The Witch of Cologne (26 page)

The woman with the raven locks passes out of sight and Detlef is reminded that he does not even know whether the midwife is still in Deutz, or if she thinks of him at all. To his shame he realises that the meditations, the fasting, even the lashing he gave himself with the knotted whip of the flagellant, have not banished Ruth’s image but only enhanced it. The picture of her face, her voice, her scent, grows within him like a luminous visitation.

There is not an hour when he does not think of her: the clarity of her logic, the whiteness of her skin, the curve of her cheekbone. She creeps in everywhere, in his prayers, in the faces of the hopeful pilgrims staring up from the pews, in the texts he studies. Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. Desperate to be released, he has taken valerian for slumber and claret to quieten the mind. Groot, smelling wine on the canon’s breath before midday mass, has begun to wonder what new fiend possesses his master.

Detlef steps through the low arched doorway of the coffee shop, his nostrils pleasantly assaulted by the fragrance of this novel beverage shipped from the new Americas. The air is thick with tobacco. The scent of ginger and cinnamon rises from the freshly baked pastries that line the marble countertop. Serving maids in white caps and stained aprons carry jugs of the steaming coffee between the crowded tables. Several of the merchants and their clerks look up from their scribbled calculations, then, upon seeing the newcomer is merely a cleric and not one of their own, look down again. Intrigued by the seriousness with which the bürgers carry out their endeavours, Detlef secures a small table to himself by the window then orders a cup of the steaming brown liquid and a pipe. By the dim light filtering into the smoky room through the tiny diagonal glass panes he begins to scan the news sheet’s headlines.

M
ORE PERISH OF DEVILISH SCOURGE IN THE
L
OWLANDS, THE LATEST TOLL STANDING AT TEN THOUSAND. LEIDEN CLOSES ITS GATES
…

I
TALIAN ASTRONOMER
S
IGNOR
G
IOVANNI
C
ASSINI OBSERVES THE HEAVENLY TRACKS OF THE ROYAL PLANET
J
UPITER AND HIS QUEEN
V
ENUS
…

The canon reads on, trying to lose himself in the larger world but finding no comfort in the grim reportage.

‘Please sire, my good lady is yonder and seeks an audience with you.’

A small page wearing a green satin turban and coat and breeches in the colours of the house of Merchant Ter Lahn von Lennep stands before him. Detlef, not having seen the exquisite Moor before, thinks he must be the latest toy from the often absent merchant to his errant wife. He peers out of the cloudy window.

Seated in her carriage Birgit waits across the narrow street. Framed by the window she glances across but does not see him. In a day dress of green satin matching the colours of her page, her hair covered by a demure lace cap, she is a vision of incongruous beauty amongst the grimy street pedlars that loiter by the coach.

‘Tell your good lady that if she wishes to speak to me she may do so herself,’ Detlef finally replies then looks back down at the news sheet.

The boy, confused, shuffles in his buckled shoes. ‘Please, sire, a gentlewoman may not enter such an establishment.’

‘If it is good enough for a canon of the church it is good enough for the wife of a tradesman,’ Detlef answers curtly.

The page bows and leaves. Detlef surreptitiously watches as he reports back to his mistress. For a second Birgit seems to falter, then she climbs out of the carriage and walks determinedly towards the coffee house.

‘You have forced me to demean myself. This is not an establishment for a good Christian woman.’

She stands over him. The other patrons glance up curiously from their stock figures and bills of exchange. Rising, Detlef offers her a chair.

‘Fear not, they will think you are here to plead on behalf of your husband, the good merchant, who must have fallen into some moral disrepute, may God bless his soul.’

‘You make light of my distress. Why do you refuse to see me, even to take my confession, Detlef?’

Several of the bürgers, surprised by Birgit’s use of the familiar, turn their heads again. Feeling the heat of their gaze, the canon leads her out of the coffee house and into the shade of the overhanging balcony.

‘It is dangerous to be so indiscreet.’

‘I have no choice. You refuse to answer my messages and I am tired of Groot’s diplomacy. Five summers and five winters we have lain together and now it pains you to see my face?’

Detlef wants to look at her but knows he cannot, that if he were to see the agony in her stiff dignity and bewildered eyes his resolve would collapse completely. Instead he looks down and watches her gloved hands worry at her ribboned handkerchief.

‘Madame, I cannot persist with the artifice and deceit. I have changed. It would be hypocritical for me to continue to lie with you. That is the reason for my absence.’

‘You no longer have affection for me?’

Brigit’s face twists into a grimace as she struggles to stop her emotions bursting through. Recognising her fierce pride as a reflection of his own, Detlef reaches across and takes her hand.

‘Always.’

‘Then prove it: take me now.’

She lifts Detlef’s hand and thrusts it into her bodice. His fingers find themselves fastened around her breast, the nipple erect against his palm. The page boy, embarrassed, looks away.

Reaching up Birgit pulls Detlef’s mouth hungrily against her own. Weeks of repressed desire surges uncontrollably through his body, an aeon of sexual abstinence heightened by the curious pleasure he felt during his self-flagellation, the hungry mouth of lust that throbbed at the edge of each
supplication despite his pleas, the succubi of his dreams that, regardless of his prayers, filled his nights with their twisting naked bodies, many painted with the face of Birgit. He wants her now. He wants nothing but blind release, to purify his body through erotic fury.

‘If that is what you desire.’

With that he takes her roughly by the hand. She turns to her servant. ‘Ahmed, take the carriage home. Tell them I am at confession and will return by nightfall.’

The small boy, green satin turban bobbing, climbs up beside the coachman, while Detlef ushers Birgit towards The Hunter’s Sheath, the one tavern where he knows no questions will be asked.

The room is little more than a closet, still pungent with the aroma of sex. Detlef turns Birgit so her back faces him. She steadies herself by placing her gloved hands flat against the thin partition. On the other side they can hear the cries of a harlot and her Johnnie’s quickening gasps and grunts. Without a word Detlef lifts Birgit’s skirts over her hips: the full orbs of her arse are perfect pale fruit above the silk tops of her black stockings. Kneeling, he spreads them wide apart. Birgit gasps as he reveals her most private opening.

Running his fingers below and to her front he caresses her as he buries his face between her cheeks, moistening her nether hole with his tongue. Birgit immediately grows wet despite her mounting qualms about the unmentionable blasphemy of his intention. Detlef stands, pulling his hard organ free, then roughly pushes her down so she is bent away from him. Birgit, red from cheek to breast, is doubly humiliated by her own intense excitement. Detlef grabs each cheek of her buttocks firmly, pulling them apart with angry haste, fingers sinking into the soft flesh. For a second he rests his cock against her opening, teases gently before easing
himself in. Birgit screams out loudly; to silence her Detlef thrusts his fingers, still fragrant, into her mouth as over and over he plunges. As the pain becomes a growing ecstasy Birgit reaches down and pleasures herself. Until she feels his seed begin to tremble down the length of him and they both come shouting.

In the moment after, Birgit’s ecstasy becomes discomfort. Pulling away from him she tries to steady her trembling legs.

‘This could have us both executed,’ Detlef mutters into her hair as a huge wave of guilt and remorse sweeps over him. ‘I am deeply regretful I have subjected you to this.’ Ashamed, he covers himself.

Throwing down her skirts Birgit turns, her hair a wild blonde cloud, her cheeks flushed.

‘Do you still hold me in respect?’

‘Always,’ he replies, then leans over to kiss her forehead. ‘But please understand, we can no longer be lovers, only good companions…in time.’

He takes her arm formally. ‘Let me escort you home.’

Suddenly nauseated by his patronising tone she pulls away.

‘Do you realise how easy it would be to sour the friendship between yourself and Meister Ter Lahn von Lennep? He was most displeased when his good friend Voss was executed. The merchants are watching you and the archbishop very closely. A charge of immoral conduct would be more than useful to their cause.’

‘Birgit, please, I cannot deceive you or myself. Let us be friends.’

‘We were never friends.’

Unable to contain her fury any longer, she hurries out of the room.

T
he loaf of golden challah
is held above the candles. The gentle voice of the rabbi fills the room.

‘Baruch atar adonai eloheinu melech ha’olum chamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.’

Elazar finishes his blessing, breaks a hunk off the crusty bread and passes it to Tuvia, who in turn hands it over the laden table to Ruth. It is the sabbat and the table is covered with offerings to celebrate the week’s end. In the centre is a bowl of sauerkraut made with poppyseeds and flavoured with sugar, a plate of broiled salted beef, pickled cucumbers. The old rabbi, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, cannot believe that at last his beloved daughter is sitting right here at the family table.

It has taken weeks to persuade the elders of the community that it is safe to allow her amongst them again. Many still hold
her responsible for drawing Cologne’s attention back onto the small settlement. Ruth’s arrest has given rise to old fears. What if she causes more trouble? Is she really a Jew now they know she has been baptised? Even the women are prepared to forfeit the midwife’s skills to avoid the calamity of a pogrom. It was only when Elazar appealed to Isaac Schlam, Deutz’s doctor, and asked him and the community spokesperson Hirz Überrhein to address a public gathering at the synagogue to reassure them that Ruth had denounced the baptism, that she would not be practising her craft and that she would leave within the year with her betrothed husband Rabbi Tuvia for the Holy Land, that the people had been appeased.

Does Ruth realise she is living on borrowed time, the rabbi wonders.

‘Ruth, will you not pour Tuvia his wine? He is in need of the grace of a woman.’ The old man smiles; the silver of the candlesticks and the best knives and forks kept for the high holidays glisten in the candlelight, reflecting back in his shining eyes.

Reluctantly Ruth stands and leans over the assistant to fill the ceremonial goblet embossed with depictions of the Passover story before him. Tuvia, achingly conscious of her proximity, closes his eyes for a second as he breathes in her scent. Noticing, Ruth feels a flash of sympathy, but fearing that she might accidentally encourage him steps back. Making sure she remains as far away as possible, she takes her place again at the table.

Elazar seizes her hand. ‘Daughter, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for my hesitancy in accepting you back into this household. I was wrong and I know it now,’ the old rabbi announces solemnly, wiping away tears with his sleeve.

‘I am here now, abba. That is all that’s important.’ Ruth squeezes her father’s dry and wrinkled hand.

‘This is true and it gives me immense joy to have you safely under this roof where you belong. Come back, Ruth. You know Tuvia will marry you, and with all that has been revealed it is a generous offer. Make me happy.’

‘Abba, we agreed not to discuss this.’

Rosa bustles out from the kitchen to serve the vegetables, a delicious Sephardic dish she always prepares for Friday night: large aromatic onions stuffed with rice, ground beef and flavoured with tomato sauce, cinnamon, pomegranate juice and spice, pepper and salt—her favourite dish which always take her back to her days in Zaragoza as a young serving maid with the Navarros.

‘Reb, your daughter has agreed to give an answer by Rosh Hashana, isn’t that right, Tuvia?’ the old nursemaid interrupts enthusiastically.

‘Rosa, you have loose lips,’ Ruth observes wryly as the rabbi turns to the young man.

‘I am blessed with patience, Reb. I can wait for your daughter’s answer,’ Tuvia answers quickly before Rosa can embarrass him further.

‘Then you are a better man than I.’

Elazar turns to Ruth. ‘I am not getting any younger. I should like the honour of grandchildren before I die.’

‘All I ask is three more months,’ Ruth replies, trying to keep her ambivalence out of her voice.

Elazar raises his glass in a toast. ‘Then three more months it is.’

The other two awkwardly clink glasses while Rosa serves the main courses. Before them lies a feast of dishes, some of them sabbat offerings from the community to the rabbi: a pheasant caught and plucked by the butcher, a roast chicken dressed by the bailiff’s wife, beetroots and turnips from the undertaker’s garden and, of course, Rosa’s famous onions.

‘Look at this feast, my children.’ Elazar smiles broadly. ‘Are we not blessed? I am reminded of the belief of the ancient Sephardic doctor Israelicus: that food must be really delicious if both disposition and body are to benefit. Is that not right, daughter?’

Ruth cannot help but smile with him. ‘Indeed, you become what you eat. In which case I am an onion.’ She picks up one of Rosa’s delicacies. ‘Layered, slightly sour and guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes.’

Tuvia, laughing, raises his glass. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

Tuvia sits back, satiated. ‘I am to Maastricht Monday, I have a circumcision to attend.’

‘Is there not plague in Maastricht?’

‘The family lives outside the city walls, I shall be safe.’ He smiles at Ruth, happy to interpret her concern as an indication of a more intimate emotion.

Ruth watches him: his long white fingers drumming the wooden table, his narrow shoulders hunched over in his black robe, the thin lips and huge mournful eyes seemingly devoid of sensuality. There is nothing about him that moves her. But knowing the obvious affection Tuvia has for her father, she wonders whether she should not surrender the notion of romantic passion and give herself up to a loveless arrangement, if only to grant some last happiness to the dying old man.

Detlef stands in front of the small curved looking glass he normally keeps hidden in a chest. It is testimony to an earlier youthful vanity from his soldiering days. It is late, well after vespers. He can hear the fading rustles of the other monks as one by one they prepare for the short night’s rest. The canon
does not realise how long he has been standing there. He only knows it has been time enough to feel his resolve solidify into a heart-pounding reality.

The reflection staring back from the surface of the polished metal is unfamiliar. Dressed in a filthy short cloak, torn breeches and a grease-stained waistcoat bought from a journeyman who thought the cleric must be delirious to pay three Reichstaler for the clothes upon his back, Detlef is completely unrecognisable.

The hat, in chevalier style, has a ridiculous battered peacock’s feather strung through its band but serves Detlef’s purpose well, as he is able to pull it low over his brow. Beneath it sits an old wig he hasn’t worn for years, a shoulder-length brown pigtail around which is wrapped an ancient velvet ribbon. His face is smeared with soot in an effort to look unwashed and world-weary like any other journeyman. He has succeeded.

Outside all is quiet as the last of the monks settles down in his austere cell. Detlef touches his heart with his left hand then places the same hand over the reflected heart in the mirror. He cannot pray. He cannot think. The act he is about to commit will bear no scrutiny for it is too primal, too instinctive, to either deny or examine. All he knows is that he will not survive another day without acting.

He opens the heavy wooden door slowly, making sure it does not creak. Along the stone walls of the corridor he sees the last of the reflected candlelight flicker and die. Now is the time to leave.

The ferryman says nothing as Detlef hands him a bribe for crossing the Rhine in the dark. The ancient sailor assumes from the way the man is dressed that he is an impoverished traveller from the north, just another homeless itinerant. The only thing that surprises him is the softness and whiteness of the traveller’s
hands, they are not the hands of a poor working man. The sailor glances up at the face smudged with dirt, the lanky unwashed strands of hair falling out of the battered hat and believes he is mistaken. But as the stranger settles himself into the corner of the barge and stares back at Cologne, a shadowy skyline punctuated only by the occasional burning torch, the bent crane of the half-built cathedral silhouetted like a witch’s long finger with the low moon impaled on its tip, the ferryman wonders about the heaviness of the journeyman’s silence. It is not the stillness of an ordinary man but the ponderous silence of the suffering. The horrifying thought that he might be a secret leper crosses the sailor’s mind for a moment, but the traveller seems too robust, his limbs intact. No, most likely some nobleman having to flee in disgrace, the old sailor decides, then curses himself for not demanding more money.

They reach the first barge moored a third of the way across the river. As the traveller steps over to the next barge bobbing gently in the water, the ferryman sees that he is wearing good hide boots below the torn breeches.

‘I will pay you heavily for your future assistance…and your discretion,’ the traveller, noticing his inquisitiveness, announces in a guttural accent which confuses the man further. Out on the river a swan breaks out in a series of cries that echo back across the water.

‘In that case both my service and my silence are yours,’ the sailor replies, deliberately employing a formal German to indicate that he is conscious of the real station of his passenger. It is then that Detlef realises he has crossed a boundary he never thought he would have the courage or desire to challenge.

It seems an eternity before he is aware of walking along her streets. The tall narrow houses could belong to any town in the Rhineland, the only thing that marks them as other are

the wooden mezuzahs nailed over the front doors. It is now past twelve and the town is sleeping.

A town crier appears at the far end of the road. Detlef ducks into a doorway to avoid being seen. The only other time he has been in these streets was for Ruth’s arrest. Then he rode. Then he was indifferent to the fate of this foreign community. Now he is on foot, trying desperately to remember the route the patrol took to reach the small cottage he recalls as being on the bank of a stream at the edge of a field. As he follows the one main road that seems to lead out of the village, the sound of frogs looms up. Water. Stream. Ruth.

Detlef crosses a small bridge and instantly the rattle of the horses’ hooves pounding the wooden slats floods his memory. The sweet smell of cut hay and apple blossom drifts across the rushing water. The thatched cottage is there, set against the backdrop of a forest, with its cultivated garden and orchard. A light burns behind the misted window.

Detlef stands transfixed. He is at the border of dream and reality as he stares at the building. Something rushes past at the periphery of his vision. Startled he looks around; a fox gazes back, its rusty head cocked around a tree. The animal appears complicit in its silence. The whole garden seems to be holding its breath as the intruder walks soundlessly towards the door of the dwelling.

To Detlef it feels as if he is gliding over the dew-covered grass. Not even the daisies appear to bend under his weight. He moves compelled by a greater force than rationality, than self-preservation, a force beyond his conscious mind. He is barely aware of his actions but knows that for the first time in his life he is acting out of a greater passion than self-love.

He pushes open the door; the main room is empty. A candle still burns on the table and a fire smoulders in the huge fireplace. A half-eaten apple stands on the table. He

feels as if he is not here, as if he is an invisible observer, an ethereal spirit that is being swept in with the wind and is able to watch unseen. Everything is vivid. Every detail in the room magnified. He can see the toothmarks left in the apple, he can sense the trail of scent, heat and fine dust Ruth has left swathed across the centre of the room. A great desire surges through him, painfully fused with an inherent sense of sorrow, as if he is unable to make one more move towards what he knows undeniably to be his fate.

Ruth is standing in the alcove that houses her bed. On the floor is a wooden bucket filled with water she has boiled on the fire. Naked from the waist up she leans over it, washing herself with a cloth. As she wipes her neck and breasts she finds herself thinking about the canon, how in the silence of that long coach journey she realised there is much that can be communicated without words, that it is possible to have a discourse of the mind with a man she would have expected to share nothing in common. She tries not to remember his beauty. She tries not to think of him as a man. She does not want to be distracted by a passion that cannot afford to exist even in imagination or unspoken longing. An impossible desire. An improbable love. Sighing, Ruth sponges the last of the soap away and in an instant becomes aware of being watched.

The man is standing in the centre of the room beyond. He is familiar and yet not familiar. She does not know the face, the hair, the attire or the dirty features beneath the hat, but there is something she recognises in his physique, in the way he holds his body, that makes her hesitant for one tiny moment. Then, screaming, she covers herself.

Before she can run he is there, holding her, his hands clapped over her mouth. ‘Ruth! Stop, please! It is me, Detlef,’ he whispers as he holds her struggling body close, the first

words he has uttered in over five hours. Deafened by the panic beating in her ears she does not hear him.

‘It’s Detlef, it’s me, Detlef, Detlef,’ he continues to murmur, trying to reclaim his action, this intrusion which is so foreign to his nature that suddenly he no longer knows himself. In the same instant Ruth hears him and stops fighting.

They stand suspended: the cloaked man with his arms wrapped around the half-naked woman. Then, to her surprise, the proximity of him, his maleness, his scent, the taste of salt and earth, the bulk of his long fingers against her tongue, awake within her a desire so long denied that she loses control. Her trembling limbs wind themselves around him, she presses herself against his hardening groin, her hands searching for his skin, tearing at the yellowed lace at his neck. Detlef, unable to hold back any longer, finds her mouth and lifting her up onto his hips, draws her face down to his. Hat and wig fall to the ground, the feather trailing in the bucket of water, as the intelligence of his tongue tames her kisses.