A Witch's Burden

by D. W. Goates

  Elke, in her white cotton nightgown, bed jacket, and cap, was sitting up in bed, snug beneath the covers.

  “All right, now it’s your turn, fräulein,” he said.

  “I think not. It’s freezing out there,” she said, falling back and shutting her eyes. “Be sure to put out the light when you’re done.”

  The boy grunted his disapproval at the double standard, but nonetheless changed into his warmest nightshirt. Before extinguishing the lamp, he looked playfully to see if she was peeking, but it was clear that she was already fast asleep.

  When she awoke the next morning, Elke was alone. Sunlight framed the window shade and door, which she locked to change into her daywear. She chose the most comfortable dress in her trunk—an almost threadbare milk-chocolate-colored thing selected especially for its separate front-lacing bodice. She had decided on this sea day to give her corset the rest that it, as well as she, deserved.

  A bright, cheery sky greeted her exit from the cabin. Squinting, Elke surveyed the horizon, seeing no signs of land—nor other ships—as they creaked along in the peaceful sea. She struck a majestic figure, the old Witch, with her sails billowing out in the fair breeze. Beneath the canvas, her sailors languidly carried out their duties.

  After attending to her personal needs in the captain’s private facility at the stern of the ship, Elke set out in search of breakfast and her little baron. She found the latter first, seated on a step atop the forecastle. Alongside him was a tan-skinned fellow, his mop of curly black hair barely covered by a cap.

  “There you are,” said Elke, walking up to the two. Neither of them had noticed her approach.

  “Morning,” said Sascha, looking up and smiling. As he did, his hands dropped to his lap; within them was a length of knotted rope.

  “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt?”

  As she spoke, the black-haired sailor stood and removed his cap and, with a bow, greeted the newcomer. “Madame.”

  “This is Markos. He’s teaching me how to tie knots!” said Sascha enthusiastically, proudly displaying his work.

  Markos looked imploringly at the boy, as if to take his leave, but Elke would play no part in quashing the lesson.

  “That’s wonderful. Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said, smiling at them both, and nodding her approval to the sailor who then sat back down. “I’m going up front to catch the view. When I return, perhaps one of you gentlemen can tell me where I might find some breakfast.”

  In the days to come the two travelers would find the men of the ship most hospitable. Though certainly coarse-looking, these sailors, who hailed from all over the world, and who spoke many different languages, remained well-behaved around Elke, and to Sascha, they became almost like family. The boy’s inquisitive nature and keen interest in seafaring soon rendered obsolete the captain’s original orders that the crew consider their “rare cargo” off limits—to be spoken to only when addressed. By and by, both sailors and officers found themselves happily obliging the boy in his impromptu lessons. He learned knot-tying, rigging, wind and weather, general navigation, even how to fish. And he had ample time to hone his skills; for almost two months they sailed the Baltic, visiting its ports.

  Elke mostly read.

  When they arrived first in Copenhagen, they docked under the guns of the great Trekroner Søfort that had tried in vain—not once, but twice, and not many years prior—to defend the Danes from British menace.

  The two adventurers made the most of their few days in the city, exploring its narrow, crooked streets. They were at once taken by the people, by how peaceful, how kind these descendants of Vikings were to foreigners. The Danes seemed to lack a certain distance with outsiders, which Elke realized even she was answerable for. There was something about these fair-haired hosts that seemed to instantly bridge the social divide the moment one attempted communication with them.

  Considering this later, neither Elke nor Sascha could arrive at any conclusion whether this Danish cultural difference owed to wisdom or mere seclusive naiveté.

  From Copenhagen, the two travelers rejoined the Witch as it set out for Lübeck. They had, in their enjoyment, considered remaining for a time; however, Sascha—normally something of a linguistic sponge—had found the language frustrating, and, for her part, Elke never developed a taste for the Danes’ ubiquitous pickled herring.

  In the majestic city of Lübeck—“Queen of the Hanseatic”—owing to a more significant exchange of cargo, the pair were afforded the luxury of a full week and a half to tour the city, but on their return dockside they were met with unwelcomed news. A cholera pandemic was in the offing. The captain had received word that ports east were in danger, and though he himself would not be dissuaded, he strongly advised his passengers against accompanying him further. His warnings, however, were to no avail. Elke and Sascha were too much enjoying their adventure to heed his sober threats of quarantine, or worse. Neither of them could imagine another opportunity for a tour of this sort, and both agreed to not lose sight of a potential settlement over a passing plague.

  This conviction was soon shaken, for at the next port of Danzig they were met by an armed guard.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Elke, in annoyance, of the first mate. She cast a glance at Sascha, who was unperturbed. Both were dressed and ready to disembark.

  “It’s customs,” replied the mate. “We’re to be inspected. Go back to your cabin.”

  Elke sighed but did as she was told. She could hear the captain shouting assurances at the Prussians, who yet kept their distance. Two patience-trying hours passed before a knock came to their door.

  Every hatch was opened, and every passage and every man examined, as were the woman and the boy. Their effects fell under equal scrutiny, with nothing in sight spared—not even Elke’s packed underclothes, to her embarrassment. But what they didn’t see was Sascha’s treasure; his foresight in fashioning a false bottom to his trunk had finally proven its worth.

  In the end, the captain told them to expect as much or worse as they traveled eastward. What had spared them from quarantine was their manifest, port of origin, and ports of call. The disease had come from Asia, making its way into Europe through Russia—exacerbated by the latter’s ongoing conflict with Poland—and, because of the heightening scrutiny, he decided to skip Riga. It wasn’t worth it to him; the potential profit too slight for the threat of internment. However, certain luxuries they carried, he said, made passing Saint Petersburg impossible.

  Again, the captain warned them off, this time most sternly, but the two travelers were insistent. During their few days in Danzig, Elke and Sascha managed to secure Prussian government health passes, which they hoped would buy them better treatment in the cities to come, but their captain lent nothing to this prospect.

  Chaos greeted their arrival in Saint Petersburg. Mere weeks prior there had been a riot in the streets of the lavish imperial city, requiring the influence of Tsar Nicholas himself to put it down—its cause: again cholera. The people distrusted their government, and many were convinced that the disease was no disease at all but a poison for the masses. In truth, the hapless government struggled to understand the epidemic, and employed conflicting measures in its desperate efforts to slow the deadly proliferation.

  Again, the Witch was threatened with quarantine, and again she avoided it in light of her origin and cargo. When the captain and his crew were confined to the harbor, he as much invited the restriction for their own benefit, though the tourists had no such interest. Employing their status, new health passes, and facilitated by a small tactful payment from the young baron, the pair soon escaped into the city proper.

  Their vessel would depart without them in four days’ time, too short a layover for their plans, and so they parted company. It was not an easy decision—especially for Sascha, who had made so many friends among the crew. Before they left the docks, the captain was kind e
nough to provide them with a recommendation and his assistance in securing a later passage with a westbound Swedish ship.

  Elke and Sascha had never before felt themselves as tiny as now, in the great capital, with everything—palaces, cathedrals, and the rest of it—constructed on such a grand scale as to boggle the mind: as if a pantheon of gods had been conquered and expelled from their seat, supplanted by the Russian Empire. Of course, nothing was open and available for them to visit, being mere tourists, but this did not prevent them from making their own fun; they could still admire the architecture and stroll the parks in the summer sun.

  Sascha proved useful in navigating the city; he had learned quite a bit of Russian from two expatriate friends during his time in Prague. This granted the pair a certain freedom to visit places they might not have otherwise—places far beyond the harbor with its foreign traders, places frequented by locals. It was in one of these places, elegant and oriental, catering to the local Russian dvorianstvo, that the two had a curious encounter.

  Elke and Sascha were approached by a Russian gentleman patron of the establishment; Igor was his name. He had apparently heard them speaking German, or perhaps discerned their nationality from the way they were dressed. Igor spoke German poorly; nevertheless, it was enough to keep Sascha from engaging his slightly worse Russian. This man, who had just read a work of German idealism by the philosopher Hegel, seemed rather excited to share his thoughts on it with countrymen of the thinker. Elke knew well of this Hegel but thought him a prize idiot. “The state in and by itself is the ethical whole,” indeed—such monstrous drivel. Would Igor not care instead to talk with them more of his country? The man wouldn’t have it, however. He kept on and on about Hegel, and of the implications of his ideas as he felt they related to Russia. He persisted in using the word “sobornost,” which Sascha told Elke later referred to the “collective spirit” of the people. Igor rambled also about the greatness of Russia, and how Germans too were great now that they understood something of the Slavic nature.

  Elke found all of this man’s talk of being together as opposed to working together remarkably off-putting. She saw in it the antithesis of what she had observed in Denmark, among other places, and later remarked to Sascha that this was exactly the sort of woolly thinking that was responsible for getting people killed.

  Elke and Sascha eventually exhausted the sights of Saint Petersburg—in the end pronouncing it more showpiece than city. They departed aboard the Freja, a brig bound for Stockholm. Their quarters on this ship were more modern than on the Witch, but the two travelers felt less at home owing to the aloofness of the crew. Only later would they fully appreciate their German captain’s thoughtfulness in having recommended the vessel, as it did prove a most appropriate means of transiting a young woman and boy. Elke did get to exercise her English on the voyage; it was the only language she had in common with the Swedish captain and his mate. Britain was the Freja’s most frequent trading partner, and both officers spoke English like natives of the island. When they arrived in the Swedish capital, the captain, as had his predecessor, assisted the pair in finding their next ship—the one that would take them on to London.

  Elke felt a twinge of guilt on taking the Swede’s advice that they not reveal their late stay in Russia. It was, he told them, the only way they would be allowed to book the passage. They told the English merchant officer only that they were from Bremen and had come to Stockholm via Danzig. Their proffered Prussian pass served to bolster their claim.

  Upon laying eyes on their new home, Elke and Sascha were more excited than ever; they were to get their first ride in a paddle steamer—the British PS Wimpole. Their enthusiasm soon waned, however, as it was a long, uncomfortable journey from Stockholm to London. By the time they arrived, the two adventurers had had enough of the sea, wishing to again walk on land, and most of all, to eat fresh food.

  Arriving at the Thames Estuary in late August, they received neither, and were instead escorted to a quarantined anchorage under guard by a ship of the King’s navy. All ships from Baltic ports were being held up because of the cholera outbreak, with no exceptions made for those sailing under the British flag. Ten days passed, culminating with a thorough airing and inspection, before they were allowed into the city.

  Now weary, the two travelers resolved to remain, at the very least, until the end of the season. They rented a grand townhouse near Grosvenor Square and found it fortuitous to learn from the owner’s representative that the small house staff came included. Here Elke finally had the immersion necessary to improve her English, and Sascha joined her, though from more humble beginnings.

  Their first impressions of London were quite favorable. It was certainly rather different from the cities they had seen on the Baltic, especially Saint Petersburg. But while Elke found the British in many ways unique, she soon discovered their culture to be no less dangerous than that of Russia, or of the Prussia she had seen before it. Here was yet another society both great and damaged, though for altogether different reasons. It seemed to the ex-history teacher that the societies that were healthiest—those less disposed to internal strife or to war with their neighbors—were the ones that best addressed the needs of the individual. She had continued reading the Margrave’s notebooks and saw his words now dovetailed everywhere with her own observations. The Count had said that the healthiest individuals were those who neither burdened others nor suffered burdens themselves. As a visiting baron’s governess, Elke thoroughly enjoyed partaking in the advantages of London’s well-to-do, but in so doing, she remained not blind to the detriments of the culture. The English, so superficially different, proved much the same when observed in their essentials: here, as before, she perceived the hallmarks of a society needlessly burdensome to its citizens. And to what end? Where Russia felt the need to use architecture to profess its grandeur, Prussia did so with superabundantly complicated philosophical devilry, and now here was Britain—holding the whole world hot beneath its objectifying microscope. In their frequent excursions, over the course of their stay, Elke and Sascha saw most of London, even the East End’s infamous rookeries, though there they did not linger. Neither of them could stand such an eyesore—a blight that King and country found presumably fit-and-proper, nevertheless suitable for worldwide export.

  No, London would not do, either; the two of them decided to move on to Paris in October when their rent was up. It was a shame, really. Elke had developed a real admiration for English literature as her skill in reading it had improved. But while both agreed that the city was a nice place to visit, neither could envision it as a permanent home.

  By the onset of cooler weather, most of their exploring was done. With regular haunts well-established—bookstores, restaurants, theaters, and the like—the two friends had taken to picnicking as frequently as the weather permitted. They spent entire afternoons reading to one another beside the Serpentine in nearby Hyde Park. It was on such a day, the last of September, that finally Sascha happened to share with Elke the last moments from that fateful day in the castle.

  “What is this? It’s delicious!” exclaimed Sascha, looking to Elke for her agreement.

  Having finished with their lunch, the two were enjoying a new dessert prepared by their house cook. Sascha, in his Knickerbockers, sat cross-legged on the picnic blanket, his soft black fisherman’s cap tipped back on his sandy hair, with Elke ensconced in her folding chair. The empty seat beside her was his, always eschewed for the grassy ground. Wielding his silver spoon like a weapon, the boy ate lustily from his bowl, whereas his companion at least tried to be dainty, though she took no less pleasure in the treat.

  “She called it ‘Apple Fool’,” Elke replied, her mouth full of the creamy stuff. She was wearing a broad hat decorated with silk flowers and leaned forward awkwardly under it in an effort to keep the sweet custard from spoiling her white lace dress.

  “I get the apple. Ich liebe Äpfel. But what does ‘fool�
� mean?”

  “It means idiot,” she said with a wry smile.

  “Well, you can call me what you like if it means I can have more of this dessert!” he said, adding an “Ooh!” on discovering a shortbread biscuit at the bottom.

  “It’s getting cooler.” Elke spoke wistfully. “This might be our last chance at the park like this.”

  “Yeah . . . We’ll have to start packing in a few more days,” replied Sascha, crunching his biscuit.

  Since alighting on land, they had grown careless in their purchases and could no longer travel with but two trunks; new clothes for the both of them, along with Elke’s book obsession, had doubled their necessary luggage. Their effects threatened to spill over into a fifth trunk if the spendthrifts weren’t more careful.

  After returning their dishes to the basket, Elke and Sascha began watching the other park-goers. Fall, on this uncommonly warm day, was having a difficult time asserting itself, and none among the scores out enjoying the weather appeared in any way inclined to lend it their support. Sascha eventually fixed his gaze upon a pair of lovers out in a rowboat and stared at them dumbly.

  A pensive mood prevailed, though this was usually the time when they brought out their books. After a while, it seemed that to break the silence would be to violate some unspoken pact, but Sascha, the apple idiot, did just that.

  “Fräulein, do you think you will find what you’re looking for in Paris?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, more than somewhat confused by his uncharacteristic question.

  “Well, we’ve been to lots of different places, but you haven’t wanted to stay in any of them. Aren’t you looking for a new home?”

  “I thought we both were . . .”

  “I’m happy with you,” he said, still staring at the lovers—more specifically, the woman’s parasol, which she held ever so erect and unmoving.