"That's no reason to murder someone," he said quietly, as if to himself. "I can't believe that all these people..." He looked at me stubbornly. "They're all well known, respectable. They'd never get mixed up in something like this."
I suppressed my impatience. "You're blowing things out of all proportion.... Enrique and I were friends for some time. We shared a fascination for this kind of fiction, although his taste in literature wasn't on a level with his enthusiasm. The fact is, his success as a publisher of bestselling cookbooks meant he could spend time and money on his hobby. And to be fair, if anybody deserved to be a member of the club, it was Enrique. That's why I recommended his admission. As I said, we shared, if not in our tastes, at least in our enthusiasm."
"You shared more than that, I seem to remember."
Corso's sarcastic smile had returned, and I found it highly irritating. "I could tell you that that's none of your business," I retorted. "But I want to explain. Liana has always been very special, as well as very beautiful. She was a precocious reader. Do you know that at sixteen she had a fleur-de-lis tattooed on her hip? Not on the shoulder, like her idol, Milady de Winter, so that her family and the nuns at her boarding school wouldn't find out. What do you think of that?"
"Very moving."
"You don't seem very moved. But I assure you she's an admirable person. The fact is that, well ... we became intimate. You'll recall that earlier I mentioned the heritage that is the lost paradise of childhood. Well Liana's heritage is The Three Musketeers. She was fascinated by the world depicted in its pages. She decided to marry Enrique after meeting him by chance at a party where they spent the evening exchanging quotes from the novel. He was already a very wealthy publisher."
"It was love at first sight," said Corso.
"I don't know why you say it like that. They married for the most sincere reasons. The thing is that, in the long run, even for someone as good-natured as his wife, Enrique could be tiresome.... We were good friends, and I often visited them. Liana..." I put my glass on the balustrade next to his empty one. "Anyway. You can imagine the rest."
"Yes, I can. Very clearly."
"I wasn't talking about that. She became an excellent collaborator. So much so that, four years ago, I sponsored her entry to the society. She owns chapter 37, 'Milady's Secret.' She chose it herself."
"Why did you set her on me?"
"Let's take this one step at a time. Not long ago, Enrique became a problem. Instead of limiting himself to the very profitable business of cookbooks, he decided to write a serial. But the novel was awful. That is a fact. Absolutely awful, believe me. He brazenly plagiarized all the plots of the genre. It was called—"
"The Dead Man's Hand."
"Exactly. Even the title wasn't his. And what's worse, unbelievably, he wanted Dumas & Co. to publish it. I refused, of course. His monstrous creation would never have been approved by the board. Anyway, Enrique had more than enough money to publish it himself, and I told him so."
"I assume he took it badly. I saw his library."
"Badly? That is something of an understatement. The argument took place in his study. I can still picture him, small and chubby, standing very straight, on tiptoe, staring at me with wild eyes. He looked as if he might burst a blood vessel. All very unpleasant. He said he'd decided to devote his whole life to writing. And who was I to judge it. That was up to posterity. I was a biased critic, an insufferable pedant, and on top of everything I was playing around with his wife. This absolutely stunned me—I didn't realize he knew. But apparently Liana talks in her sleep, and between cursing d'Artagnan and his friends (whom, by the way, she hates as if she had known them personally) she'd revealed the whole affair to her husband.... You can imagine my predicament."
"Very difficult for you."
"Extremely. Although the worst was yet to come. Enrique stormed. He said that if he was mediocre, Dumas wasn't much of a writer either. Where would Dumas have been without Auguste Maquet, whom he wretchedly exploited? The proof lay in the white and blue pages of 'The Anjou Wine,' which Enrique kept in his safe.... The argument became even more heated. He called me an adulterer—rather an old-fashioned insult—and I called him a moron, adding a few snide comments about his latest cookbook successes. I ended up comparing him to the baker in Cyrano.... 'I'll get my revenge,' he said, sounding rather like the Count of Monte Cristo. 'I'll publicize the fact that your beloved Dumas was a big cheat who appropriated other people's work. I'll make the manuscript public, and everyone will see how the old fraud produced his serials. I don't give a damn about the rules of the society. That chapter's mine, and I'll sell it to whoever I like. And you can go to hell.'"
"He got nasty."
"You don't know how furious a spurned author can become. My remonstrations were to no avail. He threw me out. Later I learned from Liana that he'd called that bookseller, La Ponte, to offer him the manuscript. He must have thought himself very clever and devious, like Edmond Dantes. He wanted to create a scandal without being directly implicated; he wanted to keep his reputation intact. That's how you became involved. You can understand my surprise when you came to see me with 'The Anjou Wine.'"
"You certainly didn't show it."
"I had my reasons. With Enrique dead, Liana and I had assumed that the manuscript was lost."
I saw Corso search his coat for one of his crumpled cigarettes. He put it in his mouth but didn't light it. He paced the terrace. "Your story's ridiculous," he said at last. "No Edmond Dantes would commit suicide before savoring his revenge."
I nodded, although he had his back to me and couldn't see my gesture.
"Well, more than that happened," I admitted. "The day after our conversation, Enrique came to my house in a final attempt to persuade me. I'd had enough. And I won't put up with blackmail. So, not quite realizing what I was doing, I dealt him the death blow. His serial was not only very bad, it felt familiar. I went to my library, searched for an old edition of The Popular Illustrated Novel, a little-known late-nineteenth-century publication, and opened it at the first page of a story written by a certain Amaury de Verona and titled 'Angeline de Gravaillac, or Unsullied Virtue.' Well, you can imagine the sort of thing. As I read the first paragraph aloud, Enrique went pale, as if the ghost of Angelme had risen from the grave. Which it more or less had. Assuming nobody would remember the story, he had plagiarized it, copied it almost word for word, except for one chapter he took whole from Fernandez y Gonzalez, in fact the best part of the story. I was sorry I didn't have my camera to take a picture of Enrique. He put his hand to his forehead as if to exclaim, 'Curses!' but couldn't actually get the word out. He just made a kind of gurgling sound, as if he was suffocating. Then he turned, went home, and hanged himself from the light fixture."
Corso was listening. The forgotten cigarette was still in his mouth, unlit.
"Then things became complicated," I went on, sure that he was now starting to believe me. "You already had the manuscript, and your friend La Ponte wasn't willing, at first, to part with it. I couldn't go around playing Arsène Lupin, I have a reputation to protect. That's why I gave Liana the task of retrieving the chapter. The date of the annual meeting was approaching, and we had to find a new member to replace Enrique. I admit, Liana did make a few mistakes. First, she went to see you...." I cleared my throat, embarrassed. I didn't want to go into details. "Then she tried to enlist La Ponte, to have him get 'The Anjou Wine' back. But I didn't know how tenacious you could be.... The problem is that Liana had always dreamed of an adventure like her heroine's, full of deception, amorous trysts, and persecution. And this episode, based on the stuff of her dreams, gave such an opportunity. So she went after you enthusiastically. 'I'll bring you the manuscript bound in the skin of that Corso,' she promised. I told her not to get carried away. I realize now that the mistake was mine: I encouraged her in her fantasy, releasing the Milady that had been inside her ever since she first read The Three Musketeers."
"I wish she'd read something else. Like Go
ne with the Wind. She could have identified with Scarlett O'Hara and pestered Clark Gable instead of me."
"Yes, she went a bit over the top. It's a pity you took it so seriously."
Corso rubbed a spot behind his ear. I could imagine what he was thinking: the one who really took it seriously was the man with the scar.
"Who's Rochefort?"
"His name is Laszlo Nicolavic. He's a character actor who specializes in villains. He played Rochefort in the series Andreas Frey made for British television a couple of years ago. He's played Gonzaga in Lagardère, Levasseur in Captain Blood, La Tour d'Azyr in Scaramouche, Rupert de Hentzau in The Prisoner o/Zenda. He's fascinated by the genre, and has applied to join the Club Dumas. Liana was quite taken with him and insisted he work with her."
"Laszlo certainly took his part seriously."
"I'm afraid he did. I suspect he's trying to gain points so his admission is approved quickly. I also suspect that he serves as her occasional lover." I smiled like a man of the world, hoping it was convincing. "Liana is young, beautiful, and passionate. Let's say I stimulate her intellectual side and that Laszlo takes care of her impetuous nature's more down-to-earth needs."
"What else?"
"That's almost all. Nicolavic, or Rochefort, took charge of getting the Dumas manuscript from you. That's why he followed you from Madrid to Toledo and Sintra, while Liana headed for Paris, taking La Ponte with her as a backup in case their original plan failed and you didn't see reason. You know the rest: you didn't let them snatch the manuscript from you, Milady and Rochefort got slightly carried away, and that brought you here." I paused, reflecting on the events. "Do you know something? I wonder whether instead of Laszlo Nicolavic I shouldn't recommend you as a member of the club."
He didn't even ask whether I really meant it or was only being sarcastic. He removed his battered glasses and cleaned them mechanically, absorbed in his thoughts. "Is that all?" he said at last.
"Of course." I pointed to the reception room. "There's your proof."
He put his glasses on and took a deep breath. I didn't at all like the look on his face.
"What about the Delomelanicon? What about Richelieu's connection with The Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows?" He came closer, tapping me on the chest until I had to take a step back. "Do you take me for a fool? You're not going to tell me that you knew nothing about the link between Dumas and that book, his pact with the devil and all the rest of it—Victor Fargas's murder in Sintra and the fire at Baroness Ungern's apartment in Paris. Did you give my name to the police yourself? And what about the book hidden in the three copies? Or the nine prints engraved by Lucifer, reprinted by Aristide Torchia on his return from Prague 'by authority and permission of the superiors,' and the whole damn business...."
He said it all in a torrent, his chin jutting aggressively, his eyes piercing into me. I took another step back, open-mouthed.
"You've gone mad!" I protested indignantly. "Can you tell me what you're talking about?"
He took out a box of matches and lit his cigarette, cupping a hand around the flame. Through the glare reflected in his glasses, he kept his eyes fixed on me. Then he told me his version of events.
WHEN HE FINISHED, WE both stood in silence. We were leaning on the damp balustrade, next to each other, watching the lights of the reception room. Corso's story had lasted for the duration of the cigarette, and he now stubbed it out on the ground.
"I suppose," I said, "I should now confess, say, 'Yes, it's all true,' and hold out my hands for you to handcuff them. Is that what you're expecting?"
He hesitated. His recital of the story didn't seem to have given him confidence in his conclusions.
"But there is a link," he muttered.
I looked at his narrow shadow on the marble flagstones of the terrace floor, dark against the rectangles of light cast from the reception room and stretching beyond the steps into the darkness of the garden.
"I'm afraid," I said, "that your imagination has been playing tricks on you."
He shook his head slowly. "I didn't imagine that Victor Fargas was drowned in the pond, or that Baroness Ungern was burned with her books. Those things happened. They were real. The two stories are mixed up."
"You've just said it yourself—there are two stories. Maybe all that links them is your own intertextual reading."
"Spare me the technical jargon. The Dumas chapter triggered everything." He looked at me resentfully. "Your goddamn club and all your little games."
"Don't lay the blame on me. Games are perfectly valid. If this were a work of fiction and not a real story, you as the reader would be principally responsible."
"Don't be absurd."
"I'm not. From what you've just told me I deduce that, playing with facts and literary references, you constructed a theory and drew fantastic conclusions. But facts are objective, and you can't overlay them with your personal ideas. The story of 'The Anjou Wine' and the story about this mysterious book, The Nine Doors, are completely unrelated."
"You all led me to believe..."
"We, and by we I mean Liana Taillefer, Laszlo Nicolavic, and myself, did nothing of the sort. It was you who filled in the blanks on your own, as if what happened were a novel based on trickery, with Lucas Corso the reader too clever for his own good. Nobody ever told you that things were actually as you thought. No, the responsibility is entirely yours, my friend. The real villain in the piece is your excessive intertextual reading and linking of literary references."
"What else could I do? To take action, I needed some strategy, I couldn't just sit there waiting. In any strategy, one builds a picture of one's opponent, and the picture influences one's next move.... Wellington did such-and-such, thinking that Napoleon was thinking of doing such-and-such. And Napoleon..."
"Napoleon made the mistake of confusing Blucher with Grouchy. Military strategy is as risky as literary strategy. Listen, Corso, there are no innocent readers anymore. Each overlays the text with his own perverse view. A reader is the total of all he's read, in addition to all the films and television he's seen. To the information supplied by the author he'll always add his own. And that's where the danger lies: an excess of references caused you to create the wrong opponent, or an imaginary opponent."
"The information was false."
"No. The information a book provides is an objective given. It may be presented by a malevolent author who wishes to mislead, but it is never false. It is the reader who makes a false reading."
Corso seemed to be thinking carefully. He shifted to face the garden in darkness. "Then there must be another author," he said quietly.
He stood motionless. After a time he took the folder with "The Anjou Wine" from under his coat and put it to one side, on the moss-covered stone.
"This story has two authors," he insisted.
"That's possible," I said, taking the Dumas manuscript. "And maybe one is more malevolent than the other. My story was the serial. You'll have to look for the crime novel elsewhere."
XVI. A DEVICE WORTHY OF A GOTHIC NOVEL
"Here is the vexing part of the matter," said Porthos.
"In the old days one didn't have to explain anything.
One just fought because one fought."
—A. Dumas, THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE
Leaning his head back against the driver's seat, Lucas Corso looked at the view. He had pulled off onto the shoulder at the final bend of the road before it dipped into the town. Surrounded by ancient walls, the old quarter floated in mist from the river, suspended in the air like a ghostly blue island. It was a hazy world without light or shadow. A cold, hesitant dawn over Castille, with the first glimmer of light showing roofs, chimneys, and bell towers to the east.
He wanted to look at the time, but water had got into his watch during the storm in Meung. The glass was misted and the dial illegible. Corso saw his exhausted eyes in the rearview mirror. Meung-sur-Loire, on the eve of the first Monday in April. They were now far away, and it was Tuesday
. It had been a long return journey, and all the characters had faded into the distance: Balkan, the Club Dumas, Rochefort, Milady, La Ponte. Only the echoes of a story after the turning of the last page. The author striking the final key on the QWERTY keyboard, bottom row, second from the right. So with one arbitrary action there was no more than pages of type, strange, inert paper. Lives suddenly alien.
On that dawn so like awakening from a dream, Corso sat, dirty and unshaven, with reddened eyes. By his side, his old canvas bag containing the last extant copy of The Nine Doors. And the girl. That was all that remained on the shore after the tide went out. She moaned softly, and he turned to look at her. She was sleeping in the seat next to him, under her duffel coat, her head on his right shoulder. Breathing gently, her lips parted, occasionally shaken by small shivers that made her start. Then she'd moan again, quietly. A small vertical crease between her eyebrows made her look like an upset little girl. One hand protruded from under her coat. It was turned palm up, the fingers half open, as if she had just let something slip from them, or as if she was waiting.
Corso thought again about Meung, and about the journey. And Boris Balkan two nights earlier, standing next to him on the terrace still wet from the ram. Holding the pages of "The Anjou Wine," Richelieu had smiled like an old opponent, both admiring and sympathetic. "You're unusual, my friend." He had offered these final words as a consolation or farewell; they were the only words with any meaning. The rest—an invitation to join the other guests—were uttered as a formality. Not that Balkan wanted to get rid of him—actually, he had seemed disappointed when Corso left. But Balkan knew that Corso would refuse to come inside. Corso in fact stayed on the terrace for some time, alone, leaning on the balustrade, listening to the echo of his own defeat. He slowly came to and looked around, remembering where he was. He walked away from the brightly lit windows and returned unhurriedly to the hotel, wandering through dark streets. He didn't come across Rochefort again, and at the Auberge Saint-Jacques he was told that Milady too had left. They both departed from his life and returned to the nebulous region from which they had come, fictional characters once more, as cryptic as chess pieces. La Ponte and the girl he found without difficulty. He hadn't worried about La Ponte but felt relief when he saw that she was still there. He'd thought—feared—that he would lose her along with the other characters in the story. He took her quickly by the hand, before she too vanished in the dust of the library of the castle of Meung, and led her to the car as La Ponte watched. Corso saw him receding in the rearview mirror. La Ponte looked lost, shouting, appealing to their long, much-abused friendship, not understanding what was going on. Like a discredited, useless harpooner not to be trusted, abandoned with some bread and three days' supply of water left to drift "Try to reach Batavia Mr. Bligh." But then at the end of the street Corso stopped the car and sat with his hands on the wheel looking at the road ahead the girl staring curious at his profile La Ponte wasn't a real character either With a sigh Corso put the car in reverse and went back to collect him For the next day and night until they left him at a traffic light on a street in Madrid La Ponte said not one word. He didn't even protest when Corso told him the Dumas manuscript was gone. There wasn't much he could say.