Hanging on

neither is it an enemy."
        Clearly, Rotenhausen found Beckmann's mania offensive. He turned away from the Standartenführer and ordered his aide to heat the bath water.
        "Father Picard," Beckmann said, even as Rotenhausen was speaking to his man, "how many griddles on the stove?"
        "Four," Kelly said. He was aware that the danger had passed, but he was slightly confused.
        "My aide will heat water for my bath on two of the griddles, if that is all right with you, Kamerad," Beckmann told Rotenhausen.
        The general did not like that. But Beckmann's display of Nazi psychosis was enough to make him wary and, in fact, somewhat afraid of the SS colonel. "I suppose that will be fine," he said.
        The aides rushed for the kitchen, nearly colliding in the narrow hall.
        "Dear Father Picard," Rotenhausen said, "I believe we will not need you any more tonight. You may sleep in your own room. Tomorrow, please offer my apologies to your junior priests for our having had to put them out."
        "I will do that, General," Kelly said. "Sleep well," he said, nodding his head vigorously to both of them and bowing in an oriental fashion as he backed toward the stairs.
        That was when he fell over the chair. When he backed into it, he thought he had somehow bumped into one of the soldiers, though there were no more men in the room. The knobs at the top of the backrest felt like gun barrels in his kidneys. He cried out, staggered forward, tripped, and fell.
        Rotenhausen and Beckmann rushed over and helped him to his feet. "Are you hurt, Father?" the general asked, solicitously.
        "No, no," Kelly said. He was so relieved to find that he had backed into a chair instead of into a gun that he could hardly control his tongue. "It was merely a chair. Nothing but a chair." He turned and looked at the chair. "It is one I have owned for years. A chair cannot hurt a man. A chair can do nothing to a man unless he wants it to." He knew he was babbling, and his French was not good enough to trust to babbling, but he could not stop. For a moment, he had been sure they saw through him and were going to shoot him. But it had just been the knobs on the back of the chair.
        "Be careful," Beckmann said as Kelly backed away from them again. "You're walking right into it, Father."
        Sheepishly, Kelly looked at the chair. "I'm so stupid," he said. He patted the chair. "But this is an old chair in which I have sat many times. It cannot hurt me, eh?" Shut up, you idiot, he told himself. He reached the stairs and started up.
        "Father Picard," Beckmann said. "Your hat."
        "My what?" What was a hat? The word seemed familiar. Hat? Hat?
        Standartenführer Conrad Beckmann bent down, picked up the shapeless black hat, and brought it over to the steps. He handed it to Kelly. "You twist, tear, and rumple it so fiercely, Father. I hope we have not made you nervous?" He smiled.
        Was it just an ordinary smile? Kelly wondered. Or was there something sinister behind it? Had Beckmann become suspicious?
        "Nervous?" Kelly asked. "Oh, not me." He looked at the ruined hat in his hands. "I twist it up because-well, because it is only a hat. It is only the hat which I have worn on my head for years. It cannot hurt me no matter how much I twist it up." He gripped the lump of felt in both hands and wrenched it violently. He grinned weakly at Beckmann. "You see? I twist it, but it cannot hurt me. Just like the chair, eh?" He laughed nervously. Babbling, babbling…
        "Goodnight, Father," Beckmann said.
        "Goodnight, sir. Goodnight, General Rotenhausen." He turned and fairly ran up the steps to the second floor, past the house altar, down the short corridor, and into his room, closing the door behind.
        "Why are priests all such idiots?" Beckmann asked Rotenhausen, as the door closed overhead.
        In his room, Kelly collapsed on the mattress and hugged himself. He was shaking so badly that the brass bed vibrated under him like a drumhead. His hands were so cold he could feel the chilly outline of his fingers through his suit coat and clerical vest. Yet he was slimy with perspiration.
        Don't pray, don't pray, don't pray, he told himself. He was so terrified that he was on the brink of prayer, and he knew that weakness would be the end of him. He hugged himself until the tremors gradually seeped away.
        The room was blacker