Lumen by Ben Pastor Read Free Book Online Page B

“Well, then? The novices, maybe.”
    “I’m not interested in those either.”
    Fists on his sides, Salle-Weber stepped to the wall map of Cracow. “Only because I’m curious, Bora. We’ll get you the dead nun.”
    “What methods will you use to enter?”
    “That’s none of your business. We’ll handle things our way. Just wait outside with an army ambulance, and I promise you, you’ll have the carcass before this evening.”
     
    Seen from behind on the sidewalk, the girl had a nice round crupper, and very nice calves even in her cotton stockings. Retz pulled in close to the kerb and rolled down his window.
    “ Dzien dobry ,” he greeted her gallantly. “May I offer you a ride?”
    The girl didn’t answer. She stopped, however, and gave him the impression of debating with herself whether she would accept.
    “Thank you,” she said in fairly good German. “You could take me to work, maybe?”
    Retz opened the car door for her. “Sure, come right in. Just tell me where, darling.”
    She gave him the address. He looked at her legs and started the car. A mischievous hostility lined her smile when he asked, “What sort of place do you work in?”
    She moved his hand away from her knee. “A busy one, Major. The city morgue.”

    At the convent, Father Malecki rushed out of the main door in a distracted manner. He looked around and saw the German staff car and the ambulance next to it. Bora rolled up his window in the time it took the priest to come striding from the threshold to the car.
    Bora let him fret for some time, but when his driver asked if he wanted him to remove the priest, he said, “No, no,” and came out of the car.
    Within moments he was arguing with the American. “Well, you could have given us the body the easy way! I told you we needed it.”
    “Do you know what the penalty is for those who break church rules by forcing their way into a convent?”
    “I doubt very much that the German SS worry about excommunication.”
    “I’m talking about you: you are Catholic!”
    “And if you notice, I haven’t entered the convent. If I were you, Father, I’d go back inside and see how things are coming along.”
    It took two hours, and it was Salle-Weber who came out first, followed by two of his men. He had red spots on his face and was short of breath.
    “Why the devil did you get me involved in this, Bora? There’s no damn body in there!” He ignored Bora’s attempt to say something. “The coffin’s empty, and so’s the wall hole in the vault. We checked the place from top to bottom - huge, damn place it is, too. Kitchen, refectory, cells, the garden, attic, cellar, church, chapel-Idon’t know what in hell they did with a rotting nun, and I don’t care if they shoved her down the latrine at this point!”
    Bora took a sideways look at Father Malecki. He stood a few steps away and might not have understood the exchange, but bore an indefinable expression that seemed to him one of relief.

    It seemed impossible, but an idea made its way into Bora’s mind. “Where were the other nuns?” he asked the SS.
    “They all flocked to kneel before the altar, the geese. The chapel was packed with them. The coffin was in the vault all right, but the damn body was not.”
    “And they were all kneeling?”
    “Yes, yes! All kneeling, that’s what I said!”
    Bora would not remove his glance from the priest. He told Salle-Weber, slowly, “You should have asked all the nuns to stand up.”
    Salle-Weber blasphemed, and was gone again. This time Bora followed him in.

4 November
    Nowotny laughed when he heard the story. “They pulled the dead nun out of the coffin and got her to kneel among them? What precious hypocrites these holy folks are!”
    “I’m really interested in the preliminary results of your examination, Herr Oberstleutnant. ”
    “Sure. Here it is.” Nowotny handed him a form, handwritten in minute Gothic script, resembling chicken scratches on the page. “It was a Polish