A Bad Coin Always Turns Up

by Alberto Guardia

  Thérèse’s presence in Locarno during the festivities had improved Siro’s mood, because he had spent the time brushing off his French, which was becoming a little rusty from lack of practice. Now that the beautiful lady had left, he was still curious about the relationship between her and his son.

  Occasionally he made mild remarks hoping to gather some information. At other times, he blatantly said things like… “well…?” meaning, “haven’t you made a move, yet?”

  At this point Carlo lost his temper and said that it was none of his business.

  No, no, this is also my business, dear boy. What do you intend to do? Sit here and go to rot? I want grandchildren,” insisted Siro.

  One day, while Carlo was walking into the office with the post, Siro brusquely asked, “How old is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Thérèse, of course.”

  “My goodness! Again! She is twenty-nine; it was on the company documents.”

  Siro thought about it for a few minutes, and then he said, “Well, she is not awfully young, still…”

  “Still what?” huffed Carlo.

  “Still, just think that Ninin, you know, your friend Eugenio’s sister, married at thirty-nine and now she has four children. After all, there is still hope for you.”

  The discussion was interrupted by Carlo, who had opened one of the envelopes in his hand, striking his forehead and saying,

  “Dammit! I had completely forgotten!”

  Locarno – January 27th 1930

  Mr Carlo Fantone

  Locarno

  Switzerland

  Barcelona, January 2nd 1930

  My dearest friend,

  I hope that all is going well and that you and Madame Milaud are enjoying excellent health.

  When we met in Paris last December, I told you that I would be holding a conference in Ascona at the end of January, in the new hotel that Baron von der Heydt, a very dear friend, has recently had built on Monte Verità.

  The conference has been confirmed and will take place on January 30th.

  I hope that in the meantime Madame Milaud has agreed to the solution I suggested to her and that she has thus freed herself of that painful burden.

  I beg you to confirm that you will be present, by this I mean yourself and the lady, but also and above all that you will bring the sadly notorious coin, which I trust is still in your possession.

  Your presence will be precious to me, but the presence of the coin will be essential for an experiment that will be carried out at the end of the conference.

  I look forward to seeing you soon.

  With my very best regards,

  Alejandro Bertrams

  Ascona – January 30th 1930

  In order to be in Ascona in time, with the coin, which was held in a safety deposit box in Paris, Thérèse organised an urgent trip to Locarno, suspending some of the shipments, which in any case were not needed until the beginning of the following month.

  The hotel on Monte Verità was brand new and had been built to the most avant-garde German standards. Baron van der Heydt had asked a renowned German architect to draw up the plans, but the result, with all its squared lines and the use of unadorned reinforced concrete, seemed to the majority of the visitors unpleasant and disquieting. Only Thérèse, perhaps because she was accustomed to the American style of building, had not expressed such negative opinions.

  The conference room, which immediately gave the participants a chilly reception, had excellent acoustics, which made it very easy to understand Professor Bertrams’ low, intense voice.

  The professor gave a brief lecture on physiognomics, the science that declared that it was possible to deduce the psychological and moral characteristics of a person from their physical appearance. He began with the studies of Aristotle in Prior Analytics, moved on to the third century with de Physiognomonia by Polemon of Laodicea and the sixteenth-century De Scultura of Pomponio Gaurico. Then he continued, mentioning works from the early eighteenth century, by the Swiss Protestant pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater, and finally including the recent theories of Professor Cesare Lombroso.

  This exhaustive panorama, which had risked plunging the audience into a catatonic torpor, was in fact aimed at introducing the latest and widely contested work by Professor Lombroso, Ricerche sui phenomeni ipnotici e spiritici, from which Professor Bertrams drew the conclusion that the extrasensory capabilities of a subject, that is their capacity to perceive a reality that is not generally ‘perceptible’, may be revealed in the appearance of the person themselves.

  Briefly, a person with such a predisposition would be easily recognisable, obviously, for one who knew what to observe.

  He even considered that some objects, precisely thanks to their shape, could behave as a medium, as receivers of voices, of signs and of all those forms of communication that are normally considered ‘inexplicable’.

  The second part of the conference, which the professor called ‘an experiment’, was usually held with a small number of participants in a small, darkened room.

  The essence of the experiment was, for the professor, not so much the calling up of a spirit, a practice he abhorred but which he considered necessary, but rather to discover whether there were common features amongst the persons who acted as an intermediary: as a ‘medium’.

  This time, and for a very precise reason, the demonstration was exceptionally held in the open, in a small amphitheatre in the park and in the presence of a large number of people.

  These were the ideal conditions for the experiment to fail, because according to the professor, having too many people present dispersed the energy. However, his objective this time was not a person, but an object: the coin.

  All the forty people who had listened to the conference now, after taking some refreshments, put on their coats and cloaks and went into the grounds of the hotel. It was still mid-winter, but the days were growing longer and on that sunny afternoon the temperature was almost pleasant, the primulas had even flowered in the more sheltered corners of the park. There were, it is true, a few dark clouds to the north, in the direction of the mountains and a few more hovered over the lake, but otherwise the afternoon was enchanting.

  The professor asked the participants to sit on the benches in the semicircle and to form a chain by holding the hands of their neighbours, or in the case of the last in the row, also of the person sitting behind them. Then, he joined the chain, holding the notorious coin in his other hand. He pronounced a few phrases in what, to Carlo who was sitting near him, sounded like Latin.

  Nothing happened. He repeated the ceremony a couple of times, then he changed places with Carlo, handing him the coin, and so on with five other people, without any result.

  Murmurs of disapproval began to be heard and the professor, who was expecting precisely this, took advantage and began to speak. He explained that this was precisely the result he had expected: it was an experiment and it had been successful, precisely because there had been no result.

  Then he began the second part, there was immediately a buzz of protest, which was immediately silenced by a furious glance from Bertrams.

  “I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, to continue holding hands and to be silent for a couple of minutes until the experiment is over. Thank you.”

  He stood before the participants in the centre of the amphitheatre, checking that everyone was doing as he said, then he took the coin, set it on a sort of half column that acted as a ledger and began to recite the usual formula. There was a bluish flash immediately followed by a flash of lightening that fell just above the hotel with a thundering noise that shook all the participants. In the silence that followed, they heard the voice of a woman, a young woman with a sensual voice. Everyone turned in the direction of the voice, which was coming from the mouth of an astonished man with a magnificent handlebar moustache, who apart from being portly and extremely grave, everyone remembered as having a particularly low and hoa
rse voice.

  “What is your name, dear lady?” asked the professor.

  “Marie Duplessis, sir. Why, what are you doing with my coin? Give it to me immediately, come, I must take it to the goldsmith Chaumet to have it made into a pendant,” answered the man, his eyes wide.

  “Forgive me, dear lady, but I no longer recall where the goldsmith Chaumet has his workshop,” asked the professor.

  “You are so forgetful, all of Paris knows that…” she gave a little cough, “forgive me, ever since I was given that coin I have had this silly…” a further fit of coughing followed, “… I have been afflicted by this cough.”

  “Chaumet, you were saying….?”

  “Ah, yes, he is in place… Ven…dô…me…” she replied, beginning to cough repeatedly and in an ever deeper tone until the moustached gentleman, shaking himself, said in a hoarse voice,

  “What happened? I am so sorry, I must have fallen asleep, I hope I did not disturb the experiment!”

  All the participants stared at him amazed and horrified.

  The professor, who had not been particularly influenced, asked him.

  “Please forgive me, you are Mr…?”

  “Doktor Bertmann.”

  “Also gut, Herr Doktor Bertmann, could you kindly tell the people who took part in the experiment with you your profession?”

  “Certainly, although I don’t see how it concerns you, in any case, I am the director of a chemical plant in Zurich.”

  “Thank you. Oh,… one more question, if you don’t mind, then I will tell you what happened. Do you remember the name of the Dame aux Camélias?”

  “The dame of what? How dare you, are you making fun of me?”

  “No, certainly not. Now I will tell you what happened.”

  Ascona – January 30th 1930

  “He is a charlatan, I always said so!”

  “No father, you tell him Thérèse…”

  “No, I don’t believe it! Those people could make the walls speak. Perhaps he is a ventriloquist; perhaps he and the fat chap were in cahoots: what do you know?”

  “But, Monsieur Siro…”

  “No Thérèse, don’t call me Monsieur Siro in that tone of voice… I beg you! You could make me believe anything you want,” interrupted Siro laughing.

  “Anyway, when that man makes me hear things that only I know, perhaps then I will believe him! Listen to me; everyone knows that the lady of the camellias really existed and that her name was Marie Duplessis. Then, as far as the fact that she died of a cough, that is of tuberculosis… well that is common knowledge!”

  “In any case, it was astonishing,” said Carlo calmly.

  “Another thing,” said Siro. I was present at the inauguration of the Chaumet workshops in place Vendôme: it was nineteen o three or four… if I remember correctly.”

  “Well, what about it?” asked Carlo.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that Marie Duplessis had been dead for about fifty years by that time,” answered Siro placidly.

  “Ah!” said Carlo.

  Ascona – January 31st 1930

  “You made fun of us all! What idiots we were!”

  Carlo was furious with the professor, who on the other hand was sitting in an armchair in the garden of the Hôtel Verità, watching him with an amused expression.

  “My experiment was a success!”

  “A success! Nonsense!” retorted Carlo, “you were accomplices!”

  “I admit that,” said the professor, but that was not the experiment. The experiment was the first one and I told you all so. The people want excitement: they all went away happy and satisfied.

  They listened to my conference, they paid for that and then they took part in a free performance, I repeat ‘free’, for which I did not charge even one franc, but which quite satisfied them.

  “Hmm,” said Carlo.

  “The experiment, or rather the experiments were absolutely satisfactory, believe me. I repeat, satisfactory.”

  “What experiment are you talking about?” asked Carlo.

  “Steady on, don’t get upset,” said Thérèse.

  “It is necessary to look beyond things to understand,” continued the professor. “The first experiment was successful because I tested two facts. First: the presence of too many people disperses the energy; secondly, objects alone have no power.

  The second experiment was more banal: I showed that people will believe anything, it is sufficient to present it well. They all fall for it, even the most intelligent people… like you, for example.”

  Carlo continued to huff, but now he was listening carefully.

  “What is more, I had an incredible stroke of luck with that flash of lightening: for a moment I almost believed it myself,” concluded the professor laughing.

  Then he fell silent and suddenly became serious.

  “I said that objects alone have no power, and that is true. But objects combined with people can be very powerful.”

  No, no, please, do not look at me like that. It is not a new trick. Your father is right; only believe when you are told things that only you know to be true. This could be one of them.

  Yesterday, when I was given the coin, I had a vision. It lasted only a moment, I saw a house burning with two people inside it; they were dead. One of them was the maker of the coin. I believe that he was a distant relative of yours.”

  “But… but… how…?”

  “Is this true? Is it true?” asked Thérèse agitatedly.

  “I don’t know why this happened to me, but that is precisely what I saw,” the professor lowered his head and spoke in a very low voice, shaking his head.

  “For years. For years, every night, I have dreamed of that burning house. It is a dream that terrifies me and I have always wondered what it meant. Yesterday, I discovered what it represented and I understood why I was magnetically attracted to that coin. Now I must understand. I must understand, why me? I must understand what I have to do with all this.”

  “We could… perhaps… we could insist… that is, keep trying,” suggested Thérèse.

  “No, no, it is better not. I must think. I will contact you when I am ready. You will help me again, won’t you?”

  Carlo grasped Thérèse’ hand, nodding.

  “Of course. Of course, without a doubt.”

  Paris – April 1930

  After the exciting days spent in Ascona at the end of January, life returned to normal and Thérèse was back in Paris, where every two or three weeks Carlo joined her at the office in rue de Richer; either to check that the new company was running properly, or to purchase new items at the auctions, but also simply to see her again.

  Not that anything special had happened in their relationship, which although it had lost the rigid formality of the early days and given way to more friendly attitudes, had not yet taken the turn that Carlo’s father was hoping for.

  Thérèse was still living with Madame Antonelli, with whom she had an almost familial relationship. Carlo now used Hôtel Bristol, instead of the more expensive Millennium, keeping the same room available each time he stayed in the city.

  He often invited Thérèse to dinner in the hope that she would offer him a chance to start a more intimate and personal conversation, but she was simply cordial and friendly, maintaining the minimal distance that prevented him from going further.

  On the evening of April twenty-fourth, a Thursday, Carlo invited Thérèse to a dinner at a restaurant in Montparnasse. A quiet place, very different from the glitter and lights of the better-known cafés.

  They were talking about work matters, the coming auctions and what it would be advisable to purchase when suddenly Carlo came out with a question that was almost surreal in that context.

  “Thérèse, would you marry me?”

  She looked up in amazement; she had not been expecting this. She gave a small smile, put her head on one side, took Carlo’s hand and answered, “I can’t my d
ear. I have not divorced and Jean-Luc, my husband, has never accepted the fact that I disappeared. When he comes out of prison in two years’ time, he will come looking for me and I am afraid that he will find me. Jean-Luc is a violent man, he is dangerous.”

  “We could move to Locarno, we can employ a person in Paris, he will never find you.”

  “You don’t know him. I don’t want to ruin your life.”

  Carlo tried to reason with her, but he realised that it was useless. He would have to find another solution. He took her home and they agreed to meet the next day at the office.

  Carlo could not stop thinking about the matter; he had to act. He looked at his watch, nine o’clock, much too late; still, with the job his friend did, it was worth trying. The phone rang for a long time.

  “Le Figaro, editorial offices, who is calling?”

  “Could I speak to Michel Guardià, please?”

  He heard a shout as the voice called “Michel, someone wants you.”

  He could hear the click of Michel’s steps as he crossed the office through the receiver.

  “Who is it?” he asked brusquely.

  “Hi Michel, this is Carlo Fantone.”

  “Why, no! You old lady-killer, what are you doing in Paris? I haven’t heard from you for ages.”

  “Listen, I need to speak to you about an urgent matter, come down and we’ll have a beer. I’m in the bistrot in front of your offices.

  All right, but give me a few minutes, I have to finish a piece. You are at Chez Louise, right? I’ll see you there around ten.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” said Carlo.

  Michel arrived at a quarter to ten, with his usual rumpled look of someone pulled through a hedge backwards.

  “So, after three years you just pop up like that! What happened to you?”

  They gave each other a firm shake of the hand and then a bear hug peppered with words in a mixture of Lombard, Calabrian and Occitan dialect.

  Carlo had met Michele, who later became Michel, in Milano when they were studying law. Then Michele, bored with his studies, had emigrated to France and begun writing for Le Figaro on Italian politics. A long journey for one who had left a small town in Calabria, Guardia Piemontese: a strange place on the slopes of the Sila mountain plateau, where some people still spoke a language taken there in the twelfth century by the Waldensians who had fled there to escape religious persecution.