“No, no, my friend, do not mistake my intention. Kotikokura will not disturb me. He may visit me whenever he pleases.”
His face beamed. His eyes dashed so rapidly from one corner to the other that I could not look at them.
“Kotikokura, be a kindly master. Remember that justice is mainly pity. You are dealing with creatures whose years at best are few. Should they not endeavor to derive as much pleasure as possible from a world which is generous only in pain and in disillusion? Their life will be an attempt to avoid suffering. That indeed is the meaning of happiness. They will commit theft, adultery, and murder occasionally. They will tell lies, use flattery, and gossip. They will wallow in dirt like hogs, and pretend death, like foxes. And always will they be vain and obstinate.
“But all this is in the very nature of things, and should rather amuse than irritate. Be just. Justice, Kotikokura, is three-quarters convenience and one-quarter pity. All other definitions are the rhetoric of politicians and prophets and the vain words of poets. You and I are the masters of time. We can afford to pardon and to laugh. And when absolutely necessary, we may be cruel—or what may seem to be cruel—and laugh, nevertheless. Do not attempt to reform mankind or womankind. It is vainer than sweeping the refuse from one corner of the room to the other, and only raises dust and stench, which irritate the nose and throat. However, don’t hesitate to grant favors, deserved or undeserved.”
Kotikokura murmured, “Ca-ta-pha.”
“Ca-ta-pha, meanwhile, must find out—how things should be judged, Kotikokura. No archangel whispers into his ear. He has no Father in Heaven, no Holy Spirit alighting upon his palm, in the shape of a dove. He must rely upon reason and logic—both precious jewels, hidden within a mountain of stone. Ca-ta-pha must become a hewer and breaker of rock. Hard labor harmonizes with the law of his being. He is not a fragile receptacle, but a huge hammer, hammering God.”
The conclusions I reached astounded me. Infinity, eternity, dwindled into mere circles. Time disappeared. Space changed shape and size like clouds blown about by the wind. The earth lost its solidity, and spun under my feet like a toy. The stars were underneath and above me. Everything whirled about everything else, and nothing seemed constant, save a fantastic and passionate dance. Could this be the ultimate meaning of Life and of the Universe? I rebelled against it. I yearned for something less amorphous, more tangible, more comforting. I worked over my charts and my problems again and again. Always the result was the same. The equations, like an apothecary’s scale, balanced perfectly.
I looked out of the window. A moon as clear and as dazzling as the one I had watched with Apollonius long ago from the threshold of his home, adorned as a perfect jewel, heaven’s forehead. Some clouds crept over it for a while, and vanished.
Kotikokura entered, informing me that one of my concubines had died during the day and would, according to Mohammedan law, be buried that evening.
“I shall come to the funeral, Kotikokura.”
Kotikokura looked at me, startled. It was the first time, since my seclusion, that I had spoken of my return.
“Are you glad, Kotikokura, that I shall be once again with you?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“You must not be too sentimental, my friend.”
He kissed my hand.
“Or, perhaps, it is just as well. Sentiment is a more pleasant companion than reason.”
A large part of the orchard had been cleared and turned into a cemetery. Already ninety stone slabs glared in the wide reflection of the moon, throwing their own shadows, like wraiths of the dead. Upon each tomb was engraved the name of some dead concubine, and a prayer to Allah.
I read aloud each name, trying to evoke the faces of my dead mistresses. Their names were empty sounds, like strokes of a stick upon a tin pan. I could not remember whether they had afforded me pleasure, or had merely skimmed the surface of my senses.
Kotikokura walked behind me, grumbling something from time to time.
“Kotikokura, the man who possesses but one woman may, after all, possess more than he who possesses a thousand. His memory does not waver, as the light of a torch in the wind.”
We walked in silence for some time.
Two slaves were running, a wooden coffin upon their shoulders. The surviving women followed them, more leisurely, wailing and beating their breasts, and invoking Allah and the Prophet. Some chanted, repeating at intervals the name of the deceased. The coffin was lowered into the grave, a slave refilled it, and leveled the ground, beating it with a spade. The cortège, chatting and calling to one another, returned. The eunuchs walking among them admonished them to be less noisy.
The youngest of the women had already acquired the rotundity of maturity, while all about me I saw faces seared by wrinkles. I walked among my concubines, caressing them, or complimenting them, and telling them amusing stories. They laughed, and touching me furtively, whispered promises, lascivious or sentimental. They all remembered the Bath of Beauty.
“Were you very lonesome without me?” I asked.
They sighed. “Very lonesome. Fatima and Chadija wept and wept, until they died. The rest of us gradually became accustomed, knowing that the will of Allah is supreme.”
“Who were Fatima and Chadija?”
“Fatima had brown hair, tied in a knot, and eyes out of which all the sadness of the world seemed to peer. She was your favorite for an entire night…”
“Lydia,” I muttered. “And Chadija?”
“Chadija’s hair was like the new flax, and she rolled it into braids that reached to her knees. Our lord praised her beauty and called her by a heathen name.”
“What name?”
They remained silent.
“Does no one remember?”
“It sounded like Rica…or Urica,” one answered, her tongue slipping over her toothless gums. “She stabbed herself, master,” she whispered.
“And where is she who was so ticklish that I could not touch her, without making her laugh uproariously?”
“It is I, master. Don’t you recognize me?” She began to laugh, but stopped suddenly, and conscious of her bare gums, covered her mouth with her hands. “I am no longer ticklish, master,” she whispered significantly.
I looked at her, and wondered how every trace of John and Mary had vanished so utterly from her face. Would they, whom I loved so much, have looked like her, had they lived long enough? Did they look like her when they died…?
“Was Kotikokura a lenient master?”
They nodded. One looked around and whispered. “He was too indulgent, my lord. He allowed the eunuchs to fondle us.”
Kotikokura had evidently obeyed my instructions.
“Are you satisfied with your table?” I asked, realizing that as youth disappears, culinary raptures take the place of amatory delights.
“Our master has always been very generous,” one of them remarked. “But the new cook,” she whispered, “does not stew lamb with fresh almonds. His almonds are hard…”
“Our women are aging, Kotikokura. It is a pity.”
He nodded.
“But what is even more pathetic is that they still desire: their passions still smoulder. Alas, there is no harmony in the world! Passions are awakened long before we may express them, and continue long after we can. But why speak of harmony in a whirlwind?”
Kotikokura scratched his face.
The cemetery, having become too crowded, I ordered the remainder of the orchard to be cleared. Only four of the eunuchs were still alive, stout and hairless individuals, grumbling and scolding incessantly. At my approach, they still ordered the women to kneel. “Our Master! Our Master!” Most of them would no longer obey, finding it too difficult a matter to bend or rise. They preferred to lie outstretched upon the couches or carpets, and relate to one another their ailments, begging me to give them ointments and drugs to relieve their pain. Several had become deaf, three blind, some had succumbed to a second childhood. They sang ceaselessly or wept bi
tterly.
Kotikokura sighed.
“By the way, we too, my friend, must at least appear affected by the passing of time, or else, who knows what the jealousy of man is capable of? We must paint our faces yellow, walk with difficulty upon our canes, and make wry faces.”
Kotikokura dropped his jaw. His face seemed a thousand wrinkles. Senility crept into his joints. I applauded.
Every few days another woman died,—peacefully, save for a slight cramp. Kotikokura smiled secretively. His visits to the laboratory where I had stored my favorite poisons were mysterious and frequent. The eunuchs, too, passed away, and were buried during the night near the rest, as if they were still to guard their honor and virtue.
The swans, like boats with broken masts, continued to sail on their sides, their long stiff necks half drowned in the water. The dogs, each in a tiny coffin, were buried in one grave, and Kotikokura ordered a tombstone, upon which the names were inscribed, and their souls entrusted to Allah and His Prophet Mohammed.
I freed and rewarded my slaves according to their ability and my caprice.
“Kotikokura, once more we are ready to go. The banquet is over, life has turned to death, and noise to silence. Such is the fate of things and of men.”
Kotikokura nodded, fixing his turban.
I paid a visit to the Vizier. I told him that I felt death approaching, and that I preferred to breathe my last in Mecca, where the soil, trodden by the feet of the Prophet, was holy.
I signed a document, bequeathing all my possessions to the city of Bagdad, for the purpose of building a great mosque to the glory of Allah and His Prophet. Since the thousand faithful ones were buried there, I suggested that the place be known as The Mosque of the Thousand Graves.
The Vizier considered it a most appropriate and propitious name, He embraced me, and wished me a fine couch near the Prophet.
XXXVIII: I MEET A JEW—EVIL OMENS—THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ABRAHAM—SHIPWRECKED
THE Caliph’s armies captured Alexandria and the northern part of Africa, as far as the Atlantic Ocean. Europe’s feet began to scorch under the conflagration. Before long, the flames would rise and consume the entire body. Why was I so delighted? Was Mohammedanism more desirable than Christianity? Was it less an amalgamation of superstitions? Neither Christ nor Mohammed tolerated reason, and I would be an outcast whether the golden cross or the silver crescent glittered. And yet I exulted in the idea that the Nazarene must succumb to Mohammed.
I decided to investigate the progress of Christianity. Once more I was a wanderer. Once more the sea carried me away in her arms to a new destiny. The waves beat against the sides of our boat drearily, as a dog asleep wards off with his tired paw a pestiferous fly.
In an angle of the boat, some one played a Hebrew melody upon a reed. In my childhood, I had heard it played in just that manner by an old shepherd, owner of a dozen sheep, whose ribs nearly pierced through the skin. I used to follow him to the top of a hill, where the animals could graze unmolested. Unlike most Jews, he was not disputatious, and utterly unconcerned about the perennial quarrels of the clergy and the prophets.
“Who knows who is in the right, my child? Maybe they are all in the right, or all in the wrong. And what difference does it make, anyhow? If a man lived a thousand years,—then he would have time to find out the truth,—but since he doesn’t live much longer than his sheep, it is better to keep quiet or play a tune upon a reed.”
He was wrong. A thousand years sufficed no more to discover the truth than sixty. At sixty or at a thousand the best thing was to play a tune on a reed! I approached the player. I was struck by his resemblance to the shepherd I had known in my childhood. Or, did I perhaps imagine a resemblance? Would my memory really have retained the image so clearly?
I praised his music. He thanked me. I asked him where he came from, and his destination. He smiled sadly. “You may never have heard of my country, sir, and as for my destination,—who knows? Wherever the boat stops, I must land, must I not?”
I understood perfectly what he meant, and something gripped my heart like a fist. After seven centuries, was I still a Jew?
“I have traveled through many lands, my friend. It is very likely that I have been in yours.”
He laughed. His voice sounded like several dice shaken together. “My country? I have none. Hundreds of years ago, my ancestors were driven out of it. My country? Any place where I can earn my bread; where I am not beaten and spat upon too often; where I can pray to God in peace.”
“Your demands are certainly modest, and I am sure you can find welcome in any country.”
He stared at me. “You say you have traveled in many countries, and you do not know that it is often better to be a leper or a dog than a Jew!”
“A Jew,” I muttered.
“Ah, you see! A Jew! It sounds terrible to your ears, doesn’t it? I suppose that like the rest of the travelers here, you will shun me from now on. You will laugh at me as I pass by. You will call me ugly names. I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky if I am not thrown overboard.”
“Oh no, my friend. Is not a Jew a human being?”
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” he answered, half in irony, and half in humility.
‘The eternal Jew,’ I thought. ‘Proud and vain,—and ingratiating. And how much like myself’! I liked him and hated him for it.
“But it doesn’t matter, sir. Our enemies fare no better than we. They hate and slaughter one another, and the day will come, when they will atone for the cruelty to us. Meanwhile, I have my reed, my sack of goods,—and my God.”
I remained silent. He mistook it for anger. He laughed a little. “I am sure you do not take my words seriously, sir. I am but a fool, and my tongue utters silly things. Our enemies are powerful and eternal. I beg your pardon.” He bowed, and was about to go away.
“Stay a while longer. I am not at all angry at your words.”
We were silent for a while. The edge of the horizon was a scarlet flame.
“It will be windy,” he said.
I nodded. I looked at the large sack next to him. He caught my glance. “Perhaps the gentleman would like to buy a scarf for his wife, or a turban for himself?”
Without waiting for my answer, he opened the bundle and showed me one thing after another, talking ceaselessly, and swearing by his children and his own life, that never were such goods sold at such a price,—that indeed such goods had never been made before.
I chose a few things, and paid him the price he asked. He was a little taken aback, and as he remade his bundle, he muttered in Hebrew: “What fools these Gentiles are!”
The moon hid her ghastly face behind a fan of clouds.
The azure waters of the Mediterranean changed to a dark ominous blue which at times appeared jet black. The waves which had ruffled gracefully like silk became gigantic hills dashing angrily against our boat.
Food became scarce.
Several members of the crew died from some mysterious malady.
To the east of us the clouds gathered like a gigantic black fist. The sailors, grumbling and taciturn, rushed up and down the deck.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I had not seen Abraham an entire day. We looked for him at his accustomed places. I asked one sailor after another “Where is Abraham?”
They glared at me.
I asked the captain. He shrugged his shoulders and made the sign of the cross. I was about to return to my cabin when I heard a piercing cry, followed immediately by the splash of a heavy body in the water.
“Adonai! Elohim! Ado– —”
The voice died in a gurgle.
Three more sailors died and were thrown into the ocean. The crew made the sign of the cross whenever they passed me or Kotikokura. “We must act quickly, Kotikokura. It is not pleasant to have a knife thrust through your body.” Kotikokura did not answer but his fist opened and shut spasmodically.
Next morning the deck was strewn with the corpses of the crew and of the captain. We th
rew them one by one into the ocean.
Kotikokura had a few cuts on his arm which a sailor not entirely asleep from my potion had managed to inflict. He licked his wounds like an animal. I was struck by the enormous size of his tongue.
At times we drifted. At other times I steered the vessel. Kotikokura scrubbed the deck, his immense muscles pressing against the hairy skin.
Kotikokura was shouting and dancing about me. His eyes, much keener than mine, had espied land. He had become very restless recently, and complained steadily against his work. He considered it a positive pain, and longed for the solid earth where he never overstrained his muscles. It was one thing to please a Princess, and another to keep a boat in good condition.
“We are reaching land, and you are overjoyed, Kotikokura. You shall be free.”
Kotikokura danced more wildly.
“Yes, my friend, but if you are free of the boat, you will be a slave to the earth. You will have to act in accordance with the foolish customs and notions of whatever country we may happen to live in. Who knows which is a worse slavery? Perhaps it were best to continue forever on the water, where we do not have to pretend any religion, or nationality. For such people as we– —”
Kotikokura shouted: “No! No! No!”
“You do not believe that– —”
“No! No! No!”
“All right. It shall be as you say. But where shall we land? And what shall we be? It is never sufficient to be a man, Kotikokura. It is not even essential. It is absolutely necessary, however, that we praise the right Prophet and shout ‘Long Live!’ to the right Emperor.”
Kotikokura was not in the mood for listening to me.
“Land! Land!” he exclaimed, pointing to the west. By this time, I had begun to see the gray peaks of a long stretch of rocks or mountains.
‘Where shall we land, and under what pretenses?’ I asked myself, again and again. But finally I burst out into laughter, which startled Kotikokura.
“Why should we trouble our minds about our welfare, my friend? The gods who are anxious to keep us alive as symbols of perversity will see to it that all things are adjusted in our favor. Are we not their perennial prisoners; and their eyes,—are they not a million times sharper than ours?”
[The Wandering Jew 1] - My First Two Thousand Years the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 19