The Dream Maker (10 page)

This discovery fed my thoughts as we continued on our way to Damascus. It completely overturned the image I had had of the contemporary world thus far. If the Holy Land was the center of the world, that meant my native France was relegated to its very edge. The interminable disputes between the king of France and the English, the rivalry between the Duke of Burgundy and Charles VII—all these events which we viewed as essential were mere unimportant details, and actually had no reality when considered from the place where we now were. History was written here; we discovered traces of it at every moment, in the form of temples covered by the sand. The crusaders had thought they could conquer this land. They had been defeated after so many others, and their ruins were added to those of other civilizations drawn to the center of the world, and which had perished here.

I was pleased that I had managed to unravel the wool of my thoughts. But to what conclusion did it bring me? Had I, for all that, found what I had come for? My melancholy was proof that I had not. This Levant was still too real, too similar. When I discovered the desert with its golden hues, I thought once again of the leopard from my childhood. He had come from this place to show me the direction I must follow. Shortly before we reached Damascus, I went through a crisis that my companions failed to understand.

We had broken our journey at an oasis where another caravan stopped, an immense caravan incomparably richer and greater in number than all those we had seen thus far. It was a veritable world unto itself. There were over two thousand camels, richly equipped. They were kneeling, saddles removed, when we arrived. Spread all across the oasis and even as far as the surrounding desert, they formed a motionless mass, swarming not only with camel drivers but also women and children, busy around the fires which smoked from pits made in the sand. When at dawn the signal was given, the multitude awoke all at once to prepare for departure. It was as if an entire city was rising to its feet, getting ready to set forth. Laboriously, the animals assembled in groups according to family and tribe, and took their place in the procession. At the head of the caravan were drummers, pounding on their enormous drums, while behind them came men-at-arms on horseback. I was told that their destination was the desert of Scythia. There they would meet up with other convoys going as far as China.

I felt a call deep inside to join that caravan. I am not mystical by nature; it is my habit, rather, to remain master of my feelings. And yet this time I was overwhelmed. It was my conviction—and nothing had prepared me for it—that in that very moment I had met my destiny. I had already sacrificed a great deal to reach the Levant, the place of all possibility, the promised land of my dreams, but I was only halfway there, so to speak. I could still sever the last ties which connected me to my former life—abandon the galley, leave for the unknown and surrender to its decrees. This caravan, all of a sudden, had come to show me which way to go.

I wandered among the camels, grazing their manes with my fingertips; I was subjected to terrible temptation. I went deeper and deeper into the compact mass of animals as they stamped the dust, impatient for the departure signal. It would be given at dusk. All day long my companions looked for me, for our little troop was due to leave at the same time for Damascus, which was not very far away. When they found me, initially I refused to follow them and remained deaf to their questions. They thought some mysterious ailment had deprived me of my reason and perhaps my understanding. In the end I stayed with them, but I lay motionless for many hours, distraught, lost in thought, my face distorted in a grimace of pain.

Finally the memory of Macé and our children prevailed, and I gathered enough strength to cast off the temptation to leave, never to return. My companions rejoiced to see I was once again myself and had finally agreed to go with them. But they had no inkling of the conflict that had taken place inside me. How could I explain to them that I had just rejected the myriad lives I could have lived, in favor of the one life to which my prospects would now be limited? Inside I was suffering, mourning for those imaginary destinies. I had left for Damascus, my desires countless, and now I would arrive there stripped of those promises. There was only one thing left to do: to take the only life given me and strive to make it rich and happy. That would already be a great deal, but it would be so little.

I had put the leopard back into his bag for a long time.

 

*

 

It was my good fortune that this crisis occurred at the outskirts of Damascus. To enter such a city at a time when I felt I was beginning a new life that was deprived of all the others was a consolation and a joy. What I hadn't felt in Beirut was even more obvious in Damascus: this city was truly the center of the world.

And yet it had suffered serious destruction, not merely as a result of the wars against the Franks but also of Turkish incursions. The most recent of these, a few years before my visit, was that of Tamerlane: he had torched the city. Ebony beams and sandarac varnish had gone up in flames. Only the great Mosque of the Umayyads had survived the disaster. The city had not yet been completely rebuilt when I arrived there. And yet it exuded an impression of power and unequaled wealth. It was the primary destination for the caravans, and its markets were overflowing with all the wonders that human industry can produce. The mixture of races was even more astonishing than in Beirut. It was said that the Christians had been put to the sword by the Mongols until there were none left. But many Latin merchants had returned and could be seen about the streets. Franciscan monks from France, the Cordeliers, welcomed us at a monastery they kept at the disposal of pilgrims and Christians passing through. Damascus was linked to Cairo and many other towns by a service of rapid couriers mounted on camels. We received news of our companions who had stayed in Egypt and were able to send them our news.

Above all, Damascus had a wealth of fabulous gardens. This art, taken to the most extreme refinement, seemed to me on a par with architecture as the sign of a great civilization. The noblemen in our parts, locked away in their fortresses and constantly threatened with plunder, did not have the leisure to arrange the earth in the way they arranged stone. We knew only two worlds: the town or the country. Between the two, the Arabs had invented the ordered, welcoming place of enclosed nature that is the garden. To do this, they had simply reversed all the qualities of the desert. They had replaced its vast openness with the protection of high walls; burning sun with cool shadow; silence with the murmuring of birds; drought and thirst with the purity of cool springs flowing in myriad fountains.

In Damascus we discovered many other refinements—in particular, the steam bath. I took one almost every day and experienced an unknown pleasure. Never, until then, had I allowed myself to think that one's body could, in and of itself, be an object of pleasure. Since childhood we had been accustomed to keeping our bodies covered and hidden. The use of water was a painful obligation in a climate like ours, because most often it was cold, and our baths were rare. Contact between the sexes always took place in the obscurity of canopied beds. Mirrors reflected only the finery covering clothed bodies. In Damascus, however, I discovered nudity—letting oneself go to the heat of air and water, to the pleasure of time devoted solely to doing oneself good. Since I had only one life, it might as well be filled with happiness and sensual delight. I realized, as I sat sweating in the bath of perfumed steam, how new this idea was to me.

This was perhaps the most astonishing particularity of Damascus, and it rounded out my understanding of the Levant: this city was the center of the world, but it used this position to increase not only the power of those who lived there but also their pleasure. The purpose of these caravans converging on the city was trade, to be sure. Goods were imported, exported, and exchanged, and they brought profit. But the city took its share of anything of value and this was for one purpose alone: to serve its well-being. Houses were adorned with precious carpets. People dined on rare porcelain. The sweet odors of myrrh and incense drifted everywhere; food was chosen carefully, and chefs employed their art to compose their meals with expertise. Scholars and men of letters studied in freedom and in their libraries could consult books from every land.

This concept of pleasure as the ultimate goal of life was a revelation to me. And still I was aware that I had not taken the full measure of it, because as a Christian I was not allowed contact with those individuals who were both the supreme beneficiaries and the givers of these pleasures: women. We were closely watched in this respect, and any attempt at an intrigue with a Muslim woman would be grounds for beheading. We did, however, catch glimpses of them. We saw them in the street, we met their gaze through their veils or the latticework of their windows, we could make out their shapes, smell their perfume. Although they were reclusive, they seemed to us to be freer then our women in the West, more devoted to sensuality, promising a pleasure that our unclothed bodies in the hammam gave us the audacity to imagine. We sensed that the intensity of such pleasure could fuel violent passion. Strangers shared bloody tales of jealousy leading to murder and sometimes massacre. Far from inciting revulsion, such excess only fuelled desire. Several merchants had paid with their lives for their inability to resist temptation.

When I found myself alone I was inhabited by the memory of my only woman; she who was the frequent object of my thoughts. I imagined her sharing these delights with me, and I promised myself I would carry home with me the instruments of pleasure. I bought perfume, carpets, and bolts of bocasin, a cloth similar to silk which the local craftsmen wove with cotton.

A month went by in this way, and we were about to leave again when we had an astonishing encounter. We were lying on leather cushions, tasting sweet cakes of every flavor, when our guide, a Moor who had been with us since Beirut, announced the visit of two Turks. He uttered these words with a laugh, and we did not immediately understand the reason for his irony. The mystery dissolved the moment the Turks in question appeared. They were two tall men with unkempt hair, their faces covered with neglected beards. From the way in which they wore their clothing, it was only too obvious that it did not come naturally to them. The moment they opened their mouths, there could be no further doubt: they were two Franks in disguise.

The elder, a man with thinning ginger hair, introduced himself with the sort of haughty pride I had been familiar with since childhood, from the hours spent waiting with my father in the antechambers of nobles' houses.

“Bertrandon de la Broquière, first esquire to his lordship the Duke of Burgundy,” he said.

We were mere merchants, and he invoked his right to inform us of his name and title in a lofty manner. However, his outfit was so ridiculous, and our informal attitude, which we had not altered since his arrival, colored his self-assurance with a certain awkwardness, even fear. We introduced ourselves in turn, not deferring to him in any particular way, and he and his companion sat down on the cushions reluctantly.

We were waiting for the sorbet our errand boy had ordered for us. A discreet servant with a grave manner placed a finely carved copper tray before us. We offered some to the esquire, but he refused.

“I will never eat such rubbish! You are taking a great risk, mark my words.”

And he explained how the snow used to prepare the sorbet was brought by camel from the mountains of Lebanon.

“I have heard that they send it as far as Cairo,” I exclaimed admiringly.

Our interpreter confirmed this. Previously the snow was shipped by boat to Alexandria, but now the Sultan Barsbay had established order on his roads, and small caravans of five camels could transport the precious ice cream to the capital.

“It is astonishing that it does not melt . . . ”

“In every caravan, there is one man who is instructed with the technique to keep it intact during the voyage.”

We marveled at this additional proof of the Arabs' expertise. But Bertrandon shrugged his shoulders.

“Nonsense! They lose three-quarters of it and the rest is contaminated. It is pure disease they are transporting, not ice cream.”

He gave a coarse laugh. Yet he had not managed to put us off our sorbet. Mine was perfumed with orange flower water.

While we were delighting in our treat, the esquire began to pontificate. However, he occasionally shot a dirty look at the Sarrasin who was our interpreter. With a great deal of tact, the Sarrasin claimed he had an errand, in order to leave us alone. Now the esquire no longer withheld his virulent criticism with regard to the Arabs. He exalted their treachery, their violence, their immorality. The effect of his sermon, and no doubt the aim of it, was to make us feel what wretches we were, to enjoy the company of such savages.

“Then why,” I dared to ask, “are you wearing their clothing?”

After all, we may have been seduced by the charms of life in Damascus, but at least we still had the courage, through our finery, to proclaim that we were Christians.

The esquire lowered his tone and, leaning closer, confided that this travesty was necessary for him to carry out his plans. We understood at that point that he must be on a secret mission on behalf of his master, the Duke of Burgundy. This putative discretion was all the more ridiculous in that, from the moment they saw him, the Mohammedans could hardly ignore whom they were dealing with. Nevertheless, on the strength of his supposed invisibility, Bertrandon was gathering as much information as possible on the countries that hosted him. He asked many questions about the towns and villages we had gone through. He insisted, without the slightest shame, on the military details: Had we met any troops? Who was guarding this bridge or that building? How many men-at-arms were accompanying the great caravan? (I refrained from telling him that I had almost joined it.) As the interrogation progressed, we understood more clearly the nature of the mission with which he had been entrusted. Their aim, no more and no less, was to prepare a new crusade. Of all the princes in the West, the Duke of Burgundy was the one who continued to make the most concrete plans for a reconquest of the Levant. Had he not financed an expedition several years earlier that had ended in failure?