The Witch of Cologne (43 page)

J
am waiting, my love,
in a small cottage near the border outside the town of Aachen.

It is simple but comfortable. The widow here was once a noblewoman who fell onto hard times during the Great War. She is a sincere patron of the arts and has nothing but flattery for our ingenious actor. I have received no word of you yet and it has been four days since our arrival. I write this letter in the small hope that somehow you will receive it, either by messenger or pigeon, or perhaps miraculously through the aether of connectivity. Our child is well and happy. He even has a small playmate, for the widow has a grandson of some three years. Of his stay in Cologne he has nothing to say except that ‘Uncle promised him a pony!’ The simplicity of a child is a blessing indeed.

Husband, return swiftly for I fear that to dally longer is to tempt the Fates. ‘Tis strange, for this morning I thought I heard you calling me. I woke and for a moment you were beside me, your sweet breath upon my cheek. But was just a cruel trick of habit…

In Faith, your loving wife, Ruth.

‘Mama! Look!’

Jacob opens his hand, in its centre squats a tiny pink toad. ‘He is smaller than my thumb.’

‘He belongs in the woods, Jacob. You must return him to his home.’

‘But first he shall go to war with a beetle.’

‘Jacob, man must not decide these things. You must let the creature go.’

They are interrupted by the sound of horses approaching. Before Ruth has a chance to stop the child, he is running to the small iron gate of the sloping cottage garden, his short sturdy legs determined to reach his father before anyone.

‘A donkey, Mama! A donkey and a funny little man with a tall man on a horse! But where is Papa?’

Ruth reaches the gate as Alphonso and La Grande ride into view. She waves at the actor but he does not wave back, continuing to ride towards them, face grimly set. Ruth, heart pounding, pulls Jacob off the gate.

‘Go inside, Jacob.’

‘But Mama…’

‘Go!’

The child, frightened by her tone, runs back towards the cottage and is ushered through the darkened doorway by the widow who waits in a panicky fluster of pale muslin.

Alphonso leaps from his horse and strides towards Ruth, his expression impenetrable. He does not speak and she does not ask. She already knows. Faltering in the bright sunlight she steadies herself against the hot stone wall. All switches into sharp relief. The blades of grass, birdsong, the buzzing of a passing bee.

This is it, she thinks, Paradise before the Fall, the moment of futile hope before knowledge. Detlef, my husband, my love, my life.

Catching her arm as she stumbles, Alphonso presses something into her palm. Ruth stares down, then curls her fingers so tightly around the lock of Detlef’s hair that Alphonso fears she will break her hand.

R
uth pours water out of the jug on the washstand in the corner of the bare room and scrubs the grime of the streets from her hands, then splashes her neck with the fragrance of jasmine. The chamber is built into an attic. Sparsely furnished, it contains a three-legged table in another corner, the chest Detlef brought with them from the Rhineland and the glass cabinet he gave her on the eve of their marriage. Over the bare hearth hangs the one possession that has travelled with Ruth throughout her life: Aaron’s sword.

Exhausted, the midwife unlaces her long-waisted dark grey serge blouse and unhooks the full black muslin skirt. She hangs the clothes on the back of a chair then throws a woollen shawl around her shoulders. The room is cold, it is January. Outside, a light snow falls from the early morning sky. Ruth pokes at the dying embers of the fire then glances across at Jacob. He lies sleeping in the bed that they share.

Now almost six years of age, his features are those of a boy, the shape of his mouth and jaw so reminiscent of Detlef that it
sometimes pains Ruth to look at him. She tiptoes over to the child, treading softly for she knows that her landlady, an older widow with four children of her own, rests lightly and will hear any creaking of the wooden floor above her. Ruth pulls another blanket over Jacob. His blond hair falls across his eyes, his fine features wistful in dreaming.

It is almost two years since Detlef’s death. Two summers, two autumns, two winters, during which she has lived a half-life, Ruth thinks, like the water creatures she examines through her lens, swimming slowly, blindly, through thick syrup. The midwife has survived only because of the generosity of friends who have put food in their mouths and the clothes on their backs. If she did not have her son, and if to take one’s life was not a mortal sin, she would have put an end to the Hell she has lived beyond Detlef.

Silently conjuring the image of her dead husband, Ruth rocks herself as she watches the child, remembering those first months of constant weeping, of Jacob coming to her each night crying for his papa, of the folding up of Detlef’s clothes and papers and laying them carefully in the chest that has become the memory-keeper of their lives together. How with every new day she would wake and think for a moment that he was with her, the warm naked length of him stretched out beside her, before the terrible remembering rushed in. Every day for a year.

With no body and no grave to mourn over—for to return to Cologne would have meant certain arrest—Ruth erected her own shrine. A memorial consisting of Detlef’s lock of hair, his wedding ring and a small portrait of his likeness she had painted. It was here that Ruth found herself praying, and when the praying stopped the talking started. Whispering, she would tell Detlef about the domestic things, the financial struggles, the failures and triumphs of her midwifery, Jacob’s first written words, and sometimes, late at night, of how she
longed to touch him, to take his mouth, fingers and hands into her flesh and finally surrender her love in a way she now knew she never had during their time together.

Gradually, reasons for continuing her life crept back: the joy of a successful delivery, a letter from Spinoza urging her to further her work, her mounting research now consolidated into a paper she is trying to find a publisher for, and, most importantly, her son.

Tonight has been long. She has delivered twins, identical boys, but the second babe perished, partly damaged by the birthing hook she had to use to pull him out of the womb. With every inch of her body aching, she stands and goes into the adjoining room.

It is a small chamber with a single window set high, its curved iron casing framing a church spire and a parchment moon plastered onto the indigo night beyond. A wooden desk holding the lens and its mounting stands below the oval porthole.

Ruth pulls out a thick bound notebook and dips a quill into an inkpot. Carefully she sketches the womb with the twins contained, calculating how they must have been sitting for such a disaster to occur. There has to be a gentler way of extracting the baby, there has to be. Ruth sits meditating upon the quandary then, inspired, reaches for her sketchbook.

Later, as she curls up around Jacob, she is gripped by a coughing fit. Pulling the blanket around her, she curses the cold weather.

Benedict Spinoza pushes the shutters open. A warm humid breeze coming off the port enters the room immediately, bringing with it the scent of the city.

‘The air is foul in here, Ruth, you must allow the summer in.’

‘I fear for my lungs.’

‘We all fear for our lungs. Living is a hazardous profession. And in this current climate more so than ever, especially for Republicans.’

He places three oranges on the table. She notices how feminine his hands are, delicate and olive-skinned, unblemished by physical labour.

‘They tell me the fruit is good for the body.’

‘Thank you, Benedict.’

The philosopher sits at the table and looks across at the shrunken woman wrapped in a long fur robe.

How old she has become, he thinks, as if her radiance left the flesh with the death of her husband. But still an unstoppable spirit seems to burn beneath the skin, the indomitable will of Felix van Jos, the shy fierce-eyed youth he once taught. Although she is a remarkable individual, she suffers for her abnormality, her fragile feminine form unable to substain the ferocity of her masculine intellect, he notes. It is this will that is making her sick, she is burning up from within. He was right about the physiognomy of the female mind, he reassures himself, yet marvels at the way her husband loved her regardless. Remembering, he reaches across to take her worn hand paternally.

‘I am not here just as the Good Samaritan. I have also come to tell you that I think I may have found you a publisher.’

Not daring to hope, Ruth looks away. ‘That I cannot believe. I myself have sent the manuscript at great expense to a dozen or so, even beyond the borders of the Netherlands. Not one will consider it.’

‘Jan Rieuwertsz will publish. He has published several of my works, including
Theologico-politicus
, he is a man dedicated to the illumination of
scientia nova.
He will publish
under your own title,
The dangers of birthing hooks, a treatise on gentler methods of midwifery
, and believes he will receive interest from the medical faculties of both Leiden and Oxford.’

Ruth, tears welling up, coughs into a handkerchief and covers her brimming eyes. Spinoza pretends not to notice.

‘How shall I be able to thank you?’

‘You can thank me by taking better care of yourself, Ruth. Now you have the responsibility of a child and of a burgeoning career as a published medic.’

‘I am not a child, I am a man.’

Jacob stands at the door, playing hoop in hand. He stares at the small dark man who has invaded his home.

‘Jacob, it is impolite not to bow. Especially to a great man like Dr Spinoza who is a friend to both your father and myself.’

The young boy cocks his head at the name Spinoza, it is a name he has heard his mother utter in reverent tones to her associates, a name that comes from that mysterious past he can barely remember, the diminishing crystal ball of his childhood and the memory of his father, tall and fair, a flush of excitement transforming his serious demeanour at the mention of this man.

Coughing, Ruth turns back to Spinoza. ‘Forgive my son, he is quick to defend his mother.’

‘As he should be. Come here, my boy. Let me look at you in the light.’

Dragging his feet, Jacob walks towards the philosopher, who tilts his face up.

‘I see that you are both your mother and your father. A beautiful but dangerous collision of two worlds. Do you remember your papa?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you will recall that he was a brave and courageous man who was not afraid to speak out for his beliefs.’

‘And I shall be the same.’

‘An admirable ambition for a six year old.’

‘Are you the same Spinoza that is in our bookcase?’

Spinoza laughs as Ruth blushes. ‘I suspect so. I should wish to be in many bookcases but there are few who dare to read my words.’

‘I will when I am bigger! I’m frightened of nothing!’

‘Fear has its place, but you will learn that in good time. Now go and play, I must speak with your mother alone.’

Ruth stands slowly, coughing again with the effort.

‘Obey Dr Spinoza, but be back before dark.’

Jacob takes a last curious look at Spinoza then turns on his heel. The philosopher bursts out laughing.

‘He has very well-fashioned attitudes for his age.’

‘I have tried to teach him the same humane beliefs my husband and I subscribe to, but I fear a child is born with his nature already formed.’

‘Indeed, but there are graver matters afoot.’

Spinoza closes both the shutters and the door. ‘You know the Orangists have arrested Cornelius de Witt?’

‘Even an ailing midwife knows this. It disgusts me, it is a trumped-up charge. Cornelius would never have plotted against the life of Prince William. Suddenly all these so-called Republicans are blaming the de Witts for France invading Utrecht. Have people no loyalty?’

‘People have short memories when they are terrified of suddenly finding themselves on the wrong side of a bursting dam. Since the attack against Jan de Witt and the proclamation of William as Stadtholder, I fear the next step will be the assassination of our brave leader and a purging of all who support him. We must be careful, my friend. Hide your books, your pamphlets, your writings. It is more important that we survive to speak out again than die silenced martyrs.’

‘I shall be discreet.’

She breaks into another coughing fit, this time more severe. When she has finished, her handkerchief is bloodstained. Spinoza, rising in alarm, pours her a glass of water.

‘You have medication?’

Ruth nods, but her face has a new tautness, the skin beneath her eyes shadowy and blue.

‘I must leave you to rest. I shall visit again with Jan Rieuwertsz when this summer storm has passed and it is safe to walk the streets wearing the colours of the Republic.’

After he has gone, she collapses on the bed, fever pumping at her temples and in the veins of her wrists.

Published at last, she thinks, as exhilaration tears at her agitated body. Her work is to be recognised, to be of assistance to hundreds of women in the future. It is an impossibility come true. If only she could recover her strength, if not for herself then for her child. Perhaps they will be able to afford a warmer dwelling, a tutor even. Jacob must find a livelihood, a profession that will secure his adulthood. Perhaps she can capitalise on the publication, obtain a small teaching post…? As whom? She laughs at herself—Felix van Jos? She has forgotten her sex again. She must be practical, she must…

Fighting delirium, she tries to clarify her waltzing thoughts, new hopes that refuse to stand still but dance like raindrops splashing onto a sundial while the shadows of time turn regardless.

‘…the baby that will not descend should not be forced. A birthing hook that tears open the matrix will result in the death of both mother and child if it should be made of wood and iron. There is a gentler alternative, a loop of cat gut thickened with wax…’

‘Jacob, will you stop your foolishness!’

Ruth, bent over the small desk, quill in hand, pauses mid-sentence, her pale face shiny with strain. Jacob, who is pushing a whirligig around the room, looks at her, his hand hovering over the toy.

‘You are too old for such childish things,’ she tells him, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice.

‘Jacob, sullen, pushes his lip out then kicks the toy into the corner.

‘But, Mama, you said I couldn’t go out to play.’

Ruth lifts herself with difficulty. She is thinner, her skirts hang loose around her hips and beneath her smock her collarbone is a severe arch rising out of a gaunt breast. She looks at her son: the petulant pout she recognises as her own, but it is Detlef’s obstinacy which hangs over the child like a cloud.

‘Come here, I will show you something to amuse you.’

‘No! I am bored! I can’t stay here all the time. It is Rutger’s birthday, you said I could go!’

‘Jacob, you know it is too dangerous.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they have arrested Jan de Witt himself. I explained all this before…’

‘But what does that mean to us?’

Jacob, I am weary. I am only trying to protect you. Come here, I will show you something wonderful.’

Reluctantly, the boy shuffles over to her. For a week now they have been trapped in the small lodging rooms while outside street brawls rage between the Orangists and the Republicans. Battles which began when the young Prince William of Orange finally rebelled against his protector and ordered the arrest of Jan de Witt, the leader of the Republic.

Ruth pulls the magnifying lens towards her then carefully tips a live aphid from a vial onto a glass slide and places the insect beneath the lens.

Jacob climbs onto his mother’s knee. The child is already too big and heavy for her but Ruth smiles into his hair. She has grown to relish moments like this when Jacob, locked in an internal struggle between the restless detachment of boyhood and the need for his mother, reverts to his younger self.

‘Look through here.’

Jacob gazes through the lens, fascinated. ‘Mama! It’s a dragon! Or at least a large green elephant!’

‘It is an insect that feeds on the leaf of the rose. In its world, it is not a carnivore like the dragon.’

‘But it’s green, and hairy! With funny things sticking out of its head!’

‘Antennae.’

Jacob pauses, then looks up at her. ‘Did you show Papa these things?’

‘This and much more. There were many things I shared with him.’

‘What was he like?’

‘You know what he was like.’

The young boy’s face changes expression as he searches back into his memory.

‘I remember walking by the canal with him. I remember the big black cloak he put on when he was going to church and I remember him reading stories to me at night, but Mama, I begin to forget what he looked like.’