“Who is there?” he shouted into the wind. “Whoever you are—I’ve got a dog with me. A very large dog who doesn’t like surprises!”
A man straightened up behind the gravestone. He was holding a small, flickering lantern, so Johann could see his thin outline against the dark background. The man wore a floppy hat with a red rooster’s feather, his face remaining in the shadow below the brim. A shovel leaned against the gravestone beside him.
Just the grave digger, thought Johann with relief. People die in any weather.
“Greetings,” he said and raised his hand.
The man did nothing for a moment, then he started to walk toward Johann with the lantern. He was as skinny as a scarecrow and walked slightly hunched over, as if he had a crooked back. A filthy eye patch covered the right side of his face.
“Not a good time for a visit to the graveyard,” the man said. His voice was soft and pleasant, and Johann noticed that he didn’t have a Kraichgau accent.
“A . . . an old friend of mine is buried here,” replied Johann, gesturing vaguely to the gravestones in front of him. “I was passing through town and stopped to say a quick prayer.”
The man nodded without looking at the stones, scrutinizing Johann instead.
“You’re not from around here, then,” he said eventually.
“That’s right.” Johann shrugged. “But I used to . . .” He paused. “I used to know a few people in Knittlingen.”
Once more he saw the wrinkled face of the prefect in his mind’s eye and heard his voice.
What did you do to my daughter? What devil did you see in the woods back then?
Oh yes, he had laden a profound guilt upon himself.
“Are you all right, sir?” The grave digger took another step toward him, and Little Satan growled like he always did when strangers approached his master.
But then something strange happened: the grave digger leaned down to Little Satan and patted his head as if he were a cute lapdog, and to Johann’s astonishment, the dog didn’t seem to mind. Johann had never before seen Little Satan tolerate the touch of anyone but himself or Greta.
“This . . . old friend of yours—you must have been very close?” asked the man as he scratched the dog behind an ear.
“Closer than anyone else,” Johann said reluctantly.
The man issued a quick laugh and grinned, showing his surprisingly white and complete set of teeth. “And yet he’s nothing but a pile of rotting bones now. Isn’t it sad what becomes of us? God created us in His image, and at the end we’re nothing but stinking bags of maggots. No matter if we’re the emperor, the pope, or a beggar.” The grave digger sighed and straightened back up. He truly did look frightfully gaunt—not much more than a pile of bones himself.
“I’ve lowered so many people into the hole—old ones, young ones, grandparents, and children. Children are the worst.” He shrugged. “I mean, why does God allow it? Why hasn’t He shown us how to stop death? From the day we are born we start to rot and die. Can you feel it, too? We’re dying all the time—a little more every day.”
Johann said nothing and studied the man. He was no longer certain the man with the eye patch was the Knittlingen grave digger. He spoke far too well—more like a priest, even though a man of God would never have spoken about the Lord thus. The man came a little closer and Johann thought he could smell a faint whiff of sulfur.
“Do you know what?” whispered the stranger into Johann’s ear, his breath as damp and sticky as a dirty rag. “I think death is the price we all have to pay. The price for living. Everything has its price, and everyone must pay someday. Someday—but pay they must. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I . . . I think I do,” said Johann hoarsely. He shuddered. This conversation was becoming stranger by the moment. Johann nervously looked around for Little Satan and saw that he was hiding behind a gravestone, seeming afraid. What the hell was going on with the dog?
The man took a step back and smiled. His teeth looked pointed and reminded Johann of a wolf.
“Ha! I knew it. There aren’t many who understand me. Not many who are willing to go further than the others, who want to see more, who never rest.” He lowered his voice. “Are you finally ready to pay your price, Doctor Faustus? Are you ready?”
Without waiting for a reply, the man turned away and trudged off through the rain with the lantern in his hand.
Johann was too astounded to say anything for a few moments. Then he shouted, “Hey! How do you know my name? Who . . . who are you?”
But right then, the light of the lantern went out, and the stranger disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived. Johann listened. Through the rain he thought he heard a faint melody. The sound of a flute drifted over to him from beyond the cemetery wall; perhaps it came from the inn. It was the tune of a children’s song.
Susie, dear Susie, what’s rustling in the straw? ’Tis the little goslings, they don’t have any shoes.
Johann stood, frozen, at his mother’s grave. After a few moments he startled as if waking from a bad dream and hurried toward the gate. He jumped on his horse and rode through the storm, dashing past the stunned watchman at the gate as if the devil were after him. The dog raced behind him. Only much later did Johann realize that he couldn’t remember the man’s face.
It was as if the rain had washed it away.
High up between hail clouds and billows of rain, three birds glided in circles. They were two crows and a large old raven with tattered feathers and a scuffed beak. When they heard the soft tune somewhere below, they cawed and returned to their master. The skinny man was still standing between the
