Death and the Devil

Urquhart baffled her. She had had lots of men, good lovers and poor lovers, some impatient, some unhurried, some brutal, and some that were like children. Some were kind to her, gave her more money than agreed, which she had to keep from Clemens, and invited her to share their wine, even their food. Others treated her like a thing, an inanimate object. Then there were the lonely ones, who often only wanted to talk, others who were insatiable, worried, exuberant, unscrupulous—or conscience-stricken, tormented by guilt, so that she couldn’t tell whether their groans were groans of pleasure or disgust at themselves. And there were others with strange needs, God-forsaken creatures. But even those she took, as long as they paid. Each one she could identify, categorize like an herb or a species of animal. Setting herself above them, studying them from a distance, was her way of dealing with the fact that men came and took her body. Each one left something of himself with her, left a tiny piece of his pride behind in her room, and she gathered these pieces like trophies and locked them away in the dark chamber at the bottom of her heart.

Only Jacob, when he came to Cologne three months ago, had found the key to her heart and had kept his pride.

Now Jacob was past history. She had made up her mind to escape from poverty. Impossible, perhaps, but it meant sacrificing Jacob for the vague chance a decent man might one day come and offer her a better life than staying stuck here in Clemens’s stinking hole.

But with each man who came and went, her hope shriveled a little more to a foolish dream, and it became more and more difficult to believe the Blessed Virgin would raise a whore to a respectable burgher’s wife. When she was alone, Maria would pray to the Virgin Mary, but then Clemens would bring the men she knew so well. They were like fruit on a market stall—here apples, red or green, ripe or rotten, there quinces, peaches, cherries—each typical of his own kind, each always the same, each cowardly, each a disappointment.

Urquhart was like none of them.

There was something inside him that made her shudder. And yet she wished she could be his forever, follow him everywhere, whether to riches or damnation.

For a moment she felt an urge simply to run away. But what if he was the one she was waiting for?

Wolves are loving. Wolves are cruel.

She turned back to him with a shy smile. Urquhart watched her. “Are you going out?” he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Where would I go?”

Urquhart nodded. His long hair flowed around him like a cloak. “Yes,” he said, almost inaudibly, “where would you go?”

He stretched and stood up.

“And you? Are you going?” Maria didn’t know whether to feel sorry or relieved.

“Yes.” He started to get dressed.

“And will you come again?” she asked hesitantly.

Urquhart threw the cloak over his shoulders. Something was attached to the inside, like a crossbow, only smaller. Then it vanished as he drew the material over his chest.

“Perhaps. It depends what you have to tell me.”

“To tell you?”

“There’s a man. Called Jacob. You know him.”

Maria was bewildered by the sudden change of subject. What had Urquhart to do with Jacob?

“Yes, I know him.”

“He needs help.”

“What?”

“Our friend talks too much.” Urquhart went up to Maria and lifted up her chin. “He’s in danger of losing his head, if you understand me. He’s been saying strange things about something he claims he saw this evening.”

“Oh, God!” Maria exclaimed. “The architect.”

“What did he tell you?”

Why should you betray him, she thought, but already it was pouring out. “That Jacob’s always got some cock-and-bull story to tell. Huh! He claims he saw the Devil push Gerhard off the scaffolding. He even says he spoke to him.”

“To the Devil?”

“Don’t be silly.” Maria shook her head. She was giving vent to all her annoyance with Jacob. At the same time, surprisingly, she wished he were here with her.

“To Gerhard, then?”

“Yes. At least that’s what he claimed.”

“And what is Gerhard supposed to have said?”

Careful, a voice inside her whispered, but she ignored the warning. She was trapped, like an insect, in the amber of his eyes. Strange eyes. You looked into depths, terrifying, unfathomable depths.

“I don’t know.”

“The priests won’t like stories like that.”

“Where did you get to know Jacob?”

“Later, Maria. We don’t want him to do anything stupid, do we? So he saw the Devil? What did the Devil look like?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t interested.” She sighed. Poor stupid Jacob. “But I’ll ask him the next time he comes,” she said softly, more to herself.

The next time he comes…

Urquhart said nothing.