Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [149]
“Oh, you know how these things go,” he replied. “Ever since you suggested that book on the Templars to me, I’ve been reading up on the subject. I don’t have to tell you that after the Templars, the next logical step is Agarttha.” Touche. Then he said: “I was joking. I took the book because...” He hesitated. “The fact is, when I’m off duty, I like to browse in libraries. It keeps me from turning into a robot, a mechanical cop. You could probably express the idea more elegantly...But tell me about yourself.”
I gave a performance: an autobiographical summary, down to the wonderful adventure of metals.
He asked me: “In that publishing firm, and in the one next door, aren’t you doing books on the occult sciences?”
How did he know about Manutius? From information gathered years before, when he was keeping an eye on Belbo? Or was he still on the Ardenti case?
“With characters like Colonel Ardenti turning up constantly at Garamond, and with Manutius there to handle them,” I said, “Signer Garamond decided that was rich soil, worth tilling. If you look for such types, you can find them by the carload.”
“But Ardenti disappeared. I hope the others don’t.”
“They haven’t yet, though I almost wish they would. However, satisfy my curiosity, Inspector. I imagine in your job people disappear, or worse, every day. Do you devote so much time to all of them?”
He looked at me with amusement. “What makes you think I’m still devoting time to Colonel Ardenti?”
All right, he was gambling, had raised the ante, and it was up to me now to call his bluff if I had the courage, make him show his cards. What was there to lose? “Come, Inspector,” I said, “you know everything about Garamond and Manutius, and you were looking for a book on Agarttha...”
“You mean Ardenti spoke to you about Agarttha?”
Touche again. Yes, Ardenti had spoken to us about Agarttha, too, as far as I could remember. But I parried: “No, only about the Templars.”
“I see,” he said. Then he added: “You mustn’t think we follow a case until it’s solved. That only happens on television. Being a cop is like being a dentist: a patient comes in, you give him a little of the old drill, prescribe something, he comes back in two weeks, and in the meantime you deal with a hundred other patients. A case like the colonel’s can remain in the active file maybe for ten years, and then, while you’re in the middle of a different case, taking some confession, there’s a hint, a clue, and, wham!, a short circuit in the brain, you get an idea—or else you don’t, and that’s it.”
“And what did you find recently that brought on a short circuit?”
“An indiscreet question, don’t you think? But there are no mysteries, believe me. The colonel came up again by chance. We were keeping an eye on a character, for quite different reasons, and found he was spending time at the Picatrix Club. You’ve heard of it?...”
“I know the magazine, not the club. What goes on there?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. People a bit loony, maybe, but well behaved. Then I remembered that Ardenti used to go there—a cop’s talent consists entirely of remembering things, a name, a face, even after ten years have gone by. And so I began wondering what was happening at Garamond. That’s all.”
“What does the Picatrix Club have to do with your political squad?”
“Perhaps it’s the impertinence of a clear conscience, but you seem tremendously curious.”
“You’re the one who invited me for coffee.”
“True, and both of us are off duty. See here: if you look at the world in a certain way, everything is connected to everything else.” A nice hermetic philosopheme, I thought. He immediately added: “I’m not saying that those people are connected with politics, but...There was a time when we went looking for the Red Brigades in squats and the Black Brigades in martial arts clubs; nowadays the opposite could be true. We live in a strange world. My job, I assure you, was easier ten years ago. Today, even among ideologies, there’s no consistency. There are times when I think of switching to narcotics. There,