Voltaire's Calligrapher

by Pablo De Santis

“I left early to go for a walk and got lost in the woods.”

  Tellier handed me several coins that appeared dull, as if blackened by smoke. These were just the key I needed to gain entrance to Bell Manor.

  The Bronze Bell

  A tall guard stood silently at the door, waiting for a password it took me a few seconds to guess: I showed him the money I had brought.

  “Is this enough for the woman in the top window?”

  He said nothing but stepped aside to let me pass.

  Five men sat in worn, red velvet armchairs, waiting their turn for rooms and women. They sat in darkness, as withdrawn as monks, not a hint of lust in their postures, only boredom, shyness perhaps, a pale imitation of dignity. Each one was wearing a mask: a dog, a rabbit, a bear. During Carnival, people find pleasure in hiding their faces and showing their masks, but the men there seemed to want to hide their disguises, too, as if the chosen animal might reveal something of their identity. I was given a bear mask and told to wait in a corner.

  Every once in a while a dwarf would come into the waiting room and ring a bronze bell in the face of the chosen, then lead him away. The little bell was an exact replica of the one outside the front door and sounded muffled, as if it were under water. We all waited anxiously to hear the dwarf’s footsteps; well aware of our interest, he would stomp down each oak stair.

  I had started to nod off when the bell woke me and the dwarf’s white face was in front of mine. We climbed several flights of stairs to the top floor. My guide opened a leather bag and had me deposit all of the money I had brought. Then he let me in and closed the door behind me.

  The first thing I saw was a folding screen, decorated with what could have been women or dragons, depending on the light. I walked around it and saw a large bed; the woman was lying in it, gold and black shell-patterned sheets pulled up to her neck. Her eyes were open, and an icy cold emanated from her, filling the room. Like the figures on the screen, she could also take the shape of a woman or a dragon, depending on the whim of the light.

  I said what I had come to say: the truth. It was, like all truths, a sort of good-bye.

  “I don’t know how you can be alive. I don’t know if you have an identical twin or it’s a spell or if I’ve lost my mind. But soon, maybe even today, the White Penitents are going to kill you. If you come with me, if you trust me, you can save yourself.”

  She gestured vaguely with her hand; I never knew if in acceptance or regret. Just then, I heard a loud noise downstairs, followed by a shot and a woman’s scream. A dark force was storming, beating, and shooting its way from one room to the next.

  The dwarf rushed in, even smaller now that the weight of the world was bearing down. He did the most incomprehensible thing: he stuck two fingers into the woman’s mouth, as if a treasure were hidden there.

  “They’re killing all the women, to see if they bleed. Help me get her out through the secret door, here, behind the screen.”

  But it was too late: in strode a hooded monk, his white habit stained with blood. The dwarf pushed him and the two tumbled down the stairs. I heard the bell as it rang out against the steps, calling customers who were no longer there.

  Two other men, also dressed in white and blood, destroyed any hope of escape. They beat me disinterestedly, their eyes fixed on their prey. I watched them pull the woman from her bed. Her now-naked body was perfect but cold, arousing astonishment rather than desire. Our enemies stood in silence, as if the sight had made them forget why they were there. One of them remembered and slashed her throat with his dagger. It was as if the crime took place in a dream: the slit was devoid of blood, nothing but a line drawn on the blank page of her neck.

  “This is her,” one of the penitents said.

  They carried her out on their shoulders. Her arms were spread wide, her statuesque pose taking leave of it all.

  I wanted to follow them, but a dark mass spoke to me from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Don’t go into the street. There’s a secret mechanism under her tongue to prevent theft, and I activated it.”

  I ignored him and went out after the coach. I ran for several feet, only to hear the sound of the wheels as they faded into silence. Then, when it all seemed over, I heard the explosion. Seconds later a flaming horse came galloping toward me. I was able to jump out of the way, and it sped on until it collapsed on the steps of the cathedral.

  I followed the smoke and the screams. The detonation had left burning shards of wood and scraps of metal in its wake. One of the monks was still alive and was begging for water. The others had been blown apart.

  I turned back to Bell Manor. Outside, the survivors were crying over the dead. Around them were dog, rabbit, and bear masks strewn by those who had fled. The dwarf-motionless and in a state of shock-was ringing the funeral bell, calling mourners to the final service that would never begin. That sound followed me through the deserted streets and throughout the rest of the night.

  The Execution

  There was an overwhelming amount of work in the days leading up to the execution of Jean Calas, and I spent morning to night drawing up documents while my fellow calligraphers abandoned the profession, the city, or life itself. The magistrates’ unease was reflected in even greater anxiety at the lower levels: secretaries, ushers, calligraphers. A judge’s distracted silence, half-spoken word, or hesitant glance would race up stairs, through courtrooms and offices to become a botched document, an ink stain creeping out over a ruling, or a file in flames. My boss, Tellier, assigned me job after job; before the ink was dry on one document, it was replaced by another. I was always a good calligrapher but never quick: speed is completely contrary to my profession. Those days, however, I was forced to rush and take less care.

  I was the one to record the execution of Jean Calas: his limbs broken with an iron bar, his chest crushed, his death on the wheel. It was hoped he would reveal his accomplices, but he merely asked God to forgive those who had judged him. The closer he was to death, and the more horrific the words were, the faster and more perfect my calligraphy became. It was as if I wanted to distance myself from the torture by taking refuge in the calm formation of each letter. There always comes a time when a calligrapher relinquishes the meaning of the words to focus solely on their appearance, demanding the right to know nothing, to understand nothing, to serenely trace an incomprehensible foreign language.

  The story had come to the worst possible end, and there was no longer any reason for me to be in Toulouse. I wanted to return to Ferney and wrote Voltaire for instructions. His reply was alarmingly obscure; I didn’t know whether to attribute the confusion to his advanced age or his fear the letter would be intercepted. I managed to glean that he had carefully read my reports and concluded the Calas case was part of a more complex set of events relating to a series of miracles that had occurred in various parts of France. He sent me some money and told me to leave for Paris.

  I went to the courthouse to ask for my pay and told Tellier I would be leaving. He asked me to do one final thing: deliver a letter to the bishop in Paris. The messenger who was supposed to leave that night had gotten drunk and was fast asleep; his horse and carriage were waiting. I felt like an actor who arrives halfway through a performance of an unknown play and is told to faithfully follow incomprehensible stage directions. I barely had enough time to gather my things.

  The coach left my lodgings but was soon forced to stop; there was a crowd near the square where we had watched The Calas Murderers. I thought there must be an evening show-the dark would accentuate the shadowy story, and hearing voices alone would underscore the horror. But there was no movement on stage, and I found it odd that something you could neither see nor hear would attract so many people. Someone carried a torch on stage, and I recognized the actor who played Marc-Antoine. He was now hanging from a rope, his performance so flawless that his face was blue and his swollen tongue protruded from his mouth.

  I saw Kolm on the edge of the throng, where the distracted and
the newly arrived listen to hazy, disjointed accounts of events occurring on center stage. I wanted to ask him about the play’s ending but was only able to wave. He, in turn, held up his mechanical walking stick.

  Despite the terrible things I had witnessed in Toulouse, I was sad to be leaving. That feeling soon disappeared, however, as if trampled under the horses’ hooves. I was only twenty years old, and at that age, the cities you leave behind are erased from memory while those that lie ahead fill your imagination. Now, on the other hand, the only clear picture I have is of the cities I’ve left, while the more I explore my new home, the more blurred and shadowy it becomes.

  PART II. The Bishop

  The Abbot’s Hand

  My uncle’s house was in absolute darkness when I arrived; he was horrified by unnecessary expenses, and all expenses were unnecessary. The maid had a candlestick but was forbidden to light it. She held it high, as if it were actually capable of dispersing shadows in hallways crammed with the furniture and paintings that were sometimes received as payment for transport. Identical statues, set in different places around the house, gave guests the impression they were lost in a maze. We finally reached a small room at the top of some stairs. I waited until the maid was gone before I lit a candle, all the while afraid the glare would bounce from mirror to mirror until it found and woke maréchal Dalessius.

  Surrounding me were things that had belonged to my dead parents, lost in the sinking of the Retz when I was a boy. The ship had earned a place in navigation history: only four days had passed from the time it was launched until it sank. Those objects, slightly damp and mostly broken, looked like wreckage from a ship. But they were the only proof-other than me-that my parents had ever existed. Looking out from a picture in a splintered frame, they were serious and distant, as if they knew what awaited them in the port and the fog.

  There was barely enough space for the bed. The room was so disorganized it seemed to hide an agenda: my uncle hoped I would come face-to-face with that sad museum, shed a few easy tears, and run away never to return.

  I went looking for him the next morning, afraid I might actually find him. The cook told me he had left early, long before dawn, as was his custom; now he merely watched my every move from an enormous portrait. As I devoured everything the cook set on the table-very little indeed-I studied the message for the bishop. I was tempted to open it but didn’t dare: there were so many wax seals it would have taken days to re-create them.

  The bishop had retired to Arnim Palace (a Dominican abbey for the last twenty years) when he first fell ill. Certain orders were vehemently opposed to this decision: they did not want a bishop cut off from the city by high perimeter walls. The Dominicans, however, had known how to negotiate with Rome and became the protective guardians of a bishop ever more saintly and closer to death.

  The estate in Arnim was also home to another famous guest: Silas Darel. Although few had seen him, and authorities within the order refused to confirm or deny his presence, it was commonly held that he lived and worked there. Pages written by his hand were highly prized rarities on the manuscript market and often fetched a higher price than works from the Venetian school of calligraphy. Rumors were rife among my colleagues: Darel was no longer able to hold a quill; he worked with transparent ink; he only wrote in blood. No one knew anything concrete about him. The Dominicans kept him closeted away, like a prisoner, in some secret room in the palace.

  I presented my credentials at the door and made it clear I was no ordinary messenger; I was a court calligrapher and was to personally deliver the message to someone in a position of authority. A monk led me up stairs and down corridors to the library.

  I had heard of Abbot Mazy; he had recently been involved in a controversy regarding the veracity behind the lives of saints. Mazy held that the only proof of true martyrdom was that the lesson be clear. There was no point in searching for historical truths in far-off times if the message was of no contemporary value. The story was to accurately depict events, through what the proponent of the theory called the moral consistency of the story. His opponent, a Franciscan, proposed that all martyrology be reviewed to discard any cases in which there were doubts. Mazy responded that faith should always represent an effort; there was no merit whatsoever in believing what is reasonable.

  The abbot was pale and his skin so white he seemed to glow in the dark. At fifty years of age, he was at once a boy and an old man. He had lost his right hand when young, and questions about the accident only infuriated him. He was sitting at a table in the library, a long, sharp penknife, several quills, and pieces of paper in front of him. He gestured to indicate that I should open the message. I used his knife and clumsily cut my index finger.

  “There’s a postscript. I always start there. People write what’s least important in the body of the letter, what’s more important they hurriedly note in the postscript, and what’s truly essential they never write at all. I see it mentions your skill as a calligrapher. Do you have work?”

  “I thought I would apply at the courts.”

  “Don’t sell your pen so cheaply. Did you know we have our own calligraphy school? Silas Darel is our master, but he speaks to no one: he has kept a vow of silence for the last twelve years. All he does is write, shut away in an office. Have you heard of him? He designed our script.”

  We had been taught the Dominican style-too rigid for my taste-at Vidors’ School. Easily distinguished by its aversion to curves and constant pressure on the paper to achieve a sense of depth, the calligraphy wasn’t seen to flow along a page but was more like a laceration. Every dissertation on calligraphy noted how Darel’s first profession, as a headstone engraver, had influenced his art.

  Legend had it that, on his deathbed, a master calligrapher (whose name no one remembered) asked Darel to carve his tombstone. When he saw Darel’s skill, the master initiated him in the mysteries of calligraphy, which dated back to the Egyptian scribes. Such knowledge had been passed from master to disciple for centuries, but only when death was near. The teachers at Vidors’ School would laugh whenever older students told this story to impress the novices.

  “We sometimes take our seminarians to see Darel,” Mazy said. “After watching him for a few hours, there are those who run scared and leave the profession altogether, while others discover their destiny.”

  “If you have your own calligraphers, how could someone like me be of use to you?”

  “We have no shortage of calligraphers, that’s true, but they are men of God. I need someone who can do impious work.”

  He took the stopper off a Rillon inkwell shaped like a snail, picked up a long quill-more flamboyant than practical-and plunged it into the black ink.

  “Where does Darel work?” I asked.

  “There’s an office at the end of the calligraphy hall, down a few stairs. The entire palace could be his, but he rarely leaves that room.”

  “Would I be able to watch him work?”

  “When the time is right. Every calligrapher must confront Darel to see whether he made the right choice.”

  Abbot Mazy passed me the quill and opened his hand.

  “Write your name.”

  It was a moment before I understood his instructions. I took his hand, whiter than paper, and slowly, fearfully, wrote Dalessius. It looked like someone else’s name there. No ink was absorbed by the abbot’s skin, and the nib was so full that rivulets seeped out from the letters to fill the lines in his hand. As my name grew into something that resembled a drawing in a fortune-teller’s tract, I could feel the abbot’s hand tremble, as if the touch of the pen transmitted pain, pleasure, or cold. He pulled his fingers into a fist and said:

  “Now I’ve got you in the palm of my hand.”

  A Friend of V.

  The abbot told me I had passed his test but didn’t explain what my job would be.

  “Come see me in a week. I’ll have a letter of recommendation for you to start at Siccard House.”

  Life at my uncle’s w
as increasingly unbearable. He was always at work, so I could never speak to him, but his presence was made manifest through instructions given solely to inconvenience me: every night there would be new objects in my room, blocking the way, crowding the bed up against the wall. Toys I had given up for lost years ago would come crashing down; a wooden horse knocked me on the head.

  One night I found a message signed A friend of V. on my pillow, asking me to come to Les Cordeliers. I had no idea how it got there, and my apprehension only grew as I walked to the Pension d’Espagne. The door was open, but the rooming house appeared to be empty; I went from room to room, afraid I’d be mistaken for a thief, until I found a man in bed, empty beds all around him, with blankets pulled up to his nose. My obvious unease identified me as his guest, and he beckoned me in.

  I sat a prudent distance away, afraid he might be hiding his face because of some illness. With the covers still over his mouth, he told me his name: Beccaria. He pronounced it decisively, as if that one word were enough to erase all fear. I had once seen a portrait of Beccaria, but I distrusted painters, so generous with the distribution of balance and beauty. In any event, the man’s face was still obscured, and I was afraid he could be an impostor. Voltaire had written a brief essay praising Beccaria’s book-Of Crimes and Punishments-but no one believed it was his. That same curse had always plagued Voltaire: his authorship was questioned whenever he signed his work, while every unsigned satire was immediately attributed to him.

  “Mutual friends asked me to contact you. They’re waiting for news at the castle.”

  “And I’m waiting for money. Do you have any for me?”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with that. I’m simply offering to take your message to the border.”

  “How do I know I can trust you? Your fame reached the farthest corners of Europe, yet here you are, in a rooming house for the poorest court workers.”