Baudolino

by Umberto Eco

  They noticed some men who must have been pygmies, with very dark skin, a loincloth of straw, and, slung over one shoulder, that bow with which, as their nature required, they were at perennial war with cranes—a war that must have granted them no small number of victories, since many of them were offering passersby their prey, hung on a long stick, which it took four of them to carry, two at each end. Since the pygmies were shorter than the cranes, the hanging animals swept the ground, and for this reason they had hung them by the neck, so that it was the feet that left a long wake in the dust.

  Then came the ponces and, even if our friends had read of them, they could not stop studying curiously these creatures with erect legs and no knee joints, walking stiffly, pressing their equine hoofs on the earth. But what made them remarkable was, for the men, their phallus, which hung from the chest, and for the women, in the same position, the vagina, though it could not be seen because they covered it with a shawl knotted behind their back. Tradition demanded that they tend goats with six horns, and it was some of these animals that they were selling in the market.

  "Just as was written in the books," Boron kept murmuring in wonderment. Then, in a louder voice, so that Ardzrouni could hear him: "And in the books it was also written that the vacuum does not exist." Ardzrouni shrugged, concerned with discovering if, in some phial, a liquid was being sold that would lighten the skin.

  To temper the restlessness of all these people, now and then some very black men came by, of tall stature, naked to the waist, with Moorish trousers and white turban, armed only with enormous gnarled clubs that could have felled an ox with a single blow. Since the inhabitants of Pndapetzim were forming clusters as the foreigners passed, especially pointing out the horses, which obviously they had never seen before, the black men intervened to discipline the crowd, and they had only to swing their clubs to create immediately a vacuum around themselves.

  It had not escaped Baudolino that, when the gathering grew thicker, it was always Gavagai who gave the alarm signal to the black men. From the gestures of many bystanders it was clear that they were eager to act as guide for the illustrious guests, but Gavagai was determined to keep them for himself, and indeed he swaggered, as if to say: "These are my property; hands off!"

  As for the black men, they were, as Gavagai said, the deacon's nubian guards, whose ancestors had come from the depths of Africa, but they were no longer foreigners because, for countless generations, they had lived in the vicinity of Pndapetzim, and they were sworn to the deacon till death.

  Finally they saw—much taller than the nubians, jutting many spans above the heads of the others—the giants, who besides being giants were also one-eyed. They were disheveled, ill-dressed, and, Gavagai said, their occupation was constructing dwellings on those rocks, or else they grazed sheep and oxen, and in this they were excellent, because they could bend a bull to the ground, grasping it by the horns, and if a ram strayed from the flock, they needed no dog, but seized the ram by its fleece and put it back in the place it had left.

  "And are your people their enemies also?" Baudolino asked.

  "Here nobody enemy of nobody," Gavagai answered. "You see them all together sell and buy like good Christians. Afterwards all go home, each of them, not stay together to eat or sleep. Each thinks what he wants, even if he thinks wrong."

  "And the giants think wrong..."

  "Uuh! Worse of all! They is Artotyrites, believe Jesus at Last Supper consecrates bread and cheese, because they say that normal food of ancient patriarchs. So they make communion, blaspheming, with bread and cheese and consider heretics all who make it with burq. But here people who think wrong is almost all, except the skiapods."

  "You told me that in this city there are eunuchs? Do they also think wrong?"

  "Better I not speak of eunuchs. Too powerful. They not mix with common people. But think different from me."

  "And, apart from thinking, they are same as you, I imagine..."

  "Why? What do I have different from them?"

  "Well, you damn big-foot"—the Poet was worked up—"do you go with females?"

  "With skiapod females, yes, because they do not think wrong."

  "And with your skiapod females you put that thing inside, dammit, but where do you have it?"

  "Here, behind leg, like everybody."

  "Apart from the fact that I don't have it behind my leg, and we've just seen come characters who have it above their belly button, at least you know that eunuchs don't have that thing at all and don't go with females?"

  "Maybe because eunuchs not like females. Maybe because in Pndapetzim never seen female eunuchs. Poor eunuchs, maybe they like females but don't find eunuch females and can't go with females of blemmyae or panotians, who think wrong."

  "But you noticed that the giants have only one eye?"

  "Me, too. You see? I close this eye, and only other one left."

  "Hold me, or I'll kill him," the Poet said, his face flushed.

  "Now then," Baudolino said, "the blemmyae think wrong, the giants think wrong, all think wrong, except the skiapods. And how does this deacon of yours think?"

  "Deacon not think. He command."

  As they were talking, one of the nubians had rushed in front of Colandrino's horse, knelt down, and, extending his arms and bowing his head, muttered some words in an unknown language, but in a tone that indicated it was a heartfelt prayer.

  "What does he want?" Colandrino asked. Gavagai replied that the nubian was asking in the name of God to have his head cut off with that fine sword that Colandrino wore on his hip.

  "He wants me to kill him? Why?"

  Gavagai seemed embarrassed. "nubians strange people. You know: they Circoncellions. Good warriors because want to be marrtyrs. No war now, but they want to be martyrs right away. Nubian is like child, wants right away what he likes." He said something to the nubian, who went off, hanging his head. Asking to explain further these Circoncellians, Gavagai said that the Circoncellians were the nubians. Then he pointed out that sunset was approaching, the market was breaking up, and they had to go to the tower.

  In fact the crowd was thinning, the vendors were collecting their goods in great baskets; from the various fornices that blinked in the rock walls some ropes were descending and some of the people, according to their habitations, were raising their merchandise. It was all an industrious up and down, and in a short time the city was deserted. It seemed now an immense cemetery with countless tombs, but, one after the other, those doors or windows in the rock began to come alight, a sign that the inhabitants of Pndapetzim were kindling fires and lamps to prepare for the evening. Thanks to who knows what invisible holes, the smoke of those fires came from all the peaks and spurs, and the now-pale sky was streaked with blackish plumes that rose and dissolved among the clouds.

  They walked through what little remained of Pndapetzim, and reached an open area, beyond which the mountains left no further passage visible. Half-set into the mountain, the sole artificial construction of the entire city could be seen. It was a tower, or the anterior part of a stepped tower, vast at the base, and increasingly narrow as it rose, but not like a stack of pancakes, one smaller than the other superimposed to make many levels, because a spiral passageway proceeded without interruption from one plane to the next and apparently it also penetrated the rock, encircling the construction from base to summit. The tower was entirely punctuated by great arched doorways, one next to the other, with no free space between them except the frame that separated door from door, and the construction looked like a monster with a thousand eyes. Solomon said that this must be like the tower erected at Babel by the cruel Nembroth, to defy the Holy One, blessed always be his name.

  "And this," Gavagai said in a proud tone, "this is the palace of Deacon Johannes. Now you stand still and wait, because they know you arrive and have prepared solemn welcome. I now go."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I cannot enter tower. After you is received and seen Deacon, then I come
back to you. I your guide in Pndapetzim, I never leave you. Watch out with eunuchs; he is young man"—and he pointed to Colandrino—"they like young. Ave, evcharistò, salam." Erect on his single foot, he saluted, in a vaguely military fashion, turned, and a moment later was already far away.

  30. Baudolino meets the Deacon Johannes

  When they were about fifty paces from the tower, they saw a procession emerging from it. First a squad of nubians, but more elaborately clothed than those in the market: from the waist down they were enfolded in white cloths wound tightly around their legs, covered by a little skirt that fell halfway down the thigh; they were barechested, but wore red capes, and at the neck a leather collar in which colored stones were set, not gems but pebbles from a riverbed, arranged like a bright mosaic. On their heads they wore white hoods with many bows. On their arms, wrists, and fingers they had rings and bracelets of woven string. Those in the first row were playing pipes and drums, those in the second held their enormous clubs against their shoulders, those in the third had only bows slung around their necks.

  Then there followed a formation of what were surely the eunuchs, in ample and soft robes, made up like women and with turbans that seemed cathedrals. The one in the center carried a tray laden with cakes. Finally, escorted at either side by two nubians waving fans of peacock feathers over his head, came the man who was surely the highest dignitary of this company: his head was covered with a turban as high as two cathedrals, a plait of silken bands of different colors; from his ears hung pendants of colored stone; his arms were decked with bracelets of gaudy feathers. He also wore a garment that reached his feet, and was bound at the waist by a sash of blue silk, a span wide, and on his chest hung a cross of painted wood. He was a man of some age, and the rouge on his lips and the bister on his eyes contradicted his skin, now yellowing and flaccid, calling even more attention to a double chin that quivered at every step he took. His hands were pudgy, with long nails as sharp as blades, painted red.

  The procession stopped in front of the visitors, the nubians lined up in double file, while the eunuchs of lesser rank knelt as the one carrying the tray bowed and proffered the food. Baudolino and his men, at first uncertain how to act, dismounted and accepted pieces of cake, which they chewed dutifully, bowing. At their greeting the chief eunuch finally came forward and prostrated himself on the ground, then stood and addressed them in Greek:

  "Since the birth of Our Lord Christ Jesus we have waited for your return, and if you are surely those whom we believe you to be, it pains me to know that the twelfth among you, but like you first among all Christians, was driven from his path by inclement Nature. While I will give orders to our guards to study the horizon ceaselessly in expectation of his arrival, I wish you a happy sojourn in Pndapetzim," he said in a white voice. "I say this to you in the name of Deacon John, I, Praxeas, supreme chief of the court eunuchs, protonotary of the province, sole vicar of the deacon to the Priest, supreme custodian and logothete of the secret path." He said this as if even the Magi should be impressed by such high rank.

  "Give me a break," murmured Aleramo Scaccabarozzi known as Bonehead. "Just listen at him!"

  Baudolino had thought many times about how he would introduce himself to the Priest, but never about how you should present yourself to a chief eunuch in the service of the Priest's deacon. He decided to follow the line they had established: "Sir," he said, "I express to you our joy in having reached this noble, rich, and wondrous city of Pndapetzim, the most beautiful and flourishing we have seen in all our journey. We come from afar, bearing for Prester John the greatest relic of Christianity, the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Unfortunately, the devil, in his envy, has unleashed against us the forces of Nature, causing us to lose one of our brothers along the way, the very one who was bearing the gift, along with other tokens of our esteem for Priest Johannes...."

  "By which we mean," the Poet added, "one hundred ingots of solid gold, two hundred great apes, a crown of one thousand pounds of gold with emeralds, ten strands of inestimable pearls, eighty chests of ivory, five elephants, three tamed leopards, thirty anthropophage dogs and thirty fighting bulls, three hundred elephant tusks, a thousand panther skins, and three thousand ebony staves."

  "We had heard of these riches and substances unknown to us which abound in the land where the sun sets," Praxeas said, his eyes gleaming, "and praise heaven if before leaving this vale of tears I may see them!"

  "Can't you keep your shitty mouth shut?" Boidi hissed behind the Poet, punching him in the back. "What if Zosimos arrives now, and they see he's in even worse shape than us?"

  "Shut up yourself," the Poet snarled, his mouth twisted. "We've already said the devil's at work here, and the devil will have eaten it all up. Except for the Grasal."

  "But we still need a gift, at least one gift, to show that we're not beggars," Boidi went on murmuring.

  "What about the Baptist's head?" Baudolino suggested in a whisper.

  "We have only five left," the Poet said, still not moving his lips, "but it doesn't matter; as long as we stay in the kingdom we certainly can't pull out the other four."

  Baudolino was the only one who knew that, counting the one he had taken from Abdul, there were still six heads. He took one from his sack and held it out to Praxeas, saying that for the moment—while they awaited the ebony, the leopards, and all those other fine things—they wanted him to deliver to the deacon the only memento left on earth of him who had baptized Our Lord.

  Praxeas, deeply moved, accepted that gift, beyond price in his eyes because of the sparkling case, which he assumed was made of that precious yellow substance he had heard so much talk about. Impatient to venerate that sacred relic, and with the air of one who considers his own property any gift made to the deacon, opened it without effort (so it was Abdul's head, the seal already broken, Baudolino said to himself), took in his hand the brownish, dried-up skull, product of Ardzrouni's skill, exclaiming in a choked voice that never in his life had he contemplated a more precious relic.

  Then the eunuch asked by what names he should address his venerable guests, because tradition had assigned them so many and no one now knew which ones were right. With great caution, Baudolino replied that at least until they were in the presence of the Priest, they wished to be called the names by which they were known in the distant West, and he gave the real names of each of them. Praxeas admired the evocative sound of names like Ardzrouni and Boidi, he found a loftiness in Baudolino, Colandrino, and Scaccabarozzi, and he dreamed of exotic lands hearing Porcelli and Cuttica named. He said that he respected their reserve, and concluded: "Now enter. The hour is late, and the deacon will be able to receive you only tomorrow. This evening you will be my guests, and I assure you that never will a banquet be more rich and sumptuous, and you will savor such delicacies that you will think with contempt of those that have been offered you in the lands where the sun sets."

  "Why, they're dressed in rags the like of which would make our women torment their husbands to have something better," the Poet muttered. "We set out and we've undergone what we've undergone in order to see cascades of emeralds; when we wrote the Priest's letter, you, Baudolino, were disgusted with topazes, and there they are with a dozen pebbles and a few strings and they think they're the richest in the world!"

  "Shut up. We'll wait and see," Baudolino murmured.

  Praxeas led them inside the tower, and showed them into a hall without windows, illuminated by burning tripods, with a central carpet full of cups and trays of clay, and a series of cushions along the sides, on which the banqueters crouched with crossed legs. They were served by youths, surely also eunuchs, half-naked and sprinkled with fragrant oils. They offered the guests some pots with aromatic mixtures, in which the eunuchs dipped their fingers, then touched their nostrils and their earlobes. After sprinkling themselves, the eunuchs languidly caressed the youths and invited them to proffer the perfumes to the guests, who bowed to the customs of these people, though the Poet snar
led that if one of that crew dared touch him he would knock out all his teeth with one finger.

  The supper proceeded in this fashion: great dishes of bread, or, rather, those cakes of theirs; an enormous quantity of boiled greens, among which cabbages abounded, but did not smell because they were treated with various spices; cups of a very hot black sauce, which they called sorq, in which all dipped the cakes, and Porcelli, who was the first to try it, began to cough as if flames were darting from his nose, so then the rest of the band confined themselves to moderate tasting (and then they passed the night burning with an unslakable thirst); a freshwater fish, dry and skinny, that they called thinsireta (Think of that! the friends murmured), breaded with a kind of semolina and literally drowned in a boiling oil that must have been already employed for many meals; a linseed soup, which they called marac and which, according to the Poet, smacked of shit, wherein some shreds of fowl were floating, but so badly cooked that they seemed leather, and Praxeas said with pride that it was methagallinarios (Well, well, said the friends, with more nudging); a relish they called cenfelec, made of candied fruit but with more pepper than fruit. At each new course the eunuchs helped themselves greedily, and as they chewed they made noises with their lips, to express their pleasure, and they motioned to the guests, as if to say: "You like it? Isn't it a gift from heaven?" They ate, taking the food with their hands, even the soup, sipping it from their cupped palms, mixing different things in one handful and stuffing it all into their mouths with one shove. But only with the right hand, because the left was placed on the shoulder of the youth who was alert always to provide more food. They removed it only to drink, seizing some jugs which they held high above their heads, pouring the water into their mouths like a fountain.