Altai: A Novel (34 page)

Acknowledgements

This book owes a great deal to a great many people. We can only name a few of them here.

Roberto Santachiara, commander
en jefe
.

Severino Cesari and Paolo Repetti, for believing in us from the start, for following our every switch of direction, and for all of their advice.

Valentina Pattavina, for her patience, her teeth-gritting determination, her enthusiasm.

Ersan Ocak, for his personal interpretation of the term
tahammül
, set out one October afternoon, over a cup of coffee, in the Old Town of Damascus.

Andrea Lollini, for his valuable suggestions about Jewish culture.

Claudia Boscolo, for linguistic advice (and more besides).

Dimitri Chimenti, for his in-depth comments on the first draft.

Gaia De Pascale, for her overview.

The whole Polifonie group, for all the ideas flying around in that immaterial space.

Valerio, Giu, Giro, Alez, Filippo, Alberto and Carmilla’s group.

Loredana Lipperini, for all her observations over the years.

Mario Boffo, Italian ambassador to Yemen (and author), for his kindness and helpfulness.

Omar Berakdar, for the discussion of Islam and the iconography of victors.

Dr. Balagan of Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, for filling in a dangerous pothole at the last minute.

Our partners Chiara, Chiara, Claudia and Giulia, for everything.

Our children Davide, Ismaele, Matilde and Sofia, because “everything” still isn’t enough.

Luca, in fair and foul weather. This novel is for him too.

Everyone who, over the years, has shaped the fate of
Q
.

Appendix

[What follows is a “second prologue” to
Altai
, a long preamble in Mokha. We worked on this intensively in the autumn of 2008, but at a particular point we decided not to put it in the book, and to catch Ismail more
in medias res
. Here we tell of the bloodless reconquest of Mokha by the Ottoman fleet after the Zaydi revolt, and the part played by Ismail in the event. Basically, it was thanks to him that no blood was spilled. Then there’s a gap; there was supposed to be a scene in which someone recently arrived from Constantinople hands Ismail Gracia’s letter. In the last paragraph we show the old man, at home, reading her letter for the first time. Meanwhile, down in the street, a storyteller recounts the Sufi fable of the river that wanted to cross the desert, a fable that that is told (in different ways) at other points in the novel.]

Prelude

Al Mukha, 27 Dhu al-Hijjah 976

The Sultan’s galleys came in sight of Mokha as evening fell. The monsoon breeze swelled the sails with sticky air, heavy as a tunic drenched in boiling water. On the shore, a line of white walls rose just above the sand, between the warm sea and the mountain backdrop from which the rebels had come down.

According to the information in the admiral’s possession, the city had surrendered without a blow being struck. The inhabitants had refused to fight, the Ottoman garrison had fled, and the Indian merchants had sailed their feluccas to Abyssinia, on the other side of the Red Sea.

“We’re half a mile away, Pasha,” the bombardier informed him. “Where do you want to strike?”

The admiral unrolled a map and studied the coast once more. Mokha had neither gates nor bastions. The Zaydi gangs had taken the city on foot, with the complicity of a cowardly population. Both would soon know the price to be paid for betrayal. In essence, there were only two buildings armed with cannons.

“The Bey’s palace is too close to the mosque,” he said, pointing to the vertical of the big minaret. “Aim to starboard, at that isolated tower.”

From the fo’c’sle the order echoed to the oarsmen’s benches, and the galley maneuvered into firing position.

The gunner swabbed the middle culverin. Into its mouth he slipped the bundle of charge and a spadeful of sawdust, followed by six blows of the tamping rod. Then he picked up a sixty-pound ball and rolled it into the bronze barrel. He poured the priming powder into the touchhole, lit the fuse at the end of the linstock and waited.

“Elevation four,” the bombardier commanded, as he was handed the incandescent scepter. In the meantime, five more gunners repeated the same operations with the lower-caliber weapons.

“Fire!” the admiral cried.

The explosion scattered a school of dolphins and startled the gulls. The culverin recoiled on the deck, coming to a halt against the mainmast. When the smoke dispersed, the tower they had been aiming at still appeared solidly in place. The other cannons were ready to fire, but no response came from the city: no gunfire, no shouts, nothing.

The admiral told the bombardier to stay prepared, then commanded that the vessel head farther down the coast and aim for the dock.

All of a sudden, beyond the pall of heat, dust and salt, the mirage of a banner appeared, flapping red against the wind, above the highest roof of the government building. Because he wasn’t in the first flush of youth, and his eyesight wasn’t what it was, he asked his second-in-command to help him.

“Captain, do you see that banner, too?”

The other man nodded.

“And do you recognize it?”

The captain leaned against the side and narrowed his eyes: three half-moons in a green oval on a red ground. “It looks like, I don’t know, but, no, that’s impossible, it couldn’t . . .”

“So?”

“It looks like the Sultan’s banner, Pasha.
Our
banner.”

The old man sits at the table and writes. There is still enough light coming in through the window; the lamps are not yet lit. Once he has finished a page, he stacks it on the pile to his left: it’s at least a hand’s-breadth high, ten years of memories for each finger. Worn-out sheets of paper, ink-scarred, written in a threadbare Latin that the old man patches up with Turkish, Arabic, German, Venetian terms. Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine wouldn’t recognize their language of choice.

He spreads a new page out in front of him, straightens his back and dips his pen.

“They’re coming,” a voice says behind him. “What should we do?”

It’s Ali. The old man didn’t even hear him coming upstairs. Old age and salt air are ruining his hearing. He turns around, his fingers stroking his white beard.

“How many?” he asks in Arabic.

“Eight galleys.”

“Fine. Call the people. We’ll go and welcome them at the customs post.”

Ali is about to reply, but a distant explosion interrupts their conversation. The two men wait, motionless, like statues of flesh. Sounds of collapsing masonry burst through the window. The old man gets up, ignoring a pain in the small of his back. He looks up and sees, about thirty yards away, the smashed roof of a house, below the watchtower.

“It’s a challenge,” he announces. “If we don’t respond, they won’t fire again. That’s the rule.” He goes back to his desk and puts the manuscript back in a big leather bag. He picks up the ebony stick resting against his chair and, with the help of this, goes downstairs, with Ali walking ahead of him.

There were at least two thousand people crowding by the arch leading from the dock to the city. Veiled women holding babies in their arms, wrinkled old men in white robes, children naked from head to toe. Men and boys all had one protruding cheek, swollen with intoxicating leaves, and at their waists they each wore a curved dagger, more as an ornament than a dangerous weapon. The only martial-looking young men were lined up in the front row: a group of about thirty Arabs, Indians and Africans, each wearing only a wide tunic.

In front of them stood a solemn-looking old man with his head wrapped in a turban. The admiral approached, followed by the galley captains. Once he was standing in front of the old man he looked him up and down like a camel he was thinking of buying.

“So it’s true,” he said at last. “You are . . .”

“Ismail al-Mukhawi,” the other man cut in. “Welcome to Mokha, Pasha.”

“A spy told us you’d stayed in the city with your men, and the Zaydis didn’t dare touch you. So you liberated Mokha all by yourself?”

“They left at night, as soon as they knew of your arrival. There was no need to fight.”

“And months ago, when they got here?” The admiral’s voice was now quivering with indignation. “You didn’t need to fight then, either?”

The old man spread his arms, as if to embrace the city and its people. “Mokha has no defenses, and there were thousands of rebels. No amount of resistance would have held them back.”

“The fact remains that the captain of the janissaries ordered the inhabitants to respond to the attack, and he wasn’t listened to.”

Ismail rested a hand on his chest. “The responsibility is mine. I promised these people that the Zaydis would do them no harm. Events proved me right.”

“Far from it!” the admiral roared. “You are a merchant, you think about business, and the mountain rebels don’t seem like true enemies to you, because they produce the coffee you are so fond of. I, on the other hand, am a man of arms, and I think quite differently. Anyone who doesn’t fight the Sultan’s enemies is a traitor, and that is how he should be treated.”

“If we were enemies, we wouldn’t be here to welcome you, Pasha.”

“Welcome me? As far as I’m concerned, you’re here to surrender!”

“Even an old man like me can see that it isn’t a white flag that’s flying from the bey’s palace; it’s the Sultan’s banner. And if it has returned to its place, it certainly isn’t thanks to the governor.”

With a sudden impulse of rage, the admiral turned round and ordered his men to load their arquebuses and have their bows at the ready.

The youths behind the old man brought their hands to their belts, as if to untie their robes. A moment later, every one was holding a pistol and, in the other hand, a whip of big metal strips as long as a man. Behind them, at the same moment, a hundred blades emerged from their scabbards.

The admiral drew his sword and put himself almost nose to nose with the old man. “Thank Yossef Nasi,” he said between his teeth. “If it weren’t for the fact that you represent him, I would make you repent for not fighting when it was time.”

He took two steps back and raised the arm gripping his weapon. “Step aside, now!” he sh
outed. At a nod from the old man, the crowd divided in two and allowed the troops that had come from Constantinople to enter the city.

The uniforms filed past, accompanied only by eddies of sand and the sound of slippers on the beaten earth.

[. . .]

Night fell and the men of Mokha gathered to sing, smoke and tell stories, in the dusty space in front of the warehouses of Yossef Nasi, Lord of Tiberias, Duke of Naxos and the Seven Islands. The cups passed from hand to hand, full of
kishir
, the infusion prepared by boiling dry husks of coffee beans and cardamom seeds. In a city famous throughout the Empire for its
kahve
, the black liquid was reserved for the early morning, to clear the head of dreams or to make them emerge more clearly from the mind’s torpor. Only the Sufi mystics drank it at any time of day, and Ismail, who frequented their monastery, had adopted the habit, every time he had to think.

The celebrations were taking place right under his window, but the old man had preferred the company of the letter that had just arrived. It was written in Flemish, forcing him to reread entire passages to be sure that he had grasped their meaning. The deep voice of the storyteller outside slipped in between one sentence and the next.

Born in far-off mountains, a river passed through many regions before at last it reached the desert sands. It tried to overcome the sands, but the further it tried to go, the more lost its waters became.

The old man got to his feet with the sheet of paper in his hand, in the hope that walking might help him to concentrate, but his knee, swollen with arthritis, forced him to hobble to other thoughts.

Summer is coming,
he said to himself with his hand gripping his kneecap,
the damp summer of Mokha.
He blamed the place and the season, but he knew all too well that the hand of time would crush him in the end. Summer or winter, even in the most wholesome corner of the empire. But before that moment came, there was still life, there were still the obsessive memories and all those plans that had come to nothing.

It was then that a hidden voice murmured:

“If you rush in your usual way, the desert won’t allow you to cross it. You will only be able to disappear or turn into a pool.”

Gracia’s letter wasn’t the usual one, the one that arrived punctually every year, along with Yossef’s ships loaded with fabrics and wood. It contained no lengthy reflections on the meaning of things, accounts of a thousand activities, ritual questions and others that were more heartfelt. The only common elements were the signature and the language of Antwerp. Otherwise, all the questions were condensed into a single request: Come back, as soon as possible. The news, too, had shriveled to a few words: I am ill, I am dying.

“The wind crosses the desert; the river can do the same, if it allows the wind to carry it.”

Yossef, too, sent him letters every year. The surface of his words said: I miss you, I crave your wisdom, you would be more useful by my side, as in the old days. But the plea had become less and less heartfelt and the rhetoric more and more careless. Ismail ran his eyes over the pages; he wasn’t really reading. He accepted the gifts that came with the letters; he handed them around. The true message that came to him from Istanbul was very clear. The City of Coffee was the right place for him.

But Gracia’s invitation had been heartfelt, passionate, like his desire to hold her once more and comply with her last wishes.

Then the river sent its vapors up toward the welcoming arms of the wind, which lifted them and carried them to the east, letting them fall once more as snow on the peak . . .

The noisy voices that had served as a ground bass to the story grew until they drowned it out, then suddenly fell silent. A shout in Turkish interrupted the storyteller.

“Go back to your houses, admiral’s orders. No gatherings after sunset.”

Protests were heard in Arabic, curses, clumsy attempts to negotiate in the language of the soldiers. From the tone of the voices, Ismail understood that nothing untoward was going to happen. Not this evening.

He thought again of the words of the story. It was a Sufi parable, one he had heard many times, in many different variations, and he knew the ending: When the thaws came, the snow melted and the river became itself once more.

That had been his life, for many years. Allowing himself to be carried beyond the sands by the wind, and starting over when the rains came. Now he no longer feared being transformed into a marsh, and giving water to the desert seemed to him as noble as running between one’s banks and irrigating the plain. Or perhaps that was what he liked to believe, whereas in fact his hearing had failed and his ears were no longer capable of hearing the voice of the wind.

Be that as it might, he could not return to Istanbul immediately, and it wasn’t only the monsoon that kept him from doing so. He folded the letter again and began to undress for bed. The sands of Mokha were still in need of water.