The Witch of Cologne (45 page)

‘Do not be a fool. Judging by the poverty in which you live, you need me as much as I need you.’

‘I need no man, sir, and certainly no one from my past. I have rewritten myself in a stanza of my own making. And now I want nothing except to be left in peace so I may live out my invention.’

Jacob angrily opens the door, but the old man does not budge from his chair. Gripping his cane so tightly that his knuckles show white, he remains steadfast.

‘A preposterous notion, young puppy. No one,’ at this he slams his cane on the table, creating a huge bang that makes
Jacob jump, ‘no one is able to escape his past, not even I, and the good Lord knows there have been many occasions I have wished to.’

He leans forward, his face taut with emotion. ‘We are a composite of our own history and that of our parents; we are all that has lived before us, married together and woven into a tapestry which has been worked and embroidered to become this moment: this room, the face you were born with, you and I staring across at each other. A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.’

‘Then let me live blind.’

‘I shall not! This is the least I owe your parents.’

‘Sir, I have no parents, none that are worth remembering or forgiving.’

At this the old man falters. Staring hard at the youth, whose handsome features have sharpened with his defensiveness, he perceives that the arrogance conceals a deeper vulnerability.

‘Oh Jacob, what have we done to you?’ His voice drops to a gentle whisper.

‘Leave!’

‘Not before I hear you utter my name.’

‘Count Gerhard von Tennen. Are you content now, uncle?’ Jacob replies coolly, wishing the spectre of the old man would just disappear.

But as he catches sight of the ring adorning the count’s hand, a ring he suddenly remembers, a cascade of images return: the coach pelting through the Dutch countryside, being forced to eat as a small boy in the Cologne townhouse, his uncle’s red angry face screaming at him—and an old dread begins to claw its way up from his belly.

‘Sir, you have great audacity to appear before me thus, you who caused my family so much injury.’

The count stands heavily and turns to the window.

‘Jacob Scheems. It is not a pretty choice.’

‘It is plain, and very different from von Tennen. As I have told you, I wish to disassociate myself from my heritage.’

‘Your alias has made my search difficult. I have been looking for you for ten long years. Do you know how my spy finally found you?’

The count swings around, searching for a sign to indicate that reconciliation may be possible. With some bitterness Jacob shrugs. Sighing, Gerhard reaches into his waistcoat pocket and pulls out a slim volume which he places carefully on the table between them. The title,
The dangers of birthing hooks, a treatise on the gentler methods of midwifery
, is clearly visible. Jacob immediately recognises the binding as that of his employer.

‘Your mother’s text, as published by Rieuwertsz. Her book led me to you. So you see, you can never escape your heritage.’

Jacob picks up the volume, trying desperately to hold back a wave of feeling he considers unmanly. How many years, he thinks, and now this? Huge anger grips him as he recalls how he struggled alone after Ruth’s death, sleeping at first on a narrow shelf that hung above the printing presses, then, as his literary promise became apparent, his promotion to the publisher’s house itself where he shared the servants’ chambers, until finally, at fifteen, he was granted a stipend and his own living quarters. It was an excruciatingly lonely existence for the boy, and he learnt to survive by dividing his memories into two: the days that had seemed filled with sunlight and happiness before his father’s death, then his dark odyssey after Ruth’s demise. And now this recreant sits before him…for what purpose other than to undo him?

‘Why should I listen to your stories? All they do is drag me back into a history I want nothing to do with.’

‘You must listen, for your mother’s sake.’

‘Isn’t it too late for that? Where were you when I was orphaned eleven years ago and would have starved if it were not for the publisher Rieuwertsz and his kind sister?’

‘There were complications, first the French invasion and then the battle in Münster. I would not have been welcomed in Holland. But enough; there is much to say and little time, I fear.’

‘I repeat, sir, I must ask you to leave now.’

‘I cannot…not without your forgiveness.’

With these words the last vestige of hauteur crumbles away from the aristocrat and to the youth’s astonishment he finds himself confronting an old man whose hands suddenly shake as he clutches at his walking stick. Jacob takes pity. He blows the layer of dust from a flagon of cheap claret and pours his elderly visitor a glass. But after placing it firmly in front of the count he finds he cannot look at him. Agitated, he strides around the room.

‘Forgiveness is for our maker to give, not me. Sir, I know you only as the man who betrayed my father and widowed my mother. Your business is with the dead, not the living.’

‘Jacob, you must believe me, they promised me they would pardon your father, that if he made a full confession he might even be reinstated to his post in the cathedral. You must understand that they were threatening to destroy the von Tennen name, to take our land. I could not allow that to happen. Ours is an ancient family and—’

‘You lie, sir!’

‘I have lied many times in my life and practised many deceits, and I have paid penance for them, my boy, both in deed and in spirit. But in this I do not deceive. I have had your father’s body exhumed, he now lies in the family chapel where he belongs. Detlef was my kin, my brother, just as you…’

The aristocrat’s voice cracks with emotion as he realises how far he has journeyed over the years.

‘You are my nephew.’

Overwhelmed, Jacob sinks into a chair. The count reaches into the leather satchel lying at his feet and pulls out a bottle of Clos Vougeot, an expensive vintage Jacob has only ever dreamt of tasting. The old man uncorks it vigorously and, after tossing the stale claret onto the floor, pours himself and his nephew a glass.

With an elegant flourish that could only have been taught by a woman of breeding, his mistress perhaps, the count guesses, Jacob lifts the glass to his mouth and allows the delicious liquid to slowly saturate his palate. He is more von Tennen than he realises, the count notes, secretly delighted.

It has taken Gerhard years of examining his own behaviour—his intense remorse over Detlef’s death, his subsequent immersion in his duties as overseer of the von Tennen estates, his gradual comprehension of the struggles of his serfs—to attain the realisation that all men begin and end equal, in birth, love and death. He is content to have finally found acceptance in his heart. And now he is rewarded, for despite the boy’s mixed heritage and his anger towards his parents, Gerhard is pleased to see that he still displays the virtues and, more importantly, the fortitude of his father’s class.

‘Your father died refusing to betray your mother and you. I believe that at the very end he found solace in both his faith and his love for his family.’

‘My father was murdered.’

‘And it gives me great pleasure to inform you that his murderer, the inquisitor Carlos Vicente Solitario, perished a day later—an act of divine intervention, I am sure.’

For the first time since the nobleman’s arrival the young poet smiles. The count, encouraged, leans closer.

‘Nephew, there are many changes in the Rhineland. I myself have converted to Luther and taken to the plain ways
and cloth of the Protestant. The Holy Free City has opened up and many non-Catholics, both Jew and Protestant, now trade freely. Even the nepotism that blighted the city council is being challenged. Nikolaus Gülich, a man your father supported, is at the vanguard of the revolt and his power grows daily. Detlef once urged me to take to heart the plight of my peasants and this I have done. My serfs know neither plague nor starvation. All this I have undertaken in the name and spirit of my dear brother. This has been my penance. But I am old, and finally, and most thankfully, I am dying.’

Stunned, Jacob looks up. The count suddenly seems to radiate a new frailty.

‘I was married once, a loveless arranged affair that proved barren in every way. For all the grief and disaffection between us, you are my heir, Jacob, the only one I have.’

‘I, to go to Germania? To inherit the von Tennen estate, the title?’

The young poet stares at him astonished.

The count nods, anticipation molten in his veins. To his shock, Jacob leaps up and strides to the door.

‘Do not insult me, sir!’

Startled, the count knocks over his glass of wine.

‘I am half Hebrew, this you know well. As such I cannot own German land. Good day to you, sir.’

With a curt bow Jacob waits at the open door.

Furious, the count draws himself up stiffly in the chair.

‘You are a von Tennen! You will always be a von Tennen, whoever and whatever your mother was! I know it will not be easy, I know there will be hostility and resistance to you as my heir. But I intend to defy all authority that stands between me and my decision.’

There is a silence; neither man moves. Then Jacob closes the door.

‘You must understand that I mean to do well, but entirely on my own talents.’

‘But I can help you, just as you can help me. We are family, Jacob. Whatever state, crown and church think. You are my blood.’

For a moment Jacob seems to waver. His eyes wander down to his mother’s slim volume and to his surprise he finds himself contemplating what his parents would have wanted. Ruth’s dying words float back into his mind: ‘
You must fight tyranny always, live for the freedom of belief, freedom of thought
—
this is our gift to you.
’ Is this what he has done with his life so far? How much change can he achieve through his sonnets—which are, he thinks ruefully, merely imaginative allegories in the style of his hero, the English poet Milton.

He reaches for a chair and sits again. After some moments of intense contemplation he looks up.

‘I shall return with you on the following conditions. Firstly, I must be free to pursue my philosophical pursuits and poetic ambitions. Secondly, each peasant on the estate is to be offered a portion of the land he farms.’

He pauses then pulls Ruth’s book protectively towards him. ‘Thirdly, you agree to have a midwife trained in my mother’s techniques to service the women of the region.’

‘You drive a hard bargain.’

‘Refuse me and you return to your estate without an heir.’

Again the count is pleased by the uncompromising astuteness of the boy. He shows more ruthlessness than both his mother and father, the aristocrat notes, he is a survivor. After a long sigh, he places a withered hand upon Jacob’s to seal the agreement.

T
he youth kneels
in a wooden pew of the church, once a Catholic chapel, now stripped back to Lutheran simplicity. The dull afternoon light struggles to breach a large hexagonal window set in the wall behind the altar, its stained glass depicting the crucifixion. Jacob, his knees aching, is looking at the figure of a Teutonic knight in the armour of a medieval nobleman standing at the foot of the cross gazing up into the face of the Saviour. Which of Father’s ancestors is that? he wonders.

The touch of his uncle’s hand on his shoulder pulls him sharply back to the present. He stands and turns to where the pastor waits at the tomb of Detlef von Tennen, and hears the small choir begin a hymn in plain German.

Jacob stares at the unadorned marble tomb, its lid pushed to one side, and marvels at how such a vital being could be reduced to dust and bones. Is this all life leads to, the banality of matter? He is young enough to think so, yet staring at the hollowed skull of his father he cannot help but remember
being lifted in the air by Detlef’s huge hands, laughing down at the smiling face he recalls as alight with warmth.
My father. The mysterious figure whose death has shaped my life.

For the first time since Jacob was four, he sees before him a physical manifestation of a figure who, after his passing, became myth. So why does the sight not move me? he thinks, wondering at the numbness that seems to paralyse his heart. Is it because, in some ways, the scene is so ordinary? His legs hurt, the back of his neck is cold, he can see a beetle crawling up the side of Detlef’s tomb indifferent to all around it.

His musings are interrupted by a nudge from his uncle. Jacob picks up the urn that contains his mother’s remains. Surprised at its lightness, he finds himself having to suppress the unexpected desire to laugh; suddenly the sombreness and formality of the occasion seems ridiculous to him. Who are these mourners? None of them, except his uncle, knew his parents, and certainly none of them were party to their marriage. He was the only witness of that great love, but what is the point of such a strong union when this is where it ends? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What remains of the impassioned flesh, the soaring spirit?

Jacob slowly approaches the tomb and begins to scatter Ruth’s remains over the broken skeleton that was once Detlef von Tennen. As he does so, the faint scent of jasmine floats through the chapel.

The pastor moves forward. ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, bless and grant rest to these two souls who, parted in life, are now finally united in death.’

He makes the sign of the cross and the assembled—the count and several servants of the household—lower their heads in prayer.

As two sturdy peasants push the heavy lid back into place, Jacob notices that two new lines have been etched into the marble above his father’s name.
Ruth bas Elazar Saul
he reads,
engraved in perfect Hebrew, and below,
die Frau von Detlef von Tennen.

Reaching out, he traces the letters with his fingers, and finds himself whispering them aloud in the language his mother taught him. It is then, finally, that the grief bursts through and the boy falls to his knees with a wail of sorrow, pain and deep sadness.

The priest glances at Gerhard, mortified at the sight of the weeping youth kneeling with his arms around his father’s tomb, but the count ignores him. He walks over to Jacob and, laying his cane upon the ground, lowers himself down beside him, then places one hand on his nephew’s heaving shoulders and the other on his brother’s tomb. For a moment the church is silent but for the sound of the boy’s muffled crying and Gerhard’s voice, direct and clear, asking Detlef for absolution.

A dove who has made her nest at the back of the shrine joins in with her cooing. After peeping curiously down at the figures clustered around the marble tomb, she flies across the rafters and out into the bright sunlight beyond.