by Clio Gray
After a short silence a light appeared and they could hear a woman’s voice.
‘Momento, bitte. Ich komme. Pazienza!’
The woman carried on grumbling down what must have been a very long passageway, judging by the length of time it took her to reach the door.
‘Frau Brenstoffen, it is Ridente!’ the Rabbi shouted, still hammering heartily upon the wood, Frau Brenstoffen’s reply being not so brief.
‘Ach, Rabbi this, Rabbi that, always something; get me this, get me that. It’s a wonder my legs aren’t worn to stumps . . .’
The door was opened finally by a fractious little woman whose grey hair whispered thinly over her head.
‘Frau Brenstoffen,’ said Ridente, ‘but you’re looking as beautiful as ever.’
The little Frau spat, but seemed placated by the compliment.
‘Is your good lodger at home?’ the Rabbi continued. ‘It’s urgent we see him.’
‘Well, Rabbi, I don’t know. He’s always locked away in his rooms, so busy. But for you, I will go and see.’
Another long shuffle down the corridor was forestalled by a door opening and a head emerging from a darkened room.
‘Rabbi!’ the disembodied head said, alerted by the banging on the door. ‘What a pleasant surprise, and I hope you have the Kapellmeister with you. I have the results of our latest experiments. Come in, come on in!’
‘Ah Dottore!’ the Rabbi shouted back at him. ‘I’m afraid we’re here tonight on business. We’ve a boy who . . . bring him in, Maulwerf . . . here he is. We had a slight accident during the service.’
Philbert was brought through the door and down the corridor, Kwert and Maulwerf’s shoulders banging against the narrowness of its walls, but once they reached the doctor’s room they found him already pulling books and papers from a large table at its centre, motioning them to deposit Philbert on its now empty expanse. The moment Kwert released his burden he grabbed the Doctor’s hand and began to shake it, bowing deeply.
‘So you are Doctor Ullendorf!’ Kwert exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘What a pleasure, sir, what a pleasure! I’ve long admired your work, but never hoped I might actually get to meet you. It is an honour.’
‘I am Ullendorf,’ said the doctor, his free hand going automatically to brush away the frizz of dark curls that grew like seaweed from his unhatted head, his eyes, nevertheless, fixed upon the boy who’d been dumped upon his table. Kwert was visibly overcome.
‘I can’t tell you how delighted I am to meet you, sir. My name is Kwert, and the boy here is Philbert. His head has always been like this, a taupe, I understand, and as a craniometrist you must know how unusual that is. In the phrenologist’s vocabulary he is quite simply unique, or at least as unique as we’re ever likely to see in our lifetimes. What an absolute pleasure!’
Ullendorf freed his hand from Kwert’s, surveying Kwert with interest, his hair still bobbing as if in a high wind.
‘So you must be the ones travelling with Maulwerf’s Fair of Wonders,’ Ullendorf replied. ‘And a taupe, you say. And born with it? Yes, I’ve heard of such things, and what an interesting case.’
He took up a magnifying glass then and a single great eye loomed towards Philbert where he’d been deposited on the table like a piece of fish, still vaguely conscious, eyes back to frontward, seeing all and hearing all but far away, as if he were nothing more than an owl swooping by them, in and out of that stall Hermann had told him was all that made up a man’s life. Corti interrupted.
‘We think, Dottore, that he may have collapsed due to the carillon. I was holding sustained notes on two bells to give a single assonance which, as you know, during our experiments, can cause deep vibrations in objects of kindred spirit. In this case I suspect the fluids inside the lad’s head must have begun to move in resonance with the tone, that his brain is somehow being affected by the internal movement of the cerebral . . .’
‘Yes, yes, Corti,’ the doctor said. ‘You have made a most excellent pupil and learned well, and it is possibly as you say, but I must look closer . . .’
He leaned forward, examining Philbert’s taupe with his fingers, pushing at it gently, searching the skin for whatever structures lay beneath.
‘Sometimes such things are like a nestful of vipers,’ he pontificated as he palped. ‘Release the plug and whoosh! They’re out quick as a belch and no one can put them back. Other times – just a moment – Corti, hand me my auscultator,’ and Corti did, picking out one instrument from the many that lay on a small trolley to the left of the table on which Philbert lay. ‘Other times. . .’ Ullendorf went on, but did not finish, as he took up the hollow wooden tube Corti had given him, moving it slowly and methodically over the surface of Philbert’s taupe, his face creased in concentration.
Everyone else moved away to give the doctor room, Corti to light lamps, Ridente and Maulwerf drawn to the wine-filled pewter jug that was stood on a small ledge beside a book-cluttered desk, Kwert hovering behind the doctor’s back, studying his every move.
‘Yes . . .’ murmured Ullendorf, his ear to his instrument, head cocked to one side in concentration, eyes half-closed as he listened hard. ‘Yes, I believe I can hear something, something inside . . .’
Philbert heard the collective cessation of breath at this dramatic statement, although it appeared to him that he wasn’t lying on the table at all but was instead tethered to the ceiling looking down, his mind creating the illusion so successfully that he could feel the cobwebs collected in the eaves wafting against his face, saw a couple of discarded fly-wings glinting in the light of the doctor’s lamps – as if he were Harlekin watching one of his plays unfold before him on his stage.
‘Can you hear me? Philbert, did you say? Are you awake?’ Ullendorf went on with his examination. ‘It’s curious that his eyes are open,’ he commented, scribbling a short note in his journal before carrying on with his examination, and indeed Philbert’s eyes were now back to normal, responsive to Ullendorf’s finger, tracking it as he moved it from side to side.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said then to Philbert’s prostrate form. ‘I am Doctor Ullendorf, and to your left is Corti, and your friends are also here. I’m just taking a look at your most interesting head. You must be rather proud of it. How lucky some people are! Now then,’ he handed his auscultator back to Corti, who replaced it on its surgical tray, Ullendorf turning, addressing himself formally first to Kwert and then Maulwerf.
‘I believe we need to do a small operation to release the pressure. It’s dangerous for the brain to have so much weight pressing upon it. It will be no worse than chiselling a chink into a wall to let in a little light.’
Maulwerf looked dubious.
‘I’m not sure, Doctor. I’m certain you’re very skilled at what you do, but what if his skull collapses once you stick a needle into it? What if it goes off like a punctured balloon?’
Ullendorf smiled. ‘My dear Mr Maulwerf, I assure you that could never happen. The taupe grows directly on top of the skull, and may even be depressing the bone beneath. This is my calling, my area of study. The boy could not be in better hands.’
Maulwerf raised his eyebrows, but Kwert nodded his head gravely. He’d known of this Ullendorf for many years, read every scrap of his work he could lay hands on, and believed in those Ullendorf hands as they examined Philbert’s head.
‘Below the taupe,’ said Ullendorf, reciting from one of his own many texts, ‘the bulbiform mass will be normal, I guarantee it. What we need do is burrow through the tumorous protrusion and take a small plug from the skull-bone, thus releasing the pressure that has been building up over the years. It’s a good thing this has happened. It has drawn our attention to a need that was already there. If we don’t operate, the lad will begin to get headaches and they will get worse; the pressure will build and build, until, crash! Like a dam that cannot hold the force of w
ater it has been trying to contain it will begin to crack, letting the one part flow directly into the other, and then . . .’
He didn’t finish his caveat, but smiled down over Philbert, apparently assuming he could see him, which oddly enough Philbert could, having swung down momentarily from the ceiling to the table before going back up again. Corti spoke again.
‘Believe me, he’s in very good hands, Maulwerf. Dottore Ullendorf is the foremost trepannist in Europe. His skill in diagnosing ailments and the releasing of bad vapours is unexcelled. I have had the esteemed opportunity to be his assistant while he’s been here in Finzeln, and no surgeon could have so steady a hand.’
Ullendorf looked over to Kwert and then to Maulwerf.
‘Whose charge is the boy actually in?’ he asked, Philbert’s eyes involuntarily following the man Corti as he crossed and re-crossed the room, watching as he picked up some instrument from the shadows. His attention was momentarily caught by a tray whose surface was covered with tools, shiny silver instruments with ivory handles and toothed cogs, miniature circular saws, a three-legged compass, points sharp and glinting, some part of Philbert realising suddenly what this Doctor, or Dottore, depending on what language you were speaking, was about to do, and that he was about to crack open his head like a duck’s egg. At this point he tried his hardest to struggle and protest but his body barely twitched with the effort, and only the strange man Corti seemed to notice this apparent reaction and physically pushed Ullendorf to one side, taking hold once again of Philbert’s hand.
‘Shame on us all!’ Corti proclaimed. ‘We are talking about the lad as if he was no more than a frog held down with pins! But it’s alright, Philbert. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. The Dottore is just going to perform a simple operation, and it won’t hurt. I can promise you that. He’s done the same to me, not once, but twice, and afterwards you will feel so much better, like a breeze has blown through your head and swept all the cobwebs away.’
Philbert saw Corti clearly for the first time, that the man’s arms truly were clipped off at the elbows, hands growing directly from the joints, and was oddly comforted by it. He saw too the man’s face, flat as an iron, though not grotesquely so, and he had such a gentle smile and green eyes that were bright, almost phosphorescent, alive with fire-flies that twinkled in the dim light of the room. A man to be trusted, whoever he was, and Philbert relaxed.
‘Well, Kwert,’ Maulwerf spoke. ‘If you agree, I think we must let the doctor have his way. Not that I hold much with this new-fangled head-holing. I’m not one for peering inside other people’s bits and pieces, for Lord knows what you’re letting in and letting out. No offence, Doctor,’ he bowed his head briefly, but Ullendorf only smiled.
‘None taken. And remember, one and all, that curiosity always precedes progress.’
Maulwerf sat back in his seat, taking the goblet offered him by Ridente, the slight sheen of his waistcoat bristling where he’d brushed the nap the wrong way with his hand, Philbert not being immediately at hand to correct it for him.
‘And remember too,’ Ullendorf added mildly, as he moved away from Philbert and his table and started polishing his instruments on a strop of leather, ‘that most of us will tolerate a condition we are suffering until we understand it can be otherwise.’
Maulwerf and Kwert exchanged glances, both thinking of Hermann, as was Philbert, remembering Hermann leaning back from the bridge and letting himself go. And that was what Philbert did too. He let himself go. He didn’t feel the leather buckles being strapped about his body and head, nor that Frau Brenstoffen had brought in a pail of boiled water in which the instruments to be used were now soaking. Ullendorf was checking his drill. Kwert was off to one side looking worried. Corti had drawn up a chair and placed himself where Philbert could see him. Rabbi Ridente and Maulwerf already pouring out more wine.
‘Of course you’ll have read in the Second Book of Maccabees about the brothers who were scalped,’ homilised Ridente, as he clinked goblets with Maulwerf, ‘and how the skin of their heads was torn off by their hair before they were fried alive in a giant skillet. It used to be commonplace to scalp your enemies, or so I gather. Apparently the natives of the Americas do it all the time.’
Ullendorf was busy retrieving his instruments from the bucket, drying them on a steam-scalded towel.
‘Ah yes,’ he replied, as if he were in some philosophical salon and not about to perform a delicate surgical procedure. ‘Very ingenious. Though in all cultures the process seems very much the same, usually done – in primitive cultures – with sharpened stones, first cutting a line about the cranium, starting in the middle of the forehead and going out on each side above the ears, then down to the back of the neck. One side first and then the other, or – with those very skilled – one complete and uninterrupted circular movement.’
Ridente interrupted, unhappy his tale had been hi-jacked. ‘They say it’s like skinning a rabbit – a few quick slices with the knife, a few hard tugs, and off the skin comes like orange peel.’
‘The Anglo-Saxons did it too,’ Ullendorf went on as if no one had spoken. ‘And were so skilful that many survived afterwards to tell the tale, at least so we read in the chronicles they’ve left us.’
‘They’d need a good wardrobe of hats and wigs afterwards,’ Ridente riposted. ‘Though I’m told the English wear such objects for fashion.’
He laughed at what he took to be a good joke, but Ullendorf took him literally and quibbled at the Rabbi’s grasp of history and custom as he laid his needed instruments out onto his trolley.
‘Oh no sir, far too early for such frivolities, as far as wigs and hats go for the ancients. Though it strikes me often that men today are just as cruel as they were back then. I’ve read of several jungle tribes who to this day tether monkeys to trees, treating them like pets as they fatten them up, then one day decide this is the time to slice off the tops of their little heads, scoop out their still beating brains, eating them while the monkeys are running around in circles screaming, “Why is my head so cold? Who let in the rain?” And of course there’s definite evidence the Polenesiani people eat the brains of their dead relatives and cover themselves in the ground-up ashes of their ancestors’ burned bones.’
‘Enough!’ Corti’s voice was not loud, but loud enough to silence both Rabbi and surgeon. He’d found a bottle of brandy and dabbed a little to Philbert’s lips as he continued with his admonition. ‘Ridente, Dottore, I really don’t think you should be speaking of such things, interesting as they might be. The boy’s eyes are open, as are probably his ears. What if he can hear you?’
And so he could. Philbert had heard everything and felt the sweat rising upon his skin, trying to wriggle free all this while, to shout and jump from the confines of his infuriatingly unresponsive body.
‘Hrrmph,’ said Ullendorf, chastened. ‘Quite right. My apologies. Philbert, if you can hear me, I apologise. One forgets that the catatonic state induced by pressure on the brain does not preclude conscious sensation.’
Ullendorf loomed above Philbert with his knife and Philbert tried once again to intervene, saw Ullendorf suck in his lips, adjust the lamp, saw him shift his head slightly to one side as he started to wash Philbert’s taupe with oil of vitriol. By now Philbert was in absolute panic. He could see, he could hear, and though he could not exactly feel, he knew precisely where he was and what was about to happen.
‘Look at me, Philbert.’
It was Corti, gentle and reassuring, and Philbert looked, saw Corti lift a strange contraption onto his knees, what looked like a bunch of dried straw tied together with string.
‘This is a reed organ,’ Corti spoke directly to Philbert. ‘Sometimes called a cheng in China. Each reed has a metal tongue placed inside it and we use this gourd, this calabash, to take the breath, mould the sound, make it bigger.’
Philbert calmed a little, ceased his f
ight, focussing on Corti and his cheng.
‘I’m going to blow into the reeds and I’m going to play them,’ Corti said, ‘and you are going to listen, and you’ll hear a melody of great beauty. Do you understand?’
Philbert did, though couldn’t say so, but then Corti began to blow into his instrument and the sound came to Philbert like wind within a cave, like a shell placed against his ear. The knife sliced, and a few drops of blood fell from Philbert’s head but he didn’t notice, concentrated as he was upon the sounds of the reed organ that was like water tippling over stones, wind through a fallen heap of leaves. Ullendorf took up his knife again and made his T-cut, picked up his pincers, pinched open Philbert’s scalp, and Corti’s cheng sang like swans going over marshlands as Ullendorf peeled back the skin and placed his miniature tripod, turned the handles, lowered the drill, pushing the central piece down into Philbert’s taupe. He retracted it, replaced it with a longer drill shaft and then went on with his operation, drilling down and down through Philbert’s taupe until the teeth finally hit bone, a slight smell of burning filling the room. All Philbert heard was the singing of the cheng, the wind and the swans. The drill-handle moved along its oiled coils as Ullendorf went at his task, the grating sound as it went through the bone making Kwert wince. Ullendorf carried on as if he did such a thing every day of every week, a few moments later reversing his drill, brushing his hands briefly on his trousers to wipe away the sweat before steadying the instrument for its final bite. Philbert felt no pain, felt instead as if a hundred thousand butterflies had just been born inside him, taking flight as Ullendorf finally scraped out the circle of his skull with the drill’s teeth. Corti played, Kwert paced nervously, Ridente and Maulwerf drank on.
