The Bells (16 page)

VIII.

D
uring my nocturnal ramblings there was one house I often passed, longed to explore, but never entered: Haus Duft. Even from the outside I heard echoes of those beguiling sounds and knew I would be lost in its labyrinthine halls, or worse, tricked into thinking a room was empty, only to find evil Aunt Karoline lurking behind the door.

But sometimes I hovered in the shadows and observed a lighted window for a time, hoping for a glimpse of Amalia’s form. And what if she had appeared? What if she had gazed out at the night? Only this: I would have retreated even more deeply into the darkness that concealed me.

It was outside Haus Duft one night that I discovered I was not this city’s only ghost.

I was in the shadows watching a lighted window, hoping to discern the hint of long, hay-colored hair, or of a limping shadow. My ears flitted from a skittering rat to scattering leaves to a chicken that had escaped her coop and wandered dumbly through the streets.

Suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I saw a figure dart into a doorway. What seemed impossible was that this figure made no sound. I retreated into my shadow and waited. I heard nothing. Assuming I had imagined the vision, I moved farther down the street, ready to retreat to the abbey. Just before I turned a corner, I looked back. A dark form was moving noiselessly among the darkened houses. It made no sounds at all that I could hear. It was as terrifying to me as if I had seen a man step through a solid wall.

I fled.

I rushed down an alley, then turned again and again, until I was sure I had lost the soundless apparition. It was autumn, and the shuttered windows blocked the city’s sleeping breaths. I heard only those sounds of decay, muted by the cold, and the whistling, sighing wind. Farther along the alley from whence I had come, a window was lit. It would expose anything that should approach me. I had seen only a vagrant, I told myself. The wind had stolen his sounds. I was the city’s only ghost.

Then I heard the rough tap of wood against stone from beyond the window. I listened for footsteps or a breath. I heard nothing but tapping. It was repeated with perfect regularity, like the clicking of the clock’s cogs in Staudach’s northern tower.

I saw the silhouette of a man. He hunched to one side and limped quickly down the alley. He wore a long black robe. A hood hid his face. From the way he tapped the street with his stick, I saw that he was blind. Then he stopped. He stood before the lighted window. He straightened and turned his head back and forth, listening.

There was something familiar in this gesture; I knew this man. It was indeed a ghost.

I ran. I turned down narrow alleys without knowing where they led. I did not care if I was seen or heard. Each time I stopped, I heard the tapping behind me; it seemed to tap into my very skull. I ran like a startled foal, crashing into walls, tripping over the uneven street, skinning my hands on the cobblestones.

I ended in a blind alley. I pawed the high wall for a way out, found none, and so I turned around and listened.
Tap. Tap. Tap
. I crouched behind some rotting barrels and willed my sounds to disappear. My breath was only the slightest whisper, but my heart still beat like a drum.
Tap. Tap. Tap
. The sound passed the opening of the alley. The ghost paused there. The wind gathered at the end of the alley, whining around the barrels.

The cane had turned and now tapped down the alley toward me. It was less urgent now.
Tap
. It clicked once as I inhaled in terror.
Tap
. Once as I exhaled.

Tap
.

When the figure drew closer, I discerned faint footsteps, quiet as my own when I crossed roofs and escaped from bedrooms. It was not a ghost, but a man whose feet did indeed touch the ground. This did not comfort me.

The cane and the steps stopped. The wind flapped his robe. His breath was softer than mine.

I stood. I stumbled into the barrels. They broke apart, strewing rotten wood across the alley. He came closer, swinging his cane at my feet. I backed up against the wall. When his cane swung for my feet, I darted past him, but his ear was faster. A hand grabbed my sleeve and jerked with such force that I lost my footing. He dragged me toward him. I fought against his grasp, but he dropped his cane—it clattered to the ground—and clutched me with both hands.

“Let me go!” I yelled. He was old and crippled, but to him I was no stronger than a screaming child. One hand drew back his hood. Our faces were inches apart. Even in the dim light, I could make out every ravaged feature. He had no hair left at all. His skin was mottled red, with patches of whiteness like the gristle of raw lamb. His left cheek was taut and smooth, like thin muslin that would rip at a needle’s touch. His right cheek was bubbled and scarred. His eye sockets were empty; his eyelids, wrinkled flaps of skin.

“I found you,” Ulrich said.

“Who is there?” someone cried from a window in the alley.

“Come with me,” Ulrich whispered. “My house is near.”

I struggled to get free.

“I will not let you go again,” he said. He grabbed me again with both hands. “I do not care if they find us, though we will both be punished.”

“Who is there? We are armed!” the voice cried.

“Come!” Ulrich snapped. He held me by the sleeve and tugged. I was as submissive as I had been when he had carried me down so many midnight hallways. Though I was taller than he now, I could not muster the courage to strike the crippled man.

He tapped his way up the alley. He wove us expertly through the streets, and so I saw that his memory for shape was far better than his memory for sound. We came to a square with a three-spouted fountain, and he pushed me into a doorway of a narrow house. He unlocked the door and pushed me inside.

The house had only one room on the ground floor. It was extraordinarily neat, with a single chair at a small table, and a bed pressed into a corner. There was no decoration on the walls, no other furniture, no lamps or candles of any kind. The only light came from the glow of coals in a stove. A steep flight of stairs led upward into darkness. The bed was neatly made, the chair centered at the table. There were no stray ashes around the stove, no scraps of food on the ground. The stone floor gleamed.

He locked the door and put the key in his pocket.

“Unlock the door,” I said.

His head rose as if he could see me with his empty eyes. “Your voice is so much the same,” he said. “But stronger.”

“Unlock it,” I said.

“If I unlock it, will you leave?”

“If I wish.”

He considered for a moment, then he unlocked the door. He walked to me, reached out until he found my chest, and slipped the key into my pocket.

“That is your key,” he said. “This is your house. If you wish.”

“I do not.”

He said nothing. The coals crackled in the stove like ice.

I walked past him to the door. Our backs were to each other when he spoke.

“When I recovered sufficiently to walk, Abbot Coelestin gave me a bag of gold. He said he would hang me for your castration if I ever returned to this city. Then he had me sent to Zurich. I was pushed off the wagon and left by the lake. I did not even have a staff. I listened to the wagon vanish. The waves upon the lake. Passing horses. Vendors from a nearby market. I have never heard such an empty world. If I had possessed a pistol I would have put it to my head.”

I heard the pleading in his voice, but still, I reached for the door handle.

Ulrich continued: “ ‘A coach,’ I shouted. ‘Get me a coach!’ ”

My teacher’s cold and eager voice chilled my spine. He took two steps toward me. I feared his gentle touch now with as much revulsion as I had as a child.

“Moses, Nicolai should have taken my ears! He could have cut them off, and I would have thanked him as I screamed. But blindness is the devil’s curse! All I do is hear. I hear ants crawl across my floor. I hear the earth settle beneath my feet. I hear my scars fester as I try to sleep. I hear you, Moses. I, too, wander at night, for I, too, must stay hidden. I have followed you. I have heard your step, your breath. That breath I taught to breathe.”

I turned around and saw tears flowing from where his eyes used to be. He reached out a hand as if he wished to touch my arm. I shied away.

“But what is there to hear? I heard beauty in this world once, but the noises of this dreadful city remind me every moment what I have lost. Moses, I so want to hear you sing again. Please.”

He paused. I could not take my eyes off his burnt head, which shone crimson in the coals’ light. He wiped his face of tears.

“Moses, please—”

“I no longer sing,” I said abruptly. “The abbot forbids it.”

“The abbot is a fool.”

“The abbot has been kind to me,” I said, with anger in my voice. “He has made me a novice. I shall one day be a monk.”

Ulrich opened his mouth to speak, but then he stopped. His face twitched as he considered what I had said.

“That is … fortunate … for you,” he said, but I heard in his hesitation that he was disguising what he truly thought. “You plan to stay here, then? Forever, in this city?”

“Where else do I have to go?”

I saw surprise on the blind man’s face, but he quickly stifled it. “The abbot is very generous,” he said. “This is a difficult world for those like you. The abbey can offer you much luxury.”

“I do not desire luxury. I merely wish to be left alone.”

“Good,” he said. He nodded. A trembling hand reached out and found my sleeve, but so lightly I could have pulled away. With his other hand he patted my arm, like an uncle might, one who was unused to children. “Moses,” he continued. “Let me offer you then the one thing the abbot cannot. Then you will have all that you desire. You will forever be content.”

“What could you offer me?”

“Sing,” he said very quietly.

I jerked my arm away and took several steps back.

“Please listen,” he said quietly, struggling to control his fervor. He shuffled toward me, trying to regain his hold. “Please sing here. Here in this house. At night, instead of wandering the streets. I will not tell you what to sing. I will not speak. I will only sit and listen.”

I opened the door.

“Please, Moses. Sing,” he whispered like a prayer.

I turned to look at him for what I hoped would be the last time. Then I said, “How can you ask that?”

“Moses!”

“You ruined me.”

“I … I … had no …” He could not finish.

“I will never sing again,” I said. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”

IX.

I
was the city’s silent ghost, haunting the streets and houses, collecting every sound but my own, for I made no sounds. I was as content as I had been at any time since the exile of my friends. I had come to terms with my plight, accepted that God had not intended the gift of joy for those with my imperfection. I was just nineteen years old, but I had already given up on the world. And I would still be there today—an elderly, silent ghost—if an angel had not brought me back to life.

My resurrection came by surprise. One early morning, I slid along the abbey’s roof back toward my window, careful not to make a sound. I softly touched my foot to my windowsill and crouched, ready to drop onto my bed. I blocked the starlight from the room.

As I cast this shadow across my floor, I heard a sigh. It was so quiet that most would not have heard it, but to me it was as instructive as a portrait. I recognized the lungs that pushed the air, the throat that molded its intent.

I did not move. I could not have been more frightened if I’d heard a lion standing there.

“Moses,” she said. “Is that you?”

I did not answer. I crouched on my windowsill and tried to blend in with the night. She stepped across my room. She wore a black cuculla, just like mine. But her hood was down. In the darkness, I could see only the outlines of her face, the gleam of her golden hair.

I climbed down onto the bed, stepped down to the floor. The top of her head reached my chin.

“Moses?”

I listened to her breathe. Her exhalations were damp and warm.

“Won’t you speak to me?”

I heard her bite her lip.

“What a fool I am,” she said. “I am so ashamed.”

She turned to go. I listened to her shoes upon the floor. I heard the fabric rustle across her back.

“Wait,” I whispered, as softly as that tiny boy.

She turned. She waited. I did not speak. I tried to hear her heart. It was too faint to hear from across the room, but I was too frightened to take a step.

“Wait,” I said again. “Do not go.”

For several seconds we just stood there in the dark.

“Do you have a candle?” she finally asked. “A lamp?”

“No.”

“How do you see?”

“I do not need to see.”

“I want to see your face,” she said. “For five years I have seen nothing more than your eye and some fingers through that awful gate. You have grown so much taller.”

I closed my eyes and wished the world would freeze but leave me with her sounds.

“Do you not want to see me?” she asked.

“I saw you,” I replied. “Every time we spoke. And last year, too. In the church.”

I heard humiliation seize her breath. After several seconds she spoke. “If you were there, why did you not answer me?”

I did not answer now because I could not tell her the truth.

“I wanted to see you,” she said. “I want to see you now. It has been so long. I have always thought that you were my friend. My only friend. Have you forgotten me?”

“No,” I whispered. “I have not forgotten you at all.”

She moved lightly across the floor. I cowered in my hood, so she would not see my face, would not read my imperfection in its smooth curves. She was only inches away. I could hear her heart now, like a drum. Each beat shook some withered part of me alive. I suddenly noticed how small my attic room was, how my head almost brushed the slanting ceiling. If I had reached out my arms I could have touched both walls. My tunic was suddenly so tight I could not breathe.

“Can I see your face?” She reached up a hand and touched my hood. I took her hand in mine so she could not uncover me.

“Please do not,” I said. When I let go of her hand, she released the fabric, but her hand stayed near my face.

“I should not have come.”

Her breath had changed. It was even warmer now; her throat was tighter. She swallowed.

“Months ago I stole this robe from my father’s factory. I thought, I’ll disguise myself in it. I thought, I’ll go see Moses. I found this. Do you remember it?” The crackle of unfolding paper. I could see little in the darkness; it was some kind of drawing. “The
X
still marks your room.”

I recalled those two naïve children chatting in the hallway. How I wished we were there again!

“Moses,” she continued, “when I lie in bed and try to think of one happy thing in my life, I think of you. Once a week, every Thursday, Karoline visits her aunt in Bruggen. The house is so empty—I can do as I wish for once. I always think: but what is it that I wish to do? Twice, I’ve come as far as the church before turning back, this robe beneath my arm. Tonight I could not stop. I climbed that grating. I don’t think anyone saw me, but in any case I do not care. Moses, how could I not come?”

We stood like that for several seconds, her hand still raised before me, as though she meant to bless me. Then, with a ragged inhalation, as if she could not resist the urge, she reached forward and her finger touched my chin. It traced the line of my jaw. She laid her palm against my cheek, then moved her fingers across my lips, and I felt my warm breath reflected by her fingers.

“My God,” she whispered. “I am such a fool.”

Both our hearts were racing. I heard the moisture of her mouth as she swallowed again. Her hand reached behind my ear. Fingers ran through my hair, and then she was pulling my face toward hers, and I felt her lips touch mine. My lips did not respond to hers, but my ears heard every note of the kiss: the parting of her lips, their soft tug on mine, their release.

She stepped back in shame. But as she began to take another step—perhaps even to run away forever—my arms rose. One hand held her shoulder, the other her hip. I did not embrace her, or even draw her toward me, but simply held her, as if I held a fragile treasure in my hands.

She exhaled, and then breathed in and out again. Each heartbeat, almost identical to the last, was a new and beautiful sound to me, and I found myself slowly moving closer, my arms snaking around her back to bring her sounds to me.

She sighed, and the gentle humming in her lungs sent a shiver of ecstasy up my back. I pulled her even closer. The softness of her breasts pressed against my chest, and below, her ribs touched mine. When she sighed again, the vibration passed from her body and into mine, and I felt her in my lungs. She pressed her cheek against my shoulder, her head under my jaw. Now each sweet exhalation was captured in my neck.

I could not stand it anymore. I began to sing a single note, softly at first, but I could barely resist using all the power of those lungs. It had been so long—more than three years since I had sung. The familiar tingle of the note spread outward from my neck, into my chest and jaw, until I was ringing once again. The song passed directly from my chest to hers. My voice was still a whisper, but I heard the resonance of it in her neck, in the muscles of her back, as if she were a bell I had gently tapped with a mallet of the softest felt.

I sang more loudly and held her more tightly. I lay a finger on each rib of her back, so I could feel my voice as it passed through her.

And then I heard a footstep in the hallway. I cut off my voice, as if a hand had grabbed my throat. Someone had heard me singing and was standing in the hall, just outside my room.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Someone’s there,” I said.

Whoever it was took two more steps toward my door, and waited. I held my finger to her lips.

After several seconds, the footsteps retreated down the hallway.

“Come with me.” I led her toward the window.

“Up there?”

“I will hold your hand.”

I climbed out, and then lifted her up so her feet were on the sill, and she could look down to the cloister. Her hand tightened around mine. It was a moonless night, so my face remained safely in shadow. The city was pure blackness beyond the white abbey. The fountain in the cloister babbled. The wind rustled like thin silk drawn over the roof. A pigeon hooted. A cart rolled down a distant street.

I helped her crawl to the peak, and then we stood, hands in hands, and I walked backward and she forward, her lame leg shuffling. We slid down the tower, past the abbot’s windows, and crept along the wall to descend into the city. Haus Duft was the one place I could surely find, for I had visited it almost every night this past year, though I had not entered it. I led her through the dark streets, guiding my way by the tone of my feet upon the cobbles, and the murmur of the wind. We did not even whisper—not, I think, because we feared being overheard but because both of us felt this was a dream, and any noise would startle us awake. She held my arm lightly until we reached Haus Duft, a black shadow in the night.

I stepped behind her, held her arms below her shoulders, and whispered in her ear. “At this spot,” I said. “In one week. I will be here.” With a gentle push, I led her to the house’s garden gate and then released her.

She turned around once more, but I was gone. I had vanished like a ghost.