A Journey to the End of the Millennium Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the exile, who had years before abandoned the sun and sea of North Africa in favor of the loneliness and backwardness of Christendom, Ben Attar knew well that his seniority conferred the obligation to speak first. He was duty-bound to give an account of kinsfolk—wives and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and other relatives and friends—whom Abulafia was keen to learn all about precisely because they had betrayed him, and then to slake his nephew’s thirst for his native town, with its white houses and narrow alleys, its olive trees and palms, its vegetable gardens, its golden beach and its pink harbor. And finally to help Abulafia weep again, across the years, for his beautiful young wife, who had drowned herself because of the bewitched, feeble-witted child she had brought into the world, doubling and redoubling by her scandalous death the shame she had brought upon her husband, so that he had been compelled to banish himself.
    And so, in the sweet sadness of remembrance of the past, they spent a wonderful summer’s evening together on the border of the Spanish March, which neatly divided the two great faiths from each other. And although they both felt an occasional flickering anxiety forthe fate of the third partner, who was at this moment galloping into the depth of the night with his leopard-skin pouch dangling near his privy parts, they were also pleased that the Muslim was no longer with them, for now they were free to season their conversation with words from the holy tongue, and on the morrow, the eve of the fast of the month of Ab, when Benveniste came up together with a quorum of Jews hired especially for the purpose of praying and wailing for the ruin of the Temple, they would forget the purses full of gold and the wiles of commerce, and taking ash from the fire and smearing it on their foreheads , they would join in the eternal fear and mourning of their people.

2.
    On the eastern horizon the firmament was sinking somewhat, and the moon had declined to the height of a man. Even though the captain’s sole responsibility was to sail the ship, he had caught Ben Attar’s anxiety about the secret, noncommercial purpose of the journey, and he rose and woke Abu Lutfi, who had been put to sleep by the mere smell of the wine, so that he should stir the ship’s owner, sprawled in a drunken stupor on the deck, to visit the wife who was waiting for him in the stern. Soon dawn would break and put an end to their last night on the open sea, and from now on they would lose their anonymity; on either side of the Seine they would be tracked by suspicious natives, full of the panic of the approaching millennium, who would certainly try to board the alien ship to inspect her and find out what she was about. As Ben Attar slowly rose from the depths of his slumber, he not only felt on his face the cool, urgent breeze of the last hours of the night but also found himself looking into his partner’s anxious eyes as Abu Lutfi shook him roughly. He thought painfully how wrinkled the Ishmaelite’s face had become these last years, perhaps on account of the repudiation emanating from the northern partner.
    Though Ben Attar wondered how he would manage to spread the wings of his desire a second time, he nevertheless hurriedly stood up, swaying at first and leaning on the side for support, staring at the darkwater lapping at the stationary ship. The fire was still burning at the mouth of the invisible river, and on the shimmering water could be seen the enchanted silhouette of a gigantic bird. All the Jew’s senses were opening up toward the night, which was filling with new signs, and he was almost driven to kneel, as though he had been infected by the pagan faith of the young slave, who was now standing nearby, awake as ever, with his bells tinkling in the breeze, ready to raise aloft the oil lamp and light the way before the dawn should break.
    Here in the stern of the ship he had great need of the guiding