The Road to Damietta

  "I suggest that you read the book tomorrow morning," he said, "for tomorrow you will take your first lesson."

  "Lesson in what?"

  "In the charming dances of Egypt. Those first danced by the daughter of the beautiful Queen Nefertiti."

  "But I am not a dancer."

  "More reason for you to take lessons."

  "And horribly awkward," I said, aware now that I was destined to take a place in the sultan's harem.

  "Not awkward," he assured me, smiling his dazzling smile again. "Though you are somewhat tall and lacking in the matter of flesh."

  Two servants came to announce at the same time, in the same words, that his guests had arrived and were waiting in the garden.

  "Tomorrow," the sultan said, escorting me to the boarding plank and waving farewell.

  I would have waved back, though I shook in every limb, had not a distraction taken place before my eyes.

  Men were lowering an object into a boat, obviously a body wrapped in a winding sheet. As I watched, the boat crossed the lake and the body was carried toward the river. If it was one of the sultan's people it would be buried, not thrown into the Nile. The Moslems, I had heard, wrapped food in these windings, along with secret messages, which floated on the current into the beleaguered city of Damietta and there were fished out.

  This scene further upset me and I carried it to dinner. After a meal in the company of the sultan's several wives, I tried to read the Secrets of the Egyptian Dance back in my tent among the mountains of scented pillows, by a feeble light that gave oft the smell of jasmine, and fell uneasily asleep to the far-off sound of the Nile rushing toward the sea.

  33

  The next morning, after a breakfast in the company of six of the sultan's wives which dawdled along from dried dates and fresh pomegranates to turtle eggs and lamb couscous, all of which I was much too frightened to touch, I was given over to an instructress, a small woman with large Egyptian eyes who looked like an overstuffed doll.

  "My name is Aimee Yusuf" she said. "You have read the book?"

  "No, I have not. I was much too exhausted for frivolity." Then, seeing tears well up in her eyes at my harsh words, I added, "But I'll read it today."

  "Do, please. There you'll find the arts that enthralled the sultan. It will be a guide for you."

  "For what?" I asked, still not believing that I was fated to become an odalisque in the harem of Malik-al-Kamil. It was a dream. No, not a dream. I was awake and living in a nightmare. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "What the sultan has asked you to do."

  "But I am not a dancer."

  "The sultan thinks that you will become a dancer. His thoughts are very strong. What he thinks comes to pass."

  Eunuchs removed my hose and gown and took them away, even my shoes, leaving me half naked.

  "Shoes make sounds that spoil the notes of the lute and tambouri," she explained. "Besides, with shoes you cannot grip the earth, the marble floor, the soft carpet, whatever you dance upon. It is necessary to do so, for otherwise it is not a woman dancing but a woman struggling."

  She stood off and studied me. "You're too tall and too thin," she announced, echoing the sultan's words. "We can do little with this tallness, I am afraid. For the thinness, I have a special oil—it comes from the coconut and does magical things. In a dozen days you'll be plump as a pigeon."

  While I gritted my teeth, she showed me how to stand, not stiff-legged but with one knee bent, arms raised and clasped above my head.

  No one had ever complimented me on my dancing and I had never thought of myself as graceful. It was not difficult, therefore, to be awkward, to appear all arms and legs as I took the first position of the stomach dance.

  As awkwardly as I could, I went through this exercise a hundred times, sweating in the searing heat, bewildered, frightened out of my senses, until Aimee was forced to say, "From what I've seen this morning, you Christian girls must have your thoughts fixed only upon yourselves, upon food, the state of your health, whatever. Those of our faith are quite different. We dance for pleasure, to display the curve of an ankle, the shape of a breast, to woo the beholder, to please God and celebrate those things He has so generously given us."

  She sent me back to my tent with the suggestion that I not return until the book had been read. I spent the rest of the day with it, torn between thoughts of what would happen if I did learn to dance and what would happen if I didn't learn.

  The lessons lasted for eight days and on the ninth day the sultan came to see what my teacher had done for me.

  Smiling, clapping his hands as I danced, he said, "You have learned much, and in such a very short time. It pleases me. It is a miracle. You remind me of the Persian girl—I have forgotten her name—who was so light, so graceful, she could dance on the bottom of a drinking glass."

  He sighed at this memory and called the teacher to his side. "There's an occasion tonight," he told her. "It begins with the moon. With this one, whom you have taught so well. On our little Christian, use colors sparingly so as not to conceal her natural beauty. She's quite blond; therefore do not employ henna, and only small touches of kohl."

  I was taken to the tent where the sultan's wives were bathed and was left to a bevy of servants. At times there were two women and two eunuchs working on me at once. They handled my body carefully like some precious figurine, yet it's a wonder that any of me was left.

  When a slender moon came out of a cloudless sky, I was swathed in veils, borne away on a litter to the deck of the royal barge, and set down in the center of a miniature glade. As in the gardens around the sultan's tent, palms lined a stream that wound here and there, and men stripped to the waist were toiling at a wheel, dipping water from the lake to feed it.

  At the far end of the glade, Malik-al-Kamil sat in a nest of colored pillows. Behind him stood Ahmed, the ugly executioner. The sultan welcomed me with a remark in Latin but my throat was too tight to form so much as a single word in reply.

  "As you may know," he said, "you are here to dance. Let me explain. It is not for my pleasure, unfortunately. For me you would be able to conjure up but a little fire. None, I am afraid. The dance is for our friend, the Christ-enthralled Bernardone."

  I stared.

  "We can't challenge him, not openly, of" course. It would put him on his guard. Forewarned, he would gaze at the moon, the stars, the lake, not at you. Or close his eyes and set his mind on holy matters."

  A burst of light, the truth, struck me. All of the truth, at once in a blinding light. Malik-al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt, was insane. Pazzo! Pazzo! Pazzo!

  "You have loved this Bernardone from childhood, which is a miracle I can't explain. But during these long years he has never shown the smallest sign of love for you. Now, at last, you have a chance to see if he can be tempted to lay aside these curious vows he has taken. If he ever intends to show a sign of love. If he's capable of one, which I doubt. Certainly you don't wish to trail along for the rest of your life after someone who aspires to sainthood. Or do you?"

  "No," I cried. "No!"

  "We'll soon learn whether he's a man or not. First, a word of wisdom. Think little, dance from the heart. Masked, you'll not be recognized until you wish to be. You're simply a dancer I have chosen from many to entertain him. Your name is ... Let's see. Will Zahira do?"

  The wind caught my flimsy veils. They changed color as it whipped them about.

  "Do you like the name Zahira? It sounds romantic."

  When I didn't answer, he said, "Are you frightened? I hope not. Perhaps you wish to go back to Damietta and continue on the path you've pursued since childhood, worshiping Bernardone from afar? It's not too late. I grant you a safe journey. You can go now, though against my judgment. But speak. The river of time flows fast, faster than the Nile—the past into the present, the present into the future, the future into infinity. And all this, my friend, while you take one long breath."

  "What music will I dance to?" I asked breathlessly. br />
  "The same as you danced to when you were learning. And played by the same musicians."

  Servants hid me away in a thicket beside the gurgling stream. Francis appeared, unfortunately with Brother Illuminato, and they were given places on either side of the sultan.

  Tambouri and lutes began to play, so softly I could scarce hear them above the noise of the river. My Egyptian name was called twice. It sounded lively the way the sultan called it out, alive and commanding. I ran out of the thicket, catching a corner of a veil on a small thorn, and stood in his presence. In the torchlight I blinked and my knees shook.

  The music changed its rhythm and grew louder. Taking a breath of the hot night wind and then another, forgetting most of what I had learned, I began a slow circle, my arms raised and beckoning, my eyes fixed gravely upon the sultan.

  If only I had read more carefully the dancing book the sultan had given me. If only I had listened to my teacher and not wasted precious time. If I had not deliberately tried to look awkward, to be awkward. And if I had not succeeded in being awkward, graceless, unprovocative, leaden-handed, big of foot!

  I dropped the first two veils at his feet. Clasping them to his breast, he cried out in his booming voice. "Good!"

  The next two veils I strewed around the circle at the feet of imaginary guests. The fifth veil I unloosed before Brother Illuminato. Fluttering like a bird, it lit across his bony knees. He frowned, snatched it away, and hid it.

  I hadn't looked at Francis. I did so now as I started the next circle. His eyes shone forth from their caverns. He was watching. It meant nothing at the moment, this shining. His eyes always shone.

  I made two circles of the carpet before I writhed out of the sixth veil and dropped it at his feet. He did not touch it. He did not move. The torch flames, shifting in the wind, gave off an uncertain light, yet I was sure that his gaze moved away from me and sought the sky, as if he were asking for God's help.

  "Good," Malik-al-Kamil said again. "The statue crumbles. It totters. It casts about for a rescuing hand. Excellent."

  But at that moment, as I stood close to Francis, I saw his gaze leave the sky and fix itself upon me. It was penetrating, steady, and cold. I dropped my arms and stood still. In panic, I remembered a story that Brother Illuminato, in one of his worshipful moods, bragging about Francis, had told me.

  Years ago, soon after the pope had given Francis permission to speak, the two men were in Syria. It was a cold day so they stopped at a house to warm themselves. There lying in bed was a naked woman who asked Francis, he being the more handsome, to join her.

  Francis was surprised but not shocked, Brother Illuminato said. He looked at the woman in pity, troubled that she was so brazen. But when she rose from the bed to grasp him in her arms, he drew back, saying that already a more comfortable bed awaited them in a different room.

  In this room, where a large brazier burned, he stripped off his clothes and threw himself upon the coals, asking her to come join him on the sumptuous bed. The woman clutched her throat in horror and did not move, but watched him lying there happily, untouched by the flames. So appalled was she by the sight that she repented of her sins and through the help of Francis became holy in grace and thereafter did much good.

  I had not believed this story then and I did not believe it now. Francis talked to the birds and beasts because he loved them. And they talked to Francis because they loved him. But I didn't believe that he could lie unharmed on a bed of burning coals.

  I danced away from the gaze he had leveled upon me, thinking of the tale of the Syrian woman. Fearful that he would build a fire there on the deck, take me by the hand, and bid me lie there with him, I danced in front of the sultan.

  At my distress, Malik-al-Kamil said, "I hear a crumbling sound in Jericho. Do not grow faint."

  I circled back to where Francis sat, so close to him that I could feel his breath upon my flesh, and took off the mask that hid my face. Brother Illuminato gasped. He reached out a hand, then withdrew it as though scorched and began to weep.

  Francis did not move. He looked away, raised his gaze to the heavens, started to speak, and stopped. Hidden among the palm trees, the musicians paused. From far off toward the city of Damietta came the call of trumpets. The dark waters of the lake held a net of swarming stars. The drums began to beat once more, louder now, and the wild tambouri joined them.

  "The eyes of the statue," Malik-al-Kamil said, "waver between heaven and earth. And since they do waver, please continue. Rid yourself of the last, the seventh veil, which hides the supreme mystery, life's beckoning secrets, the very fountain of life."

  The veil made whispering sounds as it fell. Lowering his gaze from the heavens, Francis glanced at it, then at me. His eyes had changed. They were no longer cold. For some reason, a gentle light shone in them.

  "Before the Lord," he said in his gentlest voice, the voice he used with birds in the meadow, "you are committing a sinful act."

  Was he again in Syria, admonishing the Syrian woman, about to command her to forsake her lustful ways, to find happiness not in his arms but in the arms of Christ?

  "The statue speaks," Malik-al-Kamil said. "What does it say? The words have a promising sound."

  "That I am a sinner before the Lord."

  "Before the Lord? Allah be praised! Tell him why you are dancing. Tell him you are dancing for him. Not the Lord."

  Straightening myself, in a voice to match the gentle voice Francis had used, I said, "I am dancing for you, Francis Bernardone. And not as a sinner, but as a woman who loves you."

  He looked away into the night, at the waning moon. There was a long silence, so deep that my ears clamored with a host of deafening sounds. Francis looked at me again. It was a terrible moment. Before he uttered a word I saw the answer in his eyes.

  Malik-al-Kamil saw it too. A half-smile parted his lips. "This one," he said, "as I have feared, is not a man but a holy man. How clever of me, don't you think, to discover this? And how fortunate for you that I have done so. Holy men should be worshiped from afar. They make poor lovers and impossible mates."

  "I am not deaf to your words," Francis said to me. "But still they disguise a sinful act. In the name of our Lord, I beg you to repent. And do not wait. Repent now and the Lord will forgive you."

  He watched, waiting patiently for me to fall upon my knees and ask forgiveness. I did not move. Years of devotion had come to this. An awful scene rose up before me. It was from a passage I had copied from the Bible long ago:

  And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt and I will give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.

  And she went forth and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, the head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the bead of John the Baptist.

  And the king was exceedingly sorry; yet for his oath's sake and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner; and commanded his head to be brought; and he went and beheaded him in the prison. And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel...

  I saw the head of John the Baptist on the bloodstained charger. For an awful moment I wished with all my soul that it was the head of Francis Bernardone.

  34

  I covered myelf and fled, though Francis called me back and sent Brother Illuminato trailing my footsteps, pleading in his singsong voice, reminding me how the Syrian woman had repented of her sin and been forgiven. He followed along to my tent and stood outside, yammering away.

  At last, when he saw that the talk of repentance failed to move me, he said, "Without you, the men cannot converse. And they have many important things to converse about."

  "About the state of their souls?" I as
ked. "Which is greater, the Bible or the Koran, Moslems or Christians? And is the God they worship the same God or are there two different gods? Let them make signs to each other, jabber like monkeys in a tree. Francis has the power to talk to birds and beasts; perhaps God will give him the power to talk to Malik-al-Kamil."

  I hid myself in the pillows, but he stuck his head through the curtains.

  "Why did Brother Francis come to Damietta?" he asked.

  "I don't have even one idea why Brother Francis came to Damietta."

  "Oh yes, oh yes, you have. You know how the battle goes. You have seen corpses floating in the river. And the severed heads of Christian warriors lying outside the gates. You've heard the cries of the wounded and the moans of the dying. You told Brother Francis—I heard you tell him—that you could not sleep for the terrible sounds and the awful smells. And you know that he has come here to talk to the sultan about peace, because he told you not once but twice, and in my hearing. I beg you to come before you commit another sin."

  "I'll come if you just quit talking about sin," I said, getting into my clothes.

  Braziers were still aglow on the royal barge and the tambouri were whining sweetly and the two men still sat in the garden among the palm trees. They were making gestures, urgent noises, trying to say something to each other. And though nothing was being said that made sense to them or to me, somehow across the gulf of hatred between Christians and Moslems they had silently joined hands and become friends.

  Francis welcomed me with one of his rare smiles and no sign of anger. Indeed, I believe that he had forgotten that I had danced unveiled, as he had forgotten the scene on the steps of the bishop's palace. He was thinking, no doubt, of the awful destruction Pelagius was determined to unloose upon the city of Damietta. As for myself, I greeted him with a smile, though I was still the sullen daughter of Herodias.

  The sultan rose from his pillows and bowed. "You have come at a good time," he said. "The deaf are leading the deaf. We make strange sounds, like burros braying. Tell the holy man this: although my counselors think me foolish, I am prepared to strike a bargain. I offer Cardinal Pelagius a truce of thirty years. The cession of all Palestine to the Christians. Money for the cost of repairs to the walls of Jerusalem. A gift, a free gift, of a goodly piece of the True Cross, and twenty Moslem nobles as hostages besides."