Near a window in the right-hand corner, I noticed the sentry box of the periscope. I entered it and found myself facing a glass plate, as on the bridge of a ship, and through it I saw shifting images of a film, blurred; a scene of a city. What I saw was projected from a screen above my head, where everything was upside down, and this second screen was the eyepiece, as it were, of a primitive periscope made of two packing cases arranged in an obtuse angle. The longer case stuck out like a pipe from the cubicle above and behind me, reaching a higher window, from which a set of wide-angle lenses gathered the light from outside.
Calculating the route I had followed, coming up here, I realized that the periscope gave me a view of the outside as if I were looking through a window in the upper part of the apse of Saint-Martin—as if I were swaying there with the Pendulum, like a hanged man, taking his last look. After my eyes adjusted to the pale scene, I could make out rue Vaucanson, which the choir overlooked, and rue Conté, on a line with the nave. Rue Conté split into rue Montgolfier to the left and rue de Turbigo to the right. There were a couple of bars at the corners, Le Weekend and La Rotonde, and opposite them a façade with a sign that I could just barely discern: LES CREATIONS JACSAM.
The periscope. There was no real reason it should be in the hall of glass rather than in the hall of optical instruments, but obviously it was important for this particular view of the outside to be in this particular place. But important how? Why should this cubicle, so positivist-scientific, a thing out of Verne, stand beside the emblematic lion and serpent?
In any case, if I had the strength and the courage to stay here for another half hour or so, the night watchman might not see me.
And so I remained underwater for what seemed a very long time. I heard the footsteps of the last of the visitors, then the footsteps of the last guards. I was tempted to crouch under the bridge to elude a possible random glance inside, but decided against it. If they discovered me standing, I could pretend I was an enthusiast who had lingered to enjoy the marvel.
Later, the lights went out, and the hall was shrouded in semidarkness. But the cubicle seemed less dark now, illuminated as it was by the screen. I stared steadily at it, my last contact with the world.
The best course was to stay on my feet—if my feet ached too much, then in a crouch, for at least two hours. Closing time for visitors was not the same as quitting time for the employees. I was seized by sudden fear: suppose the cleaning staff started going through all the rooms, inch by inch. But then I remembered: the museum opened late in the morning, so the cleaners probably worked by daylight and not in the evening.
And that must have been the case, at least in the upper rooms, because I heard no one else pass by, only distant voices and an occasional louder sound, perhaps of doors closing. I stood still. There would be plenty of time for me to get back to the church between ten and eleven, or even later. The Masters would not come until close to midnight.
A group of young people emerged from La Rotonde. A girl walked along rue Conte and turned into rue Montgolfier. Not a very busy neighborhood. Would I be able to hold out, watching the humdrum world behind my back for hours on end? Shouldn’t I try to guess the secret of the periscope’s location here? I felt the need to urinate. Ignore it: a nervous reaction.
So many things run through your mind when you’re hiding alone inside a periscope.
This must be how a stowaway feels, concealed in a ship’s hold, emigrating to some far-off land. To the Statue of Liberty, in fact, with the diorama of New York. I might grow drowsy, doze; maybe that would be good. No, then I might wake up too late….
The worst would be an anxiety attack. You are certain then that in a moment you will start screaming. Periscope. Submarine. Trapped on the ocean floor. Maybe the great black fish of the abyss are already circling you, unseen, and all you know is that you’re running out of air….
I took several deep breaths. Concentrate. The only thing you can rely on at a time like this is the laundry list. Stick to facts, causes, effects. I am here for this reason, and also for this reason and this….
Memories, distinct, precise, orderly. Of the past three frantic days, of the past two years, and the forty-year-old memories I found when I broke into Jacopo Belbo’s electronic brain.
I am remembering now (as I remembered then) in order to make sense out of the chaos of that misguided creation of ours. Now (as then, while I waited in the periscope) I shrink into one remote corner of my mind, to draw from it a story. Such as the Pendulum. Diotallevi told me that the first Sefirah is Keter, the Crown, the beginning, the primal void. In the beginning He created a point, which became Thought, where all the figures were drawn. He was and was not, He was encompassed in the name yet not encompassed in the name, having as yet no name other than the desire to be called by a name….
He traced signs in the air; a dark light leapt from His most secret depth, like a colorless mist that gives form to formlessness, and as the mist spread, a burst of flames took shape in its center, and the flames streamed down to illuminate the lower Sefirot, and down, down to the Kingdom.
But perhaps in that simsun, that diminishment, that lonely separation—Diotallevi said—there was already the promise of the return.
HOKHMAH
In hanc utilitatem clementes angeli saepe figuras, characteres, formas et voces invenerunt proposueruntque nobis mortalibus et ignotas et stupendas nullius rei iuxta consuetum linguae usum significativas, sed per rationis nostrae summam admirationem in assiduam intelligibilium per-vestigationem, deinde in illorum ipsorum venerationem et amorem inductivas.
—Johannes Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica, Hagenhau, 1517, III
It had been two days earlier, a Thursday. I was lazing in bed, undecided about getting up. I had arrived the previous afternoon and had telephoned my office. Diotallevi was still in the hospital, and Gudrun sounded pessimistic: condition unchanged; in other words, getting worse. I couldn’t bring myself to go and visit him.
Belbo was away. Gudrun told me he telephoned to say he had to go somewhere for family reasons. What family? The odd thing was, he took away the word processor—Abulafia, he called it—and the printer, too. Gudrun also told me he had set it up at home in order to finish some work. Why had he gone to all that trouble? Couldn’t he do it in the office?
I felt like a displaced person. Lia and the baby wouldn’t be back until next week. The previous evening I’d dropped by Pilade’s, but found no one there.
The phone woke me. It was Belbo; his voice different, remote.
“Where the hell are you? Lost in the jungle?”
“Don’t joke, Casaubon. This is serious. I’m in Paris.”
“Paris? But I was the one who was supposed to go to the Conservatoire.”
“Stop joking, damn it. I’m in a booth—in a bar. I may not be able to talk much longer….”
“If you’re running out of change, call collect. I’ll wait here.”
“Change isn’t the problem. I’m in trouble.” He was talking fast, not giving me time to interrupt. “The Plan. The Plan is real. I know, don’t say it. They’re after me.”
“Who?” I still couldn’t understand.
“The Templars, Casaubon, for God’s sake. You won’t want to believe this, I know, but it’s all true. They think I have the map, they tricked me, made me come to Paris. At midnight Saturday they want me at the Conservatoire. Saturday—you understand—Saint John’s Eve….” He was talking disjointedly; and I couldn’t follow him. “I don’t want to go. I’m on the run, Casaubon. They’ll kill me. Tell De Angelis—no, De Angelis is useless—keep the police out of it….”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Read the floppy disks, use Abulafia. I put everything there these last few days, including all that happened this month. You weren’t around, I didn’t know who to tell it to, I wrote for three days and three nights…. Listen, go to the office; in my desk drawer there’s an envelope with two keys in it. The large one you don’t need: it’s the key to my house in the country. But the small one’s for the Milan apartment. Go there and read everything, then decide for yourself, or maybe we’ll talk. My God, I don’t know what to do….”
“All right. But where can I find you?”
“I don’t know. I change hotels here every night. Do it today and wait at my place tomorrow morning. I’ll call if I can. My God, the password—”
I heard noises. Belbo’s voice came closer, moved away, as if someone was wresting the receiver from him.
“Belbo! What’s going on?”
“They found me. The word—”
A sharp report, like
