But while the first wife, unable to restrain herself despite her normally calm and easygoing nature, let out an anguished cry, the second wife recoiled in terror and quickly placed her hands on the lower part of her belly, to protect something that had been occupying her mind these last days as much as her only son, whose last image, standing on the seashore in a little red robe, holding tightly on to her parents’ hands, had floated before her eyes every single day of the journey when she lay down and rose up. Ben Attar, who could immediately discern her panic, even though he did not know yet what was burgeoning in her body, reached out to her with his large hand, and without giving a thought to his neighbors he laid it in her lap, and a light touch seemed to suffice to steady the youthful body.
But during the night he had to go back and forth between bedchambers, to explain and coax, to soothe and comfort, to promise and threaten, so that by dawn, with his practical, Mediterranean wisdom, he could hurry to his ship, which every day seemed to him to have shrunk, to give new orders. There he found his faithful partner seated near the camel, which was diligently chewing its cud after an evening meal in the kitchen garden of the convent of Sainte Geneviève, and he cautiously insinuated into the consciousness of the Ishmaelite the new matter of the additional overland journey. Although Abu Lutfi strove with all his gentile being not to understand this new turn in the wars of the Jews, since he knew that he would have trouble comprehending their full intent, and because he knew from experience that no Jew could truly get the better of another Jew but would only antagonize him, he accepted the news of the additional overland journey with the desert calm he had inherited from his fathers’ fathers, especially since it seemed to his joy that he himself would be exempted.
For Ben Attar had decided to leave the Ishmaelite in Paris, both to protect the ship from its unruly crew and also to begin to sell some of the goods that had been unloaded. However, he had made up his mind to enlist the captain for the overland journey, to ensure that during his prolonged absence the sailors did not try to slink back to North Africa with the ship. Also he was certain that one who had conveyed him so safely and skillfully over the waves of the ocean would succeed in doing the same over solid land. But Abd el-Shafi would not easily agree to exchange the identity of sea captain for that of simple wagoner. It would be necessary not only to offer him a further reward but also to agree to take along an additional stalwart sailor, so the captain would have someone on land to give orders to.
It may have been the additional Ishmaelite element in the journey that made the Jewish merchant decide to travel to the Rhine not in one wagon but in two, one large and one smaller, each drawn by two horses, selected for their speed as well as their strength. The smaller wagon, which was upholstered in soft fabrics and woolen cloth and scattered with fragrant spices and yellow cheeses, was intended for the three women, who for the purposes of the journey were united to form a single contingent, and for the Elbaz boy, who might cushion the wives’ yearning for their distant children. As for the larger wagon, it was to carry the three Jewish men, and it was also loaded with the choicest of the wares from the ship, such as bags of condiments, carefully chosen bolts of silk, earthen jars full of olive oil, slabs of honeycomb, and gleaming brassware that would make potential purchasers’ eyes light up even in the darkest forests. The first wife, who after a stormy night had decided to reconcile herself to the overland journey, sent for some coarse dark cloth from the ship and of her own accord cut out and stitched a pair of black jerkins for the two Ishmaelite seamen on the pattern of that worn by Master Levitas, so as to conceal their ragged clothes and to make them more appealing, when the time came, to the Jews of Ashkenaz.
After some frantic preparations, made hastier by the approach of the Days of Awe, which they would spend, if all went well, on the banks of the Rhine, the day of their departure dawned. The two wagons had been standing since the previous evening at the entrance to the Rue de la Harpe, not far from the splashing fountain of Saint Michael, and the two seamen transformed into wagoners were already sleeping inside them. Before dawn, in the last watch of the night, Ben Attar went to the ship to take his leave of Abu Lutfi one last time and to shed certain old worries so as to make room for the new ones mounting within him. For the first time since he had set sail from the port of Tangier in late June he found his ship wrapped in deep slumber, and even the little rope ladder that was normally left hanging over the port side was drawn up on deck, so that no stranger might disturb her rest.
For a while he stood silently on the bridge, hoping that someone would notice him without his having to shout. Then he felt the great weight of tiredness within him, and he felt very jealous at the sight of the peacefulness of the ship and those on board her, as though it were only when her Jewish owner was away that they could find real repose. What is it, he mused in a fit of sharp self-hatred, that forces me to be so stubborn about my partnership? Why can I not let Abulafia disappear among these northern Jews and forget him forever? Why must the repudiation of this little blue-eyed woman trouble my rest and grieve my heart? Surely in agreeing to face a law court in her native town I am admitting her superiority to me, even if I win the case? And in any case, what do we lack in the south that forces us to believe we shall find it here in the north? After all, we shall never meet until the Messiah son of David comes, and when he does come, we shall all be redeemed and become something else. Is it really because of the damage to my business that I am undertaking a further arduous journey? Or do I, as Rabbi Elbaz hinted, have an arrogant longing to submit the double love of my household to yet another test precisely because I am so confident and sure of it?
A splashing sound roused the merchant from his musings. From deep in the hold, the black slave had sensed his master standing helplessly beside his ship and was hurrying to his aid by lowering the ladder. Suddenly Ben Attar felt an urge to touch the black head, which Abu Lutfi sometimes laid in his lap to warm his limbs. What could Jews who sat hidden in their distant schoolhouses know, he thought, smiling to himself, of such a noble black creature as this? Would it not be right for him to take the slave along as a further specimen of merchandise, a kind of miniature replica of Africa itself, to teach those stubborn sages, who were so eager to surround themselves with walls of statutes, how large and varied was the world in which their brethren and kinsfolk roamed? All unawares, for the first time he stroked the youth’s hot black skull. The caress of such an honored hand at once clouded the slave’s eyes and made his head whirl.