Free The Memory Key by Conor Fitzgerald Page A

something else.
    ‘Well, were you?’
    ‘Was I what?’
    ‘Baptized.’
    ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’
    ‘Do you consider it a taboo question?’
    ‘An irrelevant one.’
    ‘A millennial cultural tradition that defines your religious identity is not irrelevant. All your actions flow from what happened in infancy. Blume is a foreign name. Jewish?’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘There is no one else in the room, is there?’
    Blume had never really considered the matter. His mother had been a non-practising Episcopalian who went through an evangelical phase, which swiftly transmogrified into aggressive atheism. He never remembered his father expressing a single religious idea in his life. He doubted they would have been able to tell him anything even if they were alive. He had an aunt in the United States whom he had failed to track down on his last visit, not that he had searched too hard. Maybe she could tell him something about his name. He was circumcised, but then again, that had more to do with being born in America. Or so he had always assumed.
    ‘I am perfectly capable of decoding the meaning behind your long silence,’ said Pitagora. ‘It’s what I do. You know of course your questore is Jewish? De Rossi. That is one of the oldest Jewish names possible.’
    ‘De Rossi is Jewish?’ Blume had never imagined it for a moment. He found himself unaccountably interested in the idea, then sceptical, and finally scornful. He would have heard about it. Overtly or covertly, Jews in power were always identified. ‘No, he’s not.’
    ‘Thing is, De Rossi himself probably doesn’t know. Do you have many dealings with the man?’
    ‘As few as possible,’ said Blume.
    ‘Healthy attitude,’ Pitagora tapped his nose, went back to his big red chair, and invited Blume to sit down.
    ‘This fascination with Jews,’ said Blume, crossing his legs, ‘is it connected with your Nazi politics?’
    ‘I could tell you were intelligent the moment you walked in. Intelligent, but very, very negative. You noticed my golden foulard and bracelet, and you thought they were affectations, but wearing gold on your person gives you the energy of the sun. I know, you don’t believe me. You were trying to provoke me with the Nazi taunt, but of course the real problem with Nazism was the socialism. Without socialism, you don’t get big assemblies gathering to serve a man-made ideology. Are you following me?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You are, and you are evaluating me, too. Subtle Hebrew.’
    ‘Drop the Jewish references, Professor.’
    ‘I speak out of absolute admiration. Yours is a fascinating race. Do you know that the Jews of Rome pre-date the Christians? The Jews were here first. As a religion, that is. When the Emperor Titus, one of the greatest men this city ever produced, destroyed Jerusalem in 70 ad , many Jews fled here, to the centre of the empire. They settled in camps on one of the hills facing Rome, where the Etruscans used to be, what we now call Monteverde, and they are still there ! Still in Monteverde and down the hill, too, in the Ghetto. That is some staying power, isn’t it?’
    Blume grunted what Pitagora took for acquiescence.
    ‘The immigrants from Jerusalem were followed by St Peter and St Paul, both Jews themselves, who formed a breakaway sect called the Christians. And if the Romans didn’t care much for the Jews, but could accept they had a case, they definitely didn’t care at all for the flesh-eating, blood-drinking Christians. But the breakaway group got the upper hand, and then turned on their own people. So you see, the Jews are literally their own worst enemy . . . You seem tired. A bit flabby around the waist for a man of your age. I trust you have a woman? So what about your politics? As you can see, I love the light. I hate intrigue and I despise people who do not have the courage of their convictions. In what do you believe, Commissioner Alec Blume?’
    ‘My opinions are my own