The Book of Madness and Cures (18 page)

Manifestations of Solar Madness

“Good to see
you once again, Dr. Mondini.” A shadow hidden at the base of one of the watchtowers detached itself from the wall and stepped forward. “May I walk with you?”

“Of course, Mr. Lochner!” I answered, startled and pleased. It was a chill afternoon, a few days after I had addressed his ulcer. Olmina and I were walking near the silt-brown Neckar River, where the last ocher leaves of fall now huddled under snow along the dark banks. Both of us were back in our proper clothing, but my cloak and skirts barely kept me warm as fitful gusts wheezed through the trees.

Wilhelm Lochner was cloaked in gray, no longer displaying his colors.

Olmina grunted and held fast to my arm as Mr. Lochner offered me his. I didn’t take it.

“How is the leg?” I inquired.

“Healing slowly, but the edges are shrinking.”

“The hemlock’s doing its work. You’re not dizzy, are you?”

“No, no, I’ve had no unpleasant symptoms.” His woolen coat brushed against mine as he drew closer. “I’m glad to see you before our next meeting at Dr. Fuchs’s house.”

Olmina sighed in forbearance.

I ignored her and (willing to be a fool) responded, “I’m glad to see you as well.”

He laughed a little nervously and then asked, “Would you ladies like to join me for a cup of hot brandy? There’s a wonderful inn not far from here where the alewife also serves wine—with a lump of sugar if you prefer. But of course you know the medicinal benefits of our excellent brandy, eh?”

“That would be very kind of you. I could use a little medicine for the melancholia.”

Even Olmina—who enjoyed a sip now and then—brightened and nodded.

We quickened our pace, and as we turned a corner and neared the dense, leafless willows at the base of a pitted battlement, I noticed a place where it formed an angled stone seam, a hidden, sheltered place for lovers.
What if Olmina weren’t here, would I let…, or better still, would I draw Mr. Lochner against the wall and pull his longcoat around me, would I spark desire like flint against the cold?

As we headed up one of the steep streets toward the inn, I noticed that he appeared younger than I, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. I wasn’t old, yet suddenly the daydream fled. My reddish-brown hair hung ragged and short beneath my hat, and my lips felt chapped as I licked them in the bitter air.

A scattered snowfall flew here and there, uneven white flakes like bits of charred paper. Night didn’t fall; rather, day leached from the air and dark caulked the spaces left behind. Gratefully we came at last to the Inn of the Blue Knight, its faded sign (a noble on a white horse with blue livery) wagging crookedly with each snowy gust. We entered a low-ceilinged drinking room that hummed with conversation and muted laughter. We found a snug wooden table near the fire, Olmina sitting next to me on the bench and Mr. Lochner opposite.

I noticed other women in twos and threes with half-covered baskets from the marketplace, round loaves of bread still steamy and filling the air with the simplest sort of pleasure—the scent of barley bread. Many of the customers ate their fresh loaves on the spot, with a bit of honey and a white cheese called
quarg.
Mr. Lochner ordered some for us from the thin-as-a-punt-pole alewife, along with our brandies.

So this was the drinking place for maids, wives, and widows after they’d gone to market. There were a few men here too, tucked into the corners, who seemed strange interlopers, spectators among a roomful of women. The plain creamy cheese, bread, and drink were the finest feast we could have desired at that moment. Soon my throat warmed with brandy. “Truly, Mr. Lochner, I had no idea such places existed for women. In Venetia we savor our wine at home or at the homes of friends.”

He gave me a warm, appraising look and said, “Please call me Wilhelm. May I call you Gabriella?”

“I rather like ‘Dr. Mondini,’ but of course, call me by my given name.”

“And you may call me Lady Olmina,” announced my companion (having quaffed her brandy rather quickly), muffling a guffaw.

I turned to look at her in mild shock, for I’d rarely seen her intoxicated—or even ironic. But her humor pleased me. Wilhelm laughed and asked her, “A bit more brandy for the lady?”

“Oh no!”

“Oh yes!” he said, smiling, as he motioned at the pale alewife to fill our pewter cups a second time.

“Mr. Lochner,” I blurted out, “would you tell us more of my father, for as you may know, he’s become lost to us.”

“Your father was very preoccupied with his book. And you know, he had a sort of rivalry with Dr. Fuchs.”

I’d suspected as much but said nothing.

“There was some question of a cure that Dr. Fuchs felt your father had stolen from him, to redound to your father’s credit in
The Book of Diseases.
Your father insisted that cures should be available to all and not remain the property of this or that herbalist. But Dr. Fuchs wanted to be a coauthor, for he’d been working on a book of simples. Your father left with some ill feeling, I’m sorry to say. I found pages of his book, which I’m sure he didn’t intend to leave behind, in Dr. Fuchs’s study.”

I sat up, surprised. “Do you still have those pages?”

“No, I came across them, but I didn’t dare remove them! I’d be banished from university if Dr. Fuchs found out. He’s my guardian-mentor.”

“I wonder how he obtained those pages. My father is very protective of his manuscript…”

“It would’ve been the last day, when he was departing, so he wouldn’t have missed them.”

“What did they contain?”

“I didn’t read through the whole section—it comprised maybe twenty pages—because I could hear Dr. Fuchs shuffling back to his study. He sometimes let me read his books and write my annotations there…but what I perused had the title ‘Manifestations of Solar Madness, Correlative to Lunacy.’ It explored common and curious diseases, from fevers to solar bedevilment, where a man considers himself to be the very fire in the sky and wanders naked, shedding his light. Or so he believes.”

I lowered my voice. “Where are the pages kept?”

Olmina came out of her happy stupor to chastise me in a loud voice. “What are you thinking?”

“
Shhh!
” both Wilhelm and I exhorted her.

Then he continued, “Dear Gabriella, I don’t think I should reveal that. It might bring you trouble.”

“I would like to add them to my own pages of notes.”

“Ah, you are writing a book, then, too?” He sat up straight and set down the brandy he’d been cradling with both hands. His eyes darkened with interest.

“I was assisting my father.”

“Ooh,” groaned Olmina. She poked me under the table. “You’re saying too much to this stranger.”

“He’s no stranger.”

“Oh yes, he is. You know nothing about him!”

“We know nothing about Dr. Fuchs, really, either,” I declared.

“And you know nothing about me!” She began to get weepy.

I turned to her, chuckling. “Olmina, eat some bread. You’ll feel better. What don’t I know about you?”

She leaned into me and asserted, “I know how to read, for one thing. I taught myself and read your father’s books in the middle of the night when you were all asleep.” She put her head down on her arms on the table.

I stared at her, amazed. “
That’s
why you know so much when we treat the patients. I thought you learned by observing my father and me! What a dullard I’ve been.” I should have been upset, I suppose, but I couldn’t muster it.

“Well, well,” observed Wilhelm, “there are three doctors at this table—one true, one student, and one hidden! To all the doctors here!” He raised his glass, and Olmina and I did the same, all three of us united, conspiratorial now, and grinning.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Olmina mumbled. “Lorenzo doesn’t know—he’d be angry at me for endangering our standing with you.”

I hugged her and promised my silence. She knew how to read, my servingwoman. I was proud, astonished. What else didn’t I know? More and more I saw those closest to me as vast villas with secret quarters, whole wings, perhaps, that were hidden to me.

“My word, to never tell,” announced Wilhelm, with a flourish that signified the brandy had now warmed his brain as well. “And dear Gabriella, beware that your host doesn’t steal your words too. Are your notes safe?”

“Yes, I believe so, but I’ll be wary.”

“We should go,” Olmina said. “It’s getting late. Lorenzo will worry.”

And so, unsteady threesome that we were, we swung back through the deepening cold and darkness to Dr. Fuchs’s house, Wilhelm in the middle, Olmina holding his left arm while I held the right. Somehow we managed to keep one another afloat in this blundering symmetry, chattering and sometimes hooting, until we reached the door. The young servant boy, grinning insolently, let us in before we even knocked. There in the dark entryway, Wilhelm pulled my glove slowly from my fingers and kissed my wintry palm rather than the back of my hand, as I thought he meant to do. The press of his mouth felt hot as a brand.

After rising late the next day, I found myself of two minds. Wilhelm intrigued and delighted me, but already I doubted his intentions. Was he simply curious, or an agent of Dr. Fuchs, seeking information about my father?

In any event, I wanted to recover my father’s papers.

Dr. Fuchs would deny that he had them, so I didn’t bother to ask. Instead I persuaded him that I required the kind use of his library. Unfortunately he remained there in the room with me, writing at his own slanted desk for more than two hours while I pored over his voluminous herbals. All the while, I observed in detail the contents of his study, the dark wood bookshelves, the drawers—in particular the desk drawer where he kept his papers under ornate brass lock and key.

A couple of days passed like this. Outside, winter yielded a little and the enlivening sun returned. I’d learned as much as I could here from Dr. Fuchs and decided, after studying my maps and recalling one of my father’s letters, in which he had fervently mentioned Leiden (“a city of intellectual fires even in deadest of winter”), that Leiden would be our next destination. I sent a letter ahead to Professor Otterspeer, a colleague and friend of my father (who’d stayed with him in Leiden), to ask him to procure us lodging. Then I informed Dr. Fuchs of my plans to leave. He didn’t attempt to dissuade me, and I grew anxious about obtaining my father’s papers. Finally, the evening before we were to depart, I requested a last opportunity with the books.

“Of course, of course, my dear,” Dr. Fuchs consented. “And I should like to read some of your work this evening too, before you continue your journey.”

“Perhaps we could share notes, if you would privilege me with a glance at your volume.”

“That would be impossible.” The doctor looked at me askance. “I show no one my work until it is finished.”

I nodded in assent, although privately I was annoyed at his refusal.

That evening, Olmina joined us in the study. Dr. Fuchs unlocked his desk, pulling out his folio of papers. Then Olmina gently touched his elbow. “Would you like me to prepare some herbal decoction for you, sir? Signorina Gabriella here can vouch for my skill.”

He pivoted heavily on his chair to face her, his moist eyes fixed gently on hers. “Yes, perhaps something to ease my stomach. I’m feeling dyspeptic tonight.”

“Would you like to choose your own herbs, then?” Olmina cannily suggested.

“Ah yes, that would be an excellent idea.”

Olmina extended her arm and shoulder to him, for he was very arthritic and, like many gentlemen of advanced age, suffered from stiff joints. He stared at his feet and leaned into her as they moved toward the door. She glanced at me over her shoulder, indicating the open drawer with her eyes. “We’ll return shortly, signorina.”

As soon as they left, I quickly examined the contents of the drawer, various loose pages of writings and some botanical drawings. There, beneath a folio containing watercolors of tubers, I glimpsed my father’s unsteady script, a writing that seemed scrawled on the surface of moving water.

Quickly I clasped the papers in their plain folio and tucked them into my skirt band, then hurried upstairs to hide them. When I returned, Olmina and Dr. Fuchs still hadn’t come back. I assumed my place by the fire once more and read about the nature of kohlrabi (
Brassica raposa
) and its purifying benefits.

When they returned, Dr. Fuchs didn’t sit at his desk but instead settled heavily in the chair opposite me, where he motioned for Olmina to draw up a seat too. He sipped his hot tea slowly, slurping loudly.

“Gabriella, there is something I must tell you.” He paused. “I’ve hesitated to say this earlier, but…your father was no great friend of mine. He copied some of the notes from my materia medica and then refused to acknowledge it.” He watched my face to gauge my reaction. I remained calm, but his dyspepsia got the better of him, for he muttered crossly, “If you ask me, your father is the worst sort of scholar, a thief ! When he left,
furtively,
one of the copies of my materia medica was missing. It was no coincidence, understand? If you find him, you
must
return it to me!”

I looked down at the engraving of a monstrous cabbage.

“Well, what do you say to that?” he asked, perturbed by my silence.

“If my father committed any offense, I’ll make sure that your work is returned to you, though I can’t believe he would pilfer the work of others.” I spoke boldly, even as I felt a tense knot of doubt forming in my gut.

Dr. Fuchs frowned, then yawned widely, showing his worn molars and three holes in the gums where teeth had been pulled. His eyelids drooped heavily and he rose clumsily with Olmina’s help. Then, to my horror, he shuffled back over to his desk.
What if he notices that I’ve tampered with his papers?
I thought.

He shifted them about and paused as if inspecting something. “You may think he’d never steal,” he said, turning to me, “but we never really know the ones close to us.” Now the doctor spoke thickly. “Don’t resume to know your father—uh, er, presume, I mean.” He gathered his papers, stopped again, and tapped his fingers upon the desk.
What if, in a strange reversal, he decides to return my father’s pages to me?