In the silence that encompassed her, she was unable to feel, as she had hoped, the beating of her husband’s heart. All she could feel was the painful and unfamiliar outline of his ribs. With a strange selfish thrill she reflected that not only had her own body become gaunt from seasickness and meager rations, but her husband’s sturdy frame too was becoming lean from constant worry about the future of his business, which was threatened, more than anything else, by his marriage to her. And now a venomous gleam flickered in her beautiful, slightly myopic eyes, which had so far been narrowed to slits and now opened in offense. She looked contentedly at what in her bedroom at home merely appeared and disappeared between her body and the sheets, whereas here it was entirely revealed, shrunk into itself, as though it had changed into a mouse. So sorry did she feel for that part of her husband’s body and for herself that she lifted her head a little, and still without looking at the face of the man who had bound himself before her, she began to speak about the first wife, which she had never dared to do before.
A shiver of fear shook Ben Attar, and his eyes closed. He had become accustomed on this long voyage, in the evening twilight, when the waves swallowed the last traces of the sun, to sometimes finding the two women sitting on the bridge where in bygone days captains had commanded battles. With their gaudy veils fluttering in the sea breeze, they exchanged words without looking at each other, with blank faces, like a pair of spies. He had the feeling that throughout this long sea voyage they were passing to each other the most hidden secrets touching him, and his heart swelled with dread, and also with excitement, at the thought of the horizons of desire that extended before the three of them. And sometimes he went so far as to imagine that he could bring to Abulafia’s new wife in Paris, who was pitting herself against him, not only a living proof that would overcome her opposition but a new, sharp temptation that she would have no defense against—a temptation that he could now feel upon his flesh, in his loins, here in the swaying cabin, between the slurping of the water, the smells of the spices, and the quiet groaning of the young camels, as the young wife questioned him about his lovemaking earlier in the night and answered her own questions.
Her answers caught the picture and the feeling as accurately as if she had somehow participated in that lovemaking, and as if even now that she was alone she did not want to let go, at least in speech, of what he had done to the first wife. Panic-stricken, he tried to free his hands, which were coiled in his silver chain, and take hold of her face and stop her mouth. But the coils that had been meant to be symbolic had become all too real, and as soon as she discerned his purpose she started to struggle, as fiercely and desperately as if he were to be made to pay not just for what he had done earlier to the first wife but for all the unrequited excitement that had quickened within her as she watched the sailors wandering around half naked on deck.
Angrily she reached out to catch the minuscule mouse, as though she wanted to strangle it or even to tear it apart, but the mouse disappeared, and in its place there reared up a gentle young snake, which soon hardened into a fierce lizard that tried to escape from between her fingers and lay its thin vertical lips upon her eyeballs. Then, from the lust that moved painfully before her, she knew that her husband was regretting having tied himself up, and her spirit began to be appeased, for now that he was bound helplessly, not spontaneously, she was able to remove her shift and take from him slowly and right to the end everything that he owed her, not only since they had set sail on this voyage but ever since her father had given her to him as wife, even if she ended up dragging out of herself a wild moan that would rouse the boy sleeping on the other side of the curtain.
But the loud groan that almost turned into a shriek of pleasure did not even scrape the outer shell of Rabbi Elbaz’s son’s consciousness, so deeply was he immersed in youthful slumber. Instead, it startled the young slave, who had crept back to warm himself against the lordly bodies of the young camels and to remind himself of the smell of the desert from which he had been snatched. Virgin though he was, he understood only too well the meaning of the groans, which flooded his heart, as though through two curtains his master’s rod had pierced him too. He stroked the hindparts of the two camels, who also, to judge by their closed eyes, understood what it was that was echoing around them. Who knew, he thought, if they too would not be slaughtered and cooked before the ship reached the city? He wanted to bow his head and pray to the spirit of the fragrant bones that death would draw out of them, but eventually he gave up and shinned up the rope ladder to disappear before the Jew came out and flogged him, even though this time he had sinned by hearing alone and not by seeing. He was suddenly seized with a longing to enter the little cabin in the bow and see the smile of the first wife, whose white body he had seen gleaming earlier in the night. At this time he could go wherever his spirit wished, for the ship was still, every last sailor was asleep, himself excepted. He was kept awake and alert from the start of the night to its end by the divinity that emanated from everything, so that in these last moments of the night he became the true master of the ship, and if he wished he could even weigh anchor and hoist the triangular sail, and instead of sailing east along the river and into the heart of Europe he could head due west and sail beyond the horizon into a new world.
But a little bird striking a rope with its wings proclaimed that dawn was nigh. Before he had time to bow down and worship before its tiny holiness, it gave a chirp and sped off toward a new speck of light moving into the horizon of the new continent. Even though it was but a speck, it was sufficient to wake Rabbi Elbaz, of whom the rhyming words of the poem that had been swaying all night between his thoughts and his dreams demanded order and logic. But since the fine rays of light drawn slowly from the land were still too faint to illuminate the lines rustling on the paper concealed among the sheepskins that were his bed, he took on deck only his quill pen, which soon, as the light grew stronger, he would be able to sharpen and dip into his inkhorn, and then he would be able to insert the correct word in place of the empty space that had been waiting for it for several days. He bowed his head in shamed gratitude to the black slave, who now handed him the morning dish, fat olives drowned in an oily sauce in which to dip pieces of the warm bread that lay beside it. For forty days now he had sailed in this boat, and still he felt embarrassed whenever this slave waited on him, as though he were unworthy of it. After the birth of his only son, his wife had been so weak that he had assumed all the household chores himself. And he had enjoyed the housework that he was forced to do in her place, openly or secretly, so much that since her death he had found it hard to remarry, for where would he find a healthy wife who would consent to be waited on by him?
And so now, as bundles of gray cloud floated in the air, he ate with bowed head, holding the platter between his hands, careful not to make a movement or say a word that might encourage the young slave to continue to wait upon him, lest the slave would get carried away and prostrate himself and kiss the hem of the rabbi’s threadbare robe. He had done this one evening, seized by a powerful religious feeling, and the rabbi had been compelled to complain about him to Abu Lutfi, who had flogged his protégé prodigiously. But no, this time the young man did not seem to be returning to his old ways. As the morning mist thickened, with his master’s two acts of lovemaking and the smell of wine, which still wafted around the deck, a mighty tiredness had befallen him, and now, for all his youth, he would have gladly lain down and died upon the sail folded at his feet. But he still had to carry out Ben Attar’s orders and make certain that the rabbi did not toss all his olive stones overboard but hide one in the pouch suspended near his heart, to ensure the correct counting of the days, for it had already happened that the Jews had lost count of their sacred seventh day. This morning the rabbi did not neglect his task as timekeeper, and after sucking the juicy flesh of the last olive he placed the stone with the five others and smiled cordially at the young slave, who was so exhausted that he could scarcely stagger to the first wife, who had just climbed up, her heavy body draped in a red embroidered robe, onto the old bridge, where she stood as splendidly as though she were the caliph himself. He did not know if she wanted some of the honey drink that he concocted for her each morning, or if she wished first to discover whether all had passed well there in the stern of the ship. He stood motionless for a moment, his weary young body torn asunder by conflicting forces. But Abu Lutfi’s stern voice, as he came to rouse the sleeping crew, spurred the slave’s legs on toward the regal woman, around whom the mist that was thickening as the daylight grew brighter wafted like incense. Already he could discern an unfamiliar hint of anxiety clouding her round, bright face, which was lit as always by a pleasant smile, and his soul longed to soothe her care, but he did not know what to say or how to say it, and so he closed his eyes and began to sigh deeply, once and then once more, as though he were trying to transmit to her all the second wife’s sighs of satisfaction and cries of pleasure.