through the storm and the darkness, he kept thinking of the events of the last two weeks. Pastor Koppmeyer was a simple man of God, but even he had noticed that his discovery was something extraordinary, something a little too sensitive for him to deal with and that would best be left to others. He did the right thing in hiding it behind the wall and letting more powerful, knowledgeable people decide whether it should ever be opened again. Perhaps he should not have written the letter to Benedikta, but he had always trusted his younger sister. She was amazingly bright and well read for a woman and he had often asked her for advice. Surely she would know what to do this time as well.
Andreas Koppmeyer was suddenly wakened from his reveries. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something moving to the right, behind the woodpile near the house. He squinted and held his hand over his eyes to protect them from the snowflakes, but he couldn’t make out anything. It was too dark and the falling snow made it even harder. Shrugging, he turned aside. Probably just a fox trying to sneak up on the chicken coop, he thought. Or a bird looking for a place to hide from the storm.
Finally, Koppmeyer reached the door to the rectory. Here, on the south side, the drifts weren’t as high. He opened the door, squeezed his massive frame into the hallway, and bolted the door. At once he was enveloped in silence. The storm seemed far, far away. On the open hearth in the main room, a small fire was still burning, spreading warmth and comfort, and behind it a stairway led up to the housekeeper’s room. The priest turned to the right and walked through the main room on his way to his private quarters.
On opening the door he was met by a sweet, rich fragrance. His mouth watered when he saw where it was coming from. On the table in the middle of his room was a clay bowl filled to the top with delicious doughnuts. Koppmeyer moved closer and touched them gently. They were still warm.
The priest grinned. His dear housekeeper Magda had once again thought of everything. He had told her he would be in the church longer today to lend a hand with the renovations. He had taken a loaf of bread and a jug of wine along with him just in case, but the housekeeper knew that a man like Koppmeyer needed more to live on than that, so she had made the pastries for him and they were here now waiting for someone to come and redeem them!
Andreas Koppmeyer lit a candle from the fire on the hearth and sat down at the table. He was delighted to see that the doughnuts were heavily coated with honey. He pulled the bowl over to him with both his huge hands, took one that was still warm, and bit into it, smacking his lips with pleasure.
They were delicious.
Chewing silently, the priest felt the warmth flowing back into his body. Soon he was done and reached for the next doughnut. He picked apart the softest one and pushed the steaming pieces into his mouth faster and faster. For a moment he thought he noticed an unpleasant taste, but it was at once covered by the sweet taste of the honey.
After the sixth one, Koppmeyer finally had to give up. He peered down into the bowl one last time and saw just two doughnuts at the bottom. Sighing deeply, he rubbed his stomach, then more than satisfied, headed for the adjacent room, where he at once fell into a deep sleep.
The pains, accompanied by a slightly nauseous feeling, announced themselves just before the first cock crow. Silently, Koppmeyer cursed his indulgence and sent a brief prayer to heaven, knowing that gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins. Most likely Magda had intended the contents of the bowl to last a few days, but the doughnuts had simply been too delicious! Now God was punishing him right away with nausea and bodily aches and pains. Why did he have to start stuffing himself in the middle of the night? It served him right!
As he was getting out of bed to relieve himself in the chamber pot that was placed at the ready for such occasions, the stomach pains intensified. Flashes of such pain coursed through his body that Father Koppmeyer had to grab the edge of the bed, moaning. He sat up and hobbled into the main room, where a pitcher of water stood on a little table. He sat down and drank the cool liquid in one long gulp in the hope of relieving the pain.
On the way back to his room, a stabbing pain worse than anything he had ever experienced shot from his throat down to his stomach. Koppmeyer tried to shout, but the cry stuck in his throat. His tongue was like a stopper made of flesh plugging his airway. He sank to his knees while tongues of fire crept up his throat. He vomited mushy clumps, but the pain did not subside. On the contrary, it worsened until all Koppmeyer could do was to crawl around on all fours like a whipped dog. His legs suddenly gave out altogether. He tried to shout for the housekeeper, but the fire had long since consumed his throat.
Slowly the priest began to realize that these were no normal stomach pains and it wasn’t just that Magda had simply let the milk go bad. He could tell he was going to die. He lay there in abject misery.
After some minutes of fear and despair, the priest reached a decision. With his last bit of strength, he leaned against the front door and pushed it open. Once again, the storm lashed his face, a wall of cold and icy thorns. The howling of the wind seemed to be mocking him.
Following the tracks he had made some hours before that were still partially visible, he crept back to the church on all fours. Again and again, he had to stop and lie down when the pain got the better of him. Snow and ice crept under his cassock, his hands froze into shapeless clumps, and he lost all sense of time. One thing was uppermost in this mind: He had to reach the church!
Finally, his head bumped against a wall, and after a few seconds he realized he had reached the portal of the St. Lawrence Church. With his last bit of strength, he forced the frozen stumps that had once been his hands into the crack in the door and pulled it open. Once inside, he was no longer even able to crawl on all fours. His legs kept collapsing under the weight of his heavy body, and it was only by crawling on his belly that he could manage the final short distance. He could feel how his inner organs were failing, little by little.
When the priest reached the slab over the crypt, he passed his hands briefly over the relief of the woman below him. He caressed the weathered figure like a lover and finally laid his cheek on her face. Paralysis was climbing up his body from his legs, but before it reached his hands, the priest scratched a circle with the jagged nail of his right index finger into the layer of frost atop the gravestone. Then the tension receded from the powerful body and he collapsed. Once more he tried to raise his head, but something was gripping him tightly.
The last thing Andreas Koppmeyer felt was how his beard, his right ear, and the skin on his face slowly froze to the gravestone. Cold and silence enveloped him.
1
Simon Fronwieser trudged down Altenstadt Street through the snow, cursing his vocation. In weather like this, farmers, servants, carpenters, even whores and beggars stayed out of the goddamned cold and inside where it was warm. Only he, the Schongau medicus, was required to visit the sick!
In spite of the heavy woolen coat he was wearing over his jacket and fur-lined leather gloves, he was miserably cold. Clumps of snow and ice had made their way under his collar and into his boots, melting there into a cold slush. When he looked down, he noticed a new hole at the tip of his left boot with his big, red, frozen toe peering out. Simon clenched his teeth. Why did his boots have to fail him now, of all times, in the dead of winter? He had already spent his savings on a pair of new petticoat breeches. But that was a necessity. He would rather a toe freeze off than do without the pleasure of the newest French fashion. It was important to observe the latest fashion, especially in a sleepy little Bavarian town like Schongau.
Simon turned his attention once more to the road. It had been snowing until just a few moments ago, and now, in the late-morning hours, a biting cold hung over the fallow fields and forests around town. The crust of snow on the narrow path through the middle of the road collapsed under his feet with every step. Icicles hung down from the branches, and trees groaned under the weight of the snow. Here and there the branches broke with loud cracking sounds and released their loads of snow. Simon’s perfectly shaven Vandyke beard and black shoulder- length hair had by now frozen solid. He reached up and felt his eyebrows. Even they were caked with ice. Once again, he cursed loudly. It was the coldest damn day of the year and here he was having to trudge to Altenstadt on behalf of his father! And all that just because of a sick priest!
Simon could well imagine what was ailing the fat priest. He had gorged himself again, as he did so often. And now he lay in bed with a bellyache, asking for linden blossom tea-as if his housekeeper Magda couldn’t make that for him! Probably old Koppmeyer had been out and about stuffing himself somewhere or had gotten involved with one of the whores in town, and now Magda had gone into a huff and Simon had to pay for it.
