12.
For the time being, I’ve become a priest and my present employer, Anya Manion, has become a nun.
Dressed in black pants, matching jacket over a black shirt and stiff white collar, I am travelling under the assumed name of Father John Crews. Anya is playing the part of Sister Rosaire de Marie, and the navy blue nun habit she dons proves it. We are two ecumenical scholars studying the shroud and its history. Together we believe the fourteen foot length of cotton fabric is not a medieval fake, but the true two thousand year old burial robe of Christ. That is, according to the documentation provided to us by Checco. The forged documentation signed and sealed by the Vatican and presently stored in my shoulder bag, along with fake passports, grants a private one hour viewing of the shroud, even though the sacred relic is presently unavailable for viewing by the public for at least another three years.
Now seated on the high-speed train, the Tuscan countryside speeding past, bathed in the orange glow of the spring dusk, I open the shoulder bag, pull out the shroud photos and the Egypt map I found in Manion’s office. The first photo reveals the full shroud. The photo is really a negative image of the body imprinted on the cloth so that the crucified Jesus appears in white, superimposed over a black background. I place the photo on top of the map and turn it upside down, then sideways, then right side up.
“What are you looking for?” Anya asks.
“We both know that Andre believes there is information on the shroud that will lead us to the exact place where the bones are buried.”
“A map,” she says. “Or a diagram. Or a series of diagrams.”
“Well, that’s my guess. A map. But what if what we’re looking for is something else entirely?”
“I’m not understanding you.”
“What if the guide we’re looking for is not a map or a diagram at all, but some kind of code, or series of words, or some other kind of image that’s been inked into the thing?”
“What’s your point?”
I take a quick glance out the window, onto the sun which is setting beyond the green, vineyard-covered hills.
“I guess my point is this: what if the answer to the location of Jesus’s bones is right before me, and I can’t recognize it?”
She sets her hand on top of mine.
“Don’t doubt yourself so much. Let’s just do the best we can, and see what we can see. If Andre couldn’t find what he was looking for in a photo then chances are, neither will we. We have a unique opportunity to see the shroud up close and personal. Something my husband would have given his left nut for.”
“Thank you for your confidence, Sister,” I say, allowing her hand to slip into mine and squeezing it. But that’s when it dawns on me. “You,” I say, turning to gaze into her eyes. “You know what to look for don’t you?”
She smiles.
“Maybe I do, Father,” she says. “Maybe I don’t. Let’s just put it this way. I’ll know it when I see it.” Then, shifting herself so she can point to the first, full-length photo of the shroud. “For instance, Chase, do you see this symbol written here in my husband’s famous red Sharpie?”
Following the tip of her index finger she points to a non-descript triangle that’s been more or less scribbled onto the photo. Only it’s not a true triangle since there’s no bottom to it. More like a bi-angle or, if you will, a flat, one-dimensional pyramid. Inscribed in the center of the bottomless triangle or pyramid, is a small circle. In fact, the more I stare at the photographs, the more I scan through them , the more I can see that Dr. Manion has scribbled dozens of these images on them in various or even strategic places.
