The Book of Madness and Cures

by Regina O'Melveny

  “And wouldn’t that be theft of the cooking garden?” I prodded her.

  She shrugged. “Who’s out in this cold to catch me?”

  “No one, apparently, and we are the lucky beneficiaries!” said Vincenzo as he dove into the soup with a large pewter spoon.

  The room steamed with the fragrance of Olmina’s soup, as if she’d infused it with the last ripening days of autumn. For a long while our conversation yielded to her talent. After we’d finished the meal, Vincenzo rose with mock ceremony and brought his box to the table, where he undid the brass clasp and lifted the lid. We were greeted by the most delicate smell, suggestive of old light and the faint scent of water in a still pool.

  “Here we have the uncommon Yunnan tea that the Dutch nobles enjoy for over a hundred silver ducats a pound!” He circled his hand smartly. Inside, dark leaves were compressed into small round cakes. He passed the box to Olmina, who sat directly across from him.

  Olmina set her sharp eyes upon him. “And why would you bring this tea to us, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  The merchant gave us a distant smile, though his eyes remained somber, as if he were thinking of some other place, a tea drinker’s pavilion, perhaps, in a more temperate clime. He said, “Because it’s a melancholy thing to drink tea alone. I’d rather share my tea with good company.”

  Olmina’s face softened as she sniffed the rare cakes.

  “Thank you, dear sir,” I said. I closed my eyes when the box came to me. Yes, it was the smell of leaves, light, and water. They suggested something sweet and, even though shadowy and rich, still luminous, like a tree at the edge of water, reflected and reflecting. “This is the kind of tea that could help someone find a lost memory,” I said, and I opened my eyes. I didn’t want to let go of the scent and reluctantly passed the box along to Lorenzo.

  “Mmm,” he murmured as he stuck his nose into a tea cake.

  Olmina set an iron kettle on the stove. When the water rolled to a boil, the merchant got up and moved the kettle to the back of the stove, lifted the lid, and carefully flaked a tea cake straight into the hot water, then quickly set the lid on again.

  “I’ve heard that it’s excellent for a clear mind and heart,” he announced, obviously enjoying the simple preparation. He poured the tea into our mugs and we cupped our hands around the brew, enjoying leaves from the mountains of China. Outside, it began to snow, and we sat quietly for a while, alone and yet companioned in our thoughts, as if the tea’s gift were not just its glorious scent but also this silence in common.

  “Mens sana in corpore sano,” I said, recalling Juvenal.

  “And to ‘Sound mind, sound body’ I might add ‘sound heart,’ ” said Vincenzo, smiling slightly.

  “Ah, sound heart,” I repeated. The snow fell harder now, making a muffled pelting sound on the roof. “I’m curious, to return to my medicine chest, about the needle and red thread. Do you know where it came from?”

  “Hmm, yes, I noticed that after Tübingen.” Vincenzo hesitated. “For I confess, Dr. Mondini, that I examined the chest a few times. It was of utmost interest to me, for though I’m not a doctor, the study of cures has been my avocation.”

  “And did you write upon the drawers, then?”

  “Yes, I identified some of the medicaments in German. For I thought I might not find you . . . I hope you’ll forgive me.” He looked down into his tea.

  I sighed at my own foolish indignation, letting it go as quickly as it came. “Well, it’s no matter,” I said. “So . . . the thread?”

  “I can only guess, Dottoressa. When I reached Tübingen, I asked about you, and my innkeeper referred me to a student lodger down the way from the inn. I met the gentleman, Wilhelm Lochner, and we shared supper for several nights, getting on quite well. One evening I invited him to my room to see the medicine chest—it is rather a marvel, as you well know. I lent it to Wilhelm for a few hours, as he wanted to make a list of the remedies within, being the avid student. I stayed there in the room with him, recording my transactions for the day in my account book.”

  I clenched my mug, nodded, and sipped, but said nothing.

  “I didn’t see him slip anything into the chest, but I wasn’t watching the whole time either. I must tell you that it was his express intention to follow you. I believe, Dr. Mondini, that he thought very highly of you and your cure, for his leg was no longer marred by the ulcer.”

  Everyone stared at me now, anticipating some kind of response, but I wasn’t sure what to make of this. Did I want to see him? Yes, a little. But no, I didn’t want to become entangled. “I’m not certain I wish to see him,” I said carefully at last. “If you should encounter him here, I’d appreciate your discretion.”

  “You shall have it, but I must say the red thread may be a binding charm such as you can find sometimes from the traveling Romani. Maybe he meant it as a kind of message?” Vincenzo suggested.

  Lorenzo snorted at this. “Why wouldn’t he come right out and speak his mind?”

  “The signorina left without seeing him,” Olmina said. “How could he?”

  “The Greeks say Atropos, the Fate who cannot be turned, snips the thread,” I mused.

  “And some Gypsies do come from the lands of Macedonia and Thrace,” the merchant said.

  “Then it may be a curse,” I said uneasily.

  “Or a charm, especially for a doctor, don’t you think? For one must always bow to the goddess of necessity,” the merchant said. “The Fates alone spin, measure, and sever our red vigor. Perhaps your little needle and thread is a reminder of this.”

  “But none of the Fates holds a needle—the doctor’s art is in sewing, drawing things together again, closing the wound.”

  “If you can,” Vincenzo said, in a solemn tone. “Some wounds, like some wrongs, can never be righted.”

  Olmina rose to clear the dishes and said quietly, “No doubt it’s a love charm from Wilhelm, if you ask me.”

  I glared at her. “We need speak no more of this.”

  Vincenzo glanced away to spare me embarrassment.

  “But I have another question for you,” I said.

  He turned his sharp brown eyes to mine.

  “In all your travels, have you ever encountered another Dr. Mondini, my father?”

  “Not exactly. That is, I didn’t meet him myself, though I overheard a gentleman in Edenburg speak of his book . . . something about a vast taxonomy of diseases, though . . .”

  “Though what?”

  “I don’t like to repeat rumors.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll accept it as such.”

  “He said it was a very sorry thing when such a doctor had compiled a work of great breadth and excellence and yet was secretly unbound himself. Forgive me, but those were his words.”

  “And if that were true, how could that man create such a fine encyclopedia of diseases?” I asked rather heatedly.

  “We often flirt with the very thing we create, don’t you think? I myself create an appetite for beautiful bolts of cloth, which I may also be prone to love too much.” He unbuttoned his doublet and patted an elegant violet and silver-wrought waistcoat.

  “Ah, it’s wonderful!” cried Olmina with admiration, for she understood quality cloth far more than I did, since she’d worked it into so many garments for our household.

  “And you, Dr. Mondini, what edge do you play?”

  “I am single-minded to a fault, perhaps, in my need to heal others, to heal my father, to find him.”

  “And your own ailment?”

  I laughed a little. “I’m overly stubborn. I don’t know.”

  “Not stubborn, oh no, Gabriella,” said Olmina. “Unrelenting, hooked as a fish on a line!”

  “Really? I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Hooked on what?”

  “On your father, other doctors, the universities. What about your own instincts?”

  “I know my own talents, don’t worry. And I’m bringing them to the tasks at hand.”

&nbs
p; Lorenzo spoke up. “Of course you are. Olmina misspoke, didn’t you, my dear?”

  She folded her hands on her lap. “Yes, yes, I did. I just wish . . .”

  “What?”

  “I want to go home.” She began to cry.

  I put my arm around her. “Forgive me for dragging you on this journey. I am so grateful. And I too grow weary with the insubstantial traces of my father. But I must exhaust every lead, every place.”

  “Of course you must.” She bent her head to my shoulder.

  Vincenzo stood up. “And I must be on my way if I’m not to lose it in this snowy night. A wonderful repast, dear ladies and gentleman.” He wrapped himself up tightly in his coat and pulled his hat down snugly upon his balding head.

  “Just a moment,” I said, and I quickly ran upstairs. I descended with a small purse of florins. “This is for your trouble, Vincenzo. Thank you for the chest and the message.”

  He pressed my hand kindly and nodded, saying, “I wish you good fortune in your journey, Dr. Mondini. May you find what you are seeking.”

  Lorenzo opened the door to the thick and darkening night.

  Vincenzo raised his hand. “Good night to you all,” he said. Then he turned and immediately vanished into the snowfall, even with his conspicuous black coat, as Lorenzo held up the lantern.

  The next morning, Professor Otterspeer finally sent along a message with his servant, saying that he’d returned to Leiden and that he would come to collect me so that we might attend a dissection.

  A few hours later, I watched him approach from between the half-open shutters of my room. I recognized him from the frontispiece engraving to his volume on anatomy, which my father possessed in Venetia, for the artist had rendered a fine likeness. He trudged through the snow along the canal and knocked loudly upon the door. From my second-story vantage, his black scholar’s cap bobbed outlandishly above the frothy lace of his collar, like an overturned bowl on a river.

  I gave a last tug to arrange my own ruffed collar, attached to a bit of silk covering my chest. Olmina brought me my new indigo woolen cape with a hood trimmed in ermine. What a luxury! I’d ordered it from a tailor off the Rapenburg Canal the second day after we’d arrived, to stave off the cold. Olmina requested a skirt the color of butter and was much pleased with the finished garment. The Dutch are truly master weavers, I marveled now. Tailor Zander, an uncommonly tall man, had stooped with great flourishes to present the serges from the coarsest thickness to the lightest nap, in tones of red, yellow, blue, brown, cream, and black. I was distracted by his fingers, surely the longest and deftest I’d ever witnessed. He kept a silver thimble on his third finger, even though he wasn’t sewing at the time, and a row of straight pins in his waistcoat.

  The anatomy theater would be quite cold, so I hurriedly grabbed my gloves from the windowsill, where I’d thoughtlessly laid them the previous night. The lambskin was crisp, but the wool inside quickly gained warmth from my hands. I stepped out of my room and descended the narrow flight of stairs.

  Lorenzo was nodding in an amused fashion at Professor Otterspeer, who stood just inside the door and spoke an Italian in which he fancied himself fluent. When the professor saw me, he smiled imperiously, red cheeked with rosacea, which blossomed like a map upon his face.

  “Signorina Mondini, my dear lady! A pleasure to meet you at last, in person,” he declared. “Please forgive my inconvenient delay.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself about it, dear Professor,” I replied. “It’s good to meet you as well. I must thank you for procuring our lodging. If you don’t mind, I prefer to be called Dr. Mondini.”

  He raised both shaggy eyebrows then as he took stock of me. I was about to step outside, but he stopped me, holding my arm as he lifted up a small cloth sack I hadn’t noticed, and announced, “I have something here that your father left behind.”

  I opened it and peered inside to find a pair of gored black shoes, slightly worn, smelling of neglect. Olmina took them from me quickly, saying, “Go now with the professor. You can ponder these later.” She glanced at Lorenzo with a knowing look, as if to say, The father is growing ever more distracted, or was it me of whom she was thinking?

  “Go on,” said Lorenzo, giving me a little push toward the professor, who’d already stepped outside.

  Was my father leaving parts of himself behind, like bread crumbs in the old tales, to tell the path? First the glasses, now these shoes.

  “I trust you have viewed an anatomy before?” the professor queried me, somewhat condescendingly, as we began to walk along the canal.

  “Yes,” I said, “I’ve observed a corpse cutting several times in Padua with my father”—that last word stung—“but I look forward to witnessing the Dutch manner of dissection, if indeed it’s distinct from the Italian.” I added mechanically, “I appreciate your kind invitation,” taking small, hesitant steps on the icy ground.

  “Your father would have wished it, though I don’t know if it is kind or not,” he said, “since this morning is thick as unshorn wool.”

  We proceeded to tunnel through the fog, which hung so densely now it remained open behind us like a corridor that slowly folded in upon itself.

  “Professor,” I said, measuring out my concern in small words, “can you tell me more about my father and his stay here?”

  “There is nothing much to tell,” he said curtly, squinting ahead into the dim wall of white. “Your father lodged here for several months in the very cottage you’re renting.”

  “Really?” I’d imagined my father in finer receiving quarters.

  “Yet he remained a very closed man. It is dangerous to be so closed. He would lock himself up for days at a time. Now, while I’m respectful of the solitary sort, if you’re not a hermit pressed into the discipline of prayer—and maybe even if you are a hermit—the mind can become an extravagant thing, lose its bearings or, contrariwise, become so bent upon a certain object that all manner of balance is lost. Especially for one who is not accustomed to our winters.”

  A few other people, spectral, moved past us as we spoke, though we could scarcely see them. It seemed we were alone in a pale room of indeterminate dimensions.

  “Did he behave strangely otherwise or say anything untoward?”

  “Once, he said he was studying the edifying effects of the grave and needed to be left alone.” My companion shook his head.

  “Do you remember any pattern to his moods?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Certain days, certain times . . . ?”

  “Ah, I see what you mean.” He stopped, looked up, and appeared to be searching the air. “No, I can’t really say that I took note, for I lost patience with him a bit and gave him what he wanted—a self-imposed isolation. I informed him that he could be edified all he wanted, but to let me know when he wished to discuss medicine again, like the good doctor he was. I was somewhat offended, you see, by what I perceived as a lapse in collegiality.”

  “Did he ever come round?”

  “Yes, the day he left. Your father seemed genial enough then, apologized for his abruptness. He attributed his attitude to the cold and the perpetual dusk of the Rhinlandt winter. He explained that he must further his studies in Edenburg—”

  “Ah,” I said quietly, considering my next destination. I had thought we’d go to London, but I decided to go on to Edenburg.

  The professor didn’t seem to notice. He continued, “And so graciously, upon departure in the early spring, he embraced me and I forgave him, for I’m affected by the winters myself, and they’ve grown worse and worse these past years.”

  The professor stared down toward the canal, which lay solidly frozen, where small boats sat like so many shoes stuck in ice. Occasional objects studded the surface—a barrel, a rasping log, the odd coil of rope, a broken wooden skate.

  One question nagged at me, but I didn’t speak it aloud: Why did he leave his shoes behind?

  When we crossed the bridge toward the Beguinage, I shud
dered at a bloated gray piglet that stared blankly at the sky, half its body lodged beneath the ice, two legs stuck out like the tines of a pitchfork.

  “What a waste of good sausage,” gibed Professor Otterspeer.

  I drew my hood close about my face with an involuntary shiver, thinking of the pigs I’d observed as a child, hung from the stable eaves when they were to be butchered, near my great-aunt’s house in Fossatello. Their trussed bodies twisted like the pupae I plucked from bark when I wandered in the woods. The pigs shrieked in the blue morning hour as the butcher and his wife held buckets beneath the brisk red streams issuing from their stuck throats. Even now I couldn’t touch roast pig. Wise Ovid was not altogether wrong when he wrote:

  Peace filled the world—until some futile brain

  Envied the lions’ diet and gulped down

  A feast of flesh to fill his greedy guts.

  When at last we reached the anatomy theater, the professor paid our admittance, as was customary, and we entered the hall. We were among the first to arrive, part of an audience that he assured me would be mostly students, some wealthy burghers, a small number of their wives, and other curious townspeople willing to pay the fee. The corpse lay outstretched on the dissection slab, his body beneath a coarse linen sheet.

  “And who is the unfortunate youth?” I asked.

  “I believe he was some vagrant, probably searching for work in the mills. He was found on one of the back roads, naked and rigid as a block of wood in the ditch next to his bony mule. Someone had stolen his clothes and boots,” Professor Otterspeer informed me. “The wretch lay unclaimed for several days. An ignorant foreigner, no doubt.”

  His comment upset me, but I said nothing.

  We approached the subject and the professor lifted the cloth.

  “He appears nearly intact,” I observed, avoiding the man’s face, “unlike those cadavers removed from the gibbet, which have been scavenged by wild dogs and ravens.”

  He lowered the cloth with a peculiar tenderness. “I’m surprised that you can view the corpse so candidly, Signorina Mondini. Most women keep their distance. As perhaps they should, don’t you think?” There was a slight gleam in his eye, which led me to believe he didn’t speak seriously, though he wasn’t entirely in jest either.