The Witch of Cologne

Jacob angrily opens the door, but the old man does not budge from his chair. Gripping his cane so tightly that his knuckles show white, he remains steadfast.

‘A preposterous notion, young puppy. No one,’ at this he slams his cane on the table, creating a huge bang that makes Jacob jump, ‘no one is able to escape his past, not even I, and the good Lord knows there have been many occasions I have wished to.’

He leans forward, his face taut with emotion. ‘We are a composite of our own history and that of our parents; we are all that has lived before us, married together and woven into a tapestry which has been worked and embroidered to become this moment: this room, the face you were born with, you and I staring across at each other. A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.’

‘Then let me live blind.’

‘I shall not! This is the least I owe your parents.’

‘Sir, I have no parents, none that are worth remembering or forgiving.’

At this the old man falters. Staring hard at the youth, whose handsome features have sharpened with his defensiveness, he perceives that the arrogance conceals a deeper vulnerability.

‘Oh Jacob, what have we done to you?’ His voice drops to a gentle whisper.

‘Leave!’

‘Not before I hear you utter my name.’

‘Count Gerhard von Tennen. Are you content now, uncle?’ Jacob replies coolly, wishing the spectre of the old man would just disappear.

But as he catches sight of the ring adorning the count’s hand, a ring he suddenly remembers, a cascade of images return: the coach pelting through the Dutch countryside, being forced to eat as a small boy in the Cologne townhouse, his uncle’s red angry face screaming at him—and an old dread begins to claw its way up from his belly.

‘Sir, you have great audacity to appear before me thus, you who caused my family so much injury.’

The count stands heavily and turns to the window.

‘Jacob Scheems. It is not a pretty choice.’

‘It is plain, and very different from von Tennen. As I have told you, I wish to disassociate myself from my heritage.’

‘Your alias has made my search difficult. I have been looking for you for ten long years. Do you know how my spy finally found you?’

The count swings around, searching for a sign to indicate that reconciliation may be possible. With some bitterness Jacob shrugs. Sighing, Gerhard reaches into his waistcoat pocket and pulls out a slim volume which he places carefully on the table between them. The title, The dangers of birthing hooks, a treatise on the gentler methods of midwifery, is clearly visible. Jacob immediately recognises the binding as that of his employer.

‘Your mother’s text, as published by Rieuwertsz. Her book led me to you. So you see, you can never escape your herita

ge.’

Jacob picks up the volume, trying desperately to hold back a wave of feeling he considers unmanly. How many years, he thinks, and now this? Huge anger grips him as he recalls how he struggled alone after Ruth’s death, sleeping at first on a narrow shelf that hung above the printing presses, then, as his literary promise became apparent, his promotion to the publisher’s house itself where he shared the servants’ chambers, until finally, at fifteen, he was granted a stipend and his own living quarters. It was an excruciatingly lonely existence for the boy, and he learnt to survive by dividing his memories into two: the days that had seemed filled with sunlight and happiness before his father’s death, then his dark odyssey after Ruth’s demise. And now this recreant sits before him…for what purpose other than to undo him?

‘Why should I listen to your stories? All they do is drag me back into a history I want nothing to do with.’

‘You must listen, for your mother’s sake.’

‘Isn’t it too late for that? Where were you when I was orphaned eleven years ago and would have starved if it were not for the publisher Rieuwertsz and his kind sister?’

‘There were complications, first the French invasion and then the battle in Münster. I would not have been welcomed in Holland. But enough; there is much to say and little time, I fear.’

‘I repeat, sir, I must ask you to leave now.’

‘I cannot…not without your forgiveness.’

With these words the last vestige of hauteur crumbles away from the aristocrat and to the youth’s astonishment he finds himself confronting an old man whose hands suddenly shake as he clutches at his walking stick. Jacob takes pity. He blows the layer of dust from a flagon of cheap claret and pours his elderly visitor a glass. But after placing it firmly in front of the count he finds he cannot look at him. Agitated, he strides around the room.

‘Forgiveness is for our maker to give, not me. Sir, I know you only as the man who betrayed my father and widowed my mother. Your business is with the dead, not the living.’

‘Jacob, you must believe me, they promised me they would pardon your father, that if he made a full confession he might even be reinstated to his post in the cathedral. You must understand that they were threatening to destroy the von Tennen name, to take our land. I could not allow that to happen. Ours is an ancient family and—’