by Umberto Eco
To console Frederick, Baudolino told of the success of their mission, how they had captured that faithless monk and soon they would have a map that would lead them to the land of the Priest, and how the Grasal was not a fable and one of these days Baudolino would place it in his hands. Frederick nodded. "The Grasal, ah, the Grasal," he murmured, his eyes lost in some unknown place, "to be sure, with that I could..." Then he would be distracted by some important message, sigh again, and with effort prepare to fulfill his duty.
Every now and then he would take Baudolino aside and tell him how much he missed Beatrice. To console him, Baudolino would tell how much he missed Colandrina. "Eh, I know," Frederick would say. "You, who loved Colandrina, understand how much I loved Beatrice. But perhaps you don't realize how truly lovable Beatrice was." And, for Baudolino, the wound of his old remorse was reopened.
In the summer the emperor returned to Germany, but Baudolino could not follow him. Word came that his mother had died. He rushed to Alessandria, and along the way he kept thinking of that woman who had borne him, and to whom he had never shown any genuine tenderness, except on that Christmas evening so many years before, while the ewe was giving birth. (Damn! he said to himself, already more than fifteen winters have passed—my God, maybe even eighteen.) He arrived after his mother had been buried, and found that Gagliaudo had abandoned the city and gone back to his old house in the marsh.
He was lying down, with a wooden bowl full of wine at his side, lazily waving his hand to chase the flies from his face. "Baudolino," he said at once, "ten times every day I would be angry with that poor woman, begging heaven to strike her with lightning. And now that heaven has struck her I don't know what to do any more. In this house I can't find anything: she always put things in order. I can't even find the pitchfork for the muck, and in the stable the stock have more dung than hay. And so, what with one thing and another, I've decided to die, too. Maybe that's best."
The son's protests were of no avail. "Baudolino, you know that in our parts we have hard heads and when we get something into our head there's no way to make us change our mind. I'm not a good-for-nothing like you, here one day and there the next—a fine life you gentlemen have! People who think only about how to kill others, yet one day, if you tell them they have to die, they shit their pants. But I've lived well and never harmed a fly, beside a woman who was a saint, and now that I've decided to die, I'll die. Let me go off like I say, and I'll be satisfied, because the more I stay here the worse it gets."
Every now and then he drank a little wine, and fell asleep, then reopened his eyes and asked: "Am I dead?" "No, Father," Baudolino answered him, "luckily you're still alive." "Oh, poor me," he said, "another day. But I'll die tomorrow, don't worry." He wouldn't touch food on any account.
Baudolino stroked the old man's brow and brushed away the flies, and then, not knowing how to console his dying father but wishing to show him that his son wasn't the fool he had always thought, Baudolino told him about the holy quest he had been preparing for so long, and how he wanted to reach the kingdom of Prester John. "If you only knew..." he said, "I will go and discover marvelous places. In one of them there is a bird like nothing anyone's ever seen, the Phoenix, it lives and flies for five hundred years. When five hundred years have gone by, the priests prepare an altar, sprinkling spices and sulphur on it. Then the bird arrives and catches fire and turns to ashes. The next day among the ashes a worm appears, the second day a full-grown bird, and the third day this bird flies off. It is no bigger than an eagle, on its head it has a feathery crest like a peacock's, the neck is a golden color, the beak is indigo blue, and the wings purple, the tail striped with yellow, green, and red. So the Phoenix never dies."
"That's all bullshit," Gagliaudo said. "For me, it would be enough just to bring Rosina back to life, poor animal; you killed her stuffing her with all that spoiled wheat. To Hell with your Feliks."
"When I come back, I'll bring you some manna; it's found on the mountains in the country of Job. It's white and very sweet. It comes from the dew that falls from heaven on the grass, where it clots. It cleanses the blood, drives away melancholy."
"Cleanse my balls. That's stuff good for your court scum, who eat snipe and pastry."
"Don't you want a piece of bread, at least?"
"I don't have time. I have to die tomorrow morning."
The next morning Baudolino told him how he would give the emperor the Grasal, the cup from which Our Lord had drunk.
"Oh, yes? What's it like?"
"It's all gold, studded with lapis lazuli."
"You see what a fool you are? Our Lord was a carpenter's son and he lived with people who were even hungrier than he was. All his life he wore the same clothes; the priest in church told us they didn't have seams so as not to wear out before he was thirty-three, and you come here to tell me he was roistering with a cup made of gold and lapissyouylee. Fine tales you tell. He was lucky if he had a bowl like this, that his father had carved out of a root, the way I did, something that lasts a lifetime and you can't break it, not even with a hammer. And now that I think of it: give me some more of this blood of Jesus Christ; it's the only thing that helps me die well."
By the devil! Baudolino said to himself. This old man is right. The Grasal should be a cup like this one. Simple, poor as the Lord himself was. And for this reason perhaps it is there, within everyone's grasp, and no one has ever recognized it because they have been searching all their lives for something gleaming.
But it's not that Baudolino, at that moment, was giving so much thought to the Grasal. He didn't want to see his father die, but he realized that, in allowing him to die, he was doing the old man's will. After a few days, old Gagliaudo was as wrinkled as a dried chestnut, and breathing with difficulty, now rejecting even wine.
"Father," Baudolino said to him, "if you really want to die, make your peace with the Lord and you will enter Paradise, which is like the palace of Prester John. The Lord God will be seated on a great throne at the top of a tower, and above the back of the throne there will be two golden apples, and in each of them two great carbuncles that shine all night long. The arms of the throne will be of emerald. The seven steps to the throne will be of onyx, crystal, jasper, amethyst, sardonyx, cornelian, and chrysolite. Columns of fine gold will be all around. And above the throne, flying angels will sing sweet songs...."
"And there will be some devils who will kick my behind out of there, because in a place like that a man stinking of cowshit is someone they don't want around them. Just shut up..."
Then, all of a sudden, he opened his eyes wide, tried to sit erect, as Baudolino held him. "Dear Lord, now I'm dying, because I can really see Paradise. Oh, how beautiful it is...."
"What do you see, Father?" Baudolino was now sobbing.
"It's just like our stable, only all cleaned up, and Rosina is there, too.... And there's that sainted mother of yours, wicked bitch, now you'll tell me where you put the pitchfork for the muck...."
Gagliaudo belched, dropped the bowl, and remained wide-eyed, staring at the celestial stable.
Baudolino gently ran a hand over his face, because, by now what the old man had to see he saw even with his eyes closed, and then Baudolino went to tell the people in Alessandria what had happened. The citizens wanted the great old man to be honored with solemn funeral ceremonies, because he was the man who had saved the city, and they decided they would place his statue over the portal of the cathedral.
Baudolino went back once more to his parents' house, to look for some memento, since he had decided never to return. On the ground he saw his father's bowl, and picked it up as a precious relic. He washed it carefully, so that it wouldn't stink of wine, because, he told himself, if one day it were said that this was the Grasal, after all the time that had gone by since the Last Supper, it should no longer smell of anything, if not perhaps of those aromas that, thinking this was the True Cup, all would surely perceive. He wrapped the bowl in his cloak and carried it off.
23. Baudolino on the Third Crusade
When darkness fell over Constantinople they set off. It was a sizeable party, but in those days various bands of citizenry moved like lost souls from one end of the city to another, to look for a porch where they could spend the night. Baudolino had taken off his crusader garb, because, if someone were to stop him and ask him the name of his lord, he would have difficulty replying. At their head went Pevere, Boiamondo, Grillo, and Taraburlo, with the air of four men accidentally taking the same path. But they looked around at every corner, clutching their just-sharpened knives under their clothing.
Shortly before they reached Saint Sophia a ruffian with blue eyes and long yellow mustache rushed towards the group, grabbed the hand of one of the girls, no matter how ugly and pocked she appeared, and tried to drag her off. Baudolino told himself the moment had come to give battle, and the Genoese were with him, but Niketas had a better idea. He saw a group of horsemen coming down the street and he flung himself on his knees before them, asking justice and mercy, appealing to their honor. They were probably the Doge's men, and they set to striking the barbarian with the flat of their swords, driving him off and restoring the girl to her family.
Beyond the Hippodrome the Genoese chose safer streets: narrow alleys, where the houses were all burned or bore obvious signs of scrupulous looting. The pilgrims, if they were still looking for something to steal, had gone elsewhere. Towards night they passed the walls of Theodosius. There the rest of the Genoese were waiting with the mules. They bade farewell to their protectors, with many embraces and good wishes, and went off along a country road, under a springtime sun, with the moon almost full on the horizon. A light wind was blowing off the sea. They had all rested during the day, and the journey did not seem to tire even the wife of Niketas. But he was extremely tired, gasping at every jolt of his steed, and every half hour he had to ask the others to let him rest for a while.
"You ate too much, Master Niketas," Baudolino said to him.
"Would you deny an exile the final delicacies of his homeland as it is dying?" Niketas replied. Then he looked for a boulder or a fallen tree trunk on which to sit: "But it's my eagerness to learn the rest of your adventure. Sit here, Baudolino, feel this peace, smell the good odors of the countryside. Let us rest a little, and go on with your story."
As later, in the three days following, they traveled by day and rested at night beneath the open sky, to avoid places inhabited by God knows whom. It was under the stars, in a silence broken only by the rustle of boughs and by sudden sounds of nocturnal animals, that Baudolino continued his account.
At that time—and we're in the year 1187—Saladin unleashed the last attack on Christian Jerusalem. He won. He behaved generously, allowing all those who could pay a tax to leave the city, unharmed, and he confined himself to beheading before the walls all the Knights Templar because, as all admitted, he was generous, yes, but no general worthy of the name could have spared the chosen troop of the invader enemy, and even the Templars knew that, in following their trade, they were accepting the rule that no prisoners were taken. But for all Saladin's demonstrated magnanimity, the whole Christian world was shaken by the end of that Frankish rule overseas that had resisted for almost a hundred years. The pope appealed to all the monarchs of Europe for a third expedition of crusaders again to liberate Jerusalem, now reconquered by the infidel.
For Baudolino, his emperor's participation in that enterprise was the occasion he had been awaiting. To descend on Palestine meant preparing to move to the East with an invincible army. Jerusalem would be retaken in a flash, and afterwards nothing would remain but to continue towards the Indias. However, it was on this occasion that he discovered how weary and uncertain Frederick felt. He had pacified Italy, but surely he feared that, leaving it, he would lose the advantages he had gained. Or perhaps he was troubled by the idea of a new expedition towards Palestine, remembering his crime during the previous expedition, when, driven by rage, he had destroyed that Bulgarian monastery. Who knows? He hesitated. He asked himself if it was his duty, and when you start asking this question (Baudolino said to himself) it's already a sign that there is no duty that is drawing you on.
"I was forty-five years old, Master Niketas, and I was risking the dream of my life, or my life itself, since my life had been built around that dream. And so, coldly, I decided to give my adoptive father a hope, a sign from heaven of his mission. After the fall of Jerusalem, the survivors of that ruin arrived in our Christian lands, and through the imperial court had passed seven knights of the Temple who, God knows how, had escaped the vengeance of Saladin. They were in bad shape, but perhaps you don't know what the Templars are like: drinkers and fornicators, and they'll sell you their sister if you give them yours to grope—or, better still, it is said, your little brother. In short, let's say I gave them refreshment, and everyone saw me going around the taverns with them. Hence it wasn't hard for me one day to tell Frederick those shameless simoniacs had stolen in Jerusalem the Grasal itself. I said that, since the Templars were broke, I gave them all the money I had, and I bought it. Frederick naturally was dumbfounded at first. But wasn't the Grasal in the hands of Prester John, who wanted to give it to him? And weren't we planning to go look for John precisely to receive that most holy relic as a gift? So it was, my Father, I said to him, but obviously some treacherous minister robbed it from John, and sold it to some band of Templars, who had come raiding those parts, not realizing where they were. It wasn't important to know the how and the when. We were now proposing to the holy and Roman emperor another and more extraordinary opportunity: he could seek out Prester John with the aim of returning the Grasal to him. Not using that incomparable relic to gain power, but to fulfill a duty, which would win him the gratitude of the Priest and eternal fame throughout all Christendom. Between seizing the Grasal and returning it, between hoarding it and returning it to where it had been stolen, between possessing it (as all dreamed) and performing the supreme sacrifice of depriving himself of it—it was obvious on which side the true blessing lay, the glory of being the one and true rex et sacerdos. Frederick would become the new Joseph of Arimathea.
"You were lying to your father."
"I was acting for his good, and the good of the empire."
"You didn't ask yourself what would happen if Frederick really reached the Priest, handed him the Grasal, and the Priest widened his eyes, wondering what this bowl was that he had never seen before? Frederick would have become not the glory but the laughingstock of Christendom."
"Master Niketas, you know men better than I. Imagine: you are Prester John, a great emperor of the West kneels at your feet, and hands you such a relic, saying it is rightfully yours, and you start snickering and saying you've never seen that tavern bowl before? Come now! I'm not saying the Priest would have pretended to recognize it. I'm saying that, dazzled by the glory that would fall on him, its acknowledged custodian, he would have recognized it at once, believing he had always possessed it. And so I took to Frederick, as a most precious object, the bowl of my father Gagliaudo, and I swear to you that at that moment I felt like the celebrant of a sacred rite. I handed over the gift and the memory of my carnal father to my spiritual father, and my carnal father was right: that most humble thing, with which he had communicated all his life as a sinner, was truly, spiritually the cup used by poor Christ, who was heading for death, for the redemption of all sinners. In saying the Mass, doesn't the priest take the most common bread and the most common wine and make them become the body and blood of Our Lord?"
"But you weren't a priest."
"And, in fact, I didn't say that the object was the blood of Christ, I said only that it had contained that blood. I wasn't usurping any sacramental power. I was bearing witness."
"False witness."
"No. You told me that, believing a relic true, you catch its scent. We believe that we, only we, need God, but often God needs us. At that moment I believed it was necessary to help him. That cup must truly ha
ve existed, if Our Lord had used it. If it had been lost, it had been through the fault of some worthless man. I was restoring the Grasal to Christianity. God would not have contradicted me. The proof is that even my companions believed in it immediately. The sacred vessel was there, before their eyes, now in the hands of Frederick, who raised it to heaven as if he were in ecstasy, and Boron knelt, seeing for the first time the object over which he had long raved, Kyot said at once that he seemed to see a great light, Rabbi Solomon admitted that—even if Christ were not the true Messiah awaited by his people—surely this receptacle emanated a fragrance, as of incense, Zosimos widened his visionary eyes and blessed himself backwards several times, as you schismatics do, Abdul was trembling in every limb and murmured that possessing the sacred relic was equivalent to having conquered all the kingdoms beyond the sea—and it was clear that he would have liked to donate it as a token of love to his faraway princess. I had tears in my eyes, and was asking myself why heaven had chosen me as mediator of that portentous event. As for the Poet, frowning, he chewed his nails. I knew what he was thinking: that I had been a fool, that Frederick was old and would never be able to derive advantage from that treasure, and we might as well have kept it for ourselves, and if we had set off towards the lands of the north, they would have bestowed a kingdom on us. Confronted by the obvious weakness of the emperor, he was returning to his fantasies of power. But I was almost consoled because I understood that, reacting like this, he also considered the Grasal a genuine object."
Frederick devoutly enclosed the cup in a coffer, hanging the key around his neck, and Baudolino thought that he himself had acted well, because at that instant he had the impression that not only the Poet but all his other friends would have been ready to steal that object, to rush towards their own personal dreams.