Well, fortunately being a male myself, I supposed I had to concur in the prevailing opinion that males were vastly superior to females, and infinitely more to be treasured. Nevertheless, I had had some small sexual experience, which had led me to conclude that a woman or girl was useful and desirable and functional in that respect. If she was or could be nothing else in the world, as a receptacle she was incomparable, even necessary, even indispensable.
Not a bit of it, the boys indicated, laughing yet again at my simple-mindedness. Even as a receptacle, any Muslim male was far more sexually responsive and delightful than any Muslim female, whose parts had been properly deadened by circumcision.
“Wait a moment,” I conveyed to the boys. “You mean the males’ circumcision somehow causes … ?”
No, no, no. They shook their heads firmly. They meant the circumcision of the females. I shook my own head. I could not imagine how such an operation could be performed on a creature that possesses no Christian candelòto or Muslim zab or even an infantile bimbìn. I was thoroughly mystified, and I told them so.
With an air of amused indulgence, they pointed out—pointing toward their own truncated organs—that the trimming of a boy’s foreskin was done merely to mark him as a Muslim. But, in every Muslim family of better than beggar or slave status, every female infant was subjected to an equivalent trimming in the cause of feminine decency. To illustrate: it was a terrible revilement to call another man the “son of an uncircumcised mother.” I was still mystified.
“Toutes les bonnes femmes—tabzir de leurs zambur,” they repeated over and over. They said that the tabzir, whatever that was, was done to divest a baby girl of her zambur, whatever that was, so that when she was grown to womanhood she would be devoid of unseemly yearnings, hence disinclined to adultery. She would be forever chaste and above suspicion, as every bonne femme of Islam should be: a passive pulp with no function but to dribble out as many male children as possible in her bleak lifetime. No doubt that was a commendable end result, but I still did not understand the boys’ attempted explication of the tabzir means that effected it.
So I changed the subject and put another question. Suppose that, in the manner of Venetian young men, Ibrahim or Daud or Naser did want a woman, not a man or boy—and a woman not condemned to numbness and torpor—how would they go about finding one?
Naser and Daud snickered contemptuously. Ibrahim raised his eyebrows in disdainful inquiry, and at the same time raised his middle finger and moved it up and down.
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “That sort of woman, if that is the only sort with any life left in her.”
Though limited in their means of communication, the boys made it all too plain that, to find such a shameful woman, I should have to seek among the Christian women resident in Acre. Not that I should have to seek very strenuously, for there were many of those sluts. I had only to go—they pointed—to that building directly across the market square we stood in at that moment.
I said angrily, “That is a convent! A house of Christian nuns!”
They shrugged and stroked imaginary beards, asserting that they had spoken truly. And just then the door of the convent opened and a man and a woman came out into the square. He was a Crusader knight, wearing the surcoat insigne of the Order of San Làzaro. She was unveiled, obviously not an Arab woman, and she wore the white mantle and brown habit of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Both of them were flushed of face and reeling with wine.
Then, of course, but only then, did I recall having heard two previous mentions of the “scandalous” Carmelitas and Clarissas. I had ignorantly assumed that the references were to the names of particular women. But now it was clear that what had been meant were the Carmelite sisters and those other nuns, the Minoresses of the Order of San Francesco, affectionately nicknamed Clarissas.
Feeling as if I had been personally disgraced in the eyes of the three infidel boys, I abruptly said goodbye to them. At that, they clamored and gestured insistently for me to join them soon again, indicating that then they would show me something really marvelous. I gave them a noncommittal reply, and made my way through the streets and alleys back to the khane.
4
I arrived there at the same time my father was returning from his conference with the Archdeacon at the castle. As we aproached our chamber, a young man came out of it, the hammam rubber who had attended Uncle Mafìo on our first day at the khane. He gave us a radiant smile and said, “Salaam aleikum,” and my father properly responded, “Wa aleikum es-salaam.”
Uncle Mafìo was in the room, apparently just in the process of putting on fresh clothes for the evening meal. In his hearty way, he began talking as soon as we entered:
“I had the boy bring me a new jar of the depilatory mumum, for determination of its constituents. It consists only of orpiment and quicklime, pounded together in a little olive oil, with a touch of musk added to make its aroma more pleasant. We could easily compound it ourselves, but its price here is so cheap that that is hardly worth our while. I told the boy to fetch me four dozen of the little jars. What of our priests, Nico?”
My father sighed. “Visconti seems ready enough to delegate every priest in Acre to go away with us. But he feels that, in fairness, they themselves should have something to say about making such a long and arduous journey. So he will only exert himself to the extent of asking for volunteers. He will let us know how many or how few they will be.”
On one of the subsequent days, it happened that we were the only guests in residence at the khane, so my father genially asked the proprietor if he would do us the honor of joining us at our supper cloth.
“Your words are before my eyes, Sheikh Folo,” said Ishaq, arranging his vast troussés so he could fold his legs to sit.
“And perhaps the Sheikha, your good wife, would join us?” said my uncle. “That is your wife, is it not, in the kitchen?”
“She is indeed, Sheikh Folo. But she would not offend the decencies by presuming to eat in the company of men.”
“Of course,” said my uncle. “Forgive me. I was forgetting the decencies.”
“As the Prophet has said (may blessing and peace be upon him) : ‘I stood at the gate of Heaven and saw that most of its inhabitants were paupers. I stood at the gate of Hell and saw that most of its inhabitants were women.’”
“Um, yes. Well, perhaps your children might join us, then, as company for Marco here. If you have children.”
“Alas, I have none,” Ishaq said dolefully. “I have only three daughters. My wife is a baghlah, and barren. Gentlemen, will you permit me humbly to petition grace upon this supper?” We all bowed our heads, and he muttered, “Allah ekber rakmet,” adding in Venetian, “Allah is great, we thank Him.”
We began helping ourselves to the mutton slices cooked with tomatoes and pearl onions, and to the baked cucumbers stuffed with rice and nuts. As we did so, I said to the landlord, “Excuse me, Sheikh Ishaq. May I ask you a question?”
He nodded affably. “Pleasure me with some command, young Sheikh.”
“That word you used in speaking of your lady wife. Baghlah. I have heard it before. What does it mean?”
He looked a trifle discomfited. “A baghlah is a female mule. The word is also used to speak of a woman likewise infertile. Ah, I perceive that you think it a harsh word for me to use of my wife. And you are right. She is, after all, an excellent woman in other respects. You gentlemen may have noticed how magnificently moonlike is her behind. Wonderfully big and ponderously heavy. It forces her to sit down when she would stand up, and to sit up when she would lie down. Yes, an excellent woman. She also has beautiful hair, though you cannot have seen that. Longer and more luxuriant than my beard. No doubt you are aware that Allah appointed one of His angels to do nothing but stand by His throne and praise Him on that account. The angel has no other employment. He simply and constantly praises Allah for His having dispensed beards to men and long tresses to women.”
When he paused for a m
oment in his prattle, I said, “I have heard another word. Kus. What is that?”
The servant who was waiting upon us made a strangled noise and Ishaq looked even more discomfited. “That is a very low word for—this is hardly a topic fit for mealtime discussion. I will not repeat the word, but it is a low term for the even lower parts of a woman.”
“And ghunj?” I asked. “What is ghunj?”
The waiter gasped and hurriedly left the room, and Ishaq looked discomfited to the point of distress. “Where have you been spending your time, young Sheikh? That is also a low word. It means—it means the movement a woman makes. A woman or a—that is to say, the passive partner. The word refers to the movement made during—Allah forgive me—during the act of sexual congress.”
Uncle Mafìo snorted and said, “My saputèlo nephew is eager to acquire new words, that he may be more useful when he travels with us into far regions.”
Ishaq murmured, “As the Prophet has said (peace be upon him): ‘A companion is the best provision for the road.’”
“There are a couple of other words—” I began.
“And, as the saying goes on,” Ishaq growled, “‘Even bad company is better than none.’ But really, young Sheikh Folo, I must decline to translate any more of your acquisitions.”
My father spoke then, and changed the subject to something innocuous, and our meal progressed to the sweet, a conserve of crystallized apricots, dates and citron rind, perfumed with amber. So I did not find out the meaning of those mysterious words tabzir and zambur until a long time afterward. When the meal ended, with qahwah and sharbat to drink, Ishaq again said the grace—unlike us Christians, the infidels do that at the close of a meal as well as at the beginning—“Allah ekber rakmet” and, with an air of relief, left our company.
When, some days later, my father, my uncle and I went again to Acre castle at the summons of the Archdeacon, he met us in assemblage with the Prince and Princess, and also two men wearing the white habits and black mantles of the Order of Friars Preachers of San Domènico. When we had all exchanged greetings, the Archdeacon Visconti introduced the newcomers:
“Fra Nicolò of Vicenza and Fra Guglielmo of Tripoli. They have volunteered to accompany you, Messeri Polo.”
Whatever disappointment he may have felt, my father dissembled, saying only, “I am grateful to you, Brothers, and I welcome you to our party. But may I inquire why you have volunteered to join our mission?”
One of them said, in rather a petulant voice, “Because we are disgusted with the behavior of our Christian fellows here in Acre.”
The other said, in the same tone, “We look forward to the cleaner and purer air of Far Tartary.”
“Thank you, Brothers,” my father said, still politely. “Now, would you excuse our having a private word with His Reverence and Their Royal Highnesses?”
The two friars sniffed as if offended, but left the room. To the Archdeacon, my father then quoted the Bible, “The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few.”
Visconti countered with the quotation, “Where there are two or three gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
“But, Your Reverence, I asked for priests.”
“And no priest volunteered. These two, however, are Preaching Friars. As such, they are empowered to undertake practically any ecclesiastical task—from founding a church to settling a matrimonial dispute. Their powers of consecration and absolution are somewhat limited, of course, and they cannot confer ordination, but you would have to take along a bishop for that. I am sorry for the fewness of the volunteers, but I cannot in conscience conscript or compel any others. Have you any further complaint?”
My father hesitated, but my uncle boldly spoke up, “Yes, Your Reverence. The friars admit they are not going for any positive purpose. They wish simply to get away from this dissolute city.”
“Just like Saint Paul,” the Archdeacon said drily. “I refer you to the Book of Acts of the Apostles. This city was in those times called Ptolemais, and Paul once set foot here, and evidently he could stand the place for only a single day.”
Princess Eleanor said fervently, “Amen!” and Prince Edward chuckled in sympathy.
“You have your choice,” Visconti said to us. “You can apply elsewhere, or you can await the election of a Pope and apply to him. Or you can accept the services of the two Dominican brothers. They declare that they will be ready and eager to leave on the morrow.”
“We accept them, of course, Your Reverence,” said my father. “And we thank you for your good offices.”
“Now,” said Prince Edward. “You must get beyond the Saracen lands in order to go eastward. There is one best route.”
“We would be gratified to know it,” said Uncle Mafìo. He had brought with him the Kitab of al-Idrisi, and he opened it to the pages showing Acre and its environs.
“A good map,” the Prince said approvingly. “Look you, then. To go east from here, you must first go north, to skirt around the Mamluks inland.” Like every other Christian, the Prince held the pages upside down to put north at the top. “But the major ports nearest to the northward: Beirut, Tripoli, Latakia …”—he tapped the gilded dots on the map which represented those seaports—“if they have not already fallen to the Saracens, they are heavily under siege. You must go—let me calculate: more than two hundred English miles—north along the coast. To this place in Lesser Armeniya.” He tapped a spot on the map which apparently did not merit a gilded dot. “There, where the Orontes River debouches into the sea, is the old port of Suvediye. It is inhabited by Christian Armeniyans and peaceable Avedi Arabs, and the Mamluks have not yet got near it.”
“That was once a major port of the Roman Empire, called Selucia,” said the Archdeacon. “It has since been called Ayas and Ajazzo and many other names. Of course, you will go to Suvediye by sea, not along the coast itself.”
“Yes,” said the Prince. “There is an English ship leaving here for Cyprus on tomorrow’s evening tide. I will instruct the captain to go by way of Suvediye, and to take you and your friars along. I will give you a letter to the Ostikan, the governor of Suvediye, bidding him see to your safe conduct.” He directed our attention again to the Kitab. “When you have procured pack animals in Suvediye, you will go inland through the river pass—here—then east to the Euphrates River. You should have an easy journey down the Euphrates valley to Baghdad. And from Baghdad, there are diverse routes to the farther eastward.”
My father and uncle stayed on at the castle while the Prince wrote the letter of safe conduct. But they let me make my farewells to His Reverence and Their Royal Highnesses, so that I might take my leave and spend that last day in Acre as I pleased. I did not see the Archdeacon or the Prince and Princess again, but I did hear news of them. My father, my uncle and I had not been long gone from the Levant when we got word that the Archdeacon Visconti had been elected Pope of the Church of Rome, and had taken the papal name of Gregory X. About the same time, Prince Edward gave up the Crusade as a lost cause, and sailed for home. He had got as far as Sicily when he too received some news: that his father had died and that he was King of England. So, all unknowing, I had been acquainted with two of the men of highest eminence in Europe. But I have never much preened in that brief acquaintance. After all, I was later to meet men in the East whose eminence made midgets of Popes and kings.
When I left the castle that day, it was at one of the five hours when Arabs pray to their god Allah, and the beadles whom they call muedhdhin were perched on every tower and high rooftop, loudly but monotonously intoning the chants that announce those hours. Everywhere—in shops and doorways and in the dusty street—men of the Islamic faith were unfolding tatty little rugs and kneeling on them. Turning their faces to the southeast, they pressed those faces to the ground between their hands, while they elevated their rear ends in the air. At those hours, any man you could look in the face instead of the rump had to be a Christian or a Jew.
As soon as
everyone in Acre was vertical again, I spotted my three acquaintances of a week or so before. Ibrahim, Naser and Daud had seen me go into the castle and had waited near its entrance for me to emerge. They were all shiny-eyed with eagerness to show me the great marvel they had promised. First, they conveyed to me, I must eat something they had brought. Naser was carrying a little leather bag, which proved to contain a quantity of figs preserved in sesame oil. I liked figs well enough, but these were so oil-soaked that they were pulpy and slimy and disagreeable in the mouth. Nevertheless, the boys insisted that I must ingest them as preparation for the revelation to come, so I forced myself to swallow four or five of the dreadful things.
Then the boys led me on a roundabout way through the streets and alleys. It began to seem a very long way, and I began to feel very weary in my limbs and addled in my mind. I wondered if the hot sun was affecting my bare head or if the figs had been somehow tainted. My vision was disturbed; the people and buildings about me seemed to sway and distort themselves in odd ways. My ears sang as if I were beset by swarms of flies. My feet stumbled on every least irregularity in our path, and I pleaded with the boys to let me stop and rest for a bit. But they, still insistent and excited, took my arms and helped me plod along. I understood from them that my muzziness was indeed an effect of the specially pickled figs, and that it was necessary to what was to come next.
I found myself dragged to an open but very dark doorway, and I started obediently to enter. But the boys set up an angry uproar, and I interpreted it to mean something like “You stupid infidel, you must take off your shoes and enter barefooted”—from which I assumed the building must be one of the houses of worship the Muslims call a masjid. Since I was not wearing shoes, but soled hose, I had to strip myself naked from the waist down. I clutched my tunic and stretched it as far down over my exposed self as I could, meanwhile wondering woozily why it should be more acceptable to enter a masjid with one’s privates bare than with one’s feet shod. Anyway, the boys did not hesitate, but propelled me through the doorway and inside the place.