The Angel of Lust

by Maurice Magre

  For as long as he could see it, Aboulfedia followed with his eyes the gray patch that rabbi Anan den Joshua made on the quay. He was very small, very stooped, increasingly stooped. The man in whom an enormous dream lived was walking hesitantly. He stumbled; he could do no more. He had lost his black bonnet. He retraced his steps to take the sweating horses by the bridle, and he looked like a beggar who had just stolen them.

  XVII. The Insensate Galley

  Under the vault of the forecastle, behind the place reserved for the maneuvering of swivel-guns, two moderately large cabins had been accommodated. One was to shelter the dancing-girls that they were going to find in Constantinople. In the other, the passengers who had obtained from the Emir the exceptional favor of reaching the Orient under the protection of his arms took their place.

  Those passengers were few in number. Apart from three jewel-merchants from Granada, there was only the scholar Al Birouni and Tawaz, celebrated for his immense fortune, his love of the arts and the refinements of his life.

  Al Birouni was taking with him the glass bell of which he was the inventor. He was no longer attracted by anything but the mystery of submarine things. There, he believed, lived a marvelous world whose fauna had close links with humankind. He claimed that there were fish under the sea with arms and hands, monsters with human faces, and that the world in question was illuminated by a light that became brighter the further one descended. But those luminous depths could only be attained in the distant oceans that bathed India and China. He intended to reach Alexandria, because the Sultan of Egypt was interested in his endeavors and had promised to enable him to reach India aboard one of his caravels. There he would attempt his experiment with the glass bell.

  As for Tawaz, he had divided his fortune between his two sons and said adieu to them. He was going to Nichapour in Persia. His sole dream was to sit in the shade of the peach tree that let its petals fall on the tomb of Omar Khayyam in the cemetery of Hira. He would live henceforth in the small community of Sufis rallied, like Khayyam, to the Ismailite doctrine, and who came to seek ecstasy beneath the peach tree that covered him.

  Next to Al Birouni and Tawaz, Aboulfedia had taken his place, with his coffer.

  In the rear castle were the cabin of the Emir of the Sea, that of the galley’s reis, and the one where the officers, the treasurer, the mullah, the pilots and the pages slept.

  Below the deck the hundred and fifty pikemen were accumulated, along with the crates containing the violet jackets trimmed with gold, the damascened breastplates, the cashmere belts, the crimson brocade bonnets and the scimitars with golden hilts destined to dazzle the inhabitants of Constantinople when Emir Daoud made his way solemnly to the Sultan’s palace.

  From that part of the ship, all day long, rose an obsessive buzz of conversations and cries, which increased in the evening when the bakals made the distribution of salted meat and bread. The buzz was gradually extinguished at the hour when the stars shone through the triangular sails, caused the racks of weapons, the log-barreled culverins and the swivel-guns to sparkle. Only then did the passengers perceive, low stifled and powerful, an obscure sigh, an enormous respiration. That was the groan of the convicts who, chained in tens, their heads shaved and their muscles taut, exhaled a terrible odor of sweat, laboring without respite under the blows of overseers and panting, as if they were the galley’s lungs and as if they were impelling it with their breath.

  But there was another noise, more disquieting, in the galley at night. That was the footfalls of the Emir of the Sea, who was pacing back and forth on the exterior gallery or following the length of the course from the poop or the prow. In an immaculate triple turban and his long gandourah of white silk, fringed with silver, he gave the impression of a human swan, ready to take flight.

  The reis at the foot of the main mast, the mariners on watch sitting on the deck and the passengers, through the partly open door, watched the distant silhouette standing on the rampart, where he was immobilized in a reverie that no longer ended. That was because, since the early hours of the navigation, it was no longer a secret from anyone that Emir Daoud no longer enjoyed all his reason.

  That had commenced, it was said, at the moment of the death of Princess Khadidja. However, the Emir had loved so many women in his life, in Granada and all the other lands to which his destiny had led him: Juana de Montana, the beautiful Spanish captive for whom he had refused royal ransoms; Djemilé, the poetess of Fez who had languished for love of him and had died of no longer seeing him; The Albanian Validé and the Venetian Lucrèce had been his mistresses. Emir Daoud loved ardently and forgot quickly. The desire he had for one was rapidly replaced by the desire he had for another, No one understood how an amorous chagrin had been able to render mad a man who ought to know as well as anyone of what smoke the passions are woven.

  The reis scarcely slept. It was him, in fact, who commanded the maneuvering of the Banner of the Prophet, but the supreme command belonged to the Emir. The latter had taken the reis by the arm as they were coming out of the port of Almeria and had confided to him with a smile that he intended to drop anchor in the town of Liampo, which was on the coast of China, in order to salute the wife of the Portuguese governor there. Since then, the reis had feared some singular determination.

  And what would happen in Constantinople? How would the meeting between the Emir and the Sultan go? Was he not going to try to obtain ships and soldiers for Granada? Was the outcome of the war not dependent, in part, on his skill?

  The winds were favorable, and the vessels of the Knights of Rhodes and those of the Republic of Venice were avoided. Through sunlit days and peaceful nights, the Banner of the Prophet traversed the Mediterranean, laden with hopes and treasures, with its white swan at the prow, outlined against the azure.

  Several years later, Sultan Bazajet had the story told to him again of the interview that his grand vizier Daud-Pacha had had in his absence with the ambassador of the King of Granada, the celebrated mariner Daoud.

  He wanted the names of the women that the latter had pronounced to be repeated, and a description given of the astonishment of the entire Diwan when it became evident that the Emir in the white turban had only, in sum, come to Constantinople with a magnificent escort to affirm that a certain Princess Khadidja had eyes the color of the purest emeralds.

  He also wanted to be certain that Emir Daoud had shed tears when the six dancing-girls that he was to take to Granada for his master were introduced to him.

  “All those that I have loved,” he had said.

  Sultan Bazajet was an austere man. He had proscribed music and dancing in his palace. He recommended chastity to his ministers and his generals, and every time the conversation turned to that subject, he raised his finger and said: “Remember Emir Daoud and the fate of Granada.”

  Alongside the glass bell and the coffer with the bronze nails, Aboulfedia and Al Birouni were now alone in the cabin of the forecastle.

  The Banner of the Prophet was to call in at Acre, and it was there that they both intended to disembark, in order to follow their different destinies.

  The minarets of Constantinople had not yet disappeared over the horizon when, close by, behind the partition of planks that separated them from the next cabin, the music of lutes had resounded. The six pupils of Professor Chosrai were singing laments for their homeland, which they were quitting forever. In very soft voices they were singing Persian poems in which there was question of beloveds as slender as the stems of palm trees, young women with faces as oval as mirrors, borne by necks of silver, and amours perfumed like roses of Ispahan and as profound as the well of Mossoul, which did not reflect the images of those who leaned over it.

  The lutes of the six young women had, in addition to the four strings that correspond to the four human temperaments, the fifth string added by the musician Ziryah, which is the one that corresponds to the soul linked by blood. At the heart-rending sound of that fifth string, Emir Daoud recognized that he was taking gr
eat artistes with him, and he came to sit down with them.

  He did not speak to them. He turned toward them a visage illuminated by ecstasy, and when one or other of them stopped playing, he contented himself with calling her by a name in a low voice. But that name was not their real name, which he did not know. At first, believing him to be in error, they tried to correct him.

  “I’m Ghazlan...”

  “I’m Honeidah...”

  “I’m Mehboubeh…,” they said.

  But the Emir shook his head and continued to say Khadidja, Juana, or Djemilé, according to whether he was thinking in the Moorish, the Spanish or Moroccan fashion. Then they ended up getting accustomed to those names and turning toward him when he pronounced them, so that he was soon able to believe himself surrounded by the women he had loved, and cradled by the music of their lutes.

  It was the evening of the third day of the month of Shaban, and the heat was overwhelming. A dense green-tinted vapor was trailing over the water, which seemed sick, as if afflicted by a putrescence rising from the depths. There was not a breath of wind. The galley was advancing by means of oars and it gave the impression of cleaving through a heavy and putrid mass. Phosphorescences palpitated in the distance and flying fish made vague luminous streaks. The oarsmen seemed ready to expire at every effort, and the human odor that exhaled from the convicts’ benches was like a palpable mist. An anguish devoid of any apparent cause, born of the immobility of the sea and the occult presence of death, gripped all souls.

  After having wandered around the deck, Al Birouni went back down the few steps that connected the exterior gallery of the deck with his cabin. He saw his traveling companion Aboulfedia leaning over the mysterious box over which he had never ceased to watch jealousy since the departure from Almeria. The lid was raised, and Aboulfedia was lost in mute contemplation.

  From the top of the steps, Al Birouni looked at the box. Since the departure he had wondered what the panting and haggard Jew might have to transport that was so precious. Now, he could see it. It was a solid gold object, but a strange gold, prodigiously ancient, which gave off a supernatural radiance. Al Birouni started slightly with surprise. The lid of the box closed again abruptly, and Aboulfedia closed the catches.

  Al Birouni came down the steps quietly, sat down cross-legged, and began to reflect.

  He had read in Flavius Josephus and other Jewish and Arabic historians the description of the Holy of Holies enclosed by Moses in the Temple of Jerusalem. He knew the Arab legends about the Talisman transported by the first Moorish conquerors and enclosed in the Alhambra. He had made connections between the two sacred objects of those different races. He recalled that he had heard mention of a Jewish brotherhood whose objective was to search for the ancient Tabernacle in Spain. And the conviction came to him abruptly that the fat man with the little eyes had discovered it in Granada, had stolen it and was taking it to the land that had been the cradle of the Jews.

  Al Birouni knew that an initiate like Moses could enclose an active magnetic force in metal for centuries. On that force the Arabs had been able to draw since the early days. If it were stolen from them at a critical moment, what would happen? The Talisman that had reposed in the Alhambra ought to remain there. He would not permit a Jew to carry it away.

  Al Birouni got up and prepared to climb the steps leading to the deck, but Aboulfedia, doubtless conscious of his imprudence, must have read his reflections and his determination in his eyes, for he leapt to his feet and barred his way.

  They had no need to explain themselves in words; they had understood one another. Al Birouni did not try to call for help. In the next cabin, the song of the six young lute players was resounding like a prayer, like the anguishing appeal of hearts broken by amour, and that song would have drowned out his voice.

  He tried to move Aboulfedia aside, but a murderous thought was shining in the latter’s eyes. The two men were face to face, almost stuck to one another, silent and resolute, sensing the immense destiny of their people behind them. They were about to seize one another bodily when the noise that they heard on the deck immobilized them.

  It was a muffled, fearful clamor, a long, continuous cry, the desperate appeal of men who see before them, in the most unexpected and terrifying fashion, the apparition of inevitable death.

  All the mariners who escaped the tidal wave that ravaged the coasts of Syria and Palestine on the third night of the month of Shaban, which also destroyed the fortifications of the Knights of Rhodes and brought down the great lighthouse of the port of Famagusta, were unanimous in describing it as a unique wave, an irritated mountain that preceded whirlwinds, and raced from the horizon with a demonic speed over the dismal, flat, thick desert of the putrid waters.

  The men who were on watch on the deck of the Banner of the Prophet, in the green-tinted light of the hallucinatory equatorial light, only had the time to contemplate from an extreme height, on the summit of an extravagant liquid wall, a mobile vegetation of foam. They sensed that the capsized galley climbed that summit with a velocity that ten thousand oarsmen could not have given it, and they heard a submarine roar coming from the abyss, as if there had been, far below the keel of the ship, a profound gorge from which that frightful sound was coming.

  That was all for them. It was given to a few others to perceive that, as the rear castle was torn away, they were hurled liked grains of sand, amid the debris of the guard-rails and the deadlights, into the moving depths. The reis was carried away with the main-mast, on to which he was hanging. The man in the crow’s nest spun away in space as if he had been projected by an extraordinary sling. The cannons flew away, with their carriages, their lifting-tackle and their platforms.

  The furious, animate, multiple waters streamed over the broken deck into the crew quarters, descended in a torrent to oarsmen’s benches, sweeping away the foremen and the enchained convicts. The Banner of the Prophet was no longer anything but a crippled pontoon in which one culverin still swung like a bronze snake, and in which an invocation of Allah or a scream of agony resounded here and there.

  Then, from the forecastle, which had remained intact, Emir Daoud emerged, paler than his turban and his silk gandourah. His mind awoke from the slumber into which it had been plunged. He arrived after a long in dream in the midst of that catastrophe.

  He tried to advance along the deck by hanging on to ropes, fragments of rail and pieces of mast. He understood that the waves would carry him away, turned back, and went down to the alleyway between the oarsmen’s benches, which he traversed in its entire length, with water up to his knees. Having arrived at the poop, however, he observed that the helm was broken, that the galley could no longer be steered, and he heard the rumble of waves through the chambers of the hold. That rumble became louder and the water rose between the decks.

  He decided to go back in order to return to the fore cabin, but the route had been too long. He had the convicts to the right and left, bound to their benches by the feet, contorted by the effort they had made when the wave had stunned or drowned them. Some of those who were dead expressed a nameless misery, others a pitiful resignation, others an impotent rage. But there were some who were still alive and who remained chained to the dead. They were struggling desperately to break their chains, uttering clamors and waving the stumps of oars.

  When the white silhouette of Emir Daoud passed through their midst again, they extended their hands toward him in order to hang on to that living and free form, and the Emir, between those ranks of creatures stretching out at the end of a chain, between those avid tentacles, was obliged to roll up the broad sleeves of his gandourah in order not to be seized.

  He walked amid the stony faces of the dead and the hateful and despairing faces of the living. The latter were howling at him, but the Emir only saw the grimaces of the cries, for the voice of the ocean drowned out all sounds with its tumult, and those silent howls were more heart-rending than the plaints.

  And in the midst of those naked caryati
ds, to whom dolor and death gave poses of dementia, the Emir wondered whether he might be following the somber road that leads to Allah’s inferno.

  No, it was the terrestrial world to which he had just returned, the world where the convicts were riveted to their benches and struggling against terror while they descended into the gulf of death. Oh, to recover rapidly the music of the young Persian women, who sang the memory of amour and bore the names of the beloved!

  As he finally arrived at the door of the cabin, two men were helping one another fraternally to hoist on to the deck a black box with bronze nails.

  Aboulfedia and Al Birouni, sensing the ship sinking, had been tacitly reconciled, for each of the two knew that he could only count on the other to try to save the Treasure for which they had wanted to kill one another. Aboulfedia was pulling it and Al Birouni was pushing it. Between two cataracts of wind, between two breaths of the sea vomiting waves, there was a second of miraculous silence. In that second, breathless over the wood of the box that they were holding embraced, they perceived lute music, light and quavering, as distant as if the djinn that dance around wells on spring nights in the valleys of Kouhistan had commenced their round.

  The galley stood up straight in the midst of a sudden din, and plunged backwards. In the coffin of the cabin, Emir Daoud fell against warm breasts and feminine faces, the rediscovered forms of those he had cherished.

  And by the talismanic power contained in the eternally virgin gold of the Tabernacle, it was perhaps given to Al Birouni and Aboulfedia, who were clasping it to their bodies, to descend into the depths of the waters in the supernatural light of their realized dreams.

  Al Birouni must have contemplated by that light the strange marvels of the submarine world, the sirens of fable wandering in forest of phosphorescent madrepores, incarnadine scorpion-fish charge with spines, puffer-fish inflated like bladders and similar to obese men, cephalopods with multiple tentacles with palpitating eyes, and all the monsters bearing with horror, far from the sun, the stigmata of a fallen humankind.