Chapter 20
Desperate Measures
Winter is the wet season in Lisbon. When the rain makes good on its ever-present threat, it lashes the cobblestones with such force that you can see it bounce back off them. There is no gentle drizzle, though an economic migrant from Stevenage might be told often that he must be enjoying this manifestation of the weather of his homeland.
Lisbon taught Ed the wisdom of carrying and using an umbrella in winter. As he hastened down the Avenida under one to meet Simone, the city did look less foreign to his eyes after rain had washed the buildings, settled the dust and persuaded the pedestrians to pick up their pace. It was familiar territory to him now. The line between home and abroad was shifting politically, too, as Europe exerted its centripetal force to draw in its Western outposts. Ed’s homeland had joined the European Economic Community less than three years previously, and now Portugal had applied to do so, too. Ed saw in this yet a further step back from revolution, a step that opened up future business opportunities.
Simone was waiting for him in the café.
“Don’t apologise, Ed, you’re not late. I try to arrive early for appointments now, so that the little one has time to settle in before we start.”
Although her pregnancy did not show, her eyes had a radiance that contrasted with her care-worn face. Ed saw that Simone’s mid-morning snack consisted of a milky coffee and a custard tart. Since she could clearly cope with the sight and smell of those items, Ed ordered the same for himself.
“Do you remember a British pop group called The Beatles?”
“Yes, they were quite popular in France as well. I heard they gave up.”
“Yes, sort of. They disbanded a few years ago. That wasn’t a children’s song Mark sang to you. It was one of theirs.”
“Oh, I see. Does it have a message? Is that why he was singing it?”
“I think so. It says that the only important revolution – Revolution Number One – takes place in people’s heads, not in the streets. I think they wrote it after visiting some guru or cult in India. Anyway, cult leaders love it, as you can imagine.”
“So you think Mark has swallowed that message wholesale?”
“I think he tried to.”
“Then what about the letter?” Simone drew a sheet of paper from an inside coat pocket and laid it flat on the table in front of Ed. He looked at the neat words placed squarely in the middle: Free, you’re mine. Instead?
“Ah! I get it. Simone, this is good news! Mark took the words of that song and changed ‘your mind’ to ‘you’re mine’, and he’s put in punctuation. Punctuation means something to Mark. He’s thinking of you, he’s thinking of alternatives and he’s thinking of freedom. I could be wrong, but I believe the penny has dropped and Mark realises he is in deep shit and he wants out. Out of Pangaia.”
“Yes? Do you think so? Oh, Ed, we really hope you’re right!”
“I think now is the time to tell him you’re pregnant. If he phones, you can tell him directly. If you write, you’ll have to allude to it so that he’ll understand but his captors won’t. The last thing they want is more competition for his money.”
“Do you honestly think that will make him run away from them, and come running home to me and the baby?”
“If he can, he will. I’m certain of it!”
With Mark’s return home seeming imminent and Ção’s inevitable, Ed himself flew back to England for Christmas with a light heart. He forgot to take gloves, and the cold shook his hands with unwelcome intensity. Fortunately, the Vicarage was warm, both physically and emotionally. The less English he became, the more Ed appreciated his parents. They supported him to the hilt in his campaigns to get Ção and Mark back to their rightful spouses. Nonetheless, his mother let slip a comment that a woman who treated her son the way Ção had might best be left to her own devices; and Ed’s father failed to contradict her.
His friends were less concerned about him than about the sky-rocketing price of beer, along with everything else, and the likely effects of the cuts imposed on the country by the International Monetary Fund in return for a humiliating bailout. Ed told them that Portugal would not follow in England’s footsteps; it would make its own way, and get things right. For a nation that had shed fascism without shedding blood, economic development would be child’s play.
Ed knew he was just marking time in Stevenage, both appalled and reassured by the unchanging nature of the grey town. He paid some attention to a new kind of music in the air, a discordant note among the jingles, though he did not find “punk rock” much to his taste – its singers sounded too much like himself croaking in the shower, only much more angry. He did not think it would last. He was, however, impressed by the business acumen of its leading lights, whose record label sacked them for swearing on television but had to fulfil their expensive contract. What he appreciated most about the country, apart from its bookshops, was being able to use his own language at every turn. It was a restful place, despite a pervasive fear, most noticeable in London, of further bomb outrages as part of the Irish “troubles”. Ed was happy when the time came to return to Lisbon, to get his classes going and his life moving again.
He was greeted by the news from Simone that she had finally gone to the police, reported Mark missing and told them where she believed he was. The word “Pangaia” had produced a deeper chill in the cold air of the police station. The officers she spoke to pointed out that if she knew where her husband was, then he could not be missing. They became more sympathetic when she mentioned her pregnancy, but they promised no action. Mark had phoned Simone on Christmas Day and again on New Year’s Day, both times stressing how happy he was at Pangaia. However, his voice had sounded extremely strained, as though he were under duress.
“I’m sure he was just reciting a script. I could almost see the other disciples at his shoulder, making certain he stuck to it. That’s why I didn’t mention the baby. Even so, it’s obvious to me that he doesn’t want to be there.”
“Good. But we can’t just walk in and grab him out of their hands, Simone. That would put us on the wrong side of the law.”
“The law doesn’t appear to be on our side anyway. Ed, I’ve got to do something!”
“Yes, you’re right, you must. If Mark won’t come to you, you’ll have to go to him. How about this? You go up to the village, stay outside the compound and track his movements. Show him that you are there, and that you are not alone.” Ed nodded towards Simone’s belly. “I’m sure he’ll come to you, when he realises.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
Alone in bed that night, doubt assailed Ed. Would Mark really just walk away from Pangaia of his own free will? Would Ção understand soon that she wanted and needed to come home? And if they didn’t? He fell asleep and dreamed of a tidal wave rolling in from the Atlantic and sweeping over both Pangaia and Conimbriga, drowning everything and everyone.
Ed got his classes re-started and paid special attention to the one he had doing project work on Pangaia. He put out feelers for students willing to undertake some more practical work on the subject, and was pleased to find several takers. Ed pooled them with those among Simone’s other friends who had volunteered, and organised a rota for people to accompany Simone up to Vila Abade. There she would wait near Pangaia’s headquarters where Mark could see her if he came out, while the others would conceal themselves in positions from which they could track every movement in and out of the compound. When Mark came out to Simone, they would all make a quick getaway in the car, so they had to leave a spare place in it when they drove up there.
They could not mount a permanent watch because they all had commitments in the city. The first time a group went, they drew a blank: nobody entered or left the compound during the hours they were there. The second time, a detail of four people left the compound and picked up supplies at a grocer’s and a hardware store before returning. The third time, two cars went in but did not come out while they were watching; another four-person shopping trip took place on foot.
The fourth time, Mark came out, flanked by two men younger and more robust than him; all three were singing the Beatles’ “Revolution Number One”. Mark saw Simone, stopped singing and made a move to join her. His associates restrained him and pulled him back through the compound gate. Simone ran after Mark, but they had slammed the gate shut. Simone banged on the gate and wept, but there was silence behind it. One by one, the friends who had accompanied her came to comfort her. They eventually persuaded Simone to let them drive her back to Lisbon. As they led her away from the compound’s entrance, the gate opened behind them and a group of a dozen Pangaia disciples started to hurl insults, threats and finally stones at them, but did not pursue them as they ran out of sight and then to the car. None of them was hurt, but all were shaken. Simone sobbed throughout the journey home.
Ed was outraged when he heard the news.
“Damn! That’s our cover blown. Now the bastards know that Simone is not alone when she goes up there. And that she knows Mark wants to leave. What’s more, Mark probably hasn’t realised that Simone is pregnant. I mean, it isn’t immediately apparent.”
The consensus among the group of friends was that it was time for stronger action. Ed was adamant that they avoid violence.
“First, it puts us in the wrong, as far as the law is concerned, and it will be concerned. Second, we can’t put Simone in harm’s way. Third, they outnumber us. Fourth, they may be armed with more than stones, and fanatics are often ready to kill or maim. Do you want me to go on?”
“Why don’t we just go to the police?”
“Simone has been to the police, and they aren’t interested.”
“The press?” Gabriela, one of Ed’s students, wanted to become a journalist herself.
“That would put the spotlight on Simone, which she doesn’t want. And they wouldn’t necessarily take her side. Let’s keep it as a last resort.”
“I’m still not sure why they won’t let him go. Their behaviour doesn’t make them look good at all.”
“We’ve seen in our studies that these cults never like to lose followers.”
“The way Mark reacted to Simone shows he hasn’t been completely indoctrinated yet.”
Ed nodded. “Right. And he probably knows too many of their secrets already.”
Simone spoke through clenched teeth. “They haven’t got his money yet.”
“That could be the lure to bring them out.”
“It’s not them we want to come out, it’s Mark.”
“Let’s sleep on that and come up with some ideas. Same time tomorrow?”
Heads nodded. The conspirators filed out of Ed’s flat. He opened the windows and sat watching the stars compete with the city lights in an uneven struggle.
In the end it comes down to money, and I’m the person who’s supposed to know about that.
Ed took a dark Sagres beer from the fridge for inspiration. He had acclimatised so thoroughly that he now drank his beer cold, even in winter: the chill at the back of his throat added to the impact of that first swig. With the night’s third bottle, inspiration started to arrive. By the time the fifth empty bottle clinked into the waste bin, he had a plan.
In the cold light of day, Ed still thought his plan was a good one. He summoned the group to a meeting that evening and laid it before them. They thought it risky, but feasible. They would do it.
The next morning, Simone went to the bank and wired a significant sum of money from a joint account to the bank’s branch in Vila Abade, for Mark to pick up in person. One of the group, Luís, then phoned Pangaia, declared himself to be a senior clerk from the bank, and asked to speak to Mark. They told him Mark was unavailable but he could leave a message. Luís explained the transfer and said that Mark could collect his money the following day.
Early the next morning, Ed, Simone and Gabriela drove up to Vila Abade in a hired car. They parked near the police station in the small town and walked towards the bank, hurrying to keep out the winter chill as well as to get in position before the bank opened. They took up their places, in sight of each other, but with only one of them visible to the guard outside the bank, should he care to look in that direction.
They were counting on Jorge being keen to get his hands on Mark’s money as fast as possible, and they were not disappointed. Minutes after the bank opened, Ed saw Mark approach it, accompanied by three heavies. Ed pulled his borrowed hat down and hurried towards the bank, taking care to disguise his limp. He was the first customer to enter the bank, and he engaged the sole clerk already on duty in a discussion of how he might open an account there, spinning out the misunderstandings by making his Portuguese more rudimentary than it had been for years. The Pangaia group came in after him and had to wait. If Mark recognised Ed, he did not show it.
A blast of cold air came in as the door opened. Gabriela strode in, looking flustered and anxious. She asked who was last in the queue and started complaining loudly about bank staff always being late for work. The guard raised his eyebrows and closed the door on them. Mark’s escorts glared daggers at the foreigner separating them from Mark’s money. When Ed could spin out his request no further, and gave it up with many thanks to the bored clerk, the Pangaia group moved forward to take his place, but Gabriela brushed past them to the counter.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry, I just can’t wait! Show a little gallantry, gentlemen!”
“Hey! Who do you think you are!”
“Get out of the way, bitch!”
“We’re next! Not you, you stupid cow!”
They did not notice Simone enter. Mark did. He rushed to embrace her. As he did so, Ed started to yell.
“Help! It’s a robbery! Help!!”
Gabriela began to scream. The clerk pressed the alarm button. The guard ran in, gun in hand, and saw the heaviest of Pangaia’s disciples with his thick arms around Mark’s neck. The guard felled him with a blow from the barrel of the gun, then pointed it at the other two heavies who scrambled to tend to their fallen companion.
“Stop where you are! You’re all under arrest!”
Police reinforcements arrived, and accompanied them, in two groups, to the station. Ed explained what he had ostensibly been doing, and apologised for having jumped to the conclusion that a robbery was taking place when the group of robust young men had started shouting in a language he did not understand well. The bank clerk backed up his story. Gabriela apologised for her behaviour, claiming she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and had badly needed to pay a utility bill before driving to see her doctor in Lisbon.
“You do understand that we women have special problems, don’t you?”
The police sergeant nodded.
Simone said that she had been told that her husband, who had deserted her, was visiting the village that day. She had seen him go into the bank and, after calming herself and summoning her courage, had followed him in to speak to him; then all hell had broken loose.
The man who had been floored could offer no reason why he had been throttling Mark. His fellow disciples claimed they were all protecting Mark from his crazy wife. Mark said his wife was not crazy and he wanted to go home with her.
Barely two hours later, the sergeant completed the paper work and released Mark, Simone, Gabriela, Ed and two of the Pangaia disciples. The third one he formally arrested and sent to the hospital with an escort of his own, a police escort.
Within sight of the police station, the detained man’s two companions did not dare to interfere as Mark, Simone, Gabriela and Ed got into the hired car and slowly drove north out of town before doubling back and racing down side roads that led south to Lisbon.
That evening they celebrated in style. With Mark and Simone’s eager consent, Ed and the rescue group spread the word among all the couple’s friends, colleagues and students who were in the know, as well as Ed’s own Pangaia project students and colleagues. Together, they gave the Trindade beerhouse one of its jolliest evenings. Mark was confused but radiant, and quite clear on one score.
“Omomnos is right that revolution number one is in our heads. But that’s not a reason to give him all our money. And Pangaia should preach the truths it teaches, not sell them.”
Faced with such an audience, celebrants hanging on his every word, Mark could not hold back from preaching some of those truths himself. Psycho-babble blended with eco-babble, thought Ed, before pressing Mark further on why he had changed his mind about Vila Abade.
“I realised that Pangaia wanted my money more than they wanted my mind. When I saw Simone standing there, alone, outside the compound, I knew I had to get away, to get back to my lovely wife. And when I saw Ed in the bank this morning, I knew that someone else had come to help me, too, at last.”
At last?
Simone explained to Mark how much they had done to try to get through to him. Clearly, Pangaia had managed to keep Mark more deeply in the dark than even Ed had suspected. Now that darkness lifted.
“This is the happiest day of my life.” Mark’s face showed it.
Later, when they were home and alone, Simone made it even happier with another piece of news that Pangaia had kept from Mark.
Ed’s own sense of triumph that evening was jarred by the news that Gabriela brought when she arrived, late. She had tried to get the story of Mark’s escape into the next day’s papers, but even the lure of juicy headlines like “TV Quiz Hero Breaks Free of Cult Chains” had failed to tempt a single one of them to take it up. Not even the State television company, which ran the quiz show, wanted the story.
Ed was also sorry that Carolina was not among the colleagues from the University who came to the beerhouse. When he got home in the early hours of the morning, he put on Woody Guthrie’s Talking Empty Bed Blues and felt the words cut into him. Fortunately, he had drunk enough beer to send him to sleep before the words could finish their job.