Cemetery of Swallows (30 page)

“Yes, that's his hair, from his childhood, to be exact. His mother gave it to me much later on. She took it out of a silver powder box and counted the strands out one by one. She wanted to give me half of it. Since there was an uneven number of hairs, she gave me one more. That was silly, but it's the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me, you know.”

Mallock understands very well, and he feels tears welling up in his eyes as he listens to her. He goes on:

“I have to warn you that we may not be able to return them all to you. The analyses and manipulations . . . ”

She hesitates, then smiles.

“Do the best you can. It's very nice of you to concern yourself with this.”

“So he did receive honors, then?” Mallock asks as he gets up.

“In June, 1956. We waited twelve years. Well, better late than never, as people say. And they're right. Never is terrible, you know.”

Mallock agreed.

He knew.

Ever since the beginning of the investigation, and contrary to his habits, in order to balance things out when he was confronted by the irrationality of the situations and the surplus of fantastic facts, Mallock had taken the side of rationality. To make up for the excessive role played by the paranormal, he'd silenced the little magical chatter on which he usually relied. The magic that constituted all his charm, Margot would have said. It was a matter of balancing the vessel, the way one leans to port when the boat lists to starboard.

Only his dreams, by escaping the general censorship he had imposed on himself, had sent up their lucid bubbles here and there. In addition to them, since the beginning of the case there had also been the ayahuasca of Oba, the weeping flower, which had generated truly pertinent visions.

The
yague
, the death vine, was part of the potion the old shaman had made him drink. He suspected that it contained, in addition to harmaline, both ibogaine and peyote. All these psychotropic drugs had been used in the 1960s to produce “modified states of consciousness” that led to a re-evaluation of the subject's spiritual quotient. Ayahuasca was a dangerous product that the shamans prepared only for selected persons, whom they supervised during the whole course of the ceremony. In the middle of “the devil's space,” the name given the circle formed by the shamans, the initiates were monitored and aided. Ayahuasca of Oba was still more powerful. But it was not without risk, because the initiate could pass through phases in which death was imminent.

By means of this potion, Mallock had been able to catch a glimpse of the well, the swallows, and the dogs. He'd heard the music and smelled the odors of flesh. Dozens of details had then reappeared, here and there, in Manuel Gemoni's insane narrative.

If he couldn't transfer his . . . gift to Manu, he could at least give him the divinatory drug. For it was in fact a concentrate of ayahuasca that was in the little amber vial the old shaman had given him. Niyashiika had called it the vine of the dead, and had referred to lives, in the plural. If she had preferred to say nothing, that was no doubt because she knew Mallock wouldn't have believed a word of what she said. She had to make him travel the royal road to prove its existence to him. On reflection, hadn't she spoken to him about it while he was under the influence of the drug?

Now Amédée had enough motives, indeed motivations, to request a second excavation. He hoped to be able to find several things, or confirm their absence: the common grave in the middle of the clearing, the tortured bodies of Lieutenant Jean-François Lafitte's men, and the gold chain that according to Manuel should be found at the edge of the well.

Even if he was not yet ready to acknowledge it, even if he did not understand how, after his visit to Marie Dutin, Mallock now believed in the authenticity of Manu's stories. The day before, he'd been convinced of Julie's brother's honesty. Now he knew that what he was recounting during the sessions of hypnosis corresponded, if not to reality, at least to a truth. He was beginning to understand that Manu's misadventure could take on meaning only if it was admitted that reincarnation could actually exist. And that was the real problem: by succeeding in proving Manu's innocence, he would also be proving, in a way, the reality of metempsychosis. The two demonstrations now seemed to be intimately connected. And the stakes were becoming all the higher.

The implications were incalculable.

Thus he would need many more arguments, more incontestable facts, more unexplained but proven similarities to shake up the edifice of justice. If by a miracle he found all the bodies of the men in Lafitte's unit, and if moreover he was able to recuperate that of Jean-François with a golden heart inside him, no one could any longer doubt that something totally extraordinary had happened to Manuel Gemoni, requiring an equally extraordinary judgment.

It was for this reason, seeking still more . . . coincidences and bolts from the blue, that he'd decided to encourage Manu to drink the ayahuasca given him by Niyashiika.

 

9:07
A.M.
: when his computer system connected with the Fort, a rumble resounded, making his whole apartment vibrate.

A powerful lightning bolt. Thunder. A winter storm.

“There really are no seasons anymore!” Ken's face said when it appeared at the top of his screen.

Behind him, Mallock spotted Jo, with a big, amused smile on her lips. It was he, helped by Jean-Claude's and Vincent's men, who had configured the various terminals so that they would be connected to the high-speed Wi-Fi network and could set up conference calls. Each member of the Fort—except Daranne, who was allergic to any kind of modernity—had not only a personal desktop computer but also a laptop with a built-in videocam that he carried along with him when he traveled.

On Mallock's monitor, in conference mode, Jules's and Julie's faces appeared in turn.

“Hi, kids. To follow up on the good resolutions I made on Saturday, I'm going to give you a little talk about what I learned over the weekend.”

“Were you able to meet with the lieutenant's fiancée?” Julie interrupted impatiently.

“Yes, and the result is very . . . upsetting.”

A second thunderclap made the light flicker.

“Okay, listen carefully, I've got two or three bits of information to give you and I want to ask your opinion.”

Mallock began his account. Thirty minutes later, after saying, “See you in a minute,” to Jules and Julie, he shut down his computer. Even though it was well-equipped with surge protectors, he mustn't tempt fate too much. Without any respect for the status of the commander of the Fort, the thunderstorm could take his equipment as its target.

Two of Mallock's lieutenants, who were in fact captains, consented to the use of the ayahuasca. Jo opposed it, without daring to insist too much:

“I've just arrived, but everything connected with drugs scares me.”

And Ken had declared himself incompetent:

“Sorry, I have no opinion.”

Another proof, if one were needed, of his intelligence.

Coffee break.

Mallock spent more than a quarter of an hour trying to reach Mordome and Léon Galène in order to propose a tele-conference meeting the next day at the same hour. As he hung up, he glanced worriedly at the clock. At 10
A.M.
he had a meeting with Manu. Jules and Julie were supposed to meet them there. Julie had insisted on taking part in Manuel's last interrogation, under the influence of the giant jungle vine
Banisteriopsis caapi
.

“I'm willing to proceed with Manu's permission and not rush off to inform Kiko, but only if I'm present.”

This amounted to a kind of blackmail, but after all, the presence and permission of a member of the family wouldn't be a bad thing. Mallock had complied.

Around 9:30, Mallock went down to the living room. After a slight guilty hesitation, he served himself a slug of whiskey before donning a transparent plastic raincoat over a red and mauve striped shirt, itself pulled over a yellow T-shirt. According to Mallock, elegance sometimes flirted with eccentricity when his inner carnival showed its branches and flowers, a colorful camouflage covering the drab grayness of his heart.

 

Outside, Paris seemed to have been attacked by an invisible army whose artillery, still stationed outside the walls, was carrying out the traditional barrage before the assault. The icy rain had made the gutters overflow. It was running down the streets, carrying off clumps of dirty snow that looked like small, dingy icebergs.

Mallock went into the storm without hesitating an instant. Heavy drops struck his face and a lightning bolt made his eyelids flutter. Thunder. Amédée loved it. It reminded him of the walks in the rain he'd taken on the deserted beach at Andernos when he had the opportunity. The showers and lightning followed one another round the basin with enormous rumblings, and he was walking along with a smile on his lips and his face turned up to the sky, looking completely out of his mind but happy. Practiced properly, this Mallockian sport recharged him with brilliant ideas and incinerated the last sad aftereffects of his life in the world.

When he arrived at the prison, soaked to the bone, Jules and Julie were waiting for him. They looked at their boss's clothes with a worried air. Either he always wore the same gray suit, chic but too big, or he let himself go, putting on anything at all, whatever his mood of the day suggested. On that day, he'd outdone himself, a plastic raincoat over a Hawaiian shirt!

They went into Manuel's cell to explain their plan to him.

Julie's brother didn't hesitate a second.

“Anything, I'll do anything to get out of this nightmare.”

“It's not without risks,” Mallock insisted. “It will be just us, no medical assistants and no recording camera.”

“We'll stay here with you in your cell, but you've understood that it's not without risks, haven't you, my little Gandhi?”

Manu smiled broadly when he heard his old nickname.

“Yes, little sister, I've understood it all very well and I'm ready.”

In that cell, only Mallock could have disabused him. Convinced him. We are never really ready to confront ayahuasca and all the substances that compose it: harmine, harmaline, tetrahydroharmine, harmol, harmalol, dimethyltryptamine . . .

But he decided to keep quiet.

It was better not to know, so as not to be frightened.

And not be frightened so as not to die.

Or in order to die?

 

Jean-François Lafitte's Story

 

 

 

 

 

God is with them, they say, but they're wrong, it's the Devil. Jean-François tries not to lose consciousness. His men have been thrown into the mass grave dug in the middle of the clearing. Now night has fallen, he has just disfigured “K,” and he's waiting for death to come . . .

 

From the old house on my right, south of the well, I hear the howls of a wounded animal. And there, covered with blood, leaning against my tree, I ask God to grant me a favor: to see the SS leave carrying their leader's lifeless body. If he dies, nothing else matters to me! I want to see his stinking corpse return to the mud from which it should never have emerged. Let him die, so that Heaven may be avenged, so that the earth may be cleansed of his existence. Let him die screaming insanities at God, so that I can once again believe that the Devil is not the stronger party. So that everything is not hopeless.

 

An hour has gone by, the screams have died down, but I still hear his voice. “K” is shouting orders and the words he is uttering resound like scraping metal. I also hear a child crying. The blow from the bayonet that I received in my back is causing me to suffer horribly. But it's nothing in comparison to the pain I have in my mouth. My teeth were broken by “K's” triple signet ring.

On my left, the bastards have just set fire to the Canadian uniforms we were wearing. They've thrown in the remains of the woman I finished off.

The wind is driving these execrable odors toward me.

From the house's chimney, another kind of smoke is rising.

The first stars are appearing in the sky. They are like friends, and I start counting them, trying to forget everything. But I will have no respite. The dogs have come closer. I'm trying to make myself faint by banging my injured back against the tree. It's impossible, I no longer have the strength.

I will never see Marie again.

 

A squeaking noise; the door of the old house opens and a black silhouette comes out. It approaches me, yelling at the dogs
.
The animals retreat, regretfully leaving their prey. It's he. The bloody face of “K” appears in the firelight. Alive. And holding something. A piece of meat that he gnaws on one last time before throwing it to the dogs. It's hard for me to identify the object that falls at my feet with a wet sound.

Suddenly the fire flares up and illuminates the nearby undergrowth. I don't understand at first. Or don't want to understand.

It's a tiny human torso, the size of a doll, with its head blackened by fire and a largely devoured arm. The dogs rush toward it. In a few seconds, the remains have been divided up and swallowed.

But the animals are not satisfied.

They begin to lick me, all over my body, where my blood has coagulated. Their different-colored eyes shine like firebrands. I know that any moment now they are going to begin. Only a feeling of unreality allows me not to sink into madness. It isn't possible. What I've seen, what I'm seeing. None of it is true! Once upon a time . . .