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

their birth. Occasionally, when they camped in some desolate bay on the way and he saw the child walking slowly along the shore in the evening twilight, he remembered her mother, who despite everything had bequeathed something of her great beauty to her defective child—a soft line on the cheek, a certain hue, the molding of a thigh. Indeed, on this voyage Ben Attar thought a great deal about Abulafia’s suicidal wife, as though he too bore some guilt, until one night on the sea, in pain and desire, she burst into his dreams.
    As it turned out, he was very careful not to let the least hint of this dream escape from his mouth, precisely because the meeting with Abulafia was so emotional, so brimming with love and friendship, that the three of them wept real tears. Yes, all three of them. Abu Lutfi was the first to give in and burst into tears as he embraced his long-haired comrade, who was waiting for them in a new black Christian habit at the entrance to the Roman inn, to which the Jew from Barcelona had taken them. The sobbing of the manly Ishmaelite was so surprising that Abulafia was carried away. Then Ben Attar too felt a lump in his throat, but not enough to make him forget the final return of the child to her father’s care. He gave a signal, and the large nurse, who was standing a few paces away, drew forth the child who was hiding in her skirts and gestured to her to approach Abulafia, who first of all uttered a cry of panic at the unfamiliar bird that was fluttering toward him but then closed his eyes in pain and clasped his child to his chest warmly, strongly, as though he had just realized that he too had been longing for her in her loneliness. But on the next day, in between talking about merchandise and rates of exchange, about merchants’ hopes and purchasers ’ fickleness, it struck Ben Attar that Abulafia imagined that they had brought the child there only to see him, and that she would eventually return whence she had come. Delicately but decisively, he had to remind his nephew of his duties as a father, supporting his words with texts supplied by the sage Ben Ghiyyat. Abulafia listened in silence and read the texts, nodding his head, and after reflection consented to take the child back. Was it only from a simple sense of paternal duty, or was it also because Ben Attar shrewdly offered him promotion from agent to full partner, so he would share in the profits of his work? Either way, there is no doubt that the old Ishmaelitenurse’s agreement to go with Abulafia and continue looking after the child in his home in Toulouse until a replacement could be found also helped the widowed father reach his decision.
    This furnished an excuse for a further meeting, since Ben Attar and Abu Lutfi promised the Ishmaelite woman that they themselves would come the following year to take her back to North Africa. Behind that promise no doubt lay the satisfaction and enthusiasm arising from the present meeting. After two years of new and exciting commercial business conducted thus far by means of occasional envoys, through letters , some of which had gone astray, and on the basis of unreliable rumors, Ben Attar now realized that there was no substitute for Abulafia ’s living, gushing words, describing the adventures of each bolt of brightly colored cloth, each sack of rare condiments, each inlaid dagger , which was the source of a veritable saga of exchanges unwinding like a snake until the final transaction resulted in a coin of silver or gold, or a heavy precious stone. No orderly narrative delivered by a trustworthy and clever emissary could replace that leisurely, relaxed conversation with the agent, whose stories hatched a whole clutch of subtle insights, suppositions, and hopes, which persuaded the merchant from Tangier that there really was a change in the air and that the poor benighted souls of the Christians beyond the mountains wanted at this time to be joined to the south and the east by means of their