The Prague Cemetery Read online

  The same thing happened to me a few days ago when I awoke with no idea who I was. But that occurred in my own place, whereas this morning I was in someone else's. My eyes felt rheumy. My tongue hurt, as if I had bitten it.

  Standing by a window, I realized the apartment overlooks impasse Maubert, right on the corner of rue Maître-Albert, where I live.

  I began to search the rooms, which seem to be occupied by a layman, obviously the wearer of a false beard, and therefore (if you'll allow me) a man of dubious morals. I went into an office, furnished with a certain ostentation. At the far end, behind a curtain, I found a small door and entered a corridor. It seemed like the backstage of a theater, full of costumes and wigs. A few days ago, I found a cassock there. But this time I was going in the opposite direction, toward my lodgings.

  On my table I found a series of notes that, judging from your recon structions, I must have written on the 22nd of March when, like this morning, I awoke with no memory. And what, I asked myself, is the meaning of the last note I made that day, referring to Auteuil and Diana. Who is Diana?

  It is curious. You suspect we are the same person. You remember a great deal about your life and yet I remember very little about mine. On the other hand, as your diary shows, you know nothing about me, while I am beginning to realize I remember other things, by no means few of them, about what happened to you and — as chance would have it — exactly those things you seem unable to recall. If I can remember so many things about you, should I then say I am you?

  Perhaps not. Perhaps we are different people who, for some mysterious reason, are involved in a sort of shared life. I am, after all, a clergyman, and perhaps you've told me what I know under the seal of confession. Or have I taken the place of Doctor Froïde and, without your knowing it, extracted from deep within what you were trying to keep buried?

  Whatever the case, it is my priestly duty to remind you of what happened after your grandfather's death — may God have granted his soul the peace of the just. Rest assured that if you were to die right now, the Lord would not grant you such peace, since you haven't, it seems, behaved justly toward your fellow men, and perhaps that is why your memory refuses to recall matters that do you no honor.

  Dalla Piccola left, in fact, only a scant number of notes for Simonini, written in a minuscule hand quite different from his own; but those short comments seemed to act as props for Simonini, on which to hang a series of images and words that suddenly flooded back. The Narrator will now attempt to summarize them, or rather to carry out the proper amplification, so this game of cues and responses becomes more coherent, and in order not to burden the Reader with the sanctimonious tone the abbé employed, in his account, to censure the past errors of his alter ego with excessive unction.

  Simone was not, it seems, unduly upset by the abolition of the Discalced Carmelites, nor indeed by the death of his grandfather. Perhaps he felt some affection toward him, but after a childhood and adolescence spent shut up in a household that appeared to have been designed to stifle him, in which his grandfather as well as his black-habited tutors had always inspired mistrust, bitterness and resentment toward the world, young Simonino had become increasingly incapable of nourishing feelings other than morbid self-love, which had gradually assumed the calm serenity of a philosophical conviction.

  After dealing with the funeral, attended by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and leading members of the Piedmont nobility close to the ancien régime,he went to see a certain Rebaudengo, the old family notary, who read out the will in which his grandfather left him all his estate. However, the notary informed him (and he seemed to take pleasure in doing so) that due to the many mortgages the old man had signed and the various bad investments he had made, none of his assets remained, not even the house with all its contents, which would have to go as soon as possible to the creditors, who had been holding back until then, out of respect for that esteemed gentleman, but would have no such qualms with the grandson.

  "My dear Avvocato Simonini," said the notary, "these may just be the ways of modern times, which are not as they were, but sometimes even the sons of respectable families are obliged to seek work. Should you feel inclined, sir, toward such a humiliating choice, I can offer you a position in my office, where a young man with some legal knowledge would be useful. And let it be clear that I cannot fully remunerate you to the measure of your intelligence, but the little I could give you should enable you to find other lodgings and live with modest dignity."

  Simone suspected the notary of appropriating much of the wealth his grandfather had believed lost in unwise investments, but he had no proof, and in any event he had to survive. By working for the notary, he told himself, he would one day be able to settle the score by reappropriating what he was sure the man had wrongly taken. And so he adapted to living in two rooms in via Barbaroux, skimped on visits to the taverns where his companions met, and began to work for the miserly, authoritarian, mistrustful Notaio Rebaudengo, who immediately stopped addressing him as "Avvocato" and "sir," and referred to him simply as Simonini, to make it clear who was master. After several years working as a scrivener (as they used to call it), he became legally qualified. He realized, as he gradually gained the cautious trust of his master, that his main business did not consist so much of what a notary normally does, such as proving wills, gifts, property transactions and other contracts, but rather of testifying gifts, transactions, wills and contracts that had never taken place. In other words, Notaio Rebaudengo drafted false documents for substantial sums of money, imitating where necessary the handwriting of others and providing witnesses whom he recruited in the neighboring taverns.

  "Let it be clear, my boy," Rebaudengo explained, all formality now gone. "What I produce are not forgeries but new copies of genuine documents that have been lost or, by simple oversight, have never been produced, and that could and should have been produced. It would be forgery if I were to draw up a certificate of baptism from which it appeared — forgive the example — that you were the son of a prostitute, born near Odalengo Piccolo," and he chuckled with amusement at such a shameful idea. "I would never dream of committing such a crime because I am an honorable man. But if you had an enemy, so to speak, who sought to get hold of your inheritance, and you knew he was definitely not the child of your mother or your father but of a whore from Odalengo Piccolo, and that he had conveniently lost his certificate of baptism in order to obtain your inheritance, and if you were to ask me to produce that missing certificate in order to confound that rogue, I would assist, so to speak, the truth by proving what we know to be true, and I would have no remorse."

  * * *

  "Let it be clear, my boy," Rebaudengo explained, all formality now gone. "What I produce are not forgeries but new copies of genuine documents that have been lost or, by simple oversight, have never been produced, and that could and should have been produced."

  * * *

  "Yes, but how would you know the true parentage of this person?"

  "You would have told me yourself! You know the facts perfectly well."

  "And you would trust me?"

  "I always trust my clients, because I serve only honorable people."

  "But if by chance the client had lied to you?"

  "Then it is he who has sinned, not me. If I had to start worrying whether the client might be lying, I would no longer be in this profession, which is based on trust."

  Simone was not entirely convinced that Rebaudengo's profession would have been regarded by others as honest, but from the moment of his initiation into the secrets of the office, he became party to the forgeries, quickly overtaking his master and discovering that he himself had remarkable handwriting skills.

  The notary, almost by way of apology for what he had said — or perhaps having identified his assistant's weak point — occasionally invited Simonino to such lavish restaurants as Il Cambio (frequented by Cavour himself), initiating him into the mysteries of fi- nanziera,a symphony of cockscombs, sweetbreads, brain
s and veal testicles, fillet of beef, ceps, half a glass of Marsala wine, flour, salt, olive oil and butter, all of it sharpened with an alchemical dose of vinegar. To enjoy this dish properly one had to dress, as the name suggested, in a frock coat, or stiffelius,as it was otherwise called.

  Simonino's education, despite his father's exhortations, may not have been heroic and self-sacrificing, but for those evenings he was ready to serve Rebaudengo to the death — at least to his, Rebaudengo's, if not his own . . . as we shall see.

  His salary had now been increased — though not by much — not least because the notary was aging fast, his sight had become poor, and his hand shook. Simone had, in short, become indispensable. But because he could allow himself a little extra comfort, and was no longer able to avoid the pleasures of Turin's most renowned restaurants (ah, the delights of agnolotti alla piemontese,with its stuffing of roasted white and red meats, boiled beef, boned boiled fowl, Savoy cabbage cooked with the roasted meat, four eggs, parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper; and for the sauce, the juices from the roast, butter, a clove of garlic, a sprig of rosemary), the young Simonini could hardly frequent such places, and thus satisfy what was becoming his deepest sensual passion, wearing threadbare clothes. As his means increased, so did his needs.

  Working for the notary, Simone discovered that Rebaudengo not only conducted confidential transactions for private clients but also provided services for those involved in public policing, perhaps to cover himself in the event the authorities found out about his not entirely lawful activities. Sometimes, he explained, in order properly to convict a suspect, some documentary proof had to be presented to the judges so as to persuade them that the police allegations were not without substance. In this way, Simone encountered mysterious characters who visited the office from time to time, and were what the notary described as "gentlemen from the Department." What this Department and its representatives did was hardly difficult to guess: they were concerned with secret government business.

  One of these gentlemen was Cavalier Bianco, who declared one day that he was most satisfied by the way Simone had produced a certain incontestable document. His responsibilities must have included gathering reliable information on people before they were approached, because, drawing Simone aside one day, Bianco asked whether he still went to Caffè al Bicerin and suggested meeting there for what he described as a private chat.

  "My dear Avvocato Simonini," he said, "we are well aware that you were the grandson of one of His Majesty's most devoted subjects, and were therefore soundly educated. We also know that your father paid with his life for things we too consider to be just, even though he did it, shall we say, with excessive haste. We therefore confide in your loyalty and your willingness to collaborate, considering also that we have been most indulgent toward you. We could have incriminated you and Notaio Rebaudengo some time ago for your not wholly commendable activities. We know you have friends, associates, comrades in spirit, shall we say — Mazzinians, Garibaldians, Carbonari. That is natural. It would seem to be the fashion among the younger generation. But our problem is this: we do not want these young people to lose their heads, at least not until it is reasonable and helpful to do so. Our government has been concerned about the mad antics of that man Pisacane, who landed by boat on the island of Ponza several months ago waving the tricolor flag, along with another twenty-four subversives, then liberated three hundred prisoners and sailed for Sapri, thinking that the local people would be waiting to support him with arms. The more charitable say that Pisacane was a generous soul, the skeptical say he was a fool, but the truth is he was deluded. He and his supporters ended up being massacred by the scoundrels he wanted to liberate, and so you see where good intentions can lead when they take no account of the facts."

  "I understand," Simone said. "But what do you want from me?"

  "Well, if we need to stop these young men making mistakes, the best way is to put them behind bars for a while, accusing them of attacking the authorities, and release them when there's a real need for zealous spirits. We must therefore surprise them in some clear act of conspiracy. You surely know who their trusted leaders are. All you have to do is send a message to someone in charge, get him to call a meeting in a particular place, everyone armed from head to foot, with cockades and flags and other bits and pieces, to make them look like Carbonari bearing arms. The police arrive, arrest them, and that'll be that."

  "But if I'm with them, I'll be arrested too. And if I'm not, they'd immediately realize it was I who'd betrayed them."

  "Of course, my good sir. We are not so naive as not to have thought of that."

  As we shall see, Bianco had planned it well. But our Simone was also an excellent strategist, and having listened carefully to the plan that was being proposed to him, he devised an extraordinary form of payment, and told Bianco what he expected from His Majesty's munificence.

  "My employer, you see, committed many crimes before I became his assistant. It would be enough for me to point out two or three of these cases where sufficient documentary evidence exists, involving no one of any real importance — perhaps someone who has died in the meantime — and for me to present the evidence anonymously, through your kind mediation, to the public prosecutor. You would have enough to convict Notaio Rebaudengo for forgery of public deeds and to put him behind bars for a sufficient number of years, enough to let nature run its course — certainly not very long, given the old man's present state."

  "And then?"

  "And then, as soon as Notaio Rebaudengo is in prison, I will produce a contract, dated just a few days before his arrest, showing that I have completed the payment of a series of installments on the purchase of his office and am therefore the owner. As for the money, it will appear that I have paid him in full. Everyone thinks I ought to have inherited a considerable estate from my grandfather, and the only person who knows the truth is Rebaudengo himself."

  "Interesting," said Bianco, "but the judge will want to know what happened to the money you are supposed to have paid him."

  "Rebaudengo doesn't trust banks and keeps everything in a safe in his office. I know how to open it, of course, because he imagines that all he has to do is turn his back and, as he can't see me, he's convinced I can't see what he's doing. The police will surely open the safe somehow or other, and they'll find it empty. I could testify that Rebaudengo's offer was quite unexpected and that I myself was so astonished by the smallness of the sum he was asking that I suspected he had some reason for abandoning his business affairs. In fact, they'll find, along with the empty safe, the ashes of some mysterious documents in the fireplace, and in the drawer of his desk a letter from a hotel in Naples confirming his booking for a room. It will then be clear that Rebaudengo thought he was already being watched by the law and had decided to flee the nest, going off to enjoy his riches under Bourbon rule, where perhaps he had already sent his money."

  "But if he's told about your contract in front of the judge, he'll deny it."

  "Who knows what other things he'll be denying. The judge is hardly likely to believe him."

  "A shrewd plan. I like you, Avvocato Simonini. You are brighter, more motivated, more decisive than Rebaudengo and, shall we say, more versatile. Very well then. You hand that group of Carbonari over to us, and then we'll deal with Rebaudengo."

  The arrest of the Carbonari seemed like child's play, not least because those enthusiasts really were little more than children, and Carbonari only in their most fervent dreams. Simone, at first out of pure vanity, had been feeding the Carbonari for some time with certain bits of nonsense he had been told by Father Bergamaschi, knowing that they would take each revelation to be news he had received from his heroic father. The Jesuit had continually warned him against the plots of the Carbonari — Freemasons, Mazzinians, republicans and Jews, disguised as patriots, who hid from the police around the world by pretending to be charcoal traders, and met secretly on the pretext of carrying out their business dealings.

&nb
sp; "All Carbonari owe allegiance to the Alta Vendita, which has forty members, most of whom, dreadful to say, are the cream of the Roman aristocracy — plus, of course, several Jews. Their leader was Nubius, a fine gentleman, as corrupt as the day is long, but who had created a position for himself in Rome that was beyond suspicion, thanks to his name and wealth. From Paris, Buonarroti, General Lafayette and Saint-Simon consulted him as if he were the oracle of Delphi. From Munich, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg, the heads of the main lodges — Tscharner, Heymann, Jacobi, Chodzko, Lieven, Mouravieff, Strauss, Pallavicini, Driesten, Bem, Bathyani, Oppenheim, Klauss and Carolus — sought his advice. Nubius remained at the helm of the highest Vendita until 1844, when someone poisoned him with Aqua Tofana. Don't imagine it was we Jesuits who did it. The author of the killing is thought to have been Mazzini, who sought, and still seeks, to become head of the Carbonari, with the help of the Jews. Nubius's successor is now Little Tiger, a Jew who, like Nubius, never stops running around stirring up enemies of Calvary. But the members and meeting place of the Alta Vendita are secret. Everything must remain unknown to the lodges that receive their direction and impetus from it. Even the forty members of the Alta Vendita have no knowledge of the origin of the orders to be given or carried out. And they say that the Jesuits are slaves to their superiors. It is the Carbonari who are slaves to a master who keeps himself well hidden, perhaps a Great Old Man who directs this underground Europe."

  * * *

  "All Carbonari owe allegiance to the Alta Vendita, which has forty members, most of whom, dreadful to say, are the cream of the Roman aristocracy — plus, of course, several Jews."

  * * *

  Simone had transformed Nubius into a personal hero, almost a male counterpart of Babette of Interlaken. And he mesmerized his companions by turning into an epic poem what Father Bergamaschi had told him in the form of a gothic tale — though concealing the small detail that Nubius was now dead.