The Anatomist's Dream

by Clio Gray

  ‘They are the eggs of the earth,’ he said, pulling out a large square of linen and scooping the small cluster in, going on to lift more rocks, find more nests and more eggs. He lifted up a couple of snail shells, empty now, quite large, brown on the outer edge, striating into orange and amber, tipping into white at the spiral point.

  ‘Roman snails,’ he explained, ‘come marching all the way from Italy so we may eat their eggs for breakfast.’

  He looked at Philbert in that odd way Philbert would come to know so well.

  ‘It’s a sign, Little Maus,’ he said, putting his hand gently on the boy’s head, and just as before Philbert saw flashes of things he should have been too young to remember, Frau Kranz’s talking taking form and substance, a woman hard at work in the chocolate factory of Staßburg, the patterns on the bolts of cloth where they leant against the tin wall of a shack, the taste of salt upon his lips, the grainy feel of it in his hair, the vast, shining amphitheatre of the salt-mines, its surfaces faceted and factored out where the picks had dug and hewn. But these were no jagged fragments, more the rolling in of a smooth, un­dulating landscape. Last night a key had been turned swiftly in its lock; this morning the door moved slowly open. Kwert himself seemed oblivious of what he had so casually set in motion with so slight a gesture, and went on speaking.

  ‘They are a sign, Little Maus, of all the good things that are yet to come, the bounty of which hides below the surface of life’s shell.’

  Philbert heard none of this, and only when Kwert removed his hand a moment later did he see the trees and fields again, the river Mohne running quietly by as it had before; for a few moments he had inhabited two worlds, that of the present and the past, each as real as the other. And then his stomach began to rumble, and Kroonk jumbled herself up against his legs, and he came back to this side of life.

  Back at camp things were awakening, Maulwerf rubbing his hands together before holding them out to a small fire.

  ‘Kwert!’ he beamed, as the pair approached. ‘Come over and share breakfast,’ at which Kwert made some disparaging ­comment about what Maulwerf could do with his cabbages and carrots and was off for something decent: snails’ eggs to flip like oysters on Otto’s hot anvil, Philbert to follow on when he had the chance. Kroonk recognised a good thing when she saw it and trotted off at Kwert’s heels, Maulwerf laughing heartily as Philbert went to see to Hermann.

  While he was rubbing a mint unguent into Hermann’s poorly skin, he took the opportunity to ask about Kwert.

  ‘Aaaaghh,’ Hermann sighed as the coolness of the ointment eased his itching. ‘I can’t tell you much. I haven’t come across him before, but Maulwerf knows him from way back. He ­wanders around telling fortunes and selling medicines, as so many do.’

  Hermann sighed again as Philbert gently palpated the underskin of his arms, which were red and rigid as roof-tiles.

  ‘He seems to have taken quite a fancy to you, Philbert, most likely on account of your you know what. He reads them, I gather, freckles and bumps, like others read stars or tea leaves. You should have heard what he said to freckled Hannah last night! Or no, perhaps you shouldn’t. I don’t know what he’d make of me. I didn’t meet him myself, keeping away from the fire as I must do, but I’ve heard tell that beneath all the ­gobbledegook he is obliged to spout for the crowds, he is a wise and devout man. A Hesychast, no less. Aaaghh, thank you, Little Maus, that’s much better. Much better. Thank you.’

  Making his way over to Otto’s fire Philbert stopped by Kwert’s cart, recognising the thin donkey that was busily exploring the oat-bag tied around her neck. One edge of the canvas siding had been hoisted and attached to a spindle on the ridge, exposing about a quarter of the cart’s interior to open view. Curious, Philbert poked his head in a little, balancing himself on the cart-edge to get a better look, seeing several shelves with raised edges and rows of bottles secured by a cord across their middles. There were the usual ointments and unguents of varying colours, but one was different: very tall, upwards of twelve inches, ­yellowish in content and holding something else besides. Within the shadowed transparency of the glass he could see glutinous loops swaying slightly, run through with coloured threads, like toad-spawn on a stick. A hand on his shoulder made Philbert jump, set him rocking idiotically on the wood, knocking all the air from his lungs. Kwert laughed and set the boy gently on his feet, thrusting a poke of something hot into his hands. Philbert looked down into the rough paper cone he’d been given, intrigued by the odd smell, seeing an unappetising bundle of greying blobs, some whole, some burst, some looking like tiny gelatinised snails. It was obviously the cooked repast of earth-eggs Kwert had collected earlier, and made Philbert feel a little queasy.

  ‘Go ahead, Little Maus, eat,’ invited Kwert, and so Philbert scooped in a hesitant finger and hoiked a few out, careful not to crush them, popping them quickly into his mouth before he could change his mind. They sprang juice like berries, with a gummy hint of salt and chalk that was not displeasing, indeed was extraordinarily reminiscent of much of the food he’d eaten back in Staßburg, which came as a shock, just that he should remember such a thing.

  ‘So, you were curious were you?’ Kwert was saying, pointing at his cart. ‘And curiosity is no bad thing, the key to enlightenment. So what did you see?’

  He lowered himself to the boy’s eye-level, and then where he would be if he had, like Philbert, leant in as far as he could go.

  ‘Aah,’ he said. ‘Of course. My funisi,’ and he threw back the rest of the canvas over the top of the cart to reveal the contents in entirety, making the bottles gleam in the morning light. He tapped at the tall jar Philbert had been so intrigued by, setting the blue worm woolding and recoiling at his touch before lifting the jar out, holding it in front of Philbert’s face, tracing his finger slowly down the glass.

  ‘This is quite something,’ he said. ‘A human umbilicus. A trinity of threads: two in, one out. This is what held you to your mother like a boat to the bank, like a leaf to the tree.’

  Kwert was off on his spiel again and he unscrewed the jar dramatically, a strong whiff of sour wine and rotten fish ­puckering Philbert’s nose, and then he did more, and took the cord in his finger at one end and pulled it free of the jar, the umbilicus straightened and glistened and aligned in its coils, bouncing gently in front of Philbert’s eyes, as if still faintly pulsing with life.

  ‘Like a fish on a line, like a flea on a dog,’ Kwert continued, getting into his patter. ‘This cord stole life from your mother and gave it to you.’

  Philbert dropped his poke of eggs. The feeling of disgust in him was so strong his fingers loosened of their own accord, the funisi twitching and dangling like a hanged man, making him see himself inside his mother’s swollen belly, an ugly snail cracking at its shell, sucking at her blood with its hideous straw. It accused him with every slow curling movement as it stared at him with its long and clouded eye. Kwert was still speaking, and chose that moment to lean down and pinch at where Philbert’s belly button would be beneath his clothes, his fingers wet and sticky, marking Philbert’s shirt with a stinking spot.

  ‘This is where it all began, where you were lowered into the world, a spider on your mother’s silk, into this tangled web of life.’

  Kwert bounced the horrid noose once more before dropping it back into its jar and screwing on the lid, but by now Philbert was paralysed by nausea at the stink and could not help himself, going down on hands and knees, choking like an old dog in the dirt, nausea riding through him on a tidal bore as he understood the disgust he felt for the funisi was the same disgust his mother had felt for him every day she lived with him, until she could take it no more.

  Kwert was mildly surprised at the boy’s reaction and squatted down beside him, wiping the dribble from Philbert’s mouth with the edge of his robe. But at the sight of that blood-red material Philbert started to heave once more, imagining birth and blood, ri
p and tear, not an actual memory he was having of Nelke giving birth in such agony and despair, instead a ­concatenation of later words and comments: that he was a monstrous thing compared to the little Elsa who should have been born in his place, rosy cheeked and perfect in every way.

  That Philbert had fainted Kwert was in no doubt: his eyelids flickered faintly as if he was dreaming. He took the boy by the shoulders and shook him gently, bringing him back to field and Fair, glad to see the recognition in the boy’s eyes as he began to understand where he was; that there was grass beneath him, and blue sky above, and Kwert beside.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Kwert asked, pushing the lad back against the wheel of the cart, disturbed to see the tears running down his cheeks, the awful sadness in his newly opened eyes. He’d had a few reactions to his famous funisi but nothing like this, and it bolstered his belief that he’d been right to come here, because he hadn’t come by chance. He’d heard of this Philbert and his head from a few of the folk he’d travelled with up and down the country the year past, and been intrigued. Bumps and the like were his specialty and he wanted to see the boy for himself. He seemed ordinary – everyone said so – but stories of the Kartoffelkrieg hung around him like a premature shroud, and Kwert had wanted to know how that felt. He’d certainly not expected the boy to have some kind of fit right in front of him, but knew what to do, delved a quick hand into the knapsack lying beside him in the grass, bringing out a small pouch of muslin and placing it beneath Philbert’s nose. Philbert relaxed as he was overtaken by the scents of flowers: honeysuckle and lemon balm, sweetbrier-leaves and blackberries in the rain. He breathed deep and slow as directed, saw the meadow that stretched out behind his home back in Staßburg sweet and dry in the sun, running down to the river, rolling on and on, and his body stilled. And then Hermann emerged suddenly around the cart-front and was about to pat the donkey when he saw Philbert folded up against one of Kwert’s cartwheel’s looking pale as a miller’s mushroom.

  ‘What’s been going on?’ Hermann asked, going immediately to Philbert’s side, ready to sweep the lad up in his arms if need be and take him away. He could smell vomit, and saw tear tracks on the boy’s cheeks, sent a swift angry glance at the red clad Hesychast.

  Kwert dipped his head.

  ‘He’s had a rather unfortunate reaction to the snail-egg breakfast I just gave him,’ Kwert said, and it was no lie, and yet was not the entire truth either. ‘And you must be Mr Hermann. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  Hermann did not respond, busying himself looping his unguent-shiny arms beneath Philbert’s own.

  ‘You’re a great friend of our Little Maus,’ Kwert continued quietly.

  ‘I know that,’ Hermann said, bridling at the use of the word ‘our’ that Kwert had not earned in the slightest. For almost two years this boy Philbert had been solicitous of Hermann’s every need, and now was the first time he’d ever been called upon to repay the favour.

  ‘And do you want to be well again?’

  Hermann cocked his head, turned and looked at Kwert full on for the first time, taking in his berry-red habit, his head so close-cropped of hair it was almost shaven, the combined effect being to make him a step away from being a monk, though God knew of what order.

  ‘And what, pray,’ said Hermann, ‘could you possibly do for me?’

  ‘Well I could pray,’ Kwert said lightly, ‘or I could give you what your Little Maus has just pointed out to me, and with it some possible relief.’

  Several afternoons later, heavy raindrops were making the odd splash and plummet on the canvases of the camp, not yet frequent enough to slow anyone up in their preparations for the move to Dortmund and its environs and certainly not enough to stop the acting troupe at their rehearsals. They’d set up their stage and were going through their motions, many Fair’s folk sitting in for the show, Philbert and Lita up front, waiting to be entertained by something they’d not seen before. The acting troupe had a repertoire that varied from town to town, adapting this play or that to each locality, the heft of local politics steering their words one way or another. They acted as surreptitious and uncensored messengers, bringing news from one region to the next, disseminating and depicting events and scandals, or the victories and defeats of ongoing wars and the ever more frequent uprisings afflicting the country up and down; divulging details of the smatter of small revolutions; voicing what the populace could not openly say. And then again sometimes they merely entertained, as they were doing now, employing a handful of popular plots that usually involved two old men – Tingelburg and Tangelrichter in the present case – and the amorous relationships of their respective son and daughter, with much crude and ribald banter about picking cherries and ramming home the horn.

  Today it was Hannah playing the beautiful daughter of Tangelrichter, and another actor playing Flavio, Tingelburg’s handsome son, both making pretty in a flowery bower, the figure of Harlekin – always Master of Ceremonies – looming behind them like destiny, holding out the dark arms of his cloak, the jostle of red-and-yellow diamonds on his suit the only bright strike in that dull afternoon. Tingelburg and Tangelrichter were about to bawl out their usual bawdy song but they never got the chance, for someone was pushing through the small crowd in front of the stage, shouting and waving his arms, shoving people to the side like puny chessmen. Hermann got to the front and took a long-legged leap onto the stage, and everyone could see there was something different about him, and that he was smiling.

  ‘Only look!’ he sang out, arms spinning like waterwheels in a storm spate, an edge of laughter to his voice. ‘Just look! Only look!’

  And look they did, Philbert and Lita amongst them, watching in amazement as Hermann’s face was at once more joyous than they had ever seen it and at the same time funnelled with tears. Then the rain started falling down in earnest like a sign that overtook them all, and everybody began to stand and gape because suddenly they saw what Hermann was on about; that the horrid scales and hardened rims on his body had begun to fall away, leaving pitch-patches of glistening new skin, pink and smooth as baby-butter, tangles of peel and pith washing away as he hung there on his surrogate stage, arms out wide, neck stretched like a swan about to fly up into the sky, tilting his head back as far as it would go, neck craning, mouth opening to catch the raindrops as they cleansed him of pain and itch and disease-ridden skin.

  For a few moments everyone was agape, the rain coming down on them unnoticed, trickling down collars, open shirts and sleeves, and then Philbert and Lita were running up the steps to the stage, Lita’s long hair stranded wet upon her back, her face a beaming smile, her cries mingling with the sudden shower as she leapt to embrace Hermann, arms around his waist hugging him fiercely, nose to belly. Hermann laughed and laughed and the actors ran around him like flies released from a wheat-barn as he whirled Lita with him in a wild dance, almost toppling them both off the creaking stage, his new skin a-glim in the rain. Hermann took Lita by one hand and Philbert by the other and, after exchanging a brief nod, the three of them leapt from the stage down into the mud, skidding, and laughing before running on, the acting troupe hard on their heels, every one exclaiming and shouting like a pack of town-crying hounds. The Fair’s folk they passed stopped at their work, or came out of their tents and caravans to see what all the commotion was about, rubbing their hands on their aprons, holding their hats above their heads, standing, just standing, in the rain as this mad relay of Hermann, Lita, Little Maus and actors ran them by, reaching the river bank and turning a big circle and running them by again, and soon everyone in the Fair was alert to the noise, curious at the cause, intrigued to find Hermann leaping about in the rain like a madman. They stopped outside Maulwerf’s tent from where Maulwerf himself, and Kwert with him, emerged, Hermann flinging his arms about Kwert’s ­shoulders, clasping him hard, kissing him on forehead and cheeks, his new body glowing.

  ‘If only the sun could shine like this,’ Hermann
croaked, his voice giving out on him with all the unaccustomed shouting, ‘then the world would never end.’

  ‘Well I never,’ murmured Kwert, the moment he was released and got his breath back, and the crowd had swept Hermann off once more, Philbert and Lita trying to keep pace, laughing and slipping in the rain-loosened earth until both looked like toads just nosing out from hibernation from the bottom of a pond.

  ‘Well I never,’ Kwert repeated, exchanging a glance with Maulwerf. ‘I never expected that. Not at all. Wharton’s Wonderful Jelly or no. The Fabulous Funisi have never done quite this much before now . . .’

  And then he pulled his seat outside Maulwerf’s tent, never minding the rain, just looking through the failing afternoon at Hermann’s progress, seeking out the figure of Philbert amongst the jape and jump of the crowd, until Maulwerf pluffed himself down beside him, sighing.

  ‘My greatest exhibit,’ exclaimed Maulwerf, no sadness or rancour to his words. ‘Gone,’ he said. ‘All gone. My Fischmann no more, and I gather from Hermann’s effusive greeting it’s you I’ve got to thank for that, Kwert.’

  Kwert put his head to one side and wondered about that statement. He’d been in this business a long, long time, as had Maulwerf, and during those many years he’d seen many ­apparently miraculous happenings and marvels, just like it said on the wooden legend above his cart, but never, never had he seen a marvel, a miracle, such as this; the man Hermann cured of a lifelong affliction. And as much as he wanted to believe in his God and His Saving Powers of Grace, Kwert – of everyone in the Fair – found it difficult to accept.

  The rain soon went from heavy shower to downright sheet-pour that didn’t seem about to stop, and everyone soon retired to their tents to open bottles and gossip and wonder at what had happened, as did Philbert. He and Lita had stood in the rain a while to get rid of the worst of the mud, and then she went to dry herself off and tell Frau Fettleheim the ­wonderful news of Hermann’s healing. Philbert went by habit to Hermann’s tent, not thinking that of course Hermann didn’t need his usual rubbing-in of liniments and oils now that he was cured. He lifted the flap of Hermann’s tent to find that Hermann was not alone, and that Hannah of the freckles had got there before him and was clasped about Hermann’s body, Hermann himself resplendent in a fine green shirt. Both disengaged quickly at Philbert’s entrance and Philbert was embarrassed, would have ducked himself away and left them to it, but Hermann spoke up and waved him in.