A Journey to the End of the Millennium

1.

In the second watch of the night, Rabbi Elbaz awoke, suddenly feeling so hungry that the heavy sleep fell away from him even before he realized where he was. At sea the stars in the heavens had caressed his opening eyes and helped him remember, whereas now his eyes were filled only with thick, coal-black darkness. But as he got up and groped at the world around him, he was startled by the warmth of the boy sleeping next to him. He had become accustomed to sleeping without him ever since the child had insisted on descending into the bowels of the ship at night and spreading his bedding near the second wife’s curtain. But here he was beside him, just like in their little house in Seville, curled up lean and fetuslike and sighing occasionally like an old man.

Even though the chamber was warm, the rabbi piled his own coverlet on the young sleeper, then set off in search of something to quell his hunger before he went outside to feel the dome of heaven over his head and relieve the sense of suffocation. Where was Ben Attar? he asked himself, drifting like a sleepwalker along the long winding corridors of this large, complicated house in the hope of finding a stray crust of bread. Had his employer managed to arrive in the wake of his wives, or was he still being compelled to prove to the Parisian guards the innocence of his ship’s intentions? For a moment he tried to locate the merchant by the odor of his clothes, but the new smells of the strange house had dulled the memory of the familiar scent of his fellow travelers. Then, inadvertently and in all innocence, he touched the soft plump back of the first wife, who responded by turning over on her bed with a luxuriant grumble.

When he finally found the kitchen, there was neither a crust of bread nor any other forgotten morsel on the table, but only a pile of bright iron cooking pots and a display of polished copper pans hanging on the wall, reddening with their gleam the pallid glow of the moonlight. But if the kitchen offered no hope of food, there was at least a spiral staircase leading down to the lower story. Only here the darkness was so dense that great resourcefulness was required not only to locate the outer door, which unlike the gracefully ornamented doors of the houses in Seville was clad in crude iron, but also to draw back silently the numerous bolts that restrained it, so as to escape from the hard darkness into the night with its caressing breeze and soft sounds. Despite the lateness of the hour, Paris was not entirely still between her twin banks, and even here, on the deserted southern bank, there could be heard a guttural gurgle of conversation between a man and a woman, who, to judge by the slow yet urgent pace of their talk, did not find the hour too advanced to lust after each other. For a moment the rabbi from Seville was tempted to approach them silently and perfume himself with their love, even if it was couched in a foreign tongue, but fearing that his sudden appearance might be misconstrued, he drew up a large log from the woodpile standing ready for winter and sat to enjoy the pleasant moonlight, first picking off a few pieces of soft bark to chew to still his hunger.

A light hand landed upon him. It was the child, who had woken and come out in search of him. He too pulled out a log, sat down on it, and began to ask questions, which came bursting out of him now, at the tail end of the second watch. Was this the house, were these the people for whom they had bobbed on the ocean waves for so many days and weeks? And would this really be their final stop, or would they sail on upstream to some other destination? Up to now the boy had seemed to ignore the purpose of the journey his father had imposed on him, surrendering his young being enthusiastically to the ship and her crew. But from the moment they had disembarked onto dry land his old nature had returned, and he felt homesick for his little house and everything else—his cousins and his friends, and the earthen flowerpots hanging on the bright blue-painted walls. Why had they gone onto that ship, he asked his father grumpily, and what was their business in this gloomy house? And if Ben Attar did decide to stay here with his wives, who would take them back to Andalus? Would another ship come to fetch them? Or would they go home overland? The father tried to revive his son’s flagging spirits, and after promising him that the day was not far off when they would return to Seville, he tried to explain again the purpose of the expedition, telling him about the partnership that had been built up in the course of many years, and its disruption on account of Abulafia’s remarriage and his new wife’s alarm at the idea of two women being married to one man. When he saw that his son had difficulty comprehending Mistress Esther-Minna’s animosity toward Ben Attar, Rabbi Elbaz drew the child’s bowed head toward him, to look into his eyes and see whether, despite his youth and innocence, he was capable of both understanding the new wife’s fears and guessing the meaning of the replies his father was preparing. Surely he had spent so many days close to the merchant and his two wives, both on deck and in the hold, that he would be better placed than anyone else to testify whether there was any suffering or sorrow there.

What sorrow? What suffering? the boy whispered to his father in astonishment. That’s just the Point, his father replied immediately with a smile. This was exactly how he must explain it to Abulafia’s new wife, so that she would rescind her repudiation of the partnership. That was why Ben Attar had ventured upon the ocean waves and, not content with coming himself, had brought both his wives with him, so they too might testify in his favor. And that was why he himself had been hired for the journey, to bear witness that in the eyes of God too this double bond was pleasing. This new wife set great store by the will of God. And if—here the father winked at his son—the child too would testify to the easy and affectionate relations prevailing between the two wives … But the boy, alarmed at his father’s intention of involving him, was seized by a vague terror, and with a new stubbornness he ducked out from under his father’s caressing hand. No, he wouldn’t say a word. He didn’t know a thing. He would say nothing. The father’s smile froze now on his face, not only because of his son’s dogged refusal but at the sight of a line of black-clad, singing monks processing calmly down the narrow street, waving billowing censers, either to atone for the sins of the day that was past or to send abroad a fragrant enticement for the day that was to come. The sudden sight of two strangers sitting beside the door of the Jews’ house in the middle of the night startled the monks so much that for a moment they stood rooted to the spot, before hurriedly crossing themselves and departing.

The child trembled at the sight of the monks vanishing toward the nearby monastery of Saint Germain, whose bell rang to greet them, and he entreated his father to go indoors. The father, however, was troubled by a new thought on account of the boy’s firm refusal to support him in his testimony in favor of Ben Attar’s double marriage. Is it possible that the boy can see what I am not willing to see? he thought to himself, and he decided to take another look at the texts that Ben Attar had brought from Tangier in the name of the sage Ben Ghiyyat, in the hope of finding an apposite verse or a telling parable from the words of the sages and ancients to strengthen their case. Before the day dawned, he resolved to return to the ship and rummage in the ivory casket that had been left behind, and at the same time to relieve the hunger occasioned by his long sleep.

But the child refused to return alone to the strange dark house and insisted on going with his father, saying that he remembered the way back very well. Because he did not know that the ship he had left two days earlier had meanwhile been brought closer to the island, at first he denied it was the same one and insisted that it was a different one that simply resembled their own, which was moored farther away. Elbaz had difficulty in getting the boy to admit his mistake, perhaps because the old guardship really had changed and seemed to have shrunk in the intervening hours. The large triangular sail had completely disappeared, and the old shields and ornaments that had adorned the ship’s sides had been removed. But when Abu Lutfi, hearing the sounds of argument breaking the still of the night, called to them from the deck, the boy was forced to admit that it really was the selfsame ship whose mast had slid between his skinny legs for so many days that it had become like a part of his body.

At once the black slave was sent ashore in a dinghy to fetch the returning passengers. Despite the short time that had elapsed since their last leavetaking, Abu Lutfi was glad to have the rabbi back on board, hoping that his holy presence might restore some order to the ship—for from the moment she had reached her final berth and been tied up on the northern shore of the Seine a certain licentiousness had begun to proliferate on board, not only because her owner was away but because of the absence of his two wives, whose quiet, courtly presence had held the winds in check. When the rabbi and his son climbed on board, they were confronted by a mess of dirty plates and a group of sleeping drunkards sprawled before Abd el-Shafi, who was seated aloft on the old bridge, wrapped in a leopard skin that he had helped himself to from the hold and humming an old tune that had probably been sung by the Vikings when they had attacked this town a hundred years before. Seeing the rabbi walking across the deck, the captain let fly a vulgar expression that he would never have used during the long journey. But the rabbi ignored it, hesitating as he was between looking for the ivory casket and quelling his hunger pangs. Fearing that immoderate eating might shed reproach on the hospitality of Abulafia and his wife, he decided to descend into the hold and slake his craving with dried figs and carobs. But Abu Lutfi, observing how hungry he was, gave orders for a meal of fish from the new river to be prepared for the two visitors.

While awaiting this meal of the third watch, which was already introducing a fine sliver of light into the sky over the darkened city, the rabbi went in search of the ivory casket. When the muse had taken hold of him off the rugged coast of Brittany, the casket had vanished, and he had completely forgotten about it. He could not locate it amid the jumble of clothes and objects in his cabin, nor was it in Ben Attar’s. Climbing back up to the old bridge, he sought the little casket among the bundles and under the leopard skin that adorned Abd el-Shafi, who stared at him drunkenly, but there was no trace of it. Had Abu Lutfi included it among the merchandise to be offered for sale? Cautiously he questioned the Ishmaelite partner, who instantly swore that he would never dare to touch a casket containing holy words. Had one of the women taken it, then? the rabbi wondered. But they could not read. Out of respect, the rabbi considered sending his son to search their cabins, but eventually he mustered the determination to go himself, in case the search brought him some further helpful understanding. Entering first the first wife’s cabin in the bow, he saw at once that it had been completely cleared, leaving behind nothing but a faint lingering hint of her fragrance in the air. Had she taken her clothes and possessions with her for fear of losing them, or was she preparing herself for a long stay ashore? Either way, most of her belongings had gone, and what little remained was neatly bundled and tied with a red cord and stowed beside her carefully folded bedclothes. The rabbi headed for the hold, where the young camel stood all alone, staring sadly between his front legs at a new Parisian mouse. Before the rabbi found the little cell draped with a curtain, he lost his bearings among the large sacks, but eventually with trembling hands he moved aside the rope mat, and with a lighted candle he stooped and entered and excitedly encountered the second wife’s bed, which had been left covered in a mess of her clothes and other belongings, as though she had fled in a panic with the intention of returning at once. And here, among the smooth silk robes that perfumed his hands, he found the ivory casket, which might have been casually abandoned here or carefully concealed for the purpose of some secret ritual.

Elbaz had not been so close to a woman’s clothes and objects since his wife’s death, and for a moment he was shaken by desire. So he hastily departed, clutching the casket inside his robe and stroking the camel’s delicate narrow head as he passed, out of compassion, and perhaps by way of atoning for the sinful thoughts that had flitted through his mind a moment earlier. On deck he found Abd el-Shafi, who had come down from his seat on the bridge to show the boy how to fillet a fish without damaging it. So well had the rabbi’s son learned his lesson that without being asked he filleted the rabbi’s fish too, and the rabbi, unable to contain himself any longer, threw himself upon the tender white flesh.

Only as dawn was breaking did the rabbi, sated and a little tipsy, manage to reexamine the parchments that Ben Ghiyyat had sent him and understand why he had so neglected them during the last days of the journey that he had almost lost them. The verses from the stories of the patriarchs, judges, and kings that the North African sage had selected and copied in his large, fair hand seemed childish and irksome, far removed from the nobility of the three-cornered love that had sailed beside the rabbi for so many days. Thus he asked Abu Lutfi, who had not taken his eyes off him, to replace the parchments in the ivory casket and keep it under his protection, hidden in a safe place beside his couch. While the Arab reverentially picked up the pieces of parchment, smoothed them, and arranged them in order of size, the rabbi screwed up his eyes in the brightening light and sensed the traces of the couplings that had taken place on the ship now riding quietly on the river. Suddenly he was assailed by a vague excitement, and he swore to himself by the beloved memory of his wife to devote all his power and wisdom to the defence of the integrity of his employer’s family.

But the rabbi from Seville, as he sat deep in thought on the deck of the ship, did not imagine that this pledge of defense would have to be called upon this very day, which was dawning slowly and stirring deep fears not only in Mistress Esther-Minna, who had hardly closed her eyes all night, but also in her brother, Master Levitas, who despite his habitual equanimity and confidence was wondering whether the little tribunal that he had organized so hastily in Villa Le Juif would be able to get to the root of the matter and conclude its work before sunset, so that he would be able to rid his home speedily of this southern company that had taken up residence with excessive alacrity. Even though Ben Attar and his small retinue had made every effort to maintain a polite silence during the night, Mistress Esther-Minna was unable to avoid the feeling that her secure existence was being invaded. Since she had lain awake most of the night, she had been unable not to hear the groaning of the bolts of the front door in the middle of the night and the light footsteps disappearing outside. At first she had tried to restrain herself and had not stirred from her bed. But when a long time had passed and the footsteps did not return, she went downstairs and discovered that the door was wide open, the house was abandoned, and there was no one outside in the street. Then she experienced a strange feeling, joyful, yet painful too, that the second wife might have decided to disappear suddenly, either from fear at what the next day would bring or from a sense of guilt at her redundant status. The thought of that dark young woman wandering all alone outside upset her so much that she decided to waken Abulafia to go out and bring her back, for she now felt stirred by compassion.

Before waking her husband she went to confirm her suspicion, but she found Ben Attar’s first wife sleeping peacefully in her place, and the second wife too in the place that had been allotted her, the wretched girl’s cubicle, lying naked in her husband’s embrace. When Mistress Esther-Minna realized her mistake, she found the courage to draw aside the curtain to the rabbi’s bedchamber, and there she discovered an empty bed. Was it possible, she asked Abulafia as the morning dawned, that the legal genius who had been brought especially from Andalus had already fled the field of combat? But Abulafia refused to believe that. No, it was not, he said; why should he run away? It was evident that for some reason Abulafia was in a very good mood, as if he nursed another secret that his wife did not share.

Indeed, this new happy mood that had come upon Abulafia since his uncle’s astonishing arrival exacerbated his new wife’s constant anxiety for the well-being of her marriage, for despite its sweet and bitter moments, it was still impossible to tell whether its spiritual (as opposed to its emotional and physical) sanctity had yet penetrated her young husband’s heart. Even though she was convinced that the hastily convened tribunal that her brother had arranged in Villa Le Juif would have the skill to repulse this bizarre and impertinent invasion that had originated in the south and attacked them from the west, whether it was personal or religious in nature, still she was nagged by a fear that lurking behind this was a new scheme to revive the proscribed partnership. That would revive Abulafia’s traveling, and he would be once more exposed not merely to the menace of highway robbers but also to the temptation of dual matrimony, which the sturdy uncle was trying to demonstrate in the heart of her home could be undertaken without pain or effort.

In the intensifying light of day, when it was impossible to ignore the happiness not only of Ben Attar but of Abulafia too on seeing Rabbi Elbaz returning from his nocturnal visit to the ship, contented after roaming the narrow streets of the Parisian island and replete after his fish breakfast, Mistress Esther-Minna’s beautiful eyes darkened, and biting her thin lips she went to the yard to gain encouragement from her brother, who was inspecting the wheels of the large wagon that was to transport the parties to their tribunal. Since Ben Attar insisted adamantly that the two wives must accompany them, firm in his faith that their presence at his side would strengthen, not weaken, his case, the driver must be asked to give additional power to the wagon by joining a partner to the stout, shaggy horse that was already standing harnessed and ready. How fortunate, Master Levitas chuckled to himself, that the Ishmaelite partner had remained on the ship and did not demand to be a party in the legal dispute, so that they were spared from having to order a third horse. Handing a coin to the Frankish wagoner, he sent him to hire one of the horses that were plowing a field close to the large monastery. And even though Villa Le Juif was not far away and the whole business should be over by evening, Mistress Esther-Minna’s brother sensibly ordered the servants to make ready plenty of food and drink, as provisions for all the travelers, no matter which side of the barricades they stood on, so that the adjudication should be conducted in a mood of satiety and good cheer on all sides.

Indeed, both parties set forth together in good cheer and comradeship, three on one side of the wagon and four on the other, since the boy chose to sit next to the sturdy Frankish driver, who marveled without cease at the darkness of the little Jew’s skin. As soon as they had laboriously climbed a steep hill, still scattered with the remains of Roman stones and columns from the fine houses of the city of Lutetia, which had been sacked by marauders from the north, the road ran level and smooth past a peasant hut, a field of barley, and a hedge of vines. Thanks to the pleasantness of the road they felt no weariness when at midday, after only three hours of traveling, Master Levitas called a halt so that they could eat in a charming wood, which had not only a stream winding among the trees but also a hillock from which one could see the estate of Villa Le Juif on the horizon. Perhaps because he was convinced that the clear verdict of the tribunal would make this their last meal together, he had decided to embellish it with fine embroidered tablecloths spread upon the ground and with elegant cutlery. And even though Mistress Esther-Minna was perfectly able to arrange everything herself, her brother helped her and sliced the long loaves of bread and the dark cheese and offered the large slices on his knife first to the three men and then, after a moment’s hesitation, to the two women too, whom fear had brought closer to each other ever since they had disembarked from the ship. When Master Levitas felt that his usually firm hand was trembling slightly under the burning looks coming from behind the fine veils, he allowed himself to blush a little and to smile shyly into his little beard, before hastily drawing out of the folds of his robe a red leather-bound prayerbook in Amram Gaon’s edition, which he wanted to compare with the one he had noticed in Ben Attar’s bag, which turned out to be in the edition by Saadia Gaon. This was not merely because of a sudden upsurge of scholarly curiosity, but also so that religious conversation might ensure that this simple meal in the bosom of nature did not become a partaking of the sacrifices of the dead.

All at once Rabbi Elbaz, seized by a troubling thought, hastily thrust away the bread and cheese, which he placed on the plate of the ever-hungry child, and arose in agitation and went to the stream to refresh his face and hands. Then he addressed Master Levitas, who was still feeling the two prayerbooks with his thin fingers, with a question about the character and identity of the tribunal awaiting them on the horizon. Levitas seemed to hesitate slightly, as though he were afraid to enumerate the special merits of the judges, and contented himself with general praise of the good qualities of the Jews in Villa Le Juif, which was the large estate of an extensive family, containing various workmen, servants, and retainers and even a large winery, which made wine untouched by gentile hands for the benefit of those Jews who strictly observed the law concerning the wine of idolatry. A real law court was not needed in such a family estate, where any problems sorted themselves out. But for the sake of the visitors coming from so far, with their southern plaint, he had decided to assemble a special rustic law court.

Indeed, an impression of fertile fields and vineyards welcomed the party before they entered a gate in the moss-clad stone wall that surrounded Villa Le Juif, which consisted of no more than eight or nine single-story buildings arranged around a central courtyard. To judge by the long-haired children who came running up excitedly, the local Jews already seemed to know about the debate that was about to take place in their courtyard. There was no doubt that the knowledge that a rabbi had been specially brought from Andalus to assist in the contest particularly inflamed the locals’ curiosity, which was already very excited, not only because of the pleasure of an argument but also because of the inherent attraction of the subject matter.

This attraction had even drawn in one or two Christians, like wasps to a honeycomb, from the neighboring estates; they pronounced their urgent desire to be present at a dispute between Jews and, who knew, maybe even to assist, thanks to their religious superiority, in the formulation of the verdict. Since word had got around that the two women who were at the center of the case would be present, it was clear to all and sundry that the little synagogue of Villa Le Juif would not suffice for such a gathering, and a more spacious and less sacred place that could contain such a large crowd would be required. Consequently, Meshullam the Priest, the proprietor of the winery and a close friend of Master Levitas, had given orders for the open main hall of the winery, which stood on a lower level, to be cleared, and already the large wooden vats and the jars had been removed, the small casks had been stacked one on top of another, and the piles of wood that had been prepared against the approaching cold weather had been dismantled in order to form a sort of small raised dais on which the judges would sit, so that they could survey not only the parties to the suit but also the feelings of the public standing behind them.

But who will be the judges? Rabbi Elbaz asked Ben Attar this time, but the merchant, who knew nothing, merely descended excitedly but in silence along the rough stone steps leading to the hall, whose dusty floor was stained pink by grape juice oozing from a large wooden press into a deep round basin, from which the foamy liquid exuded a perfumed sweetness. The audience was already waiting there, most of them presumably people who worked in the winery, bearded, bareheaded Jews dressed in faded, shabby clothes, and nearby a group of bare-faced women, their unkempt hair covered by small headscarves, their feet unshod and stained from stomping grapes. Unruly children were running to and fro between the men and women on little errands, their guttural babble mingled with occasional words of Hebrew, whose sounds were completely distorted. But who will choose the judges? the rabbi asked again, still delaying his descent to the lower level, refusing to believe that they were liable so hastily, without real preparation, to miss a fateful, longed-for moment for which they had bobbed on the ocean waves for nearly sixty days.

Have the judges already been appointed? Relentlessly he seized hold of the corner of Abulafia’s black coat as the man shrugged his ignorance and gently guided his two aunts, who raised the hems of their colorful robes so that they should not sweep the dusty steps. He presented them to the proprietor of the winery, who in his turn proudly introduced them to a guest of his own, an oriental courier who had passed through the Land of Israel. A genuine Radhanite, this plump, alert man wearing a green turban was a dealer in precious stones who had arrived a few days previously from the east, bringing with him two large pearls, about whose value and price Master Levitas had not stopped speculating since the previous day. Both sides were now intermingled, and the Moroccan ladies were seated on wine barrels covered in soft tapestries next to the proprietor’s wife, a tall woman with a delicate, sickly face. It was simply impossible to proceed in such haste, thought Rabbi Elbaz, his heart tormented by doubts and stirred by compassion for the second wife, who sat silently, erect, her veil fluttered by a slight breeze that might herald the advent of autumn.

But on what basis were the judges chosen? he repeated, demanding an immediate reply from Master Levitas, who now opened a side door and produced three gaunt men dressed in dusty black caftans, bearing a large parchment roll and a small sheet of green glass. They were scribes specializing in writing scrolls of the Law, phylacteries and amulets for doorposts, brought in from towns in the region to constitute the court. Scribes? the rabbi muttered disappointedly. Men who try to discern what is written merely to copy it over and over again? But Master Levitas thought highly of them. They would be able to judge on the basis of what was written in books. But what books? And what was the point of books? Rabbi Elbaz protested vehemently. If the answer was written explicitly in a book, would it have occurred to him to leave his city and entrust himself to the ocean to demand justice for his employer? Would he have allowed Ben Attar to put his wives at risk for something that was written in a book? But the words of the foreign rabbi made no impression on Master Levitas, and dismissing him with a polite smile, he continued to steer his three judges down to the lower level. The indignant Andalusian had no alternative but to hurry to anticipate them, and leaping onto the small dais, he demanded, in a wild shout that seemed unlikely to issue from such a pleasant, dreamy personality, that the judges should be changed forthwith.

A silence fell. Everyone had heard the shout, but because of his strange accent only a few understood what he was asking, and one of them was Master Levitas, who hastened to silence him. But Abulafia, shaken to the core by the rabbi’s outcry, seized his brother-in-law’s shoulder to restrain him. Even though in a short while he would be called upon to defend himself against the charges brought by the southerners, a strange hope was stirring in his heart that the case for the defense would not succeed, and that the honesty of his good, wronged uncle, combined with the rabbi’s wisdom, would tip the scales against him, for then he would be able to renew his travels to the azure summer meeting in the Spanish March. Since he understood well the rabbi’s shouted demand for the replacement of these judges, who had certainly prejudged the case, he turned to his wife, the blue of whose eyes had been so sharpened by fear since morning that now in the afternoon they looked like gray steel, and gently he pleaded with her to ask her brother to display magnanimity toward the plaintiffs, who had risked their lives to come from so far, and agree to exchange the judges for more suitable people.

Suitable for what? She turned in surprise to face her young, tousled husband, and, weary from her sleepless night, she scanned with a pained look the three gaunt scribes, who, confused by the repudiation that had suddenly attacked them, clung to one another, rolling their eyes in umbrage. Suitable for what? Mistress Esther-Minna asked again angrily, joined by her brother and the disappointed proprietor of the winery, who since yesterday had been doing the rounds of the neighboring villages and estates to assemble the three scribes. But while Abulafia was insisting on explaining to his wife how it might be possible to find true judges, scholars of outstanding wisdom, who would satisfy the visitors, who sought even in this out-of-the-way place the spirit of the wisdom of Andalus, Rabbi Elbaz hastened to pacify the ruffled participants by explaining that it would be proper to make do with the spirit of the ancient sages, which was the true spirit that could transform, say, the whole congregation of simple, goodhearted Jews into a public tribunal that might judge and save either the plaintiff or the defendant, as was stated in so many words in the book of Exodus: to incline after the multitude.

Even Master Levitas, who was a judicious and farsighted man, was confused by the rabbi’s surprising suggestion, but first he tried to read in his sister’s eyes her view about abandoning a dispute that he had seen as settled and sealed in favor of a motley assemblage of grape stampers, barrel rollers, and wine vendors. Before he had managed to catch her eye, he was startled by a softly yet clearly whispered question she put to the little rabbi. All of them? Including the women? And before he could contemplate toning down his sister’s outrageous question, Rabbi Elbaz had astonishingly replied in an enthusiastic whisper, The women? Why not? After all, they too were created in God’s image.

Is this rabbi’s mind completely addled, or will he really lead us on the right path? The North African merchant sank deep in thought, watching closely as his nephew’s beaming face approached his wives’ fine silk veils to whisper into their delicate, gold-ringed ears a translation of the surprising words spoken by a clever woman and a poetic rabbi. The news seemed to arouse neither fear nor panic in Ben Attar’s wives, but only such a great curiosity that they could restrain themselves no longer, and the second wife, closely followed by the first, stripped off her veil, the better to contemplate with kohl-darkened eyes the men and women of Villa Le Juif, who gazed back at them with smiling faces, little suspecting that the place where they were standing was soon to become the judgment seat.

All of them? How is that possible? It will be total chaos, groaned Master Levitas to his sister and the rabbi, suddenly united. The refined Parisian was joined by the proprietor of the winery, who was alarmed at the plan of converting his retainers into judges. And so, after a brief exchange of words, it was agreed by both sides that in accordance with the ancient spirit of the law, it would be sufficient to select seven judges, corresponding to “trial by seven good men of the city.” But since this was not a city and the foreign travelers had no idea who were the best folk among them, the judges would have to be selected by lot. To this end young Elbaz, who had sat himself down in a corner on a small barrel to inhale the fragrance of the wine maturing inside it, was brought forward, blindfolded, and sent out into the sunlight dancing on the treetops to choose seven people by means of a game of blind-man’s buff. A deep silence fell on one and all as the blindfolded child hesitated, then shuffled cautiously toward the tall woman with the sickly face, the wife of the proprietor, and slowly laid his little hands on her soft belly, as though he had decided even before his eyes were bound to make her his first choice. At once, recoiling from this overbold gesture, he collided as he stepped backward with one of the scribes, who had positioned himself deliberately in his path to compel the boy to choose him. Only then did the world beyond his blindfold seem finally to become clear to the child, and discerning within the deep silence the bated breath of the crowd, he turned resolutely toward it. But for some reason the Jews recoiled from this blindfolded boy who advanced fatefully toward them, all but a fair-faced young woman, one of the wine stampers, who stood rooted to the spot as though inviting the young stranger to touch her. He did indeed touch her face gently with his little hand, until another woman, apparently jealous, took a few paces toward him, and the boy turned toward her, and his fingers fluttered on her bosom. Unperturbed by this contact, he turned to his right, where a third woman was waiting for him, and he held her too for a moment, and while Master Levitas’s sardonic laughter and his father the rabbi’s rebuke rang out, yet a fourth woman, a toothless hag, hurried to his side, yearning also to be touched. But the child, startled by the feel of her wizened face, instantly buried his hands in the folds of his little robe and refused to stir. His father was obliged now to come forward and remove him from the women who were converging upon him. He turned him around and led him back toward the small dais, and it seemed for a moment as though he would once more approach the tall woman with the sickly face and touch her belly again, but his father steered him gently toward the Radhanite merchant from the Land of Israel, who was sitting immobile, his thick black beard lying calmly on his chest, seemingly taking great pleasure in the scene that was unfolding around him. Slowly the boy drew forth a single hand from the folds of his little robe and very cautiously held it out in front of him, until he encountered the large beard.

Now that the seventh judge had been chosen, the blindfold was removed and a new worry gripped Master Levitas’s heart. Indicating the sunlight fading on the trees, he suggested that they should all, plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses and judges, join together in the afternoon prayer, which might also serve as a discreet hint to the Christian visitors that their presence was no longer appropriate.

2.

Then they all went to the well to draw water for the hand-washing. After that they stood for the afternoon prayer. It soon became evident that Abulafia’s heart was so inflamed by the occasion that he yearned to lead the service with his pleasant voice. At first the proprietor of the winery and Master Levitas tried to undermine his precedence by chanting faster or slower, but eventually they desisted, not because Abulafia’s singing was louder than theirs, but because concealed within it was a delightful, unique cadence that attracted the worshippers in Villa Le Juif to follow his lead. His wife too, her mind confused by the ease with which the panel of judges had been filled with women, gave a silent signal to her younger brother to abandon the contest and let Abulafia surrender himself to his chant, which she found instantly appealing, although she could not imagine where it came from. But Ben Attar, who had never before stood in prayer so close to his two wives and could sense their overwhelmed souls, immediately identified the source of his nephew’s tune as the muezzin’s call in the mosque in Tangier. How amazing, he thought, that after all these years he still tries to preserve in his chant the Muslim cadence of that seashore, although he has also blended it with another melody, which to judge by its rhythm and tune must be taken from some local peasant song.

It may have been for this reason that the three Christians who had mingled with the Jews so as to enjoy the spectacle of two pretty, veiled women who belonged legally and naturally to a single man did not depart when the Jews began to pray, but lingered to wonder at the familiar melody, blending the Jews’ Latin with an additional curling cadence. When Levitas saw that the three of them insisted on staying, he abbreviated the interval between the afternoon and evening prayers and gave a sign for the evening prayer to commence even before the first star appeared, in the hope that when they reached the Hear O Israel and the silent darkness filled with the profiles of motionless Jews standing in total separateness, with eyes closed and hands in front of their faces, looking like curious woodcocks, some vague dread might finally cause the uninvited guests to leave. Indeed, by the time torches were lit at the end of the service and the bunches of grapes suspended from hooks all around cast fantastic shadows on the walls, not a single stranger remained in the hall to seek entertainment from the Jews.

Perhaps it was the mood of earnest solemnity descending upon the Jews of Villa Le Juif after the two beautiful services had stamped upon the departing day a double seal of music and holiness that breathed fear into the four women selected by the game of blind-man’s buff. When the president’s wife, the tall mistress of the winery, was invited to mount the wooden dais, followed by the pleasant-faced oriental merchant, with the scribe close on his heels, looking gaunt and dusty in his black cloak but also earnestly determined to represent his two disqualified colleagues faithfully, the four women judges, who apparently failed now to understand the meaning of their desire for the touch of the dark boy, stood huddled in a corner, clinging to one another and too frightened to climb onto the dais. At this point Mistress Esther-Minna intervened. Desiring an additional female element, her faith in the justice of a verdict decided by three judges notwithstanding, she was filled with enough indignation and fury to echo in Abulafia’s heart for the rest of his life, depriving him of any hint of regret that he might have doubled the number of his wives if he had not migrated from the south to the north. And so, with a gentle voice that concealed no little sternness, she induced the three young women and the elderly vintager to relax their hold on each other and join the three people who were already seated importantly on wine casks spread with old fox skins, with a torch blazing in front of them.

Everything was now ready. It was not the “seven good men of the city” demanded by writ who were seated upon the dais but merely seven ordinary men and women selected by a form of ballot, but this was simply because for close on a thousand years now there had been no wholly Jewish town but only small, dispersed communities, driven onward from one place to the next by troubles and dangers. There was nothing now to prevent Ben Attar from rising to his feet and setting forth his plea, for which he had come such a long way, although now, after the double service, it seemed to have shrunk. This may have been the reason that he seemed still to hesitate, sunk in thought, until Rabbi Elbaz was obliged to give him a sign of encouragement. Indeed, ever since the merchant and his entourage had entered the inner court of Villa Le Juif that afternoon and from there proceeded into the hall of the winery, his spirit had seemed to be failing. It was as if he had not imagined that he would really and truly come face to face with that repudiation, which from the vast distance separating Africa from Europe had seemed to him like the panic of Jews chiefly fearful of Christian opinion, or that only two days after disembarking from his ship he would be summoned before a strange, hastily convened court in the dark hall of a remote rustic winery. For the first time since he had conceived the idea of the journey, he experienced a vague fear of defeat.

Surprisingly, however, he felt pity not for himself, nor for his two wives, who had been forced to leave their children and their homes, but for his Ishmaelite partner, Abu Lutfi, whom Ben Attar now imagined sitting in the darkness of the ship’s hold close to the solitary camel, praying to Allah for the success of his Jewish partner, although he would never, ever understand, however many times it was explained to him, why a Jewish merchant who lived with his wives and enjoyed the respect of Jews and Ishmaelites alike should care about the repudiation of faraway Jews living in dark forests on the shores of wild rivers, in the heart of a remote continent.

This feeling of guilt and compassion toward the Arab, who had given and would continue to give his own strength and money to a journey with whose purpose he could not identify, now charged Ben Attar with such powerful feelings of shame and sorrow that he sternly scrutinized the face of his nephew Abulafia, who was smiling at him with a kind of strange perplexity. Abulafia was standing before him not only as a defendant but also as an interpreter, who would be called upon to render his opponent’s words faithfully. For a moment Ben Attar was filled with anger against his nephew, whom he had so lovingly reared, for his inability to stand up to his new wife, and for involving him not only in a long and wearisome voyage but also in this sad and unjust rift. So fiercely did his anger burn that he dispensed with the services of his nephew as interpreter, and in a deep voice that at once commanded silence in the hall he spoke a few hesitant words in the ancient tongue of the Jews, in the hope that those who understood would communicate his meaning to the others present. After a few sentences, however, he realized that it would be better for him to abandon his atrophied, jerky Hebrew in favor of fluent and colorful Arabic, which not surprisingly conveyed the full force of his distress.

Abulafia was surprised and troubled by the opening of his uncle’s plea, which centered not on himself but on Abu Lutfi. But Ben Attar held firmly to his course. Yes, he wished to begin his plea with the pain and sorrow of a third party, a gentile, who every autumn for the past ten years had driven his camels to the northern slopes of the Atlas Mountains, wearying himself among tiny villages and remote tribes to seek out and discover the best and most beautiful wares to please his northern partner’s customers.

Gradually Ben Attar’s audience was able to apprehend the nature of that wonderful threefold partnership, which extended from the Atlas Mountains beyond the Moroccan shores, wound through the towns and gardens of Andalus, then sailed slowly up to the Bay of Barcelona and to the enchanted meeting place in the Spanish March, climbing thence along the eastern slopes of the Pyrenees and spreading like a colored fan through Provence and Aquitaine, continuing along the routes of Burgundy and groping its way up to the Île de France. Ben Attar did not spare them the details. On the contrary, with rare precision he set forth the clever, rich framework devised by three partners who were joined together not only by understanding and trust but also by fellowship and friendship, trying to earn a living from the delights of the Mohammedans of the south, who sent their cumin, cassia, and cardamom to simmer in the steaming Christian stewpots of Narbonne and Perpignan.

This was the manner of Ben Attar’s speaking: after a few sentences he would stop, fix his eyes on Abulafia’s, and silently count the Frankish sentences as they came out of his mouth, fearing that the translation might omit some words. But his fears were unfounded, for not only did this interpreter not wish to leave anything out, but as one of the members of the legendary threesome, he contributed details on his own account to reinforce the story, so carried away by his words that he forgot that soon he would have to defend himself against the tale that he was so eagerly translating.

The face of the thick-bearded merchant from the Land of Israel, who drank the words straight from their Arabic source, was already beginning to darken as Ben Attar described the first signs of Abulafia’s deceit—the curious disguises, the hints of his repudiation, the ever-increasing delays that opened gaping black chasms in the minds of those who awaited him, until the last summer, when that terrible, final, and definitive absence had occurred, leaving the two southern partners alone among the horses and donkeys in Benveniste’s stable, alarmed at the huge quantity of merchandise that surrounded them. Amazingly, the plaintiff refrained from pointing an accusing finger at the new wife who had appeared from the Rhineland, or even from mentioning her name. It was as if Abulafia were alone in the world, and the blame were his alone—as though the accursed repudiation had been born only in the nephew’s mind, and caused him to turn against his friends. So it was no wonder that it was now hard for the interpreter, who in the course of translating was magnifying his own guilt, to continue interpreting faithfully while he was compelled to hear such harsh words from his uncle, who coldly, in rich but precise Arabic, attributed to his nephew the vile suspicion of simply trying to dissolve the old partnership in order to replace it with a new one that might turn out to be more lucrative. And since, Ben Attar’s ruthless denunciation continued, it was hard for the traitor to abandon his loyal partners on some pretext of deception or unfairness, for their business relations had always been honest and just, he had invented a kind of strange repudiation of his uncle’s double marriage, and, not daring to express this repudiation in his own name, he had put it into the mouth, so to speak, of his new, foreign wife.

For how could Abulafia complain now about his uncle’s double marriage, when he had known for several years that his uncle had purchased his old house in his home town, to honor the grievous memory of the wife who had departed for the depths of the sea, and had installed there a second wife, a new aunt, whose existence he not only did not consider invalid but was openly pleased about, even if she was his own age? Since he could not suddenly protest against something that he had accepted and approved of for such a long time, he had been obliged to ask his new family to frighten him and to order him to feel revulsion toward his own flesh and blood.

At this point the interpreter’s voice became so choked that nobody in the dark winery could understand a word of the last sentences, which had pierced him like sword thrusts. So the merchant from the Land of Israel, who had been listening attentively to the Arabic original, decided to venture a small shortcut. Turning to his neighbor, the scribe, who was gaping apprehensively, he very slowly, in a voice free from any guttural exaggeration, summarized what had been said so far in archaic Hebrew with the Jerusalem pronunciation, so that the scribe would spring to his feet, a gaunt figure dressed in black, and clothe the summary in the local language for the benefit of his fellow judges, who were sitting silently on the wooden dais, and for the benefit of the audience, which had been drawn by the heated dispute to emerge from among the wine casks and edge closer to the two disputants—and closer too to the new wife, who had immediately grasped Ben Attar’s shrewd tactic in forcing her pained husband to leap to the defense of his loyalty to the partnership, and in so doing to expose to public gaze a crack (only a small one, she hoped) between him and her.

Into this crack Rabbi Elbaz now attempted to insert like a lance the sermon he had devised while rocked by the waves of the sea. But Mistress Esther-Minna hastily forestalled him. Her heart was seething at the sight of her husband standing stock-still, staring at his uncle with a strange, startled smile on his face, as though the terrible suspicion that had been laid at his door had spread through his body like a paralyzing poison. Without knowing whether she had the right to speak, she took the floor and passionately appealed to the court as a plaintiff, speaking volubly in the local Frankish dialect, first of all to dispel contemptuously any suspicion of another, secret partnership on her husband’s part, and then to disclose at last the true, emotional source of the repudiation, which was even more important to her than the edicts that had arrived from the Rhineland.

Master Levitas, who had been well aware since the morning of his older sister’s mental turmoil, and of her desire and indeed her ability to achieve a breakthrough, took a few cautious steps toward her, so that his calm presence and steady disposition, even if they were not expressed in words, might delineate a certain border, in case she were tempted to cross it. While Ben Attar had been speaking, this Parisian pearl-dealer had been looking neither at the accuser nor at the accused but at the faces of the four women who had volunteered to be selected by ballot as judges. By the look of sorrow that appeared briefly on their faces at the mention of all the unsold merchandise, and by the flicker of suspicion at the sight of Abulafia’s pallor as he was held responsible, Master Levitas, a cautious, intelligent man, understood that from now on it would be a mistake to feel any certainty about the outcome of the case. Accordingly, it would be wise to restrain any sign of self-confidence or pride on the part of his small but ready-tongued and straight-backed sister, whose fair features, carved like those of a beautiful hound, were glowing in the torchlight.

But his fears were unfounded. His sister’s opening words gave no hint of pride but merely a faint hint of shrewdness, borrowed this very moment from her southern adversary. And just as Ben Attar had begun his accusation not with his own pain but with that of his Arab partner, so she too sought to ground her defense not in herself or her abhorrence of double marriages but in the story of Abulafia’s unfortunate daughter, who was still tormented by the puzzle of being abandoned by her young mother, a beautiful and beloved woman.

Here Master Levitas touched his sister lightly, not because he objected to her line of attack but to remind her that it was right and proper to give her opponents an opportunity to understand the words that would soon, with God’s help, defeat them. Once more Abulafia, the accused, had to be asked to serve as interpreter, this time in the opposite direction, from Frankish to Arabic. Even though he now stood between his uncle and his wife, the two beings who were dearest to him in the world, he turned his gaze toward Rabbi Elbaz, who was standing facing him in his rabbinical robe, which was worn out by the nights and days on board ship, nodding his head slightly as though in prayer and swallowing every word that was uttered as if it were a sweetmeat. As earlier the younger partner’s life had been conjured up in the deposition of his senior partner, now it continued to be recounted through the startling thoughts of his new, vivacious wife, who so embellished her argument with every small detail of her husband’s life, even some he had forgotten himself, that at times he had to halt the spate of words in order to examine, before translating, whether what his wife was saying about him had really happened.

But what could such an examination avail, when it was only now, in the semidarkness of the winery, that he understood that his wife had devotedly collected every detail he had told her about his life and his travels, like someone compulsively gathering oysters on the seashore in the belief that each one must contain a small pearl? At their first meeting in Orléans, before that blazing hearth, when the proper widow had been startled by the willingness of this dark-skinned, curly-haired young merchant from North Africa to talk to her shyly but frankly about himself, she had asked herself how it was that this good-looking, easygoing man had been roaming the forests and villages of a strange land for seven years without attempting to marry and set up a home. On that first night, Mistress Esther-Minna explained, she had understood that only a man whose love for his wife continued to well up inside him like a gushing spring, even if that wife no longer existed, could behave in this way. But if that was truly so, she had continued to ask herself, how was it possible for that drowned wife, who had received such great love from her husband, to get up one day, dismiss so easily everything that had been lavished upon her, abandon her husband, pluck colored ribbons from the clothes of her baby daughter, who needed her so much, and bind her hands and feet and throw herself into the sea?

That night in the inn at Orléans, the new Mistress Abulafia did not hesitate to confess before the court, she had already experienced a great feeling of compassion for this child, abandoned with an Ishmaelite nurse in a small house in the street of the Jews, close to the castle in Toulouse. She felt a powerful urge not only to understand the mystery of what had happened but to share her understanding with the widower, who was continuing to wander the roads, confused by his own lack of understanding. A new love was needed to overcome the old, Mediterranean one—not, heaven forbid, to drive out the memory of the earlier love, but to enable Mistress Esther-Minna to reflect from close up on the secret of its vitality and also of its weakness and failure. But it was only at her second or third meeting with the young merchant, when the winter was past and the spring too was nearly over and gone and when Abulafia had innocently disclosed the existence of polygamous marriages in the lands of the Ishmaelites, not by way of metaphor but as a known fact, and even as a family matter, since the subject of conversation was his own uncle, the senior partner in the glorious partnership, that she had had a feeling that the nub of the secret that had caused the disaster had slipped out. But still she had said nothing, waiting until she was united body and soul to Abulafia, so as to satisfy herself that there was nothing weak in the man’s powers of love, neither in respect to his new wife nor evidently in respect to his first wife, who, according to his testimony, had always known how to receive his love and believe in its faithfulness. It was only then that she had begun to draw a connection between the terrible, desperate deed of that dead wife and the threat that he might take a second wife, which would apparently neither require nor demand any break in or lessening of his love for his first wife. Yes, it was precisely when a second wife entered a household, through simple duplication, like the birth of another child, that she contained within herself a terrible destructive power, especially for a first wife who believes she has a curse on her womb. And so, did Esther-Minna have any need to justify herself for the repudiation that had spread within her? It grew greater with time and sharpened like a spear which could not only defend her new husband against the disgrace of discovering among the sacks of spices and the copper vessels in Benveniste’s stable an additional wife, brought for him in the ship by his uncle, but also, yes indeed, to avenge, however inadequately, the sorrow and fears of the drowned wife, who had been taken naked from the watery depths.

Here Mistress Esther-Minna’s face suddenly reddened, and she lowered her head and fell silent. This not only gave the stunned interpreter time to digest the secret of his life before conveying it in Arabic to the other members of his household, but also evaded Ben Attar’s openly offended look and the enigmatic veiled glances of his two wives, who were still sitting erect, calmly and submissively, where they had been placed. She had no way of telling whether the translation was able to penetrate their consciousness or whether it simply fluttered around them like a butterfly. Then Mistress Esther-Minna felt the feather-light touch of her brother’s hand as he sought to give her a sign of encouragement, even though in his heart of hearts he would gladly have foregone the subtleties of her argument in favor of a short statement about the existence of a new rabbinical ordinance, stern but simple, which even though it had originated in the marshy swamps of the Rhineland was destined to enlighten and reform society everywhere.

It was this ordinance that the rabbi from Seville had been waiting for all along. He longed to speak about principles rather than details. His thoughts had turned so often to this ordinance in the course of the journey that he had begun to envisage it as a small, curved dagger of yellowish brass that needed to be kept firmly planted in the ground lest it take wing and fly away. But now, with the breeze of evening, he was assailed again by faint pangs of hunger, like a kind of echo of the powerful attack that had disturbed his senses in the middle of the night. Helpless to prevent himself, he held his hands in front of his face to see whether they held any lingering odor of the sweet fish that the black slave had cooked for him before dawn. Still, it was not a bad thing, he thought, to commence a discourse in a state of hunger, which sharpens the spirit and the wits. Moreover, Mistress Abulafia’s forceful and unusual words had alerted all his senses.

Now the silence all around him seemed to become purified. Ben Attar’s look was darkly suspicious, as though after Mistress Esther-Minna’s virulent speech he had lost faith in what he would receive from the rabbi in exchange for the promised honorarium. And Master Levitas was touching his shoulder gently, to indicate that his moment had come. The rabbi had already noticed that this cold, reserved man always treated him with respect, as though any scholar, even if he hailed from the distant south and came with the obvious intention of aggressively disputing, were an important person. But were these strange, uncultivated Jews really capable of following the intricacies of his Andalusian thought? How was it possible that in all the dark expanse surrounding him there was no true sage to be found who might sit with him face to face and settle the matter? What could they really understand, these vintagers and winemakers, or these women whose bare feet as they sat facing him on the wooden dais were so stained from stomping the grapes that he had an urge to rinse them with clean water before he began to speak? Then his eyes happened upon his own son, who was sitting without sandals, slowly picking grapes off a large bunch and watching the fine stream of juice dribbling from the wine press into the inner tank. It was already two months since the child had been taken from his home, and it was unlikely that he would learn in the rest of his life as much as he had learned on this journey.

Then Ben Attar’s second wife, unable to contain herself, rose to her feet, as though to see and hear the rabbi better. He said to himself excitedly that if she was so intent on his words that she was prepared to break the law and propel herself beyond what her own honor and that of the first wife demanded, it would be better if he began his speech not in the ancient holy tongue, as he had intended to do to attract the brother and sister, but rather in Arabic, so that the naked, untranslated words would reach straight into the heart of the young woman, who had hidden the ivory casket between the silken robes he had caressed last night with his hands. He did this not only to fortify and encourage the second wife but also for the sake of the first wife, who had raised her head, startled at her friend’s sudden movement. By speaking in clear, intelligible Arabic, the rabbi may also have sought to erase something of the grimness that had taken hold of Ben Attar, who was behaving as if he genuinely believed the accusation he had launched against his nephew. Who could tell, the rabbi mused, perhaps his words could even persuade his skeptical son, if the boy was willing to listen to his father.

Once again the accused man had to be called on to interpret. It appeared that Abulafia would not manage this evening to utter a single word of his own or in his own favor, but would only transfer from one language to another what others said for or against him—if what his wife had said was indeed in his favor, rather than in favor of his previous wife. He had never imagined that his new wife might be concerning herself with the riddle of his first wife’s death by drowning, as though this riddle threatened her too, even in a place where there was no sea but only a river. So even though Abulafia knew that the rabbi who had been brought from Seville was about to reprove him, to attack his wife’s repudiation and condemn his sudden disappearance, he nevertheless felt a certain warmth toward him, not only because of the affection aroused by his slim, childlike figure, hardly taller than his own child, but also because of a hope that a rabbi’s chastisement would always be wise and would therefore placate everyone. He therefore resolved not only to be as faithful as possible to the rabbi’s actual words but also to be careful to preserve their spirit.

At first, however, there was no spirit in the rabbi’s words, for thirst for that liquid whose fragrance scented the night air dried up the words in his mouth. While the owner of the winery was still trying to decide whether to serve the speaker a single glass or whether to open a cask for the whole company, Master Levitas, with the generosity of a guest who was also in some sense a host, decided for him: a cask. But a small one. It then transpired that the wine deemed most appropriate to the time and place was contained in the small barrel on which the child was seated, so that apparently it was no accident that he had been led to seat himself upon it. At once young Elbaz was made to stand up, and the barrel was rolled into the center of the hall and arranged so that it was possible to pour wine for all the sacred congregation without spilling a single drop wastefully on the ground. The first to be served was the rabbi, who pronounced aloud the blessing over the fruit of the vine, and he was followed by the judges and the disputants. While the first wife drank discreetly behind her veil, the second rolled hers back as though she had made up her mind to do without it, and with a new smile that lit up her finely sculpted features she drained her glass and waited for another.

Then it was, and only then, without any warning and still clutching his goblet that the rabbi began to speak in hope that the pink wine slipping down their throats would soften the thoughts of the Jews of Villa Le Juif and even stretch them to new and hitherto unknown horizons. For if the rabbi were to speak only in simple terms, using well-known and accepted notions, he need not multiply words but would merely state directly, Frankish Jews, distant and strange, why are you so amazed? Why are you so alarmed? With all due respect, read in the rolled Scripture to whose holiness we are all in thrall and you will discover that the great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each had two, three, or even four wives. Continue reading, and here is Elkanah with his two wives, and this is before we reach the kings with their numerous wives, and who was as great as Solomon? But if you object that these ancients were greater and mightier men than we, and able to discern between good and evil, then open the book of Deuteronomy, and there, not long before the end of the book,you will find the verse “If a man have two wives …” Anyman. Everyman. Not a patriarch, a hero, a king, or an ancient.

While Abulafia was endeavoring to translate this last sentence, the rabbi deftly drained his goblet, not so that he could put it down but so as to fill it again with the same blushing wine and continue without undue delay, in order not to give rise to any suspicion that he was evading the continuation of the quoted verse, “one beloved, and another hated,” for all the confusion and terror that echoed in these words, to which he would come in due course. In the meantime he would merely express his anger that anyone should be so brazen, and in a faraway town like Paris at that, as to pass upon fellow Jews a verdict of repudiation and dissociation, which implied not only pride but ignorance, casting dishonor on men and women of old.

From the corner of his eye, Rabbi Elbaz now observed the anxiety in Ben Attar’s face receding somewhat, and a short row of white teeth gleaming in the smile of a merchant who finally sees the hope of securing some return for his outlay. But was Ben Attar nothing more than a merchant? The rabbi suddenly put this fresh question to himself, and on the spur of the moment he repeated it out loud, enthralling his audience. No, he replied decisively to his own question, Ben Attar had not come from so far away simply to demand satisfaction for loss of business. Nor would it have entered the rabbi’s own head to undertake such a long and terrible journey for the sake of a mere merchant’s dispute. If this man had just been motivated by love of money and the partnership, would it have occurred to him to undertake such a difficult and hazardous journey in pursuit of a defaulting partner, when he could easily have replaced him, for the same cost, with three new partners who would spread the news of the North African wares not only among the Franks and Burgundians but even among the Flemings and Saxons? No, Rabbi Elbaz saw Ben Attar not as a merchant but simply as a man disguised as a merchant. During the long days and nights at sea, he had not ceased to study this wonderful man, but only now, in Villa Le Juif, had he discovered the nub of his being: he was a loving man, a philosopher and sage of love, who had come from far away to declare publicly that it is possible to have two wives and to love them equally.

While Abulafia was translating the last sentence, he glanced toward his two aunts, and he was not the only one to do so. Everyone turned their gaze toward the shadowy figures of the two women, one of whom was still standing. Ben Attar, who had been very confused by the rabbi’s last words, touched the standing woman on the arm to tell her to return to her place and sit down. But she remained standing, and although all looks were frozen for a moment on her disobedient refusal, she seemed unable to abandon the sight of the rabbi’s small, lithe body as he paced up and down with short steps before the large torch, unable to content herself with his deep voice alone, which was now beginning to deal with Mistress Esther-Minna’s last words.

For the second wife, the rabbi went on to declare confidently, always exists. If she does not exist in reality, she exists in the imagination. Thereforeno rabbinical edict is able to eradicate her. But because she exists only in the man’s imagination, she is good, fair, submissive, wise, and pleasant, according to his fancy, and however hard his only real wife tries, she can never truly rival the imaginary one, and therefore she will always know anger and disappointment. However, when the second wife is not imaginary but exists in flesh and blood, the first wife can measure herself against her, and outdo her, and sometimes she can make her peace with her and, if she wishes, even love her.

A faint, mocking smile now tightened Abulafia’s wife’s face. Her blue eyes never ceased earnestly scrutinizing the face of the interpreter, her young husband, to discover whether he was merely a passive translator or a secret accomplice to the crime. But the rabbi was not alarmed by this clever woman’s smile. On the contrary, taking a small, confidential step toward her, he smiled straight into her blushing face, which suddenly looked childlike because of a stray golden lock that had escaped from her snood, and obdurately repeated his last words: Yes, even love her. For only the second wife is able to alleviate the man’s infinite, tormenting desire and transform it from reproof into pleasure.

But now the faithful interpreter, suddenly alarmed, stretched his arms out desperately toward the speaker, whose ornate Arabic had begun to carry him away. Rabbi Elbaz stopped, gazing at Mistress Esther-Minna, whose tempestuous emotions reddened her face and made her more and more attractive. Out of the corner of his eye he could glimpse a strange look on the face of his son, who like everybody else was straining toward him so as not to miss a single word he was saying. Suddenly Elbaz was sorry that his son could hear and understand his words. If he were to remain faithful to the oath he had sworn that morning on the deck of the ship, to defend to the utmost the delicate double marriage that had sailed at his side for nearly sixty days at sea, he would have to change languages and ask the two disqualified scribes, who at present were unemployed, to come forward, take the place of the desperate interpreter, and translate straight from the holy tongue into the local language. For the rabbi felt that if he couched his speech in the beloved, forgotten ancient tongue from now on, he would not merely double his own authority in the mind of the impassioned little crowd, but he would also be able, like Mistress Esther-Minna, to make a confession that his son would not be able to understand.

Therefore, as the Jews assembled in the winery at Villa Le Juif gradually closed in around the parties to the suit, the rabbi from Seville began his confession about himself and his late wife, as though his life were not unique and accidental but universal and exemplary, able to shed light on other lives as well. By the magical light of the moon, which slowly embraced his confession, it became clear to his hearers that if the dead wife of the Andalusian rabbi were to rise from her grave in Seville to proclaim one thing alone to the world, she would complain because he had never taken a second wife—not only so that after her death her orphaned son would have another mother, but so that sufferings inflicted upon her by her husband would be alleviated, because he assumed the solemn responsibilities of a husband so religiously that he had begun to cleave to her as one flesh assiduously enough to be in danger of transforming himself, heaven forbid, into a female. When a wife does not have to face her husband alone and he has to pass continually from one to the other, he has no alternative but to renew his original manly nature repeatedly, since no two women are alike.

The rabbi now halted his Hebrew speech, which had poured wildly from his mouth as though the antiquity of the language absolved his words of any responsibility as to content. His two interpreters, the scribes, contended with each other about whether what had been heard was what had been said, and whether what had been said was what had been meant, and whether what had been meant could be translated. While they were deliberating on how best to proceed in dual responsibility along the treacherous path of translation, one with a word and the other with a sentence, one with a simile and the other with a parable, the rabbi from Seville could sense, if only from the flashing eyes of the merchant from the Land of Israel, that there was some hope the case might be decided this evening in Ben Attar’s favor. The rabbi did not yet know why or how he would manage this, but he was suddenly filled with strength and confidence, and the beloved tongue pounded within him as though it were seeking to transform a speech into a new song. When the interpreters signaled to him that they were ready, he addressed these simple, direct words to the brother and sister, who understood every word:

We have not crossed the mighty ocean to enrage your spirit, nor have we any thought of urging you too to double or multiply your wives. If we have judged aright by appearances, the land in which you dwell is bleak, with such small houses and such meager produce, and the Christians who surround you inflict fear upon you beyond your control, so it is small wonder that you lack the power that flowers in a thousand roses in the southern lands basking in the light of the wise sun. But just as we refrain from judging you from our strength, so too you have no right to judge us from your weakness. Therefore, let each remain true to himself andfaithful to his own nature: restore the old partnership and do not damage it further.

3.

In Worms, on the River Rhine, Rabbi Levitas and his wife had been in the habit of encouraging their children, Esther-Minna and Yehiel, first to seek in every setback that afflicted them their own guilt, and only then to scrutinize the actions of others. This training had become second nature to them, to the point that it sometimes seemed that the two children took a special pleasure in blaming themselves, even if secretly each of them examined the other and took care not to assume more blame than the other admitted. So too this night, when Mistress Abulafia began to torment herself for the foolishness and irresponsibility with which she had allowed matters to develop at Villa Le Juif, she still continued to inspect sternly, despite the darkness, every line on her brother’s face, to see whether he appreciated the extent of the blame that he himself must accept. Even though in fact Master Levitas had said nothing of substance throughout the trial, but had only, like a choirmaster, given signs to others, indicating when they were to speak, when to refrain from speaking, and when to translate, there was no doubt that the original idea of setting up a tribunal at Villa Le Juif had been his. True, he could claim that if his sister had not interfered between him and the Andalusian rabbi and so inexplicably granted that strange permission to alter the constitution of the court, they might have been preserved from defeat. But Master Levitas, who now sat in darkness in a corner of the wagon returning to Paris, did not want to claim, even in his heart, anything in his own favor and to the discredit of his sister, but only to take more and more blame upon himself, as he had been brought up to do, like a child who piles food he does not like onto his plate just to please his mother.

It was not only a desire for blame that made him act thus, but also a suspicion that even if his original idea had been carried out and the panel of judges had consisted of the three scribes brought from Chartres, it was not certain that the Andalusian rabbi would have failed to confound them too. If there was one thing that Mistress Esther-Minna and her brother had agreed on that night, it was that the rabbi whom Ben Attar had brought from Seville, despite his childlike mien and threadbare gown, had been more cunning and shrewder than they had supposed, both in what he had said and in what he had left unsaid. How else to explain the treachery of the women, who had preferred Ben Attar to Abulafia and who had for some reason seemed smilingly content when judgment was given against the latter?

But could what had been pronounced there really be called a judgment? Or was another term more appropriate? Was it merely an emotional and forceful appeal by goodhearted folk to the nephew and his wife to renew the old family partnership with the uncle, or was there lurking behind the words something deep and daring, according to which double matrimony was not just a colorful private fact of faraway Jews but a practice that might deserve renewed interest? In that cool hour of the evening, heavily perfumed with the smell of the wine that had emerged from a second cask, there was scope to interpret the judgment, if indeed it could be called a judgment, in a lenient or a restrictive fashion. It was not only the astuteness of the rabbi from Seville that had frustrated the hopes of the pair from Paris, but also the intervention of the Radhanite courier, for as soon as the rabbi had concluded his discourse, and before the translation had begun, this heavily built man had risen to his feet and applauded enthusiastically, thus prejudicing the judgment by sympathy for the plaintiff.

By means of this sympathy, which combined with the compassion felt by the simple crowd of wine-workers for the sturdy, dusky North African merchant who had condescended to bring his two wives with him all that distance, the courier from the Land of Israel had been able to free these people somewhat from their feelings of respect and obligation to the proprietor of the winery and the Levitas family, and instead of making do with surreptitiously or unintentionally touching the smooth silken robes of the Moroccan women, they had now been made to confront human nature openly. But what was his motive? Was it possible that this merchant too had, somewhere on his long route between the Orient and Europe, a secret second wife to relieve the tedium and loneliness of his travels? Or perhaps he was motivated by a desire for revenge against Master Levitas on account of the low price the latter had offered for the Indian pearls he had brought with him from afar?

That night, after the Jews of Villa Le Juif had dispersed to their homes and the two sides in the lawsuit were on their way back to Paris, the proprietor of the winery would not leave his sickly-faced wife alone, but in their large bed, surrounded by little bottles of wine for tasting, he asked her again for an explanation of her “betrayal.” How had she come to side with a strange Jew against his friends from Paris? Had she really agreed with the rabbi from Andalus? he asked, holding her shoulders roughly, either in anger or desire. If so, if that was how it was, he threatened in jest, he might take a second wife himself. And why not, come to that? thought the woman, who was weary of satisfying her husband’s desires, aroused as he was beyond his real powers by the sight of the women stamping grapes in his yard. But she did not dare admit to his face that she longed for the tranquillity of those two southern women, one seated and the other standing, with their colorful robes seemingly frozen in motion. Weary and irritable, she mumbled a confused excuse, which seemed to imply that she had been spellbound by the courier from the Land of Israel with his bushy black beard into supporting the repudiated twice-wed plaintiff.

The three young women who stamped grapes also talked of the spell cast by the man from the Land of Israel, but they knew only too well that behind the “spell” were his warm eyes and the masculine smell of his big strong body, which drew you to put your confidence in him and obey his voice, perhaps out of a strange feeling that anyone who went to such lengths to protect the husband of two wives would also feel strong enough to defend a third. But since they were unable to admit this even to each other, let alone to the curious men of the winery, who demanded an explanation for a verdict that harmed the proprietor and his friend, they tried to justify what had happened by saying that their minds had been addled by the muddle of different languages.

Even the scribe, who was being driven with his two colleagues back to the small estate of Chartres in an old cart, tried, in the silence of the desolate landscape of the Île de France, which was suddenly filled with animated exchanges between hungry jackals and clever foxes, to explain to himself, before explaining to the others, how and why he had changed his mind. He had known perfectly well what verdict the people who had brought him to Villa Le Juif expected from him, and what fee he had been promised for his troubles, though that had vanished into thin air because of his disgraceful betrayal. Yet miraculous though it might seem, even though he knew he had let the others down, and himself too, he felt not dejected but excited, as though another authority, true or imagined, coming from the oriental merchant, had acquired a foothold within him and in an instant toppled old loyalties. But he was afraid to admit this to his two colleagues lest they began to repudiate him, as Mistress Esther-Minna had repudiated Ben Attar. And so, as the decrepit cart that the proprietor had given them made its way amid grim mist-swathed meadows and ruined castles and the gentile driver talked to his horse to see if it remembered the way, the judge who had erred tried to excuse himself to his fellows and embarked on a gentle discourse full of longing for men of yore and their wives and numerous progeny, trying by doing so to change the distance Ben Attar had covered into a distance of time rather than space, so as to place him among the giants of Scripture.

Only the old widowed vintner was not asked to explain what she had done. Yet she, in her heart of hearts, had been convinced that the whole assembly secretly wanted the partnership between north and south to be restored. So excited and pleased was she by what had taken place that she decided to spend the night in the dark winery instead of returning to her tiny hovel. Removing the fox skins from the casks, she improvised a soft bed for herself on the little dais. There, like someone who has acquired proprietary rights, she lay down to sleep, inhaling the remains of the scents of the parties to the case, the judges and the interpreters, and wishing that her late husband had left her a second wife, so that they could lie side by side and warm themselves with shared memories. She closed her eyes and relit in her mind’s eye the great torch that had been planted in front of the dais, and passed in review face after face, translation after homily, until her eyes were caught by the large eyes of the interpreter Abulafia.

Who was now sitting very quietly, full of terrors yet also of hopes, in the large wagon on the way back to Paris. Although he was squeezed between his wife and his brother-in-law and facing his uncle and aunts, his eyes, eluding the gaze of anyone close to him, were fixed on the gaunt back of Rabbi Elbaz, who had sat down beside his son, next to the wagoner, so as to crown his joy at his victory with the sight of the unfamiliar stars and be free to mumble to himself the lines of the new poem he was composing, to brand it deep on his memory. All were now silent, but while the successful party was feeling very hungry, their discomfited hosts not only felt no hunger pangs but seemed to have forgotten the existence of the second hamper tied to the side of the wagon. Abulafia did not feel hungry either, not because he felt defeated and dejected but because he could not put out of his mind the moment when he would have to stand alone facing his wife and comfort her for her failure, and at the same time admonish her gently on account of the unnecessary suffering that her strange repudiation had caused. Gently, he repeatedly promised himself, for the formal public annulment of the repudiation invited him to go back next summer to the frontier between the two worlds, to the azure Bay of Barcelona, which here, in the dank darkness of the wagon, seemed to him illumined by a thousand enchantments. Since he wanted to clarify his own thoughts and the thoughts of those about him, he assumed the authority of the head of the household and ordered the wagoner to halt the horses at the same wood and by the same stream where they had eaten by day, so that they might eat by night.

It transpired that all the travelers, on either side of the dispute, whether they were hungry or not, were very happy at the halt that Abulafia had imposed on them, even though they had not yet traveled very far and Paris was not far away. After the hubbub of the verdict, they all wanted to be by themselves for a while, hidden from their companions by the darkness but exposed to the dome of the sky. As soon as the wagon stopped, the rabbi dragged his son into the bushes to stretch their legs and attend to some bodily functions that had been postponed out of the respect due to the religious court. Nor did Ben Attar hesitate to lead his two wives deep among the trees, although in the opposite direction, to enable them to do whatever they had been prevented from doing before. Before they returned, Master Levitas went to the stream to fill a pot with clear water, while Abulafia helped the wagoner untie the hamper from the side of the wagon and went off to gather wood for the small fire he planned to light for his guests. Mistress Esther-Minna was left standing on her own beside one of the horses, holding on to the bridle with one hand while with the other she absently stroked the broad, rough brow of the horse, who waited patiently for the woman’s pleasant small hand to leave him so that he could join his partner in cropping the fresh grass.

Abulafia, accustomed to traveling, soon had a good fire going, and the sound of its crackling was soon joined by the rustling of the robe of Ben Attar’s first wife, who had returned alone, without her husband. When she saw that Mistress Esther-Minna was still deep in thought beside the well-mannered horse, she offered to help Abulafia spread the cloth and slice bread and cheese and hard-boiled eggs. It was just as well that Jews give thanks after the meal, not before it, so there was no reason to restrain the famished child until Ben Attar and the second wife returned. It was sufficient for him to wash his hands in the water that Master Levitas poured over them and recite two short blessings before he received a large slice of black bread from the first wife. And although it was not fitting that Mistress Esther-Minna should continue to stand to one side like a sulky guest rather than a responsible hostess, she did not stir from the horse until she heard the rustle of the second wife and Ben Attar emerging from the undergrowth. Now the reason for their delay became clear, for the young woman had exchanged her silk robe for a simple but warmer garment of cloth. Mistress Esther-Minna, still without uttering a word, gave them a sad, absent-minded smile and joined the pair as they strolled slowly across the dark field toward the fire, which was growing stronger by the minute.

Only her younger brother, who was better able than her husband to discern the depth of her distress, hastened to rise up as she approached and helped her to find a comfortable place beside the fire. Unable to eat anything, she did at least accept a proffered goblet of wine to fortify her broken spirits. And she did indeed need fortification, in part against the caress of the rabbi’s eyes, which lingered on her face and body, arousing additional anxieties now that she had learned to recognize the shrewdness of his thoughts. So great was her anxiety that she trembled at the light, soft touch of the first wife, who with a friendly smile offered her a cube of cheese on which the Hebrew word for “blessing” was stamped as a guarantee of its fitness for Jewish consumption. What have I done? Mistress Esther-Minna asked herself in despair. Instead of dissolving the partnership privately, with blandishments and excuses, I have reinforced it with the verdict of that stupid, drunken crowd. In vain she sought the eyes of her husband, who did not appear sad or downcast but merely very busy boiling water for a fragrant infusion of dried leaves that the first wife extracted from a pouch.

Suddenly Master Levitas stood up and struck his brow. Only now had he remembered that in the confusion of the departure from Villa Le Juif he had forgotten to pay the scribes their promised honorarium, and they were bound to suspect that he had ignored his promise because the case had not turned out as he had wished, as though the sum were not a fee but a bribe. So distressed was Master Levitas by the thought of this false suspicion that he could find no peace; he could not eat or drink, but walked round and round the fire in a state of dejection. It soon became clear to him that the only way to recover his peace of mind was to return at once to the winery and discharge the forgotten debt. Though Abulafia tried to persuade his brother-in-law to wait for a day or two and not to set out alone at night, Mistress Esther-Minna, who knew her brother better than he did and understood that no power in the world could stop this man from hurrying to clear his good name, instructed the startled wagoner to unharness the horse she had been stroking a little earlier and give it to her brother, so that he could atone as quickly as possible for his sin.

While the sound of the horse’s hooves died away to the south, she felt her loneliness intensifying unbearably, so that even her husband’s curly hair, which she loved so much that she sometimes combed it herself in bed, seemed suddenly wild and strange in the firelight. Now she had a strong desire to hurry home, although she did not forget that tonight too her double bed would be requisitioned for the southern visitors. But it did not seem as though the people sitting around the fire were in any hurry to leave. They sat side by side, cross-legged and relaxed, sipping the hot infusion and producing little leather pouches containing multicolored seasonings that they sprinkled on everything they ate to excite their tongues. They were conversing in Arabic in a profound southern calm, as though they were sitting on the safe golden beach of their homeland instead of in a wild and desolate landscape.

It was now perfectly apparent that Master Levitas’s departure was the sign for the two wives to unbend. As soon as they saw that the gentile wagoner was dozing on the driver’s seat of the wagon, they allowed themselves to hitch up their veils a little. Now that the restoration of the partnership had turned the hardships of the long journey into something purposeful and successful, they broke into merry chatter with each other, laughingly teasing not only Ben Attar but Abulafia too, and even venturing to mock the rabbi, who had laid his head in his son’s lap so as to be better placed for searching for new stars that were not visible in Andalus. And Abulafia, even though he was aware of his wife’s mood, could not be indifferent or cold toward the family conversation that was gushing all around him. To please his wife, he leaned toward her from time to time to translate a sentence or two here or there, particularly from what the second wife was saying, for in the flickering firelight she had begun to take charge of the conversation with a kind of pert vitality, as though when she changed her clothes in the bushes she had also received an assurance or promise from her husband that had reinforced her self-confidence.

But Mistress Esther-Minna’s gloom only intensified, as though a crack had appeared in her famous self-assurance. If she had possessed a veil, she would have been happy to hide her face behind it, first and foremost from the glances of her husband, whose evident cheerfulness she found so abhorrent that she felt she wanted to die. Rising swiftly from her place, she headed toward the trees, as though she too were seeking a quiet spot to do what the others had done before her. But as she walked in the dark among the big trees she felt empty rather than full, hungry rather than sated, so she did not stop but pressed on into the thick of the wood, not walking straight ahead but describing a wide circle centered on the flickering fire, until all at once she heard the startled cry of a small wild animal. Stopping short, she rubbed her head despairingly against a tree trunk, as though her God had been completely defeated and from now on she must beg for mercy from the trees of the field.

While Mistress Esther-Minna conjured up the image of her young, desired husband packing his sack and saddlebags next summer and setting off to travel a thousand miles to the Bay of Barcelona, to receive from his uncle and partner not only brassware and condiments but also the scent of double marriage, which clung like the odor of cinnamon to his clothing, the husband in question stood up and began to walk anxiously around the fire, wondering whether his wife’s protracted absence demanded his intervention or whether her honor obliged him to hold himself back. Finally, unable to restrain himself, he called her name aloud, hoping for a sign of life. But his wife, hearing his call like a distant echo, held back her reply, not only because she was not certain that her voice would carry that far but also in the belief that only thus, in the dark silence of the damp green thicket, would she find the courage to think a new thought that could dispel the new threat to her honor.

Even though Abulafia knew in his heart that his new wife was silent only to arouse in him a lover’s anxiety, he was not certain whether the spirits of the night would allow her to execute her plan without harming her. Once he was convinced that she was persisting in her silence, he decided to bring her back to the fireside and headed straight for the point from which she had set out, believing that she would be a few paces beyond; but when he had sought her for several long minutes without success and his cries met with no response, he returned to the fire, alarmed and upset that the imagined loss had turned out to be real.

Ben Attar improvised two torches from handfuls of dry leaves and twigs, one for himself and the second for the young husband, who had already lost one wife in the sea, so it was only natural that he should exert himself now not to lose a second in the forest. But Mistress Esther-Minna did not want to get lost, and in fact she was not very far either from the fire or from the two men who were looking for her, their torches flickering among the trees. Because she had not gone in a straight line but had described a wide arc, she was now on the opposite side from her seekers, so she could sit huddled up small under the tree she had just rubbed herself against, her hands clasped at her bosom, sunk deep in thought, waiting for them to give up hope. Then she could return with ladylike composure to the fire, excited by a new idea that had taken root in her heart. But by then the two men who were looking for her had split up and were going in different directions. While her husband went in the same straight line, as though he truly believed that his wife had decided to return to Paris alone, perhaps navigating by the stars, the older uncle, more familiar with the minds of women, had turned back, for his fine senses told him that a woman who could make him travel for so many long weeks on the ocean was capable of taking care of herself.

The torch was disintegrating in his hand, its last embers disappearing among the bushes. So when Ben Attar stumbled over Mistress Esther-Minna in the dark, for a moment he did not know whether he had happened on a human being or on some soft unknown European animal. When he leaned over her, touched her, and tried to lift her, muttering some words to her in Hebrew to see if she had passed out, she, realizing that a fainting fit would justify her disappearance and her silence, closed her eyes tight and imagined herself as the third wife of the sturdy man who was lifting her up, feeling all the trembling of pain and humiliation in her new condition. And for the first time in her life, she, who had always kept her composure and clarity of mind, struggled to make herself dizzy so she could try to faint.

When she opened her eyes, she realized that she had not been pretending to faint, for she was lying by the fire covered with someone else’s robe while Abulafia’s face hovered over her full of astonished admiration, as though in fainting she had acquired a quality she had not possessed before. But although she was very curious to know whether her husband or the twice-wed man who had found her had carried her out of the woods to the fireside, she realized that this was not the time to ask, when all the travelers were surrounding her with affection and fear, as though her fainting had atoned for all the offense of the repudiation. So great was the concern for her welfare that the first wife was unstitching one of the seams in the lining of her undergarment, which also served as a kind of secret pouch, and drawing out a tiny vial of sharp-smelling unguent that Abu Lutfi brought her every year from the desert. To judge by the secretive way he gave it to her, it seemed that this was the fabled elixir extracted from the brains or testicles of impure but intelligent monkeys, whose pungent smell was so special that when the first wife rubbed a single drop of it into the new wife’s sallow temple, she had no choice but to sit up immediately.

4.

The strange smell of the drop of desert elixir penetrated the new wife’s temple, immediately flooded the whole of her being, and even seemed to be regulating her breathing, striking a new chord inside her that only reinforced the novel idea that had just come into her mind. When Esther-Minna rose to her feet and climbed smiling into the wagon, leaning out of mere politeness on her husband’s arm and declining with thanks the soft bed of leaves that the two wives had amiably contrived in the depth of the wagon for her, she could clearly envisage the words she would speak to her husband when he was standing before her alone in the small chamber that had been provisionally allocated to them in her brother’s wing of the house.

So firmly had the decision concerning the new direction of her life taken root within her mind that she even dispensed with consulting her brother on his return—or perhaps it was also because for the first time in her life a breach had been opened up in her faith in this brother, who had so often served as her oracle. Even now, in the swaying darkness as the road climbed among the ruins of the city of Lutetia, she could not forget the affront of the faint spiritual smile that had flitted across his face as he listened to Rabbi Elbaz’s dangerous speech, as the rabbi had sought to transform the sorrow and pain and happiness of the marriage bed into a simple and easy pleasure. How was it possible, Mistress Esther-Minna brooded resentfully, that this brother, who like her had grown up in a house immersed in true religious discourse, should think that any idea, if it was only dressed up with a few biblical verses, deserved sympathetic examination with the mind, even if the soul should abhor it?

But Master Levitas, who was now crossing the night on horseback on his way back to Villa Le Juif, was not thinking about the rabbi’s speech, nor was he troubled by what his sister might be thinking. Master Levitas was determined to overtake the scribes and preserve his reputation by giving them the promised honorarium, and also to find the Radhanite merchant and offer him a higher price for his two Indian pearls. It was impossible for this Parisian businessman’s sharp mind not to make a connection between the other’s forceful and hostile intervention during the judgment and the very low price he had offered him the day before. But when Master Levitas reached the winery, swathed in the shadows of its vines, he found the proprietor and his little crowd of workers fast asleep, as though they had been impatient to explore in their dreams the wonderful verdict that they had just heard delivered. And since the three scribes were on their way to Chartres in a cart and the merchant from the Land of Israel had vanished into thin air, Master Levitas had no alternative, as he paced vainly among the wine casks, but to listen to the prattling of the old woman judge, who at the sound of the surprise visitor’s footsteps had hurriedly emerged from the heap of fox furs, which in any case had failed to warm her flesh.

Shivering slightly in the night chill of early autumn as he sheltered between two wine casks on the former judges’ dais, wrapped in an old fox skin, Master Levitas waited for the light of morning to hand over the promised fee with his own hands to the proprietor and to inquire where the courier from the Land of Israel had gone. In the meantime, while waiting for the dawn, he listened to the babbling old woman, who, faithful to the rabbinical precept “Do not speak much with womankind,” did not permit the Parisian to get a word in but assailed him with her rapturous impressions of the dark-skinned Jews from the south, the beauty of their wives with their fascinating robes, the purity of the rabbi’s speech, and the sweetness of his child. In particular she dwelled repeatedly on the powerful appearance of Ben Attar, who might—who knew? the widow permitted herself to dream—enlist her as a supplementary wife on board his ship when it sailed back to his sunny homeland.

Master Levitas sat in silence, his eyes closed, and despite the shiver of tiredness he tried, as a level-headed, practical man, to unravel a first fine thread of thought that would enable him to arrange a compromise between the partnership that had been resurrected by a lunatic verdict and his sister’s self-respect. Perhaps the interminable, contemptible prattle of the old woman who had attached herself to him in the depths of the night was beginning to cloud his mind; how else could a decisive, clear-headed man such as himself seriously contemplate proposing himself as a fourth member of the revived partnership between south and north, even if only to interpose his own stable, reliable personality between the uncle and his nephew and thus cushion the threat of double matrimony that so alarmed his sister? The only reason such an original and bizarre idea sprouted in the mind of this anxious, responsible brother in the depth of night was because he was far from his sister, who was now bathed in the warmth of her husband’s body in the dark of the wagon, as though since she had been bested in the arbitration and fainted in the wood his love and desire for her were redoubling by the minute. It was precisely because Mistress Esther-Minna felt this so clearly that she was convinced she did not need her younger brother’s consent or any novel stratagem on his part to make a new declaration to the man who would soon be standing before her in the candlelight and removing his clothes.

So she merely smiled and inclined her head when Rabbi Elbaz turned and inquired politely as to her well-being, as though seeking merit for himself, on the assumption that his wonderful speech had been partly responsible for her fainting. And when they alighted at midnight in the Rue de la Harpe, by the statue of a man holding a harp, and smelled the smell of the river, she smiled again and bowed submissively to the North African man as he entrusted his two wives to her with the newfound authority of the head of the family, although he himself felt constrained to hasten to the ship to inform his anxious Ishmaelite partner that his prayers to Allah had not been in vain, and that with morning they would be able to begin unloading the cargo. It was only after Mistress Abulafia had taken the two women upstairs and smoothed the rabbi’s bedclothes and turned his pillows lest he suffer from sleeplessness beside the two women, who had vanished into their respective chambers, that she instructed the old maidservant to heat some water for her to bathe herself in in the small room that Master Levitas had put at her disposal.

Naked in a large, exquisitely ornamented copper tub that Abulafia had given her as a betrothal gift, her small pink body gleaming, despite her age, with purity and freshness, the blue-eyed woman scrubbed herself with the help of her pagan maid, not so much to remove the lingering scent of the desert elixir as to blend it with the perfume of her usual soap. When she saw that Abulafia wanted to come in and undress, she dismissed her maid and stood before him in all her splendor before putting on the lightest shift she had. And while this curly-headed man who was at once husband and nephew, repudiated and attracted, interpreter and accused, victor and vanquished, began to remove his clothes, she told him in a voice only the depths of night could endow with such firmness that since the repudiation of the twice-wed uncle had failed and the partnership with him was about to be revived, she was declaring herself to be a rebellious wife who no longer desired her husband. According to a powerful and ancient law, whose source was not the rabbis of Ashkenaz but the heads of the Babylonian academies themselves, who were universally considered as unchallenged legal authorities, a rebellious wife who no longer desires her husband is compelled to submit to immediate divorce.

The desire that made Abulafia’s soul dizzy did not permit him to digest what had been thrown in his face, and he continued to undress himself, as though the words he had heard had been spoken not by the desired woman, gleaming before him with cleanness, with all her parts revealed to him under her light shift, but by another woman, a hidden, furious, disobedient shade who wished to spatter his ardent seed upon the cold flagstones. With the blunted senses of a man in the grip of lust, Abulafia maintained a blank silence and continued to divest himself of his remaining garments, displaying in the little glass that stood on the chest of drawers his face blackened by the fire and his arms scratched from his terrified quest for one who a few hours earlier, he had been certain, had tried to do to him in the wood what another, previous wife had done to him years before in the sea.

Even though Mistress Esther-Minna took a step or two backward and even raised her hands to repel her young husband, who refused to recognize the seriousness of the rebellion confronting him, she was taken by force, roughly and against her will, into the arms of a naked man who would have been willing to have had her faint again if only he could satisfy his lust at once. But just then, as though coming to the aid of the woman in distress, as she grappled not only with her husband’s desire but with her own as well, there arose behind the curtain the insistent strident wail of a girl who still missed her Ishmaelite nurse. Abulafia now found himself contending not only with the rebellion struggling in his new wife’s damp, fragrant frame but also with the ghostly cry of his dead wife, calling to him for help from the depths of the sea through the raucous voice of their child.

So his new wife made good her escape, as though Abulafia’s flesh and blood made concrete in the child wailing on the other side of the faded curtain took priority for her over his flesh and blood now suffering torments in her presence. When she left the chamber to go to the crying child, Abulafia’s strength gave out. For three whole days, ever since his uncle had appeared in the doorway of his house, he had been buffeted and pressed between beloved but powerfully opposing forces. Just as he was, naked, with his erect member still projecting like a dagger looking for a new target, he entered the tub in which his supposedly rebellious wife had just bathed, seeking in the suds the warmth and fragrance of the flesh that had eluded him. And with the wretched child’s bawling still piercing the curtain beside him, his eyes closed painfully at the sight of his spent seed floating on the water.

After a while, still in this water, he heard his wife talking to him gently, compassionate and friendly. Although the verdict of seven ignorant judges was no better in her view than that of the seven wine casks on which they had been sitting, she was not so arrogant as to demand that the verdict be annulled, if only out of respect for the rabbi. Since she could not forget either the oriental courier’s applause or the smile that had played around Abulafia’s lips as he translated the rabbi’s words one by one, or particularly the calm curiosity of her brother, her own flesh and blood, on hearing the effrontery of the speech, she had no alternative but to wrap herself in her sorrow and separate herself from all that was most precious to her. And she prayed it would not be accounted sinful by the God of Israel if for the first time in her life she found herself envying the Christian women, who in time of affliction could abandon all and withdraw into a nunnery. But since Jews had no nunneries, all she could do was return to her native town, where her first husband’s kinsfolk lived, in particular her brother-in-law, who had released her from the bonds of levirate marriage on the death of her husband so she could join her brother in Paris. And so, in simplicity and good will, she said to her husband, who lay immersed in water that still bore the scent of her flesh, My repudiation has failed and your partnership is revived, and henceforth you are free once more to travel the trade roads disguised as a monk or a leper, to your beloved uncle and respected partner, with his wives and his condiments. Only divorce me first, my lord, and I shall not trouble you or any man further. Then I shall take my leave not only of you and your child butof my brother and his family, and return to the river of Ashkenaz,the river of my childhood, which is incomparably wider and deeper than the river beyond that window.

In fear of the refusal that was sure to follow, she quickly plunged the candle flame into the cooling bathwater in which her startled husband was still splashing, and in the great darkness that fell suddenly on the small room she put on a wrap over her light shift, then she quietly toured her guests’ bedchambers to make sure that no one was passing a sleepless night because of inattention on her part. But the four North African travelers, weary and lulled by their victory, did not require any attention from their hostess, whose stubborn repudiation had brought them from the far ends of the earth. Finding that the two wives were breathing calmly in their beds, that the blanket had not slipped off the curled body of the boy Elbaz, and that the rabbi’s beard had not become entangled in the embroidery of his pillow, she went to the kitchen to see what food she might offer her guests in the morning, which was not far off. Some time later she returned silently to her own chamber, to find Abulafia wrapped in his traveling cloak, sleeping on a chair beside the bathtub with the large extinguished candle still in it, and there was no way of telling whether he had fallen asleep so swiftly so as not to have to face the rebellion that had been raised against him.

How could he surrender a woman whose high cheekbones gave her the look of a fair and noble beast, and for whom his love became richer day by day? A woman who had fainted a little earlier with such delicious sweetness? Yet how could he now reject a dear and loyal uncle, who had risked hardships and dangers on the sea to be reunited with him, and who was now protected by a verdict secured in his favor by the sharp-witted rabbi from Andalus? Therefore, Abulafia mused in his patient and somewhat superficial fashion, it would be best to doze awhile and mingle the contradictory currents of his life in dreams, as was his wont, until Master Levitas, his wise brother-in-law, should return and find a solution. But Master Levitas would not be back soon. He was still slumped between two large barrels in the winery at Villa Le Juif, and he too was dreaming, while beside him the old woman, who had thrown some more fox furs over him, continued to grumble. In his dream Master Levitas, naked as on the day of his birth, was walking on the seashore to a business meeting with Ben Attar, who now possessed the Radhanite’s two Indian pearls. Since Master Levitas had never set eyes on the sea, he imagined it like the Red Sea in the prayerbook for Passover—as hillocks of reddish water, while on the dry land that was exposed between them good men walked naked toward one another.

Ben Attar, however, was not free to enter either Master Levitas’s dream or Abulafia’s, or even that of Esther-Minna, who lay huddled alone on her bed trying to conjure up the moments of her fainting, for Ben Attar was busy speaking with Abu Lutfi, who kept one eye on the black slave as he led the male camel ashore on a rope halter to crop the lush grass of the northern bank. No matter how hard Ben Attar tried to explain to his Arab partner about the victory he had won, Abu Lutfi, who had never understood the need for a battle, failed to grasp the point. But the Ishmaelite was glad of one thing, that at dawn they would be able to unload the cargo, for ever since Ben Attar and his party had gone ashore the sailors had begun to help themselves to the goods. Was it the lack of the owner’s quiet authority that had removed all restraint from Abd el-Shafi and his crew, or the absence of the two wives’ gentle gaze? Or was it perhaps neither of these but the want of the rabbi’s quill pen?

One way or another, the time had come to rescue the cargo from the ravages of the crew, unload the large sacks and sealed chests, separate the pale honeycombs, and refold the rugs and mats. And, most important of all, to extract the gem-encrusted daggers from their hiding places and restore their former brilliance, which would excite the urge to purchase even in those who had no need for them. So the two partners prepared for the week of trading that lay ahead. On the first two days they would transfer the merchandise to the repentant third partner’s home, so that he could inspect it carefully, and on the following two days they would make good use of their presence in the marketplace to examine covertly (so as not to offend Abulafia) the state of the market and the prevailing prices, thus gaining a clearer idea of how much of the proceeds Abulafia received he brought to Barcelona to be shared out among the partners and how much was to be attributed to traveling expenses. On the remaining two days they would start to search for goods with which to fill the hungry belly of the ship for the return journey—either timber, which Abu Lutfi usually loaded onto the boats returning from Barcelona, or jars of local wine, which the Jewish partner suddenly thought of taking. While they were discussing these plans, the camel and the black slave disappeared, and they were obliged to break off and expend some effort combing the thicket on the northern bank before arriving at a damp, sandy area where the river had surprisingly carved a new, bare islet and discovering the mournful camel sating himself on fresh lettuces and sugarbeets from the Parisians’ allotments close to the convent of Sainte Geneviève, while the young pagan excitedly prostrated himself at the sight of a new star he had discovered in the sky above the Île de France.

In this small hour of the night Ben Attar could not imagine that the victory of the old partnership, which was already secured in the folds of his robe, was about to elude him yet again, and that their departure for the double home on the golden shore of Tangier was still very far away. For how could he imagine the depth of Abulafia’s sorrow when, on waking from his snatched, huddled sleep on that hard chair, he remembered his rebellious wife? Since he believed that she was hiding from him, he did not notice her curled up in one corner of their bed, and he set off to look for her in one of the many other rooms of the house. It was only on his grim-faced return that he discovered how hasty he had been in despairing of her. And his hands cautiously explored his wife’s beloved body, to see whether the new rebellion pervaded even her dreams. But Mistress Esther-Minna was sleeping peacefully and very deeply, as though ever since she had announced her separation and her impending return to her own land, the storm aroused in her soul by Uncle Ben Attar’s sudden appearance had subsided.

Had only three days passed? Abulafia wondered in the darkness, straightening out his wife’s clenched hand on the coverlet to help her sleep better. Seeing that she did not react and that her limbs were heavy in his hands, he was assailed by a fear that she was not asleep but had fainted again, as in that moment when Ben Attar had lifted her from the ground and carried her to the fireside. And desire, which had seemed to be released and evaporated in the bath, seized him again, as though its source were not within himself but somewhere in this house that Ben Attar’s wives filled with their peaceful breathing. No, he swore to himself, he would never divorce her, although he was well acquainted with his wife’s stubbornness. Even though he had no idea how things would turn out, of one thing he was certain. He could not lose again in the Black Forest the love that he had already lost once in the waves of the sea. Unable to restrain himself, he began to caress and kiss his wife, so that she would wake and see that it was his intention to fight her rebellion with all his strength.

Very slowly he cradled his desire, while guiding and directing and compelling his response to it. For a moment it seemed as though Mistress Esther-Minna were deliberately refusing to wake, so as to leave this coupling in the twilight zone between waking and being awake. In this way it could not be claimed afterward that her revolt had been snuffed out in its infancy, and without tormenting her conscience she could ignore the wailing of the wretched daughter, who as usual was trying to wreck her father’s lovemaking from behind the curtain. And so she was taken, and for a long while Abulafia’s member refused to leave her, as though by remaining erect inside her it could prevent a new repudiation and withdrawal toward the region of Lotharingia in her native Ashkenaz. The carnal thrill that filled her took such hold of her that she could not restrain herself, but joined her own moaning to the raucous wailing in the adjoining chamber.

When she awoke from sleep with a heavy head, with the sun already riding high in the sky, she was startled to discover that while she had slept her house had been seized by a rebellion. Ben Attar’s two wives were standing beside the fireplace and the oven in the kitchen as though they were in their own home, slicing vegetables and roasting meat, baking bread and stirring a reddish pottage, and all with such easy authority that not only Levitas’s wife and the old maidservant but even Elbaz and his boy were forced to contribute, as the latter were called in to taste every dish and relish and say whether they were true to the flavors of Andalus. Only Abulafia was absent, for he had been summoned to the ship to exercise his revived status of partner and to oversee the seamen as they unloaded the cargo and transported it to the courtyard of his house.

Still there was no sign of Master Levitas, who, after sending a special messenger at dawn to Chartres to pay the three scribes for their trouble, had located the Radhanite merchant, who was on the point of departing for Orléans, and reopened the bargaining with him for the two pearls. Even though Master Levitas was not certain that the unusual pear shape of the large pearls conferred added value on them, as the merchant claimed, or whether it indicated a hidden flaw, he was now willing to offer a higher price. When the price had been agreed and the bargain was struck, Master Levitas could not resist inquiring, in a delicate and roundabout way, whether the merchant himself had two wives or only one. But the bearded man did not seem disposed to reveal his secrets, and he went on his way without giving a clear answer. As Master Levitas wrapped the two large pearls in a soft cloth and secreted them in his jerkin, he wondered whether he should offer them both for sale in the Capetian court in Paris, or whether he should sell one to one of the loveliest duchesses and keep the other hidden until the beauty of the owner of its visible twin increased its value.

That afternoon, alone, hungry, and thirsty, he made his way back to Paris. Every now and then he halted his horse, took out the pearls, and held them up to the sunlight, not only to compare them with each other but also to learn which hour of the day best flattered their pear-like character, which hour should also serve as the hour appointed for their sale. Preoccupied with thoughts of commerce, he entered his home, and was startled to see the quantity of merchandise being piled up in his courtyard by barefoot, half-naked Arab seamen carrying jars on their heads. Your uncle has put the verdict into effect very quickly, he said quietly to Abulafia, who was standing in the doorway of the house, pale and silent, casting a gentle, distressed look at his brother-in-law as though his whole fate depended on him alone. Abulafia hesitated to expose to Master Levitas the development that was tearing his soul apart and to seek his advice, as he was waiting to see whether the fast that he had imposed upon himself since that morning would annul his wife’s harsh decree. But she was already hastening to inform her brother as he entered the house about the status of “rebellious wife” that she had assumed to escape the affront and menace that were looming over her marriage, and she was now prepared to admit that her brother’s reservations about that marriage had not been unreasonable.

Master Levitas’s practical nature did not permit him to rake over the sins of the past so long as the urgency of the present threatened him and his home with heaped-up sacks of condiments and woven cloth, large earthen jars and brassware, which were arriving relentlessly from the Arab ship, filling his courtyard and cellar, and even beginning to intrude on the upper story. Nor was his house invaded from the outside alone, for Ben Attar’s wives were loading the large dining table with wonderfully colorful and exotically perfumed dishes, as though their love of cooking, held in check during the ocean voyage, had now burst forth in all its exuberance.

However, when Master Levitas turned to Abulafia to beg him to stop the invasion that was cascading from the ship to his house under the pressure of his partners’ commercial enthusiasm, Abulafia looked at him with a pale, staring face and extended his arms in the graceful, helpless gesture seen in images of the crucified god of the Christians, as though he too since that morning had been transformed into a tortured saint swaying between life and death. The soul of this man, who had spent so many years in solitary travel, had remained fundamentally emotional and shallow, and it was now torn between love and fear, duty and compassion. And this blend of emotions, in which there hovered also the sweet memory of the twin emissions of the night, made the man who had been deliberately starving himself since morning so dizzy that he was in danger of suddenly collapsing.

Before that could happen, Master Levitas hurriedly sent him to his partners’ ship to stop the flow of merchandise, the quantity and variety of which was alarming Ben Attar too. Despite the many days and nights he had spent on board the ship, he had not imagined how full his Ishmaelite partner had managed to fill it. Abu Lutfi, who had not only managed to pack whole worlds of merchandise on board but also remembered them, now scrutinized them minutely as they burst forth out of the darkness and were borne ashore accompanied by the singing of burly seamen, so as to fix them in his memory, ready for the meeting next summer, when he would demand payment for them from the third partner, who had returned repentantly thanks to the trial in Villa Le Juif. Although if he was really repentant, why was he calling to them now from the riverbank to halt the flow of goods that was inundating his house and his yard?

Ben Attar told Abd el-Shafi to halt the unloading and hurriedly joined his nephew, who was standing surrounded by throngs of Parisians crowded among the little old wooden houses on a bridge called the New Bridge. Abulafia tugged desperately at his stubborn uncle’s garments to pull him away from the curious crowd, and while the sunlight traced trailing purple marks upon the lovely peaceful river as it circled gently southward, Abulafia led Ben Attar deeper into the island, among the narrow streets packed at this hour with people returning home, some leading a lamb or a piglet on a cord for their dinner. From the dull look in his nephew’s large dark eyes, Ben Attar knew that some new torment was afflicting him.

Abulafia told him immediately about the rebellion that had broken out in his home, and how his wife had sworn in her distress to go far away to her native town on the Rhine, there to convene a new court of justice to compel Abulafia to divorce her. Although the Moroccan merchant appeared surprised at the news, he seemed to find in it a blessing that might deepen the partnership that had been so laboriously revived. Perhaps the time had really come, Ben Attar tried to inform his nephew obliquely, with roundabout hints, his arm around the shoulder of his beloved nephew, whose pallor lent an additional beauty to his black locks. Perhaps, the uncle speculated wildly, it was really the hand of the Almighty that had urged him to take an old guardship and sail it to this remote little island, which still seemed to him to be rocking in the midst of the river, to rescue a lost lamb. Surely Abulafia could spare the enthusiastic rebel the hardships of a journey to the land of Ashkenaz by simply asking Rabbi Elbaz to put into effect the wisdom of the Babylonian sages and impose the divorce that Mistress Esther-Minna so longed for. In this way Abulafia would be free to travel back not only to the Bay of Barcelona but to the golden shores of the rock from which he was hewn. Surely now that he had proved to everyone and especially to himself that the curse of loneliness within him was broken, he would be able to find a wife to his taste in Tangier, and even a second wife, if he felt inclined to love her too.

But Abulafia, weakened by his fast, merely stumbled and fell in the surge of horses and pigs and hit his head on the cobbles on hearing the fantastic projects that his uncle Ben Attar was planning for him. Ben Attar did not realize how much his very being was interwoven with his love for his new wife and everything connected with her, including even the cobbles of this narrow Parisian street, which had just made his head spin. It was fortunate that Rabbi Elbaz appeared on the scene, sent with his boy to the ship to get some salt and olive oil. He happened on the North African merchant just as he was helping his young nephew to his feet, after a fainting fit that had mimicked that of his fair-haired wife.

A few local Franks, who invested with a status of sanctity any incident of fainting because of the impact of the story of the crucifixion at Golgotha, also hurried up, and sprinkled Abulafia with fresh water from a nearby well and rubbed his temples with red wine before pouring more into his gaping mouth. Ben Attar, afraid to take the young man straight back to his home in the Rue de la Harpe, conducted him first to the ship. There, among the remaining jars and sacks, they laid the frail partner, who opened his beautiful eyes and smiled a smile that held a deep, sweet sadness. And this is what he said when he saw his stubborn uncle’s face bending over him: Uncle, if you cannot kill me, release me, for I shall never give up that woman. Then Rabbi Elbaz had to hear the story all over again, both from the point of view of the despair of Ben Attar, who was once more, at a single stroke, about to lose the object of his journey, and from the viewpoint of the pain of love that had pierced the young partner, who hoped that he would speedily think up a new compromise that would please Mistress Abulafia and Master Levitas.

But not a word would he say to either of them before making the two partners and his son stand and face the Cité of Paris to the east, to say the afternoon and evening prayers in the old familiar mode and manner. Abulafia, who always loved to sing these tunes, could not find the strength in his soul even to mumble them. There was something attractive about these southern Jews, in their white robes and blue turbans, standing on board the Arab ship scarred by the hardships of its valiant journey, surrounded by the strong seamen, whose eyes were fixed on the crowds of Frankish folk thronging the riverbank and forgoing their dinner in order to enjoy the sight of the variegated mass of humanity on board. Suddenly it seemed to Rabbi Elbaz that in the evening twilight of this city, there was not just a vague menace from the approaching millennium but also the veiled promise of a great and unique beauty to be born of the future marriage between the two banks.

The convent of Sainte Geneviève on the northern bank was screened by the smoke of dinners being cooked on the island as the Jews concluded the prayer “True and faithful,” but still Rabbi Elbaz refused to disclose the new idea he had had, since he feared that Ben Attar would stifle it newborn, and preferred to unveil it only after the great feast that the two North African women had prepared. Since the rabbi had followed the preparations during the day and taken part in the tasting and testing, he pinned great hopes on the power of this meal to assist the idea that had captured his heart.

It may have been precisely because of the panic that had seized Ben Attar as Abulafia had pleaded to be released that he too felt very excited about the meal his two wives had made. Since he had set out on his journey he had missed the dishes that each of his wives had always prepared for him, and these wives would now be joined together at a single table. Even Abulafia forgot his woes for a moment, and a tear of pleasure welled up in his eye as he smelled the North African food, not because of his fast, which he had quite forgotten about in the commotion of his fainting fit, but because his memory conjured up the cooking of his first wife, who had died. Master Levitas too was so tired and hungry that he accepted without remonstrance the new smells and flavors, especially since he was careful not to give offense to his two enthusiastic veiled guests, who, usurping the role of hostess, piled his plate with more and more food. Only Mistress Esther-Minna sat grimly at the banquet that had taken over her dining table, consoling herself with the thought that this would be her last dinner before she returned to the place where she had come into the world.

Then Rabbi Elbaz began to question her, in slow, easy Hebrew, about her native town and the merits and achievements of its Jewish scholars. His purpose was to find out whether she would be finally satisfied if these great and meticulous sages gave their approval to the renewal of the partnership between Ben Attar and her husband. But Esther-Minna found the rabbi’s question redundant, since she had no doubt in her heart that the sages of the land of Ashkenaz would not only find in favor of the repudiation but would almost certainly convert it into a formal ban. The rabbi from Seville, however, was not dismayed by the menace contained in her words. Perhaps, he answered with a strange smile, because they had not yet heard the arguments thought up in Seville and simmered upon the ocean waves for many days and nights. He had not said his fill at the winery of Villa Le Juif. He still had a few choice arguments left, which were stirring in his heart, and he laid his hand on his chest as though to still their motion. Therefore, the rabbi added softly, with a casual smile, why should they not all join her rebellion and follow her to the river of her birth, so as to face the judgment of those whom she accepted as wise and just? If the judgment went against them, they would accept their discomfiture and return as they had come, but if not, the repudiation and the rebellion would be utterly annulled, and all of them would be reunited, she with her husband who loved her so, and he in turn with his uncle who had refused to abandon him.

So surprised was Mistress Esther-Minna by the Andalusian rabbi’s willingness to face another court in her native town that she feared the Hebrew her father had taught her had misled her understanding. So she excitedly asked her brother, whose command of the holy tongue was better than her own, to find out clearly from the rabbi whether he had truly said what she had understood. Master Levitas questioned Rabbi Elbaz, who, without looking straight at his master the merchant, repeated his suggestion so clearly that Master Levitas had no doubt or difficulty in translating it rapidly and fluently into the local language. The rabbi’s words caused the pale, exhausted Abulafia to rise excitedly and bow a deep bow to the startled Ben Attar, in the mistaken belief that it was his uncle who was the true source of this wonderful new suggestion.

5.

While Abulafia was bowing excitedly to his uncle, the same unseen hand that was gently wiping away the painful rift in his soul was transferring it slowly to that of Ben Attar. Although he knew well that the rabbi’s astounding suggestion was connected to an irresistible temptation to repeat the wonderful speech he had made to the court of the wine casks before the sages in the blue-eyed woman’s native town, Ben Attar also understood well that the rabbi was trying to open up a new avenue, so as to avoid a renewed breach between him and Abulafia that was liable to frustrate the whole purpose of their epic voyage. But he shot an anxious glance at his two wives, who were sitting at the other end of the table, their faces beaming with joy at the sight of all the empty dishes, still not suspecting what the little rabbi was cooking up for them. Again, as when a storm whips up the sea, his heart was anxious for his two wives, who would have to journey even farther. Even if he did not fear, like his nephew, that a rebellion might break out in his household, he did fear that the sorrow of homesickness might age them all.

Thus he turned cautiously to Master Levitas and questioned him about the road to the Rhine, the river where he and his sister had been born and bred. And Master Levitas, who had been sitting contentedly stroking his little beard and sniffing the smell of the Moroccan meal clinging to his fingers while trying to discern what was taking place in his guts, was very careful not to let slip a single ill-considered word of discouragement, for although he saw the suggestion of a contest with the sages of Ashkenaz as a dangerous gamble, he also knew that this was the only way of ridding himself of these swarthy visitors, whose presence in his home was becoming more rooted by the hour, and of giving himself a lull, however temporary, from the feverish complications of his sister’s marriage, which he realized now he had been only too right to warn her against.

Thus Master Levitas attempted to depict the route from Francia to Lotharingia, from Paris to Worms, in clear, gentle colors, according to his memories from long ago. Although Ben Attar was disappointed at first to discover that the Creator had not managed in the six days of the creation to link the Seine to the Rhine, so that Abd el-Shafi could be asked to hoist the triangular sail and simply sail the ship to Mistress Esther-Minna’s childhood home, Master Levitas’s reassuring descriptions of villages and small towns on the way led him to hope and believe that this additional journey by land would not put to shame the voyage that had preceded it. Excitedly he heard about the small town of Meaux, which led to the town of Chalons, and about the River Marne, and the Meuse, where Verdun could be found, a pleasant town of customs men and slave traders that straddled the frontier between the county of Champagne and the duchy of Lotharingia. From there easy roads ran through an expansive country past towns called Metz and Saarbrücken, and the rivers Moselle and Saar, until they reached their destination, Worms, which stood beside the River Rhine, to whose marshy banks a few families of Jews had clung lovingly for the past hundred years. And so Ben Attar turned to his two wives, who were trying, each in her own way, to understand what was being said, so that he could soothe the panic that he could sense only too well from the slight motion of their veils.

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.

And so, as a sudden whim will occur even to a strong, firm man, the decision came into Ben Attar’s mind to include the black scout with his keen senses in the forthcoming expedition to the Rhine. To judge from Abu Lutfi’s sorrow and protests, it was clear that he was being deprived not only of a faithful servant but of a secret beloved. But this knowledge only strengthened Ben Attar’s resolve. If the recruitment of the sea captain was meant to forestall treacherous escape by sea, that of the black boy would forestall his partner’s treacherous escape by land. Thus he could assure himself that on his return from the coming adventure he would at least find everything where it should be. And at dawn the first wife found time to cut up one of her old dresses with a sharp knife and remake it as a green robe for the young traveler, to provide a covering for his black nakedness.

After they had broken their fast and taken their leave of those who were staying behind, the ten passengers in the two wagons slowly crossed from the south to the north bank, and for some two hours they rolled southeastward, until suddenly the Seine seemed to divide before them. Then they abandoned the southern arm and traveled northeast along the Marne, and it was perhaps only then that in the little chamber the witless child fell silent from exhaustion, for since the departure of the travelers she had struggled relentlessly with the gentile nurse who had been left to look after her. Now the two wagons began to follow the roads of the Marne Valley, which were swarming with carts and wayfarers on foot waving to each other amiably in the brilliant noonday sunshine. On land the strangeness of the southern travelers was less noticeable, not only because of Abulafia’s rich experience of the roads but also because Mistress Esther-Minna won all hearts with the purity of her Frankish speech, so they had no hesitation in entering into conversation with pilgrims, peasants, or traders, who, contrary to the gloomy suppositions of those of differing faith, had become more tolerant of each other and hence also of strangers seeking help because of the approaching sanctity of the millennium.

The assistance they chiefly needed concerned the precise delineation of the road, for after running pleasantly and confidently along well-trodden dirt tracks and over fields of wheat stubble, it might suddenly stop short, owing to an unnoticed earlier error, in a farmyard full of squawking geese and a throng of sheep and pigs. It was important to be very particular in selecting the right road, and not to be led astray by paths that looked attractively wide and smooth. They had to halt from time to time at a wayside inn by a stream and announce publicly the name of their first destination, Meaux, and the next one, Chalons, in order to obtain good advice as to the right way. Everyone was quick to offer helpful suggestions and even reasonably priced provender for the horses, or a large loaf of freshly baked bread, or a huge cockerel with a crest, which the black pagan, after tying its yellow feet together, quickly laid beside him on the driver’s seat and addressed reverently all day long. After it was slaughtered, he plucked it and worshipped its naked carcass, which lay before him like a crucified man, oozing blood, before it was handed over to the first wife, who insisted on cooking dinner herself for the ten wayfarers, as though her role of housewife, which had been lulled to sleep by the monotonous charm of the waves, had been wakened now on dry land.

What was amazing was that the second wife, and the new wife too, not only allowed the renascent housewife to take command and do whatever she wished but even refrained from helping her. The pensive inactivity that the two of them manifested at the sight of the first wife’s feverish activity over the smoking fire bound them together with a new if silent comradeship, for they did not have, and never would have, a common language. But while the second wife, whose mind was in thrall to the tiny ocean-bred creature that floated inside her, which sometimes seemed to her to have smuggled itself into her womb not from Ben Attar’s male member but from a breach pierced by the sea in the floor of her cabin in the bowels of the ship, did her best to elude the inquisitive blue look of a woman who was her superior in years and wisdom, Mistress Esther-Minna, whose heart was filling with happiness at the thought of revisiting the house where she had been born and with confidence at the outcome of the renewed tribunal, seemed to allow herself now to repudiate any repudiation, and not only to be friendly with one and all but also to ponder closely and deeply the second wife’s nature, as though the secret of double matrimony were concealed in her alone.

So they advanced steadily, between halts, along the right roads. Meanwhile, the approaching year 4760 lashed them in their imaginations from afar as though it had joined the long whip that Abd el-Shafi had improvised from a rope from the ship, which he waved above the horses’ heads as though he were breathing life into an invisible sail.

Abulafia and Ben Attar had thought at first they would stay in wayside inns because of the chilly nights, but they were surprised to discover that the bright skies of Champagne retained something of the warmth of the day even after dark. When they realized at the first inn where they halted, in Meaux, what a large and smelly throng of Christians was crowded into the sleeping quarters, and how thin the partition between the men and the women was, Ben Attar decided, with his nephew’s concurrence, to try to spend the night under the vault of heaven. Not far from the inn they drew up the two wagons facing each other and tethered the four horses together; they made a comfortable place for the three women to lie, and they left the rabbi’s son to sleep among them, to interpose his lean body, at least symbolically, between south and north. The three Jewish men found themselves a sleeping place among the wares in the larger wagon, and the two mariner-wagoners slept under it between the large wheels, so that anyone who tried to move the wagon would wake them at once. As for the black pagan, he was ordered to roam around and scare off anyone who might try to disturb their sleep.

And so Mistress Esther-Minna slept close to the southern uncle’s two wives, their breathing accompanying her own and their sighing punctuating her own dreams. Occasionally she was alarmed by the thought that Ben Attar might be unable to curb his desire and might leave the large wagon in the middle of the night and raise the flap of the smaller wagon, to seek love even from one who did not owe it to him. Then she would retreat on her own, leave the triple bed in confusion, and hasten to stand beside the silent horses as though seeking their protection. Very soon the young slave would emerge from the darkness and offer her a hot drink made from bitter, tasty desert herbs, which would restore her peace of mind.

The following night, camping under the stars near an inn called Dormans, after a long but pleasant day’s journeying amid vineyards planted on little hills—they had even been invited by an enthusiastic vintner to view one of the caves in which he stored his wine—she woke again, uncertain whether it was the proximity of two wives belonging to a single man that had disturbed her sleep or the mixture of joy and fear she felt at the impending encounter with her native town and her late husband’s kin, the Kalonymos family. Again she stood beside the horses, wondering where the unseen fire was over which the black servant invisibly brewed the bitter herbal drink that she needed more and more each night.

The next day, when they reached the dark stone walls of Chalons and a fine drizzle began to fall, Ben Attar wanted to enter the town and find them a real roof to put over their heads, but eventually he dropped the idea and turned the two wagons into the shelter of a small wood so they could prepare for the night. But the dripping of the rain on the canvas cover of the wagon gave him no rest, and fetched him out of his bed to see whether the Ishmaelite wagoners required more covering. While these turned out to be fast asleep, he found the woman who was his adversary swathed and trembling, with her infusion, and he made her a shallow bow. Before retreating in obedience to the law regulating contact between the sexes and reinstalling himself in the men’s wagon beside her husband, he could not resist pronouncing a few words of courtesy in his atrophied Hebrew, careful to filter out any hint of protestation or anger about the sorrow and suffering she had caused him for several years now.

In the morning it transpired that they had been mistaken to fear entering the walls of the town, which turned out to be a labyrinthine place but very welcoming to Abulafia and Ben Attar, who could not overcome their commercial instincts and at first light entered the main gate to offer bags of condiments and earthen jars of olive oil for sale. Despite the early hour people pounced on their wares, and they were generously repaid in food and drink. The two partners, whose former cordial partnership had now been revived, could not help regretting the small quantity of goods they had brought with them and the long journey that still lay ahead, although it did cross Ben Attar’s mind that a reduction in his stock would increase its attractiveness and double its value.

After breakfast they made their way haltingly toward the border with Lotharingia, stopping other wayfarers and pronouncing the name Verdun. But those questioned persisted in shaking their heads and talking not about Verdun but about a place called Somme, which would have to be crossed first, before the road to Verdun lay open ahead. It soon became clear that Somme was the name not of a town or a village but of a region of dense forest. The ground under the horses’ hooves, which had been soft and crisscrossed by brooks and streams, became hard and gray and dry. The following day they began to descend and ascend terraces of land like gigantic flights of steps leading to the Lotharingian border, and the soil, which had been chalky, turned tawny. The garments of the local people also changed their form and color, with crimson standing out more and more in the men’s breeches, which became wider, and in the women’s aprons, which became longer. From time to time the travelers alighted from the wagons and walked, not only to relieve the horses but to enjoy the views of the winding River Meuse, until they came to the town of Verdun, which was entered through a gate in its fortifications. Through this gate passed not only traders but lines of fair-haired, blue-eyed Slavic slaves of both sexes, shackled together with light chains. Outside the town, beyond the wooden bridge over the river, stood different guards, gleaming grayly in their coats of mail, fingering the broad, heavy scabbards of their swords, and raising their visors in pleasure and surprise to learn how powerful the yearning of a Jewish woman for the Rhineland was, if she was so successful in infecting both her near and her more remote kin with it.

But despite their sympathy towards the Jews seeking entry to the land of the Moselle and the Rhine, the guards refused to exempt them from paying a tax on the merchandise heaped up on their wagon. When the Jews tried to argue, maintaining that this was not merchandise but merely a few small gifts for the many kinsfolk awaiting them in Worms, the officer of the guard was momentarily confused, but after a moment’s reflection he ruled that the wagon with the gifts, together with the Jewess returning to her homeland, should be taken to a nearby customs house so that an authoritative and responsible answer could be found to the question of the difference between merchandise and gifts.

It was too late for them to retract their absurd sophistry, and so Abulafia too had to leap quickly up on the big wagon, so that his wife would not be left alone with the stubborn Lotharingians. While the wagoner, Abd el-Shafi, whose rank and dignity when at sea no man guessed at, battled with two soldiers who were attempting to wrest the reins roughly from his hands, Ben Attar ordered the other sailor to attach himself to the wagon that was rolling away, to thwart any impure purpose that might lurk behind this demand for clarification. Thus Ben Attar was left alone with his wives and the rabbi and his son before the walls of Verdun, under a soft gray autumn sky, in a lush green meadow traversed by rivulets, cut off by a bend in the river. He averted his gaze from the black slave, who was now compelled by the guards to remove his clothing and present himself for inspection as naked as the day he was born, so that they could verify precisely how far his blackness extended. From behind the town wall, where the convent of Saint Vanne rose with its two rounded towers, there now burst a sound of singing accompanied by the lowing of a mournful beast. The guardsmen did not seem to be surprised by the sound, and at first they seemed to dismiss it with ribald talk. But gradually they too came under the spell of the sonorous resonance of the music on the other side of the wall, and they released the naked youth, who donned his green robe made from the first wife’s dress and, shivering with embarrassment, rejoined the five Jews, whose fears for Abulafia and his wife gnawed at their souls and prevented them from listening to the singing that filled the grayish brightness of the late afternoon.

All except the second wife, who from the moment the first notes sounded had felt her insides turning over. It was as though the entrancing music that curled around her joined her to her only son, whom she had left behind in her parents’ house on that faraway continent. Suddenly her patience snapped and she was unable to resist any longer, and she rose to her feet and begged Ben Attar to take her to the source of the singing, as though there she might find a balm that would soothe her sorrow. Fearing a further dispersal of the company, Ben Attar tried at first to refuse his wife’s strange request and quell her spirit, but the young woman, still transported by the new music, would not relent, but shamelessly kneeled before him, sobbing and trying to kiss his feet, until in confusion he turned to the guards, who were observing them with faint curiosity, and implored them with broad gestures to silence the strains of song that were driving his wife out of her mind.

But the Lotharingian guards neither could nor would silence the singing, which they were clearly enjoying. Consequently, if Ben Attar wanted to quiet this sudden turbulence in his wife’s soul, he must do as she asked and take her inside the walls of the town. He told the first wife, who was staring wide-eyed at her companion, to resume her place inside the wagon, and he begged the rabbi to join her with his son, while the young slave was instructed to climb up onto the driver’s empty seat and take up the reins in one hand and the whip in the other, so that if anyone tried to harm them during his brief absence he could flick his whip and disappear in an instant down the highway that stood open before them. After explaining to the soldiers with broad gestures and an apologetic smile what he intended to do and what he was leaving behind in their care, he took a firm hold of his wife’s thin arm, and she trembled expectantly as he steered her hesitantly through the gate into the town of Verdun, making straight for the place the music was coming from.

It had been more than sixty days, ever since the beginning of the bold, amazing voyage on the ocean and the river and the additional journey overland, since Ben Attar had been able to escort a lone woman in public, as he had done on occasion on the waterfront in Tangier. He looked compassionately at the young woman walking trippingly at his side or at his heels, who had not noticed, or chose not to, that in her inner commotion her veil had fallen away from her brown face, which was delineated by the simple yet precise hand of a hidden artist. He did not know if it was the sound of the music that had given her the desire and the strength to force him to take her out of the little company, or if it was her longing to be alone with him, not just as a woman wriggling submissively on a narrow bed in total darkness but under the vault of heaven and in a wide open space. Indeed, the husband and his second wife were walking now under a gray sky, between the furrows of a piece of land scattered with tombstones so uniform in form and color that it seemed as though those lying beneath them had all died and been buried together. And there, close to the wall of the convent of Saint Vanne, stood a solitary house, and before its open door were standing, to the amazement of the North African travelers, not a band but merely a pair of musicians, a man and a woman, whose combined voices had made their music loud and strong, especially since they were accompanying themselves on lutes. But as Ben Attar hesitated to advance, the second wife broke away from him, stood tall, and threw herself upon the musicians and into the doorway of the house itself. The darkness inside was crowded with dozens of jars, vials, and flasks full of powders, herbs, and potions, and a physician or apothecary stood there, aged about thirty, bareheaded and with a close-cropped beard, listening to the music that was being played for him. Behind him hung a terracotta image of the suffering savior.

The two musicians seemed to be pleased at the arrival of a new and exotic listener, and they played even louder in her honor, but the proprietor, noticing the fine shadow of a woman’s robe falling across the square of light at the entrance to his house, hurriedly gestured to them to stop playing and came out to see who was sharing the fee he had just been given for his medical attention to the two musicians, who had first listened to his advice and swallowed his potions and only afterward announced that they were penniless. He stared at the two strangers, who might be seeking healing for themselves. Then he inclined his head and introduced himself, first in Teutonic, then in Frankish, and finally in Latin. Even though he could see that they shared no common language, he persisted, extracting with gentle, flowery gestures not only the names and surnames of his unexpected visitors but also the names of the places they had visited during their astonishing journey from the continent of Africa to their new destination.

Neither Ben Attar nor his second wife, who now opened her narrow amber eyes wide, could tell whether this healer of Verdun, who presented himself, either humorously or seriously, as Karl-Otto the First, could really grasp the vast distances they had traversed or the antiquity of their lineage. But of one thing they were certain, and that was the power of the attraction they had for this crop-bearded, black-clad physician. With an impatient gesture he now dismissed the two musicians and their musical tribute so that he could pay attention to the two strangers, whom he was eager to invite into his home, even if they were not patients in need of his healing potions.

Ben Attar, whose heart was troubled with anxious care for those remaining outside the wall, was firmly resolved to refuse the uncalled-for invitation, but the second wife, sad for the music she had lost, was drawn as though by magic into the stranger’s house. With the confidence derived from her new solitary status, she did not consult her husband but was swept into the musty darkness, until she almost touched the large, tormented image of the Son of God, whose bloodshot eyes stared with equanimity at all the drugs and simples in the vials and flasks all around. Ben Attar was obliged to snatch hold of his wayward wife’s thin arm, which had become even thinner lately, to prevent her from floating on through the door that the physician was eagerly opening before her and into an even darker inner room, which was apparently the consulting room itself. In it a large taper burned near a bed covered in a yellowish woolen coverlet, at the foot of which some river pebbles were whitening in a basin that was empty of water, while on a low dresser were placed a knife, a saw, and a pair of forceps made of the same polished gray iron as the little crosses hanging in every corner, so that the physician could pray while he worked and beg for forgiveness and mercy for the shortcomings of his skill and the weakness of his mind.

Even after the North African had managed to break the spell that the physician’s house held over his surprisingly disobedient wife, and with his own hands replaced the veil that had slipped from her strained face and hurriedly led her back toward their fellow travelers, the physician still seemed to refuse to let his two visitors go, and he followed them to the town gate quietly and pensively, gathering on the way among the tombstones two small children with large iron crosses hanging around their necks. It was as though, since he had failed to make progress with them as a physician addressing prospective patients, he were now trying to win their affection as the parent of two lively children, who crossed themselves charmingly before the guard and cautiously touched the horses’ tails.

But what does this obstinate Lotharingian want? Why will he not leave us alone? And what is he so curious about? Ben Attar wondered with faint irritation. He was relieved to discover that during his absence the others had obediently stayed where they were, apart from little Elbaz, who had deserted his place between his father and the first wife and seated himself instead on the driver’s seat beside the black pagan, who was still vigilantly holding the reins in one hand and the whip in the other, as motionless as a statue. Seeing that the crop-bearded, black-clad physician was trying to extract information from the officer of the guard, he asked Rabbi Elbaz to explore with the help of his Latin the obstinate Christian’s intent.

The physician’s good Latin easily supplied what was deficient in that of the rabbi from Seville, so their conversation was able to satisfy the nagging but as yet unfocused curiosity of the Lotharingian physician about the journey of these faraway Jewish strangers who had turned up on his doorstep. Just as Elbaz was wondering whether he could explain to this gentile the nature of the painful conflict between northern and southern Jews, whose character and distance from each other made it impossible for either party to overcome the other, but merely enabled them at times to reach a compromise, a short, pale German woman came through the town gate and hurried over to her two children, who were amusing themselves under the horses’ feet. The rabbi’s heart missed a beat at the sight of the physician’s wife, who, apart from the large iron cross dangling at her bosom, resembled their own Mistress Esther-Minna in her appearance and her carriage, and he raised his eyes in amazement to her crop-bearded husband, his lips moving wordlessly. But in truth there was no need for him to say anything, for the physician immediately understood the little rabbi’s surmise, and with a faint smile that held a hint of sorrow, he nodded his head to confirm the surprising truth, and thus the rabbi was able to tell him the rest of the story of their travels without fear, knowing that he was assured of an understanding listener.

6.

Then the gray sky came back to life and lukewarm raindrops began to fall relentlessly on Verdun. The physician’s little wife quickly gathered her two children and disappeared through the town gate, but her husband, excited by the contest about dual marriage that the rabbi from Seville was spreading out before him like a colorful fan, found it difficult to tear himself away from the unusual story. Did he experience a brief hope of discovering a different, lustier species of Jew, or was it rather that his curiosity urged him to steal a glance at the other wife, concealed within the wagon, so that he could compare her with the dark-skinned young woman who had floated into his house? But when Esther-Minna alighted from the larger wagon as it returned from the customs house and the apostate noticed the hard blue look he received from this fellow countrywoman, who immediately saw through him, he shivered slightly, as though the fanatical repudiation of which the little rabbi spoke were liable to threaten him too. Without saying a word of farewell, he withdrew from the group of Jews, crossing himself occasionally, and exchanged some mocking banter with the Lotharingian guards before disappearing through the wall. The North African travelers, who a mere ten weeks before had been sailing under the bright azure sky, continue their journey eastward in a rainy, muddy fog toward the valley of the Rhine.

Even the customs officer had not been sure of the difference between merchandise and gifts. But since he, like the captain of the guard, suspected that the Jews were deviously intending to sell the goods disguised as gifts on their way to Worms, he had made an inventory of everything in the wagon, including the travelers’ own clothes and cooking pots, and sent it by a fast rider to the governor of Worms, so that when the Jews arrived they could be inspected to ensure that no gifts had been magically turned back into merchandise along the way and that everything declared as a gift really reached its intended recipient. Only in this way could the Lotharingian authorities be reassured.

The Jews were dejected not only because the Christian had cunningly outwitted them, but because they had a nagging fear that thanks to the inventory flying ahead of them to the Rhine, not only their goods but even their pots and clothes and everything else they possessed had been turned into gifts, and who knew whether they would have to buy back the “gifts” they had been compelled to give? That evening, as they camped under a large wooden bridge near the town of Metz, Ben Attar noticed his first wife, on her own initiative, ripping open a bag of condiments, emptying out the contents, and then cutting the material of which the bag was made into two and sewing two bags in its place. In this way she was doubling the quantity of merchandise, so as to save half of it from the threat of being designated as gifts. By the time they encamped the following night, she had not only doubled the number of sacks of condiments but the bolts of cloth and even the pale honeycombs.

Again it seemed as though the more the desert merchandise shrank, the more it increased its attractiveness and worth to the wayfarers and town-dwellers between the Meuse and the Moselle and between the Moselle and the Rhine. The bags of spices were now so small that the purchasers did not need to bring them close to their noses to smell them, but could insert them in their nostrils so as to have an effortless and uninterrupted access to the spicy scent of a faraway dark continent. So fearful were Ben Attar and Abulafia of the inventory, however, and of appearing to be merchants dealing in “gifts,” that they sent the black idolater ahead of them with a laden tray, as though this were his personal property which he was offering for sale on his own responsibility and the Jews following behind were merely advising him about the prices.

Because the Lotharingians were meaner than the Franks and Burgundians, they were easily attracted to the small, new, unfamiliar goods, whose transient nature would soothe away in advance any regret they might feel at the impulsiveness of their purchase. The two experienced traders could sense where and how strongly the winds of commerce blew in the land of Ashkenaz, and they were beginning to discuss how to prepare themselves for the still conditional meeting in the Bay of Barcelona the following year, the year of the millennium itself.

Thus, between light warm showers of autumn rain, the litigants traveled slowly toward the town of Worms. Up hill and down dale they advanced along wide, easy roads that sometimes skirted a gray fort or the ruins of an ancient Roman camp. Occasionally the horses’ hooves encountered boggy yellow puddles that the wagon wheels would sink into if Abd el-Shafi was not careful. Sometimes the convoy had to halt so that a wheel damaged on a rocky descent could be straightened or the horses’ harnesses adjusted. Sometimes they had to wait for hours for a ferry to return from the opposite bank of a river, or haggle with an obstinate farmer before crossing a field of stubble. But still it seemed as though the onward impetus of the road was stronger than the mishaps and delays. Whenever the wagoners felt a fair wind blowing, they could not resist their mariner’s instincts, and asked permission from the master of the expedition to untie the covers of the wagons and hoist them like small black sails, to make the horses fly faster.

Small wonder, then, if Rabbi Elbaz, transported back to the voyage by the howling of the wind in these strange sails, relapsed into his old poetic intoxication, which gradually stretched his sense of the passage of time. For while the stubborn litigants were advancing slowly through Lorraine on the spent back of the month of Elul, the last month of the old year, they were being slyly outflanked by a fresh young month of Tishri. The Jewish travelers realized that they were liable to reach the community of Worms in the midst of the blowing of the ram’s horn for the new year, so Mistress Esther-Minna, who was apt to keep track of the passage of sacred time, tried gently to speed the journey. But the desire to deal in the doubled gifts, which the first wife produced every night with the help of the second, delayed the members of the conditional partnership, who clung to each moment that deferred the determination of their conditional status.

When the wagons entered the region of the Saar, moving very close to the flow of the cold, shining river, amid the bulk of high hills whose ancient origin molded their tops like black domes, there appeared among the oak and ash trees the burial church of the Alter Turm, which Mistress Esther-Minna recognized excitedly by its eight grim sides. Indeed, there was no need here to shout the name of the Rhine to receive from wayfarers a halfhearted reply that gave only a direction. They could announce the names of towns—Speyer, Worms, Mainz—and receive not only nodding confirmation of their famous existence but an enthusiastic, well-informed wave of the arm pointing to a precise road. Naturally, to the fair-haired woman’s constant worry that they might have to stop and hear the sound of the ram’s horn while standing beside a black pagan in a dark forest was added the nostalgic memory of the cool air and the smell of the turf of her native land being crushed under the horses’ hooves. Abulafia’s new wife’s fearful longing took hold of him too. Even Ben Attar and the rabbi were eager now to reach the town on the Rhine and welcome the Jewish New Year there, the year 4760, from whose womb in a hundred days or so would burst the Christian millennium, so young and wild.

But it is doubtful whether the progress of the wagons could have been accelerated any more as they advanced over a desolate plain descending to the valley of the Rhine if, like some phantasm, Master Levitas himself had not suddenly appeared, mounted on a proud stallion. It transpired that contrary to his hope, the level-headed younger brother had not found any peace at home in Paris after his sister had left with her adversaries. After hastily depositing the members of his household, including the half-witted orphan, with his friends in the winery at Villa Le Juif, to spend the approaching days of penitence and judgment with them, he had hastened with the first of the Indian pearls to a beautiful duchess who loved jewelry and exchanged it for a splendid and renowned stallion from her husband’s stables. The horse would carry him swiftly by shortcuts to his native town, Worms, ahead of the main party, to ensure secretly that the mishap that had occurred in the shadowy winery would not be repeated on the banks of the Rhine, but that on their arrival they would be received by a proper, irreproachable law court, full of outstanding scholars, who would not merely speak but would sing forth the right verdict.

But when, after a couple of days’ half-secret stay in his birthplace, it became clear that Ben Attar’s company was not arriving, while the sound of penitential hymns at night was growing ever louder, he began to fear that some mishap or second thought had made the twice-wed trader turn around and go back. Thus he had decided to break cover and ride out to meet the litigants and speed them into the ambush that he had laid for them. To his dismay, he had discovered that a mere three days before the holy day the two wagons were still a score of leagues from the town of Speyer, which did not contain a single Jew. And so, as a former resident, Levitas offered to escort the convoy to its journey’s end, and he also suggested that they should cease to halt at night. Ben Attar, who had been infected with Esther-Minna’s fear, accepted the clever brother’s suggestion and instructed Abd el-Shafi, who was accustomed to sailing in the dark, to attach one wagon to the other with a short stout rope, and to tie the front wagon with a long rope to Master Levitas’s saddle, so that the travelers were assured of arriving at their destination together.

Linked together in this way, the two wagons advanced over the reddish soil of the Rhine Valley, led by the stallion. The refined young man displayed his enthusiasm and determination, pulling the North African Jews behind him day and night, attached to his saddle, so that they would not, heaven forbid, miss celebrating the New Year in his home town. But there is a difference between traveling by day alone, with night halts for rest, and traveling day and night, and the travelers soon became faint and dizzy and lay piled on one another like a stirring heap of rags. Even the Ishmaelite wagoners, hardy mariners that they were and accustomed to staying awake for long stormy days, drooped limply on their seats, and if the young slave had not continued to urge the horses on with the whip, it is doubtful whether the two linked wagons would have succeeded in entering the narrow street of the Jews in Worms in the twilight of the last day of the departing year and drawing up among the small bowed houses resting on huge rough-hewn piles.

The litigants alighted semiconscious from the wagons, and they might have collapsed on the spot if the good folk of Worms, particularly the trusty Kalonymos family, forewarned of the arrival of the little convoy, had not hastened to lead them to various homes and families so that they might bathe and revive their weary bodies and their flagging souls in the twenty hours that remained before the onset of the festival. Without consulting the exhausted visitors, they efficiently separated menfolk from womenfolk, Jews from Ishmaelites, horses from wagons, and put at the disposal of each group and class the facilities appropriate to it. What was surprising was that the Kalonymos family treated their kinswoman Mistress Esther-Minna exactly like the southern foreigners, and did not exempt her from any of the obligations that were laid upon the others. Together with Ben Attar’s two wives, she was taken gently but firmly for ritual cleansing to a large bathhouse that in ancient times had served the Roman troops and that still had small cubicles paved in green marble, in one of which Mistress Esther-Minna now attempted vainly to conceal her pale, blushing nakedness from the curious, startled eyes of her two female adversaries.

After the three women had come out of the bath and been toweled dry and led respectfully each to her place, the uncle and the nephew, the conditional partners, were also brought in for immersion, as was Rabbi Elbaz, dragging his struggling son along into this abyss of abundant naked masculinity. Meanwhile, in a small back yard, a pure meal was served to the three gentiles, to soothe their minds before they too were asked to bathe themselves, in drawn water rather than river water, in preparation for the festival. And because there was a great deal of work to be done in a short space of time, especially since in this year of 4760 the two days of the New Year’s festival were followed immediately by the Sabbath of Penitence, other Jews of Worms, eager to have a share in fulfilling the sacred obligation of hospitality, groomed and fed and made much of the five horses, which had not been spared and had not spared themselves to bring the traveling Jews into an established Jewish community for the festival so that they might all worship together in a single synagogue.

Thus, with affection as well as alacrity, the local people absorbed the newcomers into the fabric of their existence. Since on the eve of the Days of Awe there was no one who did not wish to gain the credit of inviting into his home such wonderfully clever guests, who had come from the other end of the world to plead their cause before the wisdom and justice of the Jews of the Rhine, tables were instantly spread and beds were offered in the homes of ten families at least, so that every family could have at least one guest, and it made no difference whether that guest was a woman, a child, an Ishmaelite, or even a young idolater. As for the travelers, who had become accustomed during the long journey to being part of a single moving human lump, to the degree that they had even begun to share each other’s dreams, they found themselves in the middle of the night not only bathed and well fed but also separated, each of them lying alone on a strange bed, protected by a curtain, sinking in a soft mattress from which a few goose feathers protruded, and surrounded by black empty space, no longer daring to share someone else’s dream.

But Mistress Esther-Minna not only did not want to dream now, she flatly refused to go to sleep. Despite the shadows crowding in on her, she realized that the Kalonymos family, who had exchanged few words with her, had chosen for her the bedchamber of her youth, where her first husband, a sensitive scholar, had tried in vain to bring a child into the world with her, until he had given up in despair and died. Was this the hand of chance, she asked herself, or had her husband’s kinsfolk known how deeply she yearned for this dear chamber? It was said to have served as the sleeping quarters for the first generations of Jews to come at the king’s command from Italy, who had brought with them from the Alps some fair-haired, blue-eyed pagan servants who were so devoted to their Jewish masters that they had eventually cast off their strange idols and adopted their faith. Who had vacated his big bed for her? Mistress Esther-Minna wondered with excitement tinged with a hint of fear. Was it possible that this was the bed of her brother-in-law, Master Isaac son of Kalonymos, whose mother, her own mother-in-law, had not been willing after the death of her firstborn for her childless daughter-in-law to wait until her other son came of age but had firmly insisted that she should ceremonially withdraw the handsome youth’s little shoe and spit on the ground before him, as the law demanded, before going to seek consolation in the home of her younger brother in Paris.

Although Mistress Esther-Minna was well acquainted with the character of her fellow countrymen, who clothed even the most delicate and affectionate sentiments in sternness, yet she was disappointed and bewildered, for she had expected a warmer reception. She had innocently hoped that her townsfolk would be impressed by her devotion and resourcefulness in bringing such stubborn foreign Jews all this way to submit themselves to local justice, which she had come during her long years of absence to imagine as being the very acme of perfection. But she had overlooked one thing—that the great strength of the Jews of Worms was that they never considered their justice perfect, and that during the ten years since she had left her kinsfolk and her friends, they had exerted themselves constantly to improve and perfect it. Today, on the eve of the double day of jubilation, they were not prepared to be impressed by her bringing into their midst such a disturbing case for adjudication; on the contrary, they were inclined to view her with suspicion and distrust, like excellent judges who, in a conscious effort not to favor one side or the other, view both, before the case is heard, as sinners.

The woman returning to her homeland felt all this in the cool looks her former kinsfolk vouchsafed her. In the night, in this bed where she and her late husband, for all their passion, had failed to make a child, her heart was so anguished that a single drop of sorrow could flood it with fear. Suddenly even the impossible seemed possible. Perhaps here too, in the place that had seemed to her most safe and pure and decent, she was liable to be surprised again, for in the conscious effort not to favor one side or the other, and out of compassion for the simplicity of the southern Jews who had traveled such an awesome distance, the sages of her town might, like the court in Villa Le Juif, allow themselves to be led astray by the seductive words of the Andalusian rabbi and pronounce a verdict against her, which would not only renew the partnership forever but imprint a humiliating fantasy with a double stamp of propriety, northern and southern.

She longed to wake her brother and tell him of her new fears, but she did not know where he was sleeping. She felt a sudden upsurge of anger against the effrontery of her townsfolk, who had scattered and isolated the travelers like witless babes. She also felt a momentary regret that she had submitted herself to a further legal contest, and like Rabbi Elbaz, who had groped his way through the darkness of her house in Paris two weeks before, seeking to escape from it, she abandoned her goose-feather bed and tried to find her way out of the crooked wooden house, which although she knew it so well, suddenly seemed to her like a ship that had run aground on a sandbank. But as she was wrestling with a new, unfamiliar bolt, which had been fitted to the outer door against the menace of the approaching millennium, the master of the house, young Kalonymos, her husband’s brother, heard her. Not daring to approach her alone in the darkness, he hurriedly roused his wife to calm his former sister-in-law’s distress.

This young and charming Mistress Kalonymos, one of whose early ancestors had endowed his descendants’ eyes with a remarkable greenish sparkle, succeeded not only in calming Mistress Esther-Minna’s panic but in filling her with renewed enthusiasm for the penitential prayers that awaited them all. Gently she led the woman who, if not for her childlessness, would have been her own husband’s first and only wife back to her old matrimonial bed, and compassionately covered her with the quilt that she had thrown off in a fit of rage, so that she could enjoy a few hours’ rest before she was awakened to attend divine worship. A synagogue for women only had been built in Worms in these latter years, and there a female cantor intoned the chants and put on the phylacteries for the recital of Hear O Israel.

This surprising news soothed away Esther-Minna’s fears in a miraculously gentle way. The hope that the women in her native town might have enough good sense to put right what the ignorant, barefoot women in the winery near Paris had done wrong cooled her desperate thoughts and brought on Esther-Minna the slumber that her body so longed for. In fact, four hours later Mistress Rachel daughter of Kalonymos had to exert herself considerably to rouse the dear and honored guest from her profound sleep, so that she should not miss the women’s prayer in the Frauenshul, seeking pardon and forgiveness on this last day of the dying year not only for their own sins but perhaps also for those of all other women, wherever they might be.

These women included Ben Attar’s two wives, who were not spared by the exigent people of Worms. In the darkness of the last watch of the night, with a misty breeze blowing off the river, they were led forth from their separate houses, wrapped in heavy capes but without veils or jewelry, to be taken with their faces exposed to public gaze to that modest chamber abutting the synagogue of the men, who were also converging now like ghosts from all directions for the penitential prayers. Among them were the other travelers, who stood in the narrow lane in a state of utter exhaustion: Abulafia, Ben Attar, and Rabbi Elbaz, who had just remembered to ask where his boy was. They were all dressed in black cloaks on the instructions of their hosts, either to warm their southern bodies and protect them from the cold, dank breeze blowing off the river or to conceal their crumpled, threadbare traveling robes. All three of them were befuddled by deep but insufficient sleep and by an evening meal whose taste they still had not identified, and at first they had difficulty recognizing one another, as though being separated by their hosts had wrought some profound change in them.

Now Master Levitas appeared, lucid and wide awake and in full command of himself. He looked affectionately at his fellow townsmen, who were so carried away by religious fervor on this occasion that they did not even spare the three Ishmaelites, but seated them on a bench in the court of the synagogue, so that sparks of sanctity escaping from the Jews’ prayers might lighten their gentile darkness. Ben Attar’s heart suddenly went out with painful longing to his two wives, who were being led to the prayer through a tangle of trees and long grass like a couple of bears, their beautiful faces, revealed now for all to see, turned to him with an expression of wonder rather than anger, as though they were asking him, Will your mind know no rest until you have demanded a last and final test of your double love even here in this grim, benighted place?

The little Andalusian rabbi had not ceased to think about this test from the moment he had entered the walls of this small town. On seeing Mistress Esther-Minna, his adversary, wrapped in a light pelisse and surrounded by townswomen who were leading her with respect and devotion to their little synagogue, perhaps to fortify her by binding the straps of the phylacteries on her arm, he intuitively knew that he must beware here not only of the women but of the whole congregation, which was united and tempered by religious zeal. Unlike what had occurred in the winery at Villa Le Juif, here he would have to demand not a broad panel of jurors but a single judge, who would have the wisdom and vision to see from the depths of the marshes of the Rhineland what he, Rabbi Elbaz, had long since seen among the blooming gardens of Andalus.

7.

While the morning prayer was being recited, after the end of the nocturnal penitential prayers, Rabbi Elbaz forced himself to scrutinize the faces of the worshippers around him in order to find a man who might be fit to serve as sole arbiter in the engagement that was about to be joined. His surprise victory at Villa Le Juif had taught the Andalusian rabbi one simple lesson—that in a court of law, whoever selects the judges controls the verdict, without any need of subtle speeches or scriptural proofs. Still, he could not forget how, in the half-darkness of the winery, with the torchlight shining on the little must-stained feet of those women, he had managed to astound even himself with his bilingual oration. During the nights of the journey from the Seine to the Rhine he had repeatedly tried to polish that speech in his mind. But he was also mindful of the saying attributed to the imam of the great mosque of Cordoba: “Never repeat the winning tactics of a previous war.” A speech that had captured the hearts of emotional, tipsy Jews in the Île de France would not succeed with these sober-minded Jews of the Rhineland, who were now scrutinizing the new rabbi from Seville over their prayer shawls no less than he was inspecting them.

Before finding new tactics that would finally remove the conditional status hanging over the partnership between north and south and force the stubborn new wife to reconcile herself to her duo of aunts from the golden shores of North Africa, he sought to assess the spirit of the scholars praying all around him, so that he could select from their midst a man whose spirit was free from the tyranny of the congregation. He decided to decline his hosts’ offer to take him home after the service, like the other travelers, and put him back to bed, to make up for his lost sleep and garner strength for that evening’s prayers. Instead he asked to be taken, just as he was, in his tattered Andalusian robe, for a walk through the muddy lanes of Worms, so that he could become well acquainted with the place and everything in it, Jews and gentiles, dark house of study and grim church alike.

While Ben Attar was wondering whether to join the inquisitive rabbi on his walk through the town, which was now steeped in a milky light, or to go and demand that he be given back his two wives, who at the end of the women’s prayers (which were shorter than the men’s) had been taken back to their hosts’ homes, a pair of armed, mail-clad horsemen entered the synagogue, holding the inventory sent by the customs officer of Verdun. These men had been given the task of overseeing the distribution of goods not only to the descendants of the Christ-killers but, according to a new and generous interpretation of the ducal authorities, also to those who revered the Christ. The two wagons, which were standing outside the synagogue with empty shafts, were soon cleared not only of the bags and bolts, reduced and multiplied by the first wife’s resourcefulness, but of the rest of the travelers’ personal effects, which had also been changed into gifts by the generous order. So on this festive night the local folk seasoned their pork chops and their wolf stew with new spices from the desert, poured olive oil from Granada on their salad, and decorated the walls of their homes with brightly colored strips of silk embroidered with threads of gold torn from the robes of Ben Attar’s wives, while ragged urchins in the church square unpicked the Ishmaelite sailors’ big sandals to make a long rope. It was just as well that the Jews of Worms hastened to compensate the distressed litigants with matching gifts, and instead of the bright robes that had been torn to shreds by the excited Christians they dressed them all, Jews and Ishmaelites alike, in dark robes tied with shiny black belts with fringed tassels, and put pointed hats on their heads, so that it was not easy to distinguish them from the local Jews, who would soon scan the skies in search of the new moon, which was believed to draw with a golden thread not only a new month but a new year.

But before the fine crescent appeared at the twilight hour, threading its way rapidly through the dark tatters of cloud, and a satisfied sigh arose at this confirmation that the calendar from the hills of Jerusalem was still operating so accurately, they honored the rabbi’s wish to stroll around their town and patiently replied to his questions. The sages, who as they walked had accustomed themselves to his unfamiliar, difficult way of uttering Hebrew from the depths of his throat, invited him to a chamber in the synagogue where there was a chest stuffed with obsolete texts and broken remains of twisted yellowing rams’ horns, to hear him deliver a little homily on the subject of the sanctity of the coming day so that they could make an assessment of the intellectual acumen of the southern visitor, of which Master Levitas had given them prior warning.

Elbaz hesitated at first between a wish to lull his adversaries’ concern about the danger he represented and a desire to make them aware of the pitfalls of the battlefield. He started with some trite generalities about the binding of Isaac, but he allowed himself to expatiate on the shape of the small gray horns of the original and authentic ram of the Land of Israel, which was offered up in place of the beloved son who was not indeed an only son. As though with the intention of warming the hearts of the local Jews toward the Ishmaelites who had come with them, he addressed to his curious hearers a few kind sentences about Abraham’s elder son, who had been cast out thirsty behind a bush in the desert of the Beautiful Land, where all of Abraham’s descendants were destined to meet on the day of final redemption, whether they wished it or not. And the rabbi contented himself with this little sermon, after noting that what he had said about a messianic meeting with Ishmaelites in a desert land had surprised his hearers greatly.

But there was no time to explore the subject further, for the festive service was close at hand and they needed to hasten to prepare the body so that it might not disturb the soul during the prayers. One of the scholars who had listened to the short homily, however, could not find any rest, and would not leave the Andalusian alone, for he was eager to hear more about the shape of the small gray horns of the original ram of the Land of Israel, whose slaughtered cries the Jews were said to reproduce each year at this new moon of the month of Tishri. This red-haired scholar had a special reason, for he was the one who would lead the prayers and blow the ram’s horn, so it was no wonder that his imagination was captured by the story of a simple small dark ram’s horn that trumpeted forth sound without unnecessary twists and spirals.

The thought suddenly flashed through Elbaz’s mind that this curious man might be a suitable arbiter in the matter of double matrimony. He resolved to pay special attention to him. He withdrew into a corner with him, and took from the innermost pocket of his baggy trousers a small black ram’s horn that he had borrowed at the last moment, before boarding the ship, from the synagogue in the port of Cadiz, for according to the original calculation of the journey, without the overland extension, they should have heard the sound of the horn on their way home, somewhere on the ocean between Brittany and the Bay of Biscay. While the astonished scholar of Worms was feeling the simple Andalusian horn, which to judge by its fineness had evidently been taken from a mountain goat rather than a ram, Rabbi Elbaz attempted unobtrusively to take stock of the man’s character with a few test questions well directed to his purpose, which he was keeping hidden until he had had an opportunity to consult Ben Attar.

But where was Ben Attar? And where were the other travelers? Jews and Ishmaelites, white, dark, and black-skinned, had been swallowed up by the wooden houses of the Jews of Worms who now emerged into the drizzle of eventide to assemble in the synagogue, which, even though it was still under construction and the whole western wall was missing, seemed to be as dear to the worshippers as though it were whole. They pressed together in the united brotherhood of a proud congregation, dressed in festive clothing and raising their eyes in satisfaction to three large oblong windows, above which were three circular lights like portholes, glazed with thick yellow panes, which, since they were not adorned with any image, of angel or man or even floral designs, shone into the darkness of the synagogue with the charm of three bright suns.

Master Levitas insisted that the Andalusian rabbi and his son, who had emerged from somewhere or other with a pointed hat on his head, should be seated against the eastern wall, beside the holy ark, so that the rabbi could be impressed by the excellence of the congregation standing facing him—a congregation that would scrub away at its sins on Thursday and Friday, continue to afflict itself on the Sabbath of Repentance, and then mark a slight pause on Saturday evening to ascend the judgment throne and to decide between north and south, between Abulafia and Ben Attar. These two were now standing side by side, swallowed up in the worshipping congregation, shivering slightly in the cold damp wind that in Europe accompanied the evening prayer of the New Year, whereas in Tangier, their birthplace, they both recalled sorrowfully, it was always said under a warm, star-studded sky.

Ben Attar customarily spent the first night of New Year with his first wife and the second night with his second wife. His first wife prepared the meal before the Day of Atonement, and he broke his fast afterward with the second wife. He built the tabernacle first at the first wife’s house, and he carried the small scroll to the second wife’s house at the Rejoicing of the Law. And so for the other festivals of the year, whose naturally double nature invited and demanded at least two wives, always fresh to help the man, who might otherwise be overwhelmed by the many complex regulations of his faith.

But this evening, in the dark synagogue on the bank of the Rhine, where the service followed the abbreviated rite of Amram Gaon rather than the long Babylonian rite of Saadia Gaon, the worshippers had time to embellish the chants and repeat their favorite passages, and since they all knew the prayers by heart, they were not too troubled by the lack of light. Ben Attar stood holding a parchment text that he would have had difficulty reading even in daylight, let alone in the dark, wondering at himself. So many hours had passed since he had been separated from his wives, and yet he was in no hurry to be reunited with them, and had not even asked after them. Was this only because he was confident that their hosts would be treating them with generosity and respect, as he himself was treated, or because for the first time in his life he felt relieved that they were not with him, as though his soul were sated with them?

In truth, throughout the many days that had elapsed since he had set out, not a day had passed without his two wives’ being within reach or at least within eyeshot. Surely the whole strength and purpose of dual love was that it forced each of the parties to be separated occasionally from their partner, so that they could digest thoroughly what they had been given before asking for more. But in the darkness of the swaying wagon driven by Abd el-Shafi’s tattooed arms, on the long road from the Seine to the Rhine, when he saw his two wives lying wearily side by side or occasionally, when the going was particularly hard, in each other’s arms, he had begun to fear that in the fantasy of his desire he would be liable henceforth to fuse them into a single woman, and so it was fitting now that he did not see them and did not even know where they were. Were they on the other side of the wall, in the little women’s synagogue? Or caged among curtains in the wooden houses raised on stilts, listening through the window to the chorus of frogs croaking across the wide marshes of the Rhineland?

It was a rich and insistent croaking that the leader of the prayers tried to drown out with his loud yet steady voice, steering the prayers confidently, without yielding to the whims of worshippers who tried to slow or speed the pace, to skip or repeat some passages. Rabbi Elbaz was confirmed in his belief that one who was accustomed to leading the prayers of such a pious and learned congregation every day with such confidence would also make a single and final arbite in the appeal that was ahead of them, even if he was not considered the greatest and best of scholars. The rabbi from Seville already felt as close to his chosen one, with his yellow beard and his bloodshot eyes, as though he had discovered a twin soul. But at the conclusion of the prayers, when Master Levitas hurried over to the rabbi and Ben Attar with an expectant smile on his face, hoping to hear from the two southern litigants some words of praise and admiration for the spiritual excellence of his native town, the rabbi cautiously refrained from revealing to his adversary even by a hint his intention of demanding a single judge instead of a panel of several judges. For the moment he contented himself with a cautious question about the character of the prayer leader, who was folding his prayer shawl slowly and reluctantly, as though he were sorry the prayers were over.

It transpired that Master Levitas, who knew and remembered everybody, could tell him all about this man, Joseph by name, who although he was also called son of Kalonymos, like the majority of the folk of Worms who had come from Italy at the bidding of Emperor Otto, was only partly a Kalonymid, on his father’s side; on his mother’s he was descended from an ancient local family that had belonged, according to legend, to the legions of Julius Caesar, who had fought here more than a thousand years ago. He was a widower, but unlike Rabbi Elbaz he had not remained single but had speedily married a widowed kinswoman, so that they could raise their orphaned children together. Perhaps it was because there were so many children in his home that Master Levitas had chosen to house the youngest traveler with him.

Now the rabbi understood why his son had not taken his eyes off the man, and why he had tipped his little black hat at the precise angle favored by his host. He suspected that the invisible hand of a good angel was touching him kindly, and his mind hastened to confirm the choice it had made. It would be good to plead his cause before a judge who, like Ben Attar, had had experience of two wives, even if not simultaneously. For a moment Elbaz wanted to join his boy as a guest in the house of his chosen one, in order to make a close study of the weak points of his mind and his character, but he gave up the idea, fearing that excessive propinquity might arouse suspicion. He decided, though, to offer this Joseph his little black horn during the service next morning, so that he might try to make the softer and darker southern sound on it.

Before the North Africans went their separate ways to eat the festive meal with their respective hosts, the rabbi hurried to share his new thought with Ben Attar and seek his permission to place the case in the hands of a single carefully selected judge. The merchant, who had so far been obliged to bestow retrospective approval on the decisions the rabbi had imposed on him, was surprised at the suggestion, but after some thought he gave his consent, because he too had realized that the unruly simplicity of the makeshift court near Paris would be replaced here by the stern, united knowledge of a community that was sure of itself. Thus it would be better to be judged here by a single, humane person who was accustomed to stand and pray with the congregation behind him rather than in front of him.

Then Rabbi Elbaz approached Master Levitas, whose eyes were searching the women coming out of their synagogue, looking for his sister, and gave him a first indication, not in his own name but in that of Ben Attar, the party to the suit, of their wish for the case to be heard in Worms by a rather restricted panel of judges, in fact by a single arbiter. At this the other, who had learned from his bitter experience in Villa Le Juif the same lesson as the rabbi—namely, that whoever selects the judges controls the verdict—pricked up his ears shrewdly, and apprehensively he asked the Andalusian rabbi, who looked just like a local Jew now with his black cloak and pointed hat, A single arbiter? Why? Surely we could benefit from the combined wisdom of several judges?

But Rabbi Elbaz held his ground. On the contrary, it was precisely because this community contained such an abundance of scholars, who learned from each other but also scrutinized and threatened each other, that they should prefer the option of a single judge, who would take full responsibility for the final separation between uncle and nephew, south and north. But who would the single judge be? Master Levitas’s fears increased, though he was heartened by the gentle presence of his sister, who now, after the evening service, appeared charming and radiant among the townsfolk. Surely the boy was not to be charged with selecting him, as at Villa Le Juif? It turned out that the rabbi was demanding not any kind of ballot but merely the straightforward right to choose, which by any standards of justice and ethics should belong to the complainants, who, confident of the rightness of their cause, had risked life and limb upon the stormy ocean to come and make their protest. Even when they had won their case, they had generously agreed to submit to a further hearing, in the depths of the forests and swamps of Ashkenaz, in a wretched and benighted town full of sharp-witted, learned kinsfolk of the other side. Honesty and propriety decreed that they should be granted the right to choose the individual who would pronounce the final verdict.

In the face of such powerful arguments Master Levitas had nothing to reply, although he wondered whether his elder sister, whose bright eyes held a fleeting smile, could fathom the purpose of the Andalusian rabbi, who had set forth his case so enthusiastically in the holy tongue. Over the festive dinner in the home of his host, the elderly rabbi of Worms, the rabbi from Seville saw that the right of choice that he had arrogated was already granted, and all that remained was to investigate the chosen candidate. Consequently, between discussions of a scriptural character, he attempted to extract some further information about Joseph son of Kalonymos. When he heard, by the by, that many years previously Joseph’s parents had wished to betroth him to Esther-Minna Levitas, but that her parents, being very particular, had preferred a whole Kalonymos to half a Kalonymos, his spirit trembled, as though it were being not merely touched but caressed by the good angel. It was possible that two different qualifications might converge, and that justice might be reinforced by a wish to be avenged for the affront of past rejection.

Neither did Rabbi Elbaz disclose the next day, at the morning prayer, the secret of the single judge—not even to his employer, the merchant, who stood stiffly among the worshippers at the side of his beloved nephew, the curly-haired conditional partner, whose musical talents enabled him to join even in the most complex chants of the Rhenish congregation, so that the leader, Joseph son of Kalonymos, feared for a moment that he had a rival. But when they took out the scroll of the holy law and laid it upon the reading desk, and Joseph son of Kalonymos blew upon a massive twisted yellow ram’s horn the threefold blasts prescribed by tradition, a vague terror fell upon Rabbi Elbaz. It was as if the raucous, insistent sound of the German ram’s horn contained a new and urgent warning for him. However, he composed himself, particularly after the scroll was replaced in the holy ark and Joseph son of Kalonymos turned to him and invited him to grace the service by blowing the little black southern horn that the rabbi had managed to conceal from the eyes of the customs officer in Verdun.

And so, slowly, with restrained excitement, the first day of the festival passed, and after it, in leisurely fashion, amid persistent drizzle, the second day too, whose afternoon service was followed immediately by the evening prayers for the Sabbath of Repentance. And still Ben Attar did not know, and may not even have wanted to know, in which of those black-beamed wooden houses raised on stilts his two wives were secreted. The gray autumn skies of the German town seemed to have soaked up the North African merchant’s constant dual love and filled his soul with a tangled despair that was apt to cloud his mind, so that for a moment there was a fear that he might leave everything behind him, take the strongest and best of the four horses that had faithfully brought them here from the Seine from the stable behind the synagogue, and gallop back alone to Africa.

If at the outset Ben Attar had wanted to prove, as in Paris, his quiet ability to realize fully and in perfect equality his rights and duties as a husband, he had quickly understood, perhaps because of the way the local Jews had managed to isolate him from his wives right from the start, that it was not from the man that they were expecting proof here, but from the wives. But proof of what? he wondered again as he noticed his wives reappearing in the women’s synagogue on the two days of the festival. Was it religious piety, he mused in irritation, or was there also an intention of tarnishing their souls with fear and perhaps even guilt, as though the great love that had delighted and continued to delight them both had been illicit from the outset?

From the moment that Master Levitas had placed before the community Rabbi Elbaz’s firm request to appeal to the decision of a single judge, the spirit of the Jews of Worms had flagged, since for several days they had been entertained by the thought that they would dispel the tedium of the ending of the festival and the Sabbath with a pleasant discussion of the fate of three women. But when they were assembled in their synagogue after the closing ceremony of the Sabbath, not to sit in judgment as a community but merely to be passive spectators, waiting to see which scholar the busy little rabbi would choose, they still did not imagine that he would place a further constraint upon them and adamantly insist that the hearing should be held behind closed doors, so that the judge who dared to sever north and south forever would not be supported by the presence of a fanatical assembly.

Thus they were reluctantly made to put up a double curtain in the synagogue, to separate the public from the space reserved for the court. But for all his stubbornness, the rabbi could not prevent them from improving the light by increasing the number of candles and lanterns, so they would not miss seeing the litigants as they were summoned into the small, hidden space next to the holy ark. True, it was not as it had been in the large space of the winery in Villa Le Juif, where the torchlight had cast mysterious, enlarged shadows into the corners of the hall so that the judges, sitting on wine casks, could imagine that they were floating in the depths of hell, where all mortals, men and women alike, are split into their dual human nature; here in Worms the Andalusian rabbi wanted to define a small, well-lit space, where the parties to the dispute and the witnesses would be pressed close together with each other and with the arbiter, whom it was now time to detach from the assembly of Jews filling the synagogue.

Even though the candidate, Joseph son of Kalonymos, was sitting apparently absent-mindedly in a corner, half listening to the chatter all around him, it seemed that he had had a premonition that he would be chosen, not so much from the readiness with which he handed his candle to the man sitting next to him or the alacrity with which he rose to his feet, but rather because he had remained wrapped in his prayer shawl after the evening prayers. He may have wished to excuse himself to his friends for being chosen, as though the judge’s seat that he was being summoned to occupy were merely the natural extension of the lectern where he regularly officiated, as an ordinary elderly man, undistinguished from his fellow men and sounding the ram’s horn as occasion required.

A stir of disappointment ran through the faithful public as they divined how cleverly the Andalusian visitor had chosen from among them a lenient judge, who, although his strength was in his voice rather than in his intellect or his book-learning, could not be disqualified, for who could claim that one who was deemed fit to represent the congregation by leading the prayers was not fit to represent it by serving as arbiter? But there were a few men, among whom naturally was Master Levitas, who knew and remembered that the man who had been selected was not only a widower who had had experience of two wives, albeit consecutively and not concurrently, but had also been a candidate for betrothal to Mistress Esther-Minna, and who suspected that what had been denied him in the past might well stir his antagonism in the present.

Master Levitas darted behind the curtain, where Rabbi Elbaz was already escorting an embarrassed Joseph son of Kalonymos to his seat and standing Ben Attar and Abulafia facing each other, wishing to exploit the momentum of the amazement he was causing and to open the proceedings at once, apparently counting on a lightning hearing that would be conducted in the holy tongue alone. But Levitas, grasping with alarm the sudden deterioration of the situation and the possibility that because of his own and his sister’s excessive self-confidence the sly rabbi from Seville might succeed in securing a verdict against them again, in the heart of their native country, burst into a frantic discourse in the harsh local German dialect, leavened with flattened Hebrew words. Whether he did this to save precious time or to foil the rabbi’s understanding, he addressed himself boldly to the judge, who all the time kept anxiously tightening his grayish prayer shawl around his shoulders.

The whole of Master Levitas’s impassioned speech concerned only one demand: that his sister, Mistress Abulafia, should be brought into the hearing, for she counted herself as a party to the case no less than her husband. Although the suggestion made Joseph son of Kalonymos’s heart quake, he did not grant his consent before turning to the foreign rabbi who had chosen him, questioning whether the wife could be brought in, even though she was apparently not a member of the partnership herself. For a moment the rabbi seemed taken aback, but even though he saw no way of opposing the request, he still refused to make a concession for nothing, and so, without knowing why or wherefore, he suddenly sought to balance her presence with that of the three Ishmaelite sailors or wagoners, for it was thanks to their toil no less than to divine favor that the parties had arrived here safely.

The good people of Worms rose excitedly to their feet at the sight of the three Ishmaelites, summoned to the synagogue from their several lodgings, being taken one by one behind the curtain. While the whole congregation devoutly muttered the time-honored blessing to the Creator of all manner of folk on seeing the young black man passing through their midst, Mistress Esther-Minna slipped in by a side entrance. Master Levitas, after a momentary pang of remorse for allowing Rabbi Elbaz to fill the small space of the courtroom with these gentile servants, still believed that he had behaved correctly, for it was a long time since his older sister had seemed so comely and attractive as on that Saturday evening, standing beside the holy ark with her hair bound up in a fine silken snood. Not only had sleeping in her former marital bed soothed away the effects of the hardships of the journey and her anger at the southern visitors who had burst into her life, but the pleasant prayers that had filled the dank marshy air of her native land had smoothed her wrinkles and put life back into her pink cheeks and her blue eyes, which now smiled amiably into the blushing face of the arbiter, who remembered only too well how a score of years earlier her dear departed parents had forbidden her betrothal to him.

Again, as in the dark hall of the winery, Master Levitas served as master of ceremonies. First he invited the principal complainant, Ben Attar, to set forth the complaint that had traveled so stubbornly from the furthermost Maghreb. Since on this occasion the defendant could not serve as interpreter, since Abulafia’s business trips had never brought him this far and so he had never learned the local language, Master Levitas had no choice but to concede that Rabbi Elbaz should translate from the language of the Ishmaelites to that of the Israelites and back again, aware though he was that the quick-witted rabbi would exploit every opportunity to reinforce and adorn the words as they made their roundabout way from language to language.

But when Ben Attar opened his mouth and began to utter his first words, those present were astounded, and even the interpreter-rabbi was surprised. Instead of the jeremiad that they had already heard in the winery near Paris, about the pain of a Muslim partner, and the sadness of lost merchandise, and the treachery of a rejecting partner, who had sought the pretext of the sages in order to augment his own profit, the stubborn merchant suddenly stepped backward, as though the twelve days of additional overland journey from the Seine to the Rhine had never taken place. And as though the second hearing were merely a direct continuation of the first one, he now sought to address the harsh and piercing argument put forward by Mistress Esther-Minna, his adversary’s real wife, in the dark hall of the winery at Villa Le Juif—that it was not the shame and disgrace of the bewitchment and curse issuing from her womb that had made Abulafia’s wretched first wife bind her hands and feet with colored ribbons to help the waves of the sea do their work, but only the veiled threat of taking a second wife, the selfsame threat that was now seeking the full approbation of a holy congregation.

Despite his lack of experience, Joseph son of Kalonymos managed to understand, by means of the circuitous and excitable yet detailed translation of Rabbi Elbaz, that this swarthy, sturdy complainant, the partner who had come from the end of the world, wished to reopen the whole case from the start. At the price of revealing an old secret, he would defend not only his own dual marriage but dual marriage in general, which had come under assault from the new wife, who, arrogantly and uninvited, had belatedly adopted the cause of a wife who had taken her own life, with the aim of avenging her. To general surprise, it suddenly became clear that Ben Attar’s decision to agree to the journey to confront a further tribunal in the Rhineland had been the result not of Abulafia’s desperation nor of the rabbi’s desire to repeat his wonderful speech, but first and foremost of a desire to refute, in the midst of her native town, the slander that the new wife had uttered before the gathering in the winery at Villa Le Juif.

For who better than Ben Attar could testify to the sinful woman’s true motive? On the same bitter day on which Abulafia’s poor first wife had come to Ben Attar’s shop to entrust her baby to Abulafia so that she might be free to search the stalls of the nomads for an amulet that would bring her blessing or comfort, she had not, as all believed, gone straight from the gate of the city to the seashore with the elephant’s-tail fishhook she had bought, but had first returned to Ben Attar’s shop to take her baby away. On discovering that even during such a short absence, Abulafia, the father, had been unable to remain close to his daughter and had left her alone among the bolts of cloth on the pretext that he was required at Ben Ghiyyat’s for afternoon prayers, she was assailed with such profound despair and melancholy that, unable to restrain herself, she had drawn her veil off her face to mop up her tears before Ben Attar, the beloved uncle. Indeed, not only was that beautiful young woman not afraid that her husband might take a second wife, but on the contrary, in those last hours she had even offered herself as a second wife for Ben Attar, to make it easier for her husband to part from her for fear that she would give birth to another bewitched demon. But Ben Attar knew only too well that Abulafia’s love would never leave her, which was why he gently declined her strange suggestion. To set her mind at rest, he offered to keep an eye on her accursed daughter until her husband returned from prayers, while she returned to the market and tried to find a better amulet. How could he have imagined that instead of going to the market she would go straight to the city gate, to seek solace among the waves of the sea?

The North African’s last words fell to the floor of the synagogue and turned into little snakes. Not only the woman who had issued the repudiation but Master Levitas, her wise brother, now took a step back. Only Abulafia, who was now, in the depths of the marshy Rhineland, hearing for the first time in his life the terrible story of his previous wife, remained rooted to the spot as though paralyzed, and his lips turned very pale. The confused arbiter, not knowing if he had understood correctly what had been said, was only too aware of the new silence that the complainant had occasioned in the small law court. He rose helplessly from his seat and tried to approach the curtain, as though to ascertain the opinion of the public, but Rabbi Elbaz frustrated his intentions and gently yet respectfully hurried to restore the confidence of the bewildered man, whom he still considered the right man for the job.

At the little rabbi’s poetic touch, Joseph son of Kalonymos did indeed reconsider and resumed his seat, and his reddish eyes, which had previously been too timid to look at the woman who had been refused him, now watched her distress in the face of the silence that had overcome her husband. Rabbi Elbaz resolved to exploit this silence at once to move the judge’s mind in a different and original direction. Even though he felt a strong urge to repeat the wonderful speech he had made in the winery, in the presence of that thick-bearded courier from the Land of Israel, whose absence now pained him acutely, he knew that the prayer house of a devout congregation might not be the right place to argue in the name of an obdurate man who could sustain the image of a second wife in such a way that no edict of the sages could eradicate it. Therefore he changed tack and set his sails for a distant destination, to reach which he now brought in the two Ishmaelites and the black pagan, who had been standing silently and uncomprehendingly before the shrine of the Jews’ god.

If there were Jews, the rabbi mused to himself, as firm in their faith as those who were silently standing behind the curtain, who were so strong-minded that they could banish from their imagination the very tips of a second wife’s toes, this was apparently so only because they were eager to give a more honored place to the image of the dear redeemer, the king messiah, who did not need a millennium to come to his Jews, but only greater respect for the commandments. See you, the rabbi began excitedly, developing a new thought, apparently addressed to the startled judge who was sitting facing him but plainly, by the loudness of his voice, intended to be heard beyond the curtain, by a gathering that was holding its breath to catch every syllable, my lords and masters, members of this holy congregation, soon we shall all return to the Beloved Land, to the land flowing with milk and honey, which has neither bubbling marshes nor croaking frogs but pure streams of water and the song of nightingales. There in the last days which are nigh shall be gathered in not only distant Jews like yourselves but also, as is written and promised, all the inhabitants of the world, gentiles thirsty for the word of God. And first of all, naturally, the nearest neighbors, Ishmaelites and Mohammedans, who to find favor with the elect, the redeemed Jews, who cherish one woman above all others as though she were God himself, are likely to hurry and cast forth from their homes their redundant second, third, and fourth wives.

At this point the rabbi turned to the three sturdy seafarers, whose appearance had not been improved by the black cloaks and pointed hats in which the local Jews had dressed them; their spirit had not been quelled, and they merely seemed wilder. In a voice that contained a hint of protest, he asked, and immediately answered his own question, Is it fitting that we should tarnish the bliss of redemption with the sorrow, pain, and offense of so many Ishmaelite women, who will suddenly be inconsolably alone? How can we persuade good neighbors who long to share in our redemption not to go berserk or change their nature, if we do not show them that there are pure, good Jews who have two wives, whose orthodoxy and righteousness do not defend on the thoughts of others?

Then the reddish curtain stirred slightly, and the Elbaz child, who had heard his father’s loud voice from afar, cautiously drew back a flap and silently entered the space of the court and stood between his host, Joseph son of Kalonymos, and his sire, as though he had come to reconcile them with a compromise. Rabbi Elbaz stared in astonishment at his son, who had now tipped his little pointed hat at a new and rakish angle. And he looked back at the arbiter, who was smiling slightly at the sight of the boy. Well, Rabbi Elbaz said to himself hopefully, maybe this is just the moment to stop talking, so as to draw from the heart of this German judge’s smile a civilized, tolerant verdict that will allow the natural partnership to continue by virtue both of former brotherhood and of future redemption.

In truth, the slight smile that appeared on Joseph son of Kalnymos’s face at the sight of the rabbi’s son testified clearly that his nervousness and distress were being soothed and that the new role that had been placed upon him not only no longer frightened him but even pleased him. It was obvious that he understood that if Abulafia persisted in his silence and did not rise to defend himself, he himself would be compelled to pronounce, despite his own inclinations, a simple, rational decision that could not be different from the one reached in the winery near Paris. A new course was indicated. He instructed Master Levitas to fetch Ben Attar’s two wives, the first and the second, to be examined privily as witnesses.