The third division, while of lesser importance militarily, was probably of greatest significance where morale was concerned. There were thirty-eight churches in Acre: Latin churches loyal to Rome; Greek Orthodox obedient to Byzantium; Greek Catholics who supported Rome but retained their own rites; and the stubborn, colorful Monophysites who ignored both Rome and Constantinople in their adherence to the old belief that Christ had but one nature. These included the Copts of Africa, the Armenians, and above all the Jacobites of Syria, whose priests made their sign of the cross with one bold finger, proclaiming to the world the oneness of Christ. Among these groups flourished bitter hatreds, with the priests of one confession ignoring or hampering the presence of the others. There were four sets of churches, four rituals, four competing theologies. In any crisis the interests of the four groups were almost sure to be divergent and any hierarchy might try to throw its enemies into confusion or even into the arms of the waiting Mamelukes.
And so the turreted town of Acre, so powerful when seen from a distance, was actually eleven separate communities bound together only by their fear of the encroaching enemy: the Venetian, Genoese and Pisan fonduks; the Templar, Hospitaller and Teutonic orders; the Roman, Byzantine, Greek and Monophysite churches, plus the fragile eleventh, the kingdom of Jerusalem, ruled by a handsome, ineffectual young king whose intimates had succeeded in hiding from the public the fact that he was an epileptic.
In this confusion there was only one redeeming feature, the bells of Acre, and now as the time for evening prayers approached, their magic quality drifted across the walled city. First came the deep iron bell of the SS. Peter and Andrew, the Roman church near the waterfront, establishing a stately rhythm which was soon joined by the dancing bronze bell of the Coptic church and then by the tinkling chatter from the Syrian church of St. Mark of Antioch. One by one the other thirty-five bell towers sent forth their messages until the sea-girt peninsula was throbbing with sound. No city in the kingdom of Jerusalem—so great a name now signifying so little—had ever known an assembly of bells like those of Acre, and from his childhood Volkmar had loved them. Now as he looked aloft toward the azure sky from which they sounded, his hope revived for a moment and he listened to their noble symphony, the only thing their churches could agree upon, but then a Pisan merchant tugged at his sleeve and whispered, “Sire, don’t listen to the Venetians if they promise to buy your oil for more than we paid last year. Words, words. You know Venetians.”
Disgusted with the interlocking feuds that surrounded him, and feeling the old sense of doom returning, Volkmar rode to the Venetian fonduk, whose entrance was marked by the statue of a pig placed there to insult the Muslims, and went to the caravanserai, a spacious courtyard whose bottom rooms contained fodder for camels and whose upper floor served as a kind of inn. He looked for Muzaffar, hoping that the old Arab might still be trading with the Venetians—and there the old man was. Volkmar grabbed his hands and led him to the church of SS. Peter and Andrew, which Volkmar preferred because these men had been fishermen of Galilee; and there the Crusader went to one of the Christian chapels to give thanks for his safe arrival, while Muzaffar went to a chapel reserved for Islam, where before a delicately carved screen with a mark indicating the direction of Mecca, he prostrated himself on the pavement to whisper his Muslim prayers.
This was an arrangement guaranteed to startle hot-headed visitors from Europe—this business of sharing a consecrated Christian church with the enemy one had come to slay—but it was justified on the logical basis that outside the town walls stood a Muslim mosque in which a chapel containing a statue of the Virgin Mary was set aside for Christian use. There were other confusions for the stranger: most of the internal trading was in Arab hands, so that trusted Muslims like Muzaffar of Damascus were courted by the Italian merchants; and if one finally did meet a Catholic priest, he was apt to be a bearded Syrian with long oriental-looking garments, and it was this which helped bring about the final catastrophe in Acre.
For the time being the town was delightful. The boy-king, Henry II, and his recent bride were in residence, and in the long afternoons the knights dressed in ancient costume and rode horses caparisoned with ribbons and flowers. Those in men’s clothes pretended that they were Lancelot or Tristram or Parsifal, while the others, dressed as women, were their ladies; and mock-jousts and tournaments were held, men against women, and there was much singing. The sight of real women, dressed handsomely and seated with the young queen, reminded Volkmar of the exciting days he had enjoyed in Acre when he was young and when all the families—the Volkmars were rich then and the Jewish rumor was forgotten—wondered which young girl he would select as his countess; and he had tried many. Those were the good days, before the Mamelukes took Saphet.
He thought of them now as he walked through the narrow streets of the town, and he recalled the girls, the lovely girls of Acre. There was Bohemond’s niece and the Ibelin girl who had crept out of any castle her parents had ever tried to lock her into, and the grandniece of the King of Cyprus, who loved wine. Did anyone ever live as we lived then? Volkmar asked himself, and he turned away from the Venetian fonduk where Muzaffar waited, and went into the Pisan district, where he had been known as a young man, and at the pillared caravanserai he inquired, “Are they upstairs?” and a man with no teeth replied that they were. He hurried up to the second level, two stone steps at a time, and walked along the cloisters to a small door which opened cautiously, throwing a light. “You may come in,” a voice whispered.
Inside were girls from many different lands, but the tall white-skinned one from Circassia was the most expensive, and Volkmar’s eyes lighted as he saw her. She smiled, recognizing him as a man of importance who might leave an extra present, and he by-passed the French girls and the Egyptians and the Ethiopian who had been a slave, and took the tall Circassian by the hand and she led him to a room of manifold delights. In the hour before dawn they were awakened by the bells and he said, “When I come back to Acre I’ll ask for you again,” and in Arabic she replied teasingly, “If you’ve found joy, why risk losing it?” and he had crushed her to him and had not gone, but had stayed with her for three days, saying as he finally left, “At least I remember what it was like.” This time she did not tease him but said, “I would be pleased if you returned tomorrow.”
It would have been difficult for Volkmar to explain why he lingered on in Acre during that hot midsummer. He loved his wife and was proud of his son; not many of the noble families had been able to survive for two hundred years in one line and increase their holdings while doing so, and he had cause for pride. But as a man of forty-five, strong in the arm and courageous, he felt that he ought to be doing something creative with the productive years of his life, yet what he saw in Acre proved that his world was slowly falling apart, gasping to its death without commitment to any ideal; and he could find the vital reassurance he needed only in the primitive relationship of one man and one woman in bed. Night after night he drifted back to the Pisan quarter to spend his hours with the lovely Circassian girl, and when the bells wakened them they talked aimlessly and he discovered that she was a Christian, captured by Muslims on the edge of Kiev and sold by them to a slave dealer in Damascus. There a Pisan trader, seeing no wrong in the transaction, had bought her for the caravanserai of his fonduk, where she entertained men from Europe or Persia. Like the Acre in which she worked she was content with current arrangements and joked, “I’ve been sold four times and each was an improvement.” When she discussed the wars which loomed ahead she was actually gay, for she felt confident that she would survive. “With a good chance of improving my fortune if things go well,” she added, and her optimism encouraged Volkmar. And so these two drifting, laughing people came to bed.
One morning when he was walking idly back to his lodging place he happened to pass through the fonduk of Genoa, now largely empty because of the war between Genoa and Pisa, and he discovered that a group of Jews, newcomers from France, had taken residence i
n one of the unused caravanserais. He had never really spoken to a Jew, nor had any of his ancestors, since that day in 1099 when Volkmar I had tried vainly to save some of the Jews found in Ma Coeur, but Gunter had slain them and for nearly two hundred years no Jew had lived there.
Having nothing better to do Volkmar wandered over to the newcomers, who had set up a dyeing plant which produced handsome fabrics, and began chatting with them in French. To his surprise one of the men, thin and with a dark beard, showed a willingness to talk—even an eagerness—and Volkmar lounged against a pillar and tried to discover why the Jew and his friends had adventured into Acre.
“This is our homeland,” the Jew explained.
“Where were you born?”
“Paris.”
“I should think Paris would be your homeland,” Volkmar suggested.
“This is the land of the Jews,” the bearded one said, tapping the stones of Acre.
Volkmar laughed. “It’s the land of the Italians, that much we know. And the Franks. And the Germans …” He hesitated.
“And the Arabs,” the Jew added laughingly. “They seem to own more of it than anyone else.”
“In spite of this, you call it home?” Volkmar continued.
“Yes. All during my life in Paris we said each night, ‘To next year in Jerusalem.’ So one day I decided to come.”
“What is a Jew?” Volkmar asked, in sudden concern.
The dyer looked up from his work, wiped his hands and came to the knight. “Maimonides says …”
“Who’s Maimonides?”
“A great thinker … lived here in Acre in the last century.”
“Were there Jews in Acre … then?”
“Of course. Maimonides came here after fleeing from Spain.”
“Were there Jews in Spain?”
“Of course. After they were driven from the Holy Land they went to Spain.”
“Who drove them from the Holy Land?” Volkmar asked. He knew that his ancestors had killed enormous numbers but he had never heard …
The Jew ignored the question and said, “Maimonides drew up a list of thirteen marks which identify the Jew. They are …”
“Why do you remember the rules? Are you a priest?”
The bearded Jew looked at the knight and smiled. For two centuries this Crusader’s family had lived in the Jewish homeland, yet he did not know that Jews no longer had priests. The Jew made no comment, but returned to his list, ticking off the marks on his fingers: “A Jew believes in God. That He is one alone, has no physical form, and is eternal. Only God may be worshiped, but the words of His prophets are to be obeyed. Of these prophets Moses our Teacher was greatest, and the laws which came to him at Sinai came directly from God. The Jew obeys this law of Moses. He believes that God is all-knowing, all-powerful. He believes in reward and punishment, both in this world and hereafter. He believes that the Messiah will come and that then the dead shall rise.”
“I believe most of that,” Volkmar said. “Where’s the difference?” The Jew looked hesitantly at the Catholic church of SS. Peter and Andrew and was inclined not to reply lest he offend the knight, but Volkmar sensing this said, “Go ahead. I’m not a priest.”
The Jew moved closer, wiped his hands again and said, “You believe that God is three, that in the body of Jesus He took human form, and that in such form God can be worshiped. We don’t.”
Instinctively Count Volkmar drew away from the Jew. Blasphemy had been spoken in his presence, and he suffered at the utterance of the intemperate words. He was at first tempted to leave the man, run away, and then he, too, saw the church at which he and Muzaffar had prayed, and it seemed strange that the Christians could share a church with Muslims, whom they were fighting to the death, but could not possibly do so with Jews, from whom Christianity had sprung. He stemmed his impending flight and asked, “Why do we hate you Jews so deeply?”
The bearded one replied, “Because we bear testimony that God is one. We were placed among you by God to serve as that reminder.”
The discussion continued for some time, after which Volkmar walked thoughtfully to his room in the Venetian fonduk. He sought out Muzaffar, and they went together to pray, after which they ate in a house run by Italians from a town near Venice. During the meal Volkmar asked, “How do Muslims treat Jews?”
“Muhammad was very just in his attitude,” the old trader answered, throwing the end of his turban back as he prepared to drink wine. “You know, of course, that Muhammad had a Jewish wife.” The conversation continued with truths and half-truths and Damascus folklore. It was Muzaffar’s opinion that much Islamic teaching had been borrowed directly from the Jews.
Acre grew increasingly hot, and each morning Volkmar said, “Today I must go home,” but he found excuses for discussing military matters with the leaders of the religious orders, and there was the constant invitation of the Circassian girl, long-legged and vibrant in bed, and he remained in the city, always hiding from himself the real reason for his delay: he was finding intellectual pleasure in his random conversations with the Jew at the dyeing vats. Of all the residents of Acre in that vital, doomed summer only this Jew seemed to be contemplating the universal problems of life and death, of God and the humility of man; and Volkmar wanted to talk about these things.
“Do the thirteen rules of your Maimonides keep me from heaven?” he asked one day.
“Oh no!” the Jew cried eagerly. “While he was living here in Acre, Maimonides said plainly, ‘God is near to everyone who turns to Him. He is found by anyone who seeks Him and turns not aside.’ ”
“You are more generous than we,” Volkmar replied.
“Maimonides also said, in a letter to a man much like you—a non-Jew who loved God—that this man was as much the charge of God as any Jew. He wrote, ‘If our descent is from Abraham, your descent is from God Himself.’ ”
“Do you believe that?” Volkmar asked.
“I believe that you are the personal child of God, even though you spend your nights with the Pisan whore.”
Volkmar was tempted to strike the Jew, but he spoke with such authority that to molest him would be a sin. “How do you know these things about me?” the knight asked.
“Because I have wondered who you were, what trouble haunts you,” the Jew said.
“Acre haunts me,” Volkmar replied. “How long shall you and I be here?”
“Not long,” the Jew said. “And when the Mamelukes storm through the gates”—he looked at the small stone gate leading into the deserted caravanserai—“you may perhaps escape. Not I.”
“Then why don’t you flee Acre now?”
“Because this is my homeland,” the Jew replied.
That day there was no more talk, but on the next morning, as Volkmar wandered back from the Pisan fonduk, the Jew remarked, “You and I look upon death with such different views that I wonder if you would care to see one of my manuscripts?”
It was a peculiar question, for the two halves did not seem to correlate, but Volkmar, having nothing better to do, assented and the Jew led him to a mean hovel which the Genoese had deserted at the beginning of their war with the Venetians, but the meanness was only external. Inside, the Jew’s wife had made a clean, good home, along whose farthest wall rested a collection of manuscripts which even in that day were practically beyond price. The bearded Jew took down one and showed its pages to Volkmar, parchment leaves on which not Hebrew but Arabic letters had been beautifully written from right to left. Pointing to a special page the Jew said, “These words are for you and me in this hot summer.”
Volkmar took the folio and read the remarkable passage in which Maimonides considered the case of Rhases, the cynical Arab who had written down a list of every evil thing in the world: war, famine, lust, betrayal, the Arab had listed them all, and at the end he had concluded that evil in the world outweighed good, that hope was irrational and that it would have been better if man had not been created. Volkmar laughed and said, “Seeing the anarchy in
this city I would agree with Rhases.”
The Jew took back the folio and read what Maimonides had replied to this reaction: “ ‘Such reasoning stems from narrow parochialism. A man looks at his own fate, or at what happens to his friend, or at the disasters facing the whole human race, and he thinks: This is decisive in the vastness of things. Or a man finds that in his life unhappiness predominates, and he judges the universe from that experience.’ ” The Jew’s voice rose to heights of power as he thundered: “ ‘But we are not the center of the universe, you and I, neither as individuals nor as the representatives of the whole human race. God’s universe must be considered as one great whole composed of interrelated parts, and its majestic purpose is not the gratification of our puny selves.’ ”
Impulsively Volkmar wrested the manuscript from the Jew and read the words with his own eyes. “What do you call yourself?”
“Rabbi,” the Jew replied.
“And you are a follower of this Maimonides?”
“No. He was merely a Jew who once lived in Acre, no better than you or I, but more intelligent perhaps. I am a follower of God, Who is one, Who sees us as we stand here, Who has the future of this town in His hands.”
“I have been growing more hopeful, recently,” Volkmar lied. “The crops are good. Trade’s good. I’ve begun to think the truce will hold.”
“This city?” the rabbi laughed. “With eleven armies and seven foreign policies? I don’t worry about truce with the Mamelukes. I worry about truce with ourselves.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Then why do you stay?” Volkmar pressed, and as he spoke, the great iron bell of SS. Peter and Andrew began tolling.
“Because this town, such as it is, is Eretz Israel.” The ponderous iron bell was joined by one of bronze pealing at a merrier tempo from the Coptic church.
“What do those words mean?” Volkmar asked.
The Source: A Novel Page 89
