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presumption or perfidy. Schmidt had changed much in the last years.
        "I hope it goes for the best. As Our Lord desires," he wished.
        "Our Lord doesn't have anything to do with this," Schmidt concluded.
        "Do you also think Ben Isaac has nothing to do with this?" Tarcisio returned to the previous subject.
        "I suggest you try to find him, if it's not too late."
        "How?"
        "Think a little, Tarcisio. They killed Zafer and Aragones. We can very well fear for the fate of Sigfried and the Isaac family."
        "But who's behind all this?" Tarcisio asked."What's their intention?"
        "I don't know, but whoever it is doesn't stop at half measures." He stopped talking and thought about it. "Hm. Interesting."
        "What?"
        "The participants in the Status Quo are all being eliminated," he said with a thoughtful expression.
        "And?"
        "Two are left."

14

    H istory tends to write itself with deep chisel marks that disappear only with the passage of time, dissolving in oblivious rain. Insignificant people will never be remembered on bronze plaques that record their birth, the place they lived, or their achievements. They remain only in the memory of those who lost them, until they, too, disappear under a forgotten gravestone.
        No one would remember Yaman Zafer's deeds, not because there weren't any, but because he spent his life trying to conceal them. The last hours of his life proved that his best efforts were not enough.
        Rafael leaned over the greasy, disgusting stained fl oor, examining it in silence, as if hoping that the place would speak for itself. He was sad. He had known Zafer and his sons for more than twenty years. Not that he saw them often. Sometimes years passed, but they felt together at every moment. This had been eliminated.
        "I still don't see what you think you'll find here," Jacopo grumbled, standing up, looking at the priest.
        "I still don't see what you're doing here," the other replied.
        "You know perfectly well why I'm here."
        They had arrived in Paris around midnight. The flight had been
    smooth, covering the miles in the darkness. Jacopo had used the time to talk about his theory about the lack of proof for the stories in the Bible. Rafael listened to him without paying attention.
        "Until the end of the nineteenth century the truth of the Bible was never put into question. The Evangelists were inspired by God. The truth is that, as much as it could, the church didn't allow its faithful to read the sacred book in their language. It was a crime, punished by death." His theatrical gestures didn't impress Rafael. "It was Pope Paul the Fifth, in the seventeenth century, who said, 'Don't you know that much reading of the Bible harms the church?'" he quoted sarcastically. "Now, think about it. What church, especially one called a religion of the book, bases its dogmas on the book but prohibits its believers from reading the sacred book that gives credibility to everything it proclaims?" He paused dramatically. "The nineteenth century initiated a feverish archaeological search for proof of the 'facts'"—he sketched quotation marks in the air when he said this word—"narrated in the Bible. They excavated everywhere there was a site. Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, a host of sites in the Near and Middle East. They wanted to fi nd Solo mon's temple, the remains of Noah's ark, anything to confirm the facts of the Bible. Paul Emile Botta, the French consul in Mosul, began the race, Austen Henry Layard, an English diplomat, was next, then another Englishman, also named Henry, embarked on the search."
        Rafael looked at him for the first time. He could do without the history lesson. He'd known this argument for years.
        "Do they pay you to teach this?" he asked scornfully.
        "After decades of excavations, smiles, delusions, anxieties, what did they find?" He left the