So Ben Attar strode off dejectedly to seek out another co-religionist, who would stand with him against a loneliness that he had never acknowledged before and that now flooded his whole being. Since the rabbi was fast asleep, he drew aside the thin partition to inspect the girl, his own kin, who was sailing back to her birthplace as a counter-pledge. Only now, in the silent moonlight that contended with the first rays of dawn, did he observe how the baby who had crawled on board the first boat to Barcelona had grown and filled out. A strange idea gripped him—to surprise Abulafia and his wife and to give them back at their meeting in the Spanish March a little girl who was betrothed, if not actually wed. If he persisted, there was no doubt that despite the enchantment or, who knew, even because of it, he would be able to find someone who would want to make love with the heavy but lush and youthful form that was now sleeping, cramped and curled up, in the tiny cabin. Despite her accursed enchantment, she recalled the beauty of a young woman who had abandoned her and disappeared into the depths of the sea.
Now he rose, so surprised at the new thought that had been born in him that he could not find rest or return to his bed before descending into the belly of the ship, of which he still considered himself the sole master, to check not only whether Abu Lutfi was really keeping watch but also whether the three blue-eyed women were still attached together at their long legs. There in the bowels of the ship, it turned out that one of the women had fallen suddenly sick and had been loosed from her bonds, and was sitting in a corner, pale and trembling, with her head thrown back, covered in a soiled and torn silk robe that had been found among the sooty timbers. Ben Attar, recognizing with pain the source of the torn robe, stood silently staring at the blue eyes, which opened and turned in defeat to his feet, and at the thin hands of the idol-worshipper, who was clutching the image of an animal. Because he knew that he would never, ever touch her, or her companions, he went back up on deck.
The North African Jew thought to himself, This is what the new wife and all her wise friends who dwell on the Rhine desire—that from now on I shall take on every day anew, but only in my mind will there be crumbs and tatters of a second wife who has vanished. He was enfolded in such deep sorrow that he could not resist waking Rabbi Elbaz to look him straight in the face and tell him how great was the defeat he had suffered, for the renewed partnership between north and south could never atone or comfort him for what he had lost forever on this journey.
But the rabbi from Seville, caught up in his own sleepy thoughts, heard the words of the ship’s owner as he lamented for what he had lost as if all the troubles of the world were subsumed in this sorrow. It was as if they would not soon have to face the waves of the raging ocean, where the river flowed into the sea and an ancient sunken Viking ship stood like a great bird, and fierce northern winds would turn the fate of the second wife into a gentle, easy story compared to the story of what awaited her husband and his party. Suddenly the little rabbi was filled with joy at having agreed to leave his son with Mistress Abulafia, so that despite the millennium he could return safely overland to his home. He already imagined Master Levitas and his sister clothing the child in the black garb of the people of Worms and placing a hat with a horn on his head, and waking him in the morning, a little feverish, to sit and study an ancient text and a new law. Then tears welled in his eyes for the child who was saved, and once more the poetic urge woke within him, to write one more poem, the fourth. He felt around him to see whether that old quill pen and inkwell were still there among the timbers of the cabin. But he found nothing. And so he was compelled, to the accompaniment of Ben Attar’s long drawn-out keening, to save in his head the first line that had composed itself inside him: Is there a sea between us, that I should not turnaside to visit thee…
Haifa, 1994–1996
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About the Author
Born in Jerusalem in 1936, A.B. Yehoshua is the author of nine novels and a collection of short stories. One of Israel’s top novelists, he has won prizes worldwide for all his novels, and in the UK was shortlisted in 2005 for the first Man Booker International Prize. He continues to be an outspoken critic of both Israeli and Palestinian policies.
By A.B. Yehoshua
The Continuing Silence of a Poet: The Collected Stories of A.B. Yehoshua
The Lover
A Late Divorce
Five Seasons
Mr Mani
Open Heart
A Journey to the End of the Millennium
The Liberated Bride
A Woman in Jerusalem
Friendly Fire