Mario Reading - The Nostradamus prophecies

Babel reached across to the next table and grabbed an empty beer glass. He smashed it down on to the surface between them and ground his hand in the broken shards. Then he reached across and took Sabir’s hand in his bloodied paw. ‘I’m sorry for this.’ Before Sabir had time to react, the gypsy had forced his hand down on to the broken glass.

‘Jesus! You little bastard…’ Sabir tried to snatch his hand back.

The gypsy clutched hold of Sabir’s hand and forced it against his own, until the two hands were joined in a bloody scum. Then he smashed Sabir’s bleeding palm against his forehead, leaving a splattered imprint. ‘Now. Listen! Listen to me.’

Sabir wrenched his hand from the gypsy’s grasp. The barman emerged from behind his bar brandishing a foreshortened billiard cue.

‘Two words. Remember them. Samois. Chris.’ Babel backed away from the approaching barman, his bloodied palm held up as if in benediction. ‘Samois. Chris. You remember?’ He threw a chair at the barman, using the distraction to orientate himself in relation to the rear exit. ‘Samois. Chris.’ He pointed at Sabir, his eyes wild with fear. ‘Don’t forget.’

Babel knew that he was running for his life. Nothing had ever felt as certain as this before. As complete. The pain in his hand was a violent, throbbing ache. His lungs were on fire, each breath tearing through him as if it were studded with nails.

Bale watched him from fifty metres back. He had time. The gypsy had nowhere to go. No one he could speak to. The Surete would take one look at him and put him in a straitjacket – the police weren’t overly charitable to gypsies in Paris, especially gypsies covered in blood. What had happened in that bar? Who had he seen? Well, it wouldn’t take him long to find out.

He spotted the white Peugeot van almost immediately. The driver was asking directions of a window cleaner. The window cleaner was pointing back towards St-Denis and scrunching his shoulders in Gallic incomprehension.

Bale threw the driver to one side and climbed into the cab. The engine was still running. Bale slid the van into gear and accelerated away. He didn’t bother to check in the rear-view mirror.

Babel had lost sight of the gadje. He turned and looked behind him, jogging backwards. Passers-by avoided him, put off by his bloodied face and hands. Babel stopped. He stood in the street, sucking in air like a cornered stag.

The white Peugeot van mounted the kerb and smashed into Babel’s right thigh, crushing the bone. Babel ricocheted off the bonnet and fell heavily on to the pavement. Almost immediately he felt himself being lifted – strong hands on his jacket and the seat of his trousers. A door was opened and he was thrown into the van. He could hear a terrible, high-pitched keening and belatedly realised that it was coming from himself. He looked up just as the gadje brought the heel of his hand up beneath his chin.

Babel awoke to an excruciating pain in his legs and shoulders. He raised his head to look around, but saw nothing. It was only then that he realised that his eyes were bandaged and that he was tied, upright, to some sort of metal frame from which he hung forward, his legs and arms in cruciform position, his body in an involuntary semicircle, as though he were thrusting out his hips in the course of some particularly explicit dance. He was naked.

Bale gave Babel’s penis another tug. ‘So. Have I got your attention at last? Good. Listen to me, Samana. There are two things you must know. One. You are definitely going to die – you cannot possibly talk your way out of this or buy your life from me with information. Two. The manner of your death depends entirely on you. If you please me, I will cut your throat. You won’t feel anything. And the way I do it, you will bleed to death in under a minute. If you displease me, I will hurt you – far more than I am hurting you now. To prove to you that I intend to kill you – and that there is no way back from the position in which you find yourself – I am going to slice your penis off. Then I shall cauterise the wound with a hot iron so that you don’t bleed to death before your time.’

‘Don’t! Don’t do it! I will tell you anything you want to know. Anything.’

Bale stood with his knife held flat against the outstretched skin of Babel’s member. ‘Anything? Your penis, against the information that I seek?’ Bale shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t understand. You know that you will never use it again. I have made this quite clear. Why should you wish to retain it? Don’t tell me that you are still labouring under the delusion that there is hope?’

A filament of saliva drooled from the edge of Babel’s mouth. ‘What do you want me to tell you?’

‘First. The name of the bar.’

‘Chez Minette.’

‘Good. That is correct. I saw you enter there myself. Who did you see?’

‘An American. A writer. Adam Sabir.’

‘Why?’

‘To sell him the manuscript. I wanted money.’

‘Did you show him the manuscript?’

Babel gave a fractured laugh. ‘I don’t even have it. I’ve never seen it. I don’t even know if it exists.’

‘Oh dear.’ Bale let go of Babel’s penis and began stroking his face. ‘You are a handsome man. The ladies like you. A man’s greatest weakness always lies in his vanity.’ Bale criss-crossed his knife blade over Babel’s right cheek. ‘Not so pretty now. From one side, you’ll still do. From the other – Armageddon. Look. I can put my finger right through this hole.’

Babel started screaming.

‘Stop. Or I shall mark the other side.’

Babel stopped screaming. Air fl uttered through the torn flaps of his cheek.

‘You advertised the manuscript. Two interested parties answered. I am one. Sabir the other. What did you intend to sell to us for half a million euros? Hot air?’

‘I was lying. I know where it can be found. I will take you to it.’

‘And where is that?’

‘It’s written down.’

‘Recite it to me.’

Babel shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Turn the other cheek.’

‘No! No! I can’t. I can’t read…’

‘How do you know it’s written down then?’

‘Because I’ve been told.’

‘Who has this writing? Where can it be found?’ Bale cocked his head to one side. ‘Is a member of your family hiding it? Or somebody else?’ There was a pause. ‘Yes. I thought so. I can see it on your face. It’s a member of your family, isn’t it? I want to know who. And where.’ Bale grabbed hold of Babel’s penis. ‘Give me a name.’

Babel hung his head. Blood and saliva dripped out of the hole made by Bale’s knife. What had he done? What had his fear and bewilderment made him reveal? Now the gadje would go and find Yola. Torture her too. His dead parents would curse him for not protecting his sister. His name would become unclean – mahrime. He would be buried in an unmarked grave. And all because his vanity was stronger than his fear of death.

Had Sabir understood those two words he had told him in the bar? Would his instincts about the man prove right?

Babel knew that he had reached the end of the road. A lifetime spent building castles in the air meant that he understood his own weaknesses all too well. Another thirty seconds and his soul would be consigned to Hell. He would have only one chance to do what he intended to do. One chance only.

Using the full hanging weight of his head, Babel threw his chin up to the left, as far as it could reach and then wrenched it back downwards in a vicious semicircle to the right.

Bale took an involuntary step backwards. Then he reached across and grabbed a handful of the gypsy’s hair. The head lolled loose, as if sprung from its moorings.