Caravan to Vaccares

‘Woman says her son has disappeared. They’ve sent a search party back along the road.’

‘Oh?’ Bowman removed his glasses. ‘But people don’t disappear just like that.’

‘That’s what I say. That’s why I’m calling the police.’

He hurried on his way. Cecile, who had followed Bowman without any great show of enthusiasm, said: ‘What’s all the fuss! Why is that woman crying?’

‘Her son’s disappeared.’

‘And?’

‘That’s all.’

‘You mean that nothing’s happened to him?’

‘Not that anyone seems to know.’

‘There could be a dozen reasons. Surely she doesn’t have to carry on like that.’

‘Gypsies,’ Bowman said by way of explanation. ‘Very emotional. Very attached to their offspring. Do you have any children!’

She wasn’t as calmly composed as she looked. Even in the lamplight it wasn’t difficult to see the red touching her cheeks. She said: ‘That wasn’t fair.’

Bowman blinked, looked at her and said: ‘No, it wasn’t. Forgive me. I didn’t mean it that way. If you had kids and one was missing, would you react like that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I said I was sorry.’

‘I’d be worried, of course.’ She wasn’t a person who could maintain anger or resentment for more than a fleeting moment of time. ‘Maybe I’d be worried stiff. But I wouldn’t be so – so violently grief-stricken, so hysterical, well not unless – ’

‘Unless what?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean, if I’d reason to believe that – that – ’

‘Yes?’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’

‘I’ll never know what women mean,’ Bowman said sadly, ‘but this time I can guess.’

They moved on and literally bumped into Le Grand Duc and Lila. The girls spoke and introductions, Bowman saw, were inevitable and in order. Le Grand Duc shook his hand and said, ‘Charmed, charmed,’ but it was plain to see that he wasn’t in the least bit charmed, it was just that the aristocracy knew how to behave. He hadn’t, Bowman noted, the soft flabby hand one might have expected: the hand was hard and the grip that of a strong man carefully not exerting too much pressure.

‘Fascinating,’ he announced. He addressed himself exclusively to the two girls. ‘Do you know that all those gypsies have come from the far side of the Iron Curtain? Hungarian or Rumanian, most of them. Their leader, fellow called Czerda – met him last year, that’s him with that woman there – has come all the way from the Black Sea.’

‘But how about frontiers?’ Bowman asked. ‘Especially between East and West.’

‘Eh? What? Ah?’ He finally became aware of Bowman’s presence. ‘They travel without let or hindrance, most of all when people know that they are on their annual pilgrimage. Everyone fears them, thinks that they have the evil eye, that they put spells and curses on those who offend them: the Communists believe it as much as anyone, more, for all I know. Nonsense, of course, sheer balderdash. But it’s what people believe that matters. Come, Lila, come. I have the feeling that they are going to prove in a most co-operative mood tonight.’

They moved off. After a few paces the Duke stopped and glanced round. He looked in their direction for some time, then turned away, shaking his head. ‘A pity,’ he said to Lila in what he probably imagined to be sotto voce, ‘about the colour of her hair.’ They moved on.

‘Never mind,’ Bowman said kindly. ‘I like you as you are.’ She compressed her lips, then laughed. Grudges were not for Cecile Dubois.

‘He’s right, you know.’ She took his arm, all was forgiven, and when Bowman was about to point out that the Duke’s convictions about the intrinsic superiority of blonde hair did not carry with it the stamp of divine infallibility, she went on, gesturing around her: ‘It really is quite fascinating.’

‘If you like the atmosphere of circuses and fairgrounds,’ Bowman said fastidiously, ‘both of which I will go a long way to avoid, I suppose it is. But I admire experts.’

And that the gypsies were unquestionably experts at the particular task on hand was undeniable. The speed and coordinated skill with which they assembled their various stalls and other media of entertainment were remarkable. Within minutes and ready for operation they had assembled roulette stands, a shooting gallery, no fewer than four fortune-tellers’ booths, a food stall, a candy stall, two clothing stalls selling brilliantly-hued gypsy clothes and, oddly enough, a large cage of mynah birds clearly possessed of that species’ usual homicidal outlook on life. A group of four gypsies, perched on the steps of a caravan, began to play soulful mid-European music on their violins. Already the areas of the forecourt and car-park were almost uncomfortably full of scores of people circulating slowly around, guests from the hotel, guests, one supposed, from other hotels, villagers from Les Baux, a good number of gypsies themselves. As variegated a cross-section of humanity as one could hope to find, they shared, for the moment, what appeared to be a marked unanimity of outlook – all, from Le Grand Duc downwards, were clearly enjoying themselves with the noteable exception of the restaurant manager who stood on the top of the forecourt steps surveying the scene with the broken-hearted despair and martyred resignation of a Bing watching the Metropolitan being taken over by a hippie festival.

A policeman appeared at the entrance to the forecourt. He was large and red and perspiring freely, and clearly regarded the pushing of ancient bicycles up precipitous roads as a poor way of spending a peacefully warm May evening. He propped his bicycle against a wall just as the sobbing gypsy woman put her hands to her face, turned and ran towards a green-and-white painted caravan.

Bowman nudged Cecile. ‘Let’s just saunter over there and join them, shall we?’

‘I will not. It’s rude. Besides, gypsies don’t like people who pry.’

‘Prying? Since when is concern about a missing man prying? But suit yourself.’

As Bowman moved off the jeep returned, skidding to an unnecessary if highly dramatic stop on the gravel of the court. The young gypsy at the wheel jumped out and ran towards Czerda and the policeman. Bowman wasn’t far behind, halting a discreet number of feet away.

‘No luck, Ferenc?’ Czerda asked.

‘No sign anywhere, Father. We searched all the area.’

The policeman had a black notebook out. ‘Where was he last seen?’

‘Less than a kilometre back, according to his mother,’ Czerda said. ‘We stopped for our evening meal not far from the caves.’

The policeman asked Ferenc: ‘You searched in there?’

Ferenc crossed himself and remained silent. Czerda said: ‘That’s no question to ask and you know it. No gypsy would ever enter those caves. They have an evil reputation. Alexandre – that’s the name of the missing boy – would never have gone there.’

The policeman put his book away. ‘I wouldn’t go in there myself. Not at this time of night. The local people believe it’s cursed and haunted and – well – I was born here. Tomorrow, when it’s daylight – ’

‘He’ll have turned up long before them,’ Czerda said confidently. ‘Just a lot of fuss about nothing.’

‘Then that woman who just left – she is his mother – ’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why is she so upset?’

‘He’s only a boy and you know what mothers are.’ Czerda half-shrugged in resignation. ‘I suppose I’d better go and tell her.’

He left. So did the policeman. so did Ferenc. Bowman didn’t hesitate. He could see where Czerda was going, he could guess where the policeman was heading for – the nearest estaminet – so was momentarily interested in the movements of neither. But in Ferenc he was interested, for there was something in the alacrity and purposeful-ness with which he walked quickly through the archway into the parking lot that bespoke some fixed intent. Bowman followed more leisurely and stopped in the archway.

On the right-hand side of the lot was a row of four fortune-tellers’ booths, got up in the usual garishly-coloured canvas. The first in the row was occupied, a notice said, by a certain Madame Marie-Antoinette who offered a money back if not satisfied guarantee. Bowman went inside immediately, not because of any particular predilection for royalty or parsimony or both, but because just as Ferenc was entering the most distant booth he paused and looked round directly at Bowman and Ferenc’s face was stamped with the unmistakably unpleasant characteristics of one whose suspicions could be instantly aroused. Bowman passed inside.

Marie-Antoinette was a white-haired old crone with eyes of polished mahogany and a gin-trap for a mouth. She gazed into a cloudy crystal ball that was cloudy principally because it hadn’t been cleaned for months, spoke to Bowman encouragingly about the longevity, health, fame and happiness that could not fail to be his, took four francs from him and appeared to go into a coma, a sign Bowman took to indicate that the interview was over. He left. Cecile was standing just outside, swinging her handbag in what could have been regarded as an unnecessarily provocative fashion and looking at him with a degree of speculative amusement perhaps uncalled for in the circumstances.