The Brotherhood of Book Hunters (21 page)

A
shepherd emerged from a
wadi
bristling with tall rushes unruffled by any breeze, driving his herd of goats toward the marshes that lined the Dead Sea, and walked, a slightly vague figure, beside the huge oily pool held prisoner by the mountains. The water, petrified into an ice floe of light and salt, barely glittered. The rays of the sun sank onto it, marbling the matte indigo of the surface for a moment before being sucked down into the depths. The reflection of a solitary cumulus skated over the water, skidding like a fly on the polished pewter of a mirror. It moved laboriously, contracted by the heat, while up above, the cloud of which it was the shadow continued on its way, gliding easily over the face of the sky. Nothing else moved. The image of the surrounding cliffs lay flat on the motionless sheet of water. Every detail was drawn on it as distinctly as on an engraver's plate. It was the real hills that seemed to shimmer, their outlines veiled by an excess of light, their slopes blurring in the heat of the rock.

Perched on a promontory, François watched the shepherd disappear into the distance, then entered the cave. It was refreshingly cool in there. Aisha was rocking back and forth on a swing hanging from heavy chains. Out of breath, François sat down on a sheepskin pouffe. The dwelling, even though meagerly furnished, was comfortable. The rough ground, leveled by pickax, was covered with a raffia mat woven from a thousand colors. A recess hidden by a canvas curtain served as a closet. Stocks of oil, medicinal balm, candle wax, almonds, dried fruits, biscuits, brandy in kegs, fresh linen, and all kinds of utensils were piled there in no particular order. A large table and two benches made up a dining room. At the far end, there was only a single bed, a large one protected by a tent-shaped tulle net. A standing writing case and two lecterns occupied the rest of the room. A few books were neatly arranged in a niche hollowed out of the rock. A big piece of wood, painted with stripes to imitate the bumps in the stone, was propped against one of the walls. It was cut in such a way as to camouflage the entrance to the cave, its outlines perfectly matching the shape of the cliff.

François had not yet decided if this residence was a prison or a refuge, a place of torment or a safe haven. Much as Eviatar might boast of the benefits of such a retreat, the strength imparted by the desert, the revelations whispered in the silence, François remained bewildered. And not very inspired. He had always written surrounded by the bustle of taverns, matched the rhythm of his verses to the stammering of the drinkers, the laughter of children, the noises of the street, the jokes exchanged by the wagoners. It was in that deafening din that he had found his words, from it that he had derived their music. Eviatar agreed about the need for noise. Nobody learned the Torah as an anchorite closed up in an ivory tower. It was in the rooms of the
yeshivot
, filled with rowdy pupils arguing over points of exegesis, bawling hymns, throwing quotations from the Talmud in each other's faces, that the word best echoed, was transmitted loud and clear. But then there came the moment of wisdom, reserved only for the masters. The moment that went beyond.

That moment was now being offered to François Villon. It was here, in this corner of the desert, that Providence had made an appointment for him, one that he had previously made every effort to postpone. True, it had done so by forcing his hand. But whatever the reason for this confrontation with himself toward which Eviatar was urging him, François had no intention of running away. Quite the contrary, he saw in it an unhoped-for opportunity to regain control. Since his release from the jails of the Châtelet, he had felt himself being shaken from one place to another by a capricious and whimsical swell, and he had done nothing to resist the drift. Out of a taste for adventure, he was willing to admit. But an adventurer was only worthy of the name if he kept going in the direction he wanted. He did not let himself be bewitched by the unknown lands through which he passed, nor by the beautiful strangers he met on his route. And certainly not captured by the natives.

 

Eviatar raised his gourd, drank a mouthful of water, then abruptly took his leave. He promised to return the next day at dawn, when he would take François to see Gamliel. The rabbi, who had come for that express purpose from Safed, should be reaching the Dead Sea by this evening. François did not have time to react. Eviatar was already running down the slope, jumping from one rock to the other, hugging the ground, his body bent to maintain balance, his right hand in front of him, holding an invisible ramp. His shadow ran behind him, waving over the brambles, like that of a cormorant over the waves. He plunged into the bed of a
wadi
, reemerged for a moment, then disappeared in the distance amid the dunes.

 

Setting the sky ablaze with a final glowing salvo, the sun sank behind the plateaus, like a sentry in a hurry to leave his post. A biting wind immediately seized the opportunity to emerge from its lair. Crouching all day long, it had waited for this moment to pounce on the dunes left defenseless, the shrubs abandoned to their fate. It howled through narrow ravines that served as its organ pipes. François watched the sky darken. Night did not fall here as it did in Paris or Champagne. It rose. It overflowed from the black chasm of the Dead Sea, like a river in full spate, and spread slowly over the sand like ink on blotting paper. The stars lit up one by one, sharp and piercing. They did not shimmer timidly in the mist, or twinkle amid the treetops. Here they stretched to infinity, deployed in a huge armada.

A golden light attracted François's gaze. Crouching in front of a meager fire of twigs, of which she was fanning the flames, Aisha was roasting bean dumplings rolled in oil. She took one out, well browned, with a crackly crust, sprinkled it with thyme, and handed it to François. The feast proceeded in silence. This sudden intimacy brought about an unexpected embarrassment. Up until now, Aisha and François had teased each other beneath the watchful eye of chaperones: Moussa, Colin, Gamliel, Eviatar. Now they were faced with one another like spouses in an arranged marriage, isolated for a moment in an antechamber just before the wedding ceremony. They would spend the night together, nobody doubted that. Except them. Precisely because it was what everyone expected.

It was Aisha who rose first and, taking François's hand, led him to her bed. François hesitated for a moment. Was she following the rabbi's instructions?

Outside, the howling of the jackals mingled with the breath of the wind. The Holy Land lay there in the darkness, consenting, and the starry night accepted its offering.

 

When morning came, François rose, taking care not to wake Aisha. He went and sat down in front of the lectern, his back to the cave entrance. In the pale light of dawn, he carefully laid out the parchment, the inkpot, and the quill, without making any noise. And, for the first time since he had left Paris, he began to write.

T
he sun was also rising over Florence, but the sky there was cloudy, the air heavy. A short shower came out of nowhere to lash the paving stones, joyfully spattering the gaiters of the passersby as they ran to take shelter in doorways. Women laughed and shouted as they hurried to the arcades of the Via Por Santa Maria, where the shopkeepers were ready and waiting for them. If the rain lasted, they would have to buy something. On the Ponte Vecchio, pounded by the turbulent waves of the Arno, peddlers covered their goods with thick oilcloths and cursed the bad weather.

Unlike Colin, who had left in secret for Paris, Federico operated proudly and openly. Whereas the Frenchman had to take endless precautions to deceive the vigilance of the papal informers, the Italian announced his latest finds to all and sundry. It was in the very heart of Florence, on a shopping street, that he gave battle.

Since his return, Federico had grown noticeably richer. Potbellied bankers in frills and basques and powdered ladies in muslin veils were snapping up his old books, thus unwittingly spreading the boldest doctrines, the most fearless ideas, the most adventurous theories. It was a matter of who could best surprise the other by opening a drawer and displaying a mysterious essay whose provenance he could not divulge for fear of attracting the wrath of the Inquisition. These excited bibliographic conspirators leafed through compromising pages without necessarily reading them, but inevitably it was they, rather than the austere members of the faculties, who spread the revival of philosophy, from drawing room to drawing room and all the way to the antechambers of princes. And by thus defying the censors, they were gradually discovering their own power. What began as an underground current was becoming a veritable fashion. In order to be in vogue and to shine at court, burghers and nobles were now adorning their palaces with the best editions of the
Corpus Hermeticum
or the speeches of Demosthenes, much to the displeasure of their confessors.

 

A man with a woolen hat pulled down over his ear was walking fast between the stalls, lost in thought, heedless of the large drops dripping down his cape, wading through the pools of mud, stumbling over boundary stones, so distracted that he passed right by the place he was meant to be going. He stopped at the end of the street, turned with a surprised look on his face, then shrugged and retraced his steps.

“Master Ficino!” a clerk standing in front of a wide door called to him. “Master Ficino! It's here!”

“Yes, yes, I'm perfectly well aware of that . . . ”

Marsilio Ficino was an old friend of Federico's. Both had had the same patron and mentor, Cosimo de' Medici. They were continuing his work, each in his own way. One unearthed rare manuscripts, the other translated them and wrote commentaries on them in Latin. Whenever the papal censors banned the edition of a work by Ficino, Federico arranged for it to be published clandestinely in Lyon or Frankfurt. The Brotherhood had been counting on his collaboration for a long time. It knew perfectly well that Federico's shop could not by itself modify the way the great and the good saw things. But the Academy founded by the Medicis, of which Ficino was the director, was an institution of renown which had every chance of attracting their favor. Known as far afield as Paris, Liège, and Amsterdam, it was considered just as authoritative as the Sorbonne. However, unlike the universities, it was the fiefdom not of the clergy, but of the nobility. Thanks to it, princes could defy cardinals without compromising themselves. So what if their choice of reading matter displeased the Church? Whose fault was that? Marsilio Ficino's.

 

The clerk relieved Master Ficino of his wet cape and admitted him to the shop. Several customers were walking hurriedly between the shelves, eager to get their hands on a rare volume before the other buyers. The richest absolutely had to be first to possess a previously unpublished work, preferably bound with taste, in a large format, and with its spine bearing a title label that could easily be seen from a distance. This was a prerequisite for gaining the admiration and approval of an important guest even before he had opened the precious copy, or rather, so that he did not need to open it at all.

Federico went from one customer to another, dispensing advice to each of them. Just as he was able to judge the quality of a manuscript at first glance, he only needed a handshake or a facial expression to sound out his prey, guess his tastes, and evaluate the chances he had of selling him a treatise on medicine rather than a psalter. Almost jostling two dapper wine merchants wearing hats that were too broad, he walked up to a nondescript man dressed all in green, stooped over a lectern. He was a regular customer, who knew what he was looking for. He was also a miser. Federico would first show him some books that were of only moderate interest to him and ask exorbitant prices for them, cutting short any attempt at bargaining. Then, as the man was about to withdraw, somewhat annoyed at having to leave empty-handed, Federico would suddenly remember a parchment behind the firewood, on Euclidean geometry, a favorite subject of this customer. The price would seem all the more reasonable for being lower than those mentioned previously for works of lesser importance. Federico would fix it according to the discount the purchaser expected. He would refrain from playing the drama of the merchant who regrets having to let go of his finest item or who, supposedly strangled by his creditors, resolves to accept an offer that he would certainly refuse in other circumstances. Federico was always firm, not very patient, and would even make a slightly disdainful pout at anyone who was not manifestly enough of a connoisseur to appreciate an object of such rarity at its true value.

 

As soon as he spotted Ficino's woolen hat, Federico abruptly abandoned his customers, rushed to the master, and drew him into the back room. He sat him down in a large armchair, placed a footrest under his legs, and poured him a full jar of brandy. His profession as book hunter had induced a somewhat blasé cynicism in Federico. The reason he admired Ficino so much was that, rather than perch on the highest branch and play the peacock, he dug deep into the earth in search of the roots. In going straight for the essence, he made what was hard simple, what was confused clear, and dispensed a wisdom that was accessible to all. It was on the plain-speaking of a Villon and the intellectual honesty of a Marsilio Ficino that the Brotherhood counted to win their game. It was thanks to them that the muses of Olympus were at last conversing in the language of men. The secrets of the universe were being revealed easily, by the fireside—which, at the same time, was very lucrative for booksellers.

Federico held out a list of works that left Ficino speechless. A treatise by Porphyry of Tyre aiming at freeing the human soul from the excessively strict yoke of religion. A rare autographed letter from Saint Augustine strongly recommending a reading of that treatise to his son Adeodatus! A manuscript by Pythagoras that claimed that the Earth did not hover motionless in the ether, but turned on its axis, afloat in a raging cosmos filled with stars burning themselves out. On the back, a few lines written by Dante stating that Pythagoras was thus confirming the existence of hell. Federico poured brandy while Ficino leafed through the minutes of the Council of Basel, where Nicholas of Cusa had demonstrated that the
Donation of
Constantine
, by which the emperor was supposed to have ceded his power over Rome to the Papacy, was an outright forgery. It was now up to Master Ficino to disseminate these various theories without causing a scandal and, as a pious scholar, to reconcile them with the postulates of the faith. No frontal attack, just a discreet boost here and there, to start with.