The Dumas Club: The Ninth Gate

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “I’m not sure.” She tapped the engraving lightly. “The hermit in the tarot, very similar to this one, is sometimes accompanied by a serpent, or by the stick that symbolizes it. In occult philosophy, the serpent and the dragon are the guardians of the wonderful enclosure, garden, or fleece, and they sleep with their eyes open. They are the Mirror of the Art.”

  “Ars diavoli,” said Corso casually, and the baroness half smiled, nodding mysteriously. But he knew, from Fulcanelli and other ancient texts, that the term “Mirror of the Art” came not from demonology but from alchemy. He wondered how much charlatanism lay beneath the baroness’s display of erudition. He sighed to himself. He felt like a gold prospector standing up to his waist in the river, sieve in hand. After all, he thought, she had to find something to fill her five-hundred-page bestsellers.

  But Frieda Ungern had moved on to the third engraving.

  “The motto is VERB. D.SUM C.S.T. ARCAN. This stands for VERBUM DIMISSUM CUSTODIAT ARCANUM. It can be translated as ‘The lost word keeps the secret.’ And the engraving is significant: a bridge, the union between the light and the dark banks. From classical mythology to Snakes and Ladders, its meaning is clear. Like the rainbow, it links earth with heaven or hell.... To cross this one, of course, one has to open the fortified gates.”

  “What about the archer hiding in the clouds?” This time his voice shook as he asked the question. In books one and two, the quiver hanging from the archer’s shoulder was empty. In book three, it contained an arrow. Frieda Ungern was resting her finger on it.

  “The bow is the weapon of Apollo and Diana, the light of the supreme power. The wrath of the god, or God. It’s the enemy lying in wait for anyone crossing the bridge.” She leaned forward and said quietly and confidentially, “Here it represents a terrible warning. It’s not advisable to trifle with this sort of thing.”

  Corso nodded and moved on to the fourth engraving. He could sense the fog lifting in his mind. Doors opening with a sinister creak. Now he was looking at the joker and his stone labyrinth, with the caption: FOR. N.N OMN. A.QUE. Frieda Ungern translated is as FORTUNA NON OMNIBUS AEQUE: Fate is not the same for all.

  “The character is similar to the madman in the tarot,” she explained. “God’s madman in Islam. And, of course, he’s also holding a stick or symbolic serpent.... He’s the medieval fool, the joker in a pack of cards, the jester. He symbolizes destiny, chance, the end of everything, the expected or unexpected conclusion. Look at the dice. In the Middle Ages, jokers were privileged beings. They were permitted to do things forbidden to others. Their purpose was to remind their masters that they were mortal, that their end was as inevitable as other men’s.” “Here he’s stating the opposite,” objected Corso. “Fate is not the same for all.”

  “Of course. He who rebels, exercises his freedom, and takes the risk can earn a different fate. That’s what this book is about, hence the joker, paradigm of freedom. The only truly free man, and also the most wise. In occult philosophy the joker is identified with the mercury of the alchemists. Emissary of the gods, he guides souls through the kingdom of shadows....” “The labyrinth.”

  “Yes. There it is.” She pointed at the engraving. “And, as you can see, the entry door is closed.”

  So is the exit, thought Corso with an involuntary shudder. He turned to the next engraving.

  “This legend is simpler,” he said. “FR.ST.A. It’s the only one I dare take a guess at. I’d say there’s a u and an r missing: FRUSTRA. Which means ‘in vain.’ “

  “Very good. That’s exactly what it says, and the picture matches the caption. The miser is counting his gold pieces, unaware of Death, who holds two clear symbols: an hourglass and a pitchfork.”

  “Why a pitchfork and not a scythe?” “Because Death reaps, but the devil harvests.” They stopped at the sixth engraving, the man hanging from the battlements by his foot. Frieda Ungern pretended to yawn with boredom, as if it was too obvious.

  “DIT.SCO M.R stands for DITESCO MORI, I am enriched by death, a sentence the devil can utter with his head held high. Don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so. It’s his trade, after all.” Corso ran a finger over the engraving. “What does the hanged man symbolize?”

  “Firstly, arcanum twelve in the tarot. But there are other possible interpretations. I believe it symbolizes change through sacrifice.... Are you familiar with the saga of Odin?

  Wounded, I hung from a scaffold

  swept by the winds,

  for nine long nights....

  You can make the following associations,” continued the baroness. “Lucifer, champion of freedom, suffers from love of mankind. And he provides mankind with knowledge through sacrifice, thus damning himself.”

  “What can you tell me about the seventh engraving?” “DIS.S P.TI.R MAG. doesn’t seem very clear at first. But my guess is that it’s a traditional saying, one much liked by occult philosophers: DISCIPULUS POTIOR MAGISTRO.” “The disciple surpasses the master?”

  “More or less. The king and the beggar play chess on a strange board where all the squares are the same color, while the black dog and the white dog, Good and Evil, viciously tear each other to pieces. The moon, representing both darkness and the mother, can be seen through the window. Think of the mythical belief that, after death, souls take refuge on the moon. You read my Isis, didn’t you? Black is the symbolic color of darkness, Cimmerian shadows, sable in heraldry, earth, night, death.... The black of Isis corresponds with the color of the Virgin, who is robed in blue and dwells on the moon. When we die, we return to her, to the darkness from which we came. That darkness is ambiguous, as it is both protective and threatening. The dogs and the moon can be interpreted another way. The goddess of the hunt, Artemis, the Roman Diana, was known to take revenge on those who fell in love with her or tried to take advantage of her femininity.... I assume you know the story.”

  Corso, who was thinking about Irene Adler, nodded slowly. “Yes. She would let her dogs loose on such men after turning them into stags.” He swallowed in spite of himself. The two dogs in the engraving, locked in mortal combat, now seemed ominous. Himself and Rochefort? “So they’d be torn to pieces.” The baroness glanced at him, expressionless. It was Corso who was providing the context, not she.

  “The basic meaning of the eighth engraving,” she continued, “is not difficult to grasp. VIC. I.T VIR. stands for a rather nice motto, VICTA IACET VIRTUS. Which means: Virtue lies defeated. The damsel about to have her throat slit, by the handsome young man in armor carrying the sword, represents virtue. Meanwhile, the wheel of fortune or fate turns inexorably in the background, moving slowly but always making a complete turn. The three figures on it symbolize the three stages which, in the Middle Ages, were referred to as regno (I reign), regnavi (I reigned), and regnabo (I will reign).” “There’s one more engraving.”

  “Yes. The last one, and also the most significant picture. N.NC SC.O TEN.BR. LUX without doubt stands for NUNC SCIO TENEBRIS LUX: Now I know that from darkness comes light. What we have here is in fact a scene from Saint John’s Apocalypse. The final seal has been broken, the secret city is in flames. The time of the Whore of Babylon has come and, having pronounced the terrible name or the number of the Beast, she rides, triumphant, on the dragon with seven heads.”

  “Doesn’t seem very profitable,” said Corso, “going to all that trouble only to find this horror.”

  “That’s not what it’s about. All the allegories are kinds of compositions in code, rebuses. Just as on a puzzle page the word ‘in’ followed by the pictures of a fan and a tree make up the word ‘infantry,’ these engravings and their captions combined with the book’s text enable one to determine a sequence, a ritual. The formula that provides the magic word. The verbum dimissum or whatever it might be.”

  “And then the devil will put in an appearance.”

  “In theory.”

  “In what language is this spell? Latin, Hebrew, or Greek?”

  “I don’t k
now.”

  “And where’s the fault Madame de Montespan mentions?”

  “As I said, I don’t know that either. All I’ve been able to

  establish is that the celebrant must construct a magic territory

  in which to place the words obtained, having arranged them

  in sequence. I don’t know that sequence, but the text on pages

  158 and 159 of The Nine Doors may give an indication. Look.”

  She showed him the text in abbreviated Latin. A card covered with the her small, spiky handwriting marked the page.

  “Have you managed to work out what it says?” asked Corso.

  “Yes. At least, I think so.” She handed him the card. “There you are.”

  Corso read:

  It is the animal with the tail in its mouth that encircles the labyrinth

  where you will go through eight doors before the dragon

  which comes to the enigma of the word.

  Each door has two keys:

  one is air and the other matter,

  but both are the same thing.

  You will place matter on the serpent’s skin

  in the direction of the rising sun,

  and on its belly the seal of Saturn.

  You will break the seal nine times,

  and when the reflection in the mirror shows the way,

  you will find the lost word

  which brings light from the darkness.

  “What do you think?” asked the baroness.

  “It’s disturbing, I suppose. But I don’t understand a word. Do you?”

  “As I said, not much.” She turned the pages of the book, preoccupied. “It provides a method, a formula. But there’s something in it that isn’t as it should be. And I ought to know what that is.”

  Corso lit another cigarette but said nothing. He already knew the answer to the question: the hermit’s keys, the hourglass, the exit from the labyrinth, the chessboard, the halo ... And other things. While Frieda Ungern was explaining the meaning of the pictures, he had discovered more differences, confirming his theory: each book differed from the other two.

  The game of errors continued, and he urgently needed to get to work. But not with the baroness breathing down his neck.

  “I’d like to take a good, long look at all of this,” he said.

  “Of course. I have plenty of time. I’d like to see how you work.”

  Corso cleared his throat, embarrassed. They’d reached the point he’d worried about: the unpleasantness. “I work better on my own.” It sounded false. Frieda Ungern frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” She glanced at Corso’s canvas bag suspiciously. “Are you hinting that you want me to leave you alone?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.” Corso tried to hold her gaze as long as possible. “What I’m doing is confidential.”

  She blinked. Her frown became threatening, and Corso knew that everything could go out the window at any moment.

  “You’re free to do as you like, of course.” Frieda Ungern’s tone could have frozen all the plants in the room. “But this is my book and my house.”

  At that point anyone else would have apologized and beat a retreat, but not Corso. He remained seated, smoking, his eyes fixed on the baroness. At last, he smiled cautiously, like a rabbit playing blackjack about to ask for another card.

  “I don’t think I’ve explained myself fully.” He smiled as he took a well-wrapped object from his canvas bag. “I just need to spend some time here with the book and my notes.” He gently tapped the bag as he held out the package with his other hand. “As you can see, I’ve brought all I need.”

  The baroness undid the wrapping and looked at its contents in silence. It was a publication in German—Berlin, September 1943—a thick brochure entitled Iden, a monthly journal from Idus, a circle of devotees of magic and astrology which was very close to the leaders of Nazi Germany. Corso had put in a marker at a page that had a photograph. The photograph showed a young and very pretty Frieda Ungern smiling at the photographer. She had a man on each arm (for she had both arms then). One of the men was in civilian clothes and the caption named him as the Fiirher’s personal astrologer. She was mentioned as his assistant, the distinguished Miss Frieda Wender. The man on the left had steel-rimmed glasses, a timid expression, and wore a black SS uniform. One didn’t need to read the caption to recognize Reichsfiihrer Heinrich Himmler.

  When Frieda Ungern, nee Wender, looked up and her eyes met Corso’s, she no longer seemed a sweet little old lady. But it lasted only a moment. She nodded slowly and carefully tore out the page with the photo, ripping it into tiny pieces. And Corso reflected that witches and baronesses and little old ladies who worked surrounded by books and potted plants had their price, just like anyone else. Victa iacet Virtus. And he didn’t see why it should be any other way.

  ONCE HE WAS ALONE, he took the folder from his bag and set to work. He sat at a table by the window, The Nine Doors open at the frontispiece. Before starting, he parted the net curtains and glanced out. A gray BMW was parked across the street. The tenacious Rochefort at his post. Corso couldn’t see the girl at the bar on the corner.

  He turned his attention to the book: the type of paper, the pressure of the engravings, any flaws or misprints. Now he knew that the three copies were only outwardly identical: the same black leather binding’with no lettering, five raised bands, a pentacle on the cover, the same number of pages and location of the engravings... With great patience, page by page, he completed the comparative tables he’d begun with book number one. On page 81, at the blank page on the reverse side of engraving number V, he found another of the baroness’s cards. It was a translation of a paragraph on the page.

  You will accept the pact of alliance that I offer you, surrendering myself to you. And you will promise me the love of women and the flower of maidens, the honor of nuns, the rank, pleasures, and riches of the powerful, princes, and ecclesiastics. I will fornicate every three days and the intoxication will be pleasing to me. Once a year I will pay homage to you in confirmation of this contract signed with my blood. I will tread upon the sacraments of the Church and I will address prayers to you. I will fear neither rope nor sword nor poison. I will pass among the plague-ridden and the lepers without sullying my flesh But above all I will possess the Knowledge for which my first parents renounced paradise. By virtue of this pact you will erase me from the book of life and enter me in the black book of death And beginning now I will live for twenty happy years on man’s earth But then I will go with you to your kingdom and curse God.

  There was another note on the back of the card, relating to a paragraph deciphered on another page:

  I will recognize your servants, my brothers, by the sign impressed on some part of their body, here or there, a scar or your mark....

  Corso cursed emphatically under his breath, as if he were muttering a prayer. He looked around at the books on the walls, at their dark, worn spines, and he seemed to hear a strange, distant murmur coming from them. Each of the closed books was a door, and behind it stirred shadows, voices, sounds, heading toward him from a deep, dark place.

  He got goose bumps. Just like a vulgar fan.

  IT WAS NIGHT BY the time he left. He paused in the doorway a moment and glanced to the left and right, but saw nothing to worry him. The gray BMW had disappeared. A low mist was rising from the river, flowing over the stone parapet and sliding along the damp paving stones. The yellowish glow of the street lamps, illuminating successive stretches of the embankment, was reflected on the ground, lighting up the empty bench where the girl had been sitting.

  He went to the bar. He searched for her face among the people standing at the bar or sitting at the narrow tables at the back, but couldn’t find her. He sensed that a piece of the jigsaw was out of place, something that had been setting off alarm signals intermittently in his brain ever since her call to warn him of Rochefort’s reappearance. Corso, whose instincts had become a great deal sharper recently, cou
ld smell danger in the deserted street, in the damp vapor rising from the river and trailing to the door of the bar where he was standing. He shook his shoulders to rid himself ,of the feeling. He bought a packet of Gauloises and gulped down two gins one after the other. They made his nostrils dilate, and everything fell slowly into place, like a picture coming into focus. The alarms faded in the distance, and echoes from the outside world were now comfortably softened. Holding a third gin, he went to sit down at an empty table by the slightly misted window. He looked out at the street, the quayside, and the mist sliding over the parapet and swirling up as the wheels of a car cut through it. He sat there for a quarter of an hour, looking for any unusual signs, his canvas bag on the floor by this feet. In it were most of the answers to the mystery posed by Varo Borja. The book collector hadn’t wasted his money.

  In the first place, Corso had now solved the problem of the differences between eight of the nine engravings. Book number three differed from the other two copies in engravings I, III, and VI. In engraving I, the walled city with the horseman riding toward it had only three towers, not four. In engraving III, there was an arrow in the archer’s quiver, while in the Toledo and Sintra copies the quiver was empty. And in engraving VI, the hanged man hung by his right foot, but the figures in books one and two hung by their left. He could now fill in the comparative table he’d started in Sintra.