Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum (60 page)

What is the hidden
influence behind the press, behind all the subversive movements
going on around us? Are there several Powers at work? Or is there
one Power, one invisible group directing all the rest¡Xthe circle
of the real Initiates!

¡XNesta Webster, Secret
Societies and Subversive Movements, London, Boswell, 1924,
p.348

Maybe he would have
forgotten his decision. Maybe it would have been enough for him
just to write it. Maybe, if he had seen Lorenza again at once, he
would have been caught up by desire, and desire would have forced
him to come to terms with life. But, instead, that Monday
afternoon, Aglie appeared in his office, wafting exotic cologne,
smiling as he handed over some manuscripts to be rejected, saying
he had read them during a splendid weekend at the seashore. Belbo,
seized once more by rancor, decided to taunt Aglie¡Xby giving him a
glimpse of the magic bloodstone.

Assuming the manner of
Boccaccio's Buifamalcco, he said that for more than ten years he
had been burdened by an occult secret. A manuscript, entrusted to
him by a certain Colonel Ar-denti, who claimed to be in possession
of the Plan of the Templars... The colonel had been abducted or
killed, and his papers had been taken. Garamond Press had been left
with a red-herring text, deliberately erroneous, fantastic, even
puerile, whose sole purpose was to let others know that .the
colonel had seen the Provins message and Ingolf's final notes, the
notes In-golf's murderers were still looking for. But there was
also a very slim file, containing ten pages only, but those ten
pages were the authentic text, the one really found among Ingolf's
papers. They had remained in Belbo's hands.

What a curious
story¡Xthis was Aglie's reaction¡Xdo tell me more. Belbo told him
more. He told him the whole Plan, just as we had conceived it, as
if it were all contained in that remote manuscript. He even told
him, in an increasingly cautious and confidential tone, that there
was also a policeman, by the name of De Angelis, who had arrived at
the brink of the truth but had come up against the hermetic¡Xno
other way to describe it¡X silence of Belbo himself, keeper of
mankind's greatest secret: a secret that boiled down to the secret
of the Map.

Here he paused, in a
silence charged with unspoken meaning, like all great pauses. His
reticence about the final truth guaranteed the truth of its
premises. For those who really believed in a secret tradition, he
calculated, nothing was louder than silence.

"How interesting, how
extremely interesting!" Aglie said, taking the snuffbox from his
vest, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. "And... and the
map?"

Belbo thought: You old
voyeur, you're getting aroused; serves you right. With all your
Saint-Germain airs, you're just another petty charlatan living off
the shell game, and then you buy the Brooklyn Bridge from the first
charlatan who's a bigger charlatan than you are. Now I'll send you
on a wild-goose chase looking for maps, so you'll vanish into the
bowels of the earth, carried away by the telluric currents, until
you crack your head against the transoceanic monolith of some
Celtic valve.

And, very circumspectly,
he replied: "In the manuscript, of course, there was also the map,
or, rather, a precise description of the map, of the original. It's
surprising; you can't imagine how simple the solution is. The map
was within everyone's grasp, in full view; why, thousands of people
have passed it every day, for centuries. And the method of
orientation is so elementary that you just have to memorize the
pattern and the map can be reproduced on the spot, anywhere. So
simple and so unexpected... Imagine¡Xthis is just to give you an
idea¡Xit's as if the map were inscribed in the Pyramid of Cheops,
its elements displayed for everyone to see, and for centuries
people have read and reread and deciphered the pyramid, seeking
other allusions, other calculations, completely overlooking its
incredible, splendid simplicity. A masterpiece of innocence. And
fiendish cunning. The Templars of Provins were wizards."

"You pique my curiosity.
Would you allow me to see it?"

"I must confess I
destroyed everything: the ten pages, the map. I was frightened. You
understand, don't you?"

"You mean to tell me you
destroyed a document of such importance?..."

"I destroyed it. But, as
I said, the revelation was of an absolute simplicity. The map is
here," and Belbo touched his forehead. "For over ten years I've
carried it with me, for over ten years I've carried the secret
here," and he touched his forehead again, "like an obsession, for I
fear the power that would be mine if I put forth my hand and
grasped the heritage of the Thirty-six Invisibles. Now you realize
why I persuaded Garamond to publish Isis Unveiled and the History
of Magic. I'm waiting for the right contact." Then, more and more
carried away by the role he had taken on, and to put Aglie
definitively to the test, he recited, word for word, Arsene Lupin's
ardent speech at the conclusion of Z,''Aiguille Creuse: "There are
moments when my power makes my head swim. I am drunk with
dominion."

"Come now, dear friend,"
Aglie said. "What if you have given excessive credence to the
daydreams of some fanatic? Are you sure the text was authentic? Why
don't you trust my experience in these matters? If you only knew
how many revelations of this sort I've heard in my life, and how
many proved, with my help, to be unfounded. I can boast some
expertise at least¡X modest, perhaps, but precise¡Xin the field of
historical cartography. ¡¥¡¥

"Dr. Aglie," Belbo said,
"you would be the first to remind me that, once revealed, a mystic
secret is no longer of any use. I have been silent for years; I can
go on being silent."

And he was silent. Aglie
too, rogue or not, performed his role in earnest. He had spent his
life amusing himself with impenetrable secrets, so he was quite
convinced that Belbo's lips would be sealed forever.

At that point Gudrun
came in and told Belbo that the Bologna meeting had been set for
Wednesday at noon. "You can take the morning Intercity," she
said.

"Delightful train, the
Intercity," Aglie said. "But you should reserve a seat, especially
at this season."

Belbo said that even if
you boarded at the last moment, you could find something, perhaps
in the dining car, where they served breakfast. "I wish you luck,
then," Aglie said. "Bologna. Beautiful city, but so hot in
June..."

"I'll be there only two
or three hours. I have to discuss a text on ancient inscriptions.
There are problems with the illustrations." Then he fired his big
gun: "I haven't had my vacation yet. I'll take it around the summer
solstice. I may make up my mind to...You understand me. And I rely
on your discretion. I've spoken to you as a friend."

"I can keep silent even
better than you. In any case, I thank you, most sincerely, for your
trust." And Aglie left.

From this encounter
Belbo emerged confident: total victory of his astral narrative over
the wretchedness and shame of the sublunar world.

The next day, he
received a phone call from Aglie. "You must forgive me, dear
friend. I have encountered a small contretemps. You know that, in a
modest way, I deal in antique books. This evening I am to receive,
from Paris, a dozen bound volumes, eighteenth-century, of a certain
value, and I absolutely must deliver them to a correspondent of
mine in Florence tomorrow. I would take them myself, but another
engagement detains me here. I thought of this solution: you are
going to Bologna. I'll meet you at your train tomorrow, ten minutes
before you leave, and hand you a small suitcase. You put it on the
rack over your seat and leave it there when you arrive in Bologna.
You might wait and get off last, to be sure no one takes it. In
Florence, my correspondent will board the train while it's standing
in the station and collect the suitcase. It's a nuisance for you, I
know, but if you could render me this service, I'd be eternally
grateful."

"Gladly," Belbo replied.
"But how will your friend in Florence know where I've left the
suitcase?"

"I have taken the
liberty of reserving a seat for you, seat number 45, car 8. It's
reserved as far as Rome, so no one else will occupy it in Bologna
or in Florence. You see, in exchange for the inconvenience I'm
causing you, I make sure that you will travel comfortably and not
have to make do in the dining car. I didn't dare buy your ticket,
of course, not wanting you to think I meant to discharge my
indebtedness in such an indelicate fashion."

A real gentleman, Belbo
thought. He'll send me a case of rare wine. To drink his health.
Yesterday I wanted to dispatch him to the bowels of the earth and
now I'm doing him a favor. Anyway, I could hardly
refuse.

Wednesday morning, Belbo
went to the station early, bought his ticket to Bologna, and found
Aglie standing beside car 8 with the suitcase. It was fairly heavy
but not bulky.

Belbo put the suitcase
above seat number 45 and settled down with his bundle of
newspapers. The news of the day was Berlin-guer's funeral. A little
later, a bearded gentleman came and occupied the seat next to his.
Belbo thought he had seen the man before. (With hindsight, he
thought it might have been at the party in Piedmont, but he wasn't
sure.) When the train left, the compartment was full.

Belbo read his paper,
but the bearded passenger tried to strike up conversations with
everybody. He began with remarks about the heat, the inadequacy of
the air-conditioning, the fact that in June you never knew whether
to wear summer things or between-seasons clothing. He observed that
the best was a light blazer, just like Belbo's, and he asked if it
was English. Belbo said yes, it was English, from Burberry's, and
resumed his reading. "They're the best," the gentleman said, "but
yours is particularly nice, because it doesn't have those gold
buttons that are so ostentatious. And, if I may say so, it goes
very well with your maroon tie." Belbo thanked him and reopened his
paper. The gentleman went on talking with the others about the
difficulty of matching ties with jackets, and Belbo continued
reading. I know, he thought, they all think me rude, but I don't
take trains to establish human relationships. I have too much of
that as it is.

Then the gentleman said
to him, "What a lot of papers you read! And of every political
tendency. You must be a judge or a politician." Belbo replied that
he was neither, but worked for a publishing firm that specialized
in books on Arab metaphysics. He said this in the hope of
terrifying his adversary. And the man was obviously
terrified.

Then the conductor
arrived. He asked Belbo why he had a ticket for Bologna and a seat
reserved to Rome. Belbo said he had changed his mind at the last
moment. "How lucky you are," the bearded gentleman said, "to be
able to make such decisions, according to how the wind blows,
without having to count pennies. I envy you." Belbo smiled and
looked away. There, he said, now they all think I'm either a
spendthrift or a bank robber.

At Bologna, Belbo stood
up and prepared to get off. "Don't forget your suitcase," his
neighbor said.

"No. A friend will
collect it in Florence," Belbo said. "For that matter, I'd be
grateful if you'd keep an eye on it."

"I will," the bearded
gentleman said. "Rest assured."

Belbo returned to Milan
toward evening, shut himself in his apartment with two cans of meat
and some crackers, and turned on the TV. More Berlinguer,
naturally. The news item about the train appeared at the end,
almost as a footnote.

Late that morning on the
Intercity between Bologna and Florence, a bearded gentleman had
voiced suspicions after a passenger got off in Bologna leaving a
suitcase on the luggage rack. True, the passenger had said someone
would pick it up in Florence, but wasn't that what terrorists
always said? Furthermore, why had he reserved his seat to Rome when
he was getting off in Bologna?

A heavy uneasiness
spread among the other travelers in that compartment. Finally, the
bearded passenger said he couldn't bear the tension. It was better
to make a mistake than to die, and he alerted the chief conductor.
The chief conductor stopped the train and called the Railway
Police. The train was stopped in the mountains; the passengers
milled anxiously along the tracks; the bomb squad arrived... The
experts opened the suitcase and found a timer and explosive, set
for the hour of arrival in Florence. Enough to wipe out a few dozen
people.

The police were unable
to find the bearded gentleman. Perhaps he had changed cars and got
off in Florence because he didn't want to end up in the newspapers.
The police were appealing to him to get in touch with
them.

The other passengers
remembered, with unusual precision, the man who had left the
suitcase. He must have looked suspicious at first sight. He was
wearing a blue English jacket without gold buttons, a maroon
necktie; he was taciturn, and seemed to want to avoid attracting
attention at all costs. But he had let slip the information that he
worked for a paper, or a publisher, or for something having to do
(the witnesses' testimony varied) with physics, methane, or
metempsychosis¡Xbut Arabs were definitely involved.