The Interloper

By B. A. Cibulskas

POWERFUL, COMPELLING, WITH A MIND-BLOWING CONCLUSION!

A hilltop village in Southwest France. The view is idyllic, and to an outsider, the lives lived there are too…

Suffering from mental illness since a child, retired Russian scientist, Karolis Dante Valentin, spends his days crafting puppets under the watchful eye of Dr Yves Chéron, who ponders upon his own solitary life. Father Gabriel wants no more than to stay in his beloved church, whilst the mayor, Robert Rousseau, seeks harmony in all things. Clémentine Laffitte spies from her château tower, and local farmer, Lavigne, tends his vines, which produce the earthy wine that sustains them all.

Together they weave a rich tapestry of life, but things are rarely what they seem…

The Interloper gives a vivid portrayal of human frailty, the complexity of friendships and relationships, the interconnectedness of all things, and the delicate balance held by love, fate, and an ever-ticking clock.

HAUNTING… ONCE READ, NEVER FORGOTTEN!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803139395

B. A. Cibulskas

Born in England to refugee and economic migrants, B. A. Cibulskas has written six novels. She studied at the University of Bristol where she was awarded a doctorate in Narrative and Life Story Research. Her working life is split between writing and as a clinical psychotherapist in the mental health sector. She also writes world fiction under the pseudonym A. K. Karla, and psychological fiction under the pseudonym Jack Duval.

Book preview

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

Author’s Note

prologue

To begin a story it is often necessary to go back in time, and this one is no exception. Elzbietà and Pyotr Valentin met in Vilnius, Lithuania, after the occupation of the Baltic states by Stalin towards the end of the Second World War. Pyotr was one of thousands moved from his native Moscow by the state in an attempt to repopulate the decimated countries with its own people, thereby laying claim to the land through genes, as well as brute barbaric force.

Pyotr met his wife, Elzbietà, when she had come to the municipal offices where he worked to register for government housing. Her appearance was typically Lithuanian, blonde and blue eyed, yet her skin had a slight honey-tone to it making her look like she had spent a few days in the sun, even in the depths of a bitter, frozen winter. He thought her beautiful from the moment he laid eyes on her, and over the following weeks and months, with great dedication and single-mindedness, convinced her to marry him.

At their first meeting she declared all her family to be dead. Instantly suspicious, his training teaching him to trust no one, especially non-Russians, Pyotr spent many hours trying to track them down in the ample records available, yet was unable to find any evidence of their existence, nor, indeed, hers. Rapidly becoming lost in his growing infatuation, he concluded his search and never asked about her past again, keeping his questions to himself and the long dark nights with her safely asleep beside him.

Some ten years later and still unable to settle, Pyotr engineered a move back to Moscow and a life of state-controlled mediocrity. The same mediocrity would, however, never sit with ease beside their precocious, changeling son, Karolis Dante. Mediocrity choked him to the point where at the age of eight, he would climb upon a chair and fling open the apartment windows, taking great gulping breaths of the dank cold Russian air as though it were a drug, ignoring his parents’ pleas to come down. When he finally did, he cast angry accusing looks at them, implying that they had deliberately deprived him of what he needed to live, eventually hiding his face behind a book and ignoring them altogether.

Each day when he came home from school, he threw his rucksack to the floor and himself on the wooden-armed sofa that once belonged to his grandparents. Then he would stare at the pale green walls to see if anything had changed; if the crack in the ceiling had grown, or if the cobweb that had been missed by his houseproud mother had captured any more stupid and unsuspecting prey. For him, there was no question that they were stupid. There were by now six other victims rotting in the sticky web, and if they were so foolish as to not see their inevitable fate, then they deserved all they got. However, despite his harsh attitude to the frailty and fragility of all living things, he spoke gently to the small fly that had just flown in through the open window.

‘Open your eyes and see the truth, little one. Entrapment is inevitable for us all. Flee whilst you are still able.’

He felt constantly bored, and as though his life was lived in a catatonic stupor. This increased as time passed, as did his frustration. No matter where he was, or who he was with, he felt numbed and infuriated in equal parts by the silence that rang in his ears and cried out to be filled. Yet, when he filled the space with sound – with the radio, or gramophone player, after a few minutes he could bear it no longer and had to switch it off. Music depressed him even more than his own thoughts did.

Left to themselves and the inadequate world their son constantly reminded them of, Pyotr and Elzbietà enjoyed the repetitive routines of each and every day; routines that pinned them to something real, something solid. Rules meant safety, and even the thought of breaking them unleashed intense fear. The wrath of the communist regime was quick to flare up and strike, a sentence often passed before an explanation could even be given. The KGB had spies everywhere, and so engrained was the fear that even in the flat, if Karolis dared to voice an opinion that was not absolutely aligned with that of the state, which he frequently did, his mother would instantly try to silence him.

‘Shhh, Karolis! Be quiet! Why must you always poke the wasp’s nest? Be still, and keep your mouth shut. It’s for your own good.’

Karolis couldn’t see how it was for his own good, since keeping everything sealed within took him almost to the point of explosion, in fact, on a few occasions, did. When this happened, the doctor would be called and tranquillisers administered to quieten the vociferous boy, who would by then have run around the tiny flat knocking things from shelves and flinging pictures from the walls, screaming political obscenities and blasphemies so profane that his parents covered their ears with their hands.

‘Take away your hands!’ he shouted at them. ‘Listen to the truth of the world.’

‘You listen,’ they shouted back. ‘Or you will shame us when you are thrown in prison.’

‘Your son is most unusual,’ the doctor said. ‘Most unusual. You say he is eight? He seems much older. His intelligence is too overwhelming for him. He needs more stimulus. Talk to his teachers and exhaust him with exercise. Meanwhile, give him these…’ He handed over a small bottle of tranquilisers.

It usually took about a week for Karolis to recover from one of his outbursts. He would lie on his narrow bed or the sofa and refuse to meet his parents’ worried gaze. He would take his tablets though, rather liking the dreamlike state they induced. When drugged in this way, the noise, or lack of it, didn’t bother him at all, and his mind slowly filled with many varied things that at the time seemed important. When the bottle was empty and he began to return to the world that his parents inhabited, the wonderful feeling that anything was possible slid away like slippery black silk and was soon out of reach.

It was as though the opposing factors of his birth had set up a never-ending scenario where one emotion, one situation, one thought and one reaction, constantly met with its counterpart. Maybe life was like this for everyone, but they simply didn’t notice? Or didn’t care? Maybe they had an inner scale that balanced things automatically? If so, then the inner scale within Karolis was absent. It was as simple as that.

When he finally left home to study science at university, his parents breathed a huge sigh of relief. They loved their son, but he was, to all intents and purposes, alien to them. He was a cuckoo in a sparrow’s nest. They wrote to him each week, sent money, and dreaded his home visits, which as time passed became less frequent. After university, he held various posts all over the country and out of it, none of which they understood nor had any desire to. In his absence, their own equilibrium returned in direct opposition to their son’s, which did not. However, his brilliance shone through, cutting a swathe like a sharp sword through the dross and doubters and allowing free passage to places where, for most, the door was firmly shut.

After they died, both in the same year, Karolis was bereft. He felt lost which surprised him, his psyche becoming even more untethered and his behaviour even more erratic. After a breakdown at work where he tipped over his desk then locked himself in the toilet for the whole day, he spent several months in a state asylum. Here, he willingly handed himself over to the regime of the time, taking his medication, talking to the psychiatrist for hours, and sitting in the sun when the conditions allowed, his face tilted upwards, and his eyes tightly closed against the glare. It was the third time he had been incarcerated, and through familiarity all fear of the situation was absent. They knew him, and he them. At times he was almost treated as staff, and was afforded privileges that the others never received, including access to the library alone and being left to read for most of the night. He was different, and was acknowledged as such.

When he was released he once again went to work abroad, eventually deciding to retire in France. Life in the countryside was slow and simple, led by the seasons and the weather, and the locals were accepting of the unusual man in their midst, who was tall and thin, with a shock of unkempt black hair and bright blue eyes.

He could ask for no more.

chapter

one

The back door opened and a single arm came out, an ornate silver teapot held firmly in the slender, long-fingered hand. With a distinct and clearly practised flick of the wrist, an arc of dark brown liquid and wet swollen leaves flew across the rough grass, splattering a large rosemary bush which grew several feet each year in spite of its anointing, or, perhaps, because of it. Either way, it had adapted as so much in nature did, particularly in the temperamental conditions of the southern Languedoc in France, where the foothills of the Pyrenees gave way to the majestic snow-topped mountains behind them with good grace and undoubted acknowledgement of the greater force. Karolis had lived here for some years now. The extremes of both the scenery and climate matched his personality, and he spoke the language fluently, which afforded him an acceptance that he otherwise might not have had.

A few minutes later he emerged with a large earthenware jug, then walked around the house to the front and the spring that bubbled from an arched recess simply carved into the grey volcanic rock. He had been told that the water had never dried up in recorded history, no matter how long a drought lasted, and people came throughout the day from the village at the top of the steep hill to fill their own containers. The mains water supply also came from the mountain streams but most of the locals, which soon included Karolis, claimed that it didn’t taste the same, particularly because the government insisted that certain chemicals must be added to ensure its purity.

‘I won’t drink that shit from the tap,’ a man declared not long after Karolis had arrived. The sun was only half risen, and he was kneeling on the ground in front of the spring, his head lowered. At first Karolis thought he might be praying, but as he got nearer he saw that the man was actually washing his face with the water held by the stone trough before it trickled away, disappearing back underground some twenty metres or so down the lane. He turned around as Karolis approached, then introduced himself as ‘Lavigne,’ holding out a gnarled, wet hand whilst still on his knees.

‘I’m your nearest neighbour and this is my land,’ he stated in a matter-of-fact way, giving a shrug of his broad shoulders and making a loose sweeping gesture with his arm that encompassed the whole valley. ‘My family have lived here since before time began,’ he continued. ‘We grew the first vines, hence our name, way before the Romans or any others were here. These are my vineyards. If you want wine, come to me. You won’t get any better. It flows in our veins instead of blood.’ At this he laughed, then wiped his hands down his striped, pyjama-clad legs. He began to get up, and seeing him struggle, Karolis held out a hand to help him.

‘Karolis Dante Valentin. A pleasure to meet you.’

Now on his feet, the farmer took a few moments to study the man before him, looking him up and down several times to take in every detail before speaking.

‘Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.’

Karolis felt stunned. He knew the quote, of course he did, but certainly didn’t expect to hear it from a farmer still in his night attire, in the half-dark, and in front of a spring whose claim on history might indeed rival that of the Lavigne bloodline.

‘Dante’s Inferno. Quite a favourite of mine, Monsieur Valentin,’ Lavigne laughed, his chest wheezing loudly. ‘And never judge a book by its cover.’ He laughed again, then turned to walk down the lane to his house hidden behind tall Cyprus trees. ‘I charge four euros a bottle for the best wine in the country,’ he shouted back. ‘Your first bottle will be gratis. Free. I’ll put it by your door tomorrow morning. After that, you must pay. I am a peasant farmer after all, and every cent counts. Good day.’

Karolis watched as the man meandered down the gravelled track, the heavy plastic container of water slung over his shoulder as though it weighed nothing. The following morning, the wine had been placed by the front door as promised. That evening, sitting at the kitchen table with his dinner in front of him, Karolis poured the thick, blood-red liquid into a glass and raised it to his lips. At first, he thought it harsh and rough on the tongue, but within seconds this had turned into a rich iron-tinged earthiness, with a heat that lingered way after the glass was empty. He left a note for a repeat delivery – four bottles a week, with a pile of coins on top to stop it blowing away.

On the rear he wrote, ‘The path to paradise begins in hell,’ to which a reply had come… ‘Hell begins with an empty bottle,’ the first, another Dante quote, the second, one straight from the farmer’s mouth.

Over the years that followed and quite at random, sometimes each week, sometimes not for months, a few words would be written on a scrap of paper and left, either by Karolis or Lavigne. It added to the richness of their unusual relationship, as well as the taste of the wine. Karolis thought of it as the blood that had been replaced in the farmer’s veins by the fruit that ripened in the blistering hot summer sun, in some kind of alchemical swap. He liked the idea of the grapes growing in the rusty-red local soil, row after row of firmly rooted vines like an army marching down the hillside to the small town in the valley below. For the first time in his life, he too felt roots growing. Sometimes this grounding calmed him, the sense of belonging to something vastly bigger than himself, and being a part of the whole, humbling. At other times he felt trapped by it, as though the twisted stems held on to him, their snaking tendrils climbing upwards until they wrapped around his neck, attempting to pull him down into the ground along with the farmer’s ancestors.

Often unable to sleep, he spent many night hours on his roof terrace, observing. In the summer he wore a long kaftan, now worn thin, that he had bought on his travels to the far east. In the winter he wore a thick wool coat and scarf given to him by his father a few years before he died. From this viewing point, he scanned the fields for deer, or boar, or if he was lucky, watched as large brown hares fought under a silvery moon. He observed the various cottages dotted about the landscape noting when the lights went on, then off, then on again in the early morning, soon knowing whose house was whose, and the routines of their day. When he heard the cockerel crow from Lavigne’s farm behind the trees, he knew that the man himself would soon be in his untidy kitchen, brewing strong black coffee.

Perched on the very top of the hill the old château loomed over everything, many of the walls broken at its last sacking more than four hundred years earlier, never to rise again. To one side the small church crouched, on guard, its windows lit from within and glowing like multi-coloured cats’ eyes, ready to pounce on the shadows of marauders from times past; equally as restless and watchful as the man below.

chapter

two

The priest, Father Gabriel Dubois, was kneeling at the altar, his head in his hands resting on the wooden rail in front of him. Dangling from his fingers hung a gold chain and crucifix, each point set with three vivid red coral beads, given to him by his mother when he was first ordained. He loved feeling the weight of it in his hand, the silky smoothness of the coral, and the rich blood colour which he found quite mesmerising.

‘It’s at least two hundred years old,’ his mother had stated, as she handed it over. ‘The man in the shop said it was found when an old monastery was cleared ready to be converted into apartments.’ She dropped it into his hand where it landed with a heavy chink of cold metal. He said nothing, closing his fingers around it and feeling the chill slowly warm; the crucifix digging rather painfully into his soft palm. He then closed his eyes and tried to imagine its shadowy owner, a monk in white robes perhaps, cold, thin and pure from his sacrificial life.

‘You do like it?’ she asked, more hesitant now faced with his silence, and unsure if her choice had been correct. ‘It’ll remind you of the blood of Christ shed for you… well, for us all?’

‘I’m a priest, Mother,’ he replied gently. ‘I don’t think I need reminding about the blood of Christ, but thank you. The colour is beautiful, and I like the thought that it came from an abbey. I wonder who it belonged to? Were you told any more?’ He bent to kiss her on both cheeks and gave her a hug.

‘A little.’ She opened her bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper which she handed to him.

He slipped it into his cassock pocket to look at later. ‘Thank you,’ he said again. ‘I shall treasure it.’

***

The same chain and crucifix now landed on the hard, tiled floor and he jumped, startled by the clattering sound. Had he fallen asleep? He didn’t think so, but his thoughts had certainly been elsewhere.

‘Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned,’ he said aloud, his voice echoing around him pleasantly. He crossed himself before bending over the altar rail to retrieve it, then pressed its smooth coolness against his lips to kiss it. He did this often, first kissing each of the twelve inset beads, then the crucifix itself, always in that order. An onlooker might have been rather surprised by the passionate fervour of the gesture, rather better suited to a lover than an aid to prayer. However, it was only ever performed when the priest was alone, so on that account at least, no judgement had ever been passed.

‘My God is my strength,’ he added, this time in a whisper which lingered in the chilly building for a second or two before fading away. He crossed himself again then stood up, quickly fastening the chain around his neck to let it drop behind his starched white collar where it was hidden from sight. That no one had ever seen it pleased him. Priests’ lives were so often open books, such were the claims made on their time, almost everyone knowing where they could be found, where they were going, and when they would be back. As yet, none had seen his well-defined and rather hairy chest. He intended to keep it that way too, although if Clémentine Laffitte had anything to do with it, his shirt would be stripped off him before he’d had time to say a single Hail Mary!

He was a tall man, and slim, equally as slim as Karolis, if not more so, although not from sacrificial starvation or deprivation. He liked food, enjoyed buying and preparing it, and went to the same markets as the rest of the village inhabitants to stock up on fresh local produce. His stomach growled as he walked down the aisle and opened the large oak door to let himself out. It creaked in protest, perhaps at his cheek in leaving at all, the eerie sound repeating itself as he pulled it firmly shut behind him and carefully turned the heavy key.

The area to the front of the church was brightly lit. Floodlights had been installed a few years earlier as a deterrent against thieves and vandals, and so far this had proved successful. A small alley on the right led to the presbytery, but walking straight past this, he continued across the courtyard and out of the ornate iron church gates. He was soon in the narrow main street that snaked its way down through the village, lined on both sides with cottages squeezed tightly together, shoulder to shoulder, jostling for space. They were all different in size, shape and height, as well as age, which for some was considerable, a few dating back almost eight hundred years and added to since then when deemed necessary. The church was even older, and without doubt had an earlier place of worship on the site before it. An owl hooted, to be answered by several more hoots from its comrades further down the valley.

Father Gabriel took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was late summer, and on his regular nightly strolls he had noticed a slight nip in the air, heralding the arrival of autumn. Tonight, and for the first time since late spring, he smelt woodsmoke, the rich heady fragrance almost like incense as the tree resin warmed, then burned, before being released to rise into the dark, inky sky. He carried on walking, the cottage windows throwing pools of light into the street as he passed. On each corner was a large, old-fashioned lamp, once lit with oil. Now, of course, electricity did the job just as well and with far less effort, the warm glow softening the greyness of the stone and giving everything a golden sheen, even after the sun had gone down.

On his left was the huge, rambling château, although only a small part was still lived in by its owner, Madame Clémentine Laffitte. The crumbling ruin had been in her family for several hundred years, and had an illustrious history if the stories she told were true. Now, though, in her late fifties and a widow, she lived in it alone. Looking up at its immense high walls, he could see that the small windows placed around the top of the round tower standing on one corner were brightly lit, leaving the rest of the massive building in total darkness. He hurried across to the darker side of the street, hoping to blend in with the shadows that lurked there, thereby rendering himself invisible. Even at this time of night, and it must be well past ten, it wasn’t impossible that the lady’s melodic powerful voice might call out to him. Like the windows of the ancient tower built to give a view of the whole valley, indeed, as far as the distant Pyrenees, her own eyes were as sharp as a hawk, and missed nothing. He knew through past experience that a cloak of darkness did little to shield a person from her all-seeing and penetrating gaze.

Actually, most of the time he didn’t mind. She was vibrant and interesting, with glowing auburn hair which she wore piled upon her head in an elaborate style that he’d never seen before. Likewise, she wore richly coloured velvets that might have come from a century earlier, and adorned herself with what he assumed were the family jewels; vivid green emeralds, deep blue sapphires, and diamonds that sparkled with ferocity in the hot French sun. At other times, she would surprise him by appearing at his door in tight blue jeans and a silk vest, which did nothing to hide her still-stunning figure. He might be a priest, but he could appreciate beauty when he saw it, in whatever form it took!

‘You will join me, won’t you, Father Gabriel?’ she would ask, her head tilted slightly to one side as though she was teasing him. ‘After all, it would be rude not to. When my father was alive…’

He looked up at the tiny windows, unsure if she was indeed calling to him and would soon beckon him inside for a glass of the very finest Armagnac, warmed for a few seconds by holding it tightly in the palms of her small hands. He saw nothing, and half relieved, half disappointed, made his way a little further down the street.

On his right was one of the larger houses, several cottages having been knocked into one, with a walled garden to the side. It belonged to the mayor, Robert Rousseau, now in his third term of office, a tall, well-built man in his late sixties, who had lived in the village his entire life. The original three houses once belonged to his grandparents, an aunt, and his mother, who was the only one still alive. She