by Roman Payne
“Tell me your fortune right now, I will know why you latched onto me in Barcelona, and that will explain everything! No need to know about my childhood…”
“But who did I latch onto in Barcelona?!” Saskia demanded. She then went as far as to punch the restaurant table with her little fist. “I don’t even know who you are! Here I’ve told you all about my childhood, about losing my parents, I made the confession about my uncle and showed you all my vulnerabilities, and you won’t even tell me which damned country you grew up in! You’re tremendously selfish, Saul. You watch me give away all my secrets, while your own life you shroud in all this mystery…”
“Good girl, you’re right,” I said, and I took her fist in my hand. And she was right. Why was my life top-secret?, when she opened hers up to me with the loving trust that I wasn’t going to ruin it? Was I not being a child?, puffed-up with his own selfimportance, by hiding my life story? Perhaps it was because as a child I was taught to be secretive about my family and my origins, perhaps it was because I wanted to know why she so lovingly abducted me in Spain… In any case, Saskia was right about wine inspiring me to talk. To whom does wine not give the inspiration to talk? I drained my glass again and called our solemn waiter over to get another bottle in the queue and take our orders for the next course. When I finished with Guido, I looked over at Saskia and saw she was furtively writing on a piece of paper. I ask her what she was writing and she jumped as if startled; she then handed me a piece of paper…
“This much of my fortune I’ll show you,” she said, “It’s the first few lines…” Then she handed me the paper that read simply:
“You are a Wanderer searching for something, or ‘someone’ rather. You were raised by the people of the north, but you are not one of them, as you belong to no people and have no country.”
I laughed to myself, and asked her if I could keep the paper. Saskia was so sensitive this night, I didn’t dare make fun of her garden-woman clairvoyant, although it seemed that she was a fraud. Obviously Saskia was a wanderer from the north. She spoke French with a Dutch accent, in phrases littered with Englishisms.”
“I know these first few lines of my fortune are obvious,” she said, “but you would be shocked if you knew the rest—the things it says about my life!” She then went on to say that if I knew then, at this dinner table, the rest of her fortune in its entirety, I would bet my sanity as well as my life on its “mystical authenticity.”
To this, I couldn’t help myself. I roared with laughter… “I would bet my sanity on its mystical authenticity! That is too much!” and my laughter filled the empty restaurant. I calmed myself down as quickly as possible to not hurt Saskia too much. She sat silent, blushing red to her ears with embarrassment. “I know I sound stupid,” she said.
“No, no! It’s just the wine we’ve drunk. And… I’m very happy that we’re sharing things together tonight.”
She looked so sensitive, this wounded creature sitting near me in the restaurant on this night, with a pitcher full of water ready to come storming from her eyes should I laugh again. I felt great pity for her then, my solitary wayfaring girl with no country, who belonged to no people, who grew up without knowing where she was going or why. I imagined the scene that spring day in London when, as a child of twelve, she lost everything in her world in a single moment of confusion. Now here in Paris, the only two things in her life, me aside, were her search for Adélaïse, and that mysterious fortune which I had just laughed at. I told her again I only laughed because I was happy and because I loved her.
“Where should we start in telling about my family and my life?” I asked her.
“How about your mother. Where is she now?” “In Florence, I believe.”
“Hmm… what were your favorite things to do as a boy?”
“Most of all of all…” I had to think hard about that time that exists still only in fragments… “I loved spending entire days painting colorful designs on the skiffs we had. They belonged to the old fisherman who raised me together with his old wife and my mother. It was the saddest thing in the world to me when the fishermen would go fishing in the skiffs and all the paint would wash off. My mother saw my talent and encouraged me to become a painter when I grew up.” I told Saskia how my mother had to go into exile when she was pregnant with me…
“She is the niece of the present king of our country… the same man who, as a youth, hated my grandfather the Indian. My mother was only a girl of your age when she fell in love with my father, Solarus: the son of the Cherokee and my grandmother, the Russian Polinichka. My father was, they say, a very charismatic man and was loved by the people at court. But my father, the son of two freedmen, was not a nobleman. He was not liked by our king, just as his father before him. The king was jealous of my father’s strength and charm. So when our king found out about his niece’s pregnancy, he ordered the death of my father (my father had admitted he had taken my mother’s virginity). Like Socrates, my father was given hemlock to drink. The rumor is, however, that the executioner loved and respected my father, just like almost everyone at court. So loving him, he mixed in the water—instead of hemlock—barley. According to this legend, a rooster crowed as my father drank the barley water, and Solarus then slipped away to who-knows-where. The executioner then reportedly filled an empty grave, and he told the king that the job was done. A friend and confident of my mother who was there when the executioner reported to the king that Solarus was dead, went to find my mother just after. She found her pregnant with me and told her that Solarus had been executed. To avoid my being killed as soon as she gave birth, my mother slipped away in the night. She changed her clothing and assumed a false name— claiming to be a poor merchant’s daughter rather than a princess—and she travelled on foot many, many days, until she reached the fishing village where she gave birth to me, and where I grew up. She didn’t have any money with her, and consequently she was dependent on the generosity of others. Fortunately, my mother possessed great charm, noble graces and beauty, and a cheerful disposition… all which inspired people to assist her. She was grateful to accept the generous hospitality of the aging fisherman and his frail spouse when they opened their home to her and offered me a place to grow up and to take on after their death. As for my father, I don’t know if it was true that the executioner helped him escape or not. I believe that he loved my mother very much, so I think if he were alive, he would have come to find her. Since he didn’t, I hold the belief that he was executed after all.”
Saskia asked me what religion the people of my country believe in and I said we were Roman Catholics, that our king is a Christian king, but that before him our country was ruled by moors. “I know it!” she cheered, “You’re from Portugal!” I reminded her that my mother and I, along with most of the ruling class and the courtiers, grew up speaking French. And that French, as far as I knew, had never been the ruling-class language in Portugal. She was confused, and being confused she was solemn. I tried to cheer her up. I told her that we would find my mother in Florence as soon as we found Adélaïse, and that my mother would tell her the truth about where I grew up and where my father was from. She asked me again how long since I’d seen my mother. I told her, “Fifteen years.”
“In that case,” she said, “I will be so excited to be with you and your mother in Florence that I won’t care if we ever make it to Saint Petersburg for the white-nights.”
“We’re not going to stay in Italy with my mother forever,” I said, “Before I let the earth swallow me up, you and I are going to Petersburg together! Back to my story…
“When I reached manhood, my mother begged me to go to Florence to study painting. We had no money for my studies, but she thought I could find some menial work in Florence to sustain me. I informed her that a friend of mine from our village had moved to the capital of our country, to where she and my father were from, and he worked there painting gold leaf on the monuments and official buildings; and he said he could get me the same job as him.
I, knowing that riotous adventures could be had with my friend in our capital, told my mother I was going there instead. My mother accepted this, but she made me promise never to reveal the names of my parents while in that city. Should I be wise enough to one day leave our country, she told me, I should sing my father’s name from every rooftop, for he was a man to take pride in.
“And so, I left for the capital, found my friend, and worked for a while gold-leafing the monuments and official buildings. Eventually, I met a group of young men a few years older than me who lived in Malta. They, with their sophisticated clothes and worldly ways, seduced me into a life beyond that which was offered in my friendship with the young fisherman’s son whom I came to the city to work and live with. These wild gentlemen told me glittering stories of their escapades in Malta. I decided to visit Malta immediately with them, and when I did, I met my future friend and business partner, Juhani who convinced not to go back to my home country. He and I began organizing decadent and luxurious parties together…”
I then told Saskia of the night we threw my last party: a rich event that drew important people from all over Europe. Juhani and I held an auction, where we auctioned off precious art for a large return. We had roulette tables with the largest bank in Malta. “But that same fateful night,” I told her, “I made the unlucky decision to seduce the wife the Maltese ambassador to England. It was after I seduced her on the beach that shots rang out in the night. The ambassador and his bodyguards tried to kill me as I fled the island in a small boat piloted by a single man whom I had enough money on me to pay handsomely. And as we were leaving Malta, while the ambassador stood on the shore firing bullets at me, I stood like Odysseus leaving the island of the Cyclops. From the boat, I shouted at the ambassador, ‘Do not forget me! I am the son of Solarus, the man who seduced your wife!’ It was that moment of hubris1 that cursed me. Among other things, I learned that I would be executed should I try to go to Malta again, or should I ever try to enter England. This is why I can never go with you to London.”
I continued telling my story to Saskia…
“We were lucky to have clear skies during the whole escape from Malta. The boat was too small to sail the wide sea, and I feared if we made a long journey, a police boat would catch up with us and control us. Since Malta lay midway between Italy and Sicily to the north, and North Africa to the south, I had my choice. The pilot of the boat was from North Africa and he hoped to return there; I had paid him enough so that he shouldn’t have had any say in the matter. But I made him happy by agreeing to go to North Africa. The thing that swayed my decision was that Africa is cheap. The pilot had most of my money. Since I was hosting a luxurious party in Malta the night I went into exile, I was wearing all my gold and jewels. I sold them all—all, except for my gold Breguet watch that was stolen in Málaga—and they paid my way from where we landed until Alexandria where they funded my life there for some time.
1 HUBRIS: (Gr) An important term in Homeric works meaning ‘excessive pride.’ It was Odysseus’ excessive pride that drove him to shout his real name at the Cyclops, Polyphemus, as he was fleeing the Cyclops’ island in his boat (The Odyssey, Book IX). With this comparison, Payne suggests that some or all of Saul’s many sufferings were a result of his hubris while fleeing Malta, since, in The Odyssey, the cause of Odysseus’ sufferings and his delayed return home was this act of hubris which informed the Cyclops of Odysseus’ identity. Once the Cyclops knew that the man who blinded him was the famous hero who sacked Troy through his ruse of the Trojan Horse, he was able to curse Odysseus to his father, the god Poseidon, thus creating the plot of Homer’s great epic.
We didn’t see any ships on our way to Africa, and we weren’t controlled as we docked. I bade farewell and thanks to the pilot of the boat and set out on land for Alexandria. There, I lived in poverty for many years. Egypt was a strange country to find myself suddenly living alone in. Alexandria was dirty, and the neighborhood in Alexandria where I lived was very poor and sad. The men of my neighborhood worked as either laborers, or criminals; and the women mostly dancers in nightclubs, or prostitutes on corners.
“It took years, but Juhani proved to be a better detective than the Maltese ambassador; and he proved to be a man of virtue, and the finest friend anyone could ever hope to have. He tracked me down in Alexandria this last winter—I don’t know how he did!—and he sent me a letter to announce my fortune of ten thousand scudi. He told me he could transfer the money to a bank in Alexandria; or else, I could use the advanced money enclosed in the letter to travel to Madrid and accept my fortune in person. You know the rest of the story. Do you want more wine?”
“I want to hear more of your story,” Saskia said, “Tell me about your mother. What kinds of things did she tell you when you were a little boy?”
“Well, back on the subject of executions… My mother told me the truth about my father and his execution, although she believed the legend was true about the executioner giving him barley to drink and helping him to escape. She said that everyone loved my father so much that only the king’s presence at the execution could have forced someone to kill him; but that the king was too cowardly to attend the executions he ordered. She told me a gruesome story to show how cowardly and barbaric the king was: when she was a young girl, the king made her witness an execution out at sea...
The execution in the Mediterranean...
“My mother was a mere adolescent; the king, her uncle, was only a few years older. He had ordered the execution of a young nobleman for treason, and he conceived of the most barbarous way to do it. My mother was among the royal family that was brought along to witness the execution. They often brought noble children along to witness executions in my country. The children weren’t told beforehand where they were going or why. The story my mother told me went as follows…
“The execution was held on a boat set adrift in the Mediterranean one early summer morning when the sun was not yet scorching the sky. Besides the soldiers, the spectators numbered only ten or so. The condemned man was accompanied by the closest members of his family: his sisters, brothers, and his parents. They were all brought onboard to see their close son and brother shot dead and dumped into the sea. The king was not present, he always avoided his own executions, although he had given instructions to his soldiers. The soldiers were a hoard of heavily-armed guards. They had the condemned man in chains. While his family sat on boat’s deck, crying, his mother and father tried to approach their son, to caress his hands one last time before they lost him forever. The guards were ordered to prevent this. The condemned man was not to be touched. My mother said, ‘As soon as the boat was a ways from shore, the most evil thing imaginable in this world occurred: the chief executioner ordered the prisoner’s family to draw lots. They didn’t know why, but did as they were told. The loser was the prisoner’s little sister. As loser, she was handed a pistol and was instructed to shoot her brother in the chest, or in the head, or anywhere else until he be dead; then his body would be dumped in the sea. If she failed to do this, the soldiers would shoot her and dump her body in the sea. After which, the funeral lots would continue and the next member of the surviving family to lose lots would be faced to kill the young man, or else refuse and be killed as well…
“His sister dropped the pistol at once. She could not shoot her older brother. The girl fell in tears in the boat. A guard shot her in the head and he dumped her body into the sea. All members of her family collapsed in tears.
“The lots fell to one of his brothers next. A guard forced the pistol into his hand. The brother, trembling, made ready to drop the gun as his sister had. Before he dropped it, the condemned prisoner stopped him and said, ‘Brother, I will die today no matter what. I will never see the shore again. Salt will eat my flesh and fish will pick my bones. Tonight I shall dine in the underworld, while in this world, waves will tumble my skeleton. There is no reason for you to die as well. Save our family yet another grief and pull that trigger, Brother. Kill me now!
’
“His brother stood a long time, he then crossed himself, pulled the trigger and killed his brother; but then immediately he fell onto the planks of the boat and fired one more bullet… this one, into his own brain. The cries of the family of the dead roared like the waves as they lost their minds. They had lost two sons and a daughter on this trip out to sea, and never would their happiness or their minds be returned to them. Slowly, languidly, the boat made its way back to shore.”
* * *
Saskia’s face retained a look of horror throughout my story. “Your poor mother!” she cried, “But why did she tell you that horrible story?!”
“I told my mother that when I was grown, I was going to go to the capital and kill our king, to avenge my father’s death. She knew that such a mission would end in my own death, and that she could not survive that. So she told me this story to show how cruel our king was, how insane… she said that by forcing my father to drink hemlock, that was our king’s way of ‘being lenient.’ No, she urged me to avoid insanity altogether, and instead to leave our country as soon as I was grown and seek a better life in Europe. It is because of stories like this that I will stay here in Europe. And why I will never return to the country of my birth.”
“But you have to return!” she cried, “ We have to!” As she said this, she fell in tears into her hands. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know then that in Saskia’s mind this was the key to everything… “We have to,” she cried again; for in her eyes, this was the key to our fortune, to her fortune, to her life.
Chapter Twenty-five
Saskia was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She was brave, and I never once saw her cry out of fear. She never cried because she was afraid that something would happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, would not happen… She believed if I gave in to make her fortune become realized, the world would be ultimately profound and beautiful. I guess I held out because I feared the realization of her fortune would mean the destruction of us together. And each time she cried, I fell a little more deeply in love with her.