“If you think that,” I told her, “then you haven’t been listening. These days are still those days.”
“You mean the watch is still being maintained by the Laurentians?” This was from Shirin.
“It is, though I didn’t know it until recently, to be honest with you. I thought it had been forgotten centuries ago. Even I had begun to forget that these days are still those days.”
“But this is nonsense,” Frau Hartmann said. “This is what the rabble say in the streets.”
“For them too, these days are still those days.”
“You must deny it,” she told B firmly. “When next you speak, you must deny it.”
“Deny it how? Do you think I should pass round my birth certificate, which indicates that I’m a perfectly ordinary person?”
“You must attack the idea itself.”
“On what grounds? If it’s thinkable to posit the existence of a Christ (as it obviously is), then why shouldn’t it be thinkable to posit his antithesis?”
“But you are not his antithesis.”
“So you say. Others say that I am, as you know.”
“They have no grounds. No grounds that are … verniinftig.”
“Rational,” Michael supplied.
“Perhaps Jared will tell us how the Laurentians view the grounds.”
I said, “I’m like Frau Doktor Hartmann—I see no rational grounds for associating you with the Antichrist. I told you this twenty minutes ago, and you said I hadn’t heard enough to decide.”
“That’s not exactly responsive,” B said. “Shirin’s original question seems more relevant than ever: What does your superior want with your transcripts?”
“I thought that was clear by now. He wants to know what you’re saying, because people are calling you the Antichrist.”
“But what does he make of what he reads? And, by the way, does this person have a name you can share with us?”
“His name is Bernard Lulfre.”
B looked momentarily stunned. “Do you mean the archaeologist?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I know his work. I didn’t know he was a Laurentian.”
“What work of his do you know?”
B produced a smile that made him look as if he was remembering something pleasant. “He allied himself a bit too inflexibly with the theory that the Dead Sea Scrolls were produced by an Essene community that was resident at Qumran.”
“I didn’t realize the theory was in doubt.”
“It’s very much in doubt, despite Fr. Lulfre and other old hardline supporters.”
“Obviously I don’t read the right journals anymore.”
B shrugged. “How has he reacted to your transcripts?”
“He hasn’t, as yet.”
“How will he react?”