“Good evening...” The accent was indefinable, neither Portuguese nor Spanish. “Do you have a match?”
The request might be genuine, or just a pretext, Corso couldn’t be sure. But, asked for a light, he didn’t need to run or brandish his sharpest key. He let go of the keys, took out his matches, and lit one, shielding the flame with his hand.
“Thanks.”
There was the scar, of course. It was an old one, long and vertical, from the temple to halfway down the left cheek. Corso got a close look as the man leaned forward to light his Montecristo cigar. Corso held the light long enough to glimpse the thick, black mustache and dark eyes watching him intently from the gloom. Then the match went out, and it was as if a black mask covered the stranger’s face. The man became a shadow again, his outline barely distinguishable in the faint light from the dashboard.
“Who in the hell are you?”
Not a particularly brilliant question. In any case, it came too late. The question was drowned out by the sound of the engine accelerating. The twin red points of the car’s taillights were already receding into the distance, leaving a fleeting trail against the dark ribbon of road. The red shone more intensely for an instant as the car turned a corner, then disappeared as if it had never been.
The book hunter stood motionless by the side of the road, trying to piece the picture together. Madrid, outside Liana Taillefer’s house. Toledo, his visit to Varo Borja. And Sintra, after an afternoon at Victor Fargas’s house. There were also Dumas’s serials, a publisher hanged in his study, a printer burned at the stake with his strange manual... And among all this, shadowing Corso: Rochefort, a fictional, seventeenth-century swordsman reincarnated as a uniformed chauffeur of luxury cars. Responsible for an attempted hit-and-run incident, and breaking and entering. A smoker of Montecristo cigars. A smoker without a lighter.
Corso swore gently under his breath. He’d have given a rare incunabulum, in good condition, to punch the face of whoever was writing this ridiculous script.
AS SOON AS HE got back to the hotel, he made several phone calls. First he dialed the Lisbon number in his notebook. He was lucky, Amilcar Pinto was at home. He ascertained as much in a conversation with Pinto’s bad-tempered wife. Through the black Bakelite earpiece he could hear the sound of a television blaring in the background, the high-pitched crying of children,
and adult voices arguing violently. Finally Pinto came to the phone. They agreed to meet in an hour and a half, the time it would take the Portuguese to travel the fifty kilometers to Sintra. Having arranged this, Corso looked at his watch and called Varo Borja. The book collector wasn’t home. Corso left a message on the answering machine and dialed Flavio La Ponte’s number in Madrid. La Ponte wasn’t home either, so Corso hid his canvas bag on top of the wardrobe and went out for a drink. The first thing he saw as he pushed open the door of the small hotel lounge was the girl. It couldn’t be anyone else: her cropped hair giving her a boyish look, her skin as tanned as if it were August. She sat in an armchair, reading in the cone of light from a lamp, her legs stretched out and crossed on the chair opposite. She was barefoot, in jeans and a white cotton T-shirt, her sweater around her shoulders. Corso stopped, his hand on the doorknob, an absurd feeling hammering at his brain. This was too much of a coincidence.
Incredulous, he went up to the girl. He was almost by her side when she looked up from her book and fixed her green eyes on him with their deep, liquid clarity that he remembered so well from the train. He stopped, not knowing what to say. He had the strange sensation that he was going to fall into those eyes.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming to Sintra,” he said.
“Nor did you.”
She smiled calmly as she said it, looking neither surprised nor embarrassed. She seemed sincerely pleased to see him.
“What are you doing here?” asked Corso.
She removed her feet from the chair and gestured for him to have a seat. But the book hunter remained standing.
“Traveling,” said the girl, and she showed him her book. It wasn’t the same one as on the train. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin. “Reading. And bumping into people unexpectedly.”
“Unexpectedly,” repeated Corso like an echo.
He’d bumped into too many people for one evening, whether unexpectedly or not. He found himself trying to establish a link between her presence at the hotel and Rochefort’s appearance on the road. From the right angle, all these things would fit together, but he could not find that angle. He didn’t even know where to start.
“Won’t you sit down?”
He did so, vaguely anxious. The girl shut her book and regarded him curiously. “You don’t look like a tourist,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“Are you working?”
“Yes.”
“Any job in Sintra must be interesting.”
That’s all I need, thought Corso, adjusting his glasses. Being interrogated after everything I’ve been through, even if it’s by an extremely young, beautiful girl. Maybe that was the problem. She was too young to be dangerous. Or maybe that was where the danger lay. He picked up the girl’s book from the table and flicked through it. It was a modern English edition, some of the paragraphs underlined in pencil. He read one:
His eyes remained fixed in the diminishing light and growing darkness. That preternatural blackness that seems to be saying to God’s most luminous and sublime creation: “Give me space. Stop shining.”
“You like Gothic novels?”
“I like to read.” She bowed her head slightly, and the light made a foreshortened outline of her bare neck. “And to hold ‘ books. I always carry several in my rucksack when I travel.”
“Do you travel a lot?”
“Yes. I’ve been traveling for ages.”
Corso winced at her answer. She said it very seriously, frowning slightly, like a child talking about serious matters.
“I thought you were a student.”
“I am sometimes.”
Corso put the Melmoth back on the table.
“You’re a strange young lady. How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen? Sometimes your expression changes, as if you were older.”
“Maybe I am. One’s expressions are influenced by what one has experienced and read. Look at you.”
“What’s the matter with me?”
“Have you ever seen yourself smile? You look like an old
soldier.”
He shifted slightly in his seat, embarrassed. “I don’t know how an old soldier smiles.”
“Well, I do.” The girl’s eyes darkened. She was searching in her memory. “Once I knew ten thousand men who were looking for the sea.”
Corso lifted an eyebrow in mock-interest. “Really. Is that something you read or experienced?”
“Guess.” She stopped and looked at him intently before adding, “You seem like a clever man, Mr. Corso.”
She stood up, taking the book from the table and her white sneakers off the floor. Her eyes brightened, and Corso recognized the reflections in them. He saw something familiar in her gaze.
“Maybe we’ll see each other around,” she said as she left.
Corso had no doubt that they would. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to or not. Either way, the thought lasted only a moment. As she left, the girl passed Amilcar Pinto at the door.
He was a short, greasy little man. His skin was dark and shiny, as if it had just been varnished, and his thick, wiry mustache was roughly trimmed. He would have been an honest policeman, even a good policeman, if he didn’t have to feed five children, a wife, and a retired father who secretly stole his cigarettes. His wife was a mulatto and twenty years ago had been very beautiful. Pinto brought her back from Mozambique at the time of independence, when Maputo was called Lourenco Marques and he himself was a decorated sergeant in the paratroops, a slight, brave man. During the course of some of the deals Pinto and Corso did from time to time, Corso had seen Pinto’s wife—eyes ri
nged with fatigue, large, flaccid breasts, in old slippers, and her hair tied with a red scarf—in the hallway to their house that smelled of dirty kids and boiled vegetables.
The policeman came straight into the lounge, looking at the girl out of the corner of his eye as he passed her, and sank into the armchair opposite Corso. He was out of breath, as if he’d just walked all the way from Lisbon.
“Who’s the girl?”
“Nobody important,” answered Corso. “She’s Spanish. A tourist.”
Pinto nodded. He wiped his sweaty palms on his trouser legs. It was something he often did. He sweated abundantly, and his shirt collars always had a dark ring where they touched his skin.
“I have a bit of a problem,” said Corso.
Pinto’s grin widened. No problem is insoluble, his expression said. Not as long as you and I still get along. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” he answered.
It was Corso’s turn to smile. He’d met Amilcar Pinto four years ago. Some stolen books had appeared on stands at the Ladra Book Fair—a bad business. Corso came to Lisbon to identify them, Pinto made a couple of arrests, and ‘en route back to their owner a few very valuable books disappeared forever. To celebrate the beginning of a fruitful friendship, Corso and Pinto got drunk together in the fados bars of the Barrio Alto. The former paratroop sergeant reminisced about his time in the colonies, told how he’d nearly had his balls blown off at the battle of Gorongosa. The two men ended up singing “Gran-dola Vila Morena” at the top of their voices on Santa Luzia. Illuminated by the moon, the district of Alfama lay at their feet with the Tagus beyond it, wide and gleaming like a sheet of silver. The dark shapes of boats, moving very slowly, headed out toward the Belem tower and the Atlantic.
A waiter brought Pinto the coffee he had ordered. Corso said nothing until the waiter left. “It’s about a book.”
The policeman bent over the little low table and put sugar in his coffee.
“It’s always about a book,” he said gravely. “This one’s special.” “Which one isn’t?”
Corso smiled a sharp, metallic smile. “The owner doesn’t want to sell.”
“That’s bad.” Pinto drank some coffee, savoring it. “Commerce is a good thing. Goods moving, coming and going. It generates wealth, makes money for the middlemen...” He put the cup down and wiped his hands on his trousers. “Products have to circulate. It’s the law of the market, of life. Not selling should be banned: it’s almost a crime.”
“I agree,” said Corso. “We should do something about it.” Pinto leaned back in his chair. Calm and confident, he looked at Corso expectantly. Once, after an ambush in the mato in Mozambique, he had fled, carrying a dying officer ten kilometers through the jungle. At dawn he felt the lieutenant die, but didn’t want to leave him behind. So he went on, the corpse over his shoulders, until he reached the base. The lieutenant was very young, and Pinto thought that the man’s mother would like to have him buried back in Portugal. They gave him a medal for it. Now Pinto’s children played about the house with his old tarnished medals.
“Maybe you know the man: Victor Fargas.” The policeman nodded. “The Fargases are a very old, very respectable family,” he said. “In the past they had a lot of influence, but no more.”
Corso handed him a sealed envelope. “This is all the information you need: owner, book, and location.”
“I know the house.” Pinto licked his upper lip, wetting his mustache. “Very unwise, keeping valuable books there. Any unscrupulous individual might get in.” He looked at Corso as if saddened by the irresponsibility of Victor Fargas. “I can think of one, a petty thief from Chiado who owes me a favor.”
Corso shook some invisible dust from his clothes. It had nothing to do with him. Not in the operational stage, anyway. “I don’t want to be in the area when it happens.” “Don’t worry. You’ll get your book and Mr. Fargas will be disturbed as little as possible. A broken windowpane at the most. It’ll be a clean job. About payment...”
Corso pointed at the unopened envelope that Pinto was holding. “That’s an advance, a quarter of the total. The rest on delivery.”
“Fine. When are you leaving?”
“First thing tomorrow morning. I’ll get in touch with you from Paris.” Pinto was about to get up, but Corso stopped him. “There’s something else. I need an identification. Tall man, about six feet, with a mustache and a scar on his face. Black hair, dark eyes. Slim. He’s not Spanish or Portuguese. He’s been lurking around here tonight.” “Is he dangerous?”
“I don’t know. He followed me from Madrid.” Pinto was taking notes on the back of the envelope. “Does this have anything to do with our business?”
“I’m assuming it does. But I don’t have any more information.”
“I’ll do what I can. I have friends at the police station here in Sintra. And I’ll take a look at the files at central headquarters in Lisbon.”
He stood up and put the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket. Corso caught a glimpse of a holstered revolver under his left arm.
“Why don’t you stay for a drink?”
Pinto sighed and shook his head. “I’d like to, but three of the kids have the measles. They catch it off each other, the little swine.” He said this with a tired smile. All the heroes in Corso’s world were tired.
They went to the hotel entrance where Pinto had parked his old Citroen 2CV. As they shook hands, Corso mentioned
Fargas again.
“Make sure that Fargas is disturbed as little as possible. This is just a burglary.”
Pinto turned on the engine and the lights. He looked at Corso reproachfully through the open window. He seemed offended. “Please. You don’t need to tell me again. I know what I’m doing.”
AFTER PINTO LEFT, CORSO went up to his room to sort out his notes. He worked late into the night, his bed covered with papers and The Nine Doors open on his pillow. He felt extremely tired and thought a hot shower might help him relax. He was on his way to the bathroom when the phone rang. It was Varo Borja, wanting to know how he had got on with Fargas. Corso gave him a general idea of how things were going, including the discrepancies he had found in five of the nine engravings.
“By the way,” he added, “our friend Fargas won’t sell.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. Borja seemed to be thinking, although there was no way of telling whether it was about the engravings or Fargas’s refusal to sell. When he spoke again, his tone was extremely cautious.
“That seemed likely,” he said, and Corso still wasn’t sure which thing he was referring to. “Is there any way of getting around the problem?”
“There might be.”
Borja was silent again. Corso counted five seconds by his watch.
“I’ll leave it in your hands.”
They didn’t say much else after that. Corso didn’t mention his conversation with Pinto, and Borja didn’t inquire into how Corso was going to solve the “problem,” as he had euphemistically put it. He only asked if Corso needed more money, and Corso said no. They agreed to talk again when Corso reached Paris.
Corso then dialed La Ponte’s number, but there was no answer. The blue pages of the Dumas manuscript were still in their folder. He gathered his notes and the black leather-bound book with the pentacle on the cover. He put them back in his canvas bag and slipped it under the bed, tying the strap to one of the legs. That way, if anybody got into the room and tried to take it, he’d have to wake Corso however soundly he was sleeping. Rather an awkward piece of luggage to carry around, he thought as he went to the bathroom to turn on the shower. And, for some reason, dangerous too.
He brushed his teeth. Then he undressed and dropped his clothes on the floor. The mirror was almost completely steamed over, but he could see his reflection, thin and hard like an emaciated wolf. Once again he felt a burst of anxiety from the distant past, swamping his mind in a painful wave. Like a string vibrating in his flesh and his memory. Nikon. He remem
bered her every time he undid his belt. She’d always insisted on un- . doing it for him, as if it was a ritual. He shut his eyes and saw her sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him, slipping his trousers and then his underpants down very slowly, savoring the moment with a conspiratorial, tender smile. Relax, Lucas Corso. Once she’d taken a photo of him secretly, while he was sleeping. He was facedown with a vertical crease on his brow and his cheek darkened by stubble. It made his face look thinner and emphasized the tense, bitter lines at the corners of his half-open mouth. He looked like an exhausted wolf, suspicious and tormented in the deserted snow plain of the pillow. He didn’t like the photograph. He’d found it by chance, in the fixing tray in the bathroom that Nikon used as a darkroom. He’d torn it and the negative into little pieces. She’d never mentioned it.
When he stepped into the shower, the hot water scalded him. He let it run over his face, burning his eyelids. He put up with the pain, his jaw clenched and his muscles taut, suppressing the urge to howl with loneliness in the suffocating steam. For four years, one month, and twelve days, Nikon always got into the shower with him after they made love and soaped his back slowly, interminably. And often she put her arms around him, like a little girl in the rain. One day I’ll leave without ever really knowing you. You’ll remember my big, dark eyes. The reproachful silences. The moans of anxiety as I slept. The nightmares you couldn’t save me from. You’ll remember all this when I’m gone.
He rested his head against the dripping white tiles, in a steaming desert that seemed a kind of hell. Nobody had ever soaped his back before or since Nikon. Nobody. Ever.
After his shower he got into bed with the Memoirs of Saint Helena but managed to read only a couple of lines:
Returning to the subject of war, the Emperor continued: “The Spaniards en masse acted as a man of honor.”
He frowned at Napoleon’s praise, two centuries old. He remembered words he’d heard as a child, perhaps from one of his grandparents, or his father. “There’s one thing we Spaniards do better than anyone else: appear in Goya’s pictures.” Men of honor, Bonaparte had said. Corso thought of Borja and his checkbook. Of La Ponte and widows’ libraries plundered for a pittance. Of Nikon’s ghost wandering in a lonely, white desert. Of himself, a hunter who worked for the highest bidder. These were different times.