The Club Dumas

I smiled. “That’s the rule: no names, no starring roles... As you can see, the matter is scholarly and slightly childish at the same time. A nostalgic literary game that rediscovers long-lost novels and returns us to our innocence, to how we used to be. As we mature, we admire Flaubert or prefer Stendhal, or Faulkner, Lampedusa, Garcia Marquez, Durrell, Kafka. We be­come different from each other, opponents even. But we all share a conspiratorial wink when we talk about certain magical authors and books. Those that made us discover literature with­out weighing us down with dogma or teaching us rules. This is our true common heritage: stories faithful not to what people see but to what people dream.”

I let the words hang and paused, awaiting their effect. But Corso just raised his glass to look at it against the light. His homeland was in there.

“That was before,” he answered. “Now neither children nor young people nor anyone has a spiritual heritage. They all watch TV.”

I shook my head. I had written something on this very subject for the literary supplement of the ABC newspaper a couple of weeks before. “I don’t agree. Even then they’re tread­ing, unknowingly, in old footsteps. Films on television, for in­stance, maintain the link. Those old movies. Even Indiana Jones is the direct descendant of all that.”

Corso grimaced in the direction of the French windows. “It’s possible. But you were telling me about these people. I’d like to know how you ... recruited them.”

“It’s no secret,” I answered. “I’ve been running this select society, the Club Dumas, for ten years now. It holds its annual meeting here in Meung. As you can see, the members arrive punctually from all corners of the globe. Every last one of them is a reader—”

“Of serials? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I don’t have the slightest intention of making you laugh, Corso. Why are you looking at me like that? You know yourself that a novel, or a film made for pure consumption, can turn into an exquisite work, from The Pickwick Papers to Casablanca and Goldfinger. Audiences turn to these archetype-packed sto­ries to enjoy, whether consciously or unconsciously, the device of repeated plots with small variations. Dispositio rather than elocutio... That’s why the serial, even the most trite television serial, can become a cult both for a naive audience and for a more sophisticated one. There are people who find excitement in Sherlock Holmes’s risking his life, while others go for the pipe, the magnifying glass, and the ‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ which, by the way, Conan Doyle never actually wrote. The plot devices, the variations and repetition, are so ancient that they’re mentioned in Aristotle’s Poetics. And what is a television serial if not an updated version of a classic tragedy, a great romantic drama, or a Dumas novel? That’s why an intelligent reader can obtain great enjoyment from all this, an exception to the rule. For exceptions to the rule are based on rules.”

I thought Corso would be interested in what I was saying, but he shook his head, a gladiator refusing to accept the chal­lenge offered by his opponent.

“Cut the literature lecture and get back to your Club Dumas, will you?” he said impatiently. “To that loose chapter that’s been floating around ... Where’s the rest?”

“In there,” I answered, looking at the salon. “I based the organization of the society on the sixty-seven chapters of the manuscript—a maximum of sixty-seven members, each having a chapter as a registered share. Allocation is strictly based on a list of applicants, and changes in membership require the approval of the executive board, which I chair. Each applicant is discussed in depth before his admission is approved.”

“How are shares transferred?”

“On no account are the shares transferred. If a member dies or wishes to leave the society, his chapter must be returned. The board then allocates it to another applicant. A member may never freely dispose of it.”

“Is that what Enrique Taillefer tried to do?”

“In a way. He was an ideal applicant, and a model member of the Club Dumas until he broke the rules.”

Corso finished his gin. He put the glass down on the mossy balustrade and said nothing for a moment, staring intently at the lights of the reception room. He shook his head.

“That’s no reason to murder someone,” he said quietly, as if to himself. “I can’t believe that all these people...” He looked at me stubbornly. “They’re all well known, respectable. They’d never get mixed up in something like this.”