Balthasar's Odyssey (50 page)

I haven't forgotten yet. I don't know if I ever shall. Yes, one day I shall, and her betrayal will help.

Even so, I can't help still having a doubt. Did she really betray me, or did she say what she did to save her child?

There I go, talking about the child again, though everyone tells me it doesn't exist and never did.

But what if they're all lying to me? She to protect her child, and the others to … But no, that's enough! I must stop deluding myself. Even if I'll never know the whole truth, I must turn my back on my past and look ahead. Ahead.

Anyhow, this year is nearly over.

17 December

I looked at the sky last night, and it seems to me that there really are fewer and fewer stars. They're going out one after the other, while on earth the cities burn.

The world began in paradise, and is going to end in hell.

Why did I come into it so late?

19 December

We've just passed through the Straits of Messina, avoiding the whirlpool they call Charybdis. Domenico named his boat after it to try to ward off its dangers, but still he takes care never to go near it.

Now we're going to sail up the coast of Italy to Genoa. The Calabrian promises me a new life awaits me there. But what's the point in my starting a new life if the world is about to end?

I always thought I'd spend the last days of the “Year of the Beast” in Gibelet, so that all my people would be huddled together in the same house, comforted by familiar voices, if what must happen did happen. I was so sure I'd go back there, I hardly ever mentioned it — I just wondered about the dates and the routes. Should I go straight there in April, instead of following
The Hundredth Name
to London? Should I go through Chios or Smyrna on the way back? Even Gregorio, when he made me promise to go back to Genoa, realised I couldn't do so until I'd settled my affairs in Gibelet.

Yet here I am on the way to Genoa. I'll be there for Christmas, and that's where I'll be when the year 1666 comes to an end.

20 December

The truth is I've been hiding the truth from myself all the time, even in this journal, which ought to have been my confessor.

The truth is, I knew that once I was in Genoa again I'd never go back to Gibelet. I murmured it to myself sometimes, without ever daring to write it down, as if such a monstrous thought could never be put on paper. For my beloved sister is in Gibelet, and my business, as well as my parents' grave, and the house where I was born, and my grandfather's father before me. But I'm as much of a stranger there as a Jew. While Genoa, where I'd never lived before, has recognised me, embraced me, taken me to its bosom like the Prodigal Son. I walk head held high along its narrow streets, say my Italian name aloud, smile at the women and am not afraid of the janissaries. One of the Embriaci's ancestors may have been accused of drinking too much, but they have a tower named after them too. Every family ought to have a tower named after them somewhere.

This morning I wrote what I thought I ought to write. I could just as easily have written the opposite.

I boast about being at home in Genoa and only in Genoa, when in fact I'll always, till the end of my days, be Gregorio's guest here, and in his debt. I'm going to leave my own roof to live under his, abandon my own business to work for him.

Shall I be able to take pride in living like that? Depending on him and his generosity, when I think of him as I do? His enthusiasm irritates me, his devotion makes me laugh, and I've already had to make my escape because I'd had enough of his nudges and winks and of his wife's face. I'm going to be given his daughter's hand as if it were homage from a vassal, a kind of
droit du seigneur,
because I bear the name of the Embriaci and he bears only his own. He'll have worked all his life just for me: built up his business, built his ships, accumulated his wealth and founded his family just for my benefit. He'll have planted, watered, pruned, tended the tree, and I'll just have come along and picked the fruit. And I have the audacity to take pride in my name and strut around Genoa, after abandoning what I built up myself and what my ancestors built up for me!

I shall end this year in Genoa, but if there are any other years to come, I don't know yet where I'll spend them.

22 December 1666

We sheltered from the swell in an almost deserted inlet north of Naples, on the alert for wreckers.

It seems some people aboard saw a big fire on the coast, on the outskirts of Naples. But I was in bed and didn't see anything.

I'm suffering from sea-sickness again. And a general unease at the approaching end of the year.

In ten days' time the world will either be definitely over the worst, or have sunk beyond recall.

23 December 1666

Neither Marta nor Giacominetta — when I woke up this morning I was thinking of Bess and her red hair, how she smells of violets and beer, how she looks at you like a mother who can't do enough for you. I don't miss London, but I can't think without sadness of its terrible fate. And though I hated its streets and its crowds, I made a tribe of strange friends there, all revolving around Bess.

What has become of them? What has become of their dilapidated ale-house with its wooden stairs and its attics? What has become of the Tower of London and St Paul's Cathedral? And all those bookshops and their heaps of books? Ashes, dust and ashes. Like the faithful journal I used to keep every day. Like all the other books except Mazandarani's. His book spreads desolation all around, but always emerges unscathed itself. Wherever it's been, there have been nothing but fires and shipwrecks. A fire in Constantinople, a fire in London, and Marmontel shipwrecked. And this ship now, which looks as if it might capsize at any moment.

Woe to whoever approaches the hidden name: his eyes are always dimmed or dazzled — never lit. Now, when I pray, I feel like saying:

“Lord, never be too far away from me! But don't be too close to me either!

“Let me admire the stars on the hem of Thy robe! But do not show me Thy face!

“Let me hear the rippling of Thy rivers, the sound of Thy wind blowing through the trees, and the laughter of Thy children! But Lord, Lord! let me not hear Thy voice!”

24 December 1666

Domenico promised we'd be in Genoa for Christmas. But we won't. If the sea were calm we might get there tomorrow evening. But the
libeccio
that's blowing from the south-west is getting stronger, and we'll have to take shelter on the coast again.

Libeccio
... I'd forgotten the word. I used to hear it often in my childhood, when my father and grandfather would talk of it with a mixture of nostalgia and fear. They always contrasted it with the
scirocco,
and said, if I remember rightly, that Genoa has provided itself with defences against one but not against the other. They blamed the present ruling families, who spend fortunes on palaces for themselves but are like misers when it comes to providing for the common good.

Domenico told me that, until twenty years ago, ships wouldn't spend the winter in Genoa because the
libeccio
caused such terrible havoc there. Every year between twenty and forty boats — once, more than a hundred of all shapes and sizes — would be sunk. November and December were the worst months. But more recently a new jetty has been built, sheltering the harbour from the west.

“We shan't have anything to fear there — the dock's as smooth as a lake now. But we've got to get there first! My ancestors!”

25 December 1666

This morning we tried to get out to the open sea, then we had to fall back on the coast again. The
libeccio was
blowing harder and harder, and Domenico knew he wouldn't get far. But he wanted us to be be able to shelter in the cove behind the Portovenere peninsula, towards Lerici.

I'm tired of being at sea and ill all the time. I'd have been glad to travel the rest of the way to Genoa by road; it's only a day's journey overland from here. But after all the captain and his crew have done for me, I'd be ashamed to abandon them like that. It's only right that I should share their fate as they shared mine. Even if I have to heave my heart up.

26 December

Domenico said to a grumpy old sailor who told him off for breaking his promise, “Better be late in Genoa than early in hell!”

We all laughed except the old boy. I expect he's too close to his own end to see the funny side.

Monday, 27 December 1666

Genoa at last!

Gregorio was waiting for me in the harbour. He'd posted a man near the lighthouse, to let him know as soon as our boat hove in sight.

Seeing him waving excitedly in the distance, I remembered my first arrival in the city of my ancestors, nine months ago. I was on the same boat, coming from the same island, commanded by the same captain. But it was spring then, and the port was full of ships being loaded and unloaded, customs men, travellers, clerks and ordinary onlookers. Today, there was only us. No other boat was arriving or departing; no one was there to say hail or farewell to a traveller; there were no idle bystanders. No one. Not even Melchione Baldi: I looked for him in vain. Nothing but empty boats at their moorings, and quays that were practically empty too.

In this wilderness of stone and water, swept by a cold wind, one man stood ruddy and smiling, generous but intransigent. Master Mangiavacca, come to take delivery of 800 litres of mastic and a prodigal son-in-law.

I still make fun of him, but I've given up trying to resist him. And I bless rather than curse him.

Giacominetta blushed when she saw me enter the house with her father. She'd obviously been told already that I was coming back to Genoa, that I was asking for her hand, and that my request would be granted. As for my future mother-in-law, she was unwell because of the cold, and, I was informed, has had to keep to her bed for the last couple of days. I suppose it might be true.

There are three things I dislike about Giacominetta: her first name, her mother, and the fact that in some ways she's rather like Elvira, my first wife and the sorrow of my life.

But Gregorio's poor daughter can't be held responsible for any of these defects.

28 December

My host came to see me in my room very early this morning. He's never done that before. He said he'd rather no one else knew of our conversation; but it seems to me that what he really wanted was to make a solemn occasion of it.

He'd come for me to pay my verbal debt to him; he'll never ask me to repay the money I owe him. I expected it, of course, but perhaps not so soon. Nor in quite this manner.

“We've made promises to each other,” he began.

“I haven't forgotten,” I said.

“Nor have I. But I don't want you to feel bound — out of obligation to me, or even out of friendship — to do something you don't want to do. For that reason, I free you from your oath until the end of today. I've told them in the kitchens that you're tired after your journey and will stay in your room until the evening. Your meals and anything else you need will be brought up to you. Take a day off for rest and meditation. When I come back, you'll give me your answer, and whatever it is I'll accept it!”

He wiped away a tear, and left without waiting for me to reply.

As soon as he'd shut the door behind him, I sat down at my table to write these lines, in the hope that it would help me to think.

To think! How presumptuous! When you're thrown into the water, you flounder, you swim, you float, or you sink. You don't think.

Near to me on the table is
The Hundredth Name.
Should I regard it as a privilege to have it in my possession as the fateful year is ending? Are these really the world's last few days? The final three or four days before the Last Judgement? Is the universe going to burst into flame and then go out? Will the walls of this house crumple up like a sheet of paper in the hand of a giant? Will the ground on which Genoa stands suddenly open up under our feet, amid shouts and screams, as in some vast ultimate earthquake? And when the moment comes, shall I be able to pick up the book, open it at the right page, and suddenly see before me in shining letters the supreme name that I've never before been able to read?