Pilgrim

Sybil Quartermaine, having asked Otto to stop the motor car, wrapped her afghan around her shoulders and, telling him she wanted to stand outside, waited for him to open the door and offer his hand.

  Tilting her head, she took a draught of air.

  “Oh,” she said, closing her eyes, “what a lovely scented wind. Can you smell the trees? It’s perfect heaven!”

  “Yes, Madam. Perfect heaven.”

  “Take me to the edge. I want to look.”

  Otto proffered his arm and escorted her to the verge. All the Zürichsee was spread out before them—and far below, a river and a road. Otto pointed into the distance at the misted, floating image of the Jungfrau—a majestic grey mirage, unattached, adrift.

  Sybil clutched at her afghan.

  “The wind,” she said. “The wind…”

  “It is called der Föhn, Madam. It comes out of Italy and causes troubles.”

  “Troubles?”

  “Rains and storms and sometimes an avalanche.”

  Sybil adjusted the afghan, took a last look at the view and returned to the Daimler.

  “Let us move on,” she said.

  These were her final words.

  All at once, Pilgrim felt cold.

  He stood up.

  Unaccountably, he reached for Kessler’s hand and held it as he might have held a lifeline thrown into the sea.

  Is there a dog? There must be a dog, he was thinking.

  Kessler assisted his patient from the bath and drew a sheet around his shoulders. It did not make sense that Pilgrim should be so cold while Kessler sweated in the steam, but plainly the man was shivering.

  “You want to go now, sir? Return to your room?”

  No, no, no. I want to find the dog.

  Pilgrim moved forward into the mist.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t. Not now. You mustn’t. Don’t.”

  Kessler felt a thrill pass over his back.

  Pilgrim had spoken.

  Words. Not just sounds—but words.

  Had spoken—and now had disappeared.

  Kessler followed as best he could—checking each steam-shrouded figure he encountered—until at last he found his patient seated on one hip, his right hand against the tiles. Beside him, a bald and naked man, whose minder had him tied at the wrist with a cotton leash, was staring blank-eyed and open-mouthed at the ceiling.

  Pilgrim was pale as the mist itself.

  “Did this one fall?” Kessler asked the minder, an intern whose name was Fröelich.

  “No. I just found him sitting here,” Fröelich said. “My patient tripped on him and tried to bite his hand. Is he yours?”

  “Yes. His name is Pilgrim.”

  Kessler hunkered down and said: “come along, sir. Up we get.”

  He reached for Pilgrim’s left hand and found it bloodied.

  “He’s bleeding,” he told Fröelich. “You shouldn’t bring that man down here. He’s dangerous.”

  “I won’t again,” Fröelich said, “but Doctor Furtwängler believed it would be good for him. Frankly,” Fröelich grinned and giggled and leaned in close to Kessler’s ear, “this man thinks he’s a dog and sometimes I have to put his dinner plate on the floor before he’ll eat.”

  “You shouldn’t laugh,” said Kessler. “It isn’t funny. He might have hurt someone very badly. If you want my opinion, Doctor Furtwängler is crazy.”

  Pulling Pilgrim to his feet, he wrapped him in the second sheet.

  “We’ll get your robe and go back upstairs to your room,” he said. “I’ll clean your hand and then we’ll have some tea. That’s what’s needed now—a nice, strong cup of tea. And then we’ll have a rest before our dinner.”

  Kessler turned Pilgrim towards the distant Bath chair, where his robe had been left and where he could be dried and dressed.

  Like a child, Kessler thought. Just like a child—and me his mother. It doesn’t do, sometimes, to venture forth. It simply doesn’t do when there’s a man out here who thinks he’s a bear and now another thinking he’s a dog. Pray God the lions and tigers don’t come next.

  And then he thought: but he spoke! He spoke! My man has spoken!

  2

  If he had only written these words before that Monday morning, they might have proved my salvation. As it was, come Wednesday, I was in need of ashes—not for my brow alone, but for the whole of my being—and for my mind.

  Jung had now read this dubious marginalia twenty times.

  Date was: Friday, 10th February, 1497…

  What was Pilgrim’s source for this pompous assumption? And the words themselves—on what basis were they formulated? Who was this I, who broke so suddenly into the narrative?

  It was maddening.

  Out of Pilgrim’s dreams, all at once a voice of authority. I. Not only that, but this I kept notes and dated them. Recording a dream was one thing, but pinning the dream events in time, right down to the day, the month and the year was quite another. Especially when the date given was hundreds of years before the dreamer’s own life.

  On again, off again, Jung was beginning to wish he had resisted the impulse to turn the page. But his damned Inquisitor had tricked him into it.

  Don’t blame me.

  Why not? It was your doing.

  No amount of not turning pages will eradicate what’s written on them. Turning a blind eye solves nothing, Carl Gustav. Turning the page solves at least something.

  True enough.

  There you go then. TURN THE PAGE! should become your motto.

  I don’t want a motto.

  Too bad. You’ve got one. Turn the page.

  I can’t before I know what it means. Who was—who is this I?

  Pilgrim.

  Don’t be ridiculous. He wasn’t there.

  He was, in his dreams.

  Only as an observer. He did not experience those things—that rape.

  You think so.

  Of course I think so! For one thing, Pilgrim is a man.

  So was Elisabetta.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I will go!” Jung called, rising from his desk, grateful to escape the debate.

  In the hallway, he could see an indistinct figure beyond the frosted light beside the door.

  The sun was setting. The sky was orange.

  Yesterday’s messenger, for whatever reason, had returned. His golden head appeared to have an aureole of fire. His cap was in his hand.

  “Come in.”

  “I must speak with you in private, Herr Doktor, if I may.”

  “Of course. We’ll go along to my study.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once the study door was closed and Jung was seated at his desk, he invited the messenger to speak.

  “I have come with unhappy news,” the young man said.

  “I see.” Jung removed his glasses and laid them on top of Pilgrim’s journal. Best, he believed, not to witness the delivery of bad news—so often an embarrassment for those who must deliver it. Give the impression one is fixed on the messenger, but avoid eye contact. Be blind and seem to focus on the mouth—the lips—the words.

  “There has been an avalanche on the Albis Pass road. This morning just before noon. Lady Quartermaine’s motor car…”

  Every clock in the house all at once seemed to stop.

  “I understand.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Jung stood up and went to the window.

  Daffodils.

  Dusk.

  And so…

  “Has she been found?”

  “Yes, sir. And her chauffeur. The dogs found them.”

  “Were there others?”

  “No, sir. The Alpine Patrol has issued a statement. Only the English woman and her driver. No other vehicles. No other persons. A charabanc on its way to the Obersee was passing on the road below, but it escaped.”

  “And who has sent you?”

  “Lady Quartermaine’s maid-servant, Herr Doktor. She was extremely upset, but sai
d she was certain you would want to know.”

  “And her name?”

  “Fräulein Peebles, sir.”

  “Is she alone?”

  “No, sir. There’s an Englishman with her, name of Forster.”

  “Ah, yes. I know of him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jung’s mind drifted off towards the fatal Pass beyond the lake.

  The messenger coughed.

  Jung turned.

  “Will that be all, sir?” the young man asked.

  “Yes—and thank you.”

  Jung passed him a franc piece and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “I will walk you to the door,” he said.

  Just as the messenger was leaving, Jung asked if anything had been said about a man called Pilgrim.

  “No, sir. Nothing.”

  “Very well. Good day to you.”

  Jung went back to his study.

  The news could wait, he decided. There was no point telling Emma just yet. Nor Mister Pilgrim. Not until he knew more.

  3

  Referring to Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance and the newly published 1911 edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica, Emma had assembled the following notes, which she had laid on Jung’s desk for his perusal. In the aftermath of Sybil Quartermaine’s death, he reached for them as a welcome distraction.

  For most of 1496 and the early weeks of 1497, Leonardo had been living in Milan at the court of its Prince, Lodovico Sforza. While much was accomplished, the larger part of his work was a frivolous waste of the artist’s talents. Leonardo himself was apparently the major cause of this waste. He seemed not to care, Emma had written. He spent his mornings designing scenery for masques, his afternoons copying scientific data into his notebooks, his evenings sketching fantastic notions of futuristic cannons, crossbows, siege-craft and the like—his nights in the arms of his boys.

  On the other hand, she had added, he had begun the creation of The Last Supper in 1495 and would not be satisfied it was complete until 1498. In 1497 he returned to Florence briefly in late February and again in June.

  The Last Supper, a fresco, is on the walls of the refectory of the Dominicans of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. I have seen it, you have not—though I’ve told you about it often enough. In Leonardo’s own time, rumour had it that he would arrive at the convent helter-skelter, any old time of day or night, and add a single brush stroke of colour or delete a single shadow. If you have read Mister Pilgrim’s treatise, you will also know, Leonardo did not himself create the face of Christ—but left it blank.

  Yes. Jung had forgotten that.

  Next, there were notes regarding Savonarola:

  Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican friar born in 1452, the same year as da Vinci. He was L.’s absolute opposite in almost every respect. Where L. the artist dared not choose a human model for the Son of God, S. the priest had offered himself as Heaven’s emissary—possibly even the second Son of God. L. left the face of his Christ unpainted for fear of offence, whereas S. stood behind Christ’s very image and claimed to speak in His voice. S. had risen quickly through the ranks of his order and caught the attention of Rome. By 1497, he had gained a following of thousands, was inducted into the Signory and stood to become the next ruler of Florence.

  There was more concerning Savonarola’s rise to power; the death of Lorenzo di Medici in April of 1492; the surrender of Florence to Charles VIII of France and the flight of Piero di Medici, Lorenzo’s son, in October of 1494. That a mere five years had elapsed between the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Savonarola’s supremacy was all the proof a reader of history required to assess the potency of the Priest’s charisma.

  And the Bonfire of Vanities?

  Jung turned to the next page.

  On the evening of Tuesday, the 7th of February, 1497, Emma had written, an extraordinary event took place in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

  The Priest—or the hated Priest, as he was known to some—had called for a gigantic bonfire on which the citizens of Florence were to throw their most prized and valued possessions. Burn everything you love, he had said, for the love of things is evil and obstructs the way to God.

  This was not the first such bonfire, but it would be the largest. Its smoke would reach the heavens. This was Savonarola’s decree.

  All through the time of Carnival, the priest’s Choirboys had policed the streets, breaking up gambling games, assaulting prostitutes with sticks and tearing lace and jewellery from the clothing even of the merchants’ wives. Savonarola had dubbed these boys his little bands of hope and, ostensibly, they were collecting alms for the Church, though the alms might be anything from a man’s whole purse to a woman’s silver bracelets and glass earrings—even to a child’s toy horse, a painted ball or a doll wearing red.

  (What a dreadful time!) Emma had written.

  For two years now, the Priest had overseen the structuring of laws that were designed to control the wanton spread of immoral values and the dominance of sin. It was the Signory and its Council who must enforce these laws, but it was Savonarola, as a member of that Council, who articulated the laws and persuaded his fellow Councillors to vote for them.

  Horse racing had been forbidden; gambling was punishable with torture; profanity was banned and blasphemers, if caught, had their tongues pierced. Secular song was discouraged—also dancing—also games. (Dear me! It sounds more as if Martin Luther was doing all this! E.J.) Jews, as Lent approached, were paraded through the streets, while the general populace pelted them with manure. Brothels were set on fire and the women driven beyond the gates of the city. Servants were paid to inform on their masters in all these matters, but escaped retribution by making their charges in the confessional.

  And yet, for all its Lutheran ideals and notions of how the State should be governed, the Signory and its Council under Savonarola’s guidance was popular. Especially with the merchants of the middle and upper classes, whose taxes had been adjusted to favour them—while the taxes of the rich and poor alike had been adjusted—as some would have it—to ruin them.

  It was a time of religious zeal and piety on the one hand, and a time of muted rebellion and growing unrest on the other.

  All of this came to its climax with the Bonfire of Vanities in 1497.

  (I hope all this helps, but the fact is, it more than turns my stomach and makes me glad I did not have to suffer it. On the Bonfire of Vanities, my darling, what would you have sacrificed? I can think of nothing. The smallest beloved object would be too precious. E.)

  Jung had already cut the binding twine—regretting as he did the sight of Sybil Quartermaine’s Italianate hand, in blue ink, addressing him as Herr Doktor C.G. Jung and reminding him that this was Parcel Number One. The latter had been underscored with three thick lines drawn without a ruler. That they wavered was more than likely the result of the wine she had drunk—though Jung did not know this.

  On setting aside the brown wrapping paper, Jung discovered that Pilgrim’s taste in bindings was as meticulous as his penmanship. This volume, unlike the first he had perused, was covered in a smoky grey broadcloth—giving it the appearance of a ship’s log. Could the colour have been a tribute to Leonardo’s sfumato—the “mists of time” he had layered onto his paintings? Perhaps so.

  For a moment, Jung sat with one hand resting on this cover, smoothing it absently, telling himself to turn the page.

  Oh, why, he thought, is it all so sad?

  And then he thought: because the last hand to touch this cloth was Lady Quartermaine’s, now swept away by snow.

  Page one was almost barren. Near the bottom, on the right-hand side, Pilgrim had written: Make prayers against despair. And underneath this, the letters S.I.J.

  S.I.J. meant nothing, but Jung would ask.

  On page two, another impertinent, infuriating number, sitting there—floating above the words without any
reference to its meaning:

  7th

  And then:

  Ye women who glory in your ornaments, your hair, your hands, I tell you—you are ugly. Would you see true beauty? Look at the pious man or woman in whom the spirit dominates matter; watch him that prays and see how the light of divine beauty glows upon him when his prayer is ended. You will see then the beauty of God shining in his face and behold the face of an angel.

  Thus were we admonished by the Priest.

  Followed by:

  A dream:

  Antonio Gherardini, his wife, daughters and servants were preparing to attend the Bonfire of Vanities in the Piazza della Signoria. All had been assigned the task of selecting their own contributions to the conflagration. Anything was acceptable, so long as it was not already chosen by another member of the household. They would drive the distance in their carriage, but wear no insignia, as a sign of piety.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, Elisabetta was in her bedchamber completing her selection and laying it onto a large white tablecloth whose corners she would tie in order to carry it. The cloth was spread in the sunlight on her bed and there was only one more thing to add to its contents.

  Cornelia, her cat, was sitting in the doorway—the door ajar, the sunlight streaming. Her coat was of dappled red and grey. Her eyes were closed and her tail was curled like a question mark in the dust.

  The windows were open. The villa, on its hill, faced south and west and Elisabetta could see the smudge marks on the sky where the Duomo and its campanile rose above the river mists and the smoke of early fires.

  She sat down.

  One last thing I love.

  She shied her glance towards Cornelia.

  Never. Never. No. An animal is not a vanity.

  Already folded on the tablecloth were Angelo’s favoured hose and doublets—his doeskin boots—his ribbon-wristed gloves—his velvet toques—his pleated shirts. Now one last thing.

  Elisabetta already knew what it was, because she held it in her hand. Her most beloved object. Her most beloved possession. Her brother Angelo’s portrait in its silver locket which, when opened, showed him in his fifteenth year. Opposite, and painted in miniature by the same artist, was a portrait of Elisabetta herself. Each of them wore their favoured grey and blue. Neither of them smiled. It had been forbidden.