Loving Luther

by Allison Pittman

  “You shouldn’t—” I choked—“you shouldn’t say such things about your mother, God rest her soul.”

  “My mother’s soul is not at rest,” Therese said. “Not with all the sin she heaped upon it. And if you follow through with this, mark me—yours won’t be either. There’s still time, you know. To forget it all. To confess and repent.”

  “I’ve nothing to repent.” My anger boiled even as my palm cooled.

  Perhaps the slap hadn’t been as sharp as I feared. Therese’s cheek bore only the slightest tinge of pink as her expression softened into one of genuine concern. “Be careful, my friend, that your pride doesn’t become a source of betrayal.”

  “Is that a greater danger than being betrayed by my friend?”

  “I’ll say nothing. You have my word. I can’t do anything to guard your soul, but I won’t purposefully try to get you in trouble here. Do you believe me?”

  I had no choice. “I’m sorry I slapped you. Will you forgive me?”

  “I do already.” And to prove it, Therese bridged the distance between us and rested her pink cheek next to mine, as if placing a kiss.

  She left, and I returned to the others.

  Girt looked uneasy. “What was that all about?”

  “Just a disagreement among sisters.” I came back to the table but left the cleaning cloth untouched. “Now, what is it Luther said? About husbands?”

  “You told me once you didn’t want to hear any more from him. That you only wanted Scripture—”

  “Girt!” My hands twitched, no doubt sending a reminder of the violence they’d inflicted, and all the women recoiled at the sight. “There is no longer time or reason for pettiness. If we’ve set our minds to leaving, as I believe we—and others—have, then from this moment out we have to be in accord. Now, what says he?”

  “Only that . . .” She squinched her face, remembering. “I don’t know the words exactly. Hans told me a little, but he didn’t have time to read them for me.” She shifted in her seat and reached to the bottom of her robe, producing a scrap from a pocket in the hem. “Here.”

  She handed over a now-familiar offering, a scrap from a leaflet, carefully torn, beginning and ending with unfinished text.

  . . . if you have a daughter or friend who has fallen into such an estate and you are sincere and faithful, you should help her to get out, even if you have to risk your goods, body, and life for it. . . .

  It was from a writing called “Against the So-called Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops,” according to Girt’s closed-eyed, careful recitation.

  “But we don’t all have families out there to help us,” Sister Ave said. She was the youngest of us, barely sixteen years old, and as lovely as youth commanded. “Or friends. I don’t know a soul outside of here. And my family? I’ve no doubt my father put me here in the first place to keep me from marrying someone against his approval. Someone who would sully the bloodline.”

  I smoothed the paper in my lap, tracing a single finger across the words. “I think you’re wrong. I think you do have a friend. We all do. And Girt—” I looked up and coaxed a smile—“your friend just happens to be perhaps the most important and special friend of all. Tell him he needs to find a way. Not just for you, and not just for us, but for all the sisters who want to leave.”

  “How many will that be?”

  “I don’t know yet. Tell him—and I know this will be very hard for both of you—but tell him he has to stay away. For a long while, because sisters have been noticing your conversations, and it’s only a matter of time before the abbess bans him completely. Or sends you away. Tell him to stay away until . . .” I calculated. How long would it take to know how many contemplated this same dream of freedom? Moreover, how long would it take to communicate with Luther, if he were really so inclined to give aid? “After Christmas. Well after Christmas—mid-January. And even then, not to come without a plan. Tell him we’ll do exactly as he says.”

  Girt’s smile had faded at the mention of Christmas, but I steeled my heart against sympathy.

  “It has to be. If God wills, this will be the last Christmas you celebrate apart from each other. The last New Year you won’t ring in together. Now, isn’t that worth a little sacrifice?”

  The sound of approaching footsteps stole any chance to hear Girt’s reply as we returned vigorously—and silently—to our abandoned task. I made a point to offer a warm, welcoming smile to each of the six sisters, including Sister Margitta, the oldest of our order who was more often than not spared any taxing daily chores. The soft, wrinkled skin puckered as she eyed me with appreciative curiosity.

  “Sister Therese reports that more help is needed in oiling the tables? But it seems to me you have plenty of capable hands.”

  “Capable, but idle.” This from a girl named Anna Marie, a pock-faced novice who had yet to say anything pleasant since her arrival. I ignored her slight.

  “We are capable, Sisters, but short one set. The scent from the oil, it seems, is giving Therese a headache this morning. We need only one of you to take her place, and I know we’ll get the task completed in plenty of time.” I directed my gaze. “Do you think, Sister Margitta, you could stay? I trust your industriousness to make up for our lost time.”

  “Of course.” She had the good sense to understate her agreement. “It’s good to know that there are some who will still find good use in these old hands.” Those with her wished us blessings on the day before departing.

  Immediately, we went to work. For a time there was no conversation, only the shushing of the rags on the wood, soon accompanied by the warbling hum of Sister Margitta. Low and comforting, like I imagined the sound of a lullaby. The tune circulated, unfamiliar. Not a hymn, not anything we’d ever heard in chapel, or even from the strains of the evening choir. But it was simple, inviting. Just six notes in the melody. Someone—Gwenneth, most likely—found a harmony. I listened, in awe of the phenomenon of such immediate unity. Then, as if by design, Ave’s sweet, clear soprano gave life to a lyric.

  The white doves are flying,

  The white foxes slipping,

  The white rabbits jumping—

  Over, and under, and right through the wall.

  The words peeked out from behind the tune, and two rounds later, another sister joined in. Then another. Then Girt.

  Finally, me. Seeing myself first as the fox, wily and elusive. The rabbit, swift and smart. Most of all, though, the dove. The same as Noah sent out from the ark, looking for God’s promise of home.

  CHAPTER 13

  IT WAS, AT FIRST, a single word spoken to Girt, relayed to me, and whispered from one sister to another as we stood in a circle around the fire one dark February night.

  Easter.

  A single word in reply to a dangerously lengthy letter I had composed, signed, and circulated throughout our ranks for signatures of agreement. Twenty-four names in all, and there could have been more had we been more bold. Still, the number frightened me. How could so many be trusted to keep a secret? Some of the names belonged to familiar faces—women I counted as companions as well as sisters. But some were mere strings of letters. Who was Brigitte? Which Ava was this? And I worried, too, that the scrap would be intercepted and our imminent escape exposed. With my name—Katharina von Bora—boldly scrawled beneath the final plea:

  We await your wisdom, and pray for our release.

  Only Girt had been spared the commitment of a signature, as any sort of writing proved a painful, humiliating exercise. She, of course, had the most important task of all. It was Girt who found a way to slip the letter into Hans’s rein-hardened hand. And it was into Girt’s ear that the date of our freedom was declared.

  Easter.

  The details of our escape followed, the exactness of time and place, meted out in snippets of conversation. An empty farmer’s cart at midnight. An overnight journey to Torgau for a short stay before continuing on to Wittenberg.

  “But not for all of us,” I said to Gi
rt as we lingered in the chapel after early-morning Mass. She stood at my back, keeping watch. “Not everyone who signed the letter.”

  “Why not?”

  “In a single cart?”

  “It will be empty. We can squeeze ourselves together.”

  “All of us slipping out? We’ll call attention. Noise and number. We’d have to line up at the gate. See here.” I sketched a diagram of the grounds and back gate in the frosted glass, knowing the sun and my sleeve would erase the evidence. “We’d make a solid line along the fence. We can take only half the number. Or less.”

  “And who’s going to decide who goes and who stays?”

  “I will.” My response came without hesitation. “You, of course. Me, and any who heard from their families since the Christmas letters. Those who have a place to go.” I made hash marks in the frost as I listed, knowing only a few of the women had received word back with news of a welcoming reception.

  “So, you heard nothing?” Girt asked.

  “There’s no place for me.” Indeed, my father’s letter had been equally sparse in words.

  “Luther is said to have a plan. A place for all of us, eventually.”

  “Let’s worry about how we’re going to get into the wagon before worrying about what might be waiting when we get out.”

  “You’re right. Sister Ave?”

  “Yes. And Sister Ave . . .”

  “Therese?” Girt’s mention of our friend sounded more like a challenge. “Will she have a place with us?”

  “I’ll talk with her.”

  “I worry that she might—” Girt craned her neck and waited for the distant sound of a footfall to disappear—“that she might say something. Don’t you?”

  “I said I’ll talk with her. Now, we’ll be able to take maybe four more.”

  “How will we choose?”

  My previous decisive bravado left me. How could I possibly take a sister’s fate in my hand? I closed my eyes in a silent prayer of contrition, then proceeded to wipe our plan from the glass.

  “We won’t. We’ll let the Lord decide. Only he knows what is waiting on the other side. He will fill the right hearts with courage.”

  I chose the worthy through silent lottery. Who would be brave enough to hold my gaze during our midday meal? Who would join me in humming our tune of escape? Who would form her hands into the shape of a rabbit in silent greeting when we passed in the corridor? As the date grew nearer, so did the need for true courage, and our numbers dropped with every pair of averted eyes.

  On the first day of April, I went to the kitchen to beg the favor of bringing Sister Gerda’s meal. It was the last she would have, as for years she had insisted on fasting from sunset on Maundy Thursday until breakfast Easter Monday. As such, it was laden with pickled herring, cheese, bread, and stewed turnips. There was also a second pitcher of water, intended to last all four days. All this made the tray heavy, and when I arrived at her door, I could only kick for her attention. When, after a suitable number of seconds, there was no shuffle of footsteps, let alone a turn of the latch, I kicked again.

  “Sister Gerda? I’ve come with your tray. It’s heavy. Open the door, and I’ll take it to your table.”

  Nothing.

  She must have known. Somebody—Girt, maybe, in her excitement; or Therese in her lingering disapproval—must have told her of our plan.

  “Sister?” And another kick.

  A month or more before, I might have respected her reproach. Turned and left the tray on the floor for her to retrieve later, in privacy. But this was not her usual amount of provisions, and this was no ordinary day. She would never be able to lift this burden, and I would never forgive myself for not seeing her one last time. So, doubling my strength with one arm, I eased the other over to the latch, turned it, and pushed the door open, apologizing.

  “I’m sorry to intrude on your solitude, but I can’t carry this all the way back to the kitchen. I’ll just—”

  The silence inside the tiny, dark room was more profound than any I’d ever experienced.

  “Sister Gerda?” But by then I knew better than to expect a response.

  Feeling my strength wash away, I crouched down to set the tray on the floor, and three steps later I was at her bedside.

  By some miracle, she’d become even smaller, her twisted form taking up half the space of the narrow cot. She slept—slept, as I would always remember—with the tumored side of her face buried in the pillow. Now, in perfect peace, she lay smooth and ageless, the kerchief that covered her hair undisturbed.

  “Oh, Sister . . .” I knelt beside her, kissing the cold, gnarled hands clutched in a final prayer. Tears poured, and I gritted my teeth to hold back the sobs that wanted to echo throughout the corridor. Once composed, I raised my head and, out of habit, leaned close to her ear—her good ear—and whispered, “You have been made new. What a sweet, pure spirit to give to our eternal Father. And how clever of you to escape before I have the chance to do so.”

  This, I knew, would have garnered a wry smile, and I kissed her cheek, allowing my lips to linger in a way she would never have allowed in life.

  Never before had I felt so alive. Young and strong, and any doubt I might have harbored disappeared, much as I imagined Sister Gerda’s final breath. With peace, unbidden, and carried straight to God.

  “I will see you again, sweet Sister.” A truth I believed more strongly than if I’d spoken it in farewell. “And we will run to each other, clattering on streets of gold. Shouting praise.” A final kiss, and I stood, drawing Sister Gerda’s gray wool blanket up and over her still form.

  The tray had doubled in weight since I set it down, and the journey back to the kitchen grown at least a mile longer. When I arrived, I set the tray down on the wide worktable, calling the attention of the two sisters chopping vegetables for the day’s stew. One looked at me quizzically, and for once the rule of silence worked in my favor. There would be no need for lengthy explanations to sully the sweetness of my final moment with Sister Gerda with details of shock and pity. I simply made the sign of the cross upon my breast and said, “Send word to the abbess. Our sister has gone to be with our Father in heaven.”

  Then I ran, each step a celebration of my life, God’s gift of physical vitality. I ran like I did as a child, steps ahead of Sister Gerda’s correction, wishing my shoes would make more noise, enough to reach her and summon her to me, released from hermitage, moving freely beside me. I ran to the sewing room, the classroom, the refectory, and the chapel. Then outside, to the courtyard, to the garden, until I saw her—Therese—wielding a hoe against the earth still cold from winter’s frost.

  I stopped short, ready to shout her name, but my frantic steps had garnered enough attention, and she stood straight, seeing me. Silently I beckoned, and she approached, leaving her tool in the cart at the end of the furrow. As she drew near, I reached out my hands and fought to remain standing when she took them.

  “Kat? What is it?”

  The pain on my face must have been apparent to have brought her to speak.

  Come with me.

  My grip gave her no choice but to obey, and I led her past one curious face after another, without pausing for explanation. Even Girt, who made some attempt to follow, was ignored with nothing more than a flick of my wrist to dissuade her. We didn’t stop until I’d dragged Therese to our cell, closed the door behind us, and leaned myself against it.

  “Kat, for all that is holy, what has happened? Are you—” she lowered her voice—“in trouble? Do they know?”

  I shook my head. “I went to see Sister Gerda this morning. For one last time.”

  “Oh.”

  “She was dead.”

  Therese gasped, her eyes wide above the hand brought to her mouth before she crossed herself, saying, “Heavenly Father grant peace to her soul. Amen.”

  “Amen,” I echoed, both the word and the gesture.

  “How awful for you, Kat. I know you loved her.”

  �
��I did.” Tears came again, in concert with Therese’s, and we held each other, not caring if the dirt from her apron transferred to the whiteness of my robe. I felt our bodies reach accord in breath as sounds of comfort passed mutually between us.

  “I’m glad you’re the one who found her,” Therese said as we pulled away.

  “I am too. What if it had been Anna Marie? She would have been screaming all over the place.”

  Therese giggled. “You’re terrible. But it’s true. Why did you come to me?”

  “Because you knew her too. Like I did, from before.”

  “So did Girt.”

  “Girt will find out soon enough. I’ll tell her myself, if word doesn’t reach her before dinner. But listen.” I gripped her shoulders, keeping her face—beautiful within the wimple—squarely in front of me. “I want you to come with us. With me.”

  Whatever love we’d shared in the previous moments fell behind a hardened mask. “Don’t—”

  “I don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want you to become an old woman, dying alone. Oh, Therese, think about it. To be completely alone. And what if she’d died tonight? It would be days before anyone would know.”

  She softened in front of me and led me to sit next to her on her bed. “Remember what I told you about my mother?”

  “Yes, I know about your mother. And the angel, and the men. But—”

  “She was sick.”

  “Yes, I know. Fevered and ill.”

  “But more, too. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was so young. And she tried to hide it from me. But she’d been bleeding from—” she looked away—“from her womanhood. And not the way we do, as God intended. But diseased, because of how she had abused her body.”

  In all our years together, this was a new detail to her story. I always imagined a beautiful, pale sickness, like the fever I’d seen in some of the girls before they went on to heaven.

  “I’m glad they found you.”

  “You see? Sister Gerda isn’t the first woman in my life to be found dead, alone in a room. There are far, far worse circumstances.”