Breath (9781439132227) (6 page)

“Where did you get the peppercorns?”

“From a traveling merchant. After Melis found you, I sent him to the market in town.”

Melis went all the way to market for my sake? He's a good brother. I'd do the same for him, anytime, day or night, in any weather. Peppercorns. “They must have cost a lot.”

“He traded a jug of our beer for a handful.”

“That sounds cheap to me,” I say.

“Our beer has a reputation. Even this traveling merchant had heard of it. Edgy and hoppy.” Großmutter's voice is proud. Father may have taught her the formula, but she's the one who can take the credit, because she's the one who brews the beer. “Sit up and eat.”

I prop myself on both elbows now and open my mouth. I take a lesson from the cows with the
bees—if I swallow fast enough, nothing can hurt me. I eat the whole bowl.

Großmutter pushes my hair out of my eyes and cups her palm around my forehead. She holds it there far too long to be simply checking for fever. That feels so good, I want her to hold it there forever. Her eyes linger worriedly on my face. Abruptly she stands and goes out the door.

Kuh sticks his nose in the bowl on the floor, then jumps back with a sneeze. The look of disgust on his little face would make me laugh if I didn't feel so awful. And I realize Großmutter didn't scold me for letting Kuh on her floor.

I rest on my back and listen to the rats scampering in hidden places. I'll need a lot of rocks to kill them all today.

This time next year I can watch Kuh hunt them down.

God willing.

That must be why Großmutter's tolerating the kitten more. Rats are by far the worse evil of the two.

Though the rain stopped last week—it comes only at night now—the rats haven't noticed the change yet. Or else they've decided life indoors is superior regardless.

Großmutter returns with a bucket of milk, hot and frothy from the cow. She pours a little in the bowl for Kuh, and the softness of her mouth tells me much: The kitten has worked his way into her affections, though I'm quite sure she'd never admit to it. Kuh puts his small tongue into the bowl. He's lapping milk on his own. He doesn't need my finger. A prick of jealousy comes. How silly I am—I should be glad the kitten is acting older. I should be glad he's growing independent.

Großmutter makes me drink a cup of the milk. Cow's milk. It's for cooking and making cheese, but not to drink, at least not for anyone over seven. How disgusting. But she makes me drink another. And a third. I'm likely to vomit at this rate, but maybe it's doing its job on that awful muck, because my guts are churning now. I get to my feet with Großmutter's help and manage to make it far enough away from the house before I squat and relieve myself. And the pain is gone.

When I come back inside, Großmutter hands me a cloth and I wipe the sweat from my brow and chest and back. “I'm always surprised,” I say, “by how the pain can just end. It's so huge, then it's done. Over. It ceases.”

“Like childbirth,” says Großmutter. She had
many of her own, and she used to deliver babies when she could see well. Now she can only assist. But she's a well-respected healer of other maladies. She can rid people of worms or sleeplessness. She can make people fall in love and she can extinguish love.

“Pepper came to us from the Arabs. Did you know that, Großmutter?”

“Hmmm.” She's cleaning the bowl and spoon and cup.

“Maybe this traveling merchant who Melis got the pepper from knows Arabs.” I touch her on the arm. “Let's go to town.”

“Why?”

“Remember what Pater Frederick said? I told you, you must remember. About Arab medicine?”

“Even if the merchant knows Arabs, even if he knows an Arab surgeon, you can't travel far, Salz. There's no point in talking to him.”

This is rational talk of the kind Pater Frederick spouts. Seductive in its severity. But fatal, as well. Is there no room for my new hope? I whisper, “You can't be sure.”

Großmutter doesn't bother to concede. She simply grabs a cloth sack hanging by the door, and she's on the path toward town, moving as fast as a
youngster. I close Kuh inside the house and race after her. Normally I can go faster than her, but the pain took all my energy. I gasp from the effort of catching up to her. She looks at me, startled, then flushes and slows down to a pace I can manage.

Hameln town sits with the wide Weser River on its west and the narrow Hamel River coming up from the south and arcing around town to the east and north, and finally emptying into the Weser. So the town is almost entirely protected by a ring of water. In the middle of the Hamel River rises the gray stone town wall—the first wall, that is. Beyond it, on the land, stands the higher wall, the one that circles the whole town, with the tall octagonal towers at regular intervals that allow lookouts for enemies. Hameln may be small, but it is a strong fortress. Father finds its fierce posture funny, given that we have no enemies. Maybe he's wrong, though. Maybe Hameln invites no enemies because of its walls and towers.

No one pays us mind as we cross the east bridge—an old woman and a thin boy are hardly the vision of threat. We go directly toward the market square. A boy ahead of us has dead birds slung over his arm, tied by their feet. He calls out his goods, and a woman leans from a window and
tells him to come inside for a sale. Once he goes through the doorway, the road is deserted.

The market square is only slightly more active. The booths of the local merchants—with their handicrafts and meats and vegetables—have closed down for the midday meal by the time we get there. But traveling merchants rent booths for the whole day, and they have nowhere to go for their meal, unless they can afford the food sold in the inn or in the ground floor of the
Rathaus
, the town hall. So most of them sit in clusters, keeping an eye on their booths, as they wait for the afternoon shoppers.

Their children—three of them—throw dice in the dirt. When they see us, they come running, their greedy beggars' hands extended, filth flaking from their hair. Großmutter pulls a ball of yarn from her cloth sack and gives it to them. Did she prepare it just for this? They take it and beg for more. When they see she'll give nothing else, they go back to their game. Not for an instant did they give evidence of even noting my existence. They've seen many more farm boys like me than I've seen beggar boys like them; they know a boy like me carries nothing.

We pass by piles of salted herring and cod from
the North Sea, and furs from Sweden, amber from Russia, lumber from Poland, flax from Prussia. We pass by sacks of raw wool from London, way across the water, and tables of minerals from Brugge, in Belgium.

In the past I've ogled these things. But now my eyes race on in search of damask and colorful rugs. Where is that merchant with the Arab goods? I take a long drink from the fountain in the center of the market square and go back to searching.

Finally we find a booth with a large sack of peppercorns. The merchant is munching on boiled beets. There are no gaudy Arab goods here, only open sacks arranged in two parallel lines. But the merchant washes down his beets with beer from a jug I recognize.

I step forward.

Großmutter catches my elbow and squeezes. She moves ahead of me. “Enjoying that, are you?” she asks the merchant.

“It lets itself go down easy, that's the Lord's truth,” he says.

She looks in another bag.

The merchant sets his meal aside and stands over her. “Ginger,” he says. At the next bag he says, “Cloves.” Then, “Nutmeg.”

But before he can label the next bag, I'm saying, “Cinnamon.”

The merchant nods at me.

“And what're these little dried leaves?” asks Großmutter. “They're an odd color.”

“Ah, that's saffron. It costs seven times the price of those peppercorns you were looking at. A speck colors a whole pot of water gold.” He puts a hand on a hip. “How much do you need?”

“My grandson already bought the spices I needed—a handful of peppercorns for that jug of beer you're swilling.”

The merchant smiles. “Nice lad, he was. Good looking, too.” He crosses his arms at his chest. “So, what can I do for you?”

“Where'd you get these goods?”

“Why're you asking?”

“This lad here is my grandson too.” She pulls me to her side. “I have four.”

The man nods at me again.

“He's sickly, though. He needs medicine.”

The man looks at her. Then he opens his eyes like he's finally understood. “Eastern medicine, is that what you've come for?”

“Arab medicine.”

“That's what I meant. Arab medicine.” He
shakes his head. “I'm not an alchemist. For that you'd have to go to Hannover.”

“Have you been to Hannover?” I burst out.

“Just come from there.”

“Did you hear a piper? A dandy, dressed in red and green and yellow?”

Großmutter glances at me in surprise, for I haven't mentioned the piper to her.

The merchant smiles. “Best music I've ever heard.”

“Then, you'll want to return,” says Großmutter without an instant's hesitation. “And you could bring medicine back from Hannover the next time you come to Hameln town.” She opens her cloth sack and reaches inside, feeling around for something.

The merchant watches her hand in the sack. “I could bring some, sure I could.”

“Something that cures phlegm in the lungs. Something that cures blockages in the gut. Something that cures salt on the forehead and chest.”

The merchant is looking at me now. His face contorted a little when Großmutter mentioned salt. There's a saying in these parts that a child who tastes of salt belongs to the devil. That's supposedly why we die so young.

I really had three sisters, not two. But Gertrude was as salty as me, so it was my job to teach her how to survive. Gertrude didn't listen to me much, though, and she never did learn to stand on her hands. She died before her fourth birthday. She was a year younger than Eike, three years younger than me.

The next year Mother died. But Mother wasn't salty. Bertram said Mother died from grief, his beloved mother. Grief because Gertrude had died. Grief because I hadn't taught the small girl my secrets for survival. I said I'd tried. I said I'd tried so hard. And I had, because I loved Gertrude—and I loved Mother, just like Bertram did. But he didn't listen. He said I should have died too, years before. He took me behind the pig shed and beat me so hard bones broke in my chest. Every breath hurt for a month. My arms and legs turned green with bruises.

Großmutter said Mother's death wasn't my fault. She slept beside me for a whole year, till she was sure Bertram wouldn't kill me in the night. She wove a curse into a blanket, using magical knots and plaits, so that anyone who bore me malice would get burned at touching it. I huddle under it at night, even in the dog days of August. Once I dreamed Bertram came at me with a scythe.
Everyone knows strong dreams come true. So I've never spoken that dream; I won't do anything to strengthen it. Still, since then two sharp stones have lain under my bed within arm's reach.

I look back at this merchant with steady eyes. I'm a child of God's. So was Gertrude. He'll know that the saying about salty children is wrong if only he'll consider my eyes.

“I could try,” he says at last, “sure I could.”

Großmutter gives him a coin. It sits relief-side up in his hand, and I can see the cross in the middle surrounded by a ring of raised dots and then letters circling around the edge. It's a schilling.

The merchant practically jumps at the sight. His hand shuts fast over the coin, and it disappears into his clothing.

I'm just as jumpy as the merchant. I can't believe she's given him a whole schilling. That's worth 144 pfennigs. I've never seen a schilling in anyone's hand but a burgher's.

“If you bring back the medicine,” says Großmutter, “you'll get that much again.”

“Count on me,” he says.

Melis carries in the milk buckets. He's taken over my job because I came down sick again after Großmutter and I returned from town. She said my bellyache made me weak and that's why my chest filled up with muck.

I've been lying around with fever for two days. At first I wanted to get well fast so that I wouldn't miss the boat that's supposed to take me to Höxter in only a handful of days. But then I got worse, and I didn't think about my lessons anymore. My belly bloated and was tender to the touch. When that passed, my chest got so hot and heavy it could barely move. All I thought about was air. Life is getting another breath.

Großmutter says she's too old to climb the stairs a dozen times a day to care for me. So I'm lying in the common room, close to the kitchen. It's good, because this way I can see who goes in or out. Großmutter says it's important that I take an interest in what's going on, that I don't get lost in the delirium.

So I try to pay attention to everything and everyone. No one else pays any attention to me but her, though. They're so used to my being sick all the time and then pulling through that they don't waste energy on worry. They simply go about life without me; I've disappeared for the time being.

Kuh is curled on my chest, eyes closed, purring. My hand is closed over his small head. Every now and then I move my fourth finger to pet his ear, and his purring gets louder. Sometimes I pet just a little harder, and he bites me affectionately. I'm concentrating on not coughing. My throat is raw from coughing, and every cough makes my gut ache.

Melis puts the buckets on the floor and takes a seat at the table. Breakfast is later than usual so that Melis can eat with everyone and they can all go out to the fields together. He pushes his bowl toward Großmutter for her to fill.