by Anne Boileau
The two men left the room, the Doctor’s arm on our coachman’s shoulder. That was the last we saw of our ‘abductor’, so we weren’t able to thank him for risking his life on our behalf. He drove away at dawn the next day, while we still lay in our beds. And of course we couldn’t write as it might have incriminated him.
We were allocated a cell each, monks’ cells they were, unchanged from when the Monastery was closed a few years before. Plain, whitewashed walls, one little pallet bed, a chair and a small shelf fixed to the wall, which could be raised and used as a desk or table.
The five of us woke as the clock in the tower rang seven. Elizabeth knocked on our cell doors and we pulled on our makeshift new clothes and met in the dark corridor, whispering and giggling. We wanted to go down to the kitchen, but it wasn’t so easy to find. Dorothea had led us up to our cells by candlelight. The passages and corridors were narrow, with odd steps, corners, blind alleys and locked doors. It was like a labyrinth. Eventually we found our way downstairs to a side door leading out to a back yard. Empty pigsties, a few hens scratching about, a cow byre and two stables. One horse, and the freshly vacated stables of Herr Koppe’s team, but no other animals. From there we found a gate through a high wall into the courtyard where we had alighted yesterday, with a large elm tree and a well in the middle. From there, we went shyly into the kitchen.
Dorothea greeted us with a grunt, not unfriendly, but as if to say: “Don’t think I’m going to be waiting on you forever.” But she set down five bowls of steaming porridge, a jug of milk and a tub of runny honey. She made us a large pot of verbena infusion and as we tucked in, very hungry all over again, she stood over us, her arms folded, with her white apron and white head dress.
“You’ve spent Easter on the road, then.”
“Yes, it was a long journey.”
“You missed the goose I cooked for Easter Day. It was a fine fat goose. I stuffed it with chestnuts and currants. And cabbage, we had, and turnips too.”
We ate in silence as we were used to doing; then the dog we had seen the night before trotted into the kitchen, wagging his tail and greeting us one by one with his nose. He was followed by his master, the great man himself. We got to our feet as he entered.
“Sit down, dear ladies, sit down and finish your breakfast. We need to talk about your future. Dorothea, be so kind as to show them through to the refectory when they’re ready.”
“Yes, Herr Doktor.”
We filed through into the refectory where the monks would have eaten when this was a busy monastery. Now it was a quiet, forlorn place, the monks having left three years before. A long trestle table, with benches either side, stood in the middle of a narrow, high-ceilinged room. On one wall was a large painting, divided into ten, depicting the Ten Commandments. The room was unheated and smelt a bit dusty.
He was waiting at the table, with papers spread out before him, but when we entered he stood up and invited us to sit down on the benches. Try as I might I found it hard to reconcile the two Martin Luthers. One was the image I had already formed in my head: a younger, good-looking, rebellious man with blond curly hair and modern clothes; the other was the real Dr Luther: a corpulent, middle-aged monk with a tonsure, a shabby old habit, a frayed rope round his middle and leather sandals. I couldn’t help noticing his toenails were dirty and his clothes were a bit smelly. But as he spoke, he moved his large hands with grace and expression, and his eyes sparkled with a sort of wild energy, a fierce intensity. So very soon, the false image I had had of him receded. This was the real Dr Martin Luther, and we were in his presence, in his own home. It seemed quite impossible, like a dream. Any moment, I would surely wake up and find myself still in my narrow little bed in the convent, dreaming about our escape, dreaming of being in the presence of the famous Dr Luther.
1 Pickled beef
Chapter 8
The Cranach House
Ein gutes Werk ist, was andern wohltut
A good deed is that which benefits someone else.
“Are you rested now, and well fed?”
We nodded, tongue-tied in this man’s presence. We were unused to men of any sort, and this was no ordinary man.
“My children,” when we were settled at the table, “You have left the convent. There is no going back, you realise that don’t you?” Again, we nodded.
“I feel responsible for you. I must admit, I did think most of you would be welcomed back into your parental homes, but no matter. I suspect it was partly because of me that you decided to break free. It therefore falls on me to find you each a position, either here in Wittenberg or in some other evangelical town. I am going to make enquiries about the town; I hope some families will come forward who are willing to take you in as house daughters, at least for the time being. You can help with the household, with children, with livestock. Of course this is only a temporary expedient. Some of you will undoubtedly marry; and if not, you might consider teaching. My colleague Philip Melanchthon is shortly opening two schools in the town, one for boys and one for girls. He will be looking for good, sensible teachers.
“Apart from that, you need to register at the Town Hall. Can you do that this morning? And find your way about, explore a little, go and see the church. Settle in. Are you happy with that plan?”
We nodded, still tongue-tied. Speech did not come naturally to us after living in silence for so long. We were overawed to be in Dr Luther’s presence. While sitting listening to his deep resonant voice, I thought, suppose Mother Superior could see us now, dressed in secular clothes, in the presence of the man who had dared to defy the Church! What would she say, what would she think? Was she angry with us for leaving? Or sad?
Already I missed the nuns I had loved: Sister Clara, my novice mistress, Sister Magdalena, my aunt; the Abbess, who is my cousin on my mother’s side; and other friends from the kitchen, the dairy, the garden, the library. I even missed, in a stupid moment, the cows in the byre and the old donkeys in the stable. But this was not the time to dwell on the past and what we had left behind.
“My dear young women, you’re going to have to learn how to speak, or they’ll make mincemeat of you.”
Then chuckling at his own joke he got up and left the room; we were on our own. What a lot we had to learn! Freedom can have a bitter taste. We were not prepared for the raw reality, the brutal unloveliness of life in a town, outside the confines of Marienthron. The convent had been our home since we were eight or nine years old. The walls had kept us safe. Life was run according to rules and routine; nuns in authority over us made all the decisions and everything followed a strict pattern; we knew that meals would be provided and work would be demanded of us. We prayed and sang, studied and laboured, whispered and grumbled, and slept; and the days rolled into weeks, the weeks into months, the cycle of seasons and festivals turning around year by year; nothing ever changed very much, except that we grew up and older with every new year.
To be a Cistercian nun was to have a position in society, a certain status. Now we had no status, we were simply spinsters. We had also lost a bond between us, the bond of imposed silence, which had given us an inner strength. All that security was swept away when we broke free; as fugitive nuns we were nobody; no longer very young, we realised this: we were unmarried, unloved, unknown in the town, invisible, even risible; at best, an embarrassment to those men who had encouraged us to run away. However, most people were kind to us, especially the Herr Doctor who felt responsibility for finding us somewhere to live.
On our third day in Wittenberg, Ave and I ventured out to the market. Acch! We were quite overpowered by all the smells: sewage and sweat, manure and garbage, general putrefaction.
“Watch where you put your feet, Kathe! Look, mind that heap of offal!”
Sure enough, a heap of cow’s entrails lay slopped on the cobbles; four mangy kittens were fighting over them, among the clustered flies.
“Here, put this to your nose.” I gave Ave a lavender bag and kept one for me; we bot
h held them close to our noses as we picked our way along the streets. We’d never seen such crowds: men, women, children, heaving and jostling, stinking of sweat and dirty clothes, their breath foul, their hair greasy. They shouted and called, swore and sang bawdy songs. And the traffic! Oxcarts, horse carts, cattle going to market, gentlemen on horseback, women leading donkeys with panniers; small boys driving pigs in twos and threes along the street with sticks. Squealing pigs, lowing cattle, bleating goats, cackling fowls, cats, rats, mice, dogs, and everywhere, people, people.
In a narrow side street, a farm cart had got stuck; its team were impatient, tossing their heads, but their passage was blocked by an oxcart full of beer barrels; this in turn was obstructed by a donkey cart which had tipped over and shed its load of turnips; the donkey lay pinned to the ground by the shafts and was braying in distress, waving its legs and trying to stand up. Passers-by were watching with arms folded, shouting suggestions and laughing. The coachman and drivers were swearing at each other, cracking whips and goading the oxen, their voices rising above the braying and lowing and clattering hooves.
We slipped away and reached the market square by a narrow alley. Women stood behind their stalls in village costumes. They must have travelled in from the country, their produce laid out before them on cloths or in baskets. I clasped Ave’s hand, and we explored down the aisles between stalls. Hanging from awnings were rolls of cloth, leather goods, hanks of wool, baskets, clogs and ropes, lace and fine cloths, herbs and spices, barrels of sauerkraut, hams and cheeses, birds and rabbits and ducks in cages. It was a jumble, and yet there was order in it. We gazed about us in wonder, taking it all in and wishing we had some money. I wanted to buy a length of blue worsted to make myself a nicer dress.
We were engrossed in looking at the merchandise, when we heard a man shouting:
“I smell fish.”
“So do I. Salt herrings to be precise.”
Two young men, one a butcher in a blue apron, the other selling baskets.
Ribald laughter. Eyes turn on us. Some hostile, some just curious, watching how we might react. We blush and turn on our heels, wanting to leave the way we came, but then we hear more voices, women among them:
“You can tell `em a mile off. Fugitive nuns them! Cropped hair, tight lips.”
“Not just the lips is tight!”
“Anyone fancy unbuttoning them?”
At that the young butcher leapt over his stall and stood in front of us, belligerent, aggressive; his hands were bloodstained, his breath foul. He did a little dance in front of us, someone started to play a jig on a pipe, they were goading us to dance; now we were surrounded by a hostile audience, clapping and jeering. I was dizzy, felt my feet slipping away from me. The ground came up to hit me, and I lay there winded.
“Help! Oh please God, help me!”
“Leave her alone, you young scoundrels. What do you think you’re at? Them women is the good Doctor’s, you just leave them be or you’ll be in hot water right enough! Shame on you! Shoo!”
An elderly woman helped me to my feet and flicked a cloth in the direction of the youths, who slunk away like whipped dogs. She dusted me down:
“There there, don’t you worry, them youths is just uncouth and unschooled. They won’t worry you no more.” Ave hugged me and we stifled our sobs. The onlookers were muttering, then someone broke wind very loudly amid a fresh gale of laughter, but by now they were turning away, having lost interest in the rumpus.
My heart was pounding, my breath short. We walked as fast as we could without losing our dignity, back to the haven of the Black Cloister. We reached the portal in the big door and pushed it open; once inside, the sweet stillness of the courtyard enveloped us like velvet and we burst into tears. We sat down on a stone bench by the well and wept deep wracking sobs. Around us now, the soothing trickle of the water, a rustling breeze in the elm; all the bustle and jumble and chaos of street life seemed to melt away like a bad dream, leaving us drained and exhausted. Tölpel came and licked our ankles. Would we ever dare to venture out again?
We needed help, so Dr Luther sent a message to a neighbour and supporter called Elsa Reichenbach to give the five of us advice on how to survive in the wicked world and teach us how to disguise our fugitive status. She called at the Cloister the following day. A well-built lady in her forties, she was woman of substance; her maid followed her, carrying baskets of merchandise. The maid went to the kitchen and Dr Luther showed the grand lady, with us following like chickens, into the refectory; Dorothea brought us all a tray with beer, bread and gherkins and the Doctor left us women alone.
Frau Reichenbach sat in a chair at the end of the refectory table and stared at the five of us one by one with an unblinking, open appraisal. It was as if she was assessing what each of us might make of our lives, where we might find a role in the unforgiving secular world.
“Well, my children, tell me all about it.”
The five of us looked at each other, none of us wanting to speak first. In our almost imperceptible silent speech the exchange was like this: “You tell,” “No, you.” Eventually the other four persuaded me to talk.
“Well, ma’am, you see, it’s not how we imagined it, being out. Being in the secular world.”
“I don’t suppose it is. But what did you expect?”
“I don’t know; I suppose we thought it wouldn’t be so different; we wanted to be free, to be allowed to speak, we wanted to live normal lives as women, to help with Dr Luther’s reforms in the church.”
“And you’re finding it noisy? Crowded? Even frightening, perhaps?”
“Yes. It’s very noisy. And we didn’t realise about the violence, about how people get attacked at night. We’re scared to go out now, since we were insulted in the market.”
“Yes, we heard about that, it’s all over the town, and do you know who’s getting the blame for it? The Doctor, for encouraging you to escape from the Convent.”
“I wish we hadn’t!” cried out Elisabeth and burst into tears.
“Elisabeth wants to go back to Marienthron, but they probably wouldn’t let her back in now.” I said.
“You’re right, they wouldn’t. You’ve got to make the best of it now.”
Elisabeth was still snivelling, so I kicked her ankle under the table.
Frau Reichenbach sat back in her chair, her legs stretched out in front of her, her knees apart, eating her gherkins and staring at us. She was wearing a fine brown silk dress with a gold brocade bodice and the headdress of a married woman. Her face was of a high colour, with brown eyes and strong eyebrows.
“My dear girls,” she said eventually. “Never having had a daughter of my own – we were blessed with only one son, and he has boarded a ship for the new world – would you allow me to give you some motherly advice? Woman to woman, so to speak?”
We nodded dumbly.
“So tell me, what don’t you like about life in Wittenberg?”
“It’s the commotion, ma’am, the noise, the crowds, and the traffic.
“Yes, and they don’t like us,” said Ave.
“And another thing” said Elisabeth. “It’s money; we never needed it in the convent, but now you need money for everything, you have to pay to sneeze out here; we feel so beholden to Dr Luther, he’s given us somewhere to sleep, and meals too, but we need to earn our living.” She wiped her nose on a kerchief.
“Please don’t think we’re begging for money, we just want your advice on how to earn it; we want to find an occupation, to do something worthwhile.” said Ave.
“The trouble is, we’re not really qualified for any work,” I said. “I mean, we trained to be Brides of Christ, so we know how to pray and sing and read and write and copy the Latin; we can work in the garden and do the livestock. But we haven’t learnt a trade as such; so what can we do except get married?”
“If you were ex-monks you could become pastors but as ex-nuns that option is not open to you.” said Frau Reichenbach.
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�The people seem to resent us. They know we’re fugitive nuns.”
“It’s a small town, dear girls. New faces, you know, and gossip. It gets about.”
Brigitte said, “Dorothea overheard Herr Cruciger telling the Doctor that the Council are worried we’ll be a burden on the parish, and what was he planning to do about us? And of course he can’t keep us here, so he says he is going to ask around for families to take us in as house daughters.”
“A good idea, but of course only a temporary measure.”
Frau Reichenbach leant forward and took another gherkin, cut it in half and laid it on a piece of bread, and began to eat it, slowly, looking at us. Silence fell as we waited nervously for our new friend to offer a solution to our predicament.
“Well, dear girls, you have various options. You can, as you said, get married. That would seem to me to be the most straightforward solution. There’s no shortage of eligible young men in Wittenberg. The other would be to return to your own families; I assume you’ve all asked them for help? Disapprove, do they?”
We nodded again.
“I see. So your other option is to become teachers. You can teach reading and writing and Latin and the catechism. Perhaps you can teach music too? I’m told Dr Melanchthon is starting up a school for girls here in Wittenberg. So that’s another option.”
We agreed, but felt a bit disappointed, as this advice was nothing new.
“But meanwhile, you need to learn how to survive, how to blend in, be less conspicuous in town.”
“But how?”
“Well, let’s take a look at you. Stand up.”
We all got to our feet and stood in a row in front of her.
“You’re all quite thin, aren’t you? And your clothes are dreadful, so let’s get that sorted out for a start. I’ll arrange a visit to my dressmaker, but in the meantime I’ll have my maid bring over five old frocks, I have two to spare myself, and I’ll ask my friend too, she’s recently had some new garments made. Then at the dressmaker you can choose your fabric and he’ll make you each a nice new outfit, which you can use for Sundays and best. In lightweight cloth for the summer months.”
