The Play of Death Read online

  “It was important for Simon to take Peter to his new school in Oberammergau,” Magdalena continued. “It’s only a day’s journey from here, but we won’t see much of the boy in the next few years. I wanted very much to go along,” she said, her voice catching, “but someone has to stay here and keep the bathhouse open so that everything doesn’t go to the dogs. Barbara is much too young to take charge, and besides, she doesn’t know anything about the healing arts.”

  With a heavy heart, Magdalena thought back on the parting early that morning. Even though Peter was just seven years old, he’d been very brave and hadn’t cried, in contrast to his mother, who couldn’t hold back her tears. Even Peter’s younger brother, Paul, who would ordinarily not let any opportunity pass to tease his older sibling, had remained subdued.

  Alongside her, Thomas Zeilinger started grunting softly, tearing her from her melancholy thoughts. The linen weaver burped and wiped his mouth, which still showed some traces of blood. With disgust, Magdalena roused herself.

  “Hey, the procedure is over,” she said loudly. “You can go home. And remember: nothing but warm small beer and barley porridge for a week, until the wound has healed.”

  Zeilinger started to get up, wavering slightly, but Magdalena put her hand on his shoulder and held him back. “You owe me half a guilder.”

  Suddenly the linen weaver became stone-cold sober. “Half a guilder?” he grumbled, then let out a scornful laugh. “Was that pair of tooth tongs made of pure gold?”

  “No, but you guzzled down almost all my supply of theriaca, and that’s expensive stuff, so hand over the money.” She stretched her hand out insistently.

  Without responding, Zeilinger tried to walk around her, but the two women blocked his way, their arms crossed.

  “And suppose I don’t pay? What then, eh?” the linen weaver asked.

  “Then I’ll send you to see my father, the hangman,” Magdalena replied. “He’ll pull all your other teeth out. For free.”

  Grumbling, Zeilinger fumbled around and took a few coins from the purse on his belt. “Very well,” he grumbled, placing the coins on the table. “But take care, bathhouse-keeper’s wife.” He gave Magdalena a sly look. “Who knows what you two have put in this drink. Perhaps they’re forbidden witches’ herbs that the town council should hear about? Not everyone on the council is your friend. Just recently the head of the town council said—”

  “Get the hell out before I cast a spell and give you warts,” Martha Stechlin snapped. “Look what we get for helping you. But I can tell you one thing. The next time you need a potion so you can get it up in bed, don’t come to us.”

  “Ugh! Your watered-down love potion never worked, anyway. And since we’re talking about sex now . . .”—Zeilinger gave Magdalena a dirty look—“your sister, Barbara, better watch out. She’s wagging her butt around a little too much over in the taverns. Some people think she’s there to cast a spell on the young men.”

  “Now get out!” Magdalena shouted. She handed Zeilinger his crumpled hat. “Sober up first before you go around talking nonsense like that.”

  Zeilinger headed for the door, muttering under his breath, while making signs with his hands to ward off evil magic. After the door finally slammed shut behind him, Magdalena turned to Martha.

  “You shouldn’t have said that about the warts,” she warned her. “You know yourself how quickly women healers are branded as witches.”

  The midwife shrugged. “It’s always been that way,” Martha replied sharply. “They’ve been talking behind our backs for years, and it doesn’t take much to make the pot boil over. Zeilinger’s right when he says the town council tolerates us, at best.” She hesitated before continuing. “And as far as Barbara is concerned . . .”

  Magdalena stared at her, waiting for what would come next. “Just say it, before it gets stuck in your throat.”

  “Well, your sister should really try to control herself a bit. Recently I saw her up in the Stern flirting with three fellows in that tavern all at the same time. She knows she’s attractive, and she likes to turn them on. People talk.”

  “My God, Martha, she’s only seventeen. You used to be young, too.”

  “Yes, but I knew my place.” Martha stared at her wrinkled hands with their cracked fingernails. “My father was a simple charcoal burner. We lived out in the forest. Naturally we went to church fairs, but I never would have dared to dance with the son of a wealthy farm owner.”

  “Is that all you want to tell me? If Barbara had come from a respectable family, it would be all right for her to swing her hips around, but as a hangman’s daughter she immediately gets branded a whore?” Magdalena could feel the anger boiling up inside her. Actually, she had to agree with Martha that sometimes Barbara overdid it. She combed her hair like a princess and sometimes even used belladonna juice to enlarge her pupils. She wouldn’t let anyone push her around, and her laugh was often a bit too loud, her speech a bit too disrespectful for a dishonorable girl from the Tanners’ Quarter.

  At least in this respect, she takes after her father, Magdalena thought.

  “Sometimes I wish Barbara would find a gentle, loyal husband to bring her under control,” she mumbled, more to herself. But Martha Stechlin had heard it.

  “Not everyone can be as lucky as you, Magdalena,” the midwife replied softly. “Not everyone has someone to care for them and look after them. I wish I did.” With a grim look, she continued. “That’s another reason, by the way, why your husband should come home again as soon as possible. A dishonorable bathhouse keeper is always viewed with suspicion, and a woman running a bathhouse on her own while her husband is away on a trip can quickly be viewed as a woman in league with the devil. We can only pray that no one in town tries to exploit this situation.”

  Magdalena shuddered and, despite the warm fire on the hearth, she suddenly felt a chill.

  A frosty wind swept down from the Ammergau Alps directly into Simon’s face.

  Though it was already the beginning of May, there were still patches of snow in the meadows and moors, and snow began to fall as they approached Oberammergau. Frost was not uncommon at night even into June here in the Bavarian foothills, and there were occasionally even snowstorms. Together with his son Peter, Simon was crouched down in a horse-drawn wagon whose driver had picked them up in the little town of Soyen. He apparently had taken pity on the serious-looking, slender lad who didn’t seem up to the long walk.

  Simon glanced lovingly at his elder son, who was absorbed in one of the anatomical drawings he’d traced from his grandfather’s books onto tattered scraps of paper and was now carrying with him in a large folder. The sketches were Peter’s pride and joy. In rapt attention, the seven-year-old ran his fingers over the filigree of muscles belonging to a bloodied man.

  “Do you see, Father?” he said, without taking his eyes off the drawing. “Here is the pectoralis major, and that’s the rectus abdominis. Is that right?”

  “Indeed,” Simon replied with a smile. “But in Oberammergau I’d refrain from using Latin words, for the most part. It’s much more important there for you to learn to speak Bavarian fluently and be faithful in attending mass.”

  Only now did Peter look up from the sketches. His face was still a bit pale, as if he were unaccustomed to fresh air, and his straggly dark hair hung down over his eyes. He sniffled loudly, as he had caught another one of his frequent colds.

  “I don’t want to go to Oberammergau,” he whispered. “Why couldn’t I stay in my school in Schongau?”

  “Do you really want to spend the rest of your life just counting apples and pears, and memorizing the catechism?” his father asked gruffly. “Your teacher there is an old drunk who’s quicker with his paddle than with his head, and as the son of a dishonorable bathhouse keeper you aren’t allowed to learn Latin. Once the authorities have made up their minds, there’s no point complaining about it.”

  For a while they fell silent, as Simon once again pondered the decision he
and Magdalena had made a few months ago. It had become quite evident that Peter was not being sufficiently challenged in the Schongau school, in contrast to his brother, Paul, who was a year younger, cut classes often, and regarded school as torture. But Peter was different. While other children had trouble memorizing the confession of faith, Peter knew the alphabet, the basics of arithmetic, and even spoke some Latin. But for the grandson of the local executioner, further schooling in Schongau was out of the question. Simon knew a talented schoolmaster in Oberammergau who didn’t care about Peter’s background and lower class and was willing to accept him.

  Peter crossed his arms defiantly and turned to his father again. “I want to stay with you, Father. You’re the best teacher I could ever ask for.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” Simon said in a deliberately cheerful tone. “Schoolmaster Georg Kaiser is a very intelligent man, and moreover very pleasant. Back when I was at the university in Ingolstadt, he was my favorite teacher and even instructed the children of a baron. Oberammergau can consider itself lucky that he returned to his hometown a few years ago, and so should you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any child from a hangman’s family—”

  “Who’s allowed to study with such a learned gentleman,” Peter added, finishing his father’s sentence. “Yes, I know, but still—”

  “Just take a look at these huge mountains,” Simon interrupted, trying to change the topic. “If you were a bird, you could fly all the way to Venice, but people like us need to take the steep mountain passes.” He smiled as he pointed to the chain of low mountains stretching from east to west, with tall peaks and entire ranges towering up in the distance. A wide valley opened up before them, interspersed with snow-covered moors and heaths, and in the middle the Ammer, the river that gave this region its name, a raging flood in late spring. Before them they saw a chapel with a small village behind it, and in the background gently rolling grassy hills rising to the forested and craggy mountains.

  “In front of us is Unterammergau,” Simon continued. “Now we’re almost there.” He winked at Peter. “It was this route that the Romans presumably took on their trip over the Alps. It leads down to Garmisch and, beyond that, the pass over the mountains to Lombardy. Many foreigners and other interesting people take this route through the region. And then there’s the Passion play taking place next month in Oberammergau. You’ll like it here, I’m sure, and I promise we’ll come to visit you a few times a year.”

  Peter nodded silently and went back to staring at the sketch in front of him.

  With squeaking wheels the wagon moved along through the slushy snow, and now and then they’d have to climb down and help pull when it got stuck in one of the many ruts. Now the mountains rose up on both sides of the road. The sun, which had until then shone down brightly and cheerfully on the moss-covered ground and forests, disappeared behind dark gray clouds, and the shadows seemed to be reaching out with long fingers to grasp the travelers.

  At a crossroads near the river, the wagon driver suddenly stopped and got down from his box. He approached the wayside shrine that was covered with moss and lichen; it was standing a bit lopsided. Snowdrops were sprouting all around from the leaf-covered ground. The wagon driver removed his hat and began to pray quietly. After some hesitation, Simon followed him and joined him in prayer. He wasn’t an especially religious person, but the sudden darkness in the valley and the prospect of having to leave his son here for such a long time saddened him.

  As Simon stood there with folded hands, his eyes wandered over the cracked and weathered stone that had probably been there since ancient times. Strange runes were scratched into it, and Simon even thought he recognized a devil’s face. The man alongside him was murmuring the Lord’s Prayer again when suddenly a long, drawn-out rumbling could be heard in the distance, as if a giant were dragging a heavy sack of stones behind him.

  “What was that?” Simon asked, startled.

  The driver turned around to spit, then crossed his fingers. “The accursed Kofel,” he answered finally. “Somewhere on its rockface there’s probably been an avalanche.” He pointed toward a cone-shaped mountain on his right that was barren of vegetation and cast a shadow across the valley. “The Kofel is an evil thing. It’s no wonder that people here think it’s really a devil. There are many stories about it.”

  “What kind of stories?” asked Peter, who had run to his father on hearing the terrifying crash.

  “Well, evil spirits are said to live up there, and the Kofel witch has a cave there, where he takes children and bakes them in his oven. It’s said that, in ancient times, sacrifices were made up on the summit. And then there are the little men from Venice that live deep in the mountain and—”

  “Now just stop this superstitious nonsense,” Simon scolded. “You’re scaring the boy.”

  “But suppose it’s true,” the driver persisted. “I’ve never been able to stand this accursed valley. I’m always happy when I’m headed down the Kienberg into the Loisach Valley.”

  “What are those strange stones?” Peter suddenly asked, pointing at a circle of white pebbles aligned around the foot of the cross. Until then, Simon hadn’t noticed them. Four branches pointed away from the circle, like the points of a compass, making it look like a drawing of the sun.

  “That?” The wagon driver shrugged. “No idea. Some children must have done that. It’s time we got moving. There’s still a long way to go.”

  He turned away gruffly, and Simon thought he noticed a nervous twitch in the man’s face. He seemed to be hiding something from them.

  Sullenly, he climbed back into the driver’s box and whipped his horses on. He was in such a hurry that Simon and Peter barely had time to get back in.

  Strange people here, Simon thought. Close-mouthed and superstitious to the core. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all to bring Peter to Oberammergau.

  As the wagon moved forward, Simon’s gaze rested for a long time on the moss-covered, crooked stone cross, until it finally disappeared behind a hill.

  “The fish live in the water, the doe live in the wood, and so they stay together, as young and old they should . . .”

  Barbara sang the old tune her mother had taught her long ago to the rhythm of a country folk dance as she swept the last of the soiled reeds out the door. In her mind she was already at the dance that would take place that evening at the Stern Tavern up in town. A few itinerant minstrels were scheduled to be there, and the innkeeper would open the large ballroom for the occasion. Karl Sailer, who lived in the Tanners’ Quarter, had promised to take Barbara with him. Such an invitation couldn’t be taken for granted, since as a dishonorable person she was actually forbidden to attend dance parties unless she could find an honorable young man willing to overlook established prejudices and invite her. With his fractured nose, Karl, the tanner’s journeyman, was not the handsomest lad in town—nor the brightest—but at least Barbara could attend the dance. Her father had given her permission only because she’d agreed to give his room a thorough cleaning beforehand. The sun was already setting behind the roofs, so she had to hurry. After all, she still had to clean out the stable, feed the chickens under the bench in the main room, and prepare the evening meal. Then she wanted to change her dress and wash off the dirt and ashes with some cheap bone soap she’d bought from the butcher.

  Well, at least it gave you healthy-looking red cheeks.

  With a sigh, Barbara put the broom aside and began cleaning the dirty dishes. Dry bits of oat porridge clung to a bowl, a dead fly floated in a cup of small beer, and crumbs of tobacco lay all over the table. Ever since Mother died several years ago, Father was neglecting himself more and more, and it was Barbara who had to clean up after him and do the cooking. That was the arrangement she had with her big sister.

  Only last year, the hangman had moved to the little house down by the river and left the large executioner’s house to Magdalena, Simon, and their children. Barbara still had her own room there, but during th
e day she cared for her father. At the moment he’d gone shopping in town, but he’d be back soon and no doubt have some complaint about what she’d done.

  “So they stay together, as young and old they should,” she sang again, a little softer. Suddenly the song sounded like a mockery. Was that her fate? To care for her father until he died while her older sister made money and gained recognition as the wife of the bathhouse keeper? It was a lucky stroke for Magdalena that the secretary Johann Lechner had a few years ago approved her marriage to Simon, the son of the former city doctor. Barbara’s future looked far less rosy. Basically, she was allowed to marry only someone of her own social caste, and that meant knackers, hangmen’s journeymen, or the crippled Schongau gravedigger who had proposed to her twice already.

  But before that could happen, she’d kill herself.

  Barbara polished one of the copper plates, casting a furtive glance at her reflection in the shiny surface. She was a black-haired tomboy with sparkling eyes and bushy eyebrows, just like her older sister. Further, she had about her something untamed, saucy, that magically attracted men. Her bust had grown considerably in recent years, and she enjoyed it when young men in the tavern secretly glanced at her. Often they told her she was pretty—beautiful as a starless night, some said, a bride of Satan. When they got drunk, they’d make salacious remarks and break out in dirty laughs. Sometimes Barbara would sit down with them and a few other girls at a table in the tavern and let them buy her a tankard of beer, but the others always made her feel that she didn’t belong. She was, after all, the daughter of the Schongau executioner, a dishonorable hangman’s girl.

  The plates clattered as Barbara cleaned up and put the dishes back in the cupboard over the table. Those are the rules. Either I marry the hunchbacked gravedigger or I clean up after my father until I’m an old maid . . .