Jean de Fodoas

by Maurice Magre

  Pierre Du Jarric raised his arm toward the nocturnal sky, as if to indicate a particular star to me amid the host of stars shining through the rigging.

  “Our dream, the one that is guiding us—you and me—to India, is perhaps no less chimerical.”

  I sensed that he was in a confidential mood.

  “I’d be very glad to know,” I said, “why the Order of Jesuits has determined that a young man from Toulouse, only expert in handling weapons, should cross the seas and go into distant regions , where so many valiant Portuguese apparently seem more useful. Certainly, in exchange for my life, which was preserved by the magnanimity of the Provincial Father of Toulouse, I’m ready to do whatever will be required of me, but why must my activity be employed beyond the seas?”

  “Know first of all,” my cousin replied, “that men on whom one can count are strangely few in number. ‘He’s made of solid wood,’ the Provincial Father said, ‘but it’s necessary that the wood doesn’t catch fire.’ Perhaps the moment has come to tell you….”

  My cousin stood up and took a few steps, but as I stood up in my turn, he made me a sign to sit down again. I understood that he only had a desire to walk because of the gravity of what he was about to tell me.

  “Doubtless you know, vaguely, for your education has been greatly neglected, that the Asiatic countries have been ravaged in recent centuries by destructive hordes of Mongols, who fell on the cities and killed their inhabitants. Those hordes came as far as Europe. Their most celebrated kings were Genghis Khan and Timur, and the Emperor Akbar, toward whom we’re going, is the descendant of one of those terrible sovereigns—at least he affirms as much, for one never knows the truth about royal genealogies.

  “The most curious particularity of those Mongols is that they do not settle in cities built of stone, like ours. They even have a horror of cities, the sight of which has always exasperated their appetite for destruction. They always have the desire to go further on. But like all men, they have a taste for riches, for gold, jewels and precious metals. After pillaging those riches, they cannot carry them all with them. What happens to them? What could happen to them?

  “Imagine what you would do yourself, if you had at your disposal the treasures of a magnificent city like Bagdad or Kambalu, and if you were obliged to leave. Yes, put yourself in the place of one of those looter kings. You’re going to mount your horse, you have fifty thousand cavaliers behind you and there at your feet, all sorts of riches. What do you do?”

  “In truth, I’d have filled my pockets, I’d have filled a sack that could be transported on my horse, I’d grab the most precious things, and also the smallest.”

  “That’s right. Sovereigns disposing of fabulous riches and always obliged to depart again because of the attractions of conquest, think about condensing those riches in such a fashion as to transport them in the smallest possible volume. Genghis Khan had a morbid liking for pearls. He had a camel follow him buckling under the weight of inestimable pearls. Later, Timur reduced his immense share of booty into diamonds, emeralds and rubies, and in his capital, Samarkand, he spent his leisure hours trading precious stones for lighter precious stones but purer in color.

  “The treasure of the Mogul Emperors was transmitted from father to son. Genghis Khan had it buried under the ground. Timur had it transported into a grotto. Ulugh Beg took it to Samarkand and had a fortress temple built to shelter it, to which he gave the name of the House of Purity. He called it that because of the frightful impurity it contained. But one day, lightning struck the House of Purity and Ulugh Beg saw that as a bad omen.

  “He was a strange sovereign, that Ulugh Beg, simultaneously a poet, a philosopher, an astronomer and a magician.11 He set about studying the stars in order to discover the destiny of his treasure and the place where it ought to be deposited. The stars must have announced a redoubtable destiny to him. One evening, he ran down from the top of the tower from which he was examining the sky with a telescope. He assembled his guards and, clad in the white robe that he wore in imitation of the ancient philosophers and the Sufis, he mounted his horse and departed into the night with the treasure. It’s said that he only returned to Samarkand a year later, and not a single man remained of those who had accompanied him. He had hidden the treasure of the Timurids somewhere in immense India.

  “It is the destiny of treasures to be so well hidden that their possessors end up forgetting where they are and not having bequeathed their secret at the moment of their death. It does not seem that Ulugh Beg’s descendants entered into possession of the treasure that condensed the riches originating from pillages such as the world has never known. The Emperor Akbar has searched for it in vain, and after forty years of sovereignty, he is still searching. Who would dare to say that Providence does not have pre-established aims? Perhaps it is to the Order of Saint Ignatius that the prodigious power that such wealth represents will revert.”

  I listened to my cousin full of astonishment, and wide-eyed. As he became excited, the tone of his voice lowered, he drew closer to me, and by virtue of a curious phenomenon, it seemed to me that his nose, which as very long, was elongated in my direction.

  “There are pagans,” he went on, “who, thanks to us, have been converted to the Christian faith. Not many, it’s necessary to agree, but in sum, there are a few. Well, one of them, at the moment of his death, revealed to a member of our order…but that is too long a story, of which the details are unknown to me, which are the secret of our general in India: a great man, a great saint, Père Aquaviva.12 It’s sufficient for the moment for you to know that you, a humble Toulousan gentleman, who are, in sum, an ignorant man with a head devoid of a brain, are perhaps called to play a considerable role.”

  “Me? How?”

  “Those formidable sovereigns have handled the precious metals of mosques and Persian or Turkish palaces, they have scrutinized the splendor of diamonds and the purity of pearls, and have secured within a coffer of small dimension the precious essence of our planet, everything that it contains of the stellar, in order that you, Jean de Fodoas, should load that coffer on to your back and restore it to its possessors by divine right, those who ought to have the mastery of gold, those who will govern the world by means of gold.”

  “Was it not imprudent to have chosen for such a task an ignorant man devoid of a brain?” I was vexed by the opinion emitted in my regard by my cousin. Although I perceived its sincerity, I thought that it was devoid of any basis.

  “No, because, firstly, I answered for you, and the Provincial Father of Toulouse is a man who can read souls as I read a Bible.”

  “But where and how am I to accomplish this astonishing mission?”

  “Everything in its time. We have many marine dangers to confront before then. And remember that the mission will be carried out as much in the spiritual as the material realm—more, perhaps. The Emperor Akbar is full of curiosity about the Occidental world.13 The true religion attracts him. Twice already he has asked the Viceroy of Goa to send him missionaries. Between the two of us, if he is not converted already it’s because of the clumsiness of the Fathers who have been sent to him. They were insufficiently cultivated men. They proceeded with the Emperor Akbar as they would with a negro king in Africa who had feathers in his hair and a fly-swatter for a scepter. He needs Toulousans in his presence. That is what was thought in Rome, and rightly so. For those who succeed in obtaining influence over that sovereign might direct half the world. I’ve spoken to you about a fabulous treasure, but the amity of that great man is perhaps even more estimable than the treasure of his ancestors. Now, he has asked for a young Occidental knight who belongs to the warrior caste—for out there, there are castes. It was thought in Rome that it would be better if that knight were not Portuguese. Your lucky star has determined that it should be you. It might be the case that a great destiny is reserved for you by Providence.”

  I was astounded by what my cousin had told me; but I believe that there is in every man the profound conv
iction that he possesses an admirable and as yet unrevealed genius. The conviction in question causes him to consider the unexpected favors of fortune as simple forms of the immanent justice that is the recompense of his genius.

  I straightened up before the extent of the sunlit waters. In the distance, to my left, a confused strip of land extended, which was the African coast. If my cousin had told me that it was a province of my future empire, I would doubtless have replied, simply: “Good.”

  Such is the folly of youth.

  ABOARD THE SANTA-FÉ

  A rather parsimonious space had been reserved on the second deck for the monks and missionaries of all the Orders and heir retinue. An extended cord delimited the area, with no one could cross without valid reason; so the first days went by without my being in the presence of Francisco Manoël.

  One evening, after the diner bell had sounded, I slipped along to the place where I had seen the marvelous apparition of the young woman with the rose. I knew from experience that events have a tendency to be reproduced in a similar fashion, if one finds oneself in the same place at the same time.

  That did not happen on that day. The door on which my gaze was obstinately fixed opened, but my throat tightened with disgust when I saw the horrible Francisco emerge. He was chatting in a familiar fashion with the black-clad fat woman of forbidding appearance, who resembled the idea I had of Catherine de Medici, according to the tales of people who love to talk about monarchs. They were leaning toward one another and saying secret things. They had the appearance of accomplices. There was no doubt that the affiliate of the Jesuits who was part of the retinue of the divine Inès was that man, whose physique was horrible and who must have a soul worse than his visage.

  The old woman went back into the cabin, closing the door, and Francisco perceived me. He almost uttered a cry of joy. Rapidly, he came down the few steps that separated us and sat down beside me.

  Assuredly, he was playing an inexplicable comedy. I could not have such a great charm. He told me that he had searched for me, that he had often thought about me, that my presence was a great comfort to him. The horrible odor of human sweat that filled the space between decks was insupportable to him. He hated the Spanish soldiers, superstitious and limited men, who filled the entire rear section of the ship. On the other hand, all conversation with the monks was impossible. He was suffering a great deal from his solitude, but it was finally about to end. He sensed in me an open mind, a mind susceptible of understanding everything. And then again, was there not another bond between us?

  And with that the tapped his chest mysteriously, at the exact height at which the mysterious scapular must be.

  In any other circumstances I would have slapped his face and proclaimed aloud the nature of the sentiments that he inspired in me. I even stood up in order to do so. But in a second, the instruction that my cousin had repeated to me several times came to mind, that it is necessary to dissimulate what one is experiencing and always feign a great sympathy for one’s interlocutor if one wants to succeed in the world. It was insensate to insult a man who occupied a position of confidence next to the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen. And then, who knows? Perhaps my character really seduced him. Although I had often been duped, I had also encountered spontaneous sympathies. There was also a mystery to clarify in the host that he carried on his person, and of which he had promised me a fragment, without my being able to explain that improbable promise.

  So I sat down beside him again, and expressed to him the satisfaction I had in seeing him.

  “You’re my friend, and even my relative,” he said, gripping me by the shoulders. “You understand me, don’t you?”

  I wanted to tell him that I did not understand him at all, but he didn’t give me the time.

  “Hatred! That sustains life better than amour. I once wondered why I didn’t die of ennui and disgust. I didn’t know that I had that salt, that leaven, within me. I hate them all, and God even more, who has created them, because of that primal injustice.”

  I thought that he might be drunk and I breathed in deeply order to catch a whiff of it; but no, he didn’t reek of wine at all. He was expressing himself for the sake of expressing himself.

  “Everyone supports that injustice lightly. They enjoy it. They even do their best to aggravate it. And it’s their hypocrisy, above all, that horrifies me, their comedy and purity or sanctity. Virgins and monks! Ha ha! It’s almost the same thing. They’re worth as much as one another. And we, whom they’ve taken as domestics, also have our worth.”

  I made an immense effort to contain the word “servant.” He must have perceived that, for he repeated it, emphasizing the syllables.

  “I know, you descend from a very noble and very illustrious family of Toulouse. Very noble and very illustrious but ruined. Absolutely ruined. That’s why you’re a servant of the Jesuits. Me too! My family…that’s a whole story. If I told you the name of it you might fall to your knees and remain there instead of going to take the evening meal, as you’re about to do.”

  “There’s no name that can make me fall to my knees,” I told him, coldly.

  But he paid no heed to my response.

  “The essential thing, in life, is to understand that evil is more powerful than good, that the Devil, or what is thus called, is more powerful than God. I understood that a little late. But you’re young and you’ll go a long way, followed by the invisible companion. Only, remember one thing: if one serves the angel of evil, it’s necessary to render him disinterested services. He’s very demanding. He wants us to do evil for evil’s sake. He too wants to recognize his own.”

  I stood up.

  He isn’t drunk, I thought, but he’s certainly slightly insensate. Otherwise, he wouldn’t talk like that to a man who lives with monks, even if he’s recognized that the man in question….

  I was traversed by a frisson, and I don’t know why the image of my mother presented itself in my mind.

  “À bientôt—the two of us are destined to see one another frequently.”

  And he tapped his chest again, and winked.

  I shall not recount the numerous and varied incidents of the voyage of the Santa-Fé, because that is not the object of this narrative, and I am not tracing these lines to remind myself of landscapes, the insignificant conversations of ecclesiastics or picturesque adventures.

  I shall not evoke the dismal days of flat calm, the ardor of the sun, the fury of the tempests. I shall not attempt to resolve the enigma of the blue flame. In the topmost rigging of the ship one sees, on certain nights, an elongated flame, blue in color. Sometimes it dances and sometimes it stretches; but it is always sad. I perceived that sadness with certainty, without being able to understand why. A mariner had fallen into the sea on the first night of our voyage. He was a young man from Lisbon, and the other mariners said that it was his soul in torment that was roaming over the masts. But I didn’t believe that, because the mariner, having died a short distance from his native city, would have taken advantage of the subtle lightness of his new corporeal state to return to his homeland, instead of haunting the vertiginous parts of the rigging.

  I shall not describe how we encountered the Dutch carracks, how we fired cannons at them, how there was a temporary thought of a boarding, how I was politely asked by the captain to take my place among the combatants, and my great disappointment when a sudden change in the wind permitted the carracks to draw away.

  I shall not describe the appearance of scurvy when we had passed the Cap des Aiguilles, the diabolical joy of Francisco Manoël in announcing to that there were more than fifty sick men on the ship and how he subsequently made a sign to me from a distance, touching his gums with hopeful laughter.

  I shall not go into detail regarding the insulting words that I exchanged in the chart room, where I had gone to return a map borrowed by my cousin, with a certain Alvarez de Lima, a fat man who occupied the position of Second Lieutenant aboard the Santa-Fé. I shall merely report what h
appened the following day between him and me, because of what happened to my soul on that occasion. And it is only what happens to the soul, even in fleeting fashion, that is of any importance.

  Once the insulting words had been exchanged, it was agreed that we would measure ourselves with épées as soon as an opportunity arose. It arose the following day.

  The Santa-Fé sometimes dropped anchor close to land when there was an opportunity to renew our supplies of water. The launch was then put to sea and a crew of mariners descended on land, with a few soldiers to ensure their security. In addition to transporting the water, and if it were possible, they had to buy fruits from the natives. As that would take all day, a number of the sick obtained permission to go ashore, in order to improve their health by breathing terrestrial air.

  We were in sight of a tree extraordinary by virtue of its size and known to navigators because a small stream flowed not far away from it. The stout Alvarez had been designated as commander of the launch and the water-gatherers. I contrived to be in the party that went ashore.

  There were a few sniggering and menacing men on the shore who had long hair parted into long tresses, and bizarre small bones suspended from their ears. I was struck by the thinness of their legs. They were aware of the redoubtable character of firearms, for they pointed them out to one another with their fingers. They had no fruits or vegetables, but they made it understood by signs that some could be found inland, not far away, by following a shady path.

  Alvarez took four men with him and followed the path, while we waited on the shore.

  We waited for a long time. The sun descended in the sky. A gunshot had resounded in the distance, but we had not paid any heed to it. A signal from the Santa-Fé instructed us to return to the ship. The water had been in the launch for a long time, and we were very perplexed as to what we ought to do. We were about to send the Santa-Fé the conventional signal employed in case of an unfortunate event when, at the edge of the brushwood that rose up at the edge of the sand, we heard voices speaking Portuguese and we recognized our five companions.