The Dumas Club: The Ninth Gate

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  They arrived ten minutes later, side by side, their gray overalls floating like shrouds on their skinny frames. Stooped from a lifetime spent hunched over their press and stamping tools, stitching pages together and gilding leather, they were both under fifty, but you could easily have believed they were ten years older. Their cheeks were sunken, their hands and eyes worn out by their painstaking craft, and their skin was faded, as if the parchment they worked with had transmitted its pale, cold quality to them. The resemblance between the two brothers was extraordinary. They had the same large nose, identical ears stuck to their skulls, and sparse hair combed straight back. The only noticeable differences between them were that Pablo, the younger of the two, was taller and quieter and that Pedro was frequently racked by the hoarse rattling cough of a heavy smoker, his hands shaking as he lit one cigarette after another. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Corso. How nice to see you.” They led him up stairs that were worn with use, to a door that creaked as it opened, and switched on the light to reveal their motley workshop. An ancient printing press presided. Next to this was a zinc-topped table covered with tools, half-stitched or already backed gatherings, guillotines, dyed skins, bottles of glue, tooled designs, and other equipment. There were books everywhere: large piles of them, bound in morocco, shagreen, or vellum, packets of them ready for dispatch or only half ready, books without boards or with limp covers. Ancient tomes damaged by worms or mildew sat on benches and shelves, waiting to be restored. The room smelled of paper, glue, and new leather. Corso breathed it in with pleasure. Then he took the book out of his bag and laid it on the table. “I’d like your opinion on this.”

  It wasn’t the first time. Slowly, even cautiously, Pedro and Pablo Ceniza moved closer. As usual, the older of the two brothers spoke first. “The Nine Doors.” He touched the book without moving it. His bony, nicotine-stained fingers seemed to be stroking living skin. “Beautiful. A very valuable book.”

  His eyes were gray, like a mouse. Gray overalls, gray hair, gray eyes, just like his surname, ceniza meaning ash. He looked at the book greedily.

  “Have you ever seen it before?”

  “Yes. Less than a year ago, when Claymore asked us to clean twenty books from the library of Mr. Gualterio Terral.”

  “What condition was it in when you got it?”

  “Excellent. Mr. Terral knew how to look after his books. Almost all of them came to us in good condition, except for a Teixeira, which we had to do quite a bit of work on. The rest, including this one, needed only a little cleaning.”

  “It’s a forgery,” said Corso bluntly. “Or so I’m told.”

  The two brothers looked at each other.

  “Forgeries ...,” muttered the older of the two. “People speak too lightly of forged books.”

  “Much too lightly,” echoed his brother.

  “Even you, Mr. Corso. And that comes as a surprise. It isn’t worth forging a book, it’s too much effort to be profitable: I mean a high-quality forgery, not a facsimile for fooling ignoramuses.”

  Corso made a gesture as if pleading for clemency. “I didn’t say that the entire book was a forgery, only part of it. Pages from complete copies can be interpolated into books.that have one or several pages missing.”

  “Of course, that’s a basic trick of the trade. But adding a photocopy or facsimile doesn’t give the same results as completing a book with pages according to ...” He half-turned to his brother but still looked at Corso. “Tell him, Pablo.”

  “According to all the rules of our art,” added the younger Ceniza.

  Corso gave them a conspiratorial look. A rabbit sharing half a carrot. “That could be the case with this book,” he said.

  “Who says so?”

  “The owner. Who is no ignoramus, by the way.”

  Pedro Ceniza shrugged his narrow shoulders and lit a cigarette with the previous one. As he took his first drag, he was shaken by a dry cough. But he continued smoking, unperturbed.

  “Do you have access to an authentic copy, to compare them?”

  “No, but I soon will. That’s why I want your opinion first.” “It’s a valuable book, and ours is not an exact science.” He turned again to his brother. “Isn’t that so, Pablo?” “It’s an art,” insisted his brother.

  “Yes. We wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Mr. Corso.” “I’m sure you won’t. You know what you’re talking about.

  After all, you were able to forge a Speculum Vitae from the only known copy and have it listed as an original in one of the best catalogues in Europe.”

  They both smiled sourly at exactly the same time. Si and Am, thought Corso, a cunning pair of cats who’ve just been stroked.

  “It was never proved to be our work,” said Pedro Ceniza at last. He was rubbing his hands, looking at the book out of the corner of his eye.

  “No, never,” repeated his brother sadly. They seemed sorry not to have gone to prison in return for public recognition.

  “True,” admitted Corso. “Nor was there any proof in the case of the Chaucer, allegedly bound by Marius Michel, listed in the catalogue for the Manoukian collection. Or for that copy of Baron Bielke’s Polyglot Bible with three missing pages you replaced so perfectly that even today experts don’t dispute its authenticity....”

  Pedro Ceniza lifted a yellowed hand with long nails. “I’d like to say a little about that, Mr. Corso. It’s one thing to forge books for profit, quite another to do it out of love for one’s art, creating something for the satisfaction provided by that very act of creation, or, as in most cases, of re-creation.” The bookbinder blinked a few times, then smiled mischievously. His small, mouselike eyes shone as he looked at The Nine Doors again. “Although I don’t recall having had a hand in the works you’ve just described as admirable, and I’m sure my brother doesn’t either.”

  “I called them perfect.”

  “Did you? Well, never mind.” Putting his cigarette in his mouth and sucking in his cheeks, he took a long drag. “But whoever the person or persons responsible, you can be sure that he or they derived a great deal of enjoyment from it, a degree of personal satisfaction that money can’t buy....”

  “Sine pecunia,” added his brother.

  Pedro Ceniza blew cigarette smoke through his nose and half-open mouth. He continued: “Let’s take the Speculum, for instance, which the Sorbonne bought in the belief that it was authentic. The paper, typography, printing, and binding alone must have cost those you call forgers five times more than any money they might have made. People just don’t understand... What would be more satisfying to a painter with the talent of a Velazquez and the skill to imitate his works: making money or seeing one of his own paintings hanging in the Prado between Las Meninas and Vulcan’s Forge?”

  Corso agreed. For eight years, the Ceniza brothers’ Speculum had been one of the most valuable books owned by the University of Paris. It was discovered to be a forgery not by experts but due to a chance indiscretion by a middleman.

  “Do the police still bother you?”

  “Rarely. You must remember that the business of the Sorbonne erupted in France between the buyer and the intermediaries. True, our name was linked to the affair, but nothing was ever proved.” Pedro Ceniza smiled his crooked smile again, as if sorry that there had been no proof. “We have a good relationship with the police. They even come to see us sometimes when they need to identify a stolen book.” He waved his cigarette in his brother’s direction. “There’s no one as good as Pablo when it comes to erasing traces of library stamps, or removing bookplates and marks of origin. But sometimes they want him to work his way backward through the process. You know how it is: live and let live.”

  “What do you think of The Nine Doors?”

  The older Ceniza looked at his brother, then at the book. He shook his head. “Nothing drew our attention while we were working on it. The paper and ink are as they should be. Even at first glance, you notice that sort of thing.” “We notice them,” corrected his brother. “What’s
your opinion now?”

  Pedro Ceniza took a last puff of his cigarette, which was now a tiny stub between his fingers. He dropped it on the floor between his feet, where it burned itself out. The linoleum was covered with cigarette burns.

  “Seventeenth-century Venetian binding, in good condition ...” The brothers leaned over the book, but only the elder touched the pages with his pale, cold hands. They looked like a pair of taxidermists working out the best way to stuff a corpse with straw. “The leather is black morocco, with gold rosettes imitating flowers.”

  “Somewhat sober for Venice,” added Pablo Ceniza. His brother agreed, with another coughing fit. “The artist kept it restrained. No doubt the subject matter ...” He looked at Corso. “Have you tested the core of the binding? Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century books bound in leather or hide sometimes contain surprises. The board inside was made of separate sheets assembled with paste and pressed. Sometimes people used proofs of the same book, or earlier editions. Some discovered bindings are now more valuable than the texts they cover.” He pointed to papers on the table. “There’s an example there. Tell him about it, Pablo.”

  ‘ “Papal bulls of the Holy Crusade, dated 1483.” The brother smiled equivocally. He might have been talking about pornographic material rather than a pile of old papers. “Bound with boards from sixteenth-century memorials of no value.”

  Pedro Ceniza meanwhile was examining The Nine Doors. “The binding seems to be in order,” he said. “It all fits. Odd book, isn’t it? The five raised bands on the spine, no title, and this strange pentacle on the cover. Torchia, Venice 1666. He might have bound it himself. A beautiful piece of work.” “What about the paper?”

  “That’s just like you, Mr. Corso. A good question.” The bookbinder licked his lips as if trying to warm them. He listened carefully to the sound of the pages as he flicked them, just as Corso had done at Varo Borja’s. “Excellent paper. Nothing like the cellulose they use nowadays. Do you know the average lifespan of a book printed today? Tell him, Pablo.”

  “Sixty years,” said the brother bitterly, as if it were Corso’s fault. “Sixty miserable years.”

  Pedro was searching among the tools on the table. At last he found a special high-magnification lens and held it up to the book.

  “A century from now,” he murmured as he lifted a page and examined it against the light, closing one eye, “almost all the contents of today’s libraries will have disappeared. But these books, printed two hundred or even five hundred years ago, will remain intact. We have the books, and the world, that we deserve.... Isn’t that so, Pablo?”

  “Lousy books printed on lousy paper.”

  Pedro Ceniza nodded in agreement. He was examining the book now through the lens. “That’s right. Cellulose paper turns yellow and brittle as a wafer, and cracks irreparably. It ages and dies.”

  “Not the case here,” said Corso, pointing at the book.

  The bookbinder held a page against the light.

  “Rag-content paper, which is as it should be. Good paper handmade from rags, it’ll withstand both the passage of time and human stupidity.... No, I tell a lie. It’s linen. Authentic linen paper.” He put down the lens and looked at his brother. “How strange, it’s not Venetian paper. It’s thick, spongy, fibrous. Could it be Spanish?”

  “From Valencia,” said his brother. “Jativa linen.”

  “That’s right. One of the best in Europe at the time. The printer could have got hold of an imported batch.... He really did things properly.”

  “He was very conscientious,” said Corso, “and it cost him his life.”

  “Risks of the trade.” Pedro accepted the crushed cigarette Corso offered him. He lit it immediately, coughing. “As you know yourself, it’s difficult to fool anyone about paper. The ream used would have had to be blank, from the same time, and even then there would be differences: the sheets go brown, the inks fade and change over time.... Of course, the added pages can be stained, or darkened by being washed in tea. Any restoration work, or addition of missing pages, should leave the book all of a piece. It’s these small details that count. Don’t they, Pablo? Always the damned details.” “What’s your diagnosis?”

  “So far, we have established that the binding is seventeenth century. That doesn’t mean that the pages match this binding and not another. But let’s assume they do. As for the paper, it seems similar to other batches whose origin has been authenticated.”

  “Right. The binding and paper are authentic. Let’s look at the text and illustrations.”

  “Now, that’s more complicated. We can approach the typography from two different angles. One: we can assume that the book is authentic. The owner, however, denies this, and according to you he has ways of knowing. So authenticity is possible but not very probable. Let’s assume that it’s a forgery and work out the possibilities. On the one hand, the entire text might be a forgery, a fabrication, printed on paper dating from the time and bound using boards from the time. This is unlikely. Or, to be more precise, not very convincing. The cost of such a book would be enormous.... On the other hand, and this is reasonable, the forgery might have been made shortly after the first edition of the book. I mean that it was reprinted with alterations, disguised to resemble the first edition, some ten or twenty years after this date of 1666 that appears in the frontispiece. But to what end?”

  “It was a banned book,” Pablo Ceniza pointed out.

  “It’s possible,” agreed Corso. “Somebody who had access to the equipment—the plates and types—used by Aristide Torchia might have been able to print the book again.”

  The elder brother had picked up a pencil and was scribbling on the back of a printed sheet. “That would be one explanation,” he said. “But there are other alternatives that seem more plausible. Imagine, for instance, that most of the book’s pages are authentic but that some were missing, either torn out or lost, and that somebody replaced those missing pages using paper that dates from the time, good printing techniques, and a lot of patience. In that case, there are two further possibilities: one is that the added pages are reproductions of those from a complete copy. Another is that, in the absence of the original to reproduce or copy, the contents of the pages were invented.” The bookbinder showed Corso what he had been writing. “It would be a true case of forgery, as illustrated by this diagram.”

  While Corso and Pablo were looking at the paper, Pedro again leafed through The Nine Doors.

  “I am inclined to think,” he added after a moment, once he had their attention again, “that if some pages were interpolated, it was done either around the time of the original edition, or now, in our time. We can discount the time between the two, because such a perfect reproduction of an ancient work has become possible only very recently.”

  Corso handed back the diagram and asked, “Imagine you were faced with a book that had pages missing. And you wanted to complete it using modern techniques. How would you go about it?”

  The Ceniza brothers sighed deeply in unison, professionally relishing the prospect. They were now both staring intently at The Nine Doors.

  “Let us suppose,” Pedro said, “that this hundred-and-sixty-eight-page book has page 100 missing. Pages 100 and 99, since one sheet has two sides. And we want to replace it. The trick is to locate a twin.”

  “A twin?”

  “As we say in the trade,” said Pablo, “another complete copy.”

  “Or at least a copy where the two pages we need to duplicate are intact. It would also be advisable to compare the twin with our incomplete copy, to see if the depths of the type impressions in the paper are different or if the letters have worn differently. As you know yourself, types were moveable then and could easily wear down or be damaged. So with manual printing, the first and last copy of the same print run could vary greatly. They might have crooked or broken letters, hold the ink differently, things like that. Examining such variations allows you to add or remove imperfections on an interpolated page so
that the page matches the rest of the book. We would then proceed with photomechanical reproduction and produce a plastic pho-tolith. And from that we would obtain a polymer or a zinc.”

  “A plate in relief,” said Corso, “made of resin or metal.”

  “Exactly. However perfect the reproduction technique, we would never get the relief, the mark on paper typical of old printing methods that used inked wood or metal. So the entire page has to be reproduced using a moldable material—resin or metal. Such a plate creates very similar effects to printing with the kind of movable lead types used in 1666. We put the plate on the press and print the page manually, as was done four centuries ago ... using paper that dates from the same time, of course, or treated both before and after with artificial aging methods. The composition of the ink must be thoroughly researched. The page is treated with chemical agents so that it matches the other pages. And there you are, the crime is carried out.”

  “But suppose the original sheet doesn’t exist. Suppose there’s no model from which to copy the two missing pages.”

  The Ceniza brothers both smiled confidently.

  “That,” said Pedro, “makes it even more interesting.”

  “Research and imagination,” added Pablo.

  “And daring, of course, Mr. Corso. Suppose Pablo and I have that copy of The Nine Doors with pages missing. The other one hundred sixty-six pages provide us with a catalogue of all the letters and symbols used by the printer. We take samples until we have obtained an entire alphabet. We reproduce the alphabet on photographic paper, which is easier to handle, and then multiply each letter by the number of times it appears on the page. The ideal, the artistic flourish, would be to reproduce the types in molten lead, as ancient printers used to do. Unfortunately this is too complicated and expensive. We make do with modern techniques. We divide up the letters with a blade into loose types, and Pablo, who has a steadier hand, composes the two pages on a template, line by line, just as a compositor would have done in the seventeenth century. From that we produce another proof on paper and eliminate any joins or imperfections in the letters, or we add faults similar to those found in the letters of the original text. Then all we need do is make a negative. From the negative you get a reproduction in relief, and there you have your printing plate.”