Q - Luther Blissett, page 20
'We would make for Amsterdam. Along the way Trijpmaker would teach me a few phrases in Dutch so that I could make myself understood, but he would be the one who did the preaching and the baptising. He started straight away: before leaving Emden he baptised a tailor, a certain Sicke Freerks, who then returned to the town of his birth, Leeuwarden, in Western Frisia, where he had the task of founding a community of brothers, and where instead he was put to death the following year at the hand of the executioner.
'While we were travelling towards the south-west, passing through Groningen, Assen, and Meppel to Holland, Trijpmaker enlightened me about the situation in his country. The Low Countries were the commercial and manufacturing heart of the Empire, it was from there that the Emperor derived the majority of his income. The port cities enjoyed a certain autonomy, but they had to defend it tooth and claw against the centralising desires of the Emperor. Charles V was still annexing new territories, allowing his troops to roam through the country, doing severe damage to communications and crops. Additionally, the Habsburg seemed to prefer exposed Spain to his native land, and he had placed his officials in many important positions and inaugurated an imperial government in Brussels, before going to live in the South.
'The state of the Church in that part of Europe was as tragic as could be imagined: what prevailed there was a religion of blow-outs and banquets that went on behind the peasants' backs, the profitable decadence of the monastic orders and the bishoprics. The Low Countries were without spiritual guidance, and many of the faithful had begun to abandon the Church, to join lay confraternities that led them to a communal life and cultivated the study of the Scripture. They would be able to receive our message before anyone else.
'Luther's ideas had spread through the lower classes, and even to the merchants who grew rich on their backs. Events in Germany were still a long way off, the obedience to which the German peasants had been brought back did not affect the workers in the Dutch factories, the weavers, the carpenters in the ports, the artisans in those ever-expanding cities. Luther's reformed religion brought with it new dogmas, new religious authorities, which alienated the faith of the believers almost as much as that of the papists. Equality in faith, communal life, called for a different kind of lifeblood, and we were there to supply it.
'I was impressed by the landscape of that highly fertile land. Coming from Germany, with its dark forests, it was astonishing to see the way the inhabitants of the Low Countries had subjected nature to their will, extracting from the sea every inch of cultivable land, to plant grain, sunflowers, cabbages. Windmills along the road in impressive numbers, tirelessly hard-working people, capable of standing up to natural adversities and overcoming them. The city of Amsterdam was no less striking: the markets, the banks, the shops, the network of canals, the port, every corner seethed with feverish activity.
'It was the beginning of the new year, 1531, and despite the intense frost the streets and the canals were crammed with incessant comings and goings. A captivating city where I could have lost myself. But Trijpmaker knew some brethren who had been living there for some time, and we would start with them.
'We contacted a printer with a view to bringing out some selections of Hofmann's writings that Trijpmaker had translated into Dutch, and some fliers to distribute by hand. I took care of that while Trijpmaker devoted himself to bringing together everyone he knew in the city. We won a good following among the craftsmen and mechanical workers: people discontented with the way things were going. You could feel in the air the imminence of something that might manifest itself from one moment to the next.
'In less than a year we managed to organise a consistent community, the authorities didn't seem too worried about these fervent Anabaptists who disdained wealth and announced the end of the world.
'In my heart I felt that things couldn't go on like this for very long. Trijpmaker continued to preach meekness, witness, passive martyrdom, as Hofmann had directed him to. I knew it couldn't last. What if the authorities took it into their heads that we were a danger to the order of the city? What would happen if men and women who had converted to the imitation of Christ found themselves faced with weapons? Did he really believe they would allow themselves to be crucified without putting up any resistance? He was sure of it. And then the time was nigh: Hofmann had predicted the Day of Judgement for 1533. There was not much to be done to counter such arguments, so I shrugged my shoulders and left him to his boundless faith.
'Our numbers kept on growing, morale was high, the devotion of the re-baptised was immense. From the villages around Amsterdam came ungrammatical messages from new adepts, peasants, carpenters, weavers. I had a sense of being in a great cauldron topped by a lid that would sooner or later blow away. It was intoxicating.
'Finally, preaching against riches in one of the wealthiest cities in Europe had an effect. In the autumn of that year the Court in the Hague ordered the Amsterdam authorities to put down the Anabaptists and execute Trijpmaker.'
* * *
Eloi poured me some water.
'You're tired, do you want to go to sleep?'
The question contains a plea to continue, he's a child conquered by story-telling, despite the fact that I'm probably telling him things he knows already.
'First I should really tell you what they did to Trijpmaker, and how I decided to take up arms. At first it was only to resist the people who wanted my head on a plate.' I stretch my arm and laugh derisively. 'Then I met my own true John the Baptist, the one who would persuade me once again to fight the deadly yoke of the priests, the nobles, the merchants. And Christ, I did it: I took that sword and I started. I'm not sorry about that. Not about the choice that I made at that time, faced with those severed heads fixed on the top of a pole. The first was the head of the man who had brought me to Holland, a madman possessed, perhaps, a stupid man who had sought martyrdom and who had found it. But he was the one they had done it to.'
I can almost hear Eloi shivering.
'Yes, Trijpmaker chose his death, the death of Christ. He could have fled if he had wanted to: Hubrechts, one of the city burgomasters, was on our side, and had tried until that moment to prevent him from being captured. It was he who sent a servant to our house to warn us that the police were about to come and arrest the leader of the community. I took a moment to get my things together, and so did many others. But not he, not Jan Volkertsz, the clog-maker from Hoorn who had turned missionary. He sat down and looked at his guards: he had nothing to fear, the truth of Christ was on his side. Along with him they took another seven and brought them to the Hague. They tortured them for days. They say they burned Trijpmaker's balls and drove nails under his fingernails. The only thing they didn't touch was his tongue: so that he could give them the names of all the others. And he did. Mine included. I never held it against him, torture can break the strongest souls, and I believe his faith had already been so crushed the glowing iron that he didn't need anyone else's rancour. None of us blamed him, we managed to get away, there were many safe houses around to put us up.'
'Did they execute all eight?'
I nod: 'On the point of death they all denied everything that had been extorted from them with torture: small consolation, and I don't know how many were able to die in peace because of it. Their heads were returned to Amsterdam and displayed in the square. A clear message: anyone who tries again will face the same fate.
'It was November or December '31, around the time Lienhard Jost kicked the bucket. That name attracted the police as shit attracts flies. The family that was hiding me gave me their name, explaining that I was a cousin who had emigrated to Germany and returned after many years. Boekbinder, they were called, and their cousin really existed, except that he had died in Saxony, drowned in a river when the boat he was travelling on went down. His name was Gerrit. So I was the ghost of Gerrit Boekbinder, Gert to his friends.
'It was early in '32 that I received a letter from Hofmann. He was in Strasbourg, he'd had the gall to go back there. Clearly when he'd received the news of the treatment meted out to Trijpmaker and the others, old Melchior had shat himself. The letter announced the beginning of the Stillstand, the suspension of all baptisms, in Germany and the Low Countries, for at least two years. From that moment onwards we would have to move in the shadows as we waited for the waters to calm: no more disturbances in broad daylight, no more proclamations, let alone declarations of war on the world. As far as Hofmann was concerned, we should have been a herd of meek preachers, skilled and not too noisy, lining up to be butchered one after the other in the name of the Supreme one. That's more or less what he was writing during those months in Strasbourg.
'As to myself, I still wasn't clear what I was going to do, but I wasn't going to sit here twiddling my thumbs, hidden away like a kicked dog, even if the people who were looking after me were kind and generous. One day in the woodshed I found a rusty old sword, a souvenir of the war in Gelderland, in which some member of the Boekbinder clan must have taken part. I felt a strange shiver as I clutched a weapon once again, and I understood that the moment had come to try something magnificent, that I had to abandon peaceful proselytising because all we would ever encounter on the other side was iron, the iron of the gendarmes' halberds and the executioner's axe. But I knew I wouldn't go much further on my own. It was a new, blind beginning, I felt myself trembling, more lucid and determined than I had ever felt before: I wasn't frightened by my knowledge that the adventure was about to turn into war, because it would be the only one worth fighting: the war to free ourselves from oppression. Hofmann could go on making martyrs, I would look for fighters. And I would cause trouble.'
'And now, my friend, I really think I'm going to leave you for my bed, it must be very late. We'll continue with the story tomorrow, if you don't mind.'
'Just one moment. Balthasar calls you Gert "of the Well". Why's that?'
Nothing escapes Eloi, every word contains a possible side-road from the story.
I smile. 'Tomorrow I'll tell you about that as well, about how casually nicknames can come into being, and how once they have you can never quite shake them off again.'
Chapter 18
Amsterdam, 6 February 1532
* * *
Fortunately the chain holds my weight, clutching the bucket, dangling like a hanged man, instinct, instinct more than anything else, he caught me on the ear, if he'd got me full in the face I'd have been in the water down there, what a thump that was, I can't hear anything now, everything sounds far away, the shouts, the flying chairs, hold on tight, if I faint I'll drown, at least here they won't get me, shit there are too many of them, and I'm bang in the middle of them like a cunt, all for someone I don't even know, my arms, I've got to hold on, my arms or I'll drop, if I jump back up they're going to thump me again, if I stay here sooner or later my muscles will give in, what a fucking situation, everything's spinning, my shoulders hurt, an enormous great fucker, I couldn't have done it on my own, no way, he's going to kill me if I go back up there, but shit the other poor bastard they must be butchering him, how many are there, three, four, who's had the time to count them, we found them on top of us, it began all of a sudden, he started yelling, what did their mothers do? got fucked by whose pigs? A table flew over my head, wonder it didn't kill me, and if they pick up their knives, they didn't look armed, fuck you don't bring weapons into a pub, to drink a beer, no, to talk some nonsense or other, to talk deals, but that bloke says that stuff about their mothers, my arms, Christ, my arms, I'm holding on tight, yes, I'm holding on tight but not for long, I can't drown like this, what a way to die, after all I've been through, all the places I've escaped of alive, or maybe yes, it's something that's coming to an end, you escape the armies, the police, and then you die like a drowned rat all because of someone who couldn't keep his trap shut, I've found myself in the middle of it, I had nothing to do with it, and I found myself in the middle of it, that's the cunt of it all, four against one, because they were jingling those purses full of money, well-fed ship-owners, frigid wife once a year if they're lucky and syphilitic slags every holiday, exploiters, all prayers and big business, so let's wind up the Anabaptists in the pay of the Pope, the Anabaptists are just plague-spreaders who need their throats cut and feed their guts to the dogs, sleek great greyhounds with their country houses, fucking money-bags, the Anabaptists in cahoots with the Emperor, sneak their way into your house to convert your wife with their dicks, we should make a clean sweep, my arms, Christ, they're giving way, but why did I get mixed up in it, that other nutter was the one who started it, there was no need to get up and spit beer in his face, and then say that thing about their mothers, right enough they probably were a bunch of whores but obviously they were going to take it badly, they'll have slit his throat by now, if he'd stuck to spitting he could've have been just another drunk, but no, he had to come out with it, and that's why I'm stuck here, because of his big words, which I'd have liked to say myself, my arms shit my arms, I've got to pull myself up, come on, up we go, I can't end up at the bottom of this filthy well, I can't die like this, like a cunt, he could be still alive, he might say something else before they kick his brains in, fine big words my brother, because yes, you're a brother, otherwise you'd never have risen to your feet, never have said what you said, I wouldn't have done it for the world, that's what I want to tell you, I wouldn't have got mixed up in it for some drunken Anabaptist, I've known too many of them my friend, but you had the guts, up we go Jesus, up we go, got to get out, that's the way, gently now, up, nearly there, got to get out, oh shit, here I am, on the rim, one more shove and we're there.
There are five of them now. It looked like four to me, I could swear I'd counted four. Now there are five, all around him, he's fucked, the landlord's on the cobbles in the courtyard, he's clutching his head, the pot I threw shattered but at least it did some damage. And this unknown friend who's standing there stock-still challenging them with his eyes as though he's the stronger one, and go on, say something, what was it like? what did you say before the world crashed down on my back, before that giant threw me down there?
I get to my feet and start picking up the chain, I don't even notice myself shouting. 'Hey, that thing you said... About Jesus Christ and the shit-eating merchants...'
He turns around, astonished, almost as astonished as the others. The scene freezes, as though printed on a page, I nearly lose my balance, I must look like a bloody idiot.
'Yeah, I agree with you completely! And now take the advice of a fellow brother: get your head down.'
The giant who thought he'd drowned me turns purple, he moves ahead, come on, come on, now I've wrapped the chain around my waist and I've got the bucket in my hand, come on, fellow, come here and lose that big fucking head you've got on your shoulders.
It's a dull sound, a dry thud, just one, that dents the metal and sends a rain of teeth flying through the air. He goes down like an empty sack, without a groan, spitting out bits of tongue.
I start swinging the chain around, faster and faster showing these fine gentlemen just how annoying an Anabaptist can be. The bucket hits heads, backs, it's spinning further and further from me, the chain's cutting into my hands, but I see them go down, crouch on the ground, run towards the door without quite making it, the Bucket Justice is implacable, round, round, faster and faster, I'm not holding it any more, it's dragging me around now, it's the hand of God, I could swear, sirs, the God that you've been pissing the hell out of. He's down, another one, where did you think you were going to hide, you stupid rich piss-artist?
A jolt, the bucket's come to a halt, stuck in the branches of a little tree that nearly goes down too.
A glance at the battle-field: uh, they're all on the ground. Someone's moaning, he's licking his wounds, semi-conscious, staring at his bollocks.
The brother was sensible. He threw himself on the ground first time it came round and now he's getting up dazed, a gleam in his eyes: I haven't done too badly as an exterminating angel.
I jump up and stagger towards him. Tall and slim, dark pointed beard. He shakes my hand too firmly, the chain's cut it to bits.
'God was with us, brother.'
'God and the bucket. I'd never done that before.'
He smiles. 'My name's Matthys, Jan Matthys, a baker from Haarlem.'
I reply: 'Gerrit Boekbinder.'
Almost emotional: 'Where are you from?'
I turn around and shrug my shoulders. 'From the well.'
Chapter 19
Antwerp, 14 May 1538
* * *
'I became Gert "from the Well". Matthys liked to use that silly name, but he also liked to think that our public encounter had not come about by chance. In any case, nothing was coincidence as far as he was concerned, everything had a meaning in the eyes of God, a meaning that went beyond simple appearance and spoke to men, to us, the elect. Because he thought the Baptists were the elect of the Lord, the chosen ones. It was an enterprise to be taken to its conclusion, something magnificent, something final. My John from Haarlem knew Hofmann, he had been personally baptised by him, and he had read his prophecies. The Day was nigh, the day of liberation and revenge. But I immediately understood that this baker had made a different choice from old Melchior: he wanted to fight this battle, he wanted to fight it with a passion, he was just waiting for a sign from God to declare war on the wicked and the servants of iniquity. He had a plan: assemble all the Baptists and lead them out of the world, this world of servitude and prostitution to which the powerful wanted to condemn them for all eternity. Fine, but how would you recognise the elect? Matthys never tired of repeating that Christ had chosen poor fishermen as his followers and apostles, spitting on the merchants in the Temple. Because that was what it was all about: lucre, the accursed lucre of the Dutch traders. That kind of people would select the faith they professed on the basis of their own interests, and that made them a terrible enemy. The more involved the faith was with indisputable rites and dogmas, the more attached they would be to it: basically the only reason they didn't sympathise with the Church of Rome was that its greatest supporter, Emperor Charles, oppressed them with excessive taxes and wanted to swagger about the Low Countries like a tyrant, obstructing their business deals. It was of little importance that so many wealthy merchants were sincere in their good faith: that good faith -- my Haarlem baker often said -- wasn't enough, what was needed was truth. If good faith were enough, there would be no point in redemption: "Good faith doesn't abolish errors: many Jews, in good faith, shouted 'crucify him'. Good faith is an idea of the Antichrist."
