The Brotherhood of Book Hunters (8 page)

 

Women and children watched the riders pass by with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. François smiled at them, but Colin sat stiff and erect, like a marshal inspecting his troops. Two old Jews with long beards were chatting on a stone bench beneath a palm tree whose branches were laden with dates and moths. They abruptly fell silent as the convoy approached. One of them seemed ready to leap to his feet and run away. The other, wrapped tightly in his caftan, ignored the strangers, muttered some psalm or other, and dozed off, his head propped on his chest.

At the end of the main street stood an imposing building that blazed white in the sun. Federico was the first to enter. Muleteers and carters waited outside, watering the animals. Inside the house, all was bright. The high walls were painted in bluish hues of a pastel lightness. The waiting room was lit with brass lamps from which hung brightly-colored amulets. On the floor, ceramic flagstones covered with arabesques vied with multicolored rugs. In the patio stood a sweet-smelling fig tree. The secretary led the visitors to a small room furnished with a table and four wooden chairs. He announced that the rabbi would be joining them shortly. Federico explained to François and Colin that Rabbi Gamliel Ben Sira was a highly respected figure, rather like a cardinal, and that it was a rare honor for them to be granted an audience with him. Rabbi Gamliel was a renowned scholar who corresponded with scientists in Nuremberg, professors in Turin, doctors in Amsterdam. He directed one of the most reputable academies in the Jewish world. In addition to that, every morning he dispensed cures and advice to the poor people of the region.

The rabbi made his entrance through a low door. As the door stood open, François glimpsed a study with a small inlaid Damascus desk piled high with manuscripts and scrolls of parchment.

“
Shalom
, welcome.”

Their host's easy demeanor surprised François. He had been expecting a bearded old man, a patriarch with a heavily lined face made pale by long nights of prayer, but here stood a tall, robust man in his thirties, entirely dressed in dazzling white, with tanned skin, a thick but meticulously groomed black beard, and a broad smile. It was evident that the rabbi had been expecting the two Frenchmen and that he knew the purpose of their visit. That was why his conduct took François aback. A Jew receiving a visit from emissaries of a king would have been expected to bow reverently, but this man remained straight-backed and simply held out his hand. He was almost six feet tall. François, who was shorter, and still dirty from the ride, felt somewhat intimidated. As for Colin, he was openly offended.

The secretary put some tea down on the table, then returned a few moments later with a thick volume under his arm. He looked quickly through the list of orders handed to him by Federico, ticked certain titles, then consulted a big register. Even though Rabbi Gamliel owned a well-stocked library, he never let the books he had read out of his sight, but was constantly scribbling notes and references in them. His phenomenal memory allowed him to cross-check different texts studied over a period of several years. He remembered the exact place to find such and such a passage. The inventory held by his secretary did not therefore list the Rabbi's personal copies. It comprised works that were not all kept in Safed, or even in the Holy Land. It was a kind of bookseller's catalogue, listing hundreds of manuscripts and printed books, with their dates and places of publication as well as the various places where they could be acquired. As soon as news arrived that a synagogue had been pillaged or a house of study razed to the ground, Rabbi Gamliel's secretary would consult his lists. If a Babylonian Talmud was burned in Cologne, it was quickly replaced with another copy from Orléans or Barcelona. If a scholar in York asked a difficult question about the dietary laws, he was referred to a commentary dealing with that same law, written in Smyrna a few years earlier. Whenever a sage was summoned to debate the Trinity with the inquisitors, he was provided with documents from several churches to help him to juggle skillfully with the often conflicting, even contradictory opinions of the various clergies.

When you came down to it, it was the tragic dispersal of the Jews that saved them. No tyranny, however widely it extended its net, could reach them all. No epidemic could wipe them out. For that to happen, it would have to spread immediately to the four corners of the earth. But it was to their books above all that the Jews owed their survival. For it was the same Talmud that was read—in Hebrew—in Peking, Samarkand, Tripoli, or Damascus. And as long as it was read, out loud or in hiding, by a whole congregation or a solitary hermit, they would be able to sail through any storm.

Being forbidden everywhere to raise troops, to bear arms, or even to ride horses, the Jews had been forced to create an invisible army, an army without a garrison or an arsenal, which operated under the noses of the censors. Thanks to their common language and this network of communication, they had for centuries maintained a nation without a king or a land. Louis XI had always been fascinated by the way the rabbis spread their teachings beyond borders, thus weaving the invisible links that united their people. Like them, he was trying to impose French as the official language of the kingdom and had just ordered the creation of a letter post. The young monarch reigned over a confused jumble of constantly squabbling provinces. Bretons, Burgundians, Savoyards, and Gascons did not speak the same language. How could they come to an understanding? Would Gamliel supply the books on which the King of France was counting to assert his power from Picardy to Lorraine, from the Languedoc to Normandy, and counter the hold the Roman Church had over his subjects?

François listened to the rabbi's explanations with redoubled interest. He was starting to glimpse the true extent of this Gamliel's activities, the influence he exerted from here, sitting at his desk, the significance of the texts he propagated. Was he the Medicis' mysterious accomplice? Johann Fust's patron? And the future accomplice of Louis XI?

François nevertheless remained puzzled. He could not see a practicing Jew in a white skullcap and caftan concerning himself with the humanities, opening clandestine print shops, publishing previously unpublished works by Lucretius and Demosthenes, gathering together treatises on algebra or astronomy, some of which contradicted the teachings of his own religion. Nor could François see any reason why a sage from the Holy Land would want to work hand in hand with gentiles from Florence, let alone a man of the Church like Chartier. Unless he was pursuing an aim quite different than that of his eminent allies, and without their knowing it. Just like François, who did not believe that any of them were well intentioned and was waiting for the moment to carry off his own victory.

 

While his secretary prepared the orders, Rabbi Gamliel conversed calmly with Federico. The Italian spoke of the Earth, which was no longer at the center of the universe, and of Florence, which was now where everything important was happening. The rabbi listened to all this with a somewhat condescending politeness. Once the packages were ready, Gamliel asked the two Frenchmen to excuse him. He would only be a moment. He stood up and motioned to Federico to follow him into the adjoining room.

Through the half-open door, François saw the rabbi hand a wide scroll to the merchant, who quickly looked through it. The edges were uneven and fraying everywhere into long yellow strands of a texture like straw or rushes. The body of the scroll was crisscrossed with stripes and plantlike veins. It was neither paper nor parchment. Sitting too far away to clearly make out every detail, François saw only a confused network of ocher patches on a blue background crossed with lines and arrows. The colors had so faded with time that he could barely make out the design, but the whole seemed to be like a sea chart. It could not however be a map of the world. There were far too many patches to be taken for islands or continents. Perhaps it was an ancient chart of a fabulous world.

Noticing a sudden change in intonation in the voices of the two men, François pricked up his ears. Until now, the conversation between Gamliel and Federico had been held in Spanish, the only Latin language the rabbi knew. Although he couldn't quite hear what was being said, François was certain that the dialogue was now continuing in a different language, a kind of guttural dialect that, in spite of its Semitic accents, sounded like neither Hebrew nor Arabic.

Federico came out, holding the mysterious scroll under his arm, and immediately took his leave. He apologized politely, announcing that he had to set off again early in the morning for Nazareth where he hoped to acquire a rare Syriac manuscript. The brevity of this farewell took François by surprise. The Italian had not even inquired about the two pilgrims' intentions.

O
nce Federico had left, the rabbi invited François and Colin to join him in his study. They sat for a while in awkward silence, while he stared insistently at the two men, as if trying to read a message in the lines of their faces. His knitted brows and fixed gaze seemed to be trying to penetrate their very souls, to probe the darkest recesses. He seemed unaware of the embarrassment caused by this prolonged examination. Even though the two strangers corresponded faithfully to the description that Fust had given of them in his letters, Gamliel was somewhat disconcerted by the wretched appearance of the King of France's emissaries. That vagabond with his crumpled hat and his falsely stupid smile really didn't look as he had expected. And the caustic, ever wary gaze of the brute who was with him was frankly discourteous. Were these the heralds so eagerly awaited by Jerusalem? Was their criminal appearance a disguise? Fust had suggested as much when he talked of Villon's surprising erudition and his passion for books. As for Colin, who thought himself so clever, Fust noted with amusement how he had let this brigand spy on him for months, letting him see only what would lead the Bishop of Paris to deal with him rather than with anyone else. Fust was convinced that there was much to be gained from a secret alliance with Louis XI: an opinion not shared by Brother Paul, who considered it too much of a risk to associate with a scheming bishop and an unscrupulous king. Jeopardizing thirty years of preparations struck him as inadvisable. They already had the Italians on their side, and that ought to be enough. What Brother Paul did not know was that it was his own sponsors, the Medicis, who advocated joining forces with the French monarch, their longtime ally in other matters. The offensive was going well, but an agreement with Paris could give it a magnitude they had not hoped for, inflicting far more damage on the enemy. It was now up to Rabbi Gamliel to decide. His colleagues in Jerusalem trusted in his good judgment.

Emerging from his reflections, he smiled with perfectly rabbinical bonhomie, mixed with a hint of mischief. Not won over, Colin scowled, but François appreciated this mark of cordiality. He was far from suspecting that, depending on the outcome of this interview, Jerusalem would either open wide its gates to him or shut them in his face forever.

“Instilling new ideas takes time. Often longer than one man's reign lasts.”

“Any reign is likely to be short-lived if it is maintained only with the sword,” retorted François. “Religion shows every day how to rule by the force of the written word alone.”

“And by the force of faith. Hence the hints we have been giving the Christian monarchs. Our recent publications are there to remind them that David, Solomon and Alexander owed their power not to priests, but to God Himself. We've been waiting for the right moment to exhume a number of ancient works devoted to the theme.”

“Is the fate of our rulers of such concern to you, then?”

“No more than it is to you.”

“And that of the Jews?”

“That is my concern, yes, but it depends on those very rulers.” Gamliel pointed to a vase filled with scrolls of parchment. “These manuscripts are from Athens. They are transcripts made by one of our people during the lifetime of Socrates. When he was sentenced to drink hemlock, who do you think made sure his words were preserved?”

“Wasn't it Plato?”

“Plato was no scribe. He manipulated ideas as he pleased. But it so happens that, well before him, an agent had been sent by Jerusalem with a mission to follow Socrates and be present at the public debates he conducted on the streets. The notes he made are preserved by us in a safe place. Nobody apart from us knows the contents.”

“Why don't you publish them? What are you waiting for?”

“A sign. Cosimo de' Medici's friendship toward us, for example. Or even your coming here. That may be an omen, and not mere chance. Socrates was excluded from public life, just like the Jews. Out of ignorance. But those who control public life can learn. They just have to be taught a good lesson.”

The rabbi did nothing to conceal the insolence of his smile. His suddenly arrogant expression embarrassed François. In it, he recognized his own, mischievous and rebellious. Shifting his gaze to the window, François looked out at the fig tree in the courtyard, its thick top ringed by a ray of moonlight. Rivers of silvery light flowed down the dark branches, making their way between the leaves and fruits, crawling as far as the roots, like reptiles. François thought of the snake in the Tree of Knowledge. Was he being lured into a pact with Satan? Rumors abounded that the Jews were plotting to take over the world, and there was no smoke without fire. They had killed Jesus. They drank the blood of babies. These accusations, so often whispered in the ear or proclaimed out loud in the public square, beat at his temples like waves crashing against a rock. The rabbi's sibylline attitude seemed to confirm all the hearsay. Colin, for his part, was certain that this Jew's motives were a lot more treacherous than he claimed.

In the subdued light of the brass candelabra, the rabbi's self-satisfied face beamed placidly. On the wall behind him was a silver plaque carved with kabbalistic signs like those that François had seen on the Medicis' coat of arms. Gamliel noticed the direction of François's gaze.