The Club Dumas

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  Corso seemed about to interrupt me, which I thought odd. I was getting to know him and typically he wouldn't interrupt until the other person had delivered all his information, until every last detail had been squeezed out.

  "You've used the word demonic twice," he said, looking over his notes. "And both times referring to Richelieu. Was the cardinal a devotee of the occult?"

  His words had a strange effect. The young girl turned to look curiously at Corso. He was looking at me, and I was watching the girl. He awaited my answer, unaware of this strange triangle.

  "Richelieu was keenly interested in many things," I explained. "In addition to turning France into a great power, he had time to collect pictures, carpets, porcelain, and statues. He was also an important book collector. He bound his books in calfskin and red morocco leather—"

  "And had weapons of silver and three red angles on his coat of arms." Corso gestured impatiently. All this information was trivial and he didn't need me to tell him about it. "There's a very well-known Richelieu catalogue."

  "The catalogue is incomplete, because the collection was broken up. Parts of it are now kept in the national library of France, the Mazarin library, and the Sorbonne, while other books are in private hands. He owned Hebrew and Syrian manuscripts, notable works on mathematics, medicine, theology, law, and history.... And you were right. Scholars were most surprised to find many ancient texts on the occult, from cabbala to black magic."

  Corso swallowed without taking his eyes off mine. He seemed tense—a bowstring about to snap.

  "Any book in particular?"

  I shook my head before I answered. His insistence intrigued me. The girl was listening attentively, but it was apparent that she was no longer directing her attention at me. I said, "My information on Richelieu as a character in a serial doesn't go that far."

  "What about Dumas? Was he, too, interested in the occult?"

  Here I was emphatic:

  "No. Dumas was a bon vivant who did everything out in the open, to the great enjoyment and shock of all those around him. He was also somewhat superstitious. He believed in the evil eye, wore an amulet on his watch chain, and had his fortune told by Madame Desbarolles. But I don't see him practicing black magic in the back room. He wasn't even a Mason, as he confesses in The Century of Louis XV. He had debts, and he was hounded by his publishers and his creditors—he was too busy to waste his time on such things. Perhaps when researching one of his characters once, he studied the subject, but never in much depth. I believe he drew all the Masonic practices described in Joseph Balsam and The Mohicans of Paris directly from Clavel's Picturesque History of Freemasonry."

  "What about Adah Menken?"

  I looked at Corso with respect. This was an expert's question.

  "That was different. Adah-Isaacs Menken, his last lover, was an American actress. During the Exhibition of 1867, while attending a performance of The Pirates of the Savannah, Dumas noticed a pretty young woman on stage who had to grab hold of a galloping horse. The girl embraced the novelist as he left the theater and told him bluntly that she had read all his books and was prepared to go to bed with him immediately. Old Dumas needed a great deal less than that to become infatuated with a woman, so he accepted her tribute. She claimed to have been the wife of a millionaire, a king's mistress, a general's wife.... Actually she was a Portuguese Jew born in America and the mistress of a strange man who was both a pimp and a boxer. Her relationship with Dumas caused a great deal of scandal, because Menken liked to be photographed scantily clad and frequented number 107 Rue Malesherbes, Dumas's last house in Paris. She died from peritonitis after falling from a horse at the age of thirty-one."

  "Was she interested in black magic?"

  "So they say. She liked ceremonies where she would dress in a tunic, burn incense, and make offerings to the Prince of Darkness.... Sometimes she claimed to be possessed by Satan, in various ways that today we might describe as pornographic. I'm sure old Dumas never believed a word of it, but he must have enjoyed the whole performance. It seems that when Menken was possessed by the devil, she was very hot in bed."

  There was laughter around the table. I even allowed myself a slight smile, but the girl and Corso remained serious. She seemed to be thinking, her light-colored eyes intent on Corso while he nodded slowly, though he was now distracted and distant. He was looking out the window at the streets and seemed to be searching in the night, in the silent flow of car lights reflected in his glasses, for the lost word, the key to uniting all these different stories that floated like dead leaves on the dark waters of time.

  I NOW MOVE ONCE more into the background, as the near-omniscient narrator of Lucas Corso's adventures. In this way, with the information Corso later confided to me, the tragic events that followed can be put into some sort of order. So we come to the moment when, returning home, he sees that the concierge has just swept the hallway and is about to leave. He passes him as the man is bringing the garbage cans up from the basement.

  "They came to fix your TV this afternoon, Mr. Corso."

  Corso had read enough books and seen enough films to know what that meant. So he couldn't help laughing, much to the concierge's astonishment.

  "I haven't had a television for ages."

  The concierge let out a stream of confused apologies but Corso barely paid attention. It was all beginning to seem wonderfully predictable. Since this was a question of books, he had to approach the problem as a lucid, critical reader, not as the hero of a dime novel, which was what somebody was trying to make of him. Not that he had any choice: he was by nature cool and skeptical. He wasn't the kind to break into a sweat and moan, "Oh no!"

  "I hope I haven't done anything wrong, Mr. Corso."

  "Not at all. The repairman was dark, wasn't he? With a mustache and a scar on his face?"

  "Exactly."

  "Don't worry. He's a friend of mine. A bit of a joker."

  The concierge sighed with relief. "That's a weight off my mind, Mr. Corso."

  Corso wasn't worried about The Nine Doors or the Dumas manuscript. When he wasn't carrying them with him in his canvas bag, he left them for safekeeping at Makarova's bar. That was the safest place for any of his things. So he climbed the stairs calmly, trying to picture the coming scene. By now he had become what some refer to as a second-level reader, and he would have been disappointed had he been met by too stereotypical a scene. He was relieved when he opened the door. There were no papers strewn on the floor, no opened drawers, not even armchairs slashed with knives. It was all tidy, just as he'd left it in the early afternoon.

  He went to his desk. The boxes of floppy disks were in their place, the papers and documents in their trays just as he remembered them. The man with the scar, Rochefort or whoever the hell he was, was certainly efficient. But there are limits to everything. When he switched on the computer, Corso smiled triumphantly.

  DAGMAR PC 555K (SI) ELECTRONIC PLC

  LAST USED AT 19:35/THU/3/21

  A> ECHO OFF

  A>

  Used at 19:35 that day, the screen stated. But Corso hadn't touched the computer in the last twenty-four hours. At 19:35 he was with us around the table at the café, while the man with the scar was lying his way into Corso's apartment.

  Corso found something else, which he hadn't noticed at first, by the telephone. It hadn't been left there by chance, out of carelessness on the part of the mysterious visitor. In the ashtray, among the butts put out by Corso himself, he found a fresh one that wasn't his. It was a Havana cigar almost completely burnt down, but the band was intact. He held it up by the tip. He couldn't believe it. Then, gradually, as he understood, he laughed, showing his eyeteeth like a malicious, angry wolf.

  The brand was Montecristo. Naturally.

  FLAVIO LA PONTE HAD had a visitor too. A plumber, in his case.

  "It's not funny, damn it," he said by way of a greeting. He waited for Makarova to serve the gin and then emptied the contents of a small cellophane packet onto the counter
. The cigar end was identical, and the band was also intact.

  "Edmond Dantes strikes again," said Corso.

  La Ponte couldn't get into the spirit of the thing. "Well, he smokes expensive cigars, the bastard." His hand was trembling, and he spilled some gin down his curly blond beard. "I found it on my bedside table."

  Corso teased him. "You should take things more calmly, Flavio. You've got to be hard." He patted him on the shoulder. "Remember the Nantucket Harpooners' Club."

  La Ponte shook his hand, frowning. "I was hard, until I turned eight. Back then I understood the virtue of survival. After that I got a bit softer."

  Between gulps of gin Corso quoted Shakespeare. A coward dies a thousand deaths, and so on. But La Ponte wasn't about to be reassured by quotations. At least not by that type.

  "I'm not scared, really," he said thoughtfully, looking down. "What worries me is losing things ... like money. Or my incredible sexual powers. Or my life."

  These were weighty arguments, and Corso had to admit that there could be uncomfortable developments. La Ponte added that there were other clues: strange clients wanting to purchase the Dumas manuscript at any price, mysterious phone calls in the night...

  Corso sat up, interested. "You're getting calls in the middle of the night?"

  "Yes, but they don't say anything. There's a moment or two of silence, and then they hang up."

  While La Ponte was recounting his misfortunes, Corso felt the canvas bag he had retrieved moments earlier. Makarova had kept it under the counter all day, between boxes of bottles and barrels of beer.

  "I don't know what to do," ended La Ponte tragically.

  "Why don't you sell the manuscript and have done with it? Things are getting out of hand."

  La Ponte shook his head and ordered another gin. A double.

  "I promised Enrique Taillefer that the manuscript would go on public sale."

  "Taillefer's dead. And anyway, you've never kept a promise in your life."

  La Ponte agreed gloomily, as if he didn't want to be reminded. But then he suddenly brightened. A slightly dazed expression showed through his beard. If you tried hard, you could take it for a smile.

  "By the way, guess who called."

  "Milady."

  "Almost. Liana Taillefer."

  Corso looked at his friend wearily. Then he picked up his glass and emptied it in one long gulp. "You know what, Flavio?" he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sometimes it seems that I've read this book before."

  La Ponte was frowning again.

  "She wants 'The Anjou Wine' back," he explained. "Just as it is, without authentification or anything..." He took a drink, then smiled uncertainly at Corso. "Strange, isn't it, this sudden interest?"

  "What did you tell her?"

  La Ponte raised his eyebrows. "That it wasn't in my hands. That you have the manuscript and I've signed a contract with you."

  "That's a he. We haven't signed anything."

  "Of course it's a lie. But this way I put everything on you if things get nasty. And it doesn't mean I can't consider any offers. I'm going to have dinner with the lovely widow one evening. To discuss business. I'm the daring harpooner."

  "You're not a harpooner. You're a dirty, lying bastard."

  "Yes. England made me, as that pious old goody-goody Graham Greene would have said. At school my nickname was Wasn't Me.... Did I ever tell you how I passed Math?" He raised his eyebrows again, tenderly nostalgic at the memory. "I'm a born liar."

  "Well, be careful with Liana Taillefer."

  "Why?" La Ponte was admiring himself in the bar mirror. He smiled lewdly. "I've had the hots for that woman ever since I started taking serials over to her husband. She's got a lot of class."

  "Yes," admitted Corso, "a lot of middle class."

  "What do you have against her?"

  "There's something funny going on."

  "That's fine by me, if it involves a beautiful blonde."

  Corso tapped his finger against the knot of his tie. "Listen, idiot. In mysteries the friend always dies. Don't you see? This is a mystery and you're my friend." He winked at him for emphasis. "So you'll be bumped off."

  Obstinately clinging to his dreams of the widow, La Ponte wouldn't be intimidated. "Oh, come on. I've never hit the jackpot before. Anyway I told you where I intend to take the bullet: in the shoulder."

  "I'm serious. Taillefer's dead."

  "He committed suicide."

  "Who knows? More people could die."

  "Well, you go and die, you bastard, ruining my fun."

  The rest of the evening consisted of variations on the same theme. They left after five or six more drinks and agreed to speak on the phone once Corso got to Portugal. La Ponte, rather unsteady on his feet, left without paying, but he did give Corso Rochefort's cigar butt. "Now you have a pair," he told him.

  VI. OF APOCRYPHA AND INTERPOLATIONS

  Chance? Permit me to laugh, by God, That is an explanation

  that would satisfy only an imbecile.

  —M. Zevaco, LOS PARDELLANES

  CENIZA BROS.

  BOOKBINDING AND RESTORATION

  The wooden sign, cracked, faded with age and mildew, hung in a window thick with dust. The Ceniza brothers' workshop was on the mezzanine floor of an old four-story building, shored up at the back, on a shady street in the old quarter of Madrid.

  Lucas Corso rang the bell twice, but nobody answered. He looked at his watch, leaned against the wall, and prepared himself for a wait. He knew the habits of Pedro and Pablo Ceniza well. At that hour they would be a few streets away, at the marble counter of La Taurina, draining half a liter of wine for their breakfast and discussing books and bullfighting. Both grumpy bachelors and fond of their drink, they were inseparable.

  They arrived ten minutes later, side by side, their gray overalls floating like shrouds on their skinny frames. Stooped from a lifetime spent hunched over their press and stamping tools, stitching pages together and gilding leather, they were both under fifty, but you could easily have believed they were ten years older. Their cheeks were sunken, their hands and eyes worn out by their painstaking craft, and their skin was faded, as if the parchment they worked with had transmitted its pale, cold quality to them. The resemblance between the two brothers was extraordinary. They had the same large nose, identical ears stuck to their skulls, and sparse hair combed straight back. The only noticeable differences between them were that Pablo, the younger of the two, was taller and quieter and that Pedro was frequently racked by the hoarse rattling cough of a heavy smoker, his hands shaking as he lit one cigarette after another.

  "It's been a long time, Mr. Corso. How nice to see you."

  They led him up stairs that were worn with use, to a door that creaked as it opened, and switched on the light to reveal their motley workshop. An ancient printing press presided. Next to this was a zinc-topped table covered with tools, half-stitched or already backed gatherings, guillotines, dyed skins, bottles of glue, tooled designs, and other equipment. There were books everywhere: large piles of them, bound in morocco, shagreen, or vellum, packets of them ready for dispatch or only half ready, books without boards or with limp covers. Ancient tomes damaged by worms or mildew sat on benches and shelves, waiting to be restored. The room smelled of paper, glue, and new leather. Corso breathed it in with pleasure. Then he took the book out of his bag and laid it on the table.

  "I'd like your opinion on this."

  It wasn't the first time. Slowly, even cautiously, Pedro and Pablo Ceniza moved closer. As usual, the older of the two brothers spoke first. "The Nine Doors." He touched the book without moving it. His bony, nicotine-stained fingers seemed to be stroking living skin. "Beautiful. A very valuable book."

  His eyes were gray, like a mouse. Gray overalls, gray hair, gray eyes, just like his surname, ceniza meaning ash. He looked at the book greedily.

  "Have you ever seen it before?"

  "Yes. Less than a year ago, when Claymore asked us to clea
n twenty books from the library of Mr. Gualterio Terral."

  "What condition was it in when you got it?"

  "Excellent. Mr. Terral knew how to look after his books. Almost all of them came to us in good condition, except for a Teixeira, which we had to do quite a bit of work on. The rest, including this one, needed only a little cleaning."

  "It's a forgery," said Corso bluntly. "Or so I'm told."

  The two brothers looked at each other.

  "Forgeries...," muttered the older of the two. "People speak too lightly of forged books."

  "Much too lightly," echoed his brother.

  "Even you, Mr. Corso. And that comes as a surprise. It isn't worth forging a book, it's too much effort to be profitable: I mean a high-quality forgery, not a facsimile for fooling ignoramuses."

  Corso made a gesture as if pleading for clemency. "I didn't say that the entire book was a forgery, only part of it. Pages from complete copies can be interpolated into books that have one or several pages missing."

  "Of course, that's a basic trick of the trade. But adding a photocopy or facsimile doesn't give the same results as completing a book with pages according to..." He half-turned to his brother but still looked at Corso. "Tell him, Pablo."

  "According to all the rules of our art," added the younger Ceniza.

  Corso gave them a conspiratorial look. A rabbit sharing half a carrot. "That could be the case with this book," he said.

  "Who says so?"

  "The owner. Who is no ignoramus, by the way."