Pablo De Santis - Voltaire's Calligrapher

The room I took was cramped and cold. Previous guests had scratched their names into the musty walls. The blanket was so dirty it was much heavier and warmer than if it had been clean. Insects of every kind crawled along the floor. As I waited for sleep to free me from these annoyances, I studied the bugs with my magnifying glass. I even kept a few specimens: I liked to press them between the pages of my books as reminders.

The next morning I bought a fresh loaf of bread. The bakers of Toulouse were paying homage to the Calas boy: it was in the shape of a hanged man, sprinkled with salt and raisins, the little noose decorated with sesame seeds. I finished reading Voltaire’s briefs and set out for the Calas house.

The judges had ordered a twenty-four-hour guard to be posted there. I asked the only soldier on duty if I was allowed to go in, but he said no. I had predicted as much and pulled out a bottle of wine with a loaf of that bread. The guard stepped aside, and I wandered through the now-empty rooms.

All of the inhabitants had been hauled away: the father, the mother, the sister, the brother, the friend who was visiting, even the maid was in prison, and every last piece of furniture had disappeared as well. All that remained was the large, rusty nail that had held Marc-Antoine’s rope. I felt I had crossed all of France just to see that nail.

“Why didn’t anyone take it?” I asked the soldier.

“They say it’s cursed. No one wants to touch it.”

I walked over to test its strength and show him I wasn’t superstitious but changed my mind.

“Were you here when they looted the house?”

“No, but I was told they came down the street singing and carrying torches. As soon as they got here, they stopped and stood in silence: inspiration had vanished and they didn’t know what to do, whether to kneel down or lay waste. Their enthusiasm was renewed the moment they stepped through the door: most of them had never been in a house like this, and they discovered what fun it was to empty drawers and upend furniture. Other people’s lives are such mysteries. At some point, one of the women wanted to burn down the house and set fire to a curtain; the others put it out and nearly set her on fire. They all arrived together but left alone, arrived singing but left in silence, arrived with torches but disappeared in darkness.”

I studied every last corner with my magnifying glass as the guard followed me around. There were fewer signs of the Calas family’s whole life than of the looters’ brief stay: tatters of clothing, splinters of wood, chicken bones, and broken bottles.

“There aren’t enough saints in these godless times; that’s why people are willing to pay such a high price for relics. You can buy the hanged man’s teeth on the black market for two francs apiece.”

“I wonder if they’re even real.”

“Oh, the hundreds of teeth, nails, and locks of hair for sale are all real. By the time I came on duty, only the martyr’s books were left. No one wanted them because books aren’t relics. But you seem like you might be interested. Maybe we could come to an arrangement.”

The guard mentioned an exorbitant sum. I gave no reply but concentrated on examining the nail instead. He dropped the price lower and lower until, discouraged and irritated, he knew he had no choice but to listen to my offer.

“I’ll tell you what,” I proposed, as I cleaned the magnifying glass on my shirt. “I don’t have the money to buy the books, but if you let me look at them, I’ll pay you one coin now and another when I’m done.”

He agreed and went to the window to make sure no one was coming.

“I’ve hidden them.”

We went into what had been the maid’s room. The soldier lifted up some floorboards and handed me five dusty books. I surreptitiously looked for even a scrap of paper that might have been left behind, but all I found were notes penciled in the margins beside certain passages. I read the titles of the works: a collection of essays by Seneca, organized by topic; Hamlet by William Shakespeare; a speech by Cicero; The Apology of Socrates by Plato; and a fifth book that, no matter how hard I try, refuses to come to mind. Every paragraph the reader had marked praised death by one’s own hand. It wasn’t depression that led him to commit suicide; he had prepared himself until he was ready for the rope.

“These could save the Calas family. Why don’t you take them to the court?”

“Books have never saved anyone. It’s too late for them anyhow. We need a martyr: the fanatics need one, and so do we, men like you and me who don’t know what to believe in. My mother had a boil on her left leg that was already affecting her knee; she went to the funeral, prayed, and it went away. How do you explain that? Pray to the hanged man!”

“I’d rather pray to a saint with a little more experience.”

“Well, I’ve been blessed by him: I’ve already earned one coin, and now I’m about to earn another.”

He held out his hand. I paid and left the ransacked house.

All around the Church of Saint Stephen, relic vendors secretly displayed their little trophies in glass jars so thick they deformed and enlarged the treasures inside. The church was full of parishioners who needed increasing amounts of incense, which created an impregnating fog. The candles cast their yellow hue on the darkness. A blackened skeleton hung down, a tag proclaiming it was property of the Toulouse school of medicine. In its right hand was a quill dipped in blood and in its left a palm leaf, symbols of the conversion the murder had prevented. Used to being a simple object of study, the skeleton seemed taken aback by such sanctification.

I walked on to the courthouse where the Calas family was being tried. Armed guards stood at the door, and no one was allowed to enter. Conversations continued inside even though it was late; the windows above were illuminated. About a hundred people were gathered outside, circulating rumors and looking up as if the wavering light might contain a message. Everyone who came in or out of the court was accosted for news; though none replied, the crowd saw its hopes and convictions confirmed by the hush. The only person not questioned was a tall man in a cloak who seemed to impose silence from afar and whose every step was like a period at the end of an empty phrase. I heard a whisper beside me:

“That one there cleaned the body. He used to be an executioner.”

I followed the man in the cloak, rummaging in my bag for coins to pay for any information he could provide. He strode along briskly, and I had to run to keep pace. Windows closed and lights went out as we passed, giving the distinct impression his steps had ordered them to. I stopped next to a fountain whose waters were black: my quarry had disappeared. Before I knew it, I felt a rope around my neck and my feet were off the ground, not very high but enough that I longed to feel the earth below. The moon was reflected on the water. I struggled in vain, dancing the final jig of the hanged.

“The last man who tried to rob me lost his right hand. I carry it in a box of salt; it brings me luck wherever I go.”

I tried to speak but couldn’t. I reached into my pocket for a coin and let it fall on the cobblestones. My attacker dismantled the gallows, and my feet touched down once more.

“I came to pay you, not rob you,” I said.

“I’m not selling anything.”

“I buy words.”

“I don’t talk much.”

“I heard you washed the body of Marc-Antoine Calas.”

He wanted to know what so interested me that I was willing to pay for answers. I told him I worked for the Jesuits and that they wanted to be absolutely certain the Calas boy was a martyr. The Jesuits, I explained, were trying to speed up the canonization process for priests who had been murdered in the Orient and didn’t want any old impromptu veneration to supersede the urgent needs of the Church. I handed him another silver coin.