He stopped suddenly, pressing his hands upon his stomach, groaning with pain.
“He is the Devil!” some shouted.
“He has looked at him with his evil eye!”
“Look away, everyone!”
“He will kill us all!”
They turned their backs upon me and hid their faces. Rabbi Sholom covered his head with a tallith.
Late at night, Joseph entered my room on tiptoes.
“Isaac,” he whispered, “Isaac—leave at once! They are planning to kill you and Kotikokura. They blame you for the plague. They claim that your evil eye killed a Chasid.”
“I know, Joseph. I shall leave. Will you accompany me?”
He looked at me, his eyes filled with tears.
“Come with me, Joseph! The world is beautiful.”
He looked at me reproachfully.
I placed my hands upon his shoulders. “Joseph, you are like the friends of my youth, long ago—longer than you imagine. It is for their sake I cherish you. Believe me, I am neither the Devil nor a magician. I do not mean to destroy your soul, but to show you the way to discover it.”
He wept bitterly.
Kotikokura meanwhile was becoming impatient.
“Do not fear, Kotikokura, we have time enough to escape.”
He looked at Joseph angrily.
“At most, he can be with us a few paltry years,” I whispered.
Kotikokura grinned, pacified.
“Meet me at the gate, on the stroke of twelve!”
Joseph nodded and left.
As we reached the road that led to the gate, we saw dangling from a withered tree, like an immense and grotesque cat or monkey, the body of a man. We approached. The body remained perfectly still. Kotikokura, whose eyes glittered in the dark like a tiger’s, recognized Joseph.
“Perhaps he is not dead yet. We may be able to save him.”
Kotikokura began to climb up the tree.
I stopped him. “Don’t! It is best not to disturb him. He can never overcome his environment; nor can he accept it again. Poor Joseph symbolizes his own existence—suspended between two worlds and belonging to neither!”
We walked along the shore of the Guadalquivir. The sun had not yet risen, but wide strips of red were already visible on the horizon. Here and there, upon the river, a fisherman’s boat turned lightly about itself. From time to time, a dog barked and a cock crowed. Seagulls, fat and slick, uttered ominous screams.
“Kotikokura, you have seen my people and you have not found them to your taste.”
He nodded.
“Poverty is like a horse’s hoofs crushing delicate flowers. You must not judge my people too severely.”
He nodded.
“Perhaps it was my fault, Kotikokura. I was indeed as a son returning to his parental roof. I was offered the toys and dishes I had enjoyed as a child,—but I am no longer a child.”
He nodded.
“In the Christian world, I am not a Christian. Among the Mohammedans, I am a stranger. To the Jews, I seem a wicked magician, bringing about the plague. I do not belong anywhere, Kotikokura,” I sighed.
Kotikokura sighed also.
“But that is the destiny of man. I am Man—and man is always a stranger among men. I am not the Wandering Jew, but the Wandering Man.”
“Ca-ta-pha—god; Kotikokura—high priest.”
“God or man,—I am. Life is. We are two parallel lines, running on always—perhaps. Life knows no favorites. Henceforth I shall know neither creed nor race. I am free, Kotikokura! Free!” I shouted.
Kotikokura echoed: “Free!”
“Kill the Jews! Burn the Ghetto! Drive the dogs into the sea!” Córdoba had become a giant mouth, vituperating and threatening the Jews. “Kotikokura, before long, there will be much slaughter here. We must seek fairer shores. Come!”
LV: THE QUEEN PAWNS HER JEWELS—I DO BUSINESS WITH ABRAHAM—I FINANCE COLUMBUS
THE snow fell leisurely, in tiny flakes like confetti. The sun shone, but a little dimly like an eye opening after sleep. The bells of all the churches rang. The people threw their hats into the air, shouting: “Long live the King!” A regiment of infantry preceded by officers on horseback passed by, laughing and calling their women. Children turned little wooden toys that made a deafening noise.
We entered a wine-shop crowded with people.
“What say you, Magister, to the notion that the earth is round and that we can reach the Indies by water?”
The Magister, an old shriveled up individual, toothless and almost gumless, piped: “Nonsense! There is nothing about it in Aristotle.”
“But Marco Polo, Magister, claims– —”
“Who is Marco Polo? Who is anybody? Aristotle never said that the earth is round!”
“Cristóbal Colón is pledging his head and the heads of all his sailors– —”
“Nonsense!”
“They say that the Queen is willing to sell her jewels to finance his wild expedition.”
“Women are always credulous.”
“If it prove true, Spain will become the richest nation in the world, rivaling Rome in the days of her greatest glory.”
“If—If—” the Magister repeated. “I have always taught my pupils to detest that word! The earth is flat. Aristotle– —”
A Jew entered. He was short, stout, and breathed heavily through his mouth. His beard, the color of carrots, sprinkled with threads of white, did not hide his heavy sensuous lips. His eyes, small and deeply set, shone like beads which supplant the lost luminaries of stuffed birds. His kaftan was threadbare and covered with grease spots.
“The Jew! The Jew!” a few called out.
“Make him eat pork.”
“Give him the cross to kiss—the circumcised dog!”
“Put him on the rack!”
One of the soldiers pulled the Jew’s beard. The other spat in his face. The Jew wiped himself and remained unperturbed.
The Innkeeper seemed unusually cordial to him.
“Give me another month’s time, Abraham. I could not get the money together. What with the wars, and my wife’s sickness– —”
Abraham waved his hand. “I know. I know. I have not come for that. I am looking for two merchants that have recently arrived in Granada.”
“Two merchants?”
Abraham espied us.
“They look like foreigners, do they not?” he asked the Inn keeper.
The Innkeeper nodded. “Yes. With all the crowd here, I did not notice them.”
“Will you ask them to be good enough to meet me outside?”
Abraham walked out. The Innkeeper came over. “Señores,” he whispered, “the Jew who has just been here—he is the richest merchant in Granada—begs to speak to you. He is waiting outside.”
“Very well.”
Abraham bowed several times, his small stubby hands upon his belly.
“Welcome, señores, to Granada. Welcome! Welcome!”
He reminded me of Don Juan’s parrot.
“The gentlemen come from a long journey, do they not?”
“Yes, a very long journey.”
He rubbed his hands. They produced no noise, as if they had been oiled.
“India?” he asked, smiling obsequiously.
“Yes.”
“Ah, how fortunate am I to have the honor of speaking to gentlemen who come from India! Was the trip very long?”
“Very long.”
“And dangerous too, I presume.”
I nodded.
He clicked his tongue. “How much courage is required to travel! How many are lost on the way!”
I nodded.
“Marco Polo tells such terrible things, señor—but such marvels, too.”
“I have not read his book.”
“No? Is it possible? ‘Mirabilia Mundi’ he calls it. I have not read it either. It is written in Latin. We are allowed to read only the holy language, señor. But a friend of mine, a bishop– —” he grinned, “he owes me some money—related Marco Polo’s adventures to me.”