Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (14 page)

And yet the nightmare came as he slept, bridging the decades: that old man, the Master, his inspiring words – they were
hot
words – how their blood was now admixed with the blood of Jesus Christ and how pain is born from sin and joy is born from pain and closeness to God from joy. Oh, Witte recalled the pain, the joy and the ecstasy, in which the joy had suddenly vanished and been replaced by knowledge. Cold and eternal knowledge. And Witte's joy at the same moment turned into sin.

Margelin arrived carrying Witte's washed clothes. She put them on a chair by the man's bed and remained staring askance at him,

‘You're not feeling well, dear brother?' she asked.

Witte sighed. ‘I didn't sleep well at all,' he replied shortly.

‘Again?' asked the woman, looking at Witte with concern. ‘Last time I went to the Apothecary to get medicine and he recommended a mixture of dill and yarrow to put on your face, but that didn't work, I suppose?'

‘I think it helped once, but today …' He didn't dare to tell Margelin about his dreams. Never mind that Margelin was also present in the dreams, never mind that they were both young then. Margelin need not think that it was troubling him still.

‘I know,' she said. ‘It's this house. Because of this house I, too, sometimes don't get any sleep.'

‘The house?' muttered Witte, feigning surprise. ‘Why should I not sleep because of the house?'

‘Don't deny it. You've heard it, too, I know.'

‘Heard what?'

‘The ghost, that penitent. You know it is moving around here, begging forgiveness for its sins, dear brother. You know because it's true. The Master himself talked about it because the Master knew, the Master himself –'

‘Quiet, woman,' demanded Gottschalk Witte harshly.
That name again, that man again.
‘We were young, we believed too many things we shouldn't have believed.'

‘Don't deny it,' she said again, and more severely. ‘You know what the Master said about this house is true. You've heard them, too, the voices. I've read it in your face sometimes in the mornings, and over the years I've learned to read your face and those feelings that you try so hard to hide.'

‘The Master couldn't have known that the spirit can't find rest. This is all just idle talk and nothing more.'

‘It's not idle talk. You want to make yourself deaf to those voices, but you
must
know that the Master never lied.'

‘Sister,' exclaimed Witte. ‘Are
you
reproaching me? You?'

‘What's done is done, and you can't undo it, dear brother. And that applies to this house as well. A horrible and obscene sin was committed here, and since then the souls of the sinners have been wandering this house, and
you have heard them.
It is the Master himself who is oppressing those penitents. You, too, have woken up at night, and you, too, have sensed that debauchery that once took place. The Master is flogging those sinners from beyond the grave, and they are repenting.'

Yes, Margelin was right. Witte had heard that howling or sighing – a yelping, the moaning of a person in the grip of terrible pain … No, not of a person, because in this house there was no one but Margelin and him, and such sounds could not belong to any living soul. He had heard those sounds, perhaps even a few nights ago, and before, and he had prayed in order to keep away those thoughts which shook his faith in God. And on several occasions he had woken in the night and stared in horror at the door and feared that the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street would now step from it, sent by the demons to punish him.

But he had to be strong and believe, and if he were destined to suffer then he must face his ordeals proudly and in an upright manner. He had known what a house this was, and that was why he had hoped for escape, redemption and salvation from it. Surely they were not denied to him? Even when he let his heart be warmed occasionally by little pleasures. For he knew of one certainty: there is no redemption before repentance – but even penitence can be joyful.

He pulled the coverlet aside and stood up straight out of bed. He now stood stark naked before Margelin and said, ‘You know how a person must behave and think in order to keep evil away.'

‘Yes, I know, dear brother,' said the woman with a prolonged stare at Witte. ‘The Holy Virgin shows us the way if we diligently pray to her and keep our thoughts pure.'

‘Exactly so,' said Witte, ‘always according to her guidance, and no doubt our sins will be forgiven.'

‘Sins? Have you sinned, dear brother?' The woman kept looking at the man. His breath was faster and his hands starting to tremble.

‘Yes, I am a poor sinner, and I want to confess. I have to confess straight away.'

‘And for your sins you have to be punished.'

‘Very severely punished. Please punish me, mistress.'
The Master – he had once asked that of the Master.

‘On your knees then,' commanded the woman. Her voice had changed. A heap of clothes tumbled to the floor, and her hand now held only a whip, which she had kept under her brother's washed and ironed habit.

‘How long is it since your last confession?'

M
ELCHIOR
WOKE UP
earlier than usual that morning. It had started to rain, and it pattered hard against the roof tiles. A wind had risen from the sea and was rattling the windows. Autumn was gradually beginning to make itself felt, the northern autumn of chilly winds, storms and showers.

He turned on his back while pulling the coverlet over Keterlyn's curved body, entwined his hands behind his head and thought about the women's gossip concerning the events that had once occurred at the Unterrainer house. There was certainly some truth there. Gossip is able to join and separate different stories, cook up a casserole of half-truths out of the truth and borrowed legends, and if Melchior was sure of anything it was that that monk's name was not Abelard. It might, however, have been Adelbert, and, if so, there should be some note about him in the records at the Dominican Monastery. But how did those ancient events have anything to do with Master Bruys, Tobias Grote and the killing of that strange little man in front of the Unterrainer house? Melchior was not sure, but he felt he ought to be. Life had taught him to see links, and he felt he would get no peace until he could be sure that there were no such links.

Later, down in the kitchen – where Melchior's father before him had set up a laboratory and in which he boiled, pressed, mixed and pounded herbs – Melchior once again took up the subject of the Unterrainer house with Keterlyn.

‘If I remember rightly, last night something stopped us from talking this through,' Melchior told his wife.

‘Oh, I suppose you could say that,' replied the woman cheerfully.

‘So then, when you were chatting with people about the ghost, did anyone say that they'd actually seen the phantom of the Unterrainer house? And who is it who is supposed to be haunting the place?'

Keterlyn thought for a moment. ‘No,' she replied, and her tone of voice became surer. ‘No, I don't remember anyone saying they'd seen anything
themselves.
Many could say that those two unhappy spirits – or maybe one of them – are haunting the house. But the only person who, as far as I remember, ever said she had seen a ghost there was Magdalena.'

‘And she died a while back,' said Melchior.

Keterlyn turned around and looked at her husband with concern. ‘Surely you shouldn't be worrying so much about the spirits of the dead. Aren't you bringing bad fortune on yourself? What if – may St Catherine preserve me – what if the ghost really exists and …'

‘I want to know that, too. What if?' said Melchior with assurance. ‘And I can't recall anyone saying they'd seen a ghost with their own eyes either. They keep talking about a haunted house, though. That's interesting.'

‘Perhaps you could ask Pastor Witte or his sister. They should know – assuming they'd want to talk about such things.'

‘I think I shall do that,' reflected the Apothecary. ‘But, still, it is astonishing. People say that the house is haunted and terrible deeds have been done there, but who has seen or heard it? No one can say.'

‘That's how the stories go,' said Keterlyn. ‘Long, long ago some man saw the ghost of a bloody monk at the Unterrainer house, either that or they saw the merchant's wife … But, really, the stories are all about how someone heard from someone who heard from someone else who was supposed long ago to have seen …' She stopped short. ‘No, wait. Now that I think about it, yesterday
somebody did say that someone's daughter had
heard
the ghost. Yes, that's right.'

‘Heard?
And recently? Who, dear wife, whose daughter heard the ghost?'

‘I'll have to try to remember. I'll be able to tell you this evening.'

‘Evening then,' sighed Melchior. ‘I have plenty to be getting on with. It wouldn't be right to open the pharmacy, I suppose, because they're burying Master Bruys today. I think I'll put my other hat on and go to take a closer look at the funeral. But if someone does come by wanting a sweet dram or some confections, I reckon you can sell them. And – most important – I have to have one more sweet kiss for the road.'

‘Well, that didn't take long,' smiled Keterlyn.

And Melchior did get that kiss for the road.

Tallinn was today, four days before the feast of St Lawrence, burying Laurentz Bruys, the merchant. In his will Bruys had asked to be buried in St Nicholas's Churchyard and nowhere else, not inside any church. To be buried in a church under a gravestone he would have had to pay the church a hefty sum, and his grave would have been grand and majestic. But Bruys had preferred to be buried cheaply so that more money could be donated to the poor, the needy and to his sacred undertaking, the foundation of St Bridget's Convent. Hallowed ground under the young linden trees of St Nicholas's Churchyard was good enough for him, and for that the church could not demand money – and anyway the church had received more than enough in donations and fees for masses during Bruys's lifetime.

A stately funeral – paid for, naturally, by the Great Guild – had enticed plenty of people into town from beyond the town walls and further afield. As Melchior trudged from Rataskaevu Street towards Town Hall Square he saw an ugly brawl between alms-people and beggars and a dozen or so vagrants from out of town who were coming into Tallinn from the direction of the Nuns' Gate.
The town guards had just arrived to separate the two groups, but one man's head had already been split open. The local beggars slipped away into cellars and dens at the approach of the guards, and the guards did not take the trouble to pursue them. But coming from beyond the town wall through the gates were not only beggars but fishermen, herdsmen, millers, train-oil-boilers, tanners, their wives and children and even peasants from further away. Everyone knew that a magnificent funeral would take place today, the Great Guild and the Kanuti Guilds would be distributing alms to the poor, and food and clothing would be laid out. Among them there must have been some serious mourners, those who had done business with Master Bruys or come into contact with him in other ways.

Around midday the corpse of Master Bruys, in his coffin and wrapped in a shroud, was carried out of his house on Lai Street. A fine little assembly of people had already gathered in front of it, paupers and beggars among them. The coffin was borne by members of the Great Guild, somewhat younger ones who had enough strength to carry a coffin of heavy oak with a canopy. Leading them was the Bishop of Tallinn in his white cassock and carrying a cross, followed by the Pastor of St Nicholas's and then the Ministers and Pastors of St Olaf's and the Dome Church and, of course, Melchior's neighbour, Gottschalk Witte, Pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost. In the merchant's lifetime they may have had their several differences on the question of favouring the Convent of St Bridget, but now they were all decently serious, their faces full of sorrow and the pain of loss. Walking behind the clerics were the Commander of the Order from Toompea, the two canons, Albrecht and Bolck, and a few vassals, among whom Melchior recognized the Knight Kordt von Greyssenhagen from Rataskaevu Street. Coming after the coffin were the burgomasters, councillors and other members of the Great Guild, aldermen in front, and behind them the other guilds – the brothers and sisters of Kanuti, St Olaf's, the Blackheads, the Sacred Heart and Rochus. On the heels of the guilds came three brothers from the Dominicans and the Abbess of St Michael's. Melchior also noticed Brother Hinric and waved to
him. The ordinary townsfolk walked behind them, Master Bruys's household retainers and his servant Mathyes among them, and right at the back the Council's musicians, one beating a drum and two playing a very sad and doleful melody on pipes.