A Journey to the End of the Millennium (41 page)

Ben Attar knew that their threat was genuine and that if he did not agree to leave, he would lose his ship. Suddenly he felt lighter, as though the Ishmaelites had managed to trample under their rough sandals once and for all the hesitancy that had been consuming him ever since he had arrived in Paris. He hastened to Abulafia’s house on the left bank to summon his wife and the rabbi urgently back to the ship, and to discuss with Abulafia and his wife not only the conditions under which the supposed invalid might be left in their home but particularly those under which he would be returned the following summer. Ben Attar still could not shake off his doubts and uncertainties touching the patched-up partnership. It was as though the dagger of the ban that had been thrust into him had not vanished or been returned to its sheath on the death of the second wife but had merely been wrapped in a soft old cloth, and on his departure from Europe some pretext would be found to plunge it into his image, which would haunt this gloomy house like a ghost. He suspected that Esther-Minna had not forsaken her hostility to this partnership, which would take Abulafia out of her control once more and set him to wander the distant roads of the south, where he would be reunited with his uncle. Who could guarantee that Ben Attar would not craftily revert, there on the faraway dark continent, even in secret, to the ways of his forebears?

It would be better, Ben Attar said to himself as he hurriedly crossed the river by way of the charming lanes of the little isle, to accede to the sudden desire of a childless woman for a temporary adopted son, in order to strengthen the renewed partnership indirectly. Surprisingly, he
was still not troubled by the possibility that Elbaz would resist any attempt to deprive him of his only son as a pledge. Did the Jewish merchant really think that in hiring a rabbi, one hired not only his knowledge and his wisdom but also his feelings and his soul? Or was there a secret desire to punish the Andalusian for the self-confidence and love of debate that had lured them into agreeing to a further tribunal in that boggy midden on the Rhine?

But when Ben Attar was standing with the other Jews around the bed of the young traveler, whose black eyes opened in terror to hear his fate decided, and announced his willingness to leave him behind, he realized that his authority was waning among his fellow Jews as well as among the Ishmaelites. Not only did Rabbi Elbaz not require his
consent
to entrust his son to Mistress Abulafia for convalescence, but he had already decided to invite himself to stay as well and to accompany his son on the journey overland.

In an instant and for the first time, the merchant experienced a powerful new fear that would—so he felt in his desperation—
accompany
him through his life as though it had become his second wife. His face flushed and he began to tremble with rage at the treachery of the rabbi, who was willing to abandon him and his only wife, who was sitting quietly in a corner of the room, unveiled, staring at her husband with her gentle eyes, and to let the rabbi would let them sail all alone, without the protection of his sanctity or prayers, in the old guardship, her deck swarming with impudent Ishmaelites while in her hold were shackled idol-worshippers who might be concealing Lord knew what schemes behind their blue eyes. If this rabbi dared to usurp Ben Attar’s authority and honor in this way, who could tell whether this desertion betokened not only a grim turn in the destiny of the journey home, but also a secret plot to sabotage the renewed partnership by another
cunning
betrayal, which would make the rabbi, returning with his son to Andalus next summer, into a courier for Abulafia, who might still be held back by his wife?

Vengeful thoughts continued to race through the North African’s mind. If a plot was afoot, perhaps he ought to warn the rabbi that if he abandoned his employer, he would forfeit the promised fee for his wisdom and learning, especially since in the end these had availed nothing. But on further reflection, the experienced merchant held back
from uttering the threat that was choking him, certain that Abulafia and his wife would find a way of recompensing the rabbi for his lost fee, and also because it was clear to him that what was needed in this desperate twilight of the festival’s end was not a threat, which would exacerbate the rift and heighten the loneliness and dread of the
journey
home, but only sense and sensitivity, which would ensure that the imminent parting between the southern and northern partners should retain within it an additional pledge which would make certain that at the beginning of the month of Ab the ancient Roman inn would indeed witness a cordial meeting between a loving uncle and a beloved nephew.

Ben Attar stared deep into the eyes of his nephew’s wife, trying to determine the proper pledge to exact from this stern contestant so that the blood of his young wife should not have been shed in vain on the altar of the renewed partnership. Esther-Minna, unperturbed by the man’s piercing gaze, neither lowered her eyes nor dimmed their radiance, but merely narrowed them slightly in a gentle and reproachful warning, soundlessly inviting the apprehensive southerner to listen instead of
staring.
Indeed, the many hours that these two strong and determined
adversaries
had spent in each other’s company had taught them to interpret each other correctly. Moreover, the North African was unable to forget how this woman had collapsed in a swoon on the night of her defeat in the judgment at Villa Le Juif, and how he had bent down to raise her from the undergrowth and carried her some distance in his arms to the campfire. No wonder, then, that he understood her hint and obeyed her invitation to avert his eyes and prick up his ears and hearken to
her
pledge, beginning now to howl behind the curtain.

After all, if they could all agree to leave an Andalusian boy-child in the heart of Europe, where the stormclouds were already gathering at the approach of the millennium, as a pledge to guarantee the partners’ summer meeting in the Bay of Barcelona, it was only right to reinforce it with a parallel pledge and take another child in his place from north to south. And if no boy-child was available for the purpose, a girl-child would serve as well to make the curly-haired young husband overcome any scheme that a stern, childless, proud, and suspicious wife might hatch to sabotage his renewed relations with the rock from which he was hewn. In this way Ben Attar might ensure that Abulafia would
indeed come himself to the Spanish March, to take his daughter back from the enchanted continent to the accursed one.

That was the strange idea that now flickered, to their shared
astonishment,
at one and the same moment in the minds of two hardened adversaries, who had skirmished at first from a distance of two
continents,
then face to face, and who now, on the brink of parting, in the midst of the hesitations and suspicions they nursed in their hearts, were united in fear and weariness in a new idea. By seeking to
exchange
one child for another, they would ensure not only the existence of the summer meeting in the Bay of Barcelona, as Ben Attar wished, but also its propriety, as Esther-Minna desired.

Anyone who listened attentively to the girl’s renewed crying could recognize that since meeting the southern children, her howls of
despair
had turned into howls of longing. And anyone who, like
Esther-Minna,
did not believe that witchcraft and demons had played a part in her birth could only be pleased to return her, if only for a short time, to the azure shores of her native land, so that she could revel in the smells and colors that had faded in her memory and exchange the torments of longing for sweet reality. Moreover, in this way, liberated from the obligation to attend to her, Mistress Abulafia would be able to
accompany
her husband on his springtime journey, not only to enjoy the partners’ meeting in the inn but to observe close up how the Christian millennium passed in Ishmaelite territory, without Jewish duality of wives, and also to see with her own eyes how the clever uncle divided up the spoils of trade.

And so, on a Parisian autumn evening, to the sound of the bells of the abbey of Saint Germain des Prés, which abutted the riverbank, the old repudiation melted away and the partnership reborn from the dust of the nearby grave of the second wife was strengthened and reforged in the flickering candlelight, so powerfully that it seemed it would henceforth be even stronger and firmer than it had been before
Abulafia
made the acquaintance of his wife in the inn in Orléans. While Abulafia was still trying to comprehend the converging intentions of his wife and his uncle, the whispered instruction was already being given behind the curtain to the Teutonic maidservant to make the girl ready for a sea voyage and to prepare her cubicle for the supposed invalid, who was rubbing his little feet against the covers as he might have
rubbed them against the great mast. Even Master Levitas, who knew how to beget a further thought out of any new idea, wasted no time in wondering at the doings of his older sister, but was already musing on the possible advantage he could take of the Andalusian rabbi’s wit and wisdom, so that by the next spring they would not be eating the bread of charity.

Finally, wearied and worn out, Ben Attar made a sign to his wife to rise up and follow him, and without glancing either at the rabbi or at Abulafia he hurried out of the house, as though fearing some further attempt by the new wife to tighten his partnership to the strangling point. Emerging into the cool evening air, he crossed the river by the swaying ferry and made his way confidently through the lanes of the Parisian isle, which had become a kind of second home for him in the course of the past month, to bring to Abu Lutfi and Abd el-Shafi the good news that the long-awaited order was now lying upon his tongue. As he approached the little anchorage on the right bank and looked at the mass of masts and sails huddled together in the darkness of the little port, his breath was taken away by the fear that the
Ishmaelites
might have put their threat into effect and set sail without him. But no, the old guardship was still bobbing there, and despite the long time that had elapsed since she had first cast anchor in the harbor of the Île de France, she had not been sullied by her surroundings but still stood out from the Christian craft all around.

The deck was empty, apart from the light of a single lantern, and it seemed that no one had sensed their coming, to unroll the ladder. Since Ben Attar did not yet know that the black slave, who could not discern his masters’ presence by their scent alone, had not returned to the ship from his amatory expedition on the right bank, he began to think that some plot had been hatched against him. Then, as his feet sank into the mud of the riverbank and his wife’s face disappeared again behind a heavy veil, he felt his whole being shaken by despair and disappointment at the rabbi’s abandonment of him, and he raised an Arabic cry that startled the Frankish sailors all around him, but not those who should have been listening on the ship. Just as he was about to call again, his wife removed her veil and, anticipating him, gave a loud, wild shout that he would never have imagined her capable of producing. The woman’s piercing cry summoned the seamen up from
belowdecks, and here was Abd el-Shafi hurrying to fetch his master and his only wife up onto the deck of their ship in his strong arms.

Tomorrow
we
sail
for
Africa,
Ben Attar announced to his captain, as though Africa were not thousands of miles away but just beyond the horizon. Abd el-Shafi said not a word but smiled and nodded, as though he did not need the Jew’s consent to set sail but was only waiting for Abu Lutfi to finish attending to his slaves. Indeed, to judge by the way the seamen were excitedly coming and going to the hold, it seemed as though the stabilization of the ship had been reinforced in the past few hours and some new human cargo, requiring more room, had been taken down belowdecks. Consequently, it was not to be wondered at if the news that the rabbi and his son had left the
expedition
was received with satisfaction, or if the additional news
concerning
the new passenger, a bewitched young girl, was met with some misgivings. But when Abu Lutfi was reminded how ten years before she had crawled among the piles of merchandise on the first boat that had sailed to Barcelona, he agreed to take her on board once again.

It seemed as though this Ishmaelite, who had been so easygoing and restrained before, was gradually taking control of the whole ship, to the point that Ben Attar was fearful of descending belowdecks to see what had been added to the shackled cargo. In the gloom gaining control of his soul, he did not join his first and only wife, who had installed herself in her cabin in the bow, but went first to look for the young idolater, to get him to brew him some of his beloved herbal drink. To his amazement, it seemed that the town had swallowed up the black youth. Not only did Abu Lutfi not know where he had gone, but he was not even taking the trouble to look for him, as though now that he had taken on so many new slaves he did not need the old one. Meanwhile the night was growing darker, and the Jew, whose fear was growing stronger all the time, stood leaning on the rail, while all around the crew was busy preparing the ship to sail. With painful longing in his eyes he stared at the lights of the little town as though he were looking for the burial place of his second wife, in whose dust he
suddenly
wanted to warm himself, instead of being presently cast upon the cold depths of a savage ocean.

At the end of the third watch the triangular lateen sail was hoisted and unfurled in all its splendor, and it seemed that nobody and nothing
could stop the old guardship from sailing down the Seine to the ocean and making her way back to her warm homeland. In the murky
morning
light Abu Lutfi woke his Jewish partner, who had dozed off
despondently
huddled among empty sacks on the old bridge, and announced the arrival of the new passenger, who was standing like a woolen
bundle
on the riverbank, between her sire and his new wife, with a glowing flush on her cheeks, dressed in warm new clothes to protect her from storms at sea.