A Journey to the End of the Millennium

by A. B. Yehoshua

  5.

  During the night there was no contact between the boats from Rouen and the strange ship, as though hosts and guests alike were reluctant to diffuse in darkness the excitement of the encounter. In silence the boats remained where they were, surrounding the Arab sailing ship in a semicircle, and it was unclear whether they were blocking her way or protecting her. Every now and again a boat changed its position for no apparent reason, the plash of oars sounding clear and pure in the warm night air. Around midnight Ben Attar tried to halt the flow of his thoughts by entering his first wife’s cabin, laying his head between her legs, and waiting for slumber to sever his soul from his worries, but they refused to depart, and compelled him again to seek the deck and Abd el-Shafi and Abu Lutfi, who were sleeping peacefully upon the lowered mainsail, watched over by the black idol-worshipper, who crouched at their feet. Ben Attar looked at them enviously. Their worries were not his worries, he mused as he listened to the boats that surrounded his ship, trying to discern their purpose from their melodious sound.

  Eventually he roused the two Arabs and quietly told them of his decision. Until the true intentions of the people of Rouen were revealed, and also so as not to impose too heavy a burden on their minds, it would be better if all the passengers aboard the ship should be deemed to share the same faith. A faint laugh lit up the captain’s white teeth. Could the Mohammedans then be changed to Jews by morning? Neither by morning nor by Judgment Day, Ben Attar muttered to himself, but he patiently explained to his partners that so long as the Umayyad caliph Hashim II, who was supposed to protect them, clung stubbornly to his Islamic faith, it was for all his subjects in times of adversity to cloak their own faith in his. What, even Rabbi Elbaz? Yes indeed, came back the resolute reply, both the rabbi and the rabbi’s son.

  In the case of young Elbaz, the rabbi’s son, it would seem the change had already taken place some time before. From the moment he had come aboard in the harbor of Cadiz and felt the motion of the deck, his soul had understood that this was where he would rediscover the rocking and cradling that his late mother had deprived him of, and so he had clung to the ship as though it were the swing he had swung on in his lost childhood. When his father had subsided into seasickness, and in his terrible confusion had lost contact with his son, the frightened boy had looked for protection to the sailors, who unhesitatingly sent him to climb the mast, both to keep him occupied and to test his strength. And there it was, atop the mast, that the young traveler began to grow. For he sometimes imagined, at that great height, that the erect shaft of the ship was stirring between his skinny, naked legs, so that he was unable to resist the idea that he was its true master and the men scampering about far below on the deck were under his command. It was on account of this vision that the crew treated him with affection and respect, adopting him as a young sailor.

  He rapidly adopted them in return. The boy immersed himself in the sailors’ ways, learned the secrets of their tongue, and imitated their manner, so that he looked, in his short breeches and red turban, as though he had been born into the light of day not from his mother’s womb in Seville but from the ancient belly of the guardship. Nevertheless, the rabbi was pleased with his son. He had not forgotten the reproaches of his kinsfolk, who had pleaded with him to leave the motherless child behind and not subject him to the tedium and perils of the lengthy voyage. But the rabbi had insisted. After enduring the death of his wife, he was not willing to face a further parting. And when he beheld the boy’s limbs filling out in the light of the sunshine and the azure sea, his skin growing dark and smooth, and his happy, eager sharing in the work of the ship, he knew that he had been right to obey his own instincts rather than hearken to his family and friends. But once each day, at the time of the evening prayer, he firmly removed the little sailor from the ropes and steering oars, seated him on the old bridge between Ben Attar’s two wives, facing the prow which cleaved the ocean’s reddening waters, and read a psalm or two with him, lest he forget that there was dry land beyond the vast deep.

  At first the rabbi had thought to study some simple texts of Mishnah and Talmud with the boy, but once the sea journey had aroused such powerful poetic feelings in him, he had postponed rational studies until they were on shore again, and in consequence it was no wonder that when Ben Attar roused him from his sleep and asked him to dissemble his true nature in the morning, so as not to muddle the minds of the local folk by confronting them with the spectacle of two alien and possibly incompatible faiths sharing a single ship, the rabbi manifested no alarm at the surprising request. The verses he had composed during the past days had rendered his personality gentler and more pliant, and so long as he was not required to consume forbidden foods he was ready to shroud his head like Abu Lutfi and disguise himself as a Muslim, until it became plain what kind of welcome the inhabitants of Rouen were reserving for them.

  With the light of dawn, however, the only token of welcome in Rouen was the insistent, solemn clangor of bells that filled the air of the small port. Was the ringing intended to gather the faithful for Sunday mass, or to encourage the oarsmen on the boats to board the strange ship and ascertain its true nature? Either way, Abd el-Shafi gave orders for the mainmast to be adorned with some colored pennants that had been hoisted in the ship’s engagements with Christian fleets in the past, but as a token of peace he also lowered a large rope ladder, so as to encourage the ship’s night jailers to become her morning guests. Eventually some armed men came on board, headed by one of the lords of the town, who was amazed not only by the distance the ship had traveled from the Maghreb but also by its original form. It was immediately apparent that here in the port of Rouen there were great experts on ships—how else to explain the chief man’s protracted and minute inquisition into the nature and use of the great sail, the Arab lateen sail, which performed on its own more than a number of small sails did on a Christian ship? Eventually the man went down with his men to inspect the hold and to gape at the two young camels, whose trembling increased so much at the touch of the Christians that the slave was compelled to quieten them with gurgling sounds. Since these Christians had never set eyes on a real camel, they were treated to an account of its qualities, and especially its ability to do without water and food. Then they were offered the usual visitors’ tour. They were invited to sniff the spices, to feel the skins and cloths, to test the blades of the daggers with their thumbs, which they also dipped in the olive oil, and then they were asked to taste the dried figs and dates and carobs and raisins, and to conclude with a pinch of white salt, which was also wrapped for them in a fine paper as a gift.

  It was only when they climbed back up on deck and looked around to see if there was anything left to examine on this wonderful ship that they peered cautiously at the two women, who hurriedly veiled their faces to hide their blushing smiles. The lord bowed deeply, while the Jewish merchant, unable to contain himself, asked the rabbi, who served as translator from Arabic to the mixture of Latin and Frankish of the men of Rouen, to invite the visitors to examine the rest of his fabrics, from which the women’s dresses were made. But the lord happened to be more impressed by the women themselves than by what they were clothed in, and so the invitation to do business was politely declined on the grounds that they had shortly to attend mass, and instead Rabbi Elbaz was asked to write on a parchment the names of all the travelers and the animals and their personal relationship to one another.

  Only after the lord had left the ship, not before insisting cordially but firmly that the travelers should honor them by visiting the city and its churches, did Elbaz whisper to Ben Attar that he had taken it upon himself to inscribe the second wife as the sister of the first, to prevent unnecessary gossip among the Christians, whom the approaching millennium was infecting with excessive piety. At first Ben Attar was shocked. Was this not a retreat or even a betrayal of the principle in whose name the whole expedition had been conceived? But once he had grasped the rabbi’s considered caution, he said to himself that ther
e was no reason to despair of him. Even if the sea had changed him into a poet, the dry land would restore his senses.

  And so, their personal and religious status having been especially adapted to the purpose of visiting the infidel town and particularly of participating in the mass of an alien faith, twelve travelers disembarked, leaving only a single sailor with Abu Lutfi to guard the ship. To protect the Jews, Abd el-Shafi insisted on accompanying them ashore, and indeed on reinforcing their disguise by adding four of his crew. They also decided to take the young slave with them, lest he escape during their absence to the shore that he so longed for. They stripped him of his tatters and clothed him in a white robe, which emphasized the blackness of his face and his hands and feet.

  After so many wave-tossed days, the voyagers’ minds were dizzied somewhat by the solidity of the cobbles they walked on, and so they tended to huddle together at first, if only to allay the terror caused by the sound of the bells, which from a distance, on board ship, had seemed soothing and kindly, but here, among the narrow streets of Rouen, shook the gray air with an insistent menace. Indeed, the streets of Rouen were narrow and winding, and the houses seemed miserable and small to the North Africans, who wondered not only at the unpainted and unplastered gray stone but also at the absence of flowerbeds and ornamental trees. Only occasionally did they halt to feast their eyes on a thick blackened beam that reinforced and adorned the small doorway of a mean house.

  Since most of the folk of Rouen were at the mass, the travelers soon lost their way in the empty streets, but a local lad, who at first stood rooted to the spot at the sight of the visitors, bestirred himself and ran to announce their arrival. At once a pair of monks came to meet them and addressed them cordially in clear Latin phrases. It was for the glory and joy of Christ that the honored unbelievers should take part in their worship, they announced to the newcomers, opening for them the heavy great door of the cathedral.

  By comparison with the spacious mosques that the visitors were familiar with in North Africa and Andalus, their soft couches and the blue arabesques that adorned their walls, the cathedral of Rouen seemed cramped and sad in its dark severity, and it had a sweet-sour smell blended of incense and sweat, for even on this summer day the congregation was dressed in heavy, dark clothes. The two women had a moment of revulsion as they entered, but it was already too late, all eyes were upon them, and the service was interrupted to allow a ripple of astonishment to spread down the rows of worshippers, as the women’s softly billowing robes and the men’s baggy trousers passed through their ranks. The sight of the black pagan in his hooded coat and the brightly colored oriental silks made it seem as though the mythological figures painted on the walls of the church had descended and come to life in their midst.

  It may have been then, in the gloomy cathedral of Rouen, that the rabbi first noticed the special thing that women brought to the land of the Franks, particularly such flowering, exotic women as Ben Attar’s wives, whose fine scented veils might have been intended to shield their modesty or, alternatively, to heighten their seductiveness. When the newcomers had taken their places in the seats that the monks had reserved for them and an invisible choir had burst into virile yet gentle song, accompanied by a totally unfamiliar musical instrument, the North Africans raised their heads in search of the origin of the unknown sound, in the realization that despite the simplicity of the church it could be a place of complex artistry, blending the clear monotones of the chant with the severity of the thin-limbed images that stared with profound and eternal melancholy at the splendidly robed figure of the priest with turned back, who prostrated himself, rang a little bell, prostrated himself again, rang his bell again, and so on.

  He has a bell too, thought the black slave, his eyes fixed devotedly on the priest, who, after completing his repeated prostrations, removed his gold-embroidered stole and ascended a small dais to address the congregation. He spoke to them in Latin, but whenever he noticed that his listeners had difficulty in understanding him, he introduced a word or phrase in the local language, at which the people sighed with pleasure at the suddenly revealed meaning. At first the rabbi tried to follow what he was saying, so as to know if it contained any menace to the voyagers, who sat motionless—except for the young pagan, who, overcome by idolatrous fervor, was kneeling before the image of a gilded man spreading his arms out like a bat’s wings behind the altar.

  The priest was moved by the sight of the black youth suddenly kneeling in such a spontaneous fashion, but he had too much consideration for the other guests to interpret it as a sign from heaven or an omen concerning them. He merely smiled contentedly, rubbed his palms together, and pronounced a special greeting to the visitors, calling them in each sentence by a different epithet—Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Mohammedans, Ishmaelites, colorful, dusky southerners, sailors, merchants, voyagers, pilgrims, and unbelievers. He did this so much that the congregation must have had the impression that instead of a dozen weary travelers they were welcoming representatives of the whole wide world.

  Afterward, at a special reception in their honor in a large hall behind the altar, the monks insisted on making them taste some little pieces of strange, very fine bread, which had a wonderful flavor. But when they also invited them to sip from a large goblet of wine, Ben Attar and the rabbi hurriedly interrupted them. The Prophet’s command prevented the drinking of wine, they explained, signaling cautiously to Abd el-Shafi and the sailors to refrain from drinking the little beakers they were offered. Then a tall, black-clad palmer, a monk who had spent many years roaming the lands of Islam and had learned a little Arabic, was summoned. Even though his Arabic was meager and very strange, so that even the rabbi could hardly understand it, he insisted on improving his acquaintance not only with the rabbi-interpreter but also with the two women, whom he addressed directly, and even with Abd el-Shafi and his men, who here in this hall, as they stood quiet and very apprehensive, but also on a level with the other travelers, revealed their true character, which for eight long weeks at sea had been concealed, as it were, among the ship’s tackle. The palmer wanted to know whether the infidels had enjoyed the divine worship. The rabbi attempted to give a single answer on behalf of the whole party, but the crusader insisted on extracting an individual reply from each of them. It emerged that the ringing of bells had impressed and moved the North African sailors particularly. In a mosque there are no bells, Abd el-Shafi said, summing up the opinion of the true Muslims, and so when we return to the Umayyad caliphate we shall suggest adding some hells to the call of the muezzin. The palmer smiled slyly at this reply. He too believed that the sound of bells could bring people closer to prayer, but prayer to whom? To that Muhammad? Admittedly an important man, and a great prophet, who beheld the angel of God from a short distance, yet he died a long time ago, whereas the bells here called people to pray to one who will never die and now sits in the bosom of God. Like a son with his father. The visitors from far-off lands had been vouchsafed a rare opportunity, because their good fortune had brought them here close to the thousandth anniversary of his birth, when he would save all mankind from its wretched state. And we thought the Jews killed him long ago, Abd el-Shafi exclaimed, shocking Ben Attar and the rabbi. The crusader smiled calmly. Is it possible to kill the Son of God? Even the most evil imagination cannot conceive his death. That is why the Christians had resolved to leave the accursed Jews in their debased condition, so they would witness their own wickedness and folly.

  Now, as the sea captain began to nod to the crusader in deep agreement, Ben Attar realized that it was better to cut short the theological discussion, for there was no knowing where it would lead. So he stood up and asked the Andalusian rabbi to thank their hosts in Latin for their hospitality. When they returned to their distant city, they would not forget the cathedral of Rouen and its fine worship. When the millennium dawned and the hosts’ Christ descended from heaven, would they kindly ask him, if it was not too hard for him, to come south and visit the people in Tangier? Th
ere too he would be welcomed with great honor. For sometimes those whose prophet is dead and buried long for somebody living who can comfort them for the troubles of the world, which did not allow them, for example, to sit here any longer and enjoy the interesting conversation, but compelled them to hasten to the river and press on to Paris, which was waiting impatiently for their merchandise.

  Yes, Paris, Paris, muttered the crusader, as though he were wrestling again with something that always got the better of him, and reluctantly he was forced to interrupt his tortuous conversation and let the stubborn Muslims return to their ship. Outside a summer shower was falling, which soaked the women’s silken robes, and their hems were soiled with mud from the puddles, in some of which pink pigs that had emerged from a nearby graveyard were already wallowing, getting under the visitors’ feet and alarming the women. The sight of their distress moved Abd el-Shafi to request Ben Attar’s permission to allow his strong sailors to make a kind of living hammock with their hands and raise the women a little way off the ground. And so the two of them floated down the narrow streets of houses and the country lanes, where the travelers lost their way, until the black slave shook himself free from the idolatrous dream inspired by the mass, and with the instinct of a desert tracker led them back to the ship, which Abu Lutfi had already loaded with fresh water, apples and grapes, and those long thin loaves of bread whose crisp taste he adored.

  In the afternoon Ben Attar decided to weigh anchor and slip quietly out of Rouen, under the cover of the local people’s sacred Sunday rest, but a small boat approached, bearing two of the lord’s men together with a Jew clad in a tricorn hat trimmed with blue lace, who had been sent on this, his working day, to purchase something for his master. And although Ben Attar would have preferred to wait for Abulafia to price the goods, he realized that if he refused he would add anger to the suspicions of the Jew, who seemed in the grip of a spasm of suspicion as he boarded the ship.