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.”Hofer, who’d been slouching, sat bolt upright, as if words said before were just now reaching him.“What do you mean, the priest doesn’t believe in her mystic powers?”“Well, he’s an investigator in his own right - he shouldn’t be biased to begin with.”“But disbelieving is a bias all the same.What do you believe, Bora?”Bora knew Schenck was curious to hear the answer as much as Hofer was, and weighed his words.“I don’t know.I don’t think it’s important what I believe about the abbess.The German command wants to know who killed her, and I’m trying to figure it out.”“But you must believe in miracles if you’re Catholic!”Schenck inwardly smiled when Bora kept silent.37 NovemberColonel Hofer’s departure was as quick as it had been predictable.Bora went to see him off at the Cracow Glowny station on Tuesday.He was himself on his way north to question ethnic Germans on their complaints about violence by retreating Polish troops.Hofer seemed to appreciate Bora’s presence.Pale but composed, he let his bitterness through by commenting on how a “hair-line crack causes the whole pot to be thrown away”.“I hate to say I’ll be better off in Germany, Bora.I know how your generation hankers to expand.I don’t expect you to understand.”“Colonel, did the abbess give you reason to think that she feared for her life, or that she might die shortly?”Hofer’s composure gave way a little.“No.”“But do you think she knew?”“Please let us not speak of it, Captain.I cannot add any piece of information that will help you solve her murder.I’d rather not speak of it.” The train was preparing to leave, so Hofer boarded.Without leaning out of the window, he added, “Goodbye, Bora.When you talk to your farmers today, keep in mind they’ll tell you what you want to hear.”Bora saluted.“It’s unlikely, sir.I don’t know myself what I want to hear.”“Hopefully the truth - whatever the truth means to you.” Hofer cleared his throat.“Try not to be more self-assured than the situation calls for.It won’t serve you well.” Slowly he answered Bora’s salute, as if raising his hand to the temple were too much for him, or he no longer cared for the gesture.“Remember Adam and the apple.”The train began to move.In the time it took Hofer to leave the Cracow metropolitan area, Bora and Hannes had already taken the road into the countryside.When the train stopped in Kielce, Bora was sitting on the rubble wall of a fly-infested farmyard, surrounded by disgruntled Silesians who wanted to have their say.9 November“Was L.C.A.N.the abbess’s motto?”Father Malecki didn’t need to look at the photograph Bora held in his hand to answer.“Yes, it was her Latin maxim.You may know it translates into ‘Light of Christ, Succour Us’.”“Yes, I know.”The evergreens in the cloister gave an illusion of spring which the low temperature dispelled as soon as the men walked out into it.Bora regretted his decision not to wear his greatcoat this morning, since he was soon uncomfortable in his woollen uniform.The news of a failed attempt on Hitler’s life the day before had thrown the military establishment into such confusion, the wearing of a coat seemed a superfluous preoccupation.Bundled around the neck with a bulky scarf, Malecki wore nothing over his cassock, but had already taken care to wear long johns underneath.Although no photographs had been taken of the body, Bora remembered the position in which it had been found.He walked to the well, and with a twig showed Malecki approximately where the head and feet of the nun had lain.“Had it been up to me, I wouldn’t have let them move her,” Bora said as he leaned against the rim of the roofed well.“It was clear that she was dead, still the sisters hauled her inside to try to revive her.They wouldn’t have let me help even had I been so inclined.”Malecki watched Bora pensively rub the metal-clad toe of his boot on the grout between bricks, where a dark residue was all that remained of the blood flow.He told himself he was putting up with Bora at this point.Resentment for a military presence in the convent found no open expression because there was nothing in this situation over which he had control.The archbishop of Cracow felt very differently from the Vatican on the issue of collaboration with German authorities, but he, too, had to keep it to himself.So Malecki had resolved to be here whenever the German visited, in hopes of keeping a check on him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]