The brown liquid was now bubbling away in the kettle. Simon took an earthenware beaker to fill it with the drink. Perhaps the effect would inspire him with more ideas about the death of the Grimmer boy. Ever since he had left the hangman’s house the previous day, he could not stop thinking about that terrible story. Who could have done such a thing? And then that sign…
The door flew open noisily, and his father entered the room. Simon knew at once that there was going to be trouble.
“You went down to see the executioner again yesterday. You showed little Grimmer’s body to the quack. Go on, don’t deny it! Hannes the tanner told me. And you were flirting around with that Magdalena too!”
Simon shut his eyes. He had indeed met Magdalena down by the river yesterday. They had gone for a walk. He had behaved like an idiot, unable to look her in the eyes, and kept throwing pebbles into the Lech the whole time. He told her everything that had come into his head since the death of Grimmer’s boy: that he didn’t believe the Stechlin woman was guilty, and that he was frightened of a new witch trial like the one seventy years before…
He had babbled on like a six-year-old, and he had really only wanted to say that he liked her. Someone must have seen them. In this blasted town you were never alone.
“Maybe I was. Why does it bother you?” Simon poured out his coffee. He avoided looking into his father’s eyes.
“Why does it bother me? Have you gone crazy!” Bonifaz Fronwieser was, like his son, of small stature, but as was the case with many small men, he could get very angry. His eyes almost popped out, the points of his already graying mustache trembled.
“I am still your father!” he screamed. “Can’t you see what you are doing? It has taken me years to build this up for us here. You could have it so good! You could become the first proper doctor in this town! And then you ruin it all by meeting this hangman’s wench and visiting her father’s house. People are talking—don’t you notice that?”
Simon looked up at the ceiling and let the sermon go over his head. By now he knew it by heart. In the war his father had made his way somehow as a minor army surgeon, where he had met Simon’s mother, a simple camp follower. Simon was seven years old when his mother died of the plague. Father and son had followed the soldiers for a few years, cauterized gunshot wounds with boiling oil and amputated limbs with the bone saw. When the war ended they had traveled through the country in search of a place to settle. Finally they had been accepted in Schongau. In the past few years, with hard work and ambition, his father had advanced to barber and then to a kind of official town doctor. But he had not studied medicine. Nevertheless, the town council tolerated him because the local barbers were incompetent, and doctors from the distant towns of Munich or Augsburg were too expensive.
Bonifaz Fronwieser had sent his son to study in Ingolstadt. But the money had run out, and Simon had to return to Schongau. Since then his father had saved every penny and looked with suspicion upon his offspring, whom he thought was a careless dandy.
“…while others fall in love with decent girls. Take Joseph, for example: he’s courting the Holzhofer girl. That’ll be a rich alliance! He’ll get on all right. But you…” His father ended the speech. Simon had not been listening for some time. He sipped his coffee and thought about Magdalena. Her black eyes, which always seemed to be smiling; the broad lips, which were moist yesterday with the red wine that she had brought to the river in a leather flask. Some drops had fallen on her bodice, so he gave her his kerchief.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” His father hit him with a ringing backhanded slap, so that the coffee, in a wide arc, flew through the room. With a rattle the cup fell to the floor and shattered. Simon rubbed his cheek. His father stood in front of him, slight and trembling. Coffee stains marked his doublet, which was spotted enough anyway. He knew that he had gone too far. His son was no longer twelve years old. But he was indeed his son. They had gone through so much together; he only wanted the best for him…
“I’m going to see the hangman,” whispered Simon. “If you want to stop me, you can stick your scalpel in my stomach.” Then he gathered up a few books from the table and slammed the door behind him.
“Go to Kuisl then!” shouted his father after him. “And a lot of good it may do you!”
Bonifaz Fronwieser stooped and picked up the fragments of the cup. With a loud curse he threw them through the open window out onto the street, behind his son.
Blind with anger Simon hastened through the alleys. His father was so…so…pigheaded. He could even understand the old man. It was after all about his son’s future: study, a good wife, children. But even the university had not been the right thing for Simon. Dusty old knowledge, learned by heart, still partly drawn from Greek and Roman scholars. Actually his father had never gotten much further than purges, bandaging, and bleeding. In the executioner’s house, on the other hand, a fresher wind blew, for Jakob Kuisl owned the
As he turned into the Lech Gate street, he bumped into a horde of children who were standing together in a group. From the middle of the group came a loud yammering. Simon stood on tiptoe and saw a tall, solidly built boy sitting above a girl. He was holding her down on the ground with his knees while he struck his victim again and again with his right fist. Blood flowed from the corners of the girl’s mouth, and her right eye was swollen and shut. The cluster of children accompanied every blow with shouts of encouragement. Simon pushed the jeering pack aside, grabbed the boy by the hair, and pulled him off the girl.
“Pack of cowards!” he cried. “Attacking a girl, shame on you!”
The mob retreated a few yards, but only reluctantly.
The girl on the ground sat up and wiped her hair, sticky with filth, out of her face. Her eyes looked around warily as if seeking an opening in the crowd of children through which she could escape.
The big boy drew himself up in front of Simon. He was about fifteen and half a head taller than the physician. Simon recognized him. It was Hannes, the son of Berchtholdt, the baker in the Weinstrasse.
“Don’t interfere, physician,” he threatened. “This is our business.”
“If you are knocking a little girl’s teeth out, that’s my business too,” replied Simon. “After all, I am, as you say, a physician and I must reckon up what the fun will cost you.”
“Cost me something?” Hannes scowled. He was not exactly the brightest of the group.
“I mean, if you cause the girl injury, you’ll have to pay for it. And we have enough witnesses, haven’t we?”
Hannes looked over at his comrades, puzzled. Some of them had already left the scene.
“That Sophie is a witch!” Another boy joined the discussion. “She has red hair, and moreover she was always with the Stechlin woman, just like Peter, and he’s dead now!” The others murmured in agreement.
Simon shuddered internally. It was beginning. Now, already. Soon Schongau would consist entirely of witches and people pointing their fingers at them.
“Nonsense,” he exclaimed. “If she were a witch, why would she let you beat her up? She would have flown away on her broomstick long before. Now be off with you!”
Reluctantly, the gang withdrew, but not without casting one or two threatening looks at Simon. When the boys were a stone’s throw away, he heard them shout: “He goes to bed with the hangman’s girl!”
“Perhaps she’ll put a noose around his neck!”
“Difficult to make him a head shorter, he’s short enough already!”
Simon sighed. His still fresh and tender relationship with Magdalena was no longer a secret. His father was right: people were talking.
He stooped down to help the girl up.
“Is it true that you were always at the Stechlin woman’s house with Peter?” he asked.
Sophie wiped the blood from her lips. Her long red hair was full of dirt. Simon reckoned she was about twelve years old. Under a layer of filth an intelligent face looked at him. The physician thought he remembered that she came from a tanner’s family in the Lech quarter down by the river. Her parents had died during the last outbreak of the plague, and another tanner’s family had taken her in.
The girl remained silent. Simon grabbed her shoulder firmly.
“I want to know if you were with Peter at Goodwife Stechlin’s. It’s important!” he repeated.
“Could be,” she murmured.
“Did you see Peter in the evening?”
