The Club Dumas

The two brothers looked at each other.

“Forgeries ...,” muttered the older of the two. “People speak too lightly of forged books.”

“Much too lightly,” echoed his brother.

“Even you, Mr. Corso. And that comes as a surprise. It isn’t worth forging a book, it’s too much effort to be profitable: I mean a high-quality forgery, not a facsimile for fooling igno­ramuses.”

Corso made a gesture as if pleading for clemency. “I didn’t say that the entire book was a forgery, only part of it. Pages from complete copies can be interpolated into books.that have one or several pages missing.”

“Of course, that’s a basic trick of the trade. But adding a photocopy or facsimile doesn’t give the same results as com­pleting a book with pages according to ...” He half-turned to his brother but still looked at Corso. “Tell him, Pablo.”

“According to all the rules of our art,” added the younger Ceniza.

Corso gave them a conspiratorial look. A rabbit sharing half a carrot. “That could be the case with this book,” he said.

“Who says so?”

“The owner. Who is no ignoramus, by the way.”

Pedro Ceniza shrugged his narrow shoulders and lit a ciga­rette with the previous one. As he took his first drag, he was shaken by a dry cough. But he continued smoking, unperturbed.

“Do you have access to an authentic copy, to compare them?”

“No, but I soon will. That’s why I want your opinion first.” “It’s a valuable book, and ours is not an exact science.” He turned again to his brother. “Isn’t that so, Pablo?” “It’s an art,” insisted his brother.

“Yes. We wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Mr. Corso.” “I’m sure you won’t. You know what you’re talking about.

After all, you were able to forge a Speculum Vitae from the only known copy and have it listed as an original in one of the best catalogues in Europe.”

They both smiled sourly at exactly the same time. Si and Am, thought Corso, a cunning pair of cats who’ve just been stroked.

“It was never proved to be our work,” said Pedro Ceniza at last. He was rubbing his hands, looking at the book out of the corner of his eye.

“No, never,” repeated his brother sadly. They seemed sorry not to have gone to prison in return for public recognition.

“True,” admitted Corso. “Nor was there any proof in the case of the Chaucer, allegedly bound by Marius Michel, listed in the catalogue for the Manoukian collection. Or for that copy of Baron Bielke’s Polyglot Bible with three missing pages you replaced so perfectly that even today experts don’t dispute its authenticity....”

Pedro Ceniza lifted a yellowed hand with long nails. “I’d like to say a little about that, Mr. Corso. It’s one thing to forge books for profit, quite another to do it out of love for one’s art, creating something for the satisfaction provided by that very act of creation, or, as in most cases, of re-creation.” The book­binder blinked a few times, then smiled mischievously. His small, mouselike eyes shone as he looked at The Nine Doors again. “Although I don’t recall having had a hand in the works you’ve just described as admirable, and I’m sure my brother doesn’t either.”

“I called them perfect.”

“Did you? Well, never mind.” Putting his cigarette in his mouth and sucking in his cheeks, he took a long drag. “But whoever the person or persons responsible, you can be sure that he or they derived a great deal of enjoyment from it, a degree of personal satisfaction that money can’t buy....”

“Sine pecunia,” added his brother.

Pedro Ceniza blew cigarette smoke through his nose and half-open mouth. He continued: “Let’s take the Speculum, for instance, which the Sorbonne bought in the belief that it was authentic. The paper, typography, printing, and binding alone must have cost those you call forgers five times more than any money they might have made. People just don’t under­stand... What would be more satisfying to a painter with the talent of a Velazquez and the skill to imitate his works: making money or seeing one of his own paintings hanging in the Prado between Las Meninas and Vulcan’s Forge?”

Corso agreed. For eight years, the Ceniza brothers’ Speculum had been one of the most valuable books owned by the Uni­versity of Paris. It was discovered to be a forgery not by experts but due to a chance indiscretion by a middleman.

“Do the police still bother you?”

“Rarely. You must remember that the business of the Sorbonne erupted in France between the buyer and the inter­mediaries. True, our name was linked to the affair, but nothing was ever proved.” Pedro Ceniza smiled his crooked smile again, as if sorry that there had been no proof. “We have a good relationship with the police. They even come to see us some­times when they need to identify a stolen book.” He waved his cigarette in his brother’s direction. “There’s no one as good as Pablo when it comes to erasing traces of library stamps, or removing bookplates and marks of origin. But sometimes they want him to work his way backward through the process. You know how it is: live and let live.”

“What do you think of The Nine Doors?”

The older Ceniza looked at his brother, then at the book. He shook his head. “Nothing drew our attention while we were working on it. The paper and ink are as they should be. Even at first glance, you notice that sort of thing.” “We notice them,” corrected his brother. “What’s your opinion now?”

Pedro Ceniza took a last puff of his cigarette, which was now a tiny stub between his fingers. He dropped it on the floor between his feet, where it burned itself out. The linoleum was covered with cigarette burns.

“Seventeenth-century Venetian binding, in good condition ...” The brothers leaned over the book, but only the elder touched the pages with his pale, cold hands. They looked like a pair of taxidermists working out the best way to stuff a corpse with straw. “The leather is black morocco, with gold rosettes imitating flowers.”

“Somewhat sober for Venice,” added Pablo Ceniza. His brother agreed, with another coughing fit. “The artist kept it restrained. No doubt the subject mat­ter ...” He looked at Corso. “Have you tested the core of the binding? Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century books bound in leather or hide sometimes contain surprises. The board inside was made of separate sheets assembled with paste and pressed. Sometimes people used proofs of the same book, or earlier edi­tions. Some discovered bindings are now more valuable than the texts they cover.” He pointed to papers on the table. “There’s an example there. Tell him about it, Pablo.”

‘ “Papal bulls of the Holy Crusade, dated 1483.” The brother smiled equivocally. He might have been talking about porno­graphic material rather than a pile of old papers. “Bound with boards from sixteenth-century memorials of no value.”

Pedro Ceniza meanwhile was examining The Nine Doors. “The binding seems to be in order,” he said. “It all fits. Odd book, isn’t it? The five raised bands on the spine, no title, and this strange pentacle on the cover. Torchia, Venice 1666. He might have bound it himself. A beautiful piece of work.” “What about the paper?”

“That’s just like you, Mr. Corso. A good question.” The bookbinder licked his lips as if trying to warm them. He listened carefully to the sound of the pages as he flicked them, just as Corso had done at Varo Borja’s. “Excellent paper. Nothing like the cellulose they use nowadays. Do you know the average lifespan of a book printed today? Tell him, Pablo.”

“Sixty years,” said the brother bitterly, as if it were Corso’s fault. “Sixty miserable years.”

Pedro was searching among the tools on the table. At last he found a special high-magnification lens and held it up to the book.

“A century from now,” he murmured as he lifted a page and examined it against the light, closing one eye, “almost all the contents of today’s libraries will have disappeared. But these books, printed two hundred or even five hundred years ago, will remain intact. We have the books, and the world, that we deserve.... Isn’t that so, Pablo?”

“Lousy books printed on lousy paper.”

Pedro Ceniza nodded in agreement. He was examining the book now through the lens. “That’s right. Cellulose paper turns yellow and brittle as a wafer, and cracks irreparably. It ages and dies.”