by Kai Meyer
Rosa angrily kicked the duffel bag in front of her seat. She was wearing sneakers that had belonged to one of the sisters, but she wished she had her sturdy steel-toed shoes on.
“Can’t she just keep her mouth shut?” she hissed furiously. “And that whispering! Who does she think she is?”
“A monster with a bad manicure.”
“I hate birds. I didn’t even have a parakeet when I was little.”
“Snakes eat birds.”
“Damn right.”
A grin spread over his face. “But they both lay eggs.”
“I don’t lay eggs.”
“That remains to be seen.”
For a moment she was speechless.
He laughed out loud, and she punched his shoulder with her fist. “Idiot.” Playfully, she punched him again. He stepped on the brake to avoid driving off the road.
There was a loud clattering in the back of the van as Aliza lost her balance.
Rosa beamed. “Let’s do that again. Come on.”
He braked again.
Clattering. A furious curse.
And again.
The van was parked under tall trees on a steep slope. On the other side of a ravine lay Ibla, the picturesque Old Town of Ragusa, with its alleys, flights of steps, and baroque palazzi. Church towers rose out of the jumble of yellowish-brown gables and walls. No one had ever taken the trouble to remove old TV antennae, and so they lived out their lives in rusty oblivion, side by side with gargoyles.
The front doors of the van were open. Alessandro stood outside, one hand shielding his eyes as he looked down at the city. Rosa was sitting cross-legged on the passenger seat as she listened for the ringtone again. She was about to put the cell phone aside when another idea occurred to her.
She rang the number of her secretary in Piazza Armerina and was not surprised to get only the answering machine. She quickly entered the number code and listened to the recorded messages.
The first voice was Iole’s.
“Hey, it’s me. No idea when you’ll get to hear this message, but it’s just after six here on the island. Just after six this morning, that is. Everything’s the same as usual. I guess we’re safe for now. Sarcasmo’s the best dog in the world, he never makes a sound; it’s like he knows exactly what’s at stake. Cristina’s divided up all our supplies again, she did that twice already—rationing, she calls it. I don’t know about that. Anyway, that’s how she passed her time until finally she found some kind of papers. There’s a whole archive down here, umpteen file folders, old books, all kinds of stuff. She’s reading the papers now. And Signora Falchi isn’t getting me down half as much as I thought. She’s kind of okay really. Worries far too much and tries not to let us notice. You can imagine how good she is at acting . . . okay, I have to go now. You two didn’t turn up here last night, so something must have kept you. I hope nothing happened to you. I really do hope that very much. I’ll call again later, here or wherever. Ciao.”
Rosa went over to Alessandro. Only when he looked at her in surprise did she realize that she must have a huge grin on her face.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“She’s fine. They haven’t been found yet. Or at least, not by first thing this morning.”
“I hope she’ll watch out. They’re not stupid. Maybe they’ll think of listening in to the machine as well.”
As they talked, more recorded voices were babbling away: two journalists who were brash or stupid enough to assume that, even in flight, Rosa would take time to give them an interview.
The fourth message was less than half an hour old. “Eva here,” announced a young woman’s voice, and it made Rosa prick up her ears. “I heard on the radio that you have problems right now, so probably this isn’t so important to you. But you did say I was to call at once if I found anything out. And I have. I think it could be what you’re looking for. I don’t want to put it all on a recording, so just call me back when you have time. You can always reach me over the next few days. I’ll be either here or at the uni. You have my number. Talk to you soon.”
A flock of pigeons was circling over the Old Town. Alessandro looked expectantly at Rosa.
“Eva called,” she said.
“Eva?”
“I told you about her.” She lowered her voice to make sure that Aliza, in the back of the van, couldn’t hear her. “A student from Palermo. I hired her through an employment exchange on the internet. She’s checking up on all the Nobel Prize winners and contenders over the last decade.”
In Sintra, Augusto Dallamano had advised her to put TABULA at the top of the list in her search for leads. If it really was a secret organization carrying out experiments on live Arcadians, then there must be some top scientists among its members. Since TABULA had more than enough money and influence, it could have recruited eminent experts who hadn’t found such lucrative employment elsewhere, or who had been disappointed in traditional scientific research at the universities.
So Rosa had hired the student to check up on all Nobel Prize winners since 1950 working in the fields of animal and human reproduction, genetics, and biochemistry. Who had fallen out of favor with other scientists and committees? Who had expressed dissatisfaction with lack of funds, or had come into conflict with the law by carrying out banned experiments? Eva had put not only the prize winners under a magnifying glass, but also the far greater number of scientists who had had their Nobel Prize hopes dashed.
Alessandro ran a hand through his hair. “At the moment TABULA is the least of our problems.”
“I’ll call her back, anyway. Maybe I’ll catch her still at home. If everyone thinks I’m hand in glove with TABULA, then I ought to at least find out all I can about its members.”
“Hurry up, then.” He nodded toward the maze of streets in Ragusa Ibla. “It’s not really safe here. Too many people who might recognize you.”
“Eva heard something about us on the radio.”
He swore. “Then it’s starting with a vengeance now. We’ll have to start thinking what we—”
Rosa interrupted him with a gesture when directory information picked up. She asked to be connected to Eva’s number in Palermo. The student picked up the phone after the fourth ring.
“Eva, hi. You know who this is, don’t you?”
“I . . . yes, sure. Hi.”
“Do you have any problems if we talk on the phone? I mean because of what you heard on the radio.”
“It was on TV as well just now. No, no problems. You paid me in advance, so that’s okay.”
“Good, thanks. The police haven’t been to see you, have they?”
The student’s voice rose a little higher than before. “Been to see me? What would the . . . oh, shit, you’re not dragging me into it, are you?”
“No, I promise. Listen, I don’t have much time. What have you found out?”
Rosa didn’t know Eva personally, but she had looked at her Facebook profile. A few harmlessly cheerful photos of travels with friends, none of them outside Italy. Favorite books that Rosa had never heard of. Links to music videos of obscure indie bands.
“Well then,” began Eva, a little nervously, “I went through all the years one by one. Of course there were a whole lot of prize winners in the fields you mentioned. But either they work in respectable institutes and write books and articles regularly about their current research, or they’re dead. Quite a number of them are dead, in fact. I managed to check the precise dates of death of all the ones who seemed important and where they were buried. Nothing suspicious so far.”
During her conversation, Rosa had moved a few paces away from Alessandro, who was still gazing down at the city, and she could tell from the look on his face that he liked her plan less and less. Although what she had called a plan on the grand scale hardly qualified. While Alessandro was to watch the van with their prisoner in it, Rosa was going to find the antiquarian bookshop and try to get a look at Leonardo Mori’s book. So far, so good—as long as the boo
kseller didn’t recognize her because he’d been watching TV this morning.
Eva was sorting through papers of some kind. Rosa imagined a crowded desk, thickly covered with papers, books, empty plastic bottles, and teacups. “Next I looked at the scientists who, in spite of being written up as likely Nobel winners, had walked away empty-handed. Specifically any of them who then expressed their annoyance in interviews and open letters. I mean the sort you’d pick if you wanted to hire a competent specialist inclined to overestimate himself, a man with a hot temper, and get him to do secret experiments. And that’s what you’re after, right?”
“Roughly speaking, yes.”
“In the end I was left with a group of five or six scientists. All men. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? People who just can’t accept it if they felt they’ve been treated unfairly. Instead of going on and getting better results—”
“Only the names, Eva. Please.”
“I tried tracing all their careers, dug up death announcements, et cetera, et cetera. And in the end there was only one man left.”
“Really? Only one?” Rosa hadn’t expected that. She had thought she would be facing a list of ten or twenty names that might, with a lot of luck, get her a little further. But only a single man?
“A guy called Eduard Sigismondis. Born in Latvia, but seems like it’s been ages since he was seen there. He studied in Moscow, Helsinki, and Paris. He’d be eighty-one now—if he’s still alive, which isn’t certain. I didn’t find any announcement of his death, but no sign of life from him either in almost thirty-five years. He could simply have disappeared and died at some point. Or maybe he’s vegetating in an old folk’s home and thinks his urine bag is a setup for experiments.”
“How did you land on him?” A man eighty-one years old didn’t strike her as a very promising key to the mystery of TABULA.
“He fits into the framework perfectly. He was one of the early pioneers of the Human Genome Project, and—”
“Eva, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He cloned animals. He was cloning them years before that famous sheep. Officially, Dolly was the first successful attempt at a clone, but Sigismondis did the same thing much earlier. Or so he said, anyway, and obviously several of his colleagues confirmed his account. But above all, he experimented with crossing different species—you know what I mean, rats with guinea pigs, dogs with cats, apes with—”
“Human beings?”
“That was what ended his career. He’d begun by conducting most of his experiments in secret, and he had some really surprising results, early success with splitting genes and so on. That was what made him a hopeful for the Nobel Prize. But when it turned out that there were gaps in his documentation, and rumors began circulating that he’d broken all kinds of scientific and ethical taboos, everyone dropped him. He cited freedom of research, even the ancient principles of alchemy, saying that the ends always justified the means. He probably made a spectacle of himself on various occasions. A real troublemaker, and not a very nice guy. After a while he simply disappeared, and a little later pictures kept by his former assistants made the rounds. Photos of interspecies creatures that he’d bred in the laboratory, really nauseating sights. I can point you in the direction of some websites where you can see his work. Or at least part of it.”
“Thanks, that won’t be necessary.”
“I’ll finish the job by putting a file together—then you can make up your own mind whether you want to look at more or not.” Eva sounded amused to think that a woman wanted all over the country on suspicion of murder might shrink from looking at photos of animal experiments. “One way or another, we’ve hit the bull’s eye with Sigismondis. First his name disappeared from all lists of nominations, applications for financial backing, and outlines of international projects. Then he kind of dissolved into thin air. Assuming he didn’t fall into a hole of some kind, and no one has ever found him, I’d guess he hasn’t given up his research. He’s gone on working somewhere or other, under a false name, maybe in a country that doesn’t take ethical controls too seriously. The Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, East Germany—there was quite a wide choice at that time. Or else he simply has an enormous garage. But he certainly must have had financial backers for his work—and they had deep pockets and a burning interest in his experiments.” Eva stopped for a moment, got her breath back, and added, “Only please don’t ask me who the hell takes an interest in dog-headed human beings. Or cows giving birth to human babies. What’s for certain is that the backers were really sick characters.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” asked Rosa. “I mean sure that it can only have been Sigismondis?”
“Of course there are plenty of deranged scientists around. But among those who almost made it to the very top, and then stumbled at the finishing line because of their lack of scruples, Eduard Sigismondis easily takes first place. So if you’re asking me, yes, I do think he’s the man who fulfills all the criteria you mentioned to me.”
“If he’s still alive.”
“That doesn’t really make any difference. Could be he’s dead by now—all the same, he may have had two or three decades since the scandal to get his filthy business done, before death finally caught up with him.”
THE ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSELLER
ROSA FOLLOWED A WINDING alley uphill. Now and then the cupola of the Cathedral of San Giorgio appeared behind the rooftops of Ibla, then disappeared from sight again. A cream-colored cat looked sleepily down from between terra-cotta pots on a wrought-iron balcony. The cobblestones were as smooth as if they had just been polished. When a boy clattered past Rosa on a Vespa, it seemed as inappropriate in the purity of these surroundings as if he were racing the scooter through a living room.
She was still wearing jeans and a blouse belonging to one of the Malandra sisters, and although both fit her well, she didn’t feel comfortable in them. She had also found a large pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment and put them on. The rubber soles of her shoes squeaked on the cobblestones with every step she took, as if she were in a gym. She felt as if she was being watched from a window through half-open shutters. But aside from the boy she hadn’t seen a single soul, nor did she see anyone at the windows or behind the inevitable plastic curtains hanging over the balcony doors.
A piece of paper taped to a well told visitors the history of Ragusa Ibla. The print was just large enough for her to decipher the first two sentences as she passed it. It said Ibla had been built on the ruins of an ancient city of the Siculians, the native inhabitants of Sicily. Rosa had seen the caves where they buried their dead at what seemed like the end of the world, in a place that she would always link with Alessandro. After the Siculians, the Greeks had taken possession of the island, founding their settlement of Hybla Hera on the mountain here. Later the name became Ibla.
The antiquarian bookshop was on the first floor of a corner house. Its dusty shop window was barred. A sign with the inscription LIBRERIA IBLEA in plain lettering hung over the entrance. There were all kinds of books on display in the window, most of them as brown as the tuff stone that had been used to build a large part of the Old Town. It was as if everything here had in fact been turned to stone: the houses, the window display, even the cat sleeping by the window.
And the old man sitting at a table in the shop fit seamlessly into this stony scene. He did not move so much as an inch when Rosa came in. His skin was the color of parchment, and so were his pants and the vest he wore over his shirt. He had a magnifying glass in one hand and was examining the pages of an open folio volume through it.
The shop was crammed to the ceiling with books, most of them from a time before there were brightly colored book jackets. The bindings that protected the pages looked like used baking paper. There was a door open in the back wall of the shop, giving Rosa a view of more rows of crowded shelves and glass display cases.
She greeted the man as she came in, but he didn’t look up. She opened and closed the door again
, and waited for him to react to the sound of the bell ringing. Nothing.
“Excuse me, please,” she said, taking off the sunglasses, “is your shop open?”
“How else would you have been able to open and close the door twice, scaring my neighbor’s cat? My neighbor is fond of her pet, she won’t like that.” He went on studying the microscopic words on the pages. Not made of stone after all, she thought. Good.
“If the doorbell scares animals I guess not many people come in here.”
“As a rule, those who do are notable for their good manners.” Sighing, the old man put his magnifying glass down, half turned in his chair, and inspected her. “You will find what you’re looking for, Signorina, in the bookstore three streets away, just past the cathedral.”
“Are the booksellers there friendlier?”
“I haven’t yet had the pleasure. I don’t sell paperbacks and gift items.”
She decided to be nicer to him. Genuinely impressed, she looked around. “This place is like our library at home.”
His smile was slightly condescending, but he did seem a little more interested now. “You have a library?”
“Most of the books in it date from the time of my great-grandparents. Or their great-grandparents.”
“Fancy that. A young lady from an old family of well-educated book-lovers.” He sounded mocking, but less dismissive now. He even got off his chair and came a step toward her. “How can I help you?”
Rosa’s eyes fell on a stack of catalogs beside the old-fashioned cash register. They were the same edition as the one they had found in Fundling’s possessions. “I’m looking for one particular book.”
“I see.”
“You listed it in your catalog.” She pointed to the stack by the cash register. “The Gaps in the Crowd by Leonardo Mori.”
The expression on his face didn’t change, but the long pause before he spoke again told her that he was surprised. “An unusual choice for a young lady of your age.”
“You don’t know me,” she replied, smiling.
“And what, if I may ask, aroused your interest in that work?”
