Children of Disobedience The Love... | Buy

Chapter One

"Katharina, I'm afraid."

"So am I, Ave."

The cell is unusually dark. This Easter night, the night between the fourth and the fifth of April in the year 1523, this night sends only a little light through the small, four-paned cell window. It's cold. Too cold for this time of year. Is that the punishment? Katharina feels the shivering about to come over her again. "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Just don't lose your head now. Not tonight.

"I'm cold," whispers Ave.

Katharina rolls noiselessly out of bed. She has learned to do this. Without making a sound she slips in next to Ave, who holds open the covers like the door of a bedchamber. The door of a hiding place. Tenderly they wrap their arms around each other. As they have on so many other nights. But on this night they are wearing veil, habit, and belt. Ready to flee.

Ave squeezes Katharina's hand tightly. "Do you think the Devil will come to take us?"

Katharina replies fiercely, "If we stay here, the Devil will take us for sure."

The two gifts lie still again, listening. Since four o'clock in the morning they have been awake, like every morning, when from the ridge turret the bell calls everyone to Angelus Domini. Most of them still drugged with sleep, they whoosh from the darkness of the dormitory through the cloister passageway to the house of God. The Psalms, invoked day after day, slip from their lips by themselves: "I walk before the Lord in the land of the living."

The other nuns are already sitting in the choir. In the candlelit dusk of the church, they seem to bob up and down like black-headed pigeons. Like the quiet rushing of waters come the waves: "God, attend to my aid, Lord, hasten to help me."

That has been the start of Katharina's day. For nearly twenty years. Until this night.

"Help me, Lord!" Once again the burning fear comes over her. In just a little while, when the signal is given, she and Ave and the others will run away from this cloister. The plan, arranged down to the smallest detail, now strikes Katharina as insane. Kidnapping nuns or abetting their flight is punishable by death. What if Leonhard Koppe loses his courage? He is a city councillor and tax receiver in Torgau. A treasury official of the Saxon elector's who helps women of holy orders escape from their cloisters. Will he keep his word?

"Katharina, do you hear it?"

Ave has sat up in bed. Now Katharina, too, is listening intently. An owl is screeching in the nearby woods. That's them. Koppe, his nephew Leonhard, and Wolf Dommitzsch, also a councillor in Torgau.

"Hurry!" Katharina takes Ave's hand.

The two of them steal out of the cell. There come Veronika and Else from the next cell. Across the way, Magdalene and Laneta have already reached the door that opens onto the garden. If the dormitory weren't in the back of' the cloister, if there weren't a door leading from the dormitory into the cloister garden, if the cloister garden didn't border on the cloister woodlands, if, if, if ...

All nine of them are in the garden now. Ave Grosse is already over among the trees. In their loose white habits they all hurry and stumble across the few yards separating them from the little woods. Thank God! Evidently no one has seen them. No one speaks as they trudge on, as fast as they can manage, through the dense forest. It is dark. They could use a torch. But that would be madness. Katharina pulls Ave along behind her. She picks her way through the dense undergrowth.

Now they have reached the pond. The surface of the water glistens silver-gray through the trees. Keep going. They won't be safe until they are inside Koppe's covered wagon. At any second their disappearance could be discovered in the cloister. The bell could sound, calling out Thalheim the gatekeeper.

Everyone would wake up. The people in the brewing house, in the baking house, in the slaughterhouse. The ones in the smithy and those in the mill. The provost in the provostry with the bailiff and the scribe. The two fathers confessor--they would all search the little woods first.

Faster, still faster. Through the trees Katharina sees the little house of the woodcutter-stoker. That man, whose sooty hands make the cloister ovens glow and roar, he would put the others off the track ... His house stands quiet and dark. Abreast of this section of the woods lies the cloister estate, with its outlying properties and the six small farms that belong to them. Here is where the field laborers live, the cow- and swineherds, the dairywomen and maids who serve the cloister. A great flock of sheep belongs to the cloister and at least sixty head of cattle. Thirty horses and a hundred pigs. Only forty pigs just now, because of a recent outbreak of swine plague. Everything that can be seen from the central buildings belongs to the cloistered virgins. The wreath of hamlets, estates, and outlying farms on all sides of the cloister is its life-giving frame. "Give the emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God." Katharina knows that along with the wheat and rye, the peas and turnips, along with hemp, flax, and hops, a large and growing portion of bitterness and hostility is being delivered to the cloister. The peasants, whose feudal obligations require these payments, no longer hand over the butter, the eggs, the chickens and capons willingly. There are more and more signs of unrest and hatred toward the nuns and the clergy.

* * *

Now, as Katharina rushes breathlessly through the woods, as she sees the peasants' houses silent and unprotected in the darkness, she is reminded of that Saturday in February.

The sisters are sitting in the refectory. The Reverend Mother is serving the soup. Everyone spoons her soup in silence. There, coming from the provostry, first a murmur and a thump, then loud, rough voices, coarse shouting. Above it all the voice of Gatekeeper Thalheim: "Out, you dogs, get out of here!"

Katharina sees the Domina's face freeze for a moment. Then the Reverend Mother gets to her feet. "Stay calm, children. I'll be right back."

But already they've begun rushing in, at their head Ulrich Schmid and Hans Galster along with hunchbacked Jobst Weissbrod and Lazarus Ebner. Katharina sees that they are wearing their best clothes. And now Katharina Ebnerin and Klara, Galster's wife, crowd in among the three men who stand before the Reverend Mother. The women's voices tremble both with long pent-up anger and with fear: "Release us from the feudal rent, Reverend Mother!"

It almost seems that Ebnerin is settled at her own courage. But Galsterin quickly adds: "We're not giving you any more chickens and hens and eggs."

Ebnerin: "And our men shouldn't have to serve you any more. You've worked us to the bone and then some."

Now the men push ahead of the women. But before they can say anything, the Domina has regained her composure: "I do not have the authority to diminish that which is the cloister's. It disturbs me that you assume I would. Nevertheless--let me see how the other cloisters are dealing with their subordinates. And, incidentally, I do not have the feeling that I am burdening you so unbearably that you need to make such a commotion and stir up the others against us. I ask you to stop it, so that the cloister, and all of us with it, may not fall into misfortune."

At first, the others are still. But then they all begin to talk at once. Men and women: they speak of Adam and Moses. About how everyone who has an easy life in the cloister should work, too, not just peasants. And that they're not going to spread the manure, mow, or cut anymore. They aren't going to bring in the grain and thresh it anymore. They won't pick hops for the cloister's beer anymore. They won't pluck or ret the flax and hemp anymore. They won't dig up weeds anymore. They won't chop firewood for the nuns anymore. Nor clear mud and ice from the millrace anymore. Nor shear the hundreds of sheep anymore.

The people talk themselves more and more into a rage.

Even before the Domina can give a response, Thalheim plants himself between the Reverend Mother and the peasants: "I am a simple man and I can't write one letter. Same as all of you. I can't tell you much about the Bible, either. But I will tell you one thing. You are wrong! It is written: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

And with the help of the provost and the scribes, who have arrived in the meanwhile, he is able to send the peasants back home.

This time they go away with only angry words. But on the second Sunday of Lent, March 19, they are back again. And on the Monday after Mid-Lent Sunday, March 27, they return with a horse and wagon. They take the grain, the cider, the beer, and a lot of dried meat. The steward trembles with rage as he reports this to the Domina. The Reverend Mother leaves the cloister proper, motioning the prioress and the subprioress to accompany her into the courtyard. Katharina, Laneta, Ave, and Else run after the sisters. (In the excitement nobody stops them.) In the courtyard, a number of peasants with their wives are busy carrying off sacks, bottles, and bowls. Thalheim bellows, "You'll all wind up on the gallows, you filthy rabble. Just wait until the bishop hears about this, and the elector! You'll all hang!"

The Galsterin woman walks right up to the Domina. Her gaunt face is bright red. She screams, "We won't go on eating cabbage every day! We want to eat our fish, our chickens, and our butter ourselves! And instead of water on Sundays, we want to drink the cider that we pressed. It all belongs to us! And the Devil will come and take you, not us. Luther said so."

Ebnerin screams even louder: "We want to be ladies just like you! And if you have our men killed, we will strangle you. You go out into the fields and into the stalls, go ahead! Put on our scratchy jerkins and milk the cows. And we'll sit in the cloister and pray and wear warm furs. We're going to take you to the whores and we're going to tie your white robes over your heads! And then let the men have at you! You'll have babies and labor pains just like we do!"

How white the Reverend Mother's face is. She says not one word. Turns around and walks away. Everyone stands gaping after her. The peasants and their wives leave the cloister courtyard as well.

The subprioress has red splotches on her throat. She fumes, "There you have it, children, that's the fruit of the new gospel. Obey no one, rise up and rebel everywhere, gather together in mobs, plunder and murder both religious and worldly authority."

"Please be quiet," says the Mother Abbess.

Katharina will never forget the white face of the Reverend Mother.

Why was there no anger in her eyes? Why didn't she have the peasants punished? Why didn't she even inform Abbot Peter? Again the thought occurs to Katharina that the Domina ...

* * *

No, the idea is absurd. It's Katharina's own fear, her constant self-doubts, that have prompted such thoughts. When the Reverend Mother discovers her nuns' flight, when she realizes that nine of her children are breaking their vows ... "Sweet Mother of God, help!"

Finally the girls tumble out of the sheltering forest. Before them lies the road to Grimma. This is where Leonhard Koppe is supposed to be waiting with the wagon. But where is he? They all crowd around Katharina, out of breath from rushing through the forest, shaking with fright. What if Koppe doesn't come? What if at the last minute he doesn't comply with Luther's request? Laneta yon Gohlis begins sobbing aloud. "Quiet. I hear footsteps." In the night's indistinct light they make out the figure of a man who until now has been hidden in the bushes.

"I am Koppe. In the name of Luther. Come quickly."

Two men, the younger Koppe and Wolfgang Dominitzsch, cautiously steer a covered wagon out from the shadows at the edge of the woods. They help the girls up. Terrified and exhausted, the girls huddle together on a thick layer of straw covered with sacks. The three men climb into the driving box. They draw the canvas tight in front as well.

"Holy Mother Mary, thank you."

They sob, cry, and pray all at once. Then they are still. There is only the creaking and jogging of the wagon, the clip-clop of the horses' hooves. Else von Canitz vomits.

"She's spewing the Devil out of her," says Ave.

"No fighting now," pleads Veronika von Zeschau. They are all tired, and all they really want is to sleep. But the bumping and jostling are too great. And so is the fear.

* * *

Easter Monday in Torgau

Out in the world, will I become a different person? Katharina doesn't know whether she dreamed this sentence or not. At the border between sleep and waking, where joy--but fear and grief as well--can stir the soul so forcefully that one is unable to distinguish between what is dreamed and what is real, there she saw the fires of Purgatory. Or what else was it?

Katharina cannot wake up from her dream. Although she wants to, it holds her in its grip. She has dreamed of Martin Luther. From the narratives of Margarete and Veronika, whose uncle has seen him often, an image of the famous reformer has taken shape in Katharina's head. She has heard that he has fiery eyes, a gaunt body exhausted by worries and studies. That he refutes his enemies with a sharp, deliberate voice. They say he does it more casually and cuttingly than befits a theologian.

In her dream she sees Martin Luther riding on horseback across the cloister cemetery. His horse is pale in the moonlight, but it does have an ornate bridle. Luther is hurdling the gravestones. His sword is drawn. Behind him comes an army of the dead, dressed in their shrouds. Katharina sees Ave, Veronika, Margarete, Else, and the others among the dead. They are armed with axes, scythes, and clubs. Their skulls are laughing. She herself, Katharina, carries a lance. Soldiers and peasants are in the way; they beg for mercy. Katharina feels fear even after she awakes. Does the dream mean that they are all going to die with Luther?

Restlessly Katharina tosses and turns on her straw mattress. The others should wake up now, too. She doesn't want to think about it anymore. If only she and Ave had run off by themselves. Now she is stuck with these others, too. Katharina forgets for a moment that without Veronika and Margarete von Zeschau things would probably have remained just as they were. Hadn't their uncle, the nobleman Wolfgang von Zeschau, smuggled Luther's writings into the cloister again and again? Where else would they have discovered the truth? Only last year he, the prior of the Augustinian monastery in Grimma, left the order along with several of the brothers. Now he is master of the Holy Cross Spital in Grimma, run by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. He used to visit his nieces regularly, and he never came empty-handed.

What a day, when he brought the first pamphlet!

Margarete carries four texts out of the visiting room. She has concealed the rolls easily in the loose sleeves of her robe. Oh, they are good at hiding things. And at finding hiding places, where with burning cheeks and ears they read The Sermon on Good Works, Address to the Christian Nobility, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, On the Freedom of a Christian ...

By this time, Luther is familiar to all of them. He sits with them in the choir at the Angelus, he does the reading at table, he praises God at the None. Everyone knows that the papal ban hangs menacingly over Luther's head. Officially, his name may not be mentioned in the cloister. But Katharina knows that the Domina studies his writings behind locked doors. And she also knows where these writings are kept. Every time the Reverend Mother goes to Torgau with the prioress and the subprioress to settle accounts with the city councillors and to buy supplies for the cloister, Katharina sits with pounding heart and hammering temples, reading about the great struggle that a monk began and that now is progressing with tremendous force. The upper classes and the common people have both risen up to quarrel with this monk.

Martin Luther. Katharina has many pictures of him in her head. They keep changing. From Luther's writings she knows the little Martin sitting in his parents' home and struggling with a Latin primer. He knows he's in for a sound beating if he can't do the conjugations. Martin is afraid of school. Often, he can't keep his thoughts together. Declension, syntax, meter, blows, fear, misery.

Father , I love you. The beatings hurt, Father. I'll learn my lesson better tomorrow, Father. Mother, is mean old Alp going to come after me, is he going to squash my heart? Tell me the story of the good elves, Mother, can I have one of those caps, too--the kind that make you invisible? Then the wicked witches won't be able to find me and put a spell on me, right, Mother? Then they won't be able to do anything to me. Mother, is it true that Klara Nutzlin put a curse on our sister? Is that why she screamed herself to death? Did she send the hail, and suck out all the cows' milk? Mother, can she ride through the air at night? Can she choke me until I don't get any air, Mother ?

Katharina knows what frightened the young Luther in the night, and on dark days. She, too, has sat with heart pounding as she listened to Sister Angela describe the haunted forest in all its details: there they squatted on the ground, witches young and old, with breasts full or sagging. They were pounding poisonous herbs with mortar and pestle, preparing magic potions they would use to despoil man and beast. With terrifying songs and shrill laughter they rode naked through the air. They took away little gifts in order to make them into witches and consecrate them forever to Hell.

Fear, blind obedience, punishment. That is the world of Katharina's childhood as well. She is five years old and she stares at the wooden door, the bolt of which is just being slid shut. She is not allowed to go out. She doesn't want to, either. Out there, fear lurks in every nook and cranny. It's dark and cold out there. Mother isn't here anymore. The many folds of her skirt no longer rustle through the house. Her footstep no longer resounds on the plank floors. Her soft arms no longer enfold Katharina. Mother is lying in the front room. They haven't let Katharina go to her there. For two days now. As usual, Katharina gets to stay with the chickens in the yard. But she hears none of their noise. The sun traces shadows on the sandy earth, but inside Katharina is not warmed. Mother. There is such a silence in the house. Then whispering, again, that quickly falls silent when Katharina enters the room.

Outside now, the cart is clattering and bouncing away. Katharina could climb up onto the wooden sill, squeeze way into the deep window well. She could look out. Katharina wants to and she doesn't want to. She feels like crying. But there is a stone inside her. It is lodged at the top of her throat and won't let the tears out.

The other woman with the other skirts sleeps with Father now. She doesn't have soft arms. Just hard hands. She gets Katharina dressed for the journey.

"You will go to the convent" says her father. "That's a big house with lots of women and gifts. And God lives there."

Katharina knows God. Sometimes he walks around in Heaven with his big boots, and then there's thunder and lightning. Katharina didn't used to be afraid of that. Mother's warm, soft back was the answer to all questions, protection from all fear.

Katharina's new dress scratches against her skin, the belt is tight. She feels only this discomfort as they lift her onto the wagon. Father sits in silence. So does the woman. Katharina really needs to go to the bathroom. The woman reminded her to go before they left. Now the water is straining Katharina's bladder, but she won't say anything. She is dizzy from the jostling of the wagon, from itching, from the pressure in her bladder. Katharina presses her lips together tight. Furtively she wedges one foot between her thighs. No one can see it beneath her long skirt.

The coach bumps and jostles Katharina into a near sleep, from which she suddenly wakes when something hot runs down her legs. Her heart pounds, her head seems to be bursting. She looks at Father, but he has nodded off, his head bobs back and forth. But the woman. She has seen it. She looks at Katharina with the look she always has when Father isn't there. The woman looks and doesn't speak and her mouth is narrow. Katharina adjusts her things amid the unpleasant wetness. From now on, she will not pray for the woman. Never again.

(Continues...)