The Witch of Cologne

Please, good Lord Jesus, spare her life. Take mine if you have to, but not hers, please, my good Lord Jesus.

He flings himself into the cottage, almost slipping on the muddy floor.

‘Ruth! Ruth!’

His voice bounces off the bare walls. Pushing open the bedroom door he sees nothing but an empty pallet in the corner and a bowl of water. Relief and disappointment conflict, twisting in his gut.

Through the window he can see the undulating columns of smoke beyond the forest. Outside again, Detlef gasps for breath in the pungent air. He leans for a second against a stone bench before sprinting off in the direction of the burning ghetto.

The woman stands on the balcony. Her shawl, hanging from her twin-horned hat, billows out in the wind. She clutches a baby in swaddling and stares down at the jeering crowd, her face as white as the plumes of smoke behind her. A tongue of fire shoots out, catching at the edge of the veil. Without a word the woman jumps, flames licking the crown of her hat like a halo. When she hits the cobblestones her head smashes like a ripe plum, her limbs thrown askew like a broken doll. The baby rolls out from her body and is kicked between the legs of the roaring youths.

Ruth stands on the other side of the square behind the mass of strangers—young men, students and craftsmen all in the dress of the Christian. She is screaming, a howl that is inaudible in the cacophony of falling timber, roaring fire and the delighted shouting of the horde. A cry which empties her mind, her body, her memory, of everything except the pain and the horror. A second later she is knocked flat.

‘Don’t move,’ Miriam whispers, her body pinning her to the ground. ‘They will see us.’

Wide-eyed with excitement the midwife’s assistant draws her cloak over both of them, as if by hiding their own eyes they will be concealed from the mob. Ruth lies there for a second, stunned.

‘You spoke! Miriam, you spoke!’

‘This way,’ the girl continues, in the voice of a small child. ‘This way they will never catch us, but if they do they will kill us,’ she giggles.

She has lost her sanity, Ruth thinks. My life now lies in the hands of a mad woman. Panicking, the midwife scrabbles to lift the cloak.

Suddenly the two women are hauled to their feet. For a moment Ruth lashes out blindly, until she hears Detlef’s voice.

‘Stop! Ruth, it is me, Detlef!’

The cloak is pulled off to reveal the canon. He pushes both women behind a dairy cart which is lying on its side in a pooling lake of milk.

‘We must go befor

e it is too late,’ Detlef says urgently into Ruth’s ear.

‘But my father…’

Ruth cranes around just in time to see fire leap across the rafters of the rabbi’s house towards the synagogue. For an instant Rosa’s face appears at the top window, her mouth a silent howl as her fists pound uselessly against the clouding glass before the house explodes into flames.

‘Rosa!’ Ruth shrieks, fighting Detlef as he claps his hand over her mouth.

Behind them Miriam makes a dash back towards the outskirts of the town.

‘Let her go! It is too dangerous to run yet.’ Clutching the flailing woman to his chest Detlef tries to calm her, holding her tightly. ‘We must stay silent and still.’

Ruth, shaking with anger and fear, stares up into his hollow eyes as the strength of his arms draws her back into the possibility of survival.

‘Ruth.’

Elazar’s voice startles both of them. The old man, his hair a wild storm, his kittel stained green with grass and torn with brambles, stands behind them. Immediately Detlef pulls him down behind the cart.

‘Abba! I thought you were in the synagogue,’ Ruth sobs with relief.

‘I was but then it started raining hailstones as big as rocks and the word of fire drew us out to the stream. Your mother is still there, washing her feet, her beautiful feet,’ Elazar announces solemnly, his eyes glazed over.

‘What is that smell? I know that smell.’ He turns towards the burning houses. ‘I must go back to the temple, the lanterns are all lit for Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The congregation will be expecting me.’

‘But Rabbi, there is a Schülergeleif. Your people are being slaughtered, you cannot go!’ Detlef reaches out to stop him.

‘Daughter, who is this man? He is not one of us. I do not know him.’ The old man hits out with his walking stick.