before yesterday I threw a lout out of my office, and he turned out to be an envoy from the British embassy. My secretary had to spend all morning writing letters of apology. Last Saturday the minister himself was talking for two hours to a German, supposedly the representative of the Swabian industrialists, who turned out to be the conman Dunbersteg, wanted for the Swiss bond scandal. Your murdered detective and incinerated corpse don’t seem like such great problems to me.”
Giant Arzaky looked at him with what seemed to be fear. I must say I’ve often noted that very tall people are completely disconcerted by very short ones, as if they belonged to a quicker, more intimate, more complex world.
“We are doing everything possible, Dr. Ravendel. If you had hired me instead of Darbon, this never would have happened.”
“I didn’t hire Darbon. It was the organizing committee, who were frightened.” Ravendel threw down an envelope filled with banknotes onto the table. “I brought what we agreed on, Arzaky, to serve as inspiration. The other half when the case is solved. We have managed to get the press to portray Darbon’s death as an accident. That’s cost more money than anything else so far. Bribing politicians is much cheaper, because they’re naturally dishonest, but journalists are always expensive because they try to pretend that they’re willing to take their scruples to the limit. Our coffers are not bottomless, we’re not like those ostentatious Argentines who felt they had to build the Taj Mahal.”
Ravendel stormed out without saying good-bye. Arzaky’s gaze followed him as if making sure he was really gone. Then he stuck his hand into the envelope and took out a bill.
“Is your information worth one of these?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure.”
“Did the body come from where I thought it did?”
“Yes, the Taxidermists’ Pavilion. The taxidermist who prepared it is named Nazar. It was a body donated by the morgue. A guillotined man. Nazar was very proud of having reconnected the head.”
166 • Pablo De Santis
“Let’s go to the morgue then. We have to beat Bazeldin’s foot soldiers.”
Arzaky, not convinced that I deserved it, gave me the money.
An hour later we were walking across a square stone courtyard. Arzaky had sent me to buy a bottle of wine, some cheese, and cold meats, and I was carrying the box with the provisions. There were two green ambulances in the courtyard, with yoked horses, ready to go out to the farthest reaches of the city in search of a body. We went down a staircase to the autopsy room. We passed an open door; Arzaky signaled for me to keep quiet but I couldn’t help peeking in. The forensic doctor was talking to Bazeldin and a couple of policemen.
“Right now they are finding out what we already know. We’ve got the upper hand,” said Arzaky in a whisper. And when I smiled complicitly he warned, “But one should never,
We opened a door that revealed a deserted room: the morgue’s archives. The shelves held cardboard boxes and file folders with papers coming out of them, tied with green ribbon. On the wall was an engraving of an anatomy amphitheater, with medical students and curious onlookers surrounding a professor as he dissected a cadaver. On the desk were photographs of faces and bodies, and judicial orders with the hospital seal and doctors’ pompous signatures. Arzaky, who knew the archive well, searched through a cabinet that, because of its proximity to the desk, was most likely for more recent papers. After much looking he triumphantly pulled out a page.
We heard heavy footsteps approaching. I was scared, but Arzaky didn’t even look up.
An immensely fat man entered the archives. He wore an administrative staff uniform, but his shirt had been mended so many times he looked like a beggar.
“Arzaky! If the doctor finds you in here, he’ll fire me. Do you want me to starve to death? ”
“That would break my heart, Brodenac.”
Arzaky signaled for me to put the box I was holding down on the desk. Brodenac examined the bottle, the cheese, and the cold meats, and smiled with satisfaction.
“There are better places to shop, but the Bordeaux isn’t bad. What are you looking for?”
“I’ve already found it.”
Brodenac studied the sheet of paper Arzaky had in his hand.
“You too?”
“Who else was here?”
“That redheaded girl… the dead guy’s sister.”
Arzaky looked at me.
“The dead guy didn’t have a sister. Someone else got here before us.”
“You already know who the dead guy is?” I asked.
Arzaky took the paper from Brodenac and showed it to me.
“Jean-Baptiste Sorel,” I read. The name meant nothing to me. “Who is he?”
“An art forger. Imprisoned for stealing paintings and for murder.”
“Did you know him?”
“I met him under unpleasant circumstances.”
Brodenac had taken out a wood-handled knife and was already cutting off a piece of cheese. “Unpleasant circumstances? Well, they were unpleasant for Sorel… It was Arzaky, the great detective, who sent him to the guillotine.”
4
Night had already fallen and Arzaky asked me to go with him into a narrow cafe that stretched out toward a smoky back area. He ordered absinthe and I was going to ask for the same, but he stopped me.
“An assistant’s mind always has to be sharp. You shouldn’t get clouded up on this poison.”
A short waiter, practically a midget, brought us our drinks: a glass of wine for me, and for Arzaky a slotted spoon, a lump of sugar wrapped in blue paper, and a glass filled with green liquid. Arzaky put the sugar in the spoon and poured water over it until it dissolved. As it lost its purity, the absinthe turned opalescent. When it was still, before the water was completely stirred in, it seemed to turn into green-veined marble.
“ Sorel was a two-bit forger,” Arzaky told me. “His specialty was academic painting, all those big canvases with mythological figures, a little tree over here, some ruins over there, and a naked lady in the middle. But that went out of style, and Sorel found there was no market for his fake Bouguereaus and Cabanels anymore. He was broke, and he spent his days growing deeper in debt in the back room of the Rugendas Cafe. One night Sorel met Bonetti, a Sicilian smuggler, among the other lost souls at the cafe. They became friends, discussing art, reciting the names of their favorite paintings, and exchanging information about which famous works in France and Italy ’s great museums were actually forgeries. Within six months Bonetti knew everything about Sorel, who was a very talkative chap, and he was able to convince him to steal a painting that hung in the house of one of Sorel ’s old clients. The former client was a textile manufacturer who had profited from the sale of overpriced uniforms to Belgian army detachments sent to the Congo. Sorel got into the house under the pretense of selling him a painting, and Bonetti, dressed as a gentleman, came in with him. Sorel introduced Bonetti as an expert from the Vatican gallery. Bonetti cased the house and discovered there was almost no security. Fifteen days later they pulled off the heist, entering through an open window.”
“That’s not enough to send somebody to the guillotine. Did they kill someone?”
“No. They were thieves, not murderers. Bonetti knew what he was after: several books had been published on
At the back of the cafe, in front of a mirror, two men were arguing loudly. I looked in that direction and saw my ref lection. I barely recognized myself. At that distance and with all the smoke, unshaven and bleary eyed, I looked older. In that moment I wanted to go back to Buenos Aires and, at the same time, never wanted to go back, ever. But if I did return, who would I be? The shoemaker’s son sent by Craig with a cane and a secret, or the tired man
