Balthasar's Odyssey (15 page)

10 November

I took Marta for a trip across the city to drive the images of the severed head out of her mind's eye. When he left Afyonkarahisar with the caravan, Maïmoun left me the address of a cousin of his with whom he intended to stay, and I thought this might be a good time to go and inquire after him. I had some trouble finding the house, though it is in Galata, only a few streets away from where we are staying. I was kept waiting for a moment after I knocked at the door; then a man came and asked us a number of questions before inviting us in. By the time he finally stood aside, with a few cold words of formal welcome, I'd made up my mind not to set foot in his house. He pressed us a little, but for me the matter was settled. All I learned from him was that Maïmoun had stayed only a few days in Constantinople, and left again without saying where he was going — unless his cousin considered me unworthy of knowing his destination. I left my, or rather Barinelli's, address, in case Maïmoun should come back before we left, and so that I shouldn't have to come and ask for news again from this unfriendly fellow.

Then we crossed the Golden Horn and returned to the city, where Marta, urged on by me, bought two beautiful lengths of cloth, one black with silver threads in it, the other of raw silk with a pattern of sky-blue stars. “You have given me night and dawn,” she said, and if we hadn't been surrounded by other people I'd have taken her in my arms.

In the new spice market I met a Genoese man who set himself up there a few months ago and already has one of the finest perfumeries in Constantinople. I may never have set foot in the city of my ancestors, but I can't help feeling proud when I meet a fellow-countryman who is respected, bold and prosperous. I asked him to make up a perfume for Marta — the subtlest scent a lady ever wore. I let it be understood she was my wife or fiancée, without actually saying so. The man closeted himself in the depths of his shop and came back with a splendid dark green bottle as round as a pasha after lunch. It smelled of aloes, violets, opium and both kinds of amber.

When I asked him how much I owed him he pretended not to want any money, but this was just a merchant's empty ploy. He soon murmured a price I'd have considered exorbitant if I hadn't seen the wonder in Marta's eyes when she sampled her latest present.

Is it vain of me to play the generous fiancé, spending money in a lordly fashion and ordering things without even asking the price? But what does it matter? I'm happy, she's happy. If I'm vain, I'm not ashamed of it!

On our way home we stopped at a seamstress's in Galata for her to take Marta's measurements. And again at a cobbler's shop with a display of elegant ladies' shoes. Marta protested every time, and then gave way, knowing I was determined. I may not be her lawful husband, but already I'm more her husband than the other one was, and I regard the duties of my situation as privileges. It is up to a man to dress the woman he undresses and to perfume the woman he embraces. Just as it is up to him to defend with his life the fragile step that shadows his own.

I'm starting to sound like an amorous pageboy. Time to lay down my pen for this evening, and blow the skittish, sparkling ink dry.

14 November

For four days I've been pressing Marta to set aside her fears and go to the palace again. Only today did she finally agree. So, taking Hatem with us, we set out to cross the water, using an umbrella to keep off occasional showers of rain. To distract Marta I chatted gaily to her about this and that, pointing out especially fine houses and the strange attire of some of the passers-by. We exchanged glances to hold back our laughter. Until we got to the palace. Then her face clouded over and I could no longer make her smile.

I stopped off, as usual, at my friend from Candia's coffee shop, while “the widow” set out for the High Gate, casting farewell looks back at me at almost every step, as if we were never going to see one another again. Heartbreaking as this was, she had to get the wretched firman if we were to be free and able to love one another! So I pretended to be firmer than I felt, and signed to her to go on and pass through the gate. But she couldn't. She trembled and slowed down more at every step. Hatem, stout fellow, supported her and whispered encouragement, but her legs simply wouldn't carry her. He had to give up and practically drag her back to me, weeping, grief-stricken, apologising between her sobs for having been so weak.

“As soon as I get near the gate I seem to see the severed head. And then I can't breathe or swallow.”

I comforted her as best I could. Hatem asked if he should go on anyway. On reflection I told him just to see the clerk in the Armoury and ask him what he'd found in the third ledger, then come back at once. He did so, and the answer from the official was as I'd feared: “There's nothing in the third ledger. But I found out there's a fourth one.” He asked for another four piastres for his trouble. Our misfortune is providing this wretch with a regular income.

We set out for home so depressed and downcast that we didn't exchange three words the whole way.

So now what are we to do? I'd better let night soothe my worries. If I can manage to get to sleep.

15 November

Night having failed to come up with any solution to my problem, I tried to calm my anxieties with religion. But I already rather regret it. You can no more suddenly turn yourself into a believer than into an infidel. Even the Almighty must be tired of my mood swings.

I went to church in Pera this Sunday morning, and after mass asked Father Thomas if he would hear my confession. Assuming the matter must be urgent, he apologised to the members of the congregation gathered round him and led the way to the confessional, where I told him, very awkwardly, about Marta and myself. Before giving me absolution he made me promise not to approach “the person in question” until she was my wife, though he included among his admonitions some words of comfort. I shall remember these, but I'm not sure I shall keep my promise.

Before the service began I had no intention of going to confession. I was kneeling in the shadow, mulling over my troubles amid a cloud of incense and beneath the majestic vaulting, when the urge seized me. I think I was motivated more by a fit of anxiety than by an access of piety. My nephews, my clerk and Marta had all come to church with me, and they had to wait some time. If I'd stopped to think I'd have put off my confession till later, when I was on my own. I don't go to confession often, as everyone in Gibelet knows. To keep the priest happy I occasionally give him some old prayer book, and he pretends to think I don't sin very much. So what I did today is almost tantamount to a public confession, as I could tell from the attitude of my companions afterwards. Hatem was laughing, and his eyes twinkled. My nephews alternately glared at me and refused to meet my glance. Above all, Marta's eyes accused me of treachery. As far as I know, she hasn't confessed.

When we got home I decided it was necessary for me to gather them all around me and solemnly announce that I intended to marry Marta as soon as she was quit of her first alliance, and that I had just spoken to the priest to that effect. I added, without much conviction, that if by chance she was declared a widow in the next few days, we'd get married here in Constantinople.

“I feel for you as if you were my children,” I said, “and I want you to love Marta and respect her as if she were your own mother.”

Hatem bent over first my hand and then that of my future wife. Habib embraced us both with a warmth that was balm to my heart. Marta clasped him to her, and this time, I swear, I didn't feel a single twinge of jealousy. I'm sure they never held one another so close before. As for Boumeh, he too came over and embraced us in his own more furtive and enigmatic way, apparently deep in reflections we'll never know anything about. Perhaps he was thinking that this unexpected turn of events was yet another sign, one of the countless spiritual upheavals that precede the end of the world.

This evening, as I write these lines alone in my room, I feel a pang of remorse. If I could have today over again I'd act differently. There'd be neither confession nor solemn announcement. But never mind. What's done is done. One can never be impartial about oneself!

16 November

I still felt the same regrets when I woke up this morning. To lessen them I told myself my confession had relieved me of a burden. But that's not really true. I wasn't troubled by the act of the flesh until I knelt down in church. Before, I didn't think of what happened on Friday as a sin. And I'm angry with myself now for speaking of it as such. I may have thought I was casting off a weight in the confessional, but in fact I was making it heavier.

What's more, the same questions still assail me. Where am I to go? Where should I take the people for whom I'm responsible? What should I advise Marta to do? Yes, what on earth is to be done?

Hatem came and told me that in his view the solution with the fewest drawbacks would be to pay some official handsomely to issue a false certificate stating that Marta's husband really was executed. I didn't turn the idea down as indignantly as an honest man should have done. I've acquired too many grey hairs in this world to go on believing in purity, justice and innocence. To tell the truth, I'm inclined to have more respect for a false certificate that sets someone free than for a genuine one, that imprisons somebody. But on reflection I said no: Hatem's solution didn't really strike me as feasible. How could I go back to Gibelet and get married in church on the strength of a document I knew to be a forgery? How could I spend the rest of my life waiting for my door to be flung open by the man I'd prematurely buried so as to live with his wife? I simply couldn't resign myelf to that!

17 November

Today, Tuesday, to take my mind off my worries, I indulged in one of my favourite pleasures: I strolled around the streets of the city on my own, browsing all day long among the bookstalls. But when, near the Solimaniah mosque, a trader asked me what I was looking for, and I openly mentioned Mazandarani's book, the man frowned and signed to me to lower my voice. Then, after making sure no one else had heard me, he asked me into his shop and sent his son away so that we could speak in private.

Even when we were alone he still spoke in a whisper, so that I had to strain my ears to hear what he said. According to him, the highest authorities had got wind of certain predictions concerning the Day of Judgement, allegedly at hand. An astrologer was supposed to have told the Grand Vizier that all tables would soon be overturned, all food removed from them, and the grandest turbans would roll on the ground, together with the heads that wore them, while all the palaces collapsed upon their inhabitants. For fear that such rumours would give rise to panic and subversion, orders had been issued that any book forecasting the end of the world should be destroyed. Anyone copying, selling, promoting or commenting on such works was liable to the severest punishment. All this was being done in deadly secrecy, the worthy fellow told me, pointing out the stall of a neighbour and colleague closed down because its owner was said to have been arrested and tortured, while his own brothers dared not inquire about his fate.

I am infinitely grateful to this colleague for taking the trouble to warn me of the danger, and for trusting me in spite of my origins. But perhaps it was because of them that he trusted me. If the authorities wanted to test or spy on him, they wouldn't have sent a Genoese to sound him out, would they?

What I've learned today sheds new light on what happened to me in no Aleppo, and makes me understand more clearly the strange reaction I met with from the booksellers in Tripoli when I mentioned
The Hundredth Name
to them.

I must be more careful in future, and above all not keep going and prating to booksellers about Mazandarani's work. That's what I tell myself now, but I'm not sure I'll be able to stick to such prudence. For while my excellent colleague's words encourage caution, they also make me more curious than ever about the accursed tome.

18 November

I visited the bookshops again today, and stayed till nightfall, looking around, watching and searching in corners, but not actually inquiring after
The Hundredth Name.

I made a few purchases, including a rare book that I'd been trying to find for a long time —
Introduction to Occult Alphabets,
attributed to Ibn-Wahchiya. It contains dozens of different scripts that cannot be deciphered except by experts: if I'd been able to get hold of it sooner I might have used it to write this journal. But the time is gone by — I've got used to my own way of doing things and found my own method of concealment I shan't change now.

Written on Friday, 27 November 1665

Through no fault of my own I've just been through a long nightmare of a week, and fear is still lingering in my bones. But I refuse to go. I refuse to leave after having been duped and humiliated.

I shan't stay on in Constantinople any longer than necessary, but nor shall I leave until I've obtained redress. in My ordeal began on Thursday the 19th, when Boumeh, exultant, came and told me he'd at last discovered the name of the collector who owns a copy of
The Hundredth Name.
I'd told him to stop looking for the book, but perhaps I hadn't done so firmly enough. And though I now rebuked him still, I couldn't help asking him what he'd found out.

The collector in question was not unknown to me. He was a noble fellow from Walachia, a vaivode named Mircea who had gathered together in his palace one of the finest libraries in the Empire, and who had even, a very long time ago, sent an emissary to my father to buy a book of psalms written on parchment, marvellously illuminated and illustrated with icons. It seemed to me that if went to see him he'd remember this purchase, and perhaps tell me if he owned a copy of Mazandarani's book.