Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum (59 page)

"Don't tell me that for
each letter of each word you tried all twenty-one
systems...."

"I had brains on my
side, and luck. Since the shortest words have six letters, it's
obvious that only the first six are important and the rest are just
for looks. Why six letters? Suppose Ingolf coded the first letter,
then skipped one, then coded the third, then skipped two and coded
the sixth. For the first letter I used wheel number 1, for the
third letter I used wheel number 2, and got a sentence. Then I
tried wheel number 3 for the sixth letter, and got a sentence
again. I'm not saying Ingolf didn't use other letters, too, but
three positive results are enough for me. If you want to, you can
take it further."

"Don't keep me in
suspense. What came out?"

"Look at the message
again. I've underlined the letters that count.

[...]

Kuabris Defrabax Rexulon
Ukkazaal Ukzaab Urpaefel Taculbain Habrak Hacoruin Maquafel Tebrain
Hmcatuin Rokcasor Himesor Argaabil Kaquaan Docrabax Reisaz
Reisabrax Decaquan Oiquaqun Zaitabor Qaxaop Dugraq Xaelobran
Disaeda Magisuan Raitak Huidal Uscolda Arabaom Zipreus Mecrim
Cosmae Duquifas Rocarbis.

"Now, we know what the
first message is: it's the one about the thirty-six invisibles. Now
listen to what comes out if you substitute the third letters, using
the second wheel: chambre des demoiselles, 1'aiguille
creuse."

"But I know that,
it's¡X"

" ¡¥En aval
d'Etretat¡XLa Chambre des Demoiselles¡XSous le Fort du
Frefosse¡XAiguille Creuse,' the message deciphered by Arsene Lupin
when he discovers the secret of the Hollow Peak! You remember: at
Etretat, at the edge of the beach, stands the Aiguille Creuse, a
natural castle, habitable inside, the secret weapon of Julius
Caesar when he invaded Gaul, and later used by the kings of France.
The source of Lupin's immense power. And you know how Lupinologists
are crazy about this story; they make pilgrimages to Etretat, they
look for secret passages, they make anagrams of every word of
Leblanc... Ingolf was no less a Lupinologist than he was a
Rosicrucianologist, and so code after code...."

"My Diabolicals could
always argue that the Templars knew the secret of the peak, and
therefore the message was written in Provins in the fourteenth
century...."

"Of course; I realize
that. But now comes the third message. Third wheel applied to the
sixth letter of each word. Listen: ¡¥Merde j'en ai marre de cette
steganographie.' And this is modern French; the Templars didn't
talk like that. ¡¥Shit, I'm sick of this hermetic writing.' That's
how Ingolf talked, and having given Tiimself a headache coding all
this nonsense, he got a final kick cursing in code what he was
doing. But he was not without shrewdness. Notice that each of these
three messages has thirty-six letters. Poor Pow, Ingolf was having
fun, just like the three of you, and that imbecile colonel took him
seriously."

"Then why did Ingolf
disappear? "

"Who says he was
murdered? Ingolf got fed up living in Aux-erre, seeing nobody but
the pharmacist and a spinster daughter who whined all day. So maybe
he went to Paris, pulled off a good deal selling one of his old
books, found himself a buxom and willing widow, and started a new
life. Like those men who go out to buy cigarettes, and the wives
never see them again."

"And the
colonel?"

"Didn't you tell me that
not even that detective is sure they killed him? He got into some
jam, his victims tracked him down, and he took to his heels. Maybe
at this very moment he's selling the Eiffel Tower to an American
tourist and going under the name Dupont."

I couldn't give in all
along the line. "All right, we started out with a laundry list. Yet
we were clever enough, inventive enough, to turn a laundry list
into poetry."

"Your plan isn't poetic;
it's grotesque. People don't get the idea of going back to burn
Troy just because they read Homer. With Homer, the burning of Troy
became something that it never was and never will be, and yet the
Iliad endures, full of meaning, because it's all clear, limpid.
Your Rosicrucian manifestoes are neither clear nor limpid; they're
mud, hot air, and promises. This is why so many people have tried
to make them come true, each finding in them what he wants to find.
In Homer there's no secret, but your plan is full of secrets, full
of contradictions. For that reason you could find thousands of
insecure people ready to identify with it. Throw the whole thing
out. Homer wasn't faking, but you three have been faking. Beware of
faking: people will believe you. People believe those who sell
lotions that make lost hair grow back. They sense instinctively
that the salesman is putting together truths that don't go
together, that he's not being logical, that he's not speaking in
good faith. But they've been told that God is mysterious,
unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to God.
The farfetched is the closest thing to a miracle. You've invented
hair oil. I don't like it. It's a nasty joke."

This disagreement didn't
spoil our weeks in the mountains. I took long walks, read serious
books, became closer to the child than I'd ever been. But between
me and Lia there was something left unsaid. On the one hand, she
had put me in a tight corner, and was sorry to have humiliated me;
on the other, she wasn't convinced that she had convinced
me.

Indeed, I felt a pull to
the Plan. I didn't want to abandon it, I had lived with it too
long.

A few days ago I got up
early to catch the one train for Milan, and in Milan I received
Belbo's call from Paris, and I began this story, which for me is
not yet finished.

Lia was right. We should
have talked about it earlier. But I wouldn't have believed her, all
the same. I had experienced the creation of the Plan like the
movement of Tiferet, the heart of the sefirotic body, the harmony
of Rule and Freedom. Diotallevi had told me that Moses Cordovero
warned: "He who because of his Torah becomes proud over the
ignorant, that is, over the whole people of Yahweh, leads Tiferet
to grow proud over Mal-khut." But what Malkhut is, the kingdom of
this earth, in its dazzling simplicity, is something I understand
only now¡Xin time to grasp the truth; perhaps too late to survive
the truth.

Lia, I don't know if I
will see you again. If not, the last image I have of you is
half-asleep, under the blankets, a few days ago. I kissed you that
morning, and hesitated before I left.

Dost thou see yon black
dog, ranging through shoot and stubble? Meseems he softly coileth
magic meshes, To be a sometime fetter round our feet... The circle
narrows, now he's near!

¡XFaust, ii, Without the
City-Gate

What had happened during
my absence, particularly in the days just before my return, I could
deduce from Belbo's files. But only one file, the last, was clear,
containing ordered information; he had probably written it before
leaving for Paris, so that I, or someone else, could read it. The
other files, written for himself alone, as usual, were not easy to
interpret. But having entered the private universe of his
confidences to Abulafia, I was able to draw something from
them.

It was early June. Belbo
was upset. The doctors had finally accepted the idea that he and
Gudrun were Diotallevi's only relatives, and they talked. When the
printers and proofreaders inquired about Diotallevi, Gudrun now
answered with pursed lips, uttering a bisyllable in such a way that
no vowel escaped. Thus the taboo illness was named.

Gudrun went to see
Diotallevi every day. She must have disturbed him with those eyes
of hers, glistening with pity. He knew, but was embarrassed that
others knew. He spoke with difficulty. (Belbo wrote: "The face is
all cheekbones.") He was losing his hair, but that was from the
therapy. (Belbo wrote: "The hands are all fingers.")

In the course of one of
their painful dialogs, Diotallevi gave Belbo a hint of what he
would say to him on the last day: that identifying oneself with the
Plan was bad, that it might be evil. Even before this, perhaps to
make the Plan objective and reduce it again to its purely fictional
dimension, Belbo had written it down, word for word, as if it were
the colonel's memoirs. He narrated it like an initiate
communicating the final secret. This, I believe, was to be a cure:
he was returning to literature, however second-rate, to that which
was not life.

But on June 10,
something bad must have happened. The notes are confused; all I
have is conjectures.

Lorenza asked him to
drive her to the Riviera, where she had to see a girlfriend and
collect something or other, a document, a notarized deed, some
nonsense that could just as well have been sent by mail. Belbo
agreed, dazzled by the idea of spending a Sunday at the sea with
her.

They went to the
place¡XI haven't been able to figure out exactly where, perhaps
near Portofino. Belbo's description was all emotion, tensions,
dejections, moods; it contained no landscapes. Lorenza did her
errand while Belbo waited in a cafe. Then she said they could go
and eat fish in a place on a bluff high above the sea.

After this, the story
becomes fragmentary. There are snatches of dialog without quotation
marks, as if transcribed at white heat lest a series of epiphanies
fade. They drove as far as they could, then continued on foot,
taking those toilsome Ligurian paths along the coast, surrounded by
flowers, to the restaurant. When they were seated, they saw, on the
table next to theirs, a card reserving it for Conte
Aglie.

What a coincidence,
Belbo must have said. A nasty coincidence, Lorenza replied; she
didn't want Aglifc to know she was there, and with Belbo. Why not,
what was wrong with that? What gave Aglie the right to be jealous?
Right? No, it was a matter of taste; Aglie had invited her out
today and she'd told him she was busy. Belbo didn't want her to
look like a liar, did he? She wouldn't look like a liar; she was in
fact busy, she had a date with Belbo. Was that something to be
ashamed of? Not ashamed of, but she had her own rules of tact, if
Belbo didn't mind.

They left the
restaurant, started back up the path, but Lorenza suddenly stopped;
she saw some people arriving. Belbo didn't know them. Friends of
Aglie, she said, and she didn't want them to see her. A humiliating
situation: she leaned against the railing of a little bridge over a
ravine full of olive trees, a newspaper in front of her face, as if
she were consumed by a sudden interest in current events. Belbo
stood ten paces away, smoking, as if he were just passing
by.

A friend of Aglie walked
past. Lorenza said that if they continued along the path, they were
bound to run into Aglie himself. To hell with this, Belbo said. So
what? Lorenza said he was insensitive. The solution: Get to the car
without taking the path, cut across the slopes. A breathless flight
over a series of sunbaked terraces, and Belbo lost the heel of a
shoe. Lorenza said, You see how much more beautiful it is this way?
Of course you're out of breath; you shouldn't smoke so
much.

They reached the car,
and Belbo said they might as well go back to Milan. No, Lorenza
said, Aglie might be late, we might meet him on the highway, and he
knows your car. It's such a lovely day, let's cut through the
interior. It must be charming, and we'll get to the Autostrada del
Sole and have supper along the Po somewhere, near Pavia.

Why there, and what do
you mean, cut through the interior? There's only one solution; look
at the map. We'd have to climb into the mountains after Uscio, then
cross the Apennines, stop at Bobbio, and from there go on to
Piacenza. You're crazy! Worse than Hannibal and the elephants. You
have no sense of adventure, she said, and anyway, think of all the
charming little restaurants we'll find in those hills. Before Uscio
there's Manuelina's, which has at least twelve stars in the
Michelin and all the fish you could want.

Manuelina's was full,
with a line of customers eyeing the tables where coffee was being
served. Never mind, Lorenza said, a few kilometers higher we'll
find a hundred places better than this. They found a restaurant at
two-thirty, in a wretched village that, according to Belbo, even
the army maps were ashamed to record, and they ate overcooked pasta
with a sauce made of canned meat. Belbo asked Lorenza what was
behind all this, because it was no accident that she had made him
take her to the very place where Aglie would be: she wanted to
provoke someone, either Aglie or him, but he couldn't figure out
which of the two it was. She asked him if he was
paranoid.

After Uscio they tried a
mountain pass and, as they were going through a village that looked
like Sunday afternoon in Sicily during the reign of the Bourbons, a
big black dog came to a stop in the middle of the road, as if it
had never seen an automobile before. Belbo hit it. The impact did
not seem great, but as soon as they got out, they saw that the poor
animal's belly was red with blood, and some strange pink things
(intestines?) were sticking out, and the dog was whimpering and
drooling. Some villeins gathered, and soon it was like a town
meeting. Belbo asked who the dog's owner was, he would pay. The dog
had no owner. The dog represented perhaps ten percent of the
population of that Godforsaken place, but they knew it only by
sight. Some said they should fetch the carabiniere sergeant, who
would fire a shot, and that would be that.

As they were looking for
the sergeant, a lady arrived, declaring herself an animal lover. I
have six cats, she said. This is a dog, not a cat, Belbo said, and
he's dying, and I'm in a hurry. Cat or dog, you should have a
heart, the lady said. No sergeant. Somebody must be brought from
the SPCA, or from the hospital in-the next town. Maybe the animal
can be saved.

The sun was beating down
on Belbo, on Lorenza, on the car, on the dog, and on the
bystanders; it seemed to have no intention of setting. BeJbo felt
as if he were in his pajamas but unable to wake up; the lady was
implacable, the sergeant couldn't be found, the dog went on
bleeding and panting and making weak noises. He's whimpering, Belbo
said, and then, with Eliotlike detachment: He's ending with a
whimper. Of course he's whimpering, the lady said; he's suffering,
poor darling, and why couldn't you look where you were
going?

The village underwent a
demographic boom; Belbo, Lorenza, and the dog had become the
entertainment of that gloomy Sunday. A little girl with an
ice-cream cone came over and asked if they were the people from the
TV who were organizing the Miss Ligurian Apennine contest. Belbo
told her to beat it or he'd do to her what he did to the dog. The
girl started crying. The local doctor arrived, said the girl was
his daughter, and Belbo didn't realize to whom he was talking. In a
rapid exchange of apologies and introductions, it transpired that
the physician had published a Diary of a Village Doctor with the
famous Manutius Press in Milan. Belbo incautiously said that he was
magna pars of that press. The doctor insisted that he and Lorenza
stay for supper. Lorenza fumed, nudged Belbo: Now we'll end up in
the papers, the diabolical lovers. Couldn't you keep your mouth
shut?

The sun still beat down
as the church bell rang compline. We're in Ultima Thule, Belbo
muttered through clenched teeth: sun six months of the year, from
midnight to midnight, and I ¡¥m out of cigarettes. The dog confined
itself to suffering, and nobody paid it any further attention.
Lorenza said she was having an asthma attack. Belbo was sure by now
that the cosmos was a practical joke of the Demiurge. Finally it
occurred to him that they could take the car and look for help in
the nearest town. The animal-loving lady agreed: they should go,
they should hurry, she trusted a gentleman from a publishing house
that published poetry, she herself was a great admirer of Khalil
Gibran.

Belbo drove off and,
when they reached the nearest town, cynically drove through it, as
Lorenza cursed all the animals with which the Lord had befouled the
earth from the first through the fifth day. Belbo agreed, and went
so far as to curse the work of the sixth day, too, and perhaps also
the rest on the seventh, because this was the most ill-starred
Sunday he had ever lived through.

They began to cross the
Apennines. On the map it looked easy, but it took them hours. They
didn't stop at Bobbio, and toward evening they arrived at Piacenza.
Belbo was tired, but at least he could have supper with Lorenza. He
took a double room in the only available hotel, near the station.
When they went upstairs, Lorenza said she wouldn't sleep in such a
place. Belbo said they'd look for something else, if she would just
give him time to go down to the bar and have a martini. He found
nothing but cognac, domestic. When he went back up to the room,
Lorenza wasn't there. At the front desk he found a message:
"Darling, I've discovered a marvelous train for Milan. I'm leaving.
See you next week."

Belbo rushed to the
station: the track was empty. Just like a Western.

He had to spend the
night in Piacenza. He looked for a paperback thriller, but the
station newsstand was closed. All he could find in the hotel was a
Touring Club magazine.

It had an article on
Apennine passes like the one he had just crossed. In his
memory¡Xfaded, as if the day's events had happened long ago¡Xthey
were arid, sun-baked, dusty, scattered with mineral flotsam. But on
the glossy pages of the magazine they were dream country, to return
to even on foot, to be savored step by step. The Samoas of Seven
Seas Jim.

How can a man rush to
his own destruction simply because he runs over a dog? Yet that's
how it was. That night in Piacenza, Belbo decided to withdraw once
more into the Plan, where he would suffer no more defeats, because
there he was the one who decided who, how, and when.

That must also have been
the night he decided to avenge himself on Aglie,,even if he didn't
have a clear reason. He would put him into the Plan without Aglie's
knowing. It was typical of Belbo to seek revenges of which he would
be the only witness. Not out of modesty, but because he distrusted
the ability of others to appreciate them. Slipped into the Plan,
Aglie would be annulled, would dissolve in smoke like the wick of a
candle. Unreal as the Templars of Provins, the Rosicrucians: as
unreal as Belbo himself.

It shouldn't be
difficult, Belbo thought. We've cut Bacon and Napoleon down to
size: why not Aglie? We'll send him out looking for the map, too. I
freed myself of Ardenti and his memory by putting him into a
fiction better than his own. The same will happen with
Aglie.

I believe he really
believed this; such is the power of frustrated desire. The file
ended¡Xit could not have been otherwise¡Xwith the quotation
required of all those whom life has defeated: Bin ich ein
Gott?