Cathedral

by Ben Hopkins

  He had thought the Cathedral was Huge, unbelievably high, wide and great. Perfection and wonder and grandeur.

  But it is only the Beginning.

  † † †

  Rettich comes back into the sun, to the building place, to the dusty ground, the blocks of stone, the mortar mixers. Before he can say anything; “Your little brother tells me that you carve. In wood,” says Landolt the Mason. Rettich winks at Emmle, his little accomplice, sits down with them on the large block of purplish stone that is serving them as a bench. Opens his sack and pulls out, at random, a Lamb of God. A little ram, bearing an unfurled pennant on which is written tollo peccati mundi, I take away the Sins of the World.

  “You have letters?” asks the Mason, surprised.

  “No, I copied them—the Priest showed me what to write.”

  Rettich studies Landolt’s face as he holds the Lamb carving in his hands, turns it over again and again. A jab in the ribs comes from Emmerich. It’s his elbow saying, “I told you so. He likes it.”

  “So,” says Rettich. “Is there work for me here?”

  Landolt laughs a small laugh. “You think you can just jump off a boat, throw a Lamb of God at me and get a position?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here’s a boy who wants a position!” Landolt calls out to his friends, who are measuring a stone block with string. They look up, curious. Leave their work, squinting through the dusty sun.

  “You don’t want to join us, boy. Our work is never done.”

  Landolt takes two more carvings from the sack, a Virgin, and a St. Catherine with her wheel, entwined in sunflowers. He makes a whistling noise through his teeth. Rettich peers at him, but Landolt’s face is saying nothing clear.

  The junior masons peer at the carvings, at the Virgin. “This your sweetheart?”

  Rettich blushes.

  “No? Your sister? Can I meet her?”

  The other mason; “Where’s she from?”

  “From my mind.”

  Rettich puts his hat back on. There’s no more need to look humble. Landolt finishes looking at the carvings and looks at him instead. His eyes are bright. “I’ll talk with the Master Stonecutter,” he says.

  † † †

  You cross the Cathedral square, pass the tents where the building workers eat and sleep, turn into the Brüdergass that leads to the monastery, then head for the Mayenzer Tor; you can see it ahead of you, the city’s northern Gatehouse, rising above the rooves. Pass the whitewashed Bishop’s Palace (where Landolt says the Bishop never stays) and then there’s the Schriwerstublgass, a dark narrow street, where the clerks and lawyers are. At the end of that alley, you’re there. Everyone knows it, just ask for the Judengasse.

  Emmerich is nervous, which is good. It’s good because it means that Rettich has to pretend not to be, to be strong, to be the Older Brother, fearless and heroic. Of course they’ve seen Jews before, who hasn’t? But talk to one? Go and stand in Jews’ Alley and ask for their help?

  “Excuse me, sir, Meir Rosheimer? I’m looking for . . . ” The old, white-bearded Jew moves on, shrugging, muttering, hiding his eyes.

  For an alley, it’s quite wide. Two-storey houses rise on both sides, sometimes three stories. One house has its roof down, covered—they’re building a new floor. In the village, he thinks, there’s plenty of space; you can build here there and anywhere. In the city, held in by the walls, there’s only upwards.

  Not many people on the street. There’s a woman coming, swaddled in robes despite the sun, her head covered with a scarf and head-dress. “Madam, I’m looking . . . ” Her dark eyes dart straight to her feet, her tongue clicks in displeasure. He doesn’t exist, not for her.

  Rettich stands, looking somewhat lost, and catches Emmerich’s anxious glance, watching him floundering. A drowning man reaches for anything, and so Rettich strides to the nearest doorway and knocks loudly.

  One, two, three, four . . . Rettich is counting sheep. The herd swarms into the pen, huddling, hiding from the barking dog, seven, eight, nine sheep, no answer at the door, and they keep on coming, the black ones like markers, helping him count, fifteen, sixteen . . . still no answer . . .

  After twenty-one sheep, the door opens a crack and a girl stares out wide-eyed at the two straw-haired Gentile fools on her doorstep. “Erm,” stutters Rettich, “little girl, we are looking for Meir Rosheimer, . . . ”

  “In the study house.”

  “The study house, where is the study house?”

  She looks up to the skies as if it’s a stupid question. “Three doors down.” And she’s gone.

  Three doors down, and, with a lump in his throat, Rettich is looking through the gap in the heavy oak door at the strange sight inside. Here are rows of desks and tables, piles of scrolls and books, and twenty-two Jews (he counts the herd of them in a glance), some sleeping with their heads on the table-tops, some muttering and swaying as they stand at lecterns and read, some talking with each other, a disagreement here, a joke there.

  “Herr Meir Rosheimer! We are looking for . . . Rosheimer,” calls out Rettich through the gap in the door, in his bravest voice, which nevertheless cracks with fear.

  One of the apparently sleeping men turns round. Handsome, strong-featured, full-bearded, with eyes that somehow seem amused. “I am he,” he says. “Let’s go to my bureau.”

  A long, narrow room in the next house. There are five stools, a pitcher of water and five leather cups, an ink pot, a ledger, and a quill. It’s dark, the shutters are closed, but Meir’s eyes glint in the half-light as he peers at the two boys. “Interesting . . . ” he says, “what can I do for you, my Country Eggs?”

  Rettich coughs; “Tell me, how do we do this?”

  Meir Rosheimer’s eyes smile with amusement as he opens the shutters, letting in the afternoon sun. “Well, generally,” he says, “you tell me how much you want to borrow. And then, when you can pay me back.”

  Rettich swallows. “Twenty-seven marks. I will pay you back three marks a year, God willing.”

  A long pause. Meir Rosheimer sits down. Dust dances in the sunlight, like flakes of gold, rising and falling endlessly.

  “Or, in ten years time I can pay it all back. In one go.”

  “In ten years’ time, how much will you pay me?”

  Rettich looks at him, only partially understanding the question. “For each year,” says Rosheimer, “for every ten marks, you pay me one mark.”

  Rettich swallows.

  “You think I should lend you twenty-seven marks for free?” asks Meir, smiling.

  “One in ten, that’s two marks and fourteen shillings.”

  “Well done, Egg, you can reckon . . . ”

  “Two marks and fourteen, that’s your . . . ”

  “My interest in the loan, yes.”

  “So I pay you twenty-seven plus the two and fourteen. It makes twenty-nine marks and fourteen shillings.”

  “If you pay me back a year from today, yes.” Meir looks at Rettich’s uncertainty, sighs. “I said ‘every year’ I take one for every ten marks.”

  “So . . . after ten years I owe you fifty-four marks. For every year, two marks fourteen shillings . . . so, fifty-four in total.”

  “No. It’s more than that. You forgot the interest on the interest.”

  Rettich trembles and a metallic, fearful taste comes to the back of his mouth. He closes his eyes and counts, adding more and more sheep to the pen, and then more and more and more . . . “So after ten years, I owe you something like sixty nine marks, nineteen shillings?”

  Silence. Meir closes his eyes, does his own reckoning. Opens his eyes. “How did you do that?” he asks.

  “I don’t rightly know, sir,” says Rettich. “Am I right, sir?”

  “You’re right.”

  “Hooray!” Rettich grins and slaps his thigh. Emmerich l
ooks at him like he’s lost his mind. Twenty-seven marks has become nearly seventy. Where’s the joy in that?

  “Tell me, young man” says Meir, still curious. “Where did you learn to reckon?”

  “I reckon all the time!” says Rettich. “In the hills at summer, we have all the five herds on the same pastures, and we pitch our tents near each other but then, when it comes to making cheese, it’s each herd for itself. So I say, boys, why don’t we all come together, put all the milk in the same vat, make cheese together, and so we save time, we share boards, sieves, cloths. And the other boys say; but how do we divide the cheese, we all have different size flocks? So I says it’s simple, if we make one hundred cheeses, I take twenty-six, you take eighteen, you take thirty-two and so on, because, you see, I counted all our sheep and there’s three hundred and eighty, and I have ninety-nine, so it means I take twenty-six from a hundred cheeses . . . ”

  “I’m with you,” says Meir.

  “ . . . and it’s fair and everyone benefits. So it’s what I said to them.”

  “And what did the other shepherd boys say?”

  “They didn’t believe me. They thought I was cheating them.”

  “We Jews have the same problem.”

  “Do you never cheat anyone?”

  “An honest customer? No. Never.”

  “A dishonest one?”

  “Well . . . ”

  “And is it really one mark for every ten, every year?”

  “That’s my opening offer. For older, trusted customers, for long term loans we’re more generous . . . ” He sighs. “It depends. There are all kinds of deals. In your case, you would be better off paying me three marks a year, like you said first.”

  “Then I am beholden to you for . . . over twenty years. Twenty-six years or so.”

  Once again, Meir’s eyes widen with acclamation. He leans towards Emmerich. “Are we sure your brother is just a shepherd?”

  Emmerich is no fool. “Just a shepherd? Our Lord was a shepherd.”

  “Let’s not talk about Him.”

  “King David was a shepherd,” ventures Rettich.

  “Let’s stick to business, if you don’t mind, Country Egg. My other question. What is your security? Where is this money coming from, this three marks a year?”

  “I am to be apprenticed as a stone-cutter.”

  “Congratulations. A good trade.”

  “My brother will work somewhere. We have a few possessions in the village to sell.” Now Rettich lowers his voice, “ . . . and twenty sheep the Bishop doesn’t know of, that we can trade. Or loan.”

  “You loan sheep?”

  “For sure. The shepherd you loan to, he keeps their wool and cheese. But when the loan is over, he has to give back a bigger herd. Like you, for every ten sheep, one extra must be given back. Or the difference paid in coin, or wool, or . . . Like you said. There are many ways of doing the deal.”

  Meir smiles, scratches his beard. “Well, I never,” he says. “The usury of sheep . . . ” He looks up. “Listen. I would never loan twenty-seven marks to a shepherd.” He holds up his hands before Rettich can protest. “Nor to an apprentice! But . . . ” He stands, goes over to take the ledger. “You will do well, Country Egg. I’m certain of that. And you’ll be a companion stone-cutter in five years, I warrant, and then you can pay off the principal quicker, if that’s what you want.”

  He opens the ledger. “I am guessing, but if I loan this to you now, we will close this account before thirteen years are over. Do you think?”

  Rettich smiles and nods. Meir turns and looks at Emmerich. “And is little brother as clever as you?”

  “More so,” says Rettich, proud.

  “I need a new Christian servant,” says Meir.

  Emmerich takes fright, looks to his brother.

  “Two weeks trial, and then we’ll see?” asks Meir.

  Rettich encourages him with a look and Emmerich nods. Meir smiles. “I do need a servant. There are many things we Jews cannot do. One day of the week, it is we who are to blame. The other six, it’s you.”

  He has a quill in his hand, and there is an ink pot on the board beneath the window. He looks at Rettich with sparkling eyes. “Your name?”

  † † †

  “It’s you again,” says Eugenius von Zabern, “what do you want?”

  Rettich approaches, bows his head to the canon, aristocrat and elder; three times deserving of his reverence. He puts the heavy kid-leather pouch down on the table, and pulls at the strings so that the soft material flops open. Nestling brightly, a cascade of silver coins, minted one shot of an arrow from the Treasury towards the Vogesentor. Brought across town by Meir Rosheimer and now delivered by Rettich Schäffer (“ . . . you must give it to him yourself, he won’t take silver from a Jew’s hands”) into the coffers of His Grace the Bishop of Hagenburg.

  “I would like to buy our Freedom,” says Rettich, simply.

  “Did you steal it?” asks von Zabern.

  “I borrowed it,” says Rettich. “Like you told me, my Lord.”

  Von Zabern takes a coin in his hand, weighs it in his palm. Shakes his head. “Like I told you? Yes, I told you. But I didn’t expect you to go and bloody do it!”

  † † †

  In the zum Drecke, the drinkers laugh, cheer and clap Rettich on the back. “There, you showed him! That old bastard!” One more Free Man in Hagenburg. One more apprentice for the Companionship of Stone-cutters. Uto laughs and slaps his fat stomach. “It’s a good story, I grant you, Country Boy,” he says, and downs his sweet wine. “Maybe one day I’ll cry it for you. When you become a Companion, I’ll announce you to the world. The name is Rettich, right?”

  “Rettich is the name.”

  “I won’t forget. Once a serf of His Grace. Now it’s the Jew who owns you.”

  Rettich nods, smiling. “But every year he will own me less.”

  † † †

  Rettich sleeps with the apprentices now, on pallets in a shed a stone’s throw from the Cathedral. And when he can’t sleep and all the other boys are snoring . . . then he opens his eyes to the dim thatched ceiling, and imagines that beyond that ceiling are the spheres and the stars, and beyond them all, his father’s Soul.

  “Look, Father,” says Rettich, and in his half-dream holds aloft the sealed parchment from the Bishop’s Treasurer. “Who could have thought it. I did it, I bought our freedom.”

  And his father’s Soul smiles. The room is full of breath. It seems that they, the stone-cutter apprentices, are all together, breathing in and out, and it seems that sleep is like a river, like Father Rhine, drifting gently towards some distant, unknown sea.

  THE CURSE OF NUMBERS

  (ANNO 1229. EUGENIUS VON ZABERN I)

  I am not a bad man, nevertheless no-one likes me. I would have been quite happy, like most of my fellow nobles of Alsace, Aargau and the Rhineland, to live a leisurely life, collect my annual incomes and throw a tantrum when actually asked to do a stroke of work. My family, named for our ancestral township in the Vogesen hills, has had for generations a son placed in the cathedral chapter. And so I inherited this position, I did not acquire it through any quality or talent of my own. But whereas the other cathedral Canons come and go as they please and spend most of their lives hunting, gambling and whoring, I . . . am the Bishop’s Treasurer.

  This is due to the Curse of Numbers, a curse with which I was born. At times, I come across others of my own kind. Just last month I had in my office a shepherd from Lenzenbach who could reckon. The stone-cutters and masons whose constant chiselling outside in the square is the bane of my life; they can measure, they can subdivide, they can reckon. And the Jews, the Jews . . . God knows they can reckon like Satan himself.

  But, sadly, most of the dunces I have to deal with can barely count to twelve.

  This is my curse; to kn
ow that this is a world made of numbers. Once you know this, whether you are a shepherd, a mason, a Jew or a Canon, you cannot stop playing with them, trying them in different combinations, finding patterns, irregularities and secrets in their series and infinities. The words that sealed my fate were spoken by my elder brother, God damn his idle soul. “This is Eugenius, Your Grace, he is good with numbers.”

  “A reckoner?” said the Bishop, and as soon as I took orders, he sent me to his Treasury. And now it’s been eleven years I have been here, eleven years, two months and thirteen days . . . a total of four thousand and ninety-two days. I myself have been Chief Treasurer two thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven days.

  That is a prime number, by the way.

  And I have not counted the amount of money that has passed through my hands since that day. I wish I had. It would be a pretty sum.

  † † †

  Like the farmer and the shepherd in their pastoral paradise, my infernal and cursèd years are seasonal too. I have the joyful spring of the Payment of Tithes, followed by the charming summer of Chasing Defaulters and Debt Collection, the merry festival of the Balancing of the Books, and now . . . my very favourite time of year, the Carnival of Benefices.

  This is the season when reeking priests crawl out of the mouldering woodwork of their churches and crawl towards Hagenburg to be paid. It is also the time in which the Great Families of our local lands, who once upon a time used to fight the Bishops of Hagenburg on the field of honour, now instead take from my hands a big purse of silver in exchange for keeping the peace. And finally, bringing with them the blessed stench of incense, come our friends from Rome. Increasingly in the past years, these have been Agents or Legates, hired by our creditors in the curia to come and collect, on their behalf, the golden fruits of our diocese.

  So now I have before me a Florentine called Renzo, who is working for the Frescobaldi family and who has come to take charge of a consignment of twenty-one barrels of our Bishop’s vineyards’ finest, to be carted to the Saône, and thence downriver to the Mediterranean and all the way to Rome. I ask him for the news from Italy, the health of His Holiness, and for other titbits of news, but he clearly finds my Latin vulgar (how they hate the German accent!), and answers in monosyllables. Very well, the wine I give you will be second grade, you Florentine flounce, and I hope you contract the pox on the way home. “The barrels will be at the Vogesen Tor depot tomorrow,” I say politely, and force a smile.