“Therefore I consider you to be ready to begin this journey on which your worth will be tested. Bend down.”
Paul obeyed, and the man in the suit placed a thick black hood over his head. With a sharp tug he adjusted two leather straps around Paul’s neck.
“Can you see anything?”
“No.”
Paul’s own voice sounded strange inside the hood, and the sounds around him seemed to come from another world.
“There are two holes at the back. If you are short of air, pull it away from your neck slightly.”
“Thank you.”
“Now hold my left arm tightly with your right arm. We will be covering a great distance together. It is very important that you move forward when I tell you to, without hesitation. There is no need to hurry, but you must listen closely to your instructions. At certain points I will tell you to walk, placing one foot in front of the other. At others, I will tell you to lift your knees to go up or down stairs. Are you ready?”
Paul nodded.
“Answer the questions loudly and clearly.”
“I am ready.”
“Let us begin.”
Paul set off slowly, grateful to be moving at last. He’d spent the previous half hour answering the questions the man in the suit had put to him, although he had never seen this man before in his life. He knew the answers he ought to give in advance because they were all in the book that Keller had given him three weeks ago.
“Should I memorize them?” he’d asked the bookseller.
“These formulas are part of the ritual we have to preserve and respect. Soon you will discover that the initiation ceremonies and how they change you are an essential aspect of Masonry.”
“There’s more than one?”
“There’s one for each of the three degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. There are another thirty after the third degree, but these are honorary degrees you will learn about when it’s time.”
“What’s your degree, Herr Keller?”
The bookseller ignored his question.
“I want you to read the book and consider its contents closely.”
Paul did. The work recounted the origins of Masonry: the guilds of builders in the Middle Ages and, before them, the mythical builders of ancient Egypt: They all discovered a wisdom inherent in the symbols of construction and Geometry. You must always write this word with an upper-case G, because G is the symbol of the Great Architect of the Universe. How you choose to worship him is up to you. In the lodge, the only stone you will work will be your conscience and whatever you carry in it. Your brothers will give you the tools to do this after initiation… if you overcome the four trials.
“Will it be hard?”
“Are you afraid?”
“No. Well, a little.”
“It will be hard,” the bookseller admitted after a moment. “But you are brave, and you will be well prepared.”
Paul’s bravery had not been called upon so far, although the trials had not yet begun. He had been called to an alley in the Altstadt, the city’s old city, at nine o’clock on a Friday night. From the outside, the meeting place looked like an average house, although it was perhaps rather neglected. A rusty mailbox bearing an illegible name hung beside the doorbell, but the lock seemed new and well oiled. The man in the suit had come to the door alone and led Paul into a hallway containing various pieces of wooden furniture. It was there that Paul submitted to the first ritual interrogation.
Under the black hood, Paul wondered where Keller might be. He had assumed that the bookseller, the only connection he had with the lodge, would be the person who’d introduce him. Instead he had been met by a complete stranger, and he couldn’t help feeling slightly vulnerable as he walked blindly on the arm of a man he’d first met half an hour earlier.
After what seemed an enormous distance-he had gone up and down various flights of stairs and several long corridors-his guide finally came to a stop.
Paul heard three loud knocks, then an unknown voice asked: “Who calls at the door of the temple?”
“A brother bringing a Profane who desires to be initiated into our mysteries.”
“Has he been adequately prepared?”
“He has.”
“What is his name?”
“Paul, the son of Hans Reiner.”
They set off again. Paul noticed that the ground beneath his feet was harder and more slippery, possibly stone or marble. They walked for a long while, although inside the hood time seemed to have a different consistency. At certain points Paul felt-more out of intuition than any real certainty-that they were covering ground they’d covered before, as though they were walking in a circle, then being made to retrace their steps.
His guide stopped again and began to undo the straps of Paul’s hood.
Paul blinked when the black cloth was pulled back and he realized that he was standing in a small, cold, low-ceilinged room. The walls were completely covered in limestone, on which could be read disordered phrases written in different hands and at different heights. Paul recognized different versions of the Masonic commandments.
Meanwhile, the suited man stripped him of metallic objects, including his belt and the buckles of his shoes, which he tore off without a thought. Paul regretted not having remembered to bring different footwear.
“Are you wearing any gold? Entering the lodge with any precious metal is a grave insult.”
“No, sir,” replied Paul.
“Over there you’ll find a pen, paper, and ink,” said the man. Then, without another word, he disappeared through the door, shutting it behind him.
A little candle illuminated the table on which the writing implements sat. Beside them was a skull, and Paul realized with a shiver that it was real. There were also a number of flasks containing elements that signified change and initiation: bread and water, salt and sulfur, ashes.
He was in the Chamber of Reflections. The place where he was to write his testimony as a Profane. He took up the pen and began to write the ancient formula, which he had not completely understood.
All this is bad. All this symbolism, the repetition… I have the feeling that it’s nothing more than empty words; it has no spirit, he thought.
Suddenly he had a desperate longing to walk along Ludwigstrasse, by the light of the streetlamps, with the wind in his face. His fear of the dark, which hadn’t abated even in adulthood, had crept up on him inside the hood. In half an hour they would be back to fetch him, and he could simply ask them to let him go.
There was still time to turn back.
But in that case I would never know the truth about my father.