The Play of Death

  In the tavern, he had been sitting silently, lost in his thoughts, until Paul arrived. As often happened, Magdalena had sent her youngest out to fetch Grandpa and bring him back home. The youngster’s whining regularly managed to spoil even the smallest sip of beer, but with enough candy or a freshly polished pocketknife, Jakob had always managed to postpone the trip back home a bit.

  When the hangman heard the screaming, he immediately ran off, and right on his heels came little Paul, for whom this nighttime outing was a splendid adventure. Though he was one year younger than his brother, Paul loved roughhousing of any sort. He watched with fascination as his grandfather, snorting and raising his beer stein in the air, stomped toward Barbara and her attacker.

  “Grampy, what’s the man there doing with Aunt Barbara?” asked little Paul, running along beside him. Fascinated, the boy stared at Melchior Ransmayer, still standing there with his pants halfway down, clinging to the struggling Barbara.

  “Wait and see what Grampy’s going to do with the man now,” Jakob growled as he charged at the doctor.

  “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me, hangman!” Ransmayer warned as he quickly pulled up his trousers. His voice sounded shrill, and it was clear he was terrified. “I’m an honorable citizen of this city, and—”

  “To me you’re nothing but scum,” Jakob interrupted. “I’ll break every finger, one by one, of anyone who dares to lay a hand on my daughter, and then I’ll break them again. I’m the executioner here and I know how to do that.”

  “Hooray, Grandpa!” Paul cried. “You show him!”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” said Ransmayer, trying to weasel his way out of his dilemma. He pointed at Barbara. “She was making eyes at me and wiggling her behind. You know how young girls are. I only wanted to give her a kiss.”

  “With your pants pulled down?” Barbara said sarcastically. In the meantime she had pulled herself together. Her eyes flashing, she looked Ransmayer up and down as she straightened out her bodice. “Don’t make an ass of yourself, Herr Doktor. The only thing going for you is that you’re clearly drunk and not in control of yourself.”

  “Apparently not drunk enough, or I never would have been so crazy as to get involved with a dishonorable woman like you,” Ransmayer said, his face turning crimson. Evidently his pride had won out over his fear. “That’s what happens when one treats people like you as equals,” he continued in an arrogant tone before turning to Jakob. “Hangman, you really should keep a better eye on your daughter. She’s a crafty little hussy with devilish charms.”

  The beer mug struck Ransmayer on the side of his head. He stumbled and stared at Jakob with horror in his eyes. “You’ll pay for that,” he croaked. “Just wait until I speak to the council . . .” Then his voice suddenly failed him and he fell face-first into the muddy lane, where he remained motionless, his fur-trimmed coat covering him like a shroud.

  “Ha! Grampy really gave it to him,” Paul rejoiced, hopping up and down. “Grandpa is the strongest.”

  “Are you crazy?” Barbara hissed at her father as she bent down and listened for Ransmayer’s breath. “Thank God he’s alive,” she said with relief, straightening the wig that had slipped from his head. A trickle of blood flowed across his forehead. “We can count ourselves lucky you didn’t break his skull.”

  “Ha! I wish I had,” Jakob grumbled, “but an educated fathead like him can stand a lot. Besides, what should I have done, eh? Shake his hand after he almost raped you and then insulted you?”

  “A slap in the face would have sufficed,” Barbara replied. “Nothing really happened.”

  “Nothing happened?” Jakob stared at his daughter through bloodshot eyes, then his anger exploded like lava from a volcano. “Nothing happened?” he roared. “This fellow called you a crafty little hussy with devilish charms, and you say nothing happened? No one drags our family name through the mud—no one!”

  “Nobody has to do that now—he’s muddy enough,” Barbara replied angrily. “I’m nothing but the youngest daughter of the Schongau executioner, who by the way is as drunk as an entire regiment of Swedish soldiers and has just gotten our whole family into a lot of trouble.” Evidently the fright at the attempted rape was just now catching up with her, and she started to tremble.

  “Just look at you.” With disgust she pointed at her father, whose beard was dripping sticky beer foam. “It’s been going on like this for more than a year. Either you’re pouting or drinking, and mostly both at the same time. People have never spoken well of us, but they used to at least respect us, and now they just gossip about what a drunk you are.”

  “How dare you speak to your father like that,” Kuisl bellowed. He raised his hand threateningly and only at the last moment realized he was still holding the beer stein.

  “Oh, do you want to beat me senseless just like the doctor?” Barbara sneered. “Is that the way you take care of problems? With a mug of beer? You either drink from it or hit people over the head with it.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m . . . so sick of it,” she whispered. “You don’t have any idea how much all you men disgust me.” Sobbing, she turned away and ran toward the city gate.

  “Barbara!” Jakob shouted as she disappeared down the lane. “Barbara! Wait! I didn’t mean it that way.”

  But his daughter had already disappeared in the darkness.

  “Barbara!” he called again.

  “Quiet down there,” a voice shouted. A shutter opened and an old, almost toothless woman stared down at him. “Is it you again, hangman?” she scolded. “Go sleep it off somewhere else—honorable people live here.”

  The shutter slammed shut and silence fell over the street, broken only by the regular rattling breaths of the unconscious doctor.

  “Grandpa, why is Auntie Barbara so angry at you?” little Paul finally asked in a soft voice.

  “Because . . . Because . . .” Jakob struggled for words.

  Because she’s right, he thought to himself.

  His quarrel with Barbara had sobered him up a bit. He’d gotten so angry because his daughter was speaking the truth.

  Either you’re pouting or drinking . . .

  He had become an old drunk. It had all started four years ago, insidiously, gradually, with the death of his beloved wife, Anna-Maria. It had worsened three years afterward, when he learned that his beloved son, Georg, would remain as a journeyman with his uncle, the hangman in Bamberg. Some years ago, Georg had had a fight with a Schongau citizen, leaving the man crippled, and for that reason he had been banished from town. Actually, he’d been banished for just two years, but Georg enjoyed his new position in the larger and more cosmopolitan city of Bamberg, far from his father. Georg’s decision to stay there almost broke his father’s heart, and since then the hangman had been drowning his sorrows in alcohol.

  And with the alcohol, all the dark memories returned.

  All the corpses . . . hanging on the branches of trees like giant rotten apples. The screaming, whimpering, begging for mercy . . . With the sword I shall separate the wheat from the chaff . . .

  But above all, there was one memory that woke him up at night and each time caused him to break out in a sweat.

  My father, staggering toward the scaffold, drunk . . . the raging mob . . . a bloody, severed ear lying in the white snow . . . I’m becoming like my father . . . my father, the drunkard . . .

  “Grandfather, what’s wrong?” Paul asked.

  Jakob was jolted out of his reveries.

  “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head as if trying to drive away a bad dream. “I was just thinking of something that happened when I was a child.”

  Paul smiled. “I want to become an executioner like you someday.” Reverentially he stared up into his grandfather’s face, as if he were a knight, or the kaiser himself. “I want everyone to be afraid of me.”

  Jakob nodded. “I know, Paul,” he replied hesitantly. “I know. But sometimes you become afraid of yourself. That’s the worst fear.”
br />   Then he took his grandson by the hand and slowly began walking with him toward the Lech Gate.

  It was just a short walk from Georg Kaiser’s house over to the Oberammergau village church. Kaiser walked in front with a lantern to light their way. A chest-high wall surrounded the church and the cemetery, but as they approached, Simon saw tall individual gravestones and a larger wooden structure, whose purpose seemed a mystery to him. A slightly sweet odor was in the air, and Simon knew all too well what that was. It was the odor of decay that often emanated from cemeteries, especially when the graves were close together, as they were here.

  The autopsy that the schoolteacher had asked him to attend was at nine o’clock in the evening at St. Ann’s Chapel. The witnesses were Georg Kaiser as well as the priest and Konrad Faistenmantel, who evidently wanted to say one last goodbye to his son. Before they left, Simon had put Peter to bed. Georg Kaiser had given the boy his own room under the rafters that even had its own fireplace, and Peter finally fell asleep with an illustrated book by the anatomist Andreas Vesalius in his hands. Simon gradually began to feel comfortable with the idea of Peter spending the next few years here in Oberammergau, due in no small part to Kaiser’s well-stocked library, but also because of the kind schoolmaster himself.

  The schoolmaster opened a rusty, squeaking side gate, and he and Simon entered the dark cemetery. Now the Schongau medicus had a closer look at not only the many gravestones, but also the strange wooden structure he’d noticed earlier. It was around twenty feet long and three feet high. Rough-hewn wood beams formed another framework above the platform. On the left and right sides there were two entrances. A wheelbarrow and a pile of old ropes indicated that the structure was not completely finished.

  “The stage for the Passion play!” Simon cried in astonishment. “It’s actually here in the cemetery.”

  Kaiser nodded. “We’re still in the middle of rehearsals, but by Pentecost at the latest everything has to be ready for opening day—costumes, backdrops, Pilate’s house, hell . . .” His sweeping gesture included the stage and all the props lying around. “The whole town is helping. At present, we’re still rehearsing in the Schwabenwirt tavern, but yesterday afternoon we also rehearsed here for the first time. Dominik Faistenmantel insisted on being hung on the cross in order to know how it felt.”

  “He succeeded,” Simon replied darkly. “It was Friday, so he even picked the right day for his crucifixion.” He pointed at the wooden platform, where a large dark object could be seen. “Is that the cross?”

  “Indeed.” Kaiser climbed a small wooden stairway alongside the platform and beckoned for Simon to follow. There was a depression in the ground, presumably representing Jesus’s grave, and next to it a trapdoor. In the center of the platform lay a cross well over six feet long, made of spruce wood and still smelling of resin.

  The schoolmaster pointed to a small hole bored through the lower part of the vertical beam. “Normally there’s a footrest here, which was apparently removed,” he explained. “The actor portraying Jesus is tied with rope and then hoisted up by the Roman soldiers. With the footrest in place, it’s possible to tolerate it up there for a while. For nails we use dummies that the blacksmith makes for us.” Georg now pointed at a square cutout in the stage floor. “And this is where the cross is inserted so it stands upright. Faistenmantel was in this position when the priest found him in the morning.”

  Simon tried to pick up the head of the crossbeam, but it felt like it weighed a ton.

  “It’s impossible to stand it up like this,” he groaned, letting the cross back down on the stage floor. “How could anyone do that with a grown man tied to it?”

  Kaiser thought for a moment. “That’s just what some of us were thinking. The perpetrator must have been pretty strong, or else there were a number of them. Or—”

  “Or it was the devil himself,” Simon said. “I see what you’re saying—it’s no wonder people in town are hanging out bouquets of Saint John’s wort.”

  Simon was freezing; he rubbed his arms. Only now did he realize he was much too lightly dressed for the late-night outing. He was wearing a shirt with a tight-fitting jacket over it that Magdalena had already mended in places. In his haste, he’d left his beloved wide-brimmed red hat in the schoolmaster’s house.

  Simon’s gaze fell on the muddy ground in front of the staging. It was ripped up, as if a herd of wild pigs had been rooting around in it.

  “There’s clearly no point in looking for footprints,” he mumbled. “It looks like half of Oberammergau visited the scene of the crime today.”

  Simon looked around the small cemetery then turned his gaze back to the stage and the cross lying on it. Something was bothering him.

  There’s something wrong here, he thought, but what?

  After turning it over in his mind for a long time, he gave up. Perhaps it would come to him later.

  “Where will the audience be standing?” he asked instead. “There’s hardly any room in front of the stage.”

  Kaiser smiled. “Some will watch from up on the cemetery wall, but most of them will stand on the gravestones.”

  “On the gravestones?” Simon was perplexed.

  “The gravestones will be turned down for the performance and later set upright again. That’s what they did the last few times.” Georg shrugged. “There are constant discussions about whether to move the play to another location, especially now that more and more people are attending, but until now people have adhered to tradition, even if Konrad Faistenmantel has been demanding a larger venue, perhaps one farther from town.”

  “Who is this Faistenmantel, anyway, and why is he so powerful?” Simon asked. “Is he a large landholder?”

  “No, he’s . . .” Kaiser suddenly fell silent and nodded toward two figures approaching them from the cemetery’s front gate.

  “Speak of the devil,” he continued in an undertone. “Here comes Faistenmantel in person, and the other man is no doubt the Ammergau judge, Johannes Rieger.”

  The two men carried lanterns that cast a dim light over their path. One was around fifty years old and wearing the official uniform of a rural official, with a beret and cloak. He was slightly stooped and leaned on a walking stick. His weasel-like appearance was accentuated by his long face and thinning brown hair. The man at his side was about the same age but was a giant of a man—muscular, at least six feet tall, and with a potbelly and a broad back. A bushy beard fell down over his tight-fitting waistcoat. The large man raised his lantern, and Simon could now see his imposing bald head. Tiny porcine eyes glared distrustfully at the two men on the stage.

  “Good day, Master Kaiser,” the large man—presumably Konrad Faistenmantel—wheezed. “Do you really intend to perform the autopsy at this late hour? I’d like to know the role of the fellow standing at your side. He’s clearly too short and skinny to be the Roman soldier Longinus we’ve been seeking for such a long time.”

  “My name is not Longinus, but Simon Fronwieser,” Simon retorted, jutting his jaw forward. He hated it when people teased him because of his size. “I’m the medicus from Schongau, visiting here in Oberammergau. It seems you’ll have to look around for another Roman,” he said. “But remember that Saint Longinus is remembered less for his size and strength than his wisdom and mercy.”

  Faistenmantel gave a loud, raucous laugh that seemed strangely out of place in the dark cemetery. Simon couldn’t help remembering that this was the man whose son had met a horrible end in this very place less than a day ago.

  “Excuse me, Herr Medicus,” Faistenmantel said. “It was not my intent to offend you. Everyone’s nerves are stretched to the breaking point at present.”

  “But I’d still like to know what business you have in the cemetery at this hour,” snarled the wiry man at his side, the Ammergau judge, Johannes Rieger, “so speak up before I have you arrested.”

  “Gentlemen, please.” Georg Kaiser raised his arms, trying to calm them down. “I myself asked Herr Fronwieser
to come along. He is a highly experienced medicus, and since our barber-surgeon, old Kaspar Landes, God rest his soul, is no longer among us, I thought it couldn’t hurt to bring along a professional observer.”

  “I have explicit directions from the abbot at Ettal Monastery to make sure that as few outsiders as possible find out about this embarrassing matter,” said Rieger. “If His Excellency knew that a visitor from Schongau—”

  “Oh, come now, Rieger, don’t make such a fuss,” Faistenmantel interrupted. “Herr Kaiser is right. The faster we can get this matter behind us, and the more professional and matter-of-fact we are, the quicker we can resume the rehearsals. We need a reasonable explanation for the death of my youngest son, and if the medicus can help us, we should be glad for that.”

  The judge was about to respond, but Faistenmantel was already stomping toward the south side of the church, where a shed with a low doorway was located. Simon thought he detected a flash of raw anger in Rieger’s eyes. Evidently, the judge was very annoyed at how Faistenmantel brushed him off in front of the others.

  Konrad Faistenmantel pounded the door with his fist, and the gray-faced priest opened it at once. His name was Tobias Herele, as Simon had learned from Georg Kaiser on his arrival. Father Herele also didn’t seem especially pleased to see Simon there. He looked Simon up and down distrustfully, almost with disgust, as if he were an annoying parasite.

  What delightful people, these Oberammergauers, Simon thought. Anyone who doesn’t live here but comes from somewhere else can just go to hell. What in the world have I gotten myself into now?