The Bells (34 page)

XXI.

W
hen he arrived, night had come. Remus lit a candle, and gave the
Hebamme
a lamp. The doctor was a small, nervous man, and he entered the room like a startled mouse, his eyes darting about for signs of danger. He held his black bag like a shield. He located Countess Riecher in the dim light—as if spotting a nook in which to hide—and bowed slightly, shuffling to stand beside her, certain that the filth of this room was less likely to collect around her person.

He consulted briefly with the
Hebamme
, and I heard Countess Riecher whisper to him, “Save the child, Doctor. At whatever cost.” He was momentarily startled by the grave suggestion, but he nodded firmly and stepped to Amalia’s door, raising his hand as if he would knock, then reconsidered and stepped inside. The
Hebamme
followed him and closed the door.

He gives her something to quiet her. Her screams fade, and I wonder if she is screaming within her head just as I did under the surgeon’s knife ten years before. “You must hold her down,” the physician instructs the
Hebamme
.

Tasso is nestled in the corner, staring at the floor. Nicolai’s eyes are closed, but I know he is not asleep. Remus has his elbow in one hand, the other across his face, as if deep in speculation. I am sure we are all thinking,
We have failed
. Countess Riecher has her jeweled hands crossed before her chest. What seems like hours pass and she does not move. She does not stir when Amalia moans.

I will die before they take that child from its mother.

The doctor shouts urgently, and we all look up—even Countess Riecher appears truly alarmed for the first time. We try to see through the wood of that door.

The air is so close it is hard to breathe.

…

And then—a croaking. The others are not able to differentiate this sound from Amalia’s moans and the doctor’s orders, but I hear every note. It is the sound of two tiny lungs unfolding. They suck in air and blood and the water of the womb. They hold a first breath, unsure what to do with it, and then, a first wail—the song of life. My three friends look up. The baby!

And I hear now, without doubt, it is a boy.
Our son
.

We stand.

His wail dies out. It ends with three gasps
Ah! Ah! Ah!
Then he cries again. What a cold terror is this world! My ears delight in his every cry even as a gulf opens through the center of our world—
Listen! Listen!
—for there are more sounds I want, and they are absent.

I cannot speak. I cannot move. The world continues on without me. Tasso’s shoulders are drawn forward, his elbows out. Every hair on his hairy neck is raised. In Remus’s eyes there is anger. Nicolai squints. He blinks. His fists are raised.

The baby cries for its mother.

Make some noise I can hear!

I cannot breathe. I sway. A shadow brushes past me: Remus. He argues with Countess Riecher, and the soldiers grab for their swords. One whistles, and the other two, who have guarded the front door to the coffeehouse, stomp upstairs. They stroke the smooth bludgeons in their hands.

“We are not afraid of you!” Nicolai bellows.

No!
I try to say.
No! Can’t you all hear? We have failed already!

The doctor stands at Amalia’s door. His hair and face are slicked with sweat. His collar is undone. Blood is spattered on his face, across his chest. It covers his arms up to his elbows, as though he has dipped them in a bleeding river. He is holding that screaming child. The
Hebamme
shines a lamp above the doctor’s shoulder. The wet child glistens, crying, then freezes in a silent choke for air, staring at the ceiling. His hands reach out and he startles—and cries again.

“I saved the boy,” the doctor says. “But I could not save the mother.”

…

My ears have already heard this truth, which now crashes into my body. Remus catches me as I totter. I cannot drive the air from my lungs. I drown on air. I cannot move, but the world does not stop with me. Nicolai is shouting, and the soldiers beat him down with their clubs, then kick him with their boots.

The baby is crying! Countess Riecher is opposite me, the child between us, but she turns her face away, disgusted by the blood. The nurse wraps the screaming child in a sheet and presses it to her chest. Then it is over; they are gone.

Tasso kneels next to Nicolai. The giant moans with pain. The
Hebamme
still holds the lamp, like a statue, as Remus walks with me to her bed.

Amalia is covered by a sheet. The upper half of it is white, the lower half glistens red. Remus pulls it back so we can see her face. It is perfect—no blood at all. She could be sleeping, but I hear that she is not, for she does not breathe, and this silence is truly the loudest sound I have ever heard. It shakes every part of me, and I would break into a thousand pieces if Remus did not hold me tightly and hug me like a son.

XXII.

W
hen her mother died, a thousand people filled that perfect church. A full choir sang. The stones of the church rang for her. So many flowers were laid before her tomb it seemed to rest on a bed of roses.

Amalia was buried in the cramped cemetery behind St. Michael’s Church in Spittelberg. Weeds grew in place of flowers. Vines smothered the gnarled oaks. Tombstones lay toppled on the graves as if they merely prevented the corpses from escaping to a better place.

On the day we buried her, the cold rain fell so hard that Amalia’s simple wooden casket floated in the grave until we threw in dirt to weigh it down. The young priest sped through his blessings and turned to go, and that would have been all, but Nicolai began to chant the Agnus Dei.

It was the first time I had heard him sing in years. His resonant voice rose over the hushed rain. I bowed my head so the drops fell on my neck and flowed in icy rivers down my back. The rain mingled with my tears. Tasso’s and Remus’s feet slowly sank into the mud, but they did not pull them free until Nicolai had finished the invocation.

The cold rain, mixed with our grief, made me ill. A fever came on, and for ten days I lay in Amalia’s deathbed. Remus had cleansed the room of her blood, scrubbing the walls and floors and bedposts tirelessly, but still it remained in the cracks between the floorboards, invading my dreams. Just as blind Ulrich had, Remus cleaned again and again—yet still I heard her breathe. I heard her whisper loving words. When they tried to move me into Nicolai’s room instead, I screamed.

They brought me a doctor. He bled me and gave me bitter herbs, but I did not improve. My friends thought they would have to bury me as well. But after several weeks the fever disappeared and the room no longer smelled of blood. Still her sounds were stored deep in my memory, and I held them in my ear like a silver locket with her portrait drawn inside.

One night I was awoken by the screaming of a child. I shot up in bed, dashed into the parlor, past the sleeping Remus and down the stairs. I was in the icy street, barefoot, poorly dressed, before I was fully awake and in my senses. The crying came from a distant house. I saw a window lit, a mother pacing with a bundle to her shoulder. The throbbing chill in my feet was nothing like the aching in my heart.

Many evenings we sat silently in the parlor; frost grew across the panes and blotted out the night. Even Remus did not read a book.

“We must steal him back!” Nicolai shouted suddenly one night in fury. When Remus and I did not reply, he continued, more quietly, “We would have loved him. That is more than she can say.”

“Quiet, Nicolai,” Remus warned. He looked at me as if he feared such talk would bring on my fever once again.

“I will not be quiet! I will not be quiet until we do what is right. I will raise an army. These people in the streets will help us. A hundred men is all we need.”

“Nicolai!”

“Remus!” he shouted back. “Have you no courage?”

“Stop it, please,” I told my friend. “I thank you for your courage, Nicolai, but it is in vain. You know I think the same as you, but that house is a fortress; the empress’s soldiers would come to their aid. It would be too much risk—for us and for the child.”

“But we must try,” he insisted.

“No,” I said firmly. “We must pray that he will be happy with the destiny that God has chosen for him. Otherwise, we must forget him.”

Nicolai respired like an angry bear, but he did not speak.

“You must swear to me you will never speak of this again.”

Tears gathered in his eyes. His lip quivered.

He swore my oath.

…

My friends and I stumbled through life like forlorn actors bereft of any playbook. Then, one day, we received two visitors. The men, each nearly Nicolai’s size, climbed up the stairs and pushed their way into the parlor. I did not get out of bed, but I heard every word. They had been sent, they told Remus, by their employer, to remind the “Swiss castrate” of his pledge to leave Vienna. I heard Nicolai’s chair creak as he rose to challenge them, but Remus quickly stepped between them. He said he would deliver the message. “He has until the New Year,” one of the men said. “Then we will be forced to accompany him on his travels.” After they left, Remus came into my room and repeated Guadagni’s message. “Perhaps it is time we left,” Remus said. “Time to start anew.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The coach is ready,” he said. “We can leave for Venice any day we wish.”

“Leave for Venice?” I said, shocked. “We made that coach for her!”

“Moses, she would want us to go.”

“I do not care,” I said. “She is dead and she is buried here, and I will not lose her again. I will not leave Vienna.”

Another week passed. During the day, Nicolai and I sat in the darkened room. And sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, when neither of us could sleep, we sat together at the open window, blankets drawn over our shoulders against the early winter cold, and stared down the empty street toward the city.

My friend tried to lift my spirits by telling me stories. “A monk,” he said once, “told me that in Norway, people sleep through winter just like bears. Months at a time.” On another morning: “The moon spins so fast around the earth, that if we stood on it, we would shoot off and burn up in the sun.” Or: “I met a man, right here in this street, who makes dresses for the empress. Each single gown takes ten men a year to make, and she wears them only once.” Sometimes I even managed to smile sadly at him, but I rarely spoke. We sat for hours in silence. Just his presence was a comfort.

One early morning, in this silence, Nicolai suddenly spoke. “Moses, today is Christmas.” The nights were long at that time of year, and so, though the city was slowly awakening, the sky was still the darkest gray. Frost on windowpanes softened the glow of lamps. Snow had fallen a week before, and for once the Spittelberg air did not reek of urine and decay.

I could not say whether he was right or wrong about the date. There were no signs of celebration in the street. “It used to be my favorite day of the year,” he said. “What beautiful Masses we would sing!” He laughed sadly. His eyes grew moist. “Forty-five years, Moses! Forty-five years and I spent every morning in a church. And now, for five whole years, I haven’t said a single prayer.”

I looked at him, but he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Not a single one.”

My friend was covered in blankets. I could not see where they ended and where his bulk began. He shrugged and the whole mass rose and fell.

“I want to pray, I do,” he said. “It’s not that I’ve given up on God. I’m no Job, but still, I don’t complain. I deserve all of what I’ve got and more. Of course there are certainly some things I would like to ask God for.” Nicolai shrugged again. “But if I want to ask God for anything, there are so many things I need to tell Him first. How to begin? And so every Christmas it’s the same. I tell myself it is fine to wait a little longer, and that at Easter I will pray.”

“I will go to a church with you today,” I whispered, “if you wish.”

He looked warmly at me, happy to have heard me speak, happier still that I cared so much for him. But he shook his head. “No, Moses. That’s the problem. I don’t wish. Perhaps the final reason, among so many, is that when I sit in that confessional and I hear that voice ask me if I have sinned, I fear Staudach’s face on the other side.”

Hatred stirred in me at this name. It had been a long while since I had thought of the abbot. But I realized in that moment that I did not fear his power anymore, as Nicolai evidently did. “Perhaps you are not ready to be forgiven,” I suggested.

“Perhaps,” Nicolai began. “But if that were true, would I want it so very much? Remus says—”

But I held up a hand, for I had heard something. A whisper in the night.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Listen,” I said. I leaned forward, and the whisper came again, fifty times louder. Every ear in the city heard the pealing now.

She had called me to Vienna, and now she was calling me again. That great bell rang throughout the city and summoned the faithful to Christmas Mass. Even from such a distance, the sound was immense. Nicolai covered his ears, though he smiled in pleasure at the vibration passing through him.

That giant bell rang with a million tones, and those overlapped to ring millions more. Like the rainbow, which is light pried apart into all the colors of the world, these were all the sounds of the world. I heard my mother’s bells and Amalia’s sighs of pleasure, and they shook me and passed away into the frozen earth, and then they were with me once again, preserved forever in that pealing. I found myself crying into my hands. I cried that she was gone, and I cried for the dreams I had lost, and I cried for that boy who would have been my son.

Surely he heard the pealing, too, in his palace just below the bell. I wished he could hear them as I did, but most likely this sound was as frightful to him as thunder. Who was there to comfort him? Who shielded his ears and clutched him to their breast? Not his father, not his grandmother; that nurse was all he had. I pictured that small woman who had cowered behind Countess Riecher here in our parlor. How would she cover her own ears and protect my boy’s ears all at once?

This conjured a vision in my mind: I held him, pressed his one ear against my chest, protected the other with my palm. I held him tight and rocked him. I sang softly, and though he could not hear my voice above the ringing, this calmed his straining limbs. This vision was so real I found myself cupping my arms in the blanket. I felt the warmth of his body. I felt the inflation of his breath.

And then I looked down and saw that my arms were empty. Remorse filled me so keenly that I stood up and looked out the window, toward the black, pealing morning.

I saw what happiness I had lost, and in that instant, I saw how I would gain some part of it back again.