Leo Africanus

by Amin Maalouf

  ‘Is it true that you are from Granada, like me, and that you are also a convert, like me?’

  I had overestimated my strength and my serenity. When she walked slowly into the little carpeted room where the cardinal had bade me sit I immediately lost all desire to question her, for fear that a word from her lips would compel me to distance myself. For me, henceforth the truth about Maddalena was Maddalena. I had one single desire, to contemplate her gestures and her colouring for ever. She was ahead of all the women of Rome in her languor. Languidness in her gait, in her speech, in her gaze as well, at once conquering and resigned to suffering. Her hair had that deep blackness which only Andalus can distil, by some alchemy of the refreshing shadow and the burnt earth. Before she became my wife, she was already my sister, her breathing was familiar to me.

  Even before she sat down, she began to tell her story, the whole of her story. The questions which I had decided not to ask she had decided to answer. Her grandfather belonged to an impoverished and forgotten branch of a great Jewish family, the Abrabanels. A humble blacksmith in the suburb of Najd, in the south of the city of my birth, he had been completely unaware of the danger which was threatening his family, until the very moment when the edict of expulsion had been promulgated. Emigrating to Tetouan with his six children, he had lived on the edge of destitution, with no other joy in life but to see his sons gain some knowledge and his daughters become more beautiful. One of them was to be the mother of the conversa.

  ‘My parents had decided to go and set themselves up in Ferrara,’ she explained to me, ‘where some cousins had prospered. But the plague broke out on the vessel on which we had embarked, decimating crew and passengers. Landing at Pisa, I found myself alone. My mother, my father and my young brother had perished. I was eight years old. An old nun took me in. She took me with her to a convent of which she was abbess, and hastened to have me baptized, giving me the name of Maddalena; my parents had called me Judith. In spite of the sadness of having lost those most dear to me I was careful not to curse fate, since I ate my fill, learned to read and was never whipped without due cause. Until the day that my benefactress died. Her replacement was the natural daughter of a grandee of Spain, shut up there to expiate the sins of her family, who considered that this fine convent was nothing but purgatory for herself and the others. However, she reigned supreme, distributing favours and punishments. For me she reserved the worst of her heart. For seven years I had been an increasingly fervent Christian. To her, however, I was just a convert, a conversa of impure blood, whose very presence would bring down the worst curses upon the convent. And, under the hail of humiliations which rained down unjustly upon me, I felt myself returning to the faith into which I was born. The pork which I ate began to give me nausea, and my nights were tormented by it. I began to think up plans for escape. But my only attempt failed miserably. I never ran very fast, particularly in a nun’s habit. The gardener caught me and brought me back to the convent twisting my arm as if I were a chicken thief. And then I was thrown into a dungeon and whipped until the blood came.’

  Some traces of this remained, but they did not detract at all from her beauty or the sweet perfection of her body.

  ‘When I was let out, at the end of two weeks, I had decided to change my attitude. I made a show of profound remorse, and showed myself devoted, obedient and oblivious to humiliation. I was waiting for my time to come. It came with the visit of Cardinal Julius. The mother superior was obliged to receive him with ceremony, although she would have sent him to the stake if she had had it in her power. She sometimes made us pray for the repentance of the princes of the Church, and was unsparing of her criticisms of the “dissolute life of the Medici”, not in public, but in front of certain nuns in her entourage who were not slow to mention it. It was probably the vices of which he was accused that made me have faith in this cardinal.’

  I agreed:

  ‘Virtue becomes unhealthy if it is not softened by some misdemeanours, and faith quickly becomes cruel if it is not subdued by certain doubts.’

  Maddalena touched my shoulder lightly as a sign of trust before continuing her story:

  ‘When the prelate arrived, we all lined up to kiss his hand. I waited my turn impatiently. My plan was ready. The fingers of the cardinal, adorned with two rings, were held out in a princely fashion. I took them, shook them a little harder than necessary, and held them two seconds too long. That was enough to attract his attention. I held up my head, so that he could look at my face. “I need to confess myself to you,” I said to him in a loud voice, so that the request would be official, heard by all the cardinal’s suite as well as by the mother superior. She adopted a sugary tone: “Move away my child, you are bothering His Eminence and your sisters are waiting.” There was a moment of hesitation. Would I find myself in the dungeon of revenge for ever? Was I going to be able to hold on to the hands of a saviour? I was holding my breath and my eyes were imploring. Then the sentence came: “Wait for me here! I am going to confess you.” My tears flowed, betraying my happiness. But, when I knelt in the confessional, my voice was strong once more to pronounce without a mistake the words which I had repeated a hundred times. The cardinal listened silently to my long cry of despair, just nodding his head to encourage me to continue. “My daughter,” he said to me when I had finished, “I do not believe that convent life is made for you.” I was free.’

  Thinking about it, her tears ran anew. I put my hand upon hers, pressed it affectionately and withdrew it when she resumed the thread of her story.

  ‘The cardinal brought me to Rome with him. That was a month ago. The abbess did not want to let me leave, but my protector would not pay any heed to her objections. To take her revenge, she got up a whole cabal against him, interceded with the Spanish cardinals, who, in their turn, went to the Pope. The most dreadful accusations were made, against His Eminence and myself . . .’

  She stopped speaking, because I leaped up with one bound. I did not want to hear any word of these calumnies, even from the exquisite mouth of Maddalena. Was it truth or untruth that I was fleeing in this way? I do not know. The only thing that mattered now was the love that had just been born in my heart and in that of the conversa. When she rose to say farewell to me there was an uneasiness in her eyes. My hurried departure had somewhat alarmed her. She had to overcome Jier timidity to say to me:

  ‘Shall we see each other again sometimes?’

  ‘Until the end of my life.’

  My lips brushed against hers. Her eyes were alarmed once more, but with happiness and the giddiness of hope.

  The Year of Adrian

  928 A.H.

  1 December 1521 – 19 November 1522

  Pope Leo died of an ulcer on the very first day of that year, and I believed for a while that it was already time for me to leave Rome, which became suddenly inhospitable without this attentive godfather, this generous protector, may the Heavens pour countless riches upon him, in the image of that which he always did himself!

  I was not alone in thinking of leaving. Cardinal Julius exiled himself to Florence; Guicciardini took refuge in Modena, and all around me hundreds of writers, painters, sculptors and merchants, the most famous among them, prepared to desert the city as if it had been struck by the plague. In fact there was a brief epidemic, but the real plague was of another kind. Its name was declaimed out loud from the Borgo to Piazza Navona with the invariable epithet: Adrian the Barbarian.

  The cardinals had elected him as if to repent. Too many accusations had been levelled against the papacy during the last pontificate, the Germans were supporting Luther’s theses by whole provinces, and Leo X was held responsible. Thus it was desired to change the face of the Church; the Florentine, the Medici who had become Pope at the age of thirty-eight and who had brought his taste for luxury and beauty to Rome, was succeeded by an austere Dutchman of sixty-three, ‘a saintly and virtuous man, boring, bald and miserly’. The description was Maddalena’s, who never had at any time the slightest
sympathy for the new head of Christianity.

  ‘He reminds me too much of the abbess who persecuted me. He has the same narrow vision, the same desire to make a perpetual fast out of life, his own and the lives of others.’

  At the beginning my own opinion had been less clear-cut. Although I had always been loyal towards my benefactor, certain aspects of Roman life wounded my inner faith. That a Pope should have declared, as Adrian had done, ‘I have a taste for poverty!’ was not displeasing to me, and the story which so amused the courtiers after the first week of his reign did not make me roar with laughter. Entering the Sistine Chapel, the new pontiff actually cried out at the sight of Michelangelo’s ceiling: This is not a church, but a steamroom crammed with naked bodies!’ adding that he had decided to cover these blasphemous figures with whitewash. By God, I could have let out the same cry. Mixing frequently with the Romans had removed certain of my prejudices against painting, the nude, and sculpture. But not in places of worship. Such were my feelings at the accession of Adrian VI. It is true that I was not yet aware that this former tutor of Charles V had been inquisitor of Aragon and Navarre before his arrival in Rome. In a few weeks he made a complete Medici out of me, if not by the nobility of my origins at least by the nobility of my aspirations.

  This Pope began by abolishing all the pensions initiated by Leo X, including my own. He also cancelled all orders for pictures, sculptures, books, and building construction. In every sermon he fulminated against art, that of the Ancients as well as that of contemporaries, against feasting, pleasure and expenditure. From one day to the next, Rome became nothing but a dead city, where nothing was created, built, or sold. In justification of his decision, the new Pope pointed to the debts accumulated by his predecessor, judging that the money had been wasted. ‘With the sums squandered on the reconstruction of St Peter,’ members of Adrian’s circle used to say, ‘a crusade could have been armed against the Turks; a whole regiment of cavalry could have been equipped with the money given to Raphael.’

  Since my arrival in Rome I had often heard talk of the crusades, even from the mouth of Leo X. But this was evidently some sort of ritual which had no real meaning, rather like the way in which certain Muslim princes talk about jihad to embarrass an adversary or to calm down some false bigot. It was quite otherwise with Adrian, may God curse him and all religious fanatics! He firmly believed that by mobilizing Christianity against Islam he would put an end to the Lutheran schism and would reconcile the Emperor Charles with the King of France.

  The suppression of my pension and a call for universal bloodletting: there was certainly enough there to rid me of any desire to acclaim this Pope. And to prompt me to leave Rome as quickly as possible for Florence, whither Cardinal Julius had encouraged me to follow him.

  I would probably have joined him had Maddalena not been pregnant. I had rented a three-storeyed house in the Pontine quarter. On the top floor there was a kitchen, on the second floor a living room with my desk, and on the ground floor a large bedroom which gave out on to a kitchen garden. It was in that room that my first son was born one July evening, whom I called Guiseppe, that is to say Yusuf, like the father of the Messiah, like the son of Jacob, like Sultan Salah al-Din. My wonderment was boundless. I stayed for hours caressing the child and his mother, watching them in their daily activities, particularly suckling, which never ceased to move me. So I had no desire to drag them on to the painful roads of exile. Neither towards Florence nor even towards Tunis, as was suggested to me that year, in curious circumstances.

  One day I was in Cardinal Julius’ house, shortly before his departure for Tuscany, when a young painter introduced himself to him. He was called Manolo, I think, and came from Naples, where he had acquired a certain reputation. He hoped to sell his paintings before going back to his city. It was not unusual for an artist to come from afar to see the Medici, as everyone who knocked at his door could be sure that they would not leave empty-handed. This Neapolitan unrolled several canvases, of uneven quality, it seemed to me. I looked at them absent-mindedly, when all of a sudden I jumped. A portrait was just passing in front of me, quickly put away by Manolo with a gesture of irritation.

  ‘May I see that picture again?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly, but it is not for sale. I brought it by mistake. It was ordered by a merchant and I must deliver it to him.’

  Those curved lines, that matt complexion, that beard, that smile of eternal satisfaction . . . There could be no mistake! I still had to ask:

  ‘What is the name of this man?’

  ‘Master Abbado. He is one of the richest shipowners in Naples.’

  ‘Abbad the Soussi! I murmured a good-humoured curse.

  ‘Will you see him soon?’

  ‘He is often on his travels between May and September, but he spends the winter in his villa beside Santa Lucia.’

  Taking a sheet of paper, I hastily scribbled a message for my companion. And, two months later, ‘Abbad arrived at my house in a carriage, accompanied by three servants. Had he been my own brother I would not have been happier to embrace him!

  ‘I left you in chains at the bottom of a ship’s hold; I meet up with you again and you are prosperous and resplendent.’

  ‘Al-hamdu l’illah! al-hamdu l’illah! God has been generous towards me!’

  ‘Not more so than you deserve! I can testify that even at the worst moments you never said a word against Providence.’

  I was sincere. Nevertheless I could not keep my curiosity completely intact.

  ‘How did you manage to extricate yourself so quickly?’

  ‘Thanks to my mother, may God bless the earth that covers her! She always used to repeat this sentence to me which I eventually knew by heart: a man is never without resources as long as he has a tongue in his head. It is true that I was sold as a slave, my hands in chains and a ball and chain at my feet, but my tongue was not chained up. A merchant bought me, whom I served loyally, giving him all sorts of advice, enabling him to profit from my experience of the Mediterranean. In that way he made so much money that he set me free at the end of the first year and made me a partner in his business.’

  When I seemed astonished that things had been so easy, he shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘When a man has become rich in one country, he can easily become so once more elsewhere. Today our business is one of the most flourishing in Naples. Al-hamdu l’illah! We have an agent in every port and about ten branches which I visit regularly.’

  ‘Would you happen to make a detour to Tunis?’

  ‘I am going there in the summer. I shall go and visit your family. Should I tell them that you are happy here?’

  I had to acknowledge that without having made a fortune I had not had to undergo the rigours of captivity. And that Rome had made me taste of two real kinds of happiness: that of an ancient city that was being reborn, drunk with beauty, and that of a son who was sleeping on the knees of the woman I loved.

  My friend seemed satisfied. But he added:

  ‘If, one day, this town ceases to bring you pleasure, you must know that my house is open for you, you and your family, and that my vessels will carry you as far as you wish.’

  I denied that I wanted to leave Rome, promising ‘Abbad to welcome him on his return from Tunis and to give him a sumptuous feast.

  I did not want to complain in front of my friend, but things had begun to take a turn for the worse for me; Adrian had decided to mount a campaign against the wearing of beards. ‘They are suitable only for soldiers,’ he had decreed, ordering all clerics to shave. I was not directly affected, but because of my assiduous visits to the Vatican palace, my persistence in keeping this decoration seemed like an insolent reminder of my Moorish origins, like a challenge to the Pope, probably even a sign of impiety. Among the Italians whom I met, beards were not common, and were more a sign of eccentricity reserved for artists, an eccentricity that was elegant for some and a sign of exuberance for others. Some were attached to them, while others were r
eady to get rid of them rather than to be forbidden the court. For me the matter could not but take on a different significance. In my country the beard is standard. Not to have one is tolerated, especially for a foreigner. To shave it off after one has had a beard for many long years is a sign of abasement and humiliation. I had no intention of undergoing such an affront.

  Would anyone believe me if I were to say that I was ready to die for my beard that year? And not only for my beard, because all the battles were confused in my mind, as in the Pope’s: the beard of the clergy, the naked breasts on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the statue of Moses, with thunderous gaze and quivering lips.

  Without having sought it, I became a pivot and symbol of obstinate resistance to Adrian. Seeing me pass by, proudly fingering the bushy hair on my neck, the most clean-shaven of Romans would murmur their admiration. All the pamphlets written against the Pope would first come into my hands before being slid under the doors of the notables of the city. Some texts were no more than a web of insults: ‘Barbarian, miser, pig’ and worse. Others spoke of the pride of the Romans. ‘Never more shall a non-Italian come to sit upon the throne of Peter!’ I stopped all my teaching, all my studies, devoting my time to the struggle. It is true that I was handsomely rewarded. Cardinal Julius sent me substantial sums of money as well as encouraging letters. He promised to show me the full extent of his gratitude when the situation changed for the better.

  I awaited that moment with impatience, for my situation at Rome was becoming precarious. A friend of mine who was a priest, author of an inflammatory pamphlet, had been shut up in Castel San Angelo two hours after having visited me. Another had been attacked by some Spanish monks. I felt myself constantly spied upon. I no longer left my house, except to make a few swift purchases in the quarter. Every night I had the impression that I would sleep at Maddalena’s side for the last time. And I held her even more closely.