The Witch of Cologne

‘May your God—who is Jewish—forgive you, Rosa.’ He sits heavily on the stool she has placed beside him.

‘God can do what he likes, because frankly, Reb, there’s not much he hasn’t already done to me—or to you for that matter…’

The old nursemaid pauses. In the distance she can hear trumpets heralding the arrival of the accused. The horns sound three times, a haunting cascade from high to low. The crowd turns in the direction of the small docks where the procession is disembarking from its crossing of the Rhine.

Tuvia leans towards the rabbi, his lean face alight with a sudden intensity.

‘If your daughter becomes my wife, I swear to you, her father, that next year we shall all be safe in the Holy Land, our people’s sanctuary. Shabbatai Zevi is the real Messiah; I have read the signs in the sky myself.’

Rosa snorts dismissively but Elazar is silent, contemplating his response to the fervent youth.

God protect us from such fanaticism, he thinks. This Shabbatai Zevi, this young zealot from Asia Minor who claims he is the new Messiah—who is he really and what miracles has he performed? He is just another charlatan exploiting the hysterical delusions of a desperate community. But he has power. His trickery spreads like a disease throughout Poland, Russia, Germany, even as far as Turkey. Too many have already packed food and linen and sent it to Hamburg in preparation for celestial summons to set sail for the Holy Land. May Tuvia see the light before he marries Ruth, Elazar prays silently.

‘There have been many Messiahs and all of them false. We are a troubled and oppressed people and such people are always hungry for hope. What makes Zevi different from the others?’ the old rabbi says cautiously, knowing that Zevi’s followers are quick to condemn those who dare to disbelieve.

‘For what have we suffered since 1648, since the Spanish persecuted our people? For what did the Jews of Poland suffer? It is written in the kabbala that the birth pangs of the Messiah will be painful but they will lead to a glorious end: the liberation of the Holy Land. And Shabbatai Zevi is the man who will lead us there. His arrival was prophesied.’

Elazar clutches at the young man’s sleeve. ‘Shh! The elders might hear. Listen, Tuvia, I promise Ruth shall be yours, but first we must free her from prison otherwise there will be no redemption, no Holy Land, just this: innocent souls sacrificed and my child sharing in their wretched fate.’

The pageant winds its way up the hill. The executioner leads the procession, a masked figure in black and scarlet leather, riding proudly on a draughthorse and flanked by two papal guards holding banners. A squadron of soldiers on horseback follows then comes the prison cart itself with its grim cargo. The condemned, silent and ashen, are beyond prayer. Behind ride the archbishop and his assistants and finally the inquisitor himself.

As the cart rolls past, Elazar mutters a Kaddish for each of the accused, praying that their death will be as swift and painless as possible. Mid-sentence he sees Heinrich, sombre and sweating beneath the high hat of his office. Without thinking, the old man stumbles forward, trying to catch the archbishop’s attention. He falls inches from the pacing horses. Rosa and Tuvia rush to his side and pull him back before the hooves come crashing down. ‘Your highness! Your highness!’ the rabbi cries out, but his voice is drowned by the horns and the cheering.

Heinrich peers blindly at the wall of spectators, looking for the familiar voice that called out his name. For a second he thinks he sees the chief rabbi, his hat knocked askew, his frail body being supported at either side. But before the archbishop has a chance to reach him, Elazar is swallowed by a sea of people moving forward as the condemned are marched up to the pyres.

‘The two accused, Meister Matthias Voss and Herr Jan van Dorf, are charged and found guilty of witchcraft and corruption under the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina and as such are condemned to burn until declared dead.’

The herald, a portly man with a taste for pomposity, pauses to wipe the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief embroidered with the emperor’s crest.

The accused are tethered to the stakes atop the piles of faggots. Voss drops his head but the Dutchman stares straight ahead, as if he has somehow transported his conscious being elsewhere. A small

red-headed child wriggles his way through the spectators and dives between the legs of the guards.

‘Vader!’ he cries before the guards catch him. ‘Vader! Mama says you are going to Heaven! Tell me it isn’t true, Vader!’

‘Tobias!’ Van Dorf tears at his ropes. ‘Tobias!’

But by now a guard has caught hold of the struggling child who manfully beats against his captor’s breastplate. Laughing, the guard carries the boy back to his weeping mother, whose arms reach out of the crowd to take him.

The Dutchman begins to howl, an inhuman sound which stuns the crowd into horrified silence.

Heinrich holds out a limp handkerchief and a young page steps forward, horn in hand. The men at the foot of each pyre stand with burning torches held high, poised for the signal. With bated breath everyone watches as finally, with a weary wave, the archbishop signals his permission and the horn sounds. A great roar rises up from the onlookers as the flames dart up the dry wood like hungry ants.

Elazar, standing on his stool, peers above the heads of those in front of him, determined to witness every moment. He watches aghast as the flames lick the base of Voss’s stake. This is a man his own age, the man they said helped his daughter on the terrible day of her arrest.

‘May God grant him a speedy death,’ he whispers and closes his eyes as Voss screams in agony. The fire darkens and the old merchant faints, his body falling limp against the spike. His skin blackens then splits open. The air fills with thick smoke and the sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh.

Several onlookers burst into laughter as one of Voss’s eyes pops out from its socket, dangling for a moment before exploding and shrivelling like bacon rind.

Tuvia pulls at Elazar’s gown. ‘Reb Saul, enough. It is not good to watch.’

But the rabbi is paralysed by the multitude of emotions which beat through him. When the setting sun becomes visible on the horizon, he is still there, staring motionless at the piles of twisted flesh that were once men.

‘Reb Saul, we must go, before the scavengers get here,’ Tuvia pleads.

Finally Elazar’s concentration is broken. With ten more years burdening his ashen brow, he steps down off his viewing perch and allows Tuvia and Rosa to lead him away.

– GEVURAH –