[Master Mercurius 02] - Untrue Till Death

by Graham Brack

  I saw no sign of it, but I resolved to take my cloak with me; if nothing else, it would please the old lady that I had heeded her advice.

  Later that morning, I was admiring the Pieterskerk. I am the last man to question the multiplication of churches, but since this fine old church could not have been more than a couple of hundred paces from the Dom, I was not clear why it was needed. A few minutes’ conversation with the verger soon put me right, because he thought exactly the same thing, but pointed out that his church predated the cathedral. The Pieterskerk foundation can be dated to 1039, whereas the present cathedral was only begun in 1254, though he conceded that there had been a church or chapel on the site before that. Thus, he claimed, the proper question to ask was why Utrecht needed the cathedral.

  I admired the pair of towers at the west end, the whole building seeming to my eye to be much better proportioned than some grander churches. When I said this, the verger’s chest swelled with pride and he suggested I might care to ascend the pulpit and say a few words, where I would discover how fine the acoustics were. Not trusting myself to say anything extempore, I stuck to the Lord’s Prayer and found that the verger’s boast was not vain. I could make myself heard quite easily; and I will admit that the thought crossed my mind that if ever I were to have a parish of my own, this one would suit me very well.

  The chances that such a thing might come to pass were not great, of course; while my bishop was keen that I should not advertise my Catholicism, I think he might have bridled a bit if I accepted a Reformed parish. And I will allow that my ideal had always been the academic life rather than parish duties, but in that sunny hour I found myself fantasising about having the care of souls in an agreeable city with a beautiful and accomplished wife to support me, and the leading candidate was less than five minutes’ walk away.

  It crossed my mind that Janneke and I might take a pleasant stroll together in the afternoon if she was at leisure, but I was not too sure what the etiquette might be for a gentleman calling upon a young lady when he knows her father is not at home, so instead of knocking at the door I fell upon the happy plan of walking back and forth along the street in the hope that we might bump into one another.

  And so it proved. I was on my eighth passage in front of her house when she and her mother turned into the street. I feigned surprise at this felicitous accident and suggested that the two ladies might walk with me to a tea-house, if Utrecht boasted such a thing, and I would be honoured if they would join me in a pastry or two; or possibly six in her mother’s case. This last thought went unsaid; even I am not so lacking in tact.

  We wandered down to the waterside and walked through the park, I taking pains to converse with both the ladies equally, flattering the mother on the elegance of the lavender silk gloves I could see in her basket and complimenting the daughter on anything I could think of. I could see that the gloves had been newly bought, and I will not deny that I could not think when a married woman might wear a colour other than black with propriety, but I suppose we must allow the fairer sex their indulgences. Certainly if Janneke van Leusden had asked me for any number of pairs of gloves, I should have done my utmost to meet her desire without delay.

  Speaking of desire, I suddenly became aware that I was very flushed and dabbed at my brow with my handkerchief.

  ‘Why, Master,’ said juffrouw Van Leusden, ‘you must be very warm with your cloak on. Pray divest yourself of it, if it will make you more comfortable. I am sure neither of us will think it improper.’

  I had completely forgotten that I was wearing it, and felt rather foolish. ‘The Professor’s wife suggested I might need it. She thought a summer storm was possible after so many hot, humid days.’

  ‘Mevrouw Van Diest is a knowledgeable woman,’ mevrouw Van Leusden allowed, ‘but I think she may be mistaken. It is a fine afternoon.’

  I shrugged off my cloak, rolled it and tucked it under my arm. ‘Indeed it is,’ I said. ‘Now, what about some dainty sweetmeats?’

  I walked the ladies home and returned to the Professor’s house in good time to wash and tidy myself up before the planned meeting at six o’clock. The water was very welcome after being outside on such a sultry day, especially with a completely unnecessary cloak, and I dowsed myself thoroughly in it, giving my hair a good wash at the same time. I know that several eminent surgeons hold that washing one’s hair is a sure way to induce fevers and mental disorders, but I have done it since I was a boy — or, more accurately, my mother and grandmother did it to me — and I believe my mental powers to have been unaffected as a result; there again, old Walther who kept the mill along our lane washed his hair regularly too and believed himself to be the brother of a donkey, so I suppose definitive disproof of the surgeons’ hypothesis still eludes us.

  The Professor was scribbling away when I entered the chamber, so I kept my silence until he laid down his pen.

  ‘Master! Forgive me, I was deep in thought and did not notice you.’

  ‘Not at all, Professor. I know how important it is to capture ideas while they are still fresh in your mind.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so. I hope you have employed your time fruitfully?’

  ‘I have indeed,’ I answered, hoping that he would not ask exactly what I had been doing.

  ‘Capital. So many men waste time, Master, and forget the wise maxim of Seneca — non accipimus brevem vitam sed fecimus.’

  It is a strange feature of the human brain that where it achieves some tasks in one language perfectly well, and other tasks in a second language just as well, switching between the two can be very tricky. In my philosophical writings I use Latin, and I must admit that I do not translate anything into Dutch because I do not need to. I hear Latin and I reply in Latin, and all is well; and when I converse with colleagues, we will use Latin. But if I speak to my grandmother, who has no Latin, I use Dutch which is, after all, my mother tongue. Yet I often cannot easily translate the Latin into Dutch without feeling dissatisfied with the result. In this case, Seneca’s maxim means something like “We don’t start with a short life; rather we make it short,” but I wish I could express it better.

  Van Leusden and Johannes Voet arrived punctually and we began our meeting, which treated of the loyalty or otherwise of the important men of the city. Some names were readily assigned to one list or the other, but there was rather more discussion about others and in the end a third list had to be started where the three men did not agree.

  I was pleased to note that although Van Leusden and Johannes showed every deference to the old man, they did not meekly allow him to have his way on all points. I forget the name, but when a brewer was mentioned, Gijsbert Voet would have placed him on the list of potential traitors whereas Van Leusden was convinced that the man was loyal to the House of Orange. Johannes whispered to me that if the man had pursued a more respectable trade there would have been less argument, but his grandfather believed that drunkenness was an appalling sin and blamed the brewers for it. This, it seemed to me, was much like blaming those who knitted blankets for the debauching of women, but I was maintaining a careful silence and casting the occasional glance at the street outside, where it seemed the Professor’s wife’s prediction was coming true, for there was a sharp, icy shower which seemed to be becoming more intense.

  At one point the Professor became concerned that they may be overlooking someone, since they were producing names from memory, and Van Leusden remarked that this was easily overcome because they might borrow the alms register from the church vestry. This is not, as one might suppose, a list of the gifts received, but of the people from whom gifts might be expected, compiled on a systematic basis rather like a local census, and it seemed a very sensible idea. Van Leusden volunteered to fetch it, but he had not realised how foul the weather had become. I offered to go instead, since I had a cloak, but Van Leusden remarked that he was the best person to retrieve it, since he knew exactly where it was.

  ‘Then by all means take my cloak,’ I said. ‘I
t will protect you from the storm.’

  Van Leusden thanked me and donned it. Having checked that he had the keys he needed in his pocket, he stepped out into the rain and we watched him trot across the street and turn into the square that housed the Dom.

  We returned to our seats when suddenly there was a mighty roar. It is not an easy noise to describe but, as I dictate these notes, it sounds as clear in my mind as it did then. We had no idea what had caused it — I think it must have been the towers of the Pieterskerk collapsing — but within moments there was a loud crack as a roof tile flew through the window of the room and several panes of glass were blown in. The noise was deafening as a mighty wind tore through the city from the south, and within a few minutes it was replaced by an even louder sound and a rumbling of the earth beneath our feet. I had never experienced an earthquake, and it would be idle to deny the fear I felt as the floor trembled.

  Johannes reacted first, pushing his grandfather into a chair and lifting it bodily towards the back of the house. I ran to help and together we shielded the old man. We were bombarded by books flying off the shelves, and Johannes was struck by a wine bottle which cracked against his head, but he kept his post and by the grace of God the Professor was kept unscathed.

  The storm must have persisted for above twenty minutes, though it seemed at the time to have been a good part of my life, not to mention the likely end of it, but finally the wind quieted and we could hear it move through the town to the north. The house had sustained considerable damage but it was intact. Tiles and glass had suffered badly, but those could be replaced. Johannes and I stepped outside, and we could at once see that the rest of the city had not fared so well.

  The familiar twin towers of the Pieterskerk had fallen; the frontages of the houses to our right had tumbled inwards and whole roofs had vanished — one was found two streets behind — but the biggest shock was the sight of the Dom. Or, more accurately, where the Dom should have been.

  Johannes and I stood open-mouthed. The bell tower had some damage, but was largely intact. The chancel towards the east end was in good order, apart from its glass. However, the entire nave, the long central section that joined the two ends of the cathedral, had vanished. Piles of stone littered the square, but we were spurred into action by the piteous cries of injured people.

  We ran to the first we heard, a poor fellow who was pinned to the ground by a stone block that must have been at least four feet long in each direction. We could not lift it to give him any relief, and each attempt at movement caused him agony in his injured leg which lay beneath the block. It seems callous to rejoice that he soon died, but it must have been a blessing in view of the great pain he was suffering.

  We next attempted to free a woman who had been fortunate enough to fall between a couple of pews, creating a small space and shielding her from the falling masonry that had landed on them. She was dusty and shaken but largely unharmed. As we lifted a section of wooden roof beam she crawled free, at which point Johannes suddenly cried out, ‘Where is Van Leusden?’

  If he had reached the vestry he should have been safe, because that part of the Dom was still sound, so that was where we first went, Johannes leading the way.

  The door was unlocked and open, but there was no sign of Van Leusden. Johannes wanted to check the contents of the coffer, but it was locked, and it was some moments before he could find his own set of keys.

  ‘The register is gone, so I deduce that Van Leusden arrived here safely. But he would never have left the door unlocked.’

  ‘He would if he feared for his life,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he was here when the nave collapsed and ran outside to help.’

  We searched around the wreckage as best we could. It seemed heartless to leave injured people while we looked for Van Leusden, but we needed to know what fate had befallen him.

  It was growing dark before we found him. His body lay on a large stone at the south west corner of the nave. A large dent in his temple and a considerable amount of blood showed that death must have been instantaneous.

  We stood and said a prayer over his corpse and then wondered what to do next.

  ‘I don’t suppose you want your cloak back urgently,’ said Johannes.

  We used the cloak as a sort of hammock to carry him back to the Professor’s house, where the old man showed his distress at the loss of Van Leusden.

  ‘Just an hour ago he was sitting opposite us,’ he whispered. ‘It is a reminder to us all that we know not the day nor the hour of our deaths.’

  Since the Professor could reasonably expect to be closer to his own demise than I to mine, he could be forgiven for a morbid thought, but he was right. We cannot know when God will call us home, and therefore we must keep our lives in good repair lest we fall into the pit.

  Deliana van Diest supervised Anna in the washing of the body, while Johannes said that he should go to inform Van Leusden’s wife and daughter of the lamentable tidings. I had no appetite to join him, but I knew my duty, and we picked our way through the debris on the streets to his house.

  A chimney lay on the ground in front of it and there was an ugly gash in its roof, but it was substantially unharmed. We could see the women looking anxiously from a window.

  ‘It will come better from me,’ murmured Johannes as we came to the gate, and he strode ahead.

  The door was open before we knocked.

  He bowed respectfully. ‘May we come in?’ he asked.

  The women stepped back and we entered. I closed the door behind us to give them some privacy in their anguish.

  ‘I am sorry to be the bearer of terrible news,’ said Johannes, ‘but I am afraid Bartholomeus has been killed in the storm.’

  I am not unused to distress. As a clergyman I have often attended people at the hour of their death and seen the misery of their families, but rarely have I heard such a wailing as the two ladies produced. I had earlier felt uncharitable thoughts towards mevrouw Van Leusden which I now regretted as I watched the tears run down her cheeks; whilst I can hardly express my own pain at seeing Janneke’s reddened eyes as she sobbed uncontrollably. Whatever the propriety of the situation, I felt the urge to wrap her in my arms. Johannes did the same to her mother, which made it feel less improper somehow.

  At length we persuaded them to sit and we told them all we could of the circumstances attending his passing. We said we had found his body ourselves, which was being cared for by the Professor’s wife personally; that he cannot have suffered since his wound was great, and that they should prepare themselves for a distressing sight if they wished to view him one last time, but that it might be better if we took one of the coffins from his store and bore him home therein, to which they agreed. We had not thought it then, but coffins were to be in short supply in Utrecht for some time to come.

  We carried the empty coffin easily enough, but we had to find a couple of strong men to help us make the return journey with Van Leusden inside. We placed the coffin on a pair of trestles as would have been done for any other body delivered to the workshop. Despite our warning, Janneke insisted on lifting the lid to see her father one last time.

  In truth, the Professor’s wife and Anna had done a very good job of cleaning him up. With the blood washed off and his hair brushed over the wound, he looked quite peaceful. I was relieved to see that he was no longer wearing my cloak; it was not so much the expense of a replacement as the fact that I would be without one for a day or two that concerned me.

  ‘Where is the wound?’ Janneke asked me.

  I pointed to the side of his head, whereupon she lifted the hair and examined it closely by candlelight.

  ‘It has been well concealed,’ she announced. ‘I could not have done better. Mercurius, will you say a prayer for him?’

  I did as I was asked, and we sat for a while in vigil. Johannes then excused himself, saying that he must see that his grandparents were attended to, and I was once more alone with the two women, neither of whom showed any indication of a desire
to go to sleep.

  ‘My father was a good man,’ Janneke said simply. ‘Why would God allow such a thing to befall him?’

  This was neither the first nor the last time I would be asked such a question, and I still do not have an answer that entirely convinces me.

  ‘God’s ways are not our ways, and therefore we cannot presume to know the mind of God,’ I offered.

  ‘Perhaps there is no reason,’ she continued. ‘Perhaps there is no God.’

  ‘Child! You cannot say such a thing!’ her mother expostulated. ‘You must forgive her, Master, she has —’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ I interrupted. ‘To doubt is natural in the circumstances. It will pass.’

  ‘I find it easier to believe in no God than in a cruel one,’ Janneke said, dabbing her copious tears from her cheeks while they continued to drip from her chin onto her gown.

  ‘We live in hope that one day we will be admitted to Paradise,’ I said. ‘To do so, we must die; and though that will be hard for those left behind, we would not want our loved ones not to have the chance to enter Heaven.’

  Janneke nodded dumbly. ‘He will surely be admitted,’ she said. ‘There will be few more deserving.’

  I was reminded of a passage, and opened my New Testament at the Book of Revelation, chapter 14. ‘“Then I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, the dead which die in the Lord, are fully blessed. Even so saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours, and their works follow them,”’ I read.

  It was a long night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Morning came, and the three of us still sat around the coffin of Bartholomeus van Leusden.

  Johannes appeared, bearing a small basket. ‘I have brought some bread from my kitchen,’ he said. ‘You haven’t eaten.’

  ‘I cannot,’ answered Janneke.

  ‘You must,’ he insisted gently. ‘Your father would not want to see you neglecting yourself. His dearest wish would have been to see you happy in life, and we must do all we can to fulfil that desire.’