Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [260]
“I will,” the bearded gentleman said. “Rest assured.”
Belbo returned to Milan toward evening, shut himself in his apartment with two cans of meat and some crackers, and turned on the TV. More Berlinguer, naturally. The news item about the train appeared at the end, almost as a footnote.
Late that morning on the Intercity between Bologna and Florence, a bearded gentleman had voiced suspicions after a passenger got off in Bologna leaving a suitcase on the luggage rack. True, the passenger had said someone would pick it up in Florence, but wasn’t that what terrorists always said? Furthermore, why had he reserved his seat to Rome when he was getting off in Bologna?
A heavy uneasiness spread among the other travelers in that compartment. Finally, the bearded passenger said he couldn’t bear the tension. It was better to make a mistake than to die, and he alerted the chief conductor. The chief conductor stopped the train and called the Railway Police. The train was stopped in the mountains; the passengers milled anxiously along the tracks; the bomb squad arrived... The experts opened the suitcase and found a timer and explosive, set for the hour of arrival in Florence. Enough to wipe out a few dozen people.
The police were unable to find the bearded gentleman. Perhaps he had changed cars and got off in Florence because he didn’t want to end up in the newspapers. The police were appealing to him to get in touch with them.
The other passengers remembered, with unusual precision, the man who had left the suitcase. He must have looked suspicious at first sight. He was wearing a blue English jacket without gold buttons, a maroon necktie; he was taciturn, and seemed to want to avoid attracting attention at all costs. But he had let slip the information that he worked for a paper, or a publisher, or for something having to do (the witnesses’ testimony varied) with physics, methane, or metempsychosis—but Arabs were definitely involved.
Police stations and carabiniere headquarters had been alerted. Anonymous phone calls were already coming in and being sifted by the investigators. Two Libyan citizens had been detained in Bologna. A police artist had made a sketch, which now occupied the whole screen. The drawing didn’t resemble Belbo, but Belbo resembled the drawing.
Belbo, plainly, was the man with the suitcase. But the suitcase had contained Aglie’s books. He called Aglie. There was no answer.
It was already late in the evening. He didn’t dare leave the house, so he took a pill to get some sleep. The next morning, he called Aglie again. Silence. He went out to buy the papers. Luckily the front page was still occupied by the funeral; the story about the train and the copy of the police sketch must be somewhere inside. He skulked back to his apartment, his collar turned up, then realized he was still wearing the blazer. At least he didn’t have on the maroon tie.
While he was trying once more to sort out what had happened, he received a call. A strange foreign voice, a slightly Balkan accent, mellifluous: a completely disinterested party acting out of pure kindness of heart. Poor Signor Belbo, the voice said, finding yourself compromised by such an unpleasant business. You should never agree to act as someone else’s courier without first checking the contents of the package. How awful it would be if someone were to inform the police that Signor Belbo was the unidentified occupant of seat number 45.
Of course, that extreme step could be avoided, if Belbo would only agree to cooperate. If he were to say, for example, where the Templars’ map was. And since Milan had become hot, because everyone knew the Intercity terrorist had boarded the train there, it would be prudent to deal with the matter in neutral territory: for example, Paris. Why not arrange to meet at the Librairie Sloane, 3 rue de la Manticore, in a week’s time? But perhaps Belbo would be better advised to set off at once, before anybody identified him. Librairie Sloane, 3 rue de la Manticore. At noon on Wednesday, June 20, he would find there a familiar face, that bearded