Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(11)

Golgotha; Dirk wanted to see what Golgotha looked like. And Bethlehem, and the castle of Pontius Pilate. And the tomb of Lazarus. And Christ walking on the waves.

And the Garden of Eden. Snakes and apples. Ripeness of possibility. It was a bitter blow, all this severity.

“If you’ve come for salvation, you’ve come to the right place,” said a man, emerging from a broom closet under a pulpit. He must be the minister. His forehead was big and his chin dissolved into his neck, and his hair had gotten knocked askance on the low doorsill, so he looked like the uprooted head of a scallion.

Dirk said, “Where do you keep the stained glass? I heard there were apostles and martyrs to look at, and a cock crowing by Saint Peter’s weeping eyes.”

The minister dusted his hands on the front of his Geneva gown. “Ach, seeking the propaganda of Rome? You won’t find it here, my boy. Those pictures are made by savage, deluded men. Here, the Heavenly Ghost delivers perfect peace in our hearts without such blasphemous imagery.”

“Not in mine.” Dirk didn’t mean to argue but he was famished.

“You’re just stupid and lazy, and besides, the young like to be fooled. How well I remember. I suppose you’re hungry as well as dirty? The rules of mercy apply to all, regardless of persuasion. Come along. I have a plate of sweet cakes left from last night’s dinner.”

That sounded good, so Dirk followed the minister through a passage to a set of rooms in the back. The boy clenched the knife in his pocket just in case, but the minister was beyond reproach. He laid out a small blue plate and poured a glass of milk that was only a little sour. Then he brought forward butter in curls, and pastries with gooseberry jam, and two rounds of ruddy wurst and another of soft yellow cheese. “First we ask God to bless the food, then we eat it,” he told the boy.

“I’m not a fool, I know about blessing.”

While Dirk gobbled the breakfast, the minister talked about faith. He warned against the visions of the devil. He said Dirk must beware of icons and statues. Those temptations threatened the innocent, all those Catholic paintings of naked martyrs bound for piercing. The minister had a good deal to say, and it lasted the entire meal. When both rounds of sausage, three rolls, some pastries, the milk, and most of the cheese had disappeared into his stomach, Dirk said, “Are you practicing?”

“Practicing what?”

“A sermon? I never heard a sermon before.”

“What congregation do you belong to, boy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m steering you away from occasions of sin such as Rome in her pagan way promotes. Babylon’s fleshpots.”

“Where might I see these saints and statues and all that?”

“But haven’t I just been warning you against idolatry?”

“I should probably see them first, to know what to avoid.”

The minister sighed. “You seem to have one spoiled eye already. Don’t abuse the second. Now about that crutch you carry like a lance over your shoulder. It isn’t the right size for you. Yet you burden yourself with it. Why? Is it a weapon?”

It took Dirk a while to think up something to say. “I am probably bringing it to someone who needs it.”

“Listen, child. The stories of saints, the landscapes of those Italians and of Rembrandt, you don’t need them. They are all a crutch. A distraction. Throw those illustrations away. Throw that pike away. You don’t require it and it doesn’t fit you anyway. And I won’t harm you.”

“It’s left over from someone else’s life, but I might grow up tall enough to need it myself.”

The man laughed at that. “My name is Pfarrer Johannes. You may stay here and eat my food every day until you are sure you need no such crutch. If you like. In the meantime, let me stitch you a patch for that bad eye. Can’t imagine how you came by that.”

This is how Dirk turned into an assistant to Pfarrer Johannes, and how he came to live with him, and every morning to sweep the cold chapel clear of mouse droppings. The thrush never appeared on any windowsill. The knife-head had been struck so dumb by holiness that Dirk forgot it had ever spoken to him.

Once Dirk asked Pfarrer Johannes about the young woman with the big belly, which detail by now Dirk understood to mean “with child.” Dirk had never seen the woman again. Pfarrer Johannes hawed and hemmed but finally said, “She went away.”

“With the child?”

“Twins. No. I mean she died.”

“Oh. Did the twins die?”

“No, I’m afraid not. They became foundlings, more or less.”

Oh, thought Dirk. Then: “But what of their father? Couldn’t he take care of them?”

“Poor mites, they had no father,” explained Pfarrer Johannes, wincing.

“Like Jesus, then.”

“Not exactly. Aren’t you picking up anything at all while you are here?”

“Crumbs,” said Dirk. He was getting bigger.





14.


In the years that Dirk spent with Pfarrer Johannes Albrecht at the village church of Achberg, the old woman and old man with whom Dirk had once lived never came looking for him. Nor did they come to town for any other reason. Dirk asked the minister if he knew those two old people living deep in the forest, not so far off. When the minister asked for their names, Dirk found himself at a loss. The old man had addressed the old woman only as “You old Fr?ulein,” and spoken of her as “the old Fr?ulein.” She had called him only “Papi,” and so had Dirk. Though Papi wasn’t Dirk’s father, of course, except by accident.