‘In 1942, the Pope did a deal with Hitler. Kind of peace treaty.’

‘What?’

The monk’s voice was soft.

‘The archives about the arrangement were kept here. Alongside the Basque and the Cagot documents. Because…they were related.’

‘What kind of treaty?’

The librarian kept rubbing his eyes. Obsessively. Like he wouldn’t look at anyone.

‘You ever wonder why Pope Pius the Twelfth stayed so quiet during the Holocaust? Throughout World War Two?’

Simon frowned.

‘Yes. I mean, of course. Yes.’

’Exactly! It’s been seen as one of the great shames and scandals of the Roman church ever since. Maybe the greatest ever. There was total inertia in Rome when Hitler slaughtered the Jews. The Catholic church didn’t even condemn the Holocaust, just made vague noises of…unhappiness.’

Simon asked again.

‘So, this treaty?’

‘Hitler discovered something. Through his scientists, in the camps in southwest France.’

‘You mean Eugen Fischer at Gurs?’

The monk nodded, and sat back in his chair and stared upwards at the tapering mad roof of the pyramid. As if staring at his own disappearing faith.

‘Yes. The deal was just that. Hitler agreed not to reveal what his scientists had found. Because what they had found somehow confirmed, scientifically, what the Inquisition and the Cagot examinations had previously implied. This thing that had so embarrassed the church, centuries ago – stuff so embarrassing they needed to keep it locked away. First in the Angelicum. Then here. Stuff that kept sending the archivists mad, or crazy. Stuff that made the monks neurotic, at least – those poor bastards that weren’t deranged by the building in the first place. Stuff too disturbing to understand, yet too important to destroy.’

Simon interrupted: ‘So you don’t know what it actually was? The revelations from Gurs?’

‘Nope. After the last librarian at Tourette joined that bunch

– the Society of Pius – the deepest secrets were locked away in a further box, in here. Personally, I never saw them. Not directly.’

‘But you know some of the background.’ Simon was unravelling the knot in his mind. ‘You know that, in return for Hitler not revealing this secret – what they discovered at Gurs – the Pope agreed to stay silent. During the Holocaust? Right?’

The librarian lifted a steel tumbler full of wine and did the bitterest of toasts.

‘That’s it. You got it. The Pope did a deal with Hitler, he did a deal with the very Devil, and six million fucking people died.’

Then the monk added:

‘By the way, you’ve got one hour. To leave. I can’t just pretend you didn’t fetch up. I still have a job here. I may think these weird zealots who took the documents are a shitload of mothers, I may think the whole damn thing is a hateful charade, and the treaty a grotesque betrayal – but I’m sixty-five and I don’t want to go anyplace else. What would I do? Live in Miami?’ He shook his head. ‘So. I’m gonna tell them you broke in and overpowered me. That means you need to run away from here very quick. I will call them in an hour. In return, for my being so good as to not turn you in…I want you to tell me.’

‘What?’

‘If you ever find the truth – what Hitler found – what scared the church. Tell me? I spent a life believing in this shit and serving the Dominicans and suffering in this fucking madhouse of a building and hell’s teeth I’d like to know why I’ve lost my faith. Because I was born a believer, I was meant to believe. And yet now I am alone. So very alone.’ He stared at the metal cup of wine in his hand. ‘Blood of Christ, body of Christ, body of lies. Cheers.’

38

Miguel’s expression was distinct; weary yet sated yet triumphant. David realized it was the same expression the terrorist had worn just after copulating with Amy in the witch’s cave of Zugarramurdi.

‘Wait. Wait wait…I am sleepy,’ said Miguel. His breath was visible in the cold night air. ‘We can wait. Bukatu dut! The American will warm us in the morning.’

Angus gazed at the terrorist.

Miguel gave orders for his men: Angus, Amy and David were tightly chained to an acacia tree, with their backs to the trunk. Guards were allotted. Then the terrorist very suddenly bedded down: so fast it was as if he had fainted. He was now lying deadweight on a canvas sheet, by the dying fire, faintly warmed by the glowing body of Alphonse.

‘Klein Levin,’ said Angus, blankly, and quietly.

David whispered to Angus, who was right beside him, chained with his back to the same tree.

‘What?’

‘The syndrome, Garovillo’s condition…Hypersomnia, facial tics. Violence. I think it is Klein Levin.’

‘And?’

‘It’s just…interesting.’

Silence. Then Amy spoke. Her voice tremulous with emotion:

‘Angus. Whatever. We need – need – need to do something – just something -’

Angus nodded. ‘I know. But…what? What can we do?’

No one spoke.

It was a cold and grotesque night, twisted with agony. David couldn’t sleep. His thoughts stared down a black tunnel at one singular horror: he was going to be burned in the morning. At dawn. He was going to suffer like Alphonse. He hoped that death would come quickly.

He was the only one who didn’t sleep. Angus and Amy whispered words of comfort to him, but in the end the sheer exhaustion weighed too heavily: they nodded out. Heads sagging.

David stayed awake. Staring into the desert black. Bitten by mosquitoes. Moths flickered against his face like tiny frightened ghosts. Even they departed as the night grew ever colder.

But then, in the grey weary hour before dawn, something moved. Something human. David stared.

Miguel was surreptitiously approaching the almost-dead bonfire. The accomplices were all asleep. Miguel had replaced the guard, and taken over the duty. Now he was creeping towards the sad smoking heap of the bonfire.

The ETA terrorist looked left and right, to make sure he was not being observed. David was in the shadows, beneath the tree, away from the lanterns. Miguel evidently didn’t realize that David was watching.

But watching what? What was Garovillo doing? There was something simultaneously awkward, and terrible, in the lonely drama.

José Garovillo’s son crawled up to the bonfire and reached out a hand, across the charred and smoking embers. And he pulled at the roasted body of Alphonse. Tugging at the sagging dead meat of the man.

He was pulling on a leg. The broiled thigh of the poor Namibian youth – it came away easily from the hip bone. Like a chicken leg from an overcooked bird. Miguel laid the roast leg on the sand. Then he reached in his pocket, and he unclasped a sharp big knife. He was drooling now, a line of silvery spittle caught in the moonlight; David watched as the terrorist sliced and dug with the knife, carving a chunk of the charred and broiled flesh, from Alphonse’s leg.

Miguel glanced left and right one more time: the Wolf Nocturnal, guarding its prey. Then he stabbed the meat with the blade and lifted it greedily to his dribbling mouth, the salivating maw of the wolf.

Otsoko.

David retched.

Miguel looked up at the noise. The terrorist saw David. Saw that his attempt at cannibalism was observed.

A flash of guilt seemed to cross his face, inexpressible shame and guilt. The terrorist dropped the knife to the dust as if he had never meant to be holding it. Abruptly he stood, and disdainfully kicked the meat and bones into the dirty embers of the fire. Then he wiped his face with a sleeve, and sneered at David. Silently. But the sneer was unconvincing; the shame was still there. Terrible shame.

Miguel retreated into the shadows, dragging his blanket. And slept again.

David stared. Transfixed by the horror of what he had just witnessed.

Alone in the wilderness, he gazed at the desert sky. Dawn was summoning the worshipful earth to life. It tinged the horizon with green and cool blue, and the palest apricot. Faint dark shadows began to stretch across the canyon floor. The slender trees bowed like courtiers in the freshening breeze. David was still the only person awake.