The Club Dumas

The only rooms that seemed to be in use were two inter­connecting reception rooms. There was a sliding door between them with coats of arms etched into the glass. It was open, revealing more bare walls, their ancient wallpaper marked by long-gone pictures, and furniture, rusty nails, and fixtures for nonexistent lamps. Above this gloomy scene was a ceiling painted to resemble a vault of clouds with the sacrifice of Isaac in the center. The cracked figure of the old patriarch held a dagger, about to strike a blond young man. His hand was re­strained by an angel with huge wings. Beneath the trompe 1’oeil sky, dusty French windows, some of the panes replaced with cardboard, led to the terrace and, beyond that, to the garden. “Home sweet home,” said Fargas.

His irony was unconvincing. He seemed to have made the remark too often and was no longer sure of its effect. He spoke Spanish with a heavy, distinguished Portuguese accent. And he moved very slowly, perhaps because of his bad leg, like someone who has all the time in the world.

“Brandy,” he said again, as if he didn’t quite remember how they’d reached that point.

Corso nodded vaguely, but Fargas didn’t notice. At one end of the vast room was an enormous fireplace with logs piled up in it. There were a pair of unmatched armchairs, a table and sideboard, an oil lamp, two big candlesticks, a violin in its case, and little else. But on the floor, lined up neatly on old, faded, threadbare rugs, as far away as possible from the windows and the leaden light coming through them, lay a great many books; five hundred or more, Corso estimated, maybe even a thousand. Many codices and incunabula among them. Wonderful old books bound in leather or parchment. Ancient tomes,with studs in the covers, folios, Elzevirs, their bindings decorated with gof­fering, bosses, rosettes, locks, their spines and front edges cov­ered with gilding and calligraphy done by medieval mon’ks in the scriptoria of their monasteries. He also noticed a dozen or so rusty mousetraps in various corners.

Fargas, who had been searching through the sideboard, turned around with a glass and a bottle of Remy Martin. He held it up to the light to look at the contents.

“Nectar of the gods,” he said triumphantly. “Or the devil.” He smiled only with his mouth, twisting his mustache like an old-fashioned movie star. His eyes remained fixed and expres­sionless, with bags beneath them as if from chronic insomnia. Corso noticed his delicate hands—a sign of good breeding—as he took the glass of brandy. The glass vibrated gently as Corso raised it to his lips.

“Nice glass,” he said to make conversation.

Fargas agreed, and made a gesture halfway between resig­nation and self-mockery, suggesting a different reading of it all: the glass, the tiny amount of brandy in the bottle, the bare house, his own presence. An elegant, pale, worn ghost.

“I have only one more left,” he confided in a calm, neutral tone. “That’s why I take care of them.”

Corso nodded. He glanced at the bare walls and again at the books.

“This must have been a beautiful house,” he said. Fargas shrugged. “Yes, it was. But old families are like civ­ilizations. One day they just wither and die.” He looked around without seeing. All the missing objects seemed to be reflected in his eyes. “At first one resorts to the barbarians to guard the limes of the Danube, but it makes the barbarians rich and they end up as one’s creditors.... Then one day they rebel and in­vade, looting everything.” He suddenly peered at his visitor suspiciously. “I hope you understand what I mean.”

Corso nodded, smiling his best conspiratorial smile. “Per­fectly,” he said. “Hobnail boots crushing Saxony porcelain. Isn’t that it? Servants in evening dress. Working-class parvenus who wipe their arses on illuminated manuscripts.”

Fargas nodded approvingly. He was smiling. He limped over to the sideboard in search of the other glass. “I’ll have a brandy too,” he said.

They drank a toast in silence, looking at each other like two members of a secret fraternity who have just exchanged sign and countersign. Then, moving closer to the books, Fargas ges­tured at them with the hand holding the glass, as if Corso had just passed his initiation test and Fargas was inviting him to pass through an invisible barrier.

“There they are. Eight hundred and thirty-four volumes. Less than half of them are worth anything.” He drank some more and ran his finger over his damp mustache, looking around. “It’s a shame that you didn’t know them in better days, lined up on their cedarwood shelves.... I managed to collect five thousand of them. These are the survivors.”

Corso put his canvas bag on the floor and went over to the books. His fingers itched instinctively. It was a magnificent sight. He adjusted his glasses and immediately saw a 1588 first-edition Vasari in quarto, and a sixteenth-century Tractatus by Berengario de Carpi bound in parchment.