The Anatomist's Dream (6 page)

A single flake of snow can start an avalanche, so goes the saying, and for every deluge there must, of necessity, be a first drop of rain to set it off. Snow and rain, so was Philbert. The start of snow and rain.

7

The First Nail

It was under the wheelwright's wagon that Philbert slept with Kroonk for his first couple of years with the Fair. Hermann offered to share his tent but his constant scrattelling and sighing kept anyone within ten yards awake, and sadly Philbert had to go elsewhere. It was also an addendum to the hanging incident, Philbert feeling the need to be outside and free, would wake with his hand at his throat making sure it was still there and not being stretched like a length of washed-out sheep-gut on a rack. He developed a fear of big horses, couldn't bear the touch and scratch of rope upon his skin, had to have a special twine made of leather for Kroonk's lead.

His miraculous escape from a hard death became well known, and he turned into a lucky charm of sorts for people who might not say a word to him, nor speak his name, but would often place their palm briefly upon his head as they passed him by, trying to take a little of the mouse-boy's good fortune for their own.

The one person Philbert felt truly safe with was Otto Stellmacher, the wheelwright, huge and red with work, arms bulging like beer kegs, hard as cooper's bands, and with a ­massive beard pockmarked with cinder-holes hiding him from cheek to chest. He mended wheels, staves, strouters and strakes; shoed horses and donkeys; cooped barrels and mended ploughs. He tried to teach young Philbert about spoke-dogs and ­whipper-trees, twisty-bits and clouts, coach-screws and cotter-pins, dowels and gugs; but there was too much to remember, too many names and whats and wheres and which to weld or tap and turn. Philbert nodded as though his neck really had been broken, trying to concentrate before sidling off under pretext of having something else to do, Stellmacher sadly shaking his head behind him, saying that one day he would regret not learning a proper trade when he'd nothing left to sell in this world and nobody left to teach him.

But he was still there the morning Philbert came crawling back, flush-faced beneath the wheelwright's mournful gaze, begging for the lessons he had treated previously with lack of interest, explaining his grand plan as best as he was able, telling Otto about Frau Fettleheim: how she could no longer leave her cart for her size, could hardly move, had begun to smell like a leper-gatherer's cart, worse than the turd-heaps piled high to dry in a dyer's yard; how Lita struggled in her attempts at weekly bed-baths, how the oranges she'd soaked with attar and stuck with cloves to hang as scent-lockets were all too little and too late. Otto listened, thinking mostly of Little Lita, having already noted how pale and pinched she looked, or rather how much paler and more pinched she looked than usual; he knew, as all the fair-men did, that she'd said the night before that she couldn't take it anymore and would have to leave the little caravan that had been her home and the woman who was the closest thing she had to a mother. And besides all that, the Little Maus's idea was rather a good one, having the triple advantage of teaching the boy the rudiments of a trade, airing out the Frau, and letting Lita back into her home. Frau Fettleheim herself was not immune to her own condition and keenly regretted Lita's absence, giving a short, heartrending speech to anyone who would listen as the tears fell down the uncooked pastry layers of her face.

‘I cannot bear to be this big, but I don't know how to be any other way. And I cannot bear my own stench, nor that it has finally driven Lita away. Have someone drag my cart down to the river, hack out the boards and throw me in. Walk away and leave me. At least I'll get to be outside again, if only for the few moments before I sink. And I'll get to see something other than the same view of those behind and those ahead, and the roads and the mud and the arse-end of one town followed by the back-end of the next . . .'

Otto was moved by the woman's plight and by Philbert's attempt at a solution, ashamed he'd not come up with the idea himself. He stroked his beard, pulling the gold-and-grey streaks of it into tracks, revealing a small hint of lips moving somewhere beneath the overlying scrub of hair, because it was indeed an elegant solution.

‘So once we've built this cart of yours, Philbert, how do you propose to propel it?'

He'd already formed an answer but wanted to push Philbert into thinking of it for himself.

‘We could pull it ourselves?' Philbert asked, at which Stellmacher had to laugh, a sound akin to the spilt water he sent over his anvil sometimes to cool it down, then bent down and drew his finger through the sand.

‘Like this,' he said, making several lines. ‘This is the shaft, and these are called sides; here are the summers, shutlocks and cross keys. We'll build big wheels rimmed round in iron, and place the fore-carriage just above the axle to give it more strength, for my God, the strength they shall need!'

He chuckled, swore Philbert to agreeing he would learn the names of each bit of wood, the square, the aft and fore, the bevel and pin. Philbert hung his head and accepted his fate, understanding that a man should suffer for his friends, unaware how much they would suffer for him in the future.

He took all Otto's instructions and worked harder than he had ever done. Otto's hands were tough and strong as tanner's boards, unlike his which were soft, and wept blisters in their misery. He planed the ash, hewed the oak, lathed the shafts and cornered the keys. They made the cart narrower at the front so that when tipped it would loosen its load the easier.

‘Very important,' said Otto, ‘particularly considering the load.'

He taught Philbert to rest his wrist on his knee so he didn't chop off his fingers with knife or saw, how to drive in a nail without splitting the board. Philbert watched as Otto fitted the felloes of the rim, shouldered the spokes, swung the hammer to drive them harder into the stock, admiring the way he dished the wheel so it leant in at the top, out at the bottom. And then together they painted the finished product the glorious green that only a mixture of white-lead and arsenic can give, and when dried and all was ready, the cart shining and gleaming, it was late in the evening, but no one wanted to wait and away they went to Frau Fettleheim's, solemnly knocking on the boards, announcing that the carriage awaited its queen.

It was a truly glorious creation, just the right height to shift Frau Fettleheim over from caravan to cart, and the fat lady squawked with delight, kicking up her ankles, sending a ripple through bloomers and chins and her very best dress. Once satisfied everything was in order, Otto took the reins and led the donkey off, slowly at first, Frau Fettleheim sighing with delight just to breathe fresh air, and down the field they went towards the river, people looking up from whatever they were doing as they passed, gasping at the sight, soon starting to laugh, whoop and whistle, flinging caps into the air as they followed the procession, Philbert running alongside the cart making his bows, Kroonk snaffling at the scraps that were flung in celebration, her tail wiggling madly in the excitement, people shouting out:

‘The Maus is moving a mountain! Only look! Here comes the Maus and the mountain he has moved!'

Only Hermann stayed behind in the doorway of his tent, waving solemnly as the procession passed him by for the second time, seeing Philbert in the lead with the donkey, grinning like a cockle, and Frau Fettleheim's face wet with tears of joy. He stayed inside because Otto had lit an enormous fire of whin and wood scraps in celebration of Frau Fettleheim's long-awaited release from incarceration, as was only right, and he could not have been happier for her. But he couldn
'
t step any closer to that fire, his skin would not abide it, would start its constant scritch and scratch, knowing there could be no such easy release for him. He watched the celebration
s
from afar, seeing the leap and crackle of flames reflected in others' faces, the shiver of stars becoming visible in the sudden dark drop of the night.

Only one person thought of him later, when the official ­wagon-whetting had been done and the gentle celebration descended into general riot, and that was Philbert, who came and stood by the open flap of his tent.

‘Everything alright, Little Maus?' Hermann asked from his cot. And the boy came forward, proudly showing him the ­official wagon-whetting nail Otto had put about his neck on a thong.

‘It should be yours,' the boy said. ‘For it was you came up with the whole plan.'

Hermann smiled as Philbert took the thong from his over-large head and offered it up. He took it a moment, held the nail in his hand, felt its warmth, and the warmth behind its giving, before giving it back.

‘It's yours,' Hermann said. ‘It was you and Otto did all the hard work. So tell me, is the Frau pleased with her gift of freedom?'

He saw the boy nod, and saw too that the boy was crying. Hermann said nothing, just placed a single hand upon Philbert's head which seemed enough, the boy subsiding to the floor, curling up, apparently going to sleep. Hermann rolled back onto his cot, trying not to scratch or sigh. He didn't know why Philbert was so upset but understood that sometimes a person doesn't want a crowd but doesn't want to be alone either, just wants to know someone is there, not too far away in the darkness.

He was right about that, but wrong to believe Philbert was sleeping, for he was not. Something about Otto's giving him the nail had brought back a memory: the sudden outline of his Papa shadowed somewhere near the fire, wiping the beer from his beard; made him think of those gifts of the little serinette that sang like a lark, the donkey with its saddle of softest silk, Philbert scanning back through every minute of every day trying to find the memory of where they lay, having the strongest feeling that if he went back slow enough and long enough, he would find them hiding in some crook and cranny of his mind. And he was thinking something else too: that the whole world of his past was deep inside him, and that sure as toad follows tadpole, something good was coming, and then would come the bad.

8

The Arrival of a Stranger

Later that same Autumn, the Fair camped on the banks of a small ox-bow lake some distance from the River Mohne. Frau Fettleheim was happier than ever, Lita had moved back into her beloved drawer. People still touched Philbert's head for luck, for Fair folk were a superstitious bunch, but it was so commonplace an occurrence Philbert hardly noticed. He was unaware that his almost-dying with the Berliners outside Belzig had made of him a token, a figure apart from the rest, like a shadow from the one who casts it, someone who has only to reach out his hand in order to touch the other side. The goings on with Frau Fettleheim and her cart only enhanced this image, giving it clarity, making it seem as if this Philbert had brought into ­existence another facet of the stone into which they had all been cut, able to see things from a different angle. For how else could a child as young as he, and as alien to their way of life, have conjured up a plan the rest of them should have thought of long before? That the root of the solution had come from Hermann and not Philbert, who had only posed the question, was inconsequential, for the fact remained that had the boy not posed the question the solution would never have been found.

Philbert didn't know of this nebulous something-else the Fair's folk attributed to him, and they in turn were unaware of the true consequence of Philbert's near-death experience, which was that the lever he'd felt thrown the first time Lita touched his head had taken on a significance he could neither name nor understand. What he did know was that life was short and ­precious and could be snatched away at any moment and that not a second of it should be lost, nor forgotten. The unsettling thoughts he'd had the night Otto gave him the nail were a small start of his understanding; Philbert became convinced that deep inside his head lay a repository of memories waiting for him to reach them: of serinette, donkey, mother and father. Quite why he found it so imperative to track down those ghosts of ages past he didn't know, only that he sensed them there lurking, tickling like feathers, enough to make him want to bring them back out into the light.

Philbert could not have expressed a whit of all this if asked, and life went on as usual, or as usual as it had become now that Philbert was part and parcel of the Fair. He performed his duties as quietly and solicitously as always, sat often with Hermann after doling out his numerous ministrations, finding a comfort with him not found elsewhere, not even with Lita with whom, young as he was, he was a little in love. Philbert was ­accustomed to solitude and spent much of his spare time – if not with Hermann – then away from the rest with only Kroonk for ­company, which was as he liked it.

On one of those Autumn evenings apart, Philbert was sitting on the edge of that ox-bow lake, the banks of the Mohne set ablaze by the low-lying sun, a depth of orange and amber in every reed, on every tree bole, everything exuding a warmth never seen at any other time of year. Philbert was ensconced amongst a heap of fallen leaves, all rustling and rattling by the nudge of the softest breeze, gossiping in small, cracked voices as he watched undiscovered worlds reflected in the smooth water of the lake a few yards below him. It was an evening of content, the Fair's folk camped up a few hundred yards from where he sat, no show to do, no wonders to perform, no villagers or town's people to impress. They sat quiet and comfortable, smoking tobacco, or an approximation of it, around their fires, or mending clothes and bits of canvas, repainting boards, brushing down donkeys, chatting quietly, hanging bowls of hare or pigeon stew over the flames.

Philbert had long since finished his duties, had prepared Maulwerf's macédoine of vegetables, simmered the quince he had picked, peeled and chopped earlier, setting its fragrant flesh into a wine jelly for a late-night treat, wondering if this time Maulwerf would get even a hint of the scents everyone else took for granted. He'd retrieved Kroonk from Tomaso's earlier attempts to have her hunt for truffles, which according to Tomaso were more valuable than gold. It was a task Kroonk had apparently been unable to comprehend, uncovering not a sliver of the fungus, spending her time kicking dead leaves into the air with such abandon and obvious joy that Tomaso despaired of her and had sulked off back to his lace-making, a trade he was learning in order to leave the Fair once and for all. Philbert was glad of it. He'd not liked the bitter twist to Tomaso's mouth when he announced Kroonk's failure, a bitter twist Tomaso tried to turn into a smile without success.

Philbert had relished the feeling of cold water on his feet when he'd paddled in the lake's shallows attempting to perfect the technique Hermann had explained to him of how to stab a fish with a sharpened stick, in the manner of a heron. Things hadn't gone well. Twice he'd stabbed at his prey and hit his foot by mistake, unaware of the illusion of refraction, and twice had mistaken a strip of weed for an eel, at which point he gave up.

He was performing the age old ritual of boy burying himself in fallen leaves, apart from his head, when he heard the noise of a clopping pony and partially exhumed himself, turned his head, seeing a man walking along the track maybe twenty yards distant, lop-eared donkey and small cart in tow. He wasn't much interested at first, for he supposed it was just another traveller, a pedlar most likely, wanting to join up with the Fair, an occurrence not unusual when they were on the outskirts of a busy town; until he recalled they weren't anywhere near a town, busy or otherwise, were deliberately in the middle of nowhere to take their ease before heading into Dortmund. He twisted himself around, observing the newcomer's progress with some suspicion, long enough with the Fair to be wary of strangers popping up from nowhere, never mind that he'd been one himself. The man looked old and stooped, wrapped around with old grey blankets, man and donkey appearing tired and thin, both hobbling slightly, the cart hiccupping slowly over the stones. Philbert followed their progress, wondering which would collapse first – donkey, cart or man – but was interested enough in their passage for him to shuffle himself free of leaves, put on his boots, call Kroonk and slowly meander his way back to camp.

Philbert heard the laughter well before he got there, and was astonished to see the stranger sitting, miraculously revived, amongst a knot of people jostling for his attention, waving their hands above their heads.

‘Pick me!' their hands and mouths were saying, ‘oh please pick me!'

So another Fair's person after all, and one the rest obviously knew. Philbert was about to head off again, casting one last glance at the stranger, startled to see the man looking right back at him, dark eyes aglint in the failing light. He also noticed that beneath the grey blankets he wore a monk's habit dyed red as a holly berry.

‘Ah, at last!' Maulwerf shouted. ‘Here he is, Kwert, our Little Maus, a subject I'm sure you'll find most interesting.' Philbert dithered but Maulwerf was not to be put off. ‘Here, Philbert. Now,' he commanded, in his not-to-be-ignored Master-of-the-Fair voice.

Philbert obeyed and came forward, to cries of, ‘Oh yes!' and ‘Of course, now this will be good,' and ‘What do you think he's going to make of that?'

The scarlet man fixed him with his eyes and Philbert had the uncomfortable sensation of being pulled forward like a fish on a line.

‘Oh my,' the scarlet man murmured as Philbert came into the fire's light and everyone else fell silent. ‘Oh my word, Maulwerf!' said the man, ‘but you did not lie. Come on, boy! Come here. That's it. Stand before me so I can see you properly.'

Philbert did as bid, standing like a slave on the block, heart pounding like Otto's hammer on the anvil, the man in front of him looking at him this way and that, his dark eyes probing and alive, flickering and flecked with speckles of gold. His hand came out and pulled Philbert so close he could see the tracery of broken veins lacing the man's long nose, his lips moving and pausing over his yellow teeth, and then very gently, oh so gently, he placed his outspread hand upon Philbert's head, the sleeve of his robe falling back to his elbows, goosepimples rising on hairless skin, Philbert feeling his fingers, cool and almost weightless, as they probed the line of his taupe, setting off a shower of sparks somewhere deep inside his head. More disturbingly, each spark so engendered revealed a scene or a sound; he saw and heard a man singing and swaying his way down a salt-dusted street, weeping, calling out the name of Jehovah; saw and heard the good Frau Kranz telling him tales of how things used to be; had the scent of vanilla and chocolate right there and so strong, and had the strangest conviction that someone else's tears were running down his cheek and had a glimpse of the tear-giver, long hair pulled back, thin lips that had forgotten how to smile. Then he felt a beard against his skin, damp and unkempt, salt and dust in the air, the awful, all-pervading stench of sickness going through him like the slicing of a knife, sudden and sharp, ceasing just as quickly, leaving him sweating and dizzy, realising the stranger had released him and pulled back, that his eyes no longer glittered, his face unfathomable, the only sounds being the spitting of the fire, the settling of a swan onto the lake, the lifting of the wind from the water as the night came down ­properly upon them and the stars opened up in a welter in the sky.

‘Well now, young man,' the man whose name was Kwert said at last, lifting Philbert's chin with one long, cold finger, looking him bang in the eye, a nail in its hole. ‘What have we here? Who are you, boy?'

Philbert would have moved if he could, but felt like a snake caught on a pitchfork.

‘Ph . . . Ph . . . Ph . . . Philbert,' he managed to stutter, though no one laughed.

‘Philbert.' The man's whisper was long and low, dividing the night in two, him and Philbert on one side, everyone else on the other. He lifted his hand again, holding it a hair's breadth above Philbert's head and closed his eyes, and for that moment there was no one but Philbert and Kwert in the field by the Mohne, silence all around them, and for a split second Philbert saw another few sparks: a woman throwing a small piglet against a wall – Kroonk, he knew it, recognising the pain of her un­comprehending squeal; saw the same woman chop chop chopping cabbage with a knife as if her life depended on it.

‘I feel great things for you, Philbert,' Kwert whispered, moving his hand away, taking Philbert's in his own, Kwert's skin cool and smooth as wind-blown apples collected at dawn before the sun filters down into the orchard. He bent his head towards Philbert, touching his forehead with his own.

‘There are many things to come, my little Philbert. I see the shadows of yesterday and tomorrow rising up around you, and it will be hard for you to find your way. But if you'll grant it, I'll guide you through the start of your journey and your achievements will be of great wonder.'

There was movement all around them then as people wrapped themselves close within their cloaks, others turning their heads away, some sniggering with self-imposed bravado at such words, more of them alarmed and worried by them, remembering the time this head-heavy boy was almost hung, remembering the old tale of Death never truly leaving the ones who've already been within his grasp, standing unseen and unbidden at their sides; those survivors more alive than the rest of them precisely because of it.

Philbert was finally loosed as Kwert announced, to no one in particular, that the show was over for tonight, and what he needed now was bread and cheese. There was a slight rustling crescendo as people rose like autumn leaves and the laughter began again, slow and uncertain at first but soon taken over by the general bustle of chatter and talk as everyone melted away from the stranger's fire, some to fetch him the victuals he'd asked for, most to go and take a drink and discuss what they
'
d heard tonight.

Philbert didn't move. He was as frightened as he was unwilling to leave. He'd no idea what had happened, or if anything had really happened at all, but what he did know was that the path he'd been seeking back into his past had somehow been opened up to him. Lita was the one to lead him away but he heard Maulwerf speaking as they went.

‘Well, Kwert,' he said. ‘Take some wine. I think you have need of it.'

He glanced back, saw Maulwerf smiling right back at him, and felt Lita's hand wrapped about his own. He didn't understand the shenanigans back by the fire, found them faintly ridiculous now, but was glad to be Philbert, and perhaps even a little proud.

Many years later, Philbert would think on that evening, what might or might not have happened if Kwert – with his yellow teeth, thin lips and thinner donkey – had told Philbert he was just a boy with a lump on his head, giving his taupe a quick poke and moving on after giving some vague predictions of long life and children. Maybe then those sudden outbursts of memory triggered by Kwert's touch wouldn't have become the seeds of delusion he would grow up believing: that he had a destiny ­different from the rest. Maybe the dead would not have been dead. And then again, maybe nothing would have changed at all. Maybe all roads do lead to Rome. Maybe it was only hubris for Philbert the Man to believe otherwise, and that the world would have been different if only he'd stayed by the lake ­stabbing his foot with his stick, and never allowed Kwert to lay a hand upon his misshapen head.