Frank Schätzing - Death and the Devil

While Jacob was trying to puzzle this out, Richmodis knocked at the door.

“No one at home again?” She strode in. Jacob followed somewhat reluctantly, wishing he wasn’t decked out in her father’s clothes. If the old man was here, he was in for a hard time.

All there was in the downstairs room, however, was a gray cat. They looked around the back room and in the tiny yard, then went back inside. Richmodis called out a few times, went up to the first floor and then to the attic. She was soon back with a knowing smile on her face.

“Found him?” asked Jacob.

“No. But my father’s coat is here, therefore so is my father. And where the one is, the other won’t be far away.”

She pulled Jacob out into the yard and pointed at a wooden hatch with a rusty ring attached. “What do you think that might be?”

“A cellar?” Jacob conjectured.

“Oh, no. In normal houses there might be a cellar under that. Here it leads straight down to hell. Watch.”

She bent down, grasped the ring, and pulled up the hatch. Steep, slippery steps led down. Together with a gust of stale air came some angry words.

“—that in the future I refuse to associate with a man who drinks other people’s piss!”

“But I don’t, you misbegotten lump,” another voice replied. “I’m tasting the urine, something quite different from drinking. Can’t you understand that?”

“Piss is still piss.”

“Not piss, urine, you piece of excrement. A tiny drop to tell me whether the patient has diabetes mellitus. I can taste it, here, on the tip of my tongue, d’you see? Here.”

“Yeuch. Take that yellow pig’s tongue out of my sight.”

“Oh? A yellow tongue, you say? Then how do you explain that this pig’s tongue has a larger and more learned vocabulary than your whore-mongering mind could get together in a hundred years?”

“I’m no whoremonger. But what I do know is that last St. David’s Day you went to that house in Schemmergasse and sent for those two silk-spinner girls. Sixteen tuns of wine you drank, you and your herd of unwashed students.”

“That is not true.”

“Oh, yes, it is true. And the way you all lay with the women, I’m surprised to find you still fit and well. One would have thought your instrument of pleasure ought to have rotted and dropped off long ago.”

“What would you know about instruments of pleasure, you bloated tub of dye? You can’t even distinguish between a fart and a sigh.”

“Between wine and piss I can.”

“Ha! Prove it. As long as someone doesn’t tell you it’s wine—talking of which, shall we have another one?”

“Why not? Let’s have another one.”

“What’s all that?” asked a bewildered Jacob.

Richmodis stared grimly down at the candlelit cellar. “That? That’s my father and uncle.”

“What are they doing?”

“They call it learned disputations, though the only thing in dispute is who can finish his glass quickest.”

“Do they do it often?”

“Whenever they can find a suitable topic.” Richmodis sighed. “Come on, we’d better go down and join them. They’d have difficulty getting up the steps.”

“But it’s early!” exclaimed Jacob incredulously.

She gave him a scornful look. “So what? I just thank the Holy Apostles they don’t drink in their sleep.”

Shaking his head, Jacob followed her, taking care not to slip on the greasy steps. At the bottom they found themselves in something that was more like a cave than a cellar, though surprisingly spacious. What was immediately obvious was that it was a well-filled wine store. There was a constant drip of moisture from the ceiling and a slightly foul smell from the latrine, which Jacob had noticed next to the cellar. “Dungeon” was the word that occurred to Jacob, though one he would not have minded being locked up in.

Even stranger, however, were the two men sitting on the floor, a candle between them, earthenware jugs in their hands, continuing their debate as if Jacob and Richmodis were simply two further casks that would form the basis of some future dispute. They were around fifty. One was short and fat, with no neck at all, a bright red face, and a few remaining hairs, the color of which had gradually faded to somewhere between brown and nothing. His fingers were grotesquely twisted, recalling trees that had been struck by lightning. A thin, wavy beard, obviously attempting to emulate Jacob’s shock of hair, stuck out in all directions. Despite the cool temperature, sweat was streaming from his every pore.

The other was the exact opposite. Emerging from the plain habit was a long scrawny neck on top of which a round head, equipped with a dangerously long, pointed nose and chin, which always seemed to be on the attack, was nodding back and forth all the time. Apart from the arched brows he was completely bald. From the sum total of his physical attributes, he ought to have been frighteningly ugly, but strangely enough he wasn’t. His little eyes glinted with intelligence and high spirits, and the corners of his mouth were turned up in an expression of permanent amusement. Jacob was immediately drawn to him.

And both were talking and moaning, moaning and talking.

“Silence!” shouted Richmodis.

It was as if St. Augustine had performed a miracle. They shut their mouths and looked at each other in bewilderment. The fat one grimaced, as if he had a headache.

“Why are you shouting, Richmodis, my child?” he asked.

“Jacob,” she said, without taking her eyes off the man, “this is my dearly beloved father, Goddert von Weiden. Beside him you see my uncle, the learned dean and physician, Dr. Jaspar Rodenkirchen, master of the seven liberal arts and professor of canon law at the Franciscan College. Both must have been sitting in this cellar since around midday yesterday, and they ask me why I’m shouting.”

“I quite agree with my daughter,” said Goddert von Weiden, in a voice as solemn as if he were laying a foundation stone. “Our behavior has been unchristian in the extreme. If you hadn’t gone and filled your cellar with wine, I could lead a life that was more pleasing in the sight of God.”

“Your birth wasn’t pleasing in the sight of God,” Jaspar teased him with a wink in Jacob’s direction. After a certain amount of toing and froing Richmodis and Jacob had managed to lure the two disputants out of the cellar. They continued their disputation as they made their way up to the surface, but turned out to be less drunk than Richmodis had feared. Now they were sitting under the oppressively low beams of the downstairs room, around a table with an elaborately woven cloth showing St. Francis preaching.

“You’re wearing my coat,” Goddert remarked.

Jacob felt weary and worn out. The pain in his shoulder was almost unbearable. He would have been quite happy to take off Goddert’s coat, but by now his arm was stiff and almost useless.

“He’s wearing your coat because he needs help.” Richmodis came out of the back room and placed a yeast cake on the table.

“Just the thing!” exclaimed Jaspar.

“Neither of you deserve it. Do you realize, Father, since early yesterday I’ve been looking after the house, seeing to the customers, dyeing the cloth, and slaving away from morning to night, not to mention having to invent the most ridiculous stories to stop the men pestering me?”

“Including that one?” asked Goddert warily, pointing at Jacob.

“Of course not!” She gave Jacob a look full of warmth and started to tear off pieces of the loaf and hand them around.

“Jacob gave me a whistle,” she said with unmistakable pride.

“And what did you give him in return?” Jaspar giggled.

“Father’s old clothes.”