At first it was hard to understand whether the repudiation was directed against the partnership or against the partners—whether it was due to a wife’s personal resentment over the hardships of her husband-to-be’s travels and the implied protracted absences from his new bridal chamber or to a more commercial reaction, derived from a calculation of the profits and their distribution. There flickered for a moment a suspicion that Abu Lutfi might be the source of the revulsion felt by this widow from the Rhineland, who might be accustomed to Huns but frightened of Ishmaelites. But gradually, from Abulafia’s careful words, which like the wood of their campfire smoldered slowly until every now and then they suddenly flared up and crackled, it became clear that its true source was the uncle himself, Ben Attar—Abulafia’s patron and benefactor, the guiding force behind the partnership and the architect of its success—who was now painfully and sadly lifting a glowing ember from the fire and turning it over and over.
If Ben Attar had taken the trouble the previous year to consider Abulafia’s story about that unforgettable nocturnal encounter in the Jewish tavern in Orléans and carefully turned it over, as he was now turning the ember between his scorched fingers, he would have discovered the bewilderment that had begotten the repudiation. For then, beside the campfire near the entrance to the Roman inn, between one dirge and the next, Abulafia had recounted to his partner how attentively Mistress Esther-Minna had absorbed everything that was offered her on the subject of the black-curled man, who, not yet imagining the strength of the love and affection that he was stirring up, had prattled on not only about his thoughts and deeds but also about his faraway kinsmen and business partners, what they were like, what they wanted, what they looked like, and how they lived. And when, innocently carried away by the spate of his words, he had mentioned the second wife whom Ben Attar had married a few years previously, whom he himself had never met, he had felt his delicate questioner momentarily hold her breath.
A second wife? Mistress Esther-Minna had whispered in Hebrew, as though fearful of uttering the words in the local tongue, lest she arouse the Frankish servant who slept by the doorway. Why not? Abulafia had whispered in reply, with a faint, provocative smile. But from the crimson tinge that suffused her cheeks and her haste to reach up to adjust her headscarf, he had understood how much his answer had frightened her. So he had immediately attempted to broaden the woman’s mind, for despite her experience of business trips with her brother, she had never traveled farther south than Orléans, let alone visited the wonderful, luxuriant south and informed herself about the customs of the awesome Arab grandees, not only in North Africa but also in the verdant cities of Andalus, replete with wisdom and song, where some, not content with possessing two wives, wed three or sometimes even four. Mistress Esther-Minna had looked up, her thin lips twisted slightly in a smile of curiosity tinged with disgust. And were there, she inquired, in the land where Abulafia had been born and from which he came, Jews who had three or four wives? Abulafia had been unable to give her a clear answer, for so many years had passed since he had left North Africa and Andalus. But the woman, her bewilderment and curiosity by now wrapped up in her love, had refused to let him be and had insisted on knowing whether the uncle, Ben Attar, the director of their partnership, might someday up and take, say, a third wife in addition to the two he already possessed. God alone knows, Abulafia had said, trying to evade the strange question. But seeing that God did not dispel the widow’s curiosity, he was impelled to answer: Perhaps, who knows? If the partnership continued to prosper and to bring great wealth to the partners, Ben Attar might take another wife, for Ben Attar’s expansive, love-filled heart was different from his own. He himself had not yet recovered from the blows that he had suffered in his life, and so he had hardly managed to have one wife.
Then Abulafia had felt the light touch of a small hand in the semidarkness, and had realized that only a natural, self-confident humanity could find the courage to touch him. It was this humanity that had given him no rest during the year that had elapsed, so at the beginning of the spring he had turned his horses northward and at last headed with his wares to Paris, to seek out his acquaintance from the tavern in Orléans and to find out whether that tiny white hand that had reached out and touched him so generously in the darkness would deign to touch him also in the light of day. Even though her younger brother, who saw himself as her guardian, was hostile to the young North African’s offer of marriage, his sister succeeded in allaying his doubts, and when they had satisfied themselves that despite Abulafia’s years of wandering he had not forgotten his prayers and was still able to chant (although in an unfamiliar melody) the blessings to welcome the Sabbath and those that bade it farewell, as well as the long grace after food, the younger brother had given his consent to the match, on the condition that the couple set up house in a wing of his own home, not only so that his sister would continue to be close to him and his family but also so that she would not feel lonely when her husband resumed his traveling life.
Because the new household was to include Abulafia’s daughter, whom henceforth he was forbidden to call, even jokingly, “bewitched” or “she-demon” but only, at most, “poor creature,” it would be necessary to extend somewhat the house situated on the south bank of the river of Paris, close to the castle, with its law court and its execution chamber. In the meantime Abulafia was in a hurry to leave for the south, for his summer meeting in the Spanish March, but it became plain to him that Esther-Minna’s bewilderment of the previous year had not vanished but had now changed into a feeling of panic. The very thought that the man who was soon to be her husband was partner to a savage Jew who, out of ignorance or unbridled lust, possessed two wives, to whom he might one day add a third, terrified this woman who was no longer young, and she demanded before Abulafia left that after the distribution of the previous year’s profits he should not take the new merchandise but should share out his part between the other two partners and bid farewell to his uncle, who now, hearing these words, was so startled that he almost put the crumbling ember into his mouth.
But why? Ben Attar’s voice was choked. His northern partner tried to mumble a reply that would set his mind at rest—that he had deliberately waited until Abu Lutfi had left them, so as not to embarrass his kinsman on a matter that the Ishmaelite too took pride in. Since he himself was still far not only from becoming accustomed to Mistress Esther-Minna’s capricious demand, whose firmness was already visible in a slight softening of his black pupils, but even from understanding her reasons, he tried first to explain her repudiation by her peculiar quality of human sensitivity, for her heart grieved for all that the first wife was denied when a second wife arrived. But how so? Ben Attar retorted at once. Two wives might help each other to support their husband in every way and might on occasion transform their conjugal desires into a longing that only enriched and purified their love. And who knew better than Abulafia himself how miserable a single wife might also be? Abulafia listened very attentively and nodded his head in agreement. How sad, he said, that Ben Attar could not explain these delicate matters to his fiancée himself, for he himself had forgotten them in his long years as a widower. But since he had not yet made up his mind to accede to her demand and dissolve their partnership, he would endeavor to remember Ben Attar’s words and use them to assuage his bride, and when he came to the next summer’s meeting, if God willed it, he would bring with him her acceptance.