Azazeel Page 7
When the sun had ascended to its zenith, life crept into the side streets. The number of people was greater than I had surmised. I passed one group of churchmen going north, surrounded by workmen carrying pickaxes and reciting after them: ‘In the name of Jesus the true God, we will demolish the houses of the idols and build a new house for the Lord.’ The three phrases rhymed in Greek, with a rhythm different from the Syriac text, but Alexandrians do not speak Syriac.
I hurried away from them until the large church appeared on the left. I did not go their way but walked east with the Canopian Way, which was wide and elegant and extended all the way from the Moon Gate, where I entered, to the Sun Gate in the east of the city. Behind it stretched the houses of the Jews which I passed the day I left Alexandria three years later.
The Canopian Way is a world in itself, fully paved and with elegant houses on both sides. Into it flow other smaller streets which run south and north. Everything around me that day was amazing, except for that wretched statue which stands in the middle of the road. I found out a few weeks later that it was a statue of a god they call Serapis, and the former bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, had preserved it from the Serapaeum temple after he brought the temple down on the heads of the pagans who had sought refuge inside. The bishop had set up the wretched statue in the middle of the road to intimidate the pagans by reminding them of the fate of their god, and to immortalize his triumph over them by humiliating their god forever. The great temple was destroyed in the year I was born, I mean the year 117 of the Martyrs, or the year 391 of the glorious birth. For thirteen years the statue stood as an effective witness to the abject state of an extinct paganism. It was moving to see it, covered in the droppings of sea birds and surrounded with rubbish on all sides. It seemed to be laughing, its feet planted in the paving stones of the street, with no plinth on which to stand.
I did not look too closely at the statue, so as not to attract the attention of the Christians and pagans passing around me. Nobody should notice me, neither these nor those, nor even the Jews who endured the hatred of both groups in the city. The pagans hate them for their avarice and the Christians detest them for betraying the Saviour and handing him over to the Romans to be crucified. I wonder, was he really crucified?
In a square halfway along the long street, my train of thought and the rhythm of my pace were broken by the voice of a crier shouting out in Greek from the seat of his mule. ‘Governor Orestes invites scholars and students to a lecture by the Savante of the Ages on Sunday morning at the Great Theatre.’ I was surprised when I established that he really was saying the Savante of the Ages. Could a woman scholar gain such prestige? At first I doubted I had understood the phrase correctly, although the different female and male forms of the words in Greek leave no room for ambiguity. Then I doubted the sanity of the crier, although he looked serious to me, and being serious, so I was taught in Akhmim, is the opposite of insanity.
My doubts drove me to abandon my caution. I caught up with the crier and asked his young servant, who looked at me in astonishment and did not answer me. The crier had stopped the mule by squeezing his legs against her belly and he reached into his bag to take out a long-necked white earthenware bottle from which he drank a mouthful. I took the chance to ask him, ‘Uncle, where will the lecture be?’
‘What are lectures to you, peasant? Or perhaps you’re after the sweets the governor gives out there?’
‘I don’t eat sweets,’ I said. ‘I only want to know who this Savante of the Ages is.’
‘A peasant who doesn’t eat sweets, speaks good Greek and doesn’t know Hypatia. That, by Serapis, is amazing,’ he said.
The crier left me, moved on scornfully and started to shout out the same phrase again: ‘Governor Orestes invites scholars and students...’ He disappeared down a side street, leaving me puzzled as I thought about the woman who might be the Savante of the Ages.
After this intellectual detour I reverted to the objective from which I had been distracted, that is to reach the sea. I kept walking east along the Canopian Way until I met a large street heading north. I had passed the place which the volunteer guide, the house guard, had described to me, but I hurried on in the hope that I would reach my destination, or make a second attempt. The further north I walked, the more I felt the sea. Little by little, the surface in the side streets grew more sandy and the houses were more scattered. The stone of the walls was eroded and pale, and I later learnt that this was an effect of the sea air close by.
The sea had a strong smell and as the sound of the waves started to caress my ears a strange feeling enveloped me. When the sea appeared between the houses, I quickened my pace until I reached the wide sandy area which extended beyond the houses. One of the houses was as big as a palace, the last of the houses with handsome walls. At the big gate an elderly guard was sitting, an emaciated sheep lying at his feet. I walked past them without noticing them, and the guard too did not look towards me. It was the sheep that looked.
When I saw the sea, enclosed by the sandy spit which jutted into it, I walked along until I came close to a rocky patch in the middle of the spit, then followed a sandy path which wound between the rocks. The Alexandria rocks are rough and ragged, with sharp edges. They are not like the smooth oval rocks which the Nile brings rolling down from heaven and which come to rest on its banks in my native country. That day the sea seemed to have no banks, although it had looked small to us in the maps in the geography book. I walked away from the rocks until I reached a wide sandy area and the sea surrounded me on three sides. Close to where the foam of the waves melted away I threw down my bag, which had grown heavier and heavier the longer I carried it. I stepped forward eagerly until the seawater touched my feet. The vastness of the sea frightened me and I almost fainted in terror at how far away the water stretched. I extended my arms as though I were about to take off and filled my lungs with the wind blowing across the waves. I was enchanted by the sensation of the sea around my ankles and the gentle tumbling of the waves as they broke at my feet.
The sea. It is the great water from which existence begins. Beyond this sea lie other lands, and beyond those a greater sea which surrounds the world. I can remember now that moment twenty years ago. I can almost feel the spray touch my face and the awe that stopped me in my tracks on the shoreline, where I stood stiff as an ancient statue.
The smell of the sea was unfamiliar and the water salty. I longed to plunge into this vast ocean, as I used to swim in the Nile in the days of my childhood. I knew from books there were no crocodiles in this sea, nor hippopotamuses, and no iguanas live on the banks of it, but I was wary of the dangers which this great sea might be hiding.
I looked in all directions and saw no one in the distance. I dipped my hands into the sea and rinsed my face in the salty water, and my anxiety abated. I stepped forward hesitantly until the water reached my knees. I felt another sensation which I had not known before: there is no mud or ooze at the bottom of the sea, just the expanse of sand with the waves above, rolling in one after another. The waves were buffeting me and stimulating senses which I had forgotten. I closed my eyes, yielding to the slapping of the waves, which was gentle and exciting. One wave almost knocked me over and I laughed out loud in a way I had not heard myself laugh for many years, and would not hear for many years to come. I hurried back to the shoreline, put my bag next to a rock protruding from the sand, threw my wretched gown on top of it and rushed into the water. My God, my heart beat in ecstasy at that moment.
Swimming in the sea is easy. The water lifts you up and the current does not pull you as the Nile would do in the days of my childhood. The water of the Nile is fresh and the bottom is muddy, but this sea is salty and you can see right to the sandy bed. I was standing with the water up to my chest and touching my shoulders, yet I could still see my feet, the sand and the pieces of rock resting on the bottom. If you go into the Nile you disturb the mud at the bottom and the water gets murky, and the murk could hide crocodiles. But the
sea has no dangers to threaten swimmers and spoil the pleasure of returning for a while to the primal water from which the world began.
Because the surface of the water buoyed me up without great effort on my part, I was able to look around at the sky and the horizon around me. Towards the west I saw big ships far off, and to the east seagulls were flying along the beach. The seagulls were plentiful and it was wonderful to see them fly. I wonder if these are the birds that every year visit the Bird Mountain which the man in the tent told me about.
On the surface of the water I was full of glee. On the glistening surface of the water tremors of inner warmth dispelled the chill within me and stilled the trembling in my limbs. When the sea lifted me up, I felt like a baby emerging from an enormous womb. Strange sensations assailed me. I had an urge to touch and be touched and I felt the tingle of desire. Although I had never in my life known a woman, and had never intended to do so, yet at that moment I thought of that pleasure and it came to my mind that the sea is a playful woman who gives pleasure to men who swim in her, without making them answerable for any sin. The sea is a mercy from God to the deprived, glory be to You, most merciful of the merciful.
I abandoned myself to the clear water, lying on my back on the surface and stretching my arms out wide. I used to do that in my youth on the surface of the Nile, then I came to do it in my room when I was alone, and it gave a sense of serenity. I would lie outstretched on the ground, spread my arms and float into heavens of my imagining. But when I did that in the sea of Alexandria, it was different. The seawater buoyed me more than the Nile water did. I was lighter and the sunlight sparkled where my floating body met the surface of the waves. The light bounced off my naked body, as the rays crisscrossed over my brown skin and bathed it in a strange radiance. It was the first time I had thought my body beautiful and my brownness pleasing. Unlike the river, the sea reveals the wonders of divine creation in the universe and in our bodies.
On the surface of the water I recalled with delight how I would lie on the hill on which stands the house where I was born, where the doves would land around me. When the sun had declined from the high point of the sky towards the horizon, I became aware of pangs of hunger. The beach seemed a long way off and near my clothes I noticed someone waving to me with their arms. I felt a sudden alarm and apprehension. My arms and legs sprang into action to take me back quickly to my clothes. But after moments which seemed an age I realized that I was not making progress towards the beach. I began to swim faster but I moved no closer to my goal. Suddenly I was exhausted and my right arm almost froze rigid. I let my body float to have a rest for a while but I panicked when I realized the water was pulling me out to the open sea. I resumed swimming, exhausted, but the pull of the sea was stronger than the constant strokes of my panicked arms. That’s when I understood that the sea is treacherous.
The person standing on the beach gave up waving at me and disappeared from sight when the waves rose between us. I was completely exhausted and the sea was relentless. When I was sure I was drowning I shouted out despite myself. Then I suppressed my desire to shout to save what strength I had left for the swim back. The pain in my left arm was excruciating but I kept paddling with it. To myself I chanted, ‘Jesus Christ, stay with me now and I will vow all my life to You.’ I swam faster and faster, and suffered greatly for the predicament I had brought upon myself. After a long struggle to overcome the current dragging me out, I found that my strokes were pulling me towards the beach. I was gasping for air but delighted to survive. When I reached the point near the beach where the waves break and die away my foot touched the ground and I thanked the Lord with a troubled heart.
I stumbled towards my bag and when I found no one else on the sandy beach I thought for a moment the person who waved at me, warning me of the danger of drowning, was not human, but rather an angel sent by God from heaven to save me from wandering into danger. I said to myself that our Father in heaven is merciful to us and the secrets of his creation never end, and that after this I would never go close to the sea again.
A gentle laugh rang out from the direction of the nearby rocks and I stood up from where I was lying on my back. I looked towards the sound in alarm and saw a white woman in Alexandrian dress, with bare breasts and arms. The woman staggered forward, as though she too had just survived drowning in some capricious sea.
‘You’re a proficient swimmer, and lucky too,’ she said.
‘Who are you, my lady?’
‘My lady!’ She laughed. ‘I’m Octavia, the servant of the Sicilian gentleman, the silk merchant,’ she said.
I looked at her askance, as though I were dreaming or had died drowning and come back to life in another age. I looked around me: the seagulls were still flying and the houses in the distance were still in their place, as they had been. A cold breeze brushed me and I came to my senses. What had brought to this place this servant who did not look like other servants? I could think of no answer, so I asked her in a stammer and she replied without hesitation.
‘Poseidon sent me, the god of the sea who saved you. I am one of his mermaids.’
She laughed again. ‘Please, don’t joke with me.’
‘Don’t scowl, southerner. I will tell you everything.’
She said her name was Octavia and she came to this place most days when her master was away on business and had taken all his other servants with him, and the only person left with her in the house was the guard sitting at the gate. She liked to come here, so she said, to tell her cares to the sea, because it kept secrets. Looking towards the waves, she told me people did not frequent this beach because it was so rocky and the currents so dangerous near the coast.
‘Ah, now I know what happened to me. But how did you know I was a southerner.’
‘From your accent. I also know you are hungry now, from being in the sea so long. Come and have something to eat.’
At the time I did not know how to answer her. I was dying of hunger, and embarrassment. She kindly spared me my blushes, addressing me with a mixture of firmness and coquettishness of a kind I had never experienced.
‘Bring your bag and come,’ she said.
She walked towards a large crevice between the rocks and I stood where I was, paralysed and enchanted, watching from nearby the flirtatious way she walked. She was in her forties, or her thirties, I don’t know. Her body tended a little towards the plump side, and very much towards the soft, and she swayed as she walked, like a trail of incense smoke. I wonder if that day she planned to seduce me, or perhaps that is the way women are in Alexandria.
I shall stop writing now, for the memories are teeming inside me. My head and my hand are heavy. I shall make do with what I have recorded tonight and resume writing in the morning, if I wake up. Anyway this piece of parchment is full up and tomorrow I will need a new piece on which to record another endless whirl of memories.
SCROLL FOUR
Octavia’s Enticements (1)
I have long loved the things which take place only inside me. It comforts me to weave events in my imagination and live the details of them for a moment in time and then bring them to an end when I choose. This has been my way of protecting myself from temptation to sin, and staying safe. But what happened on the rocky sandy beach in eastern Alexandria was different. It was real, and it troubled me for a long time to come.
The air turned cold when I stepped out of the sea after surviving the treacherous currents, and I was alone with the woman called Octavia. I was not in charge of events. She organized everything because, as she told me on the third day, she was expecting the fulfilment of a prophecy which an old woman priest at the demolished temple had foretold for her. I will tell the story of what happened between us.
When Octavia left me with my clothes and walked flirtatiously towards the rocky crevice, I stood paralysed, with my eyes fixed on her. Before her firm and shapely buttocks disappeared between the rocks she looked towards me with a look that made my head turn, and pointed with her left
hand to below my stomach. ‘Are you going to stay standing like that forever,’ she said. ‘Put on your gown to hide the state you are in and follow me quickly.’
I panicked when I noticed that my little devil was erect under my pants, which were soaked in salty water. I quickly turned towards my bag and grabbed my gown from on top of it, and threw it on. I picked up my bag and walked to the stony cave nearby into which she had vanished before my astounded eyes. I wanted to apologize to her for everything and thank her, then ask leave of her and walk away, dragging my failure and my indecency behind me like a tail.
I stood in front of her, embarrassed, at the entrance to the small rocky cave where she was sitting in the middle. She was taking things out of a small box of the type that peasants make for their masters out of strips of palm branch. From where I was, and from the way she was sitting, I could see the firmness of her breasts. Before that I had seen the breasts of women suckling their babies but what I saw that day was different. God made the breasts of women for them to suckle, so for what other reason did he create these breasts?
Octavia was busy with what she was doing. She spread a large cloth on the ground and carefully put at the four corners pieces of the marine flint which was scattered around the surface of the cave. Then she started to arrange the food on the cloth: boiled eggs, loaves of white bread, white cheese, another cheese that was even whiter, water or wine in a white earthenware bottle. Everything on the big white cloth was white, and her diaphanous dress was white too. Her ample breasts, white. Her skin, everything, white. I was quite astonished.
‘Sit here,’ she said.
I sat down submissively, bewitched. I yielded to her and she induced in me a pleasant torpor. She did what no one had ever done to me before, even in my childhood, or has done since. She began to put food in my mouth and smiled at me until I swallowed each piece, then put in the next. I resisted at first, but then I began to enjoy it and I ate from her hand happily, like an infant at the breast.