The Master's Apprentice, page 10
part #1 of Faust Series
Her gaze remained blank, her lips unmoving. Only her calm breathing showed that she was still alive.
“Margarethe,” Johann continued and knelt beside her. “I . . . I’m so sorry! I should have been there for you, for both of you. Please, talk to me! Just one word, so I know you can hear me. I . . . I love you!”
He squeezed her hand, which was cold and limp, like wet bread. Just when he thought she’d never speak again, her lips began to tremble. The words she breathed were so low that Johann couldn’t understand them at first. He had to lean down close to Margarethe’s face before he finally understood what she was whispering to him.
It was just two words, and they hit him like a blow to the stomach.
“Go . . . away.”
It was the same words she had screamed in the forest when he’d abandoned her—and now they were addressed to him. And then her lips formed a phrase that would forever be etched into Johann’s memory.
“Go . . . away . . . You . . . are . . . the . . . devil!”
Johann began to tremble, and everything around him suddenly seemed black and gray. The world was drained of all color. With tears in his eyes, he stood up.
“Goodbye, Margarethe,” he whispered. “I will never forget you.”
He ran his hand over Margarethe’s flaxen hair one last time, then he turned around and walked to the door. Who did she think she saw in him? Or what?
You are the devil . . .
Johann stumbled through the lanes like a ghost, without direction, without aim. His true love—his only love—had cursed him.
The following morning, his father called him before breakfast. Like so often in the last few months, Jörg Gerlach was sitting at the kitchen table with a jug of wine, his face red from the alcohol. But unlike other times when he called upon his son, he asked Johann to sit. He stared at his son in silence for a long while before addressing him.
“Your brother Martin still hasn’t been found,” he said slowly. “And I don’t think he will be found. The ravens are probably pecking away at his crooked bones by now.”
His father’s coldness sent shivers down Johann’s spine.
“I want to be honest with you, boy. You’re not welcome here any longer. Folks have never thought very highly of you—your tricks, your nosy questions, your fancy ways, acting like you’re better than them—but now you’ve gone too far. Because of you, your brother died in the wilderness and the prefect’s daughter is bedridden, more dead than alive.” His father looked at him with contempt. “You’ve brought shame to my family, and I don’t want you under my roof any longer.”
Johann was dumbstruck. Margarethe had cursed him, and now his father was doing the same. Strangely, his father’s words didn’t affect him very much; it was as if they couldn’t touch him deep down inside. The shock of Margarethe’s rejection was too fresh.
“Of course, I can’t force you to leave,” Gerlach said with a shrug. “A father casting out his son doesn’t look proper, even with a mongrel of a son like you. But if you stay, your life will be hell on earth—I promise. No one is going to speak with you, not even your brothers. You’ll perform the most menial tasks and take your meals with the dogs outside.” He took a sip of wine and stroked his beard. “But I’m not a monster. Upstairs in your room, you’ll find a purse with a few coins, a warm coat, and a pair of solid leather shoes. Take it and go with God, or with the devil for all I care. I don’t want to see you here tomorrow morning. The people will say you ran away, and everyone will understand.” Gerlach made to get up, but when Johann started talking, he sat back down.
“Where does all this hatred come from, Father?” asked Johann calmly.
“Where?” Gerlach gave a laugh. “I think you can answer that yourself.”
“I’m not talking about the woods or the fact that I wasn’t with Mother when she died. You’ve always hated me. Am I not right? I’ve never had a gentle word from you. I was never allowed to sit on your lap. You’ve never given me as much as a piece of apple for a treat or a spinning top to play with. You even treated little Martin better than me. Why?”
His father said nothing for a while and stared at him from small, bloodshot eyes. Then he cleared his throat. “What the hell. You’re leaving anyway, so why shouldn’t you know?” He leaned forward and Johann smelled his alcoholic breath.
“Yes, it’s true,” Jörg Gerlach said quietly. “I never loved you like a son—because you aren’t my son.”
Johann winced as if he’d been slapped.
“Your mother was the most beautiful woman in town, but by God, people were right, she was a goddamn whore!” spat Gerlach, his eyes flashing with hatred. “I would have given her everything, but I was never enough for her. The whole of Knittlingen wasn’t enough for her! She thought she was better than the rest of us, just like you. At home she acted all meek and quiet, but at the inn with the travelers, she laughed and danced and did as she pleased. I could never prove anything, but folks were talking, and I always knew that something was going on. Especially when that young fellow came to town, that . . . that sorcerer!”
“Sorcerer?” Johann felt as if he were in a dream. “What . . . what sorcerer?”
“A pale, black-haired fellow carrying a pack full of magic knickknacks. He was from the west, from beyond the Rhine. Some kind of scholar, traveling student, and juggler.” Jörg Gerlach snorted derisively. “Claimed he could read the stars and speak with the dead. He put a spell on your mother, that’s what he did! He only looked about twenty years old with his silky black hair, same as yours. But his eyes—I swear it—his eyes were those of an old man. Like the devil’s eyes! They met up secretly in the forest, she and he. I’m sure of it. Because afterward she was a different woman, and cold as a fish in bed. Nine months later, you were born, you . . . you bastard!”
Gerlach spat out the last words, spraying saliva all over Johann’s face.
“The man had the nerve to come back to town after you were born,” Gerlach continued scornfully. “If only he’d taken you with him. But I made sure he left for good. By God, if he hadn’t taken to the hills at the last moment, we’d have set that sorcerer alight like a straw puppet.” He gave a brief laugh but then turned serious again.
“Since then, people call me a cuckold behind my back. They think I don’t notice, but I feel it, every day. Every time I see you I’m reminded of my shame.” Jörg Gerlach rose to his feet. “Now get out of my house! You’re not one of us and you never have been! Go and never come back to Knittlingen, so this curse can finally come to an end.”
The last Johann saw of his father was his broad back and his bull neck as he stomped out of the kitchen, leaving Johann alone at the table.
Johann remained sitting there for a while. He looked at the devotional corner with the cross and the dried roses; the chicken cages under the bench, where he used to hide as a child; the chest with his mother’s dowry; the faded, crooked picture of Saint Christopher that had brought him so much consolation over the years. Then he cast everything off like an old skin. He stood and went upstairs.
His father hadn’t lied. On Johann’s bed lay a small purse, a coat, and a sturdy-looking pair of shoes. Johann put on the shoes and coat, tied the purse to his belt, and reached for the staff he’d once made for little Martin.
He was about to leave when he remembered the knife under the floorboard. Traveling all by himself—it probably wasn’t a bad idea to carry a weapon. And perhaps he could sell the knife. It looked valuable enough. So he bent down, lifted the floorboard, pulled out the knife, and slipped it in his pocket. On his way out, he helped himself to a piece of cheese and half a loaf of bread, placing both in an inside pocket of his coat.
Then he left his home for the last time and went on his way. Johann didn’t yet know that this way would lead him to the highest of highs and lowest of lows.
Into the whole world and beyond.
It was still early in the morning, and the lanes and alleyways were empty. A light, cold drizzle set in, blowing against Johann’s face. Many Knittlingers would still be working in the vineyards today, bringing in the last few sweet grapes. It was the final day of the harvest, and tonight, everyone would be celebrating. Without Johann, though—from now on, he was an outcast.
Strangely enough, Johann didn’t feel sad. On the contrary: with every step he took toward the upper city gate, his spirits rose. He had a small purse full of coins, and he was clever and deft—surely some farmer would employ him as a laborer. And then he’d see. But first he needed to put as many miles as possible between himself and Knittlingen, not least to help him get over Martin, Margarethe, and everything else that had happened there.
He walked through the open city gate without seeing a guard. The old, wide imperial road stretched out before him, leading out into the world. The road led northwest on one side and to the southeast on the other. To the north lay Bretten, then the Rhine, Speyer, and Cologne; the southern route led via Maulbronn to the Württemberg lands, then Ulm, Mindelheim, and eventually Innsbruck, where the king resided occasionally. Johann had heard there were mountains there covered in snow all year round, and beyond them lay prosperous Venice, and somewhere beyond Venice came Rome, the eternal city.
He stopped in the middle of the road, unsure of which way to turn. He had a vague feeling that his future depended on the decision he made now. After standing around indecisively for a few moments, he pulled a stained coin out of his purse. Heads for south, tails for north. He tossed the coin high up in the air, caught it, and placed it carefully on the back of his hand.
It showed heads.
South.
Johann sighed. That meant he’d have to walk past the Maulbronn monastery and Gallows Hill. Evidently, fate wanted to remind him of his shame one last time. He grasped his staff tightly and started out without turning around to look at his hometown again. He walked along the bare fields and the vineyards, heading into the rain with grim determination. When he came past the execution site, he spat over his shoulder to ward off bad luck. This was where all his misery had started; from now on, he thought, his future would be brighter.
Soon the Maulbronn monastery appeared behind the fog to his left. Johann felt a pang of regret. How he had longed to find employment as the librarian’s assistant here and delve deeper into the world of books and knowledge! For a brief moment he considered paying Father Antonius one last visit, but his shame was too great. If he returned at all, he’d do it as a celebrated scholar!
Johann imagined what it would be like to visit Father Antonius—old and gray by then—many years from now, bringing a whole wagon full of books and medicines as a gift. All of Knittlingen would regret the way they had treated their most famous son. His horrible stepfather would be dead and Margarethe well again. They would marry, and even little Martin would return from his captivity, laden with riches.
Johann was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice the monastery disappearing behind the trees. He had walked past it without realizing—which meant he’d walked farther than ever before in his life. Until then, Maulbronn had been the end of his small world. Now he’d taken the first step into the unknown.
A new, much bigger world lay ahead of him.
The first few nights of his journey Johann spent in barns, freezing. His happy daydreams had burst with the first hailstorm. He’d also learned that no farmer needed a sixteen-year-old laborer this time of year. The harvest was in and the vines empty. The people of the Kraichgau were sitting at home in their warm kitchens, mending their baskets, fixing leaking tubs and broken crates, or looking after their wine in the cellar. If he was lucky, Johann received a stale chunk of bread when he knocked on doors; if he wasn’t, the farmer set his dogs on him.
The road seemed to wind endlessly through flat valleys filled with meadows and fields. Gentle slopes rose on both sides, covered with beech trees and oaks. Since ancient times the track connecting the eastern and the western ends of the German empire had run along here, between the Rhine flats and the lands east of the Neckar River. It was a lovely area during the summer, but now, in early November, autumn storms howled down from the mountains, and the rain whipped the last remaining leaves off the trees, leaving them bare and bending in the wind, like skeletons writhing in a dance of death.
Johann’s spirits dwindled by the day, and grief filled his whole heart. The silence that often surrounded him reminded him that he was alone in the world. He had no one. His mother was dead, and his father wasn’t his father but a nasty man who’d cast him out. He didn’t know his real father—probably some traveling juggler who had courted his mother. All he had left as the stranger’s son were the raven-black hair and the curse of being a bastard.
During his lonely nights, Johann sometimes pulled out the knife the magician had given him. He whittled small figures from rotten wood by the wayside and pretended they were his mother, Martin, or Margarethe. Often they’d turn out ugly or they broke, and he threw them away.
The handful of travelers going the other way, on horseback or with carts, were wrapped in heavy coats and wore their hoods pulled down low. They barely gave him as much as a nod in greeting, and soon the next rain shower swallowed them up. Johann’s clothes were saturated and no longer dried out. He shivered with cold, his shoes were wet, and the drenched coat pulled on him like chains. At night he was tortured by dreams of Margarethe and Martin standing above him with accusatory faces.
You frighten us, Johann! They called out and pointed their fingers at him. You are the devil! The devil!
Johann still didn’t know what had happened that evening in Schillingswald Forest and whom Margarethe had seen. It must have been bad enough for her to lose her mind. Had she seen who or what had taken Martin? Johann guessed he would never find out. All of that was behind him now, and before him unfurled the never-ending road.
Though he’d hoped to save his money for harder times, Johann was soon forced to spend some on food. Every night he counted his coins carefully. There were mainly stained kreuzers and tinged copper pennies, with only three silver pennies among them. His stepfather had remained a miser to the last. Johann rubbed the coins as if they were made of pure gold, stacked them up in little towers, and calculated. If he kept spending at this rate, he’d be out of money within a few weeks. He thought about selling the engraved knife, but he didn’t do it. Even though it had come from the magician, it seemed to be part of the world he had lost. Selling it seemed like selling a piece of himself. So he kept it and suffered from hunger.
Johann knew that if he carried on this way, sooner or later, he’d die on the side of the road like a stray dog. Unless he started earning money. If not by working as a laborer, then perhaps by doing something else.
And he had an idea just what he might do.
A wide river appeared in front of him—the Neckar, he gathered. This river also passed through Heidelberg, the city where he would have loved to study one day. Now, in late fall, the river shimmered metallic gray. It looked very cold and very deep, and there was no bridge he could see. Johann had to give away another one of his precious coins to an old ferryman, who eyed Johann the whole way across the river as though he was considering robbing him and tossing him into the water. Johann’s tiny fortune seemed to run through his fingers like melting wax.
In the next village, a few miles on, he gathered all his courage and decided to try his luck.
He was still traveling on the imperial road, and so there was a post station here—an inn with a stable for the horses of messengers and travelers. Johann took a deep breath and entered the small, dark inn. It was late afternoon and raining outside, so the taproom was full. All kinds of travelers had sought shelter at the inn. In the flickering light of the open fire, Johann saw a burly merchant wearing a fur coat and a beret, two itinerant Franciscan monks, and several peddlers, whose tall packs were leaning against the wall behind them. Someone else seemed to sit farther back, but Johann couldn’t quite make him out in the dim light. A handful of farmers were also sitting at the tables, enjoying the quiet period following the harvest with a few mugs of wine. They laughed and drank and paused only briefly when Johann came in and headed for one of the empty tables at the rear. But instead of taking a seat, he suddenly jumped onto the table and clapped his hands.
Now there was no going back.
“My esteemed audience!” he declared loudly, just like he’d seen jugglers in Knittlingen do. “Watch and be amazed, because I can multiply your money! Forget your worries and fears, because from today, you’ll be swimming in coins!”
The people murmured, some of them laughing, some of them jeering. But Johann had achieved what he wanted. He had their full attention.
With a theatrical gesture, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out one coin. He held it up, transferred it to his other hand, and placed it in his purse. He did the same with a second and a third coin. The first spectators began to mutter.
“He’s moving the coins from his pocket to his purse,” one of them grumbled. “What’s so special about that?”
Johann raised an eyebrow and pretended to be shocked. “Oh, you’re saying I should take the coins from somewhere else? Not from my pocket but . . . from the air, perhaps?” He took another kreuzer and dropped it in his purse. But this time, a new coin appeared in his hand as if by magic, then another and another. Each time, Johann took the coin and placed it in his leather purse, which he held up triumphantly once it was full.
“You see!” he shouted. “The pouch is full! A friendly spirit of the air handed me the coins.”
The people laughed and clapped their hands. It was a cheap trick Johann had learned from an itinerant juggler in Knittlingen, but here, in a small village, it worked well.
“Now let’s see if I find coins on you, too.” Grinning, Johann jumped off the table and walked over to the fat merchant. Johann puffed his cheeks and gestured toward the burly man, who eyed him suspiciously. “This moneybags strikes me as a good place to start. May I?”
