A Journey to the End of the Millennium

by A. B. Yehoshua

  Master Levitas sat in silence, his eyes closed, and despite the shiver of tiredness he tried, as a level-headed, practical man, to unravel a first fine thread of thought that would enable him to arrange a compromise between the partnership that had been resurrected by a lunatic verdict and his sister’s self-respect. Perhaps the interminable, contemptible prattle of the old woman who had attached herself to him in the depths of the night was beginning to cloud his mind; how else could a decisive, clear-headed man such as himself seriously contemplate proposing himself as a fourth member of the revived partnership between south and north, even if only to interpose his own stable, reliable personality between the uncle and his nephew and thus cushion the threat of double matrimony that so alarmed his sister? The only reason such an original and bizarre idea sprouted in the mind of this anxious, responsible brother in the depth of night was because he was far from his sister, who was now bathed in the warmth of her husband’s body in the dark of the wagon, as though since she had been bested in the arbitration and fainted in the wood his love and desire for her were redoubling by the minute. It was precisely because Mistress Esther-Minna felt this so clearly that she was convinced she did not need her younger brother’s consent or any novel stratagem on his part to make a new declaration to the man who would soon be standing before her in the candlelight and removing his clothes.

  So she merely smiled and inclined her head when Rabbi Elbaz turned and inquired politely as to her well-being, as though seeking merit for himself, on the assumption that his wonderful speech had been partly responsible for her fainting. And when they alighted at midnight in the Rue de la Harpe, by the statue of a man holding a harp, and smelled the smell of the river, she smiled again and bowed submissively to the North African man as he entrusted his two wives to her with the newfound authority of the head of the family, although he himself felt constrained to hasten to the ship to inform his anxious Ishmaelite partner that his prayers to Allah had not been in vain, and that with morning they would be able to begin unloading the cargo. It was only after Mistress Abulafia had taken the two women upstairs and smoothed the rabbi’s bedclothes and turned his pillows lest he suffer from sleeplessness beside the two women, who had vanished into their respective chambers, that she instructed the old maidservant to heat some water for her to bathe herself in in the small room that Master Levitas had put at her disposal.

  Naked in a large, exquisitely ornamented copper tub that Abulafia had given her as a betrothal gift, her small pink body gleaming, despite her age, with purity and freshness, the blue-eyed woman scrubbed herself with the help of her pagan maid, not so much to remove the lingering scent of the desert elixir as to blend it with the perfume of her usual soap. When she saw that Abulafia wanted to come in and undress, she dismissed her maid and stood before him in all her splendor before putting on the lightest shift she had. And while this curly-headed man who was at once husband and nephew, repudiated and attracted, interpreter and accused, victor and vanquished, began to remove his clothes, she told him in a voice only the depths of night could endow with such firmness that since the repudiation of the twice-wed uncle had failed and the partnership with him was about to be revived, she was declaring herself to be a rebellious wife who no longer desired her husband. According to a powerful and ancient law, whose source was not the rabbis of Ashkenaz but the heads of the Babylonian academies themselves, who were universally considered as unchallenged legal authorities, a rebellious wife who no longer desires her husband is compelled to submit to immediate divorce.

  The desire that made Abulafia’s soul dizzy did not permit him to digest what had been thrown in his face, and he continued to undress himself, as though the words he had heard had been spoken not by the desired woman, gleaming before him with cleanness, with all her parts revealed to him under her light shift, but by another woman, a hidden, furious, disobedient shade who wished to spatter his ardent seed upon the cold flagstones. With the blunted senses of a man in the grip of lust, Abulafia maintained a blank silence and continued to divest himself of his remaining garments, displaying in the little glass that stood on the chest of drawers his face blackened by the fire and his arms scratched from his terrified quest for one who a few hours earlier, he had been certain, had tried to do to him in the wood what another, previous wife had done to him years before in the sea.

  Even though Mistress Esther-Minna took a step or two backward and even raised her hands to repel her young husband, who refused to recognize the seriousness of the rebellion confronting him, she was taken by force, roughly and against her will, into the arms of a naked man who would have been willing to have had her faint again if only he could satisfy his lust at once. But just then, as though coming to the aid of the woman in distress, as she grappled not only with her husband’s desire but with her own as well, there arose behind the curtain the insistent strident wail of a girl who still missed her Ishmaelite nurse. Abulafia now found himself contending not only with the rebellion struggling in his new wife’s damp, fragrant frame but also with the ghostly cry of his dead wife, calling to him for help from the depths of the sea through the raucous voice of their child.

  So his new wife made good her escape, as though Abulafia’s flesh and blood made concrete in the child wailing on the other side of the faded curtain took priority for her over his flesh and blood now suffering torments in her presence. When she left the chamber to go to the crying child, Abulafia’s strength gave out. For three whole days, ever since his uncle had appeared in the doorway of his house, he had been buffeted and pressed between beloved but powerfully opposing forces. Just as he was, naked, with his erect member still projecting like a dagger looking for a new target, he entered the tub in which his supposedly rebellious wife had just bathed, seeking in the suds the warmth and fragrance of the flesh that had eluded him. And with the wretched child’s bawling still piercing the curtain beside him, his eyes closed painfully at the sight of his spent seed floating on the water.

  After a while, still in this water, he heard his wife talking to him gently, compassionate and friendly. Although the verdict of seven ignorant judges was no better in her view than that of the seven wine casks on which they had been sitting, she was not so arrogant as to demand that the verdict be annulled, if only out of respect for the rabbi. Since she could not forget either the oriental courier’s applause or the smile that had played around Abulafia’s lips as he translated the rabbi’s words one by one, or particularly the calm curiosity of her brother, her own flesh and blood, on hearing the effrontery of the speech, she had no alternative but to wrap herself in her sorrow and separate herself from all that was most precious to her. And she prayed it would not be accounted sinful by the God of Israel if for the first time in her life she found herself envying the Christian women, who in time of affliction could abandon all and withdraw into a nunnery. But since Jews had no nunneries, all she could do was return to her native town, where her first husband’s kinsfolk lived, in particular her brother-in-law, who had released her from the bonds of levirate marriage on the death of her husband so she could join her brother in Paris. And so, in simplicity and good will, she said to her husband, who lay immersed in water that still bore the scent of her flesh, My repudiation has failed and your partnership is revived, and henceforth you are free once more to travel the trade roads disguised as a monk or a leper, to your beloved uncle and respected partner, with his wives and his condiments. Only divorce me first, my lord, and I shall not trouble you or any man further. Then I shall take my leave not only of you and your child but of my brother and his family, and return to the river of Ashkenaz, the river of my childhood, which is incomparably wider and deeper than the river beyond that window.

  In fear of the refusal that was sure to follow, she quickly plunged the candle flame into the cooling bathwater in which her startled husband was still splashing, and in the great darkness that fell suddenly on the small room she put on a wrap over her light shift, then she quietly toured her guests’ bedchamb
ers to make sure that no one was passing a sleepless night because of inattention on her part. But the four North African travelers, weary and lulled by their victory, did not require any attention from their hostess, whose stubborn repudiation had brought them from the far ends of the earth. Finding that the two wives were breathing calmly in their beds, that the blanket had not slipped off the curled body of the boy Elbaz, and that the rabbi’s beard had not become entangled in the embroidery of his pillow, she went to the kitchen to see what food she might offer her guests in the morning, which was not far off. Some time later she returned silently to her own chamber, to find Abulafia wrapped in his traveling cloak, sleeping on a chair beside the bathtub with the large extinguished candle still in it, and there was no way of telling whether he had fallen asleep so swiftly so as not to have to face the rebellion that had been raised against him.

  How could he surrender a woman whose high cheekbones gave her the look of a fair and noble beast, and for whom his love became richer day by day? A woman who had fainted a little earlier with such delicious sweetness? Yet how could he now reject a dear and loyal uncle, who had risked hardships and dangers on the sea to be reunited with him, and who was now protected by a verdict secured in his favor by the sharp-witted rabbi from Andalus? Therefore, Abulafia mused in his patient and somewhat superficial fashion, it would be best to doze awhile and mingle the contradictory currents of his life in dreams, as was his wont, until Master Levitas, his wise brother-in-law, should return and find a solution. But Master Levitas would not be back soon. He was still slumped between two large barrels in the winery at Villa Le Juif, and he too was dreaming, while beside him the old woman, who had thrown some more fox furs over him, continued to grumble. In his dream Master Levitas, naked as on the day of his birth, was walking on the seashore to a business meeting with Ben Attar, who now possessed the Radhanite’s two Indian pearls. Since Master Levitas had never set eyes on the sea, he imagined it like the Red Sea in the prayerbook for Passover—as hillocks of reddish water, while on the dry land that was exposed between them good men walked naked toward one another.

  Ben Attar, however, was not free to enter either Master Levitas’s dream or Abulafia’s, or even that of Esther-Minna, who lay huddled alone on her bed trying to conjure up the moments of her fainting, for Ben Attar was busy speaking with Abu Lutfi, who kept one eye on the black slave as he led the male camel ashore on a rope halter to crop the lush grass of the northern bank. No matter how hard Ben Attar tried to explain to his Arab partner about the victory he had won, Abu Lutfi, who had never understood the need for a battle, failed to grasp the point. But the Ishmaelite was glad of one thing, that at dawn they would be able to unload the cargo, for ever since Ben Attar and his party had gone ashore the sailors had begun to help themselves to the goods. Was it the lack of the owner’s quiet authority that had removed all restraint from Abd el-Shafi and his crew, or the absence of the two wives’ gentle gaze? Or was it perhaps neither of these but the want of the rabbi’s quill pen?

  One way or another, the time had come to rescue the cargo from the ravages of the crew, unload the large sacks and sealed chests, separate the pale honeycombs, and refold the rugs and mats. And, most important of all, to extract the gem-encrusted daggers from their hiding places and restore their former brilliance, which would excite the urge to purchase even in those who had no need for them. So the two partners prepared for the week of trading that lay ahead. On the first two days they would transfer the merchandise to the repentant third partner’s home, so that he could inspect it carefully, and on the following two days they would make good use of their presence in the marketplace to examine covertly (so as not to offend Abulafia) the state of the market and the prevailing prices, thus gaining a clearer idea of how much of the proceeds Abulafia received he brought to Barcelona to be shared out among the partners and how much was to be attributed to traveling expenses. On the remaining two days they would start to search for goods with which to fill the hungry belly of the ship for the return journey—either timber, which Abu Lutfi usually loaded onto the boats returning from Barcelona, or jars of local wine, which the Jewish partner suddenly thought of taking. While they were discussing these plans, the camel and the black slave disappeared, and they were obliged to break off and expend some effort combing the thicket on the northern bank before arriving at a damp, sandy area where the river had surprisingly carved a new, bare islet and discovering the mournful camel sating himself on fresh lettuces and sugarbeets from the Parisians’ allotments close to the convent of Sainte Geneviève, while the young pagan excitedly prostrated himself at the sight of a new star he had discovered in the sky above the Île de France.

  In this small hour of the night Ben Attar could not imagine that the victory of the old partnership, which was already secured in the folds of his robe, was about to elude him yet again, and that their departure for the double home on the golden shore of Tangier was still very far away. For how could he imagine the depth of Abulafia’s sorrow when, on waking from his snatched, huddled sleep on that hard chair, he remembered his rebellious wife? Since he believed that she was hiding from him, he did not notice her curled up in one corner of their bed, and he set off to look for her in one of the many other rooms of the house. It was only on his grim-faced return that he discovered how hasty he had been in despairing of her. And his hands cautiously explored his wife’s beloved body, to see whether the new rebellion pervaded even her dreams. But Mistress Esther-Minna was sleeping peacefully and very deeply, as though ever since she had announced her separation and her impending return to her own land, the storm aroused in her soul by Uncle Ben Attar’s sudden appearance had subsided.

  Had only three days passed? Abulafia wondered in the darkness, straightening out his wife’s clenched hand on the coverlet to help her sleep better. Seeing that she did not react and that her limbs were heavy in his hands, he was assailed by a fear that she was not asleep but had fainted again, as in that moment when Ben Attar had lifted her from the ground and carried her to the fireside. And desire, which had seemed to be released and evaporated in the bath, seized him again, as though its source were not within himself but somewhere in this house that Ben Attar’s wives filled with their peaceful breathing. No, he swore to himself, he would never divorce her, although he was well acquainted with his wife’s stubbornness. Even though he had no idea how things would turn out, of one thing he was certain. He could not lose again in the Black Forest the love that he had already lost once in the waves of the sea. Unable to restrain himself, he began to caress and kiss his wife, so that she would wake and see that it was his intention to fight her rebellion with all his strength.

  Very slowly he cradled his desire, while guiding and directing and compelling his response to it. For a moment it seemed as though Mistress Esther-Minna were deliberately refusing to wake, so as to leave this coupling in the twilight zone between waking and being awake. In this way it could not be claimed afterward that her revolt had been snuffed out in its infancy, and without tormenting her conscience she could ignore the wailing of the wretched daughter, who as usual was trying to wreck her father’s lovemaking from behind the curtain. And so she was taken, and for a long while Abulafia’s member refused to leave her, as though by remaining erect inside her it could prevent a new repudiation and withdrawal toward the region of Lotharingia in her native Ashkenaz. The carnal thrill that filled her took such hold of her that she could not restrain herself, but joined her own moaning to the raucous wailing in the adjoining chamber.

  When she awoke from sleep with a heavy head, with the sun already riding high in the sky, she was startled to discover that while she had slept her house had been seized by a rebellion. Ben Attar’s two wives were standing beside the fireplace and the oven in the kitchen as though they were in their own home, slicing vegetables and roasting meat, baking bread and stirring a reddish pottage, and all with such easy authority that not only Levitas’s wife and the old maidservant but even Elbaz and his boy were
forced to contribute, as the latter were called in to taste every dish and relish and say whether they were true to the flavors of Andalus. Only Abulafia was absent, for he had been summoned to the ship to exercise his revived status of partner and to oversee the seamen as they unloaded the cargo and transported it to the courtyard of his house.

  Still there was no sign of Master Levitas, who, after sending a special messenger at dawn to Chartres to pay the three scribes for their trouble, had located the Radhanite merchant, who was on the point of departing for Orléans, and reopened the bargaining with him for the two pearls. Even though Master Levitas was not certain that the unusual pear shape of the large pearls conferred added value on them, as the merchant claimed, or whether it indicated a hidden flaw, he was now willing to offer a higher price. When the price had been agreed and the bargain was struck, Master Levitas could not resist inquiring, in a delicate and roundabout way, whether the merchant himself had two wives or only one. But the bearded man did not seem disposed to reveal his secrets, and he went on his way without giving a clear answer. As Master Levitas wrapped the two large pearls in a soft cloth and secreted them in his jerkin, he wondered whether he should offer them both for sale in the Capetian court in Paris, or whether he should sell one to one of the loveliest duchesses and keep the other hidden until the beauty of the owner of its visible twin increased its value.

  That afternoon, alone, hungry, and thirsty, he made his way back to Paris. Every now and then he halted his horse, took out the pearls, and held them up to the sunlight, not only to compare them with each other but also to learn which hour of the day best flattered their pear-like character, which hour should also serve as the hour appointed for their sale. Preoccupied with thoughts of commerce, he entered his home, and was startled to see the quantity of merchandise being piled up in his courtyard by barefoot, half-naked Arab seamen carrying jars on their heads. Your uncle has put the verdict into effect very quickly, he said quietly to Abulafia, who was standing in the doorway of the house, pale and silent, casting a gentle, distressed look at his brother-in-law as though his whole fate depended on him alone. Abulafia hesitated to expose to Master Levitas the development that was tearing his soul apart and to seek his advice, as he was waiting to see whether the fast that he had imposed upon himself since that morning would annul his wife’s harsh decree. But she was already hastening to inform her brother as he entered the house about the status of “rebellious wife” that she had assumed to escape the affront and menace that were looming over her marriage, and she was now prepared to admit that her brother’s reservations about that marriage had not been unreasonable.