A Journey to the End of the Millennium (9 page)

But on that winter’s night in Orléans, he was so moved by the older woman’s curiosity that he refrained from qualifying as love her
sensitive
interest in his thoughts and deeds, which did not even omit an inquisition into the character of his partners and friends.
Me
too?
Ben Attar asked in a whisper, with his head cocked and with a surprised laugh, his eyes likening the galaxies twinkling above his head to the glittering embers of the log in the campfire. It emerged that the woman had shown an interest not only in Ben Attar but in Abu Lutfi as well, and even in Benveniste and their summer rendezvous. She had been excited to hear, for example, of the total confidence that Abulafia and Abu Lutfi invested in Ben Attar to be the sole arbiter of the
distribution
of the proceeds of the previous year’s business.

And so, on the eve of the fast of the ninth of Ab, Ben Attar learned for the first time about the meeting with the new, clever woman, but he could not yet imagine how decisive and fateful she would turn out to be for him, or how one day he would be compelled to purchase a big old guardship, load it with the merchandise that had piled up over two years, separate his wives from their children and their homes, and take them on a tiring and dangerous journey from North Africa into the heart of Europe, in the company not only of his partner but of a rabbi from Seville, hired to pit his wisdom against hers. In that summer five years before the millennium, when he first heard from Abulafia about his meeting with Mistress
Esther-Minna,
Ben Attar was interested in her words and her questions rather than in her form and the nature of her womanhood. But as he came to recognize the particular excitement that informed the speech of his partner, who did not even conceal his intention of accepting the new woman’s invitation to visit her family home in Paris, Ben Attar also began to interest himself in the appearance of the woman from the Rhineland, and was surprised to learn that she was a small,
elegant woman with her hair gathered at the back, perhaps so as to reveal her intelligent face and her pale eyes better.

Pale?
Pale
in
what
way?
Ben Attar wondered. When Abulafia
described
the precise tinge of blue of the widow’s eyes and the flaxen color of her hair, likening it poetically to the color of the ocean licking the golden sands of the North African coast, Ben Attar’s soul trembled, for not only did he now sense Abulafia’s responsive love for the new woman, but for the first time he understood that there might be Jews in the world whose most remote ancestors had never been in the Land of Israel.

Who could say that curiosity about these Jews, who may have had some Viking or Saxon blood in their veins, was not one of the unwitting causes of Ben Attar’s journey, which, with the entry to the river, from the time when sea and land met, was taking on a special sweetness? The River Seine welcomed this ship that had traveled so far and
carried
it along like a father carrying his child. True, it was midsummer, and there was no knowing the depth of the river and whether there was some danger to the hull of the ship, but the warm brightness
surrounding
them spoke only of affection and hope, and without noticing, they had eaten up since dawn, despite the many bends, a very considerable distance. And the evening was still gradually drawing in the slowly fading redness. Back home the evening fell swiftly, whereas here the sunset was extended, and the twilight struggled for its life. Abd el-Shafi had noticed that two weeks had passed since the lengthening of the twilight hour began, but at sea the drawing-out of the twilight is not as spectacular as inland, where the trees cast reflections of reddish light upon the water. Since morning the captain had been lashed to the mainmast, and despite his worries he was enjoying this unusual form of navigation. And even though Ben Attar and Abu Lutfi were both of the opinion that it was high time to stop and encamp, the pleasure of sailing got the better of the captain’s fears, and he steered the ship upstream into the darkness, relying on the young eyes of the rabbi’s son, who remained at the masthead so as to be the first to cry “Rouen!”

As the darkness deepened all around, limiting the child’s vision, new, unfamiliar sounds came from the river. The dull ringing of the bell of Rouen church echoed from afar, and they understood that the
pair of young lovers who had been lowered from the ship a few hours earlier had already announced their coming, for all unawares the river had filled with small boats, which surrounded the ship as though
attempting
to imprison her.

During the night there was no contact between the boats from Rouen and the strange ship, as though hosts and guests alike were reluctant to diffuse in darkness the excitement of the encounter. In silence the boats remained where they were, surrounding the Arab sailing ship in a semicircle, and it was unclear whether they were blocking her way or protecting her. Every now and again a boat changed its position for no apparent reason, the plash of oars sounding clear and pure in the warm night air. Around midnight Ben Attar tried to halt the flow of his thoughts by entering his first wife’s cabin, laying his head between her legs, and waiting for slumber to sever his soul from his worries, but they refused to depart, and compelled him again to seek the deck and Abd el-Shafi and Abu Lutfi, who were sleeping peacefully upon the lowered mainsail, watched over by the black idol-worshipper, who crouched at their feet. Ben Attar looked at them enviously. Their
worries
were not his worries, he mused as he listened to the boats that surrounded his ship, trying to discern their purpose from their
melodious
sound.

Eventually he roused the two Arabs and quietly told them of his decision. Until the true intentions of the people of Rouen were
revealed,
and also so as not to impose too heavy a burden on their minds, it would be better if all the passengers aboard the ship should be deemed to share the same faith. A faint laugh lit up the captain’s white teeth. Could the Mohammedans then be changed to Jews by morning?
Neither
by
morning
nor
by
Judgment
Day,
Ben Attar muttered to
himself,
but he patiently explained to his partners that so long as the Umayyad caliph Hashim II, who was supposed to protect them, clung stubbornly to his Islamic faith, it was for all his subjects in times of adversity to cloak their own faith in his. What, even Rabbi Elbaz? Yes
indeed, came back the resolute reply, both the rabbi and the rabbi’s son.

In the case of young Elbaz, the rabbi’s son, it would seem the change had already taken place some time before. From the moment he had come aboard in the harbor of Cadiz and felt the motion of the deck, his soul had understood that this was where he would
rediscover
the rocking and cradling that his late mother had deprived him of, and so he had clung to the ship as though it were the swing he had swung on in his lost childhood. When his father had subsided into seasickness, and in his terrible confusion had lost contact with his son, the frightened boy had looked for protection to the sailors, who unhesitatingly sent him to climb the mast, both to keep him occupied and to test his strength. And there it was, atop the mast, that the young traveler began to grow. For he sometimes imagined, at that great height, that the erect shaft of the ship was stirring between his skinny, naked legs, so that he was unable to resist the idea that he was its true master and the men scampering about far below on the deck were under his command. It was on account of this vision that the crew treated him with affection and respect, adopting him as a young sailor.

He rapidly adopted them in return. The boy immersed himself in the sailors’ ways, learned the secrets of their tongue, and imitated their manner, so that he looked, in his short breeches and red turban, as though he had been born into the light of day not from his mother’s womb in Seville but from the ancient belly of the guardship.
Nevertheless,
the rabbi was pleased with his son. He had not forgotten the reproaches of his kinsfolk, who had pleaded with him to leave the motherless child behind and not subject him to the tedium and perils of the lengthy voyage. But the rabbi had insisted. After enduring the death of his wife, he was not willing to face a further parting. And when he beheld the boy’s limbs filling out in the light of the sunshine and the azure sea, his skin growing dark and smooth, and his happy, eager sharing in the work of the ship, he knew that he had been right to obey his own instincts rather than hearken to his family and friends. But once each day, at the time of the evening prayer, he firmly
removed
the little sailor from the ropes and steering oars, seated him on the old bridge between Ben Attar’s two wives, facing the prow which
cleaved the ocean’s reddening waters, and read a psalm or two with him, lest he forget that there was dry land beyond the vast deep.

At first the rabbi had thought to study some simple texts of
Mishnah
and Talmud with the boy, but once the sea journey had aroused such powerful poetic feelings in him, he had postponed rational
studies
until they were on shore again, and in consequence it was no wonder that when Ben Attar roused him from his sleep and asked him to dissemble his true nature in the morning, so as not to muddle the minds of the local folk by confronting them with the spectacle of two alien and possibly incompatible faiths sharing a single ship, the rabbi manifested no alarm at the surprising request. The verses he had
composed
during the past days had rendered his personality gentler and more pliant, and so long as he was not required to consume forbidden foods he was ready to shroud his head like Abu Lutfi and disguise himself as a Muslim, until it became plain what kind of welcome the inhabitants of Rouen were reserving for them.

With the light of dawn, however, the only token of welcome in Rouen was the insistent, solemn clangor of bells that filled the air of the small port. Was the ringing intended to gather the faithful for Sunday mass, or to encourage the oarsmen on the boats to board the strange ship and ascertain its true nature? Either way, Abd el-Shafi gave orders for the mainmast to be adorned with some colored
pennants
that had been hoisted in the ship’s engagements with Christian fleets in the past, but as a token of peace he also lowered a large rope ladder, so as to encourage the ship’s night jailers to become her
morning
guests. Eventually some armed men came on board, headed by one of the lords of the town, who was amazed not only by the distance the ship had traveled from the Maghreb but also by its original form. It was immediately apparent that here in the port of Rouen there were great experts on ships—how else to explain the chief man’s protracted and minute inquisition into the nature and use of the great sail, the Arab lateen sail, which performed on its own more than a number of small sails did on a Christian ship? Eventually the man went down with his men to inspect the hold and to gape at the two young camels, whose trembling increased so much at the touch of the Christians that the slave was compelled to quieten them with gurgling sounds. Since these Christians had never set eyes on a real camel, they were treated to an
account of its qualities, and especially its ability to do without water and food. Then they were offered the usual visitors’ tour. They were invited to sniff the spices, to feel the skins and cloths, to test the blades of the daggers with their thumbs, which they also dipped in the olive oil, and then they were asked to taste the dried figs and dates and carobs and raisins, and to conclude with a pinch of white salt, which was also wrapped for them in a fine paper as a gift.

It was only when they climbed back up on deck and looked around to see if there was anything left to examine on this wonderful ship that they peered cautiously at the two women, who hurriedly veiled their faces to hide their blushing smiles. The lord bowed deeply, while the Jewish merchant, unable to contain himself, asked the rabbi, who served as translator from Arabic to the mixture of Latin and Frankish of the men of Rouen, to invite the visitors to examine the rest of his fabrics, from which the women’s dresses were made. But the lord happened to be more impressed by the women themselves than by what they were clothed in, and so the invitation to do business was politely declined on the grounds that they had shortly to attend mass, and instead Rabbi Elbaz was asked to write on a parchment the names of all the travelers and the animals and their personal relationship to one another.

Only after the lord had left the ship, not before insisting cordially but firmly that the travelers should honor them by visiting the city and its churches, did Elbaz whisper to Ben Attar that he had taken it upon himself to inscribe the second wife as the sister of the first, to prevent unnecessary gossip among the Christians, whom the approaching
millennium
was infecting with excessive piety. At first Ben Attar was shocked. Was this not a retreat or even a betrayal of the principle in whose name the whole expedition had been conceived? But once he had grasped the rabbi’s considered caution, he said to himself that there was no reason to despair of him. Even if the sea had changed him into a poet, the dry land would restore his senses.

And so, their personal and religious status having been especially adapted to the purpose of visiting the infidel town and particularly of participating in the mass of an alien faith, twelve travelers
disembarked,
leaving only a single sailor with Abu Lutfi to guard the ship. To protect the Jews, Abd el-Shafi insisted on accompanying them
ashore, and indeed on reinforcing their disguise by adding four of his crew. They also decided to take the young slave with them, lest he escape during their absence to the shore that he so longed for. They stripped him of his tatters and clothed him in a white robe, which emphasized the blackness of his face and his hands and feet.

After so many wave-tossed days, the voyagers’ minds were dizzied somewhat by the solidity of the cobbles they walked on, and so they tended to huddle together at first, if only to allay the terror caused by the sound of the bells, which from a distance, on board ship, had seemed soothing and kindly, but here, among the narrow streets of Rouen, shook the gray air with an insistent menace. Indeed, the streets of Rouen were narrow and winding, and the houses seemed miserable and small to the North Africans, who wondered not only at the
unpainted
and unplastered gray stone but also at the absence of
flowerbeds
and ornamental trees. Only occasionally did they halt to feast their eyes on a thick blackened beam that reinforced and adorned the small doorway of a mean house.

Since most of the folk of Rouen were at the mass, the travelers soon lost their way in the empty streets, but a local lad, who at first stood rooted to the spot at the sight of the visitors, bestirred himself and ran to announce their arrival. At once a pair of monks came to meet them and addressed them cordially in clear Latin phrases. It was for the glory and joy of Christ that the honored unbelievers should take part in their worship, they announced to the newcomers, opening for them the heavy great door of the cathedral.

By comparison with the spacious mosques that the visitors were familiar with in North Africa and Andalus, their soft couches and the blue arabesques that adorned their walls, the cathedral of Rouen seemed cramped and sad in its dark severity, and it had a sweet-sour smell blended of incense and sweat, for even on this summer day the congregation was dressed in heavy, dark clothes. The two women had a moment of revulsion as they entered, but it was already too late, all eyes were upon them, and the service was interrupted to allow a ripple of astonishment to spread down the rows of worshippers, as the women’s softly billowing robes and the men’s baggy trousers passed through their ranks. The sight of the black pagan in his hooded coat and the brightly colored oriental silks made it seem as though the
mythological figures painted on the walls of the church had descended and come to life in their midst.

It may have been then, in the gloomy cathedral of Rouen, that the rabbi first noticed the special thing that women brought to the land of the Franks, particularly such flowering, exotic women as Ben Attar’s wives, whose fine scented veils might have been intended to shield their modesty or, alternatively, to heighten their seductiveness. When the newcomers had taken their places in the seats that the monks had reserved for them and an invisible choir had burst into virile yet gentle song, accompanied by a totally unfamiliar musical instrument, the North Africans raised their heads in search of the origin of the
unknown
sound, in the realization that despite the simplicity of the church it could be a place of complex artistry, blending the clear monotones of the chant with the severity of the thin-limbed images that stared with profound and eternal melancholy at the splendidly robed figure of the priest with turned back, who prostrated himself, rang a little bell, prostrated himself again, rang his bell again, and so on.

He
has
a
bell
too,
thought the black slave, his eyes fixed devotedly on the priest, who, after completing his repeated prostrations, removed his gold-embroidered stole and ascended a small dais to address the congregation. He spoke to them in Latin, but whenever he noticed that his listeners had difficulty in understanding him, he introduced a word or phrase in the local language, at which the people sighed with
pleasure
at the suddenly revealed meaning. At first the rabbi tried to follow what he was saying, so as to know if it contained any menace to the voyagers, who sat motionless—except for the young pagan, who,
overcome
by idolatrous fervor, was kneeling before the image of a gilded man spreading his arms out like a bat’s wings behind the altar.

The priest was moved by the sight of the black youth suddenly kneeling in such a spontaneous fashion, but he had too much
consideration
for the other guests to interpret it as a sign from heaven or an omen concerning them. He merely smiled contentedly, rubbed his palms together, and pronounced a special greeting to the visitors,
calling
them in each sentence by a different epithet—Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Mohammedans, Ishmaelites, colorful, dusky southerners, sailors, merchants, voyagers, pilgrims, and unbelievers. He did this so
much that the congregation must have had the impression that instead of a dozen weary travelers they were welcoming representatives of the whole wide world.