“That was during my earlier career, of course,” the Old Jew went on, “and perhaps such a mistake was understandable.”
“Earlier career?”
“Wanderer.”
“How do you expect me to believe such nonsense?”
“Hmm-hnnn! The Poet believes me.”
“Undoubtedly! The Poet certainly would never believe that the Venerable Francis met a saint. That would be superstition. The Poet would rather believe he met you — six centuries ago. A purely natural explanation, eh?”
Benjamin chuckled wryly. Paulo watched him lower a leaky bark cup into the well, empty it into his water skin, and lower it again for more. The water was cloudy and alive with creeping uncertainties as was the Old Jew’s stream of memory. Or was his memory uncertain? Playing games with us all? wondered the priest. Except for his delusion of being older than Methuselah, old Benjamin Eleazar seemed sane enough, in his own wry way.
“Drink?” the hermit offered, extending the cup.
The abbot suppressed a shudder, but accepted the cup so as not to offend; be drained the murky liquid at a gulp.
“Not very particular, are you?” said Benjamin, watching him critically. “Wouldn’t touch it myself.” He patted the water skin. “For the animals.”
The abbot gagged slightly.
“You’ve changed,” said Benjamin, still watching him.
“You’ve grown pale as cheese and wasted.”
“I’ve been ill.”
“You look ill. Come up in my shack, if the climb won’t tire you out.”
“I’ll be all right. I had a little trouble the other day, and our physician told me to rest. Fah! If an important guest weren’t coming soon, I’d pay no attention. But he’s coming, so I’m resting. It’s quite tiresome.”
Benjamin glanced back at him with a grin as they climbed the arroyo. He waggled his grizzly head. “Riding ten miles across the desert is resting?”
“For me it’s rest. And, I’ve been wanting to see you, Benjamin.”
“What will the villagers say?” the Old Jew asked mockingly.
“They’ll think we’ve become reconciled, and that will spoil both our reputations.”
“Our reputations never have amounted to much in the market place, have they?”
“True,” he admitted but added cryptically: “for the present.”
“Still waiting, Old Jew?”
“Certainly!” the hermit snapped.
The abbot found the climb tiring. Twice they stopped to rest. By the time they reached the tableland, he had become dizzy and was leaning on the spindly hermit for support. A dull fire burned in his chest, warning against further exertion, but there was none of the angry clenching that had come before.
A flock of the blue-headed goat-mutants scattered at the approach of a stranger and fled into straggly mesquite. Oddly, the mesa seemed more verdant than the surrounding desert, although there was no visible supply of moisture.
“This way, Paulo. To my mansion.”
The Old Jew’s hovel proved to be a single room, windowless and stone-walled, its rocks stacked loosely as a fence, with wide chinks through which the wind could blow. The roof was a flimsy patchwork of poles, most of them crooked, covered by a heap of brush, thatch, and goatskins. On a large flat rock, set on a short pillar beside the door, was a sign painted in Hebrew:
The size of the sign, and its apparent attempt to advertise, led Abbot Paulo to grin and ask: “What does it say, Benjamin? Does it attract much trade up here?”
“Hah — what should it say? It says: Tents Mended Here.”
The priest snorted his disbelief.
“All right, doubt me. But if you don’t believe what’s written there, you can’t be expected to believe what’s written on the other side of the sign.”
“Facing the wall?,”
“Obviously facing the wall.”
The pillar was set close to the threshold, so that only a few inches of clearance existed between the flat rock and the wall of the hovel. Paulo stooped low and squinted into the narrow space. It took him a while to make it out, but sure enough there was something written on the back of the rock, in smaller letters:
“Do you ever turn the rock around?”
“Turn it around? You think I’m crazy? In times like these?”
“What does it say back there?”
“Hmmm-hnnnn!” the hermit singsonged, refusing to answer. “But come on in, you who can’t read from the backside.”
“There’s a wall slightly in the way.”
“There always was, wasn’t there?”
The priest sighed. “All right, Benjamin, I know what it was that you were commanded to write “in the entry and on the door” of your house. But only you would think of turning it face down.”
“Face inward,” corrected the hermit. “As long as there are tents to be mended in Israel — but let’s not begin teasing each other until you’ve rested. I’ll get you some milk, and you tell me about this visitor that’s worrying you.
“There’s wine in my bag if you’d like some,” said the abbot, falling with relief onto a mound of skins. “But I’d rather not talk about Thon Taddeo.”
“Oh?That one.”
“You’ve heard of Thon Taddeo? Tell me, how is it you’ve always managed to know everything and everybody without stirring from this hill?”
“One hears, one sees,” the hermit said cryptically.
“Tell me, what do you think of him?,”
“I haven’t see him. But I suppose he will be a pain. A birth-pain, perhaps, but a pain.”
“Birth-pain? You really believe we’re going to have a new Renaissance, as some say?”
“Hmmm-hnnn.”
“Stop smirking mysteriously, Old Jew, and tell me your opinion. You’re bound to have one. You always do. Why is your confidence so hard to get? Aren’t we friends?”
“On some grounds, on some grounds. But we have our differences, you and I.”
“What have our differences got to do with Thon Taddeo and a Renaissance we’d both like to see? Thon Taddeo is a secular scholar, and rather remote from our differences.”
Benjamin shrugged eloquently. “Difference, secular scholars,” he echoed, tossing out the words like discarded apple pits. “I have been called a ‘secular scholar’ at various times by certain people, and sometimes I’ve been staked, stoned, and burned for it.”
“Why, you never—” The priest stopped, frowning sharply. That madness again. Benjamin was peering at him suspiciously, and his smile had gone cold. Now, thought the abbot, he’s looking at me as if I were one of Them — whatever formless “Them” it was that drove him here to solitude. Staked, stoned, and burned? Or did his “I” mean “We” as in “I, my people”?
“Benjamin — I am Paulo. Torquemada is dead. I was born seventy-odd years ago, and pretty soon I’ll die. I have loved you, old man, and when you look at me, I wishyou would see paulo of pecos and no other.”
Benjamin wavered for a moment. His eyes became moist.
“I sometimes — forget—”
“And sometimes you forget that Benjamin is only Benjamin and not all of Israel.”
“Never!” snapped the hermit, eyes blazing again. “For thirty-two centuries, I—” He stopped and closed his mouth tightly.
“Why?” the abbot whispered almost in awe. “Why do you take the burden of a people and its past upon yourself alone?”