The Ruby In Her Navel

XII

However, I was not destined to go further with the royal renewals that morning. I had hardly returned when the doorkeeper came to announce a visitor, a man by the name of Leonardo Malfetta, who came on urgent business, or so he said. The doorkeeper was that same Sigismond who had caused trouble on the ship, but he smiled on me now, and inclined his head. I asked after his family and told him to come to me if he heard anything about Mario and he said he would do so.

This Malfetta was a merchant, a Genoese, and he was already known to me slightly, because he had once done, or attempted to do, a favour to us, by introducing some acrobats and rope-walkers that he had brought from Naples. He had even parted with a sum in payment of their passage and their maintenance in Sicily. His idea had been to gain a favour in return from our diwan; he was seeking a concession to export the cotton and hemp that are cultivated at Giattini. He had failed in this, as the trade was in the hands of a company of merchants from Amalfi and there was a charter already in existence. His Neapolitan acrobats never appeared at court and this had been by my decision. They were accomplished, certainly, but the time was not opportune, because Negro acrobats from Africa had performed for the King not very much before, and they had made a human pyramid of twelve persons and had also been ropewalkers, so Malfetta's people had nothing new to offer. If they had been allowed to perform, even though he had met with refusal in the matter of the concession, Malfetta would probably have said nothing about the money he had spent, regarding it in the light of an investment for favours in the future. But in the circumstances he had felt justified in making a claim on us for reimbursement. This had been met, but in part only, because the claim had been greatly exaggerated – one would have thought he had lavished a fortune on these poor acrobats from the streets of Naples. There had been dispute at the time and at first I thought he had come to renew this, and my heart sank.

Certainly he had dressed with care for the visit: red, tiara-shaped silk cap with a jewelled clip, pale-blue wide-sleeved silk gown, slashed at the shoulders to show the embroidered linen of his tunic below. But this finery served only to emphasise the grimness and stiffness of his face, with its small, deepset eyes and long nose and a mouth that was like a thin cut in a lemon. His two attendants he left outside the door, and came stalking in, no less arrogant for having been required to consign his sword to Sigismond before entering. He eyed Stefanos haughtily for a moment or two, then said, "My words are for you only, Signore."

Stefanos left without waiting to be asked, without glancing at Malfetta, saying to me that he had matters to attend to.

"Well," I said, " how can I be of service to you?"

"You permit a great deal from your clerk. He did not so much as give me good-day."

I said nothing to this. After a moment Malfetta allowed himself a smile and a truly calamitous smile it was: he had a face not constructed for smiling, the features seeming to resent the call made on them, cracking painfully only when they could resist no more. "It is a trifling matter," he said. "I hardly like to trouble you with it, but I thought your help might save me time that could then be spent on more important things."

"Please be seated," I said, and I waited while he took the chair on the other side of the desk.

"Some months ago," he said, "I had occasion to borrow a sum of money. It was a time of temporary difficulty, from which I am now happily recovered. However, this man, this money-lender, is making trouble for me."

"What was the debt?"

"Five hundred ducats."

"Full silver?" I asked, and he nodded. It was a sizeable sum. "A Jewish money-lender?"

"No, a Berber. His name is Zenega Waziri. Perhaps you know the man?"

"No, I do not know him." In fact I knew little of the Berbers of Palermo, other than that a good number had taken refuge here in recent years, having been driven from their lands by the Arabs.

Malfetta seemed disappointed. "If you knew him you would know what a scoundrel he is. He has that thick-lipped, flat-nosed look that some of them have. Negro blood there, without a doubt. He insists that I have not returned the money, when I have friends, men above suspicion, men of rank, who are ready to come forward and swear that they saw this money being handed back, principal and interest."

"And the paper, the contract, which you drew up together at the time of borrowing the money? Waziri must have returned this to you at the time you repaid the debt. He should also have given you a note, dated and signed, to acknowledge the repayment."

"There is the rub, you see. I suppose I was distracted at the time. I must have had my mind on other things." He paused, shaking his head. "A man cannot be thinking about money every moment of his life, can he? Of course, Waziri, being a man without religion, does not understand this.

We humans are midway on the ladder between angel and beast, so we are told. But it seems to me there are ladders for every kind and they each have their scales. Just as one beast may be superior to another, so it is with men. I would put Berbers on the lowest rung, along with Negroes.

Let them fight, and let the loser fall down among the beasts."

It was his second reference to Negroes. He was a vindictive man and I wondered if the greater success of the Negro acrobats, in outshining his Neapolitans, had turned him against the race as a whole. His dislike for Berbers was easier to comprehend…

"So Waziri still has the contract, and you have nothing to show in proof of repayment?"

"That is so, unfortunately, yes."

"And now he is pressing you for the money?"

"He has no shame. He is hoping to get the money twice over."

"Well, I see the plight you are in, but I do not see how we can be of help to you. It is a matter for the courts."

Malfetta leaned forward. "That is precisely why I have come to you. The Douana of Control has the ear of the judges, everyone knows that, especially in cases to do with contested wills, disputed debts, and so forth. Now judges are as various as other men. There are some with a very barren notion of justice, basing everything on scraps of paper, not admitting as relevant the excellent witnesses, Christian witnesses, that a man of my standing is able to bring forward. There are others with a broader view, who will accept the word of a man of honour against that of pagan Negroes. The trouble is, we do not know whose court we will end in. I thought you might steer my case in the right direction."

I remained silent for some moments, not quite knowing how to reply. I had no intention of doing as he asked and squandering what influence we had on such a case. Five hundred ducats was a very considerable amount of money. This Waziri would be a man of substance, if he could lend money on that scale. The Berbers kept together, there might be a family strong enough to cause trouble. Malfetta, on the other hand, could not do us harm, at least none that I could see. However, there was no sense in making an enemy of him, if it could be avoided.

The pause had been long enough for Malfetta to work up a degree of virtuous indignation. "Think of it," he said. "It almost defies belief.

A judge, professing to be a Christian of the Roman liturgy, will find in favour of a godless immigrant, ignoring the testimony of his own co-religionists! But it cannot endure long. This generation of vipers, these corrupt judges, will be swept away. People of the Latin rite are more and more numerous in Sicily, every day sees greater numbers."

"But surely these are immigrants too."

"Holy Mother of God, what are you saying? They are not immigrants, they are settlers. They are members of our community, people like us, people you can trust – in fact I never have dealings with anyone else."

"Except when borrowing money."

"Our religion forbids the breeding of money, we leave that to baser creeds."

Malfetta was attempting smiles no more. His face bore a look of great sincerity. But sincerity is not to be trusted, I had learned that in my time at the Diwan of Control if I had learned nothing else: a man is never more sincere than when he earnestly wants to be believed. What would Yusuf do? He was still my model. He would engage Mafetta in discussion of a more general nature, reach some accord of opinion, part on amicable terms so that his good offices would be taken on trust without his needing to make assurances, then do nothing.

"In the Sicily of today," I said, "a judge should be of all religions, or none. But I do not believe it is primarily a matter of religion.

Judges are attentive to documents because documents have material existence and the law does not, so they save themselves from nullity by grasping one, like clutching at a straw in a sea of abstraction. It can be anything, a witness, a weapon, a wound. And proceeding from this…"

What had begun as a means of distracting him ended by engaging my interest, there was paradox in it, this importance of the object in a system so codified. "Even proof itself is thought of as weight or mass,"

I said. "We speak of the burden of proof, onus probandi, and this comes from the law of the Romans, which we have inherited. The weight of proving a controversial assertion falls on the shoulders of him who makes it. I would be interested to hear your opinion on this."

"It is Waziri who is making the controversial assertion," he said.

"No, excuse me, it is you. Waziri is simply demanding that you fulfil your agreement."

"But I have fulfilled it."

"Listen," I said, "a document is not a controversial assertion, and Waziri has the document."

"Ah, so we come back to that."

I think he saw that he was not getting far with me, for he now played what he clearly felt to be his winning card. "You owe me something, your douana."

"How is that?"

"Do you mean to say you have no memory of it? I hired a group of acrobats of phenomenal skill and brought them here at my own expense, thinking they might give entertainment to the court. I was greatly out of pocket in that business."

"Excuse me, you were not out of pocket. Your expenses were repaid in reasonable measure. In the end, as I remember, you professed yourself satisfied."

"Well, one doesn't want to haggle, a man of my standing. After all, one is not a putter-on-of-shows."

I had not been greatly sympathetic to his cause before, but it was these last words that set me against him. So ill-natured was he that he would belittle even the one he asked for favours. I said, "Was it you or another that haggled till we were all out of patience?"

"It is the pains I went to," he said. "I did not mind the losses to my purse."

"You suffered no losses to your purse."

"It was not the money that was important to me, it was the desire to be of service. That is all I ask in return, a gesture of good will. Of course, I would be ready to show my gratitude. Should we say one twentieth part of the debt?" He tried his smile again. "Depending, naturally, on the outcome of the hearing."

I now began to be heartily sick of this conversation. Why was I endlessly taken up with venal persons and malodorous concerns? How had it come about? The image of Alicia came to my mind. I thought of that moment of recognition, the moment she had looked at me and pronounced my name. If she could see me now, involved in this squalid talk of debts and favours, would she still think me so splendid?

"Malfetta," I said, "our diwan cannot be of practical help to you but I can offer you some advice. It would be most unwise of you to let this matter come before a court. The judge will find it difficult to understand why you did not obtain the documents of release from the creditor. He may well find it puzzling that you went accompanied by a number of friends when you repaid the debt. It is not common practice, is it?"

"I asked them to accompany me for fear of being robbed on the way. I was carrying a large sum of money."

"He may also think it strange that, if you were so accompanied, none of those with you thought to ask Waziri to render up the contract, they were all in the same state of distraction as yourself."

Malfetta was looking at me narrowly. "I do not like your tone," he said.

"You appear to be doubting my word."

"No, what I am saying is that the judge is likely to doubt it. If he finds against you, you will have to pay the cost of the hearing as well as the debt, and any you call as witness will cut an extremely bad figure. You made a mistake in not making sure the contract was annulled.

A man must pay for his mistakes."

Malfetta got to his feet. He was looking at me now with scowling displeasure, an expression much better suited than smiling to the general cast of his countenance. "Who is this judge that finds everything strange?" he said. "Is he a Berber? He does not exist, he is an invention of your own, you hide behind him to avoid doing me a service."

This was too much. I rose in my turn and stood looking across the table at him from my greater height. I said, "You think unwillingness to offend derives from fear? It is so with you because that is all the manners you have. But it is not so with me. Do you doubt it?"

He was silent, he would not go so far; perhaps he was surprised by the fierceness of my looks and words. But I was ashamed now at having borne with him so long, it was shame that kept me angry. I wanted to provoke him to a quarrel. "I have listened with patience to this tale of yours,"

I said, "but I will not tolerate your insults."

But he would not take me up on it, even under this imputation of falsehood, though there was murder in his eyes as he looked at me. "You will pay dearly for this," he said, and with that he went from the room, leaving me, after that rush of anger had abated, far from satisfied with myself. Once again I had failed to bear myself with the restraint that is proper in a servant of the state. I had made an enemy of Malfetta, and a bad enemy he might well prove to be. In fact, all I had succeeded in doing was to make the world more dangerous for me.

I felt the need to be alone for a while, in a place where no one would look for me. I went quickly down the stairs and out into the narrow, uncovered passageway that follows the line of the outer wall and leads to a gate on the south side of the palace not much used and guarded by one man only, who raised the grid for me. I followed the bank of the rivulet that flows alongside the street of the Benedettini. The current ran fast still, though May was all but over, and there were martins flying low over the water. I came soon within sight of the church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti and I entered by the western door. It was cool inside and the light was muted. There was a scattering of people in the nave, some sitting, some kneeling. I went into the presbytery and from there entered the little courtyard which also belongs to the mosque that adjoins the church, and which was a favourite place of mine. It is the only church in Palermo, and perhaps in all Sicily, which is joined in this way to a mosque. Our King had ordered it to be built alongside the mosque and ordained it so that Christian and Moslem could pass freely and without hindrance each to his own place of worship, and in this he had showed the wisdom and spirit of tolerance that made me proud to serve him. It was for this reason that I loved this church best of all those in Palermo. On the other side of it, that farthest from the mosque, there was an abbey of the Benedictines.

There was no one in the courtyard at this hour, and I sat in the shade of the portico for a little while till the peace of the place had worked on my spirits and Malfetta's baseness had receded to that region where such qualities had their dwelling, a region I always tried to feel was far distant, though knowing full well that it lay round any corner.

With recovered calm I began again to think of Alicia, of our meeting and our talk together. Thoughts of her came always in the same way, from a misty surface, the mist rent asunder by little shocks of memory, and always with a sense in me of pleasurable helplessness, of being subjugated by the detail of it, her eyes, her smile, a gesture she had that I had known in the girl and found again in the woman, a way of touching her hair at the temple above the right ear, very lightly, as if she were herself, for that moment, distracted by some thought from the past. To these memories of her that were real, I added others that could not be so, the shape of her foot, the texture of the skin at the nape of her neck, invented memories, but they did not come accompanied by desire, they were elements of her wondrous existence, they seemed like the proof of it. The more fully I could create her in my mind, the more of substance I could give her, the more I could believe that we would meet again.

Did she wait for this with an eagerness equal to mine? I wanted to believe this but how could I know? I knew she had loved me once, I could not be wrong in that. At fourteen she had loved me, she had lived for the stolen times of our meetings, as I had, the clasped hands, the kisses that stayed warm on our lips, the longing to touch more closely, always denied. I would have braved any danger for her, gone forth to confront dragons or seek a new Grail.

That was a fever we shared. But it was long years ago, and much had changed. Then we were equals, children of noble families sent away to learn what we needed to learn for the maintaining of our station. She was born to wider estates than I, so much I already knew. But as a knight I could have hoped to become rich; for one who was bold and skilled in the lists there were prizes to be won; an opponent unhorsed in single combat would forfeit to the victor charger and trappings and armour. There were merchants who dealt only in these and would pay well for them. Some years of travelling from tourney to tourney and I could have amassed enough wealth, taken service with a great lord, been granted a fief to add to the dowry lands of my bride, my Alicia…

So I sat there, mazed in that eternal contradiction of human kind, regret for the loss of what was never possessed. Tibald had come and carried her off to Jerusalem. When I was still two years from knighthood and the triumphs of the joust, she had lived as his wife in the fabled land of Outremer. Now she was free, but we were not equals now: she was an heiress, her family was among the richest in Apulia – and I, what was I? Thurstan Beauchamp, a man of public spectacles and private bribes, living on a palace stipend. What had I to offer? A man could not go to a lady such as she with for only quality the need to be rescued.

These things I knew. And yet, perversely, sitting there on my narrow stone bench against the wall in the deserted courtyard, I felt the stirring of hope within me. I was not yet thirty years old. If Yusuf rose in the King's favour, I would rise with him. He wished me well, he would not forget me; there was every chance that I would come into his place at the Diwan of Control. This too was a way of amassing wealth, though not the way I would have chosen.

But hope is a hound that once unleashed can change its nature even as it leaps. Perhaps there was another way. If Alicia and I could find again the feeling that once we had, perhaps we could recover the selves we once had too and the prospects that had belonged to those selves. We could help each other in this. There was no bar to my knighthood – I was descended from the Norman nobility of England; nor was there any bar to Alicia having the man of her choice. Then I could offer more than my need of rescue: I could be a rescuer in my turn. When she had spoken of Ascalon and the need to defend the land she held against the infidel I had seen myself on a war horse, in full splendour of arms, at the gallop. Of course, Yusuf, on whom I so much depended, was an infidel too…

At once exhilarated and confused by these thoughts, I rose from my bench with the intention of retracing my steps through the church and returning to the diwan and my scrutiny of the royal renewals. But even as I got to my feet I saw a man in monastic habit come out into the courtyard just as I had done. After a moment I recognised him. It was Gerbert, a Benedictine, who had come recently to Palermo as abbot at the Monastery of San Salvatore. He waited there some short while and was joined by another, who I knew slightly better, having met him on occasion, a Lombard of the minor nobility named Atenulf, a chamberlain in the Royal Diwan, of considerable influence, as it was said. The two men took some paces then stopped and stood together in what seemed close conversation. They glanced across the courtyard from time to time, but I was still in the shadow of the portico, and standing close against the wall, and so I think they did not see me.

Since I had not come forth from my place at once, I was unwilling to do so now, because of the seeming closeness of their talk. They would think I had been hiding there so as to observe them, and this suspicion would not have been unfounded; the palace service made spies of all who worked within it, and there was something in this colloquy that roused my curiosity. I wondered whether they had met by chance, and what might have brought them here. I thought Gerbert might have come to visit the Benedictine Abbey nearby. Perhaps Atenulf came to this church for his private devotions. But it had not looked like a chance meeting…

They stayed in talk for some minutes, then withdrew once more into the church, the Benedictine entering a little earlier than his companion. I waited some while longer, then did the same. There was no sign of either man in the body of the church.

Speculations about this meeting continued in my mind as I made my way back to the diwan, but they did not long survive my arrival there.

Stefanos was waiting for me, and the tailor, very peevish-looking now, was at his side.

"They will not have it," he said.

"Who is it that you are speaking of?"

"They, the dancers. They will not let themselves be touched. The tailor went there to take the measures. He says that if he had not started back she would have clawed him."

"Who? No, no need to tell me, I know who. That one has been a source of trouble to me since I first set eyes on her."

Immediately upon saying this I was conscious of some slight confusion, which I did not myself altogether understand, and it was not lessened by the knowledge that Stefanos had his eyes closely upon me. He is a mild man, as I have said, but there is not much that escapes his notice, and he is fond of me, as also his wife Maria, and that makes him notice all the more.

"Indeed, yes," was all he said now, but I seemed to detect some extra significance in the inflexion of his words.

"She was the worst," the tailor said, "but they were all three much the same, ridiculous creatures, I could not get near any of them, they seemed to think I wanted to put my hand up their skirts, what an idea, I have better things to do. The men just laughed."

"Perhaps they did not want to give the men cause for jealousy," Stefanos said. "They are simple people."

"But the worst one," I said, "she does not belong to either of the men."

"Does she not?"

"You know quite well she does not." I had a sudden memory of the white birds, that strange desolate wailing, Sigismond's face as he fought for breath, Nesrin's eyes on me, attentive, dispassionate. "She wanted a stable for herself, did she not?"

"I would like to say that I should never have been put to such a task," the tailor said. "I am His Majesty's second wardrobe attendant and the first is old now, his hands shake, it will not be long before I am stepping into his shoes. I tried only at the shoulders and waist, I did not embark on the hips or bosom, and would not do so now for any inducement, even if you promised me an armed guard".

"We will have to get a woman to come and do it," I said. "We cannot let them appear in the rags they are wearing now."

It was a practical solution, but it overlaid a vast astonishment on my part. These women had tramped the roads of Asia and Europe, dancing for men who clustered closely round them. Time and again they had revealed their bodies to strangers, either openly or by enticing suggestion. Yet they would not permit a tailor to lay the lightest of touches on them.

Could this fierceness be called chastity? A challenge it would be for a man to soften it… "This our world is full of marvels," I said to Stefanos. "You find a dressmaker. I will have to go with her, I suppose, to calm things down".

When I got there with the woman it was to find all five of them grouped together outside their quarters, in what had been the stable yard, talking eagerly together in the sunshine. Nesrin was in the midst. It had been almost a month since I had seen her last, but it seemed a much shorter time, though I did not know why this should be so.

Before the seamstress started her work I wanted to speak to them, to tell them that they should not be troublesome or difficult, as they had been with the tailor, but should try to help things forward, as this would make everything easier and work to their advantage. They would be performing at the court, before King Roger himself, and this would be a great honour, one they would be able to relate to their children in time to come.

I spoke slowly, in Greek as simple as I could make it, and they listened, or appeared to, though how much they understood I could not tell. Only Nesrin looked at me as I spoke, the others kept their faces turned from me, both the men and the women. They wore the expression I remembered from before in my dealings with them, sombre and brooding, not defiant or even indifferent, simply the look of their faces in repose. She, on the other hand, looked continuously and intently towards me, but not really as listening to my words, more as simply watching me as I talked, and this was strangely unsettling to me and impeded the ordering of my thoughts. Twice she smiled, not broadly but sufficiently to show the edges of her teeth, and I wondered even as I spoke what she did to keep them so white in the wandering conditions of her life, and these thoughts too made me falter a little in my speech, as did the fact that her smiles did not come at points which were intended by me to cause mirth – nothing of what I said was intended to cause mirth – so I had the feeling that it was something in me, in my face or person or manner of speaking, that caused her the smile.

However, I said the words I had in mind, stressing the need for obedience and good behaviour, adding as further inducement that in addition to the very generous payment they had been promised they would be allowed to keep the fine and costly clothes for which they were about to be measured. Then I gestured to the dressmaker to begin with her measuring rule.

I had intended to quit the scene immediately after making my speech, but now I decided that it might be better to remain for a while so as to assure myself that everything proceeded in a proper fashion. Nesrin was the first to come forward and present herself – in all my experience of her she was always first or last or loudest or quietest. But I was nor prepared for the way she behaved now.

As she turned this way or that, or held still, in accordance with the wishes of the dressmaker, she continued to look at me, sometimes full in the face and boldly, sometimes glancing over her shoulder with a stately movement of the neck. Sometimes she presented her back, turning her head from side to side with a luxurious, shrugging movement of the shoulders, as if, though for the moment she could not see me, she was well aware that I was seeing her. This taking of the measurements she turned into a sort of dance, not for my entertainment but for the entertainment of the others, a mockery of my solemn words of earlier: she had smiled, now she danced, and both meant the same thing.

And the dance was protracted, for she sometimes went contrary to the wishes of the dressmaker, though without once stepping beyond the reach of the woman's arm. Sometimes, as I watched, she performed movements in that stained and tawdry dress of hers that no dressmaker would ever dream of requiring, a subtle sway of the hips, an eel-like wriggling motion, a proud pressing back of the shoulders that brought into prominence the shape of her breasts, other, slighter motions, a slightness almost miraculous in view of the charge of suggestion they carried, at least to the sinful soul of the Thurstan who watched them, who knew full well by this time that he should not be lingering there.

No, I should not have stayed to give countenance to this insolence of hers, but I was captivated, enthralled. There was defiance and self-love and comedy and provocation in this dancing, and it held the attention of all: even the kneeling dressmaker, though impatient at first, was smiling now. The two men made low-pitched exclamations and laughed together. Some laughter came also from the women, but for all that they were both watching me closely, and under this combined regard of theirs I knew myself suddenly for the victim of a conspiracy. The women were leagued against me and the men enlisted as spectators. I was being mocked for the secret desires of my heart and the pompous words of my mouth. And even as I felt this mockery and saw the way she swayed her body and glanced down at herself, clear as it was that she sought to tease me and ensnare my eyes and make naught of the words I had spoken, even so I could not prevent a heat spreading through me, seeing her suppleness, thinking what it might be like to lie between her thighs. I felt the heat in my face also, and was put in a sudden fear that it might betray me, so without more ado I left, taking care to keep a grave face and avoid all appearance of discomfiture or haste. In spite of this, I thought I heard laughter continuing behind me.

Yes, to my shame I will confess to this consuming carnality and at such a time – it was the untimeliness that made it shameful. I was young, venery was often in my mind, my member was unruly, I would not have taken myself to task for any casual rearing-up. But this had come so soon after my high resolve to be worthy of Alicia, to be her knight, with the knighthood she had conferred on me through that lingering touch on my head. Twice already that day I had failed her and it was only mid-afternoon. There and then, as I started back to my room, I resolved to visit the Tiraz that evening and spend some time with Sara, thereby achieving peace of the senses, for a while at least. Fornication was a sin but it was also a practical solution, and I was inclined to regard it as true of ethics what Cicero said of mathematics when he praised his fellow-Romans, as opposed to the philosophising Greeks, for confining themselves to the domain of useful application. Though this of course dismisses Greek philosophy almost in its entirety, which could hardly have been Cicero's intention. Besides, though I had found no doctrine to support me, I felt in my heart that, knowing how strong was the element of fire in me, God would be less offended by my sin than by that of one who sins coldly. He would know that I aspired to the good, that my true nature was worshipful. He would not want me to be tormented by unchaste thoughts about a little wildcat from Ararat who did nothing but make game of me.