The Paris Enigma

by Pablo De Santis

  “No! But why would I kill her?”

  Caleb Lawson stopped looking at me and addressed his public.

  “I want this young man to be suspended immediately and denied entrance to our meetings from now on.”

  “He’s Arzaky’s assistant. Arzaky is the one who should decide that,” said Magrelli.

  “Arzaky isn’t here, so we’ll be the ones who decide. This young man was at the scene of the crime at the moment it was committed. We’ll have to inform the chief of police as well…”

  That jarred me. I wouldn’t fare well with Bazeldin, who would do anything to get rid of Arzaky.

  “I’m innocent. It would only take Arzaky a second to prove my innocence.”

  “But he’s not here, and you have no witness to confirm that, when you left, the Mermaid was still alive.”

  Not only was my membership in the circle of assistants about to be taken away, but it also looked like I was headed to jail. I had entered the world I had read about as a child, but my storyline had unexpectedly digressed. I spoke without thinking, “Yes, I do have a witness.”

  “Who?”

  Was I slow to speak? It seemed like there was an incredibly long silence, but time passes differently in dreams.

  “Castelvetia’s assistant.”

  Castelvetia stood up. I didn’t look at him. He came toward me, to shut me up.

  “She’ll tell you the truth. Greta-”

  There was a murmur of surprise. Caleb Lawson smiled. His tense body seemed to relax, his public prosecutor stance disappeared. In that moment I understood that I had been tricked, that they didn’t care about the accusations against Craig. Lawson was just waiting for that word, the proof that he needed against Castelvetia.

  “She. Greta,” repeated Lawson triumphantly.

  Castelvetia looked around him. There were no longer any traces of affectation in him. He had abandoned his posture, and his elegant mannerisms had fallen away like a cape descending to the ground. His hands, which had seemed to be mere objects of contemplation, were now claws. His voice had deepened.

  “She isn’t an assistant in the strict sense of the word. Besides, I was about to inform The Twelve Detectives about the presence of my collaborator, once the problems we are currently dealing with were resolved.”

  “Having a woman as your assistant breaks all our rules,” said Caleb Lawson. “I propose that Castelvetia be suspended. I’ll remind you that the voting is by simple majority…”

  Lawson raised his hand. So did Madorakis and Hatter.

  “I support the motion,” said Magrelli, “but only as a precautionary measure.”

  There were nine detectives present; only one more vote would ensure his suspension. Rojo hesitated, but eventually raised his hand.

  “And now I call for a vote on the precautionary separation of Arzaky, and his assistant as well…”

  Would The Twelve Detectives have voted against Arzaky? I don’t think so. They wouldn’t have dared go that far. Before anyone had the chance to make that mistake, his voice was heard.

  “What are you doing, Lawson?”

  The Englishman jumped.

  “Arzaky! Where were you?”

  “I’ve been in a lot of bad places these past few days, and throughout my life. But this is the worst place of all. In every dive there are rules of conduct; here it seems that the only norm is humiliation and dishonor. You wanted your revenge against Castelvetia? Well now you have it. Why go after my assistant too?”

  “Because he didn’t have anyone to assist. Besides, he knew Castelvetia’s secret and he didn’t say anything.”

  “He’s an assistant, not a stool pigeon.”

  “But our code of honor…”

  “I demand that Salvatrio be cleared of all guilt and charges, and that he continue to help me with this case.”

  Lawson had turned pale. He wanted to challenge Arzaky’s words, but he couldn’t. Yet he didn’t want to give up center stage, so he said to the Pole, “We have already realized what you’ve known for some time: that the killer is following a plan based on The Four Elements. We only have to decide whether the first murder was earth or air, and based on that…”

  Arzaky raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated look of surprise. He had lost weight during his absence, and now all his features were more prominent, as if he was wearing a mask of himself.

  “The Four Elements? Who told you that had anything to do with the case?”

  “That is what you were trying to hide from us.”

  “You’re missing either earth or air? Then we’ll have to keep a close watch on the entire planet, because there’s air and earth everywhere.”

  I withdrew to the back of the room, ashamed. No one was looking at me anymore, because all eyes were fixed on Arzaky. Magrelli had approached to effusively shake his hand and Zagala was waiting for his turn. Novarius was consulting the wall clock, as if the only thing he was worried about was how many days, hours, and minutes were left before he could f lee these European complications.

  I took advantage of the distraction to open one of the cases and take out Darbon’s microscope. It was a small Swiss instrument with bronze and steel pieces. When I closed the case’s glass door I noticed that there was someone beside me. I feared it was Neska. I was about to give an explanation for my action, when I saw that it was Castelvetia.

  “I was afraid. I spoke without thinking,” I told him.

  He looked at me so fixedly that I feared he was going to slap me. He spoke condescendingly.

  “No one asks for explanations from fools. At least they have that privilege.”

  “But I wanted to explain it to Greta…”

  Castelvetia smiled, as if he had the right to a modicum of revenge.

  “You won’t see her again. We are leaving Paris tomorrow.”

  Castelvetia pushed me out of the way. The first member in the history of The Twelve Detectives to be expelled left the underground parlor of the Numancia Hotel with swift steps.

  4

  I went to the hotel, locked myself in my room and tried in vain to bring my correspondence up to date. I would begin a letter and abandon it; a drop of ink would accidentally fall on the page and I would watch it expand, as if it were a small octopus. I consulted a railroad schedule to see when the next train left for Amsterdam. If Castelvetia had told me the truth, perhaps I would have a last chance to see Greta.

  I put the handkerchief that Bazeldin had used to wipe the Mermaid’s face under the microscope. A weak ray of sun shone through the window. It was enough to light the small mirror that in turn lit the glass. A shape was already beginning to form when someone knocked on the door. Just in case, I hid the microscope that I had taken without permission.

  It was Arzaky. Should I tell him I was sorry about the Mermaid’s death? I remembered my mother writing condolence letters overf lowing with expressions of grief when someone lost a relative. My father, on the other hand, never knew what to say, and he just lowered his head to look at people’s shoes, the only subject he really knew well.

  “Don’t worry about Castelvetia. He’s always been arrogant. He beat Caleb Lawson once and he thought he could always best him. The Englishman entrapped you. But the important thing is that you didn’t snitch on Craig. That story you told was meant for me and no one else.”

  “But I betrayed her…”

  “You didn’t only do it out of fear; you were yearning to say her name. Even when everything around you is going to hell, there is no greater pleasure than saying that word. Any excuse is valid to finally say the name of the one you love. Caleb Lawson knew it. But he didn’t get you to snitch on Craig, which was what he wanted even more. There is no greater betrayal than an assistant’s disloyalty to his detective, his mentor.”

  Arzaky looked at me with a strange seriousness. I felt the same way I had when Caleb Lawson was attacking me: that something was pulling me out of the corners and my hiding places and my invisibility, to give great importance to the most ins
ignificant of my words or deeds, and that was not a good thing for me.

  “What do I have to do now? The detectives said my life is in danger.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought. Await my instructions. This case is almost closed. I might need your services one last time.”

  “A nd t hen? ”

  “Then? You’ll go back to Buenos Aires, I imagine. With a clean conscience, knowing you’ve fulfilled your mission. Craig needs you to tell him everything that has happened, that is happening, and that will happen. He sent you here with a cane and a story; soon it will be your turn to tell him another story, when you return his cane.”

  Arzaky left and I wanted to go back to my work with the microscope, but there wasn’t enough daylight left.

  On May 5 the World’s Fair opened.

  Never before had so much activity been concentrated in a single place. Even from my bed I could hear the noise of the footsteps that were heading to see the numerous treasures and surprises. The crowds bought up all the tickets and wandered happily through the pavilions, without knowing what to see first. They were all overtaken by a similar anxiety-perhaps the most important thing wasn’t what was in front of them, but what was around the next corner. And even those who had gotten a spot to go up on the tower suspected that the most thrilling part of the fair was somewhere else, in some tiny, secret place. Only that which we are denied kindles our true desire.

  After taking advantage of the morning light, I set off toward the Numancia Hotel, carrying Darbon’s microscope wrapped in gray paper and tied with a yellow cord. It was early and the room was empty. I put the microscope back where it belonged and threw the wrapping into a wastepaper basket.

  Tamayak was at the hotel’s entrance, accompanied by Baldone, Okano, and Benito, all wearing their best clothes. For a moment I thought they were there because they had discovered that something was missing from the glass case.

  “I just took the microscope out for a minute to polish it,” I explained.

  They looked at each other. They didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “We saw you come into the hotel. We want you to come with us,” said Benito. “We’re going to the fair.”

  “How are you going to spread out through the fairgrounds?” I asked.

  “Novarius is in the dirigible. He won’t budge from there.”

  “And you aren’t going to be with him?” I asked Tamayak.

  “No. If the gods had wanted us to f ly, they would have given us wings.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Rojo and Zagala are keeping watch by the globe. Caleb Lawson went to guard the Argentine Pavilion, with Madorakis.”

  “Then you guys aren’t going…”

  “We have another mission. They’ve charged us with walking around the fair. Looking here and there. To see if we notice anything strange. If Arzaky hasn’t told you otherwise, you should come with us.”

  I went because I supposed I didn’t have any other choice. In our conversations there was a sense that we were saying good-bye: Baldone mentioned that he had found a hat to bring back as a gift for his mother; Okano asked where he could buy a case of absinthe at a good price. We showed our safe-conducts at the entrance. It was so crowded that it was hard to stick together.

  There was only an hour left before Castelvetia’s train departed for Amsterdam. Sometimes I thought I had managed to evade the assistants but a few steps later my guardians would appear, feigning distraction. In order to put some distance between us, I pretended to be feverishly excited about things. I rushed to the American Pavilion, but the Sioux was there at the door, so still that the visitors admired him, thinking he was part of the display. I turned and searched for the Galerie des Machines, but Baldone appeared by my side, offering me a minty soft drink he had just bought. I saw my opportunity when a Chinese delegation made their way through the crowd. They carried a dragon that swayed and twisted, with hundreds of people inside. The gigantic head leaned one way and then the other. The choreography was perfect, but the dragon hadn’t taken the crowd into account and its blind movements crashed again and again into the visitors, knocking them down. The enthusiasm for the fair’s inauguration was such that people were laughing with delight even as they got bruised and trampled. I couldn’t hope for a better chance: I went below the dragon’s scales and shared the darkness with my Chinese companions. I walked blindly, like the rest. I felt a deep sadness for the people inside that dragon; they were in a world of wonders but condemned to see nothing. Hidden in the bowels of the dragon, I escaped my four guardians.

  5

  The trains purred in the north station. I ran toward track four, from where, according to the schedule, Castelvetia’s train should be leaving. I hurried through the cars, bumping into passengers who were stowing their luggage and into guards who were giving instructions and brief ly enjoying the power bestowed upon them by their gray uniforms. I found Greta and Castelvetia in the third car. All the passengers seemed nervous about the departure, except for them, as if they were railroad staff whose job was to provide an image of tranquility for the other passengers. They sat together, without touching, both serious, as if they were strangers. She was by the window, looking out at a group of gray pigeons pecking at some breadcrumbs.

  I went toward them and almost bumped into Castelvetia, who had, just at that moment, gotten up to get a book out of the case he had stored on the luggage rack. When he saw me, the Dutchman sighed, obviously annoyed.

  “What? Were you planning on coming with us?”

  I had run quite far, and now that it was time to speak, I needed to catch my breath. Castelvetia looked with puzzlement at the catalogue of gestures I used to replace the words I couldn’t get out. Greta looked at me seriously with her large gray eyes.

  “Only one thing could excuse your betrayal,” said Castelvetia. “Only one thing. That what Lawson said was true.”

  “Lawson said a lot of things.”

  “You know what I’m referring to. Craig’s crime.”

  I didn’t respond. I let my fatigue overcome me, as an excuse to remain quiet.

  Castelvetia’s index finger jammed into my chest.

  “It’s your fault I’m no longer part of The Twelve Detectives…”

  “I know. And that’s why I’ve come to apologize.”

  “No, you came to say good-bye. Besides, I don’t want an apology. I want the truth.”

  I lowered my gaze, unable to look him in the eye. Then I realized that Castelvetia thought that my reply would be in the negative, and he was anxiously waiting for me to defend Craig’s good name.

  “Say it: Craig didn’t torture the killer. Say it: Craig didn’t kill him.”

  I couldn’t say anything, and my silence spoke for me. The Dutchman took a watch out of his pocket and measured the length of my silence.

  “More than thirty seconds. Now I know what you aren’t saying.”

  The Dutchman was pale. He came close to whisper in my ear, as if he had suspicions about the passengers around us.

  “My expulsion doesn’t matter, The Twelve Detectives are finished.”

  Castelvetia touched Greta’s shoulder. She had been looking out the window.

  “Greta, dear, you can talk to the young man.”

  “He betrayed us,” she said, without taking her eyes off the windowpane, refusing to look at me.

  “We no longer have any grudge against him, because they have kicked us out of something that no longer exists. That erases the offense.”

  That upset Greta, and she stood up, annoyed. Without saying a word, she made her way through the last travelers who were arriving. I went down first and tried to offer my hand to help her with the iron steps, but she refused to take it. I managed to brush her fingers, which were ice cold.

  “I knew I shouldn’t say your name, but for a moment I was happy to hear it come out of my mouth. Then I realized what I had done.”

  Greta now addressed me with formal distance, instead
of the familiar way she used to.

  “Now you can say the name as many times as you wish. As a secret, it was powerful. Once the magic word has been spoken, it loses all value.”

  “The magic hasn’t lost its power.”

  She looked at me for a few seconds. She was a woman, at the end of it all, and she was f lattered by my insistence, by my dishevelment, by my foolishly running all the way here.

  “Shouldn’t you be working? They are expecting the fourth murder to happen today.”

  “All the detectives are at their posts, keeping watch over any possible versions of air and earth.”

  She pointed toward one of the train’s windows. Castelvetia was reading a book with yellow covers, decorated with interwoven roses: a romance novel.

  “Castelvetia mocks their preparations. He says that they are all wrong, that it’s not about air or earth.”

  “Castelvetia knows as much as the others do. At least they are at their posts. He’s leaving.”

  “He’s leaving because they threw him out. He’s leaving because he has no other choice. Can you imagine what the press in Amsterdam is going to say about his expulsion?”

  “Castelvetia could stay anyway. Investigate on his own. If he knows so much, he should stay, solve the mystery, and then negotiate his readmittance.”

  “You should trust that Arzaky will be the one to solve the enigma. An assistant must maintain his faith even in the lowest moments.”

  “I’m no more than a ghost to him. He doesn’t tell me what to do. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Since Paloma’s death…”

  I said her real name to create some distance from the green costume, from the body in the water, from Nerval’s damp verses; I said her name as a way not to say anything. Greta stared as if I had uttered an unexpected blasphemy.

  “Who?”

  “Paloma Leska. The Mermaid.”

  “I didn’t know her name was Paloma.”

  I was young; my pride thought for me. I wondered if she was jealous that I had used her real name instead of her stage name. Was I going to receive, in that station amid the steam and smell of engine oil, the gift of her jealousy? The train roared. The last passengers rushed to get on board with their luggage, and they pushed their suitcases as best they could. A guard shouted, another insistently rang a bronze bell. I looked at her again, and I knew it wasn’t jealousy. She was trembling. Both of us, almost at the same time, understood. We looked at each other for the last time.