The Third Antichrist (36 page)

After fifty blows he desisted. He threw the blood-soaked knout across the room. His sister had not uttered a sound for some time.

Lupei strode towards the door, wresting the torn cloth from his eyes. He did not look backwards.

Oponici, Romania
Friday, 5 February 2010

56

Oponici was a mid-sized market town, with all that that entailed in terms of population density and problems of circulation. Whereas Brara was small and dispersed, Oponici was dense and concentrated. The roads, however, had been partially cleared thanks to the extra revenue brought in by the stallholders, so that the market traffic was flowing out of town at something resembling a smart walking pace.

Radu stopped the Simca on the very edge of town and turned round in his seat. ‘You stay here, Luludja. I am going in by foot. You must keep your head down below the line of the seats, and you must not move for anything. Even if a policeman comes along, just cover yourself in the sleeping bags, and pretend to be asleep. You must promise me this, Luludja. I will be back shortly.’

‘Don’t leave me, Radu. I am frightened.’

‘I have to leave you. There is no choice. I must find the others.’

Lemma had no strength to argue. The contractions were becoming more frequent. She knew she daren’t leave the safety of the car.

‘If I switch the engine off, will you be warm enough under the sleeping bags? We need to conserve our fuel.’

‘I am warm enough. I am sorry I was frightened. But please be quick. I do not want to have this baby alone.’ There was the ghost of a tremor in Lemma’s voice.

Radu steeled his heart. ‘I shall come back here with Yola and the others. Soon you will have other women to look after you. This will be better for you.’

‘Thank you, Radu.’

‘I love you, Luludja. I love you more than anything.’

Lemma covered her eyes with her hand. Radu had never said these words to her before. She did not want the
mulos
– the spirits of the dead – to hear them and snatch them away from her.

Radu hurried through the empty streets and towards the market square. How had they reached this pass? His young wife in the back of a strange car, about to have a baby. He having killed a man.

He stopped dead.

In reality it was not he, but Lemma, who had killed the man. Radu felt an intense sense of pride that he possessed a wife capable of such an act. A wife capable of walking three kilometres through the driving snow when she was just a few hours off having a baby. Lemma might be only eighteen, but she was already a fine woman for a man to call his own.

Radu hesitated between the market square and the residential district, with its hostels and its guest houses. Maybe the party had not yet settled on a place for the night? Ah. That was it. They would still be drinking at the
cr
îş
ma.
That’s what he would be doing on a market day, given half a chance. Lurking in the warmth of a good bar and hoping some drunken Gypsy would come in and show you the way to free lodgings.

He turned towards the marketplace and approached the windows of the town’s main bar. This would be the place. He could smell it.

He peered in. The windows were steamed to the gunnels. Radu sidestepped to where he had noticed a thin stretch of cleared glass. He squinted through it with his one good eye.

Alexi was holding forth to a crowd of drinkers with much hand-waving and considerable hammering of the table. A pall of smoke hovered over him from the cigars and cigarettes of the men surrounding him. Radu mouthed a curse. He checked around for the others.

A door crashed open beside him, letting out a current of superheated air. Radu flattened himself against the wall. He didn’t want anyone to see him. A beaten-up Gypsy was memorable to everybody. It would not be a good thing.

The man ignored him. He staggered towards a concrete building situated near the corner of the road. Radu realized that this was the public privy. He followed the man across to the privy and concealed himself on the side of the road opposite the street lights. When the man came out again, Radu slipped in behind him and hid himself in one of the cubicles. The place stank worse than a piggery. But Radu knew one thing for certain. When Alexi started drinking, he also started pissing. It was an inevitable equation. Like cholera after a flood. He had only to wait.

Three men came in, one after the other. None of them was Alexi. Radu thought of Lemma waiting in the car. But he didn’t dare enter the
cr
îş
ma
himself. People would ask questions. Before he knew it, Alexi would make some expansive joke and draw attention to Radu’s face. Later, the police would hear of it and link him and Lemma to the murder. It must not happen.

The door opened and a fourth man walked in. Radu peered round the cubicle door. It was the Frenchman. Calque.

Radu threw open the door.

‘
Putain!
’ Calque sidestepped and threw his arms up in the air. Then he squinted at Radu in the dim glow of the twenty-five-watt bulb. ‘My God, man. I thought I was being mugged. What are you doing here? Whatever happened to your face?’

Radu took Calque’s arm. ‘They have found us, Captain. I killed the man they sent. He thought Lemma was Yola and tried to murder her. But she is well. Don’t worry.’ Radu couldn’t bring himself to talk about the coming of the baby. In his culture, there were certain taboos. They were there for a purpose. It was considered possible to put one’s mouth on a thing and bring down bad luck upon it. Such a thing as the having of a baby. It therefore went unmentioned. ‘We have the man’s car now. You must persuade everyone out of the
cr
îş
ma
and I will take you to where I have left it. I explain to you all on the way. This is very important. They will be after us soon. There is no time to lose.’

Calque flared his eyes. A closer look at Radu’s face, however, convinced him that Radu hadn’t been drinking. He allowed Radu to hurry him back towards the inn. Five minutes later Calque emerged with the rest of the party.

57

‘We cannot all fit into this one car. It is impossible.’ Flipo, Radu’s brother-in-law, was standing behind Radu’s sister, Nuelle. Their children, Bera and Koiné, stood at their side. All were staring at the Simca. ‘Even the six of you alone would be a tight fit in there. An impossible fit if you ask me.’

Yola had already climbed inside the car. She was whispering to Lemma. Lemma was nodding. Yola put her hand under the nest of sleeping bags. She withdrew it, sniffed her fingers, and then shook her head and smiled.

Sabir had a fair idea of what was going on. It wasn’t the first time he had encountered the Romani taboo on talking about pregnancy before the event. He decided that Yola had been checking to see if Lemma might have an infection. But he had not the faintest idea how one could tell that much from sniffing one’s hands. Still. He wasn’t a woman, thank God. He could think of few worse things to happen to one than to be expecting a baby in a car in a white-out in a country that was not your own. ‘What do you suggest we do, Flipo?’

‘I have relatives in Hungary. The Corpus is not looking for us. I will take my family there. It is never wise to stamp on the tail of a snake.’

‘How will you get there?’

‘I have a little money. We will travel by public transport. Our papers are in order. We are in the EU here. Hungary is in the EU too. It should not be so hard.’

Sabir felt in his pockets. He counted out some cash and handed it to Flipo. ‘Will this help?’

‘Yes. This is enough to get us through.’ Flipo pocketed the money. He was not a man given to gushing. ‘Nuelle. Say goodbye to your brother and your cousins. You too, children.’

‘Where will you sleep tonight?’

‘Alexi has already arranged that. He talked to a man called Stefan about it. He is a Chirpaci. A basket maker. He has a workshop in town. We will sleep there. Before this happened, you would have slept there too. There is a stove. It will be warm for the children.’

Flipo backed off and shepherded his children back towards the
cr
îş
ma.
Radu’s sister hesitated for a moment. She stared through the misted windows of the car at Lemma and Yola. ‘I have had two children. I should stay. Lemma will need me.’

Radu shook his head. ‘Yola will look after Lemma. You have Bera and Koiné. They need you too. And we have no more room. Flipo is right.’

Nuelle nodded. But still she hovered by the car.

Radu ducked his head at her. ‘You will be
Kirvi
– Flipo will be
Kirvo.
More I cannot say. I do not wish to bring down the evil eye.’

Nuelle kissed her brother – a rare thing for a Gypsy woman to do in public. Then she brought his hand up to her forehead and laid it gently on her heart.

Calque watched her as she hurried down the street towards her husband and children. He sidled up to Sabir. ‘What was that all about?’

Sabir lowered his voice. ‘I don’t speak Amari
Č
hib. But as far as I can tell, Nuelle did not want to leave Lemma. It is clear to everyone that Lemma is just about to have her baby, but no one will talk about it openly for fear of damaging the child’s chances. Radu made an exception and told Nuelle that she will be godmother to the child, and Flipo godfather – I caught the words
Kirvo
and
Kirvi
amongst all the other stuff. As far as I know this is an uncommon thing to decide before the child is born – there is usually a formal ceremony after the birth. Radu is taking a terrible chance. If the
mulos
overhear him, they may take the child’s soul before it is born as a punishment for his vainglory.’

‘Sabir, do you believe all this stuff?’

Sabir shrugged. ‘I believe the Corpus tried to kill Lemma tonight believing she was Yola. This much I got out of Radu. I believe that when the snow stops, this car and its number plate will be a death trap for us. I also believe that we need to find ourselves somewhere safe to lie up in before that happens. Somewhere Lemma can have her baby. And that every minute counts until then.’

Alexi helped Yola and Lemma out of the car. He had sobered up remarkably quickly given the circumstances. ‘We need to take out the back seat. Then we can make a nest at floor level with the sleeping bags. Four people should fit in there easily. Lemma can lie on the floor.’

‘Alexi, you’re a genius. Never let anyone persuade you otherwise.’ Sabir helped Radu lever out the unwanted seat, while Alexi and Calque busied themselves going through the boot. ‘It might be tricky, though, when we cross the border.’

Radu shook his head. ‘We cannot cross the border. The phone I took from the dead man rang over an hour ago. By now there will be people coming to see what has happened to him. They will find the body. We did not have time to hide it very well. Then they will tell the police maybe. This car will be known. If we turn up at any border with it, they will take us and we will be tried for murder.’ Radu’s face had taken on a haunted expression.

‘Christ, man. You didn’t answer the phone when it rang?’

‘No. Lemma told me not to. She said it would buy us more time if they did not know exactly what had happened. They might think the man was still killing us.’ Radu crossed himself.