The ghost carefully lays the pearl and coral necklace on the polished wooden desktop and stands. She is wearing the same crimson robe he remembers her choosing for the Italian portrait painter, a garment she knew would conceal the swelling of her second pregnancy. Now that the spectre is upright he can see the curve of her womb and for a moment he has to shut his eyes to block out the memory of Sara’s bloodied thighs and the stillborn baby boy, her pale arms winding around him as he kissed her frightened, dying face.
‘Elazar, Elazar.’ The phantom calls him back as she moves towards the hunched figure still sitting in the carved chair. ‘Elazar, my love.’ Her whisper…scented chimes. ‘You must not wander from this life, you are needed yet.’
‘But I am so weary.’
Indeed every cell of his thin body seems to be calling out for the mindless reprieve of oblivion.
‘You must be strong just a little longer. Ruth needs you.’
Sara laces her fragrant fingers into his mane of silvery hair, sending tremors of forgotten desire through his ancient frame. Forgetting his age the old man grasps the slim wrist and covers it with kisses.
‘My love, how I yearn for you. You were my heart’s blood, my soul’s shadow.’
‘And you were mine.’ Her voice now a faint swirl of music.
She allows him to rest his head against her breasts, his hands pressing the taut round womb beneath the velvet. The old man thinks he must have been transported to Heaven, so wonderfully familiar is her perfume, the scent of her skin, her touch. Burying his head deeper into her cool bosom he finds himself missing something undefinable, then with a shock realises it is the sound of a living heartbeat.
Outside in the corridor, Tuvia, his bladder bursting, rummages around for a chamber pot. Stumbling past Elazar’s study he notices the light under the door. Curious, he presses his ear against the wood panelling only to hear the old man burst into loud dry sobs.
Das GrüNtal
Lrince Ferdinand lies on the four-poster bed, a quilt embroidered with the royal crest of the Wittelsbachs—an eagle clutching a snake in its talons—slung across him; it is stained with semen and wine. A heavy velvet curtain hangs across the stone alcove to keep out the morning which is already making a furtive attempt to creep beneath the thick fabric. A taper burns in the corner, nearing the end of its life, the flame flickering in a black pond of soft wax. The only sound is the prince‘s low snore; buried in the back of his throat, it is the snore of a boy. Alphonso, rouge still smeared across both cheeks, lies curled around the sleeping man, his long elegant feet entangled with his, his hands folded up against Ferdinand‘s blemished back.
The actor is wide awake. He stares up at the painted ceiling where the last of the candlelight illuminates Zeus seducing Adonis. The shadows have transformed Adonis into a beautiful dusky youth with soulful eyes; Zeus, however, still shines with Teutonic robustness. Alphonso imagines that he and the prince could be these two mythical figures, immortalised and, most importantly, sanctified. He is thankful for the count’s order the night before for his servants to stay away from the prince’s chambers. Understandably the count is for ever vigilant with his staff: homosexuality, although tolerated, cannot be flaunted and the count has many enemies who would use infor
mation of any indiscretion to their advantage.
The actor turns his attention back to his sleeping lover. He traces with his fingers two recent scars that run across the prince’s shoulders. He knows exactly what they are: marks of a whipping. In their lovemaking he has seen the veiled fear in the young man’s eyes. Alphonso has not asked, he does not have to: he knows Ferdinand was whipped on the orders of Emperor Leopold, his uncle, for trespasses far slighter than sleeping with another man, worse still an actor.
At eighteen Alphonso is only a year older than the prince, yet he too has tasted the lash and once narrowly escaped the gallows. He recognises the youth’s lassitude as a thin mask worn as desperate protection from further pain, both physical and emotional. An orphan who learnt from the age of six to live by his wits in the crowded Venice ghetto, Alphonso is a master of duplicity. It was a skill noticed by Samuel Oppenheimer, the emperor’s court Jew, during the acting troupe’s visit to Vienna and Alphonso has been in Oppenheimer’s employment ever since. His task is to gather snippets of information as he tours from court to court: trading tips, proposed military strategies, broken marriages and general intrigue; information that provides Oppenheimer with an advantage over his competitors and keeps him the emperor’s favourite. But it is a precarious position for the young performer. If his activities should be discovered, Samuel will not be able to rescue him.
As Alphonso lies there beside this youth he knows he is falling in love with, he swears he will defend him whatever the cost, then smiles at the irony and audacity of his sentiment. The prince could have him arrested with one command. The only protection he can offer is that of the actor, the skill of the chameleon to transform a man’s face and gender thus enabling him to infiltrate any European court he might desire.
Ferdinand stirs and rolls onto his back, mumbles a broken sentence in Austrian then continues to dream. Alphonso kisses him lightly on the lips and slips out of the bed. Wrapping himself in the great fur stole which lies abandoned on the cold marble, he steps silently across the floor and out into the dewsodden courtyard. There he steadies himself against a stone arch and after glancing around to ensure no one is watching bares his circumcised penis and begins to urinate. Looking down at the telltale organ he wonders how long he will be able to conceal his religion, as well as his heart, from the suspicious entourage that surrounds his royal lover.
A large raven watches him warily from a wooden rail. As Alphonso finishes and shakes himself dry, the bird takes off. Screeching cynically into the bleak sky, it veers to the left. Alphonso cannot dislodge the sensation that it is a bad omen.
The beast pelts into the muddy hollow, its short thick legs scrabbling desperately at the soft soil as it tries to conceal its shaggy hide with mud. Grunting it pauses, snout twitching in the spring breeze. It can smell the sweat of horses and men and, more horribly, the pungent aroma of the hounds—wet fur, shit and the blood of the last kill dripping from their jaws.
Suddenly the dogs’ baying and, below it, the low tone of the hunting horn, join to pervade the air. Squealing in fear the panicked animal wheels around, saliva spraying madly from its hairy mouth, and careers across the open glade beyond the hollow. As it runs it thinks of nothing except how to reach the ray of sunlight just visible in the next ravine.
The hunt rolls nearer until the cacophony of sound, scent and hooves is almost upon the beast. The boar scrambles over a fallen log and leaps towards the tiny valley that has opened up a couple of feet below. Its legs buckle beneath it and it falls heavily. Instantly the mottled back is covered with ravenous dogs. One long-legged yellow and red hound sinks its heavy jaw into the bushy fur at the neck, two others hang from the boar’s head. Blood spurts in a scarlet bow across the blue-white snow. The beast, a colossal male of at least three years, shakes its head heavily, its beady reddened eyes rolling in stupefied terror. The hounds hold fast and one ear tears away in a welt of lurid pink. Grunting, the bleeding animal butts blindly against a log in a desperate attempt to free itself of its attackers.
Suddenly a steel arrow soars through the air and pierces the boar as far as its heart. The porcine sovereign stiffens then with a strange grace falls heavily onto its side, its mouth pulling back over the yellowed tusks in a curiously benevolent grimace. Robbed of the final slaughter, the hounds hover over the corpse, disappointed.
The horn is sounded and reluctantly the dogs drop back, sniffing at the oozing blood, pawing the ground impatiently as the huntsmen ride to the ledge above.
‘A superb shot, your highness.’
Count Gerhard von Tennen, wearing a skin-tight leather hunting jerkin and matching breeches, takes off his large feathered hat and salutes Prince Ferdinand who, grinning in amazement, still clutches the crossbow to his breast as if the evidence of his skill might be ripped away from him at any moment.
‘Extraordinary,’ murmurs the prince, astounded at his own marksmanship.
Directly behind him Hermann Wolf, the von Tennens’ gamekeeper, winks at the count and swiftly lowers his own crossbow, concealing it in a bag hanging from his saddle. The count watches admiringly as the gamekeeper climbs off his stallion and clambers down the hill towards the boar. Hermann pauses triumphantly for a moment over the bloodied carcass then thrusts a short spear into the quivering body. The count waves his approval and turns to Ferdinand.
‘Your highness, where did you learn such craft? Why, you have the marksmanship of Hercules himself.’
The prince’s normally petulant face splits into a shy smile.