Balthasar's Odyssey (22 page)

It was a mistake, though, to tell Father Jean-Baptiste of my discovery. He rebuked me for setting foot under the roof of a Huguenot and drinking the wine of heresy. But we weren't alone when he produced this ridiculous phrase, and I suspect he was only saying what the other people wanted to hear. He himself has lived in the Levant long enough to know that good wine has no colour and no spirit but its own.

16 December

I invited Marta to Master Ezekiel Moineau's at midday today. That's the name of the French caterer. I'm not sure she liked the food, but she was pleased with the invitation, and did a bit more than justice to the wine. I managed to stop her halfway between gaiety and tipsiness.

Back at the monastery we found ourselves alone when everyone was due to take a siesta. We were longing to fall into one another's arms, and without any attempt at prudence, that's what we did. I was listening all the time in case my nephews or one of the monks should catch us unawares. I didn't worry about my clerk — he knows how to see and hear nothing when necessary. But the anxiety didn't spoil our pleasure — on the contrary. It was as if every second might be the last, and had to be worth its weight in pleasure even more than the second before. So our love-making grew ever more vigorous, intense and abandoned. Our bodies were redolent of warm wine, and we promised each other years of happiness, whether the world lives or dies.

We were exhausted long before anyone turned up. She fell asleep, and I'd have liked to do the same, but it would have been too risky. I gently adjusted her gown, then covered her up to the neck with a modest blanket. Then I wrote these lines in my journal.

My nephews didn't come back until the middle of the night. And I haven't seen Father Jean-Baptiste again: he had visitors yesterday, and probably spent the whole day with them. Much good may it have done them all. They'll have collected a lot of fresh rumours. All I collected was wine-like dew from a pair of willing lips. If only the world would always pass us by as it did today! If only we could live and love each other in the half-light day after day, forgetting all about prophecies! Getting drunk on heretical wine and forbidden love!

Lord! Only Thou can arrange for Thy will not to be done!

17 December

I left the Capuchin monastery today and went to stay in the house of an English merchant I'd never met before. Yet another of the strange things that happen to me these days as if to remind me we're not living in ordinary times. So here I am installed in someone else's house as if it were my own, and this evening I'm writing these pages on a cherrywood desk, shiny with new red lacquer, in the light shed from a solid silver candlestick. Marta's waiting for me. She has a room of her own here, opening off mine, and tonight and all the nights that follow I shall be sleeping with her in her bed.

It all happened very quickly, as if the business had been settled beforehand in Heaven, and all we humans had to do was meet here below and shake hands on it. The meeting place was of course the Huguenot's eating-house, where I now go every day, sometimes more than once. This morning I'd only dropped in for a glass of wine and some olives before having lunch at the monastery. Two men were already sitting at a table there, and the Frenchman introduced us. One was English and the other Dutch, but they seemed good friends despite the fact that their countries don't get on too well. I'd had occasion to tell Master Moineau my profession, and it so happens that my Englishman, Cornelius Wheeler by name, is also a dealer in curios. The other, the Dutchman, is a Protestant pastor called Coenen — very tall and thin, with the knobbly, bald skull typical of certain old men.

I soon learned that my colleague was getting ready to leave Smyrna late in the day for England; his ship was already waiting alongside. His departure had been decided on in haste, for family reasons I wasn't told about, so no arrangements has been made about the house. We'd been sitting together for barely a quarter of an hour, and I was conversing politely with the pastor about the Embriaci's past, Gibelet, Sabbataï, and current events, while Wheeler said little and seemed scarcely to hear what we said, so deeply was he absorbed in his own worries. Then he suddenly emerged from his torpor and asked me point-blank if I'd care to stay at his place for a while.

“If we're soon to find ourselves living in the reign of chaos,” he said, “I'd like to know my house is being looked after by a noble spirit.”

Not wanting to seem too eager, I explained that I was only in Smyrna for a short time, to settle some urgent business, so I too might have to leave from one day to the next. But I couldn't have sounded very convincing, for he didn't bother to answer my objection and just asked if I'd mind taking a stroll with him and the pastor so that he could show me my “new home”.

I think I've already mentioned that the foreigners' quarter is a long avenue running along by the beach. It's lined on both sides with shops, warehouses, workrooms, a hundred or so houses, a few well-reputed caterers and four churches, including that of the Capuchins. The houses overlooking the sea are more sought after than those giving on to the hill, the old citadel and the districts inhabited by the local people — Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Wheeler's place is neither the biggest nor the safest of the houses: it's at the end of the avenue, and the sea practically knocks at the door. Even when it's calm, as it was today, you can hear the roar of the waves. When there's a swell the noise must be deafening.

The most attractive thing about the place is the huge room I'm in at the moment. It's surrounded by the bedrooms, and full of statues, statuettes, fragments of ancient columns and bits of mosaic, all excavated by Wheeler himself, who does a good trade in such articles.

What I can see all round me, and what makes me feel as if I'm living on the site of some Greek temple or antique villa, must be the remains of the remains — nothing but items that are cracked or broken or have bits broken off them, or of which there are three or four examples. The best pieces have no doubt been dispatched to London, where my host will have sold them at a handsome profit. Good luck to him! I know from experience that the people round here will never buy such things. Those who have the means to acquire them don't appreciate them, and most Turks, if they don't regard them as meaningless, are eager to deface or destroy them on religious grounds.

When he embarked yesterday, Wheeler took a number of packing cases with him, despite the fact that he was leaving at short notice. The largest and heaviest crate, as he told me himself, contained a magnificent sarcophagus ornamented with bas-reliefs that had been found in Philadelphia. Having accepted his invitation about the house, I obviously couldn't but join the pastor and see my host off on his journey. This turned out to be fortunate for him, as we found when we reached the harbour that the dockers were refusing to load any cargoes, no matter how much money they were offered. I couldn't discover the reason for this, but their attitude fits in with the general atmosphere of confusion, demoralisation, touchiness and irresponsibility. I enlisted the help of Hatem and my nephews, so we had the help of seven pairs of arms, including those of the pastor and of Wheeler's own clerk, to get the crates safely on board. Only the sarcophagus was too much for us, and we had to bribe some sailors to haul it up on ropes.

After thanking the Capuchins for their hospitality and leaving a generous contribution towards the repair of their church (damaged in the last earthquake), I came and settled in here with all my travelling companions.

Wheeler has left us a young servant maid with an evasive expression who hasn't been with him long and whom he suspected of pilfering food and crockery. Perhaps money and clothes as well — he wasn't sure. If I should decide to dismiss her I wasn't to hesitate. Why hadn't he done so himself? I didn't ask. I haven't seen much of her yet. She's been through the house a couple of times, barefoot, with eyes downcast, and wrapped in a red and black check shawl.

We've shared out the bedrooms. There are six altogether, not counting the maid's, which is on the roof and reached by a ladder. Hatem has taken the room usually occupied by our host's own clerk; each of my nephews has a room to himself; and so do Marta and I, to keep up appearances, though I have no intention of sleeping in a different room from her.

I'm going to join her now.

18 December

There's still one bedroom free in Wheeler's house, and this morning I offered it to Maïmoun.

Ever since he's been in Smyrna he's lived with his father in the house of a man from Aleppo called Issac Laniado, an ardent supporter of Sabbataï and next-door neighbour to the “Messiah's” family. This has been forcing my friend to conceal his true feelings, and he told me, sighing, that he didn't know if he could bear another long Sabbath in their company.

But he declined my invitation. “It's when our nearest and dearest lose their way that we ought to stay close to them,” he said. I didn't insist.

In the town itself a quiet chaos still reigns. People have lost their fear of the law, as if the Kingdom that is to come will be one of mercy and forgiveness, not of discipline and order. But this sense of impunity doesn't lead to unbridled violence; there are no riots, no bloodshed or looting, The wolf lies down with the lamb without trying to eat it, as it says somewhere in the Scriptures. This evening a score of Jews, men and women, went down from their own quarter to the harbour singing “Meliselda, the king's daughter” and waving torches, thus breaking both their own law, which forbids them to kindle a fire on Friday evening, and the law of the country, which allows only foreign merchants to use torches when they go out at night. Not far from here the Jews met a patrol of janissaries marching behind their officer. The singing wavered for a moment, then went on again louder than before, each group going on its way without taking any notice of the other.

How much longer will this exaltation last? One more day? Three? Forty? Those who believe in Sabbataï say for ever and ever. A new era will soon begin, they declare, and it will never end. Once the Resurrection has begun it will never stop. Resurrection will not be followed by death. What will end is humiliation, subservience, captivity, exile, diaspora.

And where do I come in in all this? What ought I to be hoping for? Maïmoun blames his father for abandoning everything to follow his king-cum-Messiah. But haven't I done something much worse? Haven't I left my home town, my occupation and my quiet life just because of rumours of an apocalypse, and without even hoping for salvation?

Aren't I just as crazy as these misguided folk walking about brandishing torches on the night of the Sabbath? I am defying the laws of religion and of the country by sleeping with a woman who's not my wife, and may still be the wife of another, with the knowledge of all my entourage. How much longer can I go on living this lie? And above all, how long shall I escape unpunished?

But if the prospect of punishment does occasionally occur to me, it doesn't turn me away from my desires. The thought that God can see me bothers me less than the thought that other people do. Last night, for the first time, I took Marta in my arms without having to check the windows and doors, without having to listen for footsteps. Slowly I undressed her, slowly undid the ribbons and buttons and let her clothes fall on the floor, then blew out the candle. She raised her arm and hid her eyes; only her eyes. I took her hand and led her over to the bed. Laid her down, and lay down beside her. Her body smelled of the scent we bought together in the Genoese merchant's shop in Constantinople. I whispered that I loved her and always would. As I breathed into her ear she put her arms round me and drew me to her warm body, murmuring words of joy, eagerness, consent, abandon.

I made love to her with the fire of a lover and the serenity of a husband. Could I have done so if everything around us, in the city and in the world, hadn't been in this supreme state of exaltation, of unreality?

19 December

The Dutch pastor paid me a visit early this morning, saying he just wanted to make sure I was comfortable in his friend's house. When I answered with some enthusiasm that I was already living there as if the place was my own, he saw fit to reply that I must never forget that it was not. I was annoyed at this unnecessary remark, and pointed out shortly that I'd merely been trying to express my gratitude. I'd agreed to come here only in order to be of service, I told him. I'd been quite happy at the monastery and could easily go back there. I thought he'd put on his hat then and leave, or perhaps ask
me
to go and take all my tribe with me. But after a moment's hesitation he gave a little laugh, apologised, coughed, and said there must have been a misunderstanding — his Italian wasn't very good. In fact he speaks it as well as I do! In short, he tried so hard to put matters right that when he got up to go five minutes later I laid my hand on his arm and asked him to stay for a cup of coffee. “My wife” was just getting it ready, I said.

After this somewhat awkward start, our conversation took a more agreeable turn, and I soon found I was talking to a sensible fellow and a scholar. He told me that for several months a number of European cities had been buzzing with rumours about the lost tribes of Israel, which were said to have appeared in Persia and raised a huge army. They are said to have seized Arabia, defeated the Ottoman forces, and even advanced as far as Morocco. People say that this year the caravan of pilgrims which should have set out from Tunis to Mecca gave up the idea for fear of meeting the lost tribes on the way. Coenen himself doesn't believe these rumours, and thinks they're put about by Vienna, which is being besieged by the troops of the Sultan, and by Venice, which has been at war with the Sublime Porte for thirty years, and is trying to get up its courage with the thought of unexpected allies preparing to attack the Muslims from the rear.