An Elegant Solution(2)

In temperament, the common inheritance from their father was their eternal curiosity and from their mother, a piercing perception. But two other traits from their parents were odd crossed. Daniel thrived on conversation, having his mother’s love of talking and his father’s care at hearing. Nicolaus had the reverse: his father’s dislike of speaking and his mother’s disdain for listening. The parents had been compatible. The brothers, a torture to each other. They still had a strong fraternal fondness, though: a common enemy had made them allies.

“Blasted long ride,” Nicolaus said.

But Daniel was shaking my hand eagerly. “How have you weathered these two years?”

“Very well,” I answered.

“And the Brute?” he asked, and I knew his aversion to his father was also unchanged. Master Johann was the most opposite among mankind of an unthinking animal, and Daniel among mankind most knew that.

“As well as ever.”

“I feared as much! But he won’t live forever, will he? He’ll have to die sometime.”

“We all will,” Nicolaus said. “But who’ll carry the baggage?”

“That’s the lot of the living, to carry what’s left behind by the dead,” Daniel said.

Yet Nicolaus, who was lean with words, would use one sentence to say more than one thing. He’d meant the luggage from the coach. “The boy’s hired to bring it to the house,” I said, “and the driver, too.” Knipper himself was already unloading the first bags, and Willi, the hulking tavern lout, was bringing out a cart. “We’re to go on right away.”

“We’re to go right away? Then I’ll stop right away. Join me in the Boot and Thorn for a cup, Leonhard.”

“Not I.”

The innkeeper had come out to watch us, and he and the coachman had whispered words. That man was earth and fire to Knipper’s wind and fire, and I’d seen many sparks between them. Then Knipper took the first bags into his hands.

“Perhaps in the church for a kneel, then?” Daniel said to me. “That’s what you’d rather.”

“I’d rather get you to the Master’s house.”

“And be at it,” Nicolaus growled.

The first street toward Master Johann’s house from the Square was the Contention Alley, and it was well named for what it was leading us to. I had a quick sight of Knipper turning the corner ahead of us, while the brothers were looking back at Willi tugging heavy trunks onto the cart. Then we were off, and the march to Master Johann’s house was short and sharp.

In the minute of walking, I asked Daniel about Italy. It was really to hear about himself, and my ears were quickly filled. Daniel had been my close friend in the first lonely years I was in Basel away from my own parents. He and his brothers had been brothers to me, and Daniel the most. I’d grieved when he left. I’d grieved for why he’d had to leave. I’d worried he would never return.

Nicolaus was silent, of course. He hadn’t lived in Basel in the years I’d been here, but for the last two that Daniel had been away, Nicolaus had lived in Bern and been a frequent visitor to his father’s house. When I did get him to talk, he was worth listening to, and had been kind to me in his own way.



Two quick streets brought us to the second of Basel’s open spaces. The bare Munster Square was much different from the market square of Bare Feet. The brick Munster, Basel’s cathedral, was more daunting than the old white church, taller, and sharper. The plaza was less square than rectangular and too holy for the sellers and moneychangers. Its houses were larger and fewer, and the largest and fewest was my Master’s. Daniel must have had painful memories to see it. But as we came into that square, and in sight of that house, I knew Nicolaus, and even Daniel, felt that delight, universal to men, of homecoming. I knew it well from the occasions I saw my own father’s house.

I considered the house of Master Johann to have been at least as much as it should. It was close by the University, three dun stories high and seven dark blue shuttered windows across, with a high pitched roof snarled by the gabled windows of two more stories within it.

The doors of Basel were not entries but sentries. Even the grand entranceways of the town hall and the churches were kept closed to intimidate. My Master’s door was imposing, cut wide but a bit short. He entered it as a perfect fit. His sons, who were taller, bowed to pass. I commonly entered through the back alley and kitchen door where I could hold my head high.

It was always blindingly dim inside that door. The hall was dark wood plank floor, darker paneled walls, and darkest beamed ceiling, which all sponged the air clean of light. We stood in the saturating murk, the sons and I, and their homecoming delight was de-lit. As for me, I found it comforting. There was other sight than by light.