Death and the Devil: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  “So you don’t believe me?” he asked warily.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Do you think I’m lying, then?”

  “Ah!” Jaspar made a bizarre-looking jump. “Our friend is learning the art of dialectics. May even be trying to engage me in a Socratic dialogue. No, I do not think you’re lying.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” moaned Jacob, completely at a loss.

  Jaspar sighed. “No Socrates after all.” He sat down beside Jacob and clasped his hands behind his bald head. “Right. There are two men who have never done each other any harm. One night the archangel appears to one of them and announces that the other will hit him over the head with a rock and kill him. Terrified, the man picks up a rock and hurls it at the other so as to beat him to it. But his aim is poor and the other, seeing himself attacked, picks up the stone and strikes the first man dead in self-defense, of course, thus fulfilling the archangel’s prophecy. Did the archangel speak the truth?”

  Jacob thought for a while. “Who would doubt the words of an archangel?” he said. “But I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

  “The truth. The archangel told the man the other would kill him. He didn’t say the other intended to kill him. But the first man took what he thought was the truth as the truth. Looked at in this light, it was his misinterpretation of the archangel’s prophecy, that is something that was not the truth, that led to it being fulfilled, that is the truth. If, on the other hand, he had ignored the warning, then nothing would have happened. But in that case the archangel would have lied, which, as you quite rightly point out, is de facto impossible. Leaving us with a dilemma. Do you follow me so far?”

  “I—I’m trying. Yes, I think so.”

  “Good,” said Jaspar. “So where is the truth in the story?”

  Jacob thought. Hard. It was like a fairground inside his head. Stalls being opened, music blaring, peasants dancing across the floor with thunderous steps, bawling and shouting.

  “So?” asked Jaspar.

  “The archangel alone is in possession of the truth,” Jacob declared.

  “Is he? Did he tell the truth, then?”

  “Of course. What he said came true.”

  “Only because the man didn’t understand the truth. But if he didn’t understand it, then the archangel may well have intended the truth, but he didn’t tell the truth.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Exactly. Every divine prophecy is clear, or are we to assume an archangel lacks the intellectual capacity to communicate with an ordinary mortal?”

  “Perhaps the archangel intended the man to misunderstand?” Jacob proposed hesitantly.

  “Possible. But then he would have told a deliberate lie to provoke the misunderstanding. Where does that leave the truth?”

  “Just a minute,” Jacob exclaimed. The fairground inside his head was threatening to degenerate into complete pandemonium. “The truth is that the archangel told the truth. The man was hit over the head and killed.”

  “But you’ve just said yourself he was killed because the archangel told a deliberate lie.”

  Jacob slumped back down. “Oh, yes,” he admitted sheepishly.

  “But an archangel always tells the truth, yes?”

  “I—”

  “So where is it, this truth?”

  “Couldn’t we talk about something else?”

  “No.”

  “The truth is nowhere in your story, dammit.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know. Why are you telling me all this?”

  Jaspar smiled. “Because you are like the man the archangel appeared to. You judge by appearances as well. You don’t think. It’s possible you might have told the truth, and everything happened as you said. But can you be sure?”

  Jacob was silent for a long time. “Tell me where the truth is,” he begged.

  “The truth? It’s simple. There was no archangel. The man imagined it. That solves our dilemma.”

  Jacob stared at him, openmouthed. “A bloody clever conjuring trick.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Does that mean I dreamed it all, too?”

  Jaspar shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows. You see how difficult it is to get at the truth. To see the truth, you must first doubt it. Put another way, in a desperate situation you have two alternatives. Headlong flight, as so far—”

  “Or?”

  “Or you use your head.” Jaspar stood up. “But do not forget,” he said, a severe expression on his face, “that I still have no proof that you’re really telling the truth.” Then a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “But I like you. At least I’m willing to try to find out. In the meantime you can stay here. Just think of yourself as my servant. And now you’d better get a few hours’ sleep. You look a little pale about the gills.”

  Jacob let out a slow breath. “How did you mean that?”

  “What?”

  “That about using my head. What do you think I should do instead of running away?”

  Jaspar spread his hands out. “Isn’t it obvious? Go on the attack.”

  MEMENTO MORI

  Matthias stood by the bier with Gerhard’s body, immersed in his memories.

  He had gotten on well with the architect. Not that they had been quite what you would call friends. Matthias would not have sacrificed a friend. That would have been impossible anyway since, basically, he had no friends. But there was a characteristic he had shared with Gerhard, an exceptional clarity of mind combined with the ability to plan months and years ahead. Too few people saw time as something to be planned. The mystics even denied its very existence because an ever-rolling stream of time made possible what they condemned as heresy: progress, poison to the minds of the logicians with their Roscelin of Compiègne, Peter Abelard, Roger Bacon, Anselm, and the like. Most people saw time as a gift from God, to be consumed rather than exploited, parceled up into lauds and vespers, prime, terce, sext and none, matins and compline, rising, eating, working, eating, sleeping.

  Time seen as the stage for human activity prompted the question of what a man could achieve in the course of his allotted span, if anything. The mystic’s concept of stasis was countered by the ideas of beginning and completion. But to complete something you had to live long enough, and did man ever live long enough to complete the things he began? A question that brought cries of “Heresy!” and “Criticizing God!” from traditionalists. It was the lot of man to suffer in silence, not to create. When the mystics talked of a crusade, they meant a crusade against the humanists as well. Christendom was more and more splitting up into enemy camps and Gerhard Morart, whose ambition had been to create something impossible to complete, had been pulled this way and that.

  Matthias found the argument interesting, too. Did not he also, as he built up the Overstolz empire, place one stone upon another? It was not without reason that one of the mocking names for merchants was “sellers of time.” It also expressed an undercurrent of unease. They certainly never stood still.

  The two men had often discussed the relationship between idea and execution, whether the concept of a new cathedral was incomplete without its physical realization and whether it was important to see your ideas carried through to completion. It was in this latter point that their views diverged. Matthias’s rational approach, which, as he well knew, came from a lack of imagination, led to a single-minded pursuit of immediate profit. Gerhard, on the other hand, saw reason simply as the best method of giving ideas that were clearly impracticable a basis of probability. In the final analysis, Gerhard had been a passionate visionary, inspired with the idea of creating something completely new, of introducing a revolutionary style into architecture that would fill the massive, earthbound buildings of his time, dominated by stone and shade, with pure light, soaring, slender, sublime—and above all, with no restriction on size. There was to be nothing castlelike about his vision of the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, where God
sat in state with His angels. Castles were the home of the Devil.

  That was indeed something new. But however much they respected and admired him, some of his fellow citizens felt Gerhard’s enjoyment of the role of creator was all too plain to see. It was hardly surprising that the simple folk began to assume he had magic powers and rumors spread that he had called up Satan in the dead of night. There were many among the mendicant orders in particular who would have liked to see him tried for heresy and burned at the stake, together with Conrad von Hochstaden and Albertus Magnus. Had not Joachim of Fiore, whom the Franciscans held in high regard, prophesied the dawn of a new age for 1260, the age of a truly poor church? Was that colossal monument to human pride being built in Cologne an expression of that poverty? For many, Joachim’s prophecy represented the absolute truth, therefore the new cathedral, that most ambitious of enterprises, could only be the work of the Devil.

  But then the pope and the emperor would have had to be burned along with Gerhard, since they supported the cathedral. It would be unwise, however, to criticize their decision publicly, if one wanted to avoid being beheaded, drowned, hung, drawn and quartered, or boiled in oil. The Holy Father had described the cathedral as a holy work and it was best to leave holy works be.

  So the critics of the new cathedral in Cologne contented themselves with general sermons on dens of iniquity and vanity, which was nothing new, but not a risk, either. Soon Gerhard’s supposed pact had become merely part of the local folklore.

  Gerhard’s real genius, however, lay less in conceiving a building such as the new cathedral, the perfect church, than in actually getting it built. His plans were not the product of visionary euphoria but of logical reasoning. Gerhard saw himself as a scientist pursuing goals that were absolutely unscientific. He marked out the space for the freest unfolding of the spirit with compass and measuring line; in his attempt to give it universal validity he submitted his divine inspiration to the unfeeling plumb line, transposed the exhilaration of heavenward soaring into a pinnacle of measurable height. And with every inch the cathedral grew, he became ever more painfully aware how small man was in the sight of God and how pitiful his attempt to rise above himself.

  This contradictory nature of his work had brought Gerhard to the brink of despair. He might succeed in completing the impossible church, but not in imbuing it with meaning. Even as it rose up, it was a self-contradiction. It only worked in the mind; none of the goals that had instigated the idea of the building would ever be achieved.

  Archbishop Conrad had laid not a foundation stone, but a gravestone to his hopes.

  Despite all this, there had never been the slightest suggestion Gerhard was contemplating asking to be released from his contract. Deeply unhappy within himself, he had accepted the worldly nature of his commission, giving his passion for art and architecture free rein. There was no lack of money. The pope was happy to sign letters of indulgence, wealthy princes and clerics donated considerable sums in addition to offerings from the Church in Rome. In the meantime the archbishop’s petitores were abroad everywhere, tireless in their pursuit of contributions. Only a few years ago Conrad had asked Henry III of England to commend the collectors to his people; the proceeds had been unparalleled.

  Gerhard built as if his life depended on it. And it did.

  When he finally realized he would never see his building completed, not even the chancel, he threw himself into his work with even greater determination. It was his church, his idea. And there was still the power of logic. The completed cathedral existed—on parchment. The impossible cathedral had been alive inside his head, without the constraints of time and space, as long as he had been alive.

  Matthias gave a pitying shake of the head. “You were right,” he said softly to the corpse, “you achieved none of your goals.”

  Gerhard was wearing a costly shroud. He had had it made some time ago and had obtained permission from Conrad to place it, just for a moment, on the bones of the Three Kings, whose relics had been brought to the city less than a hundred years ago. To be accompanied by the Wise Men on his last journey was Gerhard’s deepest wish.

  Memento mori.

  Matthias watched as the Dominican monks drew the sheet over Gerhard’s head and sewed it up. Each one did one stitch, while their quiet singing and praying filled the room. The air was heavy with incense. The body was blessed with incense and sprinkled with holy water.

  Guda, Gerhard’s widow, was sitting beside the body, deep in prayer. The previous evening she had washed the body, the priests had anointed it, and then, together with the family and neighbors, kept watch through the night, praying for Gerhard’s soul.

  Why am I not praying for him? Matthias wondered. I had no quarrel with him.

  Because I can’t, he concluded dispassionately.

  He looked around. There were not many gathered in the half-lit room. The street outside was teeming with people who wanted to bid their last farewell or were simply curious to see the funeral procession. Inside, on the other hand, only clerics, family, friends, and nobles were allowed. He knew them all, apart from a few monks. From the Overstolzes, Gertrude and Johann’s wife, Hadewig, had hurried over the previous evening to support Guda in her hour of need, to join with her in prayer. Johann and Theoderich were behind him, staring blankly at the winding sheet the body was sewn up in, while Daniel was looking up at the ceiling, a bored expression on his face. Various members of the stonemason’s guild had hastily drummed up a quorum. Two of Gerhard’s sons and a daughter, all in holy orders, were kneeling beside Guda. Other noble families had sent representatives.

  Kuno was the only member of the Kone family present. Stone-faced, he ignored the others. Matthias watched him from beneath knitted brows.

  Suddenly he noticed two strangers who came in, sank to their knees by the bier, crossed themselves, and nodded deferentially to Guda, before going out again. From their habits they must belong to one of the numerous mendicant orders. They had only stayed a few moments, but Matthias thought he knew who they were. He slipped unobtrusively away from the mourners and quickly followed them. They were standing outside the house, gesticulating and speaking to the people.

  “—as he walked along the planks he was looking up at the heavens,” one of them was proclaiming.

  “Surely he must have seen the Holy Spirit,” the other cried, “his face was transfigured.”

  “God was telling him, ‘Come, I will take you up into My Kingdom.’”

  “Whatever it was he saw, he did not keep his eye on the walkway—”

  “Alas, alas.”

  “—and although, in my attempt to save him, I called out—”

  “So did I, so did I!”

  “My lord, I cried, watch your step—”

  “—or you will fall—”

  “—go no farther. But it was too late. I saw him fall, fall like a withered apple from the tree—”

  “He fell and his bones were shattered.”

  “—and break in two like a dry stick.”

  The crowd was holding its breath. Matthias leaned against the doorpost watching the performance with interest. The shorter of the two, a chubby fellow, had worked himself up into a frenzy.

  “And when we went to the aid of our fallen brother,” he declaimed, “to offer him our spiritual assistance, he opened his eyes, one last time—”

  “—and confessed—”

  “—confessed his sins, yes. ‘May the Lord forgive me my trespasses,’ he said, ‘as I forgive those who have trespassed against me—’”

  “‘—that I may be received into God’s grace—’”

  “‘Amen!’ and died.”

  “‘—and be assured of eternal peace,’ he said, and—”

  “And died!”

  “In the name of the Lord, yes. And died.”

  “Amen, amen.”

  The people were moved. Some made the sign of the cross. The two monks looked at each other, visibly pleased with themselves.

  “
Tell us again, reverend brothers,” screeched a woman, pulling a pair of grubby children to the front. “The children didn’t hear.”

  The monk with the louder voice raised his hands to heaven and opened his eyes wide. “O Lord,” he wailed, “how painful it is for me to bear witness to the death of Thy son Gerhard again and again. I would have given my life to save him, yet Thy will be done. But still, to see him fall while my brother here, Andreas von Helmerode, and I were sitting in pious contemplation beside one of the chapels, O Holy Mother of God, sweet vessel of grace and mercy, it was as if I were being tortured by a thousand red-hot knives. But is it our place to lament if it has pleased the Lord to take brother Gerhard to his bosom? Should we not be joyful and give thanks for the moment when, leaving this unimportant earthly existence behind, he was born anew? For, dear brothers and sisters, what is death but our true birth? What should we feel in the face of death but joyous anticipation that we, too, will soon appear before our Judge to be blessed with His infinite mercy. True, the cathedral has lost its guiding hand, but others will come and they will be imbued with Gerhard’s spirit. This is not a moment for vanity, not a moment to turn our thoughts to material things, to stones and towers, colored glass and mosaics. Yes, we saw Gerhard fall, saw him plunge from the highest point of the scaffolding at a moment when he was communing with God. You call it an accident? I call it Divine Providence and grace!”

  “What sins did Gerhard confess to?” a man in the crowd shouted.

  The monk went red as a beetroot and clenched his fist. “How dare you ask!” he roared. “May God send His lightning down upon you and shrivel you up, body and soul.”

  “You should be praying instead of asking questions,” the second monk broke in, making the sign of the cross again, “praying all the time. Do you want to meet the poor soul in your dreams, accusing you of not having supported it with all your heart? Recite the Creed, sing the Te deum. Remember, at this very moment the dead man is on his way to appear before his heavenly Judge, weighed down with his sins, humbly offering up his remorse. But woe betide the sinner who stumbles, for the Devil’s fiendish crew lies in wait for the lamb along the path it must take to its Merciful Shepherd. Stinking filth, demonic obscenities, the wolves of darkness!” He made a grand gesture, as if to damn Cologne and all the surrounding villages. “Verily I say unto you, all of you, each and every one, will have to take that path, and you will long to have the prayers of the whole of Christendom to keep you safe from the clutches of the Evil One, who will try to drag you down to the darkest depths of hell where Leviathan writhes in transports of satanic delight on its red-hot grill, crushing human souls in its countless claws. Remember, we all must die! It opens its gaping maw, and its teeth are terrible round about! Its eyes are like the eyelids of the morning! Out of its mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out! Out of its nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething cauldron! Its breath kindleth coals and a flame goeth out of its mouth! There is not its like upon earth.”