On the title page he saw that it was a first edition, a circumstance that along with the date of publication, 1827, would justify its placement in the Heavens. The paper was of a sturdy texture, and with obvious delight he let his fingers slide over the surface. After that he raised the book up to his nose and sniffed. It had a slightly spicy scent from something he deduced must be bay laurel.
With a lingering, scrutinizing thoroughness he began turning the pages of the book, stopping at a copperplate etching that showed Death wearing a cowl and carrying a scythe. The illustration was exceedingly well executed, and even though Luca examined it carefully, he could find no flaws in the printing. Copperplate engraving, that rather difficult method of printing, was in widespread use during the nineteenth century, notable for its greater degree of detail and subtlety than even the best woodcuts. On the other hand, the paper had to be printed twice, since the ink settled in the grooves of the copperplate, unlike the text itself, which was typically cast in lead and raised.
Luca turned more pages, admiring with enthusiasm the rest of the copperplate engravings the book contained. At the last page he once again frowned. It was here they normally inserted a price slip the size of a business card with the name of the bookshop, but there was no card. That Iversen would have invested in such a valuable work without consulting Luca seemed odd enough, but that he would have displayed the book for sale without a price seemed counter to the man's otherwise meticulous nature.
Again Luca swept his eyes over the room, as if he expected a welcome committee to leap out suddenly and offer an explanation for the mystery, but very few people knew of his trip or his return home; those who did were fully aware that this would not be an appropriate occasion for a celebration.
He gave a shrug, opened the book to the middle and began to read aloud. All doubt swiftly disappeared from his face, replaced by the joy of reading his native language. Soon he raised his voice and let the words slip freely out over the shop's corridors of books. It had been a long time since he had read Italian, so it took a few pages before the accent came easily and he found the rhythm of the poem. But there was no doubt that he was enjoying himself; his eyes gleamed with happiness and his joyous expression offered a sharp contrast to the melancholy of the text.
It lasted only a moment. Suddenly the look on Luca's face shifted from enthusiasm to surprise, and he staggered back two paces, his body slamming into the glass case behind him. With his eyes still on the book, he continued reading as shards of glass rained over him. The surprise in his wide-open pupils changed to terror, and his knuckles turned white from the convulsive grip he had on the volume he held in his hands. With tottering, almost mechanical movements, his body toppled forward, and when it struck the railing, the jolt caused his cognac glass to tip over the edge and plummet to the floor below. The carpet muffled the sound of glass shattering.
The strength of Luca's voice continued undiminished, but the rhythm had become uneven and spasmodic. Sweat appeared on the old man's brow and his face was pink from exertion. A couple of drops of sweat trickled down his forehead, along his nose and hung from the very tip, before dripping onto the book. The thick paper absorbed the beads of sweat as if they were raindrops on a dry riverbed.
Luca's eyes were open as wide as could be, locked onto the text without blinking even once, not even when sweat ran into them. His pupils relentlessly scanned the lines on the pages, and no matter how hard he tried to turn his head away Luca could not tear his eyes from the words in the book he held in his hands. His whole body started shaking violently and his normally kind face was contorted into a horrible grimace.
In spite of all this, Luca's voice kept projecting into the room, stammering and occasionally interrupted by a pause, then followed by a burst of words. There was no longer any rhythm to what he read; the sentences were chopped up and combined with no regard for grammatical rules, and the stress on individual syllables became more and more random as the speed picked up. Even though the words could still be distinguished as words, the enunciation and syntax were no longer comprehensible. The sentences emitted by Luca's vocal cords were devoid of recognizable content. The tempo increased significantly and the flow of words was interrupted only by panicked inhalations, as his lungs were emptied of oxygen. After each breath, which sounded more and more like a wheeze, the words and sentences would again gush out of Luca's mouth.
His body was now shaking so violently that the railing Luca was pressed up against began vibrating, making the wood audibly groan. Sweat poured out of his body, soaking through his clothing in several places. Drops of sweat had formed dark patches on the carpet all around him.
All of a sudden the stream of words ceased and the shaking stopped. Luca's eyes were still staring down at the book in his hands but the expression of panic was gone. A gentleness came into the Italian's eyes and calm settled over his face. Slowly he leaned his old body over the railing. The book slipped from his sweaty hands and, with pages fluttering, fell to the floor below. The railing groaned ominously under the weight of his body and with a snap a section of the balustrade tore away, spraying splinters of wood all over the shop. For a moment Luca's body stood motionless on the edge of the balcony until it plunged forward, lifeless, hurtling to the floor three metres below. The slack limbs flailed uncontrollably out to the sides, bringing down shelves and books in a cloud of dust.
Luca's body struck the floor with a hard thud in a narrow corridor between bookshelves and was instantly buried under a pile of books, wood and dust.
2
Every time Jon Campelli had to make an appearance in court, he would sleep uneasily the night before, if he managed to drift off at all. The same thing happened on this night and finally he gave up and got out of bed, pulling on his dark-blue robe. He sauntered out to his small kitchen where he made himself a pot of coffee in a cafetiиre. He sipped the coffee and again read through the script for his closing arguments. Even though he'd already gone over the pages several times the previous evening, he carefully went over them once more, testing several versions of the same sentences out loud. And so it was that at four in the morning a clear voice could be heard coming from the penthouse flat on Kompagnistrжde, repeating the same passages over and over, as if an actor were rehearsing a role.
After a couple of hours Jon went to get the newspaper from outside the front door. He leafed through it as he ate breakfast, supplied with a fresh pot of coffee. His script remained within his field of vision, and several times he stopped his perusal of the newspaper and instead pulled the script close so he could read through a specific passage again before going back to the daily news and his toast.
None of his colleagues had any idea how much work he put into his closing remarks, but in spite of his relatively young age, he was already known for mastering the discipline to perfection. As a barrister only thirty-three years old, he had acquired a reputation that made him a bit of a celebrity among his colleagues, as well as a challenge to his adversaries and the object of unfounded mistrust among older members of the judiciary.
For that reason his court cases were often well attended. It was highly likely that a large number of spectators would also show up today, even though the outcome seemed predetermined. Jon's client, a second-generation immigrant by the name of Mehmet Azlan, was charged with fencing stolen goods; like the three previous charges against him, this one was also without basis. It was beginning to look like harassment on the part of the police, but Mehmet took it with astonishing calm, satisfied to strike back through legal means, which meant suing for damages for pain and suffering.