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