by Amin Maalouf
The other subject is Marta. Something has kept me from telling my friend the truth about her.
As is my habit, I haven’t said anything that’s untrue. Not once have I uttered the expression “my wife”. Either I avoid referring to her, or if I must do so I use vague terms like “my people” or “my nearest and dearest”, as the men in this country often do, out of an extreme sense of modesty in this connection.
But yesterday it seems to me I crossed the invisible line that separates allowing someone to think something and causing them to do so. And I feel rather guilty about it.
As we were approaching Tarsus, St Paul’s home town, Maïmoun came and told me he had a cousin there of whom he was very fond, and in whose house he proposed to sleep, rather than in the caravanserai with the rest of the travellers. And he would be honoured if “my wife” and I, together with my nephews and my clerk, would join him.
I ought to have declined Maïmoun’s invitation, or at least let him insist. But before I realised what I was doing I’d blurted out that nothing would give me more pleasure. If Maïmoun was surprised by my haste, he did not show it: he just said he was delighted by this token of friendship.
So this evening, as soon as the caravan arrived, we went to the cousin’s house. His name is Eleazar, and he’s past his first youth and very well-to-do. His prosperity is reflected in his dwelling — two storeys standing in a garden planted with olive and mulberry trees. I gather he deals in oil and soap, but we didn’t talk of our business, only of our homesickness. He kept reciting poems praising Mossoul, the town where he was born. With tears in his eyes he recalled its narrow streets, its fountains, its colourful characters, and the tricks he got up to there as a boy. He’s obviously never got over having to leave Mossoul to settle here in Tarsus, where he had to take over a flourishing business founded by his wife’s grandfather.
While a meal was being prepared, he summoned his daughter and asked her to show Marta and me to our room. There followed a somewhat trivial scene, but one that I feel I ought to describe.
I’d noticed that my nephews — especially Habib — had been on the alert since I’d told them of Maïmoun’s invitation. And even more since we’d entered Eleazar’s house. For it was obvious at a glance that this wasn’t a place where five or six people were going to be crammed together to sleep in one room. When Eleazar asked his daughter to show “our guest and his wife” to their room, Habib started to fidget, and I had the impression he was getting ready to say something unpleasant. Would he really have done so? I don’t know. But at the moment it seemed to me that he might, and to avoid a scene I took a hand and asked our host if I could have a word with him in private. Habib smiled — no doubt thinking that his Uncle Balthasar, at last come to himself again, was going to find some excuse to avoid spending another “embarrassing” night. But, God forgive me, this was not at all what I had in mind.
Once out in the garden with my host, I said:
“Maïmoun has become like a brother to me, so as you are a beloved cousin of his I consider you a friend of mine already. But I feel awkward arriving here like this, with four other people.”
“I am truly delighted to have you as my guest,” he replied, “and the best way for you to show you’re my friend is to make yourself as much at ease under my roof as if you were in your own house.”
As he spoke he gave me a searching look. No doubt he was somewhat intrigued by my asking him to get up and go outside to talk to him in private merely to say something so trite, so much a part of ordinary politeness. Perhaps he thought I had some other, unavowable reason — connected no doubt with his religion — for not wanting to sleep in his house, and was expecting me to insist on leaving. But I quickly gave in and simply thanked him for his hospitality. And we went back into the house arm in arm, both wearing a solemn smile.
Meanwhile our host’s daughter had gone back to the kitchen, and one of the servants had come in with cool drinks and dried fruit. Eleazar asked him to leave all that and show my nephews to their room upstairs. A few minutes later, the daughter of the house returned, and Eleazar asked her again to show “my wife” and me to our room.
So that was how it went. Then we had dinner, after which everyone retired to bed. I said I needed to go outside for a short stroll before I could go to sleep, and Maïmoun and his cousin came with me. I didn’t want my nephews to see Marta and me go up to the same room.
But I was anxious to be with her, and a few minutes later I joined her.
“When you went outside with our host,” she said, “I thought you were going to tell him everything — about you and me.”
As she spoke I looked at her, trying to make out whether she wanted to reproach me or express relief.
“I think we’d have hurt his feelings if we’d turned down his invitation,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind too much.”
“I’m beginning to get used to it,” she replied.
And nothing in her voice or her expression betrayed the slightest annoyance. Or embarrassment.
“Let’s go to sleep then!” said I.
And as I spoke I put my arm round her shoulders as if we were about to go for a walk.
And my nights with her are something like that — like a walk under the trees with a girl, when you both tremble whenever your hands touch. Lying there side by side makes us shy, considerate, restrained. Isn’t it a more dubious matter to steal a kiss when you’re in that situation?
Mine’s a very strange wooing! I didn’t hold her hand until our second meeting, and even then I blushed for it in the dark. At this, our third encounter, I put my arm round her shoulder. And again I blushed for it.
She raised her head, undid her hair, and spread the black tresses over my bare arm. Then she went to sleep without saying a word.
I want to keep on savouring this first taste of pleasure. Not that I mean to let it remain as chaste as that for ever. But I’m not in a hurry to end this ambiguous closeness, this growing complicity, this pleasurably painful desire, in a word this path we’re going along together, secretly pleased but pretending every time it’s Providence that’s bringing us together. It’s a delightful game, and I’m not sure I want to move on.
But it’s also a dangerous game, I know. We could be consumed by fire at any moment. But how far away the end of the world was last night!
22 September
What did I do that was so reprehensible? What more happened last night in Tarsus than happened during the two nights we spent in the village of the tailor? Yet my people are treating me as if I’d just done something completely beyond the pale! None of them will meet my eye. My two nephews whisper to one another in my presence as if I didn’t exist. And although even Hatem, admittedly, still fusses around me as attentively as any clerk fusses around his master, there is something affected and over-obsequious in his manner and expression that I read as a silent reproach. Marta, too, seems to avoid my company, as if she were afraid of appearing to be in collusion with me.
About what, for Heaven’s sake? What else have I done but play my part in this farce written by my accusers themselves? What should I have done? Reveal to all our travelling companions, and first of all to the caravaneer, that this woman is not my wife — and have her insulted and driven away? Or ought I to have told Abbas the tailor, then Maïmoun and his cousin, that Marta really is my wife but that I don’t want to sleep with her — and have all of them ask themselves unseemly questions? I did what a man of honour ought to do — protected the “widow” and didn’t take advantage of her. Is it a crime if I get some satisfaction, some subtle pleasure, out of this comic situation? That’s what I could say if I wanted to justify myself. But I shan’t say anything. The blood of the Embriaci flows in my veins and tells me to be silent. For me it’s enough to know I’m innocent, and that my loving hand remains pure.
Perhaps innocent isn’t the word. I don’t mean to say there’s anything in what the scamps who condemn me suggest, but I must admit, in the secrecy of these
pages, that I did rather ask for the trouble I’m in. I took advantage of appearances, and now appearances are taking advantage of me. That’s the truth of the matter. Instead of setting my nephews a good example, I let myself be drawn into a kind of game, influenced by desire, boredom, the discomforts of the journey, vanity — who knows? Influenced too, it seems to me, by the spirit of the age, the spirit of the Year of the Beast. When people think the world is about to founder, something goes wrong, and men lapse into either extreme devotion or extreme debauchery. I myself haven’t got that far yet, thank God, but it seems to me I’m gradually losing my sense of propriety and respectability. Doesn’t my behaviour to Marta reflect a touch of unreason that gets progressively worse, making me think it’s quite an ordinary matter to sleep in the same bed as a person I pretend is my wife; making me take advantage of the generosity of both my host and his cousin; and all this under the same roof as four other people who know I’m lying? How long can I continue on this road to perdition? And, when it all comes out, how can I go back to my old life in Gibelet?
You see what I’m like! I’ve only been writing for a quarter of an hour, and already I’m on the point of seeing my critics’ point of view. But these are only marks on paper, and no one will ever read them.
I’m writing by the light of a large candle. I like the smell of wax — I think it encourages thought, and confidences. I’m sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, with my notebook on my knees. Through the window behind me, with its curtain billowing in the wind, comes the whinnying of the horses in the courtyard, and sometimes the guffawing of drunken soldiers. We’re in the first khan in the foothills of the Taurus mountains, on the way to Konya. We’ll be there in a week if all goes well. My people are sleeping, or trying to sleep, all round me, strewn in all directions. Looking at them like this, I can’t still be angry with them — either with my sister’s sons, who are like my own, or with my clerk, who serves me devotedly even if he disapproves of me in his own way, or with this little-known woman who is less and less a stranger.
This morning — a Monday — I was in a completely different mood. Cursing my nephews, neglecting the “widow”, loading Hatem down with endless unnecessary errands, I steered clear of them all and rode peacefully along beside Maïmoun. As for him, he looked at me exactly as he had yesterday. Or so it seemed to me as the caravan moved off.
As we were leaving Tarsus a traveller walking in front of us pointed to a ruined hovel, near an old well, saying St Paul was born there. Maïmoun moved close to me and whispered that he doubted this very much, as the apostle of Jesus came from a wealthy family, belonging to the tribe of Benjamin and makers and merchants of goat’s-hair tents.
“His family must have been as extensive as that of my cousin Eleazar.”
When I expressed my surprise at his knowledge of a religion not his own, his answer was modest.
“I’ve just read a few books, to limit my ignorance.”
Because of my profession and a natural curiosity, I too had read a few books on various contemporary religions, as well as on the ancient beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. So we began to compare the respective merits of all these faiths, though of course neither of us criticised the other one’s religion.
But when in the course of our exchanges I said that in my opinion one of the most beautiful precepts of Christianity was “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, I noticed Maïmoun hesitate. I urged him, in the name of our friendship and of our shared doubts, to tell me what he was thinking.
“At first sight,” he said, “that exhortation seems irreproachable. And anyway, before it was taken over by Jesus, it was also to be found, expressed in similar terms, in Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. Even so, I have some reservations about it.”
“What are they?”
“Seeing what most people make of their lives, and of their intelligence, I wouldn’t want them to love me as they love themselves.”
I was about to answer, but he raised his hand.
“Wait. There’s something else, something more worrying, in my view. Some people are always sure to interpret this precept with more arrogance than magnanimity. They’ll read it as saying: What’s good for you is good for everyone else. If you know the truth, you ought to use every possible means to rescue lost sheep and set them on the right path again. Hence the forced baptisms imposed on my ancestors in Toledo in the past. And I myself have heard the injunction quoted more often by wolves than by lambs. So I’m sorry — I have doubts about it.”
“You surprise me. And I don’t know yet whether I agree with you or not. I’ll have to think. I’ve always considered that the most beautiful saying ...”
“If you’re looking for the most beautiful saying to be found in any religion, the most beautiful that ever issued from the lips of man, that’s not it. The one I mean was spoken by Jesus, too. He didn’t take it from Scripture, though. He just listened to his own heart.”
What could it be? I waited. Maïmoun stopped his mount for a moment to underline the solemnity of his quotation.
“Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.”
23 September
Was there an allusion to Marta in the phrase Maïmoun quoted yesterday? I wondered about it all night. There was nothing reproachful in his look; but perhaps there was a subtle invitation to speak. And why should I still be silent, since in my friend’s eyes Christ’s saying absolved me of what little wrong I may have committed, as well as of my deceitful omissions?
So I made up my mind to tell him everything this very morning: who Marta is, how she came to be in our party, what kind of relations have taken place between her and me, and what kind of relations have not. After the somewhat grotesque episode at Eliazar’s house, it became urgently necessary for me to stop dissimulating, otherwise the friendship between Maïmoun and myself might be damaged. What’s more, the situation gets more and more complicated every time we halt for the night, and I was going to need the advice of a wise and sympathetic friend.
Well, I didn’t get much advice from Maïmoun today, though I did press him. He only told me to keep saying and doing what I’ve been saying and doing since our journey began. But he did promise to think the matter over some more, and to tell me if anything occurred to him that might make things go more smoothly.
I’m very glad, though, that he didn’t hold my deceit and half-truths against me. If anything, he seemed amused by it all. And it seems to me that he now greets Marta with even more deference than before, and with a sort of secret admiration.
It’s true her behaviour shows courage. Jam always thinking of myself, my own embarrassment and my own self-esteem, when all I really risk is the odd bit of mischievous or envious gossip. Whereas she stands to lose everything in this petty game, even her life. I don’t doubt for a moment that if her brother-in-law had found her, at the beginning of this journey, he’d have had no scruples about cutting her throat and then going back to his people and boasting about it. And if Marta ever returns to Gibelet, even armed with the document she seeks, she’ll still face the same dangers as before.
If that day comes, shall I have the courage to defend her?
25 September
This morning, seeing Marta riding apart from our group, solitary, pensive, melancholy, I decided to go back and ride beside her, as I had done a few days ago. But this time I wanted not so much to tell her of my own hopes and fears as to question her and hear what she had to say. To begin with she eluded my questions, but I pressed her to describe what her life had been like in recent years, and what had made her, too, come on this journey.
While I expected to hear a string of complaints, I didn’t at all foresee that my taking an interest in her misfortunes would break down a dam and unleash so much rage. A rage I’d never suspected behind her pleasant smiles.
“People never stop talking to me about the end of the world,” she said. “They think they’re frightening me. But for me the world ended when the man I loved betrayed
me. After first making me betray my own father. Ever since then the sun no longer shines for me, and it wouldn’t matter to me if it went out. And the Flood they predict doesn’t scare me either — it would just make all men and all women equals in misfortune. Let it come as soon as it likes, whether it’s a Deluge of water or of fire! Then I shan’t have to tramp the roads begging for a paper that will allow me to live, a wretched document from the powers-that-be certifying that I may love and be married again! Then I shan’t have to go from pillar to post any more — or else everybody will have to run in all directions! Yes, everybody! The judges, the janissaries, the bishops, and even the sultan! All of them will be running about like cats trapped in a field that’s caught fire! Oh, if only Heaven would let me see that!
“People are afraid of seeing the Beast appear. I’m not afraid. The Beast? It’s always been there, lurking near me. Every day I’ve met its scornful look — at home, in the street, even in church. Every day I’ve felt its bite! It’s never stopped devouring my life.”
Marta went on in this vein for some time. I’ve reported her words from memory — not word for word, I expect, but near enough. And I thought: “My God, woman — how you must have suffered since that time, not so long ago, when you were still my barber’s carefree, mischievous daughter!”
At one point I rode near her and put my hand affectionately on hers. At that she fell silent, gave me a swift glance of gratitude, then veiled her face and wept.
For the rest of the day I could do nothing but think about what she’d said and follow her with my eyes. Now, more than ever before, I feel an immense fatherly affection for her. I long to know she’s happy, but I wouldn’t dare promise to make her happy myself. The most I could do would be to swear I’d never make her suffer.