Sylvia Read online

  Reinhardt grumbled that he must be up while the moon still shone and before dawn to expel Master Solomon’s rats. Nor could I sleep late for shortly after the morning Angelus, Frau Sarah came to fetch me and I was surprised that she wore a veil to conceal her face. We commenced to walk through the early-morning city streets and up the hill towards the woods. My sheepskin coat had dried beside the fire and I felt warm, though I wore no wimple to my head. I had obtained a pair of stout oft-mended boots that once belonged to Master Israel, now kindly given to me by the Jewess. They fitted well and were most comfortable as we set off to climb the winding path up the steep slope behind the city.

  Alas, we were not alone for long. Two street urchins, always early on the prowl, had seen me and both put their fingers to their lips and whistled a long, shrill note that echoed down into the wakening city below. In but a few minutes there were children coming from every direction, though most from the streets around St Martin’s church.

  I talked to one of these boys who told me his name was Nicholas and said his age was ten or thereabouts.

  ‘And thy parents, they are dead?’

  ‘My mother, yes.’

  ‘And thy father?’

  He frowned. ‘He is a drunkard and beats me if I go home,’ he said without self-pity. ‘I prefer the streets.’ He claimed he lived with lots of other children in one of the narrow alleys behind St Martin’s and said that one day he wished to be a monk.

  ‘You are pious then?’ I asked him.

  ‘Aye, as much as I may be, Fräulein Petticoat. It is not possible to live off one’s wits and always follow the ways of God.’

  ‘I know the problem well,’ I laughed. I liked him instantly, not only because he too had endured a cruel father but also because he had a forthright and determined manner about him.

  ‘I asked to be a choir boy in the church but they would not have it.’

  ‘You like to sing?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Then perhaps one day we can sing together,’ I said.

  ‘Will you sing for us?’ he asked.

  ‘Nay, not today, it is yet too cold.’

  ‘But they will beg you.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘I . . . we have called the others, they will want you to sing.’

  ‘Come, Sylvia, we mustn’t tarry,’ Frau Sarah called.

  ‘They will want you to sing,’ he repeated. ‘All the city talks of the Petticoat Angel.’

  ‘This afternoon, in St Martin’s square,’ I promised, then asked, ‘Nicholas, can you sing and do you know the words to the Gloria?’

  ‘Aye, some of it.’

  ‘This afternoon come to St Martin’s and we will sing together,’ I promised.

  ‘Yes, fräulein, we can try,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I am not much practised.’

  ‘Come, Sylvia!’ Frau Sarah called, all the while thinking me hindered by the boy.

  I bade the boy Nicholas adieu. ‘Until this afternoon then?’

  ‘I will try, Fräulein Petticoat,’ he replied.

  By such time as we had scaled the hill and reached the woods there must have been fifty children, ragged, dirty and most cheeky, and as they followed they shouted out, ‘Sing for us, Petticoat Angel!’

  Frau Sarah pronounced herself puffed out and bade me wait while she caught her breath. We had reached a grassy glade on the edge of the woods where she rested on a large moss-covered rock. The children now stood at the edge of the glade shouting, ‘Petticoat Angel, sing to us!’

  ‘Be off!’ Frau Sarah cried.

  ‘Sing!’ they chorused back.

  ‘Nay, it is too early! I am unseemly puffed from climbing,’ I called out yet smiling – anger has no place within the woods among the birdsong.

  But they would have none of it. Persistence is the beggar’s best attack. ‘Sing, sing, sing! Petticoat Angel, sing to us!’ they continued to cry out.

  ‘Nay, I will not, but gather round and I shall tell you a story,’ I declared, thinking this might please them just as well.

  ‘Sing! Sing to us!’ they chorused yet.

  Then Nicholas shouted for them to cease their shouting and to my surprise they instantly obeyed. I could see then that he had something of the leader about him, for he spoke not in request but in command. ‘The Petticoat Angel will not sing!’ he announced. Then he turned to me. ‘It will please us well if you should tell us a story, fräulein.’

  The ways of children were familiar to me and a story doth often catch and hold their attention more than a song. So they gathered around and I waited until they were all seated in the sunny glade. I felt sure, like most city folk, they did not much notice the birds, but I was amazed at the birdsong coming from the wood and so thought to tell a story concerning these lovely flighty creatures.

  ‘This is the sad tale of a land not so far away that contained only miserable and selfish people who decided they would banish all the birds so that they might keep every last grain of corn and barley for themselves. And so they sent the birds away across a dark, cold and bitter snow-capped mountain. The land grew silent from that moment on, as all the other animals refused to make their own particular sounds. All in nature is measured and there is a cadence all beasts understand and live by. So, with the banishing of the birds, the cow did not moo, the donkey heehaw or the mule bray, the horses neigh, the pigs snort, the sheep bleat or the dogs bark. Even the cats, of whom, it is well-known, never agree to do anything that others may agree upon, refused emphatically to miaow.

  ‘There were no ducks or geese or chickens, for the stupid folk had forgotten they were birds and saw them only as possessions to pluck and eat and to lay their ever-willing eggs. Moreover, the knights and noblemen lost their falcons and could not hunt, and there were no owls to kill the mice, or eagles to take the rabbits now feasting on the young corn in broadest daylight. Soon the beasts could not be found, because their cries could not be heard. The dogs slept through the night so thieves came and no alert would sound, their owners snoring through the wicked plunder. Some fields remained unploughed – the ploughman, no longer waking to the sound of the birds, slept blissfully on and much of the land remained unsown by late November.

  ‘That year, because the birds were gone, the insects had a merry time and devoured all the corn and barley long before it ripened. The whole land seemed filled with green- and yellow- and red-striped caterpillars arching their backs and making tracks and munching to their hearts’ content. The greedy, selfish people were now starving and so cried out in despair, “Bring back the birds! Please bring back the birds!” But this could not be done unless they could find someone who could talk the language of the birds and cross the dark, cold, bitter snow-capped mountains to the neighbouring country where birds were still welcome and bid them return.

  ‘Well, they searched and searched all over the land, but the country folk had long since forgotten the language of the birds, being too busy gossiping and meeting, quarrelling and cheating, and the city folk were even less inclined to listen to birdsong for the joy its presence brought. But one day they found a young maid who lived on the streets of the city near a great cathedral who was poor and humble and half-starved, but who oft visited the nearby woods and was said to have once upon a time talked to all the birds. They promised to make her a princess, to dress her in a velvet gown and adorn her with a precious crown of sea pearls and sparkling gems. Upon her dainty feet they’d place slippers spun from a spider’s web. They’d feed her with cakes and ale and build her a castle of her own and seat her upon a golden throne and build her a carriage drawn by six white horses with fancy ostrich plumes like fountains spraying upwards from their heads. All this and more if only she would agree to make the arduous journey across the dark, black, silent, bitter, snow-capped mountains and, once arrived, persuade the birds to return.

  ‘“I do not wish to be a princess and my jewels are dew drops poised upon the morning grass that sparkle just the same,” she said. “How long do you think such sil
ly slippers would last crossing the cold and bitter, silent, snow-capped mountains? You may keep your cakes and ale and I do not need a draughty castle or a lofty throne. As for a golden carriage and horses, white or not, I must needs sit behind their bums and watch them poo a lot? My wish is only that you provide food and warmth and laughter for all the children on the streets, now and forever after.”

  ‘This they agreed to do forever after and a day, or as long as they remembered, which wasn’t very long, as is the human way. So she made the journey over the mountains and through the snow until she reached a great wood of oak and elm, fir and beech and yew that resounded with the most marvellous birdsong. And there she met with all the birds, among them the eagle and the robin, the owl and the talkative jay. Who, by the way, for all his chatter, had much to say and most of it quite wise, so that all the birds gathered there were quite pleasantly surprised.

  ‘Then took place much parleying and a to-and-fro of arguing and sharpened point of view, with a snigger here and a yawn there and even a quarrel or two. For birds, as you well know, are talkative and simply must each have their say, and some will chat throughout the livelong day.

  ‘Alas, there were times when the geese had to be hushed so that the proceedings might continue. The ducks and chickens were not far behind in their insistence to be heard all at once and at every moment speaking for their kind. What a mixture of cackling, quacking and a honking their concatenation proved to be.

  ‘Finally the owl had cause to admonish them most severely. “You have lived too close and much too long with humans and have forgotten how to share a song and so constantly fight among yourselves. You have lost your pretty manners, but instead you strut and waddle like fat hausfraus who speak but never listen and don’t know right from wrong! Would you kindly allow this small blue wren to have her say? She speaks more sense from her tiny beak than you lot from the farms and barns a-honking, a-quacking and a-cackling every moment of the day.”

  ‘There and then and on the spot the wren proposed that they adopt a proposition most seemed instantly to like a lot – to come back if they were guaranteed a fair share of the ripened grain and scattered seed. “In return and true to our belief, we will keep the insects down and snap up every caterpillar that dares to crawl upon a single ear of corn or eat a cabbage leaf,” she added to the brief.

  ‘“Aye, well and truly said, we birds of the air must earn our bread,” the wise old owl remarked. “But, while I don’t give a hoot for things that crawl, we must not really eat them all. It is my bird’s eye view that insects too must lay their eggs and breed, for when you think it through, we’d find ourselves in the very same trouble as these silly humans do. Verily I must atone, birds cannot live by corn alone. I have long since learned to leave a mother mouse or two in every barn to breed, so that I might have a meal while passing through.”

  ‘And so they amended the proposition to allow some insects to be spared. The pretty butterfly in particular. Then, of course, the geese and ducks and chickens raised a last-minute objection and insisted that the words “birds of the air” be changed to “all the birds”. “We birds who do not care to fly, who honk and quack and cackle and teach our young to cheep, are also worthy of our keep!” they honked and quacked and cackled most indignantly.

  ‘And so as quick as an egg may be laid, a second amendment was duly made. And thus it was that they all finally agreed to return.’

  I stood and addressed the children. ‘Now would you like to see how it was when the birds returned?’ I asked.

  In one accord they shouted that they would. So I walked to the centre of where they all sat and cautioned them to be quiet as mice and then I began to call. The blue jay, always inquisitive, was the first to arrive and sit upon my shoulder. Then a chattering magpie came and landed upon my outstretched hand. As each mating call went out, birds of lovely twittering, raucous chatter, soft cooing, sharp tapping, hooting, chirping, warbling, piping, clacking, trilling, tweeting, cackling and screeching, even the mournful cawing crow came flying in to share in this tumultuous and most glorious din. I saved to beckon the raven, for its appearance is said to bring ill fortune, though I doubt this true, even though it is a sooty-black and beady bird and its cawing can be often heard. Then to complete the glory of the coming of the birds, I sent out the mating call of the nightingale. Now hundreds of birds sat upon the shoulders, hands and heads of every street child but none upon Frau Sarah who looked somewhat forlorn. Then last of all, two nightingales came to flutter above and then to land upon her outstretched hands and then to sing the song of the rising sun and the coming of the dawn.

  After I had sent the birds away to brighten up this lovely day, I asked Nicholas if he would persuade the children to leave. ‘We will tell folk to come this afternoon, Fräulein Petticoat,’ he promised.

  And so the children left to find a way to break their fast, as children hate to delay a rumbling stomach. Frau Sarah sat silently a while upon the rock. Finally she spoke. ‘Sylvia, I have today witnessed a miracle and I am a Jew and do not believe in such phantasmagoria. Now I well see how you learned to sing such notes with glorious clarity and pitch. But the calling of birds confounds me. Whether a Christian or Jew, it is a God-sent gift.’

  ‘Nay, I told thee once before, there is a natural cause – their mating call cannot be resisted,’ I protested. But I could see she did not believe me and thought it modesty or a way I had to deny my power so that she refrained from questioning me too closely. And so I learned the Jew is just as superstitious as we Christian folk. And that all the world would rather have a great wonder than a simple explanation.

  Much to my dismay Frau Sarah now declared, ‘Sylvia, methinks thou art a wunderkind. I am not sure that what is planned for you in a winkelhaus is in thy best endeavour. What is it that I might better do for thee?’

  ‘Oh, nay, Frau Sarah! I love to sing and I will do my best to please you,’ I cried.

  ‘Is that then enough for thee?’

  I had never been asked such a question and knew not how I might answer her. ‘Frau Sarah, I hunger to learn,’ I said at last, ‘to read and then to write in Latin. Alas, I am a peasant and have been told by the priest that it is written that God has made me as I am and that I must be content with my lot. Learning, the Holy Church has proclaimed, is not for such as me – my peasant sensibility and reason cannot tolerate it and I will find myself confounded with every conundrum and so will end in madness. If this be true, then I pray to God that he expunge my name from this Holy writ and grant me His precious gift of knowledge.’

  ‘Latin, not German? You wish to be a scholar?’

  ‘Aye, there is much I ask myself about God’s word and think perchance the answers have been written down in Latin.’

  ‘Aye, so they might, but they were writ in Hebrew first.’

  ‘Nay, in Latin! I must learn the language of God’s Holy Word and that is most definitely in Latin!’ I insisted.

  ‘Sylvia, God’s word was first writ in Hebrew and thereafter Greek and then it was translated into Latin.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, confused, thinking she must surely be wrong. How might a Jewess know such a thing? I asked myself.

  ‘Aye, my husband Israel is a scholar of all three, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and speaks as well the Arabian tongue, for he was born and raised in Jerusalem where all are needed.’

  I could not believe my ears. ‘Frau Sarah, if it is discovered that God has granted me permission to learn, will Master Israel teach me Latin?’

  ‘I will ask him, but I cannot say how he will feel about teaching you.’

  ‘Why? Because I am a Christian?’

  ‘Nay, because you are a woman.’

  It was the same reply as the ratcatcher had given me. ‘But will you ask him, please, Frau Sarah?’ I begged.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But what if I should fail him?’

  Frau Sarah laughed. ‘Then, as you say, it will be God’s will. But I would be most sur
prised if God doth not grant thee permission to learn, Sylvia. Do you play chess?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Nay, “six, two and one” is the only game I know, it is played with dice,’ I explained.

  ‘He will teach you chess and if you prove a sprightly opponent, quick to grasp the game and show a natural cunning and a love to conquer him, then I feel sure he will agree to teach you Latin.’

  ‘But he is a male and you have said he must not be seen to be conquered?’

  She laughed her merry laugh. ‘You are a quick learner, Sylvia, but chess has no gender.’

  ‘Perhaps I shall fail, I know little of games.’

  ‘Aye, to a Jew chess is not just a game. It is the very game of life. If you fail, then you must accept, once again, it may be God’s will.’

  I was constantly surprised that she so often talked of God as if He was to her, a Jew, as close as He was to me, a Christian. Had I not been taught by the priest that Jews were Christ killers? If this were so, why then did they worship the same God the Father but crucified His son? It was to this kind of question I longed to find the answer. ‘Has Master Israel taught thee to play chess?’

  ‘Nay, I have not felt the need and am, besides, not gifted.’ She held up both her hands. ‘Perhaps a small gift with these and another with herbs. Israel says I am nimble with needle and thread and I can count and write numbers and add and subtract and multiply, so I do the business and that is as well. Israel is a fine tailor and a scholar, but does not much care for numbers and has a muddled head for money.’

  I did not think that it might be possible to find a Jew who did not care about money. ‘Are all Jewish tailors also scholars?’ I asked.

  ‘Nay, but every Jew may study to be one. It is our tradition. Knowledge, we are taught, is power, and ignorance enslavement. Here in Cologne we have a great rabbinical teacher, Rabbi Brasch the Good. He would have every Jewish boy a scholar.’

  ‘And female?’

  ‘Alas, no. It is not forbidden to a woman to have knowledge. In our past there has also been many a wise prophetess, but women may not be taught with men in the synagogue and it is there that knowledge is given out.’