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Anna Albinus: Revolver Christi (Revolver Christi)
On July 17, 1908, a young man broke into a cathedral. The Sexton heard a shot.and hurried down to the cathedral, where he found the body of the young man. The cathedral was known for having a relic, a revolver whose significance was not clear but it was stored in a case.while in the dead man’s hand was a rolled up note in the dead man’s handwriting which said he Wounded by the Love of Christ. He was not particularly religious and hardly ever went to a church. the The revolver was in its case and had the fingerprints of the young the young man on it. He had a stigma above his solar plexus. It was never discovered who shot him.
100 years later and a further investigation was carried out and the revolver was put on special display and attracted new investigations.
The organisers of the Exhibition had managed to obtain an icon, one of the three surviving icons of Christ at Arms. It had come from a monastery in Egypt, was related to a group called The Armed Man of Christ. Their view was that Christ revealed himself to those he loved mostly through pain. The icons dated from the ninth century.
On the third day of the exhibition, there was a shot in the cathedral and the display case was shattered. The shooter was caught and it was revealed that the revolver was the same type as the older revolver on display. The shooter was called.Johanna. Wächter. She was a legal assistant at a local law firm. She had fired at the display case and had managed to catch the Revolver Christi and now held both revolvers. She did not resist the arrest by security personnel. The original revolver, according to legend, had been purchased by a man for his son-in-law who was an excellent marksman. The gun was reputed to bring good fortune to its owner. However, soon after his marriage the groom contracted a mysterious condition which seemed to be similar to epilepsy. He had to leave the army and was supported by his father-in-law. One day the wife was in town and a strange man approached her and askedWhose hand wields the revolver.? She met him again, and despite his strange appearance, seemed to get on well with him. Each time he repeated the same question. She realised it might be a connection between what he was saying and the revolver that her husband had received from her father. While looking at the revolver, her husband saw her and she told him the story. The strange young man appeared at their door and told them that he was Jesus Christ. They gave him the revolver and he disappeared with it. The husband now seemed to be cured of his ailment . The couple got involved with soldiers camped near the area and said that they were warriors of Christ. Her husband inadvertently woke up a sleeping soldier who shot him and arrested the the wife. She was deemed mentally ill. The father managed to get her released and she was sent to a convent where she died a few years later of a broken heart. Later investigations revealed that the woman died with a circular stigma above her solar plexus.
As regards the exhibition, as might be imagined there was a huge demand for tickets and local hotels. At this point we meet the major character of this book. He is Thomas, a police inspector, and he is the one investigating this issue. He interviewed Johanna. She refused to answer any of his questions. However, he was aware that he had met her before at the law office where she worked as she was dealing with his late father-in-law’s will. Thomas is married to Susanne and they have a teenage daughter called Mara.
The exhibition of the revolver is cancelled, but the icon is still on display and Thomas and his family go and look at it. He is surprised to see his wife examining the icon closely.
The church drops all charges against Johanna but the police are still deciding whether to charge her with possession of a dangerous weapon.
One evening, when his wife and daughter are out, Johanna turns up at Thomas’s house with a batch of documents. It turns out that her grandfather knew his father-in-law, now deceased, during the war as they had been prisoners together in France. She gives him various letters between the two and shows him a photograph of his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, who died very young and his wife when she was still a child.
We gradually learn that his in-laws are involved in the story far more than he was aware. His mother-in-law seems to be involved in a local extremist religious group akin to the Armed Man of Christ group. Johanna stalks his daughter and he is somewhat concerned. Johanna dies soon after though there is no evidence of any violence.What is the suspicious is the fact that she has a stigma above her solar plexus. She is not at the first or the last person in this book to have such a stigma.
Things get more complicated and he finds that both his wife and daughter maybe somehow caught up in this mystery in ways he doesn’t fully understand. They have a house in Crete which they visit regularly and perhaps not surprisingly
T there are even connections there too.
He meets Stefanie, the piano teacher at his daughter’s school and she very much reminds himJohanna. Because he bbecomes friendly with her, he takes up piano lessons again which he had had as a child. Again, not surprisingly he finds Stefanie is also involved in this issue.
This is actually a quite a short book, only 70 pages, but does manage to pack in a lot as we get a mystery which gets deeper and deeper and involves religion and a variety of characters who initially do not seem connected but then turn out to be connected, as well as two identical revolvers and then implication with the whole story. It is a strange mystery but also a very well told story which keeps us wondering where it is going and how it will turn out.
Publishing history
First published in 2021 by Edition.fotoTAPETA
First published in English by 2026 by Dedalus
Translated by Rachel Farmer