The Colour of Heaven

by Runcie, James

  Hour after hour people gave up their secrets and then listened as their personalities were revealed and confirmed: their weaknesses, hopes, and fears; their loves and losses, dreams and disasters. Charlatan after charlatan confirmed that although their clients could be outwardly confident they could be as vulnerable as children; that women were dissatisfied with their hair and men feared losing theirs; that some had been afraid of dogs as children, some needed to live near water, and others had a scar on their left knee. Christians were told that a woman called Maria had been, or would one day be, important to them. Jews were informed that a distant relative, David probably, was often in their thoughts. And it was confirmed to Mahometans that the Prophet was ever watchful.

  As they ate sweets of halva and fried dough, marzipan and sugar, Paolo asked if he too could find out about his future, and even his past. Would he ever meet his true mother or father? Would he find the blue stone? Would he ever know love?

  ‘It is not good to know of the future,’ Jacopo answered. ‘It is for God alone.’

  ‘But what of the past? What if I do not understand that?’

  ‘You have a lifetime to discover your own past,’ Jacopo replied.

  ‘But I want to know now.’

  Jacopo looked worried. ‘You know these men are charlatans.’

  ‘Then why do people go?’

  ‘Like you, they need hope.’

  ‘Then give me hope.’

  At last Jacopo relented, telling Paolo that he would pay for a consultation with a Latin-speaking soothsayer if only to teach his charge how fraudulent the world could be. He gave Paolo three ducats and they approached a tent that seemed to glow like gold.

  ‘Consult your destiny,’ he advised.

  Inside, just behind a table, sat a man with a narrow face and a beard that was almost blue. He was dressed in a bright-yellow hooded cape. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be in a trance. The man lowered his head towards a small crucible in front of him, and inhaled a substance that looked remarkably like black pepper. He then sat back, stretching his arms out wide, and emitted the longest and loudest sneeze Paolo had ever heard.

  ‘Veni,’ said the man.

  He brought out two further crucibles and explained, in Latin, that he could tell much of a man’s future simply by measuring the direction and duration of the human sneeze. It would cost Paolo five ducats. This might seem expensive, but he would be able to tell in which direction his guest must travel in order to fulfil his destiny, and for how long. He could even, in certain circumstances, predict the duration of the journey and when a man might be expected to return home.

  ‘I only have three ducats.’

  ‘Very well. Give me what you can.’

  Paolo paid the money and stood before the crucibles. The man in the yellow gown brought forth what looked like a compass, and encouraged Paolo to begin.

  The first crucible was thick with the scent of paprika. Paolo inhaled, and then turned to his right, sneezing away from the table three times.

  ‘South,’ shouted the man.

  He brought the second crucible to Paolo and invited him to sniff once more. This was pepper.

  Paolo inhaled, and his whole body convulsed. His eyes began to stream with the heat and the powder. He felt an enormous sneeze welling inside him until it could be contained no more.

  The resulting sensile explosion was so strong that it lifted him in the air, twisting his body round upon itself.

  Paolo sneezed five times.

  ‘East,’ instructed the man. ‘Five months.’

  ‘No more,’ cried his patient.

  ‘One more,’ instructed the sorcerer. ‘It is your destiny.’

  Paolo looked at the bowl of yellow powder before him. Could it be cumin? He inhaled as lightly as he could, and then began to sneeze again; his body shuddered, and he found himself back in the position in which he had first entered the room.

  The man held out a hot towel. ‘Blow,’ he ordered. ‘Clear yourself.’

  Paolo obeyed. His eyes burned with pain and heat.

  ‘Now rest,’ ordered the sorcerer. ‘Sit in this chair, and close your eyes.’ Paolo felt his eyes cool, as the man laid what appeared to be cucumber across them.

  ‘It will be a long journey,’ the sorcerer began; ‘and it will have dangers. Much heat. You will be very hot. Perhaps at one point you will think that you are dying.’

  ‘You can tell all this from the way in which I sneeze?’

  ‘No. That is destiny. But I advise you to travel south at first, with whatever friends you have. Do not be alone. Then you must, and you will, travel east. Far, far east. For many months.’

  ‘Five months …’ Paulo ventured.

  ‘Probably. The sneezes seldom lie …’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘You finished sneezing in the same position. This means that you will return home. And you will see more clearly …’

  ‘You know my sight is poor?’

  ‘On the contrary. I know your sight is sharp. Sharper than a hawk’s.’

  ‘But only close.’

  ‘Then that is how you must look.’

  ‘And will I find the colour that I seek?’

  ‘That I cannot tell.’

  ‘Shall I know my true mother or father? Shall I find love? Will I return safely?’

  ‘You will find what you need; and learn to live with what you have.’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Paolo, disappointed by such a conclusion.

  ‘Think on these things,’ said the man. ‘Great things have been revealed.’

  Jacopo took advantage of Paolo’s disappointment by telling him that the folly of such charlatans should only make him concentrate harder on true religion. These men plundered human superstition and distracted their gullible patients from the rewards of faith.

  But as they walked through the city amidst the ruins of fallen empires and extinct beliefs, Paolo began to think increasingly that religion too had its absurdities. He had visited the Christian relics held in the city: the twelve baskets from the feeding of the five thousand, the head of John the Baptist, fragments of the True Cross, and even a phial of milk expressed from the breast of the Virgin Mary. This puzzled him, for he had already been shown an altogether different head of John the Baptist on his travels, as well as the foot of St Stephen and six breasts belonging to St Agatha, which would surely make her reincarnation problematic.

  Paolo wondered why people prayed to these saints. If they were already in heaven, interceding for those left on earth, then how had they been resurrected? Were their fingernails, shoulder blades, jawbones, and breasts still left on earth? Was heaven filled with saints who were incomplete?

  He thought of Simone and his attempt to paint heaven; how could such an idea ever be depicted? The colour he had been sent to find would have to be a shade of infinite breadth and depth in which there could be no tone or shade but one equal, everlasting sense of rest. Surely it was impossible.

  On the eve of the Sabbath, Paolo accompanied Jacopo along the city walls towards a synagogue in Balat. As they walked, his patron insisted that Paolo worried too much about the literal truth of faith and should not expect the divine to be understood by human reason.

  ‘We must hope and pray. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts.’

  ‘But what if we are wrong?’ Paolo asked. ‘I cannot imagine heaven at all.’

  ‘And what if we are right?’ Jacopo replied. ‘Imagine all the pleasure, all the peace, and all the joy that there has ever been on earth: the purest moments of bliss experienced by those who have already lived and those who will live. Gather up this indescribable beauty, the sum total of all the truth and glory that will ever be known, and consider it but a shadow of the divine ecstasy to come. To doubt is vanity. God asks for faith, virtue, and the humility of patience. Surely that is not so difficult, given the heavenly reward that lies in store?’

  He turned and made his
way into the synagogue. ‘Do not be afraid of faith.’

  Paolo sat on a low stone wall. ‘If only it was easier,’ he thought. ‘If only I could know it to be true.’

  As he waited outside, Paolo could just make out a blurred group of men entering a large complex of buildings on the other side of the square. When one of them stopped to adjust the straps on his sandals, and Paolo asked where he was going, the stranger made himself understood by gesture, indicating that this was a hamam, and that if he wanted a Turkish bath then he should join the other men at once. The potential bather seemed so welcoming, and the heat and dust of the day had taken such a toll that Paolo could not help but accept the invitation.

  In the outer courtyard men were taking off their clothes and signalled that Paolo should do likewise. Even though he could not see well, he was amazed by the relaxed way in which his fellow bathers displayed themselves, readjusting their testicles, flicking each other playfully with towels. Paolo took off his leggings and sandals, his shirt and trousers, and was given a loose cloth to tie around his waist before being shown by an attendant into the hall of the bath.

  Here he was washed down with a sponge, and showered with warm water before being directed into a room steaming with hot coals. The attendant indicated that he should spend ten minutes in the room and then leave.

  Paolo felt the steam rise slowly around him, and globules of sweat drop from his body. His eyelids began to ache and he could no longer see the other men in the room. When he judged that ten minutes had passed, he clasped his towel to his waist and made for the door. Uncertain which way to turn, he found himself in front of a series of doorways. He passed through the central arch and entered a small room with a low table.

  Through the heat and the steam he noticed a small woman with a high voice suggesting that he should lie down on a white cloth before her.

  Paolo lay down on his stomach, but the attendant turned him onto his back and began to work up a lather with her hands in a bucket of soap and water. Then she started to massage his right foot, working her way up through the shin and calf to the knee and then on to the thigh. Paolo felt the warmth and the sensuality of the deep massage and then, to his horror, as the attendant progressed to his upper thigh, he felt himself begin to stiffen. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He was having an erection.

  The attendant moved on to his left leg, soaping the underside, the thigh, and even his testicles. She had already pulled at each toe, elongating each joint, and now Paolo began to fear for his manhood. The intense and necessary excitement in his groin was overwhelming.

  ‘You want me finish?’ she asked quietly in Latin.

  Paolo thought she had only just started.

  ‘No,’ said Paolo, and immediately she began to work on his arms and his chest.

  Was that what he had meant? He liked her touching him down there.

  ‘Yes,’ said Paolo suddenly. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

  ‘You want me finish?’ the attendant asked again.

  ‘Yes,’ said Paolo, understanding at last, and the attendant returned once more to his groin, stroking, rubbing and pulling until finally Paolo could no longer contain his pleasure, and made his own unique contribution to the soapy lather around him.

  ‘Good,’ said the attendant, who now crouched down behind him, took his head in her hands, and rubbed a wet paste of henna into his hair, moustache, and beard. Paolo closed his eyes.

  The attendant then turned him onto his front and began work once more on his legs, pulling at each toe, pummelling his calves, and pinching at his buttocks.

  ‘Rest,’ the woman instructed in a piping voice.

  Paolo tried to loosen his arms but he could not help thinking about what had happened. He did not know whether to feel embarrassment or pleasure.

  The attendant now began to pumice his body, cleansing the dead flesh, washing away the dust of travel. Paolo did not think he had ever been so clean in his life. She then made him sit up, wrapped in a towel, and led him to a large pool of water.

  ‘In,’ she ordered, and Paolo found himself slipping into a cistern of water so cold it made him cower. He felt himself shrink before her.

  ‘Out,’ she commanded, covering him in yet another towel.

  ‘Now lie down and rest.’

  As he lay down the woman placed further towels upon him so that he felt he had been wrapped in his winding sheet. Perhaps he was already dead, and this experience had been but a dream.

  After ten minutes, the attendant returned.

  ‘Finish,’ she said, holding his clothes, ready for Paolo to dress once more.

  Paolo opened his eyes and rubbed them. Wearily he reached for his clothes. He put on his shirt and trousers and could see that the attendant was still waiting.

  ‘Happy?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Paolo replied, but then he noticed that something was not quite right. He leaned forward. His short-haired, bright-eyed attendant with the high voice and the fine features had no breasts.

  Paolo took a deep breath, rose, and left the hamam. His first sexual experience had been with a eunuch.

  PERSIA

  When it was time to leave Constantinople, Paolo and Jacopo took a boat up the Bosphorus and sailed along the Black Sea to Trabzon. Then they journeyed south-east towards Tabriz, following the path of the silk route.

  They travelled on horseback through valleys of apples, apricots, and pomegranates, and over the barren mountains of eastern Anatolia. By day they saw few people other than shepherds herding flocks or children gathering wild flowers, sucking the juice from their stalks; but by night they would sleep in the Han and Rabat of the caravanserai, among courtyards filled with noise, heat, and activity. On one side lay dormitories, baths, and bedrooms; on the other stood workshops, stores, and kitchens. A vast gateway at the back led to stables where blacksmiths hammered out new horseshoes, and farriers tended to the animals. In the middle of each courtyard stood a richly decorated mescat, a pavilion-mosque that appeared to float on supporting stone arches. The call of the muezzin mingled with distant music, dancing, fights, and laughter as the cooks roasted lamb for their guests, and traders jostled to exchange silver from the mines of Argyropolis or turquoise from Kerman.

  Paolo soon learned to adjust to the differing diets of each new community, eating dried beef spiced with fenugreek, sheep’s brain salad, or honey made from Pontic azalea which, it was said, could turn a man mad. The heat made him continually thirsty, and the more he travelled the more he realised how simple a man’s needs could become: food and shelter, sleep and water.

  They stopped for two days of rest at Mount Ararat, and, as Jacopo prayed, Paolo watched a group of women weaving carpets under a magnolia tree, working each strand dyed with indigo, madder, or camomile through a web of taut strings on their looms. At the centre of every design stood the tree of life. The women were creating heaven with their hands, paradise under their feet.

  As he tried to focus on their work Paolo wondered if he had almost forgotten the purpose of his journey. He was lost between arrival and departure, beginning and end, as if his travels might never cease. One of the weaving women appeared to think he was dreaming. When she looked up and asked where he was going he couldn’t quite remember.

  ‘I am looking for the colour of heaven.’

  She nodded, but Paolo was not sure if she had understood him.

  ‘You will find it soon enough.’ The woman spoke a little Latin.

  ‘It is close?’

  ‘Closer than you think. We all make the same journey. From God to God.’

  Paolo started to move away, but the woman gestured that he should sit with her. She patted the bench and made room, and he settled down beside her to watch the weaving. As he did so, he realised that he had never been so close to a woman other than his mother and he felt strangely calm. Children played around them, and one brought him a drink of pomegranate juice.

  ‘My daughter,’ the woman explained. Then she pointed at the boys. �
�My sons.’

  Paolo was suddenly fearful that the man of the house might return and see him sitting with his wife. He should get up and return to Jacopo, he knew, but he found that he did not want to do so. He was content.

  The woman gestured that he should drink, and Paolo brought the dark-red liquid to his lips. It was unexpectedly cool, thick, rich, and sweet.

  ‘Each pomegranate should be eaten one seed at a time,’ the woman was saying, ‘one ruby after another, for it was from such a seed that paradise grew.’

  Paolo nodded. The woman returned to her work and Paolo felt even more at ease with her as she wove, her slender fingers handling the thread with confident speed. He could feel her thigh next to his and her headscarf brushed against his shoulder. Her dark-green eyes had a softness that told him everything would surely be well. He could stay. He no longer needed to worry about the cares of the world.

  Paolo knew that this was a moment in time, and that it must surely pass, but he sensed that he had been given a glimpse of contentment. If only he could know it for longer.

  He finished his pomegranate juice, thanked the woman, and placed his cup down on the bench. He made a short bow and the woman held out her hand. Paolo reached forward, and because his head was still low, he let the back of her hand brush against his lips.

  His first kiss.

  He looked up to meet the woman’s eyes, and she smiled, withdrew her hand, and gave him a little wave. Paolo was almost emboldened to kiss her on the lips but the children ran around her, singing and dancing, and he could hear a baby crying in the clay dwelling behind. It was time to leave.