmother. Who is he?’

‘A Nazi doctor.’

‘And what did he do?’ David felt the tingle of a bittersweet excitement: he sensed he was getting closer to the tragic core of this mystery. He was far from sure he wanted to know the answers; yet he wanted the answers more than ever.

‘What did they do? José? How did they torture you?’