The Historian’s Debt
by Angelisa Fontaine-Wood
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
Once seated at the small table, she asked after his studies of Pisanello but he waved away this question with a graceful but hairy hand.
“Oh, I have ample opportunity to blather at length about that; I have always cherished a pet passion for Dante, however; perhaps all Italians do. So please do tell me what you are researching.”
She had not recalled telling him that this was her subject of inquiry, but she raced past this. The possibility of speaking of her theories was entirely too tempting.
“Well, with my brother — he died in the war — we shared a theory that Dante fell in fact under the sway of Sufi mystics and that his circle of friends, calling themselves Love’s Faithful, vehiculated a whole new way of thinking about God beyond anything that the pope could stipulate, a God of Love that was different from Yahweh.”
“I am not unaware of the theory of Dante as heresiarch; perhaps I have run across your brother — his work — in my various dealings. I am sorry for his loss. But tell me more, please, of your own contribution to this idea.” Adrienne raised her guard for any mockery or patronizing tone to find only rapt interest.
“As for me, I think you could posit that in his mind, Beatrice served as a kind of secular saint of Love, more akin to the Virgin, in fact in this new religion, actually beyond her. Beatrice never speaks in the Vita Nova, but by that very fact I hold that Dante endowed her words in the Comedy with a special power, I would say even of intercession.”
He continued to draw her further out, complimenting her with exacting questions that allowed her to show off the full array of her knowledge. An entire bottle of Valpolicella later, she found they were finishing their plates of risotto. When he tempted her with a glass of grappa to accompany a dessert, she could not refuse. She even found that his breath was not so entirely offensive as it had been.
“All of this is most fascinating. You’ll know, of course, of the pope’s recent encyclical.”
“I’m sorry, no, I’ve been wrapped up in the archives.”
“It would reclaim our national poet for the Church, capital-C. A lot of other nonsense besides, for I agree with you that Dante was not what anyone could call orthodox in his beliefs. Damned Benedict, if you’ll pardon my language, Signorina Augustin. Never mind, he’ll pay for that sooner or later.”
“But he tried to stop the war!”
“You’ll forgive me, my background is profoundly anti-clerical; I come from a long line of enemies of the very idea of the Throne of Saint Peter. Anyway, you are only too right to pursue this avenue of Dante, heresiarch. Your mind is an impressive one.”
With flattery of the kind, he extended his long arm almost to her lips, offering her another glass of grappa. Adrienne felt lightheaded. Surely because she had not felt this kind of rapport with anyone since Aurélien’s departure for the front. Before she knew it, she could hear herself, almost without her own volition, confiding in this odd, attentive man about the spell she tracked.
“I can certainly gather how important this is for Dante Studies, but why do you not leave it to one of his colleagues?”
“This is my debt to my brother, and this is the one way I can think of repaying it. But only if I do actually find the spell.”
His eyes were intent on hers. “A most noble gesture on your part.”
“The problem is I can’t stay much longer. As it is I... in fact, if I hadn’t been so hungry, I’m not sure I would have accepted your kind invitation. My funds are quickly reaching their limit, and if I don’t find the spell soon, then I will need to head home. And then I’m not sure what welcome I’ll find there. I left, well, rather precipitously... And not entirely with my father’s blessing.” The grappa was not enough for her to confess taking her father’s cash.
“Signorina... would you humor me in answering a question?”
Her head was foggy. “I could try.”
His keen gaze bore into her own. “What is it you wish for?”
Spirits and the imminent failure made her reckless. “I can’t have him back, but as I said, if I could find that spell, I feel as though I could properly repay my brother for all he did for me.” Her voice caught, but she wrested it back. “I could lay him finally to rest.”
“There is something else, I think. Perhaps if I tell you this: you would be a brilliant professor in your own right, with your theories and your way of explaining them. Students could only benefit from such expertise and passion as yours.”
She never had thought to articulate this to a living soul, but before she knew it, she was confessing her most desperate longing to this stranger.
“I can’t have my brother alive. That would have been the first thing, but I know in my soul that he’s gone. That being impossible, then I would give anything if I could publish like him, if I could also be a professor like he was, if I could guide my own students in their research in turn. Aurélien would have wanted that for me too. And it would be a way of keeping his flame alive, in my own way. If only I could follow a path like that. But how could that be? If I just could find the spell, maybe I could publish at least that much, but I certainly can’t afford to go beyond another few days.”
After a time of reflection, he spoke again, to purpose. “Signorina Augustin, we — and I speak here for the academy, for Italianists everywhere — we cannot have you abandon such a line of inquiry at this date. And we certainly cannot leave Dante to the Church, capital C. You must allow me to fund this research in my own humble way.”
He took out his wallet and his hairy hand began to count out lire in fresh and crisp banknotes, each with an impressive number of zeros after. And just as her hunger and loneliness had the way of her better judgment for the dinner, then the wine and the digestivo now had the way of her better judgment in this matter. She found her hand accepting the bills in spite of herself.
“This is a first payment. You must come to me immediately as soon as you need further means.”
Adrienne was sure the heat prickling her eyelids was exhaustion, nothing more. She refused to cry in front of this stranger. “How can I ever—?”
“For now, your scholarship and research are enough. Should it come to that, I’m sure we can work something out.”
* * *
The following day Adrienne’s head ached again, but from the grappa now rather than hunger. Once at the archives, the librarian returned yesterday’s volumes to her so she might continue her research. As she sifted through the pile, one slim, unfamiliar codex stood out. It was amateurishly bound, and she did not recognize it as among those requested in the days preceding. She wondered bitterly if it were not the volume that the librarians insisted did not exist? It didn’t even seem to have a call number. She riffled through the pages: a compiled miscellany, filled with astrological schemata and obscure tables in a careless Gothic hand. It was the lack of vowels, however, that took her breath away.
As she thumbed her way through it, one particular page opened onto a note in a flourished hand on elegant paper, recent and in French, noting “Try this one.” She looked and here, as far as she could make out, was an incantation to “*m**m*n” - Could it be? The “Amaymon,” that the Visconti had inscribed on the papal effigy? The rest of the text was written, as far as she could make out without vowels, in trecento Tuscan. And if it were terza rima? Her heart stopped and then began to pound. This could be Dante’s very hand. The discovery could guarantee her publication, even fame.
At that moment she felt a whisper at her ear and smelt a familiar odor. There stood Professore Monzone looming over her. “You received my note.”
“But how did you—?”
“Never mind. I’ve been at this game far longer than you, I know something of how libraries — especially Italian libraries — work.”
“This is... this could be—”
“Your lucky day! You should take that home with you to examine it further on your own time.”
“What?”
The librarian looked up sharply and frowned at her.
“I mean that book is not only not under your name, it is also not listed in the holdings. You’d be safe; you can return it tomorrow, if you felt the need, but I don’t think you’d have trouble proving its authenticity. I have a sideline in book collecting if provenance turns out to be a difficulty. Your fortune could be easily made.”
“How can you...? How do you...? You can’t steal a book. You can’t steal a book from a place like this!”
“It’s not as though it would be the first time you’ve stolen. And do be quiet, we’re in a library.” He turned and disappeared down a shadowy corridor.
* * *
Adrienne returned excitedly to her work. Somehow she blinked and it was already closing time. She looked for him in vain. Anyway, although she could now afford her own dinner, she found herself utterly without any desire to eat, only to return to her room.
Once back within her cramped and dingy lodgings, she opened her satchel and gently removed the codex. Taking utmost care, she opened it to the page marked by the professor’s note. She took out her notebook and began to transcribe the passage, guessing at vowels until she could make some kind of sense of the wording. In order to test her deciphering powers, she read aloud what she had partially reconstructed: an invocation of Amaymon.
A knock at the door startled her: the authorities? Surely by now the librarians had noticed the missing book. Perhaps they had even seen her slip it into her satchel and now they or the police had come for her. She had no excuse at the ready and stashed the volume between mattress and box springs.
“Come in.”
There at her door stood Professore Monzone, smiling. Shocked at finding him there, defying the authority of her dragoon of a landlady, Adrienne was at a loss for words.
“I wished to inquire as to the progress of our project, but I’m guessing you’ve made good headway.” He made himself at home on the bed, reached down under the mattress, and pulled out the codex. He opened it to the page in question and then glanced at the scribblings in her notebook, also turning to the right page, and nodded, “Yes, yes, fine work indeed. With a little polishing up, this should take care of the pope.”
She simply stared at him.
“Listen, I wanted to tell you. Signorina, you are a fine scholar, one of the finest minds I’ve met, regardless of sex. We could use that mind here in Italy, and I know that Bologna has a post tailor-made for you. Or rather one that we could tailor-make for you, if you would accept it.”
If her jaw dropped, she was unaware. She wasn’t even sure if she was hearing him correctly.
He did not wait for her to answer but continued: “I have another possibility that may interest you. Professors, as you might imagine, have many international contacts and, by way of this, I have some access to records of war prisoners and a certain Lieutenant Aurélien Augustin, as of the end of 1918, was still alive but wounded, in a camp near the Rhine. His memory went for some time due to a head wound, and he seems to have been shuffled about among different military hospitals, but there is someone of that name in Germany right now. Rather the worse for wear, but he could possibly be set to rights, and I could only be gratified if he should come home and take up his research again. The two of your minds, paired, would be formidable together. I can almost see it now, the discoveries you could make as a team.”
She wondered that she might have been mistaken — but she had felt it! — that he had fallen at the front, and yet her heart had the better of her doubts. “Again, I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Never say never, something might someday come up. And on that note, don’t be surprised if your brother has some debts of his own to pay off.”
“What?”
“Oh, young men of his ilk often do. As for us, I have perfect faith that our paths will cross again. Perhaps even with the young hero.”
* * *
Another knock at the door woke her from sickening dreams. She had never suffered from such things before, but all through the night she had stood behind a podium, teaching an auditorium full of students that were slumped corpses in Aurélien’s shape. Monzone had been there, handing her books out of which she attempted to read but they were all signatures written backwards in a rusty brown.
She shook the sleep from her head at the second knock. If he was back to discuss her findings, she didn’t want to see him. Instead the landlady opened the door with a telegram. Adrienne felt, in some unavowed part of herself, more unsettled than surprised, but still the paper found its way to the floor as her shaking hands covered her weeping eyes and even the thought of Bologna, dream and nightmare, faded.
AURELIEN FOUND STOP COMING HOME STOP PLEASE COME JOIN STOP ALL IS FORGIVEN STOP
* * *
Copyright © 2021 by Angelisa Fontaine-Wood
