Balthasar's Odyssey (9 page)

“I'm told it's the only city in the world where a man can say ‘I'm a Jew' as others, in their countries, say I'm a Christian' or ‘I'm a Muslim' — without fearing for his life, his property or his dignity.”

I'd have liked to question him further, but he seemed so moved by what he'd said already that he had a lump in his throat and his eyes filled with tears. So I said no more, and we walked on side by side in silence.

Further on, when I could see he was calmer, I put my hand on his arm and said:

“One day, God willing, the whole world will be an Amsterdam.”

He smiled bitterly.

“That's your pure heart speaking. The world mutters something different. Quite different.”

Tarsus, dawn, Monday 21 September

I talk away to Maïmoun for hours every day. I tell him about my fortune and my family. But there are two subjects I still shrink from broaching.

The first concerns my real reasons for coming on this journey. All I've said is that I needed to buy some books in Constantinople; and he's been considerate enough not to ask me which ones. As soon as we met it was our doubts that drew us together, as well as a certain love for wisdom and reason. If I now went and confessed that I'd given credence to vulgar delusions and common fears, I'd forfeit all his esteem. So shall I keep it all to myself for the whole of the journey? Perhaps not. Perhaps a time will come when I can tell him everything without harming our friendship.

The other subject is Marta. Something has kept me from telling my friend the truth about her.

As is my habit, I haven't said anything that's untrue. Not once have I uttered the expression “my wife”. Either I avoid referring to her, or if I must do so I use vague terms like “my people” or “my nearest and dearest”, as the men in this country often do, out of an extreme sense of modesty in this connection.

But yesterday it seems to me I crossed the invisible line that separates
allowing
someone to think something and
causing
them to do so. And I feel rather guilty about it.

As we were approaching Tarsus, St Paul's home town, Maïmoun came and told me he had a cousin there of whom he was very fond, and in whose house he proposed to sleep, rather than in the caravanserai with the rest of the travellers. And he would be honoured if “my wife” and I, together with my nephews and my clerk, would join him.

I ought to have declined Maïmoun's invitation, or at least let him insist. But before I realised what I was doing I'd blurted out that nothing would give me more pleasure. If Maïmoun was surprised by my haste, he did not show it: he just said he was delighted by this token of friendship.

So this evening, as soon as the caravan arrived, we went to the cousin's house. His name is Eleazar, and he's past his first youth and very well-to-do. His prosperity is reflected in his dwelling — two storeys standing in a garden planted with olive and mulberry trees. I gather he deals in oil and soap, but we didn't talk of our business, only of our homesickness. He kept reciting poems praising Mossoul, the town where he was born. With tears in his eyes he recalled its narrow streets, its fountains, its colourful characters, and the tricks he got up to there as a boy. He's obviously never got over having to leave Mossoul to settle here in Tarsus, where he had to take over a flourishing business founded by his wife's grandfather.

While a meal was being prepared, he summoned his daughter and asked her to show Marta and me to our room. There followed a somewhat trivial scene, but one that I feel I ought to describe.

I'd noticed that my nephews — especially Habib — had been on the alert since I'd told them of Maïmoun's invitation. And even more since we'd entered Eleazar's house. For it was obvious at a glance that this wasn't a place where five or six people were going to be crammed together to sleep in one room. When Eleazar asked his daughter to show “our guest and his wife” to their room, Habib started to fidget, and I had the impression he was getting ready to say something unpleasant. Would he really have done so? I don't know. But at the moment it seemed to me that he might, and to avoid a scene I took a hand and asked our host if I could have a word with him in private. Habib smiled — no doubt thinking that his Uncle Balthasar, at last come to himself again, was going to find some excuse to avoid spending another “embarrassing” night. But, God forgive me, this was not at all what I had in mind.

Once out in the garden with my host, I said:

“Maïmoun has become like a brother to me, so as you are a beloved cousin of his I consider you a friend of mine already. But I feel awkward arriving here like this, with four other people.”

“I am truly delighted to have you as my guest,” he replied, “and the best way for you to show you're my friend is to make yourself as much at ease under my roof as if you were in your own house.”

As he spoke he gave me a searching look. No doubt he was somewhat intrigued by my asking him to get up and go outside to talk to him in private merely to say something so trite, so much a part of ordinary politeness. Perhaps he thought I had some other, unavowable reason — connected no doubt with his religion — for not wanting to sleep in his house, and was expecting me to insist on leaving. But I quickly gave in and simply thanked him for his hospitality. And we went back into the house arm in arm, both wearing a solemn smile.

Meanwhile our host's daughter had gone back to the kitchen, and one of the servants had come in with cool drinks and dried fruit. Eleazar asked him to leave all that and show my nephews to their room upstairs. A few minutes later, the daughter of the house returned, and Eleazar asked her again to show “my wife” and me to
our
room.

So that was how it went. Then we had dinner, after which everyone retired to bed. I said I needed to go outside for a short stroll before I could go to sleep, and Maïmoun and his cousin came with me. I didn't want my nephews to see Marta and me go up to the same room.

But I was anxious to be with her, and a few minutes later I joined her.

“When you went outside with our host,” she said, “I thought you were going to tell him everything — about you and me.”

As she spoke I looked at her, trying to make out whether she wanted to reproach me or express relief.

“I think we'd have hurt his feelings if we'd turned down his invitation,” I said. “I hope you don't mind too much.”

“I'm beginning to get used to it,” she replied.

And nothing in her voice or her expression betrayed the slightest annoyance. Or embarrassment.

“Let's go to sleep then!” said I.

And as I spoke I put my arm round her shoulders as if we were about to go for a walk.

And my nights with her are something like that — like a walk under the trees with a girl, when you both tremble whenever your hands touch. Lying there side by side makes us shy, considerate, restrained. Isn't it a more dubious matter to steal a kiss when you're in that situation?

Mine's a very strange wooing! I didn't hold her hand until our second meeting, and even then I blushed for it in the dark. At this, our third encounter, I put my arm round her shoulder. And again I blushed for it.

She raised her head, undid her hair, and spread the black tresses over my bare arm. Then she went to sleep without saying a word.

I want to keep on savouring this first taste of pleasure. Not that I mean to let it remain as chaste as that for ever. But I'm not in a hurry to end this ambiguous closeness, this growing complicity, this pleasurably painful desire, in a word this path we're going along together, secretly pleased but pretending every time it's Providence that's bringing us together. It's a delightful game, and I'm not sure I want to move on.

But it's also a dangerous game, I know. We could be consumed by fire at any moment. But how far away the end of the world was last night!

22 September

What did I do that was so reprehensible? What more happened last night in Tarsus than happened during the two nights we spent in the village of the tailor? Yet my people are treating me as if I'd just done something completely beyond the pale! None of them will meet my eye. My two nephews whisper to one another in my presence as if I didn't exist. And although even Hatem, admittedly, still fusses around me as attentively as any clerk fusses around his master, there is something affected and over-obsequious in his manner and expression that I read as a silent reproach. Marta, too, seems to avoid my company, as if she were afraid of appearing to be in collusion with me.

About what, for Heaven's sake? What else have I done but play my part in this farce written by my accusers themselves? What
should
I have done? Reveal to all our travelling companions, and first of all to the caravaneer, that this woman is not my wife — and have her insulted and driven away? Or ought I to have told Abbas the tailor, then Maïmoun and his cousin, that Marta really is my wife but that I don't want to sleep with her — and have all of them ask themselves unseemly questions? I did what a man of honour ought to do — protected the “widow” and didn't take advantage of her. Is it a crime if I get some satisfaction, some subtle pleasure, out of this comic situation? That's what I could say if I wanted to justify myself. But I shan't say anything. The blood of the Embriaci flows in my veins and tells me to be silent. For me it's enough to know I'm innocent, and that my loving hand remains pure.

Perhaps innocent isn't the word. I don't mean to say there's anything in what the scamps who condemn me suggest, but I must admit, in the secrecy of these pages, that I did rather ask for the trouble I'm in. I took advantage of appearances, and now appearances are taking advantage of me. That's the truth of the matter. Instead of setting my nephews a good example, I let myself be drawn into a kind of game, influenced by desire, boredom, the discomforts of the journey, vanity — who knows? Influenced too, it seems to me, by the spirit of the age, the spirit of the Year of the Beast. When people think the world is about to founder, something goes wrong, and men lapse into either extreme devotion or extreme debauchery. I myself haven't got that far yet, thank God, but it seems to me I'm gradually losing my sense of propriety and respectability. Doesn't my behaviour to Marta reflect a touch of unreason that gets progressively worse, making me think it's quite an ordinary matter to sleep in the same bed as a person I pretend is my wife; making me take advantage of the generosity of both my host and his cousin; and all this under the same roof as four other people who know I'm lying? How long can I continue on this road to perdition? And, when it all comes out, how can I go back to my old life in Gibelet?

You see what I'm like! I've only been writing for a quarter of an hour, and already I'm on the point of seeing my critics' point of view. But these are only marks on paper, and no one will ever read them.

I'm writing by the light of a large candle. I like the smell of wax — I think it encourages thought, and confidences. I'm sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, with my notebook on my knees. Through the window behind me, with its curtain billowing in the wind, comes the whinnying of the horses in the courtyard, and sometimes the guffawing of drunken soldiers. We're in the first khan in the foothills of the Taurus mountains, on the way to Konya. We'll be there in a week if all goes well. My people are sleeping, or trying to sleep, all round me, strewn in all directions. Looking at them like this, I can't still be angry with them — either with my sister's sons, who are like my own, or with my clerk, who serves me devotedly even if he disapproves of me in his own way, or with this little-known woman who is less and less a stranger.

This morning — a Monday — I was in a completely different mood. Cursing my nephews, neglecting the “widow”, loading Hatem down with endless unnecessary errands, I steered clear of them all and rode peacefully along beside Maïmoun. As for him, he looked at me exactly as he had yesterday. Or so it seemed to me as the caravan moved off.

As we were leaving Tarsus a traveller walking in front of us pointed to a ruined hovel, near an old well, saying St Paul was born there. Maïmoun moved close to me and whispered that he doubted this very much, as the apostle of Jesus came from a wealthy family, belonging to the tribe of Benjamin and makers and merchants of goat's-hair tents.

“His family must have been as extensive as that of my cousin Eleazar.”

When I expressed my surprise at his knowledge of a religion not his own, his answer was modest.

“I've just read a few books, to limit my ignorance.”

Because of my profession and a natural curiosity, I too had read a few books on various contemporary religions, as well as on the ancient beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. So we began to compare the respective merits of all these faiths, though of course neither of us criticised the other one's religion.