Sylvia (33 page)

‘You have seen the Christ figure? Where? You have both been absent for three mornings and I did not see you at mass yesterday or the day before or even the day before that. Did you look into the sacristy where the small Virgin and Child stands and here receive your vision of Christ Jesus?'

Nicholas pointed upwards to the hills where the woods lay. ‘Nay, in the woods. I found a small cave I had not seen before and did stop to pray, as it seemed a quiet and untroubled place.' Nicholas then looked directly at Father Hermann. ‘Then Jesus of Nazareth appeared to me in a vision.'

‘This cave? Could you find it again, Nicholas?' I said, feigning excitement. Then turning to Father Hermann, I asked, ‘Would not such a quiet and untroubled place where our Saviour appeared to Nicholas be regarded as holy?'

‘Aye, even a place of pilgrimage,' the priest replied excitedly. ‘Will you take us to this holy cave, Nicholas?'

I had prevented Nicholas from telling Father Hermann about the magic mushrooms and so also saved myself from discovery.

‘You would go now, Father?' Nicholas asked.

‘Aye, God's work cannot wait. We must go there at once. You said you could find it again?'

‘Aye, I think easily enough. It has pieces from a broken jug lying at its entrance and a rock beside it with the root of a tree growing over it as if the root is a rope that doth hold it fast to the ground,' Nicholas said, taking my own description for himself.

So, alas, that morning the children of the street would go unattended as the three of us climbed the hill behind the city and repaired once more to the tiny cave that now held a spiritual significance to the good priest. Father Hermann fell to his knees as we reached the cave and we were forced to do the same. Nicholas now seemed himself to be in earnest prayer, as if it was indeed a place where a great vision had taken place and deserved the sanctity the priest now allowed it. Two zealots on their knees and me, in this instance, turned unbeliever. ‘
To thine own self be
true
' – Master Israel's words rang clearly in my mind.

Rising at last from his knees Father Hermann turned to say something and then his eyes grew wide. ‘Look!' he exclaimed, pointing to the ground at his feet where the skeleton of yesterday's fish lay. ‘And there!' he exclaimed again, pointing this time to a crust of bread that remained uneaten by the birds. ‘Christ's loaves and fishes!' He stared incredulously at Nicholas and I at him, amazed at his naivety. ‘You have seen Jesus and have eaten miraculously of the food He prepared when He preached to the multitudes in the desert!'

I could not tell him it was the loaf and the trout I had brought for our own sustenance, as I wasn't supposed to know about the cave. I waited for Nicholas to explain but he remained silent. Then the priest took us by our shoulders and bade us fall to our knees once more while he prayed. He thanked the precious Saviour again for His appearance to the child, Nicholas of Cologne, and then for giving him to eat of the bread of heaven and the fish from the Sea of Galilee. Then he promised Christ Jesus that the cave would henceforth be known as ‘The Shrine of Bread and Fish'. Which was how it was known henceforth and until a few years later when it became a place of pilgrimage for children and was renamed among the populace of Cologne as ‘The Children's Shrine', this for reasons I will tell about at a later time.

The afternoon of the day following our visit to the cave with the priest I was to meet him and Father Paulus at St Martin's for our discussion. I wakened early that morning, still undecided about entering a nunnery. I dressed and made ready to set out for early-morning mass when the old widow came upstairs to my tiny alcove room to say a small boy had arrived with a message from Frau Sarah and waited at the door of the street.

‘Frau Sarah asks that you attend her, Fräulein Sylvia,' the boy informed me.

‘What, I must go now? But I must go to mass,' I protested.

‘She says it is urgent.'

‘Urgent?' I became concerned. ‘Is it Master Israel? Has something happened to him?'

‘I know not,' the small boy said, his dark eyes earnest. ‘It may be, yes.'

I ran all the way through the dirty streets and alleys, my boots splashing through the puddles of freshly thrown nightsoil and urine and the other filth that lay about. I reached the tailor shop blowing like an old carthorse. Banging on the door, I shouted out, ‘Frau Sarah! I am here! Open up!'

I could hear her coming from above and then a rattle of chains followed and the door opened. ‘Sylvia, what's all the fuss?' she asked calmly.

‘Master Israel . . . is he all right?' I panted.

‘Of course! Hear for yourself, he still snores blissfully upstairs.'

‘A small boy came . . .' I gasped.

‘Oh, him. I told him to tell you to come by some time this morning.'

‘He said it was urgent, that it was Master Israel.'

‘Nay, Sylvia, it is Klaus of Koblenz, he is no longer your lute player.'

‘Why? What happened?' I asked, relieved at both pieces of news.

‘He was murdered in a low-class
winkelhaus
in the late hours last night,' she said calmly.

‘Murdered! But the Angelus has just rung. How know you this already?'

She spread her hands. ‘It is my own. I have purchased it recently, a low-class and foul dive, but I have promised the guild I shall attend to it.' She placed her arm about my shoulders. ‘Come in, Sylvia, let us be seated, I wish to talk to you.' Then she pointed to my filthy boots. ‘You will take them off, please.'

‘You have found another lute player?' I asked, as I slipped my boots from my feet.

‘Nay, it is more important than that.' She smiled. ‘When you and the Pied Piper came to see Master Israel two years ago it changed our fortunes. Sylvia, I want you to know I am grateful.'

When we were seated Frau Sarah once again explained how they had loaned Master Yap money to refurbish Ali Baba's, and then the ratcatcher and I had come along and she'd gone into the entertainment business. ‘We have done well together, Sylvia, but it is hard work and not all musicians are like yourself – they are a fickle lot, and even Reinhardt has since departed.'

‘Aye, I miss him greatly, it is not the same without him,' I said wistfully.

‘Yes, I know. Hence what I have to say to you.' She drew breath and then seemed to think a moment. ‘In the past two years I have learned a great deal about the entertainment business, which, as I have just explained, has many ups and downs, though one part within it remains always the same and all the while profitable.'

‘The
winkelhaus
?' I asked.

Frau Sarah nodded. ‘Master Israel always says you have a quick mind. Yes, it is the only consistent business. The one-eyed snake is king and will forever reign in his palace,' she laughed. ‘So I have purchased this new one with my brother, Master Abraham,' she smiled. ‘You will see, we will make it even better than Ali Baba's.'

‘And of your entertainment business, what?'

‘Titch! It has served me well, but I have had enough of recalcitrant lutes and prancing fruits,' she said, no doubt referring to Reinhardt.

‘You would forsake it?'

‘Aye, but not you, Sylvia. We, my brother and I, have also purchased a licence for a
winkelhaus
in Bonn and this one will be most splendid and of the highest class in the land. In Cologne you are known as the Petticoat Angel and are much taken up with priests and the poor. In Bonn you are known only for your wonderful voice. If you will agree to be the singer in the new
winkelhaus
there, we will give you a quarter share of the brothel we have purchased in Cologne.'

‘Where Klaus was murdered?'

‘Aye, but it is but a small thing – murder happens all the time as you well know and he was a man of little worth and no character. We will soon change it to be a high-class establishment and most profitable.' She smiled. ‘My brother says that you have a way with the courtesans and they happily do your bidding. I know that you speak most of their languages. We will teach you the business in Bonn, so that when you are older and no longer wish to sing you will always be well provided for by running and owning a part of the
winkelhaus
in Cologne.'

It was an astonishing and generous offer and brought me immediately to tears. If Frau Sarah had gained from my singing, I had received much more from Master Israel and from her wages sufficient to eat and help the poor. If I received nothing else from them I had been generously, even lovingly, compensated. Now she had made me an offer that exceeded the bounds of generosity.

However, as so often seemed to happen in my life, I was forced to choose between the spirit and the flesh – bride of Christ or brothel-keeper? This then was the question I needed to ask myself. Alas, I wish I could say the choice was simple and that God's calling to serve Him as a nun was of paramount importance. But I had much to consider. You may ask how a child of God could also be a brothel-keeper? I must reply that if a bishop and an archbishop could attend a place such as this then why would it be thought a godless and wicked vocation?

I did not feel I had the fortitude to be a nun, although I greatly desired to do God's work among the poor. Father Hermann preached that the spiritual need of the poor was far greater than their need for food and care, that with their souls once prepared for paradise where they would never know hunger, it was far better for them to die. ‘They are no different to mangy bare-ribbed dogs that scavenge in the gutters, Sylvia. But their souls, once saved, are eternal,' he'd piously explained. ‘For them to continue to live is only to perpetuate their misery. When they die they enter paradise!'

But, while I could not argue with a priest, I also could not accept his sanctimonious logic. Children with their bellies empty, their tiny mouths covered with blisters and sores, with suppurating ulcers on their legs and arms, were in my opinion ill-equipped to accept God's promise of eternal life. They beheld only greed and the devil's work around them and saw no sudden virtue in the promise that the hunger in their souls would be satisfied while they continued to suffer empty bellies and abject misery. As a nun I would be cloistered in a convent and, while hopefully studying, would have no access to the street children I truly loved, whereas, if I should prosper in business, I would have the means to feed and care for the poor and also have access as the rich do to further learning.

‘I am grateful for all you and Master Israel have done for me, Frau Sarah,' I said, tearfully. ‘This new thing is most tempting, but I must pray upon it.'

Frau Sarah sighed. ‘I told my husband it would be thus. Why will you never learn that God helps those who help themselves, Sylvia? We have learned that others, the priest that teaches you and the other one with whom you work, wish you to become a nun. Master Israel and I, who seldom agree on much, are both agreed that to shut a mind such as you possess in a cloister is a sin against God.'

‘Hush, Frau Sarah, that is blasphemy!' I cried, alarmed.

‘Not to a Jew, Sylvia. To a Jew, to squander the talents God has given you,
that
is blasphemy!'

‘To be the bride of Jesus Christ is not a waste of my life!' I exclaimed.

‘Aye, exactly what Master Israel said you would say. “Sylvia is of a brilliance seldom encountered, but she will waste it on God and the poor. Both of whom will always be with us, but, alas, she will not,” he lamented.' Frau Sarah pulled herself up so that she sat straight-shouldered and stiff-necked. ‘Sylvia, I beseech you,
please
think upon this carefully. What you decide will change your life forever. Do not lock all the glory that is thy God-given talent away in a convent.'

‘But if it is God-given, then should I not return it?' I asked.

‘Titch, you know what your trouble is, Sylvia Honeyeater? You have spent too much time with my husband! Few things in this world are wrought by logic alone and you begin to think like a man! It is men who want to incarcerate you in a convent, not God! Are women not put upon sufficiently by men and are we not prey to their many vicissitudes? Can you not then be a torchbearer for us? Can you not be your own self? Or must you always be servant to the whims of men?'

‘Is not running a brothel being servant to the whims of men?' I asked quietly.

‘Nay! It is simply profiting from their weakness! This is every woman's given right,' she shouted, her hands flying above her head in exasperation at my foolishness.

‘I will think about it, Frau Sarah,' I said softly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Reluctant Bride of Christ

IF YOU CAN, IMAGINE my confusion and trepidation when I met with the two priests, the zealot and the scribe. Neither knew my true nature with all its faults but thought me halfway to being a celestial creature. To them I was the Petticoat Angel and they had witnessed the Miracle of the Birds (so-called) and the Miracle of the Blood on the Virgin's Rose (also so-called) and they were quite certain that I was intended as a bride of Christ.

Moreover, that I should have an opinion on the matter did not even occur to them.