The Anatomist's Dream (9 page)

Hermann leant down and kissed Philbert lightly on the head, on his taupe, on the little tuft of hair that grew from its centre, and then turned back to Hannah and caught her full on the lips, once, twice and then a third time, his green-clad arms wrapping around her, and her freckled arms about him, and Philbert turned away. He knew he should have felt glad to see them so happy and together, but instead a small and silent dread was gnawing away inside him, burdened by the awful thought that something had been done that should not have been done, and that somebody, sometime soon, would be called to account and have to pay for it.

Dawn came bright and fresh, the night washed away by the rain, the air scented with smoke, wet earth and damp leaves and the huge optimism that had come from the news of Hermann's healing, with skin the same as everyone else's and a smile on his face that was as permanent now as it had been lacking before. Otto was up and about, packing away his tools when Philbert rolled out from beneath his cart, feeling more loss than relief that he no longer had Hermann to care for, a vital part of his function at the Fair no longer needed. He went down to the lakeside to have one last paddle before the Fair decamped, Kroonk already there, snortling away at something on the bank, a small heap of scree having slid away during the wet of the night to leave a bare patch of earth glistening in the morning light. He squatted down on his heels, shooing Kroonk away to take a better look. The earth was sandy, already drunk dry of last night's rain, but oddly it seemed a horde of tiny jellyfish had stranded themselves somehow up there on the bank.

‘Star-shot,' pronounced a voice, Philbert jumping as the red shadow engulfed him, finding Kwert at his shoulder, startled at how quietly the man could move. ‘Some people say it falls from the sky like a comet,' Kwert said, ‘the dying remnants of a fallen star. But it's none of that. It's a kind of fungus that springs up overnight in autumn when the weather is damp and the soil is just right. The old folk say it can tell you the future.'

Kwert pushed at the small jellied mounds very gently with his finger, awaiting questions, but Philbert was in no mood for it. He'd had his fill of signs and omens and sudden life changes and could only release a silent sigh. He already knew what the future would bring now Hermann had been restored, given a chance at a new life, and would spend it with freckled Hannah, and no space in it for him. And when Kwert removed his finger and stood up and started heading back to camp, Philbert put his foot hard down on that blasted star-shot and crushed it back into the earth from which it had come.

10

The Monstrous Calf

They arrived early evening in the designated fields on the outskirts of Dortmund, setting about their stalls, stages and show-tents, getting ready for the crowds who would come flooding in the following morning. The only person who didn't set up shop was Hermann for, as he pointed out, no one was going to pay to see a perfectly ordinary man standing in a bucket of water eating raw fish. That he'd always been a perfectly ­ordinary man standing in a bucket of water eating raw fish, nobody seemed to consider. Instead, Hermann left his old gold-and-green sign, ‘Man Becomes Fish', in his tent and went to help the actors and, more specifically, speckled Hannah, as they went through the paces of their latest plays. Maulwerf ­grumbled as Philbert brushed his best velvet jacket and polished his shoes and little gold fob watch, saying it was all very well, and he wished Hermann the best and didn't want to deny him his ­miracle, but it could have waited a few more weeks as the whole thing had left him rather short on shows and not much time to do anything about it.

As it happened, Maulwerf had heard of a two-headed calf being born a month or so before in a hamlet lying to the east of the town, so when Philbert had finished his ministrations he had Philbert whistle up a cart and announced they were off to see if it was worth the purchase. Maulwerf set out sleek and slick, his fob-chain shining like a crescent moon across his tight-buttoned paunch, Philbert beside him in a pair of knee-length trousers Tomaso had grown out of and a new pair of sandals Otto had knocked up out of leftover leather. Their efforts went entirely unremarked by Herr Nicolas Groben, the farmer they had come to see, who was as unkempt as an old straw bale and only spat when Maulwerf offered him his hand. He kept scratching his
Hödensacke
inside his torn and dirty trousers and hoisting his manly bits and pieces first to the left and then the right, to Maulwerf's evident disgust and Philbert's amusement, but as soon as Maulwerf explained his business and the prospect of money changing hands Herr Groben became jovial, although the
Hö
densacke
-hoisting continued unabated, giving Maulwerf the unpleasant insight that the man must be carrying more body lice than a hedgehog has fleas. Groben was in good humour, didn't often get such fine gents the likes of Maulwerf calling, so he said, and when he did they were after either his money or his wife, and as far as he was concerned they could take the wife – who was a sour-faced bitch on anyone's account – but as for his cash, that was a much prettier sight, and his to do with as he wished. Times were hard, he told them, and farming a tricky game at best, not that they'd know owt about such things, them being such fine gents. He admired Maulwerf's fob-watch so much that Maulwerf was obliged to take it out, let the man finger it, though kept a tight hold of the chain until he was eventually allowed to put the time-piece back. Groben led them through a yard that was a piss-mire of old turnips and cow-dung, Philbert removing his sandals and going barefoot, but not Maulwerf, who clung to good-breeding and would not consider even rolling up his trousers. Groben led them to the doors of a dirty barn that was collapsed in on one side as if it had been hit by Frau Fettleheim going at some unheard-of speed on her runaway cart. Lying inside was what Maulwerf and Philbert had come to see and, in the residue of some green and stinking straw, there it was: a sack of cow-skin containing a few ramshackle bones, apparently still alive because it stirred vaguely at their approach before sinking back, defeated. Beside this sad excuse for a dam was a calf, suckling lethargically at a withered udder, her hide possibly white, though splattered over with the green of rotting excrement, eyes like saucers, legs like sticks.

Maulwerf was angry, and slapped his cane several times into the slurry.

‘This isn't what I came to see, not at all. I was promised a two-headed monster. And this . . . this . . .' he waved his free hand at the pathetic pair before him, ‘monstrous it might be, but not worth a bowl of milk.'

Groben gave himself a quick hoist and launched into what passed for a sales pitch.

‘I never exactly said as she had two heads. That was more in the way of rumour. Blame it on the wife – I do. Never knows when to shut her gob up, nor nowt else of her come to that. But see this,' he moved forward and roughly turned the calf's neck, her brown eyes terrified and rimmed around with white, her mother rustling where she lay, trying to conjure a protest from brown-frothed lips.

‘See here,' he said again, and Philbert and Maulwerf bent down closer, holding their noses against the stench, which was far worse than anything that had come out of Hermann's mouth after he'd been forced to rip raw fish from its bones. What they saw could not in exactitude be called a second head, but coming from the calf's neck there was indeed a sort of rounded stump, as if a leg had begun growing there and then been squashed part-way back again, the size of a small cabbage with a half-formed hoof sticking out at its end.

‘I was thinking you might want to take the dam as well, seeing as how they're so attached,' Herr Groben was saying, Maulwerf leaning down, trying not to gag, busy examining the calf, squeezing its neck, palping the whiter bits of its skin, looking at its tongue. Groben went on, undeterred.

‘Bit of a bargain, I should say, getting two for one like, two heads was what you came for and, see, I'm offering you them both on a platter, that's what I'm doing.'

Maulwerf said nothing. Groben continued.

‘Robbing myself blind is what it is. I'll even throw in a rope so's you can take 'em both now. How's about it, gents? Can't say fairer than that. I'm cutting me own throat as it is, and the missus'll give me a right talking to, and that's like being spat at by a pickle jar, I can tell you . . .'

He didn't rest up, just went on and on, grinding his audience down until half an hour later Groben's fine gents left; Maulwerf checked his fob watch was still in his jacket and that the workings hadn't been whipped and then shook the drying mud and crap-cakes from his formerly immaculate trousers and shoes. Taking up the rear, Philbert held the rope that led the monstrous calf, clop-clopping weakly beside him, her lank head hanging, haunch-bones moving up and down like rusty pistons beneath her skin, leaning on Philbert every now and then as she took a wobble over a stone.

The whole episode had been entirely depressing, and neither Philbert nor Maulwerf were inclined to talk. It took them both some time to recover, but Maulwerf eventually began his banter when they were in sight of the Fair.

‘You look like a double-act, you two,' he said, having glanced back several times at Philbert leading the emaciated monstrous calf on. ‘I could curse that worthless Groben until the world comes to an end, but there you are, trotting along together side by side, and there may be something to it after all.'

Maulwerf had been quiet after that, until they'd got back to camp and he'd taken off his shoes and socks and had his feet soaking in a bowl of warm water to rid them of the dirt, ­rubbing his hands together as his glasses steamed up.

‘Could be something in it yet,' he said to Philbert, as Philbert got the towel ready to take his feet. ‘You and your lump, that calf and its neck – if the blessed thing survives the night.'

The blessed calf did survive the night, but only because Huffelump, as Philbert had christened her, was taken off his hands the minute they'd got back to the Fair as Lita took charge, dragging the poor thing off for a bath, washing off all the stink and shit, feeding her oats and acorns until she almost burst. The only reason Philbert took no part in this ritual was because almost the moment he landed back he was knocked off his feet by Kroonk, who seemed desperate and distressed, unwilling to leave his side. And she was red – really, really red – far redder than she'd been when Philbert left her.

‘What's happened to you?' Philbert crooned as Kroonk ­nuzzled up beside him, possibly begging for the answer herself. On her heels came Kwert, his hands red as Kroonk.

‘What's happened?' Philbert demanded once Kwert had arrived.

‘Don't be alarmed,' soothed Kwert, chuckling somewhere at the back of his throat, yellow teeth grinning like a mouthful of pixies. ‘It was just an idea, and not a bad one I feel, now that Hermann's left a space, as it were.'

He sat Philbert down and consoled boy and pig alike with a handful of sugared almonds produced rather speedily from his pocket.

‘We thought, or rather, Hermann thought,' continued Kwert, ‘that a pig wasn't much of a showpiece on her own, handsome though she is.' He scratched Kroonk's ears and Kroonk grunted her agreement through a snoutful of sugarlings. ‘So we thought, what if she were redder than she already was? More colourful, so to speak, more of an attraction. What then?'

Kwert caught the look of doubt on Philbert's face and ­continued hurriedly on.

‘Hermann came and asked me how I got my habit so crimson.'

Philbert fixed him with a sullen eye, but remembered how impressive Kwert had looked that first night sitting by the fire, his robe bright and alive as an ember.

‘I think he's just being curious,' said Kwert. ‘So I tell him how I mix lady's bedstraw with tormentil, a crush of crottle lichen, a dash of limestone, and perhaps a bit of vetch if I can get the right kind. I tell him how I put it all in a pot and boil it layer on layer with the wool, and a handful of sorrel to fasten the dye, and then your Hermann interrupts and says, ‘But will it stain a pig?' Naturally, like you, Philbert, I'm aghast, but see at once where the tale is leading, so up I get and go for a pot of dye from my cart where it is maturing into deepest scarlet and says, Right, Hermann, let's give it a try.'

Kwert put his arm around Philbert's shoulder as Philbert's mind began to totter on the brink of appreciating the dastardly plot.

‘Normally I'm averse to subterfuge and deception, following as I do the pure ways of life, but to tell the truth it was such an interesting experiment – to paint a pig! What an idea! And of course, it might help my old friend Maulwerf who, through my own intervention, has lost a prize piece. So what harm in that, I thought, and surely my little man Philbert won't see anything wrong with friends helping out friends?'

Philbert's mouth tweaked into a smile as he looked again at Kroonk, her eyes deep black in her poppy-petal skin which shone like sunset, and saw that she really did look quite handsome, and that perhaps Maulwerf himself might appreciate the gesture, and the crowds queue up to throw their coppers into Philbert's tin.

Night found Philbert and his newly red Kroonk curled up beneath their cart, warm as fleas in a furball, the camp quiet, everyone resting in the expectation of the morning crush when the Fair opened for business. Huffelump, white and shining after her wash, lay tethered by Kwert's donkey, a bowl of milk and a bag of oats at her still skinny side, happy with her new home, or perhaps too tired to give an opinion. Philbert thought once or twice about that stinking stable she had come from and the mother they'd consigned to oblivion by leaving her there, who would undoubtedly expire quietly now her calf had been removed so abruptly, bones subsiding into the filthy straw while Herr Groben snored solidly in the house beyond, beside his whey-faced wife. Times were coming when Philbert would remember that stinking piss-mired farmyard, and Herr Groben's filthy habits and filthier mouth; times that would slot themselves into their allotted places in his head, his past leading to his future like a banner being unfurled.