by Frank Tallis
“We escaped, then.” Asher passed the book back to his brother. “Go to bed. I want to finish this act tonight.”
35
COUNCILLOR SCHMIDT OFFERED BISHOP Waldheim more tea and a plate of steirische schneeballen—strips of dough molded into “snowballs,” fried until golden brown, and generously dusted with powdered sugar. The bishop accepted, and after biting through the crisp exterior of the pastry emitted a low growl to express his satisfaction. They had just finished interviewing Nurse Heuber.
“Not as forthcoming as we had hoped,” said the bishop.
“No,” said Schmidt.
“She was obviously quite anxious.”
“That’s it, you see…. I think these people need to know that they have nothing to fear, that they have our full support.”
“Well, that goes without saying, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps not, Bishop. Perhaps not.” Schmidt sampled a snowball and was impressed by his cook’s achievement. The brittle surface offered just enough resistance, and the soft interior was redolent of vanilla and rum. “I may be a little more direct with the next witness,” Schmidt added. He looked toward the bishop for approval, his eyebrows raised slightly, expectant.
“Do whatever you think best,” said the bishop, collecting up the snowball remnants on his plate and pressing them between his unusually rosy lips.
When they had finished their tea, Schmidt summoned his butler and asked for Edlinger to be shown in. When the young man appeared, the councillor came around the table and shook his hand.
“Edlinger, dear boy, delighted you could come. We are most grateful.”
Schmidt introduced Bishop Waldheim, and the young man—impressed by his office—bowed ostentatiously low. The bishop, however, responded only by raising his hand and tracing a vague cruciform benediction in the air. Schmidt offered Edlinger a seat and then returned to his place beside the bishop.
“So, Edlinger,” said Schmidt. “I understand that you are a friend of my nephew Fabian.”
“Yes, we are well acquainted.”
“Indeed, he speaks very highly of you.”
Edlinger looked a little embarrassed, painfully aware that Fabian’s esteem had not been earned by acts of Christian charity.
“Well…,” said the young man, shrugging and hoping that his inarticulacy would pass for modesty.
Schmidt produced a benign, indulgent smile.
“You are an aspirant?”
“Yes.”
“And where do you want to practice, once you are qualified?”
“At the General Hospital.”
“And why not? It is, after all, the finest medical institution in the world. Do you have a special interest?”
“Liver disease.”
“Liver disease, eh? Well, I suppose Professor Hollar is your man. If you could get a position working under a specialist with his reputation, well, that would be a tremendous advantage, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Edlinger, somewhat confused. “It would.”
“A man like him has more private referrals than he can possibly see. He’s always passing wealthy patients on to his juniors. Yes, you couldn’t hope for a better start to a career in medicine.”
Again, Schmidt smiled.
Edlinger glanced nervously at the bishop.
“Well,” Schmidt continued, “I must apologize for involving you in a disciplinary matter, but you were present on the evening when the young Baron von Kortig died. You are, therefore, a key witness, and we would very much value your assistance. There are certain details that need to be—as it were—clarified.”
“Clarified?”
Schmidt picked up a piece of yellow paper. “I have here a letter, written by Father Benedikt to the old Baron von Kortig. In it he describes what transpired when he arrived to administer the last rites to the young baron.” Schmidt summarized the priest’s account. “Clearly, this is a very serious incident. The young baron was heinously denied the consolation of his faith, on his deathbed.” The bishop rumbled like distant thunder. “Incidents like this have the potential to destroy public trust in the medical profession, and bring the great institution of the General Hospital into disrepute.”
“Quite so,” said the bishop.
Edlinger bit his lower lip and stroked his dueling scar.
“Would you say,” Schmidt continued, “that Herr Dr. Liebermann’s manner—on that evening—could be described as aggressive?”
“Aggressive…,” Edlinger pondered. “I can remember feeling that Herr Dr. Liebermann should have shown Father Benedikt more respect. And I can remember appealing to him…. I said something like, ‘What right do we as medical men have to interfere with a priest’s obligation to administer a sacrament?’”
“But would you say he was aggressive?”
“I’m not sure. Disrespectful, dismissive, perhaps.”
“He did obstruct Father Benedikt. Physically…”
“Yes, he did.”
“What would have happened, one wonders, if Father Benedikt had been more insistent? What if Father Benedikt had tried to get past him? Do you think Dr. Liebermann would have resisted, exercising even greater force?”
“He was quite adamant that Father Benedikt should not pass.”
“Disgraceful,” muttered the bishop.
“Was Father Benedikt at any point threatened?” Schmidt continued.
“He was not threatened with violence, no.”
“Though I suspect he must have felt threatened. Dr. Liebermann barred his entrance to the ward. Obstruction is a kind of violence. This was surely threatening behavior?”
Edlinger looked to the bishop, who was nodding sagely, and back to Schmidt.
“Well, I suppose it is possible that Father Benedikt felt threatened. He didn’t look very comfortable or happy with the situation.”
“Indeed. So if you were asked—let us say during the course of a hospital committee inquiry—if Dr. Liebermann’s manner was threatening, you would have to answer yes.”
Edlinger’s brow furrowed. “I…” He hesitated and scratched his head.
“Edlinger, I cannot help noticing that you have a dueling scar. What is your fraternity?”
“Alemania.”
“Ah yes,” said Schmidt, as if he were enjoying the aromatic waft of a fine coffee. “Alemania,” he repeated. “Did you know that I am very well acquainted with Professor Hollar? Did Fabian mention that? We sometimes share a box at the opera. A young man like you needs to consider his prospects, his future. Medicine is a very competitive profession. And there’s a lot you could do—right now—to expedite your advancement at the hospital.”
Edlinger’s eyes widened. “I would say that Dr. Liebermann’s attitude was disrespectful…” Schmidt and Bishop Waldheim were both nodding. “And threatening. Yes, most definitely. Threatening.”
Schmidt sighed with relief, and the bishop smiled.
36
MORDECAI BEN JUDAH LEVI, a distinguished scholar from another Hasidic sect, had written to Barash requesting a favor. In his letter he had explained that he was currently drafting an exegetical work and wished to discuss a particular point of law with special reference to the teachings of Isaac Luria. The zaddik had promptly consented, and his guest had arrived the following evening with a satchel crammed with books and annotated papers. It transpired that the question posed by Levi was not as testing as Barash had expected. Indeed, he was immediately able to provide an exact answer, allowing the two men to indulge in a more far-reaching conversation, a conversation that repeatedly strayed away from the ordinary and embraced the arcane.
“Are you familiar with the principal means by which demons propagate?” asked the zaddik’s guest.
The curtains were drawn, and the only light in the room came from a single sputtering candle on the sideboard. A harsh wind had blown in from the east, carrying with it an icy memory of its Carpathian origins. It was curiously expressive, finding in every flue and vent an excuse to wail
inconsolably. This disembodied moaning was most appropriate to their subject.
“I have not made a very detailed study of this area,” said Barash modestly.
“Onanism,” said the guest. “It is without doubt the principal means of demonic generation. Lilith, the queen of demons, and the familiars in her retinue excite concupiscent desire in men so that they are wont to engage in solitary acts of debauch. The demons do this so that they can make bodies for themselves from the lost seed.” The guest tilted his head, and appeared to be listening intently to the lamentations of the wind. “No man can be complacent, even the virtuous man whose desires are satisfied within the sacred and lawful union of marriage. Lilith is ever eager to trespass in Eve’s dominion. Thus, the Zohar recommends we perform a rite that keeps the demon temptress from the marriage bed. When the husband enters the bedroom, he should think only of holy things and recite the prayer of protection.”
The zaddik’s guest intoned a verse:
Veiled in velvet—are you here?
Loosened, loosened be your spell
Go not in and go not out
Let there be none of you and nothing of your part
Turn back, turn back, the ocean rages
Its waves are calling you
But I cleave the holy part,
I am wrapped in the sanctity of the King.
“Then,” he continued, “the wise husband must wind cloth around his own head, and his wife’s head, and sprinkle fresh water on the connubial sheets.”
Barash was impressed by his guest’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Zohar, and of so many other holy tomes. He was not only familiar with The Book of Creation, The Book Bahir, and The Book of Visions but also numerous lesser works: The Treatise on the Emanations on the Left by Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen and De Arte Kabbalistica by Johannes Reuchlin.
Barash was flattered that a scholar as renowned as Levi had chosen to consult him. However, as their conversation progressed, he became increasingly uneasy. The point of law that his guest had wished to discuss was easily dispensed with, and he had begun to suspect that the question had been merely a pretext. The scholar seemed to be testing Barash, exploring the extent of his knowledge—and, by implication, his power.
They spoke for some time about demonic entities—their provenance and exorcism, and rites for protecting the dead. Eventually, however, their talk subsided and the room was filled with only the sound of banging shutters and the mournful cry of the wind. The zaddik’s guest closed his eyes; he might have been sleeping were it not for the slow rise and fall of his right index finger. In due course, the scholar spoke. “The monk and the councillor.” The words seemed to sustain an unnatural presence, like the protracted reverberation that follows the striking of a bell. “We have heard rumors. Your prophecy, scattered earth…”
So, thought Barash. Now we have it at last.
“And I hear that your students have been telling, once again, the old stories. The old stories of the Prague ghetto.” The wind created a full-throated, almost human cry of desperation, and the scholar opened his eyes. They glinted in the darkness like mica. “My people want to know what is happening.”
“Then tell them. Give them answers.”
“What answers?”
“The answers that you know to be true, in your heart.”
A sudden draft extinguished the candle, and they were plunged into total darkness. Barash could hear the scholar breathing: fast and shallow.
“Did you make it?” Levi asked, his voice no more than a whisper.
“No.”
“Then who? Who among us today has the strength?”
“I don’t know,” Barash replied. “But surely, whoever it is, he will soon reveal himself.”
37
FROM THE JOURNAL OF Dr. Max Liebermann
Today I saw Clara, the woman I once loved. Or perhaps I should say the woman whom I thought I once loved. The woman who by now would have been my wife, had I not broken off our engagement. It is a strange consideration. Marriage. She looked stunning, coming out of the Imperial in the company of a handsome lieutenant. I had heard rumors, of course. They say she met him at a sanatorium in the Tyrol where her father had sent her to convalesce. I had always derived consolation from this news. It served to assuage my guilt. I couldn’t be held responsible for ruining her life. Indeed, she might find true love with her lieutenant, and be patently much happier than she ever would have been with me. I wished her well, because if she found happiness in the arms of her handsome lieutenant, then my judgment would be vindicated. There, you see? It was for the best, after all.
So why is it, I wonder, that when I saw them together today I felt so ungenerous, so empty of goodwill? They stepped out of the Imperial, and the lieutenant hailed a cab. Clara was smiling. She was wearing a long fur coat with a matching hat and looked like a Russian princess. A cab pulled up, and the lieutenant helped her inside. As she ascended the step, he held her gloved fingers in one hand, and pressed the small of her back with the other. It was casual contact, accomplished with careless, practiced ease. He was used to touching her, and she was used to being touched. As the cab rolled off, I saw them kiss. A merging of shadows in the frame of a small window, glanced a moment before the curtain swished across to protect her honor.
It left me feeling excluded and horribly alone: standing on a corner, a revenant, or less—a voyeur—blinking into a gritty, chill wind. I remembered kissing her: the desire, the wanting. She was, and remains, a very beautiful woman. She was not right for me, and I was not right for her. I know that. I knew that then and I know that now. Even so, when I go to bed this evening, I will be going to bed alone. What have I replaced marriage with? An obsession. A fetish. The pursuit of a woman whose inaccessibility is equaled only by that of the stars. I am no different from some of Krafft-Ebing’s cases. Excepting, perhaps, that their erotic lives are more satisfactory than mine! At least they have real outlets, whereas I appear to have none at all.
Amelia Lydgate was my patient. Her hysterical symptoms arose from a sexual trauma, the unwelcome advances of a man in whose household and care her parents had thought she would be safe. Miss Lydgate has now placed her trust in me. If I attempt to become intimate with her, will this not re-create elements of the very situation that made her ill? I wonder, what correspondent memories would a passionate embrace arouse in her mind? Schelling, stealing into her room at night and attempting to force himself upon her? The mattress tilting as he crawled over the bed, the suffocating weight of his body? How can I make my feelings known to such a woman, knowing as I do what she has experienced?
38
RABBI SELIGMAN AWOKE AND saw his wife’s face looming over him. He had dozed off while reading in an armchair next to the fire.
“Wake up!” She shook his shoulder. “Wake up. Kusiel is here.”
“Kusiel?”
“Yes, Kusiel. He says it’s urgent.”
The rabbi got up from the chair and shuffled out into the hall, where he found the old caretaker.
“It’s happening again,” said Kusiel. “You must come.”
Seligman signaled that Kusiel should lower his voice. Taking his coat from the hall stand, he called out to his wife, saying that he wouldn’t be long. The two men stepped out into the night and walked the short distance to the synagogue. The Alois Gasse Temple was dark, except for the eternal light that danced in front of the golden edifice of the ark. Kusiel lit a paraffin lamp.
“It’s been terrible. It’s like something’s being tortured up there.”
The old man rolled his eyes.
Seligman listened. All that he could hear was his own pulse hammering in his ears.
“I can’t hear anything.”
“Wait… and you will.”
The silence unfurled like a bolt of cloth, accumulating in suffocating, heavy folds. It was unyielding and contained within its emptiness a foretaste of oblivion.
“Perhaps you have been working too hard,” said Seligman.
“You might have fallen asleep and had a dream.”
“There is something here, Rabbi. Something unnatural.”
Kusiel’s expression was resolute.
Time passed, and Seligman allowed himself to feel less anxious. Perhaps the old man really had imagined the noises after all. The hammering in Seligman’s ears slowed. He was just about to say I’m going home when there was a sound that trapped the words in his throat: a deep, loud groaning. The quality of the vocalization suggested not so much torment—as Kusiel’s reference to torture had suggested—but rather rage or anger. There was something brutal about its depth and fury, like the bellow of a taunted bull.
The whites of Kusiel’s rheumy eyes glinted in the darkness.
“It’s upstairs, Rabbi. Come. You must confront it.”
Seligman’s legs were weak with fear. Was it possible? Had some demonic entity found a home in his synagogue? No! He was letting the old caretaker’s credulous talk get to him. There would be a rational explanation. He took the paraffin lamp from Kusiel and climbed the stairs to the balcony.
When they reached their destination, there was a loud thud: the floorboards shook.
“It’s coming from behind there,” said Kusiel, pointing to an old door.
The two men looked at each other, amazement mirrored in both their faces.
“Impossible,” whispered Seligman.
“It hasn’t been opened in years,” said the old man. “Your predecessor lost the key.”
“Was there anything in there?”
“No. It’s just an empty attic space.”
Lumbering steps and another bellow: impatient stamping. The cacophony conjured a picture of something mythic and bovine in the rabbi’s mind. Seligman moved closer to the door. He reached out and clasped the handle, but as he did so, whatever was on the other side crashed against the woodwork. Seligman released his grip as if he had been electrified, and sprang back. He steadied himself by grasping the balcony rail, his legs shaking.