"I said shut up!" Chantal shouted even more loudly, trembling from head to foot, her eyes wide with hatred. "You're the one who's mad, for falling into this trap that has led us all to condemnation and death! You are the irresponsible one!"
The mayor moved towards her, but was held back by two men.
"We want to hear what the girl has to say," a voice in the crowd shouted. "Ten minutes won't make any difference!"
Ten or even five minutes would make a huge difference, and everyone there, men and women, knew it. As they became more aware of the situation, their fear was growing, the sense of guilt was spreading, shame was beginning to take hold, their hands were starting to shake, and they were all looking for an excuse to change their minds. On the walk there, each man had been convinced that he was carrying a weapon containing blank ammunition and that soon it would all be over. Now they were starting to fear that their shotguns would fire real pellets, and that the ghost of the old woman--who was reputed to be a witch--would come back at night to haunt them.
Or that someone would talk. Or that the priest had not done as he had promised, and they would all be guilty.
"Five minutes," the mayor said, trying to get them to believe that it was he who was giving permission, when in fact it was the young woman who was setting the rules.
"I'll talk for as long as I like," said Chantal, who appeared to have regained her composure and to be determined not to give an inch; she spoke now with an authority no one had ever seen before. "But it won't take long. It's strange to see what's going on here, especially when, as we all know, in the days of Ahab, men often used to come to the village claiming to have a special powder that could turn lead into gold. They called themselves alchemists, and at least one of them proved he was telling the truth when Ahab threatened to kill him.
"Today you are trying to do the same thing: mixing lead with blood, certain that this will be transformed into the gold we women are holding. On the one hand, you're absolutely right. On the other, the gold will slip through your fingers as quickly as it came."
The stranger could not grasp what the young girl was saying, but he willed her to go on; he had noticed that, in a dark corner of his soul, the forgotten light was once again shining brightly.
"At school, we were all told the famous legend of King Midas, who met a god who offered to grant him anything he wished for. Midas was already very rich, but he wanted more money, and he asked to have the power to turn everything he touched into gold.
"Let me remind you what happened: first, Midas transformed his furniture, his palace and everything around him into gold. He worked away for a whole morning, and soon had a golden garden, golden trees and golden staircases. At noon, he felt hungry and wanted to eat. But as soon as he touched the succulent leg of lamb that his servants had prepared, that too was turned into gold. He raised a glass of wine to his lips, and it was instantly turned into gold. In despair, he ran to his wife to ask her to help him, for he was beginning to understand his mistake, but as soon as he touched her arm, she turned into a golden statue.
"The servants fled the palace, terrified that the same thing would happen to them. In less than a week, Midas had died of hunger and thirst, surrounded by gold on all sides."
"Why are you telling us this story?" the mayor's wife wanted to know, putting her gold bar back on the ground and returning to her husband's side. "Has some god come to Viscos and given us this power?"
"I'm telling you the story for one simple reason: gold itself has no value. Absolutely none. We cannot eat it or drink it or use it to buy more animals or land. It's money that's valuable, and how are we going to turn this gold into money?
"We can do one of two things: we can ask the blacksmith to melt the bars down into 280 equal pieces, and then each one of you can go to the city to exchange it for money. But that would immediately arouse the suspicions of the authorities, because there is no gold in this valley, so it would seem very odd if every Viscos inhabitant were suddenly to turn up bearing a small gold bar. The authorities would become suspicious. We would have to say we had unearthed an ancient Celtic treasure. But a quick check would show that the gold had been made recently, that the area around here had already been excavated, that the Celts never had this amount of gold--if they had, they would have built a large and splendid city on this site."
"You're just an ignorant young woman," the landowner said. "We'll take in the bars exactly as they are, with the government hallm
ark and everything. We'll exchange them at a bank and divide the money between us."
"That's the second thing. The mayor takes the ten gold bars, goes to the bank, and asks them to exchange them for money. The bank cashier wouldn't ask the same questions as if each of us were to turn up with our own gold bar; since the mayor is a figure of authority, they would simply ask him for the purchase documents for the gold. The mayor would say he didn't have them, but would point out--as his wife says--that each bar bears a government hallmark, and that it's genuine. There's a date and a serial number on each one.
"By this time, the man who gave us the gold will be far from here. The cashier will ask for more time because, although he knows the mayor and knows he is an honest man, he needs authorization to hand over such a large amount of money. Questions will be asked about where the gold came from. The mayor will say it was a present from a stranger--after all, our mayor is an intelligent man and has an answer for everything.
"Once the cashier has spoken to his manager, the manager--who suspects nothing, but he is nevertheless a paid employee and doesn't want to run any risks--will phone the bank headquarters. Nobody there knows the mayor, and any large withdrawal is regarded as suspicious; they will ask the mayor to wait for two days, while they confirm the origin of the gold bars. What might they discover? That the gold had been stolen perhaps. Or that it was purchased by a group suspected of dealing in drugs."
Chantal paused. The fear she had felt when she first tried to take her gold bar with her was now being shared by all of them. The story of one person is the story of all of humanity.
"This gold has serial numbers on it. And a date. This gold is easy to identify."
Everyone looked at the stranger, who remained impassive.
"There's no point asking him anything," Chantal said. "We would have to take it on trust that he's telling the truth, and a man who calls for a murder to be committed is hardly to be trusted."
"We could keep him here until the gold has been changed into money," the blacksmith said.
The stranger nodded in the direction of the hotel landlady.
"We can't touch him. He's got powerful friends. I overheard him phoning various people, and he's reserved his plane tickets; if he disappears, they'll know he's been kidnapped and come looking for him in Viscos."
Chantal put the gold bar down on the ground and moved out of the line of fire. The other women did the same.
"You can shoot if you like, but since I know this is a trap set by the stranger, I want nothing to do with this murder."
"You don't know anything!" the landowner cried.