Read Online The Nostradamus Prophecies by Mario Reading - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mario Reading
Ads: Link
them to switch their attentions from me to the man who really killed your brother. That way you’d be safe.’
Yola pretended to spit. ‘You really think they would do that? Once they have you in their hands they will let you dig your own grave with the key to your cell and then they will shit inside the hole. When you give yourself up, they will throw us to the winds, just as they would like to do now. Babel was a gypsy. The payos don’t care about him. They never have. Look what they did to us in the gherman war. Before it even began, they hurried to intern us. At Montreuil and Bellay. Like cattle. Then they allowed the ghermans to slaughter one finger in three of our people in France. One madman makes many madmen and many madmen makes madness. That’s what our people say.’ She clapped her hands together above her head. ‘There is no gypsy – none – Manouche, Rom, Gitan, Piemontesi, Sinti, Kalderash, Valsikane – still living, who did not have part of his family massacred. In my mother’s time, every gypsy more than thirteen years old was forced to carry a carnet anthropometrique d’identite. And do you know what they put on this card? Height, breadth, skin pigmentation, age and the length of the nose and right ear. They treated us like animals being stamped, registered and sent to the slaughter-house. Two photos. The prints from five separate fingers. All to be checked when we arrived or left from any commune. They called us Bohemiens and Romanichels – insulting names to us. This only stopped in 1969. And you wonder why three-quarters of us, like my brother, can neither read nor write?’
Sabir felt as if he’d been run over by a herd of stampeding buffaloes. The bitterness in Yola’s voice was uncomfortably raw – unnervingly real. ‘But you can. You can read. And Alexi.’
Alexi shook his head. ‘I left school at six. I didn’t like it. Who needs to read? I can talk, can’t I?’
Yola stood up. ‘You say these two coffers were made of walnut wood?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that you are now my phral? That you willingly accept this responsibility?’
‘Yes.’
She pointed to the brightly painted chest behind her. ‘Well, here is one of the coffers. Prove it to me.’
29
‘It’s the car, all right.’ Captain Calque let the tarpaulin fall back over the number-plate.
‘Shall we have it taken in?’ Macron was already unsheathing his cellphone.
Calque winced. ‘Macron. Macron. Macron. Think of it this way. The gypsies have either killed Sabir, in which case bits of him are probably scattered throughout seven departements by now, slowly investing the local flora and fauna. Or, more likely, he has been able to convince them of his innocence and that is the reason why they are hiding his car for him and have not already repainted it and sold it on to the Russians. We would do better, would we not – as spying on the main camp does not seem to be a practical option – to stake it out and wait for him to return and claim it. Or do you still think we should call for the breakers to come with their winches, their sirens and their loudhailers and have it, as you say, ‘taken in?’’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Tell me, lad. What part of Marseille are you from?’
Macron sighed. ‘La Canebiere.’
‘I thought that was a road.’
‘It is a road, Sir. But it is also a place.’
‘Do you want to go back there?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Then get on to Paris and order a tracking device. When you have the tracking device, conceal it somewhere inside the car. Then test it at five hundred metres, a thousand metres and fifteen hundred metres. And Macron?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
Calque shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
30
Achor Bale was profoundly, systematically, indisputably, bored. He had had enough of surveillance, spying, lying in thickets and skulking under gorse bushes. For a few days it had been amusing, watching the gypsies going about their daily business. Dissecting the stupidity of a culture that had
Yola pretended to spit. ‘You really think they would do that? Once they have you in their hands they will let you dig your own grave with the key to your cell and then they will shit inside the hole. When you give yourself up, they will throw us to the winds, just as they would like to do now. Babel was a gypsy. The payos don’t care about him. They never have. Look what they did to us in the gherman war. Before it even began, they hurried to intern us. At Montreuil and Bellay. Like cattle. Then they allowed the ghermans to slaughter one finger in three of our people in France. One madman makes many madmen and many madmen makes madness. That’s what our people say.’ She clapped her hands together above her head. ‘There is no gypsy – none – Manouche, Rom, Gitan, Piemontesi, Sinti, Kalderash, Valsikane – still living, who did not have part of his family massacred. In my mother’s time, every gypsy more than thirteen years old was forced to carry a carnet anthropometrique d’identite. And do you know what they put on this card? Height, breadth, skin pigmentation, age and the length of the nose and right ear. They treated us like animals being stamped, registered and sent to the slaughter-house. Two photos. The prints from five separate fingers. All to be checked when we arrived or left from any commune. They called us Bohemiens and Romanichels – insulting names to us. This only stopped in 1969. And you wonder why three-quarters of us, like my brother, can neither read nor write?’
Sabir felt as if he’d been run over by a herd of stampeding buffaloes. The bitterness in Yola’s voice was uncomfortably raw – unnervingly real. ‘But you can. You can read. And Alexi.’
Alexi shook his head. ‘I left school at six. I didn’t like it. Who needs to read? I can talk, can’t I?’
Yola stood up. ‘You say these two coffers were made of walnut wood?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that you are now my phral? That you willingly accept this responsibility?’
‘Yes.’
She pointed to the brightly painted chest behind her. ‘Well, here is one of the coffers. Prove it to me.’
29
‘It’s the car, all right.’ Captain Calque let the tarpaulin fall back over the number-plate.
‘Shall we have it taken in?’ Macron was already unsheathing his cellphone.
Calque winced. ‘Macron. Macron. Macron. Think of it this way. The gypsies have either killed Sabir, in which case bits of him are probably scattered throughout seven departements by now, slowly investing the local flora and fauna. Or, more likely, he has been able to convince them of his innocence and that is the reason why they are hiding his car for him and have not already repainted it and sold it on to the Russians. We would do better, would we not – as spying on the main camp does not seem to be a practical option – to stake it out and wait for him to return and claim it. Or do you still think we should call for the breakers to come with their winches, their sirens and their loudhailers and have it, as you say, ‘taken in?’’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Tell me, lad. What part of Marseille are you from?’
Macron sighed. ‘La Canebiere.’
‘I thought that was a road.’
‘It is a road, Sir. But it is also a place.’
‘Do you want to go back there?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Then get on to Paris and order a tracking device. When you have the tracking device, conceal it somewhere inside the car. Then test it at five hundred metres, a thousand metres and fifteen hundred metres. And Macron?’
‘Yes, Sir?’
Calque shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
30
Achor Bale was profoundly, systematically, indisputably, bored. He had had enough of surveillance, spying, lying in thickets and skulking under gorse bushes. For a few days it had been amusing, watching the gypsies going about their daily business. Dissecting the stupidity of a culture that had
Similar Books
