The Exam

Kolm accompanied me to the courthouse where I would take the calligraphy exam. There were new hires every week as calligraphers left, overwhelmed by the disorganization in the courts, the contradictory orders, and the fear of poisoned ink. A legend about a cursed word circulated among the local profession: everything would be fine until that word appeared in a court document, then whoever wrote it would suffer misfortune.

I sat the exam with twenty other young men, in a long hall on wooden benches that had been carved with penknives. You could learn better calligraphy from those furtive inscriptions than from any dissertation. I soon realized I was much slower than the others and knew I was done.

“You can go,” the examiner said. “I don’t know why you bothered to come when your hand writes at a snail’s pace.”

“My hand may be slow, but it knows where it’s going. Have you ever seen a snail retrace its steps to correct a mistake? Come out to the patio with me.”

When we reached the edge of a pond, I asked his name.

“Tellier.”

Using an oily ink, I wrote his name on the surface of the water, but backwards, mirrored. Then, when I brought a sheet of Japanese paper to the water, his name was imprinted the right way around, with a few walnut leaves (little more than veins) as decoration. He hired me on the spot.

I was taken to a room where I was given a blue cloak and a bronze plaque that read Calligrapher to hang around my neck.

And so, in the coming days, I was able to wander through the archives of Languedoc, draw up documents, and take notes on the sessions being held in the Calas case. Everyone seemed bored of it already, as if the protagonists had died ages ago and judges and their clerks were sadly responsible for keeping the memory of a bygone event alive. Witnesses for the defense filed through: the Calas family had never done anyone wrong; they had nothing against Catholics; their eldest son, who lived outside Toulouse, had converted and they still sent him a monthly stipend. But they couldn’t compete with the flood of miracles brought by the prosecution: the blind could see, the crippled could walk, and incurable ills would disappear when you prayed to the hanged man.

I wrote to tell Voltaire that the tragic day was drawing near, that the lawyer for the Calas family had managed to save the lives of the mother, the sister, and the brother, but the father was doomed. The most far-fetched of all possible versions had prevailed: Jean Calas, a sixty-three-year-old man, had slipped the noose around his son’s neck, overcome his resistance, and hung him from the door all on his own.

My fanaticism for calligraphy soon helped me earn the trust of my superiors. I took advantage of every opportunity to declare that the printing press (ever ready to spread the worst ideas) and the Encyclopédie (its most recent work, an impious summary of the world) stripped words of all transcendental meaning. A calligrapher, on the other hand, brought the world closer; like the ancient scribes, he wrote in order to illuminate. Tellier and his subordinates were won over by my opinions. So vehemently did I defend my art using theological arguments that I wound up believing my own fabrications. Even now, as I transcribe official documents at city hall, I sometimes still repeat the words: God made the world without a printing press, by hand, letter by letter. And that thought, or at least the struggle to believe it, justifies all of the many hours.

One afternoon Tellier had me deliver a scroll to the Dominican monastery. I took the long way in order to pass by Bell Manor. All of the inhabitants were asleep; none of the windows were open.

A hooded monk stopped me at the monastery gate. I told him I was to deliver the documents directly to Father Razin. He looked at the bronze plaque around my neck and led me down a corridor to a set of stairs. In front of me was an ornate door, and I hesitated over whether to open it or continue downstairs. My escort had disappeared. I knocked discreetly, but no one answered: the wood was so thick the sound never reached the other side. I pushed the door just wide enough to peer in.

Purple drapes accentuated the air of seclusion inside. Large torches cast bright light nearby, but it dissipated farther on, leaving the back of the room obscured. Five monks were bent over enormous maps and city plans. No one looked up at me. Their conversation consisted of whispers and hand gestures. They were studying lands crisscrossed by rivers and mountain ranges, cities divided into plots, and here and there they would place little lead pieces depicting crosses and pitchforks. It was as if they were caught up in an achingly slow game that had started years earlier, the rules having been lost somewhere along the way.

An iron hand came down on my shoulder.

“Not there,” said the monk who had let me in. “Downstairs.”

He pushed me impatiently, and I nearly fell down the well-worn stairs.

Father Razin, head of the White Penitents, the most fanatical branch of the Dominicans, was sitting behind a desk. His clawlike hand snatched the documents from me. He read them in a wink, then scrawled a few lines on a sheet of paper.

“This wax seal had better remain intact. We’ve already lost three messengers to blunders or betrayal.”

It was late and the courts would be empty: I would have to deliver the message the next morning. I took the letter to my room and slipped it under my pillow. The minute I did, I heard a thunderous voice from a faraway castle order me to open it.

It was a tremendous risk, but I had worked with similar seals before. First, I used molten lead to make a mold of the seal, and then I broke it, peeling it off the page with a fine stiletto. Finally, a steam bath with eucalyptus leaves opened the letter.

Razin’s handwriting had nearly torn the paper:

I melted wax and filled the mold I had made, then replaced the seal. Once it was dry, I patiently filed it to eliminate any possible imperfection.

Tellier’s impatience worked in my favor: he broke the seal without even looking.

“It smells of eucalyptus” was all he said after reading the letter.

“I left early to go for a walk and got lost in the woods.”

Tellier handed me several coins that appeared dull, as if blackened by smoke. These were just the key I needed to gain entrance to Bell Manor.