The Enterprise of Death (58 page)

“Those Schwarzwalders won’t be doing me any more favors, so it would have to be a slow rot for you anyway,” said Awa. “A ring instead of a bastard’s headband, but that would mean a simple disguise for your condition rather than topping off from the occasional dying leper.”

“No and no,” said Manuel. “True death, please, though not
for many years, God willing. Dürer’s died, did you know? Never got a chance to meet him.”

“I don’t imagine he gave up on ’is art to pump out propaganda,” said Monique, scratching under her iron circlet.

“My work is not propaganda,” spluttered Manuel. “They’re stories, about men and women, and so they’re morality pieces, yes, but what of it? I’ve heard no complaints from players or audiences.”

“Morality, eh?” said Monique. “The shakiest fuckin word I ever ’eard. This morality got somethin ta do with what I ’ear bout you outlawin ’ores in Bern?”

“Gossip travels fast, doesn’t it,” said Manuel. “What did whores ever give you but a broken heart and the pox, eh? I’ll say it, and proud—I’m cleaning up the city, and not just the brothels—no more gambling, no more mercenary attire to start fights and show off their blood money, no more—”

“You’re a terrible fuckin hypocrite,” said Monique sadly. “Glad I didn’t live ta see the day Manuel finally got himself sainted, ya fuckin boor.”

“What good did it do, all that bravado, that swagger? I wrote a little something about it …” Manuel cleared his throat and shamelessly quoted himself, “
If you pay us well we’ll move against your enemy, til the very women and children cry
murder
! That is what we long for and rejoice in. It’s no good for us when peace and calm rule
. Or something like that, it makes more sense, is more
lyrical
, in context. Didn’t Bicocca show us what mercenary work really is, what good it brings? So many dead …”

The table went quiet, but then Awa cleared her throat and poured more wine.

“Oswald, the old abbot?” Seeing Manuel blankly stare at her, Awa continued. “He comes here sometimes, to check in on the lepers and make sure we’re not holding our own mass or
anything, and he told me you’re going after the Church, too. I mentioned that I knew you and he spit.”

“Saint Manuel, the pious playwright what makes the priest spit,” guffawed Monique.

“Oswald!” Manuel cried, remembering the name at last. “That crooked old bird was a Borgia apologist, the wanker!”

“Aye, cause wankin’s such a terrible crime.” Monique rolled her eyes. The reformed Manuel was a bit of a twat, by her estimation.

“I’m going after them, yes,” said Manuel. “But it’s a cover to get rid of all the pictures I did. Of you, Awa, remember those sketches I did in the cemetery? I transferred them, painted them, and did quite a few more, for the churches and monasteries and such, but we can’t have all that idolatrous nonsense anymore, can we? So I clean it up, and in the process scrub away any trace of a certain young Moor cavorting with the dead. It’s for your benefit, Awa!”

“I never asked you to,” said Awa. “How could you destroy your work, Manuel, how could you? It was gorgeous!”

“I don’t need to defend myself to you,” said Manuel, crossing his arms. “I get enough at home, thank you very much. And I keep the less obvious stuff, though I tell people it was done earlier or later than it actually was, keep them off the trail. You don’t know what it’s like down there. The Inquisition’s stronger than ever, and even with some of the papists getting run out Bern’s still catching witch fever. Suppressing the Church means suppressing the Inquisition, the witch trials!”

“And ’ow long after ya start turnin a profit til you lot start burnin witches, too?” asked Monique, but before the red-faced politician could respond Awa had retrieved another bottle and winked at her partner over the top of Manuel’s head.

“Fuck it,” said Monique and, winking back at Awa, added, “How’s Katharina and the family, then?”

“Everyone’s good, I suppose,” said Manuel, and on they talked into the night, the tenants of Awa and Monique’s community sleeping peacefully. The disease that had wasted their flesh was arrested by Sister Gloria’s ministrations, though they did not realize the true cause, and so even if she was a Moor, and even if Sister Monique did only come out at night, the lepers were happy enough to live away from the world that so despised and feared them. Awa felt the same, and she and Monique and Manuel went back to the garden just before dawn with a bundle of wood and four little stones.

“You’re sure?” said Awa. “We’ve got a while yet, you and I, and if you think you might need them—”

“Nah,” said Monique. “They saved me enough down the days I owe’em this, an’ doin it while Manuel’s ’ere to watch seems fine an’ all. The three of us together, jus’ like the ol’ days.”

“But your pistols—”

“I’ll pick up some matchlocks ifin I get the hanker ta blow some shit up,” Monique said with a shrug, and they built up a small woodpile beside the midden heap. When the eggs were all in place they stepped a few feet back, smiling at one another like children about to resume a game left uncompleted the summer past.

“
Fire
,” said Awa, and the first egg burst into flames.

“
Fire
,” said Monique, and the second caught.

“
Fire
,” said Manuel, the firelight reflecting his grin. He, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, practicing witchcraft—ludicrous!

“
Fire
,” said Awa, and the last egg ignited.

Dawn kept its distance, and as the birth-pyre collapsed on itself and the four salamanders wriggled out of the ash they could see the tiny creatures glowing faintly in the darkness. The salamanders cooled quickly and soon the night took them, and Awa, Monique, and Manuel went back inside to finally take their rest.

The next few days they spent together were the happiest the
trio had enjoyed in years—Manuel and Awa took long walks through the hills, and even after all this time he smiled to see her left foot leave cloven tracks. One night when the artist drunkenly snored by the fire Monique dug out Awa’s old nun’s habit and the novice-no-more led her partner on a shorter hike into a pine grove that smelled almost of oranges, and they did not return to the house until the east had turned as pink as a blushing virgin.

On the last night Manuel even brought out his charcoal for a sketch or two, and though he protested greatly, Awa insisted on trading him the Judgment of Paris he had given her so long ago in exchange for the new drawings. They showed her as she was, she said, not for how he had hidden her under pale skin and European features. He knew she was right, and was secretly pleased to have his favorite painting returned to him. The ladies hung the new sketches beside the drawing of Awa that Monique had taken from Manuel’s studio years before and the portrait of Chloé that had started Awa’s collection, and after giving only a slight pause to their merrymaking for somber nostalgia, they resumed drinking and laughing.

After Monique had passed out, which she was still more than capable of when she activated her undead organs for the purpose of enjoying herself, and Manuel had drifted off on the floor beside her, Awa poured herself a final drink and watched her friends sleep. It might seem a little creepy, she knew, but then few things about her life were not to an outside observer. She sipped the schnapps and let her mind drift all the way back to those friends who would not be visiting, those faces she would never see again barring some unlikely twist of fate or postmortem reunion, to Chloé and Paracelsus and Manuel’s family and the bandit chief Alvarez and Ysabel and Johan and Halim and even Omorose, and then she finished her drink and blew out the candle.

The spirits of the hearth still crackled softly as Awa squirmed
between Manuel and Monique. They were both warm despite one being very much alive and the other rather dead, and Awa sighed happily—there was no place she would rather be, and she fought off sleep as long as she could to extend the night just a little bit more. When the three friends parted late the next morning they did so with only the slightest tinge of the sorrow that always accompanies the departure of dear comrades, and promised to see one another again soon.

Niklaus Manuel Deutsch died before the spring was out. His remains were interred quietly into Bern’s new parish churchyard on the east bank of the Aare, but he lived on in the memories of those who had known him, and was remembered fondly by even a few of his enemies. Each year, on the Autumn Solstice, Awa and Monique made the pilgrimage to the churchyard to lay edelweiss at the head of the artist, and then the two women would walk hand in hand between the moonlit tombstones, back to their home.

In addition to the following texts, I had a few stand-up individuals assist me in my research. First and foremost is Armand Baeriswyl of the Archeological Service of the Canton of Bern, who provided monumental aid in rendering sixteenth-century graverobbing, among other details, while being entirely too humble about it. I also need to thank Kameelah Martin Samuel at GSU for introducing me to some of the concepts I’ve explored here, Claire Joan Farago at CU-Boulder for suggesting several marvelous books that are included below, Erika Johnson-Lewis for providing me with the basics of Renaissance art when I was at FSU, and my friend Molly for sharing her own expertise with me. Finally, my high school art teacher Linda Hall deserves a shout-out, if only because she happens to be very cool.

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Amman, Jost.
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Argyle, W. J.
The Fon of Dahomey: A History and Ethnography of the Old Kingdom.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

Ball, Philip.
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Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300–1600
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Bay, Edna G.
Asen, Ancestors, and Vodun: Tracing Change in African Art
. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008.

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. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Row, 1958.

Cassidy-Welch, Megan, and Peter Sherlock, eds.
Practices of Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008.

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Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme
. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.

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New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992.

Curl, James Stevens.
A Celebration of Death: An Introduction to Some of the Buildings, Monuments, and Settings of Funerary Architecture in the Western European Tradition.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980.

Duni, Matteo.
Under the Devil’s Spell: Witches, Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy.
Florence, Italy: Syracuse University Press, 2007.

Ehrstine, Glenn.
Theater, Culture, and Community in Reformation Bern, 1523–1555
. Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2002.

Faderman, Lillian.
Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present
. New York: William Morrow, 1981.

Farmer, David Hugh.
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Gallonio, Antonio.
Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs: The Classic Martyrology
. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2004.

Geary, Patrick J.
Furta Sacra: Theft of Relics in the Central Middle Ages
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Gordon, Bruce. “Toleration in the Early Swiss Reformation: The Art and Politics of Niklaus Manuel of Berne.” In
Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation
, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner, 126–144. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Hagen, Rainer, and Rose-Marie Hagen.
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. Cologne: Taschen, 2005.

Hale, J. R.
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. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1985.

Hall, Bert S.
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. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Harari, Yuval Noah.
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. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2004.

Herskovits, Melville J.
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. New York: J. J. Augustin, 1938.

Jones, Timothy S., and David A. Sprunger, eds.
Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations.
Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, 2002.

King, Margaret L.
Women of the Renaissance
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.