Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

'You will try.' He reached out and took some green herbs from a bowl, and sprinkled them on top. 'Fermina is not hungry. Join me?'

'I guess…OK.'

'You must use a wooden spoon, the metal of cutlery corrupts the flavour.'

There was nothing for it: the old man wanted to eat. The two men carried their plates into the gloomy sitting room, where an acrid fire in the humble hearth was giving off a pungent smoke.

Jose winced as he spooned the slithery little eels into his mouth.

'Aiii…Frozen. Not so good. But better than the fake ones. You know they now make fake angulas? Si. It is true — they fake them because these real ones are so expensive, fifty euros for half a kilo.'

The impatient anger was rising inside David. The time had come.

'Jose…we need to talk. Now.'

'They make them from reconstituted…cod innards. Mackerel. Meat. Who knows.' Jose sighed, quite lyrically. 'All the real angulas are dying out, like the poets, like the Basque songs, like everything that is good…'

'Jose — '

'They even paint little eyes on the fake eels! Did you know that, Davido! Fake little eyes on the txitxardin!'

'Enough!'

Jose stopped.

Setting down his plate on the dusty floorboards, David began: 'Listen to me. Eloise's grandmother told me…something. It is painful, Jose. But I need to know.'

Jose shook his head, and examined his food, apparently ignoring David's questions.

'Jose! She said you were known at Gurs.'

The old Basque man gazed at his silvery angulas.

David persisted. 'They said you were known, by some people, as the traitor. Is it a lie? Or is it true? Is this why you have been silent these last days? Why all the mystery? What are you ashamed of?'

Jose sat motionless, the plate on his lap. Then he raised his watery eyes. The intensely anguished gaze made David flinch: something terrible had happened to Jose. Or maybe Jose had done something terrible.

'Jose?'

'It is…it is because…' His lips were almost white, his face the grey of morning mist on a river. 'Because it is true. Something happened at Gurs.'

'Were you imprisoned with my grandfather?'

Jose rocked back and forth, on his damp wooden chair.

David tried again: 'Were you imprisoned with my grandfather?'

'Yes.'

'But, Jose. Why didn't you tell us this in the first place?'

'Because of…things. That happened. I cannot trust anyone. When you know the secrets I know, the secrets I learned in Gurs, then you understand to be very careful. Forever.' He gazed mournfully at David. 'And yet…When I saw your face that day, when you came to the cottage…then I remembered my old friend Martinez and I wanted you to know the truth, as much as I could risk.' The old man was sighing. 'I felt you deserved to know who your grandfather was. A Basque. But you needed to be protected, as well.'

'From Miguel?'

'From Miguel. From many others like him. But especially Miguel.'

'Did he kill my parents?'

The air was filled with the sounds of the downpour outside.

'Yes…'

This reply seemed to wrench something out of Jose, who closed his eyes and shuddered. Then he looked away from David: he was staring at the broken window beyond his questioner's shoulder. David spun, in sharp alarm — was that a shape in the woods beyond the garden?

The misty rain was deceptive: maybe it was just a pottok, one of the wild horses, drifting in that ghostly way, through the forest — but David couldn't help imagining it was…Miguel. Scoping them out, whispering to an accomplice, the rain dripping off his cap as he cocked his gun.

No: that was impossible. No one knew they were hiding out here. No one even knew they were in Campan, let alone concealed in the cagoterie over the river. And the house was incredibly sequestered: you only knew it existed, behind its screen of firs, by the time you knocked your head on the ancient stone lintel, with its goose foot carved cruelly and brutally into the granite.

But that raised another question. How did Jose know about this house? It was the ancient home and refuge of the Cagots, not Basques. How did Jose Garovillo end up here?

And then a cold new possibility gripped David — a claw around his thoughts. If Jose knew about the house, why shouldn't Miguel?

David sat forward. His interrogation needed some urgency. Maybe threats.

'Jose, does Miguel know about this house?'

'No. I never tell him, not the house. If he knew I would not be here! One day I knew I would have to run away from him, that I would need somewhere to escape, when he came looking, or when the police came hunting.'

'But how did you know about a Cagot safe house?'

Jose quickly spooned a tiny morsel of elvers into his white-lipped mouth.

David gripped Jose's other arm. Hard.

'Tell me. What happened at Gurs? Why did Miguel kill my parents?'

A frown of pain. David gripped harder. Jose grimaced, and exuded an answer:

'Because of what they were about to find out.'

'You mean what happened at Gurs. Your treachery?'

'Yes.'

David now realized, with an upwelling of contempt mixed with pity — that Jose was crying. Two or three tears tracked down the old man's face, as he explained: 'Yes I did something at Gurs. Things happened there. Miguel did not want people to know…'

'Jose, what did you do?'

The old man mumbled a reply; David leaned forward, unhearing. Jose said again, 'They torture us. You have to remember, they torture us.'

'Who?'

'Eugen Fischer.'

David shook his head.

'I've heard him mentioned, by Eloise's grandmother. Who is he?'

'A Nazi doctor.'

'And what did he do?' David felt the tingle of a bittersweet excitement: he sensed he was getting closer to the tragic core of this mystery. He was far from sure he wanted to know the answers; yet he wanted the answers more than ever.

'What did they do? Jose? How did they torture you?'

'They tested us. Many tests of the blood. And the hair and the…the blood. Testing the blood.'

'What else?'

'There were other doctors. And then the Catholics, many priests.' Jose was shivering. He was shivering like the oak leaves in the garden, pelted with cold mountain rain.

'What did the priests do?'

'They burned us. Some of us. Killed us.'

'Why did they do this?'

Jose took one more mouthful of the cooling, greasy baby eels. And then he said, 'They thought we were not human, they thought we deserved to be exterminated, like snakes. To die like pagans, or witches. Once they finished their blood testing…Eugen Fischer would hand some of us over to the priests and the criminals…' Jose waved a hand, despairingly. 'And they took us, and burned us. Many many people. In the swamps at the edge of the camp.'

'But why did they torture you?' David said. 'Was it like the witch burnings? Zugarramurdi? The burning of the Basques?'

Jose gazed with a profound sadness at David. And said, 'No.'

David's shoulders slumped. The mystery still eluded him. He was angry now. Angry at himself for not working it out, and angry at his grandfather. And most of all David was angry at Jose. This old man could tell David everything, blow away the mist, trap the wild horse of the truth. Jose would have to confess. David had to know now.

Gripping Jose's arm, once more, David pressed on.

'Jose, people are dying. They're dying right now. What happened at Gurs? Why were you called the traitor?'

The brown eyes were closed, but Jose was nodding, muttering.

'S?…you are right. It is time. S?…'

David wasn't letting go of Jose's arm, not this time. He didn't care if he was hurting the old man. Jose spoke, his words dry and croaked: 'They did tests on us all, David. Many tests of blood types and skull sizes. The Cagots and the gypsies, the communists and the Basques, the French and Spanish too…'