Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖
- Author: Luther Blissett
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The balance of strength is all in our favour, not even the Lutherans can oppose us now: burgomaster Tilbeck, as a good old opportunist, has even had himself baptised by Rothmann, perhaps in the hope of being reelected. J�defeldt welcomed us into the Council chamber, and had to accept our decision to give all family heads the vote in the next elections, regardless of class. This was hard for him to swallow, but a refusal on his part would have been even more so, as the townspeople are all behind us. Knipperdolling and Kibbenbrock have stood for election.
It’s clear by now that the wealthy merchants will no longer have the city in the palm of their hands.
Many Lutherans are packing their bags.
They’re gathering together their gold, their money, their jewels, their silverware, even their finest hams. But they’ll have to get through the inspection of� S�ndermann, tireless sentry of the market square during the days of our victory. W�rdemann the Wealthy, blocked at the Frauentor, with a pistol to his head, has been forced to shit out the four rings he’d slipped up his arsehole, while his lovely wife submits to an indecorous body-search, and her servants can’t keep from laughing.
Female protests lead to S�ndermann’s removal from his post: anyone who wants to leave can do so freely. And that’s exactly what nobleman Johann von der Recke plans to do, except that his wife and daughter are of the opinion that anyone who wants to stay can do so freely. They fly into the arms of the amiable Rothmann, who welcomes them into his house. When he goes to get them back, the old fool gets only insults for his pains: he discovers he is no longer either a father or a husband, that he can no longer thrash the ladies of his house, or dictate the rules as he sees fit. He even learns that it’s better for him to forget he ever had a wife and a daughter, and fuck away off as far as possible. By the time he leaves the city, word of his pathetic figure has already spread through the female population of M�nster: von der Recke leaves under a hail of all kinds of objects.
*
Adrianson uses the tools of his trade to pick the lock. A great hall, luxurious furniture and tapestries. The legitimate owners haven’t even extinguished the embers of the fire before leaving. One of the Brundt brothers gets it going again. The staircase leads to the floor above. A bedroom, a smaller room. In the middle, a wooden tub, a jug and ewer. Bath salts and all the equipment required for a noblewoman’s personal hygiene.
Adrianson appears in the doorway with a quizzical expression.
I nod: ‘I like it. Put on some water to heat up.’
I get undressed, kick away my shirt and jacket, a single black, foul-smelling pile. Off with my socks, too. Burn them. In a big wardrobe I find clean clothes, elegant material. They’ll do fine.
Adrianson pours the first two steaming jugs into the tub, glancing at me uncertainly. He goes out shaking his head.
The chorus comes in from the street.
They came all pompous, haughty and affected,
They went away all gloomy and dejected.
That night amid the tombstones dark and drear
A shady phantom filled them all with fear.
The burgomaster’s wife he requisitioned
The bishop’s will to live he decommissioned
Take care, then, not to cross Gert from the Well.
He’ll slit your throat send you straight to hell.
‘Do you hear them?’ Knipperdolling sniggers. ‘They love you! You’ve won them over! Come, come and see.’
He drags me to the window. About thirty fanatics, who cheer in unison the minute they see me.
‘You’ve made it into their songs. The whole of M�nster is singing your praises.’ He leans over and puts a hand on my shoulder. He shouts to the people below: ‘Long live Captain Gert from the Well!’
‘Long live Gert!’
‘Long live the liberator of M�nster!’
I laugh and step back. Knipperdolling holds me there, shouting: ‘It was with you that we liberated M�nster, and with you we’ll make this city the pride of Christendom! Long live Captain Gert from the Well! All the beer in the city would never be enough to drink your health!”
Shouts, cries, things being thrown in the air, Knipperdolling you great poof, we’ll hoist your belly to the top of the Rathaus, laughter, beakers flying…
Knipperdolling shuts the window, waving at them with broad gestures.
‘We’re going to win. We’re going to win the elections, all we’ll need is a word from you and there’ll be no competition.’
I point to the city beyond the glass. ‘It’s easier to get rid of a tyrant than it is to come up to their expectations. The hard part may well be just around the corner.’
He looks at me, puzzled, then he erupts: ‘Don’t be such a misery! When we’ve won the elections we’ll decide how to govern the city. For the time being, bask in the glory.’
‘Glory awaits me in a tub of steaming water.’
M�nster, 24 February 1534
The tide has gone on rising until this crucial day. Yesterday Redeker delivered a solemn speech to the ordinary people in the Rathaus square: as a result twenty-four of them were elected to the Council. Blacksmiths, weavers, carpenters, manual workers, even a baker and a cobbler. The new representatives of the city will cover the whole range of the minor trades, the dregs that one would never have imagined deciding the fate of this world.
The night was spent in festivities and dancing, and this morning the last formalities were undertaken: Knipperdolling and Kibbenbrock are the new burgomasters. Let the Carnival commence.
It begins with the beggars of M�nster, who enter the Cathedral and, Last Men that they are, catch a glimpse of what might await them in the kingdom of heaven: the gold, the candelabras, the brocades of the statues all disappear, and the alms for the poor pass straight into the hands of the people concerned, without the priests being able to pinch it all. When the thread-maker and carder Bernhard Mumme, axe in hand, finds himself face to face with the clock that has called him to his labours for so many years, he doesn’t think twice about smashing those infernal cog-wheels to pieces. Meanwhile his colleagues crap in the chapterhouse library, leaving foul-smelling calling-cards in the bishop’s big liturgical tomes. The altar-pieces are pulled down, and, so that they can serve as a stimulus to the constipated, they are used to build a public latrine over the Aa. The baptistery is demolished to the sound of hammers, along with the pipe organ. They yield to unbridled gluttony beneath the vaults, a banquet is held on the altar, finally they all eat in enormous quantities, finally they fuck, against the columns of the nave, on the ground, their spirits freed of all burdens, everyone pisses on the tombstones of the lords of M�nster, on those most noble skeletons that lie there beneath the stones. And after fertilising those aristocratic corpses, they all wash their arses in the font.
Weep, saints, pull out your beards, your cult is at an end. Weep, lords of M�nster, surrounding Christ’s manger with your gilded devotion: your time has come and gone. Nothing that has represented the abominable power of the priests and the lords for centuries must be left standing.
The other churches are subjected to visits of a similar kind, crowds of loot-laden poor wandering through the streets, giving sacerdotal robes to whores, setting fire to the property documents seized from the parish churches.
The whole city is celebrating, carnival processions pass through the streets on carts. Tile Bussenschute, dressed as a friar tied to a plough. The most famous whore in M�nster carried around �berwasser cemetery to the accompaniment of psalms, the waving of sacred standards and the sound of bells.
*
‘Are you Gert Boekbinder?’ Distracted assent. ‘I’ve been sent by Jan Matthys. He wishes to inform you that he will be in the city before sunset.’
I take my eyes off the stage. A young face.
‘What?’
‘Jan Matthys. Aren’t you one of his apostles?’
I look in his eyes to see the gleam of a joke, in vain. ‘When did he say he was coming?’
‘Before evening. We slept thirty miles from here. I set off early in the morning.’
I clutch him by the shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’
We push our way through the crowd. The spectacle has brought in large numbers of people: on stage is the best imitator of von Waldeck in the whole of M�nster. Every square has its attractions today: music and dance, beer and roasted pig, games of skill, world turned upside down, biblical representations.
My young friend is distracted by a pair of tits casually revealed on the corner of the street.
‘Come on, let’s go. I’ll introduce you to another of the apostles.’
We need him now. Bockelson is the only one who could improvise something at a moment like this. If I remember correctly, he’s giving a recitation in front of St Peter’s church.
A Carnival cort�ge comes towards us, crushing us against the walls of the houses. It begins with three men being ridden by a little donkey. Behind them lurches a cart, pulled by about ten kings. In the centre is a little tree with its roots in the air, in a tub a naked man covering himself with mud. In the corner the Pope is praying, in a dignified pose:
‘Let Samson die, along with all the Philistines!’
Jan’s voice reaches us from the distance, giving it his best: it’s as though it’s vibrating in superhuman effort to demolish the columns of the temple of Tyre. The enthusiasm of the spectators is undiminished.
I jump on to the stage beside the Holy Pimp, and the roar of applause falls silent almost at once. A sense of expectation, a babble of voices growing subdued.
In an ear: ‘Matthys will be here before sunset. What’ll we do?’
‘Matthys?’ Jan of Leyden isn’t capable of whispering. The name of the Prophet of Haarlem is a pebble thrown into the pool of yelling voices below us. The ripples spread quickly.
‘This evening we were supposed to be having the festival banquet at the expense of the councillors, the fur-sellers and all the rest…’ He strokes his beard. ‘Stay calm, Gert, I’m thinking about it. Go and tell the others if you haven’t done so already, Knipperdolling will be keen to meet the great Jan Matthys.’
I nod, still undecided. I leave the stage to him, almost pleading: ‘Jan, please, no nonsense…’
Towards evening a terribly cold wind blows up, blasting with it a harsh, icy snow. The streets turn white.
Everyone in the city has had word of the arrival of Matthys in the city. Around the Aegiditor, along the street leading to the Cathedral, people have already taken up their positions. The torches are being lit one by one as the light fades.
‘Here he is, it’s him! Here’s Enoch!’
Kibbenbrock and half the Council on one side, Knipperdolling and the other half on the other, push the heavy wings of the door from outside. The creaking of the hinges is a signal. Necks strain towards the gate. The little light of day that remains first filters in like a blade, then slowly spreads to fill the whole arcade.
Jan Matthys is a dark shadow, straight-backed, stick in hand. He walks slowly, without so much as a glance for the crowd. The two new burgomasters, along with the whole of the Council, walk a short distance behind him, torches held high above their heads. A subdued chant accompanies his passage.
I take a better look: in the snow that is still
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