by Mika Waltari
Prophet will ameliorate your lot in any way. If you try to escape, your bodies will be cut in pieces limb by limb and hung upon hooks on either side of the gate. Now tell me, you, what can you do, if anything, that would be of use to your owner?”
I answered quickly, “By your favor, Prince and Lord of Jerba, I am a physician. When I have learned Arabic and acquired knowledge of the remedies used in this country, I will gladly practice healing to the profit of my lord. And I may add without boasting that I’m familiar with many medicines and methods that will certainly be unknown here.”
At this Sinan the Jew stroked his beard, and his eye flashed as he asked, “Is it really true, then, that you won’t try to escape, but will submit yourself as a Moslem?”
I answered, “Try me, Prince. It is needless to threaten me with quartering, for having taken the turban I should suffer a still more hideous death at the hands of Christians. This is your best guarantee for my sincerity.”
He turned thoughtfully to Andy and ordered him to take off his cloak. At the sight of the fearful bruises that had begun to appear on Andy’s body he asked who had treated him so roughly. Andy answered, “No one has ill treated me, great lord. Mussuf and I had a little innocent sport together in the outer court. We matched our strength in a friendly bout of wrestling.”
“Bismillah-irrahman-irrahim,” exclaimed Sinan piously. “An excellent idea. If he has a good instructor and is not too thick witted he can earn great sums for his master as a wrestler. Tell me, what is necessary to man?”
“Good and abundant food,” answered Andy readily. “May the gracious God send me a master who is liberal with that, and I will serve and obey him faithfully.”
Sinan the Jew sighed, scratched his head and said, “This man is certainly very simple. He doesn’t even know that prayer and profession of faith are the most important things. Tell me, what are seven and seven?”
“Twenty-five,” answered Andy, with a candid look.
Sinan the Jew tore his beard, called upon Allah, and demanded of Captain Torgut, “Are you making game of me, that you bring me such a fellow? He will eat his master out of house and home and bring disaster upon him through his stupidity. Best to trade him for
a bunch of onions, if anyone is fool enough to make so bad a bargain.”
Nevertheless he was amused, and asked Andy another question.
“How far is it from earth to heaven?”
Andy brightened, and said, “I thank you, sir, for contenting yourself with easier problems. It takes no longer to travel from earth to heaven than it takes a man to crook his finger.”
“Do you dare to trifle with me, miserable clod?”
Andy regarded him with docility, and said, “How could I dare to trifle with you, Lord and Prince? You have only to crook your finger and in a flash the head is off my shoulders. Therefore I say that it takes no longer to get to heaven than to crook one’s finger. But I was thinking of myself, not of you, for you have certainly farther to go to reach heaven. Aye, infinitely farther, one might say.”
His words brought a smile to Sinan’s lips. He ceased his attack.
“And the dog?”
When Rael felt Sinan’s gaze upon him, he wagged his tail and stood gaily on his hind legs, so that Sinan was astonished.
“To Allah be the praise! Take the dog to my harem. If my wives like it I will give it to them.”
But Rael growled and showed his teeth when a wizened little eunuch came forward to take him, and only at my order would the dog follow, lured by a juicy mutton bone. But he gave me a last reproachful glance, and I could not restrain my tears.
My distress dulled the agony of seeing Giulia led forward and bidden to remove her veil. Captain Torgut, alarmed, said hastily, “Why begin with her face? Keep the best till the last, and examine first her other charms. You will see that I spoke the truth about her. She is as fair as the moon, her breasts are roses, her belly a silver cushion, and her knees seem carved from ivory.”
To explain how it was I so well understood their conversation, I should mention that these African pirates were one in religion only, and came from every country, with every country’s speech upon their lips. Sinan was by birth a Jew from Smyrna, and Captain Torgut was the son of poor Turks in Anatolia, while their men were for the most part Italians, Sardinians, and men of Provence, Moorish fugitives from Spain, and renegades from Portugal. They conversed together in a queer jargon made up of every sort of language, and known as lingua franca. (They called Christians Franks.) I had learned to understand this mongrel tongue while aboard ship, and as I have always had great facility for languages it gave me no trouble.
Sinan the Jew looked suspiciously at Captain Torgut and said, “Why save her face to the last if she is truly as fair as the moon? I see by your look that there’s something fishy here, and I must get to the bottom of it.”
He stroked his beard with his slender fingers and ordered Giulia to undress. After modest hesitation she obeyed and uncovered all but her face. Sinan told her to turn, and surveyed her both from the front and from the back. At length he said reluctantly, “She’s too thin. She might set a boy on fire, but a mature man needs a broader, deeper cushion than does a youth whose limbs are still firm and wiry, and who can therefore be at ease even on a narrow plank.”
“In the name of the Compassionate!” cried Captain Torgut, his face dark with wrath. “Do you call this girl a narrow plank? If so it is from avarice, to lower her value and beat down the price. But you have not seen everything.”
“Pray don’t excite yourself, Torgut. I freely admit that the girl will not lack merit when regularly and lavishly fed with good kukurrush, so that her breasts swell up to look like ripe gourds. But it will be for the buyer to see to her diet. She doesn’t interest me.”
At this Giulia lost all patience; she tore the veil from her face and stamped upon it, crimson with fury, as she cried, “Sinan the Jew, you’re a spiteful man and I won’t endure your insolence. Look me in the eyes if you dare, and see something you have never seen before!”
Sinan the Jew bent forward and stared, so that his one eye almost started from its socket. His jaw dropped, revealing his rotten teeth, and he gazed unwinkingly into Giulia’s eyes until at last he hid his face in his hands and cried hoarsely, “Is she a specter, a witch, a jinni? Or am I dreaming? For her eyes are of different colors: the one blue and sinister, the other brown and false.”
Torgut seemed put out at his words but defended himself stubbornly, saying, “Your eyes do not deceive you. Did I not say that I had brought you a treasure whose like had never before been seen? One eye is a sapphire and the other a topaz, and her teeth are faultless pearls.”
“Did you say a treasure?” exclaimed Sinan incredulously. “What wonder that you lost one of your good ships, for this girl if anyone has the evil eye, and I tremble at the very thought of the misfortune you may have brought upon my house. Allah! The costly rosewater
I must sacrifice to purify the floor and the doorposts! And you call her a treasure!”
When Torgut saw his last hope vanishing, his lips trembled and his eyes moistened as he said resolutely, “So be it. I will put out one of her eyes, and no one can then be offended, though I doubt whether I shall get a good price for a one-eyed woman.”
My anxiety for Giulia was keener than ever, but at that instant I had what seemed to me an inspiration. I stepped forward boldly and having obtained permission to speak, I said, “Bismillah-irrahman-irrahim. I have often heard it said that nothing happens contrary to the will of Allah, and that all is predestined. Why then do you so stubbornly oppose his will? for he clearly intended that Captain Torgut should bring all three of us before you. Therefore instead of putting out her eye, you should seek the hidden meaning in her coming.”
These words made a deep impression on Sinan. He stroked his thin beard slowly and reflectively, but found it unbefitting his dignity to reply. After a while he ordered the holy book to be brought. It was a large v
olume, ornamented with gold and silver, and it lay open on an ebony stand so that he could turn the pages without altering his position. Having bent his head and murmured a few verses, he said, “I will follow the guidance of the holy book.” He drew out of it a long gold pin which he handed to Giulia. “Unbeliever though you are, take this golden pin and thrust it between the pages, and I will read the lines to which it points. May those lines be my guide, and determine the fate of you and your companions. I take you all to witness that I will submit to the judgment of Allah, the Almighty.”
Giulia held the pin as if she would rather have driven it into Sinan’s body, but she obeyed and thrust it defiantly and at random between the leaves of the Koran. Sinan opened the volume reverently, read the passage indicated by the needle’s point, and exclaimed in wonder, “Allah indeed is great, and marvelous are his ways. This is the sixth sura, called Alanam-cattle-which is plain enough, for what are you three slaves but cattle? The needle stopped at the seventy-first verse, which reads:
“ ‘Say, shall we call upon that, besides God, which can neither profit nor hurt us? and shall we turn back on our heels, after that God hath directed us; like him whom the devils have infatuated, wandering amazedly in the earth, and yet having companions who call him to the true direction, saying “Come unto us”? Say, the direction of God is the true direction: we are commanded to resign ourselves unto the Lord of all creatures.’“
He looked up amazed, and surveyed Giulia, Andy, and myself in turn. Torgut too was impressed and said, “Truly Allah is Allah and I made no error in bringing this girl to your house.”
I cannot say whether Sinan the Jew was really pleased with the Koran’s decree, but he said, “I take back all I said in my foolishness. Who am I to doubt the judgment of Allah? Yet I cannot tell what to do with these slaves. I’ll take them, Torgut, but only at a fair price. In the presence of witnesses I will give you thirty-six ducats which, with the horse you’ve already had from me, is a good sum for these useless, ignorant creatures.”
But Torgut was incensed, and cried, “Cursed be you, Sinan the Jew, for seeking to swindle me! The girl is almost a virgin, the gray-eyed Frank is a powerful fellow, and the third has the same name as the angel who rules the night and the day. Furthermore he is a skilled physician and a learned man, speaking all the Frankish languages, and Latin, too. Ten times that sum would leave me the poorer, and I should never even consider so bad a bargain were you not my father and my friend.”
Sinan the Jew became annoyed in his turn, and said, “The sun has dried your brains. A moment ago you were ready to kill the girl, or at least to put out one of her eyes; now you exaggerate her nonexistent charms in order to rob me. If you reject a fair offer, sell these slaves in the open market, and I’m ready to make the highest bid, so long as you swear by the Koran not to bribe anyone to force up the price.”
Torgut scowled.
“As if anyone in the bazaar would dare to outbid you! And you would certainly spread slander about these wretched slaves and so lower their price. The Koran has revealed their true value to you, and I submit to its ruling, though I lose by it. Was it not the seventy-first verse of the sixth sura? Together that amounts to seventy-seven gold ducats-an auspicious number which in itself emphasizes Allah’s intention. Or would you prefer us to add the numerical values of the letters?”
By this time Sinan was tearing his beard, and now he cried out, “No, no-perish the thought! It would be waste of time, as not even scholars are agreed on those values. In any case there was no mention of gold in the sura.”
“It is unbecoming in you to struggle against the will of Allah. Were I a more learned man I could point out plenty of characters signifying gold; but it is enough for me that the Koran is more precious than gold and that each letter contains ten benedictions. Therefore let us dispute no longer. I will be content with seventy-seven gold ducats.”
The end of it was that Sinan the Jew counted out the ducats, sent Giulia to the harem, and ordered Andy and me out of his sight. We returned to the outer court, where huge dishes of mutton and rice cooked in fat had been brought out for Torgut’s men. These had squatted down in order of rank round the dishes, and were picking morsels of meat from them, and pressing the rice into neat balls which they put in their mouths. But the slaves and prisoners had gathered behind them, and with famished looks followed every mouthful as it disappeared. The sight depressed me very much, but as we drew near Mussuf at once made room for us beside him, and offered Andy a fine piece of meat, dripping with fat. I urged Andy to accept this as a peace offering.
The food in the dish now began to dwindle rapidly, and I had difficulty in keeping up. The others, seeing Andy’s prowess, looked askance at us and called on Allah, and when the dish was empty one of the renegades remarked, “He’s no true Moslem. See what manners-to sit on his bottom and stuff his mouth with both hands!”
Andy was offended by these words, but I said to the speaker, “We have but now found the right road, and stumble along it like blind men, having no one to lead us. Explain to us the points of good behavior.”
Sinan the Jew must after all have been well disposed toward us; I cannot otherwise account for the fact that the wrinkled eunuch appeared in the courtyard in response to Andy’s roars for more to eat, and ordered the servants to refill our dishes. I bade Andy hold his tongue while the Moslems taught us proper table manners and good behavior. Delightedly and all talking at once they began their instruction. We must always wash our hands before eating, they said, and bless the food in the name of Allah. We must sit cross legged before the dish, on the left haunch, using only three fingers of the right hand to take food. No knife was to be used, as all was cut beforehand into pieces of suitable size, and no more was to be put in the mouth than it would comfortably hold. The rice was to be kneaded together in small lumps, and not shoveled into the mouth like porridge. A well- bred man did not stare at his companions but looked straight before him and was content with what he had. Finally they recited a phrase or two from the Koran and said, “Ye who believe, eat the good things which God hath given you, and offer your thanks to Him.”
When the food was nearly all gone, they pointed out that no believer quite finished what was on the dish, but charitably left some to be distributed among the poor. Now also they left many good pieces of meat and some rice, and handed it to the slaves and prisoners, who fought savagely over it, for although they were Christians they displayed little of the Christian spirit.
The Moslems’ explanation gave me much to think about. They went on to tell me of the fast of Ramadan and of the pilgrimage to Mecca that every believer ought to make at least once in his life. But if prevented by poverty or some other cause his omission was not accounted to him for sin. I asked them their views on wine drinking, at which they all sighed deeply and answered, “It is written: ‘Ye who believe: wine, games of chance, worshiping of stones, and dicing are abominations of the devil. Shun them, that ye may be blessed.’“
But others among them said, “It is also written: ‘Wine drinking is a great sin, albeit man may have some good of it. But the sin is greater than the good.’“
The eunuch, who had stood behind us listening, could contain himself no longer. “There’s much to be said for wine, and many poets-especially the Persians-have celebrated its best qualities. Persian is the language of poets, as Arabic is the Prophet’s, whereas Turkish is spoken only by the dogs of the big cities. And in praising wine the poets have used it as a symbol of the true faith. Yet even apart from its symbolic aspect, wine is beneficial to health. It stimulates the kidneys, strengthens the bowels, eases care, and renders a man magnanimous and noble. Truly, had not Allah in his inscrutable wisdom forbidden the faithful to drink it, it would have no equal on earth.”
Hearing this song of praise Andy regarded the eunuch with displeasure, and said, “Gelding! Are you trying to annoy me? I have taken the turban with the sole purpose of avoiding the curse of wine. Wine runs away with good sense and
good money, infects a man with diseases, and causes him to see creatures that are not there. Allah preserve me from allowing the filth to pass my lips.”
But the eunuch squatted down beside me and said, “Your questions are sincere, and you show willingness to learn first what is forbidden. But Allah is not minded to enslave his faithful or make life hard for them. Repeat the prescribed prayers, and give what alms you can afford; for the rest put your trust in Allah the ever compassionate. You may spend your life studying the Koran and the interpretations of scholars, and be no wiser at the end of it.”
I listened to what he said, understanding that there was something he wished to tell me. But Andy broke in, “If this is true, I confess that the teaching of the Prophet, blessed be his name, is as it were a flowing cloak that nowhere chafes the wearer. Yet I cannot believe what you say, for all the priests, monks, and teachers I’ve met or heard of have always been the first to forbid pleasant things, such as the lusts of eye and flesh; they insist that the way to heaven is narrow and stony, while all broad, smooth roads lead straight to hell.”
Mardshan the eunuch smiled all over his wrinkled face and said, “Though much is pleasing to God-more than I can remember-yet all is not necessary. There is a tradition that the Prophet, blessed be his name, once said, ‘If, upon the last day, there comes before Allah a soul to whom can be credited not a single good action, and he is judged worthy of the fires of hell, this soul may appeal and say, Lord, you have called yourself merciful and compassionate; how then can you punish me with hell fire? Then shall Allah in all his glory say, Truly I have called myself merciful and compassionate; lead therefore this servant of mine to Paradise, for my mercy’s sake; for I am the most merciful of all who show mercy’. “
