Balthasar's Odyssey (21 page)

I have to admit that between my leaving Gibelet and the end of my stay in Constantinople, nothing out of the ordinary happened to me — nothing that can't be explained in terms of life's usual ups and downs. What about old Idriss's death, followed by that of Marmontel? I was shaken by both events at the time, but it's in the order of things that an old man should die and a ship be wrecked. The same thing applies to the fire in the Walachian collector's palace. In a big city with so many wooden buildings, such incidents are commonplace. It's true that in every one of these cases Mazandarani's book was involved. In normal times I'd have found that intriguing, fascinating. But I'd have recited a few apposite proverbs, then returned to my usual commercial concerns.

It was during my sea voyage that the citadel of my reason was undermined — I'm quite lucid when I say this. And I'm quite lucid when I say nothing special happened that might be regarded as the cause of such a development. Nothing but the vaguest of impressions. Those abnormally gloomy days. That sudden storm, as suddenly dying out. And all those people moving about silently in the fog, as if they were already lost souls.

Then I set foot on the ladder of Smyrna. Uncertainly, but hoping I'd gradually recover my composure and, in the city that so many European merchants love to visit, become once more the Genoese merchant I am and always have been.

But alas, so much has been happening since I got here, I've had no time to recover. I can no longer speak of accidental circumstances and act as if, at the end of a journey instigated by fear of the coming year, it was pure chance that brought me to the very place where the end of the world was going to be announced. Smyrna! — whereas when I left Gibelet I hadn't the slightest intention of coming here! I had to change my route because of a woman who wasn't supposed to come on the journey at all. As if Marta was meant to lead me to the place where my fate awaited me. Where suddenly the meaning of all that happened on the journey was revealed at last.

Now each of the events that contributed to my being here can be seen if not as a sign, then at least as a milestone on the winding path that was traced for me by Providence, though I went through all its stages believing I was my own guide. Should I go on pretending to decide things for myself? Or, in the name of reason and free will, claim that I came to Smyrna of my own volition, and that it was by chance that I landed here at the very moment the end of the world was announced? But may I not be describing as lucidity what is really just blindness? I've asked myself that question before, and it seems to me I'll have to go on asking it, without any hope of an answer.

Why am I saying all this? Why am I arguing with myself? Probably because the friend with whom I was reunited today told me what I ought to have told myself months ago. I was ashamed to disagree with him face to face and thus reveal my own feeble-mindedness.

But perhaps, before dealing with this encounter at more length, I should set down today's events in general.

Today, as yesterday and the day before yesterday, most people in Smyrna did very little work. In the morning the rumour was already circulating that Sabbataï had proclaimed Monday a new Sabbath, to be observed in the same way as the usual one. No one could tell me if he meant just today or all future Mondays. An English merchant whom I met in the street remarked that what with the Turks' Friday, the Jews' Saturday, our own Sunday, and now Sabbataï's Monday, a full week's work wasn't going to amount to much. For the moment, as I've already said, no one dreams of working at all, apart from the sellers of sweetmeats, for whom these days of unexpected rejoicings are a godsend. People just wander about — not only the Jews, but especially them — from party to party, from one procession to another, arguing fiercely.

Strolling this afternoon near the Portuguese synagogue, I witnessed a strange scene taking place in a little square. A crowd had gathered round a young woman lying on the ground outside a house and apparently suffering from convulsions. She was speaking in broken phrases: all I could make out was the odd word, like “the Anointed One”, “captives”, and “Thy kingdom”. But the onlookers seemed to be listening closely, and someone behind me told his neighbour, “She's Eliakim Haber's daughter. She's prophesying. She can see King Sabbataï sitting on his throne.” I walked on, leaving the young woman still prophesying. I felt uncomfortable. As if I'd gone into a house where someone was dying, without being a member of the family or even a neighbour. And indeed it seems fate was awaiting me elsewhere. When I left the square I plunged straight into a series of alleys, as if I knew where I was going and whom I was going to meet.

I came out into a wider street where a crowd of people were all looking in the same direction. A procession was just arriving, led by Sabbataï: this was the second time I'd seen him in two days. Today, too, he was singing loudly. Not a psalm or a prayer or a hymn of praise, but strangely enough a love song, an old Spanish ballad. “I met Meliselda, the king's daughter, radiant and beautiful.” His face was red, like his beard, and his eyes shone like those of a young man in love.

People from the houses lining the street had brought out their most valuable carpets and spread them before him, so that his feet never had to touch the sand or gravel. Although it's December, the weather was neither cold nor wet: a lightly veiled sun bathed the city and its inhabitants in a spring-like glow. The scene I witnessed couldn't have taken place if it had been raining. The carpets would have been soggy with mud, and the Spanish ballad would have called forth only tears and longing. As it was, on this mild winter's day the thought of the end of the world brought with it no sadness or regret. For a moment I saw it as the beginning of a long, festive eternity. Yes, I began to wonder — I, an intruder, but there were many other intruders besides me in the Jewish quarter today — if I hadn't been wrong to fear the approach of the fateful year. I realised that the period I'd got used to associating with terror had in fact taught me what love is, and caused me to live more intensely than at any other time in my life. I even went so far as to tell myself I felt younger today than when I was twenty, and to fancy that feeling would last indefinitely. And then a friend appeared, and put me at odds with the apocalypse again.

Maïmoun. Curse him. Bless him.

The last ally of my failing reason. The destroyer of my illusions.

We fell into one another's arms. I was happy to embrace my best Jewish friend; he was glad to get away from all the Jews on earth and take refuge in the bosom of a Gentile.

He'd been walking at the end of the procession, looking preoccupied and depressed. As soon as he saw me he stepped out of line at once and drew me aside.

“Let's get out of here! I have to talk to you!”

We hurried down the hill towards the road round the harbour where the foreign merchants live.

“A French caterer has just opened a shop near the customs house,” said Maïmoun. “Let's go and have supper there and drink some of his wine.”

On the way he started to tell me his troubles. His father, overcome with religious fervour, had suddenly decided to sell everything he possessed for a song, in order to come to Smyrna.

“Forgive me, Balthasar my friend — there are things I didn't tell you during our long conversations. They were still secret then, and I didn't want to betray my family's trust. But now, unfortunately, everything has come out. You won't have heard of Sabbataï Tsevi before you came to Smyrna. Except perhaps in Constantinople ...”

“No,” I said. “Not until I got here.”

“I met him last summer in Aleppo. He stayed there for a few weeks, and my father even asked him to visit us. He was very different then from the character you see today. He was reserved, modestly spoken, didn't call himself king or Messiah, and didn't strut round the streets singing. So his visit to Aleppo didn't cause any stir, except in our community. With us it was the beginning of a debate that's still going on. Because members of Sabbataï's entourage were already whispering that he was the expected Messiah; that a prophet from Gaza called Nathan Ashkenazi had recognised him as such, and that before long he would manifest himself. People were and still are divided about him. We had three letters from Egypt saying there was no doubt that he was the Messiah, but a highly respected hakham wrote from Jerusalem to tell us he was an impostor, and we must beware of everything he said and did. Every family was split over him — ours worse than the rest. From the moment he first heard of him, my father lived only for his coming. Whereas I, his only son, flesh of his flesh, didn't believe in Sabbataï for a single second. It will all end very badly. Our people, who for centuries have lived quietly and moderately, never raising their voices, have suddenly started shouting that their king will soon rule over the whole world, and the Ottoman Sultan will kneel down before him and offer him his throne. Yes, they say such crazy things out loud, heedless of the fact that they may be unleashing the Sultan's wrath on us. Stop being afraid of the Sultan, my father tells me — and he's spent his whole life quaking at the shadow of the lowliest official sent by the Sublime Porte! Why be afraid of the Sultan? His day is done. The age of the Resurrection is about to begin!

“My father was determined to go to Constantinople, as I told you, but I went instead, for fear he wouldn't be able to bear the hardships of the journey. He promised to wait for me, and I promised to bring back the opinions of the most eminent hakhams, those who are universally respected by all our people.

“I kept my promise, but my father didn't keep his. As soon as I got to the capital I set out to visit all the most learned men, one after the other, carefully noting down what each of them said. But my father was too impatient to wait. One day I heard that he'd left Aleppo with two rabbis and a few other worthies. Their caravan passed through Tarsus two weeks after ours, then followed the coast road to Smyrna.

“Before leaving home my father had sold all we possessed. ‘Why did you do that?' I asked him. He answered, ‘What use to us are a few stones in Aleppo if the age of the Resurrection has already begun?' I said, ‘But what if this man wasn't the Messiah? And if the time of the Resurrection hadn't already come?' My father answered, ‘If you won't share my happiness, you're no longer my son!'

“Yes, he sold everything, then came and laid the money at Sabbataï's feet. And Sabbataï, to show his gratitude, has just made him a king. Yes, Balthasar, we must celebrate — my father's been made a king. I'm not the son of Isaac the jeweller any more — I'm the son of King Asa! You must treat me with great respect.” And he poured himself a good swig of French wine.

I felt rather at a loss, not knowing how far I ought to join in his sarcastic remarks.

“Perhaps I should point out,” added my friend, “that Sabbataï appointed no fewer than seven kings today, and yesterday it was a dozen. No other city has ever entertained so many kings at once!”

Presented like this, the strange events I've just witnessed do look like a lamentable piece of tomfoolery. But should I believe what Maïmoun tells me? Or ought I to contradict him and tell him why I myself am troubled, though I haven't believed in miracles for a long time, and for a long time have silently scorned anyone who does?

But I didn't argue with him. I'd have been ashamed to admit that though I'm not a Jew and though I don't expect what they expect, I am troubled by all these inexplicable coincidences, all these signs. I'd have been ashamed to see from his expression that he was disappointed with and contemptuous of my present “feeble-mindedness”. And as I didn't want to say the opposite of what I think, either, I just listened to what he said.

I hope he's right. I hope with my whole being that 1666 will be an ordinary year, with ordinary joys and sorrows, and that I and my nearest and dearest will get right through it just as I've got through forty or so other years. But I can't convince myself. None of those other years presented itself like this. None of them was introduced by signs and portents. The closer it gets, the more the fabric of the world seems to unravel, as if the threads were going to be woven again into something different.

Forgive me, Maïmoun my friend, if it's I who am wrong, as I forgive you if it's you. And forgive me, too, for seeming to agree with you as we sat drinking French wine and then answering you back now, in these pages, unbeknown to you. What else was I to do? The words we speak leave marks in people's hearts; the words we write lie buried and cold in their leather tomb. Especially mine, which no one will ever read.

15 December 1665

There are only seventeen days of this year left, and from the customs house to the old citadel, Smyrna is swept with rumours. Some are alarmist: the Sultan was supposed to have ordered Sabbataï to be put in irons and taken under guard to Constantinople; but the so-called Messiah was still here that same evening, honoured by his followers, and said to have appointed seven more kings, among them one of the town's beggars called Red Abraham. Other rumours speak of a mysterious character who is supposed to have appeared at the door of a synagogue — an old man with a long silky beard whom no one had ever set eyes on before. Asked who he was, he claimed to be the prophet Elijah, and told the Jews to rally round Sabbataï.

Sabbataï, according to Maïmoun, still has many detractors among the rabbis, and also among the wealthy merchants of the community, but they don't dare attack him in public now, and instead shut themselves up at home for fear of being dubbed infidels and unbelievers by the mob. It's said some of them have even left Smyrna altogether, heading for Magnesia.

Today at noon I invited Maïmoun to eat with me at the French caterer's. (He paid for everything yesterday evening, though as his father has lost the family fortune he must be hard up, or soon will be. But I didn't want to annoy him by mentioning it, so I let him treat me.) The cooking there is the best in the whole of the Empire, and I'm delighted to have found the place. There are two other French eating-houses in Smyrna, but this one is the most popular. And the Frenchman doesn't hesitate to sing the praises of his wine. Nor do the Turks hesitate to drink it. On the other hand, he doesn't serve ham, and pretends not to like it much himself. I'm not sorry I went back there, and shall continue to do so all the time I'm here.