He yawned. On the table, next to the board that represented the battlefield on a scale of 1 to 5,000, among reference books, charts, a cup of coffee, and an ashtray full of cigarette butts, his wristwatch showed that it was three in the morning. To one side, on the liquor cabinet, from his red label the color of a hunting jacket, Johnny Walker looked mischievous as he took a step. Rosy-cheeked little so-and-so, thought Corso. Walker didn’t give a damn that several thousand of his fellow countrymen had just bitten the dust in Flanders.
Corso turned his back on the Englishman and addressed an unopened bottle of Bols on a shelf between Memoirs of Saint Helena in two volumes and a French edition of The Red and the Black that he lay before him on the table. He tore the seal off the bottle and leafed casually through the Stendhal as he poured himself a glass of gin.
Rousseau’s Confessions was the only book through which his imagination pictured the world. The collection of Grande Armee reports and the Memoirs of Saint Helena completed his bible. He would have died for those three books. He never believed in any others.
He stood there sipping his gin and stretching his stiff limbs. He gave a last glance to the battlefield, where the sounds of the fighting were dying down after the slaughter. He emptied his glass, feeling like a drunken god playing with real lives as if they were little tin soldiers. He pictured Lord Arthur
Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, handing over his sword to Ney. Dead young soldiers lay in the mud, horses cantered by without riders, and an officer of the Scots Greys lay dying beneath a shattered cannon, holding in his bloody fingers a gold locket that contained the portrait of a woman and a lock of blond hair. On the other side of the shadows into which Corso was sinking he could hear the beat of the last waltz. And the little dancer watched him from her shelf, the sequin on her forehead reflecting the flames in the fireplace. She was ready to fall into the hands of the spirit of the tobacco pouch. Or of the shopkeeper on the corner.
Waterloo. The bones of his great-great-grandfather, the old grenadier, could rest in peace. He pictured him in any one of the blue formations on the board along the brown line of the Brussels road. His face blackened, his mustache singed by the explosions of gunpowder, the old grenadier advanced, hoarse and feverish from three days of fighting with his bayonet. He had the same absent expression Corso imagined that all men in all wars had. Exhausted, he raised his bearskin cap, riddled with holes, on the end of his rifle, with his comrades. Long live the emperor. Bonaparte’s solitary, squat, cancerous ghost was avenged. May he rest in peace. Hip, hip, hurray.
He poured himself another glass of Bols and, facing the saber hanging on the wall, drank a toast to the faithful ghost of Grenadier Jean-Pax Corso, 1770—1851, Legion of Honor, knight of the Order of Saint Helena, staunch Bonapartist to the end of his days, and French Consul in the Mediterranean town where his great-great-grandson was born a century later. The taste of gin in his mouth, Corso recited under his breath the only inheritance left him by his great-great-grandfather, transmitted across the century by the line of Corsos that would die with him:
And the Emperor, at the head of
his impatient army,
will ride amidst the clamour.
And armed, I will leave this land,
and once more follow
the Emperor to war.
He was laughing to himself as he picked up the phone and dialed La Ponte’s number. In the quiet of the room you could hear the record spinning on the turntable. Books on the walls; through the dark window, rain-soaked roofs. The view wasn’t great, except on winter afternoons when the sunset, filtering through the blasts of centrally heated air and pollution from the street, turned red and ochre, like a thick curtain catching fire. His desk, computer, and the board with the battle of Waterloo sat facing the view, at the window against which the rain was falling that night. There were no mementos, pictures, or photos on the wall. Only the saber of the Old Guard in its brass and leather sheath. Visitors were surprised to find no signs here of his personal life, none of the ties to the past that people instinctively preserve, other than his books and the saber. Just as there were objects missing from his house, so the world Lucas Corso came from was long since dead and gone. None of the somber faces that sometimes appeared in his memory would have recognized him had they come back to life. And maybe it was better that way. It was as if he had never owned anything, or left anything behind. As if he had always been completely self-contained, needing nothing but the clothes on his back, an erudite, urban itinerant carrying all his worldly possessions in his pockets. And yet the few people he allowed to see him on such crimson evenings, as he sat at his window, dazzled by the sunset, his eyes bleary with gin, say that his expression—that of a clumsy, helpless rabbit—seemed sincere.
La Ponte’s sleepy voice answered.
“I’ve just crushed Wellington,” announced Corso.
After a nonplussed silence, La Ponte said that he was very happy for him. Perfidious Albion—steak-and-kidney pie and gas meters in dingy hotel rooms. Kipling. Balaclava, Trafalgar, the Falklands, and all that. And he’d like to remind Corso— the line went silent while La Ponte fumbled for his watch— that it was three in the morning. Then he mumbled something incoherent, the only intelligible words being “damn you” and “bastard,” in that order.
Corso chuckled as he hung up. Once he had called La Ponte collect from an auction in Buenos Aires, just to tell him a joke about a whore who was so ugly she died a virgin. Ha, ha, very funny. And I’ll make you swallow the phone bill when you get back, you idiot. Then there was the time, years earlier, when he woke up in Nikon’s arms. The first thing he did was phone La Ponte and tell him he’d met a beautiful woman and it was very much like being in love. Any time he wanted to, Corso could shut his eyes and see Nikon waking slowly, her hair flowing over the pillow. He described her to La Ponte over the phone, feeling a strange emotion, an inexplicable, unfamiliar tenderness while he spoke, and she listened, watching him silently. And he knew that at the other end of the line—I’m happy for you, Corso, it was about time, I’m really happy for you, my friend—La Ponte was sincerely sharing in his awakening, his triumph, his happiness. That morning, he loved La Ponte as much as he loved her. Or maybe it was the other way around.
But that was all a long time ago. Corso turned off the light. Outside it was still raining. In his bedroom he lit one last cigarette. He sat motionless on the edge of the bed in the dark, listening for an echo of her absent breathing. Then he put out his hand to stroke her hair, no longer spilling over the pillow. Nikon was his only regret. The rain was coming down harder now, and the .droplets on the window broke the faint light outside into minute reflections, sprinkling the sheets with moving dots, black trails, tiny shadows plunging in no particular direction, like the shreds of a life. “Lucas.”
He said his own name out loud, as she used to. She was the only one who’d always called him that. The name was a symbol of the common homeland, now destroyed, that they had once shared. Corso focused his attention on the tip of his cigarette glowing red in the darkness. Once he’d thought he really loved Nikon. When he found her beautiful and intelligent, infallible as a papal encyclical, and passionate, like her black-and-white photographs: wide-eyed children, old people, dogs with faithful expressions. When he watched her defending the freedom of peoples and signing petitions for the release of imprisoned intellectuals, oppressed ethnic minorities, things like that. And seals. Once she’d even managed to get him to sign something about seals.
He got up from the bed slowly, so as not to wake the ghost sleeping by his side, listening for the sound of her breathing. Sometimes he almost heard it. “You’re as dead as your books, Corso. You’ve never loved anyone.” That was the first and last time she’d used his surname. The first and last time she’d refused him her body, before leaving him for good. In search of the child he’d never wanted.
He opened the window and felt the cold damp night as rain splashed against his face. He took one last puff
of his cigarette and then dropped it into the shadows, a red dot fading into the darkness, the curve of its fall broken, or hidden.
That night, it was raining on other landscapes too. On the footprints Nikon left behind. On the fields of Waterloo, great-great-grandfather Corso and his comrades. On the red-and-black tomb of Julien Sorel, guillotined for believing that with Bonaparte’s death the bronze statues lay dying on old forgotten paths. A stupid mistake. Lucas Corso knew better than anyone that an itinerant, clearheaded soldier could still choose his battlefield and get his wages, standing guard alongside ghosts of paper and leather, amidst the hangover from a thousand failures.
III. MEN OF WORDS AND MEN OF ACTION
“The dead do not speak.”
“They speak if God wishes it,” retorted Lagardere.
—P. Feval, THE HUNCHBACK
The secretary’s heels clicked loudly on the polished wood floor. Lucas Corso followed her down the long corridor—pale cream walls, hidden lighting, ambient music—until they came to a heavy oak door. He obeyed her sign to wait there a moment. Then, when she moved aside with a perfunctory smile, he went into the office. Varo Borja was sitting in a black leather reclining chair, between half a ton of mahogany and a window with a magnificent panoramic view of Toledo: ancient ochre rooftops, the Gothic spire of the cathedral silhouetted against a clean blue sky, and in the background the large gray mass of the Alcazar palace.
“Do sit down, Corso. How are you?”
“Fine.”
“You’ve had to wait.”
It wasn’t an apology but a statement of fact. Corso frowned. “Don’t worry. Only forty-five minutes this time.”
Varo Borja didn’t even bother to smile as Corso sat down in the armchair reserved for visitors. The desk was completely clear except for a complicated, high-tech telephone and intercom system. The book dealer’s face was reflected in the desk surface, together with the view from the window as a backdrop. Varo Borja was about fifty. He was bald, with a tan acquired on a sun bed, and he looked respectable, which was far from the truth. He had sharp, darting little eyes. He hid his excessive girth beneath tight-fitting, exuberantly patterned vests and custom-made jackets. He was some sort of marquis, and his checkered past included a police record, a scandal over fraud, and four years of prudently self-imposed exile in Brazil and Paraguay.
“I have something to show you.”
He had an abrupt manner, bordering on rudeness, which he cultivated carefully. Corso watched him walk over to a small glass cabinet. Borja opened it with a tiny key on a gold chain pulled from his pocket. He had no public premises, apart from a stand reserved at the major international fairs, and his catalogue never included more than a few dozen titles. He would follow the trail of a rare book to any corner of the world, fight hard and dirty to obtain it, and then sell it, profiting from the vagaries of the market. On his payroll at any one time he had collectors, curators, engravers, printers, and suppliers like Lucas Corso.
“What do you think?”
Corso took the book as carefully as if he were being handed a newborn baby. It was an old volume bound in brown leather, decorated in gold, and in excellent condition.
“La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo by Colonna,” he said. “You managed to get hold of it at last.”
“Three days ago. Venice, 1545. In casa dijiglivoli di Aldo. One hundred and seventy woodcuts. Do you think that Swiss you mentioned would still be interested?”
“I suppose so. Is the book complete?”
“Of course. All but four of the woodcuts in this edition are reprints from the 1499 edition.”
“My client really wanted a first edition, but I’ll try to convince him a second edition is good enough. Five years ago, at the Monaco auction, a copy slipped through his fingers.” “Well, you have the option on this one.” “Give me a couple of weeks to get in touch with him.” “I’d prefer to deal directly.” Borja smiled like a shark after a swimmer. “Of course you’d still get your commission, at the usual rate.”
“No way. The Swiss is my client.”
Borja smiled sarcastically. “You don’t trust anyone, do you? I can picture you as a baby, testing your mother’s milk before you’d suck.”
“And you’d sell your mother’s milk, wouldn’t you?”
Borja stared pointedly at Corso, who at that instant didn’t look at all like a friendly rabbit. More like a wolf baring his fangs.
“You know what I like about you, Corso? The easy way you fall into the part of a mercenary, with all the demagogues and charlatans out there. You’re like one of those lean and hungry men Julius Caesar was so afraid of.... Do you sleep well at night?”
“Like a log.”
“I’m sure you don’t. I’d wager a couple of Gothic manuscripts that you’re the type who spends a long time staring into the darkness ... Can I tell you something? I distrust thin men who are willing and enthusiastic. I only use well-paid mercenaries, rootless, straightforward types. I’m suspicious of anyone who’s tied to a homeland, family, or cause.”
The book dealer put the Poliphilo back in the cabinet and gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Sometimes I wonder if a man like you can have friends. Do you have any friends, Corso?”
“Go to hell.” Corso said it with an impeccably cold tone.
Borja smiled slowly and deliberately. He didn’t seem offended.
“You’re right. Your friendship doesn’t interest me in the least. I buy your loyalty instead. It’s more solid and lasting that way. Isn’t that right? The professional pride of a man meeting his contract even though the king who employed him has fled, the battle is lost, and there is no hope of salvation....”
His expression was teasing, provocative, as he waited for Corso’s reaction. But Corso just gestured impatiently, tapping his watch. “You can write down the rest and mail it to me,” he said. “I’m not paid to laugh at your little jokes.”
Borja seemed to think this over. Then he nodded, though still mockingly. “Once again, you’re right, Corso. Let’s get back to business....” He looked around. “Do you remember the Treatise on the Art of Fencing by Astarloa?”
“Yes. A very rare 1870 edition. I got a copy for you a couple of months ago.”
“I’ve now been asked for Acactemie de I’epee by the same client. Maybe one you’re acquainted with?”
“I’m not sure if you mean the client or the book. Your talk is so convoluted, you’re clear as mud sometimes.”
Borja shot him a hostile look. “We don’t all possess your clear, concise prose, Corso. I was referring to the book.”
“It’s a seventeenth-century Elzevir. Large format, with engravings. Considered the most beautiful treatise on fencing. And the most valuable.”
“The buyer is prepared to pay any price.”
“Then I’ll have to find it.”
Borja sat down again in his armchair before the window with a panoramic view of the ancient city. He crossed his legs, looking pleased with himself, his thumbs hooked in his vest pockets. Business was obviously going well. Very few of his high-powered European colleagues could afford such a view. But Corso wasn’t impressed. Men like Borja depended on men like him, and they both knew it.
He adjusted his crooked glasses and stared at the book dealer. “What do we do about the Poliphilo, then?”
Borja hesitated between antagonism and greed. He glanced at the cabinet and then at Corso.
“All right,” he said halfheartedly, “you make the deal with the Swiss.”
Corso nodded without showing any satisfaction at his small victory. The Swiss didn’t exist, but that was his business. It wouldn’t be hard to find a buyer for a book like that.
“Let’s talk about the Nine Doors” he said. The dealer’s face grew more animated.
“Yes. Will you take the job?”
Corso was biting a hangnail on his thumb. He gently spat it out onto the spotless desk.
“Let’s suppose for a moment that your copy is a forgery. And that
one of the others is the authentic one. Or that neither of them is. That all three are forgeries.”
Bor}a, irritated, looked to see where Corso’s tiny hangnail had landed. At last he gave up. “In that case,” he said, “you’ll take good note and follow my instructions.” “Which are?” “All in good time.”
“No. I think you should give me your instructions now.” He saw the book dealer hesitate for a second. In a corner of his brain, where his hunter’s instinct lay, something didn’t feel quite right. An almost imperceptible jarring sound, like a badly tuned machine.
“We’ll decide things,” said Borja, “as we go along.” “What’s there to decide?” Corso was beginning to feel irritated. “One of the books is in a private collection and the other is in a public foundation. Neither is for sale. That’s as far as things can go. My part in this and your ambitions end there. As I said, whether they’re forgeries or not, once I’ve done my job, you pay me and that’s it.”
Much too simple, said the book dealer’s half-smile.
“That depends.”
“That’s what worries me... You have something up your
sleeve, don’t you?”
Borja raised his hand slightly, contemplating its reflection in the polished surface of his desk. Then he slowly lowered it, until the hand met its reflection. Corso watched the wide, hairy hand, the huge gold signet ring on the little finger. He was all too familiar with that hand. He’d seen it sign checks on nonexistent accounts, add emphasis to complete lies, shake the hands of people who were being betrayed. Corso could still hear the jarring sound, warning him. Suddenly he felt strangely tired. He was no longer sure he wanted the job.