Balthasar's Odyssey

Also by Amin Maalouf

In the Name of Identity

To Andrée

The Hundredth Name

Still four long months until the Year of the Beast, and it's already here. Its shadow dims our hearts and the windows of our houses.

The people round me can talk of nothing else. The coming year, the signs, the portents … Sometimes I say to myself, Let it come! Let it finally empty out its pouch of prodigies and disasters! Then I change my mind and think of all the decent ordinary years when each day was spent just looking forward to the evening's pleasures. And I roundly curse the doom-worshippers.

How did this foolishness start? In whose brain can it have sprouted? Under what skies? I couldn't say for certain, and yet in a way I know. From where I am I've seen the fear, the monstrous fear born, grow and spread. I've seen it creep into people's minds, into those of my nearest and dearest, into my own. I've seen it overthrow reason, trample it underfoot, humiliate it, and then devour it.

I've watched the good days vanish.

Up till now I have lived in peace. I prospered in figure and fortune, every season a little more. I wanted nothing I couldn't get. My neighbours admired rather than envied me.

Then suddenly everything started to happen.

That strange book, appearing and then disappearing, and all my fault…

Old Idriss's death. True, no one blames me for it… Except myself.

And the journey I'm to set out on next Monday, despite my qualms. A journey from which I have a feeling I shan't return.

So it's with some apprehension I write the first lines in this new notebook. I don't know yet how I'll record the things that have happened, or those that already loom ahead. Just a simple account of the facts? A journal? A log? A will?

Perhaps I should say a word to begin with about the person who first made me anxious about the Year of the Beast. His name was Evdokim. A pilgrim from Moscow who came knocking on my door about seventeen years ago. Why “about”? I've got the exact date down in my ledger. The twentieth day of December 1648.

I've always written everything down, especially details, the sort of things I'd have forgotten otherwise.

Before he came in he made the sign of the cross with two outstretched fingers, and stooped so that his head would clear the stone lintel. He had a thick black cloak, woodcutter's hands with thick fingers, and a thick fair beard, but tiny little eyes and a narrow forehead.

He was on his way to the Holy Land, but he hadn't stopped at my house by chance. He'd been given the address in Constantinople, and told it was here and only here that he had a chance of finding what he was looking for.

“I'd like to speak to Signor Tommaso,” he said.

“He was my father,” I replied. “But he died in July.”

“God rest his soul!”

“And those of your kin likewise!”

This exchange had taken place in Greek, the only language we had in common, though it was clear neither of us used it much. The conversation was rather tentative, anyhow: my father's death, still a painful subject for me, was also a shock to my visitor. Moreover, since he was speaking to a “Papist apostate” and I to a “misguided schismatic”, we were anxious not to offend one another's susceptibilities.

After we had both been silent a moment, he went on:

“I am very sorry your father is no longer with us.”

As he spoke he looked round the shop, trying to make out the jumble of books, antique statuettes, glassware, painted vases, stuffed falcons; and wondering — to himself, but he might just as well have said it aloud — if, since my father was no longer there, I might not be in need of help. I was already twenty-three years old, but my face was plump and clean-shaven and must still have looked rather boyish.

I drew myself up and thrust out my chin.

“My name is Balthasar, and I have taken over my father's business.”

My visitor showed no sign of having heard. He went on gazing at the thousand marvels around him with a mixture of wonder and apprehension. Our curio shop had been the best stocked and most celebrated in the East for a hundred years. People came from everywhere to see us — Marseilles and London, Cologne and Ancona, as well as Smyrna, Cairo and Isfahan.

After looking me up and down one last time, my Russian seemed to have made up his mind.

“I am Evdokim Nikolaevitch, from Voronezh. I have heard great things of your business.”

I assumed an easy manner — my way, then, of making myself agreeable.

“We've been in the trade for four generations. My family comes from Genoa, but we settled in the Levant a long time ago.”

He nodded once or twice to show he knew all that. In fact, if he'd heard about us in Constantinople this was probably the first thing he'd been told. “The last Genoese to come to this part of the world” — with some remark or gesture suggesting madness or eccentricity handed down from father to son. I smiled and said nothing. He turned to the door, bawling out a name and an order, and a servant hurried in, a small stout fellow in baggy black clothes, with a flat cap and down-turned eyes. He took a book out of a box he was carrying and handed it to his master.

I assumed he wanted to sell it to me, and was immediately on my guard. In my trade you soon learn to beware of people who start by putting on airs about their fancy origins and acquaintances, give orders right, left and centre, and in the end just try to palm off some old piece of bric-à-brac on you. Unique in their own eyes, and so naturally unique for everybody. If you offer them a price that's less than they had in mind, they take offence and claim you're not only cheating them but insulting them too. And go off breathing fire and slaughter.

But this visitor soon reassured me: he wasn't here to sell or haggle.

“This book was printed in Moscow a few months ago. And everyone who can read has read it already.”

He pointed to the title, which was in Cyrillic characters, and began reciting earnestly,
“Kniga o vere,”
before realising he needed to translate for my benefit: “The Book of the Faith, unique, genuine and orthodox.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye to see if the words had made my Papist blood run cold. I remained impassive, inside and out. Outside, the polite smile of the merchant. Inside, the wry smile of the sceptic.

“This book tells us the apocalypse is at hand!”

He showed me a page near the end.

“It is written here that the Antichrist will appear, in accordance with the Scriptures, in the year of the Pope, one thousand six hundred and sixty-six.”

He kept repeating the figure, slurring over the words “one thousand” a bit more every time. Then he looked at me to see my reactions.

I had read the Apocalypse of St John the Divine the same as everyone else, and had paused over the mysterious passage in Chapter 13: “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

“It says 666, not 1666,” I ventured.

“You'd have to be blind not to see such an obvious sign!”

“Sign!” How often had I heard that word, not to mention “portent”! Everything is a sign or a portent to someone always on the look-out for them, ready to marvel at and interpret anything and imagine parallels and coincidences everywhere. The world is full of such tireless seekers of omens — I'd had them in the shop, some of them quite delightful, some really appalling!

Evdokim seemed vexed at my lack of enthusiasm, which he saw as reflecting ignorance and impiety. Not wishing to offend him, I made an effort and said: