worse.
“That’s because we’re in shoaling water.”
“How long is this coastline?”
“About sixty miles from here to Cabo de la Vela. Then it curves back south. I feel fairly confident the Devil’s vomit will be along here somewhere.”
Devil’s vomit . If the swells kept up, Gideon thought grimly, he’d have some vomit of his own to offer the coastline.
The day wore on as they cruised along the endless, barren coast. In one deep bay, sheltered by two headlands, they saw a large boat at anchor, streaked with rust. Gideon examined it through the binoculars.
“Lot of new electronics on that mast,” he said.
“Probably drug smugglers,” said Amy. “Too bad—I was hoping we could anchor in that bay for the night.”
Gideon continued examining the boat. “Looks like they see us.”
“Of course they see us. Let’s hope they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
The sun was now setting into a scrim of blood-red sky, made hazy by dust. The wind grew even stronger, now blowing hard from the east. The brown sea was covered with whitecaps.
“There’s a headland called Punta Taroa about five miles ahead,” said Amy. “According to the chart, there’s a sheltered bay just behind that.”
Gideon could make out the headland: a massive pyramid of black rock pounded by surf, with a string of sand dunes running away from it inland, in the shelter of a serrated ridge. He looked for something that might resemble the U but could see nothing.
They rounded the point and—as shown on the chart—a shallow bay appeared, with a crescent of orange sand running up into ribbed dunes in fantastical shapes.
“It’s pretty exposed,” said Gideon, thinking of the drug smugglers.
“It’s the best we’re going to find. We’ll do a blackout and set four-hour watches.”
Amy brought the boat in behind the headland, moving slowly and examining the depth finder, the dual diesels rumbling.
“Here’s a good spot,” she called out.
She showed Gideon how to draw the pin on the anchor. In a narrow cove behind the immense rocky bluff, in twenty feet of water, she released it. It ran out and the boat swung around to face the wind, the anchor, as she put it, “setting nicely.” As she killed the engine, the sun dropped behind the dunes and, bloated and wavering, sank out of sight. A dull orange light enveloped everything.
Ten minutes later, as Gideon was airing a bottle of Malbec and whipping up a dinner of lobster risotto, he heard Amy on the intercom.
“Gideon? Go to the gun cabinet and fetch me my 1911. And grab a sidearm for yourself. We’ve got company.”
19
R ESPONDEO AD QUAESTIONEM, ipsa pergamenta .
In his aerie high above the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, Glinn gazed from a plate-glass window that looked westward over the High Line park to the dark back of the Hudson River, reflecting the lights of Jersey City. It was just after three o’clock in the morning.
“I respond to the question, the page itself.” Ipsa pergamenta , the page itself…
Glinn had not studied Latin, but Brock had spent hours with him going over every possible meaning, submeaning, double meaning, and alliteration in each word of that sentence, parsing it with Talmudic intensity. To no avail. Now Glinn’s mind felt congested. He’d been chewing this over too long.
The page itself…
To clear his head, he took out another book of poetry: Wallace Stevens. He opened the book at random. The poem his eye settled on was titled “Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself.” The page itself, the thing itself. A nice coincidence.
He read through the poem once, twice, then laid the book aside.
Not ideas about the thing, but the thing itself. I respond to the question, the page itself.
And that was when he had the revelation. It wasn’t a riddle at all. It was a literal statement of fact. Ipsa pergamenta . The page itself or—quite literally—the vellum or parchment itself, the physical parchment, would answer the
“That’s because we’re in shoaling water.”
“How long is this coastline?”
“About sixty miles from here to Cabo de la Vela. Then it curves back south. I feel fairly confident the Devil’s vomit will be along here somewhere.”
Devil’s vomit . If the swells kept up, Gideon thought grimly, he’d have some vomit of his own to offer the coastline.
The day wore on as they cruised along the endless, barren coast. In one deep bay, sheltered by two headlands, they saw a large boat at anchor, streaked with rust. Gideon examined it through the binoculars.
“Lot of new electronics on that mast,” he said.
“Probably drug smugglers,” said Amy. “Too bad—I was hoping we could anchor in that bay for the night.”
Gideon continued examining the boat. “Looks like they see us.”
“Of course they see us. Let’s hope they’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
The sun was now setting into a scrim of blood-red sky, made hazy by dust. The wind grew even stronger, now blowing hard from the east. The brown sea was covered with whitecaps.
“There’s a headland called Punta Taroa about five miles ahead,” said Amy. “According to the chart, there’s a sheltered bay just behind that.”
Gideon could make out the headland: a massive pyramid of black rock pounded by surf, with a string of sand dunes running away from it inland, in the shelter of a serrated ridge. He looked for something that might resemble the U but could see nothing.
They rounded the point and—as shown on the chart—a shallow bay appeared, with a crescent of orange sand running up into ribbed dunes in fantastical shapes.
“It’s pretty exposed,” said Gideon, thinking of the drug smugglers.
“It’s the best we’re going to find. We’ll do a blackout and set four-hour watches.”
Amy brought the boat in behind the headland, moving slowly and examining the depth finder, the dual diesels rumbling.
“Here’s a good spot,” she called out.
She showed Gideon how to draw the pin on the anchor. In a narrow cove behind the immense rocky bluff, in twenty feet of water, she released it. It ran out and the boat swung around to face the wind, the anchor, as she put it, “setting nicely.” As she killed the engine, the sun dropped behind the dunes and, bloated and wavering, sank out of sight. A dull orange light enveloped everything.
Ten minutes later, as Gideon was airing a bottle of Malbec and whipping up a dinner of lobster risotto, he heard Amy on the intercom.
“Gideon? Go to the gun cabinet and fetch me my 1911. And grab a sidearm for yourself. We’ve got company.”
19
R ESPONDEO AD QUAESTIONEM, ipsa pergamenta .
In his aerie high above the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, Glinn gazed from a plate-glass window that looked westward over the High Line park to the dark back of the Hudson River, reflecting the lights of Jersey City. It was just after three o’clock in the morning.
“I respond to the question, the page itself.” Ipsa pergamenta , the page itself…
Glinn had not studied Latin, but Brock had spent hours with him going over every possible meaning, submeaning, double meaning, and alliteration in each word of that sentence, parsing it with Talmudic intensity. To no avail. Now Glinn’s mind felt congested. He’d been chewing this over too long.
The page itself…
To clear his head, he took out another book of poetry: Wallace Stevens. He opened the book at random. The poem his eye settled on was titled “Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself.” The page itself, the thing itself. A nice coincidence.
He read through the poem once, twice, then laid the book aside.
Not ideas about the thing, but the thing itself. I respond to the question, the page itself.
And that was when he had the revelation. It wasn’t a riddle at all. It was a literal statement of fact. Ipsa pergamenta . The page itself or—quite literally—the vellum or parchment itself, the physical parchment, would answer the
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