Balthasar's Odyssey (35 page)

6 May

“A good captain turns the Atlantic into the Mediterranean. A bad captain turns the Mediterranean into the Atlantic.”

That's what one of the passengers, a Venetian, had the audacity to say aloud today. He didn't say it to me, but to all the people gathered near the ship's rail. I didn't answer him, but I memorised what he'd said, intending to write it down here.

It's true that we all feel as if we were lost in the midst of a vast ocean, and long for the moment when someone shouts “Land!” And yet we're in the most familiar waters, and at the best time of the year.

The latest rumour has it that we should berth tomorrow evening in either Barcelona or Valencia. We're so disorientated that if we'd been told “It'll be Marseilles”, or Aigues-Mortes, or Mahon, or Algiers, we'd have believed it.

Somewhere in the Mediterranean, 7 May 1666

Today I exchanged a few sentences with the captain. He's forty years old and his name is Centurione, and quite literally he's mad!

I don't mean he's bold, or reckless, or capricious, or eccentric. I mean he's crazy. He believes he's being pursued by winged demons, and thinks he can escape them by following winding routes!

If another passenger had talked to me like that, or a sailor, or the surgeon, or the carpenter, I'd have gone straight to the captain so that he could clap him in irons and put him ashore at our next port of call. But what are you to do if it's the captain himself who is crazy?

If he was obviously insane, raving, shrieking and foaming at the mouth, we'd have got together and overpowered him. And we'd have notified the authorities in the port where we called next.

But it's not like that at all! What we have here is a quiet madman, who walks about in a fitting manner, talks, jokes and gives orders as to the manner born.

Until today I'd practically never spoken to him. Just a couple of words that last day in Genoa, when I rushed up and he told me the ship had nearly left without me. But this morning, when he was strolling round the deck, he passed quite close to me. I greeted him politely and he replied conventionally. As is the custom in Genoa in respectable society, we spoke first about our families, and he courteously referred to the Embriaci's renown and the history of the city.

I was beginning to think the satirical comments about him were unfair, when a bird swooped low over our heads, its cry making us both look up. I noticed that the captain was looking uneasy.

“What kind of bird is it?” I asked. “A common gull? A herring gull? An albatross?”

“It's a demon!” he replied with some agitation.

At first I thought this was just a way of objecting to the nuisance birds can cause, then I wondered whether it wasn't a seaman's name for a particular species.

Meanwhile the captain went on, becoming more and more disturbed.

“They're after me! Wherever I go they find me! They'll never leave me in peace!”

One flap of the creature's wings had been enough to set him off.

“They've been after me for years, everywhere I go ...”

He wasn't talking to me any longer: he was just taking me to witness his incomprehensible conversation with himself or his demons.

After a few moments he left me, muttering that he was going to give orders for us to change course to throw off our pursuers.

Good God, where is he taking us?

I've decided not to tell anyone about this, at least for the time being. Anyhow, who would I confide in, and what should I say? And with what object? Did I want to stir up a mutiny? Fill the ship with fear, suspicion and revolt, and be responsible for the bloodshed that might ensue? Too dangerous. Keeping quiet might not be the most courageous solution, but I really think the best thing to do is just watch and wait and be on the alert.

It's a good thing I can tell this journal what I can't tell anyone else.

8 May

This morning I had a conversation with my Venetian fellow-passenger, Girolamo Durrazzi. Our talk was brief, but courteous. If my late lamented father could read these lines I'd have said “courteous, but brief”.

Another passenger is a Persian whom the crew refer to under their breath as “the prince”. I don't know if he really is a prince, but he carries himself like one, and two sturdy fellows follow him closely everywhere looking around in all directions as if they feared for his life. He has a short beard and wears a turban that's so narrow it looks almost like a band of black silk. He never speaks to anyone, even his two guards; he just looks straight in front of him as he walks along, stopping now and then to gaze at the horizon or the sky.

Sunday, 9 May 1666

We've dropped anchor at last. Not in Barcelona or Valencia, though: we're at the island of Minorca in the Balearics, more precisely in the port of Mahon. Re-reading my last few pages, I see it's one of the many places rumoured to be our destination. Rather as if the name were written on the face of the dice thrown for us by Providence.

Instead of trying to find a last vestige of sanity in the heart of madness, why don't I leave this crazy ship? In other words, let them all go to perdition without me — the captain, the surgeon, the Venetian, the Persian “prince” and all! But I shan't go. I shan't run away. Do I still care what happens to these strangers? Or is it that I no longer care about my own survival? Am I acting out of supreme courage or supreme resignation? I don't know. But I'm staying.

At the last moment, seeing how many people were flocking round the boats, I even decided not to go ashore, but to call the young sailor with fair hair and get him to buy some things for me. His name's Maurizio, and he feels he owes me something because of the trick he played on me. To tell the truth, I don't hold it against him at all: I find the sight of his yellow locks rather a comfort — but it's better he shouldn't know that.

I wrote him a list of the things I need, but I could see from his embarrassment that he'd never been taught to read. So I made him memorise the shopping list, and gave him more than enough money to cover the cost. When he got back I let him keep the change, and he seemed overjoyed. I expect he'll come and ask me every day if there's anything he can do for me. He can't take Hatem's place, but like him he looks bright and honest. And what more can one ask of an employee?

One day I shall get Maurizio to tell me who it was that sent him to find me at The Maltese Cross. But is there any point? I know exactly what he'll say. Yes, on reflection, there is a point — I want to hear with my own ears that Gregorio Mangiavacca paid him to come to fetch me that day and make me run to catch the ship now carrying me to England! To England, or God knows where …

But I'm not in any hurry. We'll both still be on this ship for weeks, and if I'm patient and ingenious the lad will tell all in the end.

11 May

Well, I'd never have thought I'd be friends with a Venetian!

It's true that when two merchants meet on a long sea voyage they're bound to get into conversation. But it went beyond that. We found we had so many interests in common that I soon forgot all the prejudices instilled in me by my father.

No doubt it helped that Durrazzi, though born in Venice, had lived since he was a child in various places in the East. In Candia to begin with, then in Tsaritsin on the River Volga. He recently settled in Moscow itself, where he seems to enjoy a distinguished reputation. He lives in the Foreign Quarter, which he tells me is becoming a city within a city. It contains French caterers, Viennese pastry-cooks, Italian and Polish painters, Danish and Scottish soldiers, and of course dealers and adventurers from all over the place. Some of them have even set up a pitch outside the city where they play a sort of English game that involves kicking a ball. The Earl of Carlisle, King Charles's ambassador, sometimes goes to watch.

12 May

My Venetian friend asked me to sup with him in his quarters yesterday. (I still hesitate and feel embarrassed when I call him that: I suppose one day I'll get used to it.) He's brought a cook with him, as well as a valet and one other servant. I ought to have done the same, instead of coming on board alone like a vagabond or an exile!

In the course of the meal my friend told me why he is going to London. His object is to recruit some English artisans to go and ply their trades in Moscow. He hasn't actually been commissioned to do so by the Tsar Alexis, but he travels with the Russian ruler's approval and under his protection. Any skilled craftsmen will be welcome, whatever their speciality, on condition that they don't try to convert anyone to their own religion. The Tsar is a sensible man, and doesn't want Moscow to become a den of fanatical Christian republicans. It's said that England is full of them, but since the return of King Charles six years ago many of them have gone into hiding or exile.

Girolamo tried to persuade me to go and live in Moscow. He treated me to another pleasing description of life in the Foreign Quarter there. Out of politeness and to encourage him to go on, I said “perhaps”, but I'm not tempted. I'm forty now, and too old to start a new life in a country where I know neither the language nor the customs. I have two homelands already, Genoa and Gibelet, and if I had to leave one it would be to go to the other.

Moreover, I'm used to being able to see the sea, and I'd miss it if I had to be away from it. Admittedly, I don't feel comfortable aboard ship; I prefer to have both feet on dry land. But it has to be near the sea! I need to smell the ozone! I need to hear the waves dying and being reborn and dying again! I need to be able to lose myself gazing at its vastness!

Some people might be able to make do with the vastness of the desert or of snow-covered plains. But not someone born where I was born, and with Genoese blood in his veins.

That said, I can easily understand people who leave their home and their loved ones, and even change their name, to go and start a new life in another country without any boundaries. The Americas or Russia. Didn't my ancestors do the same thing? And not only my ancestors, but everyone's ancestors. All the towns in the world, and all the villages too, were founded and populated by people from elsewhere. The whole earth has been filled by migration after migration. If I were still light-hearted and fleet of foot, I might let myself be drawn away from my native Mediterranean and go and live in that Foreign Quarter whose very name I find tempting.

13 May

Is it true that the King of France intends to invade the lands of the Ottoman Sultan, and has even ordered his ministers to draw a detailed plan of attack? Girolamo says so, and backs up his assertion with various pieces of evidence that I have no reason to doubt. He even maintains that the French king has sounded the Sophy of Persia about the possibility that the latter, a great enemy of the Sultan, might at a given moment stir up trouble and lure the Turkish armies to Georgia, Armenia and Atropatene. Meanwhile, with the help of the Venetians, King Louis would seize Candia, the Aegean Islands, the Bosphorus Straits and perhaps even the Holy Land.

Although this doesn't strike me as at all impossible, I'm surprised that my Venetian should speak of it so openly to someone he's only just met. He's certainly rather talkative, but I can hardly blame him when I learn so much from him, and when his indiscretion is due solely to our friendship and the fact that he trusts me.

I spent all night mulling over the King of France's plans, and I can't say I like the sound of them. Of course, if things went his way and he could get a lasting grip on the islands, the Straits and the Levant as a whole, I wouldn't complain. But if he and the Venetians embarked on some rash enterprise that came to nothing, the vengeance of the Sultan would fall on me and my colleagues — yes, on all the European merchants living and working in the Ports of the Levant. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that such a war would from the very outset be a disaster for me and mine. Heaven grant that it never happens!

I've just re-read the last few lines, and those before them, and I suddenly wonder if it isn't dangerous to write such things and express such wishes. Naturally, I set everything down in my usual gibberish, which nobody but myself can decipher. But that applies only to personal matters, which I want to conceal from my family and possible snoopers. But if the authorities were ever to take an interest in my papers, if some Ottoman official, some wall or pasha or cadi were to take it into his head to look into them, and threatened me with impalement or torture to make me hand over the key to the code, how could I hold out? I'd reveal the secret, and then they'd see that I'd be pleased to see the King of France lay hold of the Levant.

Perhaps I should tear this page up and throw it away when I go back east. And even avoid mentioning such things in future. I'm probably being over-cautious — no wali or pasha is really going to come and pry among my notes. But for anyone in my position, whose family has lived abroad for generations and who's at the mercy of every kind of snub and denunciation, prudence is not just an attitude. It's absolutely essential to survival.

14 May

Today I exchanged a few words with the Persian nicknamed “the prince”. I still don't know if he's a prince or a merchant. He hasn't said.

He came across me when he was taking his usual walk round the deck. He smiled, and I took this as an invitation to join him. As soon as I moved towards him his guards took fright, but he signed to them to do nothing, then made me a slight bow. I greeted him in Arabic, and he made a suitable reply.

Apart from the usual courtesies that all Muslims know, he has difficulty speaking Arabic. But we succeeded in introducing ourselves, and I think we could manage a conversation if the occasion arose. He said his name was Ali Esfahani, and he was travelling on business. I doubt if that's his real name. Ali is the commonest name among his people, and Isfahan is their capital. In fact, the “prince” told me very little about himself. But at least we're acquainted now, and we'll be talking again.