The Anatomist's Dream (14 page)

‘Below the taupe,' said Ullendorf, reciting from one of his own many texts, ‘the bulbiform mass will be normal, I ­guarantee it. What we need do is burrow through the tumorous pro­trusion and take a small plug from the skull-bone, thus releasing the pressure that has been building up over the years. It
'
s a good thing this has happened. It has drawn our attention to a need that was already there. If we don't operate, the lad will begin to get headaches and they will get worse; the pressure will build and build, until, crash! Like a dam that cannot hold the force of water it has been trying to contain it will begin to crack, letting the one part flow directly into the other, and then . . .'

He didn't finish his caveat, but smiled down over Philbert, apparently assuming he could see him, which oddly enough Philbert could, having swung down momentarily from the ceiling to the table before going back up again. Corti spoke again.

‘Believe me, he's in very good hands, Maulwerf. Dottore Ullendorf is the foremost trepannist in Europe. His skill in diagnosing ailments and the releasing of bad vapours is unexcelled. I have had the esteemed opportunity to be his assistant while he's been here in Finzeln, and no surgeon could have so steady a hand.'

Ullendorf looked over to Kwert and then to Maulwerf.

‘Whose charge is the boy actually in?' he asked, Philbert's eyes involuntarily following the man Corti as he crossed and re-crossed the room, watching as he picked up some instrument from the shadows. His attention was momentarily caught by a tray whose surface was covered with tools, shiny silver instruments with ivory handles and toothed cogs, miniature circular saws, a three-legged compass, points sharp and glinting, some part of Philbert realising suddenly what this Doctor, or Dottore, depending on what language you were speaking, was about to do, and that he was about to crack open his head like a duck's egg. At this point he tried his hardest to struggle and protest but his body barely twitched with the effort, and only the strange man Corti seemed to notice this apparent reaction and ­physically pushed Ullendorf to one side, taking hold once again of Philbert's hand.

‘Shame on us all!' Corti proclaimed. ‘We are talking about the lad as if he was no more than a frog held down with pins! But it's alright, Philbert. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. The Dottore is just going to perform a simple operation, and it won't hurt. I can promise you that. He's done the same to me, not once, but twice, and afterwards you will feel so much better, like a breeze has blown through your head and swept all the cobwebs away.'

Philbert saw Corti clearly for the first time, that the man's arms truly were clipped off at the elbows, hands growing directly from the joints, and was oddly comforted by it. He saw too the man's face, flat as an iron, though not grotesquely so, and he had such a gentle smile and green eyes that were bright, almost phosphorescent, alive with fire-flies that twinkled in the dim light of the room. A man to be trusted, whoever he was, and Philbert relaxed.

‘Well, Kwert,' Maulwerf spoke. ‘If you agree, I think we must let the doctor have his way. Not that I hold much with this new-fangled head-holing. I'm not one for peering inside other people's bits and pieces, for Lord knows what you're letting in and letting out. No offence, Doctor,' he bowed his head briefly, but Ullendorf only smiled.

‘None taken. And remember, one and all, that curiosity always precedes progress.'

Maulwerf sat back in his seat, taking the goblet offered him by Ridente, the slight sheen of his waistcoat bristling where he
'
d brushed the nap the wrong way with his hand, Philbert not being immediately at hand to correct it for him.

‘And remember too,' Ullendorf added mildly, as he moved away from Philbert and his table and started polishing his instruments on a strop of leather, ‘that most of us will tolerate a condition we are suffering until we understand it can be otherwise.'

Maulwerf and Kwert exchanged glances, both thinking of Hermann, as was Philbert, remembering Hermann leaning back from the bridge and letting himself go. And that was what Philbert did too. He let himself go. He didn't feel the leather buckles being strapped about his body and head, nor that Frau Brenstoffen had brought in a pail of boiled water in which the instruments to be used were now soaking. Ullendorf was checking his drill. Kwert was off to one side looking worried. Corti had drawn up a chair and placed himself where Philbert could see him. Rabbi Ridente and Maulwerf already pouring out more wine.

‘Of course you'll have read in the Second Book of Maccabees about the brothers who were scalped,' homilised Ridente, as he clinked goblets with Maulwerf, ‘and how the skin of their heads was torn off by their hair before they were fried alive in a giant skillet. It used to be commonplace to scalp your enemies, or so I gather. Apparently the natives of the Americas do it all the time.'

Ullendorf was busy retrieving his instruments from the bucket, drying them on a steam-scalded towel.

‘Ah yes,' he replied, as if he were in some philosophical salon and not about to perform a delicate surgical procedure. ‘Very ingenious. Though in all cultures the process seems very much the same, usually done – in primitive cultures – with sharpened stones, first cutting a line about the cranium, starting in the middle of the forehead and going out on each side above the ears, then down to the back of the neck. One side first and then the other, or – with those very skilled – one complete and un­interrupted circular movement.'

Ridente interrupted, unhappy his tale had been hi-jacked. ‘They say it's like skinning a rabbit – a few quick slices with the knife, a few hard tugs, and off the skin comes like orange peel.'

‘The Anglo-Saxons did it too,' Ullendorf went on as if no one had spoken. ‘And were so skilful that many survived afterwards to tell the tale, at least so we read in the chronicles they
'
ve left us.'

‘They'd need a good wardrobe of hats and wigs afterwards,' Ridente riposted. ‘Though I'm told the English wear such objects for fashion.'

He laughed at what he took to be a good joke, but Ullendorf took him literally and quibbled at the Rabbi's grasp of history and custom as he laid his needed instruments out onto his trolley.

‘Oh no sir, far too early for such frivolities, as far as wigs and hats go for the ancients. Though it strikes me often that men today are just as cruel as they were back then. I've read of ­several jungle tribes who to this day tether monkeys to trees, treating them like pets as they fatten them up, then one day decide this is the time to slice off the tops of their little heads, scoop out their still beating brains, eating them while the ­monkeys are running around in circles screaming, “Why is my head so cold? Who let in the rain?” And of course there's ­definite evidence the Polenesiani people eat the brains of their dead ­relatives and cover themselves in the ground-up ashes of their ancestors' burned bones.'

‘Enough!' Corti's voice was not loud, but loud enough to silence both Rabbi and surgeon. He'd found a bottle of brandy and dabbed a little to Philbert's lips as he continued with his admonition. ‘Ridente, Dottore, I really don't think you should be speaking of such things, interesting as they might be. The boy's eyes are open, as are probably his ears. What if he can hear you?'

And so he could. Philbert had heard everything and felt the sweat rising upon his skin, trying to wriggle free all this while, to shout and jump from the confines of his infuriatingly un­responsive body.

‘Hrrmph,' said Ullendorf, chastened. ‘Quite right. My ­apologies. Philbert, if you can hear me, I apologise. One forgets that the catatonic state induced by pressure on the brain does not preclude conscious sensation.'

Ullendorf loomed above Philbert with his knife and Philbert tried once again to intervene, saw Ullendorf suck in his lips, adjust the lamp, saw him shift his head slightly to one side as he started to wash Philbert's taupe with oil of vitriol. By now Philbert was in absolute panic. He could see, he could hear, and though he could not exactly feel, he knew precisely where he was and what was about to happen.

‘Look at me, Philbert.'

It was Corti, gentle and reassuring, and Philbert looked, saw Corti lift a strange contraption onto his knees, what looked like a bunch of dried straw tied together with string.

‘This is a reed organ,' Corti spoke directly to Philbert. ‘Sometimes called a cheng in China. Each reed has a metal tongue placed inside it and we use this gourd, this calabash, to take the breath, mould the sound, make it bigger.'

Philbert calmed a little, ceased his fight, focussing on Corti and his cheng.

‘I'm going to blow into the reeds and I'm going to play them,' Corti said, ‘and you are going to listen, and you
'
ll hear a melody of great beauty. Do you understand?'

Philbert did, though couldn't say so, but then Corti began to blow into his instrument and the sound came to Philbert like wind within a cave, like a shell placed against his ear. The knife sliced, and a few drops of blood fell from Philbert's head but he didn't notice, concentrated as he was upon the sounds of the reed organ that was like water tippling over stones, wind through a fallen heap of leaves. Ullendorf took up his knife again and made his T-cut, picked up his pincers, pinched open Philbert's scalp, and Corti's cheng sang like swans going over marshlands as Ullendorf peeled back the skin and placed his miniature tripod, turned the handles, lowered the drill, pushing the central piece down into Philbert's taupe. He retracted it, replaced it with a longer drill shaft and then went on with his operation, drilling down and down through Philbert's taupe until the teeth finally hit bone, a slight smell of burning filling the room. All Philbert heard was the singing of the cheng, the wind and the swans. The drill-handle moved along its oiled coils as Ullendorf went at his task, the grating sound as it went through the bone making Kwert wince. Ullendorf carried on as if he did such a thing every day of every week, a few moments later reversing his drill, brushing his hands briefly on his ­trousers to wipe away the sweat before steadying the instrument for its final bite. Philbert felt no pain, felt instead as if a hundred ­thousand butterflies had just been born inside him, taking flight as Ullendorf finally scraped out the circle of his skull with the drill's teeth. Corti played, Kwert paced nervously, Ridente and Maulwerf drank on.

Ullendorf murmured softly to himself, ‘
Ungewöhnlich
. . .
außerordentlich 
. . .' as he retracted the drill bit from his little tripod and then removed from the drill's end the tiny circle of Philbert's skull and, before taking away the retractors that were holding back the skin, Ullendorf took up a thin pen-like instrument and shook it, mixing together a couple of chemicals that released a small light and shone it down the tiny mineshaft into Philbert's head, Philbert sensing the warmth of the little light-pen as it descended, seeing his own taupe like a poke of snail eggs huddling deep inside, thousands of tiny chrysalises row upon row, all pulsating, all ready to hatch, could already feel the ­millions of memories that were bursting to get out of him like dragonflies crawling up the reeds of Corti's cheng waiting for the sun to warm their blood so they could unfurl their wings and fly. And he knew that when they did they would leave an exact imprint of themselves behind so he would always be able to recall every flutter and scale of every wing as they passed out of him, retain the images of their colours and their grace and the recognition of their changing, and that he was changing, right this minute, just as they would do when their time came. He wasn't sure if anything else could ever feel so real as it did at this very moment. Up until a few seconds ago Corti's music had been his entire world, but that world had changed and could never go back to how it had been before.

Ullendorf released his breath, withdrew his light-pen, removed his tripod and retractors, took the little disc of bone from the end of the drill with tiny pincers, dipping it several times into a solution of salt and iodide before laying it out upon a square of muslin where it lay like an iridescent opal, pale and newborn. He ran his thread through his needle and through the skin of Philbert's taupe and pulled it tight, blinking off the light. A single twist, a tiny knot, and Philbert's visions ceased. He lay like a corpse, unmoving, though could still hear Corti's cheng and Ullendorf's breath like a breeze against his skin, a soft and gentle feeling of twist and fall as if he were an ash key separated from its parent branch, released into the wind. He knew he was falling into sleep but just before he did he saw the bridge at Hochwürden, felt like he was looking up at it from down below, seeing Hermann's body falling down towards him and understood it had not been an ending, but release.

15

The Bowman and Goodbye

Philbert was sitting in the kitchen of Frau Volstrecken alongside her son, Kaspar, the boy who broke his finger during the stramash in the synagogue. The next week the Fair was to perform for this private audience in recompense, with the added coda that Philbert be allowed to consort with Kaspar until then. Philbert would remember that morning, fresh as the bread Frau Volstrecken was removing from her oven, over the years, often visiting the adult Kaspar, their shared bouts of nostalgia having first been preceded by Philbert admiring the astonishing sculpted stonework of which Kaspar became a master. They would sit and drink too much, talk about that small good time they'd had together when they'd first met, and of Philbert's trepanation which had fascinated Kaspar back then. It took Philbert a long while to grasp the full implications of what Ullendorf had done for him, how ever since, every instant, every second of his life, was etched inside his head like an ongoing pageant he could revisit whenever he chose. But always he and Kaspar would talk about that first morning after the operation when Philbert sat with Kaspar in Kaspar's mother's kitchen, Philbert feeling alive in every sinew, every thread of him, everything vivid, kicking with colour and smell, taste and touch.

Frau Volstrecken had suborned her two young inmates to test out the cooking she was practising for the opening of the
Buschenschank
, the small restaurant she and her husband were planning to launch the following spring. She would be serving her soon-to-be famous strudels, and her husband his already-famous wines.

‘Now then,' she said, placing a steaming golden roll in front of them. ‘This is my family's secret recipe for
Krautstrudel
. It's as good as my grandmother's, and no one made it better.'

She cut into the crisp pastry, small shreds of bacon and ­cabbage glistening amongst the main filling of buttered onions, Philbert and Kaspar eating like men who've been on the march for weeks. They'd already been fed
Nockerls
and noodles, slivers of fried goose liver braised with beef in sour cream and cherries,
Gebachene Mäuse
– sugar, rum, raisins and flour, shaped and fried in butter, little sticks of preserved angelica for their tails – both laughing that one kind of mouse was being eaten by another.

Philbert had never tasted such things before and, though he had them many times down the years, often cooked by Frau Volstrecken herself, they were never so crisp, nor smelt so good, nor held their flavours quite as perfectly as they did that first time, and he would remember those quiet, food-stuffed afternoons with Kaspar with a special passion, as well as the conversation they had later in the Volstrecken's barn.

‘So is it true then?' Kaspar asked, twisting a stalk of dried clover through the gap in his front teeth. ‘About your head, I mean?'

‘Is what true?' Philbert replied, pretending not to know what Kaspar was talking about.

‘Is it true that loony doctor actually sawed through your head?'

‘Oh yes,' Philbert replied casually, as if such a thing happened every day. ‘Right through.'

‘Wasn't there loads of blood and stuff?'

‘Swept it up in buckets,' Philbert elaborated.

‘And what Lita said . . .
is that true too? Is your head really filled with marbles?'

His voice trembled with the hope of it and Philbert, who didn't want to lie exactly, nor let his new friend down by telling him the truth, took the central path as provided him by Lita.

‘Sort of,' he said, reaching into his pocket. ‘Actually, I brought you one.'

Kaspar was up quick as a flea, sick with excitement, his friendship about to reap its reward because he was a boy who loved stones in every form, trawled rivers and streams for them, made of them his life. Carefully, Philbert placed the folded cloth on the flat surface of the bale between them and teased back the corners, just as Ullendorf had folded back the skin of his scalp. And there it was, a small round bead, green as pond-water, just a flick of something red, twisted deep within.

‘
Erstaunlich
!' gasped Kaspar, picking the bead up carefully between finger and thumb. ‘Is that your actual blood inside there?'

‘Blood?' Philbert repeated, a little annoyed he hadn't thought of this particular piece of fabrication himself.

‘And this came out of your actual head?
Unglaublich
! Don't they make the most awful noise rattling around inside all the time?'

This level of detail took Philbert by surprise, but Kaspar was too entranced by his little piece of Philbert to notice.

They laughed about this episode down the years, but Kaspar always kept his fascination for Philbert's head and what he kept locked away inside, and also kept that bead with its lick of red; Philbert in return tried to explain what had happened that day, how it seemed ever after as if the whole world was stepping lightly to one side so he could view it from a different angle; how at times he heard a gentle scraping, as if someone was re­arranging the furniture inside his head. Philbert had not been alarmed by this, nor had he found it unpleasant, only reinforcing the growing sensation that his taupe was like a deep, deep well, every new experience a stone thrown in, each ripple noted and recorded. It might be mislaid for a while, but as long as Philbert was alive it could never be lost.

A couple of winter months in Finzeln always suited the Fair of Wonders well, giving them time to rehearse new acts and plays, polish up their routines, try variations, adapt the old to the new. Whenever they needed money or food and the weather allowed them passage, they would go off in small troupes to the outlying villages, staying a few days here, a few days there, but always returning to Finzeln, like puffins to their burrows. Kwert spent many hours reading from his
Philocalia
, and yet more in ­meditation. He'd been profoundly affected by Ullendorf's ­operation on Philbert's taupe and would place the whittling of it – the little circle of Philbert's skull, given to him by Ullendorf – within his palm, staring at it until it became the entire ­universe, because for Kwert it represented far more than the mere ­application of modern science. Like every Hesychast, he believed utterly that the human body was a prison cell of skin and bone whose only duty was to keep safe the soul inside, carrying it like a pearl, like a lamp within a vase, and could not help wondering how much of Philbert's soul's light had leaked out that evening Ullendorf had drilled into his head. He'd noted a subtle change in Philbert since, the boy undoubtedly being more thoughtful, more introspective, despite the attentive friendship of Kaspar Volstrecken. Kwert was a seeker of signs and had been expecting something, but not at all what actually came, by which time they'd already left Finzeln a few days behind.

First off, his donkey got sick, hind legs swelling up overnight like mushrooms, great hard cords running their length that budded ulcers at every turn. Kwert, the supposed healer, tended her and stroked her, poulticed and pussed her, but then Kwert got sick too, and every breath he drew was cracked, sounding like leaves being driven up an alley by the wind and, below his jaw, an abscess bled itself black, and he began coughing up phlegm the colour of rotten plums. Philbert and Lita were ­terrified and tried to help Kwert, preparing and administering the various remedies he dictated through grinding teeth: ­ointments made from agrimony, chickweed and groundsel, salves of beeswax and softened resin, bitter pills of garlic and ground hemp. But nothing made the slightest bit of difference and Kwert and his donkey lay side-by-side beneath the stretch of canvas pulled from his cart, bundled up with straw to keep them warm, the donkey on her side, legs puffed up like pastry, stinking of pus, burning like a tar barrel. Every boil that died down on the donkey seemed to grow up twice as fierce on Kwert as he moaned and creaked beside her, the boils ballooning and bursting so the air was noxious with their seep and spill. It was the last week of February, and there was no doubt that neither man nor beast were going to make it far into March without intervention. It was Philbert who made the decision, trekking all the way back to Finzeln on his own, bringing back with him the same doctor who had already shed so much light into his own life.

They arrived back on the first day of March, the entire camp anxious and cold beneath the blank blue sky, watching with hands to their brows to shade out the sun as Doctor Ullendorf's carriage grew from a dot in the distance to normal size. Philbert couldn't know that Ullendorf had been tracking the Fair's ­progress; that he'd been studying all the measurements and notations he'd taken back in Finzeln of Philbert's head and had anyway been about to seek them out. He couldn't have been gladder to see Philbert when he came banging on his door just as Ridente had done a couple of months before, Philbert clinching onto his hand like a crab the moment he appeared, urging him with every breath to get back to the camp and quick.

Ullendorf took one look at Kwert and his donkey and knew immediately what was wrong.

‘Get me oak-bark and acorns,' he commanded. ‘Get me ­mistletoe from the apple trees, get me witch-hazel and sorrel and pads of dried moss, cobwebs and honey.'

Lita and Philbert set to, scurrying across the fields like mice, burrowing deep into the woods with their baskets. They returned scratched and torn, Doctor Ullendorf sat by the fire, hands gloved, a long needle held between his fingers, its sharp tip going from red to white in the flames. The astringent was made as he ordered and the honey melted, and then Kwert's arms and legs were held rigid and bare while Ullendorf struck through and through the marauding boils as though bayoneting an enemy.

‘Pile on plenty of clean straw,' bellowed Ullendorf, after Kwert's wounds had been washed and dressed. ‘I want him hot as a hedgehog in a gypsy's pot. And then,' he said, seeking out Philbert's eye meaningfully, ‘I want a platter of dumplings and a casket of Volstrecken's wine. You and I have been travelling more than three hours, young man, and saving lives is hungry work.'

All was done as he ordered, Kwert heaped over with straw, blankets and sheepskin rugs, and Ullendorf's food was brought. He sighed as he dipped his dumplings into his cup and ­swallowed them whole, drank the casket dry, then leant himself against the back of the Kwert Mountain of blankets and went to sleep. Philbert, by contrast, spent a troubled night, for Ullendorf had spoken quite correctly about how long they'd travelled; what Ullendorf hadn't spoken of was what he'd proposed to Philbert during that travelling. His researches in Finzeln were almost done, he told Philbert, all that remained was to draw up his conclusions from the comparisons made between the native German population and the third generation of incoming Italian Jews, who had made their home beside them, integrated but not intermarried, as dictated by their faith. All this he spoke about in great detail to Philbert on that journey, saying it would soon be time for Ullendorf to leave Finzeln and return to his home; and that when he went he wanted Philbert to come with him, an idea too huge for Philbert to think about while Kwert was still at death's door.