breasts in public. I’m thinking of during the funeral.’
‘Breasts are for feeding children.’
‘Well I know that…’
‘But a woman shouldn’t show her knees. That’s not good. It’s up to her not to inflame her father-in-law’s passions. Or those of men other than her husband. Knees can do that.’
‘But what about all the women here in France? You see them in the street all the time. Hell, they bare just about everything.’
‘But they are payos. Or gadje. They don’t count.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Now you are one of us, Adam, you matter. Not as much as a real gypsy, maybe. But you matter.’
‘Thank you for that. I’m very relieved.’
‘Maybe we even get you a wife some day. Someone ugly. Whom no one else wants.’
‘Fuck you, Alexi.’
53
‘There’s going to be a wedding.’
‘A wedding?’ Calque looked up from the library book he was working on.
‘Yes. I talked to the chief of the Gourdon gendarmerie just as you suggested. There have been caravans arriving for three days now. They’ve even drafted in two extra officers in case of disturbances. Drunks. Trouble with the townspeople. That sort of thing.’
‘Any movement of our trio?’
‘None. I suspect they’re going to be here for the duration. Especially if one of them is injured. Their car is parked at the periphery of the camp. Frankly, they must be mad. A brand-new Audi in that place? It’s like waving a pair of used panties in front of a teenager.’
‘Your metaphor lacks both grace and merit, Macron.’
‘I’m sorry, Sir.’ Macron searched around for something neutral to say. Some harmless way of diffusing his anger at the situation Calque was placing them in. ‘What are you doing, Sir?’
‘I’m trying to decode this anagram. At first I thought rat monstre was simply an anagram for monastere. That it meant that the secret of whatever it is these people are searching for will be kept in a monastery.’
‘But there aren’t enough letters for that. Look. There are too many tees and not enough ees.’
‘I know that.’ Calque scowled at him. ‘I’ve realised that. However, I was making the perfectly reasonable assumption that the author of this verse may have been using an antiquated spelling – monastter, for instance. Or montaster.’
‘But it’s not that?’
‘No. Now I’m looking through this book for other sites in France which have Black Virgins. Perhaps we’ll get to it that way.’
‘But why does it have to be in France?’
‘What are you talking about, Macron?’
‘Why does the place in which this secret is hidden have to be in France? Why not in Spain?’
‘Explain yourself.’
‘My mother is very Catholic, Sir. Particularly so, I should say. When I was a child, she would frequently take us the few hundred kilometres down the coast to Barcelona. By train. On the Esterel. It was her idea of a day out.’
‘Get to the point, Macron. I haven’t got time to listen to stories of your happy childhood holidays just now.’
‘No, Sir. I’m coming to the point. Near Barcelona, not far from Terrassa, lies one of Spain’s holiest shrines. It’s called Montserrat. I don’t remember if there’s a Black Virgin there, but it’s one of the spiritual homes of the Jesuits. St Ignatius de Loyola hung up his armour there after he decided to become a monk. My mother is particularly fond of the Jesuits, you see.’
Calque rocked back in his chair. ‘Macron. For once in your life you’ve succeeded in surprising me. Perhaps we’ll make a detective of you yet.’ He began leafing through the book. ‘Yes. Here we are. Montserrat. And it’s spelled with two tees. Brilliant. And there is a Black Virgin there. Listen to this:
‘The worship of La Virgen de Montserrat, otherwise known as La Morenita, or the Dark One, dates back to 888, when she was found hidden high on the Sierra de Montserrat by a group of shepherds, under the protection of a flock of angels. Carved by St Luke himself, the statue was believed to have been brought from Jerusalem to Montserrat by St Peter, where it had lain undisturbed for hundreds of years. Soon after her discovery, the Bishop of Manresa tried to move the statue, but she remained firmly in place. The Count of Barcelona became her first protector and his son dedicated a shrine to her in 932, an endowment sanctified by King Lothaire of France in 982. Montserrat is now a centre for both pilgrimage and for the promulgation of Catalan nationalism. Married couples visit from all over Spain in order to have their union blessed by the Virgin, for, as the saying goes, “No es ben casat qui no dun la done a Montserrat.” “A man is not properly married until he has taken his bride to Montserrat.” It is also alleged that the present shrine once housed an altar to Venus, goddess of beauty, mother of love, Queen of laughter, the mistress of the graces and pleasure and the patroness of courtesans.’
Calque clapped his hands together. ‘Venus, Macron.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you remember how the verse went? “He will be neither man nor woman.’’ ’
‘What’s that got to do with Venus?’
Calque sighed. ‘Venus was also called Cypria, after her main place of worship on the island of Cyprus. There was a famous statue there, in which Cypria was portrayed with a beard and carrying a sceptre. However and here is the link with the verse, the male-seeming Cypria had the body of a woman and was dressed in female clothes. Catullus, when he saw the statue, even called her the duplex Amathusia . She is a hermaphrodite, in other words, just like her son.’
‘A what?’
‘A hermaphrodite. Half man, half woman. Neither one thing, nor the other.’
‘And what’s that got to do with the Black Virgin?’
‘Two things. One: it confirms your reading of Montserrat – excellent work, Macron. Two: when paired with the writing carved on its base, it further reinforces the connection between the Black Virgin of Montserrat and that of Rocamadour.’
‘How do you figure that one out?
‘Do you remember the faces of the Virgin of Rocamadour and her son? Look. Here is a picture.’
‘I don’t see anything. It’s just a statue.’
‘Macron. Use your eyes. The two faces are similar. Interchangeable. They could both be male, or both be female.’
‘I’m completely lost. I really don’t see what this has to do with our murder.’
‘Frankly, neither do I. But I agree with you about the wedding. I think the gypsies will stay here for the duration and lick their wounds. Sabir is another matter, of course. And where he goes, the eye-man will surely follow. So we are going to be ahead of the game for once.
We are going on a field trip.’
‘A field trip? To where?’
‘To renew acquaintance with your childhood haunts, Macron. We are going to Spain. To Montserrat. To visit a lady.’
54
