‘Do you mean you haven’t told the others?’ asked the Librarian. ‘You haven’t even told Professor Dr Dr Prinzel yet?’
‘No,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I am telling you first.’
For a moment the Librarian said nothing. He stood there, at his card catalogue, looking down at the floor. There were few moments in his daily life which achieved any salience, but this, most surely, was one. Nobody told him anything. Nobody ever wrote to him or made him party to any confidence. Even his wife had not bothered to tell him that she was running away; if the building were to go on fire, he was sure that nobody would bother to advise him to leave. And now here was Professor Dr von Igelfeld, author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs, telling him, and telling him first, of a private letter he had received from the Colombian Academy of Letters.
‘I am so proud, Herr von Igelfeld,’ he said. ‘I am so . . . ’ He did not finish; there were no words strong enough to express his emotion.
‘It is a joint triumph,’ said von Igelfeld kindly. ‘I would not have achieved this, Herr Huber, were it not for the constant support which I have received in my work from yourself. I am sure of that fact. I really am.’
‘You are too kind, Herr von Igelfeld,’ stuttered the Librarian. ‘You are too kind to me.’
‘It is no more than you deserve,’ said von Igelfeld. A Corresponding Fellow of the Colombian Academy of Letters can always afford to be generous, and von Igelfeld was.
Not surprisingly, the arrangements for the bestowal of the honour proved to be immensely complicated. The cultural attaché was extremely helpful, but even with his help, the formalities were time-consuming. At last, after several months during which letters were exchanged on an almost weekly basis, the date of the ceremony was settled, and von Igelfeld’s flight to Bogotá was booked. Señor Gabriel Marcales de Cinco Fermentaciones, the cultural attaché, proposed to travel out with von Igelfeld, as he was being recalled to Bogotá anyway, and he thought that it would be convenient to accompany him and ensure a smooth reception at the other end.
Von Igelfeld was doubtful whether this was really necessary, but was pleased with the arrangement on two accounts. Cinco Fermentaciones, it transpired, was most agreeable company, being very well-informed on South American literary affairs. This alone would have made travelling together worthwhile, but there was more. When they arrived in Bogotá, there was no question of waiting at the airport for formalities; all of these were disposed of in the face of the diplomatic passport which the cultural attaché produced and with a letter which he folded and unfolded in the face of any official and which immediately seemed to open all doors. Von Igelfeld hesitated to ask what was in this letter, but Cinco Fermentaciones, seeing him looking at it with curiosity, offered an explanation of his own accord.
‘I wrote it and signed it myself,’ he said, with a smile. ‘It says that I am to receive every assistance and consideration, and any request of mine is to be attended to with the utmost despatch. Then I stamped it with the Ambassador’s stamp that he keeps on his desk and which seems to have quite magical properties. Hola! It works.’
Von Igelfeld was impressed, and wondered whether he might try the same tactic himself in future.
‘Another example of South American magical realism,’ said Señor Gabriel Marcales de Cinco Fermentaciones, with a laugh. ‘Magical, but realistic at the same time.’
They travelled to von Igelfeld’s hotel and Cinco Fermentaciones made sure that his guest was settled in before he left him. The letter was unfolded and displayed to the manager of the hotel, who nodded deferentially and gave von Igelfeld a quick salute in response. Then Cinco Fermentaciones promised to pick up von Igelfeld for the ceremony, which would take place at noon the following day.
‘In the meantime, you can recover from the trip,’ he said. ‘This city is at a very great altitude, and you must take things easily.’
‘Perhaps I shall take a look around later this afternoon,’ said von Igelfeld, looking out of the window at the interesting Spanish colonial architecture of the surrounding streets.
Cinco Fermentaciones frowned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t do that. Definitely not.’
Von Igelfeld was puzzled. ‘But those buildings? May one not inspect them, even just from the outside?’
Cinco Fermentaciones shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You must not leave the hotel. It is for your own safety.’
Von Igelfeld looked at the manager, who nodded his agreement with Cinco Fermentaciones and made a quick, but eloquent, throat-slitting gesture.
‘Outside is extremely dangerous,’ the manager said quietly. ‘The whole country is extremely dangerous.’
‘Surely not in the middle of the city,’ protested von Igelfeld. ‘Look, there are plenty of people outside in the streets.’
‘Yes,’ said Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘And most of them are extremely dangerous. Believe me, I know my own country. Even this letter’ – and he held up his potent document – ‘even this wouldn’t help you out there.’
‘But who are these dangerous people?’ asked von Igelfeld.
‘Brigands, desperadoes, narcotraficantes, guerrillas,’ began Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘Extortionists, murderers, anti-Government factions, pro-Government factions, disaffected soldiers, corrupt policemen, revolutionary students, conservative students, students in general, cocaine producers, hostile small farmers, dispossessed peasants . . . And there are others.’
‘Disaffected waiters as well,’ interjected the hotel manager. ‘We regularly receive bomb threats from a movement of disaffected waiters who attack hotels. It is very troublesome.’
Von Igelfeld said nothing. He had heard that Colombia was a troubled society, but he had imagined that the trouble was confined to lawless areas in the south. The way that Cinco Fermentaciones and the hotel manager were talking gave a very different impression. Was anybody safe in this country? Was the Academy of Letters itself safe, or were there disaffected writers who needed to be added to Cinco Fermentaciones’ intimidating list? For a moment he wondered whether he should pose this question, but he decided, on balance, to leave it unasked.
In the face of this unambiguous advice, von Igelfeld remained within the confines of the hotel, venturing out only into the walled garden, where he sat for an hour, admiring a colourful display of red and blue bougainvillaea. That evening, after a light supper in the hotel dining room – a meal which he took in isolation, as there appeared to be no other guests – he slept fitfully, waking frequently through the night and anxiously checking that the door was still locked. There were strange noises in the corridor outside – a cough, the sound of footsteps, and at one point a muttered conversation, seemingly directly outside his door. In the morning, with the sun streaming through his window, the fears of the night receded, and he prepared himself with pleasurable anticipation for the day’s events.
Cinco Fermentaciones called for him on time, dressed in a smart morning coat and sporting a carnation in his buttonhole.