by Amin Maalouf
The tray held some smoked meat cut into fine slices, a cheese, some white bread, and a mug of what she calls “buttered” beer, though it’s very spicy. I asked if she’d like to eat with me, but she said she was never hungry at mealtimes — she nibbled at bits and pieces all day as she waited on her customers. She’d just brought herself a mug of buttered beer so that we could toast each other. So, after watching me write, she now watched me eat. She looked at me exactly as my sister Pleasance used to look at me, and before that my poor mother — with a gaze that takes in both the eater and the food, hanging on every mouthful and turning the object of this concentration into a child again. I felt suddenly at home in this stranger’s house. I couldn’t help thinking of the words of Jesus: “I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat.” Not that I was in danger of starving. All my life, excess has been more of a threat than deprivation. But there was something maternal in the way this woman had fed me. I suddenly felt for her — for her bread, her buttered beer, her presence, her watchful smile, her patience, her dirty apron, her awkward figure — a great surge of affection.
She stood there barefoot, leaning against the wall with her mug in her hand. I stood up, holding my own beer to clink mugs with her, but instead took her gently by the shoulders and thanked her again, softly, then dropped a kiss on her forehead, between her eyebrows.
Drawing away, I saw that her eyes were full of tears, and her lips, still trying to smile, were trembling with expectation. She gripped my fingers awkwardly in her plump hand, and I drew her towards me, slowly stroking her hair and her gown. She didn’t resist, but clung to me as to a blanket in freezing weather. I held and touched her lightly all over, as if gently exploring the limits of her body, of her quivering face, of the eyelids hiding her tears, even of her hips.
She had changed her dress since her first visit to my room, and was now wearing a shimmering dark green gown that felt like silk. I was tempted to lie down with her on the bed, which was close by, but decided to remain standing. Things were proceeding at a pace of their own, and I didn’t want to precipitate matters. It was still almost light outside, and there was no reason why we should shorten our pleasures; one longs to shorten one’s sufferings often enough.
Even when she herself wanted to lie down, I still held her upright. I think she was surprised, and puzzled, but she let me take the lead. Lovers lose half the pleasure by lying down too soon. The first phase of love takes place standing up, when you sway about holding one another, dazed, unseeing, unsteady. Isn’t it best to draw this stage of things out, to whisper to one another, brush lips, undress one another gradually, and all this still standing up, embracing one another passionately as each garment falls to the floor?
So we stayed like that for some while, drifting round the room exchanging slow murmurs, slow caresses. My hands unclothed, then held her, and on her trembling form my lips patiently sought where to alight to gather nectar, then where else to alight to gather more, from the lids hiding her eyes, to the hands covering her breasts, to her broad bare white hips. The woman, a field of flowers; my fingers and lips, a swarm of bees.
One Wednesday, in Smyrna, in the Capuchin monastery, I had a moment of intense pleasure when Marta and I made love expecting all the time to be interrupted by my nephews, or Hatem, or one of the monks. The taste of this other Wednesday of love, here in London, was just as enchanting, but in a completely different way. There, haste and urgency lent every second a furious intensity. Here, the fact that time was unlimited gave every movement a resonance, a length, and echoes that enriched and deepened it. There, we were like hunted animals, pursued by others and by the feeling that we were doing something forbidden. Here, on the contrary, the city knew nothing about us, the world knew nothing about us, and we didn’t feel we were doing wrong. We were living outside good and evil, far away from bans and prohibitions. Out of time, too. The sun was on our side, setting slowly; the night too, promising to be long. We’d be able to drain one another little by little, down to the last drop of delight.
7 September
The chaplain is back, and so are his disciples. There were already in the house when I got up. He didn’t tell me why he went away, and I didn’t ask. He just muttered an excuse.
I might as well say it at once — something seems to have upset my relationship with these people. I’m sorry about it, but I don’t think I could have prevented it.
The chaplain was cross and irritable when he came back, and gave vent at once to his impatience.
“We must buckle down to it today,” he announced, “and get something out of this text — if there’s anything in it. We’ll keep at it day and night as long as necessary, and anyone who falls by the wayside is no friend of mine.”
Both his words and his tone surprised me, and so did all the grim faces around me. I said I’d do my best, but the illness that had delayed my readings was not my fault. At this, I thought I detected some sceptical smiles, but didn’t feel I had the right to object. I hadn’t actually lied: I couldn’t help the attacks of blindness. But I’d misrepresented the symptoms and feigned some headaches. Perhaps I ought to have admitted, at the outset, to my strange illness, inexplicable though it was. But it’s too late for that now: if I confessed I’d lied, and started describing those extraordinary symptoms, it would only confirm their worst suspicions. So I decided to say nothing, and just try to read as best I could.
But Heaven was not on my side today. In fact, instead of helping it hindered me. The darkness descended as soon as I opened the book. And it wasn’t only the book that I couldn’t see: the whole room, the people in it, the walls, the table, even the window — all were black as ink.
For a moment I thought I’d gone blind, and told myself that God, after giving me several warnings which I’d obstinately ignored, had decided to punish me as I deserved.
I slammed the book shut. And immediately I could see again. Not completely clearly, as I’d have expected to do at noon, but as if it were evening and the room was lit by candles. There was a thin veil over everything, and it’s still there now, as I write. It’s as if there were a cloud in the sky just for me. The pages of this notebook have gone a brownish colour, as if they’d aged a hundred years in a day. The more I talk about it the more it worries me. I can hardly go on writing.
But I must.
“What’s the matter now?” said the chaplain when I shut the book.
I had the presence of mind to reply:
“I have a suggestion. Why don’t I go up to my room, and read and take notes on the book in my own time? Then I’ll come back tomorrow morning with the Latin text. If I can avoid headaches by following this method, we can adopt it permanently. And then we’ll be able to make regular progress.”
I managed to convince them, though the old man accepted my proposal without enthusiasm and made me promise to translate at least twenty pages of text by tomorrow.
So I went upstairs, followed, I suspected, by one or other of the two disciples — I could hear someone pacing back and forth outside my door. But, as I didn’t want to have to object, I pretended not to notice.
Once sitting down at my desk, I opened The Hundredth Name in the middle and placed it face down in front of me. Then I picked up this notebook and leafed through it till I found the entry for 20 May — my account of what my Persian friend told me about the debate on the hidden name of God and about Mazandarani’s views on the subject. Using this journal entry as a basis for the content, I wrote out what I shall put forward tomorrow as a translation of Mazandarani’s own text. For the style, I used my recollections of what little I’d been able to read from the beginning of the cursed tome.
Why do I call it “cursed”? Is it really accursed? Or is it blessed? Or bewitched? I still don’t know. All I do know is that it’s protected. Protected from me, anyhow.
8 September
All went well. I read out my Latin translation, and Magnus copied it down word for word. The chaplain said that’s how we ought to have set abo
ut it from the beginning, and urged me to work faster.
I hope that’s only a sign of renewed enthusiasm, and that he’ll moderate his expectations. Otherwise, I fear the worst. The subterfuge I’ve resorted to so far can’t be kept up indefinitely. Today I called partly on what Esfahani told me and partly on my memory. I might still summon up things I’ve heard about The Hundredth Name, but, again, that wouldn’t last long. Sooner or later I’m going to have to get through the book itself and quote the name they’re all waiting for, whether it’s really the Creator’s secret name or only what Mazandarani supposes that to be.
Perhaps, in the next few days, I ought to make another attempt at reading…
I started this page full of hope, but my confidence in the future waned in the course of a few lines, just as the light does whenever I open the forbidden volume.
9 September
I spent yesterday evening filling pages with Latin supposed to be a translation of Mazandarani’s text. Because of that I have neither the time nor the energy to go on with my own writing, and shall have to be satisfied with brief notes.
The chaplain asked me how many pages I’d managed to translate so far, and I told him forty-three. I might just as easily have said seventeen or seventy. He asked how many were left, and I said 130. He repeated that he hoped I’d finish the reading in a few days now, certainly before the end of next week.
I said I would, but I can feel the trap closing in on me. Perhaps I ought to run away.
10 September
Bess came to me during the night. It was dark, and she slipped into bed beside me. She hadn’t been back since the chaplain’s return. She left again before dawn.
If I decided to flee, ought I to warn her?
I finished my text for the day this morning. I’m running out of knowledge, and had to fill in the gaps with my imagination. But the others listened to me more intently than ever. Admittedly I quoted Mazandarani as saying that when he reveals the supreme name of God it will fill all who thought they knew it with fear and amazement.
I’ve probably gained time and a certain amount of credit with my three auditors. But increasing the stake doesn’t necessarily bring good luck!
11 September
This is the first day of the Russian New Year. I thought about it all night long. I even dreamed that Evdokim the pilgrim threatened me with retribution and exhorted me to repent.
We met towards noon in the chaplain’s room, and I tried to create a diversion by referring to this date. I told them, with only a little exaggeration, what I’d learned from my friend Girolamo on board the Sanctus Dionisius: that lots of people in Muscovy believe that today, the feast of St Simeon and the beginning of their New Year, will this year see the end of the world in a deluge of fire.
Despite his disciples’ questioning glances, the chaplain remained silent as I spoke, listening abstractedly, almost with indifference. And although he didn’t challenge what I’d said, he took advantage of a moment’s silence to bring us back to the subject in hand. I grudgingly shuffled my papers together and started on the day’s fabrications.
Sunday, 12 September 1666
My God! My God!
What else can I say?
My God!
Can it really have happened?
London caught fire in the middle of the night. And now I’m told it’s all starting to burn, one district after the other. From my window I can see the flaming apocalypse and hear the shrieks of the terrified people. There’s not a star in the sky.
My God! Can the end of the world be like this? Not a sudden void, but a gradually approaching fire, like a rising flood that may eventually swallow me up?
Is it my own end I see approaching as I look out of the window, and that I try to describe as I bend over the page?
The all-devouring fire draws closer and closer, and I sit here at this wooden table, in this wooden room, committing my last thoughts to a sheaf of pages that will ignite at the smallest spark! It’s madness, madness! But isn’t that just an image of my mortal condition? I dream of eternity when my grave is already dug, piously commending my soul to the One who’s about to snatch it away from me. When I was born I was a few years away from death. Now it may be no more than a few hours. But what’s a year anyway in comparison with eternity? what’s a day? an hour? a second? Such measures have meaning only for a heart that’s still beating.
Bess came to sleep with me. We were still in one another’s arms when we started to hear shouting nearby. From the window, looking towards the Thames, you could see in the distance, though not all that far away, the monstrous red glow, with tongues of flame shooting up every so often and then subsiding.
Even worse than the flames and the glare was the sinister crackling noise, as if some gigantic beast were crunching up in its jaws the wood all the houses were built of, crushing, grinding, chewing the timbers and then spitting them out.
Bess rushed to her room for some clothes, for she’d come to my room with very little on. When she returned she was soon joined by the chaplain and his two disciples, who had stayed in the tavern overnight. By daybreak they were all gathered together in my room: my window was the highest in the house and had the best view of the fire. Amid all the lamentations, tears and prayers, someone would mention a street or tall building that had been spared by or caught up in the conflagration. As I wasn’t familiar with the places in question, I wasn’t sure when I should be worried and when relieved. And I didn’t want to bother the others with my outsider’s questions. So I stayed in the background, away from the window, leaving it to their more experienced observation, while I just stood apart and took in their comments, alarms and other reactions.
After a few minutes we all, one after the other, went down the rickety wooden stairs to the main room of the tavern, where we could no longer hear the noise of the fire but caught echoes of the cries of the ever-increasing and angry-sounding crowd.
If I live long enough to remember anything, I shall remember some quite trivial scenes. Magnus, who’d gone out for a moment, came back in tears because the church of his patron saint, St Magnus’s near London Bridge, was on fire. We were to have this kind of news hundreds of times that wretched day, but I’ll never forget the distress of that young man, so devoted to his religion, silently accusing Heaven of having betrayed him.
No customers came through the ale-house door the whole morning. Whenever Magnus or Calvin or Bess went outside to see what was happening, we just opened the door a crack to let them out, and the same to let them back in again. The chaplain didn’t once get up out of the armchair he’d collapsed into. As for me, I took care not to be seen in the street: rumours had been circulating since dawn that the fire had been lit by “Papists”.
I just said the story started at dawn, but that’s not quite right. I hope to be accurate until my last breath, and the order of events was in fact slightly different. The rumour that was going round first thing in the morning was that the fire had started in a bakery in the City: an oven hadn’t been put out properly, or a maid had fallen asleep, so that the flames had begun by spreading along the neighbouring street. The street in question is Pudding Lane, which is close to the inn where I spent my first two nights in London.
An hour later, someone in our own street told Calvin that the French and Dutch fleets had sailed in and set fire to the town, and intended to use the resulting confusion to make an all-out attack on the capital. We could only expect the worst.
After another hour had gone by, the talk was no longer of foreign fleets, but of agents of the Pope, the “Antichrist”, who were trying “yet again” to destroy this good Christian country. I even heard of people being seized by the mob just because they were strangers. It’s not a good idea to be a foreigner when London’s on fire, so I prudently lay low all day. At first I took refuge in the main room of the tavern, then, when neighbours started coming in there — we could hardly shut the door in their faces — I retreated upstairs to my room, my wooden “observatory�
��.
It was to distract myself from my anxiety that I wrote these few paragraphs, in between long periods spent looking out of the window.
The sun has gone down and still the fire is raging. The air is all red, and the sky seems empty.
Could all the other towns be on fire too? With each one, like London, thinking it’s the only Gomorrha?
Could Genoa be burning today too? And Constantinople? And Smyrna? And Tripoli? And even Gibelet?
It’s getting dark, but tonight I shan’t light any candles. I’ll lie down in the darkness, breathe in the wintry smells of burning wood, and pray God to give me the courage to go to sleep one more time.
Monday, 13 September 1666
The apocalypse is not over. It’s still going on. And so is my ordeal by fire.
London continues to burn, and I’m hiding from the flames in a nest of dry tinder.
When I woke up, however, I went downstairs and there in the main room of the tavern I found Bess, the chaplain and his disciples slumped in their chairs; they hadn’t stirred all night. Bess opened her eyes only to beg me to go back to my hiding-place before anyone saw or heard me. Several foreigners had been apprehended during the night, including two natives of Genoa. She didn’t know their names, but she was sure of the facts. She said she’d bring me something to eat, and in her eyes I could see a promise of love as well. But how could we make love with a city burning all round us?
As I was about to slink upstairs, the chaplain caught me by the sleeve.
“It seems your prediction is coming true,” he said with a forced smile.
I pointed out with some fervour that it was the Muscovites’ prediction, not mine; I’d only passed on what a Venetian friend had first passed on to me. In present circumstances I don’t want to be seen as a prophet of doom — harmless gossips have been burned for less! The chaplain saw why I was exercised, and apologised for speaking so thoughtlessly.