“I’m afraid I can’t speak for the Dominicans and the Franciscans.”
“The question is, why are the Laurentians curious? I assume you can speak for them.”
Well, she had me there, of course. I was not far from admitting that the Laurentians wanted reassurance that the Antichrist charge being made against B was unfounded, but he had just finished telling me I was still not up to speed on this issue where he was concerned.
“I feel like I’m being pulled in two directions,” I told her. “Is your question why anyone in the Church is curious or why the Laurentians in particular are curious?”
“Are the answers different?”
“Yes, they certainly are.”
“Well, start by telling us why anyone in the Church is curious.”
“You’re attracting attention, evidently on religious grounds, that’s why. Anyone who walked by the theater last night could see this and would be curious to know what it was all about.”
“Okay. And why are the Laurentians curious?”
“I’ll answer that very bluntly. We like to be ahead of the rest. We like to be a little nimbler, a little more alert, a little more curious, and a little more avid to have our curiosity satisfied.”
“Cutting-edge types.”
“That’s how we like to see ourselves. Is that reprehensible?”
Shirin smiled and shook her head. “Neatly done,” she said.
I looked over at B, who was nodding with approval. “Very neatly done indeed,” he said. “Really smart wolves know that the most suspicious-looking wolf in the pack is the one disguised as a sheep.”
“So you’re saying what? That really smart wolves don’t fool with disguises?”
B looked around the room and finally nodded at Michael, who grinned at me goofily and said, “Really smart wolves disguise themselves as friendly wolves.”
Three snappy comebacks flashed through my mind, but I knew that nothing I could say was going to shake the truth of the implied charge.
The woman I’d thought of as a school principal piped up at this point in heavily accented English. “Always has been my guiding principle for forty years to say ‘Never trust a Christian.’ Not once has ever Christian given me reason to change.”
“May I ask why?” I said (glad for the diversion).
She stared at me with frank loathing. “Always your allegiance is in doubt, is … tainted.”
Unable to find the words she wanted, she spoke in German to Michael, who translated: “Your loyalty is always subject to change, Frau Hartmann says. Always subject to revision according to some undisclosed standard. Today you’re my friend, but there’s a hidden line inside of you that marks the beginning of your allegiance to God. If I unknowingly cross that line, then, although you continue to smile at me like a friend, you may see that it has become your holy duty to destroy me. This week you’re my friend, but next week they say I’m a witch and God wants witches to be burned, so you burn me. This week you’re my friend, but next week they say I’m an Anabaptist and God wants Anabaptists to be drowned, so you drown me. This week you’re my friend, but next week they say I’m a Waldensian and God wants Waldensians to be hanged, so you hang me.”
Michael gave me an apologetic smile and explained that Frau Doktor Hartmann was a historian.
Since I couldn’t think of any defense to make to her charge either, I turned back to B and said, “So I’m a wolf trying to pass himself off as a friend, and, being a Christian, I have an allegiance that is unreadable to outsiders. Where does that leave us?”
“I don’t know. Shirin?”
“What do you do with the notes you take when B talks?”
“They aren’t notes,” I told her, “they’re shorthand transcriptions.”
“All right. What do you do with them?”
Shirin had already visited my hotel once, to search my room. If she could manage that, it would be no great feat to find out what I did with my transcriptions. (In other words, I had to assume she already knew.)
“I fax them to my superior in the United States.”
“Why does he want them? And please don’t tell me how much he yearns to be on the cutting edge of religious thought.”