"So the writer is simply repeating established truths?"
"Truths?" Agliè laughed, and again opened for us the box of his deformed and delicious cigars. "Quid est Veritas, as a friend of mine said many years ago. Most of it is nonsense. To begin with, if you divide the base of the pyramid by exactly twice the height, and do not round off, you don't get n, you get 3.1417254. A small difference, but essential. Further, a disciple of Piazzi Smyth, Flinders Petrie, who also measured Stonehenge, reports that one day he caught the master chipping at a granite wall of the royal antechamber, to make his sums work out.... Gossip, perhaps, but Piazzi Smyth was not a man to inspire trust; you had only to see the way he tied his cravat. Still, amid all the nonsense there are some unimpeachable truths. Gentlemen, would you follow me to the window?"
He threw open the shutters dramatically and pointed. At the corner of the narrow street and the broad avenue, stood a little wooden kiosk, where, presumably, lottery tickets were sold.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I invite you to go and measure that kiosk. You will see that the length of the counter is one hundred and forty-nine centimeters—in other words, one hundred-billionth of the distance between the earth and the sun. The height at the rear, one hundred and seventy-six centimeters, divided by the width of the window, fifty-six centimeters, is 3.14. The height at the front is nineteen decimeters, equal, in other words, to the number of years of the Greek lunar cycle. The sum of the heights of the two front corners and the two rear corners is one hundred and ninety times two plus one hundred and seventy-six times two, which equals seven hundred and thirty-two, the date of the victory at Poitiers. The thickness of the counter is 3.10 centimeters, and the width of the cornice of the window is 8.8 centimeters. Replacing the numbers before the decimals by the corresponding letters of the alphabet, we obtain C for ten and H for eight, or C10H8, which is the formula for naphthalene."
"Fantastic," I said. "You did all these measurements?"
"No," Agliè said. "They were done on another kiosk, by a certain Jean-Pierre Adam. But I would assume that all lottery kiosks have more or less the same dimensions. With numbers you can do anything you like. Suppose I have the sacred number 9 and I want to get the number 1314, date of the execution of Jacques de Molay—a date dear to anyone who, like me, professes devotion to the Templar tradition of knighthood. What do I do? I multiply nine by one hundred and forty-six, the fateful day of the destruction of Carthage. How did I arrive at this? I divided thirteen hundred and fourteen by two, by three, et cetera, until I found a satisfying date. I could also have divided thirteen hundred and fourteen by 6.28, the double of 3.14, and I would have got two hundred and nine. That is the year Attalus I, king of Pergamon, ascended the throne. You see?"
"Then you don't believe in numerologies of any kind," Diotallevi said, disappointed.
"On the contrary, I believe firmly. I believe the universe is a great symphony of numerical correspondences, I believe that numbers and their symbolisms provide a path to special knowledge. But if the world, below and above, is a system of correspondences where tout se tient, it's natural for the kiosk and the pyramid, both works of man, to reproduce in their structure, unconsciously, the harmonies of the cosmos. The so-called pyramidologists discover with their incredibly tortuous methods a straightforward truth, a truth far more ancient, and one already known. It is the logic of research and discovery that is tortuous, because it is the logic of science. Whereas the logic of knowledge needs no discovery, because it knows already. Why must it demonstrate that which could not be otherwise? If there is a secret, it is much more profound. These authors of yours remain simply on the surface. I imagine this one also repeats all the tales of how the Egyptians knew about electricity...."
"I won't ask how you managed to guess."
"You see? They are content with electricity, like any old Marconi. The hypothesis of radioactivity would be less puerile. There is an interesting idea. Unlike the electricity hypothesis, it would explain the much vaunted curse of Tutankhamen. And how were the Egyptians able to lift the blocks of the pyramids? Can you lift boulders with electric shocks, can you make them fly with nuclear fission? No, the Egyptians found a way to eliminate the force of gravity; they possessed the secret of levitation. Another form of energy ... It is known that the Chaldean priests operated sacred machines by sounds alone, and the priests of Karnak and Thebes could open the doors of a temple with only their voice—and what else could be the origin, if you think about it, of the legend of Open Sesame?"
"So?" Belbo asked.
"Now here's the point, my friend. Electricity, radioactivity, atomic energy—the true initiate knows that these are metaphors, masks, conventional lies, or, at most, pathetic surrogates, for an ancestral, forgotten force, a force the initiate seeks and one day will know. We should speak perhaps"—he hesitated a moment—"of telluric currents."
"What?" one of us asked, I forget who.
Agliè seemed disappointed. "You see? I was beginning to hope that among your prospective authors one had appeared who could tell me something more interesting. But it grows late. Very well, my friends, our pact is made; the rest was just the rambling of an elderly scholar."
As he held out his hand to us, the butler entered and murmured something in his ear. "Ah, the sweet friend," Agliè said, "I had forgotten. Ask her to wait a moment.... No, not in the living room, in the Turkish salon."
The sweet friend must have been familiar with the house, because she was already on the threshold of the study, and without even looking at us, in the gathering shadows of the day at its end, she proceeded confidently to Agliè, patted his cheek, and said: "Simon, you're not going to make me wait outside, are you?" It was Lorenza Pellegrini.
Agliè moved aside slightly, kissed her hand, and said, gesturing at us: "My sweet Sophia, you know you are always welcome, as you illuminate every house you enter. I was merely saying good-bye to these guests."
Lorenza turned, saw us, and made a cheerful wave of greeting—I don't believe I ever saw her discomposed or embarrassed. "Oh, how nice," she said; "you also know my friend! Hello, Jacopo."
Belbo turned pale. We said good-bye. Agliè expressed pleasure that we knew each other. "I consider our mutual acquaintance to be one of the most genuine creatures I ever had the good fortune to know. In her freshness she incarnates—allow an old man of learning this fancy—the Sophia, exiled on this earth. But, my sweet Sophia, I haven't had time to let you know: the promised evening has been postponed for a few weeks. I'm so sorry."
"It doesn't matter," Lorenza said. "I'll wait. Are you going to the bar?" she asked us—or, rather, commanded us. "Good. I'll stay here for a half hour or so. Simon's giving me one of his elixirs. You should try them. But he says they're only for the elect. Then I'll join you."
Agliè smiled with the air of an indulgent uncle; he had her take a seat, then accompanied us to the door.
***
Out in the street again, we headed for Pilade's, in my car. Belbo was silent. We didn't talk all the way there. But at the bar, the spell had to be broken.
"I hope I haven't delivered you into the hands of a lunatic," I said.
"No," Belbo said. "The man is keen, subtle. It's just that he lives in a world different from ours." Then he added grimly: "Or almost."
49
The Traditio Templi postulates, independently, the tradition of a templar knighthood, a spiritual knighthood of initiates...
—Henry Corbin, Temple et contemplation, Paris, Flammarion, 1980
"I believe I've got your Agliè figured out, Casaubon," Diotallevi said, having ordered a sparkling white wine from Pilade, making all of us fear for his moral health. "He's a scholar, curious about the secret sciences, suspicious of dilettantes, of those who learn by ear. Yet, as we ourselves learned today, by our eavesdropping, he may scorn them but he listens to them, he may criticize them but he doesn't dissociate himself from them."
"Signor or Count or Margrave Agliè, or whatever the hell he is, said someth
ing very revealing today," Belbo added. "He used the expression 'spiritual knighthood.' He feels joined to them by a bond of spiritual knighthood. I think I understand him."
"Joined, in what sense?" we asked.
Belbo was now on his third martini (whiskey in the evening, he claimed, because it was calming and induced reverie; martinis in the afternoon, because they stimulated and fortified). He began talking about his childhood in ***, as he had already done once with me.
"It was between 1943 and 1945, that is, the period of transition from Fascism to democracy and then to the dictatorship of the Salo republic, with the partisan war going on in the mountains. At the beginning of this story I was eleven, and staying in my uncle Carlo's house. My family normally lived in the city, but in 1943 the air raids were increasing and my mother had decided to evacuate.
"Uncle Carlo and Aunt Caterina lived in ***. Uncle Carlo came from a farming family and had inherited the *** house, with some land, which was cultivated by a tenant farmer named Adelino Canepa. The tenant planted, harvested the grain, made the wine, and gave half of everything to the owner. A tense situation, obviously: the tenant considered himself exploited, and so did the owner, who received only half the produce of his land. The landowners hated the tenants and the tenants hated the landowners. But in Uncle Carlo's case they lived side by side.
"In 1914 Uncle Carlo had enlisted in the Alpine troops. A bluff Piedmontese, all duty and Fatherland, he became a lieutenant, then a captain. One day, in a battle on the Carso, he found himself beside an idiot soldier who let a grenade explode in his hands—why else call them hand grenades? Uncle Carlo was about to be thrown into a common grave when an orderly realized he was still alive. They took him to a field hospital, removed the eye that was hanging out of its socket, cut off one arm, and, according to Aunt Caterina, they also put a metal plate in his head, because he had lost some of his skull. In other words, a masterpiece of surgery on the one hand and a hero on the other. Silver medal, cavalier of the Crown of Italy, and after the war a good steady job in public administration. Uncle Carlo ended up head of the tax office in ***, where, after inheriting the family property, he went to live in the ancestral home with Adelino Canepa and family.
"As head of the tax office, Uncle Carlo was a local bigwig, and as a mutilated veteran and cavalier of the Crown of Italy, he was naturally on the side of the government, which happened to be the Fascist dictatorship. Was Uncle Carlo a Fascist?
"In those days, Fascism had given veterans status, had rewarded them with decorations and promotions; so let's say Uncle Carlo was moderately Fascist. Fascist enough to earn the hatred of Adelino Canepa, who was ardently anti-Fascist, for obvious reasons. Canepa had to go to Uncle Carlo every year to make his income declaration. He would arrive in the office with a bold expression of complicity, having tried to corrupt Aunt Caterina with a few dozen eggs. And he would find himself up against Uncle Carlo, who, being a hero, was not only incorruptible, but also knew better than anyone how much Canepa had stolen from him in the course of the year, and who wouldn't forgive him one cent. Adelino Canepa, considering himself a victim of the dictatorship, began spreading slanderous rumors about Uncle Carlo. One lived on the ground floor, the other on the floor above; they met every morning and night, but no longer exchanged greetings. Communication was maintained through Aunt Caterina and, after our arrival, through my mother—to whom Adelino Canepa expressed much sympathy and understanding, since she was the sister-in-law of a monster. My uncle, in his gray double-breasted suit and bowler, would come home every evening at six with his copy of La Stampa still to be read. He walked erect, like an Alpine soldier, his gray eye on the peak to be stormed. He passed by Adelino Canepa, who at that hour was enjoying the cool air on a bench in the garden, and it was as if my uncle did not see him. Then he would encounter Signora Canepa at the downstairs door and ceremoniously doff his hat. And so it went, every evening, year after year."
It was eight o'clock; Lorenza wasn't coming, as she had promised. Belbo was on his fifth martini.
"Then came 1943. One morning Uncle Carlo came into our room, waked me with a kiss, and said, 'My boy, you want to hear the biggest news of the year? They've kicked out Mussolini.' I never figured out whether or not Uncle Carlo suffered over it. He was a citizen of total integrity and a servant of the state. If he did suffer, he said nothing about it, and he went on running the tax office for the Badoglio government. Then came September 8, and the area in which we lived fell under the control of the Fascists' Social Republic, and Uncle Carlo again adjusted. He collected taxes for the Social Republic.
"Adelino Canepa, meanwhile, boasted of his contacts with the partisan groups forming in the mountains, and he promised vengeance, the making of examples. We kids didn't yet know who the partisans were. There were great tales about them, but so far nobody had seen them. There was talk about a Badoglian leader known as Mongo—a nickname, naturally, as was the custom then; many said he had taken it from Flash Gordon. Mongo was a former Carabinieri sergeant major who had lost a leg in the first fighting against the Fascists and the SS and now commanded all the brigades in the hills around ***.
"And then came the disaster: one day the partisans showed up in town. They had descended from the hills, they were running wild in the streets, still without uniforms, just blue kerchiefs, and firing rounds into the air to make their presence known. The news spread; all the people locked themselves in their houses. It wasn't yet clear what sort of men these partisans were. Aunt Caterina was only mildly concerned: after all, those partisans were friends of Adelino Canepa, or at least Adelino Canepa claimed to be a friend of theirs, so they wouldn't do anything bad to Uncle, would they? They would. We were informed that around eleven o'clock a squad of partisans with automatic rifles aimed had entered the tax office, arrested Uncle Carlo, and carried him off, destination unknown. Aunt Caterina lay down on her bed, and whitish foam began to dribble from her lips. She declared that Uncle Carlo would be killed. A blow with a rifle butt would be enough: with the metal plate in his head, he would die on the spot.
"Drawn by my aunt's moans, Adelino Canepa arrived with his wife and children. My aunt cried that he was a Judas, that he had reported Uncle to the partisans because Uncle collected taxes for the Social Republic. Adelino Canepa swore by everything sacred that this was not true, but obviously he felt responsible, because he had talked too much in town. My aunt sent him away. Adelino Canepa wept, appealed to my mother, reminded her of all the times he had sold her a rabbit or a chicken at a ridiculously low price, but my mother maintained a dignified silence, Aunt Caterina continued to dribble whitish foam, I cried. Finally; after two hours of agony, we heard shouts, and Uncle Carlo appeared on a bicycle, steering it with his one arm and looking as if he were returning from a picnic. Seeing a disturbance in the garden, he asked what had happened. Uncle hated dramas, like everyone in our parts. He went upstairs, approached the bed of pain of Aunt Caterina, who was still kicking her scrawny legs, and inquired why she was so agitated."
"What had happened?"
"What had happened was this. Mongo's partisans, probably hearing some of Adelino Canepa's mutterings, had identified Uncle Carlo as one of the local representatives of the regime, so they arrested him to teach the whole town a lesson. He was taken outside the town in a truck and found himself before Mongo. Mongo, his war medals shining, stood with a gun in his right hand and his left holding a crutch. Uncle Carlo—but I really don't think he was being clever; I think it was instinct, or the ritual of chivalry—snapped to attention, introduced himself: Major Carlo Covasso, Alpine Division, disabled veteran, silver medal. And Mongo also snapped to attention and introduced himself: Sergeant Major Rebaudengo, Royal Carabineers, commander of the Badoglian brigade Bettino Ricasoli, bronze medal. 'Where?' Uncle Carlo asked. And Mongo, impressed, said: 'Pordoi, Major, hill 327.' 'By God,' said Uncle Carlo, 'I was at hill 328, third regiment, Sasso di Stria!' The battle of the solstice? Battle of the solstice it was. And the cannon on Five-Finger
Mountain? Dammit to hell, do I remember! And the bayonet attack on Saint Crispin's Eve? Yessir! That sort of thing. Then, the one without an arm, the other without a leg, on the same impulse they took a step forward and embraced. Mongo said then, 'You see, Cavalier, it's this way, Major: we were informed that you collect taxes for the Fascist government that toadies to the invaders.' 'You see, Commander,' Uncle Carlo said, 'it's this way: I have a family and receive a salary from the government, and the government is what it is; I didn't choose it, and what would you have done in my place?' 'My dear Major,' Mongo replied, 'in your place, I'd have done what you did, but try at least to collect the taxes slowly; take your time.' 'I'll see what I can do,' Uncle Carlo said. 'I have nothing against you men; you, too, are sons of Italy and valiant fighters.' They understood each other, because they both thought of Fatherland with a capital F. Mongo ordered his men to give the major a bicycle, and Uncle Carlo went home. Adelino Canepa didn't show his face for several months.
"There, I don't know if this qualifies as spiritual knighthood, but I'm certain there are bonds that endure above factions and parties."
50
For I am the first and the last. I am the honored and the hated. I am the saint and the prostitute.
—Fragment of Nag Hammadi 6, 2
Lorenza Pellegrini entered. Belbo looked up at the ceiling and ordered a final martini. There was tension in the air, and I got up to leave, but Lorenza stopped me. "No. All of you come with me. Tonight's the opening of Riccardo's show; he's inaugurating a new style! He's great! You know him, Jacopo."