“No,” he says, his mouth dry.
“I did not think I would know my fate so quickly, all at once,” she says, and he thinks, Nor did I. He has had no wine since last night, and yet he feels drunk: the good drunk, light and floating, before sickness sets in.
And now she will give him money, and go away, and he will never see her again. He begins to feel sick after all. But she sighs, looking down at the carpet again, running her hands wistfully over it. “It is very fine.”
“The best in this shipment,” he says. “Indeed, the finest I have ever seen.” The finest in the world, he wants to say, but prudence stops him.
“Very fine,” she says bitterly. “And I cannot afford it.”
From anyone else this would be prelude to a round of bargaining, the mandatory protests of poverty from buyer and seller alike, who can never possibly name a price higher or lower than the one they have just offered, and yet always do, until at last they meet in the middle. She expects him to name a price now, this child who could buy half the market with one corner of her silken hood. She expects him to be a merchant, not a man.
He shakes his head. He does not name a price. “Lady?” he asks.
“They will not give me money of my own.”
“Merchant!” Someone is calling him from the pile of sleeping mats. He turns in annoyance, putting out a hand to keep the girl from fleeing, and sees a heavy man, all jowls and glistening sweat, with gold rings on his fingers. “Merchant! I seek a sleeping mat in green and amber! Have you any such?”
“None,” Darroti says, feigning disappointment, although in fact there are three or four such in the pile. He should tell the man to come back tomorrow, that there will be another shipment—but no, for the man might come back when Timbor was here, and speak to him, instead of Darroti, and thus Timbor might learn of the lie. So instead, wanting only to be rid of this irritation, Darroti says, “Have you tried the carpet booth across the Market? I think I saw some there.”
The fat man leaves, grumbling at how far he has to walk. Darroti sends up thanks that Timbor is not here, to see that he has thrown away a sale. He turns back to the girl. “Lady. They will—”
“Not give me money of my own,” she finishes quickly. “My father buys me anything I want, but he will not buy me a prayer carpet. He says it is not seemly for women to be Mendicants. He says I am too young. He wants to keep me at home, caged like a bird; he claims I have no need of Temple. How can he know my needs? He does not know my soul; he does not wish to look at it.”
I do, Darroti thinks. “Lady.”
“And so for three years, since I was fifteen and first dreamed of going to Temple, I have saved up bits of change: spare coins from buying sweets or trinkets, the coins my parents give at holidays. I have collected fifty alaris that way, and it was slow work. I thought that fifty might purchase what I needed. But this is worth far more than that.”
Worth the world, he thinks. The carpet is, in fact, worth at least four times that much.
She is still speaking, as if to herself, her head down. There is no guile in her, no will to bargain. “My father says that I cannot be a Mendicant because men will only want to take from me, not give. He says I will be hounded and harassed. My mother and older sister say they find their souls at home, and so can I, and thus—”
“None may tell where any of us will find our souls,” Darroti says. He is thinking furiously. He could hold the carpet for her, but Timbor would be suspicious when he came back, and would want to see a down payment; if it has taken three years for her to collect fifty alaris, there is little chance of her gathering the full price. If the carpet stays in the pile, there is the danger that someone else will buy it, for it is a gorgeous thing, and others might fool themselves into believing it the pattern of their own souls.
He glances at the sun. Mid-morning: Timbor will soon be back from his meeting with the widow. He must act quickly.
And so he does, heart pounding. He takes the prayer carpet, swiftly rolls it into a neat tube, and offers it to her with both hands. And with my heart. “Tell your father that he is wrong. Tell him that men will give you what you need, just as the cosmos does, for now I give you this.”
Her eyes widen. She shakes her head. “No, merchant! I cannot deprive you of your livelihood—”
“I cannot deprive you of your soul, lady.”
Her face tightens. “I am not a Mendicant yet. What then would you have for this?” She is suspicious now. She fears that he seeks some advantage over her, that he will ask for favors of the flesh; that he is only what indeed her father has told her all men are.
Pained, he shakes his head. “Nothing, lady. Unless you grant me knowledge of your name. I am Darroti-Frella Timbor, of honest kin although not noble, and I salute your courage, and wish you fair fortune.”
Still she does not trust him. She holds out a small cloth bag. “You must take my fifty alaris.”
Something has occurred to him. “I will take your fifty alaris, and for them I will give you a sleeping mat to wrap about that other one, so your family will not see it when you take it home.”
“Ah! That is good thinking, merchant. That one, on top: the green and purple. I will take that one.”
He relaxes, allows himself to grin at her as he rolls the sleeping mat around the other. “And now, what will you say when your people ask you why you went alone to the Great Market to buy a sleeping mat?”
“They will not ask me. I left my maid Adda in the healer’s house. I took her there so she could lean upon me; she is old, forty at least, and her back is sore. She did not know I was coming to the Market. I will say—I will tell her and the others that I bought the new sleeping mat for her, to ease her aching back. She favors green and purple.”
“Well done,” Darroti says, approving. “But she and your family will not be angry that you came to Market alone, even so?”
“Nay,” the girl says, and smiles for the first time. Darroti finds himself trembling, as he did once on a winter day when the sun shone from behind a cloud; blinded by the glory of light where a moment before there had been only gloom, he was transported by wonder. He was very small then. This is the first time in all the years since that he has felt that way, as if he is larger than the boundaries of his body. “They know I am impetuous. They will scold me for it, but Adda will love me, and my parents will be pleased. They wish me to be generous, but not to ask for generosity from others.”
Her smile fades a little as she says that last. “I give to you because life has given to me,” Darroti says, very quietly. It is what people say when they make offerings to Mendicants. The girl looks him full in the face, now, and he sees her tremble, as he did when she smiled.
“I take from you with thanks, as I take from the cosmos,” she whispers. It is the other half of the formula. She has grown pale. She swallows and says, “I am Gallicina-Malinafa Odarettari, good merchant.”
“Darroti,” he says.
“Darroti.” She inclines her head.
He bows, very low. When he has risen again, she is gone, making her way through the crowded Market with her precious bundle. He wants to cry after her, wants to implore her to return, that he may feel the sun again. He wants to tell her that only her magnificent soul can elevate his paltry one. But that would not do, and so instead he turns to his ledger sheet, to the dull columns of marching numbers.
Timbor returns a little while later, pleased because he did good business with the widow, who bought new carpets for every room in her large and garish house. “There are so many knick-knacks there,” Timbor says, laughing, “that you cannot move without knocking something over. Ivory fans on wooden stands, alabaster jars, glass statues of animals. I feared that I would break some treasure and have to discount its price from the sale; indeed, I wondered if she had put out the things especially for that purpose, if she had some store-room full of hideous miniatures she only pretended to cherish, that she might use them as a bargaining tool when they were smashed
. But I was deft, both with my limbs and with my speech, and all is well.”
Although Darroti is fond of his father, and would normally enjoy the tale, he can barely bring himself to grunt in response. Gallicina, Gallicina. All is dross but that. He forces himself to act interested, and indeed he is grateful that Timbor’s expedition went so well, since the sale will help make up for Darroti’s extravagance.
Timbor, humming, is looking through the new shipment now. “These are lovely work.”
“Aye.”
“Made you any sales this morning?”
“A sleeping mat, marked down for a frayed corner,” Darroti answers, making a comic face. “Another, whole, for fifty alaris. A room carpet.”
“It was slow, then.”
“Aye,” he says, the lie sticking in his throat. The shape of the universe has changed, and he must feign talk of common commerce.
Timbor flips through the piles, still humming. Darroti realizes that his father, of long habit, is counting the new goods to check them against the bills of lading. The pile of prayer carpets will be one short, and he cannot account for it by a sale. “The prayer carpets were not all there,” he says. “We purchased ten and received only nine.”
Timbor looks at him in surprise. “Aye? The Barrina weavers are not usually so careless.”
“Perhaps one was stolen along the route,” Darroti says. He does not wish to get the weavers in any trouble: he must be careful here. “The packaging looked torn, although I saw no damage to the nine.” There have been such thefts before, although they are infrequent; he prays that his father will accept the explanation.
“A pity,” Timbor says with a shrug, and turns away, whistling. The widow has put him in an excellent mood, and Darroti sends up thanks. “Well, little matter, if it does not happen more often. May whoever took it have found the pattern of his soul.”
Or hers. “Aye,” Darroti says quietly. “That is a good wish.”
Timbor looks at him now, frowning, alerted by some new note in Darroti’s voice. “Are you well, son? You look pale.”
“I am fine, Father.”
“Were you out drinking again last night?”
“I was with friends. I am fine, Father. I am not ill.”
Timbor shrugs and smiles, and reaches out to squeeze Darroti’s shoulder, and then turns to speak to a customer. Business is brisk for the rest of the day, and Darroti forces himself to concentrate on work. He bargains well, seeking by small increments to make up the price of the gift he gave this morning, and by the time the Great Market closes at sundown, he and his father have done very well indeed.
As they lock up the booth, Timbor says, “Will you come home with me for supper, Darroti?”
Always Timbor asks this, but usually Darroti declines. He goes off to have supper with his friends, to eat greasy sausages and drink wine and then seek out whichever whore is next on his list. But tonight Darroti wishes to do none of that: he only wants to be alone, to dream of Gallicina. “Aye, I will,” he tells his father, and Timbor gives him a startled glance.
“You are sure you are not ill, Darroti?”
“Only tired from a day of bargaining,” Darroti says, summoning a smile, and Timbor chuckles and looks pleased.
And so Darroti goes home for supper. The family is delighted to see him, if surprised. His brothers smile, and their wives fuss, and the children clamber on Darroti’s lap. They treat him like a king, and he realizes, with a kind of wonder, how much they love him.
After supper—Harani’s excellent bread, and stew, and cool clear juice to drink—Darroti tells them he is sleepy and goes to his small room. His sleeping carpet is slightly dusty, and he realizes that he cannot remember when last he actually slept here. He lies down, staring at the ceiling; at last, after this long day, he can allow himself to drift completely in reveries of Gallicina. He replays each delicious moment of their meeting, each word she spoke, the tone of her voice, the planes of her face in the shadows of her hood, the play of sunlight on the costly gray silk of her robe. He wonders if she thinks of him at all. He finds himself hoping that she has made a hero of him, for his gift, and then he is ashamed: he gave the carpet freely, and not to buy her love. And yet how he hopes that she will recall him, remember his name, come back to thank him!
And if she did, Darroti? If she came back to thank you with Timbor there, how then would you explain yourself, eh? And how should the daughter of a noble family love a merchant, who is a merchant’s son? Know simply that there is such beauty in the world, and be content.
How be content, without tasting more of it? I could marry such a one.
Marry! You, marry, who have never thought to marry? And marry that one? How would her family allow it? You overreach yourself, Darroti.
And yet I love her. And indeed, all desire for whores has been removed from his limbs, although, with a kind of superstitious dread, he does not yet allow himself to imagine the curves under Gallicina’s robes.
She cannot love you, fool. She will forget you before the week is out.
So he torments himself, arguing back and forth, painfully conscious for the first time of how much less he is than he could wish to be. He tells himself that for Gallicina’s sake he will be better, nobler, even if he never sees her again; her memory will be his shrine. And then, despairing, he answers himself that if he never sees her again—as is most certain—all his life will be a waste, for the universe cannot contain two such women.
He falls asleep in this feverish debate, and wakes, near dawn, befuddled and ill, seized with a great thirst. Wine. He must have wine. He has never felt such a craving before, and under its impetus he sneaks, trembling and unthinking, into the kitchen, and finds a bottle and drinks, until his shaking hands have steadied and his head is clear again.
Fine work you have made of ennobling yourself, Darroti.
He blinks, standing there, holding the half-empty bottle in the gray light of dawn, and remembers his thoughts of the night before, and is ashamed. Now he must hope that Gallicina does not remember him, if he is so weak.
Nay, nay! You were thirsty, that is all. You awoke surprised out of sleep. Perhaps you are ill, as Timbor thought, and your body needs the wine as medicine; you will be better soon, and governed by your waking mind.
More cheerful now, he puts the bottle away and goes back to bed, and sleeps for another hour, until it is time to get up and go back to Market. Again business is brisk, but today he bargains badly; he is distracted, constantly scanning the crowds for a slight figure in gray silk.
He does not see her. She does not come. Wretched, he once more follows his father home at the end of the day, and allows himself to be pulled into a game with the children in the garden, until Harani calls them to supper.
There are potatoes on the table, and a roast fowl, tossed greens, and a pitcher of juice. Next to the pitcher sits the half-empty bottle of wine Darroti drank that morning.
He stops, stares, feels himself growing ridiculously red. “If you must drink it,” Harani tells him quietly, “have it at the table, in the open. Drink it with us, Darroti, with your family.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll pay you for it. I’ll—”
“What nonsense!” Her voice is sharper now, and she is frowning. “Pay for refreshment from your own kin? What are you saying? This is your home, Darroti, not a bawdy house.”
Stung, he sits and eats, but finds none of the comfort he found the night before. All the food tastes flat; the voices of his family buzz around him like gnats; even the sweet children do nothing but annoy him. The walls of the house are closing in on him. He cannot stay here.
And so he excuses himself after supper and goes out, trying to ignore Harani’s frown, Macsofo’s knowing and disgusted look, Timbor’s quiet disappointment. He goes to his favorite wine hall and sits with his friends for a while, but although he drinks, he cannot become happy, cannot attend to his fellows’ cheerful chatter about dice and women.
There is only one woman. There i
s only Gallicina.
You will never see her again, fool. Forget her.
It has only been one day. She may still return. I cannot forget her.
“Darroti, attend your betters!” one of his friends says, laughing, and smacks him lightly in the head. A throbbing ache begins inside Darroti’s skull, and he finds himself unreasonably angry.
“Nay,” he says, “I am not in the mood for this talk tonight,” and excuses himself from his friends as he did from his family. They jeer and jest, careless and callow, but he escapes out onto the street, cool now in the darkness, where he can breathe.
He can breathe, yes, but where will he go? To the whorehouse? Nay: the thought turns his stomach, for none of those women is Gallicina. Nor does he wish to go home, to face his family’s questions.
Temple: of course. He has not been to Temple in too long, and prayer will help settle his mind. And so he sneaks home, climbing unseen through the window of his room, and grabs his prayer carpet where it lies, neatly rolled and dusty, by the wall, and flees again, going to the Temple in the center of the city. It is always open, lit now by candles. The most devout, who come here every day, pay for niches in which they keep their carpets, so they will not have to carry them from home. Because it is an unusual hour and not a feast day, only the most devout are here now: a few dim figures, rocking on their prayer carpets, their lips moving silently.
Darroti unrolls his carpet and places it on the floor. He kneels and dutifully studies it, the dull brown and white surrounded by a ring of fire. He does not really expect anything to happen, but something does: vertigo seizes him, the same dizziness he felt when he first beheld the carpet after his year as a Mendicant, when it seemed to him that his little life was surrounded by a doom. Now he knows that doom’s name. It is Gallicina.
Gallicina, Gallicina. He closes his eyes and tries to pray, but all he can see is the pattern of her carpet, not his own. He opens his eyes again to fix them upon his own carpet, and there is the ring of fire, which is her soul, and he imagines her surrounding him, embracing him, containing him. And so his meditation becomes a prayer of fervent and lustful thanks to the Elements, for creating Gallicina.
The Necessary Beggar Page 15
