The Clowns of God Read Online Free PDF Page B

me know when you’re arriving and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
    Mendelius put down the receiver and gave a chuckle of satisfaction. Herman Frank’s invitation to lecture was a stroke of good fortune. The German Academy was one of the oldest and most prestigious national academies in Rome.
    Founded in 1910 in the reign of Wilhelm II of Prussia, it had survived two wars and the mindless ideologues of the Third Reich and still managed to maintain a reputation for solid Germanic scholarship. It offered Mendelius, therefore, a base of operations and a highly respectable cover for his delicate enquiries.
    The German contingent at the Vatican would respond happily to a dinner invitation from Herman Frank. His guest book was an elaborate tome resplendent with exotic titles like “Rector Magnificent of the Pontifical Biblical Institute’ and “Grand Chancellor of the Institute of Biblical Archaeology’.
    How Lotte would respond to the idea was another matter.
    He needed a more propitious moment to open that little surprise packet.
    His next step was to prepare a list of contacts to whom he should write and announce his visit. He had been a denizen of the city long enough to assemble a miscellany of friends and acquaintances, from the crusty old Cardinal who disapproved his defection but was still generous enough to appreciate his scholarship, to the Custodian of Incunabula in the Vatican Library and the last dowager of the Pierleoni, who directed the gossips of Rome from her wheelchair. He was still dredging up names when Lotte came in, carrying a tray of coffee. She looked penitent and forlorn, uncertain of her welcome.
    “The children have gone out. It’s lonely downstairs. Do you mind if I sit up here with you?”
    He took her in his arms and kissed her.
    “It’s lonely up here too, darling. Sit down and relax. I’ll pour the coffee.”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Arranging our holiday.”
    He told her of his talk with Herman Frank. He enthused about the pleasures of the city in summer, the opportunity to meet old friends, do a little touring. She took it all with surprising calm. Then she asked:
    “It’s really about Jean Marie, isn’t it?”
    “Yes; but it’s also about us. I want you with me, Lotte. I need you. If the children want to come, I’ll arrange hostel accommodation for them.”
    “They have other plans, Carl. We were arguing about them before you came home. Katrin wants to go to Paris with her boyfriend. Johann is going hiking in Austria. That’s fine for him; but Katrin …”
    “Katrin’s a woman now, darling. She’ll do what she wants whether we approve or not. After all…” He bent and kissed her again, “they’re only lent to us; and when they leave home we’ll be left where we started. We’d better start practising to be lovers again.”
    “I suppose so.” She gave a small shrugging gesture of defeat.
    “But, Carl …” She broke off, as if afraid to put the thought into words.
    Mendelius prompted her gently.
    “But what, dear?”
    “I know the children will leave us. I’m getting used to the idea, truly I am. But what if Jean Marie takes you away from me. This this thing he wants of you is very strange and frightening.” Without warning she burst into convulsive sobbing.
    “I’m afraid, Carl… terribly, terribly afraid!”
    “In these last fateful years of the millennium…” Thus the opening line of Jean Marie Barette’s unpublished encyclical.
    “In this dark time of confusion, violence and terror, I, Gregory, your brother in the flesh, your servant in Christ Jesus, am commanded by the Holy Spirit to write you these words of warning and of comfort.”
    Mendelius could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes. Papal encyclicals, for all their portentous authority, were usually commonplace documents stating traditional positions on matters of faith or morals. Any good theologian could frame the argument. Any good Latinist could make it eloquent.
    The