The Club Dumas

“Strange, that business of the page,” said the magistrate.

The tall policeman shrugged.

“I don’t read much,” he said, “but Porthos, wasn’t he one of those... Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan.” He was count­ing with his thumb on the fingers of the same hand. He stopped, looking thoughtful. “Funny. I’ve always wondered why they were called the three musketeers when there were really four of them.”

  I.   “THE ANJOU WINE’

The reader must be prepared to witness the most sinister scenes.

—E. Sue, THE   MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS

My name is Boris Balkan and I once translated The Charterhouse of Parma. Apart from that, I’ve edited a few books on the nineteenth-century popular novel, my reviews and articles appear in supplements and jour­nals throughout Europe, and I organize summer-school courses on contemporary writers. Nothing spectacular, I’m afraid. Par­ticularly these days, when suicide disguises itself as homicide, novels are written by Roger Ackroyd’s doctor, and far too many people insist on publishing two hundred pages on the fascinat­ ing emotions they experience when they look in the mirror.

But let’s stick to the story.

I first met Lucas Corso when he came to see me; he was carrying “The Anjou Wine” under his arm. Corso was a mer­cenary of the book world, hunting down books for other people. That meant talking fast and getting his hands dirty. He needed good reflexes, patience, and a lot of luck—and a prodigious memory to recall the exact dusty corner of an old man’s shop where a book now worth a fortune lay forgotten. His clientele was small and select: a couple of dozen book dealers in Milan, Paris, London, Barcelona, and Lausanne, the kind that sell

through catalogues, make only safe investments, and never handle more than fifty or so titles at any one time. High-class dealers in early printed books, for whom thousands of dollars depend on whether something is parchment or vellum or three centimeters wider in the margin. Jackals on the scent of the Gutenberg Bible, antique-fair sharks, auction-room leeches, they would sell their grandmothers for a first edition. But they receive their clients in rooms with leather sofas, views of the Duomo or Lake Constance, and they never get their hands— or their consciences—dirty. That’s what men like Corso are for.

He took his canvas bag off his shoulder and put it on the floor by his scuffed oxfords. He stared at the framed portrait of Rafael Sabatini that stands on my desk next to the fountain pen I use for correcting articles and proofs. I was pleased, be­cause most visitors paid Sabatini little attention, taking him for an aged relative. I waited for Corso’s reaction. He was half smiling as he sat down—a youthful expression, like that of a cartoon rabbit in a dead-end street. The kind of look that wins over the audience straightaway. In time I found out he could also smile like a cruel, hungry wolf, and that he chose his smiles to suit the circumstances. But that was much later. Now he seemed trustworthy, so I decided to risk a password.

“He was born with the gift of laughter” I quoted, point­ing at the portrait. “... and with a feeling that the world was mad...”

Corso nodded slowly and deliberately. I felt a friendly com­plicity with him, which, in spite of all that happened later, I still feel. From a hidden packet he brought out an unfiltered cigarette that was as crumpled as his old overcoat and corduroy trousers. He turned it over in his fingers, watching me through steel-rimmed glasses set crookedly on his nose under an untidy fringe of slightly graying hair. As if holding a hidden gun, he kept his other hand in one of his pockets, a pocket huge and deformed by books, catalogues, papers, and, as I also found out later, a hip flask full of Bols gin.

“... and this was his entire inheritance.” He completed the quotation effortlessly, then settled himself in the armchair and smiled again. “But to be honest, I prefer Captain Blood.”

With a stern expression I lifted my fountain pen. “You’re mistaken. Scaramouche is to Sabatini what The Three Muske­teers is to Dumas.” I bowed briefly to the portrait. “ ‘He was born with the gift of laughter....’ In the entire history of the adventure serial no two opening lines can compare.”

“That may be true,” Corso conceded after a moment’s re­flection. Then he laid the manuscript on the table, in a protec­tive folder with plastic pockets, one for each page. “It’s a coincidence you should mention Dumas.”

He pushed the folder toward me, turning it around so I could read its contents. The text was in French, written on one side of the page only. There were two types of paper, both discolored by age: one white, the other pale blue with light squares. The handwriting on each was different—on the white pages it was smaller and more spiky. The handwriting of the blue paper, in black ink, also appeared on the white pages but as annotations only. There were fifteen pages in all, eleven of them blue.

“Interesting.” I looked up at Corso. He was watching me, his calm gaze moving from the folder to me, then back again. “Where did you find it?”

He scratched an eyebrow, no doubt calculating whether he needed to provide such details in exchange for the information he wanted. The result was a third facial expression, this time an innocent rabbit. Corso was a professional.

“Around. Through a client of a client.”

“I see.”

He paused briefly, cautious. Caution is a sign of prudence and reserve, but also of shrewdness. And we both knew it.

“Of course,” he added, “I’ll give you names if you request them.”

I answered that it wouldn’t be necessary, which seemed to reassure him. He adjusted his glasses before asking my opinion of the manuscript. Not answering immediately, I turned to the first page. The title was written in capital letters, in thicker Strokes: LE VIN D’ANJOU.

I read aloud the first few lines: “Apres de nouvelles presque desesperees du roi, le bruit de sa convalescence commengait a se repandre dans le camp....” I couldn’t help smiling.

Corso indicated his approval, inviting me to comment.

“Without the slightest doubt,” I said, “this is by Alexandre Dumas pere. ‘The Anjou Wine’: chapter forty- something, I seem to remember, of The Three Musketeers.”

“Forty-two,” confirmed Corso. “Chapter forty-two.”

“Is it authentic? Dumas’s original manuscript?”

“That’s why I’m here. I want you to tell me.”

I shrugged slightly, reluctant to assume such a responsibility.

“Why me?”

It was a stupid question, the kind that only serves to gain time. It must have seemed like false modesty, because he sup­pressed a look of impatience.

“You’re an expert,” he retorted, somewhat dryly. “As well as being Spain’s most influential literary critic, you know all there is to know about the nineteenth-century popular novel.”

“You’re forgetting Stendhal.”

“Not at all. I read your translation of The Charterhouse of Parma.”

“Indeed. I am honored.”

“Don’t be. I preferred Consuelo Berges’s version.”

We both smiled. I continued to find him likable, and I was beginning to form an idea of his style.

“Do you know any of my books?” I asked.

“Some. Lupin, Raffles, Rocambole, Holmes, for instance. And your studies of Valle- Inclan, Baroja, and Galdos. Also Dumas: the Shadow of a Giant And your essay on The Count of Monte Cristo.”

“Have you read all those?”

“No. I work with books, but that doesn’t mean I have to read them.”

He was lying. Or at least exaggerating. The man was con­scientious: before coming to see me, he’d looked at everything about me he could lay his hands on. He was one of those compulsive readers who have devoured anything in print from a most tender age—although it was highly unlikely that Corso’s childhood ever merited the