Balthasar's Odyssey (46 page)

Georg said we'd like to go to Dover, and they suggested taking us even further — to Calais. They asked four guineas for the trip, two guineas each. In normal times this would have been exorbitant, but seeing what we'd just had to pay for a journey twenty times shorter, we saw no reason to haggle.

The crossing was completed without incident. We stopped twice to take on food and water before emerging from the Thames estuary and heading for the French coast, which we reached on Friday, 17 September. A swarm of urchins descended on us at Calais. They were surprised and contemptuous when they found we had no baggage for them to carry. In the harbour and in the streets, dozens of people came up and asked us if it was true that London had been burned down. They seemed astonished at the news, but not heartbroken.

It was in Calais, the same evening, that, looking for my journal to write down some notes, I found that it was gone.

Had I dropped it as I made my way across London? Or had someone stolen it while I was on the boat? The deck was crowded, and the sailors were dishonest rascals.

Unless I'd left it in my room at the ale-house, or up in the attic. But I seemed to remember putting it away before I went to fetch
The Hundredth Name.
And I still have that in my possession.

Should I be glad that it's my worthless musings that have disappeared, rather than the book that made me travel round the world?

I expect so. I expect so.

Anyhow, I'm relieved not to have lost the florins I was given in Lisbon for Gregorio, and to have been able to give them back to him instead of increasing my debt to him.

There! My pen has got back into its old habits, and is stoutly beginning to keep a travel journal just as if I'd never lost my three previous notebooks, and London hadn't burned down, and the fateful year wasn't advancing inexorably towards its fulfilment.

What else can I do? My pen wields me as much as I wield it. I have to follow its path just as it follows mine.

But how late it is! I've been writing like someone eating after a fast. It's time I left the table.

24 October

It's Sunday, and this morning I went to church at Santa Croce with Gregorio and his family as if I were the son-in-law he'd like me to be. On the way there he took my arm and told me yet again that if I were to settle in Genoa I'd become the founder of a new dynasty of Embriaci that would put the fame of the Spinolas, the Malaspinas and the Fieschi in the shade. I don't despise Gregorio's generous dream, but I can't find it in my heart to share it.

Brother Egidio, my host's cousin, was present at mass. I had lunch with him in April, and gave him letters for my family. I haven't had any replies yet, but it takes three or four months for a letter to get to Gibelet, and the same for an answer to get back.

On the other hand, he told me that only yesterday he'd had some recent news by post from Constantinople which was very surprising and which he'd like to tell me about. Gregorio immediately invited him to come and bless our “humble meal”, which he did willingly and with an excellent appetite.

He had the letter on him. It tells of things that happened six weeks ago, and I'm still not sure I believe what it says. It was written by a friend of his, a monk belonging to the same order, who is on a mission to Constantinople. According to the letter, the authorities there heard from a rabbi in Poland that Sabbataï was preparing to foment a revolt, so he'd been taken to the Sultan's palace in Adrianople and told that if he didn't perform a miracle immediately, he'd be tortured and beheaded — unless he repudiated the faith of his fathers and embraced that of the Turks. The miracle Sabbataï was asked to perform — Brother Egidio read me several passages from the letter — consisted of standing naked and acting as a target for the best archers in the Sultan's bodyguard. If he emerged unscathed it would prove that he really was an emissary from God. Sabbataï asked for time to think it over, which was refused. Then he said he'd been considering adopting the faith of Mahomet for some time, and there could be no more suitable place for his conversion than the presence of the Sultan. No sooner had he said this than he had to remove his Jewish skullcap and a servant bound his head in a white turban. His Jewish name was changed to Mehemet Effendi, and he was given the title of “capidji bachi otourak” — which means “honorary guardian of the Sultan's gates” — with the corresponding emoluments.

But according to Brother Egidio, and Gregorio agreed, Sabbataï's apostasy was only apparent — “like that of the Jews in Spain, who are Christians on Sunday and Jews in secret on Saturday”. I still doubt whether the story is true. But if it is, and if it happened during the fire of London, how can it not be yet another disturbing sign?

Until other rumours arise and either remove my doubts or confirm them, I'd better go on with the account of my journey, lest new events make me forget the old.

Georg and I stayed only two days and three nights in our hotel in Calais, but that was enough to do us a lot of good. We had separate beds in a large room overlooking the promenade and with a splendid view of the sea. The mornings were windy, with a fine, persistent, driving rain. But the afternoons were fine, and we could see the townspeople strolling about enjoying the sunshine, in families or groups of friends. Georg and I joined them, after buying clean clothes and new shoes at inordinate prices from a cheat near the harbour. I call him a cheat because he sells shoes, though he's not a shoemaker, and clothes, though he's not a tailor, and I have no doubt that he gets his wares from porters and sailors who steal them from travellers, spiriting away one trunk and pretending to mislay another. It sometimes happens that travellers find themselves buying back their own clothes. One day I was told about a Neapolitan who found himself in this situation and demanded his things back: the receivers cut his throat to prevent him going to the police. But that wasn't in Calais. And after all, and in spite of the price we'd had to pay, we were glad to find some decent clothes so quickly.

As we walked along the promenade, talking of this and that, Georg called my attention to how the women about us tripped along holding the men's arms, laughing with them and sometimes resting their heads on their shoulders. And how men and women alike would kiss one another on the cheek when they met — once, twice, three or four times running, sometimes almost on the mouth. This didn't shock me, but it did strike me as odd. You'd never see men and women talking to each other so freely, or cuddling and kissing like that, in Smyrna or Constantinople, in London or Genoa. And my companion said he'd never seen anything like it in all his travels, from Spain to Holland, or from his native Bavaria to Poland and Muscovy. He didn't disapprove of it either, but he couldn't stop looking at it in astonishment.

At dawn on Monday, the 20th of September, we took our places on the public coach from Calais to Paris. We'd probably have done better to hire a coach and coachman of our own, as Georg wanted to do. It would have cost much more, but we could have driven faster, stopped at better inns, kept more convenient hours, and enjoyed some civilised conversation whenever we felt like it. As it was, we were treated grudgingly, fed on left-overs — except at Amiens — made to sleep two in a damp and grimy bed, and woken up before daybreak. And there were four long days of it, being jolted up and down in something more like an ox-cart than a coach.

It had two banquettes facing one another, each of which would have seated two people comfortably but was forced to accommodate three. If one passenger happened to be rather stout, you were all crammed together like sardines for the whole journey. There were five of us: two were reasonably comfortable, but the other three could scarcely breathe, especially as only one of us was slender and the others were bursting with health. I myself have always been hale and hearty, and Bess's buttered beer had made me put on a few pounds. Georg is even more solid, though his height makes it less obvious.

As for the two travelling companions who joined us last, not only were they fat, but they had other weighty defects. They were priests, and they argued loudly with each other all the time. If one was silent it was only because the other had started up again. Their gabble filled the coach and seemed to use up all the air, so that Georg and I, who usually enjoyed chatting, did no more than exchange irritated glances and the occasional feeble whisper. The worst of it was that not content with deafening us with their opinions, the two men of God kept taking us to witness, not actually to ask us for our point of view but as if taking for granted it was the same as theirs and didn't need to be expressed.

That's the only way some people know how to talk. I've often met them, in my shop and elsewhere: they jabber at you at great length, inviting you to agree with them, and if you make some subtle reservation they assume it only backs them up, and carry on even more volubly. To make them register a contrary opinion you have to be quite curt, or even downright disagreeable.

The favourite subject of our two holy men was the Huguenots. At first I couldn't understand why they were arguing so heatedly, because they were agreeing with one another. Their theme was that the supporters of the Reformation had no place in the kingdom of France, and should be driven out so that the country could once more enjoy peace and the favours of Heaven. They were treated too kindly, they said, and France would live to regret it. They rejoiced in France's misfortunes, and before long the King would realise they were traitors. The tone was unvaryingly threatening. Luther, Calvin, Coligny and Zwingli were compared to various kinds of noxious animals — snakes, scorpions and vermin — that ought to be crushed. Every time one priest expressed an opinion, the other agreed and went one further.

It was Georg who explained it all to me. During one of our silent exchanges he signed to me discreetly to look at our fifth companion. This unfortunate was gasping for breath; his gaunt cheeks were flushed, his brow gleamed with sweat, his knees were clenched together and he never raised his eyes from the ground. He was one of the “race” the priests were anathematising.

What saddened and disappointed me was that my Bavarian friend smiled from time to time at the cruel sarcasms raining down on the unfortunate Huguenot. We had an argument about it that first night.

“Nothing,” said Georg, “will ever make me stand up for the people who burned my home down twice and caused my mother's death.”

“But he had nothing to do with it!” I cried. “Look at him — he's never hurt a fly!”

“Probably not, and so I wouldn't do
him
any harm. But I wouldn't defend him, either! And don't talk to me about religious freedom — I've lived in England long enough to know that I, a ‘Papist' as they call it, am not allowed any freedom or shown any respect for my religion. Every time I've been insulted, I've had to force myself to smile and go on as if nothing had happened, like a coward. And you, while you were there, didn't you always feel like hiding the fact that you were a ‘Papist'? Didn't anyone ever insult your religion in your presence?”

He was right. And he swore he believed in freedom of worship even more than I did. But he said that in his view freedom must be reciprocal — as if it were in the order of things for tolerance to be met with tolerance and persecution with persecution.

The persecution continued during the second day of the journey. And the two priests even managed to make me take part in it — in spite of myself! — when one of them asked me point-blank if I didn't think our coach was meant to hold four travellers, not six. I could only agree, glad the discussion was turning to something other than the quarrel between the Papists and the Huguenots. But the priest who'd spoken to me, encouraged by my answer, went on to elaborate on the fact that we'd be much more comfortable if there were four of us instead of five.

“Some people are not needed in this country,” he said, “though they don't seem to realise it.”

He pretended to hesitate, then went on, grinning:

“I said in this country, God forgive me, but I meant in this coach. I hope I haven't offended my neighbour.”

On the third day the coachman stopped at a small town called Breteuil, and when he came and opened the door, the Huguenot stood up and made his excuses.

“What!” said the priests. “You're not leaving us already? Aren't you going on to Paris?”

“Unfortunately not,” muttered their victim, leaving the coach without looking at any of us.

He stopped for a moment to collect his baggage from the back of the coach, then called to the coachman that he could go now. It was already dusk, and the driver whipped up the horses so as to reach Beauvais before dark.

If I go into all this apparently irrelevant detail, it's because I must relate the epilogue to this painful journey. When we got to Beauvais, a great shout went up. Our two priests had just discovered that the baggage, which all belonged to them, had fallen off the coach along the road. The rope securing it had given way, and in the clatter of hooves and harness no one had noticed when it fell off. The priests wrung their hands and tried to get the coachman to go back and look for their things, but he wouldn't hear of it.

On the fourth day, the coach was peaceful at last. The two talkers had no more to say against the Huguenot, though for the first time they had some reason. They didn't even try to accuse him of anything, probably so as not to have to admit that the heretic had had the last word. They spent the day with their breviaries in their hands, muttering prayers. Isn't that what they ought to have been doing all along?

25 October

I promised myself I'd write about my visit to Paris today, and then go on to my journey through Lyons, Avignon and Nice. Then on to Genoa, and how I found myself a guest in Mangiavacca's house again, though we hadn't parted very good friends. But something has happened that preoccupies me, and I don't know if I still have the patience to go back over the past.