A Journey to the End of the Millennium (3 page)

Meanwhile, the young slave was clearing away the remains of the Jew’s meal. Before he threw the fishbones overboard, he could not help kneeling and praying secretly to them to have pity on him now that they had met their appointed end. The soft tinkling of the bells on his lithe body betrayed him to the men on deck, but they were all too weary to rise and cut short his forbidden prayer. Perhaps now that they were about to enter the Frankish kingdom, it would be best not to disdain any possible source of salvation, even if it was disguised in the form of a fish’s skeleton. Straight ahead of them, not far from the place where the mouth of the river must be, a fire had been burning since nightfall, as though someone on the shore had already spotted the strange ship and was hastening to wreathe himself in fire in
preparation
for the meeting.

What form would this meeting take? The eyes of the men on the deck gazed fixedly at the bright red sign. Up to now the voyage had been pleasant and safe, as though the God of the Jews and the God of the Muslims had combined their forces upon the sea to supply each other’s lack. Nature had smiled upon the travelers, and if occasionally the skies had darkened and the ship had been lashed by showers of rain, these had been short-lived and refreshing, and had not deterred the captain from spreading the great sail to the favorable winds and garnering their full blessing. Nor had they been troubled by the
curiosity
of passing craft, for despite the ship’s unusual appearance, it was immediately apparent that she was a stray, threatening no harm. Even though the signs of her previous military career could still be
discerned
, her rounded belly betokened peace, and even those who had been so consumed by suspicion that they had come aboard to inspect what was truly hidden in the ship’s bowels could find no menace in the camel skins or brassware, or in the dried figs and carobs that they were promptly offered. Taking the packet of salt that Abu Lutfi offered them wrapped in thin paper, the visitors would depart with thanks, not
imagining
the concealed daggers, curved and lovingly honed. True, the sight of a woman or two in colorful robes and fine veils, strolling on deck or sitting on the old bridge, might have aroused some unease in the minds
of the curious, but even this was a personal, not a religious or military, worry.

But now, as they left the open sea behind them and sailed upriver into the heart of the continent, they were bound to attract hard looks from the local inhabitants on either bank. How should they comport themselves? Should they display all the passengers on deck so as to reveal, besides their commercial aims, the domestic harmony that
prevailed
, or should they dissemble the luxurious character of the human and material cargo that they were bringing from the prosperous south of the Maghreb, leaving visible only a handful of tough-looking sailors hanging from the ropes like long-armed monkeys, to deter anyone who might attempt to meddle with them? Ben Attar, Abu Lutfi, and the captain debated the matter anxiously, for despite their great combined experience, not one of them had ever sailed farther north than the Bay of Barcelona.

They had been to the Bay of Barcelona once a year for the past ten years, at the beginning of August, in sailing ships laden with
merchandise
, to meet Abulafia, partner and nephew to Ben Attar, who came to meet them from Toulouse. He crossed the Pyrenees on his own,
disguised
sometimes as a monk, sometimes as a leper, the better to
conceal
in the folds of his robe, whether from the extortionate customs men of the little duchies on his way or from genuine robbers, the silver coins and precious stones that he had received in return for the
merchandise
he had distributed the previous year throughout Provence and Aquitaine.

These meetings were very pleasant for Ben Attar, because the joy of seeing his dear nephew was combined with the flash of gold and silver coins from the Christian states in the north. Abu Lutfi too was excited each time to discover afresh how the brassware, jars of oil, camel skins, perfumes, and condiments that he had gathered so busily in the
villages
and hamlets of the Middle Atlas had been transformed in the space of a year into shining silver and gold coins. No wonder, therefore, that year by year the two partners became more and more
impatient
. So fearful were they of leaving Abulafia alone for a single minute in the meeting place with his hidden treasures that they brought forward their departure, leaving Tangier before the end of July, and
covered
the intervening miles in six or seven days’ travel, with short night
stops in deserted coves along the Iberian coast. As soon as they reached the Bay of Barcelona, they left the new merchandise in a stable adjoining a tavern belonging to a local Jewish trader by the name of Raphael Benveniste, and paid the sailors’ wages with a cargo of timber that they loaded onto the ships for the return journey. Not only did the partners not entrust their return to the same sailors who had brought them, but for fear of treachery they refused to return by sea at all. Lightened of their merchandise, they would hire a pair of fine horses and ride up a nearby hill. There, in a charming, secluded wood, stood the ancient, partly ruined inn where they would meet Abulafia. Some said that the last Roman emperors, six centuries earlier, had passed the autumn there. In the darkness of its large dank rooms the two partners first tried to sleep, exhausted as they were from the
fierceness
of the sun, which had scorched their eyes and seared their flesh during the long hours they had spent suspended between the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea. But this sleep did not last long, for all too soon their anxiety for Abulafia woke them, dispelled their tiredness, and sent them running to the paths all around, trying to determine by which route he would come. After five or six years, this good-hearted man had taken to being not only a day or two but three or four days late, generally with the pretext of real or imagined fears that had forced him into hiding or made him change his disguise repeatedly so as to evade whoever it was who was secretly planning to harm him, or so he thought.

So strong had Abulafia’s love of disguise become that he began to deceive not only menacing strangers but even his two anxiously waiting partners. He tricked them not only with his disguises but also with his angle of approach to the meeting place. Even though Ben Attar and Abu Lutfi would comb every possible path to intercept their partner, he would outwit them and slip past without their spotting him, so that it was only in the evening, when they returned, disappointed, to the inn, their souls consumed with fear for his safety and that of the gold and silver he was carrying, that they discovered to their amazement that he had already arrived and had even finished his supper and was now resting from his stratagems, sunk in a deep slumber. But later in the night, unable to restrain himself, Ben Attar would creep into the sleeper’s room, smiling at the discarded disguises scattered around the
bed, and without a word would gently lay a hand on the curls that reminded him so much of his late father’s, so that Abulafia, forced to abandon his pretense, would open his smiling eyes and begin to talk.

Then the stories would start to flow like a gushing spring. Abulafia would begin with a highly colored account of the eventful journey from Toulouse to Barcelona, boasting particularly about how he had
succeeded
in outwitting the border guards of the little counties and
duchies
, who imposed a heavy tax on all those who entered or left so as to sustain those who remained. Despite the lateness of the hour, Abu Lutfi would hasten to join his two Jewish partners, asking Abulafia to show him at once the silver and gold he had brought and to tell the story of each coin, its value, where it had come from, and for what it had been traded. Because the Arab had an excellent and precise
memory
of the merchandise he had entrusted to Abulafia the previous year, he was on his guard when he demanded it back item by item, and it was necessary to concentrate hard to track the fate of each, since most of the goods had not been sold outright but exchanged repeatedly in a succession of strange and complicated deals. To satisfy Abu Lutfi’s inexhaustible curiosity, Abulafia recalled each and every one of the purchasers, identifying them by name, relating where they dwelled, what their business was, how they had haggled, on what they had compromised, and he was even persuaded in the course of his account to describe their facial appearance and their dress. Occasionally he also expatiated upon their beliefs and opinions, and by the time dawn broke, the destiny of the merchandise had become inextricably
entangled
with the destiny of the world. So it was that the men from Tangier learned of this count or of that duke, born in Gascony, Toulouse, or the Valley of the Loire; who was stubbornly fighting on, and who had wearied of war and sued for peace; which river had flooded the
previous
winter, or what plague had broken out in the spring; what the monks were thinking, how the nobles were comporting themselves, and whither the Jews were migrating. And the most important thing of all, what had and had not changed in people’s taste and in women’s whims, so that they would know what to seek out and bring with them the following year.

The next day, when the year that had passed had been fully gone over and the hope for the year to come had been cautiously
adumbrated
,
the delicate moment arrived when Ben Attar had to decide how to apportion the year’s profit among the three partners. To free his mind from all distractions he would dispatch his two partners back to the coast, to the stable adjoining Benveniste’s tavern, so that Abu Lutfi might explain to Abulafia the nature of the new merchandise they had brought with them, justify its choice, and discuss the price it should fetch. Meanwhile Ben Attar himself would bolt the door, cover the window, light two large candles, spread out on the table the booty of coins, gold bars, and precious stones from the Frankish lands, and begin to let his mind roam over the year that had elapsed, so as to scrutinize honestly the share of each of the partners in the labor that had been expended and the profit that had been made. So he sat in that ancient Roman inn, in the depths of a thick wood, tracing first in his imagination the travels of the Arab, wandering among the tribes on the fringes of the Sahara, collecting spices and condiments, animal skins and daggers. The more harshly the sun beat down in the Jew’s imagination and the fiercer the desert nomads appeared, the more his heart went out to the Ishmaelite, and he added more and more coins and jewels to his little pile, which grew accordingly—until Abulafia’s spirit became resentful, and he compelled his senior partner’s thoughts to turn northward, to the wind and the rain and the muddy roads. After allocating him several large gold coins for his travels among the estates and castles of the lovers of the cross in the Touraine, Ben Attar added a few small silver ones on account of Abulafia’s talent for evasion and disguise, his knowledge of languages, and his dexterity. Still not
satisfied
, in his compassion for his nephew’s wandering alone among gentiles filled with hatred and contempt, he reached out and transferred to Abulafia’s pile two sparkling jewels from that of the Muslim.

But as the candles on the table burned down, he would realize that he had been so carried away by sympathy for his trusty friends that he had neglected his own share. Surely he should not forget that the source of all this wealth was not only his own money but his initiative, his connections, and his ample warehouses. Even if he himself did not take to the roads, his far-ranging concern protected the other partners from danger. He thought also of his wives and
children
, of his many servants and his large houses, which demanded not merely subsistence but luxury and beauty, and as he weighed these
considerations against the simplicity of Abu Lutfi’s life and Abulafia’s tragic loneliness, by the light of the guttering flames he carefully diminished the piles he had made for his partners and increased his own. By the time the light had flickered and died, there lay before him on the table three leopard-skin pouches, two of which he
concealed
in the luggage of his partners, whom in his heart of hearts he still considered to be agents rather than true partners. Only then was his mind at peace, and he unbarred the heavy door, unshuttered the window, and feasted his eyes on the pleasant afternoon light filtering through the trees, composing himself after the struggle that had
divided
his soul against itself in pursuit of justice.

Already he could hear the hoofbeats of the horses coming up from the bay. The two men seemed worn out by their discussions, and Abu Lutfi’s face was somewhat sullen because of a slight contempt displayed by Abulafia toward the new merchandise, and his low estimate of the expected prices. But out of a sense of nobility and pride, the Ishmaelite did not examine the contents of the leopard-skin pouch concealed in his baggage, nor did he weigh it against that of Abulafia or Ben Attar. He did not wish to betray any hint of a suspicion of
unfairness
, which would involve him in calculations that the two Jews would handle so adroitly that he would be unable to keep up. Instead he chose to take his leave forthwith and be on his way, for in any case he and Ben Attar never returned together, so as not to tempt the devil. He fastened his possessions onto his horse, concealed the leopard-skin pouch close to the fleshly pouch that held the tokens of his manhood, and after partaking of the Jewish food that Benveniste’s wife had sent for their supper, he withdrew, took his bearings, prostrated himself in the direction of the holy city of Mecca far away in the desert, cupped his hands to his ears, and delivered himself loudly and clearly of a prayer in praise of God and the Prophet, concluding with an
extravagant
curse upon anyone who had done or would do him any hurt. He slapped the two Jews heartily on the shoulder, and then, since he disdained to disguise himself even for safety’s sake, he contented himself with wrapping his head in the scarf that his distant forebears had brought from the desert, so that anyone lying in wait would not
recognize
him and anyone pursuing him would not know whom he was pursuing. As twilight fell, he mounted his horse and galloped off in the
direction of Granada, whither he would travel only under cover of night.