The Thirteenth Apostle by Michel Benoit Read Free Book Online Page B

it’s tragic. I have access to all three libraries, and I’ve often passed my time there ferreting around and reading. For the peace of your soul, in the name of our friendship, I beg you: just stick to what you find in the central wing.”
    Whereupon he had relapsed into a heavy silence, which was unusual when he found himself alone with Nil.
    Feeling out of his depth, the teacher of exegesis had had to satisfy himself with the treasures that his one key opened up for him.
    * * *
    â€œHis narrative shows that the principal author of the Gospel according to St John knows Jerusalem well, and has friends and acquaintances there: he’s a wealthy, cultivated Judaean, whereas the Apostle John lives in Galilee, and is poor and illiterate… how could he be the author of the text that bears his name?”
    As he spoke, the faces before him darkened into frowns. Some shook their heads disapprovingly – but nobody spoke up. This silence on the part of his audience disquieted Nil more than anything else. His pupils had come from the most traditionalist families in the country. They had been handpicked to form the spearhead of tomorrow’s Church. Why had he been appointed to this post? He was so happy when he could work in peace and quiet, all by himself!
    Nil knew that he would not be able to present them with all his conclusions. He would never have dreamt that teaching exegesis would one day be a perilous acrobatic exercise. When he’d been a student in Rome, together with his friend, the warm and brotherly Rembert Leeland, it had all seemed so easy…
    The first bell for mass started slowly to chime.
    â€œThank you. See you next week.”
    The students rose and started to tidy away their notes. At the back of the room, a seminarist in a cassock, his skull clean-shaven, lingered for a moment as he wrote a few lines on a small piece of paper – of the sort used by monks in order to communicate with one another without breaking the silence.
    He folded the paper in two, pursing his lips. Nil absentmindedly noted that his fingernails were bitten. Finally the student got up and walked past his teacher without even looking at him.
    * * *
    While Nil robed himself in his sacerdotal apparel in the sacristy that smelt pleasantly of fresh wax, a man in a cassock slipped into the common room and went over to the pigeonholes reserved for the reverend fathers. After he had glanced all round to ensure there was nobody else in the room, a hand with well-chewed fingernails slipped a piece of paper folded in two into the pigeonhole of the Reverend Father Abbot.

12
    If it had not been for the Venetian bracket lamps that shed a warm, diffuse light, the room might have appeared sinister. It was long and narrow, without windows, and the only furniture in it was a table of waxed wood, behind which were aligned thirteen seats, backs to the wall. In the centre was a sort of throne in Neapolitan-Angevin style, covered in scarlet velvet. And, on either side, another six simple chairs, their arms ending in lions’ heads.
    The elegant panelling on the entrance door concealed a thick layer of reinforced sheeting.
    The table was about five yards away from the wall, which was completely bare. Completely? No. There was a panel of dark wood set into the brickwork. Against the dark mahogany, the livid pallor of a bloody crucifix of Jansenist inspiration stood out, forming an almost obscene stain of colour under the combined glare of two spotlights hidden just above the central throne.
    This throne had never been occupied, and it never would be: it reminded the members of the assembly that the presence of the Master of the Society of St Pius V was entirely spiritual, albeiteternal. For four centuries, Jesus Christ, the resurrected God, had sat here in spirit and in truth, flanked by twelve faithful apostles, six on his right hand and six on his left. Just as at the last supper he had shared with his disciples, two