Pablo De Santis - The Paris Enigma

“I don’t know if it’s because I’m foreign, but I have trouble understanding it.”

“The keys are in tarot and alchemy. The speaker is not the poet, but an alchemical Pluto who represents the philosophical earth, matter prior to its transformation. The tarot is also mentioned. The fifteenth card belongs to the Devil, who is the prince of darkness and, in this case, the Prince of Aquitaine. The sixteenth card is the tower in ruins. And the seventeenth, the star.”

I read the second verse out loud.

In the night of the Tomb, you who have comforted me, Give me back Posilipo and the sea of Italy,

The flower that so pleased my desolate heart And the trellis where the branch and the rose meet.

“I understand even less of this one,” I said.

“I’m not surprised: detectives get lost in the written word. They can read what isn’t written, but when letters come into it, they go astray. The night of the tomb means the same as the black sun and melancholy: darkness, the rotting of the matter which will then be transformed. Posilipo is a red stone, which is to say, sulfur, the alchemists’ material of choice. And the sea of Italy is mercury. All in all, the entire poem speaks of the transformation of matter, the second alchemical operation.”

The sonnet continued:

Am I Eros or Phoebus?… Lusignan or Biron? My forehead is flushed from the Queen’s kiss; I dreamed in the Grotto where the Mermaid swims…

And twice victorious I crossed the Acheron: Modulating alternately on the lyre of Orpheus The saint’s sighs and the fairy’s screams.

“I’m not going to overwhelm you with the secrets contained in each and every word; every night I find new possible interpretations. But I want you to observe how the dark, star-spangled lute of the first verse turns into Orpheus’s luminous lyre at the end. Nerval set out to tell the story of an alchemical transformation, but here, in the penultimate verse, we see what really matters to him: when matter and work become art. Orpheus is the poet capable of giving and creating an allegorical version of alchemy and its mysteries; he is the artist capable of putting into words those other secret arts. And the result of that verbal operation is as important as if not more so than its contents. Nerval didn’t need to tell us the secret; he was interested in pointing out a puzzle that couldn’t possibly be solved.”

I read the poem again and then said to Grialet, “But what’s interesting about enigmas is that they hint at the possibility of an answer. I like your interpretation, even though I don’t completely understand it. I like knowing that just as mysteries exist, so do solutions, even if I can’t figure them out. When I was a boy I used to read about the detectives’ great exploits and I loved the cases that seemed impossible, a locked-room case, for example, did have an explanation. The enigma exists only for the moment in which the detective unravels it with the strength of his reasoning.”

“You said it: Arzaky and his friends want to unravel mysteries, not complete them with the revelation of the enigma. If they embraced the mystery instead of confronting it, don’t you think they would come to a better understanding of their cases? Arzaky always finds the killer, but he loses sight of the truth.”

“Arzaky is a detective; like a scientist, he believes only the evidence.”

“Do you believe that the evidence leads to the truth? Evidence is the truth’s enemy! How many innocent killers has Arzaky sent to the guillotine? It’s not just crime that makes us guilty, nor the lack of it that makes us innocent.”

Grialet had raised his voice, surprising Greta, who moved closer to me. Then the occultist started to circle us, pressing us against one another.

“I was partially deaf until they hacked off half my ear with a butcher’s knife. Since then I hear perfectly.” Grialet moved his greasy hair aside to show us his wound, whose irregular edges looked more like they had been bitten than sliced by steel. “With this pretty little ear I can hear your thoughts. I know what the detectives don’t. They don’t dare come here, sending you instead. Who do you work for, miss? For Lawson, or Castelvetia?”

Greta, pale, bit her lips.

“But your detectives don’t know what they’re doing,” he continued. “You are more than servants, more than assistants. Both of you will be the downfall of your mentor.”

I felt that the accusation was directed at Greta, not at me, so she was the one who should respond.

“You’re wrong,” said Greta. “And don’t speak to us as if we were some sort of a team. We just met, it’s only a coincidence that we’re here at the same time.”

Grialet had lost all meekness. He left his slashed ear in view, and far from being a weak point, it seemed like a triumph, a point of pride, a mark that signified that he belonged to a chosen circle. I couldn’t take my eyes off his big yellow teeth.

“I’m wrong? I recognize the voices of those who are due for a transformation. I see the pride that can’t be concealed by false modesty. You suspect me. It is you who are the suspects. You, who pretend to be the acolytes, the messengers, the assistants, the shadows… Now leave. You’ll find nothing more here than obscure phrases and obsolete verses.”

We left the house upset and confused.

“My performance was perfect. Grialet would still believe my lie, if you hadn’t shown up.”

“He knew who we were before we came in. Grialet pretended to believe you just so he could get a good gawk at your bosom.”

“I used my bosom to distract Grialet, so that you could look around… Why didn’t you check the other rooms? Then we might have something now…”

I shrugged. “I didn’t want to leave you alone with him. I thought he might bite you.”

“I’m used to-”

“Being bitten?”

“To this job. I’ve dealt with men much worse than Grialet, men who wanted to do more than look at me. Now we’re not going to be able to get in again. Instead of looking for clues, you just stared at the walls…”

“There was writing on them.”

“But the clue wasn’t going to be there, on the wall, in plain sight.”

“With everything that was written there, the wall could have easily read ‘I killed Darbon,’ and neither of us would have even noticed.”

“Brilliant observation. And now we’re leaving empty-handed.”

I took the photograph of the Mermaid out from where I had hidden it in my jacket.

“I’m not leaving Grialet’s mansion completely empty-handed.”

She looked at the image, her eyes wide.

“It’s trick photography. No person is capable of such things. It must be some play of light and cameras…”

“I’ve seen her.”

“Like this?”

“Dressed.”

“I still maintain it’s impossible.”

She turned the photograph over, as if she expected to find some confirmation that it was fake on the back. In green ink, a woman’s hand had written “I dreamed in the Grotto where the Mermaid swims.”

“There are so many photographic tricks these days; they can make women look as perfect as statues.”

“That photograph isn’t painted.”

“Only fools fall for optical illusions.”

She gave me back the photo and left, offended. But Arzaky was even more upset when I showed it to him.

“How dare you enter a house using my name and steal a photograph? The idea is to send criminals to prison, not for them to send you and me there.”

“I thought it could be a clue. Perhaps the woman’s handwriting indicates-”

“It’s the Mermaid’s handwriting… No secret there for me. She’s known Grialet for some time. I asked her to help in an investigation a while back, that’s all.”