The Forbidden Book: A Novel

by Joscelyn Godwin

  Most were the same as the modern version that he had bought in Rome; some had the same content but with the original, archaic spelling; lastly, there were a few translations, in Spanish and French. Leo was disappointed. He had the uneasy feeling that the Baron had been playing a scholar’s prank on him, and what is more on Orsina too, leading them on to believe in something that had never existed. Even the uncut copy he had fleetingly held in his hands could have been part of the elaborate plot. But why? Perhaps there was no accounting for the vagaries of an eccentric egotist with a lot of time on his hands.

  Still, Leo’s curiosity was far from appeased. He felt that the only way to keep a dialogue open with Orsina was through The Magical World of the Heroes. And because he could not get her off his mind, his curiosity about the book had grown exponentially since he had returned to the States. What was he to do?

  He mentioned his failed search to Hanna Schmidt, an under-librarian who had often helped him. “Do you know of any books that exist in a secret or private version, different from the published one? And how one would track them down?”

  Hanna was a Germanic blonde, almost as tall as Leo himself, with infectious good spirits that often broke the silence of the library with a laugh. Leo sensed her liking for him, but felt reluctant to mention The Magical World of the Heroes. She had been known to break librarian’s etiquette by passing comments about the books that people borrowed. “I can’t tell you offhand,” she replied, “but I can send out my bloodhounds.”

  Leo spent the rest of the day working his way through a stack of antebellum literary journals, searching page by page for references to Italian literature. Once he had enjoyed this kind of scholarly spadework, but now his heart was not in it. At any excuse he left his place: to visit the cafeteria, the men’s room, the exhibition hall, or to exchange a whispered word with a colleague whom he spied across the pillared reading room. The next morning, as he arrived at his favorite seat, Hanna waved a sheaf of papers at him. “Professor Kavenaugh!”

  “Hi, Hanna; how are you this morning? Did your bloodhounds sniff out anything?”

  “And how!” She read from a printout of several pages: “A Secret Gospel of Mark, different from the one in the Bible. Military manuals from World Wars I and II, published with deliberate mistakes in case they fell into enemy hands; the correct editions only issued to commanding officers. A Japanese handbook of martial arts; for centuries, the Yagyu family alone possessed the complete version. Aubrey Beardsley’s obscene novel Venus and Tannhaüser, well known in its bowdlerized version as Under the Hill. Paschal Beverly Randolph’s The Grand Secret, 1860, with the passages on hashish that were eliminated for general publication the following year … The list of secret editions goes on and on. Which one would you like?” she asked with a sly smile. “They’re all in the public domain now.”

  Leo felt that he’d gotten into deeper waters than he had bargained for. He returned her smile. “Thanks very much. This is quite a feast!” He ran his eyes over the list. “I certainly don’t want to read most of them. I was more interested in the principle of secret editions, and only for the sake of a footnote. It looks as though it’ll be a long one!”

  “Be sure to mention the hashish, then!” said Hanna, and left him with the satisfied look of a good dog that has pleased her master.

  On reflection, Leo decided that Munenori Yagyu’s Book of Family Traditions on the Art of the Sword was worth a look, as being most similar to Della Riviera’s—and even contemporary with him.

  When an English edition arrived, he learned that this samurai family had allowed a text to circulate that was full of bombastic promises of what their warriors could do: make themselves invisible, move faster than lightning, kill instantly, even with a wooden sword. Yet, there was not the slightest practical advice on how to achieve such wonders. The book made them seem like boastful charlatans trying to look important. But this, the editor explained, was a stratagem. The Far Eastern art of war advises those who are strong to appear feeble. Potential enemies take no account of them, but if they are ever attacked, they have the advantage of complete surprise. The secret edition of the Yagyu’s treatise, on the other hand, contained the real secrets of the killing moves and the mental processes that went with them. It showed how to deliver on the promises.

  Leo thought back to The Magical World. Here was a dynasty involved in analogous power struggles: those of early modern Italy. Like any literature professor, he knew something of its canonical authors. As he refreshed his memory from an encyclopedia, it came home to him how universal the belief in magic was in Italy during, before, and even after the Renaissance.

  Marsilio Ficino drew down the influences of the planets by singing to the lyre, and landed a job as the house philosopher of the Medici family. Giordano Bruno trudged around Europe trying to sell his magical politics to Queen Elizabeth, Emperor Rudolf II, and anyone else who would listen, but ended up a burned-offering to the Holy Inquisition. On the other hand, Tommaso Campanella, author of the utopian City of the Sun, had the last laugh.

  Convicted of insurrection and heresy in 1603 (the year of The Magical World!), Campanella languished in prison for a quarter of a century. Finally, in 1628, Pope Urban VIII ordered his release and summoned him to the Vatican as his personal magician. Pope and magus were frequently closeted together, and this, Leo read with astonishment, is what they did:

  First they sealed the room against the outside air, sprinkled it with rose-vinegar and other aromatic substances, and burnt laurel, myrtle, rosemary and cypress. They hung the room with white silken cloths and decorated it with branches. Then two candles and five torches were lit, representing the seven planets. There was Jovial and Venereal music, which was to disperse the pernicious qualities of the eclipse-infected air. For the same purpose they used stones, plants, colors and odors, belonging to the good planets Jupiter and Venus. They drank astrologically distilled liquors.

  And it was a Pope doing this! Not only that, but the former jailbird was called to the court of France to make a magical diagnosis of the newborn heir to the throne. After examining the child, he pronounced that “This boy will reign for a long time, sternly but happily. He lacks mercy, and in the end there will be great confusion in religion, and in the realm.” And that was a spot-on prophecy, for the child would become Louis XIV, the Sun King.

  Leo was not a specialist, but he knew that in Cesare’s century the lines dividing religion, magic, and science were fuzzy. If popes and monarchs believed that they could increase their power through magic, noble dynasties must have tried it too. But anyone reading Cesare’s book would have had the same serious objection. All Leo had to do was read the index from the edition he had bought in Italy: it promised the “magical hero” the gift of twelve “fruits” from the “tree of life,” down to something close to a divine or immortal state. Yet, not a word was spent on how exactly one would obtain such fruits. Was Cesare completely incompetent? He promised so much while delivering so little. As with that Japanese book, readers would have dismissed him as a learned waffler, and the book as a vanity publication.

  And what if it were true? Baron Emanuele was arrogant and unlikable, mused Leo, but there was no denying that he was powerful. He had made his world conform exactly to his will, complete with that band of impressionable “sympathizers.”

  Late that night, Leo browsed through the book with new respect. In its beginning, it made much of how the Hero creates his own magical heaven and earth, and the mythological beings he encounters there. Where could this possibly happen, if not in the imagination? As he said the words over to himself, he thought about the similarity between “magic” and “imagine.” According to the dictionary, they came from different Latin roots, but the intuition seemed a fruitful one, as Leo knew something about the power of the imagination.

  After becoming a member of the Third Order, he had joined a group that practiced the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. They consisted of controlled meditations, imagining sce
nes from the life of Christ, especially the Passion. One was supposed to visualize them in every detail, noting what the background was like, what the people were wearing, what their expressions and emotions were. Most of the group’s members had difficulty in keeping their minds concentrated and making the inner images precise and realistic. Leo found the process not only easy and natural, but frightening. As soon as he tried the guided meditations, the scenes leapt before his inner eye with the clarity of a movie, and left him emotionally exhausted. Already laden with guilt enough, that familiar feeling, he had decided then and there that this was not his path.

  Perhaps the practice of the “hero” was something like this. He just might try a meditation on some theme of the book, and see if his old gift returned.

  The next evening, as Leo was feeding his cats, regrets came flooding back while he revisited in his mind his conduct during Orsina’s year in Georgetown. His celibacy and self-sufficiency had saved him from the risks of further involvement with women: the risks of giving one’s heart to someone else, who might hurt it. It was so much less complicated to give it to books, to cats, and, as he had imagined, to God.

  Instead, chance had offered him a pearl, and he had thrown it away. He should have followed his first impulse, the one that had made him hire Orsina without a second thought. He should have told Orsina about his past, his vows, and, yes, his feelings for her. Leo saw his reflection in the window, and took a good look at himself. Regret for what he had done to Sylvia, the woman to whom fate had yoked him all those years, had been tempered by time; but regret over what he had not done, that seemed inconsolable.

  But Leo did not wallow in his regret, not that night. Once more, as he thought about Orsina, he felt drawn to the The Magical World of the Heroes. His apartment was overflowing with books, but that small one he had brought back from Rome was monopolizing his attention lately. He had begun to reread it, this time little by little and carefully. He had tried a meditation on the theme of the hero, but no images had appeared before his inner eye; his old gift had not returned yet. But what did the author mean exactly by “hero”? Chapter III was entitled “The Magus and the Hero.” Leo read:

  It is generally understood that he who operates virtuously, and through glorious and memorable actions makes himself conspicuous and noteworthy in everybody’s eyes, should be numbered among heroes. But it is a most evident thing that nobody shall ever accomplish those outstanding deeds, which can readily and naturally be accomplished by the Magus thanks to natural Magic, so that only he is entitled to be called a hero.

  EIGHT

  Nigel was on his search for the perfect Amarone. He had been traversing soft undulating hills, hurtling along dusty back roads and confirming that Gianni, the mechanic from Maranello, was right: the 365 GT was in perfect driving condition. He had not yet tasted the ideal Amarone, but was definitely enjoying himself. On the crest of a hill, he came to a curve. The dirt road was peppered with potholes, and he had to slow down considerably. Past the curve, a new vista opened before him, with much of the same, give or take a cypress here, a farm there, and an ocean of vineyards. But there was also a scooter parked on the edge of the track, its rider standing beside it.

  “A turquoise Vespa?” he wondered. “Could that be …” The rider waved at him, and he stopped.

  “Angela? Are you all right? What happened?”

  “What does it look like? I’m sunbathing in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly picked a secluded spot for that, but doesn’t one usually take off one’s clothes?”

  Angela laughed. “Come on, help me. Do you think you can fix it?”

  “Your Vespa? No, I’m a useless mechanic.”

  “Great. So now what?”

  “You might just be in luck. This must be the only vintage Ferrari with a decent boot.” With her help, he lifted the small Vespa and placed it in the trunk. It just fit, though the top wouldn’t close. “Now, will you join me?”

  “Of course, my rescuer.” She got in, giggled, and off they went.

  ****

  Around the middle of July, the Baron was addressing a much more select group of sympathizers. The theme of the lecture was “spiritual warfare.”

  Giorgio had barred all doors after they had entered the ballroom. Sitting on the podium, the Baron was quoting St. Bernard’s homily to the newly-founded Knights Templar:

  Go forth confidently then, you knights, and repel the foes of the cross of Christ with a stalwart heart! The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a mankiller, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil.

  The Baron looked at his meek flock. He repeated:

  If he kills an evildoer, he is not a mankiller, but a killer of evil.

  “Consider the man who said this, Saint Bernard. He prophesied, worked miracles, cast out demons, wrote many books, destroyed heresy, healed a schism, glorified the Virgin Mary, established the Knights Templar, launched a Crusade, guided councils, ended a pogrom, advised popes, accomplished every mission assigned to him, yet took no pride in his successes and ever longed to return to his cell in the monastery.

  “How did he do it all, you may well ask? And how did those crusader knights succeed in liberating Jerusalem?

  “They believed that God was on their side. But we are beyond such fairytales: there was no god sitting up there on his throne, doling out power to his favorites. Those men were gods.”

  A murmur of surprise, or assent, ran through the audience, and the Baron’s voice became more confidential: “You may recall one of my favorite sayings: Est deus in nobis, ‘there is a god within us.’ It is for us to make it come true.”

  The listeners were visibly impressed as his lecture continued. Toward the end, the Baron paused to drink some water, then resumed.

  “Unfortunately, there is a converse to this process of becoming a god. Last week I described the technique of separating the soul from the physical body, but forbade you to practice it. There was good reason for that. You should know that in that state, one may encounter entities. They may have no objective reality at all, but that does not make the slightest difference to you. They will be as real as the man sitting next to you. And they are much more dangerous than any human being.

  “If you encounter one of these entities, your job is to command it. But that takes an extraordinary degree of self-collectedness, because the entity will use every ruse to command you. Don’t expect to meet fire-breathing dragons or demons drooling with blood. For you, the entity is much more likely to take the shape of a human being whom you revere. It will approach you in a friendly fashion and you will find yourself tempted to welcome it and take its advice. Do not on any account do this! Regard it with the utmost distrust, and command it, no matter how outrageous this may seem.

  “There is a well-known expression in the Zen tradition: ‘If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him.’ Yes, you heard me: kill your Buddha, desecrate your own temples. This is not the only meaning of that precept, but it is one of them.”

  For a moment, he glanced at Giorgio, who was gazing at him with adoration. And so were his disciples.

  “If you can pass this test successfully,” the Baron continued, “then the entity will vanish, and you will feel a profound relief. Then you may pass to the next stage of transcendence. If you fail, be warned: the entity will take you over. You will seem to fall into a blissful sleep, but your body will awaken. With your soul dormant, your body is then at the disposal of the entity, and it can do whatever it likes with it. Can you imagine the horrors that could ensue? These entities crave a physical body, and their one goal is to obtain the temporary use of one.

  “Yes, it is only temporary. You will wake up sooner or later, but you may be unpleasantly surprised at where you find yourself, and at what your body has been doing during your absence.

  “If you are not prep
ared to face this trial, go no further on this particular path of initiation.”

  Emanuele closed his notes and stepped down from the podium. There was no applause. This was not an entertainment, but a warning of the most solemn kind. The listeners seemed not only convinced, but moved by the Baron’s words. Giorgio unbolted the main doors, and they filed silently out of the ballroom. As the last of them left, the Baron spoke quietly to Giorgio:

  “You see what an effect it has when the truth strikes the heart. But remember that you, with your one fourth of noble blood, have an advantage over these young men. They are well-intentioned, but they cannot hear the call of the blood. Only when that is present can one hope for the higher initiations.”

  “Yes, Baron. I hope for them more than I can say.”

  One young man was hanging back from the departing crowd, and he now turned to the Baron. Like many of the others, his head was shaved and he was dressed in black. There was something ascetic, almost monastic, about his drawn features and eyes, burning as though riveted to some distant and fascinating sight.

  “Barone,” he said in a distinctly Spanish accent, “may I speak personally to you?”

  “There is nothing personal about the doctrines for which I act as mouthpiece,” Emanuele replied. “But go on, tell me your concern.”

  “I feel like a bomb about to explode.” The Baron frowned. “Forgive me, that’s not an appropriate thing to say these days. But it’s not enough just to listen to you. I must act, I must do something to validate what I’m learning from you.”