The Club Dumas полностью

His eyes remained fixed in the diminishing light and growing darkness. That preternatural blackness that seems to be saying to God’s most luminous and sublime creation: “Give me space. Stop shining.”

“You like Gothic novels?”

“I like to read.” She bowed her head slightly, and the light made a foreshortened outline of her bare neck. “And to hold ‘ books. I always carry several in my rucksack when I travel.”

“Do you travel a lot?”

“Yes. I’ve been traveling for ages.”

Corso  winced  at her  answer.   She  said  it very  seriously, frowning slightly, like a child talking about serious matters.

“I thought you were a student.”

“I am sometimes.”

Corso put the Melmoth back on the table.

“You’re a strange young lady. How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen? Sometimes your expression changes, as if you were older.”

“Maybe I am. One’s expressions are influenced by what one has experienced and read. Look at you.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

“Have you ever seen yourself smile? You look like an old

soldier.”

He shifted slightly in his seat, embarrassed. “I don’t know how an old soldier smiles.”

“Well, I do.” The girl’s eyes darkened. She was searching in her memory. “Once I knew ten thousand men who were look­ing for the sea.”

Corso lifted an eyebrow in mock-interest. “Really. Is that something you read or experienced?”

“Guess.” She stopped and looked at him intently before add­ing, “You seem like a clever man, Mr. Corso.”

She stood up, taking the book from the table and her white sneakers off the floor. Her eyes brightened, and Corso recog­nized the reflections in them. He saw something familiar in her gaze.

“Maybe we’ll see each other around,” she said as she left.

Corso had no doubt that they would. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to or not. Either way, the thought lasted only a moment. As she left, the girl passed Amilcar Pinto at the door.

He was a short, greasy little man. His skin was dark and shiny, as if it had just been varnished, and his thick, wiry mus­tache was roughly trimmed. He would have been an honest policeman, even a good policeman, if he didn’t have to feed five children, a wife, and a retired father who secretly stole his cigarettes. His wife was a mulatto and twenty years ago had been very beautiful. Pinto brought her back from Mozambique at the time of independence, when Maputo was called Lourenco Marques and he himself was a decorated sergeant in the paratroops, a slight, brave man. During the course of some of the deals Pinto and Corso did from time to time, Corso had seen Pinto’s wife—eyes ringed with fatigue, large, flaccid breasts, in old slippers, and her hair tied with a red scarf—in the hallway to their house that smelled of dirty kids and boiled vegetables.

The policeman came straight into the lounge, looking at the girl out of the corner of his eye as he passed her, and sank into the armchair opposite Corso. He was out of breath, as if he’d just walked all the way from Lisbon.

“Who’s the girl?”

“Nobody important,” answered Corso. “She’s Spanish. A tourist.”

Pinto nodded. He wiped his sweaty palms on his trouser legs. It was something he often did. He sweated abundantly, and his shirt collars always had a dark ring where they touched his skin.

“I have a bit of a problem,” said Corso.

Pinto’s grin widened. No problem is insoluble, his expression said. Not as long as you and I still get along. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” he answered.

It was Corso’s turn to smile. He’d met Amilcar Pinto four years ago. Some stolen books had appeared on stands at the Ladra Book Fair—a bad business. Corso came to Lisbon to iden­tify them, Pinto made a couple of arrests, and ‘en route back to their owner a few very valuable books disappeared forever. To celebrate the beginning of a fruitful friendship, Corso and Pinto got drunk together in the fados bars of the Barrio Alto. The former paratroop sergeant reminisced about his time in the colonies, told how he’d nearly had his balls blown off at the battle of Gorongosa. The two men ended up singing “Gran-dola Vila Morena” at the top of their voices on Santa Luzia. Illuminated by the moon, the district of Alfama lay at their feet with the Tagus beyond it, wide and gleaming like a sheet of silver. The dark shapes of boats, moving very slowly, headed out toward the Belem tower and the Atlantic.

A waiter brought Pinto the coffee he had ordered. Corso said nothing until the waiter left. “It’s about a book.”

The policeman bent over the little low table and put sugar in his coffee.

“It’s always about a book,” he said gravely. “This one’s special.” “Which one isn’t?”

Corso smiled a sharp, metallic smile. “The owner doesn’t want to sell.”