Rabbi Elbaz, brokenhearted at the sight of the departed woman’s motionless little foot, once more reproached the physician for his false promise, in a voice stifled with tears, but this time not in the broken Latin he had learned from the Christians of Seville but in the ancient tongue of the Jews, which had the power of giving particular force to whatever was spoken in anger or frustration. The apostate seemed to be deeply disturbed by the antique garb of the reproach being repeatedly hurled at him, and as though to defend the angel of death, who appeared to have made a mistake, he went over to the window and opened it wide and looked at the seven Jews of Metz, who were standing weary and perplexed around the first and now only wife, who was handing them slices of the bread the Ishmaelites had baked. Indicating them all with his finger, the physician repeated, this time not in Latin but in strange, crushed Hebrew, the second limb of his accursed prophecy: But these will not live. And the rabbi, although he had heard these words more than once already, trembled all over, as though the utter failure of the comforting part of the physician’s prophecy reinforced the effect of the baneful part.
Noticing that his son, the neglected orphan, was standing at the doorway with his dark eyes fixed on the body of the dead woman, near whose cabin on board ship he had sought the sweetness of sleep, the rabbi pulled himself together. He hurriedly pushed the child out of the chamber so that he would not merge the death of this strange woman with that of his mother in his imagination. He handed him over to the first wife, so that she could give him some of the warm black bread that the goodhearted Ishmaelites had baked, and although he himself felt not the slightest pang of hunger, he forced himself to eat some of the warm, sourish bread too, and to recover some strength, for now, faced with a lord who had permitted himself to fall so soundly asleep, the Andalusian rabbi would have to change from counselor to associate, and who knew, perhaps also into a leader.
Because the North African merchant had neither spasm nor pain to disrupt his sleep, the yellow potion acted on him with double force, and for hour upon hour he lay so motionless in the little wood beside the convent that it seemed as though the sleep of God itself were enclosing him on every side. In the morning, when Abd el-Shafi was harnessing two of the horses to the larger wagon as arranged, to drive the seven Jews of Metz home, Rabbi Elbaz suddenly decided to remove two fine gold anklets carefully from the dead woman’s smooth, cold feet and give them to the borrowed congregants, not, heaven forbid, by way of recompense for a virtuous action that was its own reward, but merely as a token to sweeten their return. Knowing how firm was Ben Attar’s resolve not to bury his beloved wife in a bare field, he instructed the black temporary Jew, who was the last remnant of the dissolved congregation, to gather some gray planks of wood for the construction of a strong sealed coffin in which the second wife might be transported respectfully and safely to the burial ground in Paris.
It was only the sound of hammers that Sunday afternoon that finally woke Ben Attar from his yellow slumber. In the delicious misty languor of awakening, it seemed to him that he had never set sail on his ocean voyage, neither with the first wife nor with the second, but that he was lying comfortably on his big bed in his azure house, and the sounds issuing from the inner courtyard informed him that his older children were hastening to fulfill the command to build a tabernacle for the approaching festival. But as the coils of his deep slumber detached themselves, he became aware of the hardness of his bed, and through the screen of russet leaves that stirred before his eyes he was joined to the gray sky of Europe, which had turned repudiation to interdict and interdict to death.
In an instant memory assaulted him and a sharp pang of hunger and loss pounded in his head, and he rose to his feet and went to a nearby stream to wash his face. As he did so, a smell of burning reached his nostrils, and he saw that his living wife, who had probably remained beside him all the time to watch over him lest anyone disturb his sleep, had also succumbed to slumber, and was lying in her rumpled robe beside some smoking logs on which his dinner was keeping warm. In the silence of the wood, without seeking out the rabbi or anyone else, he fell like a wild beast upon the slightly burned food, which was seasoned by the supreme condiment of two days’ hunger. And without waking the wife of his youth, he turned to the physician’s house, from which bluish smoke was rising, to see if by some miracle someone had sprung back to life there.
Entering that house, which in the past two days he had entered and left as freely as if it were his own, Ben Attar saw the physician’s wife standing beside the stove, stirring the supper with a large wooden spoon. Her little blue eyes looked at him with a hint of reproach, as if to say, And a fine time to he waking up. Guiltily he hung his head, and with an aching heart he entered the other chamber, where he was startled to see his second wife wrapped in her shrouds like a parcel ready for dispatch. He did not know who had dared to dress his dear one so without asking his consent. Was it the physician, or the Andalusian rabbi, impatient to resume the journey?
Without further thought, he hurriedly closed the door of the chamber behind him and feverishly unbound his second wife and looked again on that splendid face, which had become sharper during the night that had elapsed, so that it seemed now like that of some large quaint bird. His trembling hand hesitated to raise her eyelids gently and look for the last time at that old, dear emerald sparkle, which had never failed to set his heart aflame. And while he was taking his leave, slowly, with a kiss and a caress of the body that had given him so much pleasure and joy, he heard behind him the rabbi, who had entered without knocking and was gazing with total freedom at the woman laid out before him, as though her death had made him at last into a second husband.
At once the rabbi gave Ben Attar an account of his actions during the day, without excuse or apology, as though it were natural that he should assume authority while his lord slept. Again, as when he had decided to travel to Worms for a further judgment, Ben Attar stood stupefied at the little rabbi’s audacity, not only because he had taken it upon himself to remove the anklets from the North African’s wife’s feet with his own hands and give them to the Jews from Metz, whose destruction might well be nigh, as a recompense for their trouble and pain, but also because he had authorized himself to give the mule that they had bought in Speyer to the physician, in payment for his simples, his hospitality, his yellow potion, his bloodlettings, and his accommodation of the corpse. But Ben Attar did not utter a word of reproach, for he was pleased and grateful to discern that Rabbi Elbaz had consented to his request to postpone the burial. Indeed, the Ishmaelite seaman and the slave had already been told to hasten and make a strong sealed coffin.
So the North African expedition lingered no longer within the walls of Verdun. At midnight, when Abd el-Shafi returned from Metz with the large wagon, the coffin was loaded onto it and Ben Attar and the rabbi arranged comfortable seats for themselves on either side of it, so that they could accompany the deceased during the journey with verses of psalms, which might console and strengthen her soul, which merited a final rest. Meanwhile the two Ishmaelite wagoners were checking the horseshoes and adjusting the harnesses, while young Elbaz greased the wheels. The young African, whom Abd el-Shafi had not yet released from the bonds of Judaism, was packing the cooking pots under the supervision of the only wife and loading them onto the smaller wagon. Meanwhile, the physician, who had tethered the mule to a tree near his house, seemed to be having some trouble composing himself sufficiently to take his leave of the Jewish travelers. Ceaselessly he roamed among them, sketching on the ground the best and safest way to Paris, and a tear welled for an instant in his eye. With the first light of dawn, just as the first crack of the whip sounded out, he suddenly exclaimed with emotion, You shall live. In flowing Latin he assured the travelers, You shall return to your Ishmaelites, and there you shall live. And to reinforce his words he repeated the last phrase in the holy tongue: There you shall live.