The Physician

by Noah Gordon

  Rob grasped wrists with each of them in turn.

  Farewell, chunky Gershom, whose tough arse I lanced.

  Farewell, sharp-nosed, black-bearded Judah.

  Goodbye, friendly young Tuveh.

  Thank you, Meir.

  Thank you, thank you, Simon!

  He said goodbye to them with regret, for they had shown him kindness. The parting was more difficult because it took him from the book that had led him into the Persian language.

  Presently he drove alone through Constantinople, an enormous city, perhaps larger than London. When seen from afar it had appeared to float in the warm clear air, framed between the dark blue stone of the walls and the different blues of the sky above and the Sea of Marmara to the south. Seen from within, Constantinople was a city full of stone churches that loomed over narrow streets crowded with riders on donkeys, horses, and camels, as well as sedan chairs and carts and wagons of every description. Burly porters dressed in a loose uniform of rough brown stuff carried incredible burdens on their backs or on platforms that they wore on their heads like hats.

  In a public square Rob paused to study a lone figure that stood atop a tall column of porphyry, overlooking the city. From the Latin inscription he was able to learn that this was Constantine the Great. The teaching brothers and priests of St. Botolph’s school in London had given him a thorough grounding in the subject of this statue; priests were greatly taken with Constantine, for he was the first Roman emperor to become a Christian. Indeed, his conversion had been the making of the Christian Church, and when he had captured the metropolis called Byzantium from the Greeks by force of arms and made it his own—Constantinople, city of Constantine—it became the jewel of Christianity in the East, a place of cathedrals.

  Rob left the area of commerce and churches and entered the neighborhoods of narrow wooden houses built cheek by jowl, with overhanging second stories that might have been transported from any number of English towns. It was a city rich in nationalities, as befit a place that marked the end of one continent and the beginning of another. He drove through a Greek quarter, an Armenian market, a Jewish sector, and suddenly, instead of listening to one impenetrable babble after another, he heard words in Parsi.

  Straightaway he asked for and found a stable, run by a man named Ghiz. It was a good stable and Rob saw to Horse’s comfort before leaving her, for she had served him well and deserved a lazy rest and lots of grain. Ghiz pointed Rob toward his own home at the top of the Path of the Three Hundred and Twenty-nine Steps, where a room was for rent.

  The room proved worth the climb, for it was light and clean and a salt breeze blew through the window.

  From it he looked down over the hyacinth Bosporus, on which sails were like moving blossoms. Past the far shore, perhaps half a mile away, he could see looming domes and minarets keen as lances and realized they were the reason for the earthworks, the moat, and the two walls surrounding Constantinople. A few feet from his window the influence of the Cross ended and the lines were manned to defend Christendom from Islam. Across the strait, the influence of the Crescent began.

  He stayed at the window and stared over at Asia, into which he would delve deep and soon.

  That night Rob dreamed of Mary. He awoke to melancholy and fled the room. Off a square called August’s Forum he found public baths, where he took the chill waters briefly and then sat lolling in the tepidarium’s hot water like Caesar, soaping himself and breathing steam.

  When he emerged, toweled dry and glowing from the last cold plunge, he was enormously hungry and more optimistic. In the Jewish market he bought little fishes fried brown and a bunch of black grapes that he ate while he searched for what he needed.

  In many of the booths he saw the short linen undergarments every Jew had worn at Tryavna. The little vests bore the braided embellishments called tsitsith which, Simon had explained, allowed Jews to carry out the biblical admonition that all their lives they must wear fringes on the corners of garments.

  He found a Jewish merchant who spoke Persian. He was a doddering man with a down-turned mouth and there were food stains on his caftan, but in Rob’s eyes he was the first threat of exposure.

  “It’s a gift for a friend, he is my size,” Rob muttered. The old man paid him small attention, intent on the sale. Finally he came up with a fringed undergarment that was large enough.

  Rob didn’t dare buy everything at once. Instead, he went to the stables and saw that Horse was fine.

  “Yours is a decent wagon,” Ghiz said.

  “Yes.”

  “I might be willing to buy.” “Not for sale.”

  Ghiz shrugged. “An adequate wagon, though I would have to paint it. But a poor beast, alas. Without spirit. Without the proud look in her eyes. You would be fortunate to have that animal off your hands.”

  He saw at once that Ghiz’s interest in the wagon was a diversion to direct attention from the fact that he had taken a fancy to Horse.

  “Neither is for sale.”

  Still, he had to fight a smile at the idea that so clumsy a diversion had been attempted on one for whom diversion had been a stock in trade. The wagon was close at hand and it amused him, while the stableman was busy in a stall, to make certain unobtrusive preparations.

  Presently he drew a silver coin from Ghiz’s left eye.

  “O Allah!”

  He convinced a wooden ball to vanish when covered by a kerchief, then he caused the kerchief to change color, and change color again, green to blue to brown.

  “In the Prophet’s name …”

  Rob drew a red ribbon from between his teeth and presented it with as pretty a flourish as if the stableman were a blushing girl. Caught between wonderment and fear of this infidel djinni, Ghiz gave in to delight. And thus part of the day was spent pleasantly in magic and juggling, and before he was through, he could have sold Ghiz anything.

  With his evening meal he was served a flask of fiery brown drink, too thick and cloying and too plentiful. At the next table was a priest, and Rob offered him some of the drink.

  Priests here wore long flowing black robes and tall, cylindrical cloth hats with stiff little brims. This one’s robe was fairly clean but his hat bore the greasy story of a long career. He was a red-faced, pop-eyed man of middle age, eager to converse with a European and improve his facility with Western languages. He knew no English but tried Rob in the Norman and Frankish tongues and finally settled for speaking Persian, a trifle sulkily.

  His name was Father Tamas and he was a Greek priest.

  His mood sweetened over the liquor, which he drank in large draughts.

  “Are you to settle in Constantinople, Master Cole?”

  “No, in a few days I’ll travel East in hopes of acquiring medicinal herbs to take back to England.”

  The priest nodded. It would be best to venture East without delay, he said, for the Lord had ordained that one day there would be a righteous war between the One True Church and the Islamic savage. “Have you visited our Cathedral of St. Sofia?” he demanded, and was aghast when Rob smiled and shook his head. “But, my new friend, you must, before you leave! You must! For it is the churchly marvel of the world. It was raised at the order of Constantine himself, and when that worthy emperor first entered the cathedral he fell upon his knees and exclaimed, ‘I have built better than Solomon.’

  “It is not without reason that the head of the Church makes his quarters within the magnificence of the Cathedral of St. Sofia,” Father Tamas said.

  Rob looked at him in surprise. “Has Pope John moved to Constantinople from Rome, then?”

  Father Tamas contemplated him. When he seemed satisfied that Rob was not laughing at his expense, the Greek priest smiled frostily. “John XIX remains Patriarch of the Christian Church in Rome. But Alexius IV is Patriarch of the Christian Church in Constantinople, and here he is our only shepherd,” he said.

  The liquor and the ocean air combined to give him a deep and dreamless sleep. Next morning he allowed himse
lf to repeat the luxury of the Augustine Baths, and in the street bought a breakfast of bread and fresh plums as he walked to the Jews’ bazaar. At the market he selected carefully, for he had given thought to each item. He had observed a few linen prayer shawls in Tryavna but the men he had respected most there had worn wool; now he bought wool for himself, a four-cornered shawl adorned with fringes similar to those on the undergarment he had found the day before.

  Feeling passing strange, he bought a set of phylacteries, the leather straps they placed on their forehead and wound around an arm during the morning prayers.

  He had made each of the purchases from a different merchant. One of them, a sallow young man with gaps in his mouth from missing teeth, had a particularly large display of caftans. The man didn’t know Parsi but gestures served them well. None of the caftans was large enough, but the merchant motioned that Rob must wait, and then he hurried to the booth of the old man who had sold Rob the tsitsith. Here there were larger caftans, and within a few moments Rob had purchased two of them.

  Leaving the bazaar with his possessions in a cloth bag, he took a street on which he hadn’t walked and soon saw a church so magnificent it could only be the Cathedral of St. Sofia. He entered enormous brazen doors and found himself in a huge openness of lovely proportion, with a reaching of pillar into arch, of arch into vault, of vault into a dome so high it made him smaller than life. The vast space of the nave was illuminated by thousands of wicks whose soft clear burning in cups of oil was reflected by more glitter than he was accustomed to in a church, icons framed in gold, walls of precious marbles, too much gilt and blaze for an English taste. There was no sign of the Patriarch but, looking down the nave, he saw priests at the altar in richly brocaded chasubles. One of the figures was swinging a censer and they were singing a Mass but were so far away that Rob couldn’t smell the incense or make out the Latin.

  The greater part of the nave was deserted and he sat in the rear surrounded by empty carven benches, beneath the contorted figure hanging from a cross that loomed in the lamp-lit gloom. He felt that the staring eyes penetrated his depths and knew the contents of the cloth bag. He hadn’t been raised in piety, yet in this calculated rebellion he was strangely moved to religious feeling. He knew he had entered the cathedral precisely for this moment, and he rose to his feet and for a time stood in silence and met the challenge of those eyes.

  Finally he spoke aloud. “It needs be done. But I am not forsaking you,” he said.

  He was less certain a short time later, after he had climbed the hill of stone steps and was again in his room.

  On the table he propped the small square of steel in whose polished surface he had been accustomed to shaving, and he took his knife to the hair that now fell long and tangled over his ears, trimming until what was left were the ceremonial earlocks they called peoth.

  He disrobed and put on the tsitsith fearfully, half expecting to be stricken. It seemed to him that the fringes crawled over his flesh.

  The long black caftan was less intimidating. It was only an outer garment, with no connection to their God.

  The beard was still undeniably sparse. He arranged his earlocks so they hung loosely beneath the bell-shaped Jew’s hat. The leather cap was a fortunate touch because it was so obviously old and used.

  Still, when he had left the room again and entered the street he knew it was madness and it wouldn’t work; he expected anyone who looked at him to howl with laughter.

  I shall need a name, he thought.

  It wouldn’t do to be called Reuven the Barber-Surgeon as he had been known in Tryavna; to succeed in the transformation he required more than a piss-weak Hebrew version of his goy identity.

  Jesse …

  A name he remembered from Mam’s reading the Bible aloud. A strong name he could live with, the name of the father of King David.

  For his patronymic he chose Benjamin, in honor of Benjamin Merlin, who had, albeit unwillingly, shown him what a physician could be.

  He would say he came from Leeds, he decided, because he remembered the look of the Jewish-owned houses there and could speak in detail of the place if need should arise.

  He resisted an urge to turn and flee, for coming toward him were three priests and with something akin to panic he recognized that one of them was Father Tamas, his dining companion of the previous evening.

  The three proceeded as unhurriedly as pacing crows, deep in conversation.

  He forced himself to walk toward them. “Peace be unto you,” he said when they were abreast.

  The Greek priest slid his glance disdainfully over the Jew and then turned back to his companions without replying to the greeting.

  When they had passed him, Jesse ben Benjamin of Leeds indulged in a smile. Calmly now and with more confidence he continued on his way, striding with his palm pressed against his right cheek, as the rabbenu of Tryavna had been wont to walk when deep in thought.

  PART THREE

  Ispahan

  34

  THE LAST LEG

  Despite the change in his appearance he still felt like Rob J. Cole when he went to the caravanserai at midday. A large train to Jerusalem was in the process of organization and the great open space was a confusing maelstrom of drovers leading laden camels and asses, men trying to back wagons into line, riders on horseback milling dangerously close, while animals screamed their protests and harried humans raised their voices in condemnation of the beasts and one another. A party of Norman knights had claimed the only shade, on the northern side of the storehouses, where they lounged on the ground and hurled drunken insults at passers-by. Rob J. didn’t know if they were the men who had killed Mistress Buffington, but they might well have been, and he avoided them with distaste.

  He sat on a bale of prayer rugs and watched the Chief of Caravans. The kervanbashi was a burly Turkish Jew who wore a black turban over grizzled hair that still contained traces of its former red color. Simon had told him that this man, name of Zevi, could be invaluable in helping to arrange safe travel. Certainly, all quailed before him.

  “Woe be unto you!” Zevi roared at an unfortunate drover. “Hie you from this place, dullard. Lead your animals away, for are they not to follow the beasts of the merchants of the Black Sea? Have I not told you twice? Cannot you ever recall your true place in the line of march, O misbegotten?”

  It seemed to Rob that Zevi was everywhere, settling arguments between merchants and transporters, conferring with the caravan master concerning the route, checking bills of lading.

  As Rob sat and watched, a Persian sidled up to him, a small man, so skinny he had hollows in his cheeks. From his beard, to which flecks of food still clung, it was evident he had eaten millet gruel that morning, and he wore a dirty orange turban, too small for his head.

  “Where do you travel, Hebrew?” “I hope to leave soon for Ispahan.”

  “Ah, Persia! You wish a guide, effendi? For I was born in Qum, a hart hunt from Ispahan, and I know every stone and bush along the way.” Rob hesitated.

  “Everyone else will take you the long, hard way, along the coast. Then through the Persian mountains. That is because they avoid the shortest route through the Great Salt Desert, fearing it. But I can take you straight across the desert to water, avoiding all robbers.”

  He was strongly tempted to agree and leave at once, remembering how well Charbonneau had served. But there was something furtive about the man and in the end he shook his head.

  The Persian shrugged. “If you change your mind, master, I am a bargain as a guide, very cheap.”

  A moment later one of the highborn French pilgrims, passing the bale where Rob was sitting, staggered and fell against him.

  “You shit,” he said, and spat. “You Jew.”

  Rob stood, his color mounting. He saw that the Norman was already reaching for his sword.

  Suddenly Zevi was upon them. “A thousand pardons, my lord, ten thousand pardons! I shall tend to this one,” he said, and shoved the astonished Rob a
way before him.

  When they were clear, Rob listened to the rattle of words that came from Zevi and shook his head.

  “I don’t speak the Tongue well. Nor did I need your help with the Frenchman,” he said, searching for the words in Parsi.

  “Indeed? You’d have been killed, young ox.”

  “It was my own affair.”

  “No, no! In a place crowded with Muslims and drunken Christians, killing a single Jew would be like eating a single date. They would have killed many of us and therefore it was very much my affair.” Zevi stared at him furiously. “What kind of Yahud is it who speaks Persian like a camel, doesn’t speak his own tongue, and seeks to brawl? What is your name and where are you from?”

  “I am Jesse, son of Benjamin. A Jew of Leeds.”

  “Where in hell is Leeds?”

  “England.”

  “An Inghiliz!” Zevi said. “Never before have I met a Jew who was an Inghiliz.”

  “We’re few and scattered. There is no community there. No rabbenu, no shohet, no mashgiah. No study house or synagogue, so we seldom hear the Tongue. That is why I have so little of it.”

  “Bad, to raise your children in a place where they don’t feel their own God or hear their own language.” Zevi sighed. “Often it is hard to be a Jew.”

  When Rob asked whether he knew of a large, protected caravan bound for Ispahan, he shook his head.

  “I have been approached by a guide,” Rob said.

  “A Persian turd with a little turban and a dirty beard?” Zevi snorted. “That one would take you straight into the hands of evil men. You would be left lying in the desert with your throat cut and your belongings stolen. No,” he said, “you will be better off in a caravan of our own people.” He thought for a long moment. “Reb Lonzano,” he said finally.