The Wanderer (2 page)

Andy took advantage of our new acquaintance by setting Johanna to mending our clothes, and we also pooled our provisions. The garrulous nurse at once took possession of the ship’s galley and thenceforth cooked for us, for we should otherwise have fallen sick, as many other pilgrims did, from the wretched fare provided. But Andy was beginning to observe me carefully, and at length he said to me in a tone of warning, “Michael, I’m an ignorant man and simpler minded than yourself, as you have all too often remarked. But what do we know of this Giulia and her companion? Johanna’s conversation is better suited to a brothel keeper than to a decent woman, and Giulia hides her face in so sinister a manner that even the crew are uneasy. So be careful, Michael, lest one fine day you should discover a crooked nose behind that veil.”

His words cut me to the heart, and I wished to hear no more talk of crooked noses, and so I rebuked him for his suspicions. Next day we sighted the southern point of Morea, now held by the Turks. The weather conditions and the treacherous currents of these waters compelled our convoy to make for the sheltering harbor of the island of Cerigo, which was defended by a Venetian garrison. There we cast anchor, to wait for a favorable wind. No sooner had we done this, however, than our escorting war galley put to sea again in pursuit of a suspect sail or two that had just appeared on the horizon. For in these waters, Dalmatian and African pirate vessels were often known to lurk. Rowing boats swarmed about the pilgrim ship, offering fresh meat, bread, and fruit for sale, and the captain sent our own boat ashore for water, being unable to berth alongside the quay without paying harbor dues.

Brother Jehan, a fanatical monk of our company, told us that the island of Cerigo lay under a curse. It was here, he said, that one of the goddesses of the idolatrous Greeks was born. The pock-marked captain bore him out in this and declared that the ruins of the palace of Menelaus, the unhappy king of Sparta, were still to be seen here. His wife Helen had inherited her disastrous beauty from the goddess who had been born of the foam on the shores of the island. Forgetful of conjugal duty, this Helen had eloped with a divinely handsome youth and thus brought about the terrible Trojan War. I understood from the captain that it was the goddess Aphrodite who had been born off this island, which the ancient Greeks called Cytherea, but I found it hard to understand why the loveliest of all pagan deities had chosen this bleak, rocky, inaccessible isle for her birthplace.

I was therefore filled with a burning desire to go ashore and contemplate the relics of a former age, and discover whether indeed there were any grounds for the tales the ancient Greeks had told. And when I had related to Giulia all I could remember of Aphrodite’s birth, Paris’s golden apple, and Helen’s unlawful love, I found no difficulty in persuading her to accompany me. Her curiosity was, if possible, more intense than my own thirst for knowledge.

Seamen rowed the four of us ashore, and I bought a basket filled with new bread, dried meat, figs, and goat’s cheese. I could understand little of the villagers’ dialect, but when a goatherd showed me a path, pointed to the top of a hill, and constantly repeated the word
palaio- polis,
I knew that he was showing us the way to an ancient city. We walked uphill beside a stream until we came to a quiet reach where in ancient days many bathing pools had been built. Although the stones were weatherworn and stiff grass grew in the cracks, I could count a dozen of these pools; after a ten days’ voyage and a
warm climb we could have beheld no pleasanter or more welcome sight. Andy and I plunged in at once, and washed ourselves clean with the fine sand; the two ladies also undressed and bathed in another pool behind a screen of bushes. I heard Giulia splashing and laughing with delight.
 

With the soft breeze murmuring through shiny green laurel leaves and Giulia’s laughter ringing in my ears, my fancy peopled these pools with the nymphs and fauns of legend, and I should have felt no surprise if the goddess Aphrodite herself, in all her glory, had stepped toward me from the thicket.

When we had eaten, Andy remarked that he felt drowsy, and Johanna too, after a hostile glance at the rocky crag and the dense pine forests on its slopes, began to bewail her swollen feet.

So Giulia and I set forth alone together on an arduous climb to the summit. We found there two marble columns whose capitals had fallen to the ground and been buried under sand and grass. Behind them stood the bases of many square pillars and the ruins of a temple doorway. Among the ruins of the temple itself a larger-than-life-size statue of a goddess stood on a marble pedestal. She gazed upon us in regal beauty, her limbs covered by the thinnest of veils. The temple had fallen in ruins about her, but still in her divine loveliness she surveyed us mortals, though one thousand, five hundred and twenty-seven years had passed since our Saviour’s birth.

But I was thinking neither of my Saviour nor of the excellent resolutions that had moved me to undertake my long journey. I seemed transported into the golden, pagan age when men knew neither the thorns of doubt nor the anguish of sin; in the face of this potent spell I should have done well to flee. I know I should have fled, but I did not. I did not, and more swiftly than I can write the words we had lain down to rest in the warm grass. I caught Giulia in my arms and besought her to uncover her face, so that no chilling estrangement should linger between us. My boldness was encouraged by the conviction that Giulia would not have been so ready to come with me to this lonely place unless in her heart she had shared my desire. Nor did she resist my lips and hands, but when I would have torn the veil from her face she grasped my wrists with the strength of despair and begged me most movingly to desist.

“Michael, my friend, my beloved, do as I say. I too am young, and we live but once. But I cannot uncover my face for you, for it would part us. Why can you not love me without beholding it, when all my tenderness awaits you?”

But I could not be content. Her resistance made me the more stubborn, so that by force I dragged the veil from her grasp and bared her face. She lay in my embrace with her fair curls over my arm and her dark-lashed eyes tightly closed. Her lips were like cherries, and my caress had brought a warm glow to her cheeks. I was at a loss to imagine why she had so long and so tantalizingly veiled her features from me, for they were beautiful. But she kept her eyes closed, and covered them with her hands; she was unresponsive to my kisses.

Ah, that I had been content with this! But I urged her wildly to open her eyes. She shook her head violently and all her joy had melted away; she lay in my arms like one dead, and not my most daring caresses could revive her. Dismayed I released her and begged her earnestly to open her eyes and look into mine, that she might read there the intensity of my longing.

At length she said sadly, “Then it’s over between us, Pilgrim Michael, and may this be the last time that I seek love. You’ll soon forget me when our voyage is ended. Let us hope that I shall forget you as easily. For the love of God, Michael, don’t look into my eyes. They are evil.”

I knew of course that there are people who without any malicious intent can injure others with their gaze. My teacher, Doctor Paracelsus, believed that the evil eye could cause a fruit tree to wither. But it was on account of such beliefs that my wife Barbara was beheaded and burned in a German city, although she was relatively innocent. In my despair I rejected all the evidence that had been heaped against her as malice and superstition, and so incurred the guilt of heresy. Nor did I believe now that Giulia’s fair face could be marred by evil eyes, and I laughed. Perhaps my laughter was a little forced, because of her grief, but when I swore that I did not fear her gaze she turned pale and at last withdrew her hands. Her frightened eyes, clear as raindrops, looked into mine.

My blood turned to ice, my heart stopped, and I stared back, as mute and horror stricken as herself.

Her eyes were beautiful indeed, yet they lent a sinister look to her face, for they were of different colors. The left eye was blue as the sea, but the right was nut brown; I had never before seen such a thing—I had never even heard of it—and I sought in vain a natural explanation.

We gazed long at one another, face to face, and instinctively I recoiled and sat a little distance, still gazing, until she too sat up and covered her breast. All warmth had drained from my body and cold shivers ran down my spine; what malignant planets must have presided at my birth! The only woman I had ever loved was beheaded and burned as a witch, and now that another had captured my heart, she too was cursed by God and must veil a face that brought horror and consternation to all beholders. My life was accursed; it might be that within myself there lurked some fatal affinity with what we call witchcraft. I remembered how Giulia’s presence, from the time I first beheld her, had attracted me like a magnet, and I could no longer feel that this was merely youth calling to youth. In my heart I suspected some dread mystery.

I was in no condition to express my thoughts to Giulia, and when she had sat for a little while with bowed head, twisting a grass blade about her slender fingers, she rose and said coldly, “Well, Michael, you’ve had your way and it’s time for us to go.”

She walked away with her head held high, and I leaped up to rejoin her. Without turning she said in a hard voice, “Master Carvajal, I rely upon your honor not to betray my secret to the ignorant people aboard our ship. Although life is indifferent to me, although it might be better for me and my fellows if I died, yet I long to reach the Holy Land now that I have undertaken the pilgrimage. I want no superstitious seaman to throw me overboard.”

I caught her wrists, and turning her to me I said, “Giulia, don’t think that my love for you has died; that is not true. Indeed I feel now that fate intended us for each other, for I too am different from other people, though I bear no outward sign of it.”

But Giulia said in derision, “You’re kind and courteous, Michael, but I don’t need your false words; your eyes have clearly spoken your horror. Let it be as if we had never met, for that is the best and kindest thing you can do.”

Her bitter words sent a wave of warmth through my heart and I was ashamed. To prove to myself and to her that nothing had changed between us I put my arms about her and kissed her. But she was right, for I no longer felt the same trembling delight. And yet perhaps my embrace held a deeper meaning than before, for now I held a defenseless creature like myself, whom I would comfort if I could in her most dreadful loneliness. Perhaps she understood, for her coldness melted, and pressing her face against my shoulder she broke into silent weeping.

To accustom myself to her strange beauty I begged her, when she had composed herself, to remove her veil and without fear walk with me down the mountainside. The longer I beheld her face and her remarkable eyes the more deeply was I aware of the profound attraction that bound me to her, despite my repugnance; it was as if two people walked beside me, and that in touching one of them I touched both. And so, unknown to me, her evil eyes cast their slow spell upon my soul.

Down by the pools we found Andy and Johanna sleeping heavily, and there was nothing left in the basket but a gnawed bone and the vine leaf that had covered the food. The sun was already sinking; we returned in haste to the port and signaled to the ship to send a boat for us.

At dusk the war galley returned from her vain pursuit, but two days and nights passed before the wind blew freshly from the northwest and we were able to row out of the harbor and hoist sail. I had spent these two days in wholesome reflection, and my proud and chilly demeanor gave place to kindliness. I shared out medicine and bread among my poor fellow passengers and did my best to help them as they lay weeping and praying on the evil-smelling straw. At night I lay awake brooding over Giulia and my own life. For since I had seen her eyes all joy had left me, and I sought oblivion in thinking of others rather than of myself.

But repentance came too late, for the day after our departure from Cerigo the wind freshened, the seas rose, and by evening the sky was filled with flying storm clouds. The ship groaned in all her timbers and began to leak worse than ever, so that all able men were set to the pumps. What with the plunging and creaking of the vessel, the crack of the sails, and the lamentations of the seasick, I confess I trembled in every limb, expecting every moment that we should founder. Yet, rotten and worm eaten though she was, our ship was a sturdy product of the Venetian dockyards, and by daybreak we had suffered no damage. When the sun came out and gilded the foaming crests of the waves we felt we had good reason to give thanks to God and join together in a song of praise.

But to the captain’s way of thinking our rejoicing was premature, and when we had ended our thanksgiving he roared at us to take to the oars, for in driving before the wind we had lost touch with the convoy. Neither sail nor land was now in sight, but by hard rowing the captain strove to alter course and so bring us up with the other vessels.

At midday the wind had dropped, although the ship still rolled in heavy seas. A sail was now descried on the horizon, and to avoid an encounter the captain again altered course and we tugged at the oars with the strength of terror. But it was too late, for by the time we could see the low sail, our lofty masts had long been visible to the stranger, who with terrifying speed approached to intercept our flight. On seeing this the captain ranted and swore and consigned all the rapacious ship owners of Venice to the nethermost pit.

“That craft bodes us no good,” he said. “If you be brave men, grasp your weapons now and fight beside me. Women and the sick must get below.”

My inward parts contracted with fear when I heard his words and watched the narrow enemy ship cleaving the foaming seas toward us, impelled by many pairs of oars. It was not long before two puffs of smoke burst from her bows; one cannon ball had plowed a hissing furrow through the waves and the other had ripped our sail before the wind had even brought us the sound of the shots.