A Journey to the End of the Millennium Read online

  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.

  At first it was hard to understand whether the repudiation was directed against the partnership or against the partners—whether it was due to a wife’s personal resentment over the hardships of her husband-to-be’s travels and the implied protracted absences from his new bridal chamber or to a more commercial reaction, derived from a calculation of the profits and their distribution. There flickered for a moment a suspicion that Abu Lutfi might be the source of the revulsion felt by this widow from the Rhineland, who might be accustomed to Huns but frightened of Ishmaelites. But gradually, from Abulafia’s careful words, which like the wood of their campfire smoldered slowly until every now and then they suddenly flared up and crackled, it became clear that its true source was the uncle himself, Ben Attar—Abulafia’s patron and benefactor, the guiding force behind the partnership and the architect of its success—who was now painfully and sadly lifting a glowing ember from the fire and turning it over and over.

  If Ben Attar had taken the trouble the previous year to consider Abulafia’s story about that unforgettable nocturnal encounter in the Jewish tavern in Orléans and carefully turned it over, as he was now turning the ember between his scorched fingers, he would have discovered the bewilderment that had begotten the repudiation. For then, beside the campfire near the entrance to the Roman inn, between one dirge and the next, Abulafia had recounted to his partner how attentively Mistress Esther-Minna had absorbed everything that was offered her on the subject of the black-curled man, who, not yet imagining the strength of the love and affection that he was stirring up, had prattled on not only about his thoughts and deeds but also about his faraway kinsmen and business partners, what they were like, what they wanted, what they looked like, and how they lived. And when, innocently carried away by the spate of his words, he had mentioned the second wife whom Ben Attar had married a few years previously, whom he himself had never met, he had felt his delicate questioner momentarily hold her breath.

  A second wife? Mistress Esther-Minna had whispered in Hebrew, as though fearful of uttering the words in the local tongue, lest she arouse the Frankish servant who slept by the doorway. Why not? Abulafia had whispered in reply, with a faint, provocative smile. But from the crimson tinge that suffused her cheeks and her haste to reach up to adjust her headscarf, he had understood how much his answer had frightened her. So he had immediately attempted to broaden the woman’s mind, for despite her experience of business trips with her brother, she had never traveled farther south than Orléans, let alone visited the wonderful, luxuriant south and informed herself about the customs of the awesome Arab grandees, not only in North Africa but also in the verdant cities of Andalus, replete with wisdom and song, where some, not content with possessing two wives, wed three or sometimes even four. Mistress Esther-Minna had looked up, her thin lips twisted slightly in a smile of curiosity tinged with disgust. And were there, she inquired, in the land where Abulafia had been born and from which he came, Jews who had three or four wives? Abulafia had been unable to give her a clear answer, for so many years had passed since he had left North Africa and Andalus. But the woman, her bewilderment and curiosity by now wrapped up in her love, had refused to let him be and had insisted on knowing whether the uncle, Ben Attar, the director of their partnership, might someday up and take, say, a third wife in addition to the two he already possessed. God alone knows, Abulafia had said, trying to evade the strange question. But seeing that God did not dispel the widow’s curiosity, he was impelled to answer: Perhaps, who knows? If the partnership continued to prosper and to bring great wealth to the partners, Ben Attar might take another wife, for Ben Attar’s expansive, love-filled heart was different from his own. He himself had not yet recovered from the blows that he had suffered in his life, and so he had hardly managed to have one wife.

  Then Abulafia had felt the light touch of a small hand in the semidarkness, and had realized that only a natural, self-confident humanity could find the courage to touch him. It was this humanity that had given him no rest during the year that had elapsed, so at the beginning of the spring he had turned his horses northward and at last headed with his wares to Paris, to seek out his acquaintance from the tavern in Orléans and to find out whether that tiny white hand that had reached out and touched him so generously in the darkness would deign to touch him also in the light of day. Even though her younger brother, who saw himself as her guardian, was hostile to the young North African’s offer of marriage, his sister succeeded in allaying his doubts, and when they had satisfied themselves that despite Abulafia’s years of wandering he had not forgotten his prayers and was still able to chant (although in an unfamiliar melody) the blessings to welcome the Sabbath and those that bade it farewell, as well as the long grace after food, the younger brother had given his consent to the match, on the condition that the couple set up house in a wing of his own home, not only so that his sister would continue to be close to him and his family but also so that she would not feel lonely when her husband resumed his traveling life.

  Because the new household was to include Abulafia’s daughter, whom henceforth he was forbidden to call, even jokingly, “bewitched” or “she-demon” but only, at most, “poor creature,” it would be necessary to extend somewhat the house situated on the south bank of the river of Paris, close to the castle, with its law court and its execution chamber. In the meantime Abulafia was in a hurry to leave for the south, for his summer meeting in the Spanish March, but it became plain to him that Esther-Minna’s bewilderment of the previous year had not vanished but had now changed into a feeling of panic. The very thought that the man who was soon to be her husband was partner to a savage Jew who, out of ignorance or unbridled lust, possessed two wives, to whom he might one day add a third, terrified this woman who was no longer young, and she demanded before Abulafia left that after the distribution of the previous year’s profits he should not take the new merchandise but should share out his part between the other two partners and bid farewell to his uncle, who now, hearing these words, was so startled that he almost put the crumbling ember into his mouth.

  But why? Ben Attar’s voice was choked. His northern partner tried to mumble a reply that would set his mind at rest—that he had deliberately waited until Abu Lutfi had left them, so as not to embarrass his kinsman on a matter that the Ishmaelite too took pride in. Since he himself was still far not only from becoming accustomed to Mistress Esther-Minna’s capricious demand, whose firmness was already visible in a slight softening of his black pupils, but even from understanding her reasons, he tried first to explain her repudiation by her peculiar quality of human sensitivity, for her heart grieved for all that the first wife was denied when a second wife arrived. But how so? Ben Attar retorted at once. Two wives might help each other to support their husband in every way and might on occasion transform their conjugal desires into a longing that only enriched and purified their love. And who knew better than Abulafia himself how miserable a single wife might also be? Abulafia listened very attentively and nodded his head in agreement. How sad, he said, that Ben Attar could not explain these delicate matters to his fiancée himself, for he himself had forgotten them in his long years as a widower. But since he had not yet made up his mind to accede to her demand and dissolve their partnership, he would endeavor to remember Ben Attar’s words and use them to assuage his bride, and when he came to the next summer’s meeting, if God willed it, he would bring with him her acceptance.

  And so, in the year 4756 according t
o the Jewish era of the creation, corresponding to the year 386 of the Prophet’s Hegira, four years before the millennium that so thrilled the Christians, instead of dissolving the partnership that was so dear to him, Abulafia loaded the merchandise upon six carts, one for each of the boats that had brought it, and on reaching Perpignan he sent one cart, laden with condiments, westward, to the duchy of Gascony, and a second cart, bearing copper bowls and pans, eastward into southern Provence, while he himself went with the three remaining carts to Toulouse, trading the olive oil, honeycombs, and strings of dried carobs and figs of Andalus in the villages along the way and bartering in turn with the goods he received in exchange for them. By the time he reached Toulouse he already had two empty carts on which to load his mute daughter and her Ishmaelite nurse, who demanded five gold bracelets in exchange for her agreement to abandon her southern dream in favor of a winter journey through Edomite kingdoms to a faraway town like Paris, to which they were taking a luxurious consignment of vials of fragrant perfumes from the desert, lion and leopard skins, and embroidered cloth in which lay concealed curved daggers encrusted with precious stones.

  Early in the spring of 997, Abulafia returned to that same Paris, not alone this time but bringing with him his dumb ten-year-old daughter, who, if she was no longer bewitched, was assuredly a poor creature. Again he discovered that his future wife was not only older than he was in years, but was also experienced and worldly-wise. Although she immediately folded the poor creature in her arms and hugged her to her bosom, and inclined her head in respect and wonder before the elderly Ishmaelite nurse, agleam with golden bangles, and even though all winter long her soul had yearned for the young man with his black ringlets, she did not hasten to undertake the promised marriage but returned to the theme of her repudiation of the twice-wed partner. So saying, she introduced a black-robed personage who had come to Paris from the province of Lotharingia in Ashkenaz, wearing a hat from which arose a horn of black velvet. This man, Rabbi Kalonymos son of Kalonymos, a kinsman of her late husband’s, a resident of her native town of Worms, had been invited to Paris especially by her younger brother, Master Levitas, to conduct the marriage according to the rites and ceremonies of their forefathers. He sought first to test the nature and firmness of the southern bridegroom’s faith, in case it required strengthening or completion, correction or purging, before it was joined to the unshakeable faith of the respected woman from his home town.