The Wanderess (30 page)

Of course the innkeeper’s story reminded me of how
Saskia saved me in Barcelona, how she cared for me there just like
the lady in this story cared for the innkeeper. And so I offered to
tell the story of my meeting Saskia to the innkeeper. Saskia said
she would have trouble being the translator of such a story, as she
preferred to be humble, but I begged her, asking her to be proud
for having saved someone’s life. I wanted to tell the story also to
remind
myself
of how Saskia saved me, so that my gratitude to her
would never fade away. I know that retelling a story to others is
the way to make a story immortal.

The innkeeper begged Saskia to translate it, saying that
nothing could interest him more than to hear the story of how a
couple such as she and I came to meet. And so, the innkeeper’s
wife cleared the dishes from the meal we had eaten. She put
water on the stove for tea. And I told the story of our fateful night
in Barcelona accurately and in full—except that I left out
Penelope Baena, and I left out the opium. I kept the poisoning
part of my story as vague as possible.

Once my story was told, we all realized we had forgotten
about the tea. The innkeeper’s wife brought the water to a boil
once more. Her husband then took over, setting a large clay pot
on the table in which a sack full of medicinal herbs was steeping.
The innkeeper’s wife set empty clay cups before each person at
the table, and her husband lifted the heavy pot and poured out
four cups of the herbal infusion to drink…

That was the moment I realized just
why
the inn smelled
as it did, and
why
I was so drawn to its odor; I realized why it
reminded me of my home. I sat looking at my cup of tea with the
swirling herbs, smelling it; and I realized it was the
exact same tea
my mother made for me as a child and adolescent. I had a
nervous stomach as a child, and she gave me this tea saying it
would calm my stomach. The tea was an infusion of various herbs
native to my country. At that farmer’s-innkeeper’s table, I sat in a
sort of revelry of memory… a fog of nostalgia enclosing me… and
then... down. I was plunged into melancholy. Then, up! I was
lifted up in rapture. Then I was sent to walk in my mind. It was a
strange landscape. I looked around me for clues as to where I
was. My mind trailed off, while my voice too, it trailed off. Then I
said to the innkeeper and his wife in a voice full of melancholy
and rapture,
“Thank you… thank you both for this excellent tea.”

“Saul? Are you okay?!” Saskia looked frightened. I
realized then that I was scaring her, and that I didn’t
want
to scare
her. So I put all my energy into smiling. And when she saw me
smile, she sighed with relief… “Oh, goodness, Saul!… You’re
back… please, don’t scare me anymore!”

“Saskia,” I said to her with a very calm, steady voice, “Tell
the innkeeper and his wife that I realize now why I couldn’t bear
to leave their inn today to go look at the castle with you. Tell
them that I now realize why I suddenly feel like I’m at home. It
was just like my mother told me when I was last with her: ‘Saul,
my son, once you have the chance to leave our country, take it…
go to Italy… go to Florence… There you will find happiness, there
you will find peace, there you will find joy. And there, come one
day, you will find me, and we will be a family again.’ Tell that to
the innkeeper, and tell it to his wife, and tell them that I found
her again; I found my home and my family… all in this cup of tea.”

Saskia looked at me and said nothing. Great confusion
displayed in her eyes. Those eyes, that mouth, that gently
quivering face… She didn’t know how to react to what I was
saying.

With that she turned from me to the innkeeper and his
wife. She placed her hands on the heavy wooden table and began
reciting words in Italian. The two of them looked at me with
alarm. I held my clay cup between my hands, and they their cups
between theirs… and I looked down into my cup, into the dregs
that the tea left behind once drunk. I looked over at Saskia. Then
I looked back across the table at the innkeeper and his wife. Their
looks of alarm had now turned into looks of infinite kindness.
They now looked at me smiling radiant smiles, what kindness in
their faces! While the innkeeper’s eyes remained on me, he put
his heavy, rustic hand on the hands of Saskia that were placed on
the table. He turned to her and he spoke a string of Italian
phrases…

Saskia listened to his words, and then looked at me with a
look so tender—at once joyful and sorrowful—she then began to
cry. Thus she looked at me while the tears toppled down her face,
each one catching up with the last, each tear hunting down the
tear before it…

As water is born high-up on a mountain spring, secreted
from a hidden place within the rocks so as to tumble down in
streams and waterfalls, to gather below together once again in the
ocean, so were Saskia’s tears born high-up on her perfect face,
secreted from a hidden place within her eyes, so as to topple down
in streams upon her cheeks, to topple from her chin… Then the
tears gather whole to form oceans of hope in the cups of her
hands.

“What is it Saskia?” I asked of her, I begged of her,
pleaded, “What is it?!” She looked back to the innkeeper. Then to
his wife, her eyes remained on me. While my own eyes remained
focused on the empty tea bowl in my hands. All of this happened
in one confused moment. Finally, Saskia said to me with
tenderness in her voice… “They say it’s true then, Saul. They say
it’s true.”
“What is true?”

We continued to sit in complete silence at that table: Saskia
sobbed into her napkin, the innkeeper and his wife looked wideeyed at me while whispering in Italian or in Tuscan together. I,
meanwhile, didn’t care why they were looking, or why Saskia was
sobbing; I was busy musing on the phenomenon of nostalgia
¹
. It
is definitely an “aching,” as the definition suggests. Part of the
original sensation—in this case, the smell of the tea—is there.
But the original elements of the scene when the experience firstoccurred are long-gone. For me, this was at my home in our
fishing village. I was but a child or adolescent; and my mother
brewed this tea with the knowledge that it would heal all my
woes—and it did. Now it was the source of my woes, although the
smell remained healing. But
why
was this tea
here in Tuscany?
I
would soon find out…

At first, I felt suddenly separated from all three of my
companions—almost as though I were an intruder at the table.
Saskia was crying, obviously about me, had I done something
wrong? Apparently, I was no longer in their eyes the person who I
was minutes before. Something was said about me in that
language I couldn’t understand… what was it?! Something
powerful… Just look at the way the farmer-innkeeper stared at
me! And his wife too! I felt incredibly uneasy all of a sudden. I
wanted to excuse myself and go walk in the yard. They, however,
quickly excused themselves for treating me strangely. But it
didn’t help. Now I too was a stranger to me. All because I was
then ignorant of something which now—telling you this story—I
consider essential to understanding myself. What was it? Well, it
all began when I told Saskia and the innkeeper and his wife that “I
found the home of my youth in the cup of tea they prepared for
me.” After they said,
“I am the one.”
And so, impatient to know
all, I implored them to know…

“I had guessed you were the one,” the innkeeper told me,
“when you came to our inn and said your name is Saul… And then
when I saw you out in the garden painting with the pastels… Now
with tea that put you in a sort-of trance, I know you are
the one.
”
“Which
one
?!”

Saskia repeated my question in Italian, and the innkeeper
said something to her in a low, and serious voice. Saskia looked
stunned, and instead of translating it, she began to cry more
heavily than before.

“Translate what he said, Saskia.”
“I cannot!” she cried, “Give me a minute…”

We all sat silent around the table. When Saskia cleared
her voice from the crying, she said to me, “The woman who
healed the innkeepers leg, and who became their friend… it is…”

“
Who
, Saskia?!”
“It is your mother!”

“My mother?!”
Hearing this sent a freezing shiver across
my body. I guessed that some very bad news would follow, since
whatever they said to Saskia had made her cry. She insisted that
there was no bad news that I didn’t already know. That she was
crying because I had found my mother, just as I had hoped to do,
although I didn’t believe I could do it in a region as large as
Tuscany. I told the three of them that I didn’t believe them.
“How do you know… Rather,
why did you think that she was my
mother?!”

“The innkeeper says that your mother has stayed at their
inn for at least three of the last six months, and that she is back in
Florence now but when she left last time, she said she was
planning to return to their inn this winter. She had never heard
of their inn before she met the owner here at the apothecary after
he injured his leg. You see, your mother, she was his nurse! The
innkeeper and his wife begged her to stay with them, at least until
his leg was on the mend. She hesitated though… she was busy
trying to find you. But then she learned that Staggia—and this
inn in particular—is a crossroads for people travelling south to
north, or vice-versa, in Italy. And of the travelers from the South,
she found out that a good portion are foreigners who land port in
Civitavecchia… people that come from everywhere, from every
country in the Mediterranean! And unless their destinations are
Rome or Naples, they’ll probably pass through Staggia on their
way up to Genoa, or Milan, or Venice, or to Florence. Very often
to Florence. Your mother lives in Florence, and has for years,
although she travels—
too much
, they say—wandering endlessly
throughout Tuscany, looking for her only son. When she comes
to this inn, she talks with the guests. She inquires if they might
have heard of you. Of course, she doesn’t give your patronymic.
She doesn’t tell anyone who your father is, she just calls you Saul.
The innkeeper was the only one in Europe, your mother said, who
knew the real story about you. She and he have perfect trust in
one another, and they have since the first day they met at the
apothecary. She told him all about your childhood, and life in the
village where you were raised. At her new home, in Florence, he
said, she spends all day Sunday, every Sunday, walking around the
Piazza della Signoria, and across the Ponte Vecchio bridge... she
said that you knew that’s where you could find her in Florence…’”

“Enough!” I said, I stood up from the table, emotions were
wrapped tightly around my neck, I could hardly breathe. All six
eyes were upon me: Saskia, the innkeeper, his wife; they all sat
with their teacups still in hand, and their eyes upwards at me.
“Please,” I said, “Everyone, let’s sit quietly for a little while. I need
to take this all in.”

I sat back down and didn’t say a word. I could tell the
others wanted to speak, but they didn’t. I had asked them for
silence. I asked for more tea. The innkeeper’s wife promptly
poured boiling water into my cup over a fresh dose of herbs. I
inhaled the scent again and thought of my home and my mother.

“Your mother made me this same tea each day when my
leg was infected,” said the innkeeper, “It is supposed to heal
everything from infected wounds to infected souls to infected
hearts. She bought the herbs at the apothecary where she met
me, but they are herbs that are common throughout the
Mediterranean. They are sold in the marketplace in the village
where you grew up. Most of the herbs are common, but the
mixture is important. Acacia honey is added for sweetness; but its
secret ingredient—that which gives it a special flavor, and which
is said to add years to a person’s life, slow the body from growing
old, heal wounds, create strengths and kill diseases, is due to a
plant that grows only in your country. She brought several
hundred grams of it dried when she came to Italy. She gave me
some to make my own tea, and I’ve never been in better health.
Your mother has a great talent for healing.

I fell silent after that. Yet my translator did not stay silent.
I got up from the table and walked down the hallway to a room
where a window looked out to the yard. It was dark, but the sky
was clear and the moon almost full. ‘To think that this man
knows where to find my mother in Florence… To think that my
mother spent three months in this inn… Well, what am I waiting
for tonight?… I should leave now! Or better to be fresh when I
reunite with her… thus, I’ll leave at the first light of dawn
tomorrow!’ I rubbed my chin for a moment… Now what was it
that my host said about my mother having suffered a shock? And
her being ill?

I needed to find out more, and as soon as possible. I
needed to get my mother’s address in Florence, I needed to get on
the road as soon as possible. I hurried back into the dining room
to tell Saskia that we needed to leave first thing in the morning—
and that it was a matter of life and death. The moment I arrived
at the table, Saskia shushed up their conversation—as if I could
understand Italian!—and it only took me another moment to
realize that Saskia had deceived me. She had purposely worked in
my absence to plot a way to sabotage the one reunion in my life
that I considered as important as my life itself. Here is what
happened…

I arrived back at the table and surprised Saskia in the
middle of her discussion with our host and hostess. She looked at
me with her mouth agape. She said to me, “So, you are from
Tripoli, Saul!… from Libya!”

Solarus, is. Your mother too, the niece of the Christian King of
Tripoli, she too is from Tripoli. But you, Saul, you were born in a
fishing village on the Mediterranean coast of Libya. Your mother
had to leave Tripoli to go into exile as soon as she was pregnant
with you. She found a home for you both in the humble dwelling
of an old fisherman and his wife. Solarus had pleaded with her to
leave Tripoli and find safety for their child. As for your father,
as
you yourself already know
, he was executed: forced to drink poison
hemlock, for having ‘seduced’ the king’s niece. Since your father
was an outlaw in the eyes of the king, your mother warned you
throughout your childhood about the dangers of you going to
Tripoli, and of using your real name—the name of Solarus—
there… You see? I found out your secret without having to wait
for you to tell me! Clever, no?”

“
A clever traitor
is what you are! I forgot to ask our good
hosts to keep quiet about my origins… How did you get them to
tell you all of this?”

“Your Saskia is good at getting information without letting
her intentions known,” she told me, “I simply made conversation,
talked about this and that. They of course assumed that I already
knew your whole story. And so they forgot themselves as they
talked, and bit by bit your whole story leaked out.”

She looked at me then with a look of sadness on her face.
She just shook her head, whispering quietly, “No, I am not your
enemy… I am not your enemy…” Meanwhile, the innkeeper and
his wife were talking quietly to one another. All of our tea in all of
our cups had by now grown cold. Just then, the young boy who
carried luggage for the inn burst into the dining room. The
innkeeper’s wife shouted at him for disturbing our dinner. He
said he was sorry but that he’d just come from the station and
she’d told him to hurry if he had any news from their friend, the
sick woman in Florence who turned out to be my mother. The
boy cried-out a bunch of phrases in Italian. The innkeeper and
his wife fluttered their hands, wiped tears from their eyes, and
dismissed the boy who ran out with stamping feet and arms
flailing.

The innkeeper looked at me consolingly, and as he spoke
Italian to me in a rueful voice, Saskia translated what he said to
me…

“You two will need to go to Florence at daybreak, no later.”
he said, “You cannot leave now because there is no one to drive
you. A driver will come at dawn, I will instruct him to take you to
Florence. I will follow tomorrow night.”

“I hate to be blunt, Saul, but I have been a farmer for so
many years. One thing a farmer knows is how to be blunt and not
afraid of dealing with life. What the boy said was that your
mother is just barely hanging on to life—I think you need to not
waste time in going to see her. You see, your mother has been full
of despair for a very long time on your account. I thought that
these things would iron themselves out and her despair would
calm itself, but it just keeps getting worse and worse… Is it true
that your mother hasn’t seen you in over fifteen years?”

“So you know, she moved from your home to Florence five
years ago. It was right after she moved here that there started
appearing these ‘wanted-posts’ in the newspapers, looking for
you—apparently they were published in newspapers all over
Europe—so your mother heard, at least. She was scared to death
by these wanted-posts—why?, because, they were looking for you
in order to execute you, Saul! (Saskia looked at me with extreme
horror as she translated this to me… extreme bewilderment and
horror.) …I don’t know, Saul,” the innkeeper continued, “are you
aware of these wanted-posts?”

“I was not aware of them. Although I heard rumors that
my picture was circulating in the press; and that harm will come
to me if I ever return to Tripoli,”

“
Harm
is right, my dear young man, in the form of twentyfive thousand gold louis. The government in Tripoli—
your
government—
has that enormous price on your head, and it will go
to the person who captures you and delivers your corpse, or else
your body alive in chains, to the king of Tripoli.”

“It was no crime committed by Saul,” said the innkeeper,
“Although it was never published in the newspapers
what
Saul
had been charged with, Saul’s mother knew. For although she
was exiled from Tripoli nine months before his birth, she still
always knew how to get news from the capital. It appears that the
king of Tripoli heard a prophecy from a venerated old prophet—a
man who they say is ninety-nine years of age…

“The prophet said to the king—to a king who had ruled
since his adolescence—that he would continue to rule until the
end of his long life. ‘
Except for one thing
,’ the prophet said,
‘The
day is not far away, when the son of a wild-man will come to take
your power.’…

“Do you realize the effect that these words had on a king
as superstitious as the one who rules Tripoli and all of Libya
today?” said the innkeeper, “Remember, this king was the king
who, as an adolescent, forced your mother to watch an execution
at sea where family was made to kill family—your mother told me
the gruesome story!—and he himself, remember, didn’t even
attend this horrible execution—who knows why?…

“This same young king was the king who ordered your
father Solarus to be executed. He was also the king who made
your mother flee in exile while you were in her womb.

“Today, this superstitious king is an old man. He has ruled
a kingdom for almost his entire life—do you think he is ready to
die, or lose power? The thought of this is more terrifying than any
fear that a man born less-fortunate can have—oh, pity to all who
are born kings!—yet this terrifying thought is his obsession:
‘The
day is not far away,’
said the prophet,
‘when the son of a wild-man
will come to take your power!’
…Well, this king knew who the
‘wild-man’ was… When your father was alive, people everywhere
referred to him as ‘the wild-man’—a nickname owing to his exotic
features mixing Slavic and Cherokee blood, and to his wild hair.
Now, your king knew that your mother was pregnant when she
went into exile—her pregnancy was the reason for which he
executed your father—yet, he didn’t know what sex the child was.
Once he heard the prophecy, he sent spies out to gather
information. They traced you and her to your small village on the
Mediterranean. They learned that you were born a male. They
learned that you grew up healthy. But they learned that you both
were gone from the village… (fortunately for both your lives, you
had left home for who-knows-where, and she had left home as
well!)…

“The spies didn’t learn enough to track you down. They
reported what they knew: that your mother had recently left your
country and was living in Europe somewhere; but they didn’t
know which country she had moved to, nor whether or not you
were with her. But the fact that it was known that you were a
male solidified the king’s faith in the prophecy. It was known now
that the ‘wild-man’ did in fact have a son, and that the son was
alive; it thus became the king’s highest priority to execute that
son. That was all five years ago, yet the price on your head
remains to this day, and you continue to be the subject of
international newspaper articles that offer an enormous wealth to
the one who captures or kills you. It is for this reason, that your
mother has spent the last five years wandering tirelessly around
Tuscany, visiting every city and village, trying to find you to warn
you: ‘Do not go back to Tripoli!’ Fortunately for her sanity, she
was informed that you had either left Tripoli, or were in hiding.
As you were always a faithful son to her, she was sure that
if
you
made it to Europe, you would come to Tuscany to try to find her.
She thought there was a slight chance you would learn for
yourself of the danger, that you would learn about these
newspaper articles; yet she knew you always scoffed newspapers
and journals, and hated the press in general; so she thought it
more likely that you would only learn about the wanted ads from
the man who killed you to collect his riches…