The Witch of Cologne

‘In that case, Fräulein, you have more than I.’

After he has gone, Ruth lies on the narrow bed and stares up at the ceiling. She watches the shadows thrown by the fire dance across the smoke-stained expanse. The events of the last few days have been so momentous she feels as if she has lived several lifetimes longer and not a mere week.

An ember flares up and reminds her of the swaying figures of the men praying at temple and her father. Will Elazar be sleeping now? Will he survive her imprisonment? Will she ever see him again?

A sudden nip on the leg makes her flinch. She examines the cover, it is crawling with lice. She tries to pluck one tiny insect off the grey cotton but her fingers, still stiff from the torture, are not nimble enough to crush the minute slippery body. Shrugging, she tugs the thin blanket over her. A faint remnant of her visitor’s musk drifts across her face. Maddening. Seductive. Perplexing. Lulled by Detlef’s aroma she finally allows exhaustion to consume her and collapses mercifully into a dreamless sleep.

The wind lashes across Detlef’s face, whipping up his blood and cleansing his spirit. With a yell he digs his spurs into the mare, goading her on. Behind him the walled city recedes into a thick mist, just the crane of the half-constructed spire, bent like the wooden arm of a huge scarecrow, is visible above the low cloud. Already the fields are giving way to thick dark forest. The broken road is dangerous, notorious for bandits and highway robbers, but exhilarated by the glorious risk of it all Detlef gallops on, the barely discernible low stone walls which run on either side of the narrow lane his only means of navigation. It has been many years since he did anything so rash and the thud of the horse’s hooves and the pounding of his own heart and blood roar in his ears like the crash of an angry sea. He is running from the past into a violent future. He is running from caution headlong into uncertainty. But for the first time he feels as if he is truly living in his own skin.

Fifteen miles away, on the other side of the sleeping river, a candle burns at an upstairs window. The glass, misted from the heat inside, frames an ancient face bent over a desk. Rabbi Elazar ben Saul cannot sleep. He has not slept since his audience with the archbishop, his mind and spirit will not allow it. He feels that if he surrenders to rest, his conscious will might relax and stop defending his daughter

, as if the ring of protection he has projected around her requires constant vigilance. He is suffering, still caught in the anger of Sara’s betrayal. To have baptised their daughter without his knowledge—there could hardly be a greater sin.

A painted miniature lies before him on the small walnut desk. Italian Renaissance in style, the subject seems to stare past the viewer as if her object is far distant—perhaps she is even in a trance. She is beautiful but it is hard to define what makes her beauty. It is not the symmetry of her face, for it proves on close observation asymmetrical: one eye lies slightly lower than the other while the mouth has a subtle but visible downward slant and the nose is strong. It is not the shape of her face, which could be defined as Spanish or even of the Orient, so high are the cheekbones. Nor the eyebrows which are plucked thin in the fashion of twenty years before, nor the groomed hairline set back from the high forehead. Perhaps it is the attentiveness of her gaze which radiates out from deep ebony irises and seems to speak of tragedy yet unrealised, or the air of solemn dignity tinged with pride which makes her appear older than her years, or could it be the intelligence which plays around the mouth in a teasing half-smile? Whatever it is, the woman is undeniably radiant.

The fine varnish of the portrait has begun to crack and the gold leaf that picks out the details of her crimson robe is flaking off. The rosy hue of her cheeks and lips—painted with minuscule brush strokes—has faded. But to the old man it is as if the young woman is sitting there before him, her head tilted, the pensive expression he recalls as the prelude to her mischievous questioning of his gravity playing across her features.

‘Elazar, all the prophets had humour so why am I married to such a Jeremiah?’

‘Because life is very serious.’

‘Life is very short, my dear heart, but, like a thing of both beauty and terror, does not bear examination. Laughter allows us for a brief moment to enjoy, but more importantly to forget.’

‘So is it not enough that I smile occasionally?’

‘No. No, it is not.’

And then he hears her laugh, a cascade of descant notes shimmering on the air. It is so vivid that the old man actually looks over his shoulder to see whether the ghost might have woken the household. But the rest of the room lies static, untouched by the presence of her iridescent spirit.

He is frightened to look up in case his gaze should drive away the manifestation of his dead wife, for the spectre is definitely there, sitting just beyond the desk. The chamber has filled with the scent of lily, the perfume Sara adopted in her new land, determined to exorcise any odour that might sweep her back to the horrors of the past. She wore the musky fragrance especially to please her young scholarly husband, who was so shy they made love under the bedcovers in pitch darkness, until she complained that she might as well be making love to the angel Gabriel or the prophet Elijah so little did she see of her man. The memory makes Elazar smile but still he is afraid to look up. Instead the old man keeps his gaze on the miniature and the string of pearls and coral wound around his fingers, the same necklace highlighted with beads of silvery-white enamel in the tiny portrait.

While he waits an elegant hand—he recognises the delicacy and length of its fingers with such intensity that he fears that his heart might dam up with tears—reaches forward and gently takes the string of jewels from him.

It is only then that Elazar dares to look at his wife, Sara. He sees that his memory has not imbued her with perfection nor marred her through forgetfulness, but that every detail of her face, from the small scar on the chin to the row of fine black hairs that make up the arch of each brow, is made manifest through love. And as he looks he immediately forgets that the woman before him has been dead for over fifteen years.

‘I am here to ask your forgiveness, Elazar.’ The ghost’s voice, instantly recognisable, binds the old man’s heart with grief.

‘Why, Sara?’

‘Fear, my love, the fear of a survivor.’

‘You committed a sin, a grave sin. She belongs to both of us.’

‘I wished only to protect her. I wanted her to live, whatever the circumstances. I acted out of love—this you must believe. Forgive me.’

Elazar looks into her face, losing himself in the eternity of their history which stretches like a dream beyond her coal-black eyes.

‘Have I ever been able to deny you?’

‘No.’ And she smiles, a smile which is both wry and gentle and pulls Elazar like a glistening thread straight back into his youth.

‘What now, Sara?’

‘Now we wait; our daughter is strong.’

‘But the inquisitor has her.’

‘No longer. What will be is already written. Isn’t that what you used to tell me?’