For several days Ben Attar had known that his first meeting with his nephew and business partner had to take place in total privacy, without the presence of the new wife or any of her stern kinsfolk. Nevertheless, it must not be a chance or secret encounter, in an alley or a field, but upon the very threshold of Abulafia’s house, so that the sacred duty of hospitality, which was supposed to be ingrained in a southern man like second nature, would overcome, by the force of tradition and habit, any attempt on the part of the new wife or her severe young brother to extend the repudiation that had been pronounced against him into a veritable interdict, which would instantly dash all the hopes of the bold expedition. Consequently, it was not only an element of agility and surprise that was needed, but also detailed prior knowledge of the house to which the merchant from Tangier was intending to introduce not only himself but also his two wives, who, once their way had been smoothed by the rabbi from Seville with appropriate scriptural verses, would express merely through their placid existence the image of happiness and love that the arbitrary edict emanating from a small town in Ashkenaz sought to destroy.
And so, on learning that afternoon from a pair of fishermen that the town of Paris was waiting to appear around the next bend in the river, Ben Attar had instructed Abd el-Shafi to halt the ship, and prepared himself to go ashore. He had briefly entertained a mischievous thought of surprising Abulafia in his own disguise of a monk or a leper, but he had immediately dismissed it, fearing some theological question he would be unable to answer. Thus he had made do with the garb of an Andalusian Christian who, weary of the Ishmaelites, was seeking out holy places—although, according to Abulafia, it did not seem that this town was particularly notable for sacred sites that might attract a pilgrim from far-off lands. He got his wives to stitch him together a multicolored robe compounded of various styles, so that it would be hard to pin him down to a single identity.
Yet he knew he must not venture alone into a strange city, for a man on his own may vanish without a trace, while two men can always testify for each other, if not in this world then in the next. At first he thought of taking the rabbi from Seville with him, in order to interpret the unfamiliar Capetian environment by means of the Latin he commanded, and also to exercise some legal authority over the Jews whose repudiation he had come to contest. But on further reflection Ben Attar decided that it would be better not to reveal all his weaponry at the outset, and he did not know whether Rabbi Elbaz had recovered from the poetic intoxication that had laid hold of him on the ocean. He thought of taking Abu Lutfi, in the hope that his wronged Ishmaelite presence might make Abulafia feel some remorse for the merchandise that had been so laboriously amassed and so casually brushed aside. But eventually he abandoned this thought too. It was not right that he should leave two tender women and a rabbi utterly transported by poesy to the mercy of sailors who, notwithstanding their honest comportment in the course of the voyage, were nevertheless total strangers; and it was also fitting to ensure that there would be somebody on the ship who would be able to sail her back to North Africa if, heaven forbid, he should disappear in this unknown city.
Whom did he have left? In his heart of hearts Ben Attar would have liked to take his sea captain, not only because he would probably have somewhere in his mind some useful ancient lore from the Viking attacks on Paris at the end of the previous century, but because of his pleasing disposition and his honest, open look. But how could one leave a sailing ship laden with merchandise in a coursing river without a captain? As a last resort he thought of taking one of Abd el-Shafi’s burly seamen with him. But again doubts began to nag. This might be just what the stern new wife was waiting for, that he should turn up on her doorstep with a simple, rough, threadbare Arab seaman, so that she could say, So this is the living wild source of your partner’s desire. Or should he take the young black along with him? The slave’s sharp desert senses would certainly guide him straight to the house on the strength of a whiff of Abulafia’s scarf, but his rampant thirst for idolatry would have him prostrating himself before the silver ritual chalice in the home of the Parisian Jews, kneeling before the Sabbath candlesticks, and rendering Ben Attar’s own religion profoundly suspect. Consequently, it might be best for him to go on his own. But as he raised his eyes heavenward to seek encouragement from his God, who had been so kind to him and his ship during the long voyage, he noticed young Elbaz swaying at the masthead, and said to himself in the words of Scripture, It seems that this was the lad I was praying for, not only because a man who has a child with him preserves his humanity even in a strange city, but also because if Abulafia insisted on rejecting him, the child might remind him of his own childhood, when his uncle had taken him to the seaside and held him in the waves, yet always took him home safe and sound.
And so they walked, the ship owner and the little rabbi’s son, on this mild evening toward the city. The road they were following was so wide and straight that it might be properly termed an avenue, and after a long time there opened out before them a huge square, and Ben Attar asked the boy to help him erect a small column of stones in its center, as a landmark for their return, in case they were obliged to return alone. From there, still in the same eastward direction, they walked between little squares of green and neatly trimmed bushes, and past a pool of water behind which another stone arch could be seen, only this was a tiny one, only chest height, perhaps a miniature copy of the big one on the hill. If the two travelers had turned around, they would have seen, even at this twilight hour, the straight line that extended between the two arches, but their faces were looking straight ahead, toward the lights of little lanterns swaying all along the river toward the city, and the first faces of the somewhat noisy Parisians themselves, with their sharp features, their watchful eyes, a bald patch at the top of their skulls and shaven faces after the manner of players.
Meantime the island was filled with little lights, as though the inhabitants were vying with one another to display their personal light. In the throng of men and women strolling vociferously along the river, little Elbaz suddenly lost his self-confidence, and the hand that upon the ocean had held firmly to the tip of the mast gave way to panic and now laid hold of Ben Attar’s robe, which despite its striking colors attracted no attention from anyone, as though these strangers were walking not into a remote provincial town in darkest Europe but into a real metropolis, like Cordoba or Granada in Andalus, cities that receive many foreign visitors every single day without favoring them with so much as a second glance. Is it the boy who is inspiring such trust all around us, Ben Attar wondered, or do the local folk possess such self-confidence that they can receive any stranger without hostility, so long as he is ready to converse with them?