A Stolen Tongue (15 page)

For two days after the storm I care neither for eating, drinking, nor sleeping. I can no longer read or write as before, but my only pleasure is to sit on the prow and look ceaselessly across the wide sea, that by the toil of my eyes I might quiet the fever of my mind. I can tell you a curious thing about the Ocean, one I've observed over many weeks: No matter how high or choppy the waves are surrounding the ship, the earth's horizon appears eternally smooth and composed. I've been able to think of no explanation for this phenomenon except that perhaps God wills it for the comfort of travelers. He knows men are less afraid when they believe themselves moving away from tribulation into tranquillity. From the pilot I learned that, in our approach to Palestine, we will pass by Antioch with Syria Phenice on our left-hand side. Once we reach this place, our right will directly face God's bosom, and only a matter
of hours will keep us from nesting there. I begin to hate the night that snatches away my means of seeing and yearn only for the dawn, when I may sit again upon the prow, turn my eyes toward the East, and fix my gaze unflinchingly on that part of the sky where it joins the sea.
Ach, mein Gott!
How deep the love of Christ's heavenly home must be for a saint, when an undevout, wretched, sinful pilgrim like myself feels so keen and sharp a longing for His earthly one!

On the third morning, a handful of other pilgrims join me. From time to time one of the novices fancies he sees land and calls upon the others to look. A pious dispute evolves, one party seeing for sure the mountains of Palestine, the other party denying them. Through the course of this wrangling a pilgrim will inevitably lay a wager on land and call on the lookout man in the maintop to give his verdict, paying in a glass of malvoisie when proven wrong. They continue thus all day until dinner is served and they drift away.

On the evening of the third day while everyone else is eating, I keep watch despite my hunger. The sun, low in the sky, has spread its lava across the waves, making me draw my knees up under my cassock to conserve what little warmth remains. I am shivering and stiff when she sidles out onto the other horn. We have not spoken since she publicly became her resurrected husband.

“One of our philosophers wrote that those at sea could be counted among neither the living nor the dead,” Arsinoë says, not looking at me. “When we can do nothing but wait, we don't even need these bodies.”

Since she has taken Constantine's name, Arsinoë's face has settled into more masculine lines. I think of all the early saints who made themselves sexless before God: Marina, Pelagia, the radical virgin Thecla, who followed Paul in men's clothes and was thrown to wild animals for her pains.

“I would give every wretched bone in my body to have Saint Katherine back.” She pitches her voice low over the waves and wind, but it reaches my ear like a smooth skipped shell. I will do as I promised her brother and watch her until he reaches the shore. When he reaches the shore, this will all be over.

“This man's flesh is even heavier than my own,” she continues. “Once I've fulfilled my obligation to her, I can finally rid myself of the weight.”

I sigh. I almost wish she could have spoken to Katherine. I have so much I want to know.

“There are so many ways to dissolve, aren't there, Friar?”

Arsinoë turns on the horn, lost already, once, inside the robes of a drowned merchant. She studies her man's hand.

“Sometimes dissolution is a woman's only way to be seen,” she says.

The sun funnels into the sea, conical against two far-off purple peaks. A soft moment passes between us when neither wants to let the other know he sees; each wants to be alone with the knowledge. It is almost over.

“The mountains,” she whispers.

“Jerusalem,” say I.

F
IRST
A
RTICLE
: Should any pilgrims have come here without express permission from the Pope, they incurred upon themselves the sentence of excommunication and should report to the Father Guardian of Jerusalem at once. The Pope has excommunicated this Holy Land, as it is infested with all manner of Schismatics and Infidel, and will only allow pilgrims access by his blessed leave.

S
ECOND
A
RTICLE
: No pilgrim ought to wander alone about the holy places without a Saracen guide, because it is perilous and unwise.

T
HIRD
A
RTICLE
: The pilgrim should beware of stepping over the sepulchres of Saracens for they are greatly vexed by this, believing as they do that it torments their dead.

F
OURTH
A
RTICLE
: Should any pilgrim be struck by a Saracen, he should bear it with patience for the glory of God and report it directly to the Interpreter, who will help if he is able.

F
IFTH
A
RTICLE
: Let the pilgrim beware of chipping off fragments from the Holy Sepulchre and from spoiling the hewn stones thereof, for this is forbidden under pain of excommunication.

S
IXTH
A
RTICLE
: Pilgrims of noble birth must not deface the holy places by drawing their coats-of-arms thereon, or by writing their names, or by scratching marble slabs, or by boring holes in them with iron tools to mark their having visited them.

S
EVENTH
A
RTICLE
: Pilgrims must proceed to visit the holy places in an orderly manner and must not try to outrun one another, because the devotion of many is hindered thereby.

E
IGHTH
A
RTICLE
: Pilgrims must beware of laughing together as they walk about Jerusalem, lest the Infidel suspect we are laughing at him.

N
INTH
A
RTICLE
: Let pilgrims beware of jesting with Saracen boys, for much mischief arises from it.

T
ENTH
A
RTICLE
: Let pilgrims beware of gazing on any Saracen women, for their husbands are exceedingly jealous and apt to do harm.

E
LEVENTH
A
RTICLE
: Should any Saracen woman beckon to a pilgrim and invite him into her house, on no account go.

T
WELFTH
A
RTICLE
: Let every pilgrim beware of giving a Saracen wine when he asks for a drink, for after one draught he will straightaway become mad, and the first to be attacked will be the pilgrim who gave him the drink.

T
HIRTEENTH
A
RTICLE
: No pilgrim may wear knives slung about him.

F
OURTEENTH
A
RTICLE
: Should a pilgrim form a friendship with any Saracen, he must especially beware of laying his hand on his beard in jest or touching his turban, even lightly and in jest; for this is a disgrace among them, and all friendships are forgotten.

F
IFTEENTH
A
RTICLE
: When pilgrims make covenants with Saracens, let them not dispute with them or swear at them or grow angry, for Saracens know that such things are contrary to the Christian religion and will straightaway cry, “O, thou bad Christian!” which phrase they can say in either Italian or German.

S
IXTEENTH
A
RTICLE
: Let no pilgrim laugh at Saracens who are praying in the postures of their faith, for they refrain from laughing at us when we are at our prayers.

T
HE
P
ORT OF
J
OPPA
, P
ALESTINE
J
UNE
1483

“Name?”
“Lord John Tucher.”
“From where do you come?”
“Swabia, beyond the Alps.”
“What is your father's name?”
“Peter Tucher.”
“So it is written. You may pass.”

“Name?”
“Ursus Tucher.”
“From where do you come?”
“The same place as my father, Christian Swabia.”
“What is your father's name?”
“He just gave it to you.”
“What is your father's name?”
“Ow!”
“Ursus!”
“Let go! Lord John Tucher.”
“So it is written. You may pass.”

“Name?”
“Constantine Kallistos.”
“From where do you come?”
“I come from Candia in Crete. I am a merchant there.”
“What is your father's name?”
Pause.
“Stavros?”
Pause.
“So it is written. You may pass.”

“What is your name?”
“Friar Felix Fabri of the Preaching Brothers in Ulm.”
“Failix Fabri—”
“No, no. Felix. Fee-lix.”
“Faaailix—”
“No, no diphthong. Fee-lix.”
“Fiiaalix—”
“Fee-lix, Fee-lix Fabri. With an
e
.”
“Faielix Fabri.”
“Oh, forget it.”

They arranged themselves in two lines and herded us through single file. One by one, they grabbed us and studied us narrowly, recording our names in their book with long plumed pens. The Saracen who gurgled my name, substituting some word I cannot pronounce in lieu thereof, searched for something in my name, something in my father's name, that would provide him with an excuse to put me back on the boat and shove me off to Germany. I had nothing to hide, and still I blushed under that wicked man's gaze.

From our galley, we had watched these Saracens bustle in and out of two caves cut into the cliff face, assuming they were making these chambers ready for our landing. How we longed to take our rest there and kiss the very stones, for these caves are known as Saint Peter's Cellars, brothers, and it is from here that our Blessed Rock converted the port town of Joppa.

But what malodor! What putrid summer stable stink was this? When we were at last through the lists and thrust inside, my eyes confirmed what my nose already suspected: The Saracens had suspended their hairy asses over this hallowed floor; they had turned Saint Peter's Cellars into a latrine.

Imagine the dismay, brothers. Imagine the stench.

“I will not live this way!” screamed Emelia Priuli, snatching her dress off the floor. “Where is the captain?”

“Felix, over here! It's awful.”

Not an inch of the cave's floor was left unbesmirched. I tried to dodge the larger piles and make my way to the back of the enormous cave where our pilgrims had pressed themselves against the wall. Lord Tucher and his son glowed eerily in the skidding green sunlight.

“Do you want to hear my first prayer in the Holy Land, Friar Felix?” Ursus asked miserably, his thin voice slicking the vault of the cave. “It goes like this:

“O Lord Jesu, with what strange courtesy have You received Your guests, men who have traveled many months, even from beyond the Alps, to visit You? Ought not Thou to have granted to those who are footsore from such wanderings, who are hungry and tired, some couch better than the steaming shit of the Infidel? Ought Thou to have welcomed us so grotesquely—”

“Ursus, let me stop you, before ingratitude is added to your burgeoning list of sins,” I interrupted. “Remember you are reproaching a Host who first entered this world in a foul cow sty; whose first pillow was a stone manger smeared with regurgitated cud. Our Host could find no bed even in the rich royal city of Jerusalem, save only the gibbet of the splintery cross.”

“And remember, Ursus,” said Archdeacon John, newly arrived with Conrad and the madwoman Arsinoë, “the noble Job sat upon a dunghill, eaten raw with ulcers, and by his patience won twice his former glory. For as Gregory tells us, ‘In the dunghill lies hid the pearl of God. Do thou then, pilgrim, search for this pearl whilst thou sittest on the dunghill.'”

The rebel Ursus was silenced, but what were we to do, brothers? We could not sit without befouling ourselves, nor could we leave, as the Saracens had posted men at the cavern's mouth. Congratulate Conrad, our practical barber, who first assailed the dung! He lifted his robe and, with the side of his shoe, pushed a pile of ordure into the center of the cave. I resolutely took up his labor, and before long all of us were clearing paths, breaking ground, erecting miniature Mounts of Venus at the cave's heart. While we were engaged in this loathsome activity, the guard admitted a handful of Saracens, poor men who had gathered rushes and the branches of trees for us to spread over our wet floor. They charged us one Venetian penny for an armful of grasses, and we happily paid it.

And lo, even while we were bargaining with these vendors, a whole different lot of Saracens entered our cave. Oh, they cried, what a foul stench! By coincidence we have here incense to burn, gum Arabic, and distilled perfumes. We have on our persons rare balsam, musk, some soap, and the whitest muslin for sheets. The pilgrims ran to these men, begging them to part with their goods. As the merchants came and went in our cave, the filth clung to their shoes and was carried outside, so that within an hour, our abode, which had heretofore been an abomination, was rendered wholesome and fit for mankind.

This is only the first degradation we have experienced at the hands of Christ's enemies, brothers; there shall be many more, and we must each learn to endure their tricks humbly, as befits an honest pilgrim.

I record this account of our landing from far down the beach, where I have wandered away from Saint Peter's Cellars and its neighboring Saracen camp, down past the rock in the sea upon which unlearned men claim Saint Peter fished and Christ called to him, saying,
I will make you a fisher of men,
etc., which thing we know from Scripture occurred at the Sea of Galilee and not here. I sit upon the highest hump in a low spine of rocks that has been bleached by sun and bird dung, just above the glistening pebble beach, from where, if I squint, I can make out our galley still listing at sea. I would wager, brothers, that there is no worse port in the entire Mediterranean than this port of Joppa. Thwarted by rugged outcroppings of stone, no boat of any size may pass through to the harbor but, instead, is forced to drop anchor
beyond the infamous Andromeda's Rocks. These rocks, according to Saint Jerome in his
On the Distances of Places,
acquired their name when the hero Perseus flew over Joppa on his Pegasus and spotted a young virgin chained between two rocks in the harbor, about to be devoured by a sea monster. With a single stroke of his sword, he dispatched the feared leviathan, asked for the virgin Andromeda's hand in marriage, and flew off to conquer the land of Persia, which forever after bore his name. The Ocean now rages ceaselessly between Andromeda's Rocks, dashing broken water upon the heads of anxious pilgrims when they are rowed ashore from their galleys. Even when the rest of the sea is quiet, the water between these rocks flies high into the air in explosive, helical flumes.