A Journey to the End of the Millennium (31 page)

At noon on the sixth day, the eve of the Day of Atonement in the year 4760 of the creation of the world according to the reckoning of the Jews, in the ninth month of the year 999 since the birth of the wonderful suffering child who by his death was to win so many hearts, the North African trader spied the stone bridge over the Meuse, which abutted at its eastern end the stone and clay walls of little Verdun. Even if by some chance the news of his ban had preceded him here, he did not need to fear an inquisition from the physician, who without
waiting for overzealous Jews to ban him had separated himself from them first. Therefore, as the horses drew up on the spot where they had halted before, a few paces away from the Lotharingian sentries with their sparkling mail and glinting swords, he instructed the
mariner
-wagoner and the black youth to protect the two wives, who had seated themselves against the wheels of the wagon to rest after the tiring journey and to breathe the cool autumnal air, while he himself entered through the town gate without delay, crossed the graves of slaves who had met their death here, and hastened to the solitary house near the church, to the physician Karl-Otto the First, whose being at once a gentile and not a gentile conferred a great advantage upon him now in the mind of the southern Jew, who believed that a few words of the ancient holy tongue would suffice to secure his
assistance.

And assistance was needed. He had discovered from the trembling that racked the second wife’s frame as he helped her down from the wagon that the illness he was pitted against, like himself, had not rested during the previous night. If there was any man here who called himself a physician, his aid was needed, however meager his skill. Again, as on the last visit, Ben Attar found the door of the house standing open. In the half-darkness of the double chamber, under the earthenware crucifix, he stared again at the long row of jars filled with multicolored potions and powders and at the gray metal forceps and tongs, as though everything were ready to deliver him except for the renegade physician himself, who was absent.

The physician’s wife, however, was at home, and she had no
difficulty
in recognizing the stranger in the white robe, for it was only two weeks since he had stood here last. Once again Ben Attar shivered on observing her likeness to Mistress Esther-Minna, who had utterly
upset
him. But this did not prevent him from bowing to her and
pronouncing
the physician’s name, as he remembered it. The woman
nodded
her head, as if to confirm that her husband the physician was indeed alive and well, but her countenance expressed sadness, as though she had not yet reconciled herself to the apostasy. Ben Attar, who had no time to meditate on others’ regrets but only to proclaim his own distress, stretched out his hand to indicate the road along which he had come, closed his eyes, inclined his head to indicate an
imaginary
bed, and sighed the gentle sigh of a sick woman. But though the physician’s wife opened her eyes wide with sympathy as she followed his gestures, still she did not respond. Then the North African
merchant
took a step toward her, pointed to the sun which stood high in the sky and to the direction in which it would set, and whispered in Hebrew, clearly but in a pleading tone,
Yom
Kippur
,
and repeated again and again,
Yom
Kippur,
Yom
Kippur
,
and he clapped his hand over his mouth to indicate to the woman what would be forbidden soon to those who had not changed their faith, in case she had forgotten. But it was evident that she had not forgotten, for at once she nodded, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, called her children inside and locked them in with a large key, and led the southern traveler into the heart of Verdun, to her husband the physician.

Ben Attar followed the woman through the narrow streets of the little town, and on their way they passed a large slave market, where warriors and farmers bargained over yellow-haired, blue-eyed pagan Slavs who were attached to a large stone. The local people smiled at the physician’s wife and led her to a large house, which she promptly entered, accompanied by her visitor. It was a noble mansion, whose occupants welcomed the newcomers warmly and conducted them respectfully into a hall spread with carpets, with weapons hanging on the walls. There, on a large couch, sat a venerable Christian with his hands crossed on his chest and his eyes closed, listening attentively and smilingly to the renegade physician, who was letting blood from his neck.

Ben Attar said to himself that this might be the way to save his second wife, by letting some of her blood to calm her spirit, and he took a step toward the physician, to examine what he was doing more closely. The latter, noticing his wife and her companion, gave them a sign to indicate that he had grasped the urgency of their mission, and he speedily concluded his work and came outside to meet them. At once Ben Attar bowed to him deeply, but he renounced the attempt to explain his distress in the holy tongue. Instead, he closed his eyes, inclined his head upon an imaginary bed, and shivered a little and sighed in imitation of his sick wife. Then he gestured to the horizon, to the place where the sun would soon set, and repeated again,
Yom
Kippur
,
Yom
Kippur.

There was no way of knowing whether it was the announcement of the approach of the Day of Judgment that caused the physician to
postpone
a bloodletting that had been arranged in the home of another nobleman and hurry to attend a patient outside the town walls, or whether it was simply the curiosity of an apostate who had already been excited on their previous visit by the sight of Jews who were so different from those from whom he had detached himself. Indeed, the sight of his young wife lying beside the wheel of the wagon made Ben Attar feel that his anxiety was well founded, for her condition had worsened during his short absence. Not only had her shoulders not stopped shaking, but the gentle autumnal breeze had begun to trouble her, and she had had to ask the first wife to find the cast-off silken veil and cover her face and even her eyes with it. And when Ben Attar lifted her for the physician of Verdun, he felt her gaunt frame stiffen a little in his hands.

The physician’s eyes had not yet turned to the patient but first sought the little Andalusian rabbi, not only so that he could translate the nature of the North African woman’s pains (which were causing her to twist her head) into a civilized tongue, but also so that he could enlighten him about the end of the great contest with the Rhenish Jews, whose outcome might help him to understand what had befallen the young woman. But the rabbi was missing, and the larger wagon had vanished too, and so had that repudiating woman, so fine yet sharp of eye and stern of countenance, who had abhorred him for the faith he had adopted and railed at him for what he had turned his back on. And so the physician had no other way open to him but to try to understand from the halting language of the prayers of his forefathers what was tormenting the young woman, whose bright red eyes indicated that she would be better off in bed in a darkened room than in the open air by the Meuse, exposed to the stares of the guardsmen. It was plain that something or someone had tainted her blood.

Even though it would have been right and proper for this
new-made
Christian to decline to admit Jews, even sick ones, into his home, the apostate could not suppress his pity for this suffering woman, especially since he was still excited by the desire to extend his knowledge of these exotic Jews. He suggested to Ben Attar that they take the patient to his house, so that he could more readily combat the illness with the help of all those potions and drugs and medical
implements
that were ready and waiting to save life, which is sometimes likened to a passing shadow or a fleeting dream. It would be better too, the physician opined, for the first wife to accompany them, so that she could prepare ritually fit food for them, for there was not a single Jew available for the purpose in the whole of Verdun.

Ben Attar, his anxieties vindicated, was glad to hear the counsel spoken by the physician, whose apostasy did not detract in Ben Attar’s opinion from his medical skill or his humanity. Since he had been doubtful all along about Rabbi Elbaz’s chances of persuading eight qualified Jews from the community of Metz to leave their families and their house of prayer on the eve of the Day of Atonement, even in exchange for gold coin, and travel some thirty miles to a little border town so as to make up a temporary wayside congregation for a foreign Jew whose wife had fallen sick, he knew that no purpose would be served by waiting outside the walls. He had explicitly said to Elbaz that if he could not accomplish his mission, he was not bound to hasten to rejoin them, but on the contrary, it would be preferable for him to spend the Day of Judgment together with his son in the midst of a large Jewish community, cleansing his soul and sanctifying himself by prayer and enlisting the whole congregation in supplications to the Almighty to grant recovery to the sick woman and peace of mind to the well one—for surely the prayers of a banned man’s advocate are more efficacious than his own.

As the midday sun moved from the Lotharingian side of the border into Champagne, the captain of the guard also took pity on the young woman, and gave permission for the foreign company to enter the town with their wagon. Slowly the two horses advanced between the graves of idolatrous Slavs who had expired in slavery, and very cautiously the mariner-wagoner led the wagon into the square in front of the little church. At the entrance to the house stood the physician’s wife,
watching
them, with her two sons, who already looked just like
Lotharingians
,
only sadder, holding on to her apron. Ben Attar firmly refused the help of the burly Ishmaelite and the young idolater in lowering the second wife from the wagon, accepting no other assistance than that of the first wife’s strong, warm hands in guiding the invalid, whose face was lit by a faint, plaintive smile at the sight of the house to which she had been so attracted only two weeks before. For an instant her
footsteps
faltered, as though she hoped to hear again the sound of two intertwined but different voices singing on the threshold of this house in exchange for skillful healing.

Very slowly the second wife was helped into the physician’s home and with double care was laid on a narrow bed, and the large iron basin in which large river pebbles gleamed was brought close to her. Ben Attar covered his wife with the two black cloaks that the Jews of Worms had given her as a gift. The physician did not delay but
sprinkled
fragrant medicinal herbs all around, and made her drink a potion that was the color of egg yolk. The young woman did not attempt to resist her physician, but obediently drained the bitter potion to the dregs, and for the first time since the company had left Worms a cheerful smile broke out on her face, as though she were trying to say to those who surrounded her,
Now
all
will
be
well.
At the sight of this smile Ben Attar, unable to restrain himself, retreated into a corner of the dark room and wiped away copious tears of gratitude. The darkness and the quiet seemed to do the patient good, and the yellow potion also hastened to do its work, for the tremor in her shoulders was gradually becoming less severe. Moved, the merchant tried to give the physician an advance payment in the form of a small precious stone, but the physician, aware that he was dealing with a wealthy, principled Jew who would not pay him with a song, declined the jewel, which sparkled in the dark, with a calm smile, as if to say,
The
time
will
come.

Meanwhile, on a small plot of land behind the church, the
Ishmaelite
and the idolater without delay prepared a meal for the Jews so that they could take their fast. A verdant smoke rose from a fire of twigs and thorns, on which the first wife could cook a stew in a large cooking pot. Ben Attar hastened to the town market to fetch white doves to atone for the sins and transgressions committed by others with the cooing of their pure little souls. Again his throat choked with tears at the thought of his sick wife’s smile as she lay in the physician’s
house. Even if the physician was finally unmasked as a charlatan, he wished to trust him as a kinsman.
Yea,
as
a
kinsman
,
Ben Attar
muttered
to himself in surprise.
As
a
kinsman
,
he repeated with bitter defiance, as though the ban that had followed him from Worms,
clinging
to him as stubbornly as an evil demon, had suddenly made of him too something of an apostate.

But not such an apostate, heaven forfend, as to shirk the
observance
in all rigor, even in these difficult circumstances, of the
commandments
of the holy and awful day that was descending slowly upon the world. He carefully felt the flesh of the Lotharingian pigeons in the market of Verdun, which fluttered in fear in his hands. After filling his sack with a dozen milk-white birds well tied together, he headed back to his small company. His heart suddenly missed a beat at the sight of the pole of the wagon lowered to the ground, the horses nowhere to be seen. Was it possible that the gentiles had taken advantage of his absence and his troubles to take the horses and flee? But at once, cocooned as he was in hope and security like a baby inside its caul, he calmed himself with the thought that his Ishmaelite had not fled but merely taken the horses to graze in a nearby meadow. Without delay he pressed on to the back of the church, where in the leaden light of an overcast sky he came upon the solitary first wife crouching barefoot over the fire that the Ishmaelites had made, in a crumpled,
smoke-blackened
robe, patiently stirring the stew with a large wooden spoon, her stern face flushed in the light of the fire, which was almost
scorching
a trailing lock of her hair.

Seventy days and upward had passed since the ancient guardship had set sail from Tangier to ride the wild ocean waves so bravely toward a distant town named Paris, yet amid all the hardships that had visited the expedition, by sea and by land, Ben Attar had not known a single moment that could compare for bitterness and gloom with this terrible moment when he stood so alone, without rabbi or fellow
worshippers,
without business partner or nephew, without servant or sea captain, without horses or congregation, without even a house of prayer. Placed under a ban in the heart of an alien land, with his
cargo-laden
ship far away, pent up in the harbor of Paris. And all this a few hours before the start of the Day of Atonement, behind a little church built of grayish timbers, staring brokenheartedly at the wife of his
youth wrestling with a fire like a servant while his second wife lay in pain in the house of an apostate physician. Although he wished with all his being that he could blame himself for what was befalling them all, because of his obstinate urge to demonstrate to the world the depth of his love not only for his two wives but for his nephew, he felt that he did not have the right, whether in defeat or in victory, to detract from the force of the destiny that had guided him, for good or for ill, since the day of his birth.

Yes, despite his desire, the North African merchant was not so proud as to take all the blame and responsibility upon himself alone, as though he had become the only true master of his deeds. Moreover, he knew only too well that if he fell to his knees before his first wife and beat his breast and confessed his guilt, she would be very confused and sad, not knowing what to do with the guilt or its owner. But if he spoke repeatedly of blind fate, which sometimes smites a man and sometimes caresses him, she would nod agreement and know how to comfort him. Without complaint or anger or regret, she would remind him of how beautiful the light of this holy eve was in their own azure city, and how radiantly white the raiment of their two sons was as they went, at the conclusion of the meal, to the synagogue of the old uncle, Ben Ghiyyat. And if that selfsame fate willed it, it was very possible that in a few more days they would board the ship in the port of that small dark town and sail back home to their own dear city, and wash away in the waters of the ocean whatever ban or interdict had been
pronounced
against them by the Jews of the Black Forest, whose
self-assurance
was as great as their numbers were small.

With these words, which his first wife might have spoken if he had mastered his pride so far as to ask her for words of comfort, he soothed the dread that had caused his legs to tremble since he had left the Rhineland, and with a heart filled with love he approached the large, barefoot woman as she crouched over her cooking pot, took hold of her ample shoulders, and drew her gently away from the fire, which for a moment seemed to be trying to follow her. He produced from the sack a single pure white dove, bit through the thread that bound it to the others, and holding it by its two red legs, he waved it in a circular motion above the disheveled hair of his first wife, who closed her eyes gratefully.
This
is
thy
substitute,
this
is
thy
exchange,
this
is
thy
expiation
,
this
dove
shall
go
to
its
death
and
thou
shalt
enter
into
a
good
long
life
and
into
peace.
And just as his great uncle used to take a sharp butcher’s knife and slaughter the lamb of atonement in the presence of the atoned members of his household, so Ben Attar severed the head of the dove and handed its bleeding body to his first wife, who waited for the fluttering of the little wings to cease before plucking it and preparing it for the meal preceding the fast, to be joined in due course by the doves that would atone for the remaining members of the little family.

Ben Attar now concealed a dove in the folds of his robes, and added a second dove to it, for the sick woman, who would require a double atonement. There in the physician’s dark room, Ben Attar found his second wife where he had left her, sunk in a deep, peaceful sleep, as though the yellow potion that the apostate physician had administered to her not long before was doing its work. But he
hesitated
to draw forth the doves from the folds of his robe, for at her bedside he found not only the physician but also a black-clad priest, who had come in response to the news of the arrival of the Jews at the house of his disciple the apostate, to warn the new Christian against backsliding or relapsing. The physician, Karl-Otto the First, as he called himself, had to prove to his former catechist that he had no secret attraction to his previous faith but was merely displaying the simple charity of a physician toward a young woman who was
suffering,
and that even if she belonged to a company of Jews, these were different Jews, who were under the protection of distant Ishmaelites and therefore had no intention of settling in Verdun or anywhere else, but were planning to leave Europe and journey far, far away.