The mysteries of life

She told us that, in fact, the Grand Lodge for the Rosicrucian Order of Australia, Asia and New Zealand was just around the corner from where we were sitting, in one of those business parks that are nothing like parks and are bereft of all business. For all she knew, the Grand Lodge was palatial inside. It didn't look like much from the front: just the usual concrete walls, dust-choked plants and angled parking spaces that bake in the sun. Very occasionally the Grand Masters, as she thinks they are called, come into the cafe but they rarely buy anything more than a camomile tea. Her boss has been curious about them since his father left his mother and moved back to Rende in Calabria, where he hadn't lived for close on fifty years. Her boss had said that if it wasn't for the fact that all the Rosicrucians he'd met talked unbearably slowly, he might have signed up for their series of weekly monographs that promise to help you unfold the mysteries of life.