Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (5 page)

It had not been easy, and it had never been easy for any Wakenstede to reach a firm decision that he wanted a son. There had been a curse on the Wakenstede line for centuries, and no matter how much Melchior hoped he would he had not overcome it. It was always present, as a punishment from God or the demons, and he had had no escape from it. Not every Wakenstede boy was burdened, but it could be passed from grandfather to grandson. Melchior's father had not had the curse, but the knowledge was all the worse that his only son would live in its grasp. But every Wakenstede comes to the point when he has to decide whether he wants to fulfil the directive from on high to have descendants and carry his line forward and hope that his heir is free of the curse. Or, if he isn't, then maybe he will be the one who will find, with the help of the saints, a cure for it.

For hundreds of years that the eldest Wakenstede son became an apothecary, took the name of Melchior, studied medicine and the arts of healing people, sought herbs for them that God has placed on the earth for man's use and to ease their distress and
called on the help and blessings of the saints for that purpose. In this way, perhaps one day, he or his successor would come to understand a way to cure the Wakenstedes' terrible affliction. All the elder Wakenstede sons must pass on the apothecary's wisdom and hope. As far as Melchior knew, he was now the only Wakenstede in Tallinn because all the rest of the direct line had died out. But the curse lived on in the secondary lines, and nothing and nobody could cure it.

‘Listen to the saints,' his father had taught him, ‘they know. God is one, and it seems to us that sometimes he is too far away. Christ the Redeemer and his teaching will help us towards Heaven in the next world, but the saints are the only ones who can help our family line in this earthly life. Learn, follow their instruction, know as much of them as one man can know, such is the Wakenstede command, and so it should be.'

And Melchior read the lives of the saints, listened to sermons about them, spoke with men who had studied at the university and the monastery, because perhaps some saint might really help, perhaps some saint knew a cure for his family's terrible curse. He didn't know whence came his father's rock-solid belief in it, he didn't know by whom, why and when the Wakenstedes were forced to become apothecaries and assiduously worship the saints, but he was not a man to question the ways of his family line. He knew just one thing – the curse was with him, kept its fangs deep inside him and would not let go, torturing and oppressing him, exhausting him. The only thing that could ease the curse was a woman, the right woman, who steadfastly stands beside him, loves and supports him. But that was only alleviation. Just as a leech helps to suck poison out of a human body, a woman can be an alleviator of the Wakenstede curse. But just as a leech doesn't help a bodily organ that is already condemned to die and can only bring temporary relief, so a woman can't remove the curse.

And the Wakenstede women didn't live long. The more support they give to their husbands the shorter their lives. Keterlyn knew this.

Loneliness was what broke a Wakenstede most readily. His family tree was full of men who, troubled by the curse of solitude, had bitten themselves to death in mental confusion, bashed their heads to pieces against walls, drowned themselves, just to get away from the mental torture that had seized them when the curse took them over.

Five years before, when Melchior thanked God for the gift of twins, he hoped, oh how he hoped, that the curse had left him. For some years it had not affected him, and in Keterlyn's eyes that same inflamed little fire had appeared as when Melchior had proposed marriage to that non-German stonemason's daughter. But, just a couple of months after the twins were born, one hot summer's evening, the curse had struck again.

Melchior was still young, his wife was still young; together they could find the strength to stand against it. But soon they would no longer be able to. Soon it would be too late, and Melchior had still not found a drug that would free his family line from this horror.

He monitored his son carefully, every day looking for signs, evidently the same way as his father had once done, and praying to God. He prayed to the saints, and he hoped. Maybe young Melchior was free of this terrible fate? But several times it had seemed to the Apothecary that in his son's eyes there flashed an odd spark, something endlessly distant, some emptiness and terror. Had it been the same with him? He knew that the curse did not attack until the boy had become a man, but the signs and omens could be seen earlier. In a few years the time would come when he would have to start telling his son about things that fathers do not usually discuss with their sons at that age.

He looked at his children and his wife and felt in his heart again a sharp radiant spark, glowing and getting hotter. As in church, during the sermon, when suddenly you feel within yourself a hot, overwhelming and eternal love towards the Redeemer and the Lord God, you feel an irresistible desire to love, because that is the right way, and the radiant spark in your heart summons you to it even when your reason does not exactly comprehend what the
priest is saying. Now he felt the same spark in his heart as he looked at the two red-cheeked youngsters in the shop, studying their surroundings curiously and cautiously. And he felt it even more when he looked at his wife, who was still beautiful; her form was pretty to behold, and the curves of her hips outlined under her dress provoked in Melchior a desire to strip her naked on the spot. Around his wife's eyes you could already make out dark lines; her face was paler than in earlier years, her eyes were deeper, wider and more sorrowful. Melchior was not sure if that was caused by the twins' difficult birth or by life as a Wakenstede.

‘They're talking about the same things,' said Keterlyn tenderly. ‘Today they saw the beer-carrier's barrow in front of the house again, and now they won't talk about anything else other than wanting a ride in it. And then young Melchior has learned to throw stones in puddles, so now Agatha doesn't want to do anything except throw stones, too.'

‘I suppose she'll start wanting other things when she starts playing with other girls more,' said Melchior. ‘They've been together all their lives.'

‘I suppose so,' agreed his wife.

Melchior lifted the twins up, one under each arm. The children laughed and screamed and pulled their father's hair.

So happy, so innocent, so unaware of all the world's dangers – and of death, thought Melchior.

‘You look very serious,' said Keterlyn. ‘Is something wrong?'

‘Oh, everything is in the best shape with the shop. With the blessing of St Cosmas our business is going well. In a year or two I'll surely be stepping up again before the Council and addressing them as my father wished.'

‘For a man of your age you're wanting to follow in your father's footsteps rather too much,' remarked his wife. ‘Not that I disapprove, but time is marching on …'

‘Time is marching on, but some things always stay the same. The town needs a pharmacy, and it's best if it has the Council's seal of approval. That's what they've done in several places in Germany.
The local council buys a house and rents it to an apothecary, gives him instructions, and the town's notary seals the agreement.'

‘But the Council didn't agree to that.'

‘The Council
wasn't sure,'
corrected Melchior. ‘The Council hesitated about whether it was in the best interests of the town because, in spite of said apothecary's excellence and his services to the town, they found that this same apothecary was too poor to properly maintain a
town apothecary's shop.
But the Council is looking at its decision again when he appears before it once more and gives a better account of his assets. That was their decision. Those skinflints were worried that I'm too poor and want to get rich at the Council's expense. Well, maybe they'll think differently now – or so I must hope and believe.'

‘But still you look too serious today.'

Melchior put the children down. They ran squealing to their mother, and Keterlyn told them not to knock anything over.

‘Too much bad news,' said Melchior. ‘Master Bruys died yesterday on his pilgrimage to the Convent of St Bridget.'

‘Oh, I heard that,' nodded Keterlyn. ‘It really makes you sad. I've never before seen such a pious merchant in this town. They say that too much money makes people mean, but Master Bruys was more God-fearing than some bishops.' Keterlyn thought for a bit and added, ‘I mean, he was certainly more God-fearing than the Bishop of Tallinn, everyone knows that. But you said there was
too much
bad news. What else then?'

‘You mean
who
else then,' said Melchior. ‘Last night Master Tobias Grote fell to his death from the walkway on the town wall over beyond the convent.'

‘Oh, heavens,' cried his wife. ‘That excellent man. He was just here in the shop … No, wait, wasn't he here yesterday?'

‘Yes, he was. He came in here during the day and must have been drinking a lot of ale the night before.'

‘He does too much of that. His housekeeper – I know her well – tells me sometimes that old Tobias wasn't such a hard drinker in his younger days. But now he sits in the daytime in the tavern beyond
the wall or down by the harbour or else in the nuns' tavern, and it wouldn't be long before didn't have enough money to buy clothes or wood for the winter …' His wife stopped. She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, may the Blessed Virgin forgive me. I shouldn't talk like that about the dead.'

‘It will be all the same to him now,' opined Melchior.

‘And so what happened? He fell, just like that? A healthy, strong man who climbed that wall every blessed day? Never mind being drunk, but that walkway isn't like a roof where your foot might slip and …'

‘I don't know,' admitted Melchior. ‘The Magistrate didn't know either. The town guards found him and …'

Melchior thought for a moment, looked at the children and kept his counsel.

‘Speak,' suggested his wife. ‘It must be the thing that's on your mind.'

‘Ah,' muttered Melchior. ‘It's just a little thing. So sometimes Satan has to pull a person by the tongue … You see, yesterday, when Master Grote came here he was in a blue funk and something seemed to be haunting him. He was sighing, and his eyes were full of fear. So I asked him what was the trouble and said he looked as if he'd seen a ghost. And he was startled at that, really shocked. I could see that these words really put the wind up him. So now, in comes Magistrate Dorn and says that Grote, who'd fallen to his death, had a face on him as if he'd seen a ghost. Not a peaceful face and not a face full of pain but a face full of fear. I think I understand very well what he had in his eyes.'

‘For God's sake,' said Keterlyn, shuddering. ‘Not in front of the children.'

‘Well, you did ask,' replied Melchior awkwardly.

‘Such things shouldn't be discussed,' said his wife. ‘The Unterrainer house is just down our street. Last spring when the women were gossiping about that poor prostitute, Magdalena, who drowned in the well, I said to myself then that they ought to keep their dirty mouths shut and not talk about that ghost. The twins are playing
right here in front of us. Do they need to hear all this about ghosts? They don't even know what life and death are, and who knows what Magdalena might have thought she saw –'

‘Wait now, woman, stop there.' Melchior interrupted her. ‘You're talking too fast for my slow understanding. Yes, I know about the Unterrainer house, there next to the Goswin house, and there have been horror stories for ages about spirits and phantoms. Yes, Magdalena did drown in the well, I remember that. But what exactly are you trying to say? I don't understand.'

‘Just as well, too, because with the children listening I'm not going to talk about such things at all.'

‘Then go and put the children to bed and come back down and talk to me.'

Melchior's tone was strangely quiet and resolute, in a way that his wife had very rarely heard him speak before. The hour was late, and she would have liked Melchior to come to bed, too, but she knew her husband's moods. If some story interested him he had to hear it to the end, even if there was a plague or an enemy at the gates. So Keterlyn shrugged and did as her husband asked.

When she came back into the pharmacy Melchior was sitting in the candlelight at the table and seemed to be scribbling something in his accounts book. But he appeared even more serious than before she had gone up, and looking over his shoulder Keterlyn saw that he hadn't made any progress with his book-keeping.

‘So,' said Melchior, ‘dear wife, to make matters clear, please tell me why you started talking about Magdalena when I was talking about Master Grote and the ghost?'

‘Because Grote's story reminded me of Magdalena's – when you said the he had a face as if he'd seen a ghost. Magdalena, too, said in the public baths at the Zeghen Tower that she'd seen a ghost on Rataskaevu Street, and the next day she was dead. Dead, head first into the well, right here in front of our house.'

‘I didn't know you went to the
saun
with a woman of pleasure,' smiled Melchior.

‘It's not bad – in the
saun
all women are alike,' replied Keterlyn, and when Melchior was silent at this, and remained silent for a while, his wife coughed and added, ‘But better if you don't dwell on that thought.'

‘No, I wasn't thinking about that,' Melchior quickly assured her. ‘But, anyway, I don't recall you talking about this before.'

‘I don't think I've ever told you what women discuss among themselves in the
saun.
And actually it's better if men never find out what women talk about in the
saun.
But I will say that I think Magdalena was a nice woman in every way, never mind that she earned her living as a whore, for she was a God-fearing woman with a kind heart. She didn't tell idle tales about anyone, and when she was asked whom she'd been to bed with she always said that what went on between the walls of that room would stay there. If she started talking about her clients she'd be left without any.'