touch suicidal. If he was a Cagot with maybe the worst of Cagot urges, he wasn't sure he wanted to live.
So drink.
The publican was unshaven, jowly, sixty-something and spoke a smattering of German. He served up four foaming lagers. Simon hesitated, and then he took a beer.
They sat at the table. Only Angus was talking. Only Angus had the energy. He was talking of Czech beer, in between gulps of Czech beer. 'The best pilsner should taste very slightly like horseradish. You know that? This one is a cracking example. You've gotta love Czech beer. The food is shite, they put whipped cream on everything, but, fuck, they know how to brew. They even have breakfast beers here, special beers for breakfast. Hah!'
Amy stood up and walked to the door.
'I need fresh air.'
David let her go. He could see why she wanted to be away from him, away from the cursed Cagot. Who would want to be his girlfriend? As the door shut behind her he realized that it was now sealed, the deed now done: he was utterly and finally alone. Everyone had left him, everyone had quit. He was lost in the desert of his own life. Like those solitary trees on the Skeleton Coast, living off the dew in the fog.
So let Miguel come and kill him, Cagot slaying Cagot, brother killing brother. It didn't matter any more.
Angus was talking about the Holocaust. He was on his second or third large glass of Staropramen and his conversation was seasoned with lunacy, a drunken nihilism.
'You know, what gets me is the fact that the Germans did three holocausts in the twentieth century. Not one, not two, but three: the Herero and the Witbooi and then the Jews.' Angus smiled angrily across the pub. 'So what's going on there then? I mean, OK, one holocaust, fair enough, we all make mistakes, could happen to anyone. Sorry my zyklon slipped. But then…two holocausts? Hm. That's a bit odd. That's a bit of a theme. Isn't it? Maybe we should try something a bit less holocausty next time?' He paused. 'And then…you do it again? For a third time? Three holocausts in a row? How does that work?'
He drank some more beer. Simon was staring down, staring at his shoes, staring at darkness.
Angus drank, and he ranted. 'And here's another thing. You know they built the best hotel in Luderitz right opposite Shark Island. That's nice, isn't it? So you get a view of the extermination camp from your balcony. So you can look at the graves — as you operate the trouser press. Do you think this was a deliberate feature, incorporated by the architects? I'd like to have been at the design meeting when — '
'Angus,' said Amy. She had returned to the bar. A determined expression on her face. 'Angus. Just shut the fuck up.'
The Scotsman laughed. And then he apologized. And then he laughed — sourly — and fell silent.
The talk of Shark Island reminded David of Namibia. That last scene, crouched in the hut. The Herero Skulls.
The obscene Nazi joke.
'You know…' he said, very slowly. 'Maybe…we're being…a bit stupid. There is no way a synagogue would still be standing here. In Pskov. The Nazis killed all the Jews.'
Amy said: 'But it's on the map. If it was demolished then why indicate it? I don't get it.'
David leaned nearer.
'So…maybe it wasn't demolished. It was turned into something else, probably before the war. The synagogue will be disguised as something else.'
'Like what?' 'Something insulting? Another joke, like in Luderitz.'
Angus nodded, firmly.
'Yes. This is true. The Nazis turned some synagogues into pigsties, some into nightclubs. To insult Jewish faith. Of course…'
Amy shook her head.
'There's no nightclub in Pskov. It's tiny — there's nothing bloody here, no dancehalls, no pig farms, no nothing.'
The farmer on the next table belched robustly as he finished his pig knuckle. And Simon was pointing.
'So what about that? Look.'
They all turned. At the top of the front wall was a small and grubby old window. It wasn't letting in much light because it was paned with dark stained glass, the colour of fortified wine.
But the dusty light, thrown by the Budvar sign outside, was sufficient to illuminate the window's leaded design.
It was a Star of David.
47
The publican was entirely uninterested in their bizarre request, and stranger questions — until David offered him three hundred euros.
Then he quickly brightened and took them to the back of the pub: where steel barrels concealed a wall.
It was painted with Hebrew script.
'Move the barrels,' said Amy. 'The Tabernacle must have been here.'
The steel barrels boomed and clanked as they were shifted. Under the barrels was…nothing. David felt a miserable disappointment, tinged with faint relief. Part of him actively didn't want to know what was under the castle. The proof of his blood. And part of him needed to know immediately.
The publican was staring at them. His arms were crossed. Beer stains dotted his white jacket. Then he said: 'Die Juden Tur?'
'Yes!'
'Hier.'
He led them down into a dark corner of the back room. A small wooden door was set low in the wall. The publican gabbled an explanation in gruff German. Amy interpreted, her voice rising with excitement:
'He says…this is the door from the war. There is a cellar behind, a passageway beyond that. He used the cellar to store…something he doesn't want to talk about. Contraband maybe? He doesn't know where the passage ends. He has never explored further. Too bloody scared of the communists in the castle.'
Another hundred euros elicited an agreement to open the door — then to close it behind them. And to tell no one.
Another fifty euros bought a torch.
The door was creaked open. David felt a surge of queasiness as he peered through. Another small door, a little door, like a Cagot door. The door he was always meant to pass through.
Inside, a few steps led down into a room full of damp darkness and cobwebs — and stacks of beige and grey Marlboro cigarette cartons, and a dozen garden gnomes. The gnomes leered in the sudden light; one of them was frozen in a fishing position. With grinning scarlet lips.
'OK?' said David, trying to quell his nerves. Now he could almost sense Miguel — nearing. Hunting them down. Blood finding blood.
'OK,' the others replied, as one.
They stepped inside the low chamber; the bar owner looked at them for a final second, shrugged as if they were obviously mad, then shut the tiny door.
Darkness enshrouded them. Apart from their one feeble torchbeam. David flashed it down the chamber, which went on, and on. A long passage into the chilly blackness.
'Let's go.'
They knew they had two kilometres to walk: the distance to Zbiroh. They began in silence. The sound of their footsteps slipping in the mud was the only noise they made. No one spoke.
Their hurried pace at last brought them to another door. An iron door. It was shut.
David slumped to the side. He could feel clammy mud on his back. He didn't care.
'Christ.'
Angus swore. Simon shook his head. David had his head weighed in his hands.
Another door. Just another door. That would stop them? He remembered all the doors he had been through
