Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Nay, Nicholas, think upon it a moment. They were not visions such as experienced by Father Hermann or, in the past, by the saints. What I saw were merely objects that lay in front of my eyes that became changed in my imagination. This is not of the spirit but of the mind and seems to me to contain no value or even serve as a useful insight. I carry no wisdom from it, except the appearance of the crow as an omen of bad luck, and I cannot bring myself to think as others do that the appearance of a crow or jackdaw is the harbinger of misfortune. All birds live in God’s world and only man is capable of original sin. As for myself, I shall not hurry to repeat this experience, as I was greatly frightened at the latter stages.’

  ‘But you came to no harm from this tiny winged devil?’

  ‘Aye, but it frightened me.’

  ‘But no harm,’ he insisted.

  ‘Aye, no harm, it was only the fabric of my imagination, objects changed to other things.’

  ‘Then I must have some of this mushroom for myself.’

  ‘Nay, Nicholas, it was not a pretty experience.’

  ‘What of the colours, the trees, grass and the green sky – I have never seen a green sky or blue grass or trees the colour you describe except near enough in autumn.’

  ‘They are no prettier in the new colours, in fact not pretty at all. God made them the right colours from the start and gave them new colours in the autumn to satisfy all our needs.’

  ‘You promised that if you came to no harm I might try the mushrooms for myself,’ he insisted, now all young-boy sulk. ‘If you break your promise I will not trust you again, Sylvia,’ he threatened.

  ‘Very well, but it is almost noon. I have a Latin lesson with Father Paulus at two o’clock and then Greek later. Perhaps we may do it tomorrow morning, eh?’

  ‘Nay, we do not know if the mushrooms act the same if they are not freshly picked. What if we cannot find others on the morrow?’ He looked at me, pleading. ‘It took us three days to find the ones this morning. Please, can we do it now, Sylvia? There is time. I promise. I am younger than you, my trance will be over the sooner!’

  But it wasn’t. Nicholas finally came out of his trance at sunset when we barely had time to get back to Cologne to change for the evening where I had to perform at a rich merchant’s birthday party. After my trance that morning and waiting all the afternoon for Nicholas to come out of his, I wasn’t much looking forward to the evening spent with Klaus the Louse and a roomful of noisy drunken burghers and their wives.

  Nicholas hadn’t moved during the entire afternoon and now said almost nothing on the way home, but instead kept repeating, ‘Yes, Lord! Yes, Jesus!’ in a most fervent and ecstatic voice, his eyes turned heavenwards. Every once in a while he’d suddenly exclaim, ‘Jerusalem!’, just the one word. I could see his eyes were strange as if not focused, his face wore a look I had not seen before and he seemed to barely notice my presence beside him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him. He nodded but did not speak. ‘What did you see, Nicholas?’ I asked.

  ‘Jerusalem.’

  ‘Jerusalem? You saw Jerusalem?’

  ‘Yes, Lord. Yes, Jesus,’ he answered or repeated, I cannot say, for his eyes were cast heavenwards.

  He lived behind St Mary’s on the Kapitol and I stayed with him until we reached the church to be sure he was safely home. But instead of joining the other street children in the alley where they slept he entered the church. I followed and he walked up to the high altar where he collapsed to his knees, then prostrated himself, all the while calling out, ‘Jerusalem!’ I knew him to be safe within the church and so made my departure as I was already late and would barely have time to change my clothes before Frau Sarah sent the horse and cart to fetch me to the merchant’s house.

  Though I am a peasant born, it is ill-fitting when a peasant gains great wealth but with it gains no knowledge or self-improvement. Master Wilhelm, whose birthday party I attended, had made a great fortune when he’d started importing muslin from Egypt and then it was other cloth – damask and silk and, most curious of all, at the most humble end of weaving, hessian for grain bags. In the process he had gained great wealth and could now command the respect of the nobility and claimed a worthy place in the society of Cologne. If ever there was an illustration that money does not purchase manners, it was the goings-on at his birthday party.

  If you think because I’d had a few lessons in deportment and good manners and the advantage of seeing how manners work in society that I am coming the high lofty, this was not the case. There were both nobility and old acquaintances at the party and both behaved as badly as the other did. It was just that the peasant does not perceive the grossness he allows and thinks it natural that all should become drunk – the women loud and brazen and the men groping and licentious.

  While none took notice of my singing, this was the least of it. Soon there was coupling to be seen in every dark corner and in some places not so dark. As it grew to a later hour both men and women took to spewing out of windows and on several occasions the servants were summoned to clean the floor. I was groped in passing by leering and drunken burghers with Klaus the Louse, drunk himself, unable to, or uninterested in, protecting me. So much for Frau Sarah’s older man ever at my side to keep me safe.

  Finally, Master Wilhelm, the birthday boy, grabbed me to his vile breast. He was a grossly fat man with his hose near down to his plump knees and his tunic only half covering his huge belly, though fortunately this vile flesh overhung and successfully concealed his one-eyed snake. He pushed me against the wall and tore my gown from my shoulders and started trying to hump me, kissing and covering my breasts with his drunken slobbering, his fat fingers groping my bottom. This was much to the amusement of the other drunks who, both male and female, screamed and clapped in huge delight, egging him on with cries of encouragement.

  By this time I had had enough – I was entertainer and not hired whore – and I tore at his face with my nails. ‘Bitch!’ he screamed, releasing me and grabbing at his jowl. If his previous fondling was considered amusing, then my scratching became the highest humour of the night and the guests howled and fell about with laughter as the fat bastard withdrew his hand to reveal the blood that now flowed from his puffed and purple-spotted peasant’s cheek.

  Grabbing my stave I ran from the house where fortuitously our cart and driver waited outside. ‘Klaus will not be coming back with us,’ I said, hurriedly jumping into the back. He must have noted my dishevelment, but as with all cart drivers, he customarily saw and knew nothing, having known and seen every form of human bad behaviour worth the knowing and seeing.

  ‘Home is it then, Miss?’ he asked nonchalantly. Then geeing his horse we set off for my lodgings, well past the midnight hour.

  The next morning I arrived at St Mary’s on the Kapitol where Nicholas and I would attend mass together and afterwards meet Father Hermann prior to working among the street children. We would distribute bread among them and tend to some of their other needs, both spiritual and physical. In the summer they did suffer much from ulcers to their legs and arms and Frau Sarah had shown me a preparation that contained the jelly of the African aloe that did help exceedingly to diminish their suffering. You may imagine my surprise to find Father Hermann and Nicholas on the church steps with maybe two hundred children gathered about them. Moreover, Nicholas stood on the uppermost step, and as I drew closer I realised that he was preaching and that the children cried ecstatically at his every word.

  Father Hermann brought a finger to his lips, cautioning me to be quiet as I came to stand beside him. It took but a few moments to realise that the sermon Nicholas preached was both simple and profound and greatly affected the children kneeling below him. I have said before that he was a natural leader, but he had never been one to preach and led mostly by example or direct command. But now he had about him a compelling attraction – it was as though the zealot I had sensed in him now fully possessed his character. Whatever he had seen in his mushroom tr
ance, it had affected him greatly and now his eyes blazed with a burning faith.

  Nicholas’s sermon came to an end shortly afterwards and Father Hermann could not contain himself. ‘Nicholas, what has happened? You have found God today in a different way from yesterday! You seem profoundly blessed, how came this about?’ he cried out.

  ‘I have seen our Lord, Jesus Christ, in a vision,’ Nicholas said simply.

  My heart sank. He had promised on his life and sworn in God’s name not to tell about the magic mushrooms. Now, the very next day, he was about to confess all to a priest. With his newfound possession of a vision of Christ Jesus, if questioned further he would be compelled to reveal what had happened. I dared not interrupt to stop his confession by announcing that we ought to be going, that it was getting too late to beg from the market people the food we needed to distribute to the poor, that once the markets get started the stall-holders will not stop to sort out the poor-quality produce for alms giving.

  ‘You have seen the Christ figure? Where? You have both been absent for three mornings and I did not see you at mass yesterday or the day before or even the day before that. Did you look into the sacristy where the small Virgin and Child stands and here receive your vision of Christ Jesus?’

  Nicholas pointed upwards to the hills where the woods lay. ‘Nay, in the woods. I found a small cave I had not seen before and did stop to pray, as it seemed a quiet and untroubled place.’ Nicholas then looked directly at Father Hermann. ‘Then Jesus of Nazareth appeared to me in a vision.’

  ‘This cave? Could you find it again, Nicholas?’ I said, feigning excitement. Then turning to Father Hermann, I asked, ‘Would not such a quiet and untroubled place where our Saviour appeared to Nicholas be regarded as holy?’

  ‘Aye, even a place of pilgrimage,’ the priest replied excitedly. ‘Will you take us to this holy cave, Nicholas?’

  I had prevented Nicholas from telling Father Hermann about the magic mushrooms and so also saved myself from discovery.

  ‘You would go now, Father?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘Aye, God’s work cannot wait. We must go there at once. You said you could find it again?’

  ‘Aye, I think easily enough. It has pieces from a broken jug lying at its entrance and a rock beside it with the root of a tree growing over it as if the root is a rope that doth hold it fast to the ground,’ Nicholas said, taking my own description for himself.

  So, alas, that morning the children of the street would go unattended as the three of us climbed the hill behind the city and repaired once more to the tiny cave that now held a spiritual significance to the good priest. Father Hermann fell to his knees as we reached the cave and we were forced to do the same. Nicholas now seemed himself to be in earnest prayer, as if it was indeed a place where a great vision had taken place and deserved the sanctity the priest now allowed it. Two zealots on their knees and me, in this instance, turned unbeliever. ‘To thine own self be true’ – Master Israel’s words rang clearly in my mind.

  Rising at last from his knees Father Hermann turned to say something and then his eyes grew wide. ‘Look!’ he exclaimed, pointing to the ground at his feet where the skeleton of yesterday’s fish lay. ‘And there!’ he exclaimed again, pointing this time to a crust of bread that remained uneaten by the birds. ‘Christ’s loaves and fishes!’ He stared incredulously at Nicholas and I at him, amazed at his naivety. ‘You have seen Jesus and have eaten miraculously of the food He prepared when He preached to the multitudes in the desert!’

  I could not tell him it was the loaf and the trout I had brought for our own sustenance, as I wasn’t supposed to know about the cave. I waited for Nicholas to explain but he remained silent. Then the priest took us by our shoulders and bade us fall to our knees once more while he prayed. He thanked the precious Saviour again for His appearance to the child, Nicholas of Cologne, and then for giving him to eat of the bread of heaven and the fish from the Sea of Galilee. Then he promised Christ Jesus that the cave would henceforth be known as ‘The Shrine of Bread and Fish’. Which was how it was known henceforth and until a few years later when it became a place of pilgrimage for children and was renamed among the populace of Cologne as ‘The Children’s Shrine’, this for reasons I will tell about at a later time.

  The afternoon of the day following our visit to the cave with the priest I was to meet him and Father Paulus at St Martin’s for our discussion. I wakened early that morning, still undecided about entering a nunnery. I dressed and made ready to set out for early-morning mass when the old widow came upstairs to my tiny alcove room to say a small boy had arrived with a message from Frau Sarah and waited at the door of the street.

  ‘Frau Sarah asks that you attend her, Fräulein Sylvia,’ the boy informed me.

  ‘What, I must go now? But I must go to mass,’ I protested.

  ‘She says it is urgent.’

  ‘Urgent?’ I became concerned. ‘Is it Master Israel? Has something happened to him?’

  ‘I know not,’ the small boy said, his dark eyes earnest. ‘It may be, yes.’

  I ran all the way through the dirty streets and alleys, my boots splashing through the puddles of freshly thrown nightsoil and urine and the other filth that lay about. I reached the tailor shop blowing like an old carthorse. Banging on the door, I shouted out, ‘Frau Sarah! I am here! Open up!’

  I could hear her coming from above and then a rattle of chains followed and the door opened. ‘Sylvia, what’s all the fuss?’ she asked calmly.

  ‘Master Israel . . . is he all right?’ I panted.

  ‘Of course! Hear for yourself, he still snores blissfully upstairs.’

  ‘A small boy came . . .’ I gasped.

  ‘Oh, him. I told him to tell you to come by some time this morning.’

  ‘He said it was urgent, that it was Master Israel.’

  ‘Nay, Sylvia, it is Klaus of Koblenz, he is no longer your lute player.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’ I asked, relieved at both pieces of news.

  ‘He was murdered in a low-class winkelhaus in the late hours last night,’ she said calmly.

  ‘Murdered! But the Angelus has just rung. How know you this already?’

  She spread her hands. ‘It is my own. I have purchased it recently, a low-class and foul dive, but I have promised the guild I shall attend to it.’ She placed her arm about my shoulders. ‘Come in, Sylvia, let us be seated, I wish to talk to you.’ Then she pointed to my filthy boots. ‘You will take them off, please.’

  ‘You have found another lute player?’ I asked, as I slipped my boots from my feet.

  ‘Nay, it is more important than that.’ She smiled. ‘When you and the Pied Piper came to see Master Israel two years ago it changed our fortunes. Sylvia, I want you to know I am grateful.’

  When we were seated Frau Sarah once again explained how they had loaned Master Yap money to refurbish Ali Baba’s, and then the ratcatcher and I had come along and she’d gone into the entertainment business. ‘We have done well together, Sylvia, but it is hard work and not all musicians are like yourself – they are a fickle lot, and even Reinhardt has since departed.’

  ‘Aye, I miss him greatly, it is not the same without him,’ I said wistfully.

  ‘Yes, I know. Hence what I have to say to you.’ She drew breath and then seemed to think a moment. ‘In the past two years I have learned a great deal about the entertainment business, which, as I have just explained, has many ups and downs, though one part within it remains always the same and all the while profitable.’

  ‘The winkelhaus?’ I asked.

  Frau Sarah nodded. ‘Master Israel always says you have a quick mind. Yes, it is the only consistent business. The one-eyed snake is king and will forever reign in his palace,’ she laughed. ‘So I have purchased this new one with my brother, Master Abraham,’ she smiled. ‘You will see, we will make it even better than Ali Baba’s.’

  ‘And of your entertainment business, what?’

  ‘Titch! It has served
me well, but I have had enough of recalcitrant lutes and prancing fruits,’ she said, no doubt referring to Reinhardt.

  ‘You would forsake it?’

  ‘Aye, but not you, Sylvia. We, my brother and I, have also purchased a licence for a winkelhaus in Bonn and this one will be most splendid and of the highest class in the land. In Cologne you are known as the Petticoat Angel and are much taken up with priests and the poor. In Bonn you are known only for your wonderful voice. If you will agree to be the singer in the new winkelhaus there, we will give you a quarter share of the brothel we have purchased in Cologne.’

  ‘Where Klaus was murdered?’

  ‘Aye, but it is but a small thing – murder happens all the time as you well know and he was a man of little worth and no character. We will soon change it to be a high-class establishment and most profitable.’ She smiled. ‘My brother says that you have a way with the courtesans and they happily do your bidding. I know that you speak most of their languages. We will teach you the business in Bonn, so that when you are older and no longer wish to sing you will always be well provided for by running and owning a part of the winkelhaus in Cologne.’

  It was an astonishing and generous offer and brought me immediately to tears. If Frau Sarah had gained from my singing, I had received much more from Master Israel and from her wages sufficient to eat and help the poor. If I received nothing else from them I had been generously, even lovingly, compensated. Now she had made me an offer that exceeded the bounds of generosity.

  However, as so often seemed to happen in my life, I was forced to choose between the spirit and the flesh – bride of Christ or brothel-keeper? This then was the question I needed to ask myself. Alas, I wish I could say the choice was simple and that God’s calling to serve Him as a nun was of paramount importance. But I had much to consider. You may ask how a child of God could also be a brothel-keeper? I must reply that if a bishop and an archbishop could attend a place such as this then why would it be thought a godless and wicked vocation?