The Anatomist's Dream

by Clio Gray

  And now here were Philbert and Kwert on Langer’s Öde Insel, picked and polished like driftwood beneath Langer’s jurisdiction, biding with him and his goats and the fish that teemed in the lake beyond. These last Langer caught, gutted, salted, smoked and ate, as did Philbert whilst he was with him. They also made bread from sacks of thick, bran-brindled flour rubbed through with butter and water and griddled into scones on the fire, or made into pancakes, or strange-tasting strudels topped with honey and cream. He also had his bees and a small orchard; too early for fruit, but still a few apples stowed for the winter in wooden boxes in the barn, and pickled pears and cherries, ­sugared apricots, dried plums and peaches, walnuts and almonds, all of which Langer gave freely to his guests.

  And because of Langer’s largesse and care Kwert awoke on their third morning, and a few days later was able to get up, the purple bruises on his face and body faded into yellow, although it seemed to Philbert that his skin had got thinner, as if wasps were coming in at night and scrape, scrape, scraping little slivers of it away like they did to wood to make their nests. The first thing Kwert did, once conscious, apart from introductions and effusive thanks, was to have Philbert read to him from the Philocalia, which Philbert did, Brother Langer being the one this time to help out with words he didn’t understand, intrigued by the discovery that Kwert was a Hesychast, admiring the independence of that diasporic order who valued private ­meditation with their God above all else. A week later, Kwert still couldn’t walk without wobbling hopelessly on his crane-fly legs, but Brother Langer’s mention of the upcoming Cloth Market spurred him on.

  ‘The perfect time for us to sift into the crowds and disappear,’ Kwert proposed, at which point Brother Langer asked Philbert to come and help him in the smokehouse, but stopped before opening the door.

  ‘You should stay,’ he said. ‘You and Kwert. I know he’s intent on taking you off, but he’s very frail for such a journey and I can be back in a few days. Fatzke always takes me and brings me back, and we only ever stay a night or two at the Abbey.’

  Philbert wore his Ullendorf hat to keep away the gnats that rose like a mist from the damp of the orchards in early evening and rippled across the shallow waters about the island, dancing on the backs of newly emerged dragonflies sleeping on the reeds. He shuffled his feet, not knowing what to say. Brother Langer opened the door of the smoke-house, began to flip the fish on their shelves with wooden spatulas, his shadow large, suddenly engulfing Philbert as he turned.

  ‘You must know,’ Langer went on, ‘that Kwert will go if he is given the opportunity. He knows how unhappy you are, how much you want to find your Fair.’

  Philbert winced. He’d not thought he was so easy to read. Langer sighed, cracking his knees as he suddenly squatted down.

  ‘He wants to protect you, Philbert, but he’s not strong. If you go, it is you who will have to take the burden if he gets ill again. And he will get ill again.’

  He tilted Philbert’s hat back with a fish-wielding spatula so he could look the boy in the eye. From any other head than his the hat would have fallen to the ground, but it was jammed onto Philbert’s and did not much waver, no more did Langer’s direct gaze.

  ‘We sometimes have to make decisions we don’t feel ready for,’ Langer said, ‘but this decision, Philbert, has to be yours. Not that you need make it right now. But please think about it, take a little more time to plan what you must do and where you must go.’ He put a hand to Philbert’s cheek for a moment before releasing him. ‘Just promise me you’ll think about it.’

  Philbert did, trying to untangle the jumble of packages that lay unsorted in his head, to untie the strings and scrutinize the contents, get everything in its proper place. Go or stay, his ­decision. He thought about the little trapdoor removed so ­skilfully by Ullendorf from his head, the great gift Ullendorf had given him by allowing the rest of the world passage in; how ever since he’d been slowly realising other people did not exist as mere adjuncts to himself, but that he was an adjunct to them; everything he did, every move he made, could have ­consequences for those around him, and no more so than now. He’d killed people, real people who had names and families and lives beyond his own; and the longer he stayed on this island the more likely it was that someone would eventually come looking for him here. And if that happened, when that happened – for he was suddenly certain that it would – then the consequences for those who’d helped him – for Kadia, Fatzke, Gruftgang and Brother Langer – could be dire. He’d already had more good luck than anyone had a right to. Time then for Philbert to stand up and be strong. Time to take his life in his own hands and not look for others to save him, time instead to put others before himself. Decision made.

  Their last night on the island, and the fire was burning low, scarlet streaks across the western sky, tree bark glowing orange, grass a deep and vibrant green. They stared into the failing light of the flames as Philbert began to read a passage from the Philocalia, one Kwert had helped him choose and rehearse ­especially for Brother Langer, from the words of John Chrysostom:

  Would you go into the abode of goodness, and the tents of the blessed?

  Then go into the mountains, the forests, and the deserts.

  See the birds flying, feel the breeze through the trees and the soft wind blowing;

  Bathe in the streams flowing through the ravines.

  For here is a man’s solitude and his strength;

  A time away from the ever rolling waves.

  All was quiet as Philbert read those words, Kwert hunched over his makeshift crutches by the campfire Philbert had built and lit, Brother Langer poking at the ash with his bare toes, drawing up his cassock over the round hills of his knees.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ Langer said after a few moments silence.

  ‘It’s you,’ Philbert said simply, and Brother Langer smiled his lopsided smile.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t go,’ he said. ‘You could stay here and be safe.’

  A few more moments of quiet between them all while the embers smouldered and sighed, and the night birds made soft squawks in the reeds around the island’s bays.

  ‘You have moles,’ said Kwert, changing the subject, pointing at the small brown archipelago on Brother Langer’s calf. ‘Shall I read them for you?’

  Brother Langer laughed. ‘Why not, sir? Every man is entitled to his trade.’

  Kwert creaked a little closer to his reading, moving his ­broken-nailed fingers over Brother Langer’s isles.

  ‘You are loyal and generous and have travelled far.’

  ‘You astound me, Kwert,’ the Brother replied, ‘but have I not already told you so much myself? Why not tell me of other things yet to come?’

  The tospirologist in Kwert could not help but take up the challenge and he bent to look the better, shifting his head to catch the light of the dying fire.

  ‘You have sought and you have found,’ he said, easing himself into the patter. ‘And you have two larger moles with four smaller clustered around.’

  He paused a moment, looking hard at Brother Langer’s leg as the evening dark began to spread its blue across the sky, then made a small noise in his throat, as if having a sudden revelation.

  ‘There’s a great good in you still to do,’ Kwert said quietly, ‘and it will not be long in coming.’

  Philbert smiled. It was a common trick Philbert had seen Kwert perform a great many times. In a moment Kwert would turn back and gaze intently at his subject’s face and come out with some short and pithy homily about man doing good to man; but not this time. Instead Kwert shifted his gaze across the water, seeking out the shore on which they’d arrived.

  ‘A great good,’ he murmured. And that was that. Philbert raised his eyebrows but Kwert would not look at him. Langer laughed obligingly, his belly rolling, and pulled his cassock down to cover his legs and his moles.

  ‘Not me, Kw
ert, old friend, not me. The only good I do out here is for myself. The moles have got it wrong.’

  ‘The moles are never wrong,’ Kwert retorted quickly, his soft smile hidden amongst the fading flush of his bruises. ‘Are they, Little Maus?’

  ‘Never!’ Philbert replied earnestly, just as he’d been taught. Of course they could be, as could any one of a million pre­dictions given by fortune tellers the world over, but in the case of Brother Langer, Kwert was proved exactly right.

  26

  Crossing Bridges

  They left the island on the day of the May Fair, rowing across the lake at first light, someone waving to them from the ­opposite bank.

  ‘That’ll be Fatzke,’ informed Brother Langer. ‘He brings his pony cart to ride me into town.’

  Also there were old Pastor Gruftgang, an old donkey at his side, and Kadia, in a cornflower blue dress, face smooth as an olive, eyes the gold-flecked brown of tench-backs fresh from the water. Fatzke grabbed at the boat line immediately they threw it ashore, shouting excitedly before they’d even landed.

  ‘Good news, my friends, oh but I have such good news! Schupo Ackersmann is alive and well! He’s alive, but has gone quite mad! He’s given up the Polizei and cashed in his pension. He keeps babbling about meeting angels, if you can believe it. Says the angel stayed his hand, stopped him from murdering all those prisoners and having their blood on his hands the rest of his life.’

  Gruftgang came forward, splashing through the water, ­dragging at the keel of the boat to get it grounded.

  ‘An angel that looked like a boy,’ he panted, looking from Philbert to Kwert and back again. ‘A boy with a head like a conch hidden in a hat of green . . .’

  He grabbed Philbert out of the boat and hugged him hard as dodder to a tree. Fatzke started up again, displeased to have his narrative broken.

  ‘The Schupo says the poison was his Cup from Christ, purging him of evil,’ he said, tying the boat to the oak tree. ‘And I was right there when he said it. An angel, says Ackersmann, stopped my hand and took my evil from me. Well Schupo Ackersmann, I said, if it was poison you wanted, you should’ve come to me. I could’ve given you enough to kill every cat in Christendom.’

  Gruftgang clapped heartily at Kwert’s shoulders, making him wince with the pain.

  ‘It’s a miracle!’ Gruftgang added, taking up the tale, Fatzke popping up over his shoulder every now and then to say, ‘That’s right! I was there! I saw it all!’

  ‘The angel,’ Gruftgang went on, boring Philbert through with eyes like beetle larvae going at rotten wood, ‘told Schupo Ackersmann to build a shrine, and what a shrine!’ His breath caught in his throat before going on with quiet reverence. ‘And the shrine is already there. It’s St Lydia’s. He’s going to rebuild St Lydia’s. Who could have foreseen such a blessing?’ His voice was rising as if he were already standing at his lectern, red-pipped cheeks going in and out like bellows. ‘Says he is risen back to life, and called me to him. Help me Gruftgang, says he, help me build up the least of God’s churches into glory, and we will carve both our souls into lamps for the light of God. That’s what he says.’

  ‘That’s what he said, that’s what he said!’ piped up Fatzke, ‘I heard him myself, I was there, and that’s what he said.’

  ‘Priest in my own church again,’ whispered Gruftgang. ‘Whoever would have thought it? Ah, what a glorious blessing to have seen the Angel of the Lord.’

  Kwert was frowning deeply, but Brother Langer clasped Fatzke in one big arm and Gruftgang in the other and led them off.

  ‘Sounds like we need a celebration!’ Langer exclaimed. ‘Who’s got brandy? It’s a cold morning, never mind all the rowing. I knew something was up when Philbert told me you’d taken them through the shroudways, Gruftgang. You’ve not been down there for years.’ He winked at Kwert, who followed the little procession shaking his head, glancing at Philbert as he went, not that the boy had taken any heed of this conversation. He was off a few yards up by the trees with Kadia, who was attempting to pin a bunch of bluebells to her shawl. He brought out the little ginger kitten.

  ‘You must have wondered where he went,’ Philbert said, Kadia stopping her pinning and looking at him.

  ‘Ah, hayvancik, my little one. I think he runs away.’ She put out a finger and tickled the kitten beneath his chin, Raspel purring loudly. ‘He is fatter, yes? In just these few weeks. I think you keep.’

  She moved forward, picked up the kitten, opened the flap of Philbert’s bag and pushed Raspel gently inside, a little whirl of ginger hair catching at the buckle. Philbert felt the animal settle, curling up for sleep as if this satchel was his home and Philbert his owner, and Kadia smiled at Philbert and Philbert smiled at Kadia, and they heard absolutely nothing of what the others were talking about until they piled into the cart and began moving off.

  ‘Of course I shall have to get the roof repaired and painted, and the sign. And the garden will have to be seen to. And pews!’ Gruftgang was saying. ‘That’ll be one of the first things needed. We can probably make do with benches at the start. The Schupo’s already given orders to the carpenter. And I shall need somewhere for the choir. Ackersmann absolutely insists on a choir . . .’

  He murmured on, but soon his eyes closed in reverie and no one liked to disturb him, so they sat there, happy in their seats, listening to the stones knocking together beneath the pony’s hooves, Fatzke whistling tunelessly with every breath, Philbert watching the dragonflies shimmer and dart, the slender shadows of fish below the water. Herons lifted lazy wings as they disturbed them with their passing, reminding Philbert of what Kwert had once said, that if birds didn’t fly in the sign of the cross they would plummet to the earth and die.

  A long while passed as they travelled, broken suddenly by a shout from Brother Langer.

  ‘There it is! The Abbey! I can see the point of its spire! Ah, it still has a homely look about it. Every year, every year.’

  The Abbey flitted in and out of sight between the trees until, rounding a bend, the woods all at once gave way to lesser banks of hedge and scrub sprawling an unruly mob down the brae. It took them all by surprise when the Abbey bells rang out a halting arpeggio, the lower notes slow to catch up with the higher, seeming to stay a little longer on the breeze.

  ‘Nine of the morning,’ intoned Brother Langer, ‘official start of the Cloth Market.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Fatzke, looking at a small contraption he’d fished out of his pocket, ‘a little early, I should say. I wonder if your monks would be interested in a batch of these pretty things – ring-dials, they’re called. Work just like sun-dials, only you can carry ’em around for your convenience.’

  ‘Not very convenient when it’s cloudy,’ declaimed Langer, ‘nor at night.’

  ‘Hopeless for telling how long your sermon’s been going on,’ dreamed Gruftgang, his mind still attached to St Lydia, like a ligger pulling at a pike.

  ‘Bah, Philistines the lot of you,’ grumbled Fatzke to the Hermit, the Hesychast and the Priest, folding down the gnomon and snapping shut the lid.

  The hill fell steeply away within its banks of yellow gorse and soon they reached the corner of the Market that lay just this edge of town. The great grey walls of the Abbey blocked the sun from the streets immediately beside them, a monk stepping out from a gate-turret to collect tolls from everyone passing into town. Sheaves of flyers held down by stones were stacked on his little booth, and he handed them one from each pile. Langer picked up the first and read out loud:

  Brought to you by PRUNKVOLL’S CIRCUS OF MARVELS:

  We Have The JONGLEUR OF JOUBRILLE who can ­balance an onion on the end of his nose and a chair upon his chin;

  We Have, all the way from YELLOW CHINA, The AMAZING ACROBATS, men so small and smooth they can toss each other through the air like balls;

  We Have A TROUPE OF DANCING DOGS who jig u
pon their hind legs and are dressed in the latest fashions, and bow and curtsey to one another in the politest of ways.

  ‘I wouldn’t pay a pea to see a bunch of dogs cavorting around a bone on a stick,’ said Fatzke, still disgruntled by the non-­impression made by his ring-dials, of which he had a further fifty in his saddle-pack. ‘And as for men from China, why I saw them last year – they’re nothing but a bunch of boys who’ve shaved their heads and painted their skins with dyers’ broom. Now what I’d like to see is the jongleur balancing a boy on his nose, never mind an onion, that would be something to see alright.’

  Brother Langer put that paper to the bottom and uncovered the next, which had a picture of a horse tapping at the ground with its foot, and read on.

  ALL THE WAY FROM LONDON, who would have believed it, A HORSE THAT CAN COUNT!

  All you have to do is ask him a question and he will tap out the answer with his hoof!

  What is the number of days in a week? How many seasons a year?

  How many full moons will there be this month? How many quarts of ale before a man falls to the ground?

  All these questions answered, and many more!

  ‘Pfff!’ snorted Fatzke, the pony turning its head in its trap as if to agree, or maybe to wonder what all the fuss was about – counting was easy: one, two, three, one, two, three. Simple – oats, hay, water; water, hay, oats. What more was there to life than that?