The Witch of Cologne

‘Hanna.’

‘He is challenging the city council and seeks my support and that of Maximilian Heinrich. It is an old argument but a persuasive one in this dangerous era. Let those who work honestly be rewarded for their labour. The time is over when a family name should be enough to buy one a seat on the council.’

‘What about your enemies, Detlef? You know you are closely watched.’

‘Truly, I expect both Heinrich and von Fürstenberg will try to obstruct me.’

Ruth holds out a clean pair of breeches made of serge. Detlef pulls them on over a loose cotton undergarment then slips his feet into a pair of clogs.

‘But it would be a wondrous thing for a man to be judged on merit alone, would it not? A small step towards a true democracy, Ruth, think of that!’

He caresses her hair. It is two weeks since they last saw each other and even in that short time Detlef observes how her womb has swollen, how the planes of her face have softened despite the grief still trapped in her eyes. If there was only a way of exorcising this spectre of horror that still haunts her, of hastening her healing, he thinks to himself. He saw men like this after the war, crippled by appalling memories, and then too he felt the same helplessness. There have been moments since the pogrom when he has despaired of seeing Ruth smile or laugh again. He has tried to talk to her of her family, but found that with remembrance comes agony and so has decided to let time work its own medicine. Still, he is painfully conscious of a mistrust that has risen up in her, an emotion she seems unable to control. Powerless to intervene, he secretly prays that the arrival of their child will return Ruth to him completely. Concealing his anxiety, he kisses her forehead.

‘We shall be the architects of change, you and I.’

‘That sounds dangerous.’

Gazing at him she finds that she cannot bring herself to reach towards him, much as she craves to. Noticing, he covers her hesitancy with humour.

‘Too late, my love, you have corrupted me with your philosophies and I cannot be what I was before.’

He kisses her lightly on the lips and leads her back into the kitchen. He sits her down and ladles out two bowls of the vegetable broth that has been left simmering in a large cauldron over the fire. Ruth watches him eat, waiting for her nausea at the oily smell of the soup to settle before joining him.

Even after three months of living with him she finds herself looking at him with wonder. She is still astounded that they are living as man and wife, albeit in complete secrecy. Yet so much of him remains an engima; on each return he becomes a stranger again and she is compelled to discover him anew.

Ruth consoles herself that this may be the very nature of love, a passion as fickle as the sea, full of certainty when the object of desire is absent, yet dubious when confronted again with the lover’s presence. An ambivalence she is able to exorcise when they make love or when Detlef’s intellect shakes her mind awake again with a brilliant observation which only the two of them can share. And yet she knows Detlef’s devotion to her to be unquestioning and constant. It is the steady foundation against which Ruth sets her own doubts: if he knows it must be so, how can it not be? Perhaps it is just not in her nature to surrender completely, she muses.

‘Ruth, you are very quiet.’

‘What news of the inquisitor?’

Detlef reaches for some bread and pulls off a hunk, allowing the coal-black pumpernickel to sink into the broth before eating it hungrily.

‘Detlef, I am full of whispering spirits that speak of peril, I know them to be the chatterings of my fear but I am filled with foreboding.’

‘You should not think of such things. It is bad for the child.’

‘How can I not when there is no one here to speak with except Hanna and the barn animals? My mind is growing soft. I fear I lose both my wit and my craft.’

‘There is rumour that Solitario will return from Vienna when the road is open again. Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg has decided the inquisitor is needed for the resurrection of the Catholic spirit which has been much damag

ed by the scourge. At the same time he is watching me and calculating that my challenge to the nepotism that governs Cologne shall cause disfavour amongst the nobility. He has even spread word that I have lost my sanity as a result of my attendance on the dying in the pesthouse.’

‘Detlef, we should leave…’

‘Not yet. Not until the child is born and it is again safe to travel.’

Inwardly angry that he does not seem to feel the same panic she now finds herself wrestling with, Ruth gets up and walks over to the cracked marble bench upon which sits a wedge of Edam, a hock of smoked ham and a jar of pickled beetroot. She slices into the ham with the long hunting knife that hangs from a hook above: three thick slices of the meat and a wedge of cheese for her lover.

Does he not realise we are living on borrowed time, she thinks to herself, frustrated by his lack of urgency. What does he intend for the future? She cannot remain hidden at Das Wolkenhaus for ever, less so with a child.

Obeying the kosher rules of her upbringing, she chooses a clean knife to cut her own cheese—the ham she will not touch—then carries the two platters back to the table, determined not to allow her irritation to show. Detlef, seemingly oblivious to her anxiety, pours himself a glass of wine.

‘Did you see the good Meisterin Ter Lahn von Lennep on the eve of her bereavement?’ she asks, then immediately regrets her provocation.

Detlef, ham in hand, pauses; there is much he has not shared with her and yet there is little his mistress cannot guess. He wonders how much Hanna has confided to Ruth.

‘I have not seen her for many months,’ he answers carefully. ‘I was her confessor.’