UMBERTO ECO : THE PRAGUE CEMETERY (61 page)

Rachkovsky has returned. He said he still needed me. I was annoyed. "You're not keeping to the agreement," I said. "I thought our score was settled. I gave you material never before seen, and you have kept quiet about the sewer. Indeed, it is I who am still owed something. You don't imagine such valuable material was free."

"It is you who's not keeping to the agreement," the Russian said. "The documents paid for my silence. Now you want money as well. Fine then, I won't argue, the money will pay for the documents. So you still owe me something for my silence over the sewer. But I don't think we should start haggling, Simonini. It is not worth your while. I told you it's essential for France that the
bordereau
is regarded as genuine. But not for Russia. I could easily hand you over to the press. You'd spend the rest of your life in the law courts. Ah, I forgot. Just to get things clear about your past, I spoke to Father Bergamaschi and to Monsieur Hébuterne. They told me you'd introduced them to an Abbé Dalla Piccola, who had been involved in the Taxil affair. I tried to find him. It seems he's vanished into thin air, along with everyone else who had been living in a house in Auteuil — except for Taxil himself, who's wandering around Paris. He too is trying to find this missing clergyman. I could implicate you in his murder."

"There's no body."

"There are four of them downstairs. Whoever put four bodies into a sewer could well have disposed of another one somewhere else."

I was in the hands of that wretch. "Very well," I said, "what do you want?"

"There's one passage in the material you gave Golovinsky that I found fascinating: the plan to use the metropolitan railway to wreak havoc in the great cities. But for the argument to be believed, we need a few bombs to actually go offdown there."

"Where? London? There's no metropolitan railway here yet."

"They've started digging. There are excavations already along the Seine. You don't have to blow up the whole of Paris. All I need is for two or three support beams to collapse, and if it demolishes a piece of the road, so much the better. A small explosion, but something that looks like a threat — and a confirmation."

"I understand. But where do I come in?"

"You have already worked with explosives, and I understand you know a few handy experts. You have to look at things the right way. I'm sure everything will go offwithout incident — these first excavations are not guarded at night. But let us suppose, for some unfortunate reason, that the bomber is discovered. If he's a Frenchman, he risks a few years in prison, but if he's a Russian, it would start offa Franco-Russian war. It cannot be one of my men."

I was about to become angry. I couldn't be involved in something as crazy as this. I'm a man of peace, a man of a certain age. Then I stopped myself. What had been causing that emptiness I had been feeling for weeks, other than a sense of no longer being a protagonist?

By accepting this assignment I would be back in the front line. I would be helping to bring credit to my Prague cemetery, making it more probable and therefore more real than it had ever been. Once again, alone, I was defeating an entire race.

"I have to talk to the right person," I replied. "I'll let you know in a few days."

I went to search out Gaviali. He still works as a rag-and-bone man, but thanks to my help, his papers are in order and he has some money set aside. Unfortunately, though, in less than five years he has aged badly— Cayenne leaves its mark. His hands shake and he struggles to lifthis glass, which I generously fill several times. He has difficulty moving around, can hardly bend down, and I wonder how he manages to collect his rags.

He greets my proposal with enthusiasm: "It's no longer like it used to be, when you couldn't use some explosives because they didn't give you the time to get away. Now everything's done with a good time bomb."

"How does it work?"

"Simple. You take any kind of alarm clock and set it to the time you want. When it reaches that hour, the alarm goes off, and instead of activating the bell, if you connect it properly, it activates a detonator. The detonator sets off the charge, and bang. By then, you're ten miles away."

The following day he came to see me, bringing a gadget of terrifying simplicity. How could that tiny jumble of wires and that alarm clock, the size of a parish priest's turnip, possibly cause an explosion? And yet it does, Gaviali proudly assured me.

Two days later I went to explore the excavations, and with an air of idle curiosity I asked the workmen various questions. I found one point where you could easily climb down from the road to the level immediately below, to the entrance of a tunnel supported by beams. I don't need to know where the tunnel leads, or even whether it goes anywhere. All I'd have to do is place the bomb at the entrance, and that would be that.

I had to be blunt with Gaviali: "I have great respect for your expertise, but your hands shake and your legs can barely support you. You'd never manage to get down to the tunnel, and who knows what you'd end up doing with those wires you tell me about."

His eyes became tearful. "It's true, I'm finished."

"Who could do the job for you?"

"I don't know anyone. All my companions, don't forget, are still in Cayenne. You sent them there. The responsibility for that is yours. You want to explode the bomb? You'll have to do it yourself."

"Nonsense, I'm not an expert."

"You don't have to be an expert once you've been taught by an expert. Just look at these things I've put on the table. This is all you need to make a good time bomb. Any kind of alarm clock, like this, provided you understand the mechanism inside that sets the alarm offat the right time. Then a battery that, when activated by the alarm, activates the detonator. I'm old-fashioned, so I would use a Daniell cell. In this type of battery, unlike the voltaic battery, the elements inside are mainly liquid. Half of a small container is filled with copper sulfate and the other half with zinc sulfate. A small copper plate is put into the copper solution and a zinc plate into the zinc. The ends of the two plates form the two poles of the battery. You understand?"

"So far, yes."

 

I don't need to know where the tunnel leads, or even whether it goes anywhere. All I'd have to do is place the bomb at the entrance, and that would be that.

"Good. The only problem is that with a Daniell cell you have to be very careful in moving it, but until it's connected to the detonator and to the explosive, whatever happens, there's no problem. When it's connected up it'll be on a flat surface, I hope — otherwise the operator's an idiot. For the detonator, any kind of small charge is sufficient. Finally we come to the charge itself. In the old days, you remember, I used to recommend black gunpowder. But ten years ago they invented ballistite — ten percent camphor and equal parts nitroglycerine and collodion. There was a problem at first with the camphor, which easily evaporates, making the product unstable. But after the Italians began producing it at Avigliana, it seems to be reliable. Or I could decide to use cordite, invented by the English, where fifty percent of the camphor has been replaced by Vaseline, and for the rest they've taken fifty-eight percent nitroglycerine and thirty-seven guncotton, dissolved in acetone, then extruded it so it looks like thick spaghetti. I'll decide what's best, but there's not much difference. So the first thing to do is set the hands of the clock to the correct time, then connect the clock to the battery, and this to the detonator, and the detonator to the charge, then activate the alarm. Remember, never reverse the order of the operations — if you connect first, then activate the alarm, and then turn the hands of the clock . . . bang! You understand? Then you go home, or to the theater, or to a restaurant — the bomb goes off by itself. Understand, Captain?"

"I understand."

"I wouldn't go so far as saying that a child could do it, but one of Garibaldi's old captains surely can. You have a firm hand and a clear eye. Just carry out those small operations as I've told you. All you have to do is follow the right order."

I agreed. If I succeed, it will knock years offme, and I'll come back ready to trample underfoot all the Mordechais of this world. And that whore in the Turin ghetto.
Gagnu
, eh? I'll take care of you.

I need to get rid of the smell of Diana in heat, which has been following me through the summer nights for a year and a half. I realize the whole purpose of my life has been to bring down that accursed race. Rachkovsky is right: hatred alone warms the heart.

I must complete my task in full regalia. I have put on my dress coat and the beard I wore for evenings at Juliette Adam's. Almost by chance, I discovered at the bottom of a cupboard a small supply of the Parke & Davis cocaine I had obtained for Doctor Froïde. Who knows how it came to be there? I've never tried it before, but if the doctor is right, it ought to give me a boost. I've also had three small shots of cognac. And I'm feeling as strong as a lion.

Gaviali wants to come with me, but I'm not going to let him — he's too slow, he'd get in my way.

I understand perfectly well how it all works. This bomb is going to cause one hell of a stir.

Gaviali's giving me the final instructions: "Watch out here, watch out there."

For heaven's sake, I'm not yet a decrepit old fool.

USELESS LEARNED EXPLANATIONS

The only fictitious character in this story is the protagonist, Simone Simonini. His grandfather, Captain Simonini, is not invented, even if he is known to history only as the mysterious writer of a letter to Abbé Barruel.

All the others (except for a few incidental minor characters such as Notaio Rebaudengo and Ninuzzo) actually existed, and said and did what they are described as saying and doing in this novel. That is true not only of those characters who appear under their real names (and, though many might find this improbable, even a character like Léo Taxil actually existed), but also of figures who appear under a fictitious name, where for narrative economy I have made a single (invented) character say and do what was in fact said and done by two (historically real) characters.

But on reflection, even Simone Simonini, although in effect a collage, a character to whom events have been attributed that were actually done by others, did in some sense exist. Indeed, to be frank, he is still among us.

The Narrator is aware that, in the fairly chaotic plot sequence of the diaries reproduced here (moving back and forth, using what cineastes call flashbacks), the reader might have difficulty in following the linear progression of events, from Simonini's birth to the end of his diaries. It is the fatal imbalance between
story
and
plot
, or even worse, as the Russian formalists (all Jewish) used to say, between
fabula
and
sjužet
. The Narrator, to be honest, has often found it difficult finding his own way around, but feels a competent reader need not become lost in the detail and should enjoy the story just the same. However, for the benefit of the overly meticulous reader, or one who is not so quick on the uptake, here is a table that sets out the relationship between the two levels (common, in truth, to every, what they used to call "well-made," novel).