The curandero still travelled by horse-drawn caravan. He had found himself a pitch at a riding stables about two kilometres out of town, on the right bank of the Etang des Launes. His horse presented an unnatural slash of brown amidst the predominant white of the gardien ponies in the corral.
As Sabir approached, the curandero pointed to the ground outside his front steps. Yola was already squatting there, an expectant expression on her face.
Sabir gave a vehement shake of the head, one eye still fixed on Sergeant Spola who was lurking near his car at the roadside. ‘I’m not squatting anywhere. Believe me. I’ve never had cramp like that before. And I don’t want it again.’
The curandero hesitated, smiling, as if he didn’t quite understand Sabir’s use of the vernacular. Then he disappeared inside the caravan.
‘He understands French, doesn’t he?’ Sabir whispered.
‘He speaks Sinto, Calo, Spanish and Romani-Cib. French is his fifth language.’ Yola looked embarrassed, as if the mere subject of how much the curandero might or might not be able to understand was subtly out of order.
‘What’s his name?’
‘You never use his name. People just call him curandero. When he became a shaman, he lost his name, his family and all that connected him to the tribe.’
‘But I thought you said he was the cousin of your father?’
‘He is the cousin of my father. He was that before he became a shaman. And my father is dead. So he is still the cousin of my father. They called him Alfego, back then. Alfego Zenavir. Now he is simply curandero.’
Sabir was saved from further bewilderment when the curandero re-emerged, brandishing a stool. ‘Sit. Sit here. No cramp. Ha ha!’
‘Yes. No cramp. Cramp a bad thing.’ Sabir looked uncertainly at the stool.
‘Bad thing? No. A good thing. You take pain from Alexi. Very good. Cramp not hurt you. You a young man. Soon gone.’
‘Soon gone. Yes.’ Sabir didn’t sound convinced. He backed on to the stool, stretching his leg carefully out ahead of him like a gout victim.
‘You married already?’
Sabir glanced at Yola, unsure what the curandero was getting at. But Yola was doing her usual trick of concentrating intensely on the curandero and pointedly refusing to notice any strategies Sabir might care to use to gain her attention.
‘No. Not married. No.’
‘Good. Good. This is good. A shaman should never marry.’
‘But I’m not a shaman.’
‘Not yet. Not yet. Ho ho.’
Sabir was beginning to wonder whether the curandero might not in fact be short of a few marbles – but the stern expression on Yola’s face was enough to disabuse him of that notion.
After a short pause for prayer, the curandero felt inside his shirt and drew out a necklet, which he placed around Yola’s neck. He touched her once with his finger, along the parting of her hair. Sabir realised that he was speaking to her in Sinto.
Then the curandero moved across to him. After another pause for prayer, the man felt around inside his shirt and drew out a second necklet. He placed it around Sabir’s neck and then took Sabir’s head in both his hands. He stood for a long time, his eyes shut, holding Sabir’s head. After a while Sabir felt his eyes closing and a rather comforting darkness obtrude itself upon the surrounding day.
With no apparent effort, Sabir suddenly found himself watching the back of his own eyes – rather as an intruder in a cinema might find himself staring at the reverse image on the rear of a projection screen. First, the approaching darkness turned to a roseate hue, like water that has been imbrued with blood. Then a tiny face seemed to form itself a long way away from him. As he watched, the face slowly began to approach, gaining in precision the closer it came, until Sabir was able to make out his own features clearly imprinted on its physiognomy. The face came closer still, until it passed clean through the notional screen in front of him, to disappear via the rear of Sabir’s own head.
The curandero moved away from him, nodding in satisfaction.
Sabir opened his eyes as wide as they would go. He felt tempted to stretch himself – rather like a cormorant drying its wings on a rock – but for some reason he felt physically abashed in front of the curandero and contented himself with a series of small circular movements of the shoulders. ‘I saw my own face approaching me. Then it seemed to pass right through me. Is that normal?’
The curandero nodded again, as if what Sabir said did not surprise him. But he seemed in no mood to speak.
‘What is this?’ Sabir pointed to the necklet resting just above his sternum.
‘Samana’s daughter will tell you. I am tired. I will sleep.’ The curandero raised a hand in farewell and ducked in through the doorway of his caravan.
Sabir glanced down at Yola to see what effect the curandero’s strange behaviour might be having on her. To his astonishment, she was crying. ‘What is it? What did he say to you?’
Yola shook her head. She ran the back of her hand across her eyes like a child.
‘Come on. Please tell me. I’m completely out of my depth here. That much must be obvious.’
Yola sighed. She took a deep breath. ‘The curandero told me that I would never make a shamanka. That God had chosen another path for me – a path that was harder to accept, more humbling and with no certainty of achievement. That I wasn’t to question this path in any way. I was simply to follow it.’
‘What does he know? Why would he tell you such a thing? What gives him the right?’
Yola looked at Sabir in shock. ‘Oh, the curandero knows. He is taken away in his dreams by an animal spirit. He is shown many things. He may not influence events, however, but only prepare people to accept them. That is his function.’
Sabir masked his bewilderment with inquiry. ‘Why did he touch you like that? Along the hairline? It seemed to hold some significance for him.’
‘He was cementing both halves of my body together.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘If I am to succeed in what I have been chosen to do, the two halves of my body must not be split one from another.’
‘I’m sorry, Yola. But I still don’t understand.’
Yola stood up. She glanced uncertainly towards Sergeant Spola, then allowed her voice to drop to whisper. ‘We are all made in two halves, Damo. When God cooked us in His oven, He fused the two parts together into one mould. But each part still looked in a different direction – one to the past and one to the future. When both parts are reversed and brought back together – by illness, perhaps, or by the actions of a curandero – then this person, from that moment onwards, will look only to the present. They will live entirely in the present.’ Yola searched for the right words to convey her meaning. ‘They will be of service. Yes. That is it. They will be able to be of service.’
Sensing that they were finally aware of him once again, the ever-courteous Sergeant Spola raised his shoulders quizzically from over by the road. He had long acknowledged that he was way out of his depth with these gypsies, but as time trickled past, he was increasingly dreading the somewhat inevitable call from Captain Calque about his charges.
For Sergeant Spola had belatedly realised that he could never satisfactorily explain how he had allowed the girl to persuade him to abandon Alexi to his sickbed in favour of this visit to the curandero . Not even to himself could he explain it.
As he stood by his car, willing the gypsies to give up what they were doing and hurry back to him, he experienced a sudden desperate urge to return and check on his other charge in case someone, somewhere, had taken advantage of his good nature and was planning to land him in the horseshit.
Sabir raised a placatory hand. Then he turned his attention back to Yola. ‘And these things around our necks?’
‘They are for killing ourselves.’
