The Third Antichrist (21 page)

These ones had a French registered car. So they were French gangsters. Amoy knew nothing about this variety of person. He would have to play it by ear. Also, they had women with them. Were these prostitutes? Amoy did not think so. Nobody in their right minds would pay to have sex with women such as these. One had long tresses down to her ankles and a face that would curdle milk. The other was covered in hair, like a she-wolf.

Amoy pulled up his cart. He forced himself to smile. He had spent some time in Rome as a young boy, stealing. As part of a gang run by his uncle. It was a time he was ashamed of, and which he had chosen, later on, to forget. Possessing no French, however, and supposing that these people would know no
Č
erhari Romani, he dredged up what little Italian he had left from the depths of his memory.

‘Would you like to buy a pot? I make them myself. Recycled from copper telephone wire. Best quality.’

‘Why is he talking to us in Italian? Does he think we are Italian?’ It was the long-haired woman who spoke. If Amoy did not fully understand her words, he certainly understood her meaning.

The leader ignored her. He replied in Italian. ‘Get off the cart.’

Amoy climbed down. He had begun to sweat. Was this what it felt like to prepare to die? He wished, now, that he had got into the habit of prayer. Because he felt that he needed to do something – anything – to justify his life to himself and to his family.

‘Where is the Gypsy? The wounded one?’

There was no point in lying. These people had seen him take the Gypsy on board his cart.

‘I carried him across the border. At the first bend in the road after the border crossing, the Gypsy asked me to let him off. He was bleeding all over my pots and pans. I was happy to do this.’

Amoy watched while the remaining man and the two women checked out the back of his cart.

‘There’s blood in here. Plenty of it. He was hit badly. He won’t get far.’

Amoy decided that they must be talking about the blood.

‘Why did you take him?’

Amoy shrugged. ‘He mentioned a word to me. The equivalent of making a
shpera
sign.’

‘A what sign?’

‘It is a secret sign to transmit information. It is only known to Gypsies. The word I am talking about acts in the same way. When it is used to a fellow Gypsy, or to a Roma, like me, it would shame his family forever if he did not respond to this. The man was injured. He needed to cross the border. Nobody looks in my cart anymore. I cross here every day. They don’t even inspect my identity card. They know me. It seemed a small thing to take him across.’

‘What if we kill you now?’

‘That is as it may be.’

Abi stood watching the Roma. There was something about the man – some certainty – that unsettled him. Why did the man not care if he lived or died? It made no sense. But this genuinely seemed to be the case. ‘Burn his cart.’

‘But, Abi. It will bring the police. We don’t want them in our hair when we look for Radu. He can’t have got far. Not with this amount of blood-loss.’

Abi looked at the Roma. He took out his pistol. He pointed it at the Roma’s head.

‘Abi, for Christ’s sake. There’s a truck coming.’

Abi swung his pistol to the right and shot the horse through the centre of its forehead. The horse fell to its knees, its back legs splayed. Then it rocked over onto its side, jerking the wagon and making it lurch forwards. Its legs began a spasmodic kicking motion. Then they stretched out to their full extent, and fell still.

Amoy looked down at the dead horse. The mare was old. He would sell her meat to passing truck drivers and make back some of her value this way. The mare had given birth to a colt three years before, in her last year of fruitfulness. This colt was fully grown now. Amoy would hurry the colt’s breaking, and use him to pull the cart from now onwards. His cousin, Stav, had a horse he could borrow while he did the breaking in – a horse he could collect his cart with. Amoy was grateful that the man with the pistol had been persuaded not to burn his cart. If it was a choice of the horse or the cart, it was better to lose the horse. Carts did not breed, even though, sometimes, they were known to cradle life in their bellies.

‘Right. Let’s go.’

For a moment Amoy thought the man would still shoot him out of spite. Or wound him, maybe. But once again, Amoy’s poverty came to his aid. It was clear that the man thought the loss of Amoy’s horse would be a terrible blow for him. And that this blow would be punishment enough.

Amoy watched the car as it accelerated back towards the border. Then he looked underneath the cart. Yes. Just as he thought. The horse’s blood had disguised the dripping blood of the Gypsy, which would otherwise have been revealed for all to see when the cart jerked forward. Amoy straightened up and watched the car disappear round a bend in the road.

When he was sure that it had gone, he ducked underneath the bed of the cart and unlatched the hidden compartment he used to smuggle illicit liquor and cigarettes through the border. It was as he thought. The Gypsy inside had passed out through loss of blood.

Amoy waited for a break in the traffic. Then he dragged the Gypsy into the undergrowth at the side of the road.

Nobody slowed down on account of the dead horse. Nobody gave the pair of them a second thought. They were Gypsies.

36

Radu awoke in a tent. He knew it was a tent without even needing to look around. It smelled like a tent. And the light was tent-like. It reminded him of journeys he had taken with his mother and father when he had been a child.

He rolled his eyes and savoured being alive. He tried to move, but his arms were bandaged tightly to his sides. He was no longer a prisoner, that much was clear – but he might as well have been for all the chance of movement he retained.

‘Hey!’

He paused for a moment to see if anyone would answer.

‘Hey!’

A woman entered the tent. She raised her chin and looked at him. Then she disappeared.

Radu knew that she had gone to find her husband. That, now he was conscious, she would no longer stay alone in the tent with a strange man, however injured he might be. He waited. While he waited, he tried to sum up his position.

He had escaped from the bad people. He was in Romania. He was injured. He was amongst friends. The bad people might now go back and find Lemma. Take their revenge out on her. Or on his cousins, Bera and Koiné. Punish him that way for escaping from them. So the first thing he had to do was to contact his family and get them away from the camp at Samois.

Then he needed to find Sabir. But he had no memory of Sabir’s telephone number from the cell phone Calque had given him. He only remembered the number of the collective cell phone at Samois camp.

But he did know the name of the village Sabir was hiding in. This he had kept from the bad people by telling them, instead, about Gabor, and the bar in Sighetu. But there was no bar in Sighetu. It was simply the only town in Romania Radu remembered the name of.

Amoy took off his hat and entered the tent. He looked around, as though he was unfamiliar with the place, and then he walked the few steps towards the bed.

‘I am Amoy.’

‘I am Radu.’

‘You speak our language?’

‘I have relatives in the north of your country.’

‘So you are one of us?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I am glad.’

Both men weighed each other up.

Anxiety made Radu rude. He could no longer contain himself – no longer hold back and allow his older host to dictate the flow of conversation, as, by rights, he should have. ‘Do you have a telephone? I need to warn my wife and family that these people might come after them. Now that they have lost me.’

‘I have access to one. We cut into the line from the police station from time to time. We can do this, if you like, for you.’

‘Thank you. And thank you for what you did for me at the border crossing.’

Amoy made a downward movement with his hand. He didn’t need to respond. What he had done had been done through necessity. There were customs that governed such things. Age-old laws of hospitality. Who was he to go against them?

‘How badly am I injured?’

Amoy twisted his head round. ‘Maja!’

The woman came back inside the caravan. It was clear that she had been hovering outside listening to their conversation.

‘He is one of us. He is part Rom. He has relatives in the north of the country.’

‘Good. I am glad.’

It amused Radu that she used the same words as her husband. This was a fine woman. She had raven-black hair, and skin the colour of weathered pine. She wore eight or nine heavy necklaces wound loosely around her neck, and long golden earrings. Her blouse was of red silk, and her pleated skirt was the colour of corn cobs. She brought a scent of musk and patchouli and lavender into the caravan with her.

Radu nodded his head happily. ‘Do you have many children?’

‘Six.’

Radu smiled broadly. ‘I want six children. My wife, Lemma, is pregnant with our first. I am glad I am alive. This way I can have more. We were married early this summer.’

‘Yes. This way you can have more.
But
č
have but baxt.
Many children, much luck.’ Maja watched Radu approvingly. This was a proper man. Radu had established himself as the head of a family. It was right that he had told her first of his wife and unborn child. She looked at her husband. He nodded his head. Then he turned and left the caravan.

‘Your wife. She is how old?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘This is good. She has time for many more children. I was eighteen with my first.’ Maja helped Radu sit up. She checked his bandages. ‘You are not hot. You have no infection. No fever.’

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Three days.’

Radu could feel his face flush with fear. ‘I am worried for my wife. They may go back. They may take revenge on her.’

‘Amoy will organize the telephone. He will bring it in here.’

‘In here?’

‘Yes. It is a long line. We do this all the time. The police know, but they are scared to come here. There are many of us. There are few of them.’

‘When can I move? I must go and warn my other friends.’

‘You can move when you want to. But there will be a risk. And you will be weak. The first bullet tore your arm. The second bullet lodged in your back. High up on your shoulder. But it was spent. We cut it out. But you lost much blood. When you first walk you will fall. You will be very weak.’

‘There is a village I need to get to. In the north of your country. I cannot tell you the name of it, or it would put you and your family in danger. How could I travel there? I cannot go in a horse and cart. There is some urgency to this if I have already been here for three days.’

‘My brother. He drives trucks. If he is not going north, he will know of someone who is. We can arrange this for you.’

‘How will I ever repay you for this?’

‘Your wife will repay us. By having your children. This is as it should be.’

Brara, Maramure
ş
, Romania
17 November 2009

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