The Club Dumas

“Have you never been curious about these things?” Borja went on, not hearing, peering out from shadowed eyes. “To investigate, for instance, the devil-serpent-dragon constant which has reappeared suspiciously in all the texts on the subject since antiquity.”

He picked up a glass object next to the circle, a goblet with handles in the shape of two linked serpents, and he raised it to his mouth and took a few sips. It held a dark liquid, Corso noticed, almost black, like very strong tea.

“Serpens aut draco qui caudam devoravit.” Varo Borja smiled into empty space, wiping his mouth. The drink left a dark smear on the back of his hand and his left cheek. “They guard the treasures: the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, the apples of the Hesperides, the golden fleece...” As he talked, he looked absent, insane, a man describing a dream from the inside. “They’re the serpents or dragons that the ancient Egyp­tians painted in a circle, with their tail in their mouth to indicate that they came from a single thing and were self-sufficient. Sleepless guardians, proud and wise. Hermetic drag­ons that kill the unworthy and allow themselves to be seduced only by one who has fought according to the rules. Guardians of the lost word: the magic formula that opens eyes and makes one the equal of God.”

Corso stuck out his jaw. He was standing, still and thin in his coat. The shadows of the candles danced between his half-closed eyelids and made his unshaven cheeks look sunken. He had his hands in his pockets, one touching the pack with its remaining cigarette, the other around the closed switchblade, next to his flask of gin.

“I said, give me my money. I want to get out of here.”

There was a threat in his voice, but Corso couldn’t tell if Borja had heard it. He saw him come to unwillingly, slowly.

“Money?” Borja regarded him with renewed contempt. “What are you talking about, Corso? Don’t you understand what’s about to happen? You have before you the mystery that men throughout the centuries have dreamed of. Do you know how many have been burned, tortured, and torn to pieces just

for a glimpse of what you are about to witness? You can’t come with me, of course. You will just stay still and watch. But even the most vile mercenary can share in his master’s triumph.”

“Pay me. Then you can go to the devil.”

Borja didn’t even look at him. He was moving around the circle and touching some of the objects that had been laid next to the numbers.

“How appropriate that you should send me to the devil. So typical of your down-to-earth style. I’d even honor you with a smile if I wasn’t so busy. Although your remark was ignorant and imprecise: it will be the devil who comes to me.” He paused and turned his head, as if he could already hear distant foot­steps. “And I feel him coming.”

He muttered, his speech interspersed with strange guttural exclamations, or with words that at times seemed addressed to Corso and at times to a third dark presence near them, in the shadows.

“ ‘You will go through eight doors before the dragon....’ Do you see? Eight doors come before the beast who guards the word, number nine, possessing the final secret.... The dragon sleeps with its eye open, and it is the Mirror of Knowledge. Eight engravings plus one. Or one plus eight. Which coincides with the number that Saint John of Patmos attributed to the Beast: 666.”

Corso saw him kneel and write out numbers in chalk on the marble floor:

666

6 + 6 + 6 = 18

1-8

1 + 8 = 9

Then Borja stood, triumphant. For a moment the candles lit up his eyes. He must have swallowed some kind of drug with the dark liquid. His pupils were so dilated that almost none of the

iris was visible, and the whites had taken on a reddish tinge from the light in the room.

“Nine engravings, or nine doors.” Shadow once again cov­ered his face like a mask. “They can’t be opened by just anyone.... ‘Each door has two keys.’ Each engraving provides a number, a magic element, and a key word, if it’s all studied in the light of reason, the cabbala, the occult, the true philosophy.... Of Latin and its combination with Greek and Hebrew.” He showed Corso a piece of paper covered with signs and strange links. “You can take a look, if you like. You’ll never understand it.”

Aleph

Eis

I

ONMA

Air

Beth

Duo

II

CIS

Earth

Gimel

Treis

III

EM

Water

Daleth

Tessares

IIII

EM

Gold

He

Pente

V

OEXE

String

Vau

Es

VI

CIS

Silver

Zayin

Epta

VII

CIS

Stone

Cheth

Octo

VIII

EM

Iron

Teth

Ennea

VIIII

ODED

Fire

There were beads of sweat on his forehead and around his mouth, as if the flame of the candles were also burning inside his body. He began to walk around the circle slowly and care­fully. He stopped a couple of times and bent over to adjust the position of an object: the rusty knife, the silver bracelet.