Voltaire’s Calligrapher

I had never had any trouble with the little iron stove until one day (I was distracted, reading some licentious notes from Mme. F.) a spark set fire to a pile of correspondence from the marquis d’Argenson, a dear friend of Voltaire’s. I always carried a bag of sand for making quills and sometimes to use as a blotting agent, and threw it on the fire before it burned the archives to the ground.

I couldn’t sleep that night, knowing Voltaire would be deciding my fate: expulsion or servitude.

I went to his study at dawn. Through the window, a stand of dark trees mirrored my sadness, the wind bending them into question marks. Voltaire was examining a parasite he had found on one of his plants.

‘We must get rid of everything that consumes us, everything that lives at the expense of others,’ Voltaire said by way of greeting. ‘I want you to pack your bags.’

‘Can’t you give me some other job, instead of sending me away? Don’t you need a gardener?’

‘What do you know about plants? Whenever you go into the garden, the roses impale themselves on their own thorns and the tulips commit mass suicide.’

‘What about the kitchen?’

‘They would cook you, and I’m not sure I’d like that dish.’

I liked life at Ferney. I didn’t want to go back to climbing stairs at the courts, knocking on magistrates’ doors, waiting in paper-filled offices where the air was always stale. All the strength drained out of me as I thought about leaving, and while Voltaire stood tall in front of me, I grew old and stooped.

‘I’ll go pack now and never return,’ I said, feigning dignity and hoping for compassion.

‘What did you think I meant? I’m not firing you. I need you to get ready to leave, but to go to Toulouse.’

‘Why Toulouse?’

‘A traveler arrived last night and told me of a distressing case. He said the court of Languedoc is preparing to execute a Protestant named Jean Calas, and perhaps all of his family as well.’

‘What is he accused of?’

‘Of killing his son.’

‘Then I hope the sentence is carried out.’

‘And I hope you’ll find out why they’re determined to kill this man at all costs. I’ve prepared some briefs; you can read them on the way.’

‘But I’m a calligrapher. I care about the clarity of line, not the truth behind words. That’s for others to do; philosophers, for example.’

‘I’m too old to go. Besides, my reputation there guarantees it’s a shortcut to death. I’m in no hurry to die, much less in Toulouse. You, on the other hand, won’t be in any danger, as long as you never mention my name. I’ve already asked your uncle to send a coach for you.’

‘I thought I’d stay here, to write for you and for history, not travel with the dead.’

‘If your path is one of history, then it’s only natural to be accompanied by the dead.’

The Passenger

The old coachman, Servin, came from the Swiss side of the border this time. He was transporting a couple from Avignon who had been killed in an avalanche. The tragedy had occurred ten years earlier, but the bodies had only recently been found. They were accompanied by a third coffin, but I didn’t bother to ask about it.

Three hours into our trip it began to rain. Ahead were only shadows and darkened trees. I shouted to see whether Servin wanted me to take a turn, but he didn’t reply; he took another swig from his bottle and spurred on the horses, indifferent to the storm.

He soon told me to get some sleep so I could take over for him later. A small iron cot hung down inside the carriage above the three coffins. I crawled up into it, settled onto one blanket, and pulled another one over me. I fell asleep for a few minutes, despite the swaying bed and squeaking chains, but a sudden jolt woke me from a dream in which I was supposed to take Voltaire’s body to some faraway place. Seconds later a violent lurch tossed me into the air and onto the third coffin.

The shuttered viewing window snapped open, as if someone had answered my knock. I peered in at the third passenger with the help of intermittent lightning bolts. It was the same curiosity that had led me, as a boy, to stare at the hanged man’s blue tongue, the soles of his feet carved with unrecognizable symbols, and the superstitious old women patiently pulling his nails and teeth. I could already picture the unsightly powdered face when I saw her: she had been beautiful, and that hadn’t changed. Her features spoke not of death, but enchantment. I had found a secret door into a fairy tale.

I shouted for Servin to stop and waited for the storm to bring us another flash of lightning. The coachman didn’t bat an eye.

‘Sometimes a dry climate preserves a body intact.’

‘You call this rain a dry climate?’

‘Maybe they embalmed her the Egyptian way. They say there are funeral parlors in Geneva that cover a body in animal fat and replace the organs with sawdust.’

I wanted him to stay and discuss the enigma, but he went back to the reins, unburdened by the curiosity that leads one to search for answers and find only problems.

We hid the carriage behind a copse of trees and spent the night in an inn, keeping the nature of our cargo from the owner or she would never have let us stay: gravediggers, Night Mail coachmen, and executioners were generally unwelcome guests. It was still raining outside and there was a leak above my bed. I moved, but the drips followed me, reminding me there was still a mystery to be solved.

I lowered myself out through a window, being careful not to wake Servin. Inside the hearse, I used the lamp I had brought to illuminate the face behind the glass. The closer I brought the light, the darker it was all around. The woman’s lips were pursed, as if she were about to reveal a secret. No Egyptian technique was capable of such perfection.

The next morning Servin found me asleep on top of the coffin and woke me with a cuff on the head.

‘I’m going to tell the Maréchal. That’s all he needs, for you to fall in love with a passenger. You take the horses as far as Avignon.’

I let the horses take me. They seemed much wiser, their soft side-to-side motion indicating a philosophical acceptance of the world’s contradictions. I began to talk to them and was sure they understood by the way they would sometimes toss their heads, as if agreeing with my arguments.

The storm had ended by the time Servin took the reins again. I didn’t dare tell him I was lost, but one glance at the surrounding forest and the old coachman immediately turned the horses around. He found the road to Avignon, delivered the two bodies from the Alps, and pocketed an enormous tip. He gave me less than a tenth, but promised I would earn a little more once we reached Toulouse.

Whenever we passed through a town to replenish our food supplies, residents would close their windows and cross their fingers: the passing of a Night Mail coach was a bad omen. Twice we were refused entrance and forced to go another way. I tried to convince Servin to remove the black crêpe and carved allegorical images that decorated the hearse. Without these, it would look like any other carriage, but he refused.

‘Maréchal Dalessius personally decorates each coach and no changes are allowed. He wants us to be recognized from afar. Alternate routes and delays shouldn’t concern us. As he says: A detour is just another road.’

Toulouse

I had been eager to arrive but now that the wheels (about to take one last turn before falling off their axles) were shakily tracing the route to Toulouse, I felt that mixture of exhaustion and unease that comes over a traveler whenever he reaches a new city.

We delivered the last coffin to the rue des Aveugles. The house belonged to M. Girard, a toy manufacturer. A long table displayed wooden horses painted blue, puzzles of city maps, porcelain dolls, and armies of tin soldiers that seemed to be returning in defeat: broken, hungry, their flag in tatters.

‘Is she your daughter?’ I asked.

‘The Night Mail is known for not asking questions,’ Girard replied.

‘That’s true, sir,’ Servin said, worried my curiosity might reduce or eliminate the tip altogether. ‘Please forgive him. Young Dalessius is new to the profession.’

The owner gave us each a few coins, but Servin snatched mine from me.

‘You should be glad you rode here for free,’ he said under his breath.

He asked the toy manufacturer whether he wanted us to move the coffin to another room in the house.

‘Just there is fine,’ Girard said, anxious for us to leave. Since we were no longer in danger of losing the tip, I asked about the cause of death.

‘She ate a poison apple,’ he snapped, pushing us toward the door.

We came out of the house, and Servin said good-bye there and then. A shipment was waiting for him on the outskirts of the city. He offered his hand, and in it was a coin. He told me to take care, and if anyone asked who sent me, to say anything at all, that I was an emissary to the devil or the Huguenots themselves, but under no circumstances was I to tell the truth.

I found lodgings near the market and took a room where I had to pay two nights in advance.

‘Are you here for the festivities?’ the proprietor asked. His face was scarred by illness and injury, and he was missing three fingers on his right hand.

‘No. Is something happening tonight?’

‘Celebrations begin in a few days.’

‘And what are you celebrating?’

‘The day the people of Toulouse had the courage to get rid of four thousand Huguenots. It’s the two hundredth anniversary.’

‘They were expelled?’

‘Straight to the hereafter. Never, sir, will you see such fireworks - not even in China! I lost three fingers when I was igniting them fifteen years ago, but don’t think I regret it. The moment I was hurt, I thought: Others have to smell gunpowder and are blown to pieces on the battlefield; I get to be a hero right here. I’d do it again, especially now, with the Calas family as the guests of honor. A whole year of boredom, sitting by the fire, greeting visitors as they come and go; a whole year of waiting just to watch the world explode. I can start to feel my lost fingers as the day draws closer.’

That night I looked out the window in my room and saw five men dressed in white robes, hoods pulled up, carrying an image of Christ. Voltaire had warned me: Be careful of the White Penitents. Windows opened as they passed and wilted flowers showered down on their linen hoods.

The Scene of the Crime

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 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 at one’s own hand. He hadn’t been so distraught or depressed that he committed 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.

The Mechanical Hand

All around the Church of St. 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.

The executioner spoke:

‘I attended to the body until the White Penitents took it from me. Six of them came down to the courthouse basement, showed me a piece of paper I never got to read, and carried it out in procession.’

‘Was he bruised, as if hanged by force?’

‘Not a single mark, other than a scar on his left shoulder - a very old wound.’

We sat on the edge of the fountain.

‘I wasn’t going to kill you. It’s bad luck to kill a man on a full moon: he’ll haunt your dreams.’

The executioner had big hands scarred by ropes and blades. I told him I knew about his former profession.

‘I’ve beheaded criminals in Paris, hanged poor wretches in Marseille, and pushed offenders off the top of a tower in Italy. They would land on marble below, and a painter would capture their final pose. But the real art is the ax: not many can cut off a head with a single blow. The rope, on the other hand, is the simplest yet least reliable of all the methods.’

‘Why? Did someone survive?’

‘Only one man lived to say “I was executed by Kolm.” He paid my assistant to fray the rope so it would break when he dropped. A man can’t be hanged twice for the same crime in Marseille, so he was set free. But let’s talk about happier things.’

Kolm worked for the courts in Toulouse, where he washed bodies in tubs of bleach water, sutured wounds, and sometimes determined cause of death. He was hired because of his experience as an executioner.

‘Do you miss your old profession?’

‘No. I got tired of being needed but despised. Take a look at this walking stick.’

He held up a long cane made of dark wood. On the bottom was a small but perfect replica of a hand, operated by a mechanism on the silver handle.

‘I was never allowed to touch any food when I went to the market. No one would speak to me. Then I had an artisan from Nuremberg make this walking stick. At first no one had a problem greeting the silver hand, letting it pick up apples or fish. But then it started to malfunction and now it crushes everything it touches.’

The hand opened and closed. Kolm invited me to try it. I lifted the walking stick and, as I looked up, saw a woman standing in a window. It was the passenger we had delivered to the toy manufacturer on rue des Aveugles.

I heard the sound of the window as it closed.

I had no intention of saying anything, but suddenly heard my voice, as if it were another’s:

‘A dead woman just closed a window.’

‘I know the dead and I know they never come back; I’d have been visited by now if they did.’ Kolm looked over at the house. It was the only one that still had any lights on. A bronze bell hung out front. ‘There are seventeen women who work there. They might disappear during the day, but they come back to life at night.’

His words did nothing to reassure me, and I hurried away down the deserted street. I don’t know why, but Kolm followed me, and the moon followed him.

The Performance

I went to see Kolm two days later, as he had promised to ask whether there were any openings at the court for a calligrapher. Kolm lived in a rooming house reserved for the brotherhood of executioners; they owned a building in every city to avoid the usual problems of lodging. Never having executed anyone, I wasn’t allowed in, but Kolm told me the rooms were decorated with axes, hoods, and belts that had belonged to legendary executioners. These made him nostalgic. I asked why he had left such a profitable profession.

‘Five years ago I helped to suppress an uprising against M. Ressing. I had cut off about ten heads when it seemed a pair of familiar eyes was staring up at me. I reached into the bloody basket and found my father’s head. We hadn’t seen one another in a long time, and I had executed him without even noticing. I know he recognized me, and yet he didn’t say a word: he wouldn’t interrupt my work. I haven’t executed anyone since. I was only able to recover my father’s head, which I put in a glass case and took to the town where he was born. There I gave him the funeral he deserved. For his epitaph I wrote: Theodor Kolm lies here. And elsewhere as well. ‘

It was Sunday and Kolm’s day off. We walked until we saw a crowd beside the market: a theatre company was performing The Calas Murderers.

The actors had erected a stage in a derelict square, amid statues of sleeping horses. The church had never been kind to actors, refusing for centuries to bury them in hallowed ground, but this company had chosen a topic of such popular interest that the White Penitents had even agreed to pay for the production. That night I wrote an account of the play and sent it to Ferney:

The Calas family is sitting at the table. A friend arrives from far away. He begins to talk about his city. After a while, he realizes they aren’t paying attention; no one is responding to his comments. The father, Jean Calas, finally interrupts him: he says they have a decision to make.

Marc-Antoine is preparing to convert to Catholicism, the father explains. He has been shut away in his room, reading the Bible, for the past seventeen days. We’ve hidden spiders and snakes between the pages, but nothing distracts him.

At night, the mother says, we give him candles with most of the wick removed, so they won’t last long. But he keeps reading, using mirrors to capture the moonlight. Then, on nights when there is no moon, in absolute darkness, he repeats the sacred words - words that aren’t sacred to us.