by Amin Maalouf
But it remains to be seen whether, to make such a promise come true, I’d need to get closer to her or further away.
26 September
Today I finally told Maïmoun what made me undertake this journey, and asked him to tell me, with all the frankness due from a friend, what he felt about it. I didn’t omit anything, either the pilgrim from Moscow, the book by Mazandarani, the number of the Beast, Boumeh’s bad behaviour, or old Idriss’s death. I needed help from Maïmoun’s jeweller’s eye, used to telling the difference between true and false brilliance. But he only answered my questions with others, and added his anxieties, or at least those of his family, to my own.
At first he listened to me in silence. While nothing I said seemed to surprise him, he became increasingly thoughtful, even downcast, with every sentence. When I’d finished he took both my hands in his.
“You have spoken to me like a brother,” he said. “Now it’s my turn to open my heart to you. My reasons for embarking on this journey are not all that different from yours. I, too, came because of these wretched rumours. I came reluctantly, exclaiming against credulity, superstition and all the computations and so-called ‘signs’ — but I came all the same. I had no choice. If I hadn’t come my father would have died. You and I are both victims of the madness of our nearest and dearest.”
Maïmoun’s father, an assiduous reader of sacred texts, has long believed the end of the world to be at hand. According to him it is clearly written in the Zohar, the book of the cabalists, that in the year 5408 those who are resting in the dust will rise up. In the Jewish calendar, that year corresponds to our 1648.
“But that was seventeen years ago, and the Resurrection didn’t take place. Despite all the prayer and fasting, despite all the privations my father imposed on my mother, my sisters and me — which we accepted with enthusiasm at the time — nothing happened. Since then I’ve lost all my illusions. I go to the synagogue when I must, so as to feel close to my family and friends. I laugh with them and cry with them on the appropriate occasions, so as not to seem unsympathetic to their joys and sorrows. But I don’t expect anything or anyone any more. Unlike my father, who is none the wiser. He wouldn’t dream of admitting that the year foretold by the Zohar was just an ordinary year. He’s sure something happened then that we didn’t hear of, but that will one day be revealed to us and to the world as a whole.”
Ever since, Maïmoun’s father does nothing but search for signs, especially those concerning 1648, the year of disappointed hopes. As a matter of fact, some important things did happen then — but has there ever been any year in which no important things happened?
“‘In the old days,’ my father says, ‘there was always a period of respite between one calamity and the next, but since that accursed year disasters have followed one another in an uninterrupted stream. We have never experienced such a succession of woes. Isn’t that a sign in itself?’
“One day I lost patience and said to him, ‘Father, I always thought that was supposed to be the year of the Resurrection. That it would put an end to our sufferings, and that we had to look forward to it with joy and hope!’ He answered: ‘These pains are just birth-pangs; this blood is the blood that goes with deliverance!’
“So for seventeen years my father has been on the look-out for signs. But not always with the same degree of enthusiasm. Sometimes he’d let months go by without mentioning them once, then something would happen — some trouble in the family, or plague, famine or a visit from an important person — and it would all start up again. These last few years, although he’s had serious health problems, he’s only referred to the Resurrection as a distant hope. But a few months ago he started to get agitated again. The rumours circulating among the Christians about the imminent end of the world have completely upset him. Our community never stops discussing what is going and what is not going to happen, what we should be dreading and what we should be hoping for. Every time a rabbi from Damascus, Jerusalem or Tiberias, Egypt, Gaza or Smyrna passes through Aleppo, everyone crowds round him in a frenzy to find out what he knows or predicts.
“And so, a few weeks back, tired of hearing so many contradictory opinions, my father got it into his head to go to Constantinople to seek the opinion of an ancient hakim originating, like us, from Toledo. He is the only person who knows the truth, according to my father. ‘If he tells me the hour is come, I’ll leave everything and spend all my time in prayer and meditation; if he tells me the hour is not come, I’ll go back to my ordinary life.’
“There could be no question of letting him travel the roads — he’s more than seventy years old and can scarcely stand upright — so I decided I’d go and see the rabbi in Constantinople, to put to him all the questions my father would like to ask and come back with the answers.
“So that’s how I come to be in this caravan — like you, because of these crazy rumours. Though neither of us can help laughing, deep down inside, at people’s gullibility.”
It’s very kind of Maïmoun to compare my attitude with his. They’re only superficially alike. He took to the road out of filial piety, without changing his own convictions; whereas I let myself be influenced by the folly around me. But I didn’t say so: why belittle myself in the eyes of someone I respect? And why should I stress the differences between us when he is always pointing out the similarities?
27 September
Today’s stage of the journey will have been less arduous than the preceding ones. After four days on the steep paths of the Taurus mountains, with stretches that are often narrow and dangerous, we reached the Anatolian plain. And after ill-kept khans, infested with rough janissaries — who were theoretically supposed to protect us from highwaymen, but whose looks were in fact so far from reassuring that we shut ourselves up in our quarters — we had the good fortune to come upon a respectable inn, patronised by travelling merchants.
The innkeeper soon took the shine off our satisfaction, however, when he told us of rumours reaching here from Konya, according to which the town has been struck by the plague, and its gates closed to all travellers.
Disturbing as these tidings were, they had the advantage of bringing me close to the rest of my party, who gathered round waiting for me to decide what to do. Some other travellers had already chosen to turn back at dawn without more ado. Admittedly they had joined us only at Tarsus, or Alexandretta at most. We, who come from Gibelet and are already more than halfway, can’t just give in at the first alarm.
The caravaneer suggests going on a bit further and changing our route later on if circumstances require it. I still find him as unattractive as I did when I first set eyes on him, but that seems to me a sensible idea. So on we go, and the grace of God be with us!
28 September
Today I said some things to Maïmoun that he thought significant, so perhaps I should write them down.
He had just observed that people nowadays can be divided up into those who believe that the end of the world is at hand, and those who are sceptical — he and I being among the latter. I answered that in my opinion people can also be divided up into those who fear the end of the world and those who wish for it — the former thinking of flood and disaster, the latter of resurrection and deliverance.
I was thinking not only of my friend’s father and the Impatient Ones in Aleppo, but also of Marta.
Then Maïmoun wondered whether people in Noah’s day were just as divided between those who applauded the Flood and those who were against it.
At that we started to laugh, and laughed so heartily that our mules took fright.
29 September
From time to time I cull a few verses at random from the book by Abu-l-Ala that an old bookseller in Maarra put in my hands three or four weeks ago. Today I came upon these lines:
The people want an imam to arise
And speak to a silent crowd
An illusion; there is no imam but reason
It alone guides us day and night.
I made has
te to read this passage to Maïmoun, and we exchanged silent and meaning smiles.
A Christian and a Jew led along the path of doubt by a blind Muslim? But there is more light in his dimmed eyes than in all the sky over Anatolia.
Near Konya, 30 September
The rumours about the plague have not, alas, been denied. Our caravan has had to skirt round the town and set up its tents to the west, in the gardens of Merâm. The camp is crowded, because a lot of families from Konya have fled here from the epidemic, to be in the healthy air amid the streams and fountains.
We arrived towards noon, and despite the circumstances there’s an air — I was going to say a sort of holiday air about the place, but it’s more like that of an improvised picnic. Everywhere vendors of apricot juice and cordials clink their glasses invitingly, washing them later on at the fountains. On all sides there are booths whose appetising fumes draw young and old alike. But I can’t help gazing at the town nearby: I can see its walls, with their towers, and guess at its domes and minarets. There different fumes rise up, hiding and darkening everything. That smell doesn’t reach us, thank God; we sense it, and it makes our blood run cold. The plague; the fumes of death. I put down my pen and cross myself. And then go on with my story.
Maïmoun, who joined our party for the midday meal, spoke at some length to my nephews, and for a little while to Marta. The atmosphere was such that we couldn’t avoid talking about the end of the world, and I noticed that Boumeh knew all about the predictions in the Zohar concerning the Jewish year 5408, our 1648.
“‘In the year 408 of the sixth millennium’,” he said, quoting from memory, “‘they who rest in the dust shall rise up. They are called the sons of Heth.’”
“Who are they?” asked Habib, who always likes to oppose his brother’s erudition with his own ignorance.
“It’s the usual name for the Hittites, in the Bible. But what matters here is not the actual meaning of the word Heth so much as its numerical value in Hebrew — which is 408.”
Numerical value! I get angry whenever I hear the notion mentioned! Instead of trying to understand the significance of words, my contemporaries prefer to calculate the value of the letters that make them up. And these they manipulate to suit their own ends — adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying, and always ending up with a figure that will astonish, reassure or terrify them. And so human thought is diluted, and human reason weakened and dissolved in superstition!
I don’t think Maïmoun believes in such nonsense, but most of his co-religionists do, and so do most of mine, and most of the Muslims I’ve had occasion to talk to. Even wise, educated and apparently reasonable people boast of their acquaintance with this science for simpletons.
I express myself all the more vehemently here because during today’s discussion I didn’t say anything. I just looked incredulous whenever anyone mentioned “numerical value”. But I took care not to interrupt the debate. That’s how I am. That’s how I’ve always been, ever since I was a child. When a discussion is taking place around me, I’m curious to see where it will end, who will admit he’s wrong, how all the people involved answer or avoid answering the others’ arguments. I observe and enjoy what I learn, and I register everyone else’s reactions without feeling impelled to express my own opinion.
During the talk at noon today, while I was provoked into silent protests by some remarks, other things that were said interested or surprised me. As when Boumeh pointed out that it was precisely in 1648 that The Book of the One True Orthodox Faith was published in Moscow, referring without any ambiguity to the Year of the Beast. Was it not because of that book that Evdokim the pilgrim took to the road and passed through Gibelet?; and his visit was followed by a whole procession of scared customers through my shop. So it might be said that it was in that year that the Beast entered my life. Maïmoun’s father used to tell him that something significant had happened in 1648 but no one had recognised its importance. Yes, I don’t mind admitting that something may have started in that year. For the Jews and for the Muscovites. And also for me and mine.
“But why was an event announced in 1648 that’s supposed to take place in 1666? That’s a mystery I can’t understand!” I said.
“Nor can I,” agreed Maïmoun.
“I don’t see any mystery,” said Boumeh, with irritating calm.
Everyone waited with bated breath for him to go on. He took his time, then went on loftily:
“There are eighteen years between 1648 and 1666.”
He stopped.
“So?” asked Habib, through a mouthful of crystallised apricots.
“Don’t you see? Eighteen — six plus six plus six. The last three steps to the Apocalypse.”
There followed a most ominous silence. I suddenly felt that the pestilential vapour was approaching and closing in on us. Maïmoun was the most pensive of those present: it was as if Boumeh had just solved an old enigma for him. Hatem bustled round us, wondering what was the matter: he’d caught only scraps of our conversation.
It was I who broke the silence.
“Wait a moment, Boumeh!” I said. “That’s nonsense. I don’t have to tell you that in the days of Christ and the Evangelists people didn’t write six six six as you would today in Arabic: they wrote it in Roman figures. And your three sixes don’t make sense.”
“So can you tell me how they wrote 666 in the days of the Romans?”
“You know very well. Like this.”
I picked up a stick and wrote “DCLXVI” on the ground.
Maïmoun and Habib bent over and looked at what I’d written. Boumeh just stood where he was, not even glancing our way. He just asked me if I’d never noticed anything particular about the number I’d traced. No, I hadn’t.
“Haven’t you noticed that all the Roman figures are there, in descending order of magnitude, and each occurs only once?”
“Not all of them,” I said quickly. “One’s missing ...”
“Go on, go on — you’re getting there. There’s one missing at the beginning. The M — write it! Then we’ll have ‘MDCLXVI’. One thousand six hundred and sixty-six. Now the numbers are complete. And the years are complete. Nothing more will be added.”
Then he reached out and erased the figure completely, muttering some magic formula he’d learned.
A curse on numbers and on those who make use of them!
3 October
Since we left the outskirts of Konya behind, the travellers have been talking not of plague but of a curious fable, spread by the caravaneer himself, which so far I have not thought worth reporting. If I do so at present it’s because it has just had an exemplary ending.
According to our man, a caravan got lost a few years ago on the way to Constantinople, and ever since then it has been wandering miserably around Anatolia, the victim of a curse. From time to time it passes another caravan, and its disoriented travellers ask to be told the way, or else put other, very strange questions. Anyone who answers by so much as a single word calls down the same curse on himself, and must wander with the others for ever.
Why was the caravan the object of a curse? It’s said the travellers of which it was composed had told their families they were going on a pilgrimage to Mecca, whereas in fact they planned to go to Constantinople. So Heaven is supposed to have condemned them to wander endlessly without ever reaching their destination.
Our man declared he had met the phantom caravan twice, but had not let it take him in. No matter how much the lost travellers crowded round him, smiling, plucking at his sleeve and trying to cajole him, he pretended not to see them. And so he managed to elude the spell and continue his journey.
How can the ghost caravan be recognised? asked some of our more nervous companions. It can’t be recognised, said our caravaneer: it’s just like an ordinary caravan, its travellers are just like any other travellers, and that’s precisely why so many people are misled and get bewitched.
Some of our people shrugged when they heard this story, w
hile others seemed scared and kept scanning the horizon to check that no suspect caravan was in the offing.
I, of course, was one of those who lent no credence to these tales. Witness the fact that although they have been spreading back and forth the whole length of the caravan for three days, I didn’t think it worthwhile to mention such a vulgar fiction in these pages.
But today at noon we did pass another caravan.
We had just stopped by a stream for the midday meal. Servants and other attendants were busy gathering twigs and lighting fires when a caravan appeared over a nearby hill. In a few minutes it was almost upon us, and a whisper ran through our ranks: “It’s them — it’s the phantom caravan.” We were all transfixed. A strange shadow seemed to darken our faces, and we spoke very softly, staring at the new arrivals.
They seemed to draw near unnaturally fast, in a cloud of dust and haze.
When they were close by, they all dismounted and hurried towards us, apparently delighted at finding some fellow human beings and a cool spot. They advanced bowing and smiling broadly, and uttering greetings in Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Armenian. Our people were ill at ease, but no one moved or stood up or answered. “Why don’t you speak?” the others finally demanded. “Have we offended you somehow?” Still none of us made a move.
The others were already turning away, vexed, when suddenly our caravaneer let out a shout of laughter, which was immediately topped by an even louder guffaw from the other caravaneer.
“Curse you!” said the latter, coming forward with open arms. “You’ve been telling your tale about the ghost caravan again! And they swallowed it!”
Then everyone got up and started to embrace the others and invite them to share their meal, by way of excuse for the misunderstanding.