A Journey to the End of the Millennium (10 page)

Afterward, at a special reception in their honor in a large hall
behind
the altar, the monks insisted on making them taste some little pieces of strange, very fine bread, which had a wonderful flavor. But when they also invited them to sip from a large goblet of wine, Ben Attar and the rabbi hurriedly interrupted them. The Prophet’s
command
prevented the drinking of wine, they explained, signaling
cautiously
to Abd el-Shafi and the sailors to refrain from drinking the little beakers they were offered. Then a tall, black-clad palmer, a monk who had spent many years roaming the lands of Islam and had learned a little Arabic, was summoned. Even though his Arabic was meager and very strange, so that even the rabbi could hardly understand it, he insisted on improving his acquaintance not only with the rabbi-
interpreter
but also with the two women, whom he addressed directly, and even with Abd el-Shafi and his men, who here in this hall, as they stood quiet and very apprehensive, but also on a level with the other travelers, revealed their true character, which for eight long weeks at sea had been concealed, as it were, among the ship’s tackle. The palmer wanted to know whether the infidels had enjoyed the divine worship. The rabbi attempted to give a single answer on behalf of the whole party, but the crusader insisted on extracting an individual reply from each of them. It emerged that the ringing of bells had impressed and moved the North African sailors particularly.
In
a
mosque
there
are
no
bells,
Abd el-Shafi said, summing up the opinion of the true
Muslims,
and
so
when
we
return
to
the
Umayyad
caliphate
we
shall
suggest
adding
some
hells
to
the
call
of
the
muezzin.
The palmer smiled slyly at this reply. He too believed that the sound of bells could bring people closer to prayer, but prayer to whom? To that Muhammad? Admittedly an important man, and a great prophet, who beheld the angel of God from a short distance, yet he died a long time ago, whereas the bells here called people to pray to one who will never die and now sits in the bosom of God. Like a son with his father. The visitors from far-off lands had been vouchsafed a rare opportunity, because their good
fortune
had brought them here close to the thousandth anniversary of his
birth, when he would save all mankind from its wretched state.
And
we
thought
the
Jews
killed
him
long
ago,
Abd el-Shafi exclaimed, shocking Ben Attar and the rabbi. The crusader smiled calmly. Is it possible to kill the Son of God? Even the most evil imagination cannot conceive his death. That is why the Christians had resolved to leave the
accursed
Jews in their debased condition, so they would witness their own wickedness and folly.

Now, as the sea captain began to nod to the crusader in deep agreement, Ben Attar realized that it was better to cut short the
theological
discussion, for there was no knowing where it would lead. So he stood up and asked the Andalusian rabbi to thank their hosts in Latin for their hospitality. When they returned to their distant city, they would not forget the cathedral of Rouen and its fine worship. When the millennium dawned and the hosts’ Christ descended from heaven, would they kindly ask him, if it was not too hard for him, to come south and visit the people in Tangier? There too he would be
welcomed
with great honor. For sometimes those whose prophet is dead and buried long for somebody living who can comfort them for the troubles of the world, which did not allow them, for example, to sit here any longer and enjoy the interesting conversation, but compelled them to hasten to the river and press on to Paris, which was waiting impatiently for their merchandise.

Yes,
Paris,
Paris,
muttered the crusader, as though he were wrestling again with something that always got the better of him, and reluctantly he was forced to interrupt his tortuous conversation and let the
stubborn
Muslims return to their ship. Outside a summer shower was falling, which soaked the women’s silken robes, and their hems were soiled with mud from the puddles, in some of which pink pigs that had emerged from a nearby graveyard were already wallowing, getting
under
the visitors’ feet and alarming the women. The sight of their
distress
moved Abd el-Shafi to request Ben Attar’s permission to allow his strong sailors to make a kind of living hammock with their hands and raise the women a little way off the ground. And so the two of them floated down the narrow streets of houses and the country lanes, where the travelers lost their way, until the black slave shook himself free from the idolatrous dream inspired by the mass, and with the instinct
of a desert tracker led them back to the ship, which Abu Lutfi had already loaded with fresh water, apples and grapes, and those long thin loaves of bread whose crisp taste he adored.

In the afternoon Ben Attar decided to weigh anchor and slip quietly out of Rouen, under the cover of the local people’s sacred Sunday rest, but a small boat approached, bearing two of the lord’s men together with a Jew clad in a tricorn hat trimmed with blue lace, who had been sent on this, his working day, to purchase something for his master. And although Ben Attar would have preferred to wait for Abulafia to price the goods, he realized that if he refused he would add anger to the suspicions of the Jew, who seemed in the grip of a spasm of suspicion as he boarded the ship.

This Jew of Rouen, having never set eyes on a real Muslim, was unable to distinguish a true from a false one, but the hidden identity of his disguised kinsmen penetrated his innermost being, and his feet faltered as he climbed down the ladder into the hold, and he slipped and fell down among the sacks and the young camels, who sniffed at the newcomer’s face with friendly curiosity. But Ben Attar chose not to reveal to the Jewish agent in the afternoon what had been hidden in the morning from his Christian master. So as not to increase the
confusion,
he left the hold in darkness, without lamp or candle, to prevent the Jew from testing the truth of his suspicions and peering behind the oil jars and the sacks of condiments, because then he might discover goods that were definitely not for sale. Gradually those on board
managed
to calm him down, and after he had groped in the dark and asked for prices, the true purpose of his mission emerged. His lord had set his heart on one of the camels, whose economy and modesty had captivated him. But why not both of them? thought Ben Attar. It turned out that the lord was content with the female alone, on the supposition that the young creature might already have conceived
during
the long sea voyage, and so she might deliver him another young camel with no further expense on his part.

Ben Attar eyed the two animals. From the way they were lying, the look in their eyes, and the angle of their little heads, it seemed to him again that their death was not far off. Was it right to separate them? he wondered. And surely if he made a present to the lord of the male as well, he might give him a document that would enable the ship to
proceed up the river unimpeded. But he also recalled all Abu Lutfi’s care for the camels on the long voyage, so that Abulafia’s new wife might feel and smell at first hand something of the desert lands from which her husband had come, and so he called to the black boy to help separate the female from her companion and take her up on deck.

But the evening twilight was upon them before the sailors
managed,
thanks to the experience and patience of the young slave, to separate the enfeebled little she-camel from her stubborn and
panic-stricken
mate, who groaned and sneezed in her direction. Placing her in a special rope cradle, they slowly raised her out of the hold, then hoisted her up over the deck and into the waiting boat of the Jew, who, to judge by his roving glances, had not yet abandoned his secret hope of discovering the true identity of the ship’s owner. But Ben Attar clung stubbornly to his Mohammedan disguise, which by evening he seemed to be enjoying, and after going down on his knees before the Jew and directing his face southeastward toward an imaginary point midway between Mecca and Jerusalem, and whispering the afternoon prayers silently to himself before darkness fell, he rose to his feet and firmly declined the greenish silver coins stamped with the effigy of an unfamiliar ruler. Instead he demanded payment in kind for the rare beast, namely, besides letters guaranteeing safe passage, two sheep, ten hens, and some large, strong-smelling cheeses. Only when all these were safely on board and the business was concluded did the lord and his companions appear on the shore, shouting drunkenly and carrying torches, to haul in the boat carrying the bound she-camel, which looked magical in the silvery moonlight.

And in the same magical, silvery moonlight Abd el-Shafi weighed anchor and gently sailed away from the city of Rouen, whose
attractions
the visitors had exhausted. On the bushy southern bank, amid the croaking of frogs and the barking of clever Frankish foxes, Ben Attar and the rabbi lost no time in returning to the faith of their forefathers, and despite the late hour they did not dispense with the evening prayer, so as to bless God, who had distinguished light from darkness and the people of Israel from the other nations. And the first wife, her large face calm from peaceful sleep, emerged from her cabin in the bow, wrapped in a white sheet and carrying in her arms, like a swaddled girl, her splendid embroidered robe, washed of the mire that
had clung to it from the morning. She hung it up near the sail to dry in the warm night breeze. Meanwhile the second wife too approached from the bowels of the ship, still clad in her soiled and crumpled silk gown, her sleepy face disturbed by a strange dream in which Abulafia’s new wife was among the stern-faced images adorning the walls of the church, and from an abstraction became an angry, living visage. In her distraught state she sought the company of Rabbi Elbaz, who was leaning on the rope and staring down into the water. Would this gentle man, who occasionally shot her a shy glance, really be able to annul or soften the repudiation that awaited them?

Repudiation.
That word was heard for the first time in the summer meeting at the Spanish March in the year 4756 of the creation of the world, which was year 386 of the Hegira of the Prophet, four years before the longed-for Christian millennium. And in the small, sinewy womb of this simple word that escaped hesitantly from the mouth of Abulafia in the name of Mistress Esther-Minna, there already lay curled the embryo of the struggle that was to engage the partners so fiercely in the years to come. But in the year 996 of the Christian reckoning it was still a tiny embryo, blind and weak, which did not imagine the seriousness and toughness of its widowed mother, the repudiatrix herself, whose new presence allied itself easily with the exalted mood that had taken hold of all the partners. For Abulafia’s expansion toward northern Francia and his new contacts with Jewish traders in Orléans and Paris had forced Abu Lutfi to enlarge the circuit of his wanderings in the Atlas Mountains and to increase his
merchandise.
Consequently, it was not four or five but six ships that hoisted their sails that summer in the port of Tangier, filling the hearts of the partners with apprehensive joy as they watched the commercial power spreading from south to north.

That year Abulafia was a whole week late at the old Roman inn. Still it occurred to no one to interpret the delay as a sign of disfavor, only as an understandable hitch in the calculation of time and distance on the part of the cordial, loyal partner, who was now compelled not only to come from farther away but also to take his leave of someone he loved. The delay forced Ben Attar to recite the dirges of the Book of Lamentations on his own, but Abu Lutfi, deeply moved by the double measure of sadness that had fallen upon the Jew and by the
melancholy
tone of his chant, showed true comradeship by sharing his
Jewish
partner’s fast, to relieve some of his sorrow. And indeed the sadness lifted as though it had never been when Abulafia arrived two days later with a very respectable quantity of coins and precious stones, the
proceeds
of the past year’s successful trading. This time he had dispensed with camouflage and appeared to his partners in his true guise, as a handsome young Jewish merchant who had honestly and generously acquitted all the dues levied at each border crossing in return for protection from highway robbers until the next station. Having made himself legal in the eyes of the world, he seemed more at peace with himself. After resting from his long journey and examining with
emotion
and embarrassment the fine gifts that his partners lavished upon him and his bride, and after recounting, as usual, albeit briefly, the events of the previous year, which had been exceptional not only in terms of business, he went down to Benveniste’s tavern to look over the new merchandise that had arrived from the south. Unlike his usual custom, he did not discuss either the prices of the goods or their qualities with the Ishmaelite, but after casting a remote and distracted glance over them, he listened in grim silence to Abu Lutfi’s
explanations
and then returned to the old inn.

Only in the evening, after the distribution of the profits, when the Ishmaelite had disappeared on his horse on the road to Granada, was Abulafia smitten with a new unease, and even though the ninth of Ab was over and gone, he asked Ben Attar to stay with him at the Roman inn and light their fire as usual. When he started to speak, he told his kinsman and former patron first of all about his marriage ceremony, whose modesty had only increased its sanctity. Since he was alone, without kith or kin, the members of the bride’s family had doubled their affection toward him and had presented him with costly gifts: a prayer shawl of silk embroidered with silver thread, phylacteries of fine leather that caressed the arm as gently as a woman’s hand, a silver goblet engraved with the words of the benediction, a velvet sash, and a black velvet cap. Abulafia also spoke of his new wife’s jewelry, of her headscarf; he repeated the admonitory words of the bride’s brother, Master Levitas, who was both a merchant and a scholar, and between one description and the next, beside a fire that was too fierce for a summer evening, the uncle began to direct his mind to a new word
that kept recurring on Abulafia’s lips, hesitantly at first, but with a kind of strange persistence, as though he too were now of one mind with the new wife’s repudiation of the partnership between north and south.