The Book of Madness and Cures

by Regina O'Melveny

  After he’d gone, the snowfall filled in the hollow, opening one within me. Here was a man, I realized, who had sensed me through my disguise. I spoke quietly to the closed window and the submerged world beyond the imperfect glass: “Wilhelm Lochner, come in.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Where the Root Is in the House, the Devil Can Do No Harm

  The next morning, Olmina shook my shoulders abruptly to wake me. “You have a visitor. Or shall I say a patient?”

  “Olmina?” I stared at her, for now she wore women’s clothing for the first time in many days.

  “Ah, well, I suspect that all of Tübingen knows now who is staying at the house of Dr. Fuchs, thanks to Hans. For one servant speaks to another, and one student speaks to many! That one with the yellow hair, who knows what he’s said. Anyway, I’m weary of men’s garments. I like the feel of more cloth around me.”

  “But what’s this you say about a patient?”

  “It’s that fellow who stood at the door yesterday. And mind you, signorina, I don’t like this. Be careful.”

  Wilhelm Lochner had returned and requested a consultation with the foreign doctor. Dr. Fuchs thought it odd, and then he considered that it might be rather edifying, or so he told me later. Hence, to my frustration, he agreed without asking my consent.

  After a short while (I didn’t take long to dress, for unlike Olmina, I liked the ease of dressing as a man, even if everyone knew I was a woman now), I descended the stairs and entered the study, where the two men were seated before a boisterous fire. “Have you ever visited a woman doctor, then, Mr. Lochner?” I asked, skipping the usual courtesies and coming straight to the point.

  Both men gaped at me rather foolishly, though both had already seen me in male garb. No doubt my legs were provocative in chestnut breeches. Men rarely perceived even an ankle, unless it belonged to a mistress or wife.

  Wilhelm Lochner stood and bowed. “No, I’ve never had the distinct privilege of meeting a lady of this profession before you.” He was brilliant as an equatorial bird, with stockings striped in three kinds of blue, indigo velvet breeches, a purple doublet, and red gloves that matched his deep red boots. “But how did you come by my name, dear lady?”

  “I overheard you yesterday at the door.” I paused, then continued rather coolly, “So what is troubling you?” I didn’t want Mr. Lochner to know that his concern at the church had attracted me.

  “Gabriella,” Dr. Fuchs broke in, “Wilhelm was acquainted with your father.”

  “Ah.” I now regarded him more carefully. That was sly of Dr. Fuchs.

  “What do you recall of my father?” I asked, not feeling so hasty now, sitting down in a chair opposite the two men. I felt a little distracted myself by my exposed legs, stretched out before me, flickering with firelight.

  “Your father,” replied Mr. Lochner, “was a very intelligent doctor who soothed an ulcer upon my leg, though Dr. Fuchs did not approve of his cure.” He cast a mock-challenging glance at his professor and then returned to me. “Now I’m suffering this skin ulcer again and wish to hear your recommendation.”

  “I’ll have to view the offending ulcer first, if you’ll permit me.”

  He appeared surprised at my request. Perhaps he expected me to either confirm my father’s cure or inquire after Dr. Fuchs’s suggestion, like those philosophical doctors who pay little heed to what is before their own eyes when prescribing a cure. Either way, he didn’t tell me what was used. He was testing me, then.

  “I’ll step out of the room and return when you’re ready,” I proposed, and I left him to partly undress.

  A few minutes later I was summoned to view Mr. Lochner, who stood with his back to me, his breeches scrunched up, his left stocking rolled down to reveal the back of his taut thigh, where a small, round ulcer wept. I examined it carefully, touching the skin around it, at which Mr. Lochner winced in pain. “I no longer have my medicines at hand, Mr. Lochner,” I said, breaking the disconcerting silence in the room. “But I’d recommend a poultice of hemlock for this kind of stubborn lesion.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at me with a slightly bemused smile, while Dr. Fuchs shook his head and said, “Your father suggested comfrey, which frankly I find to be ineffective in these sores.”

  “Ah, he did,” I mused. “I’d say that would be an excellent thing for a fresh suppuration in the skin. But since you told me you’ve had the ulcer a long while, albeit of recurring habit, something more potent is needed.”

  Dr. Fuchs spoke up: “But hemlock, my dear! It’s dangerous and the devil’s herb besides!”

  “Yet didn’t I spy the poison parsley in your medicine chest in the herbarium? I’ve heard it said, ‘Where the root is in the house, the devil can do no harm,’ and further, ‘If anyone should carry the plant about on his person, no venomous beast can harm him.’ A bit of the devil repels the devil, then!”

  Dr. Fuchs reddened, whether from embarrassment or irritation I wasn’t sure.

  “You may roll up the stocking, Lochner,” he said brusquely. “And as for your interpretation, Gabriella, those adages come from ignorant midwives, not doctors.”

  So it was irritation, then. Since I trusted the experience of midwives, my own anger rose in their defense, though I said evenly, “There is more than one path to healing, Dr. Fuchs.”

  “And we’ve seen that here today in this very room, have we not?” interjected his student, still standing with one stocking up, one stocking down. He smiled at me.

  I began to laugh a little, in spite of myself, and even Dr. Fuchs smiled now at the gaudy young man who stumbled toward me with a sort of bow. “Thank you, Dr. Mondini,” Wilhelm said. “I see that the daughter is just as wise as the father.”

  My neck tingled pleasantly when he called me Dr. Mondini. Perhaps I was not just a novelty to him, a “dear lady” doctor.

  Then he turned to Dr. Fuchs. “Could you have your man prepare the hemlock for me? I’ll pay you well, master.”

  Dr. Fuchs grumbled as he left the room, and I followed him to help assemble the cure. A short time later, after having soaked a strip of linen in the hemlock decoction, I returned and wound the compress around the leg (which I noted was quite firm), covering the ulcer.

  Mr. Lochner flinched and wobbled, at one point inadvertently resting his hand on my head while regaining his balance. Then he stroked my hair once furtively before facing away to draw up his stocking and fasten his garter. In that moment the firm back of his thigh, those muscular lineaments, usually unseen, possessed a crude power to move me.

  I rose and observed him struggling with the garter. When he turned to thank me, his clear blue eyes were chagrined by his fumbling.

  I looked away. “Mr. Lochner, if this doesn’t prove to be efficacious, you must consider the maggot cure. For they will debride the flesh that clings and doesn’t heal.”

  “I’d rather not take that cure till the grave!”

  “But surely you’ve studied its great benefits? The worms consume only dead flesh, so you should have no qualms about it.”

  He bent close and murmured, “I would gladly be debrided if it afforded me more time in your company.”

  I stepped back (though some yearning in me invisibly sprang forward) and extended my hand. “Good day, then, Mr. Lochner. We must meet again here in a week so that I can reexamine the ulcer. Remember to have your servant change the dressing at least twice a day.”

  He smiled secretively and pressed my hand. “Thank you, Dr. Mondini. I’ll send word regarding a time we may meet and speak of your father. I’d like to hear more about the Paduan philosophy of medicine. I know a quiet inn that women may attend for refreshment, though you must dress as a woman then. If you were found out to be masquerading as a man, you’d be severely punished. Surely Dr. Fuchs has warned you that women may be put to death in Germania for such an offense?”

  Dr. Fuchs spoke in a low voice. “I didn’t wish to frighten her. And besides”—he smirked—“the lady is very obstinat
e.”

  “You’re right, of course.” I nodded. “Though it doesn’t seem fair, does it, that men wear the more generous clothing, and we the more constrained.”

  “What would the world come to if women wore the same garb as men!” cried Dr. Fuchs, throwing up his knobby hands.

  “Then men would have to seek something other than a cunning sleeve or elaborate bodice,” said Mr. Lochner, and I laughed aloud. Then he said, “Good day, Dr. Mondini,” as he donned a broad ocher hat and longcoat and departed with a kind of foolish strut, whether intended self-mockery or simply good spirits I couldn’t tell.

  I hadn’t laughed so easily in months.

  Olmina watched all this from the doorway with narrowed eyes, arms crossed upon her chest.

  CHAPTER 11

  Manifestations of Solar Madness

  “Good to see you once again, Dr. Mondini.” A shadow hidden at the base of one of the watchtowers detached itself from the wall and stepped forward. “May I walk with you?”

  “Of course, Mr. Lochner!” I answered, startled and pleased. It was a chill afternoon, a few days after I had addressed his ulcer. Olmina and I were walking near the silt-brown Neckar River, where the last ocher leaves of fall now huddled under snow along the dark banks. Both of us were back in our proper clothing, but my cloak and skirts barely kept me warm as fitful gusts wheezed through the trees.

  Wilhelm Lochner was cloaked in gray, no longer displaying his colors.

  Olmina grunted and held fast to my arm as Mr. Lochner offered me his. I didn’t take it.

  “How is the leg?” I inquired.

  “Healing slowly, but the edges are shrinking.”

  “The hemlock’s doing its work. You’re not dizzy, are you?”

  “No, no, I’ve had no unpleasant symptoms.” His woolen coat brushed against mine as he drew closer. “I’m glad to see you before our next meeting at Dr. Fuchs’s house.”

  Olmina sighed in forbearance.

  I ignored her and (willing to be a fool) responded, “I’m glad to see you as well.”

  He laughed a little nervously and then asked, “Would you ladies like to join me for a cup of hot brandy? There’s a wonderful inn not far from here where the alewife also serves wine—with a lump of sugar if you prefer. But of course you know the medicinal benefits of our excellent brandy, eh?”

  “That would be very kind of you. I could use a little medicine for the melancholia.”

  Even Olmina—who enjoyed a sip now and then—brightened and nodded.

  We quickened our pace, and as we turned a corner and neared the dense, leafless willows at the base of a pitted battlement, I noticed a place where it formed an angled stone seam, a hidden, sheltered place for lovers. What if Olmina weren’t here, would I let . . . , or better still, would I draw Mr. Lochner against the wall and pull his long-coat around me, would I spark desire like flint against the cold?

  As we headed up one of the steep streets toward the inn, I noticed that he appeared younger than I, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. I wasn’t old, yet suddenly the daydream fled. My reddish-brown hair hung ragged and short beneath my hat, and my lips felt chapped as I licked them in the bitter air.

  A scattered snowfall flew here and there, uneven white flakes like bits of charred paper. Night didn’t fall; rather, day leached from the air and dark caulked the spaces left behind. Gratefully we came at last to the Inn of the Blue Knight, its faded sign (a noble on a white horse with blue livery) wagging crookedly with each snowy gust. We entered a low-ceilinged drinking room that hummed with conversation and muted laughter. We found a snug wooden table near the fire, Olmina sitting next to me on the bench and Mr. Lochner opposite.

  I noticed other women in twos and threes with half-covered baskets from the marketplace, round loaves of bread still steamy and filling the air with the simplest sort of pleasure—the scent of barley bread. Many of the customers ate their fresh loaves on the spot, with a bit of honey and a white cheese called quarg. Mr. Lochner ordered some for us from the thin-as-a-punt-pole alewife, along with our brandies.

  So this was the drinking place for maids, wives, and widows after they’d gone to market. There were a few men here too, tucked into the corners, who seemed strange interlopers, spectators among a roomful of women. The plain creamy cheese, bread, and drink were the finest feast we could have desired at that moment. Soon my throat warmed with brandy. “Truly, Mr. Lochner, I had no idea such places existed for women. In Venetia we savor our wine at home or at the homes of friends.”

  He gave me a warm, appraising look and said, “Please call me Wilhelm. May I call you Gabriella?”

  “I rather like ‘Dr. Mondini,’ but of course, call me by my given name.”

  “And you may call me Lady Olmina,” announced my companion (having quaffed her brandy rather quickly), muffling a guffaw.

  I turned to look at her in mild shock, for I’d rarely seen her intoxicated—or even ironic. But her humor pleased me. Wilhelm laughed and asked her, “A bit more brandy for the lady?”

  “Oh no!”

  “Oh yes!” he said, smiling, as he motioned at the pale alewife to fill our pewter cups a second time.

  “Mr. Lochner,” I blurted out, “would you tell us more of my father, for as you may know, he’s become lost to us.”

  “Your father was very preoccupied with his book. And you know, he had a sort of rivalry with Dr. Fuchs.”

  I’d suspected as much but said nothing.

  “There was some question of a cure that Dr. Fuchs felt your father had stolen from him, to redound to your father’s credit in The Book of Diseases. Your father insisted that cures should be available to all and not remain the property of this or that herbalist. But Dr. Fuchs wanted to be a coauthor, for he’d been working on a book of simples. Your father left with some ill feeling, I’m sorry to say. I found pages of his book, which I’m sure he didn’t intend to leave behind, in Dr. Fuchs’s study.”

  I sat up, surprised. “Do you still have those pages?”

  “No, I came across them, but I didn’t dare remove them! I’d be banished from university if Dr. Fuchs found out. He’s my guardian-mentor.”

  “I wonder how he obtained those pages. My father is very protective of his manuscript . . .”

  “It would’ve been the last day, when he was departing, so he wouldn’t have missed them.”

  “What did they contain?”

  “I didn’t read through the whole section—it comprised maybe twenty pages—because I could hear Dr. Fuchs shuffling back to his study. He sometimes let me read his books and write my annotations there . . . but what I perused had the title ‘Manifestations of Solar Madness, Correlative to Lunacy.’ It explored common and curious diseases, from fevers to solar bedevilment, where a man considers himself to be the very fire in the sky and wanders naked, shedding his light. Or so he believes.”

  I lowered my voice. “Where are the pages kept?”

  Olmina came out of her happy stupor to chastise me in a loud voice. “What are you thinking?”

  “Shhh!” both Wilhelm and I exhorted her.

  Then he continued, “Dear Gabriella, I don’t think I should reveal that. It might bring you trouble.”

  “I would like to add them to my own pages of notes.”

  “Ah, you are writing a book, then, too?” He sat up straight and set down the brandy he’d been cradling with both hands. His eyes darkened with interest.

  “I was assisting my father.”

  “Ooh,” groaned Olmina. She poked me under the table. “You’re saying too much to this stranger.”

  “He’s no stranger.”

  “Oh yes, he is. You know nothing about him!”

  “We know nothing about Dr. Fuchs, really, either,” I declared.

  “And you know nothing about me!” She began to get weepy.

  I turned to her, chuckling. “Olmina, eat some bread. You’ll feel better. What don’t I know about you?”

  She leaned into me and asserted
, “I know how to read, for one thing. I taught myself and read your father’s books in the middle of the night when you were all asleep.” She put her head down on her arms on the table.

  I stared at her, amazed. “That’s why you know so much when we treat the patients. I thought you learned by observing my father and me! What a dullard I’ve been.” I should have been upset, I suppose, but I couldn’t muster it.

  “Well, well,” observed Wilhelm, “there are three doctors at this table—one true, one student, and one hidden! To all the doctors here!” He raised his glass, and Olmina and I did the same, all three of us united, conspiratorial now, and grinning.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” Olmina mumbled. “Lorenzo doesn’t know—he’d be angry at me for endangering our standing with you.”

  I hugged her and promised my silence. She knew how to read, my servingwoman. I was proud, astonished. What else didn’t I know? More and more I saw those closest to me as vast villas with secret quarters, whole wings, perhaps, that were hidden to me.

  “My word, to never tell,” announced Wilhelm, with a flourish that signified the brandy had now warmed his brain as well. “And dear Gabriella, beware that your host doesn’t steal your words too. Are your notes safe?”

  “Yes, I believe so, but I’ll be wary.”

  “We should go,” Olmina said. “It’s getting late. Lorenzo will worry.”

  And so, unsteady threesome that we were, we swung back through the deepening cold and darkness to Dr. Fuchs’s house, Wilhelm in the middle, Olmina holding his left arm while I held the right. Somehow we managed to keep one another afloat in this blundering symmetry, chattering and sometimes hooting, until we reached the door. The young servant boy, grinning insolently, let us in before we even knocked. There in the dark entryway, Wilhelm pulled my glove slowly from my fingers and kissed my wintry palm rather than the back of my hand, as I thought he meant to do. The press of his mouth felt hot as a brand.