Balthasar's Odyssey (31 page)

My hands shake and my eyes fill with tears even now, when I think of it.

We hadn't yet gone ashore, and Mangiavacca had come aboard with a couple of customs men. I'd just introduced myself as “Baldassare Embriaco, from Gibelet”, and was about to explain how I came to be on the ship, when he interrupted me, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me as if trying to pick a quarrel.

“Baldassare Embriaco — son of whom?”

“Son of Tommaso Embriaco.”

“Tommaso Embriaco, son of whom?”

“Son of Bartolomeo,” I said quietly, trying not to laugh.

“Son of Bartolomeo Embriaco, son of Ugo, son of Bartolomeo, son of Ansaldo, son of Pietro, son of…”

And he went on reciting from memory my whole genealogy back to the ninth generation. I couldn't have done it myself.

“How do you come to know all my ancestors?” I asked.

By way of answer, he just took me by the arm and said:

“Will you do me the honour of living under my roof?”

As I had nowhere to go, and no money at all, either Genoese or Ottoman, I could only see this invitation as the work of Providence. So I forgot conventional politeness and expressions of reluctance and embarrassment; it was clear I was a welcome guest in Master Gregorio's house. I even had a strange feeling that he'd been on that quay in Genoa for centuries, awaiting my return.

He called two of his men and introduced me to them, laying great emphasis on my name. They doffed their caps and bowed low, then asked me to be good enough to point out my luggage so that they could take charge of it. Captain Domenico, who'd been looking on, proud of having such a noble personage for a passenger but somewhat ashamed that my name hadn't meant anything to
him,
explained in a low voice that as I'd been forcibly deported by the Turkish janissaries I hadn't any luggage.

Master Gregorio, interpreting this in his own fashion, felt all the more admiration for the distinguished blood that ran in my veins. He told his men — and everyone else within a radius of a couple of hundred paces — that I was a hero who'd defied the laws of the infidel Sultan and forced the heavy gates of his jails. Heroes like me didn't sail the seas with luggage, like ordinary antique dealers!

It was touching, and I'm rather ashamed of myself for making fun of his enthusiasm. He's memory and fidelity personified, and I wouldn't hurt him for the world. He installed me in his house as if it was my own, and as if he owed all he has and all he has achieved to my ancestors. Of course that's not so. The truth is that the Mangiavaccas used to belong to the clan led by my ancestors. They were a client family, allies, and traditionally the most devoted of all our followers. Then, unfortunately, the Embriaci clan — my father and grandfather called it simply the “albergo”, as if it was one huge shared house — fell on hard times. My forbears, impoverished, scattered among the trading posts abroad, decimated by wars, shipwrecks and plagues, cut off from their own family and rivalled by newer ones, gradually lost their influence. Their voice was no longer heard, their name no longer revered, and all the client families abandoned them and followed other masters, in particular the Dorias.
Almost
all the client families, said my host: the Mangiavaccas had handed down the memory of the good old days from father to son for generations.

Today Master Gregorio is one of the richest men in Genoa. Partly because of the mastic he imports from Chios; he's the only man in Christendom who sells it. He's the owner of the palace I'm in now, near Santa Maddalena church on the heights overlooking the harbour. As well as of another, apparently even larger, on the banks of the River Varenna, where his wife and three daughters live. The ships he charters range the seven seas, the nearest and the most dangerous ones alike, as far as the Malabar Coast and the Americas. He doesn't owe any of his fortune to the Embriaci, but he insists on honouring the memory of my ancestors as if they were his benefactors. I wonder whether in this he's not obeying a kind of superstition that makes him think he'd forfeit divine protection if he neglected the past.

Be that as it may, the tables have been turned, and now it's he who bestows benefits on us. I arrived here like the Prodigal Son, ruined, lost and desperate, and he welcomed me like a father and killed the fatted calf. I live in his house as if it were my own, I walk in his garden, sit on his shady terrace, drink his wine, give orders to his servants, dip my pens in his ink. And he thinks I'm behaving like a stranger because yesterday he saw me go and smell an early rose without picking it. I had to swear to him that I wouldn't have picked it in my own garden in Gibelet, either.

But while Gregorio's hospitality has made my distress more bearable, it hasn't made me forget it. Ever since that cursed night in the janissaries' cell in Chios, not a day has gone by when I haven't had that pain in my chest again which I felt before in Smyrna. Yet that's the least of my sufferings, and I don't think about it except when it's there. But the pain I suffer over Marta never leaves me day or night.

She who came on that journey to get the proof that would set her free is now a prisoner. She put herself under my protection, and I failed to protect her.

And my sister Pleasance, who entrusted her two sons to me, making me promise to keep them with me all the time — haven't I betrayed her too?

Then there's Hatem, my faithful clerk — haven't I abandoned him too, in a way? It's true I don't worry so much about him: I sometimes think of him as one of those agile fishes that, even after they're caught in the fishermen's nets, find the strength to wriggle out and jump overboard back into the sea. I have confidence in him, and it reassures me to know he's in Chios. If he can't do anything for Marta on the island, he'll go back to Smyrna and wait for me there with my nephews, or else return with them to Gibelet.

But what about Marta? In her condition, she can never escape!

6 April

I've spent all today writing, but not in this new notebook. I've written a long letter to my sister Pleasance, and a shorter one to my nephews and Maïmoun in case they're still in Smyrna. I don't yet know how to get these missives to the people they're addressed to, but merchants and other travellers are always passing through Genoa, and with Gregorio's help I'm sure to find a way.

I've asked my sister to write as soon as she can to set my mind at rest about what has become of her sons and Hatem; I gave her a brief account of my own misadventures, without saying too much about Marta. At least half the letter to Pleasance dealt with Genoa, my arrival here, the welcome I received from my host, and all the nice things he said about our family.

My letter to my nephews instructs them to go back to Gibelet as soon as possible, if they haven't done so already.

I asked all my correspondents for detailed replies. But shall I still be here when their answers arrive?

7 April

I've been in Genoa for ten days now, yet until today I hadn't left my host's house and the garden surrounding it. I was exhausted, sometimes obliged to stay in bed, and at best could only drag myself from one chair or bench to another. It was when I made the effort to start writing again that I began to come back to life. Words became words again, roses roses.

Master Mangiavacca, so forceful aboard the ship the day we met, has proved a most tactful and considerate host. Realising I needed a period of convalescence after all my trials and tribulations, he was careful not to hurry me. But today, sensing that I felt better, he suggested for the first time that I should go with him on his daily business visit to the harbour. He asked his coachman to drive us through the Piazza San Matteo, where the Dorias' palace is, then past the tall square tower of the Embriaci, before taking the coast road to the port itself, where a crowd of clerks was waiting. Before leaving me in order to attend to his affairs, my host ordered the coachman to drive me back home via several places of interest, one of which was the via Balbi, where you can still see how magnificent Genoa must have been in its heyday. Every time we stopped, the coachman would turn and tell me about the memorable building or monument before us. He had the same smile as his master, and talked to me with the same enthusiasm about our past glories.

I duly nodded and smiled back. In a way I envy him. I envy both him and his master for being able to contemplate this whole scene with pride. I myself can feel only longing. How I'd have loved to live when Genoa was the most splendid of cities, and mine the most splendid of its families. I can't get over not having been born till now. Lord, how late it is! How insipid the world seems! I feel as if I'd been born in the twilight of time, unable to imagine what the midday sun was like.

8 April

Today I borrowed 300 livres of good money from my host. He didn't want me to make out an IOU, but I wrote out, dated and signed one in due form. When the repayment date comes round, I know I'll have to argue with him about reimbursing him. That will be in April 1667. The year of the Beast will be over, and we'll have had time to see if it kept its terrifying promises. What will have become of our debts by then? Yes, how will it be with our debts when the world, together with all its men and all its wealth, is extinct? Will they just be forgotten? Or will they be taken into account in deciding each man's ultimate fate? Will bad debtors be punished? Will those who pay up on time get into Heaven more easily? Will bad debtors who keep Lent be treated more kindly than good payers who don't? Just like a merchant to bother his head with such questions, you'll say! Perhaps. Perhaps. But I have the right to ask them because it's my own fate that's at stake. Perhaps the fact that I've been an honest merchant all my life will earn me the right to some of Heaven's mercy? Or shall I be judged more severely than someone who was always cheating his customers and colleagues, but never lusted after another man's wife?

May the Almighty forgive me, but I regret my mistakes and my follies, but not my sins. It's not having possessed Marta that torments me; it's having lost her.

How far I've strayed from what I was meaning to say! I started talking about my debt, but one idea led to another and I found myself talking of Marta and my passionate remorse. Forgetfulness is one grace I shan't be granted. And I don't ask for it. I ask for redress, I think all the time of making things right again. I keep mulling over the wretched episode that got me deported from Chios, trying to think what I should have done to get the better of all those tricks and deceits. Like an admiral after a defeat, I can't stop moving the various ships about in my head to find the strategy that might have brought me victory.

I shan't say any more now about my plans, except that they're there inside me and keep me alive.

Towards the end of the morning I took the money order to the Baliani brothers in the Piazza Banchi — Gregorio had recommended them highly — and opened an account. I deposited most of the money I'd borrowed, keeping just twenty or so florins for small necessities and for tips to my host's domestics, who serve me so willingly.

As I walked back to the house I had a strange feeling that I was starting a new life. I was in another country, surrounded by people I'd never set eyes on till a few days ago, and with new coins jingling in my pocket. But it's a life lived on credit, in which I can command anything but own nothing.

9 April

I couldn't understand why Gregorio's family didn't live with him. There was nothing surprising about his owning two palaces, or even three or four — that's long been quite usual among the wealthiest citizens of Genoa. But I was intrigued by his living apart from his wife. He's just told me the reason. Not without some stammering and stuttering, though he's not shy by nature and isn't one of those people who blush for nothing. His lady, whose name is Orietina, is very pious, he said, and stays away from him every year during Lent lest he be tempted to forget his duty to remain chaste during the fast.

I suspect he forgets it anyway, for he comes back from certain day-time as well as night-time visits with a tell-tale sparkle in his eye. Nor does he try to deny it. “Abstinence doesn't suit me,” he says, “but it's best not to sin under one's own roof, in the house consecrated by matrimony.”

I can't help admiring this way of coming to terms with the rigours of the Faith. I myself pretend to ignore its precepts, but I always hesitate before breaking them in a big way.

10 April

Today I heard some amazing news about Sabbataï and his visit to Constantinople. The stories sound as if they were made up, but I'm quite willing to believe them.

My source is a monk from Lerici, who spent the last two years in a monastery in Galata. He's a close cousin of my host's, and Gregorio invited him to supper so that I could meet him and hear his account.

“The most reverend, holy and learned Brother Egidio”, was how Gregorio introduced him. I've met all kinds of “Brothers” and “Fathers” and such-like in my time: sometimes they've been saints and often they've been rogues, sometimes fountains of knowledge and often ignoramuses. So I learned long ago to judge them on the evidence. I therefore listened to this one, observed him, asked him some straight questions, and finally was convinced he was genuine. He doesn't pass on anything he hasn't seen with his own eyes or been told by unimpeachable witnesses. He was in Constantinople last January, when the whole population was in a state of excitement, not only the Jews but also the Turks and the various Christians, whether foreigners or Ottoman subjects — all expecting the most extraordinary events.

The account Brother Egidio gave us may be summarised as follows. When Sabbataï reached the Sea of Marmara aboard the caique bringing him from Smyrna, he was arrested by the Turks even before he could go ashore, and those of his followers who'd gathered to greet him were distressed to see him manhandled by two officers like a criminal. But he himself seemed quite unaffected, and called to those who were lamenting to have no fear, for they would soon hear that which they'd never heard before.