Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  Hron began by pointing out the cloaked and hooded statue of Death set to one side of the theater. “Death was seen as both a punishment for sin and an escape from the toil and effort of life. The prayers for the dead all repeated the request, ‘grant them rest,’ and the communities of the living and the dead were thought to interact and influence each other greatly. Although many people nowadays reportedly think humans become angels upon dying, the classic view is that angels and humans are two distinct entities and one cannot simply become one or the other. Upon dying, a human did not become an angel but was rather subject to the Judgment of God. Ghosts are those humans who either sought to escape that judgment or were punished by being refused rest by the Almighty. The ghosts and spirits we will encounter this evening are those people who were either especially wicked—one of the themes of our conferences!—or were particularly loathe to quit the places they had lived. Feel free to ask any questions if something is not clear or you cannot hear.” He checked his notes and led the group down a twisting, narrow road.

  As the group set out with Hron from the theater, Magdalena found herself walking beside the two gentlemen from Romania, Wilcox Hammond and Peter Thomlinson, who had been the first to register that afternoon. Father Dmitri and his wife Sophia were also part of the group, as were George Fleischer (the movie star Jesuit from New York) and the stunning Elizabeth O’Cailleach from Dublin. Alessandro, the Australian who was still awaiting the arrival of his luggage, had struck up a conversation with Elizabeth. The gruff younger professor, also from Dublin, was with the group but hung back a few steps and was gawking at the buildings they passed rather than paying attention to Hron’s commentary.

  “Don’t you think he should have gone on the architectural tour?” Wilcox joked to Magdalena, jerking a thumb back, indicating the Irishman a few feet behind the rest of the group.

  Magdalena laughed and agreed. Taking the conversational opportunity, she asked, “How is it that the both of you are here from Romania? Are you visiting professors there?”

  “We get that question anytime either of us goes to a conference,” Wilcox explained in his American accent. “I have joint appointments in Braşov and Passau in Germany. Peter is on the faculty of Edinburgh and comes to Braşov for the spring term, which is when I am there as well. He grew up in Kent and I am from California, but we met in graduate school at Yale and have been stuck with each other ever since.” The two burst into guffaws and Magdalena joined in. She had never felt such an integral part of a group of such illustrious intellectuals. They even seemed to treat her as a colleague, an equal. She was afraid she might wake up and discover it was all a dream.

  Hron led them to what had been the original medical school of Charles University and told the story of the gatekeeper who guarded the gate even after his death and the use of his body in one of the first autopsies—a practice then illegal. Further on, he stopped the group at what had been the medieval vegetable market of the New Town and explained that the ghost of a medieval serial killer who had lived nearby could still reportedly be heard walking along under the arcades in the still of the night.

  He next led them along a narrow street lined with shops and medieval buildings that opened out into the still-crowded Old Town Square. Before them loomed the great Astronomical Clock of the Old Town Hall. The gilding on the statues that surrounded it and the face of the clock, as well as its brass hands and other ornamentation, glinted in the growing gloom of the late dusk. The sky behind the clock was a deep, rich royal blue. A handful of stars scattered across the sky twinkled. To Magdalena, who had seen the clock more times than she could count, it almost seemed as if she were seeing it for the first time.

  A crowd that had gathered to hear the clock strike the hour and see the parade of the statues of the apostles above it was dispersing into the numerous pubs that circled the square. Hron pointed towards the details of the clock for his tour group and regaled them with the tales of its construction and the power associated with it. Hearing his authoritative voice speaking English, a handful of other tourists edged in close to the group to hear the story of the clock too.

  “The Astronomical Clock is one of the most famous sites of Prague,” Hron began. Many nodded, recognizing the famous clock from photos in the guidebooks they had consulted when planning their trips. “It was built in 1410 with the intention of creating another tourist attraction to bring visitors from across Europe to Prague, which was, at that time, the cultural and political capital of the Holy Roman Empire. In order to insure that the clockmaker never made another one to rival it, the Town Council had him blinded upon its completion.” Most of the women in the tour group winced. Some, in the playful spirit that had imbued much of Hron’s commentary on the tour, shrieked and gasped, while the men shook their heads in dismay at the behavior of the Town Council. Father George Fleischer, the priest from New York, and Father Dmitri from Tennessee, glanced at each other and chuckled.

  “If only they knew the half of it! The clockmaker probably got off easy if he only had his eyes gouged out,” Dmitri whispered. “Considering what else was common in those days!”

  “Indeed! If they heard what we hear in confession, their hair would fall out!” George agreed.

  “The clock was considered a masterpiece of scientific workmanship,” Hron went on. “Its hands indicate not only the orbits of the sun and moon through the signs of the zodiac, but also the hour of the day, the day and the month, and the saint or historical event commemorated on that day. It tolls the hour and its four principal guardians—the statues depicting the personifications of Death, Greed, Foreign Invasion, and Vanity—shake their fists at the crowds below to warn them of the dangers of heedless living and remind us all that time will end for each of us, bringing us to our own Judgment Day. The clock is said to be imbued with a power that will keep it running until time itself ends and Judgment Day arrives.”

  Heads nodded and faces looked impressed. Hron led them around to the side of the building and pointed out a number of crosses marked in mosaic on the ground.

  “In fact, some of Prague’s most illustrious ghosts are so certain of the clock’s ability to mark the end of time that they come to inspect it every year and see if they are condemned to continue their restless wandering for another year,” he proclaimed. “These crosses in the pavement commemorate twenty-seven Protestant gentlemen—including the director of the medical school who began the practice of illegal autopsies—who conspired to establish a Bohemia independent of the Hapsburg Empire and were beheaded here in 1621. Their heads were displayed on pikes on the Charles Bridge before they finally rotted away and dropped into the river. Since that time, the twenty-seven ghosts are said to rise from the river and visit the clock every year on June 21, the anniversary of their executions. They come to see if the clock’s hands have stopped—and their vindication by God has arrived.”

  The tour group hovered around the crosses on the ground, as hesitant to step on them as if they were the bodies of the decapitated conspirators. Magdalena had heard the story many times as a child, but hearing it now, for the first time in many years and for the first time since her nocturnal encounter with Fen’ka and Jarnvithja under the Charles Bridge, she considered the possibility that the story might be more than folklore. If Jarnvithja was indeed the troll who protected the dead consigned to the river, might she not also have responsibility for the twenty-seven executed gentlemen? Might the reports of their annual inspection of the Astronomical Clock be true? It was not impossible that Jarnvithja allowed the men to come each June to see if time had stopped. Magdalena resolved that she would wait at the clock the next year on the night of June 21 to see if the dead men did come from the river.

  Then she wondered, “But if the vindication of the Protestant nobility will only come when the clock stops running, must the clock be stopped before Fen’ka can be vindicated?”

  Hron observed a moment of silence in honor of the executed men before leading his audience across the square to th
e small street running alongside the church of Our Lady of Tyn. Its fantastic towers and fairy tale buttresses soared into the night sky. The academics, who had difficulty staying together as they crossed the dark and crowded square, regrouped behind him and looked up at a window he was pointing towards.

  “This window is said to have been that of an Italian prostitute who was killed in the church beside us, Our Lady of Tyn, by the parish priest in a fit of rage. Since his death, he has been seen several times haunting this street, walking behind the church and stopping here below her window to stare at it.” Hron then drew their attention to the decorative stonework below the sill in the building behind the church.

  “A later renovation of the building celebrated the notoriety of the former tenant and marked the window as the object of the ghostly priest’s attentions. The carving, as you can see even in the light cast by the streetlight, depicts two round and fulsome breasts spilling out of a young woman’s bodice!” Everyone listening to the professor laughed. Some blushed. A few shook their heads.

  Hron pointed to the square behind them. “Our lusty priest is far from the only ghost who populates this area. In fact, the square seems to be a magnet for the restless dead. Kafka is said to been seen stalking the square, as are two wealthy merchants of the Middle Ages. Each has been seen entering the square from opposite corners and attempting to give coins, unsuccessfully, to the living. It is rumored that one was a wealthy but miserly man who now attempts to ease his misery by giving alms while the other was a wealthy and generous merchant who attempts to continue his habit of giving aid to those in need.”

  The tour-goers shifted their positions slightly as Hron pointed across the square at an angle toward the castle across the river. “Another miserly ghost is said to wander the New Town below the castle. This miser, a woman, is reported to have given a counterfeit coin to a monk as a donation. Her ruse was discovered the next day; alas—she was found in her bed, dead, the mark of the coin branded into her forehead!” Groans erupted from his audience, accompanied by mutterings of disgust as well as a few titters.

  Turning again, he indicated the neighborhood behind the church.

  “One of the churches next to the old German merchant neighborhood, which has been rebuilt several times, holds a particularly gruesome relic. A large but withered limb is on display, said to be the arm of a thief that was caught by the statue of the Virgin Mary. When the parishioners—the guild of butchers—arrived in the morning, they extricated him from the statue’s grasp the only way they knew how: they cut his arm off!”

  More gasps and groans burst from the tour-goers.

  “How awful!” whispered one woman, a professor of cultural studies from Canada, grimacing.

  “How primitive!” agreed her film critic husband, who grinned broadly in delight.

  “That concludes the tour portion of this evening’s entertainment,” Hron announced, bowing slightly. A round of applause burst from the conference-goers. “However,” he continued, “we have arranged for all the Ghost Tour participants to have a round of drinks at the pub here.” He pointed to the tavern fewer than a dozen steps away. “In addition to the round of drinks, in the spirit of the Ghost Tour, there will also be a tarot card reader available for those who would like to divine what awaits them in these coming days—both here in Prague and after you return home!” More applause and laughter. Magdalena, taking her cue, stepped to the gate of the tavern to guide the tour-goers to their seats and announce their arrival to the bartender. Hron slipped away, obviously trusting that the group would be well cared for by Magdalena.

  The pub had several outdoor tables set aside for the ghost tourists. As they made their way around the pub’s small yard and settled into the chairs, Magdalena stepped inside to catch the bartender’s attention. A waiter was immediately dispatched to get the drink orders for this first round, which Hron and Theo would be billed for. Conversations bubbled up all around the tables in the yard as conference-goers introduced themselves to those they had not met yet and other conversations picked up where they had left off earlier in the afternoon or during the tour. In the genial confusion, the card reader arrived. She was a short, stocky older woman with close-cropped iron-gray hair and small gold-hoop earrings whom Magdalena recognized from a group of a half-dozen women who took turns doing readings at a coffeeshop across the river. Hron had asked Magdalena to arrange for a suitable reader and she had contacted one of the women at the coffeeshop but had been unsure which would actually appear.

  Magdalena introduced herself to the reader, who introduced herself in turn as Dusana. When Magdalena introduced her to the group, there was applause mingled with cries of “Welcome! Nice to meet you!” in a cacophony of accents. The group was in a very friendly mood, helped along by the drinks that had appeared on the tables. Dusana pulled up a seat to join the table nearest her. She seemed at ease and asked the waiter who had appeared at her elbow to bring her a traditional Bohemian ale. Magdalena suspected the woman had become accustomed to doing readings at parties and events, in addition to the occasional evening in the coffeeshop.

  “Will she tailor the readings to all be positive and fun?” Magdalena wondered, curious to see a professional reader in a situation like this. Very different from her private reading in New York last spring. The Jesuit from New York appeared at her side and began making small talk, distracting Magdalena from the readings she had hoped to overhear.

  Dusana shook hands with everyone at her table and pulled her deck of tarot cards from her shoulder bag. She shuffled them and turned to Wilcox sitting beside her. Without asking if he would like a reading, she instructed him, “Shuffle three times the deck,” in thickly accented English. The handful of fellow ghost tourists sitting at the table laughed and leaned forward, eager to hear the reading. Wilcox smiled and goodnaturedly shuffled the deck as Dusana sipped her ale.

  “I always thought no one but the reader should touch the cards,” Wilcox said, returning the deck to Dusana after he had followed her instructions.

  “Many readers—they do say that no one but they should touch the cards,” Dusana agreed. “But I, I always feel that it is the action of the—how do you say in English?—the action of the… the seeker on the cards that makes it truly the reading of the seeker. It is the reader and the seeker working together that helps the cards to speak.” She shuffled the deck again and cut the cards before swiftly placing three cards in a row on the table.

  “There is no time tonight to do a long reading for each of you,” Dusana explained to the table full of faces that leaned forward to see the cards in the pools of light on the table cast by the lights in the pub’s yard and outside the pub’s walls on the street. “But I can tell you what brought you here to Praha, to our beautiful Prague, what you will find here, and what you hope to take away from Prague.”

  She drew her upturned palm across the cards before her. (“A nice theatrical touch,” Magdalena noted, able to keep at least part of her attention on the readings. She did not want to be rude but wished George would talk to someone else for a few minutes so she could be more attentive to Dusana and the cards.) Dusana studied the cards a moment and then began speaking.

  “What brought you here?” she asked Wilcox. “This card, the Page of Wands, tells of study and of knowledge. This second card, the Three of Cups, says that you will find friendship and… and celebration here. But what will you take away? The Ten of Cups tells of achievement and success.” She looked up at Wilcox. “Do you have question about any card in particular?”

  Wilcox leaned over the cards and then pointed to the Ten of Cups. “This one,” he said. “Tell me more about this one.”

  Dusana sipped her ale again but continued to hold her glass as she expanded her interpretation of the card. “The Ten of Cups. It shows a family dancing and celebrating under a rainbow with their village in the distance. They have each accomplished what they have hoped to do. They have seen beauty in the world around them, yes? More than that, their village
have all worked with them to achieve this thing and celebrate their… success as well. This celebration, this party that will result from your coming to Prague—this is the result of your study and love of learning.” She looked up from the cards. Wilcox, still leaning over the cards, nodded several times slowly as he took in all her words.

  Finally, he smiled. “Thank you.”

  “You are very welcome,” Dusana answered. Looking around the table, she asked, “Who is to be next?”

  “Oh, can I be next?”

  “Do my cards!”

  “I’d love a reading!”

  Several voices all broke out at once, and they all burst into laughter. Dusana smiled and scooped up the cards. She shuffled them and gave the deck to Sophia, the wife of the Orthodox priest, who sat across the table from Dusana, as did Elizabeth.

  Still laughing, Sophia shuffled the cards and returned them to Dusana, who continued the shuffling before cutting the deck and placing three cards face up on the table.

  “This is very strange!” Dusana exclaimed. “In a reading of only three cards, to have one of the Major Trumps—that might be common. Even two Major Trumps? Maybe. But—here all three cards are Major Trumps! Very unusual! Very unlikely!” She pointed at them one by one and interpreted their meanings.

  “The Hermit here is… he is backwards. He is upside down. He shows many voices in your head. So many voices that you cannot hear yourself think. These voices, this noise in your head… they maybe even drive you to our Prague to escape this noise. What do you look for here in Prague? The Star, one more of the Major Trumps, it is a card of hope. It is new wine, it is joy, it is the second chance. As you leave Prague and go back to your home, the Hanged Man is the card of… How can I say it? A dying man sees, he knows precisely what is important and what is not. But what do all three cards mean together?” Dusana thought while her listeners enjoyed their drinks.