The Wanderess (32 page)

“It is the part of the story when I met you,” Saul said to me as he
lit another pipe, “that the nobility of my tale begins. You heralded
all the good that followed…

“It is when I came back alone to the inn in Petrognano...
You found me as I was giving up on life. I was in despair to a
degree that would have killed me had you not helped me. I’d just
lost my mother
and
Saskia. The fact that you helped me to learn
where Saskia had gone; that you drove me to Civitavecchia,
bought me passage on that boat to Tripoli—you then lent me
money for my journey, once I’d arrived in North Africa. All of this
was—
and is
—extraordinary to me.”

To this, I told Saul: “I was a witness to a scene of great
beauty and tenderness between you and Saskia in the yard of the
inn in Petrognano. I merely believed that you and Saskia each
deserved the happiness of seeing the other one again. I didn’t
know then what was dividing you two. Now you’ve just finished
telling me about your sojourn in Staggia where you learned from
the innkeeper about the bounty on your head. I didn’t know
about that when I took you to the boat docks. I
did
, however,
learn about it when I got back to Paris that next spring. I revisited
an old newspaper article I’d saved that told of the magnificent
bounty on your head should you or your corpse be sent to
Tripoli… I had clipped the article out years before, as I found your
case interesting. Had I remembered that clipping on the way to
Civitavecchia, I would have never let you go to Tripoli.”

“Precisely!”
“You know, though, I was fully aware of the money one
would get for killing me—I knew that boat ride to Tripoli was a
voyage to my own death… Even if you had remembered that
newspaper clipping, I would have begged you to buy me a ticket
for Tripoli. Why, you ask? You could think that I was going to
Tripoli to save Saskia. After all, if any bounty hunters knew that I
loved her, she would have been taken hostage. They would have
beaten her, tortured her, and what have you, until I came to offer
myself up for execution. Sure, you could think this was the
reason, but it wasn’t…

“While we were riding to the port near Rome, I thought
about my reasons for going to my suicide. It wasn’t to save
Saskia—we kept our relationship such a secret, I didn’t believe it
was possible that anyone knew about her and me. How could
they have known?! You see, I gave my enemies way too little
credit. They knew about Saskia and me. At least
one
knew!
You’ll find this very interesting. I’m going to resume telling you
the story of my life from the point where you got me to
Civitavecchia and bought me passage on the boat to Tripoli—a
favor for which I owe you my life…”

The boat was crowded with passengers. Almost all were men,
and by all appearances, of dubious character. Such it seemed was
the Italian passage to Tripoli—a passage of scoundrels.

The voyage was very long, time dragged on and on. The
Mediterranean is blown by chilly winds in the autumn, but this
year the weather was hot and fierce. There were no cabins on the
ship so we were forced to stand all crowded together on the deck
under that pitiless sun. I kept a scowl on my face to avoid
conversing with other men. When there was enough room to
pace, I would think during that horrible pace about the worst
things: my mother’s death, Saskia’s betrayal, and my own
imminent death looming over me… “As soon as we reach the
shore,” I mumbled under my breath. Then I turned and saw a
man standing in front of me, looking solemnly at me…

“Oh well, I see we both speak French…” He then went on
to ask me all sorts of questions, at which I grew hostile and
annoyed. I didn’t want him near me, couldn’t he see this? I was a
dying man, I wanted to be alone…

It was just before I grabbed his collar to threaten him, that
I looked clearly at his face. I paled then with a feeling of great
sorrow, and fear too. He was a desperate-looking creature—one
to find on such a boat—he was the perfect portrait of the
wandering failure, the itinerant outsider, a rejected traveler,
lonely and cast down into the depths of a world that becomes
everyday more miserable to live in.

…Yet it is not this that disturbed me. What gave me
sorrow and fear when I looked at his face was the fact that he and
I looked so much alike.

I shook his hand and looked curiously at him. His mouth
and his eyes both resembled mine, although his showed a
suffering that had never been a part of my features. But beyond
the face, I saw we had similar clothes and hair, we were almost the
same height, the same color of skin-tone… and yet he looked like
a miserable wretch. Was it the suffering in his eyes?

“Why are you going to Tripoli?” he asked me.
“I’m from there. Going back home.”

“Oh. I’ve never been. You should show me around. I
keeping getting kicked around in this world. I moved to Germany
and had really bad luck there, so I went to Spain—more of the
same—then to Rome. Always the worst things happen to me, my
luck is terrible. Oh, but don’t worry, I still have a bit of money…
don’t think I’m trying to beg or get anything for free, I just wanted
to talk to someone… You see, it’s
travelling
that has dragged me
down. I should have stayed somewhere and married. But here I
am… after suffering in Rome for the last two weeks, I decided to
give Tripoli a try. I hear it’s cheap and the people are good. Do
you want some tobacco?”

I said no, and looked more at the pathetic creature in front
of me, at how ashamed he was to be alive. Then it occurred to me
how much in vain
my own
travels in life had been, since in the end
I lost Saskia. I looked at that wasted remnant of a man standing
in front of me, and I knew that it was best to die in Tripoli
without her. For if I went on living in hiding after she had
betrayed me, I would come to resemble this pathetic soul
standing in front of me…

And so, my meeting this Monsieur Pion gave me some
courage to die in Tripoli that day. I hadn’t had the courage
before, only the necessity. Now I had the courage…

Still I’ve always been a dreamer who believes in impossible
hopes—miracles that will never fail to guide me to paradise. I
always believed that Fortune was on my side, and that she would
stay by my side; and it is for this reason that I’ve always sacrificed
my dear wine to the gods.

The captain announced we would soon arrive. The fear of
execution then crept back into my belly. I turned to Alfred Pion,
“Well, it was a pleasure talking with you… I have a feeling you’re
going to have good luck in Tripoli… Take care.” I hoped he would
leave me then, but he stayed close by my side.

From the waters of the Mediterranean, I watched the
familiar sight of the African coastline enlarge and grow defined as
we approached Tripoli, the city where my father was raised and
was killed. Now that I was walking into my own execution, it of
course occurred to me to go hide somewhere in the belly of the
ship until we left port again, maybe then I could save my life. But
I knew I wouldn’t do that. There was nothing left of me at this
point. I already lost my life my last night in Italy and I now had
more than enough courage to die.

So I shuffled slowly across the deck as the boat was
brought to shore. Alfred Pion begged me to meet him that night
in town to have drinks, seeing as he knew no one in Tripoli, nor
his way around. I said no, that I wouldn’t be there that night, “I
am only going to stay in Tripoli for a couple hours before I
continue on with my travels.” I didn’t think I was lying. Doesn’t a
man’s execution and death force him to continue on with his
travels? ‘Sure, death forces you to give up familiar things. And
from then on out, it’s languages you can’t understand and nights
sleeping in strange beds…’

We were finally docked at the Port of Tripoli. Now I had
nothing to do but wait with the dirty herd of passengers while
they led us through and checked our names off the registration to
let us disembark. I looked out at that busy port with people
everywhere—that city full of poor people, city full of people who
would murder a man just for a meal… ‘And just think, people!…
Who is arriving in town but me: the jewel of the Mediterranean
with the six hundred thousand franc price on his head!…’

We were part of the first herd of passengers to disembark
from the boat. Alfred kept by me. As soon as we were on firm
land, I looked around me, and soon enough I saw it: at the gates
of the Libyan customs, some men had already spotted me: five
Libyan guards, all armed to their teeth. They were approaching
us.

“You are a poor man, my friend,” I whispered to Alfred,
“this is the price you pay for having chosen me for a companion.
You’re probably about to go to prison, you know…” Alfred didn’t
understand a thing I was saying, and in a moment we were
enveloped by the five guards. They whisked us quickly away from
the bustling port to some corridor nearby where no one could
interfere with their business.

“Which of you is the son of Solarus?” asked a guard.
“I am.”
“And he? Your friend?”

“No, he’s innocent,” I told him. But the guard didn’t
believe me and ordered two of his men to chain Alfred and haul
him off somewhere. ‘The poor wretch!’ I thought, ‘the way he
turned pale when they chained him and bobbed his head at me
and cried like a child as they dragged him away—as though he
were the one being executed! I had no doubt they would question
him a while about me, hear only ridiculous answers, and then let
him go on his way. But who cares!’ I never did see Alfred de Pion
again. You’ll hear soon enough how he ended-up…

As for me, I was stuck in that corridor with the remaining
three guards. The one who had given the orders to the others, I
figured he was their chief. His uniform was a little cleaner than
the others, his face wasn’t as ugly, and he wore a moustache. The
other two, his henchmen, were short, stocky beasts with necks
that resembled the gnarled trunks of trees. They both smelled
badly, and their faces were horribly pockmarked. It was these two
who wanted to put me in chains before they led me wherever I
was to go. The chief, however, said not to chain me…

“He will not run away,” he told his men, “He gave his real
name in the ship’s registry when he arrived on that boat from
Italy. He obviously came to Tripoli to be captured. Don’t chain
him… he won’t try to run.”

For a long time we walked under the scorching sun. The guards
and I were all silent. I didn’t recognize the neighborhood we were
in, which was strange as I thought I knew all of Tripoli by sight.
Then came the birds of prey circling over in the sky, and the smell
of brine, so I knew we weren’t far from the beach.

“This is it,” said the chief of the guards, pointing ahead to
a very small palace with a gold dome. It looked like it used to be
an embassy. I thought back to the time years and years ago, when
I worked in Tripoli earning slave’s wages, painting gold leaf on the
domes of all the palaces around the city. I thought I’d seen every
palace in the city, though I’d never seen this one.

They opened a side-door of the palace and ordered me
into a dimly lit corridor. They ordered me to walk ahead of them.
With the sudden shelter from the sun, and the cool air that blew
down the corridor against my face, I felt my strength renewed. I
actually fooled myself for a moment into thinking I was free, that I
was alive and fortunate… then the chains were put on me.

“We’re going to see the boss now. We’ll have to put you in
irons.” They fastened cuffs on my wrists, and locked iron shackles
on my ankles. “Continue on up here,” said the chief guard, and I
walked and clanked like a galley slave.

As we approached what looked like the main hall of the
palace, the light in the corridor grew brighter and then came the
odor of incense, and rich foods: roasting meats and red wine. “It
seems my executioner is having a feast,” I mumbled aloud. Then I
heard a man’s laugh. I stepped down a step and the light of the
main hall filled my eyes. It was a small hall for a palace, big
enough for fifty men, no more; and in it, I saw only a few scattered
souls sitting on the far-side of a long wooden banquet table. And
those souls, the image of that room that lay before my eyes, was a
scene belonging to a drama that no madman’s nightmare could
even create. That scene could only have been written by the most
evil of all gods.

Looking at that banquet table, at the people sitting behind
it, facing me, I no longer wanted my freedom. I no longer wanted
my life, but death for them, and then death for me, life erased
from memory—for at the center of the table, seated in the head
chair, smiling at me, his prisoner, was Dragomir.

I was stupefied… How, of all the assassins, special agents,
and police in the Mediterranean, how could it have been a simple
clairvoyant and opium dealer from Spain who managed to capture
the son of Solarus? But this quandary ceased to interest me as
soon as I saw the person who was sitting beside Dragomir…

She lifted her head and her hair toppled away from her
face and I saw the portrait of a someone too inhuman to be of this
earth—hell would have been a paradise for me then, rather than
to have to look upon what I saw: for there at the table, seated at
the right hand of the lord, my captor Dragomir, as if she were his
mistress, sat my love, Saskia.

My entire soul died at that moment. As I looked at those
two, I felt all who I was and had been molting away like the skin
of a snake: my body and life had died and only my chains
remained. So Saskia conspired to sell me for money! Was it for
her love of money? For her love of Dragomir?! Or was it that she
hated me?! I needed the answer then, my heart could beat not
another time without it, yet I could not speak a word…

She looked at me a few times—oh, my eyes were fixed on
her!—but each time she looked at me, she turned away again as
though she were completely uninterested in my presence in that
hall. Can you imagine?! …after all we’d been through together!,
and now, being brought in shackles and chains before her!, a
prisoner, before the eyes of your beloved, while she sits at a
banquet table to accompany the man who has sentenced you to
death? To see your love attend your death as your executioner’s
maid of honor!

Moments of silence passed. Saskia no longer bothered to
look at me. Soon I managed to say to her in a feeble voice…
“Saskia… Why… Why are you sitting there?!” It was the most
pathetic thing I had ever asked; but then again,
I was pathetic
at
that moment—it had just been revealed to me, after all, that my
entire life had been nothing but pathetic farce in which I was the
dancing fool.

“Saskia! I crossed the sea for you!” My voice was bolder
this time, although neither time I’d said her name did she bother
to look at me.

“Saskia!” I called again, “But
why
if I call to you don’t you
run to me? Why don’t you embrace me? We are on a new
continent together! Am I not your beloved standing before you
after a long absence? And now we are on a new continent
together… why then don’t you run to me?” Dragomir, all this
while, sat with a smirk on his face as he watched me address her.
I imagined it amused him greatly to watch me begging love from a
marble goddess.

“I went for the day and night to Florence, Saskia… to see
my mother. My mother… she died. So I spent the entire night in
vigil by her grave, crying. Then at daybreak, I came back to
Petrognano where you said you would be waiting for me, but you
had gone. They said you went to Tripoli. Why Tripoli?! Because
it was your fortune, no doubt? It said you would realize your
destiny after entering the country of my birth and the city where
my father was raised. Or did you come to be with Dragomir? You
knew he was here, obviously. Did you know
why
he was here?…
So wait… now I know!…
it was he!, wasn’t it?
The one who sent
you that letter… That letter you read a hundred times on our way
up from Siena. You told me you would let me read that letter
once we saw my mother… you said the letter was unimportant
compared to my reuniting with my mother. Of course you knew
that after I saw my mother, both you and that letter would be
gone. Did I tell you that my mother is dead?…”

During all of what I said to her, the only times Saskia
seemed to acknowledge that I was speaking to her were the two
times I mentioned that my mother died. Twice I told her my
mother died, and twice her lower-lip quivered, twice her eyelids
closed solemnly momentarily. Was she actually feeling sorrow?
So why then did she say nothing?! Why didn’t she even look at
me?… I had the crazy idea then that she couldn’t even see me.
Was I just a ghost standing in that room? I tried to find other
clues to help me understand this incomprehensible situation.
And can you believe that Saskia interested me so much that it was
only then that I noticed there was a second girl in the room!
There was another girl at that table, seated at Dragomir’s left, a
girl of about Saskia’s age. I studied this other girl for a long time.
And while I studied her, I sensed that
only now
Saskia was looking
at me. I flashed my eyes back to my beloved and I saw that
she
was in fact looking at me!…
Yet before our eyes even met, she
looked away with an expression of… I would say scorn, or rather,
shame…

‘Shame?’ I asked myself, ‘Saskia ashamed of looking at
Saul? Ashamed
of me
because I am no longer a man? Because I
am just a prisoner in chains?, a caged dog? Or is she ashamed
of
herself?
Ashamed of herself for betraying me?’

“All right, that’s enough getting reacquainted, time is
ticking…” Dragomir waved his hand and the chief of the guards
obediently approached him and listened to what Dragomir
whispered in his ear. The guard politely asked Saskia and the
other girl if they would wait outside for a minute. Saskia stood up
and took the hand of the other girl, and walked out of the palace
hall. By the way they held hands, I knew then that the girl was
the famous Adélaïse.

“You two can leave as well,” Dragomir said to the two
other guards. “But wait right outside the main door. I will need
you in a few minutes.”

The guards exited and I was left alone with Dragomir in
the hall. My mind began to race as I thought of ways I might
attack and kill him now that we were alone. Had my ankles not
been fettered along with my wrists, I know I would have tried.
But Dragomir interrupted my thoughts to begin giving me
the
revelation…

“Forgive me, my dear Saul, if I keep those chains on you. I
know that you have a fiery temperament… You’re the willful,
capricious type of man. You are strong too. I don’t want to give
you any unfair advantages.”

“Me? I am the patient and resourceful type. The type of
man who wins in the end. You know, Saul, I knew you wouldn’t
follow me here to Tripoli where these chains awaited you. No, I
knew you wouldn’t follow
me…
but you would follow
her.
Isn’t
that true?”

“That
is
true!” I agreed, “You are clever. But you’re cheap
as well. You’re cheap because you could not bring me to Tripoli
on your own. You had to get an innocent girl mixed up in this.
Why?! Why did you have to involve Saskia?!”

“Saskia? …Oh, you mean
Clara!
Nit-nit-nit, my poor, poor
Saul, you really don’t understand this whole thing, do you?… I’d
say it’s lucky for you that I involved her in this. Otherwise you
would’ve never had the pleasure of meeting her! You are happy
you got to meet her, aren’t you?…

“You see, Saul, that is how very clever I am. I’ve been
engineering this trap for you for the past five years. Five years!
Can you believe it? Five long, patient years of work on a plan that
will only reach its climax and conclusion today.
Do you realize
what patience is required for such a task?…

“You see, Saul, it was five years ago that I first read about
you in a newspaper: ‘Twenty-five thousand gold louis d’or to the
one who catches the son of Solarus, first name: Saul, and brings
him to Tripoli.’ …Twenty-five thousand louis! That’s enough gold
to make the wealth of five men! I knew that if I had this money, I
would never have to tell another single fortune for the rest of my
life. I could do whatever I want, I could live like a Sultan… like a
god!…

“I told you when we met in Málaga that I’m no mystic.
Remember what I said to you then?… ‘I am no clairvoyant. I am
just a charlatan who does what he can for money…’ Life feeds on
life, you know, and human life means relatively little to me.

“…It was just after I read in the newspaper about the
reward offered for you that Clara came to me at my home in
Málaga. It was her choice to come to me. She was a wanderer.
Thirteen at the time, she was a mere child, out on her own in this
mad, confusing world, and she was hoping that I could give her a
roadmap to guide her through the labyrinth of life. The poor girl
was so baffled. But how could a girl
not
be baffled at that age?,
with no parents or relatives, wandering around the world alone
because she doesn’t know what else to do with herself!…

“She desperately wanted help to know what to do in life.
So I took the liberty of choosing her path for her… I decided the
best use of her life was to catch my prey for me!” Dragomir
laughed a good deal after saying this, “You must admit, Saul, she
did the job perfectly!

“…But in order to have her catch you, I first needed to get
your two lives entwined; and this I did by planting the seeds of
obsession. The first step was to get her to
really believe
that I
possessed psychic awareness, which I did by guessing things about
herself and her life—easy enough in her case, so much about her
was transparent. Then, once she had complete confidence in my
psychic powers, she didn’t need any convincing that I knew her
future and her destiny. She had complete faith in me. So this is
when I told her what was needed to get you here standing before
me in chains today. I told her
the key to her destiny was you!

“…As for you, Saul, you were a lot harder to get a hold of
in the beginning. And it wasn’t until the summer before last that I
managed to get you to my home, thanks to Pulpawrecho… may he
rest in peace…

“Of course that tainted opium that made you collapse
beneath Clara’s balcony, that was actually meant for
you
, not for
my old friend Penelope Baena in Barcelona. I lied to you about
that in Paris. You see, I couldn’t think of another way to make
sure you would eat all of that poison the night of your birthday
unless I planted the ruffians at her house to
make
you eat it—I
know that wasn’t the most ‘elegant’ part of my whole
orchestration—but just so you know, Saul, that opium didn’t
contain enough poison to
kill you
, only to make you wander
beneath Clara’s balcony and fall unconscious. Don’t think I
wanted to
kill you!…
The proof: remember your girl told you then
about some ‘tall man in a black suit’ who gave her a book once? It
was a novel in which the character was poisoned with verdigris,
and the novel had information on how to cure the poisoned
person… Guess who that man was who gave her that novel! You
see?! I didn’t want you dead… I wanted Clara to heal you and
make you nice and strong again.”

Dragomir stopped his explanation and there was a
moment of silence. Then I realized it all!… “So you weren’t just
that
man!” I said to Dragomir, “You were
all
of these men! You
were also the man in Barcelona dressed head-to-foot in black
crêpe, weren’t you? The one who told me I looked ill and pointed
me the way to the hospital!”