Immortal

by Traci L. Slatton

  “You came all the way to Sardegna to tell me a story?” I asked finally.

  “Wouldn’t it be a worthy journey?”

  “That depends on the story,” I said slyly, and he chuckled.

  “Isn’t there a gift at the end of every good story? Let me ask you, you’re a physico like old Moshe Sforno was—”

  “Was?” I cried, as the implication of the past tense sank in.

  “Moshe died twenty years ago,” the Wanderer said. “A good death; he was alive when he died. Now, you’re a physico, you’d heal someone who was ill who came to you, wouldn’t you?”

  “If I could, of course, always,” I said, remembering with a pang that cleft my heart Moshe Sforno’s many kindnesses to me. I thought of Rachel lying warm and sweet in my arms. Somehow I’d neglected to keep track of the Sfornos these many years, and now that I knew that Moshe was dead, I wondered why. Had I simply let my heart lapse so that the time like a frozen flower wouldn’t elapse, when all along other people, people for whom I cared, were living in the summer of lives that yielded inevitably to a harvest? Wasn’t there a better use of these extra days I’d been allotted? “What of Rachel?” I asked, feeling suddenly breathless.

  “I have no word of her,” he said. “But I do have that story I promised you. A certain man—”

  “What was his name?” I prompted him, eliciting the Wanderer’s hearty grin.

  “Some things don’t change, eh, Bastardo? But I won’t ruin a good story by confining it to specific names, not this time. Suffice to say the man was ill and in terrible pain, so he went to a great rabbi. ‘Rebbe, heal me,’ he said. The rebbe was greatly saddened by the man’s suffering.”

  “Of course; suffering is unnecessary,” I said flatly.

  “Suffering is part of life, it’s unavoidable,” Grazia commented, setting a platter before us with the mild soft country cheese of Sardegna, prosciutto made from wild boar, salty sardines, olives, early figs and orange cherry tomatoes, a bowl of chartreuse olive oil, a little cup of salt, and two round flat loaves of bread. I tore off some bread and dipped it into the olive oil.

  The Wanderer nodded as he combed his thick beard. “Part of being alive is to see the suffering in the world and our own suffering and to stay whole through it and because of it. We can’t be whole without including suffering. We cannot cleave God in half!”

  “God, what God? If there were a God, man would be too puny to cleave Him!” I said.

  “Luca doesn’t say prayers,” Grazia told the Wanderer, shaking her head.

  “Prayers say ‘Luca,’” the Wanderer told her. He looked at me. “Oneness is everything.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being a half,” I joked, “to have avoided what I’ve been through!”

  “Isn’t it just that you’ve eaten freely from the Tree of Life, so you’ve also been given the bittersweet fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?” he asked, holding up his callused hand. “Is there any suffering in your life that you have lived through that you would give up now that you’re on the other side of it? Hasn’t it made you who you are?”

  I stared out the window where a hummingbird buzzed around the flowers that Grazia had planted in the window box. I thought of Silvano and the years in the brothel, Massimo and Paolo and the years on the street, Moshe and Rachel Sforno and the years in their barn. The past was still strong, still making me hungry, but it didn’t have the same old hooks anchoring into me. I could hold it as the air had held the hummingbird, without clenching. Something about my time of wandering had allowed my history to sit more spaciously inside me. Even my part in Marco, Ingrid, and Bella’s deaths had eased its stranglehold. “You ask questions that no one has put to me for many years, Wanderer.”

  “The questions are always waiting,” he said. “You can exile yourself, but it’s always there. It reigned before anything was created and will do so after all things shall cease to be.”

  “It hasn’t been exile. I do not regret this time. I’ve enjoyed it.”

  “Joy is the foundation of the worlds.” He shrugged. “Shall I return to my story? The rebbe felt sorry for the man but answered no, he wouldn’t heal him. The man was terribly disappointed and lamented miserably. At last the rebbe sighed and said, ‘Go see Rabbi So-and-So. He can help you.’ Now, the second rabbi was a lesser rabbi, not as wise, not as learned, not as discerning. But the man went to him, and the rabbi healed him.”

  “What is the point of this story for which you have traveled a great distance after many years to tell me?” I asked impatiently. I bit on the chewy, sour flesh of a green olive, spat the pit out into my hand, and tossed it onto the table. Grazia, who hovered nearby, eavesdropping, clucked at me. She brought a cup for the pits and gave me a look that meant she’d scold me later. I smiled, disarming her. Then I looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. The Wanderer had asked her questions of substance, and she had answered with honesty and intelligence. It had never occurred to me to engage her that way, though I had treated her with kindness. If Grazia wasn’t the woman from my vision, she was a kind soul. She deserved something real from me in return for what she gave so generously of herself. I wondered if I had kept her at a distance so I wouldn’t have to face how alienated from her I was, and from everyone, not only through the differing span of our days, but through my understanding of the power of evil, which nothing held in check.

  The Wanderer leaned toward me, rapping lightly on the table to get my attention. “Now, why do you think the great rebbe wouldn’t heal the man, but referred him on?”

  “The man didn’t offer to pay him enough?” I asked. The Wanderer gave me a stony look.

  “The great rebbe discerned something important about the man’s pain,” Grazia answered. “But the great rebbe knew the lesser rabbi wouldn’t!”

  “Yes! The great rebbe knew that the man’s suffering was God’s grace, and he didn’t want to deprive the man of it,” the Wanderer said, thumping his hand on the table. “God’s grace!”

  “God’s cruel laughter, you mean!” I cried, unable to refrain. I poured more wine for myself and gulped it down. “Another one of God’s mean-spirited jokes!”

  “Luca, God’s jokes are embraces of love,” Grazia said in a pitying tone. Her pretty face softened again, but I was stubborn in my knowing.

  “That’s not what I’ve seen,” I said.

  “Then your eyes aren’t working,” the Wanderer said. “But this woman sees clearly. The man’s illness balanced out a debt he owed. God was allowing this man to work it off, so he could return to Oneness!”

  “Debt? What debt?”

  “I should tell you everything?” The Wanderer shrugged. “A debt from this life, from another life, who knows? The great rebbe knew that the debt was being paid off through suffering, and thus the man would advance toward transformation. The rebbe did not want to deprive the man of that opportunity. Nor did he want to leave the man in pain, and he knew the lesser rabbi would not discern the grace in the suffering.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, stretched out his heavy legs and wagged his feet, as if relaxing.

  “Another life? What life?”

  “Didn’t Geber talk to you about the transmigration of souls?” the Wanderer asked, sounding surprised. He took a deep sip of wine and then plucked a tomato from the platter and popped it into his mouth. Spewing tiny seeds, he said, “Geber read the Sefer Bahir, the book of brilliance. He knew that souls must return to earth over and over again until their tasks are completed. I suppose his time was cut short, he couldn’t teach you everything you need to know. You’re supposed to teach yourself, you know. That was the point of the philosopher’s stone.”

  “I needed to learn how to turn lead into gold, and his time was cut off before he could teach me,” I said, with the edge of a sulk in my voice. It was an old regret of mine that I had not mastered Geber’s ultimate secret. I rose and paced distractedly around the room, which suddenly seemed too small, too far from t
he center of things.

  “Are you so small-minded, Luca Bastardo?” the Wanderer chided me. “Gold, bah, that’s easy to come by. I am talking about the education of the soul! I am talking about human destiny and divine order! I am talking about each soul fulfilling every commandment with proper intentionality and sacred language, because if some spark of a soul has not fulfilled even one aspect of the three—deed, speech, and thought—it must transmigrate until it fulfills all of them!”

  “I heard about the transmigration of souls as I rode a camel into Cathay, of souls putting on new bodies the way we put on new clothes. I’m not convinced! It’s a pretty tale to soothe people. We’re just little toys made of dust and blood, playthings for a cruel God who doesn’t exist. Who are we to deserve new lives? Who are we to deserve life in the first place? It’s miracle enough, or a rich enough joke, that we are ever born. More than that, we cannot hope for!” I said passionately. “Our greatest joy is to behold beauty. Your story is not for me, Wanderer!”

  “Do you want to decide before you’ve seen the gift that it brings?” he asked. He withdrew something from his mended gray shirt: a letter. I snatched it from his gnarled, thickly veined hand.

  “It’s from Rebecca Sforno, dated recently,” I said, in amazement. My heart beat harder at the thought of hearing about Rachel. “Things are not good for the Sfornos. The plague visits Florence again, and war is snarling at the city gates. Two of her grandchildren are sick. She’s asking me to come back and help! She remembers what her father said of the consolamentum, that I had the gift of healing touch. She asks me to give it to her grandchildren.”

  “I’ll wait while you pack a bag,” the Wanderer said. “There’s a ship that’s leaving tonight. The captain owes me a favor or two.”

  “I didn’t say I was coming,” I said. “I want to help Rebecca, she’s an old friend, the Sfornos were good to me, they changed my life, and I’ve always wondered what became of Rachel…. I guess I abandoned them, but I didn’t want harm to come to them because of me…. There are people who want me dead in Florence.”

  “How can you turn your back on old friends?” interjected Grazia, in her piquant, meddling way. “When you came to Bosa a few years ago, your hands gave sweet relief to many who were ill. That must be the consolamentum your friend is asking for. If you can help her grandchildren, you must. I’ll gather clothes for you.” She bustled out of the room before I could respond. The matter was decided in her mind. I thought she was probably right. I had been called back to Florence, the bonds of old friendship had been invoked, and I must go. I was reluctant but also excited. It had been many years since I’d been home.

  “Have that pretty maid with the good vision pack us some of these tomatoes, eh?” the Wanderer said. “In fact, have her pack a full basket of food. This island has delicious fare.”

  So I took some clothes and my Giotto panel and Geber’s eyeglasses and Petrarca’s notebook and put them into a portmanteau that had seen dozens of ports in the last fifty years, years that suddenly seemed as empty as the pages of the notebook were. Grazia packed food. Before I left, I tore a sheet of vellum from the back of Petrarca’s still-blank notebook and wrote a letter deeding my home and belongings to Grazia. I gave it to her with all the money I had in the house and a quick kiss. To my surprise, she took my face in both her hands, and kissed me long and gently on the lips.

  “You’ve been good to me, Luca Bastardo,” she said.

  “How can I have been good to you when I didn’t even know you?” I asked softly.

  “Did you know yourself?” She smiled. “Go now. I always knew you would leave. Your parents must have been travelers who bore you under a restless star.” Her fine Castilian face was pensive, her dark eyes limpid. “If I didn’t let you leave, it would be wrong. I would be trying to make you into someone you aren’t.”

  “Good-bye, Grazia,” I said softly. For a moment I enclosed her in my arms, feeling her small warm body with its strong bones. I wished her well; I wished for her that she would find the love and the child that she was looking for. I thought she already had herself, though it was interesting that she had included that in her list of longings. If I had stayed, I would have asked her what she had meant.

  I set off with the Wanderer down the steep hill toward the seacoast. We walked through cobblestone alleys and down stairs cut into the side of the hill, passed through groves of fig, olive, and almond trees, startled wildcats and wild boars and partridges as they prowled through the lush foliage, and eventually came to a curving beach with dark sand that was claimed by the locals to possess healing properties. I had heard that people with stiff joints would lie on a blanket on the sand and feel better, looser, and more flexible. Nature was full of marvels. Considering that, was it so odd that nature would choose a few men for special longevity? Was it so strange that time would pass differently for some men than for others? I pondered this as we followed the coast around. It was a long trek under the relentless Sard sun.

  “Now don’t you wish you had kept my donkey with you, Bastardo?” the Wanderer asked.

  “He would have been dinner in some of the places I’ve been over the last fifty years,” I said, wiping sweat off my forehead. “Now’s the time to distract me with a tale, Wanderer.”

  “Do you imagine that I can simply regurgitate a tale for you at will, like a dog who barks on command?” he asked, indignant.

  “Then tell me about this book, the Sefer Bahir. What does it say?”

  “What do you want it to say?” he asked. “Don’t men read books and take from them what is already in their own hearts?”

  “That’s right, you insist on answering questions with questions. Over the last fifty years, I’d forgotten how satisfying that is,” I said, with some sarcasm.

  The Wanderer grinned his wily grin and leaned close so that his wild gray locks flopped against my cheek. “It says that the union between a man and woman is a pathway to the divine. Has the lovely Grazia brought you closer to God?”

  “Oh yes, there were times when I was with her that I called out God’s name,” I said facetiously, and then winked broadly.

  “A sacred union, then,” he answered solemnly. “So to have had such a union and not to have raised a child together means that you will both transmigrate to come together again and raise a child. That will fulfill the commandment.”

  “If I am going to transmigrate to be with a woman, it will not be for Grazia. She is lovely, but she is not the one, The One. Do you understand, Wanderer? The One who was promised me. Promised, during that crazy night of visions inspired by the philosopher’s stone with you and Geber! I have saved my heart for that promise!”

  “Saved your heart or hidden your heart?” he asked. It was the question which seemed to have awakened me, and I couldn’t answer it. So we continued in silence until we reached a Catalan ship, where we were taken aboard and treated as royalty.

  I WAS BACK IN FLORENCE. Florence: the center of the world, the city which inspired madrigals to sing of its silver walls, declared by a Pope to be the fifth element of the cosmos. Of course the city was scorching. Under the summer sun, the gray stones heated up and baked the streets like an oven. And naturally the plague was about. Still, I was home. I was breathing Florence’s air, smiling at her fashionably dressed women. I would dine on bread-and-bean soup, fresh spinach sautéed in Tuscan olive oil, and roast beef on the bone. I was going to salute the city’s health with the noble wine of Montepulciano. I was walking through the Oltrarno, marveling at the many new palazzi built for wealthy merchants and guildsmen. Via San Niccolo, which connected Porta San Giorgio with Porta San Niccolo, was built up almost to a solid facade of brick and stucco without a breach. The dwellings were high and narrow, rising four or five stories, and deeper than they were wide, as was common. The streets were still a vibrant mélange of palazzo and cottage, of cloth factory and bottega, of church and monastery. Stone-masons and shoemakers rubbed shoulders with bankers and traders, artisans and prosti
tutes. The plague cast a lull over the street, but it wasn’t as desolate as the first time the Black Death had swept through the stone walls. People had learned they could not hide when death stalked them.

  I came to the Jewish enclave and made my way to the Sfornos’ carved portone, the massive recessed door to their home. I knocked with the brass knocker and a moment later, a hunched-over grandmotherly woman opened the door. “Luca!” she trilled.

  “Rebecca?” I asked, with some hesitation.

  “But of course.” She laughed. “Come in, get out of the street before the plague finds you, and let me look at you.” She tugged on my sleeve and I stepped into the foyer, which was much the same as the first time I’d entered this house, more than fifty years ago. Rebecca stood close, smiling up at me. Her curly hair was white now, her face deeply seamed, but her eyes were as clear and joyful as ever and her voice did not quaver. I could feel the vibrance and sweetness of the young girl whom I had first seen clasped in her father’s arms, ducking away from murderous stones. I wondered what it was like for her to see her old friend still young. I wondered if it would make her envy or hate me. My differentness from her would be all the more apparent, and it made me more alien to her than even Gentile was from Jew.