Balthasar's Odyssey (6 page)

“And is this your son?” he asked, nodding towards the person behind me.

“No, I'm his nephew.”

“And this woman?”

“That's his wife,” said Habib.

“Right! You may proceed.”

My wife?

I decided to get through the gate and away from the customs post and the soldiers, still looking straight in front of me. Then I turned round.

It was Marta.

“The widow.”

Dressed in black, and smiling all over her face.

No, I admit I didn't understand anything till now, didn't even suspect. And Habib handled it well, I agree. He's usually up to all sorts of tricks in order to charm both men and women, but in the last few days he didn't indulge in one knowing smile or a single teasing allusion. He pretended to be as shocked as I was by Rasmi's accusations. Which turned out in the end to be less flimsy than I thought.

I suppose in due course my nephew will tell me how it was all arranged. But what's the point? I can guess most of it. I can guess why he so surprisingly sided with his brother to urge me to make this journey to Constantinople. I imagine he then hurried off to tell “the widow”, and she must have thought that was a good moment to run away. So she left Gibelet, and must have spent one night in Tripoli staying with a cousin or in a convent. That's all so plain I don't need any confessions. But until the whole thing was put right under my nose, I didn't have an inkling.

So what should I do now? For the rest of the day I just walked straight ahead, without expression, without saying a word. Sulking solves nothing, I know. But unless I want to lose all dignity and all authority over my family, I can't act as if I hadn't been led up the garden path.

The trouble is, I'm forgetful by nature, easy-going, and always inclined to forgive. All day I've had to make an effort to keep up my attitude of injured innocence. And I'll have to keep it up for another day or two, even if it hurts me more than the people I'm trying to punish.

The four of them trail along behind me, not daring to speak to one another above a whisper. Good.

The village of the tailor, 27 August

Today we've acquired another unexpected companion. But a respectable one this time.

We had a terrible night. I knew this inn we stopped at, but I hadn't been there for a long while. Perhaps I'd stayed there at a more auspicious time: I didn't remember those swarms of mosquitoes, those cracked and mouldering walls, that stench of stagnant water. I spent the whole night tossing and turning, clapping my hands together every time I heard that menacing drone approaching.

In the morning, when it was time to set out again, I'd hardly closed my eyes. Later on during the day, I fell asleep in the saddle several times, and nearly fell off my mule. Fortunately Hatem came and rode close beside me, to prop me up from time to time. He's a good fellow — I'm not really cross with
him.

Towards noon, after we'd been travelling for a good five hours and I was looking for a shady spot to have our midday meal in, we found our way suddenly barred by a big leafy branch from a tree. It would have been quite easy to move it out of the way, or just to go round it, but I halted, puzzled. There was something strange about the way it had been put there, right in the middle of the road.

I was looking around to find some explanation when Boumeh came up and suggested in a whisper that it would be best to turn off on to a path on the right that rejoined the main road a bit further on.

“If that branch was blown off its tree,” he said, “and the wind dropped it there just like that, it must be a warning from Heaven, and we'd be mad to disregard it.”

I derided his superstition but followed his advice. True, as he was speaking to me I'd noticed, some way along the path he wanted me to take, an inviting-looking copse. Just looking at the greenery from a distance, I seemed to hear the cool plash of running water. And I was hungry.

As we started along the path we saw some people riding away in front of us — three or four of them, I thought. They'd probably had the same idea as us — to leave the road and have their meal in the shade. But they were moving fast, and flogging their beasts as if in a hurry to get away from us. When we reached the copse they'd already disappeared over the horizon.

Hatem was the first to yell:

“Brigands! Highwaymen!”

A man was lying in the shade of a walnut tree. Naked, and showing no sign of life. We called out to him as soon as we saw him, but he didn't stir. We could already see that his brow and beard were streaked with blood. But when Marta cried, “My God, he's dead!” and let out a sob, he sat up, apparently reassured by hearing a woman's voice, and hastily covered his nakedness with his hands. Until then, he told us, he'd been afraid his attackers had come back to finish him off.

“They'd laid a branch across the road, and I thought that might signal some danger further on, so I turned off along this path. But it was here that they were lying in wait. I was on my way back from Tripoli, where I'd been to buy cloth. I'm a tailor by trade. My name's Abbas. They took all I had: two asses and their load, my money, my shoes, and my clothes! God curse them! May everything they stole from me stick in their throats like a fishbone!”

I turned to Boumeh.

“So you thought that branch was a warning from Heaven, did you? Well, it was only a highwayman's trick!”

But he wouldn't change his mind.

“If we hadn't taken this path, God knows what would have become of this poor man! It was because they saw us coming that the robbers made off!”

Hatem had just offered the victim one of my shirts, and he said as he put it on:

“Only Heaven could have sent you here to save me! You are decent people — I can tell by your faces. And only honest folk travel with women and children. Are these two fine young men your sons? May God watch over them!”

He was talking to Marta, who was wiping his face with a moistened handkerchief.

“His nephews,” she answered after a slight hesitation and a quick apologetic glance in my direction.

“God bless you,” the man repeated. “God bless you all. I shan't let you go on without offering each of you a suit of clothes. Don't say no — it's the least I can do. You saved my life! And you shall spend tonight at my house, and nowhere else!”

We couldn't refuse, especially as it was nightfall by the time we reached his village. We'd made a detour to take him home; after all he'd been through, we couldn't let him travel on alone.

He was very grateful, and despite the late hour insisted on giving a veritable feast in our honour. From every house in the village, people brought us the most delicious food, some with meat and some without. The tailor is loved and respected by everyone, and he described us — my nephews, my clerk, my “wife” and me — as his saviours, the noble instruments of Providence to whom he'd be beholden for the rest of his life.

We could not have imagined a more congenial place to stay: it has made us forget the annoyances that beset the beginning of our journey, and smoothed away the tensions between me and my companions.

When it was time to retire, our host swore an oath that my “wife” and I must sleep in his room, while he and his wife would spend the night in the main room with their son, my nephews, my clerk, and their elderly maidservant. It was too late, of course, for me to reveal that the person travelling with me was not my wife: I would have gone down in the estimation of all these folk who had just been singing my praises. No, I couldn't do that. It was better to go on pretending until the morning.

So the “widow” and I found ourselves together in the one room, with only a curtain separating us from the others, but very much alone, and for the whole night. By the light of the candle our host had left us, I could see the laughter in Marta's eyes. There wasn't any laughter in mine. I'd have expected her to be even more embarrassed than I was. Not at all! It wouldn't have taken much to make her split her sides. It was downright indecent. I was feeling embarrassed enough for two.

After a few false starts, we ended up stretching out on the same couch under the same blanket, but fully clothed and a long way apart.

Then came some long minutes of silent darkness and unsynchronised breathing. Then Marta moved her head close to mine.

“You mustn't be angry with Habib. It's my fault if he hid the truth from you. I made him swear not to say anything — I was afraid that if my plans for running away got out, my brother-in-law would have cut my throat.”

“What's done is done.”

I'd spoken coldly. I had no desire to start a conversation. But after we'd both been silent for a while, she went on:

“Of course, it was wrong of Habib to tell the officer I was your wife. But he was taken unawares, poor lad. But you're very well respected, and all this is embarrassing for you, isn't it? I your wife! God forbid!”

“What's said is said!”

I hadn't thought before I spoke. It was only afterwards, when Marta's words and my own had echoed together in my head, that I realised the meaning that could be attributed to my reply. In the comical position we'd been put in, every word was as slippery as an eel.

“I your wife?”

“What's said is said!”

I almost started to correct and explain myself. But what was the good? I'd only have sunk deeper in the mire. So I looked in my neighbour's direction to try to make out if she'd understood. It seemed to me she wore the mischievous expression of her youth. I smiled too. And, in the dark, waved a hand in resignation.

Perhaps we needed that exchange to be able to sleep peacefully side by side, not too near and not too far from one another.

28 August

I was in a very good humour when I woke up, and so was my “wife”. My nephews kept staring at us all day, intrigued and suspicious. But my clerk seemed amused.

We'd planned to set out again at dawn, but we had to give up that idea. It had started to rain in the night, and in the morning it was still pouring down. The day before had been pleasantly cloudy for anyone travelling, but we knew the clouds wouldn't be content with bringing us only shade. So we had no choice but to stay another night or two with our hosts. God bless them, they made us feel welcome every moment we were there, and as if our presence gave them no trouble at all.

When bedtime came around, the good tailor swore again that as long as we were under his roof, my “precious wife” and I would sleep nowhere else but in his room. For the second time I offered no objection. Too meekly, perhaps… We lay down side by side again, Marta and I, without any fuss. Still fully dressed, still some distance apart. Just neighbours, as we were yesterday. The difference being that now we chatted away without stopping — about this and that, about how welcome our hosts were making us, about what the weather would be like next day. The “widow” was wearing a perfume that I hadn't noticed the night before.

I'd just begun telling her some of the reasons why I'd decided to go on this journey when Habib came into the room. He approached soundlessly, barefooted, as if he'd hoped we wouldn't notice him.

“I've come to sleep in here because of the mosquitoes,” he said when he realised I knew he was there. “I was getting eaten alive in the other room.”

I sighed.

“You were right to come. The door here's too small for the mosquitoes to get in.”

Had I let my annoyance show in my voice? My neighbour moved her head closer to mine and said in a whisper as quiet as she could make it:

“He's still only a child!”

Again she was trying to make excuses for him. Perhaps, too, she wanted to show me that Habib's jealousy was unfounded. For I might think that if he'd plotted with her to help her escape from her in-laws and join up with us, it was not only out of a spirit of chivalry but also because he felt something for her, and that she hadn't discouraged him even though she was seven or eight years his senior.

I think he is jealous. First of all he lay down close to the wall, wrapped up in his blanket. Even though he didn't say anything, I could hear his irregular breathing — he wasn't asleep. His presence annoyed me. On the one hand I said to myself that in the morning I must explain to him clearly that my two nights' proximity to the “widow” was merely the result of circumstances that he knew all about, and no one should make anything of it. On the other hand, I didn't see, and still don't, why I should have to justify myself to this urchin. I didn't put
myself in
this embarrassing situation! I may be easy-going, but I mustn't be pushed too far! If ever I did feel like wooing Marta, I wouldn't ask permission from my nephews, or from anyone else!

I turned to her firmly and whispered, not too softly:

“If he really is still a child, I'll punish him like one!”

As I moved near her I could smell her perfume more strongly, and I felt like moving nearer still. But Habib, if he hadn't been able to make out my words, at least had heard me whisper. And, still wrapped up in his blanket, he wriggled over and lay down at our feet. Yes, he stretched himself right up against our feet so that we couldn't move an inch.

I was tempted to give him good thump, “accidentally on purpose”, while I was supposed to be asleep. But I preferred to take my revenge differently: I took Marta's hand in mine and held it there, under the blanket, till morning.

Near the Orontes, 29 August

By this morning it had stopped raining and we were able to resume our journey. I'd been so annoyed by my nephew's unseemly behaviour that I'd had very little sleep.

But perhaps it was best that the night should end as it did. Yes, on second thoughts it's better to wake up amid the pangs of desire than amid those of remorse.

We took leave of our hosts, who put us even more in their debt by loading down our mules with provisions — enough for several days' journey. May Heaven give us the chance to return their hospitality!