Balthasar's Odyssey (28 page)

I lost no time in destroying my clerk's illusions by telling him curtly that I'd read and heard similar stories about many other places. But when I saw that he believed me and the gleam had gone out of his eye, I was rather sorry to have put paid to his dream. I expect I'd have been more tolerant if I'd been my usual self.

Chios, 23 January 1666

Ever since we got here, Hatem has spent all his time in the shops, taverns and alleys of the old port, asking after the man we're looking for. But strangely enough, no one seems to know him.

Could Abdellatif have misled me? I don't see why he should have. Was he himself lied to by his informants? Perhaps
they
got the island wrong and confused Chios with Patmos or Samos or Castro, which was once called Mytilene.

Anyhow, I'm not displeased by this turn of events. A few more days' investigations and we'll go back to Smyrna. Marta will weep and protest, but resign herself to it in the end.

And she'll fling her arms round my neck when I bring her a firman certifying that her husband really is dead — and I'll get one, even if it costs me a third of my fortune! Then we'll be married, and if Heaven isn't too hard on lovers, the former husband will have the goodness never to set foot in Gibelet again.

And in our old age, surrounded by our children and grandchildren, we'll remember this expedition to Chios with a shudder, and thank God for having made it so fruitless.

24 January

How charming I'd have found this island if I'd come here in other circumstances! Everything is so pleasing to my heart whenever I can forget for a moment what brought me here. The houses are attractive, the streets clean and well paved, the women are elegant as they stroll about, with a smile in their eyes for strangers. Everything reminds me of the past splendour of Genoa: the citadel is Genoese, so are the people's clothes and all the best souvenirs. Even the Greeks, when they hear my name and discover my origins, clasp me to their bosom and curse Venice. I know they curse the Turks too, but they never do so aloud. Ever since the Genoese left a hundred years ago, the island has never had a sympathetic government, and all the people I've met in the last few days admit as much, each in his own way.

This morning I took Marta to mass. One more time — I only hope it's not the last! — she's gone to church on my arm. My head was proud, but my heart was miserable. We went to St Anthony's, which belongs to the Jesuit fathers. The church bells here ring as they do in a Christian country, and on feast days there are street processions, with the copes and canopies and lamps and gold of the Holy Sacrament. It was the King of France who years ago got the Grand Turk to allow the Latin rite to be practised publicly here, and the Porte still respects this privilege. All around me, ordinary people were murmuring with more pride than envy such illustrious names as those of the Giustiniani, the Burghesi and the Castelli. I'd have thought I was in Italy had it not been for the two janissaries on sentry duty on a small hill not far from the church.

After mass, Marta went and talked for a long time to a priest. I waited for her outside, and when she emerged I didn't ask her anything and she didn't tell me anything. Perhaps she only went to confession. You're bound to take a strange view of people who confess their sins when you yourself are the sin.

25 January

Hatem is still doing his best to find our man. Marta begs him to leave no stone unturned. Meanwhile I pray to all the saints that he won't find anything.

This evening my clerk told me he might have a lead. When he was in a tavern in the Greek quarter a sailor came up and told him he knew Sayyaf, who according to him lives not in the town of Chios but further south, near a village called Katarraktis, on the road that leads to the Cabo Mastico peninsula. The man is charging a gold sultanin to take us there. I consider this exorbitant, but I've agreed to the arrangement. I don't want Marta to blame me later on for not having done everything I could to fulfil her wishes. She says she's certain now that she's with child, and she wants to find her husband again as soon as possible, whatever life he may lead her. “After that, God will do with us as He wills!”

So I agreed to pay the go-between, a certain Drago, the amount required, and I asked Hatem to bring him here tomorrow so that I can see and hear and size him up for myself.

Deep down I still hope he's a common swindler who'll pocket his money and disappear as suddenly as he came. This must be the first time a merchant like me has prayed to be robbed, lied to and taken advantage of!

During the night I tried to take Marta in my arms for what might well be the last time. But she pushed me away, weeping, and didn't speak to me once. Perhaps she wants me to get used to not having her near me any more, and to get used herself to no longer sleeping with her head on my shoulder.

Her absence has already begun.

26 January

At this moment I'm tempted to write that I'm the happiest man in Genoa and the world, as my late father used to say. But it's still too soon. So I'll just say I have high hopes. Very high hopes. Of getting Marta back, and taking her back first to Smyrna and then to my house in Gibelet, where our child will be born. Heaven grant that my exultation doesn't desert me as quickly as it came!

The reason I'm so jovial is that the man who's supposed to take us to Marta's husband called in today with excellent news. Although I'd been hoping he'd disappear without trace, I'm not sorry now to have met and talked to him. I haven't any illusions about him — he's just a haunter of low taverns, and I'm well aware he told me what he did with the sole object of getting another gold piece out of me. No doubt I whetted his appetite by forking out the first one so easily.

But to get to what's made me so pleased: Drago told me that Sayyaf got married again last year and is soon to be the father of a child. His new wife is said to be the daughter of a rich and powerful local dignitary, who of course doesn't know his son-in-law is already married. I presume his parents-in-law will one day find out about many other hidden facets of this rogue, and be sorry they let their daughter get mixed up with him, but — God forgive me! —
I
shan't try to remove the scales from their eyes. Let everyone pay for his own sins and bear his own cross — mine is heavy enough already. Just let me be relieved of that burden and I'll quit Chios without a backward glance.

I'm delighted with this news because it could completely change the attitude Marta's husband is likely to take. Instead of trying to get her back, he'll see her as a threat to the new life he's made for himself on the island. Drago, who knows him well, is sure he'll agree to any arrangement to save his present situation. He might even sign in the presence of witnesses a document certifying that his first marriage was never consummated and is therefore null and void. If that's so, Marta will soon be free! Free to marry again, free to marry me, free to give her child a father's name.

We're not there yet, I know. The “widow's” husband hasn't signed or even promised anything so far. But what Drago says makes perfect sense. So yes, I have high hopes, and even Marta, in the midst of her tears and morning sickness and prayers, risks a smile.

27 January

It's tomorrow that Drago's to take us to see Sayyaf. I say “us” because I'd like it to be us, but Marta prefers to go alone. She says she'll get what she wants more easily if she talks to her husband by herself. She's afraid he might jib if he sees her surrounded with men, and might suspect there's something between her and me. She's probably right, but I can't help being uneasy at the thought that she's going to put herself, even for an hour, at the mercy of such a rascal.

In the end we came to what strikes me as a sensible compromise. We'll all go together as far as the village of Katarraktis. I'm told there's a small Greek monastery there where travellers often break their journey: it provides good Phyta wine and excellent food, and is close to Sayyaf's house. We'll be able to wait there in comfort for Marta's return.

28 January

So here we are in the monastery, and I'm working away at writing to make the time pass more quickly. I dip my reed pen in the ink the way other people sigh or protest or pray. Then I set down words in a hand that's as assured as my stride was when I was young.

Marta slipped away more than an hour ago. I saw her go into an alley. My heart turned over, I held my breath and murmured her name, but she didn't turn round. She walked steadily forward, like a condemned man resigned to his fate. Drago, who was walking ahead of her, pointed to a door. She went through it and it closed behind her. I caught only a glimpse of the brigand's house, because it's hidden behind a surrounding wall and tall trees.

A monk came and suggested I should eat something, but I prefer to wait until Marta's back, so that we can have a meal together. In any case, I couldn't swallow or digest a thing till she's with me again: my throat seems to have shrunk, and my stomach has seized up. I'm on tenterhooks. I keep telling myself I ought not to have let her go, should have stopped her by force if necessary. But damn it, I couldn't lock her up, could I? Heaven grant my misgivings fade and she'll come back safe and sound — if not I'll spend the rest of my life consumed with remorse.

How long has she been gone? My mind is so clouded I doubt if I can tell the time. Yet I'm a patient man. Like all antique dealers I sometimes wait weeks and weeks for a wealthy customer who said he'd come back and never will. But today I haven't a scrap of patience. Time started being interminable for me as soon as she vanished from my sight. She, and the child she's carrying.

I took Hatem with me and went for a stroll through the streets, despite the fact that it had started to drizzle. We walked through the alley Marta had entered, as far as the door at Sayyaf's place. Once there we couldn't hear a sound, nor see anything but bits of yellow wall just glimpsed through the branches of pines. The alley ends in a cul-de-sac, so we turned back and retraced our steps.

I was tempted to knock at the gate, but I've promised Marta not to interfere and to let her solve her problem in her own way. And I shan't let her down.

It's almost dusk already. Marta isn't back yet, and I haven't seen anything more of Drago either. I still refuse to eat a morsel until she's with me again. I've re-read what I've just written, where I said “I shan't let her down”, and I wonder if it's by interfering or by not interfering that I'd be letting her down.

It's beginning to get dark, and I agreed to have a bowl of soup with a dash of wine in it. They added so much wine that the soup was as red as a beetroot, with a decided twang to it — their idea was to calm me down, keep my fingers from shaking, and stop me pacing up and down. Everyone's looking after and making a fuss of me as if I were seriously ill or a grieving widower.

I'm a widower who was never the husband. An unknown father. A deceived lover. It's night now, and between cravenness and misgivings I'm all pale and wan. But at daybreak my Genoese blood will flood back into my veins, and I shall rebel.

The sun is rising, I haven't slept, and Marta still isn't back. But I've got a grip on myself and can still think straight. I'm not as furious as I might be. Am I already resigned to what's happening? So much the better if that's what people think:
I
know what I'm capable of in order to get her back.

Hatem sat up with me all night for fear I might do something rash. It was only when I relit the candle, undid my writing case, put out the ink-well, smoothed the paper and started writing this that I saw his head fall back, mouth open.

All around me, everyone's asleep. But where is Marta sleeping? Wherever she is, in a man's bed or in a dungeon, I'm sure she hasn't closed her eyes, and that at this very minute she's thinking of me just as I'm thinking of her.

Her face is as clear and constant in my mind's eye as if I were seeing it by the light of this candle. But I don't see anything else. I can't imagine the place she's in, the people with her, the clothes she's wearing or wearing no longer. I talk of beds and dungeons; I might just as well talk of whips, coshes, blows and swollen faces.

My fears go much further than that. I sometimes think her brigand of a husband might consider getting rid of her altogether in order to save his new marriage. The idea did come into my head yesterday, but I dismissed it. There are too many witnesses, and Sayyaf knows it: myself, Hatem, Drago, and even the monks, who saw Marta arrive with us, before we went with her as far as that gate. If I'm anxious again on that score, it's because sleepless nights revive one's fears. And also because I can't work out where Marta can have spent the night.

In fact, anything is possible. Anything. Including an affectionate reunion between the couple, who might suddenly have remembered their former love and embraced one another with all the more ardour because each needs the other's forgiveness for so many things. Because of her condition, Marta's best hope must be to be made love to the very first night. Then, by cheating the dates a bit, she could make Sayyaf think the child is his.

Of course, there's still the other wife and the parents-in-law. Their existence rules out such a happy solution. For Marta's sake I ought to regret this; for my own I ought perhaps to be glad of it. But no — I can't. Because of the extreme measures a man like Sayyaf might resort to. Ever since this cursed business began, I can't be glad about anything, and nothing can comfort me. Especially this early in the morning, or late at night, when my mind's so weary it looks on the black side of everything. And can't even see that clearly.

I'm nearly at the end of the page, and I might as well take advantage of that to lie down for a bit and let the ink dry by itself.