The Witch of Cologne (31 page)

‘
T
hey say they will declare the scourge
officially over as soon as next week. A good third of the city has perished but this last week there were only ten new deaths reported. Sadly Birgit Ter Lahn von Lennep’s sister was amongst them. We are blessed, Ruth, to escape all this and more.’

Detlef stands naked in a large horse’s trough beside an old barn. He pours the icy water over his chest, gasping with the cold, his skin reddening, then scrubs himself down with a wet rag and a cake of salt. Ruth, her arms holding clean clothes for him, a woollen shawl crossed across the breast of her long muslin dress, shivers in sympathy. His horse, still restless from the long ride from Cologne, stands fastened to a post, munching on a bucket of oats.

‘The archbishop waits until we have buried our last before he returns. I suspect he has lost his stomach for funerals, but his absence has been to my advantage.’

After rinsing himself with the bucket, Detlef steps out.

‘I hear you are championing a young man from the ribbon guild, Nikolaus Gülich,’ Ruth says, handing him a drying cloth of rough hessian. Detlef rubs the towel against his skin until it burns.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Hanna.’

‘He is challenging the city council and seeks my support and that of Maximilian Heinrich. It is an old argument but a persuasive one in this dangerous era. Let those who work honestly be rewarded for their labour. The time is over when a family name should be enough to buy one a seat on the council.’

‘What about your enemies, Detlef? You know you are closely watched.’

‘Truly, I expect both Heinrich and von Fürstenberg will try to obstruct me.’

Ruth holds out a clean pair of breeches made of serge. Detlef pulls them on over a loose cotton undergarment then slips his feet into a pair of clogs.

‘But it would be a wondrous thing for a man to be judged on merit alone, would it not? A small step towards a true democracy, Ruth, think of that!’

He caresses her hair. It is two weeks since they last saw each other and even in that short time Detlef observes how her womb has swollen, how the planes of her face have softened despite the grief still trapped in her eyes. If there was only a way of exorcising this spectre of horror that still haunts her, of hastening her healing, he thinks to himself. He saw men like this after the war, crippled by appalling memories, and then too he felt the same helplessness. There have been moments since the pogrom when he has despaired of seeing Ruth smile or laugh again. He has tried to talk to her of her family, but found that with remembrance comes
agony and so has decided to let time work its own medicine. Still, he is painfully conscious of a mistrust that has risen up in her, an emotion she seems unable to control. Powerless to intervene, he secretly prays that the arrival of their child will return Ruth to him completely. Concealing his anxiety, he kisses her forehead.

‘We shall be the architects of change, you and I.’

‘That sounds dangerous.’

Gazing at him she finds that she cannot bring herself to reach towards him, much as she craves to. Noticing, he covers her hesitancy with humour.

‘Too late, my love, you have corrupted me with your philosophies and I cannot be what I was before.’

He kisses her lightly on the lips and leads her back into the kitchen. He sits her down and ladles out two bowls of the vegetable broth that has been left simmering in a large cauldron over the fire. Ruth watches him eat, waiting for her nausea at the oily smell of the soup to settle before joining him.

Even after three months of living with him she finds herself looking at him with wonder. She is still astounded that they are living as man and wife, albeit in complete secrecy. Yet so much of him remains an engima; on each return he becomes a stranger again and she is compelled to discover him anew.

Ruth consoles herself that this may be the very nature of love, a passion as fickle as the sea, full of certainty when the object of desire is absent, yet dubious when confronted again with the lover’s presence. An ambivalence she is able to exorcise when they make love or when Detlef’s intellect shakes her mind awake again with a brilliant observation which only the two of them can share. And yet she knows Detlef’s devotion to her to be unquestioning and constant. It is the steady foundation
against which Ruth sets her own doubts: if he knows it must be so, how can it not be? Perhaps it is just not in her nature to surrender completely, she muses.

‘Ruth, you are very quiet.’

‘What news of the inquisitor?’

Detlef reaches for some bread and pulls off a hunk, allowing the coal-black pumpernickel to sink into the broth before eating it hungrily.

‘Detlef, I am full of whispering spirits that speak of peril, I know them to be the chatterings of my fear but I am filled with foreboding.’

‘You should not think of such things. It is bad for the child.’

‘How can I not when there is no one here to speak with except Hanna and the barn animals? My mind is growing soft. I fear I lose both my wit and my craft.’

‘There is rumour that Solitario will return from Vienna when the road is open again. Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg has decided the inquisitor is needed for the resurrection of the Catholic spirit which has been much damaged by the scourge. At the same time he is watching me and calculating that my challenge to the nepotism that governs Cologne shall cause disfavour amongst the nobility. He has even spread word that I have lost my sanity as a result of my attendance on the dying in the pesthouse.’

‘Detlef, we should leave…’

‘Not yet. Not until the child is born and it is again safe to travel.’

Inwardly angry that he does not seem to feel the same panic she now finds herself wrestling with, Ruth gets up and walks over to the cracked marble bench upon which sits a wedge of Edam, a hock of smoked ham and a jar of pickled beetroot. She slices into the ham with the long hunting knife
that hangs from a hook above: three thick slices of the meat and a wedge of cheese for her lover.

Does he not realise we are living on borrowed time, she thinks to herself, frustrated by his lack of urgency. What does he intend for the future? She cannot remain hidden at Das Wolkenhaus for ever, less so with a child.

Obeying the kosher rules of her upbringing, she chooses a clean knife to cut her own cheese—the ham she will not touch—then carries the two platters back to the table, determined not to allow her irritation to show. Detlef, seemingly oblivious to her anxiety, pours himself a glass of wine.

‘Did you see the good Meisterin Ter Lahn von Lennep on the eve of her bereavement?’ she asks, then immediately regrets her provocation.

Detlef, ham in hand, pauses; there is much he has not shared with her and yet there is little his mistress cannot guess. He wonders how much Hanna has confided to Ruth.

‘I have not seen her for many months,’ he answers carefully. ‘I was her confessor.’

‘Then surely there is even more reason to visit her now?’

Detlef again speculates on Ruth’s intentions. Convinced by her tone that she knows he and Birgit were lovers, he wonders if this is another trial of his affection.

‘You are suggesting I should take her confession?’ he asks incredulously.

‘I am suggesting that we should do everything in our power not to attract suspicion.’

‘Naturally, but I cannot execute what you suggest, out of respect both to Meisterin Ter Lahn von Lennep and to myself. I am no longer a man governed by his bodily desires alone.’

Ruth turns away to hide her dismay at the confirmation of what she had only suspected, questioning the perversity which has forced this revelation. He is a man, naturally he
has loved before, she thinks. Again she finds herself trying to apply Spinoza’s philosophy, to achieve liberation through reining in her passions.

The philosopher’s animated face appears before her.
‘If you can free yourself from the dictatorship of the passions then all that occurs will be a result not of your relations with the external but of your own true nature within, which is God himself.’

His words come back to her, a consoling remembrance that anchors her to some semblance of reality. Rebuking herself for depending on Detlef’s affection for her contentment, she decides she must rely only on the happiness she can muster from within: the strength of man’s inherent state, solitary, at one with nature. But still she loves him. Only God knows how much she loves him.

Detlef watches her, her eyes downcast, staring at a line of ants that are transporting a crumb of cheese down the carved leg of the table. It is this very complexity which causes him both to adore her and suffer for her, but there is a mystery about her that is equally tantalising and infuriating. He fears she is a
terra incognita
that he will be driven to possess over and over.

‘You are unhappy?’

‘I am not unhappy, I am asleep and it is taking a long time for my furies and joys to shake themselves awake,’ she answers softly, hoping he will be assuaged by the plea in her eyes.

Detlef drinks down the last of the wine then reaches for the leather travelling sack slung across the arm of a chair. He takes out a small red silk pouch.

‘I purchased a curio for your pleasure. From Adolf Bescher of the watchmakers’ guild.’

He opens her curled hand and places the soft pouch into it. ‘I hope it will amuse you.’

She pulls open the purse: a ground lens falls out, its
curved surface glinting on the wooden table. Crying out with delight she holds it over the trail of ants.

‘Now we shall be the giants who decide the fate of others and marvel at the most intricate of God’s work.’

She places a fork across the insects’ path and watches through the lens as one ant, an Atlas dwarfed by its globe of Edam, struggles bravely to climb the massive pewter arm of the utensil.

‘Let us be benign giants, in case our actions be judged by less generous giants above us, my Ruth, for tolerance must be the only way.’

‘Something I have seen little of these past few months.’

‘Indeed, but faith is an inspiration towards the betterment of the self. We must not allow ourselves to be contaminated by hate.’

She suddenly grips his hand. ‘Promise me you will never travel without bearing arms. Swear that if you are attacked you will fight back to defend yourself.’

‘You forget that I was a trained soldier before I was a cleric.’

But Ruth, instead of being comforted by these words, winds her arms around her womb and rocks gently.

The heavy scents of rose and benjamin fill the chamber. Crinkling petals cover the small walnut side table where they have fallen from a brass vase in which Ruth has arranged a bouquet of the yellow and burgundy blooms. The window, its diamond panes creating a prism of moonlight, has been pushed open. A heavy tome, its yellowed pages fluttering slightly in the breeze, sits open at a reading stand beside a silver candleholder embossed with the von Tennen shield.

Across the stone floor is a bed whose carved wooden frame is over a hundred years old. Ruth and Detlef lie stretched out half under the embroidered coverlet. Eyes open, his long lean form is curled around her, his arms under and around her belly, a glistening pale sphere. The tautness of her flesh amazes him, her breasts are like veined fruit about to burst. He buries his face in her hair and breathes in her scent. He has never felt more at peace, never closer to God. Suddenly he feels the child beneath kick.

Ruth is woken by the movement. ‘He will have strong legs like his father,’ she murmurs, pulling the coverlet across her chilled skin.

‘She will be wilful like her mother,’ Detlef answers, smiling in the dark as he feels another ripple in the flesh.

‘It is a male child.’

‘But how do you know?’

‘I have seen him in my dreaming and also he is sitting high in the womb.’

She pushes herself further into the feather pallet and begins to fall back to sleep. Detlef lies for a time imagining the son he has sired. Will he be healthy? Sharp of mind and vigorous of body? How will they protect him, this hybrid creature, both Jew and Christian?

In the far distance a wolf howls. Detlef, restless, gets up to make water. As he urinates into the chamberpot he notices a letter peeping out from his mistress’s abandoned bodice. The Dutch seal is unmistakable.

‘Ruth.’ He gently shakes her awake, holding the letter before her. ‘Who is this letter from? You know how dangerous it is to receive mail here.’

‘It is from Benedict Spinoza. I wrote to him for words of comfort and he has replied.’

‘This was unwise.’

‘Please, Detlef, I must rest.’

‘Don’t you understand the peril we live in here? It would take just one peasant, someone my brother has wronged, to betray us.’

Drowsily she sits up.

‘Who was your messenger?’

‘Hanna has a brother who is to be trusted.’

‘I know the man, but no one is to be trusted. There is famine throughout this land, one Reichstaler would buy our lives.’

‘He does not know what he carries. He thinks it to be news from Hanna to her Dutch cousin.’

‘It must stop, do you understand? We have to be careful for only a little longer, until the child is born.’

‘And then what?’

‘I have a plan.’

‘What plan?’

Detlef falls silent. In truth he has not allowed himself to think further than this secret parallel existence, her waiting for him in this simple sanctuary, a paradise away from his other life.

‘I suppose I am to continue as your mistress, a plaything you keep stored in your closet to take out at your leisure,’ she says, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

‘Ruth, pray let us not argue. Please, trust me.’

In the thickening silence an owl hoots in the distance.

‘Forgive me the indiscretion, but I needed some consolation, some wisdom to carry me through this dark passage.’ She reaches over to caress his hand.

Detlef stares down at the page: the distinctive calligraphy speaks to him of a realm that transcends the limitations of orthodoxy, a place where man can dream of democracy, a belief that places God everywhere—in the calling bird outside, in the impenetrability of his loved one—a belief in which the body is the outward form of the soul.