When they entered the Christian neighborhood inhabited by the Franks, where Cremona had his translation workshop, Diego noticed gestures of disapproval on the part of numerous passersby whenever they walked past them.
“They’re looking at us cruelly.”
“It’s not because of you,” Benazir responded. “They don’t like my garments. My mere presence bothers them. Many of them are what you call Ultramontanes, natives of the Pyrenees, and they would like a crusade like the ones that liberated Jerusalem to expel us or to exterminate us all.”
When they entered an alley, a strong gust of wind blew against them, making walking difficult. Diego contemplated Benazir. The air pressed her dress into her body and revealed a lovely figure with generous contours. He felt guilty. How he wanted to run his hands over it. … And at the same time, he hated himself for it. He couldn’t manage to express what was happening to him but he knew he shouldn’t even be thinking of it. It wasn’t right. Benazir was the wife of his master and, if Diego acted on his feelings, he would never be able to renew Galib’s trust in him.
“Forget them, it’s not worth it.” She spoke to him in Arabic.
“They owe you respect,” he replied, also in her language, with a defiant look. “And a man can’t allow …”
Benazir pulled at him and sped up her step with the intention of getting away, proud at Diego’s reaction. After they turned a corner, they took a narrow alley where the translator’s workshop was located. A strong door was hidden in the center of a wall covered with marigolds and an enormous asparagus plant. To the left, a wooden shield indicated the owner.
They entered after calling twice at the door without receiving any reply. It seemed like any other shop, although slightly strange, since apart from having a large counter no one was waiting on anyone and there were no objects on the shelf.
They waited a moment, but not a soul appeared. There was just a door that seemed to lead to the interior. It was half closed. When they pushed it, it creaked resoundingly, and yet that didn’t attract the interest of its owners either. Benazir peeked in and was astonished by what she saw. She stepped aside for Diego.
“Come in and see how marvelous …”
It was a rectangular room, not very large but with a special charm. A thick column of light fell from a high alabaster ceiling, coming to rest on two enormous tables that ran from one end to the other, leaving a narrow passage in the middle. Atop them reposed, tranquil, hundreds of beautiful books bound in fine cordovan leather. Their careful and sinuous Arabic script, embossed in gold on their covers and spines, shone beneath the reflection of the sun.
Looking more closely, Diego discovered among them the texts of such signal Muslim authors as Averroes and Abu Zakaria, whom Galib cited frequently. Others were unknown to him, like Aristotle, Heraclitus, or Hippocrates.
He ran a finger over their spines. Out of respect for their valuable contents, he didn’t want to touch even one of those manuscripts, but he looked at all of them, one by one, until he reached the edge of the room, where another door awaited them, this one of exquisitely carved oak. When they came close, they heard a grave and raspy voice. It was pronouncing a long phrase in Latin.
Benazir opened it with purpose and entered into a smaller room. Inside there were three men who turned around immediately in curiosity.
“Is one of you Gerardo de Cremona?”
One, with abundant gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, weathered skin, and small, deep-set eyes, set down the book he had in his hands and smiled at her.
“So they call me. Gerardo de Cremona, translator. One of the many employed nowadays in this profession in Toledo.”
With him was an unkempt-looking friar and a person with a wrinkled face topped with an enormous yellow turban.
“How can we help you?”
“I am Benazir, the wife of the albéitar Galib, and this is his assistant, Diego.”
The face of the translator relaxed and he remembered the order.
“Ah! The albéitar Galib. Welcome. Come in, please. Make yourselves at home. I have your order in another room.”
Gerardo de Cremona turned to the door that led to the next room but realized he hadn’t introduced them to the people he was with.
“How rude I am! Excuse me. I don’t suppose you know my companions. Friar Benito, besides a Calatravan priest, is a great expert in the Latin language. He doesn’t always work with us, only when his master charges him with some task.” The person referred to stood and made a kindly face. “Now we are working on a treatise of Avicenna, The Book of Healing. We will translate it from Arabic to Romanic and then into Latin.”
“Why wouldn’t you do it directly into Latin?” Diego asked, interested by everything he saw and heard in the room.
“Arabic is a complex language. The vowels can sound different depending on how they are intoned, and their meaning changes as well. In our case, Habim bin Dussuf”—the person referred to bowed his head, the traditional form of salutation—“is responsible for reading the text in the original. He has two advantages; not only is it his own language, but he is a recognized theologian, and he thus knows the material well. While he reads the original, I make the translation into Romanic, your language, and Friar Benito translates that into Latin and writes it out.”
Habim turned toward a corner where he picked up a bronze jar and offered them a cup of tea.
“Though it may strike you as too long or laborious a process,” Gerardo de Cremona continued, “in practice, it isn’t. Besides, it is more common nowadays to find someone who knows Arabic and Romanic, or Romanic and Latin. Very few people have mastered both Arabic and Latin. Do you understand?”
“What types of books do you translate?” Diego drank the tea, flavored with honey and scented with sandalwood, in one sip.
“It depends on the buyer. The church wants treatises of Muslim thought to better know who they’re up against.” Friar Benito nodded, completely in agreement with this mission. “Even so, the books of medicine and science remain the most popular, both the writing by the Greek philosophers and those coming from noted Arabic doctors, philosophers, and scholars.”
He took up a thick volume from a shelf and caressed it as though he held a delicate treasure in his hands. Diego read the name Dioscorides on the cover.
“They come from all over Europe looking for them,” Cremona continued. “Ancient wisdom disappeared from the West when Rome lost her empire. It was only preserved in Byzantium. Many Arabic scholars compiled them for the libraries in Baghdad, Damascus, or Egypt where they were translated. Some of those treatises were copied and wound up in the most famous libraries of Al-Andalus, where they were studied and preserved as authentic jewels of knowledge. But seventy years ago, as a result of the Almohad invasion, many wise Jews and Arabs were so threatened by the religious and cultural extremism that they had to flee. Toledo was an ideal destination, and for that reason many of them settled among us, and this is how there came to be created what some now call the School of Translators, an immense group of illustrious men dedicated to translate that ancient wisdom from Arabic into Latin or Romanic. King Alfonso of Castile is the greatest promoter of this enterprise. He has brought many scholars to Toledo who are fleeing from the one-sided vision of the Almohads.”
“Who else buys your work?” Diego asked while he leafed through the book the man had treated so carefully.
“Our clients come from the most far-flung universities and cathedrals and they pay well. They normally look for the philosophical works of Arabic authors, like Avicenna, most recently, or of Jews like Maimonides of Córdoba.”
“In the other room, I saw a beautiful collection of books and I was interested in one in particular, but I don’t know what its value could be.”
Galib had spoken to him numerous times of that treatise on the albéitar, the work of an anonymous author and the first written
reference to the profession. Diego had found it on one of the tables.
“Boy, I regret to tell you that those books are far outside your reach. I hope I am not offending you. Do you understand?”
At that instant, Benazir made a discreet but portentous face. The translator understood and reacted immediately, inviting them to look at the books.
He stood between the two tables and ran his hands over their entire contents.
“Here you see my entire supply. They are all the books translated by my team and some in their original languages. When I sell one, I make a new copy, taking advantage of an identical copy I keep in another room. But tell me: Which were you interested in?”
Diego took it respectfully in his hands. At once he realized that however much it might interest him, it was possible that he could never pay for it in his entire life.
“This one.”
“Treatise on the Albéitar’s Art,” the owner read its title out loud. “A book by an unknown author, who they say may have been a Castilian residing in Córdoba. Excellent choice, young man. It is believed to be the first book dealing with the illnesses of horses and their cures, very important for your future profession, of course.” He opened it and suddenly remembered something. “Sadly, I have to tell you that I don’t have it translated.”
“He knows Arabic,” Benazir interrupted.
“You really understand it?”
Diego opened to a page and began to translate the first paragraph. Gerardo de Cremona stood behind him, confirming the young man was right in almost everything he read.
“Really, you wouldn’t have much difficulty in reading it.”
“I don’t think I could pay for it, but could I come some afternoons to consult it?”
“Diego, allow me to give it to you,” Benazir exclaimed, proud of her student’s progress. “You’ll see, it will help us with our classes.”
“I don’t know if I should …” Diego hesitated.
“It’s decided. I will take two books, my husband’s and this one.”
Once in the street, Benazir was happy to see the smile on the boy’s face. He held on to the book as though it was his very soul, and his face reflected his overwhelming gladness. Benazir walked at his side, satisfied with what she had done. She felt comfortable beside a boy so full of nobility, simplicity, and talent.
She looked at him sideways and saw he was doing the same. She felt a strong temptation to embrace him, but they were in the middle of the street. It couldn’t be. …
A few streets farther on, they came across the men from the tavern again and one of them recognized them.
“Mix with Moors,” he said, “and you’ll get contaminated with the evil they carry around inside.”
Benazir kept Diego from looking at him.
“Don’t get angry, I beg you.” She lowered her head and asked him to keep walking.
“But …”
“That is how they see us; there is nothing we can do. They also call us the king’s Moors, because we belong to him the way the Jews do. We are mudajjan, mudéjars, free Muslims, permitted to live, pray, and work in Christian lands, but in these turbulent times, it is very hard to find peace. That is the truth. That’s how it is.”
“Leave your slave with us and we’ll send her back happier than she is with you,” another insisted, making an obscene face.
Diego couldn’t resist and leapt at the second man even though he was clearly twice his age. Perhaps because he caught him by surprise, Diego managed to knock the man down and hit his face with punches. But the same didn’t happen with the rest. They responded in kind, without paying attention to Benazir’s cries for help, falling on Diego and beating him so badly that blood soon stained his clothes and ran over the paving stones in the street. Fortunately, a knight arrived with various neighbors to stop the bloodbath, because otherwise, it could have proved fatal for Diego.
Hours later the boy rested in Galib’s house at Benazir’s firm request. His side hurt. A doctor had just examined him and had not found any fractures, but a few of his ribs were damaged and he had abundant scratches and bruising. He rubbed him down with a thick salve on the affected area, which relieved him a great deal, and then he bandaged Diego tightly.
From that moment, Benazir did not leave him even for a second. She relieved the burning of his wounds with a damp cloth. Where she saw a bit of inflammation, she rapidly covered it with a paste made from willow leaves. She had him drink a liquid she had boiled with the bark from the same tree to soothe his pains, and she gave him a piece of sugarcane to bite so it wouldn’t be so bitter.
“I’m sorry, everything was my fault. I owe you a favor.”
She pulled back her veil and took his hand, kissing it in gratitude for his reaction. And suddenly Diego saw how her eyes strayed over his nude torso, young and muscular. Benazir looked at it, feeling a strong urge to caress it, to kiss it, though she immediately rejected those thoughts. Startled, she stood up brusquely and turned toward a balcony to take in a bit of fresh air.
“Do you feel bad?” Diego asked, surprised by that abrupt action.
“Worse than I had even imagined. …”
XV.
Even when she would leave, her perfume was still notable for hours in the room.
Diego smelled his hands and she was there. He tried with the sheets and recognized her as well. Benazir never left that room.
He had been staying in Galib’s house for four days, forced to remain there until his wounds had completely healed. He felt well, but the doctor had the last word and he still hadn’t given his approval.
At the beginning, Diego had offered innumerable objections to staying in the house, but soon he realized it would allow him to be near Benazir every day, and he stopped protesting.
She passed the hours at his side, sewing, reading him poetry, and above all, telling her stories. She gave him enough clues to understand her past, and with her tales, he found himself transported to Persia. As the days passed, the conversations became more intimate and Benazir began to share some of her dreams and feelings as well.
In that atmosphere of trust, Diego took interest in the most intimate aspects of her personality, and soon his doubts blossomed, the first indications that she was living in a deteriorating relationship.
Sometimes she would sit close to him on the bed, to care for his wounds, and then Diego would think he was dying. That became a ritual rife with sensuality. First, when he was turned around, she would take off the bandage from the day before and clean the wound with a cloth soaked in warm water, very slowly, washing him afterward with its other side. Her other hand almost always rested on his shoulder, or in different places on his back. Diego concentrated on feeling the tenuous warmth of her skin, its smooth touch. Then she would ask him to turn over so she could see the cut on his neck. It was then that he had her closest to him. He would focus on her eyes, on her sensual mouth and the tautness of her cheeks. When she tried to clear away the small bits of blood or scabs, her hair would fall freely over him, grazing his chest, his face.
Diego felt her so close sometimes that he had to grasp the sheets in his hands, almost tie himself to them, so he wouldn’t wrap his arms behind the woman’s back.
In the afternoons, by candlelight, Benazir would enjoy reciting him some poem of Arabic origin. And that was another of those moments of special emotion. Diego would close his eyes and concentrate on reciting the soft whisper of her words in his interior, the cadence of her tone, the pauses, the restrained breath; Diego absorbed every small detail that flowered from that woman, plunged into happiness and joy.
One of those afternoons, Diego decided to leave the bedroom to stretch his swollen legs. He felt impatient to take back up his normal life and he decided to force the doctor to give him a good bill of health the next day.
He didn’t see anyone; he only heard his own footsteps.
He thought that the servants must already be sleeping downstairs, and he only saw light emanating from Galib’s bedroom. Between his own room and that of his master there was a glassed-in gallery that opened onto a lit yard. As he crossed it, he saw that the door of those rooms was open and he saw Benazir inside, next to Galib. The growing darkness that enveloped him made it so no one could realize he was there. He was curious and he stayed there quiet, observing them.
Benazir was wearing a white nightgown, very thin. She had just given Galib a tightly wrapped package. He was concentrating on opening it and with great emotion he took out the book he had chosen from the translator’s workshop. With so much going on in the house, she hadn’t had time to give it to him before. Diego heard him say thanks and then he immediately embraced her.
While she was being kissed, Benazir loosened the cord that held her gown to her neck and half of her body was revealed. When Diego saw her naked back, he felt a shiver of emotion, a strange anxiousness, a great inner heat. And in that moment, he wanted to be Galib, to receive her in his arms, undress her completely, try the taste of her skin.
And yet his master didn’t seem to recognize the passionate intentions of his wife, and he pulled away from her to examine the book. He opened it and began to turn pages, lost in himself. Benazir turned her back to him in disappointment and walked to the door, with half her body exposed. And then she saw Diego. Her first reaction was to cover herself, but almost immediately she took her hands from the cloth that covered her and the fabric fell to the floor. Diego felt moved without knowing what to do. He did not know whether to stop looking, to leave, or to approach her.
Their gazes met and he read the frustration in her eyes, and he thought he saw pain, too, provoked by her husband’s disdain. He, though, wanted her. …
He swallowed and his saliva tasted bitter. It wasn’t right what he was doing. It was as if he was stealing an intimacy that didn’t belong to him. For that reason, he turned and ran from the gallery. He needed to breathe, to get a bit of fresh air and meditate on what he had just seen.
The Horse Healer Page 10