The Wanderess

by Roman Payne

  I fell silent after that. Yet my translator did not stay silent. I got up from the table and walked down the hallway to a room where a window looked out to the yard. It was dark, but the sky was clear and the moon almost full. ‘To think that this man knows where to find my mother in Florence… To think that my mother spent three months in this inn… Well, what am I waiting for tonight?… I should leave now! Or better to be fresh when I reunite with her… thus, I’ll leave at the first light of dawn tomorrow!’ I rubbed my chin for a moment… Now what was it that my host said about my mother having suffered a shock? And her being ill?

  I needed to find out more, and as soon as possible. I needed to get my mother’s address in Florence, I needed to get on the road as soon as possible. I hurried back into the dining room to tell Saskia that we needed to leave first thing in the morning— and that it was a matter of life and death. The moment I arrived at the table, Saskia shushed up their conversation—as if I could understand Italian!—and it only took me another moment to realize that Saskia had deceived me. She had purposely worked in my absence to plot a way to sabotage the one reunion in my life that I considered as important as my life itself. Here is what happened…

  I arrived back at the table and surprised Saskia in the middle of her discussion with our host and hostess. She looked at me with her mouth agape. She said to me, “So, you are from Tripoli, Saul!… from Libya!”

  “Really!” I was stunned.

  “Actually, you are not from Tripoli; but your father,

  Solarus, is. Your mother too, the niece of the Christian King of Tripoli, she too is from Tripoli. But you, Saul, you were born in a fishing village on the Mediterranean coast of Libya. Your mother had to leave Tripoli to go into exile as soon as she was pregnant with you. She found a home for you both in the humble dwelling of an old fisherman and his wife. Solarus had pleaded with her to leave Tripoli and find safety for their child. As for your father, as you yourself already know, he was executed: forced to drink poison hemlock, for having ‘seduced’ the king’s niece. Since your father was an outlaw in the eyes of the king, your mother warned you throughout your childhood about the dangers of you going to Tripoli, and of using your real name—the name of Solarus— there… You see? I found out your secret without having to wait for you to tell me! Clever, no?”

  “ A clever traitor is what you are! I forgot to ask our good hosts to keep quiet about my origins… How did you get them to tell you all of this?”

  “Your Saskia is good at getting information without letting her intentions known,” she told me, “I simply made conversation, talked about this and that. They of course assumed that I already knew your whole story. And so they forgot themselves as they talked, and bit by bit your whole story leaked out.”

  “Well since you are not my enemy, Saskia, I hope you will forget about trying to get me to take you to my country.”

  She looked at me then with a look of sadness on her face. She just shook her head, whispering quietly, “No, I am not your enemy… I am not your enemy…” Meanwhile, the innkeeper and his wife were talking quietly to one another. All of our tea in all of our cups had by now grown cold. Just then, the young boy who carried luggage for the inn burst into the dining room. The innkeeper’s wife shouted at him for disturbing our dinner. He said he was sorry but that he’d just come from the station and she’d told him to hurry if he had any news from their friend, the sick woman in Florence who turned out to be my mother. The boy cried-out a bunch of phrases in Italian. The innkeeper and his wife fluttered their hands, wiped tears from their eyes, and dismissed the boy who ran out with stamping feet and arms flailing.

  The innkeeper looked at me consolingly, and as he spoke Italian to me in a rueful voice, Saskia translated what he said to me…

  “You two will need to go to Florence at daybreak, no later.” he said, “You cannot leave now because there is no one to drive you. A driver will come at dawn, I will instruct him to take you to Florence. I will follow tomorrow night.”

  “Why must we leave at daybreak, no later?” I asked, “What is going on?”

  “I hate to be blunt, Saul, but I have been a farmer for so many years. One thing a farmer knows is how to be blunt and not afraid of dealing with life. What the boy said was that your mother is just barely hanging on to life—I think you need to not waste time in going to see her. You see, your mother has been full of despair for a very long time on your account. I thought that these things would iron themselves out and her despair would calm itself, but it just keeps getting worse and worse… Is it true that your mother hasn’t seen you in over fifteen years?”

  “It is true,” I said.

  “So you know, she moved from your home to Florence five years ago. It was right after she moved here that there started appearing these ‘wanted-posts’ in the newspapers, looking for you—apparently they were published in newspapers all over Europe—so your mother heard, at least. She was scared to death by these wanted-posts—why?, because, they were looking for you in order to execute you, Saul! (Saskia looked at me with extreme horror as she translated this to me… extreme bewilderment and horror.) …I don’t know, Saul,” the innkeeper continued, “are you aware of these wanted-posts?”

  “I was not aware of them. Although I heard rumors that my picture was circulating in the press; and that harm will come to me if I ever return to Tripoli,”

  “ Harm is right, my dear young man, in the form of twentyfive thousand gold louis. The government in Tripoli—your government—has that enormous price on your head, and it will go to the person who captures you and delivers your corpse, or else your body alive in chains, to the king of Tripoli.”

  “Twenty-five thousand louis?!” I laughed, exalted, “I am happy to learn I am worth so much!…”

  All of this made Saskia cry… “You laugh, Saul?! My poor friend! What have you done?!”

  “It was no crime committed by Saul,” said the innkeeper, “Although it was never published in the newspapers what Saul had been charged with, Saul’s mother knew. For although she was exiled from Tripoli nine months before his birth, she still always knew how to get news from the capital. It appears that the king of Tripoli heard a prophecy from a venerated old prophet—a man who they say is ninety-nine years of age…

  “The prophet said to the king—to a king who had ruled since his adolescence—that he would continue to rule until the end of his long life. ‘Except for one thing,’ the prophet said, ‘The day is not far away, when the son of a wild-man will come to take your power.’…

  “Do you realize the effect that these words had on a king as superstitious as the one who rules Tripoli and all of Libya today?” said the innkeeper, “Remember, this king was the king who, as an adolescent, forced your mother to watch an execution at sea where family was made to kill family—your mother told me the gruesome story!—and he himself, remember, didn’t even attend this horrible execution—who knows why?…

  “This same young king was the king who ordered your father Solarus to be executed. He was also the king who made your mother flee in exile while you were in her womb.

  “Today, this superstitious king is an old man. He has ruled a kingdom for almost his entire life—do you think he is ready to die, or lose power? The thought of this is more terrifying than any fear that a man born less-fortunate can have—oh, pity to all who are born kings!—yet this terrifying thought is his obsession: ‘The day is not far away,’ said the prophet, ‘when the son of a wild-man will come to take your power!’ …Well, this king knew who the ‘wild-man’ was… When your father was alive, people everywhere referred to him as ‘the wild-man’—a nickname owing to his exotic features mixing Slavic and Cherokee blood, and to his wild hair. Now, your king knew that your mother was pregnant when she went into exile—her pregnancy was the reason for which he executed your father—yet, he didn’t know what sex the child was. Once he heard the prophecy, he sent spies out to gather information. They traced you and her to your small village o
n the Mediterranean. They learned that you were born a male. They learned that you grew up healthy. But they learned that you both were gone from the village… (fortunately for both your lives, you had left home for who-knows-where, and she had left home as well!)…

  “The spies didn’t learn enough to track you down. They reported what they knew: that your mother had recently left your country and was living in Europe somewhere; but they didn’t know which country she had moved to, nor whether or not you were with her. But the fact that it was known that you were a male solidified the king’s faith in the prophecy. It was known now that the ‘wild-man’ did in fact have a son, and that the son was alive; it thus became the king’s highest priority to execute that son. That was all five years ago, yet the price on your head remains to this day, and you continue to be the subject of international newspaper articles that offer an enormous wealth to the one who captures or kills you. It is for this reason, that your mother has spent the last five years wandering tirelessly around Tuscany, visiting every city and village, trying to find you to warn you: ‘Do not go back to Tripoli!’ Fortunately for her sanity, she was informed that you had either left Tripoli, or were in hiding. As you were always a faithful son to her, she was sure that if you made it to Europe, you would come to Tuscany to try to find her. She thought there was a slight chance you would learn for yourself of the danger, that you would learn about these newspaper articles; yet she knew you always scoffed newspapers and journals, and hated the press in general; so she thought it more likely that you would only learn about the wanted ads from the man who killed you to collect his riches…

  “And so your mother wandered everywhere. Then she wandered here last spring, and told me all about you while my leg was healing. That is how I recognized you… I saw you painting in the garden. She said you had always loved to paint, that you painted the boats of the old fisherman who raised you. She said you left home to become a painter in Tripoli. Everything about you was identical to her description. If only I had been more cautious before! It is my fault for the state your mother is in now!…”

  “What state is she in now? …Tell me!”

  “Eight days ago, a young man—he was about your age, but he was a little younger—passed through Staggia. He was also from your country, born just outside of Tripoli. He had a light complexion, and your hair color. He also was a Christian. He was of European descent. You are much taller though; and now that I see you, I see how many differences there are. Never could it be said by someone who’s seen you both that you two look similar. If I just could have known his name, that would have prevented this whole disaster… The man who called me down to see this gentleman from Tripoli was my friend who owns the café where the gentleman had lunch and a few drinks. I had a good look at the man and thought that he could be you: the son of Solarus. But when I tried to flag him down to inquire, he was already down the road and gone…

  “I gave up all hope until I asked my friend the café owner if he could guess where he might be off to. He said that he didn’t need to guess, he knew for sure... the gentleman told the owner of the café that he was headed to La Locanda Villa B*** in Petrognano. He mentioned this to ask the café owner if he thought it was a nice place to stay. The café owner knew La Locanda Villa B*** very well and said that it was one of the very finest country inns in all of Tuscany. The gentleman seemed pleased, and I was too. I quickly sent word to Florence to tell your mother that I believed I had just found her son, and that she should go quickly!… ‘Look for him at La Locanda Villa B*** in Petrognano!…’ Oh, if only I hadn’t been so enthusiastic! Looking back I’m ashamed. I too went to the Villa B*** just after dinner. I was hoping to see her happily reunited with her son. Instead I found her there in Petrognano, collapsed in a fever!…

  “I took her back to Florence. The shock slowly left her and her fever cooled. As soon as she was coherent, I begged her to forgive my rashness. I feared my rashness was going to cost her her life. When her fever dropped, I no longer feared that my rashness would cost her her life, but I knew it might cost her her sanity… your poor mother was raving!

  “And so I came back here to the inn. That was four days ago. Now the boy comes in here tonight to worry us again. He said that your mother’s nurse just sent word from Florence that your mother’s fever came back and it is higher than it was at first, and that she is now in danger. She was at her residence in the centre of Florence. The nurse said she was delirious but awake; repeating often the phrase, ‘Send for Saul.’”

  “I tell you,” I said, “we must leave this moment!”

  “I know, but you cannot,” the innkeeper told me, “No matter how badly you want to go, there is no one here who can drive you.”

  “We must find a driver!” I said.

  “A driver will be here at dawn, that much is certain…”

  “We will wait,” I said to them both. Then, “Goodnight.” Saskia and I bid them a sorrowful farewell and took leave of them to go to our room and wait for the dawn. They were good people, the innkeeper and his wife. I wasn’t sure about Saskia, but I knew I would remember them always.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Neither Saskia nor I slept that night. She lay on our bed with her eyes wide open while I paced the floor. At dawn we went out into the yard to greet the driver. The innkeeper also was there in his pyjamas; he woke to say another farewell to us and to instruct the driver to do as we told him. As we were leaving he told us once more that he would come to Florence that night, as soon as his obligations in Staggia were taken care of.

  Saskia was quiet when we set off. For a long time, she sat rereading the letter that she picked up at her bank the day we left Siena. I asked her to please tell me who the letter was from and how they knew she was in Siena when she’d told me clearly before that no one knew she was in Siena, or in Italy for that matter, but she wouldn’t tell me. I asked her what was in the letter that made her want to read it over and over so many times, but she said that it was of no importance compared to the health of my mother. She told me that after we saw my mother and had that worry behind us she would even show the letter to me so I could read it myself in its entirety, although she insisted that the letter would bore me. I found this statement of hers bizarre, but I didn’t press the point. I was too worried about my mother. The innkeeper said that he feared for my mother’s life in the beginning, and here the boy says that her fever was now worse than it was in the beginning. Now after fifteen years away from her, I would come to her new home in Florence to find her with whom? With a doctor?, or with a priest? Tears welled in my eyes, while my arms and legs trembled—both because of my mother and because I hadn’t gone to bed the entire night before.

  Saskia interrupted my gloomy thoughts to tell me that she planned to get off at the next town which had an inn, where she would wait for me. I asked her whatever for, and she told me that it was for the same reason that I refused to go with her to the Île Saint-Louis to look for Adélaïse: “So many years have passed since you were last with your mother, I want you to have some time to be alone together. If I were there, you both would feel as though I were an intruder.”

  “That is fine. I can meet my mother alone. But why do you want to find an inn along the way? We can get a hotel room in Florence. I can visit my mother and then come back afterwards.”

  “If only I could wait till Florence,” she sighed, “I’m starting to feel really sick. Remember, I didn’t sleep last night either.”

  “I know, kiddo. I’ll ask the driver to find an inn for you.” Looking back on what Saskia had just said, she was announcing the arrival of the two black storm clouds that had followed us from Siena. To be honest, I didn’t really give the matter any thought at the time. I was only thinking about the health of my mother. I didn’t care at that moment whether Saskia came with me to Florence, or stayed to sleep off her fatigue at some country inn while I made the voyage myself. This was one day that I didn’t put Saskia above everyone else in my heart and my mind.r />
  I asked the driver if we would be approaching an inn. He said yes, that the main road was closed this year, so we were forced to take the side road that went through the villages of Petrognano and Certaldo. I knew of Certaldo, at least by name; it is the celebrated birthplace of Boccaccio. But Petrognano I hadn’t heard of—until I remembered that it was the village where the innkeeper said my mother fell ill when she went to see a man she thought was me, but who wasn’t.

  “We have one of the best inns in all of Tuscany in Petrognano,” said the driver, “a place called ‘La Locanda Villa B***.’”

  ‘There you have it,’ I thought, ‘it’s the same inn where my mother took sick. A perfect place for Saskia to sleep her weariness away while I go spend the day and night at the bedside of my sick mother whom I haven’t seen in fifteen years.’ I told the driver that it was perfect... “Please stop at La Locanda Villa B***!”

  * * *

  Saul stops his narrative…

  As you know well, my dear friend, La Locanda Villa B*** is the place where you and I met for the first time. And you remember the state I was in?… clothes disheveled, my face torn with grief, tired as the devil, in short: completely ruined. And now you know why… I didn’t sleep the night before. Between Siena and Staggia I was in despair over Saskia, then in Staggia I became a nervous wreck about my mother whom I believed to be terminally ill. The brief period of happiness I knew in Paris had slipped through my fingers, although I held my fingers like a net so as to catch the remnants of the world that was so beautifully falling all around me. Now apparently my fingers were spread too far apart to catch any beauty, all I caught now was those remnants of ugliness, the staple that makes up the daily meal of the unlucky.