The Witch of Cologne

‘You drive a hard bargain.’

‘Refuse me and you return to your estate without an heir.’

Again the count is pleased by the uncompromising astuteness of the boy. He shows more ruthlessness than both his mother and father, the aristocrat notes, he is a survivor. After a long sigh, he places a withered hand upon Jacob’s to seal the agreement.

The youth kneels in a wooden pew of the church, once a Catholic chapel, now stripped back to Lutheran simplicity. The dull afternoon light struggles to breach a large hexagonal window set in the wall behind the altar, its stained glass depicting the crucifixion. Jacob, his knees aching, is looking at the figure of a Teutonic knight in the armour of a medieval nobleman standing at the foot of the cross gazing up into the face of the Saviour. Which of Father’s ancestors is that? he wonders.

The touch of his uncle’s hand on his shoulder pulls him sharply back to the present. He stands and turns to where the pastor waits at the tomb of Detlef von Tennen, and hears the small choir begin a hymn in plain German.

Jacob stares at the unadorned marble tomb, its lid pushed to one side, and marvels at how such a vital being could be reduced to dust and bones. Is this all life leads to, the banality of matter? He is young enough to think so, yet staring at the hollowed skull of his father he cannot help but remember being lifted in the air by Detlef’s huge hands, laughing down at the smiling face he recalls as alight with warmth. My father. The mysterious figure whose death has shaped my life.

For the first time since Jacob was four, he sees before him a physical manifestation of a figure who, after his passing, became myth. So why does the sight not move me? he thinks, wondering at the numbness that seems to paralyse his heart. Is it because, in some ways, the scene is so ordinary? His legs hurt, the back of his neck is cold, he can see a beetle crawling up the side of Detlef’s tomb indifferent to all around it.

His musings are interrupted by a nudge from his uncle. Jacob picks up the urn that contains his mother’s remains. Surprised at its lightness, he finds himself having to suppress the unexpected desire to laugh; suddenly the sombreness and formality of the occasion seems ridiculous to him. Who are these mourners? None of them, except his uncle, knew his parents, and certainly none of them were party to their marriage. He was the only witness of that great love, but what is the point of such a strong union when this is

where it ends? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What remains of the impassioned flesh, the soaring spirit?

Jacob slowly approaches the tomb and begins to scatter Ruth’s remains over the broken skeleton that was once Detlef von Tennen. As he does so, the faint scent of jasmine floats through the chapel.

The pastor moves forward. ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, bless and grant rest to these two souls who, parted in life, are now finally united in death.’

He makes the sign of the cross and the assembled—the count and several servants of the household—lower their heads in prayer.

As two sturdy peasants push the heavy lid back into place, Jacob notices that two new lines have been etched into the marble above his father’s name. Ruth bas Elazar Saul he reads, engraved in perfect Hebrew, and below, die Frau von Detlef von Tennen.

Reaching out, he traces the letters with his fingers, and finds himself whispering them aloud in the language his mother taught him. It is then, finally, that the grief bursts through and the boy falls to his knees with a wail of sorrow, pain and deep sadness.

The priest glances at Gerhard, mortified at the sight of the weeping youth kneeling with his arms around his father’s tomb, but the count ignores him. He walks over to Jacob and, laying his cane upon the ground, lowers himself down beside him, then places one hand on his nephew’s heaving shoulders and the other on his brother’s tomb. For a moment the church is silent but for the sound of the boy’s muffled crying and Gerhard’s voice, direct and clear, asking Detlef for absolution.

A dove who has made her nest at the back of the shrine joins in with her cooing. After peeping curiously down at the figures clustered around the marble tomb, she flies across the rafters and out into the bright sunlight beyond.

HISTORICAL BACKDROP

GERMANIA

After the Thirty Years’ War between the Lutherans and the Catholics ended in 1648, Germania was a confusing quilt of many small princedoms with religious allegiances split between Catholic and Protestant. However, by 1665 Germania had evolved into the fulcrum upon which an international balance of power turned. There were two main forces: in the north, Prussia was controlled by the Lutheran royal, the Great Elector Frederick William (1640–88); in the south, the Catholic Hapsburg emperor, Leopold I, ruled out of Vienna, and had final jurisdiction over Cologne. Each was the nucleus of an international struggle and each exploited the struggle of its rival.

At the same time other tensions existed: in the north, there was a push for new territory prompted by Charles X of Sweden; and in the south, by Louis XIV of France and Mahomet IV, Sultan of Turkey.

The outcome of these struggles was a new European state system, brought into existence by 1715. The German states’ involvement in creating the new political Europe deflected their interest away from attempts to strengthen or alter the German structure of state rights as embodied by the Catholic Holy Roman Empire, of which Cologne was a part.

HAPSBURG EMPIRE

By 1665 the Hapsburg Empire was a shadow of its former tyrannical self. Weakened by the Thirty Years’ War, the young Emperor Leopold was under attack from the Sultan of the aggressive Ottoman Empire, Mahomet IV, and threatened by the ambitions of the French King Louis XIV who was battling the Hapsburgs for territories in the Spanish Netherlands.

As the Wittelsbach electors of Bavaria (of which Maximilian Heinrich was one) were traditionally allied with France, Leopold had to remain constantly vigilant to ensure that his power over those territories of the Holy Roman Empire was not undermined.

THE NETHERLANDS

Jan de Witt was the councillor pensionary of Holland from 1653–72, and led the Dutch Republic after the end of its war of independence. A remarkable intellectual in his own right, he was the champion of many resident philosophers and scientists who had taken refuge in the tolerant (and comparatively secular) Netherlands. In 1665 Holland was embroiled in an expensive and bloody sea war with the English, primarily over trading rights and ownership of the spice islands. As a result, de Witt came under increased pressure from the royalists within his own country.

Holland was allied with France, but Louis XIV persuaded England and Sweden to betray their alliance with Holland, and England united with France to invade the Dutch Republic in April 1672. During this period the young Prince William of Orange was increasingly gaining support and when de Witt’s older brother, Cornelius, was arrested in July 1672, de Witt resigned as political leader of Holland. When de Witt visited his brother in prison, both men were attacked and killed by a large crowd. Holland reverted back to a royalist state.

GLOSSARY

abba: Hebrew for ‘father’.

alguacil: the sheriff of a Spanish municipality, executive officer of the courts and responsible for maintaining the security of the prison.