Balthasar's Odyssey (43 page)

Bess came up twice to bring me food and drink, and lingered a while to watch me producing all those mysterious characters running from right to left. I don't hide my notebook any more when I hear her coming: she knows all my secrets now, and I trust her. But I do let her think I'm writing in ordinary Arabic. I'll never tell her — or anyone else! — that I'm using a special code of my own.

When the tavern had closed for the evening, Bess came and suggested we dine and chat together as we had yesterday. I said I'd join her downstairs, at the same table as before, as soon as I'd finished my paragraph.

But the paragraph spun itself out, and I didn't want to stop in case, if a further conversation intervened, I should forget something. I forgot my promise and wrote on regardless. Meanwhile, my landlady had time to tidy the room downstairs and then come up again to see what was keeping me.

Instead of being annoyed at my remissness, she tiptoed out and came back a few minutes later with a tray, which she left on the bed. I said I had only a few lines to finish and then we'd dine together. She signed to me to take my time, and went out again.

But I got absorbed in my work again, forgetting both the woman and the dinner once more, and assuming she had forgotten me. But when at last I did call her, she came straight in as though she'd been waiting outside the door — smiling still and showing no impatience. I was surprised and touched by such considerate behaviour, and thanked her for it. She blushed. Bess, who didn't blush at a hearty slap on the backside, was blushing at a word of thanks!

The tray held some smoked meat cut into fine slices, a cheese, some white bread, and a mug of what she calls “buttered” beer, though it's very spicy. I asked if she'd like to eat with me, but she said she was never hungry at mealtimes — she nibbled at bits and pieces all day as she waited on her customers. She'd just brought herself a mug of buttered beer so that we could toast each other. So, after watching me write, she now watched me eat. She looked at me exactly as my sister Pleasance used to look at me, and before that my poor mother — with a gaze that takes in both the eater and the food, hanging on every mouthful and turning the object of this concentration into a child again. I felt suddenly at home in this stranger's house. I couldn't help thinking of the words of Jesus: “I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat.” Not that I was in danger of starving. All my life, excess has been more of a threat than deprivation. But there was something maternal in the way this woman had fed me. I suddenly felt for her — for her bread, her buttered beer, her presence, her watchful smile, her patience, her dirty apron, her awkward figure — a great surge of affection.

She stood there barefoot, leaning against the wall with her mug in her hand. I stood up, holding my own beer to clink mugs with her, but instead took her gently by the shoulders and thanked her again, softly, then dropped a kiss on her forehead, between her eyebrows.

Drawing away, I saw that her eyes were full of tears, and her lips, still trying to smile, were trembling with expectation. She gripped my fingers awkwardly in her plump hand, and I drew her towards me, slowly stroking her hair and her gown. She didn't resist, but clung to me as to a blanket in freezing weather. I held and touched her lightly all over, as if gently exploring the limits of her body, of her quivering face, of the eyelids hiding her tears, even of her hips.

She had changed her dress since her first visit to my room, and was now wearing a shimmering dark green gown that felt like silk. I was tempted to lie down with her on the bed, which was close by, but decided to remain standing. Things were proceeding at a pace of their own, and I didn't want to precipitate matters. It was still almost light outside, and there was no reason why we should shorten our pleasures; one longs to shorten one's sufferings often enough.

Even when she herself wanted to lie down, I still held her upright. I think she was surprised, and puzzled, but she let me take the lead. Lovers lose half the pleasure by lying down too soon. The first phase of love takes place standing up, when you sway about holding one another, dazed, unseeing, unsteady. Isn't it best to draw this stage of things out, to whisper to one another, brush lips, undress one another gradually, and all this still standing up, embracing one another passionately as each garment falls to the floor?

So we stayed like that for some while, drifting round the room exchanging slow murmurs, slow caresses. My hands unclothed, then held her, and on her trembling form my lips patiently sought where to alight to gather nectar, then where else to alight to gather more, from the lids hiding her eyes, to the hands covering her breasts, to her broad bare white hips. The woman, a field of flowers; my fingers and lips, a swarm of bees.

One Wednesday, in Smyrna, in the Capuchin monastery, I had a moment of intense pleasure when Marta and I made love expecting all the time to be interrupted by my nephews, or Hatem, or one of the monks. The taste of this other Wednesday of love, here in London, was just as enchanting, but in a completely different way. There, haste and urgency lent every second a furious intensity. Here, the fact that time was unlimited gave every movement a resonance, a length, and echoes that enriched and deepened it. There, we were like hunted animals, pursued by others and by the feeling that we were doing something forbidden. Here, on the contrary, the city knew nothing about us, the world knew nothing about us, and we didn't feel we were doing wrong. We were living outside good and evil, far away from bans and prohibitions. Out of time, too. The sun was on our side, setting slowly; the night too, promising to be long. We'd be able to drain one another little by little, down to the last drop of delight.

7 September

The chaplain is back, and so are his disciples. There were already in the house when I got up. He didn't tell me why he went away, and I didn't ask. He just muttered an excuse.

I might as well say it at once — something seems to have upset my relationship with these people. I'm sorry about it, but I don't think I could have prevented it.

The chaplain was cross and irritable when he came back, and gave vent at once to his impatience.

“We must buckle down to it today,” he announced, “and get something out of this text — if there's anything in it. We'll keep at it day and night as long as necessary, and anyone who falls by the wayside is no friend of mine.”

Both his words and his tone surprised me, and so did all the grim faces around me. I said I'd do my best, but the illness that had delayed my readings was not my fault. At this, I thought I detected some sceptical smiles, but didn't feel I had the right to object. I hadn't actually lied: I couldn't help the attacks of blindness. But I'd misrepresented the symptoms and feigned some headaches. Perhaps I ought to have admitted, at the outset, to my strange illness, inexplicable though it was. But it's too late for that now: if I confessed I'd lied, and started describing those extraordinary symptoms, it would only confirm their worst suspicions. So I decided to say nothing, and just try to read as best I could.

But Heaven was not on my side today. In fact, instead of helping it hindered me. The darkness descended as soon as I opened the book. And it wasn't only the book that I couldn't see: the whole room, the people in it, the walls, the table, even the window — all were black as ink.

For a moment I thought I'd gone blind, and told myself that God, after giving me several warnings which I'd obstinately ignored, had decided to punish me as I deserved.

I slammed the book shut. And immediately I could see again. Not completely clearly, as I'd have expected to do at noon, but as if it were evening and the room was lit by candles. There was a thin veil over everything, and it's still there now, as I write. It's as if there were a cloud in the sky just for me. The pages of this notebook have gone a brownish colour, as if they'd aged a hundred years in a day. The more I talk about it the more it worries me. I can hardly go on writing.

But I must.

“What's the matter now?” said the chaplain when I shut the book.

I had the presence of mind to reply:

“I have a suggestion. Why don't I go up to my room, and read and take notes on the book in my own time? Then I'll come back tomorrow morning with the Latin text. If I can avoid headaches by following this method, we can adopt it permanently. And then we'll be able to make regular progress.”

I managed to convince them, though the old man accepted my proposal without enthusiasm and made me promise to translate at least twenty pages of text by tomorrow.

So I went upstairs, followed, I suspected, by one or other of the two disciples — I could hear someone pacing back and forth outside my door. But, as I didn't want to have to object, I pretended not to notice.

Once sitting down at my desk, I opened
The Hundredth Name
in the middle and placed it face down in front of me. Then I picked up this notebook and leafed through it till I found the entry for 20 May — my account of what my Persian friend told me about the debate on the hidden name of God and about Mazandarani's views on the subject. Using this journal entry as a basis for the content, I wrote out what I shall put forward tomorrow as a translation of Mazandarani's own text. For the style, I used my recollections of what little I'd been able to read from the beginning of the cursed tome.

Why do I call it “cursed”? Is it really accursed? Or is it blessed? Or bewitched? I still don't know. All I do know is that it's protected. Protected from me, anyhow.

8 September

All went well. I read out my Latin translation, and Magnus copied it down word for word. The chaplain said that's how we ought to have set about it from the beginning, and urged me to work faster.

I hope that's only a sign of renewed enthusiasm, and that he'll moderate his expectations. Otherwise, I fear the worst. The subterfuge I've resorted to so far can't be kept up indefinitely. Today I called partly on what Esfahani told me and partly on my memory. I might still summon up things I've heard about
The Hundredth Name,
but, again, that wouldn't last long. Sooner or later I'm going to have to get through the book itself and quote the name they're all waiting for, whether it's really the Creator's secret name or only what Mazandarani supposes that to be.

Perhaps, in the next few days, I ought to make another attempt at reading…

I started this page full of hope, but my confidence in the future waned in the course of a few lines, just as the light does whenever I open the forbidden volume.

9 September

I spent yesterday evening filling pages with Latin supposed to be a translation of Mazandarani's text. Because of that I have neither the time nor the energy to go on with my own writing, and shall have to be satisfied with brief notes.

The chaplain asked me how many pages I'd managed to translate so far, and I told him forty-three. I might just as easily have said seventeen or seventy. He asked how many were left, and I said 130. He repeated that he hoped I'd finish the reading in a few days now, certainly before the end of next week.

I said I would, but I can feel the trap closing in on me. Perhaps I ought to run away.

10 September

Bess came to me during the night. It was dark, and she slipped into bed beside me. She hadn't been back since the chaplain's return. She left again before dawn.

If I decided to flee, ought I to warn her?

I finished my text for the day this morning. I'm running out of knowledge, and had to fill in the gaps with my imagination. But the others listened to me more intently than ever. Admittedly I quoted Mazandarani as saying that when he reveals the supreme name of God it will fill all who thought they knew it with fear and amazement.

I've probably gained time and a certain amount of credit with my three auditors. But increasing the stake doesn't necessarily bring good luck!

11 September

This is the first day of the Russian New Year. I thought about it all night long. I even dreamed that Evdokim the pilgrim threatened me with retribution and exhorted me to repent.

We met towards noon in the chaplain's room, and I tried to create a diversion by referring to this date. I told them, with only a little exaggeration, what I'd learned from my friend Girolamo on board the
Sanctus Dionisius:
that lots of people in Muscovy believe that today, the feast of St Simeon and the beginning of their New Year, will this year see the end of the world in a deluge of fire.

Despite his disciples' questioning glances, the chaplain remained silent as I spoke, listening abstractedly, almost with indifference. And although he didn't challenge what I'd said, he took advantage of a moment's silence to bring us back to the subject in hand. I grudgingly shuffled my papers together and started on the day's fabrications.

Sunday, 12 September 1666

My God! My God!