The wager should be fairer. If, after three days, no one is murdered, the village should get the ten gold bars anyway. As a reward for the integrity of its inhabitants.'

The stranger laughed.

'And I will receive my gold bar, as a reward for my participation in this sordid game.'

'I'm not a fool, you know. If I agreed to that, the first thing you would do is to go outside and tell everyone.'

'Possibly. But I won't; I swear by my grandmother and by my eternal salvation.'

'That's not enough. No one knows whether God listens to vows, or if eternal salvation exists.'

'You'll know I haven't told them, because the gallows is hanging now in the middle of the village. It will be clear if there's been any kind of trickery. And anyway, even if I went there now and told everyone what we've just been talking about, no one would believe me; it would be the same as arriving in Viscos and saying: “Look, all this is yours, regardless of whether or not you do what the stranger is asking.” These men and women are used to working hard, to earning every penny with the sweat of their brow; they would never even admit the possibility of gold just falling from heaven like that.'

The stranger lit a cigarette, finished off his drink and got up from the table. Chantal awaited his reply standing by the open door, letting the cold air into the room.

'I'll know if there's been any cheating,' he said. 'I'm used to dealing with people, just like your Ahab.'

'I'm sure you are. So that means “yes”, then.'

Again he nodded his agreement.

'And one more thing: you still believe that man can be good. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have invented all this nonsense to convince yourself otherwise.'

Chantal closed the door and walked down the main street of the village - completely deserted at that hour - sobbing uncontrollably. Without wanting to, she had become caught up in the game; she was betting on the fact that people were basically good, despite all the Evil in the world. She would never tell anyone what she and the stranger had just been talking about because, now, she too wanted to know the answer.

She was aware that, although the street was empty, from behind the curtains in darkened rooms, the eyes of Viscos were watching as she walked back home. It didn't matter- It was far too dark for anyone to see her tears.

The man opened the window of his room, hoping that the cold would silence the voice of his devil for a few moments.

As expected, it did not work, because the devil was even more agitated than usual after what the girl had just said. For the first time in many years, the stranger noticed that the devil seemed weaker, and there were moments when he even appeared rather distant; however, he soon reappeared, no stronger or weaker than usual, but much as he always was. He lived in the left-hand side of the man's brain, in the part that governs logic and reasoning, but he never allowed himself to be seen, so that the man was forced to imagine what he must be like. He tried to picture him in a thousand different ways, from the conventional devil with horns and a tail to a young woman with blonde curls. The image he finally settled on was that of a young man in his twenties, with black trousers, a blue shirt, and a green beret perched nonchalantly on his dark hair.

He had first heard the devil's voice on an island, where he had travelled after resigning from his job; he was on the beach, in terrible emotional pain, trying desperately to believe that his suffering must have an end, when he saw the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. It was then that his despair came back in force, and he plumbed the depths of the deepest abyss in his soul precisely because such a sunset should also have been seen by his wife and children. He broke into uncontrollable sobs and felt that he would never climb up from the bottom of that pit.

At that moment, a friendly, companionable voice told him that he was not alone, that everything that had happened to him had a purpose, which was to show that each person's destiny is pre-ordained. Tragedy always happens, and nothing we do can alter by one jot the evil that awaits us.

'There is no such thing as Good: virtue is simply one of the many faces of terror,' the voice said. 'When man understands that, he will realise that this world is just a little joke played on him by God.'

Then the voice - which identified itself as the prince of this world, the only being who really knows what happens on Earth - began to show him the people all around him on the beach. The wonderful father who was busy packing things up and helping his children put on some warm clothes and who would love to have an affair with his secretary, but was terrified of his wife's response. His wife who would like to work and have her independence, but who was terrified of her husband's response. The children who behaved themselves because they were terrified of being punished. The girl who was reading a book all on her own beneath a sunshade, pretending she didn't care, but inside was terrified of spending the rest of her life alone. The boy running around with a racquet, terrified of having to live up to his parents' tennis fame for generations The waiter serving tropical drinks to the rich experts hurt and terrified that he could be sacked at any time.

The young girl who wanted to be a dancer, but who was studying law instead because she was terrified of what the neighbours might say. The old man who didn't smoke or drink and said he felt much better for it, when in truth it was the terror of death that whispered in his ears like the wind. The married couple who ran by, splashing through the surf, with a smile on their face but with a terror in their hearts telling them that they would soon be old, boring and useless. The man with the suntan who swept up in his launch in front of everybody and waved and smiled, but was terrified because he could lose all his money from one moment to the next. The hotel owner, watching the whole idyllic scene from his office, trying to keep everyone happy and cheerful, urging his accountants to ever greater vigilance, and terrified because he knew that however honest he was government officials would still find mistakes in his accounts if they wanted to.

There was terror in each and every one of the people on that beautiful beach and on that breathtakingly beautiful evening. Terror of being alone, terror of the darkness filling their imaginations with devils, terror of doing anything not in the manuals of good behaviour, terror of God's judgement, °of what other people would say, of the law punishing any Mistake, terror of trying and failing, terror of succeeding and having to live with the envy of other people, terror of loving and being rejected, terror of asking for a rise in salary, of accepting an invitation, of going somewhere new, of not being able to speak a foreign language, of not making the right impression, of growing old, of dying, of being pointed on because of one's defects, of not being pointed out because of one's merits, of not being noticed either for one's defects or one's merits.

Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign of terror, in the shadow of the guillotine. 'I hope this consoles you a little,' he heard the devil say. 'They're all terrified; you're not alone. The only difference is that you have already been through the most difficult part; your worst fear became reality. You have nothing to lose, whereas these people on the beach live with their terror all the time; some are aware of it, others try to ignore it, but all of them know that it exists and will get them in the end.'

Incredible though it may seem, these words did console him somewhat, as if the suffering of others alleviated his own. From that moment on, the devil had become a more and more frequent companion. He had lived with him for two years now, and he felt neither happy nor sad to know that the devil had completely taken over his soul.

As he became accustomed to the devil's company, he tried to find out more about the origin of Evil, but none of his questions received precise answers.

'There's no point trying to discover why I exist. If you really want an explanation, you can tell yourself that I am God's way of punishing himself for having decided, in an idle moment, to create the Universe.'

The devil was reluctant to talk about himself, the man Since the night, got every reference he could find to hell. He decided to look up uH word that most religions have something called 'a of punishment', where the immortal soul goes after emitting certain crimes against society (everything deamed to be seen in terms of society, rather than of the individual). Some religions said that once the spirit was separated from the body, it crossed a river, met a dog and entered hell by a gate of no return. Since the body was laid in a tomb, the place of punishment was generally described as being dark and situated inside the earth; thanks to volcanoes, it was known that the centre of the earth was full of fire, and so the human imagination came up with the idea of flames torturing sinners.

He found one of the most interesting descriptions of this punishment in an Arabian book: there it was written that once the soul had left the body, it had to walk across a bridge as narrow as a knife edge, with paradise on the right and, on the left, a series of circles that led down into the darkness inside the earth. Before crossing the bridge (the book did not explain where it led to), each person had to place all his virtues in his right hand and all his sins in his left, and the imbalance between the two meant that the person always fell towards the side to which his actions on Earth had inclined him.

Christianity spoke of a place where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Judaism described a cave with a room big enough for a finite number of souls - when this was full, the world would end. Islam spoke of the fire in which we would all burn 'unless God desires otherwise'. For Hindus, hell was never a place of eternal torment, since they believed that the soul would be reincarnated after a certain period of time in order to pay for its sins in the same place where they had been committed - in other words, in this world. Even so, there were no fewer than twenty-one of these places of punishment in what was usually referred to as 'the lower depths'.

The Buddhists also distinguished between the different kinds of punishment a soul might face; eight fiery hells and eight freezing ones, as well as a kingdom where the condemned soul felt neither heat nor cold, only infinite hunger and thirst.

Nothing though could compare to the huge variety that the Chinese had thought up; unlike everyone else - who placed hell deep down inside the earth - the Chinese believed that the souls of sinners went to a mountain range known as the Little Wall of Iron and surrounded by another mountain range known as the Great Wall. In the space between these two ranges, there were no less than eight large hells one on top of the other, each of which controlled sixteen smaller hells, which in turn controlled ten million hells beneath them. The Chinese also said that devils were made up of the souls of those who had already completed their punishment.

The Chinese were also the only ones to offer a convincing explanation of the origin of devils - they were evil because they had personal experience of evil, and now they wanted to pass it on to others, in an eternal cycle of vengeance.

to grasp what is happening to me,' the stranger himself, remembering Miss Prym's words. The devil • remembered those words too and felt he had lost some of his had heara a on ground. The only way he could regain it was to leave no room for doubt in the stranger's mind.

'All right, so you had a moment of doubt,' the devil said, 'but the terror remains. The story of the gallows was a good one, because it clearly shows that mankind is virtuous only because terror exists, but that men are still essentially bad, my true descendants.'

The stranger was shivering now, but decided to leave the window open a while longer.

'God, I did not deserve what happened to me. If you did that to me, I can do the same to others. That is justice.'

The devil was worried, but resolved to keep quiet -

he could not show that he too was terrified. The man was blaspheming against God and trying to justify his actions, but this was the first time in two years he had heard him addressing the heavens.

It was a bad sign.

'a good sign,' was Chantal's first thought when she heard the baker's van sounding its horn. Life in Viscos was going on as usual. the bread was being delivered, people were leaving their houses, they would have the whole of Saturday and Sunday to discuss the insane proposition put before them, and then, with some regret, they would watch the stranger depart on Monday morning. Later that evening, she would tell them about the wager she had made, announcing that they had won the battle and were rich.

She would never become a saint like St Savin, but for many generations to come she would be remembered as the woman who saved the village from Evil's second visitation. Maybe they would make up legends about her; the village's future inhabitants might refer to her as a lovely young woman, the only one who had not abandoned Viscos because she knew she had a mission to fulfil. Pious ladies would light candles to her' and young men would sigh passionately over the heroine they had never known.

She was proud of herself, but was aware that she should act on what she said and make no mention of the gold that belonged to her, otherwise they would end up convincing her that, in order to be considered a saint, she should also divide up her share.

In her own way she was helping the stranger to save his soul, and God would take this into account when he made a final reckoning of her deeds. The fate of the stranger mattered little to her, however; what she had to do now was to hope that the next two days passed as quickly as possible, for it was hard to keep a secret like that locked up in her heart.

The inhabitants of Viscos were neither better nor worse than those of neighbouring villages, but there was no way they would be capable of committing a murder for money - of that she was sure. Now that the story was out in the open, no man or woman could take the initiative alone. First, because the reward would have to be divided up equally, and she knew that no one would want to risk themselves purely so that others might gain. Second, because, if they were thinking what she deemed to be the unthinkable, they needed to be able to count on the full co-operation of all the others - with the exception, perhaps, of the chosen victim. If a single individual was against the idea - and if need be, she would be that person - the men and women of Viscos all ran the risk of being denounced and imprisoned. Better to be poor and honourable than rich and in jail.

Chantal went downstairs remembering that hitherto even the election of a mayor to govern this village with its three streets had provoked heated arguments and internal divisions. When they wanted to make a children's playground in part of the village, there was such a fuss that the the lowe building works were never begun - some said that the village playgrc had no children anyway, others roared that a ound would be just the thing to bring them back their parents came to the village on holiday and saw things were changing. In Viscos they debated everything.the quality of the bread, the hunting regulations, the xistence (or not) of the rogue wolf, Berta's strange behaviour and, possibly, Miss Prym's secret meetings with some of the hotel guests, although no one would ever dare mention it to her face.

She approached the van with the air of someone who, for the first time in her life, was playing a leading role in the history of her village. Until then she had been the helpless orphan, the girl who had never managed to find a husband, a poor night-worker, a lonely wretch in search of company; they were losing nothing by waiting. In two days' time, they would come and kiss her feet and thank her for her generosity and for their affluence, they would perhaps insist upon her running for mayor in the coming elections (thinking it through, it might be good to stick around for a while longer and enjoy her newly won glory).

A group of people gathered around the van were buying their bread in silence. Everyone turned to look at her, but no one said a word.

what's going on in this place?' asked the lad selling the bread. 'Did someone die?'

'No,' replied the blacksmith, who was there too, despite it being a Saturday morning when he could sleep until late 'Someone's having a bad time and we're all rather worried'

Chantal couldn't understand what was happening.

'Go ahead and buy what you came to buy,' she heard someone say. 'The lad has to get going.'

Mechanically, she held out her money and took the bread. The baker's lad shrugged his shoulders - as if abandoning any attempt to understand what was going on - gave her the change, wished everyone good day and drove off.

'Now it's my turn to ask what's going on in this village,' she said, and fear made her speak more loudly than good manners usually permitted.

'You know what's going on,' the blacksmith said. 'You want us to commit a murder in return for money.'

'I don't want anything! I just did what the guy told me to! Have you all gone mad?'

'You're the one who's gone mad. You should never have allowed yourself to become that madman's mouthpiece! What on earth do you want? What are you getting out of it? Do you want to turn this place into a hell, just like it was in the Ahab stories. Have you lost all sense of honour and dignity?'

Chantal began to tremble.

'You really have gone mad! Did you actually take the wager seriously?'

'Just leave her,' said the hotel landlady. 'Let's go home and have breakfast.'

The group gradually dispersed. Chantal was still tremblutching her bread, rooted to the spot. Those people have never agreed about anything in their lives before up to nau for the first time ever, in complete accord: she was the outv one. Not the stranger, not the wager, but her, Chantal, the instigator of the crime. Had the world turned upside down?

She left the bread by her door and set off towards the mountain; she wasn't hungry or thirsty, she didn't want anything. She had just understood something very important, something that filled her with fear, horror and utter terror.

No one had said anything to the baker's boy.

Something like this would normally be talked about, either with indignation or amusement, but the lad with the van, who delivered bread and gossip to the various villages in the region, had left with no idea of what was going on. It was clear that everyone in Viscos was gathered there together for the first time that day, and no one had had time to discuss what had taken place the previous night, although everyone knew what had happened in the bar. And yet, unconsciously, they had all made a pact of silence.

In other words, each one of those people, in their heart of hearts, was thinking the unthinkable, imagining the unimaginable.

Berta called to her. She was still at her post, watching over the village, though to no avail, since the danger was already there was far greater than anyone could possibly have envisaged.

'I don't want to talk,' said Chantal. 'I can't think, react or say anything.'

'You can at least listen. Sit down here.'

Of all the people she had known, Berta was the only one who had ever treated her with any kindness. Chantal did not just sit down, she flung her arms around Berta. They stayed like that for a long while, until Berta broke the silence.

'Now go off into the forest and clear your head; you know you're not the problem. The rest of them know that too, but they need someone to blame.'

'It's the stranger who's to blame!'

'You and I know that, but no one else does. They all want to believe they've been betrayed, that you should have told them sooner, that you didn't trust them.'

'Betrayed?'

'Yes.'

'Why would they want to believe that?'

'Think about it.'

Chantal thought. Because they needed someone to blame.

A victim.

'I don't know how this story will end,' said Berta. 'Viscos is a village of good people, although, as you yourself once said, they are a bit cowardly. Even so, it might be a good idea if you were to go somewhere far away from here for a while.'

She must be joking. No one could possibly take the stranger's bet seriously. No one. And anyway, she didn't have any money and she had nowhere to go.

It wasn't true. A gold bar awaited her and it could let go her where ever in the world. But she didn't want to think taking her any about that.

that very moment, as if by some quirk of fate, the stranger walked past them and set off for his walk in the mountains, as he did every morning. He nodded and continued on his way. Berta followed him with her eyes, while Chantal tried to spot whether anyone in the village had noticed his greeting. They would say she was his accomplice.

They would say there was a secret code between the two of them.

'He looks worried,' said Berta. 'There's something odd about him.'

'Perhaps he's realised that his little game has become reality.'

'No, it's something more than that. I don't know what, but... it's as if ... no, no, I don't know what it is.'

'I bet my husband would know,' Berta thought, aware of a nervous fidgeting to her left, but now was not the time to talk to him.

'It reminds me of Ahab,' she said to Chantal.

'I don't want to think about Ahab, about legends, about anything! All I want is for the world to go back to how it was, and for Viscos - for all its faults - not to be destroyed by one man's madness!'

It seems you love this place more than you think.'

Chantal was trembling. Berta hugged her again, placing her hand on her shoulder, as if she were the daughter she had never had.

'As I was saying, Ahab told a story about heaven and hell that used to be passed from parent to child, but has been forgotten now. Once upon a time, a man, his horse and his dog were travelling along a road. As they passed by a huge tree, it was struck by lightning, and they all died. But the man failed to notice that he was no longer of this world and so he continued walking along with his two animal companions. Sometimes the dead take a while to register their new situation ...'

Berta thought of her husband, who kept insisting that she get rid of Chantal because he had something important to say. Maybe it was time to explain to him that he was dead, so that he would stop interrupting her story.

'It was a long, uphill walk, the sun was beating down on them and they were all sweating and thirsty. At a bend in the road they saw a magnificent marble gateway that led into a gold-paved square, in the centre of which was a fountain overflowing with crystal-clear water. The man went over to the guard at the entrance.

'“Good morning.”

'“Good morning,” the guard replied.

'“What is this lovely place?”

'“It's Heaven.”

'“Well, I'm very glad to see it, because we're very thirsty.”

'“You're welcome to come in and drink all the water you want.” And the guard indicated the fountain.

'“My horse and dog are also thirsty.”

'“I'm terribly sorry,” said the guard, “but animals are not allowed in here.”

'The man was deeply disappointed for he really was very thirsty, but he was not prepared to drink alone, so he thanked the guard and went on his way. Exhausted after trudging uphill, they reached an old gateway that led on to a dirt road flanked by trees. A man, his hat down over his face, was stretched out in the shade of one of the trees, apparently asleep.

'“Good morning,” said the traveller.

'The other man greeted him with a nod.

“'We're very thirsty - me, my horse and my dog.”

'“There's a spring over there amongst those rocks,” said the man indicating the spot. “You can drink all you want.”

'The man, his horse and his dog went to the spring and quenched their thirst.

'The traveller returned to thank the man.

'“Come back whenever you want,” he was told.

'“By the way, what's this place called?”

'“Heaven.”

'“Heaven? But the guard at the marble gateway told me that was Heaven!”

'“That's not Heaven, that's Hell.”

'The traveller was puzzled.

'“You shouldn't let others take your name in vain, you know! False information can lead to all kinds of confusion!”

“On the contrary, they do us a great favour, because the Ones who stay there are those who have proved themselves capable of abandoning their dearest friends.”'

Berta stroked the girl's head. She could feel that inside that head Good and Evil were waging a pitiless battle, and she told her to go for a walk in the forest and ask nature which village she should go to.

'Because I have the feeling that our little mountain paradise is about to desert its friends.'

'You're wrong, Berta. You belong to a different generation; the blood of the outlaws who once populated Viscos runs thicker in your veins than in mine. The men and women here still have their dignity, or if they don't, they at least have a healthy mistrust of one another. And if they don't even have that, then at least they have fear.'

'OK, maybe I'm wrong. Even so, do as I tell you, and go and listen to what nature has to say.'

Chantal left. And Berta turned towards the ghost of her husband, asking him to keep quiet; after all, she was a grown woman, indeed, she was an elderly woman, who shouldn't be interrupted when she was trying to give advice to someone much younger. She had learned to look after herself, and now she was looking after the village.

Her husband begged her to take care. She should be wary of offering advice to the young woman because nobody knew where matters might end.

Berta was taken aback because she thought the dead knew everything - hadn't he been the one to warn her of the dangers to come? Perhaps he was getting too old and was beginning to get obsessive about other things besides always eating his soup with the same spoon.

Her husband retorted that she was the old one, for the dead never age, and that, although the dead knew things of which the living had no knowledge, it would take a long time before he gained admittance to the realm of the archangels. He, being only recently dead (having left Earth a mere fifteen years before), still had a lot to learn, even though he knew he could offer substantial help.

Berta enquired whether the realm of the archangels was more attractive and comfortable. Her husband told her not to be facetious and to concentrate her energies on saving Viscos. Not that this was a source of particular interest to him - he was, after all, dead, and no one had touched on the subject of reincarnation (although he had heard a few conversations concerning this eventuality), and if reincarnation did exist, he was hoping to be reborn somewhere new. But he also wanted his wife to enjoy some peace and comfort during the days still remaining to her in this world.

'So, stop worrying,' thought Berta. Her husband wouldn't take her advice; he wanted her to do something, anything. If Evil triumphed, even if it was in some small, forgotten place with only three streets, a square and a church, it could nevertheless go on to contaminate the valley, the region, the country, the continent, the seas, the whole world.

Although Viscos had 281 inhabitants, Chantal being the youngest and Berta the oldest, it was controlled by a mere half-dozen individuals: the hotel landlady, responsible for the wellbeing of tourists; the priest, responsible for the care of souls; the mayor, responsible for the hunting regulations; the mayor's wife, responsible for the mayor and his decisions; the blacksmith, who had survived being bitten by the rogue wolf; and the owner of most of the lands around the village. It was he who had vetoed the idea of building a children's playground in the vague belief that Viscos would one day start growing again, and besides the site would be perfect for a luxury home.

It mattered little to the rest of the villagers what did or didn't happen to the place, for they had their sheep, their wheat and their families to take care of. They visited the hotel bar, attended Mass, obeyed the laws, had their tools repaired at the blacksmith's forge and, from time to time, acquired some land. The landowner never went to the bar. He had learned of the story through his maid, who had been there on the night in question and had left in high excitement, telling her friends and him that the hotel guest was a very rich man; who knows, perhaps she could have a child by him and force him to give her part of his fortune. Concerned about the future, or, rather, about the fact that Miss Prym's story might spread and drive away hunters and tourists alike, he decided to call an emergency meeting. The group were gathering in the sacristy of the small church, just as Chantal was heading for the forest, the stranger was off on one of his mysterious walks and Berta was chatting with her husband about whether or not to try and save the village.

'The first thing we have to do is call the police,' said the landowner. 'It's obvious the gold doesn't exist; and besides, I suspect the man of trying to seduce my maid.'

'You don't know what you're talking about, because you weren't there,' the mayor insisted. 'The gold does exist. Miss Prym wouldn't risk her reputation without concrete proof. Not that that alters things, of course, we should still call the police. The stranger must be a bandit, a fellow with a price on his head, trying to conceal his ill-gotten gains here.'

'Don't be idiotic!' the mayor's wife said. 'If he was, surely he'd be more discreet about it.'

'All this is completely relevant. We must call the police straightaway.'

Everyone agreed. The priest served a little wine to calm everyone's nerves. They began to discuss what they would say to the police, given that they had no actual proof that the stranger had done anything; it might all end with Miss Prym being arrested for inciting a murder.

'The only proof is the gold. Without the gold, we can't do anything.'

But where was the gold? Only one person had a course and she didn't know where it was hidden.

The priest suggested they form search parties. The hotel back the curtain of the sacristy window that hung over the cemetery; she pointed to the mountains to the valley below, and to the mountains on the

other side.

'We would need a hundred men searching for a hundred years to do that.'

The landowner silently bemoaned the fact that the cemetery had been constructed on that particular spot; it had a lovely view, and the dead had no use for it.

'On another occasion, I'd like to talk to you about the cemetery,' he said to the priest. 'I could offer you a far bigger plot for the dead, just near here, in exchange for this piece of land next to the church.'

'Nobody would want to buy that and live on the same spot where the dead used to lie.'

'Maybe no one from the village would, but there are tourists desperate to buy a summer home; it would just be a matter of asking the villagers to keep their mouths shut. It would mean more income for the village and more taxes for the town hall.'

'You're right. We just have to ask the villagers to keep their mouths shut. That wouldn't be so hard.'

A sudden silence fell. A long silence, which nobody dared break. The two women admired the view; the priest " polishing a small bronze statue; the landowner took another sip of wine; the blacksmith tied and untied the laces on both boots; and the mayor kept glancing at his watch as if to suggest that he had other pressing engagements.

But nobody said a word; everyone knew that the people of Viscos would never say a word if someone were to express an interest in purchasing what had once been the cemetery. they would keep quiet purely for the pleasure of seeing another person coming to live in that village on the verge of disappearing. Even if they didn't earn a penny by their silence.

Imagine if they did though.

Imagine if they earned enough money for the rest of their lives.

Imagine if they earned enough money for the rest of their lives and their children's lives.

At that precise moment, a hot and wholly unexpected wind blew through the sacristy.

'What exactly are you proposing?' asked the priest after a long five minutes.

Everyone turned to look at him.

'If the inhabitants really can be relied on to say nothing, I think we can proceed with negotiations,' replied the landowner, choosing his words carefully in case they were misinterpreted - or correctly interpreted, depending on your point of view.

'They're good, hardworking, discreet people,' the hotel landlady said, adopting the same strategy. 'Today, for example, when the driver of the baker's van wanted to know what was going on nobody said a thing. I think we can trust them there was silence. Only this time it was an unmistakably ccive silence. Eventually, the game began again, and the oppressive blacksmith said:

'It isn't just a question of the villagers' discretion, the fact that it's both immoral and unacceptable.'

'What is?'

'Selling off hallowed ground.'

A sigh of relief ran round the room; now that they had dealt satisfactorily with the practical aspects, they could proceed with the moral debate.

'What's immoral is sitting back and watching the demise of our beloved Viscos,' said the mayor's wife. 'Knowing that we are the last people to live here, and that the dream of our grandparents, our ancestors, Ahab and the Celts, will be over in a few years' time. Soon, we'll all be leaving the village, either for an old people's home or to beg our children to take in their strange, ailing parents, who are unable to adapt to life in the big city and spend all their time longing for what they've left behind, sad because they could not pass on to the next generation the gift they received from their parents.'

'You're right,' the blacksmith said. 'The life we lead is an unmoral one. When Viscos does finally fall into ruin, these houses will be abandoned or else bought up for next to nothing. then machines will arrive and open up bigger and better ads. The houses will be demolished, steel warehouses will rePlace what was built with the sweat of our ancestors.

Agriculture will become entirely mechanised, and people will come in to work during the day and return at night to the' homes, far from here. How shaming for our generation; We let our children leave, we failed to keep them here with us'.

'One way or another, we have to save this village,' said the landowner, who was possibly the only one who stood to profit from Viscos' demise, since he was in a position to buy up everything, then sell it on to a large industrial company. But of course he certainly didn't want to hand over, for a price below market value, lands that might contain buried treasure.

'What do you think, Father?' asked the hotel landlady.

'The only thing I know well is my religion, in which the sacrifice of one individual saved all humanity.'

Silence descended for a third time, but only for a moment.

'I need to start preparing for Saturday Mass,' he went on. 'Why don't we meet up later this evening?'

Everyone immediately agreed, setting a time late in the day, as if they were all immensely busy people with impor-

tant matters to deal with.

Only the mayor managed to remain calm.

'What you've just been saying is very interesting, an excellent subject for a sermon. I think we should all attend Mass today.'

I hesitated no longer. She headed straight for the Y-shaped thinking of what she would do with the gold as soon as she t Go home, get the money she kept hidden there, put on some sensible clothes, go down the road to the valley and hitch a lift Home more wagers: those people didn't deserve the fortune within their grasp. No suitcase: she didn't want them to know she was leaving Viscos for good - Viscos with its beautiful but pointless stories, its kind but cowardly inhabitants, the bar always crammed with people talking about the same things, the church she never attended. Naturally there was always the chance that she would find the police waiting for her at the bus station, the stranger accusing her of theft etc., etc. But now she was prepared to run any risk.

The hatred she had felt only half an hour before had been transformed into a far more agreeable emotion: vengeance.

She was glad to have been the first to reveal to those people the evil hidden in the depths of their false, ingenuous souls. They were all dreaming of the chance to commit a murder - only dreaming, mind you, because they would never actually do anything. They would spend the rest of their lives asleep, endlessly telling themselves how noble they are, how incapable of committing an injustice, ready to defend the village's dignity at whatever cost, yet aware that terror alone had prevented them from killing an innocent They would congratulate themselves every morning on keening their integrity, and blame themselves each night for that missed opportunity.

For the next three months, the only topic of conversation in the bar would be the honesty of the generous men and women of the village. Then the hunting season would arrive and the subject wouldn't be touched upon - there was no need for visitors to know anything about it, they liked to think they were in a remote spot, where everyone was friends, where good always prevailed, where nature was bountiful, and that the local products lined up for sale on a single shelf in the hotel reception - which the hotel landlady called her 'little shop' - were steeped in this disinterested love.

But the hunting season would come to an end, and then the villagers would be free to return to the topic. This time around, after many evenings spent dreaming about the riches they had let slip through their fingers, they would start inventing hypotheses to fit the situation: why did nobody have the courage, at dead of night, to kill useless old Berta in return for ten gold bars? Why did no hunting accident befall the shepherd Santiago, who drove his flock up the mountainside each morning? All kinds of hypotheses would be weighed up, first timidly and then angrily.

One year on and they would be consumed with mutual hatred - the village had been given its opportunity and had let it slip. They would ask after Miss Prym, who had left without trace, perhaps taking with her the gold she vanishes wich the wretched stranger had hidden. They would say terrible things about her, the ungrateful orphan, the poor girl whom had all struggled to help after her grandmother's death, had got a job in the bar when she had proved incapable of getting herself a husband and leaving, who used to sleep .. with hotel guests, usually men much older than herself, and who made eyes at all the tourists just to get a bigger tip.

They would spend the rest of their lives caught between self-pity and loathing; Chantal would be happy, that was her revenge. She would never forget the looks those people around the van gave her, imploring her silence regarding a murder they would never dare to commit, then rounding on her as if she was to blame for all the cowardice that was finally rising to the surface.

'A jacket. My leather trousers. I can wear two tee shirts and strap the gold bar around my waist. A jacket. My leather trousers. A jacket.'

There she was, in front of the Y-shaped rock. Beside her lay the stick she had used two days before to dig up the gold, For a moment she savoured the gesture that would transform her from an honest woman into a thief.

°'that wasn't right. The stranger had provoked her, and he also stood to gain from the deal. She wasn't so much stealing as claiming her wages for her role as narrator in this tasteless comedy. She deserved not only the gold but much, much more for having endured the stares of the victimless murderers standing round the baker's van, for having spent her entire life there, for those three sleepless nights, for the soul she had now lost - assuming she had ever had a soul to lose.

She dug down into the soft earth and saw the gold bar When she saw it, she heard a noise.

Someone had followed her. Automatically, she began pushing the earth back into the hole, realising as she did so the futility of the gesture. Then she turned, ready to explain that she was looking for the treasure, that she knew the stranger walked regularly along this path, and that she had happened to notice that the soil had been recently disturbed.

What she saw, however, robbed her of her voice - for it had no interest in treasure, in village crises, justice or injustice, only in blood.

The white mark on its left ear. The rogue wolf.

It was standing between her and the nearest tree; it would be impossible to get past the animal. Chantal stood rooted to the spot, hypnotised by the animal's blue eyes. Her mind was working frantically, wondering what would be her next step the branch would be far too flimsy to counter the beast's attack. She could climb onto the Y-shaped rock, but that still wasn't high enough. She could choose not to believe the legend and scare off the wolf as she would any other lone wolf, but that was too risky, it would be wisest to recognise that all legends contain a hidden truth.

'Punishment.'

Unfair punishment, just like everything else that had happened in her life; God seemed to have singled her out hapPen to demonstrate his hatred of the world.

ctively she let the branch fall to the ground and, in a moment that seemed to her interminably slow, brought her to her throat: she couldn't let him sink his teeth in She regretted not wearing her leather trousers; the next best vulnerable part were her legs and the vein there, which, pierced would see you bleed to death in ten minutes once pierced.

At least, that was what the hunters always said, to explain why they wore those high boots.

The wolf opened its mouth and snarled. The dangerous, pent-up growl of an animal who gives no warning, but attacks on the instant. She kept her eyes glued to his, even though her heart was pounding, for now his fangs were bared.

It was all a question of time; he would either attack or run off, but Chantal knew he was going to attack. She glanced down at the ground, looking for any loose stones she might slip on, but found none. She decided to launch herself at the animal; she would be bitten and would have to run towards the tree with the wolf's teeth sunk into her. She would have to ignore the pain.

She thought about the gold. She would soon be back to look for it. She clung to every shred of hope, anything that might give her the strength to confront the prospect of her es" being ripped by those sharp teeth, of one of her bones Poking through, of possibly stumbling and falling and having her throat torn out.

She Prepared to run.

run.

Just then, as if in a movie, she saw a figure appear behind the wolf, although still a fair distance away.

The beast sensed another presence too, but did not look away, and she continued to fix him with her stare. It seemed to be only the force of that stare that was averting the attack and she didn't want to run any further risks; if someone else was there, her chances of survival were increased - even if, in the end, it cost her the gold bar.

The presence behind the wolf silently crouched down and moved to the left. Chantal knew there was another tree on that side, easy to climb. At that moment, a stone arched across the sky and landed near the wolf, which turned with phenomenal speed and hurtled off in the direction of this new threat.

'Run!' yelled the stranger.

She ran in the direction of her only refuge, while the man likewise clambered lithely up the other tree. By the time the rogue wolf reached him, he was safe.

The wolf began snarling and leaping, occasionally managing to get partway up the trunk, only to slip back down again.

'Tear off some branches!' shouted Chantal.

But the stranger seemed to be in a kind of trance. She repeated her instruction twice, then three times, until he registered what she was saying. He began tearing off branches and throwing them down at the wolf.

'No, don't do that! Pull off the branches, bundle them up, and set fire to them! I don't have a lighter, so do as I say!'

Her voice had the desperate edge of someone in real perilThe stranger grabbed some branches and took an eternity to light it and, a part of the previous day's storm had soaked everything them;

like this time of the year, the sun didn't penetrate into that part of the forest.

, Chantal waited until the flames of the improvised torch . begun to burn fiercely. She would have been quite happy have him spend the rest of the day in the tree, confronting his fear he wanted to inflict on the rest of the world, but she had to get away and so was obliged to help him.

'Now show me you're a man!' she yelled. 'Get down from the tree, keep a firm hold on the torch and walk towards the wolf!'

The stranger could not move.

'Do it!' she yelled again and, when he heard her voice, the man understood the force of authority behind her words - an authority derived from terror, from the ability to react quickly, leaving fear and suffering for later.

He climbed down with the burning torch in his hands, ignoring the sparks that occasionally singed his cheeks. When he saw the animal's foam-flecked teeth close to, his fear increased, but he had to do something - something he should have done when his wife was abducted, his daughters murdered.

'Remember, keep looking him in the eye!' he heard the girl say.

did as she said. Things were becoming easier with each passing moment; he was no longer looking at the enemy's weapons but at the enemy himself. They were equals, both CaPable of provoking fear in each other.

reproductions of famous paintings, all trying to have a good time - and this weekend, of course, they had the best opportunity to do that since the end of the Second World War.

'Don't talk to me.'

'I didn't say a word.'

Chantal considered crying, but didn't want to do so in front of him. She bit back her tears.

'I saved your life. I deserve the gold.'

'I saved your life. The wolf was about to attack you.'

It was true.

'On the other hand, I believe you saved something else deep inside me,' the stranger went on.

A trick. She would pretend she hadn't understood; that was like giving her permission to take his fortune, to get out of there for good, end of story.

'About last night's wager. I was in so much pain myself that I needed to make everyone suffer as much as I was suffering; that was my one source of consolation. You were right.'

The stranger's devil didn't like what he was hearing at all. He asked Chantal's devil to help him out, but her devil was new and hadn't yet asserted total control.

'Does that change anything?'

'Nothing. The bet's still on, and I know I'll win. But I also know how wretched I am and how I became that way:

because I feel I didn't deserve what happened to me.'

Chantal asked herself how they were going to get out or there; even though it was still only morning, they couldn't stay in the forest forever.

think I deserve my gold, and I'm going to take it, don't stop me,' she said. 'I'd advise you to do something. ...

Neither of us needs to go back to Viscos; we can walk to the valley, hitch a ride, and then each of us head straight on.

Each can follow our own destiny. if you like. But at this very moment the villagers are deciding who should die.'

'That's as maybe. They'll devote a couple of days to it, till the deadline is up; then they'll devote a couple of years arguing about who should have been the victim. They are hopelessly indecisive when it comes to doing anything, and implacable when it comes to apportioning blame - I know my village. If you don't go back, they won't even trouble themselves to discuss it. They'll dismiss it as something I made up.'

'Viscos is just like any other village in the world, and whatever happens there happens in every continent, city, camp, convent, wherever. That's something you don't understand, just as you don't understand that this time fate has worked in my favour: I chose exactly the right person to help me. Someone who, behind the mask of a hardworking, honest young woman, also wants revenge. Since We Can never see the enemy - because if we take this tale to logical conclusion, our real enemy is God for putting us rough everything we've suffered - we vent our frustra-

s on everything around us. It's a desire for vengeance can never be satisfied, because it's directed against life itself.'

'What are we doing sitting around here talking?' ask Chantal, irritated because this man, whom she hated more than anyone else in the world, could see so clearly into her soul. 'Why don't we just take the money and leave?'

'Because yesterday I realised that by proposing the very thing that most revolts me - a senseless murder, just like that inflicted on my wife and daughters - the truth is I was trying to save myself. Do you remember the philosopher I mentioned in our second conversation? The one who said that God's hell is His love for humanity, because human behaviour makes every second of His eternal life a torment?

'Well, that same philosopher said something else too, he said: Man needs what's worst in him in order to achieve what's best in him.'

'I don't understand.'

'Until now, I used to think solely in terms of revenge. Like the inhabitants of your village, I used to dream and plan day and night, but never do anything. For a while, I used to scour the newspapers for articles about other people who had lost their loved ones in similar situations, but who had ended up behaving in exactly the opposite way to myself: they formed victim support groups, organisations to denounce injustice, campaigns to demonstrate how the pain of loss can never be replaced by the burden of vengeance.

'I too tried to look at matters from a more generous perspective: I didn't succeed. But now I've gained courage; I've reached the depths and discovered that there is light at the bottom.'

<Go on, said Chantal, for she too was beginning to see a kind of light.

I was trying to prove that humanity is perverse. What I was to do is to prove that I unconsciously asked for what I'm trying that happened to me. Because I'm evil, a total erate and I deserved the punishment that life gave me.'

'You're trying to prove that God is just.'

The stranger thought for a moment.

'Maybe.'

'I don't know if God is just. He hasn't treated me particularly fairly, and it's that sense of powerlessness that has destroyed my soul. I cannot be as good as I would like to be, nor as bad as I think I need to be. A few minutes ago, I thought He had chosen me to avenge Himself for all the sadness men cause Him. I think you have the same doubts, albeit on a much larger scale, because your goodness was not rewarded.'

Chantal was surprised at her own words. The man's devil noticed that her angel was beginning to shine with greater intensity, and everything was beginning to be turned inside out.

'Resist!' he said to the other demon.

'I am resisting,' he replied. 'But it's an uphill struggle.'

Your problem isn't to do with God's justice exactly,' the an said. 'It's more the fact that you always chose to be a victim circumstance. I know a lot of people in your situation.'