by Amin Maalouf
Marta and Hatem had been waiting for me outside in the shade of a walnut tree. I told them what had happened, word for word. Marta said she was sure everything would be all right: perhaps Providence was about to look favourably on her cause at last. My clerk was more sceptical: in his view, when the powers-that-be are kind it’s only a sign that some worse disaster is on the way.
We shall see. Normally I’d agree with him, but today I’m not entirely without hope. So many incredible things are happening. A wind of strangeness is sweeping through the world. I don’t think anything will ever surprise me again.
23 December 1665
I’m trembling. I can hardly speak.
Shall I be able to tell what happened as if it had happened to someone else, without shrieking at every line and talking all the time about signs and wonders?
Perhaps I ought to have waited for my emotions to settle down inside me, in the depths of my soul, like grounds in a cup of coffee. To have let a couple of days go by, or even a week. But when today’s events have cooled, others will have come along, still boiling hot.
So as long as I can I’d better stick to my decision to write down every day the evil thereof. To every date its own self-contained account. Without reading over what I’ve written; just turning each last page as I finish it so that the one that follows is ready to record the next batch of astonishments. Until the day comes when the page will remain blank — the end, my own end, or the end of the world.
But let me go back to the beginning as far as today is concerned.
This afternoon, having managed to overcome Maïmoun’s reservations, I took him to see Pastor Coenen. He welcomed us warmly, served us some delicious Turkish sweetmeats with our coffee, then started talking in moderate terms about Sabbataï, observing my friend’s reactions out of the corner of his eye. First he repeated some highly laudatory references to Jesus on the part of the alleged Messiah: Christ’s soul, he said, was indissolubly linked to his own. “I’ll see that he now takes his place among the prophets,” he’s supposed to have said before witnesses. Maïmoun confirmed that Sabbataï always referred to Jesus in respectful and affectionate terms, and often spoke sadly of the sufferings inflicted upon him.
The pastor said he was both surprised and delighted to hear this, but regretted that Sabbataï was not equally exemplary when speaking of women.
“Has he not promised to make them equal to their husbands and free them from the curse of Eve? That’s what I’ve heard from a reliable source. According to him, women ought in future to live just as they please, without having to obey any man.”
He looked inquiringly at Maïmoun, who with some reluctance confirmed that this was so.
“He’s even supposed to have said,” the pastor went on, “that men and women ought not to be kept separate any more, either at home or in the synagogue, and that soon, in the kingdom he wants to create, everyone will be able to go with anyone he desires, without restriction or shame.”
“I’ve never heard that,” said Maïmoun firmly, “or anything like it.”
He shot me a glance that seemed to ask why on earth I’d got him into this.
I stood up.
“You have some splendid things here,” I said. “Would you allow me, as a colleague, to have a look round?”
“Of course!”
I was hoping my friend would stand up too, and make use of the diversion I’d created to change an embarrassing subject and interrupt what was turning into a cross-examination. But to avoid offending our host he stayed where he was. Admittedly, if we’d both leaped up at the same time our attempt at evasion would have been obvious and rather uncouth. So the conversation went on without me, though I listened to every word and took in very little of the furniture, books and curios I was supposed to be inspecting.
Behind me, Maïmoun was explaining to Coenen that most rabbis didn’t believe in Sabbataï, but they didn’t dare say so openly because the whole populace was on his side. Anyone who refused to recognise him as king and Messiah had to hide or even leave the city, or risk being attacked in the street.
“Is it true Sabbataï said he was going to Constantinople in a few days’ time to take possession of the Sultan’s crown and sit in his place on the throne?”
Maïmoun sounded horrified at this, and his voice rose.
“Do you set much store by what I tell you?” he asked.
“Of course!” The pastor seemed rather taken aback. “Of all the good people I’ve questioned, you’re the most sensible, the most accurate and the most observant...”
“Believe me, then, when I tell you Sabbataï has never at any time made any such claims.”
“Yet the person who told about them is very close to him.”
Coenen lowered his voice and spoke a name I couldn’t catch. I did hear Maïmoun’s angry reply.
“That rabbi’s crazy! Anyone who says such things is crazy, whether they’re Sabbataï’s supporters, who think the world belongs to them already, or his enemies, who’d do anything to destroy him. If such foolishness ever comes to the ears of the Sultan, all the Jews will be slaughtered, together with all the other inhabitants of Smyrna!”
Coenen agreed, and started on another tack.
“Is is true that there was a letter from Egypt… ?”
But I didn’t hear what followed. I was gazing at something on a low shelf, half-hidden behind a table from Zealand. A statuette that looked familiar. My statuette! My statuette of the two lovers, miraculously preserved! I bent down, then crouched to take hold of it, stroking it and turning it this way and that in my hands. No doubt about it! Those two conical heads covered with gold leaf, the strange kind of rustjoining the two hands together, uniting them beyond death. There’s nothing else like it in the whole world!
I waited a few seconds, swallowing two or three times lest my voice betray me.
“Your honour, where did this come from?”
“Those statuettes? Wheeler gave them to me.”
“Did he tell you if he dug them up himself?” I asked disingenuously.
“No. I was visiting him one day and a man came knocking at the door trying to sell him some things from a cart. Cornelius bought almost everything he had, and as I’d shown an interest in those votive statuettes, which probably come from some ancient temple, he insisted on making me a present of them. But for an important dealer in curios like you, such things must be two a penny.”
“Yes, some have passed through my hands. But this one is different from all the others.”
“You must have a better eye than I have for this sort of thing. What’s special about it?”
The pastor didn’t seem particularly interested in what I was saying. He listened to me and asked a few questions out of politeness, no doubt thinking my reactions were quite commonplace in a man really devoted to his profession, and just waiting for me to resume my tour of inspection so that he could get back to the only subject that concerned him today: Sabbataï. So I went over to him, carefully carrying “the two lovers”.
“What’s special about this statuette is that it consists, as you see, of two figures accidentally rusted together. It’s a very rare phenomenon, and I’d recognise it anywhere. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that four months ago it was in my own shop in Gibelet. I gave it for nothing to the Chevalier de Marmontel, the envoy of the King of France, who’d just bought a rare book from me for a very large sum of money. He set sail from Tripoli, taking the statuette with him, but was shipwrecked before reaching Constantinople. And now I find my statuette here on this shelf.”
Coenen could remain seated no longer. He was as pale as if I’d accused him of theft or murder.
“I warned Wheeler against those bandits disguised as beggars who go round peddling valuable objects. They’re out-and-out scoundrels, all of them. And now I feel as if I were their accomplice, a receiver of stolen goods! My house is defiled! May God punish you, Wheeler!”
I did my best to reassure him, saying neither h
e nor the Englishman was to blame: they didn’t know where the things had come from. At the same time I questioned him discreetly about what else the peddler had with him besides my “lovers”. Of course I was anxious to find out if The Hundredth Name had survived too. Hadn’t it been taken on the same ship, among the same baggage? I know a book is more perishable than a metal statuette, and the wreckers who caused the loss of the ship and murdered the men on it to get hold of its cargo, are likely to have kept statuettes covered in gold leaf and tossed a mere book overboard.
“Cornelius bought a lot of things from that fellow.”
“Any books?”
“Yes, one.”
I didn’t dream I’d get such a plain answer!
“A book in Arabic that seemed to astonish him.”
As long as the peddler was still there, Coenen told me, his friend hadn’t seemed to attach any importance to the book. But as soon as he left, very pleased with himself at having got rid of so many of his wares, the Englishman’s enthusiasm knew no bounds. He kept examining the book from every angle and reading and re-reading the first page.
“He seemed so pleased with it that when I asked him a question about the age of the statuettes, he gave them to me there and then. He would take no denial, and told his clerk to wrap them up and deliver them to my house.”
“Did he say anything about the book?”
“Not much. That it was rare, and that for years a lot of his customers had been asking him to find them a copy, imagining it would put them in possession of some kind of magic power and afford them divine protection. It was a sort of talisman. I remember telling him a true believer didn’t need such devices: to win Heaven’s favour it was enough to do good and say the prayers Our Saviour taught us. Wheeler agreed, and said he didn’t believe in such nonsense himself, but as a dealer he was glad to have acquired a much sought-after item that he could sell at a good price.”
Coenen then resumed his lamentations, wondering if God would forgive him for having in an unguarded moment accepted a present he suspected of being of doubtful provenance. As for me, I found — and still find — myself back in a number of dilemmas I’d thought were things of the past. If The Hundredth Name still exists, shouldn’t I start looking for it again? The book’s a kind of siren — no one who’s heard her song can ever forget her. And I’ve done more than hear the song. I’ve held the siren in my arms, stroked her, possessed her briefly, before she escaped and headed for the open sea. She sank beneath the waves, and I thought she was swallowed up for ever, but a siren cannot drown. And scarcely had I begun to forget her than she rises up before me to remind me of my duties as a bewitched lover.
“So where is the book now?”
“Wheeler’s never mentioned it to me again. I don’t know if he took it with him to England or left it in his house in Smyrna.”
In Smyrna? In his house? In other words, in mine?
Can anyone blame me if I’m trembling and can hardly speak?
24 December
Nothing I did today was a crime, but no doubt I am guilty of abusing Mr Wheeler’s hospitality. Searching from top to bottom a house I’ve been lent, as if it were the den of a receiver of stolen goods! I trust my Englishman will forgive me. I had no choice. I had to try to find the book that made me set out on my travels. Not with any very high hopes of success. I’d have been greatly surprised if my colleague, knowing how important the book is, had left it behind. I wouldn’t go so far as to suppose it’s because of The Hundredth Name that he suddenly decided to go away, leaving his house and possessions to be looked after by a stranger. But I can’t rule out the possibility altogether.
Coenen says Cornelius Wheeler belongs to a family of booksellers who for a long time have had a shop in the old St Paul’s market in London. I’ve never actually been either to London or to the market, but both must seem familiar to anyone who trades in antique books. Just as the name of the house of Embriaco, in Gibelet, must be familiar to some booksellers and collectors in London and Oxford — or so I like to think. It’s as if all those who love the same things were linked together across the seas by an invisible thread. And in my merchant’s heart I believe the world would be a better and more cordial place if there were many such threads, woven into an ever thicker and stronger fabric.
At present, however, it gives me no pleasure to know that someone on the other side of the world wants to get hold of the same book as I do, and that the book itself is on a ship bound for England. Will he be shipwrecked, like the unfortunate Marmontel? I don’t wish that, as God’s my witness. But I would have liked the book, through some inexplicable spell, to be still in this house. But it hasn’t turned up yet, and though I can’t say I’ve looked in every single nook and cranny, I’m sure I shan’t find it.
All my people took part in the treasure hunt except Boumeh, who has been out all day. He’s often been out lately, but I was careful not to criticise him for it today. I was glad he didn’t know we were looking for Mazandarani’s book, and I especially didn’t want him to learn the present whereabouts of something he wants more than any of us. He’s quite capable of dragging us to England after it! I made all the rest of the household promise not to breathe a word to him about it all, threatening dire punishment if they disobeyed.
In the afternoon, while we were all slumped in the sitting room, as worn out with disappointment as with effort, Habib said: “Well, there’s one Christmas present we shan’t be getting!” We laughed, and I thought that it really would have been a wonderful present for us all on this Christmas Eve.
We were still laughing when there was a knock on the door. It was Coenen’s servant, bringing us the statuette of the two lovers, wrapped in a crimson scarf. There was a note with it, saying, “After what I learned yesterday I couldn’t keep it under my roof.”
The pastor wasn’t intending to give us a Christmas present, I presume, but that’s what it seemed like to us. Nothing could have given me greater pleasure, except The Hundredth Name.
But I had to hide the statuette straight away, and make the others keep quiet about that too. If my nephew saw it he’d guess everything.
How long shall I be able to keep the truth from him? Wouldn’t it be better if I just learned to say no to him? I ought to have done that at the beginning, when he wanted me to come on this journey. Instead of setting out on this slippery slope with nothing to stop me sliding further and further. Except perhaps the buffer of the calendar. In a week’s time the fateful Year will have begun.
27 December
A rather sordid incident has just occurred. I’m writing it down just to soothe my nerves, and then shall say no more about it.
I’d retired to my room early to do some accounts, and at one point got up to go and see if Boumeh was back: he’s been out too much lately, and it’s worrying, given his mood and that of the city.
Not finding him in his room, I thought he might have gone out into the garden to answer some nocturnal call of nature, so I went out too and started to stroll back and forth near the door. The night was mild, amazingly so for December, and you had to strain your ears to hear the waves, near as they were.
Suddenly there was a curious sound, like a groan or a stifled cry. It came from the direction of the roof, where the maid’s room is. I went over, making no noise, and slowly climbed up the ladder. The groans continued.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
No answer, and the sounds stopped.
I called out the maid’s name: “Nasmé! Nasmé!”
But it was Habib’s voice that answered.
“It’s me, Uncle. It’s all right. You can go back to bed!”
Go back to bed? If he’d put it differently I might have been more sympathetic. I might have turned a blind eye, not having been beyond reproach myself lately. But when he spoke to me like that, as if I were senile or simple-minded …
I rushed into the room. It was very small and dark, but I could make out the two shapes and gradually recognise them.
I treated him to a volley of Genoese oaths and gave him a good box on the ear. The ill-mannered lout! As for the maid, I’ve given her till the morning to pack up her things and go.
I’ve calmed down a bit now, and it strikes me it’s my nephew who deserved to be punished rather than the wretched girl. I know how attractive he can be. But one hands out chastisement as one can, not as one would like. I know it’s unfair to sack the maid and merely tell my nephew off. But what else can I do? Give the maid a box on the ear and turn my nephew out?
Too many things are happening in my house that wouldn’t have happened if I’d behaved differently. It pains me to write this down, but perhaps it would hurt me more if I didn’t. If I hadn’t allowed myself to live as I pleased with a woman who isn’t my wife, if I hadn’t taken so many liberties with the laws of Heaven and of man, my nephew wouldn’t have behaved as he did, and I wouldn’t have had to hand out punishments.
What I’ve just written is true. But it’s also true that if those laws hadn’t been so harsh neither Marta nor I would have needed to get round them. In a world where everything is ruled by chance, why should I be the only one to feel guilty of sin? And why should I be the only one to suffer from remorse?
One day I must learn how to act unfairly and simply not worry about it.
Monday 28 December 1665
I went back to see Abdellatif, the Ottoman official, the scribe in the prison in Smyrna, and I now see I wasn’t mistaken when I said he was honest. He’s more honest than I could have imagined. I only hope the next few days won’t prove me wrong!
I took Marta and Hatem with me, and a purse full enough to deal with the usual demands. He received me politely in the gloomy office he shares with three other officials, who were receiving their own “clients” when I arrived. He signed to me to come close, then told me very quietly that he’d looked in all the available records but been unable to find out anything about the man we were interested in. I thanked him for his trouble and asked him, with my hand on my purse, how much his researches had cost him. He raised his voice to answer.