The Dream Maker (11 page)

As soon as I was aware of Bertrandon's true intentions, I saw him differently. What I had found entertaining was now appalling. There we were, the six of us, comfortably reclining in this garden whose colors, shade, and cool air harmoniously converged to please our senses. We were tasting divine sorbet, one of the most ingenious human inventions, said to have given rise to so many others. Our clothing was new, stitched in the bazaar according to a model we had brought with us, and made of finely woven cloth printed with subtle designs. Our skin exuded the perfumed oil with which our daily bath anointed us. And now here before us was this greasy-haired oaf, scratching the vermin beneath his scruffy clothes and, despite the distance between us, gratifying us with the stench of his body and his breath, all the while proclaiming his aim to wield fire and sword in order to bring civilization to this place.

Never before had I been given the opportunity to contemplate a specimen of knighthood in his natural state and removed from his familiar environment. Having once been our glory, the knights were now the instruments and symbols of our ruin. Their ancestors had thought of God; these men thought only of themselves, of the honor that was bequeathed to them and which they cherished more than anything.

Their only desire was to fight, but they had proved themselves incapable. They had lost all their battles, for they had no care for discipline, strategy, or victory. Their death brought glory, and that was all that mattered. They cared little for their imprisoned princes, the ransoms to be paid, the forfeited lands, the ruined people. They cared little for anything except feeding their warmongering indolence, they cared not that the burghers had been bled dry, or that the peasants must fast, or that the craftsmen must work at a loss. In France, this stubbornness was held to be the sign of a noble soul.

But in this garden, in the presence of these two vulgar individuals stripped of armor and prestige, who picked their teeth with the sharp end of their dirty fingernails, the truth was dazzling. One thought went through my mind, which in France I would have banished with horror, but which now appeared to me as indisputable proof: it was fortunate that the crusaders had not managed to conquer the Levant. And it was vital that they never should.

In contrast, our position as merchants—which, like the nobles, I had always viewed as trivial, material, and without honor—now seemed quite different to me. We were agents of trade, not conquest. Our vocation was to bring to all the best of what others produced. We too, in our way, entertained the ambition of appropriating other civilizations, but in exchange for what they might desire from ours. Destruction, pillaging, and enslavement were foreign to us. Our aim was to capture only living prey.

After having wormed out of us everything he could, Bertrandon began to discourse endlessly on the situation in Constantinople—the city had been reduced to nothing, from paying tribute to the Turks—on the Ottomans, whom he respected and who opposed the Arabs, whom he loathed; on the politics of the Latin cities of Venice and Genoa, whose rivalry did not prevent them from encroaching every day a bit more on Byzantine territory and Arab possessions.

I stopped listening. This meeting, however unpleasant it might have been, had taken me back to the West. In any case, our stay was coming to an end. We had two short days before we must leave for Beirut and embark on the galley.

Before our meeting with Bertrandon, I would have been sorry to leave. Now I was glad.

 

The return was a joy. Every day that took me closer to home was a precious gift. The journey, however, was far more difficult than it had been going the other direction. There were terrible storms that severely tried our ship. Finally, just off the coast of Corsica, one last squall drove us onto the rocks. I almost drowned, carried away by the waves. As I struggled in the foaming breakers, I struck my left hand against one of those sea creatures covered in spines that are to be found in abundance on the seabed and the rocks. Several dozen tiny black spikes entered my flesh. We were assisted by the inhabitants of the island, only to encounter still greater misfortune. A so-called prince, a brigand without honor who reigns over this coastal region, seized all our possessions and threw us in prison. We were kept there for several weeks while we waited for Vidal to pay our ransom.

Finally we arrived in Aigues-Mortes at the beginning of winter. My hand had swollen and was becoming infected. At one point I thought I might lose it, might even lose my life. When eventually I recovered, I understood that such fears had attenuated the regret of having been robbed of everything. Before Christmas, Gautier and I set off toward home on the road along the Rhone; I was penniless. Vidal hoped to compensate for our losses through a letter of marque and reprisal. As soon as he obtained it—and he did obtain it—privateers would be allowed to attack the ships belonging to the nation that had robbed us. The booty would serve as compensation. It was an efficient procedure, and served to reduce the dangers inherent in navigation. But it was slow, and did nothing to alter the fact that for the time being we were ruined.

The strange thing was that, far from afflicting me, this destitution filled me with unexpected pleasure. I felt as naked as a newborn baby. And, indeed, I was being born into a new life. I had finished mourning for my dreams and had replaced them with memories. I was returning with a host of ambitious projects, richer than if I had brought bolts of silk or bales of spices. My wealth was still invisible, potential. I held this precious treasure well concealed, as if I had not yet determined what I could buy with my gold. But I was filled with confidence.

I had sent a courier ahead from Montpellier with a message for Macé. I knew that she was waiting for me. These last weeks, I had been consumed with desire for her. My hands stippled with scars served to remind me that I had caressed the devil; the thought of my ordeal made the prospect of the sweetness to come all the more precious. I cried out in my sleep. My good hand reached for Macé's soft white skin, trying to escape the hurtful fur of the beast that pursued me in the waters of dreams.

We were headed into the wind as it blew across the plain, and our horses struggled at a weary gait. Our homecoming was an endless trial, for it seemed as if the cathedral, although its towers were visible above the horizon, would never come any closer. At last our steps rang out in the dark and empty streets; we knocked on the door, the spyhole slid open, and there were tears and cries and caresses. The night was full of such long-awaited pleasure that it was almost painful.

It took us almost a week to weave our lives together again. I told all my story and Macé brought to life for me the myriad events of the motionless little world that had been waiting for me.

 

*

 

I did not recognize my town. My memories were of a gray and gloomy place, perpetually in the darkness. I had arrived one day at the end of spring, and it was luminous and full of sunlight. Added to the brilliance of the sun was a teasing humidity that gave the warm weather in our parts a quality that was very different from what it was in the Levant. The word “soft” immediately came to mind to describe this sunny well-being.

Those first days, as I prepared to confront the town, I took long walks through the marshland. I saw this as a way of gently finding my footing in the town again, of growing accustomed to it. As I wandered through the shade of the weeping willows, among the black boats, I saw the light dancing on the flowing stream, long clusters of algae swaying like pennants beneath the surface of the water. Before returning to my house and family, I needed to become reacquainted with the land where I was born, to feel the need to stay there, until I was grateful to Providence for having brought me into the world.

After my arrival and the outpouring of emotion, the true effect of the journey became clear: everything was familiar and yet it seemed hardly recognizable. Nothing was self-evident. In spite of myself, I began comparing. Our houses, for example, of which I had once been so proud, as any inhabitant of this major town would be, now seemed small, cramped, rudimentary. The corner pillars, exposed beams on the façades, and diamond patterns on the wood gave something of the primitive cabin to our homes. In the Levant I had seen palaces made of stone, and densely inhabited towns where narrow streets wound their way with difficulty through tight clusters of multiple-storied houses. Our wealth seemed very poor to me indeed.

Another reality that had come to light during this journey was the long presence of time. Before now, all I had ever noticed around me were the traces of a relatively recent past. The cathedral and the principal monuments in our town were no more than a century old, or two at the most. In the Levant I had encountered far more ancient vestiges. In Palmyra I had the leisure of visiting ruins left by the Romans, and on several occasions during the voyage I had seen Greek temples. Now that I was home, I noticed for the first time that our town did have its ancient relics scattered here and there; the most impressive of these were the ramparts that surrounded the hill where the cathedral stood. I had walked a thousand times beneath the tall towers erected here and there, but I had never connected them to those same Romans the Gospel spoke of. This discovery, however insignificant, had a great impact on me. I had only ever conceived of elsewhere as being in space: to see things move, one must move oneself. I now understood that time also affects things. By staying in the same place, one could be present at the world's transformation. Thus, the ramparts that were reputed to be impregnable had eventually been conquered; now there were streets running along the base of them, and the neighborhoods of new houses built at their foot spilled downhill to the streams below. And someday, perhaps, these houses too would disappear, or would be dominated by taller buildings. This was called time, and when one played a part in it, it became History. It was up to each of us to play our part. No one knew whether the palaces I had discovered elsewhere might someday be built here. In short, I had left this town thinking of it as an unchangeable heritage; and now that I had returned, I could see it was the raw material of a history that depended solely on human beings.

There had been much talk about my journey, and I received many invitations to share my story. A number of merchants of varying importance expressed their desire to join me should I—as they imagined I should—venture to repeat the experience. I did not accept any of their proposals. My thoughts were strangely clear. I knew what I wanted to do and how to do it. The problem, above all, was to determine with whom I should do it.

To attain my goal I needed to associate myself with others. But the secret of my ambition could only be shared with someone I could trust entirely. I went through my acquaintances, but could find no one whose support I could rely upon without reticence. But then I thought of our band of children during the siege of the town; perhaps it was superstition to remember that episode which had shown to me and to others who I truly was, but I felt I ought to seek out those comrades who had been with me during the adventure, and who had subsequently shown me their unfailing loyalty.

I went first to see Guillaume de Varye. He was living in Saint-Amand, and he had not contacted me since my return. I could understand why. He was ashamed. His cloth trade had suffered severe difficulties. Several convoys had been pillaged, a warehouse had been destroyed by fire, a major client had been killed by an armed gang and now his widow refused to pay . . . Business was going very badly. Guillaume welcomed me to a home that was starving. His wife was coughing, gaunt, and pale. You could see in her eyes that she knew she was dying. Her greatest fear was not knowing whether her children would outlive her. Still active, serious, and indefatigable, Guillaume told me of all his efforts to thwart fate. But no matter what he did he seemed to be forever heading into the wind. Just the day before, he had found out that an affair he had placed great hope in had fallen through. I observed him as he spoke to me, his eyes lowered. He was still a small man, thin and nervous. The energy he had bottled up inside could find no other outlet now than despair or sickness. He was like the country around him: full of courage, talent, and goodwill, but circumstances made all such qualities futile. I was no different, save for one thing: I knew that elsewhere conditions existed that could allow talent to prosper.

I suggested to Guillaume that we work together, and as his first salary I offered to pay off his debts then and there. He began trembling from limb to limb. Had it come from anyone but me, he would have feared such an offer, would have hesitated to surrender to the will of someone he did not know well. But I had saved him once, and he had not forgotten. All this meant was that we would set out again together, as at the time of our adventure. He stood up, embraced me, and then went down on one knee before me like a lord swearing allegiance. Chivalry, in those days, was still our only reference. When at a later time we would think back on this first contract, it made us laugh. The fact remains that it was stronger than a signature, and no one ever contested it.

The second man I needed was Jean, whom we called Little Jean, his real name being Jean de Villages. This would require still greater tact. Jean was younger than I. He had belonged to that troop of boys who were enthralled by Éloi, our former comrade who claimed to be the ringleader. Our adventure during the siege of Bourges may have put Éloi out of the picture, but it meant that Jean was left to seek out even less commendable role models. Initially Jean turned to me—unfortunately, in those days I had no inclination to dictate the conscience of others, and I had refused. I sensed a bad energy in him, a destructive enthusiasm that compelled him to attack any form of authority. He was a rebel by nature. He was one of those people—and I would meet several like him later in life—in whom an invisible wound had never healed, a wound sustained in childhood through the violence of someone close, and which would cause this person to scream with an indistinct hatred all through his life. No matter how violent they are, the result is the same: violence ends up unleashing the bad temper painfully accumulated in their wounded souls. At the age of fifteen he killed a man for the first time.