Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Father Paulus was silent for several moments, seeming to be thinking. ‘Sylvia, what know you of the nature of visions?’

  ‘Nothing, Father, other than that saints appear to have them and Father Hermann claims them numerously in his childhood and often enough as an adult with the Virgin Mary.’

  ‘Did he tell you what happens when one has a vision?’

  ‘Nay, Father, he has not talked to me about them. What I know is only hearsay, as any Christian might hear from the pulpit about a saint or one that is blessed.’

  ‘Well, a vision is what is known as an out-of-body experience. We see it and we are immersed in it, but we are not necessarily a physical part of it, experiencing it not with our body, but in our hearts and minds. A child, in his innocence, will speak of a vision quite ingenuously. A man of God, such as a priest, will speak of it from knowing it to be a spiritual experience. But others, commonfolk, who count themselves both sensible and sane, will think it but a dream or some peculiar and sudden alteration of the mind and will either remain silent or seek a simple explanation such as the one you have just given me. I put it to you that God used you to appear in a vision to these three sinful women, and that not understanding why they fled, you thought it was because of your rebuke. There is clear evidence from witnesses that when you appeared on the steps of the bathhouse people could see that you had about you the touch of the divine hand and they pronounced you there and then the Petticoat Angel.’

  Father Paulus seemed well pleased with this explanation. He had stated it with such cogent authority that, for several moments, I felt myself taken up with its possibility, which goes to show that belief is not always fostered in what is said, but in who it is that pronounces it. Such an explanation from Reinhardt would have set me to laughter and ridicule.

  Realising that by accepting his ecclesiastical sophistry I might bring an end to this discussion, I answered meekly, ‘Yes, thank you, Father, I can see what you mean.’

  It was an answer meant to satisfy him but he must have sensed the doubt in my acceptance, for he declared, ‘Father Hermann and I have decided that the Miracle of the Blood on the Rose taken together with your summoning of the birds is sufficient evidence for the bishop to peruse and we have not included the vision of the Petticoat Angel in the bathhouse.’ I was most relieved to hear this, but then Father Paulus added, ‘We may need it as evidence at a later time, and I will notify Father Hermann of the blessed sign of the fish. I know he will be most excited.’

  I confess I felt much safer in the pragmatic hands of the Christ-doubting Jews, Frau Sarah and Master Israel, than ever I did in the hands of the two priests bent on proving that I was touched by a divine authority. And I longed to be back in the reasoned and secular presence of Master Israel.

  As I walked home from St Martin’s much pleased that my Latin studies were to be continued, I could not help but wonder what the two priests would think if they knew that I spent my free time in a whorehouse laughing among the courtesans, or that they told me of the strange proclivities of their patrons or that I knew the most delicate and intimate information about the mayor, the bishop, many nobles and notables.

  Then, again, these two were of different ambitions, Father Hermann in his extreme naivety would regard this fraternisation as a manifestation of my saintliness: that in the mornings I worked among the street children and the poor and then at other times among the harlots to cause them to repent and so bring them the comfort of Jesus Christ our Lord. I could also understand the motives of Father Paulus, a scribe, cloistered and all but chained to his desk, suddenly presented with tears of blood on a pure white rose that had no explanation other than a divine one. Of course, he wasn’t stupid and he’d examined my hands and no doubt also the boy’s, but the advent of my woman’s blood would have been beyond his imagination or perhaps even his secular knowledge. It was not only the common people who were constantly on the lookout for signs and portents and he would be overcome with joy that he had been privileged to witness a miracle.

  If I appeared to have changed in how I perceived my faith, it was not that I had forsaken my love for Christ Jesus or my belief in a merciful, all-powerful and loving God, but only that Master Israel was teaching me to think for myself, to always closely question how I interpreted what I saw or thought was the truth. ‘The mind is conditioned early and prejudice is often bred in the cradle,’ he’d once said. ‘Do not deny your own experience or belittle it for what may be a common though false belief. To thine own self be true.’ Furthermore, my increasing knowledge of God’s word in the Latin text often gave me a greater insight into His truth and its meaning, so that I was less reliant on the words of priests who, it seemed to me, often quoted text from habit and by rote, long after they had forgotten the true, blessed and proper meaning of the Scriptures.

  In teaching me more than one language Master Israel would say, ‘As a Jew I know who I am and I know what it is to be Jewish: the culture, the God I worship, the laws I follow, the food I eat. What I teach my children is the righteous way and also what is wrong. I observe the laws regarding my wife and my marriage duties. As a Gentile it is the same with you, Sylvia. But when we learn another’s language we begin to understand how we differ from others and, more importantly, how we are the same. Their language teaches us how they think, how their culture works, how they use their religion in their daily life and what makes them laugh and what makes them cry.

  ‘When you learn another language you change your own and understand it better. You see its beauty and ugliness, its wisdom and its foolishness. It is possible to hate a Jew if you cannot speak Hebrew. A Greek if you cannot understand Greek. Or call an Arab an infidel and he calls you one, if you each do not speak the other’s tongue.

  ‘But when you speak someone else’s language and may thus get to know them first, it is far more difficult to despise them or to believe what is said about them. Keep thy mind open and thy thoughts clear when the oracles in the temple declare upon the villainy of other nations. Ask always, “Do they know these people? Do they speak their tongue?” If you want to make a man your enemy when he has done you no harm, then know nothing about him, his language, religion or nation so that you may call him infidel and vile with impunity.’

  ‘But we know why we call them infidels, they killed our Saviour!’ I protested.

  ‘Did you know that they recognise your saviour, the Jew you name Jesus?’

  ‘Nay!’ I declared, shocked.

  ‘They declare him a great prophet within their own religion.’

  ‘But not the Son of God?’

  Master Israel shrugged. ‘They honour him nevertheless, whereas you do not honour Mohammed, the Arab’s intermediary to the same God.’

  I was shocked that Master Israel would think of Jesus our Lord as a pathway and intermediary to God and not as God Himself. ‘But you are a Jew and do not honour Christ Jesus, so how can you speak of Him thus?’ I cried.

  ‘We honour him as a Jew and a Jew has only one path to God, to Jehovah.’

  ‘But you crucified Him! You nailed Jesus to the cross!’ I shouted, close to tears.

  He spread his hands. ‘To us he was a heretic.’ He sighed. ‘If only we had known. It was a great mistake and we have suffered ever since.’

  ‘Mistake! You killed the Son of God by mistake!’

  ‘Shush! Be calm, Sylvia. The Christian faith has killed many a heretic by burning them at the stake. I ask you, did they ask each time, “Is this the Son of God?” Nay, they did not. They burned him, or perhaps it was a witch, because they thought they did not accept the tenets of your faith and were heretics and blasphemers.’ He shrugged. ‘We Jews did the same. If only we had known of the calamity this would cause to our people we would not have been so stupid and the Nazarene carpenter would have lived and died and, like all mortal beings, soon been forgotten.’

  ‘If I should tell a priest of what you have just said to me, what then?’ I cried.

  Master Israel looked sudde
nly afraid and to my shame I felt a great sense of power rise within me. ‘Then you would burn me as you do a heretic, but with less ceremony, for I am only a Jew.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Shrine of Bread and Fish

  WITH MY BELOVED REINHARDT gone to his French lover (oh dear, I had not thought I would miss him as much), Frau Sarah had teamed me with a lute player of competence by the name of Klaus of Koblenz. Klaus was a man of perhaps thirty-five years, short, fat and morose. No matter how carefully dressed by Frau Sarah, he always looked untidy, as if he had but moments before risen from his bed. His breath smelled constantly of ale when mixed with the slops from a pigsty, and whereas Germans were for the most part clean-shaven, in the manner of the Frank, he wore a beard as untidy and rank as himself. He played tolerably well, although he lacked imagination and, I admit to my disappointment, made no comment on my singing. Whether thinking it good or bad, or, alas, anything at all, except as a partnership that was his way of earning bread and ale, I couldn’t say. While I had learned to accept praise for my voice with due modesty, I was secretly angry at his indifference to it and felt I deserved better than this fat and foul-smelling fool. Being accustomed to Reinhardt who carried his every mood on the surface of his face and from whom praise came easily, being partnered with Klaus the Louse was like being dunked in the Rhine on a bitter winter’s morning.

  Frau Sarah was aware that I was not happy. I could find no real fault in Klaus the Louse’s lute playing other than that it lacked surprise or inspiration, both so very much a feature of Reinhardt’s playing. The ratcatcher would play tricks with his flute, so that my voice was constantly challenged and I could never take him for granted.

  ‘Sylvia, Klaus is good with his instrument and we must be thankful for this,’ Frau Sarah said. ‘But if a happier musician of similar competence should be forthcoming I promise I shall make the change.’ I knew that as long as the bookings continued and provided Klaus the Louse behaved by not turning up drunk and disorderly, she would be content with the arrangement. Proof of this came when she told me, ‘With an older man at your side I will know you are safe from those who would wish to seduce you, Sylvia.’

  ‘Have you smelled his breath?’ I cried, indignantly. ‘It is shield sufficient! No knight or paramour may venture close enough to touch me!’

  However, she knew that I would do nothing to create a disruption because of my learning Greek and Arabic from Master Israel. As with music, I found language came naturally to me. If others (I speak mostly of Father Paulus and occasionally Master Israel) pronounced me clever, I did not think this of myself. Sounds, whether the notes to a song, the mimicking of another’s voice, bird calls or the pronunciation of words in a language other than my own, I found most easy to retain and once told, or in some cases with Arabic, perhaps twice, I could remember them. This facility was a gift from God and while I constantly thanked Him for it, I did not have the right to boast of it. Moreover, I had the advantage of constant practice, as I could converse with the Greek and Arab girls at Ali Baba’s. I soon learned all the tribal and regional accents as well, for the Egyptians, though similar, do not speak the same as the Syrians or the Persians or the Arabic spoken in Jerusalem that Master Israel was wont to teach me.

  With the written word I was less sure. Mastering the quill and the letters to the Latin and German alphabet was not as easily undertaken. I needed much more practice, and so there was mounting pressure placed upon me to enter a nunnery where I might completely learn calligraphy. Father Paulus would laugh at my efforts. ‘Sylvia, in the matter of the goose quill, thou art the goose!’ I think he was secretly pleased that this did not come to me as effortlessly as Latin verbs or, for that matter, chess. At that game I was now often the winner and he increasingly the pupil. This was not the same with Master Israel, who had a cunning and a guile when playing that was beyond my years and experience and he often left me floundering and totally bemused.

  And so the time drew near when I was to meet Father Hermann and Father Paulus together. These combined meetings did not occur often although I saw both almost daily – Father Hermann with the street poor and, of course, Father Paulus for my Latin lessons. I was certain that now I was almost fourteen they were meeting with me to discuss my entering a convent, and though they seemed sure that this was the best next step for me I was far from decided on this course. The idea of being shut up in a cell to rise each morning not long after the midnight hour to pray, and then to be cut off from the world around me, did not serve my needs. I had grown fond of the city where I was free to be myself and now I must once again be subject to the will of others. I was doing God’s work every morning among the destitute children and could not see why I would serve Him better in a cloister. The only temptation lay in the promise of learning, so I needed to decide whether the sacrifice of my freedom was a worthy price. No, I do not tell the truth, there was within me a hunger for the touch of a man. I knew all there was to pleasing a male yet I had never even kissed one. The girls at the winkelhaus laughed when I said I felt a strange stirring and that when a pretty knight approached me I felt a melting in my thighs. ‘Sylvia, we will find the right one for you, gentle and kind, but knowing well how to please a woman.’

  ‘You mean men must also know these pleasuring things you have taught me?’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘Aye, there are some few that give as much as they get – they know a woman’s needs and give great pleasure – but they are rare and you must be patient. You are a great prize and we do not wish you to give of yourself lightly. Also, it must coincide with your periods so that you do not become pregnant.’

  ‘But I cannot while . . . you know, when they are upon me?’

  ‘Nay, but just after, you must let us know.’

  Of course, the girls had taught me the various new ways I might pleasure myself other than that shown to me by the widow Johanna. Some of the courtesans preferred each other for their pleasure and they regarded men simply as a means of gain. They offered to pleasure me thus, but while I judge them not, this was not for such as me. In my heart I knew it was not the same, that I hungered for the hardness of a man. I was aware that my thoughts were sinful and that God did not wish me to give my body to another simply for the experience of knowing a man. If I should take a partner then God required that I did so in order to produce offspring. I was not ready to take this course or to become a bride of Christ and never taste the physical love of a man. So I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

  Therefore, you see, I was miserable and weak and not worthy and, moreover, not ready to take the vow of chastity. How might I tell the two priests of my dilemma? These were two holy men sworn to celibacy and most anxious to help a young peasant girl who, unbeknownst to them, woke up wet between her thighs most mornings, then pleasured herself, writhing and moaning, as she imagined the arms of a man about her and his glorious rod within her. This was a maid who they thought was innocent of the ways of the world but, in truth, knew every manner there was to pleasure a man. They saw me as a gifted and specially blessed instrument of God, a child chosen by Jesus the Saviour unto His calling and, woe is me, I knew myself for what I was.

  And now I must make yet another confession, whether good or bad at the beginning I cannot say. If I am to suffer guilt for my conduct in the matter, this was only to happen at a much later time. I can now say the ultimate result was a great disaster and I will do penance for the remainder of my life in an effort to obtain forgiveness for the part I played in it. Whether it all came from this incident I cannot be sure, but it concerns Nicholas and myself and Ruth’s Truth, Frau Sarah’s magic mushrooms.

  Although two years younger than me, there was much of the natural leader about Nicholas, and the other street children would do his bidding without question whereas they would obey no one else. With Reinhardt departed, Nicholas now became my friend and sometime confidant, although a young boy, no matter how trustworthy, cannot grasp the complexity of a woman’s life or und
erstand her innermost feelings, so that only the simple things could be shared: attending morning mass together; working with the street children; begging for food to give to the poor from the market stall-holders. We would laugh secretly together at Father Hermann’s thinking himself the Virgin’s husband and when asked a question to which he knew not the answer he would say, ‘I must ask my wife, she will know.’ Or once when he said, ‘Our child Jesus cried all night from teething, but by the morning all His teeth had appeared neatly in a row, top and bottom, so that He could eat the toughest meat for dinner that very same night!’ We suited each other well in friendship, for as it turned out, although he had been a street child from the age of six, he had a father living in Cologne, who, like my own, was a drunk and a ne’er-do-well who possessed a reputation for thuggery and violence. Nicholas preferred living on the streets to the unhappy and violent hovel his father provided as his home. Like me, he also wanted to know more of the workings of God’s word, although, unlike me, he thought that he might do this by becoming a priest, though he was not yet old enough to enter a monastery, whereas I did not wish to become a nun other than to learn Latin calligraphy.

  Frau Sarah had on more than one occasion told me that the mushroom was best used to look inward to see what it might be that caused us to think as we did and to reveal to us the unknown parts to our hidden and secret selves. ‘If taken, it will often show you a path you have not previously considered that, if followed, may bring you reward,’ she’d once said.

  With the constant urging from the two priests to enter a holy order and my wicked morning writhings, my desire to learn and the meeting coming up, I was in a quandary over what I should do. I finally decided that I would try Ruth’s Truth, the magic mushrooms, to see if they could clarify my mind. Frau Sarah had long since shown me the amount and how to prepare the mushroom, although she had advised me that someone should be present during its taking. ‘You will see strange things, some even fearful,’ she had cautioned me. So I asked her if she would be the one to stay with me while I was in the trance. ‘Sylvia, the trance may last a full day or beyond or only an hour. It will have to wait until I have a day available. Perhaps when Israel travels on business or to visit his cousin, the silk merchant in Bonn, otherwise I must be here with him or he will give away the shop. You know how hopeless he is with money.’