A Journey to the End of the Millennium by A.B. Yehoshua Read Free Book Online Page B

to the black slave, who now handed him the morning dish, fat olives drowned in an oily sauce in which to dip pieces of the warm bread that lay beside it. For forty days now he had sailed in this boat, and still he felt embarrassed whenever this slave waited on him, as though he were unworthy of it. After the birth of his only son, his wife had been so weak that he had assumed all the household chores himself. And he had enjoyed the housework that he was forced to do in her place, openly or secretly, so much that since her death he had found it hard to remarry, for where would he find a healthy wife who would consent to be waited on by him?
    And so now, as bundles of gray cloud floated in the air, he ate with bowed head, holding the platter between his hands, careful not to make a movement or say a word that might encourage the young slave to continue to wait upon him, lest the slave would get carried away and prostrate himself and kiss the hem of the rabbi’s threadbare robe. He had done this one evening, seized by a powerful religious feeling, and the rabbi had been compelled to complain about him to Abu Lutfi, who had flogged his protégé prodigiously. But no, this time the young man did not seem to be returning to his old ways. As the morning mist thickened, with his master’s two acts of lovemaking and the smell of wine, which still wafted around the deck, a mighty tiredness had befallen him, and now, for all his youth, he would have gladly lain down and died upon the sail folded at his feet. But he still had to carry out Ben Attar’s orders and make certain that the rabbi did not toss all his olive stones overboard but hide one in the pouch suspended near his heart, to ensure the correct counting of the days, for it had already happened that the Jews had lost count of their sacred seventh day. This morning the rabbi did not neglect his task as timekeeper, and after sucking the juicy flesh of the last olive he placed the stone withthe five others and smiled cordially at the young slave, who was so exhausted that he could scarcely stagger to the first wife, who had just climbed up, her heavy body draped in a red embroidered robe, onto the old bridge, where she stood as splendidly as though she were the caliph himself. He did not know if she wanted some of the honey drink that he concocted for her each morning, or if she wished first to discover whether all had passed well there in the stern of the ship. He stood motionless for a moment, his weary young body torn asunder by conflicting forces. But Abu Lutfi’s stern voice, as he came to rouse the sleeping crew, spurred the slave’s legs on toward the regal woman, around whom the mist that was thickening as the daylight grew brighter wafted like incense. Already he could discern an unfamiliar hint of anxiety clouding her round, bright face, which was lit as always by a pleasant smile, and his soul longed to soothe her care, but he did not know what to say or how to say it, and so he closed his eyes and began to sigh deeply, once and then once more, as though he were trying to transmit to her all the second wife’s sighs of satisfaction and cries of pleasure.

3.
    But where would this poem meander to next, Rabbi Elbaz asked himself as the sailors toiled in the morning mist to hoist the sail, which had been reduced in size during the night in readiness for the delicate task of sailing up the river. For the rabbi, the mere fact of writing a poem was something wonderful; he had never imagined that he himself would be able or eager to do such a thing. But during the previous week six lines had put themselves together, all in Hebrew, following the meter and rhyme scheme that had been brought to Andalus from the east by Dunash Ben Labrat. Right from the start, from the moment he embarked with his son on Ben Attar’s ship, which had come to the port of Cadiz especially to fetch him, he had had a feeling that his life was about to undergo some great change. At first he had