In the beginning, Karl had shaken his head at Johann’s medical ambition. “Why do you do it to yourself?” he had asked. “I know you want to be near your daughter. But do you really believe you’re going to win her back like this?”
“I don’t know, Karl. All I know is that I thought only of myself for far too long—for my whole life, really.” Johann was gazing into the distance, where the Alban Hills were vanishing behind the haze. “I can help people, and that is what I’m doing now.”
“And what if Hagen or Lahnstein finds you?” asked Karl. “The hospital isn’t far from the papal palaces and Castel Sant’Angelo.”
Johann winked at him. “I am nothing, just a nobody who empties latrines and watches at the bedside of the dying. I am just old Johann, not the learned Faustus.”
“You will always be Faustus, no matter how hard you try,” Karl had replied, and Johann had heard both mockery and pain in his voice.
It was true—Johann did his best to remain in the background at the hospital. He helped wherever necessary, and even though he knew much, he avoided showing off his knowledge. He soon realized how modern the hospital was. There was a hatch for unwanted infants and a foundling wing, a poorhouse, and fresh water from wells and pipes in every hall. The spezieria, the hospital pharmacy, housed any known medicines and even some herbs and spices from the New World. Its wealth of drawers contained small brown beans from overseas that were ground up and served with hot water and ginger, and dried leaves that eased hunger and tiredness. Watching over the spezieria were physicians who didn’t often show their faces in the treatment halls of the poor.
Most of the diseases the patients suffered from Johann had seen before. But one particular ailment was new to him; the monks called it morbo gallico, the French disease, allegedly because it had first appeared during the siege of Naples under King Charles VIII. Since then it had spread right across Italy. The victims suffered from fever and rashes, and later extremely painful knots and ulcers appeared, and some patients grew insane and ran screaming through the treatment rooms. They were treated with quicksilver and also with a concoction of a very hard wood from the New World. All that was completely new to Johann, and he was amazed at the vast knowledge in Italy compared to the backward German Empire. Whenever his work permitted, he secretly studied the writs the physicians left on their lecterns.
But most of the time he helped the sisters, occasionally offering some whispered advice. He washed the old people, fed them, carried away their buckets, and cleaned them. Strangely enough, he found this kind of menial work rather satisfying. He barely saw Greta. Whenever he did see her, his heart skipped a beat. She always turned away quickly and continued to go about her work as if she didn’t know him. But at least she hadn’t asked the mother superior to remove him.
Almost daily Johann sat by the bed of little Clara, juggling for her or showing her some of his magic tricks like he used to do for Greta. The little girl laughed and clapped, but Johann saw she was fading away. She lost weight and grew paler by the day. Her nose bled often, and the knots on her neck were swollen. Johann had no idea what the disease was called, but he knew there was no cure.
He had seen it in Clara’s hand. He hadn’t used this eerie gift in a long time, the same gift Greta appeared to have inherited from him. Johann could tell when people were going to die. But unlike years ago, the realization no longer upset him as deeply. Everyone had to die, some later and some sooner. Dying was as much a part of life as birth. And so he gave Clara some of the most wonderful hours in her much-too-short life while she steadily grew weaker.
“I dreamed of the dear God,” she told him quietly one evening, as if she was sharing a secret. “And of the big black wings. The big black wings will carry me to Him. That’s what He said.”
“He did?” Johann shaped the corner of the sheet and with soot painted two black eyes on it. “And what about little Hans here? Is he allowed to fly with you?”
Clara smiled as Johann marched the tip of the sheet up and down the edge of the bed like a little soldier. “Yes, little Hans can come. If he is good.” Then she turned serious. “Uncle Johann? Does the dear God know how to do magic and juggle like you?”
“Of course He can! He is the best magician there is. You won’t believe your eyes when you see what He will conjure up for you. The sweetest fruits, a doll with a head made of cherrywood, a spinning top, and a whole mountain of glass marbles like only the wealthy children have.”
Clara fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
The next morning, when Johann saw her again, she was as cold and stiff as a puppet. He had known this day would come, but still he was filled with profound grief—grief like he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“I hope the dear Lord performs tricks for you now, little Clara,” he murmured. “If God really exists, then He can do magic.”
Johann held the hand of the dead girl for a long while. He was squatting beside the bed, quiet and unmoving, when he suddenly heard steps behind him. He knew those steps; they were as familiar to him as the rattling of a juggler’s wagon or the drumming of the rain on the canvas.
“Greta,” he said softly without turning.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“That’s what I’ve wanted all along.”
She pulled a stool up to the bed and sat down next to him and the body of Clara. Johann
