The Club Dumas

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  He hesitated a moment before shutting the blade and putting it away in his pocket, still watching me. I smiled approvingly and again indicated the library.

  "One is never alone with a book nearby, don't you agree?" I said, to be conversational. "Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black ... Where was I, then? What prince called me his friend, what beggar called me his brother?" I hesitated, searching for another phrase to round off the idea.

  "What son of a bitch called you his buddy?" suggested Corso.

  I looked at him reprovingly. The wet blanket insisted on bringing down the tone. "No need to be unpleasant."

  "I'll do what I please. Your Eminence."

  "I detect sarcasm," I said, offended. "From that I deduce that you have given in to prejudice, Mr. Corso. It was Dumas who made Richelieu a villain when he wasn't one, and falsified reality for literary expediency. I thought I'd explained that at our last meeting at the café in Madrid."

  "A dirty trick," said Corso, not specifying whether he meant Dumas or me.

  I raised a finger, ready to state my case. "A legitimate device," I objected, "inspired by the shrewdness and genius of the greatest novelist who ever lived. And yet..." I smiled bitterly. "Sainte-Beuve respected him but didn't accept him as a man of letters. His friend, Victor Hugo, praised his capacity for dramatic action, but nothing more. Prolific, long-winded, they said. With little style. They accused him of not delving into the anxieties of human beings, of lacking subtlety.... Lacking subtlety!" I touched the volumes of The Three Musketeers lined up on the shelf. "I agree with our good father Stevenson—there is no paean to friendship as long, eventful, or beautiful. In Twenty Years After, when the protagonists reappear, they are distanced at first. They are now men of mature years, selfish, with all the pettiness that life imposes. They even belong to opposing camps. Aramis and d'Artagnan lie and dissemble, Porthos fears being asked for money.... When they agree to meet at the Place Royale, they come armed and almost fight. And in England, when Athos's imprudence puts them all in danger, d'Artagnan refuses to shake his hand. In The Vicomte de Bragelonne, with the mystery of the iron mask, Aramis and Porthos stand against their old comrades. This happens because they're alive, because they're human, full of contradictions. But always, at the moment of truth, friendship wins out. A great thing, friendship! Do you have friends, Corso?"

  "That's a good question."

  "For me, Porthos in the cave at Locmaria has always embodied friendship: the giant struggling beneath a rock to save his friends ... Do you remember his last words?"

  "It's too heavy?"

  "Exactly!"

  I confess I felt almost moved. Like the young man in a cloud of pipe smoke described by Captain Marlow, Corso was one of us. But he was also a bitter, stubborn man determined not to feel.

  "You're Liana Taillefer's lover," he said.

  "Yes," I admitted, reluctantly leaving thoughts of good Porthos aside. "Isn't she a splendid woman? With her own particular obsessions ... Beautiful and loyal, like Milady in the novel. It's strange. There are characters in literature who have a life of their own, familiar to millions of people who haven't even read the books in which they appear. In English literature there are three: Sherlock Holmes, Romeo, and Robinson Crusoe. In Spanish, two: Don Quixote and Don Juan. And in French literature there is one: d'Artagnan. But you see that I..."

  "Let's not go off on a tangent again, Balkan."

  "I'm not. I was about to add the name of Milady to d'Artagnan's. An extraordinary woman. Like Liana, in her own way. Her husband never measured up to her."

  "Do you mean Athos?"

  "No, I mean poor old Enrique Taillefer."

  "Was that why you murdered him?"

  My amazement must have looked sincere. It was sincere. "Enrique murdered? Don't be ridiculous. He hanged himself. He committed suicide. I should imagine that, with his way of looking at the world, he thought it a heroic gesture. Very regrettable."

  "I don't believe you."

  "Suit yourself. But his death was the starting point for this entire story and, indirectly, the reason you are here."

  "Explain it to me then. Nice and slowly."

  He had certainly earned it. As I said earlier, Corso was one of us, although he didn't know it. And anyway—I looked at the clock—it was almost twelve.

  "Do you have 'The Anjou Wine' with you?"

  He looked at me alertly, trying to guess my intentions. Then I saw him give in. Reluctantly, he took the folder from under his coat, then hid it again.

  "Excellent," I said. "And now follow me."

  He must have been expecting a secret passage leading from the library, some sort of diabolical trap. I saw him put his hand in his pocket for the knife.

  "You won't be needing that," I assured him.

  He didn't look convinced but said nothing. I held the candelabrum high, and we walked down the Louis XHI—style corridor. A magnificent tapestry hung on one of the walls: Ulysses, bow in hand, recently returned to Ithaca, Penelope and the dog rejoicing, the suitors drinking wine in the background, unaware of what awaits them.

  "This is an ancient castle, full of history," I said. "It has been plundered by the English, by the Huguenots, by revolutionaries. Even the Germans set up a command post here during the war. It was very dilapidated when the present owner—a British millionaire, a charming man and a gentleman—acquired it. He restored and furnished it with extraordinary good taste. He even agreed to open it to the public."

  "So what are you doing here outside of visiting hours?"

  As I passed a leaded window, I glanced out. The storm was dying down at last, the glow of lightning fading beyond the Loire, to the north.

  "An exception is made once a year," I explained. "After all, Meung is a special place. A novel like The Three Musketeers doesn't open just anywhere."

  The wooden floors creaked beneath our feet. A suit of armor, genuine sixteenth-century, stood in a bend in the corridor. The light from the candelabrum was reflected in the smooth, polished surfaces of the cuirass. Corso glanced at it as he walked past, as if there might be someone hidden inside.

  "I'll tell you a story. It began ten years ago," I said, "at an auction in Paris, of a lot of uncatalogued documents. I was writing a book on the nineteenth-century popular novel in France, and the dusty packages fell into my hands quite by chance. When I went through them, I saw they were from the old archives of Le Siècle. Almost all consisted of printing proofs of little value, but one package of blue and white sheets attracted my attention. It was the original text, handwritten by Dumas and Maquet, of The Three Musketeers. All sixty-seven chapters, just as they were sent to the printer. Someone, possibly Baudry, the editor of the newspaper, had kept them after composing the galley proofs and then forgot all about them...."

  I slowed and stopped in the middle of the corridor. Corso was very still, and the light from the candelabrum I held lit up his face from below, making shadows dance in his eye sockets. He listened intently to my story, seemed to be unaware of anything else. Solving the mystery that had brought him was the only thing that mattered to him. But he still kept his hand on the knife in his pocket.

  "My discovery," I went on, pretending not to notice, "was of extraordinary importance. We knew of a few fragments of the original draft from Dumas and Maquet's notes and papers, but we were unaware of the existence of the complete manuscript. At first I thought to make my finding public, in the form of an annotated facsimile edition. But then I encountered a serious moral dilemma."

  The light and shadow on Corso's face moved, and a dark line crossed his mouth. He was smiling. "I don't believe it. A moral dilemma, after all this."

  I moved the candelabrum to make invisible the skeptical smile on his face, unsuccessfully.

  "I'm quite serious," I protested as we moved on. "On examining the manuscript, I concluded that the real creator of the story was Auguste Maquet
. He had done all the research and outlined the story in broad strokes. Dumas, with his enormous talent, his genius, had then brought the raw material to life and turned it into a masterpiece. Although obvious to me, this might not have been so obvious to detractors of the author and his work." I gestured with my free hand, as if to sweep them all aside. "I had no intention of throwing stones at my hero. Particularly now, in these times of mediocrity and lack of imagination ... Times in which people no longer admire marvels, as theater audiences and the readers of serials used to. They hissed at the villains and cheered on the heroes with no inhibitions." I shook my head sadly. "That applause unfortunately can no longer be heard. It's become the exclusive domain of innocents and children."

  Corso was listening with an insolent, mocking expression. He might have agreed with me, but he was the grudge-bearing type and refused to allow my explanation to grant me any sort of moral alibi.

  "In short," he said, "you decided to destroy the manuscript."

  I smiled smugly. He was trying to be too clever.

  "Don't be ridiculous. I decided to do something better: to make a dream come true."

  We had stopped in front of the closed door to the reception room. Through it the muffled sound of music and voices could be heard. I put the candelabrum down on a console table while Corso watched me, again suspicious. He was probably wondering what new trick was hidden there. He didn't understand, I realized, that we really had reached the solution to the mystery.

  "Please allow me to introduce you," I said, opening the door, "to the members of the Club Dumas."

  ALMOST EVERYONE WAS THERE. Through the French windows opening onto the castle terrace, late arrivals entered a room full of people, cigarette smoke, and the murmur of conversation above a background of gentle music. On the central table covered with a white linen cloth, there was a cold buffet: bottles of Anjou wine, sausages and hams from Amiens, oysters from La Rochelle, boxes of Montecristo cigars. Groups of guests, about fifty men and women, were drinking and conversing in several languages. Among them were well-known faces from the press, cinema, and television. I saw Corso touch his glasses.

  "Surprised?" I asked, looking to see his reaction.

  He nodded, disconcerted, surly. Several guests came to greet me, so I shook hands, exchanged amenities and jokes. The atmosphere was cordial. Corso looked like someone who had fallen out of bed and woken up. Highly amused, I introduced him to some of the guests and watched with perverse satisfaction as he greeted them, confused and unsure of the terrain he was crossing. His customary composure was in shreds, and this was my small revenge. After all, it was he who first came to me with "The Anjou Wine" under his arm, determined to complicate things.

  "Allow me to introduce Mr. Corso.... Bruno Lostia, an antique dealer from Milan. Permit me. This is Thomas Harvey, of Harvey's Jewelers: New York, London, Paris, Rome. And Count von Schlossberg, owner of the most famous collection of paintings in Europe. As you can see, we have a little of everything here: a Venezuelan Nobel laureate, an Argentine expresident, the crown prince of Morocco ... Did you know that his father is an avid reader of Alexandre Dumas? Look who's arrived. You know him, don't you? Professor of semiotics in Bologna ... The blond lady talking to him is Petra Neustadt, the most influential literary critic in Central Europe. In the group next to the duchess of Alba there's the financier Rudolf Villefoz and the English writer Harold Burgess. Amaya Euskal, of the Alpha Press group, with the most powerful publisher in the USA, Johan Cross, of O&O Papers, New York. And I assume you remember Achille Replinger, the book dealer from Paris."

  This was the last straw. I savored Corso's shaken expression, almost pitying him. Replinger was holding an empty glass and smiling pleasantly beneath his musketeer's mustache, just as he had smiled when he identified the Dumas manuscript at his shop on the Rue Bonaparte. He greeted me with a huge bear hug and then warmly patted Corso on the back before going off in search of another drink, puffing away like a jovial, rosy-cheeked Porthos.

  "Damn this," muttered Corso, drawing me aside. "What's going on here?"

  "I told you it's a long story."

  "Well, finish telling it, will you?"

  We had moved close to the table. I poured us a couple of glasses of wine, but he shook his head. "Gin," he muttered. "Don't you have any gin?"

  I indicated the liquor cabinet at the other end of the room. We walked over to it, stopping three or four times on the way to exchange more greetings: a well-known film director, a Lebanese millionaire, a Spanish minister of the interior ... Corso grabbed a bottle of Beefeater and filled a glass to the brim, swallowing half of it in one gulp. He shuddered, and his eyes shone behind his glasses (one lens broken, the other intact). He held the bottle to his chest, as if afraid to lose it.

  "You were going to tell me," he said.

  I suggested we go out on the terrace beyond the French windows, where we could talk without interruption. Corso filled his glass again before following me. The storm had died down. Stars shone above us.

  "I'm all ears," he announced after another large gulp.

  I leaned on the balustrade still damp from the rain and took a sip from my glass of Anjou wine.

  "Owning the manuscript of The Three Musketeers gave me the idea," I said. "Why not form a literary society, a sort of club for devoted admirers of the novels of Alexandre Dumas and the classic adventure serial? Through my work I already had contact with several ideal candidates for membership...." I gestured toward the brightly lit salon. In the tall French windows the guests could be seen coming and going, chatting animatedly. It was proof of my success, and I didn't conceal my authorial pride. "A society dedicated to studying novels of that kind, rediscovering writers and forgotten works, promoting their republication and sale under an imprint with which you may be familiar: Dumas & Co."

  "I know it," said Corso. "They're based in Paris and have just published the entire works of Ponson du Terrail. Last year it was Fantomas. I didn't know you had a part in it."

  I smiled. "That's the rule: no names, no starring roles ... As you can see, the matter is scholarly and slightly childish at the same time. A nostalgic literary game that rediscovers long-lost novels and returns us to our innocence, to how we used to be. As we mature, we admire Flaubert or prefer Stendhal, or Faulkner, Lampedusa, Garcia Marquez, Durrell, Kafka. We become different from each other, opponents even. But we all share a conspiratorial wink when we talk about certain magical authors and books. Those that made us discover literature without weighing us down with dogma or teaching us rules. This is our true common heritage: stories faithful not to what people see but to what people dream."

  I let the words hang and paused, awaiting their effect. But Corso just raised his glass to look at it against the light. His homeland was in there.

  "That was before," he answered. "Now neither children nor young people nor anyone has a spiritual heritage. They all watch TV."

  I shook my head. I had written something on this very subject for the literary supplement of the ABC newspaper a couple of weeks before. "I don't agree. Even then they're treading, unknowingly, in old footsteps. Films on television, for instance, maintain the link. Those old movies. Even Indiana Jones is the direct descendant of all that."

  Corso grimaced in the direction of the French windows. "It's possible. But you were telling me about these people. I'd like to know how you ... recruited them."

  "It's no secret," I answered. "I've been running this select society, the Club Dumas, for ten years now. It holds its annual meeting here in Meung. As you can see, the members arrive punctually from all corners of the globe. Every last one of them is a reader—"

  "Of serials? Don't make me laugh."

  "I don't have the slightest intention of making you laugh, Corso. Why are you looking at me like that? You know yourself that a novel, or a film made for pure consumption, can turn into an exquisite work, from The Pickwick Papers to Casablanca and Goldfinger. Audiences turn to these archetype-packed stories to enjoy, whethe
r consciously or unconsciously, the device of repeated plots with small variations. Dispositio rather than elocutio That's why the serial, even the most trite television serial, can become a cult both for a naive audience and for a more sophisticated one There are people who find excitement in Sherlock Holmes's risking his life while others go for the pipe the magnifying glass and the 'Elementary my dear Watson ' which by the way Conan Doyle never actually wrote The plot devices the variations and repetition are so ancient that they're mentioned in Aristotle's Poetics And what is a television serial it not an updated version of a classic tragedy, a great romantic drama, or a Dumas novel? That's why an intelligent reader can obtain great enjoyment from all this, an exception to the rule. For exceptions to the rule are based on rules."

  I thought Corso would be interested in what I was saying, but he shook his head, a gladiator refusing to accept the challenge offered by his opponent.

  "Cut the literature lecture and get back to your Club Dumas, will you?" he said impatiently. "To that loose chapter that's been floating around ... Where's the rest?"

  "In there," I answered, looking at the salon. "I based the organization of the society on the sixty-seven chapters of the manuscript—a maximum of sixty-seven members, each having a chapter as a registered share. Allocation is strictly based on a list of applicants, and changes in membership require the approval of the executive board, which I chair. Each applicant is discussed in depth before his admission is approved."

  "How are shares transferred?"

  "On no account are the shares transferred. If a member dies or wishes to leave the society, his chapter must be returned. The board then allocates it to another applicant. A member may never freely dispose of it."

  "Is that what Enrique Taillefer tried to do?"

  "In a way. He was an ideal applicant, and a model member of the Club Dumas until he broke the rules."

  Corso finished his gin. He put the glass down on the mossy balustrade and said nothing for a moment, staring intently at the lights of the reception room. He shook his head.