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An Elegant Solution(50)

By:Paul Robertson


“You said you had regrets.”

“For my hat,” I said, just jesting.

“Your hat?” He squeezed the dough and it bulged out between his fingers.

“Cousin Gottlieb took it and I regret I don’t have it back. It was from my father.”

At Gottlieb’s name he pressed the dough all the harder. And I realized I did regret that I’d lost the hat.



I walked from Mistress Dorothea’s kitchen slowly, not toward home. There were odd creatures in the streets: wolves and vultures and half-beast minotaurs. But they left the people alone, for the moment, slinking in shadows and growling low. I walked out on the bridge to look at the Rhine. It was calm. But somewhere underneath something stirred and touched the surface and a ripple appeared, a perfect circle. It spread out, just the one circle on the smooth water, its radius growing, and finally fading.

That circle was like so many other circles. Usually I would be reminded of how sound travelled that way through the air, but that morning my thoughts were on other circles. Plague spread like a circle. Fear did. I saw a man crossing the bridge, pulling a bag-laden cart, and with a wife and children walking behind him. It was a sight that had instant meaning. He was fleeing the city. But so far, he was the only one I’d seen. He reached the far end of the bridge in Small Basel and turned toward the Blaise Gate.

So Basel had lost Huldrych besides Knipper, and now it was losing others. It was all loss, and I felt it.

The bell of the Munster clock rang ten, all melancholy and pleading, as if calling out. I found myself counting as it ended, not at first even remembering why. Then I knew. Just at thirty seconds, I heard a far off clock in Riehen, from my father’s church, that bell ringing nine. It was an answer, louder than I’d ever heard in the middle of the city.



“There’ve been no other reports of plague,” I told my grandmother at lunch. She knew that, of course. She never gossiped or rumored, and wouldn’t abide anyone else telling tales. Yet she always knew important news.

“You said Master Huldrych spoke of Black Death?” she asked.

“When we came to his door, Gottlieb and I. He asked if there was another Black Death. And Gottlieb was angered by it. Grandmother? Would you know? When did Gottlieb first wear a tricorne hat?”

“He had it when he came from Holland.”

“When he came back with Master Johann?”

“The first I saw him when he came back, he was wearing his tricorne.”

“He was younger then than I am now!” That was hard to imagine. “Or at least as young.”

“He was a serious youth.”

“I’m not very serious,” I said.

“You must try to be.”

“Yes, Grandmother. Have there been any other deaths in Basel of plague?”

“If there have, it’s not been announced. What happens inside a family’s house isn’t always known.”

“But to not tell is against laws.”

“Some are below the law, and some are above.”

“Huldrych saw Gottlieb, and a tricorne worn for the first time, and he thought of plague. It persuades me that Jacob died of plague. Gottlieb didn’t want that memory revived.”

“Those of us who are old don’t always remember well,” she said. “The University will meet soon. They’ll choose a new Chair to replace Master Huldrych.”

“That takes months,” I said. “It took three months to choose Desiderius for Greek.”

“What will become of Master Huldrych’s lectures?”

“Master Staehelin is the Lecturer for Physics. He’ll take the lectures until the Chair is filled.”



Plague was bad for all business in a city. Doors were closed and locked and the streets were even emptier. That afternoon the Boot and Thorn was empty. I only saw it walking past; I didn’t go in. I was returning Boccaccio to Master Desiderius.

He wouldn’t have minded my keeping it longer, but my return of one book often led him to press another into my hands. And he might have heard, in some language only he knew, of any other news of the events of the week.

One of his children answered his door, a boy about six years old. His name was Theseus and I hoped his father’s hope in him would be achieved. “Eínai o patéras sou edó?” I said. I also hoped I had my Greek grammar correct. If I didn’t, he would correct it.

“Tha ton párei,” he answered, and I waited. And soon, his patéras arrived.

“Leonhard,” he said, as he saw me. “What? Done with it already? Of course you are. And a strange book to read, wasn’t it?”

I handed him the Boccaccio. “Very strange, sir. I’ve not read any other book like it.”