Sylvia Page 17

  Reinhardt waited, then raised his hand and brought them to silence, and this time when he brought his flute to his mouth all were attentive. I sang several hymns from the mass, a motet, plainsong and Gloria, then followed with folksongs, though none that were bawdy or suggestive, only those that might be sung in any company.

  As I had promised him, I called Nicholas to sing with me, a simple folksong often sung to children and well-known to all. He sang in a young boy’s voice, though slightly out of tune and seemed relieved when it was over. The crowd liked his inclusion and whistled and clapped at the end. Each song upon completion was greeted with the greatest applause, people springing to their feet and surging forward. Had it not been for the street urchins who fought to hold them back, they would have overcome me in their anxiety to touch me.

  But then as we neared the end a most calamitous happening occurred. While I was in mid-song a strange feeling of warmth occurred between my legs and glancing down I saw a spot of blood upon my dress. How I maintained my voice I cannot say for I knew at once that my womanhood was upon me. I quickly brought the rose I held to cover the spot as if it were a natural pose and somehow managed to complete the song. Whereupon I turned to Reinhardt. ‘We must end now!’ I whispered urgently.

  Reinhardt nodded but ever the showman must have felt the end too sudden, for he stopped and held his hand up for the applause to die and then announced, ‘We will end as we began, in praise of God!’ Then he blew the first notes to a hymn of praise. How I completed this I shall never know for I could feel the flow between my legs increasing and dared not look down upon my gown.

  By the time we had completed this last rendition it was growing dark and I hoped those seated on the steps directly below me had not looked upon my dress. Reinhardt thanked the ecstatic crowd, for it was clear to see we had been a great success. They cheered us loudly and continuously, chanting ‘Petticoat Angel!’ as they left the square for the warmth of their homes, for piety may burn within the saints but it does nothing to warm the commonfolk on a winter’s night.

  ‘My coat, Nicholas!’ I cried urgently. When he brought it, together with my stave, I turned away from him and handed him the rose and placed my stave against the wall, turning my back to all so that none might see the bloodstain at the front of my dress. I hastily put the coat on, buttoning the wooden toggles as quickly as I could to hide my shame.

  I turned to see that a priest had come from within St Martin’s and now stood with Nicholas at the small doorway to the church by which we had first emerged. ‘Good evening, fräulein,’ he said. ‘I come to ring the Angelus, but no bell, if it should toll from heaven, will sound as glorious as thy voice.’

  Before I could thank him, Nicholas suddenly began to shake and then cried out, ‘Look! The rose cries tears of blood!’ He held up his forefinger on the tip of which it was easy to see the wet bloodstain. My woman’s blood must have covered the underside of the rose petals.

  He held the rose out to the priest who turned it upside down and I saw the red stains upon the underside of the white petals. ‘Glory to God, this is a miracle!’ he exclaimed and handing the rose back to Nicholas he clasped his hands in prayer and fell to his knees. ‘We must take it to the bishop at once!’ he cried out.

  ‘Nay, to the blessed Father Hermann Joseph!’ Nicholas shouted. ‘It is his Holy Virgin white rose and he must bear witness to this miracle!’

  The priest rose to his feet. ‘Blessed be to God, I am witness to a miracle,’ he sighed, then clasped both my hands and turning my palms upwards brought his lips to them.

  Without waiting a moment longer, Nicholas jumped down the steps two at a time, closely followed by his entourage of ragged urchins yelling at the top of their voices, ‘Miracle! Miracle!’ I watched in consternation as they ran across the square to disappear in the growing dark within the departing crowd.

  ‘How shall I find thee, Petticoat Angel? ’ the priest asked.

  ‘Ah . . . er . . . there is . . . er, an explanation, Father,’ I stammered.

  ‘Come, we must away,’ Reinhardt said, shivering from the cold, not at all sure what was going on. ‘We must hurry, Frau Sarah will be waiting.’ He took me by the arm and I had just sufficient time to grab my stave when he pulled me away.

  ‘Nicholas will find me!’ I called.

  ‘The urchin with the rose?’ the priest asked.

  ‘Aye, he lives hereabouts. Good night, Father!’

  ‘Father Paulus! Paulus the scribe!’ he shouted down at us.

  ‘Shit! I am freezing cold and must get my cloak!’ Reinhardt called, half running ahead of me.

  ‘There has been an accident, please, I cannot walk so fast!’ I cried.

  He stopped. ‘Accident?’

  ‘My bleeding. It has come.’

  ‘Bleeding?’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘The rose?’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘The blood on the rose?’

  ‘Aye, my womanhood.’ I felt myself close to tears.

  At once he understood and his eyes lit up. ‘A miracle! The rose cries tears of human blood?’ he exclaimed, delighted. ‘Holy Jesus! What have we here?’

  ‘Do not blaspheme!’ I shouted, upset, angry and humiliated. Then in a sudden fit of frustration I brought my stave down hard upon his toe.

  ‘Ouch!’ he yelled and commenced to hop on one leg in a circle, clutching at his toe and sucking in his breath.

  ‘See! My stave is the instrument of God’s wrath!’ I pronounced, feeling a whole lot better.

  When he had recovered and still limping he attempted to explain himself. ‘Sylvia, see you not? Look what we have here to our advantage. Yesterday you sent the three whores a-caterwauling naked from the bathhouse and you were pronounced the Petticoat Angel. This morning you did call the birds in the wood in front of the street urchins, who, judging from the crowd this afternoon, spoke much of this. Then you caused the rooks to fly onto your shoulders from their rookery in the belltower of St Martin’s. Thereafter your angelic singing in praise of our Saviour caused the rose you held to shed tears of blood, the very rose given thee by the blessed Father Hermann Joseph, of whom it is known was once given a white rose by the carving of the Blessed Virgin and grew it as a cutting to create holy blooms, this white rose one of such!’

  I felt miserable – the flow between my legs made me anxious and I was most worried about my dress. We were to be at the tailor’s shop in an hour where Frau Sarah was to take us to her brother’s winkelhaus. What would she say about the bloodstain to the front of my dress? I felt sure that she would be very angry. ‘You know what your trouble is?’ I replied, frustrated at his absurd outburst. ‘You have too much imagination. You talk utter shit, Reinhardt!’

  At our lodgings I undressed and washed carefully and tied the rags I’d kept all the while in my leather satchel in the way the widow Johanna had shown me in the village. Then I changed into the dress she had given me and asked the old woman if I might soak my new linen dress in cold water in the hope that I might somewhat remove the bloodstains from it. She was immediately most consolatory and took the dress from me and examined it. ‘It is not yet dry, that is good,’ she declared. ‘I think we may well remove this stain. My husband was a wrestler and I was well accustomed to removing bloodstains,’ she explained, ‘although white linen be a veritable challenge to my skills.’ I said I would pay her for her trouble but she would not hear of it. ‘This blood, when it comes, is a mark of thy womanhood, Sylvia. I am glad that I may help you bear this burden.’

  But Frau Sarah was not as forgiving. ‘That was good new linen,’ she cried, ‘and most expensive. You will pay me from your earnings!’

  ‘I did not do it deliberately,’ I protested, feeling she was being unfair. ‘It was an accident, Frau Sarah.’

  ‘You should have worn your rags all the while, you knew your bleeding to be close!’ she scolded.

  There is a peasant saying: If hindsight is to be avoided then the eye in the centre of the arse would not be blind. But I did not have the
courage to quote it to her.

  Frau Sarah took a red gown from a hook and took in the side seams and tucked the bodice smaller and hemmed furiously, and in a surprisingly short time her fingers, most nimble with a needle and thread, had this pretty garment fitting me amazingly well.

  ‘A scarlet woman, eh?’ Reinhardt said, one eyebrow slightly raised.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Reinhardt!’ Frau Sarah said impatiently, placing a dark veil over her wimple. ‘Come, we are late, Abraham will be angry and I cannot bear his yapping.’

  But yapping she must bear because her brother Abraham greeted our arrival without cordiality. ‘You are late!’ he barked. ‘Do you think so little of me that you arrive at your own convenience? I have patrons arriving soon and there is yet no music!’

  ‘Hush! They come soon but are not already here. There is yet time to get ready,’ Frau Sarah soothed him.

  ‘Ha! I must hear them first. What if they do not suit?’

  ‘Then you would have a lute player standing by – I know you to be a cautious man, Abraham. But these two will not cause you trouble,’ Frau Sarah replied calmly.

  Well that truly set Abraham off. ‘What know you of trouble? The cook is sick, the wine is sour, the linen not yet dry, the bed maids are careless in their work, the courtesans all quarrel, my nightingales purchased at great expense do not sing! And you dare talk of lute players who stand by yet want to be paid – you bring me German flute and song that comes here late!’ He said all this as if in one breath and at an astonishing speed, each word rising higher and bumping into the other from behind his flibbertigibbeting tongue.

  Frau Sarah sighed and spread her hands. ‘But the good news is that now we are here,’ she said, smiling sweetly.

  Abraham’s winkelhaus was known as Ali Baba’s and appeared to me to be like a sultan’s cave, the whole place created as a potentate’s harem with cushions in great numbers laid on silk carpets from far-off Cathay. There were low ebony tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. Upon them rested silver bowls of nuts and dried fruits, figs, apricots and dates, almonds, balls of honeycomb covered with sesame seed so the fingers are not left sticky, walnuts, the shells carefully cracked so they might open at a touch to reveal the rich, sweet nut within. Silver flagons of wine stood on every table surrounded by goblets made of glass. The walls and ceiling were scalloped with richly dyed drapes of damask and silk in saffron, scarlet and azure blue. In the corners stood huge burnished copper jars as tall almost as myself and from each a hundred or more peacock feathers plumed. Above these jars hung elaborate golden cages wrought in marvellous patterns of wire and each contained a nightingale. In the centre of the room was a canopied platform of polished walnut that stood waist-high with drapes of rich red velvet pulled to each of the four posts and tied by silken tassels of a silver hue. From either side of the canopy there hung a chandelier on a chain made from links of burnished copper and each contained a hundred candles, so that the room seemed a great luminous wonder. Unbeknownst at first sight, the damask curtains that fell around the walls concealed short corridors that led to the courtesans’ booths. There were eighteen in all, each heavily curtained and private, and they contained a broad couch resplendent in silk cushions and most inviting to the reclining figure. Each served two courtesans, though not at the same time. Even though no people were within this richly draped and cushioned room where the courtesans met their patrons, it gave off the effect of romantic wickedness, so that I gasped as I entered, afraid at once for my mortal soul.

  Master Abraham seemed to ill suit this Ali Baba’s cave of shimmering silk and brilliant light. He was a tiny man dressed in plain cloth, brown and black, not as a peasant nor yet a rich merchant, perhaps in the manner of an important servant or scribe in a noble house. Unlike Master Israel he did not wear a yarmulke or about his waist the tzitziyot tassels of the Jew. He had the look of someone who would go unnoticed in any company and was so thin, sallow and hollow-cheeked that he gave the effect of a skeleton only just sufficiently stretched with bluish skin to yet be on this mortal coil. I was to learn that despite his appearance, he possessed great energy and seemed to be everywhere at once. His eyes, black as obsidian, bright as beads, saw everything. No detail of error escaped his closest attention. A dish of nuts half empty would be instantly refilled; sticky fingers would bring a finger bowl and towel at once. When he laughed, which was seldom with those he paid and often with those who paid him, he screeched like a cantankerous parrot. When angry, which was often, though never to his patrons to whom he acted most obsequious, his voice took on a yapping note so like a dog that he was secretly known among those who worked at Ali Baba’s as Master Yap.

  The raised platform with the tasselled canopy that stood in the centre of the Courtesans’ Room, as it was named, was for the musicians, usually a lute player or a minstrel from France who were known to be the best. Master Yap was most apprehensive that his sister’s share of the winkelhaus had caused him to be saddled with two musicians who were German and so would lack musical refinement and besmirch his reputation, though I think his reputation had nothing whatsoever to do with the music he played. I was soon to learn that the patrons were, for the most part, stout burghers who would prefer the tooting of a trumpet and the thumping of a drum to my dulcet tones. I sang as best I might but I doubt that they took much notice, being in other ways preoccupied.

  Of course it didn’t take long for me to understand that I was working in a brothel and while I was most shocked at first I soon learned to enjoy it for, as Frau Sarah often said, ‘Sylvia, you are safer in a high-class brothel than a noble’s castle. Abraham has been told that you are not to be touched or he must answer to me. You are to tell me if he makes any lewd suggestions to you.’

  Master Yap’s courtesans were the envy of the winkelhäuser in Cologne and also the most expensive. They came from all over the known world: tall, elegant Nubians, sultry Turks and other Oriental damsels, Slavs, Danes with hair whiter and eyes bluer than mine, sloe-eyed Chinese from Cathay, Syrians, Egyptians, Persians and, of course, German, English, Italian, Sicilian and French. They were not slaves, as in many other brothels, but worked willingly, each vying for patronage as Master Yap worked on a system of percentages. He took a half share in their earnings and if they did not attract patrons and earn sufficient they were soon parted from his company and replaced by others anxious to join. Although a great deal of squabbling took place among them they were, for the most part, contented with their lot. Many had been slaves, ill-fed and badly treated, and life as a free courtesan, for the words ‘whore’ or ‘harlot’ were never mentioned, was easy by comparison providing they made their quota each week. They were well fed, with warm accommodations, and made good money that they were not forced to give to pimps or ne’er-do-wells.

  The first night in Master Yap’s winkelhaus came as a surprise, not only because it turned out to be what it was, but also because of my singing. I had all the while thought of myself as a modest person as I saw little in me of particular note and was aware that as a peasant I had no learning or importance. But ever since the Miracle of the Gloria I had grown accustomed to folk being in praise of my voice and without thinking about it must have all the while grown quite vainglorious. The very afternoon prior to arriving at Master Yap’s the people in the church square had cheered and clapped and wished to touch me. Now Reinhardt and I stood within the canopy in Ali Baba’s Courtesans’ Room and my singing and his playing went completely unnoticed. It was as if we were invisible and after each folksong there was silence from the patrons. When it was all done I expected Master Yap to show his displeasure and to inform us that we would not be needed on the morrow. But instead, while not over-generous with his praise, he told us that we had performed satisfactorily and that he would no longer cause a French lute player to stand by. That night I went to bed at the widow’s lodging exhausted. It had been a very long day, from the visit to the woods in the morning to bed well past the midnight hour. Reinhardt, as exhau
sted as I, grumbled that the rat-ridding at Master Solomon’s had caused him to have little sleep.

  ‘If you’d been wearing thy cloak and peacock feather cap, the rats would have scurried off in amazement without you playing your flute,’ I teased. But I do not think he was amused.

  You might imagine my consternation, then, when the widow woke me with the news that an urchin had come to fetch me to go to St Mary’s on the Kapitol. It was Nicholas, who by some mysterious way only known to street children, knew where I lived and came to summon me to an examination by the blessed Father Hermann Joseph and Father Paulus. It was no more than an hour after the ringing of the Angelus.

  ‘Come, Sylvia, the blessed Father has set aside an hour from his prayers, and Father Paulus, the scribe from St Martin’s, is with him.’

  ‘Nicholas, there is an explanation,’ I cried, but then realised I could explain no further to a ten-year-old boy.

  ‘They will see the bishop if it turns out well,’ Nicholas said enthusiastically. ‘Already the people in the market know and marvel about the white rose you held that wept tears of blood.’

  ‘How can that be? It was nigh dark and not long before the ringing of the curfew bell that we departed from St Martin’s.’

  ‘Street children rise early,’ he said simply.

  ‘And are tattletales!’ I exclaimed.

  Nicholas looked at me, astonished. ‘But we have witnessed a miracle! Do you think we would keep this a secret?’

  ‘It is not a miracle, Nicholas!’ I scolded.

  ‘That’s not for you to say, Fräulein Petticoat,’ he retorted.

  ‘Call me Sylvia!’ I demanded, feeling both guilty and frustrated. ‘Nicholas, you must not believe everything you see to be true. There may be yet another explanation.’

  ‘As you wish, Fräulein Petticoat,’ he said, not believing me. ‘Can you please hurry – they are awaiting your attendance at St Mary’s on the Kapitol.’