Carter paused while Kirby and McKinley made some fresh coffee and sandwiches.
‘Smoke?’ Carter offered Bayliss while they waited for the others.
Bayliss shook his head. ‘One of the few vices I’ve managed to avoid.’
‘You see where I’m headed with this?’ Carter said, drawing the smoke deeply and dangerously.
‘You can’t have positive proof. Most of your conclusions will be supposition at best.’
Another cigarette was lit from the end of the first. ‘Partly, but don’t underestimate my powers. They’ve let me research this in ways you won’t have been able to. You’ve done well; what you told us confirmed most of what I’ve found out.’
McKinley and Kirby came back in with two trays, one of coffee and one of ham and cheese sandwiches.
‘Cigarette out please, Robert,’ Kirby said as she brought over a mug of coffee and plate of food. She smiled at him as he took them from her.
When they were settled again, and Carter had devoured half his sandwich, he began talking.
‘In Spain the Jews were gradually placed in ghettos and ended up living apart from the Marranos. The two communities continued to communicate, with the unconverted Jews trying to keep the conversos faithful to Judaism.
‘Constantly persecuted during the Inquisition, most conversos tried desperately to leave the country. This wasn’t easy, although many fled to Italy, ironically the country that houses the Pope. Fanatical Popes imprisoned the conversos; those who didn’t convert were burned in public executions.
‘In Spain a certain group of Marranos began to embellish their Judaism. Living in houses of secrets they looked for outlets beyond their Jewish faith. Practicing in secret meetings they began to adopt the ancient and mysterious ways of Kabbalah.
‘Kabbalah is considered to be the world’s oldest set of spiritual wisdoms. Believers say it contains the long hidden keys to the secrets of the universe as well as the ways to unlock the mysteries of the human heart and soul. Kabbalah details how to navigate the whole world, physical and metaphysical, to stave off every form of chaos, pain and suffering. It teaches that every human being is born with the capacity of greatness and that Kabbalah is the way to activate that greatness.
‘Kabbalah is meant to be used every day; remember how that links to the Jewish ideal. Kabbalah has as its purpose to bring clarity to the world, make people free to live to their full potential and ultimately to erase even death itself.’
Carter finished his coffee, lit another cigarette, and looked at each of them in turn. ‘DeMarco was a Marrano. He took the path to Kabbalah but he twisted it out of all recognition. Bitter at the persecution he saw against his family he pursued the path towards erasure of death, and…’
‘And succeeded,’ Bayliss said, with a kind of awe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Kabbalah literally means receiving and what it does is interpret the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, as well as classical Jewish texts such as halakha and aggadah, and various practices or mitzvot. By doing that it tries to be a doctrine by which people can live full and satisfying lives within God’s omnipotence.
‘The eighteenth century saw an explosion of Kabbalah, but by then deMarco was already well established and practicing his own brand of the faith. One of the aspects of Kabbalah is the belief that Jewish and non-Jewish souls are different. While all human souls emanate from God, non-Jewish or gentile souls originate from the left side of God and therefore all non-Jews have a dark or demonic side to them that is absent in Jews.
‘That probably started as defense against the persecution suffered over the centuries by Jews who were called the servants of Satan, and characterized as nonhumans. But at the time Kabbalah taught that Jews had additional layers of the soul that others did not. Obviously this interprets itself as sounding superior and they were perceived as arrogant.’
Kirby leaned forward, holding her hand up uncertainly as if a pupil in class. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Robert, but there are almost two hundred years between the Inquisition and the events on Kulsay between deMarco and The German.’
‘He’s saying deMarco went deep underground as a Marrano in the sixteenth century, twisted his Judaism into a version of Kabbalah, especially the escape from death bit, and then proved that Jews have a dark and demonic side as well,’ Bayliss said. ‘It’s fascinating stuff, Carter, I’ll give you that. You’ll expect me to poke fun at your theory but I’m going to disappoint you. Rather than what I told you earlier confirming what you already thought it’s the other way round. You’ve just given me a way that deMarco could achieve eternal life.’
‘I’m not your enemy, Bayliss,’ Carter said.
McKinley stood and walked across to the window. ‘So I’ve got this straight,’ he said. ‘DeMarco became bitter at the treatment his people received from the Catholics. He had to be a Jew in secret but that wasn’t enough for him; he found Kabbalah, only he used what he wanted from its teachings to escape death. He left Spain, eventually winding up in Scotland and Kulsay. Even there he was pursued by the forces of the Pope.’
‘So his hatred of Catholics was doubled,’ Kirby said.
Carter nodded. ‘When he disappeared after the battle with The German my guess is he didn’t die. I’d put money on him hiding underground, literally, using ley lines.’
Bayliss stood and crossed over to the bar. ‘Drink, anyone?’
Kirby went across to help him. ‘Okay, so if we believe deMarco is still alive somewhere, what’s he been waiting for?’
McKinley banged the glass of the window and everyone looked at him.
‘I went to see my wife after she died,’ he said. ‘They take you to the morgue and lead you through to a quiet room. It’s very cold, and smells of swimming pools and toilets. A green sheet covers the body, and the lights are very bright and the walls are very white. I could see blood dripping from the walls but it wasn’t really there. I just imagined it coming out of her and coating the walls. They ask you if you’re ready and you say you are, but you’ll never be ready, and then they pull back the top of the sheet and ask you if this is the person. And it was. Only when the man pulled the sheet back over her head I could see that there was someone else on the bed with her, a kind of shadow man. I shouted and tried to pull the sheet off again but of course they just thought I was hysterical and dragged me away. Then I saw him slip down from the trolley and smooth himself into a corner of the room. He was dressed in black and was very thin so no one else could see him, and he was pointing.
‘I looked where he was pointing, and there were other shadows. I’m sure the shadow I saw scurrying beneath a bed was just that, a shadow, but it seemed real. The lighting in the ward was dubious, and no one likes the atmosphere of hospitals. It’s always a bit disturbing even for the most levelheaded of people. But I was upset and everyone else was calm but very insistent. I was ushered away but not before I saw a black shape take up its position directly at the foot of my wife’s bed. Not before I saw the man shadow pull himself as close to the bed as he could. As the room fell into a hospital slumber the shadow at the foot of the bed sloped forward and covered my wife like an eiderdown, but one that soaked into her body until it disappeared and my dead wife swelled slightly from within.’