An Elegant Solution

by Paul Robertson

  “Caiaphas?”

  “Yes, him!”

  “Did he do any of those?”

  “No, I only saw him the one first day.”

  “He was here this week. He came in the coach. There was a boy, Abel, who drove the route, and Caiaphas came and a gendarme Foucault.”

  “For what?”

  “For an Inquiry. For Knipper.”

  “Knipper, now when I get him I’ll wring his neck. Where was he? I’ll murder him.”

  We came about a curve, and far off the steeples of the Munster and Saint Martin’s and the Preacher’s Church and Saint Blaise and Saint John all stood up from the fields. And closer, gawkers by the road were pointing and waving. I thought furiously.

  “What did Caiaphas ask you?” I asked him.

  “There it is.” Now, Willi had his eye on Basel. “Batwing, you mean?”

  “He threatened you if you didn’t answer?”

  “Look out there at the people. What’s the news? Is it the plague they’re waving at me for?”

  “What else did Caiaphas ask you?”

  The closest knot, a half dozen children, were running to meet us.

  “Well, he asked about that dust-eaten trunk, and why they’d sent it to him.”

  “Sent it?”

  “It had Caiaphas’s name on it! That’s why I want Knipper, to wring his neck. And you! You’re the one who told me to get it.”

  “Knipper sent me to get you.”

  “You say. I never saw him.”

  “He wasn’t in Master Johann’s kitchen?”

  “No, he wasn’t. And I had to lug that trunk myself onto the cart.”

  “But it was sent to Caiaphas? Who sent it? Was there a label on it?”

  But I’d lost his attention to the crowd. “What are they saying?” The children were running beside the coach, and their elders were waving Willi to stop. I dropped myself from the box and wasn’t noticed.

  I was glad I had my grandmother to talk to at night. As we would eat dinner, she’d ask sharp questions, which seemed to cut through my thoughts and confusion.

  “You didn’t tell the coachman that Knipper was dead?” she asked.

  “There wasn’t an opportunity. I didn’t realize that Willi didn’t know until we were already with the crowds, and it seemed poor to kick him with the news and then jump off.”

  “So he heard it from the crowds instead.”

  “He must have,” I said.

  “What does it mean that the trunk was sent to Magistrate Caiaphas?”

  “I don’t know. There must have been a label.”

  “Does Willi read?”

  “No. He must have had it read it him. Maybe in Freiburg.”

  “And are you done with this day, Leonhard? Are you getting your writing done?”

  “I am, but not tonight. I’m back over to the Inn. I’d like to hear what Willi’s saying.”

  The Inn was crowded. Willi was toward the back corner but not too close into it, so there was room all around him. His head was down and he looked to be displeased at the attention, but anyone knew he couldn’t escape it. And maybe he didn’t hate it so much anyway, because he looked up to answer the questions as they came, and he answered them full, or even overfull. Then I saw Gustavus at the counter, and I could see that he’d ordered Willi to keep the room full and occupied. Strife and gossip both put silver in Gustavus’s pockets.

  The men asked about the cell he was kept in: “Foul and evil, that we’d never put a man in Basel, vermin’ed straw and mealy bread that might crawl on its own.” The town itself: “Rats in every street and every house, and stinking water for drinking, and more stinking air to breathe.” And the inn: “The Broken Shield’s a swine pen of mud and filth, close and narrow and tight and food no better than the pigs would eat.” And in return, the throng told him over and over of Knipper, “what a stir that was, cursing, and rabble threatening. Opening the trunk and Knipper bundled in it like rags, and Caiaphas like a wolf at bay with the crowd like he’d blast them, then Faulkner arriving like lightning.”

  I had more that I’d have asked him, that I very dearly wanted to, but there would be no quiet moment with him that night. And it was common knowledge that he’d be away in the morning to Bern, as much as he was making it known that that would be his last drive and he’d never even look out the Blaise Gate toward Strasbourg.

  And I noticed of course that Daniel wasn’t in the room; he was as noticeable absent as present. It must have been that he knew he’d have no chance for anyone’s attention on that night. Nicolaus was there for a while. I remained after he left, watching. There seemed to be many more than should have fit in the room, and more speaking, until the air itself, which was all smoke, seemed to be just faces and voices. The fire was the source of it. The smoke filled the room with mumbling. Something was burning in the fire more than plain logs. I edged close to it.

  In the ashes of wood consumed and forever lost, I saw one small piece on the edge of the embers, charred but resistant to burning, at least to that fire. It wasn’t rough timber but a finished flat surface, the remnant of a planed plank. And that one part that the fire couldn’t chew had the Logarithmic spiral etched into it just as I’d seen it before in the Watch’s barracks. I took that remnant from the hearth and left.

  My grandmother was still in her kitchen when I came home. It was a smaller room than Mistress Dorothea’s and was only used to cook for us two. I liked it better. Usually we had our meals at its table, where the larger kitchen in my Master’s house was never used for that. The fireplace was just large enough for a nice fire and two pots. There was a niche in the stones for baking bread. Four good cupboards held all the pots and pans, and plates and cups, and knives and forks and spoons. The table was as sturdy as the trees it was made from, by my great grandfather who was pastor in Saint Leonhard’s before my grandfather and father. That table would be used for generations more, for kneading, for chopping, for washing, for all the uses my grandmother put it to. It was also where my grandmother read her Bible, so it was sanctified and holy, and that was irrevocable.

  When I set the charred spiral on the table to show her, my grandmother looked at it long and hard but didn’t touch it.

  “Why would the trunk have been burned?” she asked.

  “It must have been better burned than not for someone.”

  “Who would have taken it from the barracks to the inn?”

  “Only Gustavus would dare burn it in that hearth. Someone hired him to.”

  “Who would have?”

  “Master Gottlieb says there’s no need for me to know.”

  Then, in my room later, I put the spiral on my dresser beside the conch shell.

  As I collected water the next morning, I watched the slipshod departure of the coach for Bern. Willi was groggy and staggering, the passengers complained at his slapdash treatment of their luggage, and the horses hadn’t settled to the succession of new drivers. Rolling and reeling like a ship, the carriage heaved away from the inn and square. It would have been well served by Daniel’s hourglass.

  When Daniel, later, on his black horse, rode me down in the street looking for me, he was also concerned with storms.

  “It’s the Election,” he said. “The wind is rising! They’re talking. They’ve begun deciding.”

  “Deciding what?”

  “Who’ll be on the committees, who the committees will nominate, which nominee will be chosen.”

  “I’ll believe the first,” I said. “Not the other two.”

  “I’ve been calling on Chairs today. I’ve called on Philosophy, on Law, on Botany, and on Greek.” He clenched his fist. “Even on Logic,” which required a pause. “And on the Dean. Brutus has them all in his hand. He means to steal the Election.”

  “It’s meant that it can’t be,” I said.

  “He means that it will be.

  “What did the Chairs say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Of course! What would they
say? There isn’t anything to say.”

  “They know everything,” Daniel said. “They won’t say because they’re told to not. They won’t say who they want for candidates or when they’ll have the Election, or anything else.”

  “Maybe they haven’t decided yet.”

  “They haven’t been told yet.”

  “But you said they already know everything! And why would they tell you, anyway, Daniel?”

  “I’m the true candidate!”

  “There might be other candidates. They need to have three, anyway,” I said. “And you’ve spoken to Logic? I don’t think Gottlieb will be told.”

  “He’ll be told and he’ll do as he’s told.”

  “Or even more, Desiderius.”

  “Desiderius? Him?” Daniel laughed. “Poor little Leonhard. Desiderius even more than Gottlieb. Desiderius most of all. Jankovsky was cleared from the Greek Chair just for him.”

  “But Jankovsky died of a chill.”

  “Of the plague, just as Huldrych did.”

  “But you said Huldrych died of old age!”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’ll have the Common Room think that. But he was cleared from the Chair, just as Jankovsky was. It doesn’t matter how he died, just that Desiderius had the Chair cleared for him.”

  “In that you’re wrong.”

  “How is it that he was Brutus’s candidate? And it’s that candidate who always wins.”

  “But he was nominated by Vanitas.”

  “But he was told who to nominate,” Daniel said. “Vanitas put the name to the committee, but only because he’d been given it. I saw the letter that came to my house, that had that name in it, and I saw that letter again in Brutus’s hand as he went to call on Vanitas.”

  “You saw the letter?” I said. “What did it say?”

  “I didn’t read it. I only saw it in its envelope.”

  “Then you don’t know what it said!”

  “I know what it said.”

  “Without reading it? Where was the letter from? Who was it from?”

  “Now, that’s a nice one. It was a name I didn’t know at the time, but I know it now, and you, also. It came from Strasbourg.”

  “From Caiaphas?”

  “Magistrate Caiaphas.”

  “His name was on the envelope?”

  “No, no, no! But I asked the coachman when he brought it.”

  “Knipper told you?”

  “He didn’t, but he was shaking in his boots when he came to the house to deliver it. Who else would it have been from?”

  I finally laughed. It was all like an equation that cancelled to nothing. “So a letter came, but you don’t know who it was from, what it said, or if it was anything to do with the Election. You don’t know if your father ever talked with Vanitas about the Election. You don’t know anything! Your logic’s backward. And you stood for the Logic Chair? It’s well you didn’t get it.”

  “And should have had it. And I know better what was in that letter than if I’d been told.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you this: Your father did suggest Master Desiderius to Master Vanitas as a candidate.”

  “What? You knew?”

  “I know it because I asked Vanitas. It’s a better method than your guessing and wrong-way logic. And Daniel, I still haven’t found a man or woman in Basel who’ll say how Master Jacob died, or just when. Only that it was the same day your family arrived.”

  He shrugged. “Leave it covered, Leonhard. Leave it.”

  “Daniel! You’re maddening!”

  “I don’t care. There’s another Chair now, Physics, and I don’t care about Mathematics now.”

  “And what did Jacob have to do with you getting either?”

  “Leave it covered. Bury it deeper. Let the whole Rhine flow over it.” He was not to be brought back to the subject. “And when the Rhine does, I’ll tell you the rate and the force and the pressure of it. Mathematics is nothing, Leonhard. It’s Physics that has greatness in it, that has fame to be grasped. Hydraulics, and optics, and your sound waves. There’s a world to it.”

  “It is Mathematics.”

  “Mathematics is only a tool.”

  “But that’s the miracle, Daniel! Why does Mathematics tell how a river runs or light bends? Does a stream study its equations so it knows how to flow?” I was too overcome by it all.

  “Be at peace, Leonhard,” he said, very amused. “Think on your mysteries and miracles, and not on Jacob. Let the river flow. I’ll take the Physics Chair. That’s the one for me.”

  “Then it’s a pity that your father will steal the Election from you.” I said it as a joke but Daniel heard it as a warning.

  “He’ll try to, I said. He’ll try. I didn’t say he will, only that he’ll try.”

  “Then you’ll have the same chance as the other candidates. That is, if you’re one of them yourself.”

  “I will be. And there’ll be no chance to it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So you mean to steal it yourself.”

  “No, I’ll have Brutus steal it for me.”

  “Daniel! But you said—”

  “What I want from you, Leonhard, is to keep an eye on him. Let’s be sure he doesn’t outwit us. That’s all.”

  “That’s all. Only to be sure that Master Johann doesn’t outwit you and me. That’s all.”

  “That’s all!” Daniel laughed.

  “I’ve no wit to be outwitted.”

  “Ha! Keep your eyes on him and tell me what you see. I’ll find you when I need you.”

  With which he left. He’d be pure frustration if he wasn’t a mix of that and absurdity. I could only laugh. Gottlieb, Johann, and Daniel: Each was a seven-leaved branch of the same family.

  A century after the Plague, the Pope of the time, Martin, called a Council in Basel to consider some matters current and important at the time. This was of course before the Reformation, and Basel was a significant Catholic city. While they were in Basel, one pledge the Council received from Rome was the promise of a University for the city.

  Wars with the Turks intervened; Constantinople fell and the Byzantine Empire ended; the French recaptured Bordeaux and closed their Hundred Years war with the English; the first Bible was printed by Master Gutenberg. But finally, twenty years after the promise was made, it was kept, and a deed of foundation was issued by Pope Pius. The opening ceremony was held on a spring day in April, and the University of Basel commenced.

  Even now, most German universities will have no main building. The lectures were given in the Professors’ houses, and many lectures in Basel would be delivered this way.

  But the Guildmaster of Basel of that time, named Siebold, had married the Mayor’s daughter and built an impressive home overlooking the Rhine, beside the bridge. Yet he and his son both died, leaving his widow alone in the largest residence of the city. So she sold her great white house to the new University

  This University Building had been completely renovated, at that time, and times since. It had foyers and an office for the Bursar and the Registrar, and a salon for the Provost. It had several small lecture rooms, used by lower lecturers who had no room or house of their own large enough to give their lectures. But primarily, the building housed the University Lecture Hall, in which hundreds could gather on benches to listen to Chairs.

  So, on that Wednesday afternoon I attended to the University in that Grand Lecture Hall. Master Johann was giving a public lecture.

  Every Chair must give lectures to the public. It was as traditional as black robes and wigs, and anyone might attend, except women of course. These public lectures were given through the year, with every Chair speaking at least twice between September and May. This was in fact the main use of the Lecture Hall, although even some of the public lectures were given in the homes of the lecturers.

  Master Johann, though, was unique that he only lectured in the Lecture Hall, even for his normal classes. No student ever was allowed into his house for mere teaching; no student b
ut me. Besides that it was beneath his dignity to have his home used for public events such as lectures, even when they were only his paying students, it would also be impractical for the size of his audience, as every student attempted to attend his class.

  He accepted this. It was not beneath his dignity to accept their tuition, and he alone charged a higher rate than that which the University set for all the other Chairs. He would accept the money but not the attendant responsibility to educate his students. He would only lecture in Latin, which the newer students were not fluent in. He would not allow questions, as some of the younger Chairs would; instead, he demanded absolute quiet. Then, he would choose only the most obscure and obtuse subjects within the Calculus to describe. And this was only when he did lecture, which was only every other scheduled meeting. For the alternate classes, he would send a proctor to grade the students’ homework. The solutions to these assignments, being the same every year, were easily obtained from every boardinghouse in Basel.

  Why, then, did anyone, let alone high-spirited University students, endure this regimen? Certainly it was not for the purpose of learning the Calculus, which none would understand, or want to understand, any more at the end of the term than at the beginning. There was even a risk in that a student who annoyed the Master, even inadvertently, would be marked for a dunce through his entire career in Basel, and might even be hounded out completely.

  No, the reason was that Master Johann’s prestige was so great that the mere right to say, “I have attended his lectures!” was worth all the pain and suffering. Indeed, it was a rite of passage in Basel. I myself made something of a profit, as well, off his students, as this was my main source of Latin tutoring.

  His public lectures were better. Here, with the citizens of the city and eminent guests, he burnished his reputation with chamois rather than with sandpaper.