Paper Conspiracies

by Susan Daitch

  In this way Maryse was made to understand that Jules had learned his vocation from an uncle who had more schemes than sleeves to keep them up, a man who promised easy money. The city was chocked to the gills with paper to be had for almost nothing: old books which could be taken apart and reassembled, cheap modern editions easily aged, and so a book which appeared over one hundred years old might actually be of relatively recent publication. The city was full of foreigners who couldn’t speak the language well, if at all, and faubouriens who lived outside the metropolis but ventured into it once in a while, just as Jules himself once had. When his customers were Americans or provincials Jules offered Rimbaud, poet of the Revolution, killed during the Terror, or Verlaine, favorite of Lafayette, for sale at high prices. Jules was a persuasive salesman. He gained customer’s confidence easily, sensed anxieties and reservations quickly, knew how to give assurance of quality, and was quick on the street when he needed to be. He himself was rarely fleeced and never caught. The fin-de-siècle desire for the antique was overwhelming, and in a reflective moment Jules told Maryse he considered his clients’ obsession with looking backward the result of being on the brink of a new century. She disagreed. In the age of electricity, when tiny things, molecules, were found and named, what appeared rare and unique would only become more dear, representative of a collection of unknown and unknowable oddities.

  Nostalgia is your friend, his uncle had said. As a salesman he had learned how to imitate the signs of class. English-style bowlers, waistcoats, moustache wax, all of it, and he occasionally found himself believing in those signs, wanting to be the thing he wasn’t. Don’t be afraid of the word arriviste, his uncle said, the parvenu is always someone else, probably your customers who will buy rare books by the yard and never read them. If the circulation of money could be compared to a river, his uncle proposed a dam while Jules could think no further ahead than the next swim. A dam required work and planning.

  Jules’s uncle, a man who was said to have no enemies, was found dead in an alley. His partner disappeared that same night. What was unusual, Jules told Maryse, was this: no pens were found on the body. He always carried several, and not the valuable kind anyone would steal. Maryse imagined the old man had signed too many signatures not his own, but she said nothing to Jules. The shipping money must have been lost somehow. His uncle’s “dam” paid for the burial, but little else. Those who came to his funeral had nothing but praise for him, a man beyond reproach. That was how he had wanted to be known and remembered. Jules was on his own.

  “A man who buys and sells rare books?” Maryse’s mother screamed. “He’ll leave you without a penny.”

  She disappeared after Maryse’s wedding, rarely emerging from her house. She gave up on her children and barely spoke to either daughter again.

  Hearing the coffee boil over, Maryse ran from the window and took the pot off the stove. Liquid bubbled into pools, and a sticky brown film covered the burner. Her daughter, Caroline, sitting close to the stove, absorbed in tearing pages from an old book, seemed deaf, unaware she was in danger from a scalding burn. Maryse shook her by the shoulders, but she twisted away, knocking over a stack of books and nearly overturning a tub filled with hot water. Pouring coffee into the tub, face buried in steam, Maryse watched water dilute the color. Their hands, faces, and clothing smelled of coffee. There was no end to it. After sulking in the hall, Caroline returned, and according to their system, handed her mother four or five pages with exaggerated yet sarcastic care as if the leaves might crumble into dust at any minute. Maryse dropped them into the tub and stirred the papers with a long wooden spoon.

  Promises of piles of currency disappeared in ripples of liquid. Expenses exceeded their income and debts were spiraling out of control. She checked a few other leaves drying flat on a table far away from any window. In the tedium she separated thoughts from her body and imagined herself a figure in a melodrama, her miserable portrait formed in steam over a cup entitled Slave of Java. When dry, the slightly warped papers would be dashed with a few drops of black coffee from a stronger brew. Lying on a nearby chair were pieces of limp, battered parchment Jules had picked up from the floor of a bookbinder’s shop. While Maryse waited for the papers to dry she scrubbed the stove in a frenzy, back and forth as if, Caroline thought, she were rowing a boat during an electrical storm

  The meticulous process of assembling what passed for rare books and the routine Jules had developed became a form of rule, a series of timings and physical laws that ran their lives. As far as she was concerned, it was simpler to bake the pages in the oven. The results appeared just as antique as the coffee procedure, but Jules insisted this method produced objects which were too brittle and could be easily detected as fakes. He peddled their rebound books to dealers, some of whom knew they were faked, and to others who didn’t, tourists or whoever might believe he offered singular volumes. Jules kept a list of his sources and their addresses folded into an eyeglass case. He came and went from the apartment, keeping up with his business, selling in private residences and on the street.

  Maryse had seen a lithograph of a morphine addict sticking a needle into her leg called Eater of Dreams. She had heard of caffeine addiction that ended in death by poisoning, and felt she had become this kind of addict, not by choice, but because someone had twisted her arm behind her, someone had handed her a needle. Remembering the spontaneity with which she had taken the needle seemed ironic to her now, but she didn’t feel like a prisoner, believing she could walk out anytime.

  Bertillon, a small man with closely cropped hair and a big moustache, wheeled a blackboard into the assembly hall and began to draw. Isolated lamps shone on his chalk lines and the white backs of his hands.

  “My system will prove that Dreyfus forged his own handwriting. The bordereau, the list of artillery secrets, the letter he offered to sell to the Germans, was written in an amalgam of his wife’s and brother’s handwriting. If you follow the pattern of this trench,” he drew a series of lines, the trench, which led to the center of diagram that looked like a maze with redan-shaped branches and crenellated wings, impossible to read without expert intervention,“at the center is the arsenal of the habitual spy.” He pointed out features of the accused’s handwriting then drew another series of parallel lines, the corridors. Arrows led all over the surface of the blackboard. Measurements from tails of letters to upper loops were taken, calculations made in the margins of the diagram.

  “I see the evidence of self-forgery as indisputable proof that the Syndicate was involved,” someone in the room said.

  “The operation was planned a year in advance; the Dreyfus family spent hours practicing a script that combined features of each member’s handwriting, hoping that the amalgam would elude identification.” Fingers traced Bertillon’s corridors and channels, convinced. There was a murmur of agreement like the hum of machinery.

  “Let’s call him D, not because there is any doubt about his identity but for the sake of brevity and because the incriminating D is how he signed the letter offering to sell French military secrets that was found in the trash of the German embassy. Look at this,” Bertillon pointed to his labyrinthine diagram, “D is trying to retreat to a citadel of graphic rebuses.” The generals and others applauded. Bertillon wiped his chalky fingers on his jacket, bowed, and left the room. As soon as the door shut behind him, someone in the back near the door coughed.

  “There is no unity on the subject of who wrote what.” The speaker was barely visible apart from the glowing end of a cigarette and the curve of a lapel. “Another expert compared D’s handwriting to the letter stolen from the German embassy. He found no similarity between the two.” The lit end of the cigarette bounced to emphasize no similarity. “In his opinion D couldn’t possibly have written that document.”

  “Yes, I know your expert, an expert who works for the Bank of France, an expert with ties to the Syndicate.” Felix Gribelin, the archivist for the Section of Statistics, stood up and hammered at the
dissenting opinion. “We aren’t naive here, randomly trying to tie pontoons together. We know how things work, how patterns are established and connections made. D has ties to the Syndicate, as does the Bank of France, therefore a handwriting expert who works for the Bank of France will not give a reliable judgment in this case.”

  The Section of Statistics, the headquarters of the French intelligence agency, had an immediate concern with the trial, but as the room filled with smoke, the archivist wanted only to go out on the terrace. He wanted the meeting to end; there was no more point to it. He was convinced of D’s guilt, but didn’t want to appear to jump to conclusions. The divisiveness of the speaker, whom he couldn’t quite make out, was irritating. He wanted to know the man’s name. At the same time what he wanted most of all was to be in his office downstairs.

  “Felix makes a point,” one of the generals nodded at him. “Bertillon is head of the Prefecture’s Service of Judiciary Identity. We depend on him. His system for identifying criminals based on bone measurements and numerical theory reflects the infallible logic of algebra.”

  The room burst into applause, not quite unanimous, but close to it.

  “He has a reputation as the founder the Anthropometric Department of the Police.”

  Felix stood up for a second time.“Whether we trust him or not doesn’t matter, but when the judges hear his blackboards and diagrams roll down the hall, they’ll remember that Bertillon has been called ‘the stubborn defender of the unintelligible.’ That’s a fact. There’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

  Felix peered into the dark recesses of the conference room. The lit cigarette continued to emphasize his points. “Remember your numbers man was publicly embarrassed by the failure of his system in the La Boussinere case of a second will. A blind man could have detected that forgery. How can we be sure that he hasn’t become trigger happy, claiming that every document that passes through his office is either a bad copy or a self-forgery?”

  “A man who covers his tracks, who has an overly elaborate explanation for everything, isn’t a good witness,” another voice trailed off.

  Felix remembered the case of multiple wills. He doubted others would, but they might notice the chalky stripes down the front of Bertillon’s jacket as he left the room, and in noticing that the man with the passion for algebra was a slob, conclusions might be reached about the undeniably ridiculous aspect of his theories.

  “We need more evidence.”

  “What are the informers bringing in?”

  “There was a report that D frequented the Café des Assassins, gambled, kept prostitutes.”

  “That’s very good, very useful.”

  “No, not at all. The report was about a Max Dreyfus, no relation to the accused. Max D. had a police record. Our D has none. He is wealthy, sees only a few close friends. He has no motive.”

  Everyone had information to sell about Dreyfus. Passing through many hands of various nationalities the so-called secrets Felix was asked to pay for often turned into nothing more than old shoes stuffed with domestic shopping lists. His desk was spread with documents when he called his colleague, Major Mercier du Paty de Clam, whose close-set eyes and severely pointed nose were all centered in a face left with too much space, too many broad margins. A man who liked chaos, when du Paty couldn’t find confusion he would create it. He had arrested D with enthusiasm, never telling him why he was being taken away. If his pleasure was staked on something as flimsy as handwriting, measures had to be taken to ensure that pleasure wouldn’t be squandered. Brought into Felix’s confidence, he calmed the archivist’s nerves. Du Paty was convinced of D’s guilt and therefore believed the script of the letter found in the German embassy matched D’s handwriting, and the problem of a motive could be determined another time. Taking the situation in hand, du Paty had strolled down to D’s cell armed with a variety of writing instruments and different kinds of paper. Try writing lying on your back. Now turn over and pull your legs under you. Du Paty made D write in as many positions as he could invent so as to elicit or force as many samples of D’s hand. Precision instruments, originally designed for lunar photography, were brought in to analyze the handwriting. Du Paty, swishing around Felix’s desk, laughed at the results, and Felix joined in. We’ll tell everyone D forged his own hand. That’s what happened. Du Paty informed Bertillon of D’s guilt long before the handwriting expert could look at the samples, and du Paty, who knew everybody, was believed.

  Felix sorted through documents as he waited for du Paty, only to be told that the general had left for the evening. At eight o’clock Felix walked some blocks west from his office on the rue de Lille to the IIe Saint Louis where he took his dinner regularly in a small restaurant, a recessed corner behind law offices, near the end of the island. After being served he made it a practice to write down what he had eaten and what he paid for each item. Escalope de foie gras aux truffes, 2 ft. 50. Poulet a la Grèque 8 fr. Vin Graves, 6 fr. When he was finished he asked for a cognac, insisting it be poured from the bottom of a nearly empty pyramid-shaped bottle so he would be ensured a larger drink for the same price. He was convinced larger portions came from the broader base of the bottle. Dinner completed, he took a cab back to his office in the Section of Statistics to find the building nearly empty. He had an office in the War Ministry, a large office, one he enjoyed. During the twenty years he’d worked at his post Felix had learned to be both memory bank and camera, reliable and silent. With an eye for minutia, he would spend hours recopying and filing documents into the night. Two notebooks kept by the Section of Statistics were part of his province. Notebook A cataloged the names and addresses of adult aliens living in France. Notebook B was a directory of residents who were suspected of espionage, regardless of whether they were aliens or French citizens. Tonight Felix turned the pages of Notebook B, reading over his notes until late into the night.

  How is a camera like a gun? He had seen a camera squirt water at a man, right in his eye, and he had laughed at the joke in spite of himself. The camera/weapon had appeared in a film, not a presentation by an arms manufacturer who entered a conference room with a portfolio full of diagrams and codes. Felix turned to M in Notebook B.

  Before he made films Méliès drew cartoons under the name Geo. Smile. In his file Felix found a caricature drawn by Smile, a cartoon of General Boulanger. The figure was inflated and blown apart by gusts of air from a white bellows labeled pression electorate, a nonsense tautology. Judges priests, ordinary men of all kinds, the drawing implied, blew through the lethal piping which lead to the bellows. The engraving had been featured on the cover of a magazine, La Griffe. Following the cartoon Felix found a handwritten note.

  If we categorize his films based on actual events (the American interventions in Cuba and the Philippines, the Dreyfus trial, and so on) as subversive, then his imaginary films, too, must bear greater scrutiny. When is a trip to the moon more than a trip to the moon? We say with confidence there is more here than meets the eye. Examine his film The Man with the Rubber Head. The exploding head, disembodied and recalcitrant, had, through an optical trick, been Méliès, own, as if under the cloak of a joke, Méliès could take revenge on his double. Note: subject calls his Kinetograph “my machine gun.” (Incidentally, the camera is a counterfeit.) His motto is The Whole World Within Reach. He is known to run Star Films like a crown dictator, and one can conclude that he in some way identifies with the authorities parodied in his cartoons.

  Was his double, doomed and flammable, supposed to be a reference to a darker and perhaps exploitable side of Méliès? Could he control his double or did the double that he persistently created in film after film, control him? Felix wondered if the double could be recruited. He doubted it. He needed someone meticulous and obsessed with small details, someone who led such a narrow life that he or she would never be suspected, the sort of citizen whose loyalty to the army would never be questioned by themselves or by others. He suspected this ideal profile of a forger belonged only to
either an idiot savant or an impressionable provincial too ham-handed to commit thoughtful, artistic forgery. Another profile of a potential candidate presented a second option: a criminal, refined and educated, yet still a criminal who could be blackmailed into writing whatever was needed to add to the Dreyfus file. Felix returned to his notes.

  Méliès has a cameraman who sells obscene photographs on the side.

  Felix needed someone whose eyes were in his or her fingers. A pornographic arranger, though inducible, probably wouldn’t have the delicate touch.

  Méliès employs an assistant, Fabien Leclerc. The file contained a photograph clipped from La Libre Parole. He lives alone, separated from his wife and daughter. Leclerc has been observed staring into the river for long periods of time, but he never jumps. His impulses are anarchic. He might have once asked why there are rules which are only selectively held to, and he answered that question by working for a man who clearly believes in none, including gravity, and the most elemental physical laws. He is well suited to the anarchistic humor and chaotic atmosphere of Star Films. Is known to collect Revolutionary costumes, but is easily duped into believing he bought Robespierre’s shirt, for example, when it could have been anyone’s. He does meticulous work. It is usually destroyed within a short period of time, and another project is begun. If there is a banana peel in the vicinity, this citizen will slip on it.

  Felix needed someone who drew well or who was clever with penmanship, a man whose dexterous fingers were in so many pies that he would have to be careful not to engage in contradictory interests. He wanted to create someone like an informer who would be in his pocket, one who would have to tread with caution. The trial was no secret, everyone followed it and took one side or the other, and so an automaton, a man who wouldn’t ask questions, would be hard to find. He capped his inkwell as if letters might escape from it; in its depths he imagined a soup of half-formed sentences more dangerous than a ton of dynamite. Scratching his thinning hair with one hand, he poured himself a brandy with the other. Footsteps pattered down the hall. A door shut, then the section was quiet again. Apart from night cleaners in another wing of the building Felix was alone. He needed someone who had something he could hang over his or her head, saying, if you don’t do this for me, there will be consequences.