Imagine being interrogated with a red-hot iron: Did you see a cat during the initiation? Well, why not a cat? A Templar farm, where stored grain had to be protected against mice, would be full of cats. The cat was not a common domestic animal in Europe back then. But in Egypt it was. Maybe the Templars kept cats in the house, though right-minded folk looked upon such animals with suspicion. Same thing with the heads of Baphomet. Maybe they were reliquaries in the shape of a head; not unknown at the time. Of course, some say Baphomet was an alchemic figure.”
“Alchemy always comes up,” Diotallevi said, nodding. “The Templars probably knew the secret of making gold.”
“Of course they did,” Belbo said. “It was simple enough. Attack a Saracen city, cut the throats of the women and children, and grab everything that’s not nailed down. The truth is that this whole story is a great big mess.”
“Maybe the mess was in their heads. What did they care about doctrinal debates? History is full of little sects that make up their own style, part swagger, part mysticism. The Templars themselves didn’t really understand what they were doing. On the other hand, there’s always the esoteric explanation: They knew exactly what they were doing, they were adepts of Oriental mysteries, and even the kiss on the ass had a ritual meaning.”
“Do explain to me, briefly, the ritual meaning of the kiss on the ass,” Diotallevi said.
“All right. Some modern esotericists maintain that the Templars were reviving certain Indian doctrines. The kiss on the ass serves to wake the serpent Kundalini, a cosmic force that dwells at the base of the spinal column, in the sexual glands. Once wakened, Kundalini rises to the pineal gland…”
“Descartes’s pineal gland?”
“I think it’s the same one. A third eye is then supposed to open up in the brow, the eye that lets you see directly into time and space. This is why people are still seeking the secret of the Templars.”
“Philip the Fair should have burned the modern esotericists instead of those poor bastards.”
“Yes, except that the modern esotericists don’t have two pennies to rub together.”
“Now you see the kind of stories we have to listen to!” Belbo concluded. “At least I understand why so many of my lunatics are obsessed with these Templars.”
“It’s a little like what you were saying the other day.
The whole thing is a twisted syllogism. Act like a lunatic and you will be inscrutable forever. Abracadabra, Manel Tekel Phares, Pape Satan Pape Satan Aleppe, le vièrge le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui. Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. The Templars’ mental confusion makes them indecipherable. That’s why so many people venerate them.”
“A positivist explanation,” Diotallevi said.
“Yes,” I agreed, “maybe I am a positivist. A little surgery on the pineal gland might have turned the Templars into Hospitalers; normal people, in other words. War somehow damages the cerebral circuitry. Maybe it’s the sound of the cannon, or the Greek fire. Look at our generals.”
It was one o’clock. Diotallevi, drunk on tonic water, was clearly unsteady. We all said good night. I had enjoyed myself. So had they. We didn’t yet know that we had begun to play with fire—Greek fire, the kind that burns and destroys.
Erard de Siverey said to me: “My lord, if you think that neither I nor my heirs will incur reproach for it, I will go and fetch you help from the Comte d’Anjou, whom I see in the fields over there.” I said to him: “My dear man, it seems to me you would win great honor for yourself if you went for help to save our lives. Your own, by the way, is also in great danger.”
—Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, 46, 226
After that evening of the Templars, I had only fleeting conversations with Belbo at Pilade’s, where I went less and less often because I was working on my thesis.
One day there was a big march against fascist conspiracies. It was to start at the university, and all the left-wing intellectuals had been invited to take part. Magnificent police presence, but apparently the tacit understanding was to let things take their course. Typical of those days: the demonstration had no permit, but if nothing serious happened, the police would just watch, making sure the marchers didn’t transgress any of the unwritten boundaries drawn through downtown Milan (there were a lot of territorial compromises back then).
The protesters operated in an area beyond Largo Augusto; the fascists were entrenched in Piazza San Babila and its neighboring streets. If anybody crossed the line, there were incidents; otherwise nothing happened. It was like a lion and a lion tamer. We usually believe that the tamer is attacked by the lion and that the tamer stops the attack by raising his whip or firing a blank.
Wrong: the lion was fed and sedated before it entered the cage and doesn’t feel like attacking anybody. Like all animals, it has its own space; if you don’t invade that space, the lion remains calm. When the tamer steps forward, invading it, the lion roars; the tamer then raises his whip, but also takes a step backward (as if in expectation of a charge), whereupon the lion calms down. A simulated revolution must also have its rules.
I went to the demonstration but didn’t march with any of the groups. Instead, I stood at the edge of Piazza Santo Stefano, where reporters, editors, and artists who had come to show their solidarity were milling around. The whole clientele of Pilade’s.
I found myself standing next to Belbo and a woman I had often seen him with at the bar, who I thought was his companion. (She later disappeared—and now I know why, having read about it in the file on Dr. Wagner.)
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“You know how it is,” he said, smiling, embarrassed. “We have to save our souls somehow. Crede firmiter et pecca fortiter. Doesn’t this scene remind you of something?”
I looked around. It was a sunny afternoon, one of those days when Milan is beautiful: yellow façades and a softly metallic sky. The police, across the square, were armored with helmets and plastic shields that gave off glints like steel. A plainclothes officer girded with a gaudy tricolor sash strutted up and down in front of his men. I turned and looked at the head of the march. People weren’t moving; they were marking time.
They were lined up in ranks, but the rows were irregular, almost serpentine, and the crowd seemed to bristle with pikes, standards, banners, sticks. Impatient groups chanted rhythmic slogans. Along the flanks of the procession, activists darted back and forth, wearing red kerchiefs over their faces, motley shirts, studded belts, and jeans that had known much rain and sun. Even the rolled-up flags that concealed the incongruous weapons looked like dabs of color on a palette.
I thought of Dufy, his gaiety. Freely associating, I went from Dufy to Guillaume Dufay. I had the impression of being in a Flemish miniature. In the little crowds gathered on either side of the marchers, I glimpsed some androgynous women waiting for the great display of daring they had been promised. But all this went through my mind in a flash, as if I were reliving some other experience without recognizing it.
“It’s the taking of Ascalon, isn’t it?” Belbo said.
“By the lord Saint James, my good sir,” I replied, “this is truly a Crusaders’ combat! I do believe that this night some of these men will be in paradise!”
“No doubt,” Belbo said. “But can you tell me where the Saracens are?”
“Well, the police are definitely Teutonic,” I observed, “which would make us the hordes of Aleksandr Nevski. But I’m getting my texts mixed up. Look at that group over there. They must be the companions of the Comte d’Artois, eager to enter the fray, for they will brook no offense, and already they head for the enemy lines, shouting threats to provoke the infidel!”
That was when it happened. I don’t remember it that clearly. The marchers had started moving, and a group of activists with chains and ski masks began to force their way through the police lines toward Piazza San Babila, yelling. The lion was on the move. The front line of police parted and the fire hoses appeared. The first ball bearings, then the first stones, came hurtling from the forward positions of the demonstration.
A cordon of police advanced, swinging clubs, and the procession recoiled. At that moment, in the distance, from the far end of Via Laghetto, a shot was heard. Maybe it was only a tire exploding, or a firecracker; maybe it was a popgun shot from one of those groups that in a few years would regularly be using P-38s.
Panic. The police drew their weapons, trumpet blasts for a charge were heard, the march split into two groups: one, militants, who were ready to fight, and one, all the others, who considered their duty done. I found myself running along Via Larga, with the mad fear of being hit by some blunt object, such as a club. Suddenly Belbo and his companion were beside me, running fast but without panic.
At the corner of Via Rastrelli, Belbo grabbed me by the arm. “This way, kid,” he said. I wanted to ask why; Via Larga seemed much more spacious and peopled, and claustrophobia overcame me in the maze of alleys
