The Wanderess (35 page)

…It was Dragomir’s voice that sang out to interrupt
Saskia’s urgent message to me. He had been standing unobserved
near the cask where I was sitting as I talked to Saskia, and where
my wounds were being attended to by Adélaïse and Saskia, and he
had listened to all Saskia had said to me. He then raised his voice
and addressed us all to say, “Saskia here said that although I want
the son of Solarus to remain alive, that nothing on earth would
come between me and those twenty-five thousand louis d’or.
Well! She knows me by heart, but hardly knows my heart…
Nothing could come between me… nothing
‘except for love, my
dear Saskia,’
and I meant it!”

“Very funny, Dragomir.”
“Is he joking?” Adélaïse asked.
“Of course he’s joking.”

“I am
not
joking,” said Dragomir, “
Love
is the only thing I
would let come between me and these twenty-five thousand louis
d’or. The only thing is
love.
And
love
is what I just heard
expressed in the vows of these two victims of the hopeless chains
of
love.
Oh, love is a terrible thing, and lovers deserve to be
pitied. This is why I’m giving to Saul and Saskia, these two happy
victims of the disease called love, half of my fortune. You two are
to receive twelve thousand and five hundred gold louis d’or. May
you build a happy home!”

Saskia didn’t believe a word of this. Saul didn’t either.
Dragomir then seemed to realize what an outrageous thing he had
just promised…
“Did I say, give half of my fortune away?! …How
absurd!

Saskia didn’t seem too crushed by the news; in fact, once
Dragomir had finished his tears of lamentation, she let out a
laugh so light and gay and so sincere, that in tears of joy she
admitted that,
yes
, Dragomir would have been, in fact, ‘clean out
of his mind’ to give away half of his reward money.

“No, no!” Dragomir then said aloud, setting things
straight, “To give away half of my fortune! People would take me
for a romantic. A fool, etc. After all, I received these twenty-five
thousand louis for killing you, Saul. Now you and Saskia know
that I didn’t
exactly
kill you—that will be our little secret to tell at
parties. We will have so many fun little stories to tell at parties,
won’t we, you two?… And now, back to the money… Saskia, are
you still listening? You look a little, shall we say, ‘absent.’ ‘No,’
you tell me? You
are
here? Well, that is good!…

“So listen, you two… if I were
not
a charlatan, I
just might
give you half my fortune—split the money right down the center!
Twelve-thousand five hundred gold louis for each—half for you
two, and half for me (And I trust with this gift you wouldn’t let
poor Adélaïse starve!). But,
unfortunately for you both
… I
am
a
charlatan. Therefore, I am keeping fifteen thousand louis d’or,
while you and Saskia get ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand gold louis!” we cried, clasping our hands
together. Saskia put her arms around me, while I looked at this
clairvoyant from Málaga as though I were looking at a saint,
“But
Dragomir, that’s a fortune!!”

Dragomir simply laughed at this and asked me, “Is it not
my job to give fortunes?! Fortunately, however, I won’t need to do
that anymore. With fifteen thousand louis d’or, I am wealthy for
life! And you two are wealthy as well! …as long as our boat
doesn’t sink.” He then looked at Adélaïse, who stood looking up
at all of us with admiration, “Don’t worry, Adélaïse… you know
that their money is your money. Just don’t any of you forget your
friend Dragomir when that day finally comes…”

“‘Which day,’ you ask?! You know, Saul… You know,
Saskia… I love many things on this beautiful earth, and I could
spend the whole evening and night naming them… but there is
one thing I love above all else! …and that thing is a wedding feast!”
Dragomir roared laughing at his own cleverness until he almost
fell from the ship. When he caught his balance and calmed
himself he said, “Sure, Saul… the adventurer’s life is a fine thing,
but what does a man need of that life when he has the love of a
good woman? Although once he has found that woman, he’s
going to need plenty of money…” So saying, Dragomir picked up
the sacks of gold one at a time, and he began dragging them into
the cabin. “Heavy!” he said. Didn’t I say each sack weighs fifty
kilos? I’ll be in the cabin dividing our shares!… Saul, do me a
favor while I’m counting our money…”

The boat we were sailing was a beauty. It had left Tripoli with
four passengers who were also the crew. Dragomir was the one
who’d borrowed the boat for this quote, ‘little boat ride’; and now,
it being officially late in returning to Tripoli, the owner must have
been furious. He was surely hunting us down by then, but what
did we care? As far as we were concerned, the new owner of the
boat was Captain Dragomir; and since he himself no longer
needed to play the part of the fortune-teller, he gave that role to
his boat. Thus, he named his boat:
The Clairvoyant.

And so we sailed that day and kept course until we
reached Málaga, meeting no hardship, undergoing no pain.
Dragomir docked
The Clairvoyant
at the port and said to his
happy crew that he wished to remain behind when we were to
move on. He wanted to close-up his home in Málaga and
transport his favorite possessions onto
The Clairvoyant
, which
would then serve as his home while he sailed off in some direction
or other, looking for the perfect place to begin a new life.

Adélaïse, Saskia and I spent the day in Málaga sightseeing. Adélaïse had never been to Málaga, although it was a city
that had dramatically changed her life. Dragomir took that time
to open a new bank account where he deposited fifteen-thousand
gold louis in cash. He told us that after we parted ways, we could
always find him by writing to his banker. We told him likewise
that he could always reach us through Juhani’s bank in Madrid.

“Paris,” I said, “But only until summer. After that we will
all three go wandering together. I’ve convinced Saskia and
Adélaïse to come with me to see the white nights of Saint
Petersburg. Now that you made our fortune, we no longer need
Saskia’s inheritance money from her uncle. Now the two of us can
begin a romance in the open; we can live together without
hiding.”

Dragomir smiled. “Another reason you don’t need to hide
anymore: There is no more king of Tripoli who wants to kill the
son of Solarus. It appears you are a free man now, Saul.”

“Maybe too free… I think I’m going to miss you following
me from city to city, Dragomir. I’ll miss you watching me from
your box at the Comédie-Française.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll still track you down,” said Dragomir, “I’ve
been worrying about you for five years now; and old habits die
hard. Well, goodbye for now, all of you…”

“Goodbye to you, Dragomir,” we all said. And so there in
Málaga, Spain, we three wanderers: Saskia, Adélaïse, and Saul, all
said goodbye to that singular man, Dragomir: the clever charlatan
and gifted clairvoyant who made us find each other, who made us
happy, and who made us rich. Before we parted ways, Saskia had
a final question for her fortune-teller…

“Just one thing I could never figure-out, Dragomir… In my
fortune, you said:
‘Your fingers were not made for keys, but for
strings. You love song, and you sing.’
…How in the world did you
know this? I didn’t have my guitar with me that night. How did
you guess I played a stringed instrument? How did you know I
sing?”

Dragomir smiled and replied, “Your callouses, my dear
girl. Those precious, little fingers of yours had the indentations of
guitar strings on every one!”

“Oh!” Saskia thought about that a moment, and then she
blushed to her ears. “…And that I sing? However did you guess
that?!”

To this, Saskia smiled and shook her head… “Boy, a
thirteen-year-old will believe just about anything! You really
played just as you fancied with my innocent little mind, didn’t
you, Dragomir? But today my life is perfect, so I’m glad you chose
me for a victim.” Saskia then exhaled her sweet breath. And let
her eyes dance to each of our eyes, and she smiled that great, wide
smile—that beautiful and sincere smile that could seduce the
whole world: the smile of
The Wanderess
.

It was evening now at the
Lion d’Argent
in Calais when Saul
finished telling me the story of his adventures in Europe and
North Africa, as well as the naissance of his romance with Saskia:
that magical
Wanderess
whose image will always burn bright in
my memory and imagination.

So, I wondered what happened afterwards: When Saul,
Saskia, and Adélaïse parted ways with Dragomir in Málaga, it was
still autumn-time. Still the same year and same season as when I
first met Saskia and Saul in Italy, and drove each one separately to
Civitavecchia. Now it was springtime; and two and a half years
had gone by since then. Today that is long past.

“After we left Málaga,” Saul began, “we all three… Saskia,
Adélaïse and I… went to Paris, where we lived together in perfect
happiness. Life was an idyll. Money of course was no longer an
issue for us, yet Saskia and I lived in frugal simplicity, spending
very little money at all; it was our mutual love and our hope for a
happy future that made our lives rich. Likewise, our friendship
with Adélaïse constantly renewed all the joy in our hearts. Saskia
and I both looked on Adélaïse as on a daughter. She was much
less worldly than Saskia. She was more vulnerable and naïve,
more precocious, and was still a child in many ways. Although
she confessed to us one day that she’d had a lover once. He was a
poet, and the two spoke English together. She said that her time
with him was the happiest time of her life, although the two
separated by accident and, to her great sadness, she gave up all
hope of finding him one day. We asked her if her lover-poet ever
called her “My English Lady.” Adélaïse blushed like a blooming
garden of embarrassed flowers when we asked her this, and she
begged we tell her if
all
poets call their muses their ‘English
ladies.’ Saskia and I winked at each other and agreed that our
Adélaïse was
the famous
Adélaïse who was the subject of the
poem we were read by the love-struck gentleman in the bathtub
in Siena.

Adélaïse’s birthday was coming up, and for her present we
took her to Siena and arranged for her to stumble one afternoon,
all alone and vulnerable, on her past lover, the poet Pietros
Maneos, who was still where Saul and Saskia left him: reciting
Homer in his bathtub—‘
à la
Diogenes’
—on the lawn of the
University of Siena. Both Pietros and Adélaïse, being now older
and more mature of heart than when they first met, fell deeply in
love with one another. And they, bless their romantic and
innocent souls, agreed that this “accidental” reunion was proof
that both their gods—Adélaïse’s Catholic god, and Pietros’ Greek
gods—were either both the same god, or else they were great
friends and approved of each other.

Since the two lovebirds were in paradise together and had
almost completely forgotten that we exist, Saskia and I went
ahead and left them in Italy. She and I went, just the two of us, to
the top of the earth… to experience in the month of June what I’d
always dreamed of experiencing: the white nights and eternal days
of Saint Petersburg.

We loved travelling together so much that, after Russia, I
took Saskia wandering for over a year. Or perhaps it was Saskia
who took me
wandering for over a year…

We visited places we had never imagined we would go: the
cities of Prague, Kiev, Budapest, The Black and Caspian Seas,
Macedonia and the sacked city of Troy, Constantinople: the
gateway to Asia; we then explored Persia. We wandered on
further yet, to India, to Nepal, to Tibet! I studied the origins of
Sanskrit, and the complexities of opium smoke. Saskia studied
yoga, and the Kama Sutra. She and I cooperated to smuggle a kilo
of saffron out of India, into France, where we sold it at a
tremendous profit. She and I both agree, looking back on all we
did and saw, that the East had a good influence on us. Thanks to
the East, Saskia was inspired to ingest oriental medicines and
consider her body as a force of nature. While the Orient inspired
me to inebriate myself with perfumed wine while reading the
poetry of Omar Khayyám
¹
.

Saskia and I are happy to be back in France though. No
country is sweeter! And we also get to see Adélaïse and her poet
again… they also just returned from travelling—or from:
wandering
, rather…

They lived with gypsies in Romania. They wandered Europe
like rustics, travelling as far north as Sweden; and they wandered
like fortune-hunters to the equator, hunting diamonds in the
rainforests of the Congo. Maneos in enjoying great fame from his
latest book; and he’s also encouraging Adélaïse to write a novel
about her own wanderings. He is impressed by her literary talent.
She is spending hours every day working on it—she says it will be
a “romantic adventure” novel. Saskia and I need to make sure that
Pietros and Adélaïse can concentrate on literature without having
to worry about the “practical things” that get in the way, so we
decided last month to sign Saskia’s inheritance over to Adélaïse.
That way, Saskia and I don’t have to be discreet about our
relationship, while Adélaïse will have that income to give her
security for the rest of her life. So we immediately hired a team of
attorneys to study her uncle’s will to look for a reason why such a
transfer would be impossible. The attorneys found nothing in the
will that forbids such a transfer, and nothing that would afterward
forbid Adélaïse from enjoying romantic involvement with a man.
She will be free to marry whom she wants, or otherwise live as she
pleases… Thus, it seems like a perfect arrangement to us all…

“So this is the reason we all came to Calais! Yesterday we
arrived here and Saskia, Adélaïse, and Pietros took the boat to
Dover where Saskia has arranged to sign the papers that will
transfer her income into Adélaïse’s name. As you know, I’m
forbidden to enter England, so I’m waiting here in Calais for their
return. Adélaïse and Pietros had the misfortune of catching food
poisoning on our way here from Paris, so they went straight to
bed in their cabin when the three got onboard. That’s why you
only saw Saskia when their ship left the port. But they’ll be back
this evening—according to the timetable at the pier, their ship
will come in before nightfall. Oh, you must certainly wait! They’ll
be as thrilled to see you as I was!, for if it weren’t for you, we
would all be no doubt, alone, poor, and without love in our lives.
When we are back in Paris, I would like to invite you to the
Comédie-Française if you’re free.”