But it wasn’t.
As I passed the desk, the clerk stopped me to deliver a message, neatly sealed in an envelope. Someone more experienced might have shoved it in a pocket and forgotten it, but I’m not used to receiving messages at hotels. I ripped it open and read:
Jared:
Call me immediately on receiving this message, day or night. Immediately.
Bernard Lulfre
I crumpled it into a ball and shoved it in my pocket. As I turned to resume my journey toward the elevators, the clerk said, “He was very insistent, sir.”
I turned back and was surprised to see that it was the same clerk who had been wounded by my wondering if the hotel had a fax machine. Possibly he was a cyborg, tireless and efficient.
“Very insistent, was he?” I asked.
“Very insistent, sir.”
“I’d like a bottle of whiskey in my room.”
A tiny frown line appeared in the middle of his forehead. “I’m afraid the bar is closed, sir.”
“I don’t want a bar, I want some whiskey in my room. Half a liter, or however you bottle it over here.” I shoved a hundred marks at him and walked away.
• • •
Was I going to call Bernard Lulfre in this state of mind? It really made no sense, but I wanted to have a drink, go to sleep, and wake up without this hanging over me, so I placed the call. Fr. Lulfre himself answered the phone.
“Jared!” he said. “It must be the middle of the night over there.”
“It is, yes.”
“What’s going on? Bring me up to date.”
“I’ve attended two of B’s lectures, and I’ve—”
“Two of whose lectures?”
“B’s. He’s not known as Atterley over here. To the public he’s known as B.”
“B as in boy?”
“B as in blasphemer.”
“I see. You’ve attended two of his lectures, and …”
“And I’ve spent an hour talking to him.”
“Really! As what, a fan? A follower?”
“Yes, possibly,” I replied vaguely.
“And what’s your impression?”
“That he’s very bright. Completely sincere.”
“Not your impression of him, your impression of what he’s saying.”
I was too tired to think about this. “I don’t know. It seems harmless enough.”