Flicker by Theodore Roszak

Author:Theodore Roszak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 1991-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

18 DR. BYX

The orphanage was a squat stone bastion in the Old Town sector of Zurich west of the river. Even on a bright summer day and framed against the magnificence of the ice-bright Alps, it darkened its neighborhood like some skulking carrion bird. Its cheerless walls seemed stained with more than the grime of years. The streaks left by centuries of rain along its stones might have been made by tears shed from its windows which looked for all the world like eyes darkened with despair. I thought how effectively Castle might have used the world headquarters of the Orphans of the Storm for one of his patented exercises in Gothic atmospherics.

A plaque in the entrance hall informed me in three modern languages plus Latin that I was in one of the oldest surviving structures in the city, dating back to the dawn of the Reformation, when it was built—originally as a school—by the great Swiss Protestant leader Zwingli. The orphans had taken over the site in 1739, adding a few more wings and dedicating it to the service of “the light that shines in the darkness and is comprehended not.” In the French, German, and Italian, the plaque left this final phrase in Latin, a language in which I had little proficiency. But I had plenty of time to work it out. Though I’d phoned ahead for an appointment with one Dr. Byx, the chief administrator of the order, I was left to spend over an hour in the chill and gloom of the foyer.

All the while I sat waiting on a stiff wooden bench, black-robed men and women bustled across the floor, eyeing me inhospitably. Their garb suggested they were clerics, but of no order I could identify. Not that I was an authority on religious vestments. Still, I was convinced the costume was more austere than any Catholic monastic dress I’d ever seen. It featured a tight black bonnet that covered the hair, making the men—all clean-shaven—difficult to distinguish from the women. At the cheeks, a high starched white collar blinkered the eyes so that those who looked toward me seemed to be peering surreptitiously around a corner. I remembered Olga had told me the orphans weren’t Catholics. “Older than Catholics.” Wasn’t that what she had said? But what was older than Catholics? Weren’t Catholics as old as Christianity got?

That the orphans were Christians I had no doubt. Their emblem—the Maltese cross—had been worked into all the leaded windows and interior decor. A massive version of the cross hung suspended from the ceiling above the door that opened into the central corridor. But this cross had a variation. Where the arms intersected, there was a circled logo. After some study, I concluded that it was the letter A overlapped at its crossbar by the letter X. AX. Which meant nothing to me. I found myself wishing I knew something more about basic religious history. My Sunday-school education in Modesto had been satisfied with teaching me that

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