Three Women in a Mirror (44 page)

Although she shared her skin with her replica, the true Anne was not in the same situation. While the other Anne knowingly attacked the Roman Catholic faith of the era, the true Anne beatifically expressed her adoration of God. While the other Anne brought on Ida's vengeful jealousy, the true Anne would have given her life's blood for her cousin.

In truth, the other Anne was Anne as others saw her. The little they understood. The false image they had. What the mirror of their narrow gaze managed to reflect.

Since a reflection produces a reversed image, Anne's image showed the reverse of whom she was. For one man like Braindor who saw the saint in her, there were hundreds who only saw the witch.

She had come to realize this during her last night on Earth. Once she had elucidated the problem she was free of it. This morning they would murder the other Anne. And she herself would be elsewhere.

The jailer brought in a priest.

She could see from his frightened eyes that the minister of God was panicking at the thought of her imminent death.

Out of kindness, she let him carry out his task, sensing that he needed to; she answered his questions with a kindly weariness, then docilely repeated the formulas he voiced.

A guard came by with a long smock, the only clothing she would wear during the torture. From the smell that rose to her nose she could tell that the cloth had been cloaked with sulfur. She smiled. Someone had intervened on her behalf to obtain this privilege: you died more quickly if you wore a highly flammable garment, and this reduced the suffering. Who was it? Braindor? Aunt Godeliève? She was ignorant of all the efforts they had been making since the day before, to try to ease her departure. The idea of the sulfur-coated smock had come from Hadewijch, who had learned this detail from her confessor. Aunt Godeliève had taken the item to the executioner of Bruges and also slipped him a pouch of money so that he would strangle Anne with a lace as he was attaching her to the stake. In that way she would already be dead when the flames began to burn. The executioner, fearful that the subterfuge might be visible to the public, promised to try but would not guarantee the result.

That same executioner also had a visit from Braindor, who brought him bales of hay and straw, as well as bundles of green twigs.

“Keep your good logs, they are too costly,” suggested the monk.

The executioner nodded, with a smile in his eyes: he knew what such a gift meant. If the wood was dry, Anne would die from the fire, slowly and agonizingly cremated. However, with green wood and hay, the smoke would overcome her before the flames, and she would die asphyxiated—a rapid solution, less conducive to screams of pain.

The executioner consented, glad to save his supplies; he knew that in this way he would satisfy everybody, both justice, which required an execution, and the crowd that was after a spectacle.

Anne changed in front of the priest and the jailer. A guard picked up her clothes: tradition had it that if they were of no value, they would be added to the fire to fuel the combustion, as would the corpses of any cats or pigs that were to be disposed of.

On leaving the prison behind, with its stench of saltpeter, Anne breathed deeply of the fresh air. It was a typical Flanders day. The milky sky distilled an enveloping light, without shadows. The birds were chirping with almost frenetic joy. Larks soared into the blue. On a patch of grass there were springtime primroses. In the last few weeks nature had once again become strong, bountiful, superb.

The indifference of the elements to her fate was reassuring to Anne. The way of the world was not limited to her or to her story; an immense, majestic entity went on its way without pause. Among all this profusion she represented no more than a flower crushed under a cow's hoof. If she was annihilated, another Anne would replace her; she could rely on the earth's abundance.

She walked toward the place of execution.

Curious onlookers began to arrive.

As she passed under a tree, she thought back to her linden tree and murmured, “I will see you later.”

Recalling the tree's stocky shape, its mass of leaves heavy upon a short trunk, she was glad she would soon be going to join it. The wind would take her there. Her ashes would surely land on its tender buds, and scatter across the bark, and penetrate the moss on the ground to reach its roots. Yes, it would not be long now, she would soon nourish her friend.

Suddenly, she shrugs. One day the tree will die, too. That is our fate. Perhaps it will end up like her, slain? No, surely not. It is too noble, men will respect it.

Now she fears for the fate of her tree; and since she has opened the gates to anxiety, she worries about those who will stay behind after she is gone—Braindor, Hadewijch, Bénédicte, Aunt Godeliève, Ida . . .

“I'm going ahead. I'll be waiting for you.”

On saying these words, she finds them ridiculous. She is going ahead, but she will not wait for them in the usual sense of the word. Because her consciousness will be dispersed. Because she will have become one with the world, beatific and blessed. She will be alive, yet she will no longer be a person. No longer the Virgin of Bruges, the niece of Godeliève, the friend of the wolf, and of Braindor, the woman who knew the Grande Demoiselle or the one who looked after her crippled cousin . . . All her particularities will be erased, and all that remains will be her soul, the essential part of her that moves throughout the universe and delights in it.

She would, however, like to bid them farewell.

Will they be there, on the square, among the rabble that attend executions? She is not sure. Ida, perhaps, hiding behind an awning. Braindor in the distance—he will look away. But not Godeliève, nor Hadewijch, nor Bénédicte. They must be hiding at their grandmother Franciska's, in Saint-André, until someone comes to tell them that it is all over.

Bid farewell?

She already has, several times. We slip multiple farewells into our daily acts because we often have the feeling that something is escaping, never to return. Every day contains a greeting and a farewell. In the bolt of lightning there is the first time, and there is its dark side. In that moment of brilliance one can glimpse eternity.

Now Anne will go there, too.

As she makes her way across the cobblestones, she wonders if her ecstasies were merely premonitions. Premonitions of what is to come, the place where she is now headed.

Oh, if one could choose a moment to go into eternity, it would be this instant. I want to keep this setting with me: the gray sky, the chilly air, the birds giddy with the advent of spring.

She closes her eyelids and concentrates on this feeling until it expands and fills her completely.

The chaplain holds her elbow.

She can hear the people of Bruges, she cannot see them. And yet if she looked at them she would see that many of them are not happy. They are furious, they hold justice to be unjust: an innocent woman is about to be sacrificed for the ravings of a whore who cannot stand her disfigurement; for the infatuation of an archdeacon and the underlying power of the Inquisition; for the fears of an era where different paths to faith meet in bloodshed. They blame the higher powers that require the death of a young woman for such vague suppositions. Some even feel that by ruling against her, society is ruling against them. They will take their revenge. Yes, one day they will oust that murderous priest and that corrupt prosecutor. Perhaps they will fail, but in their heart of hearts they swear they will try.

On seeing Anne stumble to the pyre, the young women tremble. Is this where such beauty leads?

The young men spit. To whom has this magnificent woman been promised? To the flames . . .

The elders feel the weight of their age like an indecent burden. To be sure, they have managed to save their hides this far, but when they see the prisoner they sense, dimly, that it is a privilege to die young. With their wrinkles and rheumatism, their twisted mouths, their difficult digestion, they have merely prolonged the ordinary. To what purpose? Anne may have lasted no longer than a spark, but she shines. Those who have an exceptional life will have an exceptional death.

In one corner of the square Braindor is hiding beneath his black hood. When he sees Anne, he remembers his childhood in the country when, in May, his parents used to kill the lambs. Anne reminds him of one of the lambs, the one he has never stopped thinking about, even during religious services. That lamb was white and young and unaware of the brutality awaiting; it scampered and hopped, it was darling, candid, innocent, with immaculate wool and sturdy yet supple hooves, and a joyful expression. With its deep round black eyes, it smiled at its executioner; it thought that the hands that had picked it up were going to caress it, until the knife slit its throat. Once the lamb had collapsed, astonished, beneath his father's blade, Braindor had taken its side and he looked at his father as if he were a murderer.
To kill anything is to attack life. No one has that right.

Anne cannot see Braindor. She arrives at the stake.

A sergeant's horse rears up.

She gazes at the birds playfully chasing each other.

What a marvelous gift this sentence is. Before, she loved the world in a routine way. Today she loves it with urgency and intensity. She is acceding to true love. Naked love.

“Incredible. Right to the end there is still happiness to be found.”

The executioner ties her to the stake.

“Please do not strangle me,” she begs him. “I want to live it all.”

The man hesitates, then shrugs. The only thing that annoys him about Anne's words is that he's just forfeited his pouch of money.

Anne closes her eyes. She only hopes the suffering will not affect her. She assumes her execution, she does not undertake anything in order to avoid it. Deep inside she consents to death. Better still, she calls out to it.

“I have faith. Nature knows what to do. I have seen it with animals. When a dog is suffering too greatly, it dies. Only death can conquer all-powerful pain. Death is good. Death is a deliverance. Death belongs to the miracle of being.”

She promises herself she will not brace herself. Nor will she cling to life. She will not struggle.

The executioner ignites the bales of straw and hay.

The crowd shivers with anticipation, excitement, without knowing what they really expect.

Anne raises her eyes to the sky.

She has the feeling that eternity is rushing forward. The world has stopped for all time. This is the image she will take with her forever. The sky is as white as mother-of-pearl. The wind is gentle, like breathing, the breath of warm air.

She lowers her eyes: henceforth she will inhabit the memory of this instant.

In the end, I will not disappear. They will not kill me; they will make me live eternally.

The smoke swirls around her, then enters her, then fills her chest and lungs. She refuses to chase it away, she tries not to cough.

Suddenly she feels a blow to her legs. A bite. The first flames sink their teeth into her flesh.

Thus Anne embraces death as she embraced life, and gives herself to it. She opens her mouth, and dies.

 

When the flames reached the condemned woman, the crowd shivered. For decades, witnesses would tell how the virgin seemed to cry as much from pleasure as from pain.

Innsbruck, September 20, 1914

 

To the attention of Count Franz von Waldberg:

 

Dear Sir:
I doubt that you will remember me, because you only saw me twice, first at your engagement party and then at your magnificent wedding. Nevertheless, Hanna will have mentioned me to you when talking about her childhood. You probably do not know me under my real name, Margaret Pitz, now Margaret Bernstein, but rather under the nickname “Gretchen,” since Hanna so affectionately never called me anything else. I am ten years older than she, and view her as a little sister, although there are no actual blood ties between us. Chance brought us together as children; affection quickly strengthened our ties to fill an entire lifetime.

I do not know what effect my words will have on your heart, for Hanna behaved so strangely toward you. In her defense it must be said that she always did everything intensely, whether it was cherishing, kissing, rejecting, despising, learning, or forgetting; she knew nothing about moderation, and her only guideline was enthusiasm. Therefore she often lived through contradictory states, such as in her attitude toward you, whom she idolized then held up to public disgrace.

Who, then, is the man who may be touched by my letter? Will you read it to the end, or destroy it before I come to the most important thing? I don't think you would destroy it . . . From the letters she sent me after your marriage I have forged an image of you as a considerate, merciful individual. Perhaps, justifiably, you sincerely hate her now, but I do know that you once loved her sincerely.

Hanna continued to write to me, except for a time when she wanted to isolate her new life from her old one; your marriage suffered, but so did my relationship with her.

While couples must resort to divorce in order to separate, friendship knows only betrayal. One day Hanna simply dismissed me.

When she approached me again, I pretended not to remember the cause of our falling out; but in fact I remember everything in detail.

I accused her of lying about her origins. When she was undergoing her treatment with Dr. Calgari in Vienna, she claimed to have discovered the secret of her birth, under hypnosis. But what she came out with that afternoon was merely something she made up, a fable that she clung to.

To help her recover, I thought it would be useful to remind her of reality. But when she read my message she went into such a rage that she broke off our friendship and forbade me from writing to her, which was easy enough as she hid her addresses from me.

What did she tell Dr. Calgari?

That she had been abandoned at birth. That she had never known her biological parents. That the people who raised her to the age of eight had no blood ties with her.