by Roman Payne
“You should have seen your faithful girl when they brought the closed coffin before her and the king’s men came and opened the lid. Saskia looked at the corpse of poor Alfred Pion with his lips all puckered in the most ridiculous way, and she broke down in hysterics… sobbing violently, beating her tiny little fists on the floor…
“‘Oh, Saul!’ she wailed, ‘My poor, poor, Saul! My prince! My beloved! Whatever has happened to you?! This is the worst, etc.…’ Then she turned to the king, ‘Oh, King! Most worthy King! Why did Saul of all men have to die?!’ …The effect this had on the king was perfect. Saskia’s tears didn’t move the king to pity. That nasty fool can’t feel sorry for anyone. But the effect Saskia’s sobbing and pleading did have on the king—and on his advisors as well—is that it left no question about the authenticity of the corpse: Saskia’s tearful testimony was the proof they needed to know that I’d killed the right one. The king was so pleased and reassured by Saskia’s violent sorrow, that he ordered the gold to be brought to me at once. Saskia all the while pretended she didn’t know me, treated me as a complete stranger—worse, she treated me as the monster who killed the love of her life, she even spat in my face. That act alone convinced the king that, in addition to being beautiful, she was a daring and spirited girl, and so he begged her to come visit him at court anytime she wished. And so she has an open invitation to his throne room! So you see, Saul, all was conducted perfectly!…
“And the money came just like that… twenty-five thousand gold louis… equal to six-hundred-thousand francs! You see them here? Feel how much these sacks weigh! Look at the coins, they are beautiful, aren’t they?! So that’s the good news Saul. And now that you know the Frenchman died in your place, I don’t think I’m risking anything by unchaining you now…”
“By unchaining me?!” I said, not understanding what those words meant, so in shock was I, “By unchaining me?!” …Yet that is what he did!
…With the help of Adélaïse, Dragomir unlatched the iron chains and unwrapped those that had snaked around my arms every which way when I tried to free myself. I, all the while, remained in shock. I couldn’t believe what a turn my story had taken!
Dragomir continued to describe with enormous pleasure the events of that day while Adélaïse and Saskia brought soap and a pail of water to wash the blood and dirt from my body. “Oh— the best is for last!” said Dragomir, laughing, “Your king told me how he’ll be feasting tonight… to celebrate your death, you can believe. He will be drinking a lot of wine, he told me himself. I took precautions of my own in this regard. It’s not so much that I hated the man, yet I had to prevent him from not paying me the bounty when I gave him your dead body—and you see by the events of our meeting that I had good reason not to trust him. (Kings are notoriously an ungrateful lot, you know!) So I had a trusted man of mine contaminate all the king’s wine with our best poison—and don’t think it was that harmless verdigris that I put in your opium, nor was it the scum I put in the wine that sickened your alley cats in Paris… no, no, this was the ‘king-killer’—a real death liqueur! One drop of it will kill a god, let alone a king! I guess that’s what the prophecy meant when it said: ‘The king will lose his power when the son of a wild-thing enters Tripoli.’ He was already filling his chalice when we left. I’m sure he’s not feeling so powerful right about now!—that is, if he is feeling anything at all…” Dragomir’s cheeks filled up with joyful color as he cheered on all of us with his tale; he tossed his head back and roared with delight. Then he bowed low to me with respect—it was a gesture he had never done before, “Now how do you feel, Saul?”
“I don’t know what to make of it, Dragomir. You could have sold me to the king today. If you’d stayed in Tripoli, in addition to the gold, you would have received enormous fame, a royal appointment, lands, titles…”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of lands and titles! A tempting thought, Saul! Yet think of it… my job was to kill a man—you— who, according to some crazy mystic’s prophecy, was going to ‘destroy the king’ simply by entering a city. Do you think that during these five years I could have taken myself seriously if my only goal was to murder a man because he is believed by some stupid king to carry a curse around with him that will destroy this king? Saul, that is absurd! I may be a scoundrel, but I don’t murder people to satisfy the whims of superstitious kings. And so now that you’re unchained and free, take a walk with me around the deck. You need to get your blood flowing again.”
Thus Dragomir and I began to take a walk on the boat deck... After we got a few steps, Dragomir said to me, “Oh, Saul! You’re not walking too straight!”
“I admit, I’m in shock. I’m not sure what is going on. I think if I realize that I am still alive… I mean, if it occurs to me that I am still alive, and that I will stay alive… I will consider this the most beautiful moment of my life, this day the most beautiful day!… I am feeling dizzy, however. I think I need to sit down.”
“Saskia!… Adélaïse!… Come help our dear Saul to sit down on this cask over here. Adélaïse, bring him some water to drink. Splash some on his head.” This, the girls did, and as they attended to relieving my thirst, to cooling my skin, and easing my bewildered heart, I pleaded to all present to know the reason for the one thing that made my soul ache above all else…
“What I still don’t understand is this, Saskia… When I was brought in chains before you in that little palace in Tripoli, you would not look at me! Why?! I pleaded with you! It was all I wanted!…
“And then on this boat… I was sure that at any moment I would be executed, by any and all of you… but all three of you knew that I would go free!—right?!”
“Of course we knew!” Saskia cried, “Do you think I could have kept my sanity if I thought for a moment you might be killed?!”
“But I was in chains! Dragomir spoke about the money I would earn him… You never let me think I might live, Saskia! You wouldn’t even look at me on the boat either! And so I thought of everything I might do to kill myself first, to end this being near you but of having lost you. The only thing that saved me from leaping into the sea with my chains on to drown myself was a vague disbelief that you could hate me that much—and all of a sudden! But how unbearable was the sight of you and Adélaïse at play together, sitting together, lounging on the deck, sunbathing, laughing!… and the worst of it all… you wouldn’t look at me!… It was that that made my soul ache above all else! All the while I stood here in chains, I received no look from you whatsoever… No gesture to communicate to me that you felt badly for me—or that you were even aware of my existence! Instead, all the while we were on this boat, you just kept looking out at the horizon!… So I ask, how come?!”
“‘How come?!’ —you ask, ‘How come?!’” While Saskia cried these words through her mouth damp with tears, she held her little fists so tightly together that her tiny knuckles turned all white, “‘How come,’ you ask?!” While she cried this, her eyes flashed back and forth so wildly, searching for meaning in my eyes, that we were both driven to the kind of grief only great love can inspire, and both fell together in tears.
“If you knew I would be saved,” I said, “Why didn’t you tell me not to worry? Why did you keep looking at the horizon like that?—silent—silent!”
When I said this, Saskia jumped into my arms and cried so freely, rubbing her hot face against me until every place on my body that had been dry was now wet. She gave me a hundred caresses and planted kisses in all the tender places. And then my little wanderess that I loved so much spoke to me in a way that only a wanderess could speak…
“You ask me why I looked at the horizon like that… It was because I knew that that horizon was the only thing that could destroy us. As long as I could see dots of men on the shore, and boats in the water, I knew we couldn’t be happy; since at any moment you could be identified as a prisoner. Those three guards that we left behind on the beach, for a small price they could have been bought to identify you as the real son o
f Solarus. Only when the horizon was gone, did I know the threat that you would be taken from me was gone.”
Still crying, she added, “And the reason I didn’t look at you in the palace in Tripoli, where you first appeared before me in chains, is because Dragomir ordered me not to look at you. The moment I saw him in Tripoli, he told me his plan to save your life. He swore to me that he would save your life. But he told me that if I were to look at you, recognize you, or show you any kind of sympathetic or loving gaze, that that would ruin his plan to save your life, and he may be forced to let you be executed after all. He said to me, ‘If you love Saul, and you want to live a long and happy life with him, then you will obey my orders: you are not to look at him, not to show you care about him, until he is free with us and our boat is safely out to sea. That is why I couldn’t wait for the horizon to disappear. It was too painful not to show you I love you…”
“Saskia…” I mused, changing the subject, “it just occurred to me that you are eighteen now. You were only seventeen when we met. It’s strange, because I never really think of you as having any age. For me, you are timeless—like a marble statue…”
“Saul,” she suddenly pressed on me, almost whispering to not be overheard, “Listen, I know something about Dragomir that you don’t know. So be careful before you make up your mind… What I mean is that you are stronger than you think you are …in this situation especially. What I think you don’t know about him is just how much respect he has for you. He would just about see anyone in the world die before you… Yet, remember his loyalty is to himself above all else!… if it had come down to somebody on shore recognizing you as you are: the true son of Solarus, you would have ended-up like the Frenchman.”
“Saskia,” I changed the subject again, “Just now it is true, you are eighteen years old; yet often when you speak you have a timeless air about you… you are as eternal as a poet.”
“Saul, listen to me! Today, when I met the king who ordered your death, I met a man with only one thought in his demented, old head… Saul, don’t underestimate the king’s preoccupation with killing you… He wanted you dead at all costs. In his mind, your staying alive meant his loss of the throne and his loss of life. Yet also don’t underestimate the risks Dragomir took to keep you alive. But remember, Saul… although Dragomir wanted you alive, he told me plain and simple that nothing on earth was going to come between him and those twenty-five thousand louis d’or.”
“Ah, except for love, my dear Saskia—except for love!”
…It was Dragomir’s voice that sang out to interrupt Saskia’s urgent message to me. He had been standing unobserved near the cask where I was sitting as I talked to Saskia, and where my wounds were being attended to by Adélaïse and Saskia, and he had listened to all Saskia had said to me. He then raised his voice and addressed us all to say, “Saskia here said that although I want the son of Solarus to remain alive, that nothing on earth would come between me and those twenty-five thousand louis d’or. Well! She knows me by heart, but hardly knows my heart… Nothing could come between me… nothing ‘except for love, my dear Saskia,’ and I meant it!”
“Very funny, Dragomir.”
“Is he joking?” Adélaïse asked.
“Of course he’s joking.”
“I am not joking,” said Dragomir, “Love is the only thing I would let come between me and these twenty-five thousand louis d’or. The only thing is love. And love is what I just heard expressed in the vows of these two victims of the hopeless chains of love. Oh, love is a terrible thing, and lovers deserve to be pitied. This is why I’m giving to Saul and Saskia, these two happy victims of the disease called love, half of my fortune. You two are to receive twelve thousand and five hundred gold louis d’or. May you build a happy home!”
Saskia didn’t believe a word of this. Saul didn’t either. Dragomir then seemed to realize what an outrageous thing he had just promised… “Did I say, give half of my fortune away?! …How absurd!
Saskia didn’t seem too crushed by the news; in fact, once Dragomir had finished his tears of lamentation, she let out a laugh so light and gay and so sincere, that in tears of joy she admitted that, yes, Dragomir would have been, in fact, ‘clean out of his mind’ to give away half of his reward money.
“No, no!” Dragomir then said aloud, setting things straight, “To give away half of my fortune! People would take me for a romantic. A fool, etc. After all, I received these twenty-five thousand louis for killing you, Saul. Now you and Saskia know that I didn’t exactly kill you—that will be our little secret to tell at parties. We will have so many fun little stories to tell at parties, won’t we, you two?… And now, back to the money… Saskia, are you still listening? You look a little, shall we say, ‘absent.’ ‘No,’ you tell me? You are here? Well, that is good!…
“So listen, you two… if I were not a charlatan, I just might give you half my fortune—split the money right down the center! Twelve-thousand five hundred gold louis for each—half for you two, and half for me (And I trust with this gift you wouldn’t let poor Adélaïse starve!). But, unfortunately for you both… I am a charlatan. Therefore, I am keeping fifteen thousand louis d’or, while you and Saskia get ten thousand.”
“Is he joking?”
“I am not joking!”
“Ten thousand gold louis!” we cried, clasping our hands together. Saskia put her arms around me, while I looked at this clairvoyant from Málaga as though I were looking at a saint, “But Dragomir, that’s a fortune!!”
Dragomir simply laughed at this and asked me, “Is it not my job to give fortunes?! Fortunately, however, I won’t need to do that anymore. With fifteen thousand louis d’or, I am wealthy for life! And you two are wealthy as well! …as long as our boat doesn’t sink.” He then looked at Adélaïse, who stood looking up at all of us with admiration, “Don’t worry, Adélaïse… you know that their money is your money. Just don’t any of you forget your friend Dragomir when that day finally comes…”
“Which day?”
“‘Which day,’ you ask?! You know, Saul… You know, Saskia… I love many things on this beautiful earth, and I could spend the whole evening and night naming them… but there is one thing I love above all else! …and that thing is a wedding feast!” Dragomir roared laughing at his own cleverness until he almost fell from the ship. When he caught his balance and calmed himself he said, “Sure, Saul… the adventurer’s life is a fine thing, but what does a man need of that life when he has the love of a good woman? Although once he has found that woman, he’s going to need plenty of money…” So saying, Dragomir picked up the sacks of gold one at a time, and he began dragging them into the cabin. “Heavy!” he said. Didn’t I say each sack weighs fifty kilos? I’ll be in the cabin dividing our shares!… Saul, do me a favor while I’m counting our money…”
“Anything you like.”
“Keep the boat on course for Spain. We wouldn’t want the wind to blow us back to Tripoli, would we?!”
Chapter Thirty-eight
The boat we were sailing was a beauty. It had left Tripoli with four passengers who were also the crew. Dragomir was the one who’d borrowed the boat for this quote, ‘little boat ride’; and now, it being officially late in returning to Tripoli, the owner must have been furious. He was surely hunting us down by then, but what did we care? As far as we were concerned, the new owner of the boat was Captain Dragomir; and since he himself no longer needed to play the part of the fortune-teller, he gave that role to his boat. Thus, he named his boat: The Clairvoyant.
And so we sailed that day and kept course until we reached Málaga, meeting no hardship, undergoing no pain. Dragomir docked The Clairvoyant at the port and said to his happy crew that he wished to remain behind when we were to move on. He wanted to close-up his home in Málaga and transport his favorite possessions onto The Clairvoyant, which would then serve as his home while he sailed off in some direction or other, looking for the perfect place to begin a new life.
Adélaïse, Sa
skia and I spent the day in Málaga sightseeing. Adélaïse had never been to Málaga, although it was a city that had dramatically changed her life. Dragomir took that time to open a new bank account where he deposited fifteen-thousand gold louis in cash. He told us that after we parted ways, we could always find him by writing to his banker. We told him likewise that he could always reach us through Juhani’s bank in Madrid.
“Where will you three go now?”
“Paris,” I said, “But only until summer. After that we will all three go wandering together. I’ve convinced Saskia and Adélaïse to come with me to see the white nights of Saint Petersburg. Now that you made our fortune, we no longer need Saskia’s inheritance money from her uncle. Now the two of us can begin a romance in the open; we can live together without hiding.”
Dragomir smiled. “Another reason you don’t need to hide anymore: There is no more king of Tripoli who wants to kill the son of Solarus. It appears you are a free man now, Saul.”
“Maybe too free… I think I’m going to miss you following me from city to city, Dragomir. I’ll miss you watching me from your box at the Comédie-Française.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll still track you down,” said Dragomir, “I’ve been worrying about you for five years now; and old habits die hard. Well, goodbye for now, all of you…”
“Goodbye to you, Dragomir,” we all said. And so there in Málaga, Spain, we three wanderers: Saskia, Adélaïse, and Saul, all said goodbye to that singular man, Dragomir: the clever charlatan and gifted clairvoyant who made us find each other, who made us happy, and who made us rich. Before we parted ways, Saskia had a final question for her fortune-teller…
“Just one thing I could never figure-out, Dragomir… In my fortune, you said: ‘Your fingers were not made for keys, but for strings. You love song, and you sing.’ …How in the world did you know this? I didn’t have my guitar with me that night. How did you guess I played a stringed instrument? How did you know I sing?”