by Umberto Eco
"Wait, I'm in trouble...."
"You're in trouble? Good. When I asked for your help, you wouldn't give it to me. Neither would your friend Casaubon. But now that you're in trouble ... Well, I'm in trouble, too. You've come too late. The police, as they say in the movies, are at the service of the citizen. Is that what you're thinking? Then call the police, call my successor."
Belbo hung up. Wonderful: they had even prevented him from turning to the one policeman who might have believed him.
Then it occurred to him that Signor Garamond, with all his acquaintances—prefects, police chiefs, high officials—could lend a hand. He rushed to him.
Garamond listened to his story affably, interrupting him with polite exclamations like "You don't say," "Of all things," "Why, it sounds like a novel." Then he clasped his hands, looked at Belbo with profound understanding, and said: "My boy, allow me to call you that, because I could be your father—well, perhaps not your father, because I'm still a young man, more, a youthful man, but your older brother, yes, if you'll allow me. I'll speak to you from the heart. We've known each other for so many years. It seems to me that you're overexcited, at the end of your tether, nerves shot, more, tired. Don't think I don't appreciate it; I know you give body and soul to the Press, and one day this must be considered also in what I might call material terms, because that never does any harm. But, if I were you, I'd take a vacation.
"You say you find yourself in an embarrassing situation. To be frank, I might say—not to dramatize—but it would be unpleasant for Garamond Press, too, if one of its editors, its best editor, were involved in any-kind of dubious business. You tell me that someone wants you to travel to Paris. It's not necessary to go into details; I believe you, naturally. So go to Paris. Isn't it best to clear things up at once? You say you find yourself—how shall I put it?—on conflictual terms with a gentleman like Count Agliè. I don't want to know the details, or what happened between the two of you, but I wouldn't brood too much on that similarity of names you mentioned. The world is full of people named German, or something similar. Don't you agree? If Agliè sends you word to come to Paris and we'll clear everything up, well then, go to Paris. It won't be the end of the world. In human relationships, it's always best to be straightforward, frank. Go to Paris, and if you have anything on your chest, don't hold it back. What's in your heart should be on your lips. What do all these secrets matter!
"Count Agliè, if I've understood correctly, complains because you don't want to tell him where some map is, some paper or message or whatever, something you have and are making no use of, whereas maybe our good friend Agliè needs it for some scholarly reason. We're in the service of culture, aren't we? Or am I wrong? Give it to him, this map, this atlas, this chart—I don't even want to know what it is. If it means so much to him, he must have his reasons, surely worthy of respect; a gentleman is always a gentleman. Go to Paris, shake hands, and it's done. All right? And don't worry more than necessary. You know I'm always here." Then he pressed the intercom: "Signora Grazia ... ah, not there. She's never around when you need her. You have your troubles, my dear Belbo, but if you only knew mine. Good-bye now. If you see Signora Grazia in the corridor, send her to me. And get some rest: don't forget."
Belbo went out. Signora Grazia wasn't in her office, but on her desk he saw that the red light of Garamond's personal line was on: Garamond was calling someone. Belbo couldn't resist (I believe it was the first time in his life he committed such an indelicacy); he picked up the receiver and listened in on the conversation. Garamond was saying: "Don't worry. I think I've convinced him. He'll come to Paris.... Only my duty. We belong to the same spiritual knighthood, after all."
So Garamond, too, was part of the secret. What secret? The one that only he, Belbo, could reveal. The one that did not exist.
***
It was evening by then. He went to Pilade's, exchanged a few words with someone or other, drank too much. The next morning, he sought out the only friend he had left, Diotallevi. He went to ask the help of a dying man.
Their last conversation he reported feverishly on Abulafia. It's a summary. I was unable to tell how much was Diotallevi's and how much was Belbo's, because in both cases it was the murmuring of one who speaks the truth because he knows the time has passed for playing with illusion.
110
And so it happened that Rabbi Ismahel ben Klisha and his disciples, who were studying the book Yesirah and mistook the movements and walked backward, sank into the earth, to its navel, thanks to the strength of letters.
—Pseudo Saadva, Commentary on the Sefer Yesirah
He had never seen his friend so white. Diotallevi had hardly any hair now on his head or eyebrows or lashes. He looked like a billiard ball.
"Forgive me," Belbo said. "Can we discuss my situation?"
"Go ahead. I don't have a situation. Only needs."
"I heard they have a new therapy. These things devour twenty-year-olds, but at fifty it's slower; there's time to find a cure."
"Speak for yourself. I'm not fifty yet. My body is still young. I have the privilege of dying more quickly. But it's hard for me to talk. Tell me what you have to say, so I can rest."
Obedient, respectful, Belbo told him the whole story.
Then Diotallevi, breathing like the Thing in the science-fiction movie, talked. He had, also, the transparency of the Thing, that absence of boundary between exterior and interior, between skin and flesh, between the light fuzz on his belly, discernible in the gap of his pajamas, and the mucilaginous tangle of viscera that only X rays or a disease in an advanced state can make visible.
"Jacopo, I'm stuck here in a bed. I can't decide whether what you're telling me is happening only inside your head, or whether it's happening outside. But it doesn't matter. Whether you've gone crazy or the world has makes no difference. In either case, someone has mixed and shuffled the words of the Book more than was right."
"What do you mean?"
"We've sinned against the Word, against that which created and sustains the world. Now you arc punished for it, as I am punished for it. There's no difference between you and me."
A nurse came in and put water on his table. She told Belbo not to tire him, but Diotallevi waved her away: "Leave us alone. I have to tell him. The Truth. Do you know the Truth?"
"Who, me? What a question, sir ..."
"Then go. I have to tell my friend something important. Now listen, Jacopo. Just as man's body has limbs and joints and organs, so does the Torah. And as the Torah, so a man's body. You follow me?"
"Yes."
"Rabbi Meir, when he was learning from Rabbi Akiba, mixed vitriol in the ink, and the master said nothing. But when Rabbi Meir asked Rabbi Ismahel if he was doing the right thing, the rabbi said to him: Son, be cautious in your work, because it is divine work, and if you omit one letter or write one letter too many, you destroy the whole world.... We tried to rewrite the Torah, but we paid no heed to whether there were too many letters or too few...."
"We were joking...."
"You don't joke with the Torah."
"We were joking with history, with other people's writings...."
"Is there a writing that founds the world and is not the Book? Give me a little water. No, not the glass; wet that cloth.... Thanks. Now listen. Rearranging the letters of the Book means rearranging the world. There's no getting away from it. Any book, even a speller. People like your Dr. Wagner, don't they say that a man who plays with words and makes anagrams and violates the language has ugliness in his soul and hates his father?"
"But those are psychoanalysts. They say that to make money. They aren't your rabbis."
"They're all rabbis. They're all saying the same thing. Do you think the rabbis, when they spoke of the Torah, were talking about a scroll? They were talking about us, about remaking our body through language. Now, listen. To manipulate the letters of the Book takes great piety, and we didn't have it. But every book is interwoven with the name of God. And we anagr
ammatized all the books of history, and we did it without praying. Listen to me, damn it. He who concerns himself with the Torah keeps the world in motion, and he keeps in motion his own body as he reads, studies, rewrites, because there's no part of the body that doesn't have an equivalent in the world. Wet the cloth for me.... Thanks. If you alter the Book, you alter the world; if you alter the world, you alter the body. This is what we didn't understand.
"The Torah allows a word to come out of its coffer; the word appears for a moment, then hides immediately. It is revealed only for a moment and only to its lover. It's a beautiful woman who hides in a remote chamber of her palace. She waits for one whose existence nobody knows of. If another tries to take her, to put his dirty hands on her, she dismisses him. She knows her beloved; she opens the door just a little, shows herself, and immediately hides again. The word of the Torah reveals itself only to him who loves it. But we approached books without love, in mockery...."
Belbo again moistened his friend's lips with the cloth. "And so?"
"So we attempted to do what was not allowed us, what we were not prepared for. Manipulating the words of the Book, we attempted to construct a golem."
"I don't understand...."
"You can't understand. You're the prisoner of what you created. But your story in the outside world is still unfolding. I don't know how, but you can still escape it. For me it's different. I am experiencing in my body everything we did, as a joke, in the Plan."
"Don't talk nonsense. It's a matter of cells...."
"And what are cells? For months, like devout rabbis, we uttered different combinations of the letters of the Book. GCC, CGC, GCG, CGG. What our lips said, our cells learned. What did my cells do? They invented a different Plan, and now they are proceeding on their own, creating a history, a unique, private history. My cells have learned that you can blaspheme by anagrammatizing the Book, and all the books of the world. And they have learned to do this now with my body. They invert, transpose, alternate, transform themselves into cells unheard of, new cells without meaning, or with meaning contrary to the right meaning. There must be a right meaning and a wrong meaning; otherwise you die. My cells joke, without faith, blindly.
"Jacopo, while I could still read, during these past months, I read dictionaries, I studied histories of words, to understand what was happening in my body. I studied like a rabbi. Have you ever reflected that the linguistic term 'metathesis' is similar to the oncological term 'metastasis'? What is metathesis? Instead of 'clasp' one says 'claps.' Instead of 'beloved' one says 'bevoled.' It's the temurah. The dictionary says that metathesis means transposition or interchange, while metastasis indicates change and shifting. How stupid dictionaries are! The root is the same. Either it's the verb metatithemi or the verb methistemi. Metatithemi means I interpose, I shift, I transfer, I substitute, I abrogate a law, I change a meaning. And methistemi? It's the same thing: I move, I transform, I transpose, I switch cliches, I take leave of my senses. And as we sought secret meanings beyond the letter, we all took leave of our senses. And so did my cells, obediently, dutifully. That's why I'm dying, Jacopo, and you know it."
"You talk like this because you're ill...."
"I talk like this because finally I understand everything about my body. I've studied it day after day, I know what's happening in it, but I can't intervene; the cells no longer obey. I'm dying because I convinced myself that there was no order, that you could do whatever you liked with any text. I spent my life convincing myself of this, I, with my own brain. And my brain must have transmitted the message to them. Why should I expect them to be wiser than my brain? I'm dying because we were imaginative beyond bounds."
"Listen, what's happening to you has no connection with our Plan."
"It doesn't? Then explain what's happening to you. The world is behaving like my cells."
He sank back, exhausted. The doctor came in and whispered to Belbo that it was wrong to submit a dying man to such stress.
Belbo left, and that was the last time he saw Diotallevi.
Very well, he wrote, the police are after me for the same reason that Diotallevi has cancer. Poor friend, he's dying, and I, who don't have cancer, what am I doing? I'm going to Paris to find the principle of neoplasm.
But he didn't give in immediately. He stayed shut up in his apartment for four days, reviewed his files sentence by sentence, to find an explanation. Then he wrote out this account, a final testament, so to speak, telling it to himself, to Abulafia, to me, or to anyone else who was able to read it. And finally, Tuesday, he left.
I believe Belbo went to Paris to say to them there was no secret, that the real secret was to let the cells proceed according to their own instinctive wisdom, that seeking mysteries beneath the surface reduced the world to a foul cancer, and that of all the people in the world, the most foul, the most stupid person was Belbo himself, who knew nothing and had invented everything. Such a step must have cost him dear, but he had accepted for too long the premise that he was a coward, and De Angelis had certainly shown him that heroes were few.
In Paris, after the first meeting, Belbo must have realized They wouldn't believe him. His words were too undramatic, too simple. It was a revelation They wanted, on pain of death. Belbo had no revelation to give, and—his final cowardice—he feared death. So he tried to cover his tracks, and he called me. But They caught him.
111
C'est une leçon par la suite. Quand votre ennemi se reproduira, car il n'est pas à son dernier masque, congédiez-le brusquement, et surtout n'allez pas le chercher dans les grottes.
—Jacques Cazotte, Le diable amoureux, 1772, from a page suppressed in later editions
Now, in Belbo's apartment, as I finished reading his confessions, I asked myself: What should I do? No point going to Garamond. De Angelis had left. Diotallevi had said everything he had to say. Lia was far off, in a place without a telephone. It was six in the morning, Saturday, June 23, and if something was going to happen, it would happen tonight, in the Conservatoire. I had to decide quickly.
Why—I asked myself later, in the periscope—didn't you pretend nothing had happened? You had before you the texts of a madman, a madman who had talked with other madmen, including a last conversation with an overexcited (or overdepressed) dying friend. You weren't even sure Belbo had called you from Paris. Maybe he was talking from somewhere a few kilometers outside Milan, or maybe from the booth on the corner. Why involve yourself in a story that was imaginary and that didn't concern you anyway?
This was the question I set myself in the periscope, as my feet were growing numb and the light was fading, and I felt the unnatural yet very natural fear that anyone would feel at night, alone, in a deserted museum. But early that morning, I had felt no fear. Only curiosity. And, perhaps, duty, friendship.
I told myself that I, too, should go to Paris. I wasn't quite sure why, but I couldn't desert Belbo now. Maybe he was counting on me to slip, under cover of night, into the cave of the Thugs, and, as Suyodhana was about to plunge the sacrificial knife into his heart, to burst into the underground temple with my sepoys, their muskets loaded with grapeshot, and carry him to safety.
***
Luckily, I had a little money on me. In Paris I got into a taxi and told the driver to take me to rue de la Manticore. He grumbled, cursed; the street couldn't be found even in those guides they have. In fact, it turned out to be an alley no wider than the aisle of a train. It was in the neighborhood of the old Bièvre, behind Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. The taxi couldn't even enter it; the driver left me at the corner.
Uneasily, I entered the alley. There were no doorways. At a certain point the street widened a little, and I came to a bookshop. Why it had the number 3 I don't know, since there was no number 1 or 2, or any-other street number. It was a grimy little shop, lighted by a single bulb. Half of the double door served as a display case. Its sides held perhaps a few dozen books, indicating the shop's specialties. On a shelf, some pendulums, dusty boxes of incense sticks, li
ttle amulets, Oriental or South American, and tarot decks of diverse origin.
The interior was no more welcoming: a mass of books on the walls and on the floor, with a little table at the back, and a bookseller who seemed put there deliberately, so that a writer could write that the man was more decrepit than his books. This person, his nose in a big handwritten ledger, was taking no interest in his customers, of which at the moment there were only two, and they raised clouds of dust as they drew out old volumes, nearly all without bindings, from teetering shelves, and began reading them, giving no impression of wanting to buy.
The only space not cluttered with shelves was occupied by a poster. Garish colors, a series of oval portraits with double borders, as in the posters of the magician Houdini. "Le Petit Cirque de l'Incroyable. Madame Olcott et ses liens avec l'Invisible." An olive-skinned, mannish face, two bands of black hair gathered in a knot at the nape. I had seen that face before, I thought. "Les Derviches Hurleurs et leur danse sacrée. Les Freaks Mignons, ou Les Petits-fils de Fortunio Liceti." An assortment of pathetic, abominable little monsters. "Alex et Denys, les Géants d'Avalon. Théo, Leo et Geo Fox, les Enlumineurs de l'Ectoplasme..."