It would be better, Ben Attar said to himself as he hurriedly crossed the river by way of the charming lanes of the little isle, to accede to the sudden desire of a childless woman for a temporary adopted son, in order to strengthen the renewed partnership indirectly. Surprisingly, he was still not troubled by the possibility that Elbaz would resist any attempt to deprive him of his only son as a pledge. Did the Jewish merchant really think that in hiring a rabbi, one hired not only his knowledge and his wisdom but also his feelings and his soul? Or was there a secret desire to punish the Andalusian for the self-confidence and love of debate that had lured them into agreeing to a further tribunal in that boggy midden on the Rhine?
But when Ben Attar was standing with the other Jews around the bed of the young traveler, whose black eyes opened in terror to hear his fate decided, and announced his willingness to leave him behind, he realized that his authority was waning among his fellow Jews as well as among the Ishmaelites. Not only did Rabbi Elbaz not require his consent to entrust his son to Mistress Abulafia for convalescence, but he had already decided to invite himself to stay as well and to accompany his son on the journey overland.
In an instant and for the first time, the merchant experienced a powerful new fear that would—so he felt in his desperation—accompany him through his life as though it had become his second wife. His face flushed and he began to tremble with rage at the treachery of the rabbi, who was willing to abandon him and his only wife, who was sitting quietly in a corner of the room, unveiled, staring at her husband with her gentle eyes, and to let the rabbi would let them sail all alone, without the protection of his sanctity or prayers, in the old guardship, her deck swarming with impudent Ishmaelites while in her hold were shackled idol-worshippers who might be concealing Lord knew what schemes behind their blue eyes. If this rabbi dared to usurp Ben Attar’s authority and honor in this way, who could tell whether this desertion betokened not only a grim turn in the destiny of the journey home, but also a secret plot to sabotage the renewed partnership by another cunning betrayal, which would make the rabbi, returning with his son to Andalus next summer, into a courier for Abulafia, who might still be held back by his wife?
Vengeful thoughts continued to race through the North African’s mind. If a plot was afoot, perhaps he ought to warn the rabbi that if he abandoned his employer, he would forfeit the promised fee for his wisdom and learning, especially since in the end these had availed nothing. But on further reflection, the experienced merchant held back from uttering the threat that was choking him, certain that Abulafia and his wife would find a way of recompensing the rabbi for his lost fee, and also because it was clear to him that what was needed in this desperate twilight of the festival’s end was not a threat, which would exacerbate the rift and heighten the loneliness and dread of the journey home, but only sense and sensitivity, which would ensure that the imminent parting between the southern and northern partners should retain within it an additional pledge which would make certain that at the beginning of the month of Ab the ancient Roman inn would indeed witness a cordial meeting between a loving uncle and a beloved nephew.
Ben Attar stared deep into the eyes of his nephew’s wife, trying to determine the proper pledge to exact from this stern contestant so that the blood of his young wife should not have been shed in vain on the altar of the renewed partnership. Esther-Minna, unperturbed by the man’s piercing gaze, neither lowered her eyes nor dimmed their radiance, but merely narrowed them slightly in a gentle and reproachful warning, soundlessly inviting the apprehensive southerner to listen instead of staring. Indeed, the many hours that these two strong and determined adversaries had spent in each other’s company had taught them to interpret each other correctly. Moreover, the North African was unable to forget how this woman had collapsed in a swoon on the night of her defeat in the judgment at Villa Le Juif, and how he had bent down to raise her from the undergrowth and carried her some distance in his arms to the campfire. No wonder, then, that he understood her hint and obeyed her invitation to avert his eyes and prick up his ears and hearken to her pledge, beginning now to howl behind the curtain.
After all, if they could all agree to leave an Andalusian boy-child in the heart of Europe, where the stormclouds were already gathering at the approach of the millennium, as a pledge to guarantee the partners’ summer meeting in the Bay of Barcelona, it was only right to reinforce it with a parallel pledge and take another child in his place from north to south. And if no boy-child was available for the purpose, a girl-child would serve as well to make the curly-haired young husband overcome any scheme that a stern, childless, proud, and suspicious wife might hatch to sabotage his renewed relations with the rock from which he was hewn. In this way Ben Attar might ensure that Abulafia would indeed come himself to the Spanish March, to take his daughter back from the enchanted continent to the accursed one.
That was the strange idea that now flickered, to their shared astonishment, at one and the same moment in the minds of two hardened adversaries, who had skirmished at first from a distance of two continents, then face to face, and who now, on the brink of parting, in the midst of the hesitations and suspicions they nursed in their hearts, were united in fear and weariness in a new idea. By seeking to exchange one child for another, they would ensure not only the existence of the summer meeting in the Bay of Barcelona, as Ben Attar wished, but also its propriety, as Esther-Minna desired.
Anyone who listened attentively to the girl’s renewed crying could recognize that since meeting the southern children, her howls of despair had turned into howls of longing. And anyone who, like Esther-Minna, did not believe that witchcraft and demons had played a part in her birth could only be pleased to return her, if only for a short time, to the azure shores of her native land, so that she could revel in the smells and colors that had faded in her memory and exchange the torments of longing for sweet reality. Moreover, in this way, liberated from the obligation to attend to her, Mistress Abulafia would be able to accompany her husband on his springtime journey, not only to enjoy the partners’ meeting in the inn but to observe close up how the Christian millennium passed in Ishmaelite territory, without Jewish duality of wives, and also to see with her own eyes how the clever uncle divided up the spoils of trade.