The Anatomist's Dream (15 page)

The next morning Philbert found Ullendorf at his post, beginning to exhume Kwert from his blankets as Philbert rushed forward to help. Once his body was revealed Philbert was astounded to see that Kwert's boils were dry as bones abandoned on the desert of his yellowing skin. His breathing had broken back to even stride, disturbed only by occasional and incoherent murmurs, snatches of prayers perhaps, foreign words and phrases. His skin was hot to the touch, but no longer clammy, and twenty
-
four hours later Kwert was sitting up, sucking at pease-soup thickened with curds, the donkey ­wobbling to its knees, licking at the drips, eager for anything his master could spare. Two days later both were up and about, thin and winter-worn for sure, sag-skinned, slack-jawed, but both alive and both recovering well.

Amongst the Fair's folk Doctor Ullendorf was a hero, more than that, a miracle worker without whose help Kwert would certainly have died. He was a bit of a strange one, that went without saying, for they none of them held much with ­doctoring, having seen what it could do in the wrong hands. Kwert was a trusted healer, but when the likes of Kwert got sick well, that was that. Or so they'd always thought. Then Philbert had fetched this oafish-looking doctor with his idiot's smile and hair like curly dock, and not only had he dug a hole into the Maus-Junge's head with the lad living to tell the tale, but now he'd gone on to heal the healer, and the healer's donkey too. Ullendorf explained that the sickness suffered was common enough, called Glanders to those in the know, but the Fair's folk didn't know, and regarded Ullendorf with awe. So when he also told him that the Volstreckens were planning to open the doors of their
Buschenschank
for the first time at the end of the week Maulwerf took the lead and declared they would return to Finzeln with Ullendorf, and there he would be guest-of-honour at the Grand Opening to celebrate Kwert's survival in style. It boded well, Maulwerf told them, that their season had started so auspiciously, so they upped sticks and crowded back along the lanes to Finzeln and to the open arms of the Volstreckens, who were delighted to welcome them in.

It was a night Philbert would long remember, the kind that torqued your heart on a spit just to think on it, and think on it he often did. People always said you can never go back, that what's done is done, and though the latter part of this sentence was as true for Philbert as for everyone else, the first part was not, for Philbert was discovering that he could go back to the past whenever he chose. He couldn't change a thing about it, but he could close his eyes and live it all over again just as he'd lived it then, with every colour, every smell, every touch just as real to him as if it had happened only a few moments before.

So back to Finzeln went the Fair, all sat around the tables of the
Buschenschank
, the red and white checkers of the running cloths marching over the boards as Frau Volstrecken lit the lamps. At the end of the long room, lined with barrels all along one side, Kapellmeister Corti waved his orchestra into half-baked order; Herr Volstrecken filled mugs and glasses with wine, delighted to see his friends back again for his opening night; and Frau Fettleheim had a table to herself, piled high with all sorts of dishes and plates, appointed Frau Volstrecken's official taster, Frau Fettleheim having boasted many times of being an assistant cook in her youth at the Imperial Palace. That's what she said, and she was as entitled to her tales as was everyone else. She'd always sworn it was all the tasting for salt and seasonings that had made her the way she was today, and that at one hundred dishes a week to taste it would have done the same to anyone. The rolls of her belly made the table shake as she spoke of far gone days with misty eyes, and no one had the heart to argue.

Rabbi Ridente raised an arm, lifted his glass, calling for hush, nodding to each of the company in turn, and in particular to the large Dr Ullendorf who took place of honour next to Kwert. Ullendorf's curly hair tweaked out from under his hat every time he moved his head or smiled his big open-door smile, and beside him was Kwert, fever-free, the welts on his skin calmed to a sea of pinkish domes like shrinking jellyfish stranded on a beach. The dancing troupe somersaulted a saltambalique across the room, directed by the man they called Harlekin, who always seemed to stand in shadow, keeping his head half-turned so no one could see his eyes. It was all part of his mystique and a part he stuck to rigidly, always standing like the spectre at the ­wedding feast, reminding everyone that fate is fate and no one can escape whatever theirs might be.

Then Rabbi Ridente was up and speaking and everyone bowed their head, even Harlekin.

‘O God, great and mighty, I come before You to render thanks; in our distress we called on You and You did answer; for Your anger is but for a moment and Your favour will last our whole lives through. To Our Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer, we give thanks. Amen.' It was a short prayer and soon he clapped his hands and broke the bell-jar of silence. ‘My friends, let us eat, let us drink, let us thank the Good God that Kwert is among us still, and let us laugh at our misfortunes when they come, in the full knowledge that God will see us right in the end. Corti, let the music begin!'

Corti raised his short arms high as they would go and let crash a cymbal as they fell; his foot started tapping and everyone drew in their breath as the show began. There was an almighty wheeze and creak as a trio of bagpipers began to blow and the Polish Goats – as those strange instruments were called – began to dance, dudelsacks swelling, elbows bellowing, fingers ­chittering up and down the screeching pipes; a man plucked his zither with a plectrum, making weird high notes screech across the room; the drums were rolled and the paukes were ­trommelled, and the gongs were rung, and the tambourines sang; the rebeck riribled and danced between its owner's knees, bouncing against the bow as the player leapt now and then from the floor. Corti had attached bells to his hands and feet, and more to his hat and knees, and he clattered around the room like a scarecrow trying to run from his shadow; another man, with a curved board studded with nails and string grabbed a bow and played it like a fiddle, the iron nails vibrating and humming and dashing their strident way amidst the cacophony of sound. The Fair's folk laughed and sang and danced, pulling Kwert up with them even though he didn't look too keen, and Maulwerf flung Frau Volstrecken around the room like a top until she fell, pink-cheeked, hair a-whirl, onto a bowl of
Kalbsvörgel
that her husband had rested on his lap while he clapped and shouted at her progress. The Bowman lay down his fiddle and picked Lita up in his arms and stood her two feet in the crooks of his elbows, launching her around and around as she clung wildly to his ears, laughing and screaming to be put down.

It was a night as stuffed full of good things as Frau Volstrecken's strudels were with apple, and later on Philbert and Lita sat outside in the cool air of midnight looking at the stars, listening to the feast going on inside, and the Bowman sang, and his iron nails rang, and they danced a slow dance outside under the light of the moon. Happiness. No other word for it. Happiness for all there, pure and simple, and especially for Philbert, dancing with Lita, her head on his shoulder, his arms about her waist, Kroonk bumping against his legs as he turned her beneath the turning stars.

Inside, Ullendorf was taking the opportunity to discuss ­certain matters with Kwert, rather bending the conversation to his advantage, having not long been the saviour – no matter the Rabbi's praising of his God – of Kwert's life.

‘Your boy is a most interesting case,' Ullendorf was saying. ‘And I must admit I was delighted when he turned back up at my door, and even more so to act upon his summons.'

‘I'm very blessed that you did,' Kwert replied, somewhat formally, his neck-bones clicking as he made a short bow of thanks in Ullendorf's direction.

‘My pleasure, Mr Kwert,' Ullendorf was hearty, ‘my pleasure.'

‘And you suspect Kwert's illness was . . . what was it?' Maulwerf broke in. ‘I'm not much up on doctoring, but it will be useful to know how to act if we ever come across such a thing again.'

Ullendorf spread his long surgeon's fingers across the red and white cloth as if it were an unopened skull and he was trying to guess what lay beneath.

‘Groom's Glanders, without a doubt,' he said. ‘The equine disease tears through the lymph system like mucky water through a pipe. It's rarely fatal in horses, or donkeys come to that, but it can be so in the men who catch the disease as they tend them. The contagion is caused, so I've been led to believe, by small animalcules leaping from beast to beast, or beast to man.' He coughed, relit his pipe. ‘Once inside the blood the body detects these unknown animalcules and sets out to eject them, hence the eruption of boils: throwing out the rats with the rubbish, as it were.'

‘And am I to assume you collect such specimens?' inquired Kwert politely, having already been informed that some of his pus and excretions had ended up in bottles in Ullendorf's ­capacious pockets.

‘Oh yes indeed,' Ullendorf had no compunction about removing parts of other people's illnesses. ‘Every living thing is but a myriad of cells, each one capable of reproducing itself, just as you or I can reproduce ourselves in our children.' He hesitated a second before continuing. ‘But on the introduction of the foreign animalcule into the body it's my belief that this reproduction goes somewhat awry, and in that belief I fall somewhat between the rival camps of Schwann and Virchow.'

Neither Kwert nor Maulwerf knew who these people were and Ullendorf didn't stop to explain. He was getting to the nub of his thesis, and the reason for his interest in Philbert.

‘Diseases are strange creatures, and can move from person to person, from beast to beast. But they can also be engendered by the body itself, not merely from the influence of outside agents. And this is one of my primary fields of study. It is my Collection Principle that the
Knollenförmig
, the tumours, and the
Ungeheuerlich
, those bulbous knobs that can form both within and without a person, are both in and of that individual, and may stand as representatives of the whole. And of course boils and ulcers are not to be sniffed at, for they are all part and parcel of my research, and as such it was a pleasure, as I said before, to become reacquainted with you, Kwert – not that I want in any way to make light of your recent discomfort. But it also brings me back to the boy . . .'

A moment's silence then, as both Kwert and Maulwerf glanced at each other.

‘You mean Philbert,' Kwert said, looking a little uncomfortable. ‘I am, of course, more grateful than I can say for your intervention in making me well. But can I ask, sir, what more can you possibly want with Philbert?'

Ullendorf rocked back in his chair, the smile on his face so broad it could have swallowed a side of beef.

‘I am no sinister butcher, Kwert, no resurrectionist hacking unfortunates to death in back alleys, chopping off a bit here and there in order to further my studies. But you must share my interest, for are you not . . . how shall I say it? A forquidder . . . a Teller of Signs . . . that you read bumps and the like?'

Kwert cleared his throat. He was used to being laughed at, and usually enjoyed it, for it was all part of the show when it came down to it. But this was different. This was a learned man he admired and owed his life to, and he felt the need to hold his own.

‘I believe a great many things, Doctor Ullendorf, about the signs the Good Lord gives us. I believe the body is the casement of the soul, and that the soul can express itself through the body. It's like spying out the lie of the land. You look, and you see hills and fields, terraces and forests. And you know that if a man has built his house it is not likely to be built on a marsh. You know that if you see birch and gorse and heather all growing together then the likelihood is that the land beneath them is primarily peat or moorland, whereas if you see beech and ash growing together then the ground will be altogether different, softer, that it will harbour different kinds of plants, different fungi, ­different flowers. And so it is with a person: the skin can be the outward sign of that which is rooted deep in the substance of the soul within.'

‘So what do you think is within the boy, Kwert?' Ullendorf leaned forward, elbows on the table, juggling his empty glass between his fingers. ‘Is he a monster or a saint?'

It was Kwert's turn to smile. ‘Oh Doctor Ullendorf, it is nowhere near that simple, as I'm sure you must know. There are a great many ways a body can be put together, but the main point is this: the body is but a curtain – a vestment – that conceals the state of the soul beneath. A man's skin hides his humanity like a nut within its shell. It's a seed that may grow or rot, but has at its outset the potential to do either. And it's that potential I seek to find and interpret.'