When I removed the mask, he leaned forward to take a closer look. He scratched behind his ears and moved side to side so that he could inspect me from all angles. When he was finished, I asked, “Do I look like you hoped?”
“I had no expectations. I considered studying medicine before I entered the seminary. I still have subscriptions to some journals.”
The moment of his career decision came, he explained while pouring the tea, when he learned that emergency room doctors were taught to consider incoming heart attack victims as already dead. It’s a method to cope: if the patient lives the doctor can believe that he has brought someone back but if the patient “remains” dead, the doctor knows that it wasn’t anything he did wrong.
“But only God has the power over life and death,” Father Shanahan said. “While a doctor can extend a man’s physical life, a priest might help him achieve life everlasting.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“It’s a job requirement.”
“Let me ask you a question. Is it possible to believe in souls without believing in God?”
“For some, perhaps.” Shanahan took a sip from his cup. “But not for me.”
Number 24 was finished. Number 23 was finished. Number 22 was finished. It was the last week of November, and Marianne Engel finally returned upstairs. She seemed to have reached the limits of how long a body could go without a proper meal or the comfort of a real bed.
I’m not much of a cook, but I forced a meal on her and made damn sure that it was thick with calories. Even though she was obviously done in, all the caffeine and nicotine left her in a state of manic exhaustion. She bounced on her seat, her eyes unfocused, and dropped her utensils often. When the meal was finished, she tried to stand but found herself physically unable. “Can you help?”
I put my stair-climbing practice to good use and did my best to steady her from behind, half pushing her up the steps. When we reached the washroom, I opened the faucets and she sat down heavily in the tub. There was no point in putting the plug into the drain until we rinsed away the top layer of filth, so I helped her scoop water over her body. When she was finally clean enough to be properly bathed, we filled the tub.
I sat beside the tub, working her skin. Large black bags had taken residence under her eyes. I washed the stone chips from the thick tangle of her hair, which now hung like vines that someone had forgotten to water. The worst change was simply the weight she had lost: certainly ten pounds, maybe twenty. It did not look good on her because it had come off too fast, in exactly the worst way. I vowed that I would make her start eating better, more. Daily.
The cleaning reinvigorated her enough that she could walk unaided to her bedroom. As soon as she was in the sheets I turned to leave, thinking she would drop immediately into sleep. She surprised me when she called me back.
“Mainz. The marketplace. Don’t you want to know who?”
XXV.
Until that moment, we weren’t even sure that he was still alive. You spoke his name as if trying to convince yourself that you were really seeing him again, after so many years.
“Brandeis.”
He had some new scars and a lot more gray in his hair, and he favored one leg that hadn’t been stiff when I first met him at Engelthal. But mostly he just looked weary. The young mercenaries continued to harass the vendor and Brandeis’ face betrayed a look that combined disgust with a complete lack of surprise.
You pulled me into the shadows behind a stall. Most of the soldiers were new and wouldn’t know you, but you could never be entirely safe, not with these men. You had concluded years before that the only reason your disappearance had never been investigated was that everyone, Brandeis included, believed your burns had killed you.
That you desperately wanted to speak with him goes without saying. You could not-you
The first thing I noticed about this man was the cruel intelligence of his eyes. They seemed to shine with a lust for violence, as if he thought that chaos existed only so that he might take advantage of it.
“Who is that?” I asked.
You answered with an icy voice. “Kuonrat the Ambitious.”
The way the others deferred to him made clear that Kuonrat was now the leader of the troop. With only a few words and the tip of his sword at the shopkeep’s neck, a solution was brokered. The mercenaries took what they pleased, and the vendor was allowed to keep his life.
Kuonrat was the very last person before whom you could dare to reveal yourself, but I was bound by no such constraint. Before you could stop me, I stepped out of the shadows and headed towards the group. I knew that you couldn’t follow: showing yourself would have put me in greater danger than letting me proceed. I pulled my neckline open and headed directly for Brandeis.
It was a calculated risk. Kuonrat had never seen me and Brandeis was unlikely to recognize me, so many years later and not wearing my nun’s habit. I did my best imitation of a prostitute, making it perfectly clear that I was offering myself to Brandeis. It was really quite an act considering that, even though I wasn’t showing yet, I was carrying your child inside me. A few of the other soldiers hooted as I leaned forward to whisper into Brandeis’ ear-naming a price, they thought. I whispered two things: your name, and that I was the nun who’d cared for you at Engelthal.
Brandeis pulled back and his eyes narrowed upon my face as he sorted through his memories from the monastery. After he regained his composure, he informed the others that he would meet them later, and implied that an afternoon of fornication lay ahead. Even Kuonrat nodded his approval and said, “Perhaps when you’re finished with him, you can come back for the rest of us.”
The idea turned my stomach but I laughed a “maybe” as I dragged Brandeis away. It would have been too risky for you to reunite with him in public so I took him back to our home, where I knew you’d be waiting. Brandeis could hardly believe his eyes that you were still alive. “I thought-I was so sure-I went back to Engelthal once, but they told me nothing…”
I served our best ale and set about making a meal. I wanted to make a good impression, I wanted Brandeis to see how well I looked after you. You told him everything that had happened over the years, and he was amazed that you’d made such a life for yourself.
When it was his turn to speak, Brandeis told about how things had changed in the condotta. How they had become worse. Herwald had been mortally injured in battle and it was Kuonrat who brought down the final sword on the old man’s neck. This was no act of mercy; Kuonrat was staking his claim. When he challenged anyone who would dare oppose him for leadership, no one stepped forward.
Kuonrat took to admitting only the most bloodthirsty recruits. Their fighting instincts were sound, but the new soldiers were stupid and dishonorable. It was true that they killed more, but also they
