“This wasn’t done by someone who just generally didn’t like what B was saying,” Shirin said. “This was done by someone who knew B would be on that particular train. Someone who got on that particular train to kill him.”
“Or someone who got on that particular train to kill whoever was available.”
“If he got on the train to kill at random, why did he kill only B?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one victim was enough. Maybe no one else was handy the way B was handy.”
Bonnie said, “What’s your boss’s name? The guy who sent you here?”
“Fr. Lulfre.”
“Maybe Fr. Lulfre had him killed.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Didn’t he send you here to find out if B was the Antichrist?”
“Well, just to keep it simple, suppose he did. Then what?”
“Then maybe he decided B was the Antichrist.”
I shook my head. “He certainly couldn’t have decided that on the basis of what he heard from me, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have responded by having B murdered. You watch too much television, Bonnie. Fr. Lulfre is an archaeologist and a psychiatrist, not a Mafia don.”
Bonnie smirked as if I were being incredibly naive—or deliberately stupid.
No one seemed to have anything else to say.
• • •
Sitting there in the midst of all these silent people, I began to wonder if I’d interrupted a meeting of some kind—a meeting to which I’d not been invited. I decided this was something I had to know and was pondering how to phrase the question when a medley of footsteps sounded on the circular staircase from above. I looked around to see if newcomers were expected but had the feeling they weren’t. Everyone held tight until a troop of five finally emerged. They were assorted ages, teens to middle age, dressed in a ragtag style ranging from early hippie to late punk. They paused on the staircase to give us a good long look, as if we were museum specimens. Then, after passing a look back and forth among themselves, they clambered the rest of the way down and made their way through the jumble to where we were assembled.
“Have we come right?” asked the leader, a bearded gent in his forties. “We are from Sweden, and we are told to go to the theater in Radenau and down in the basement, and there they are meeting.”
As we continued to stare dumbly, he gave each of us in turn a smiling, hopeful look. Finally, still smiling (though now somewhat doubtfully), he said, “Which of you is the one they call B?”
Since no one else seemed inclined to, I took it upon myself to say, “B is not here.”
“Oh shut up, you stupid man,” Shirin said. Then, standing up and turning to the newcomers, she spoke three words that I instantly knew were going to rip my life to pieces:
“I am B.”
Friday, May 24 (two A.M.)
Stalling
One of the things decided yesterday is that B will speak publicly tomorrow night. This is viewed as “getting back on the horse that threw you.” No one asked my opinion, which is that scheduling the same talk a week later would serve the same purpose and allow a little time to get the word out. I said I’d help put up posters, but I’ll have to renege on that if I’m to get any sleep (which I am, come what may).
Time is running out for me here. My passport was returned a few hours ago, and I have to assume that Fr. Lulfre will know this almost immediately, since he has his own sources of information here. I can put him off for a few days (but not much more) by claiming that the police have asked me to stick around in case they find Herr Reichmann, the old gentleman who first put me onto B and who boarded our train in Frankfurt the night of B’s murder. If it occurred to them, they probably would ask me to stick around for that purpose—or some purpose.
Shirin; Jared
After putting me in my place, B spoke for an hour or so to the Swedes. (To be honest, I would desperately rather call her Shirin, but to do so would be to ally myself with outsiders, like, say, her mother or her doctors; it seems to me that to deny that Shirin is B would be to deny that Charles was B.) She gave them a basic orientation to the teachings of B and promised to meet with them again on the morrow. Then she shooed everyone away so the two of us could talk.
It didn’t immediately go well between us. I didn’t know what she wanted to discuss, and she didn’t seem to want to tell me. After a few minutes it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk to me at all, and I asked her why she was bothering to do it. The question gave her some focus, because it made her mad.
She said, “A while ago I called you a stupid man, and I really have to say that you’re one of the stupidest men I’ve ever known. Do you understand why?”
I admitted I didn’t.