I made the only comment I could think to make. “I am sorry, Mirza Esther.”
“So am I. But so was he. Here was a man in the very last flicker of his life, lamenting something that had once piqued his curiosity, but he had neglected to go and see it or do it or have it—and now he never could.”
“Was Mordecai a journeyer?”
“No. He was a cloth merchant, and a very successful one. He never traveled farther from here than to Baghdad and Basra. But who knows what he would have liked to be and do?”
“You think he died unhappy, then?”
“Unfulfilled, at least. I do not know what it was he spoke of, but oh! how I wish he had gone there while he was alive, wherever it was, and done whatever it was.”
I tried tactfully to suggest that it could not matter to him now.
She said firmly, “It mattered to him when it mattered most. When he knew the chance was gone forever.”
Hoping to make her feel better, I said, “But if he had seized the chance, you might be sorrier now. It may have been something—something less than approvable. I have noticed that sinful temptations abound in these lands. In all lands, I suppose. I myself once had to confess to a priest for having too freely followed where my curiosity led me, and—”
“Confess it, if you must, but do not ever abjure it or ignore it. That is what I am trying to tell you. If a man is to have a fault, it should be a passionate one, like insatiable curiosity. It would be a pity to be damned for something paltry.”
“I hope not to be damned, Mirza Esther,” I said piously, “as I trust the Mirza Mordecai was not. It may well have been out of virtue that he let that chance go by, whatever it was. Since you cannot know, you need not weep for—”
“I am not weeping. I did not broach the matter to sniffle over it.”
I wondered why, then, she had bothered to broach it. And, as if in reply to my silent question, she went on:
“I wanted you to know this. When you come at last to die, you may be devoid of all other urges and senses and faculties, but you will still possess your passion of curiosity. It is something that even cloth merchants have, perhaps even clerks and other such drudges. Certainly a journeyer has it. And in those last moments it will make you grieve—as Mordecai did—not for anything you have done in your lifetime, but for the things you never got to do.”
“Mirza Esther,” I protested. “A man cannot live always in dread of missing something. I fully expect never to be Pope, for instance, or Shah of Persia, but I hope that lack will not blight my life. Or my deathbed either.”
“I do not mean things unattainable. Mordecai died lamenting something that had been within his reach, within his capability, within his having, and he let it go by. Imagine yourself pining for the sights and delights and experiences you could have had, but missed—or even just one single small such experience—and pining too late, when it is forever unattainable.”
Obediently, I did try to imagine that. And young though I was, remote though I assumed that prospect to be, I felt a faint chill.
“Imagine going into death,” she went on implacably, “without having tasted everything in this world. The good, the bad, the indifferent even. And to know, at that final moment, that it was no one but you who deprived yourself, through your own careful caution or careless choice or failure to follow where your curiosity led. Tell me, young man, could there be any more hurtful pang on the other side of death? Even damnation itself?”
After the moment it took me to shake off the chill, I said, as cheerfully as I could, “Well, with the help of those thirty-six you spoke of, maybe I can avoid both deprivation in my lifetime and damnation after it.”
“Aleichem sholem,” she said. But, as she was swatting with her slipper at another scorpion at that moment, I was not sure if she was wishing peace to me or to it.
She moved on down the garden, turning over rocks, and I idly ambled into the stable to see if any of our party had returned from wandering about town. One of them had, but not alone, and the sight brought me up short, with a gasp.
Our slave Nostril was there, with a stranger, one of the gorgeous young Kashan men. Perhaps my conversation with the maidservant Sitarè had made me temporarily impervious to disgust, for I did not make violent outcry or retreat from the scene. I looked on as indifferently as did the camels, which only shuffled and mumbled and munched. Both of the men were naked, and the stranger was on his hands and knees in the straw, and our slave was hunched over his backside, bucking like a camel in rut. The lewdly coupling Sodomites turned their heads when I entered, but only grinned at me and kept on with their indecency.
The young man had a body that was as handsome to look upon as his face was. But Nostril, even when fully clothed, was of a repellent appearance, as I have already described. I can only say further that his paunchy torso and pimply buttocks and spindly limbs, when totally exposed, were a sight to make most onlookers retch up their most recent meal. I was amazed that such a revolting creature could have persuaded anyone the least bit less revolting to play al-mafa‘ul to his al-fa’il.
Nostril’s fa’il implement was invisible to me, being inserted where it was, but the young man’s organ was visible below his belly, and stiffened into its candelòto aspect. I thought that somewhat odd, since neither he nor Nostril was manipulating it in any way. And it seemed even more odd, when he and Nostril finally groaned and writhed together, to see his candelòto—still without benefit of touch or fondling—squirt spruzzo into the straw on the floor.
After they had briefly rested and panted, Nostril heaved his sweat-shiny bulk off the young man’s back. Without dipping a wash of water from the camel trough, without even wadding some straw to wipe his extremely wee little organ, he began putting his clothes back on, and humming a merry tune as he did so. The young stranger more indolently and slowly began to get dressed, as if he frankly enjoyed displaying his nude body even under such disgraceful circumstances.
Leaning against a stall partition, I said to our slave, as if we had all the while been chatting companionably, “You know something, Nostril? There are many rascals and scamps portrayed in song and story—characters like Encolpios and Renart the Fox. They live a gay vagabond life, and they live by their foxy wits, but somehow they are never guilty of crime or sin. They commit only pranks and jests. They steal from none but thieves, their amatory exploits are never sordid, they drink and carouse without ever getting drunk or foolish, their swordplay never causes more than a flesh wound. They have winning ways and twinkling eyes and a ready laugh, even on the scaffold, for they never hang. Whatever the adventure, those adventurous scoundrels are always charming and dashing, clever and amusing. Such stories make one want to meet such a brave, bold, lovable rascal.”
“And now you have,” said Nostril. He twinkled his piggy eyes and smiled to show his stubble teeth and struck a pose that he probably thought was dashing.
“Now I have,” I said. “And there is nothing lovable or admirable about you. If you are the typical rascal, then all the stories are lies, and a rascal is a swine. You are filthy of person and of habit, loathsome in appearance and character, cloacal in your proclivities. You are altogether deserving of that seething oil vat from which I too indulgently argued for your rescue.”
The handsome stranger laughed coarsely at that. Nostril sniffled and muttered, “Master Marco, as a devout Muslim I must object to being likened to a swine.”
“I hope you would also balk at coupling with a sow,” I said. “But I doubt it.”
“Please, young master. I am devoutly keeping Ramazan, which prohibits intercourse between Muslim men and women. I must also admit that, even in the permissible months, women are sometimes hard for me to come by, ever since my pretty face was disfigured by my nose’s misfortune.”
“Oh, do not exaggerate,” I said. “There is always somewhere a woman desperate enough for anything. In my lifetime, I have seen a Slavic woman couple with a black man and an Arab woman couple with an ac
tual ape.”
Nostril said loftily, “I hope you do not suppose that I would condescend to a woman as ugly as I am. Ah, but Jafar here—Jafar is as comely as the comeliest woman.”
I growled, “Tell your comely wretch to hurry with his dressing and get out of here, or I will feed him to the camels.”
The comely wretch glared at me, then gave a melting look of entreaty to Nostril, who immediately insulted me with an impertinent question: “You would not like to try him yourself, Master Marco? The experience might broaden your mind.”
“I will broaden your one nose-hole!” I snarled, taking the dagger from my belt. “I will open it all the way around your ugly head! How dare you speak so to a master? What do you take me for?”
“For a young man with much yet to learn,” he said. “You are a journeyer now, Master Marco, and before you get home again you will have traveled much farther yet, and seen and experienced much more. When you do arrive home at last, you will be rightfully scornful of men there who call mountains high and swamps deep, without their ever having scaled a mountain or plumbed a swamp—men who have never ventured beyond their narrow streets and their commonplace routines and their cautious pastimes and their pinched little lives.”
“Perhaps so. But what has that to do with your galineta whore?”
“There are other journeys that can take a man beyond the ordinary, Master Marco, not in distance of travel but in breadth of understanding. Consider. You have reviled this young man as a whore, when he is only what he was bred and developed and trained and expected to be.”
“A Sodomite, then, if you prefer. To a Christian, that is a sinful thing to be—a sinner and a sin to be abhorred.”
“I ask you, Master Marco, to make only a short journey into the world of this young man.” Before I could object, he said, “Jafar, tell the foreigner of your upbringing.”
Still clutching his lower garment in his hand, and glancing uneasily at me, Jafar began. “Oh, young Mirza, reflection of the light of Allah—”
“Never mind that,” said Nostril. “Just tell of your body’s preparation for sexual commerce.”
“Oh, blessing of the world,” Jafar began again. “From the earliest years I can remember, always while I slept I wore inserted into my nether aperture a golulè, which is an implement made of kashi ceramic, a sort of small tapered cone. Every time my bedtime toilet was completed, the golulè was put into me, well greased with some drug to stimulate the development of my badàm. My mother or nurse would at intervals ease it farther inside me, and when I could accommodate it all, a larger golulè was substituted. Thus my opening gradually grew more ample, but without impairing the muscle of closure which surrounds it.”
“Thank you for the story,” I said to him, but coldly, and to Nostril I said, “Born so or made so, a Sodomite is still an abomination.”
“I think his story is not finished,” said Nostril. “Bear with the journey only a little farther.”
“When I was perhaps five or six years old,” Jafar went on, “I was relieved of having to wear the golulè, and instead my next older brother was encouraged to use me whenever he had an urge and an erected organ.”
“Adrìo de vu!” I gasped, compassion getting the better of my revulsion. “What a horrible childhood!”
“It could have been worse,” said Nostril. “When a bandit or slave-taker captures a boy, and that boy has not been thus carefully prepared, the captor brutally impales him there with a tent peg, to make the opening fit for subsequent use. But that tears the encircling muscle, and the boy can never thereafter contain himself, but excretes incontinently. Also, he cannot thereafter utilize that muscle to give pleasurable contractions during the act. Go on, Jafar.”
“When I had got accustomed to that brother’s usage, my next older and better-equipped brother helped my further development. And when my badàm was mature enough to let me begin to enjoy the act, then my father …”
“Adrìo de vu!” I exclaimed again. But now curiosity had got the better of both my revulsion and my compassion. “What do you mean about the badàm?” I could not comprehend that detail, for the word badàm means an almond.
“You did not know of it?” said Nostril with surprise. “Why, you have one yourself. Every male does. We call it the almond because of its shape and size, but physicians sometimes refer to it as the third testicle. It is situated behind the other two, not in the bag, but hidden up inside your groin. A finger or, ahem, any other object inserted far enough into your anus rubs against that almond and stimulates it to a pleasurable excitement.”
“Ah,” I said, enlightened. “So that is why, just now, Jafar made spruzzo seemingly without any caress or provocation.”
“We call that spurt the almond milk,” Nostril said primly. He added, “Some women of talent and experience know of that invisible male gland. In one way or another, they tickle it while they are coupling with a man, so that when he ejaculates the almond milk his enjoyment is blissfully heightened.”
I wagged my head wonderingly, and said, “You are right, Nostril. A man can learn new things from journeying.” I slid my dagger back into its sheath. “This time at least, I forgive the brash way you spoke to me.”
He replied smugly, “A good slave puts utility before humility. And now, Master Marco, perhaps you would like to slip your other weapon into another sheath? Observe Jafar’s splendid scabbard—”
“Scagaròn!” I snapped. “I may tolerate such customs of others while I am in these regions, but I will not partake of them. Even if Sodomy were not a vile sin, I should still prefer the love of women.”
“Love, master?” echoed Nostril, and Jafar laughed in his coarse way, and one of the camels belched. “No one spoke of love. The love between a man and a man is another thing entirely, and I believe that only we warmhearted warrior Muslims can know that most sublime of all emotions. I doubt that any cold-blooded and peace-preaching Christian could be capable of that love. No, master, I was suggesting merely a matter of convenient release and relief and satisfaction. For that, what difference what sex?”
I snorted like a supercilious camel. “Easy for you to say, slave, since to you it makes no difference what animal. As for me, I am happy to say that as long as there are women in the world I shall have no yearning for men to couple with. I am a man myself, and I am too familiar with my own body to have the least interest in that of any other male. But women—ah, women! They are so magnificently different from me, and each so exquisitely different from another—I can never value them enough!”
“Value them, master?” He sounded amused.
“Yes.” I paused, then said with due solemnity, “I once killed a man, Nostril, but I could never bring myself to kill a woman.”
“You are young yet.”
“Now, Jafar,” I said to the young man, “put on the rest of your clothes and go, before my father and uncle get back here.”
“I saw them arrive just now, Master Marco,” said Nostril. “They went with the Almauna Esther into her house.”
So I went over there, too, and was again waylaid by the maidservant Sitarè, as she let me in the door. I would have gone on by her unheeding, but she took me by the arm and whispered, “Do not speak loudly.”
I said, not whispering, “I have nothing to speak to you about.”
“Hush. The mistress is inside, and your father and uncle are with her. So do not let them hear, but answer me. My brother Aziz and I have discussed the matter of you and—”
“I am not a matter!” I said testily. “I do not much like my being discussed.”
“Oh, do please hush. Are you aware that the day after tomorrow is the Eid-al-Fitr?”
“No. I do not even know what that is.”
“Tomorrow at sundown Ramazan ends. At that moment begins the month of Shawal, and its first day is the Feast of Fast-Broken, when we Muslims are released from abstinence and restriction. Any time after sundown tomorrow, you and I can licitly make zina.”
“Exc
ept that you are a virgin,” I reminded her. “And must stay that way, for your brother’s sake.”
“That is what Aziz and I discussed. We have a small favor to ask of you, Mirza Marco. If you will consent to it, I will consent—and I have my brother’s consent—to make zina with you. Of course, you can have him too, if you like.”
I said suspiciously, “Your offer sounds like a considerable return for a small favor. And your beloved brother sounds brotherly indeed. I can hardly wait to meet this pimping and simpering lout.”
“You have met him. He is the kitchen scullion, with hair dark red like mine, and—”
“I do not remember.” But I could imagine him: the twin to Nostril’s stable mate Jafar, a muscular and handsome hulk of a man, with the orifice of a woman, the wits of a camel and the morals of a jack weasel.
“When I say a small favor,” Sitarè went on, “I mean a small one for me and Aziz. For yourself it will be a greater favor, since you will profit by it. Actually earn money from it.”
Here was a beautiful chestnut-haired maiden, offering me herself and her maidenhead and a monetary return as well—plus, if I wanted him, her reputedly even more beautiful brother into the bargain. Naturally this brought to my recollection the phrase I had several times heard, “the bloodthirstiness of beauty.” And naturally that made me cautious, but not so cautious that I would flatly refuse the offer without hearing more.
“Tell me more,” I said.
“Not now. Here comes your uncle. Hush.”
“Well, well!” boomed Uncle Mafìo, approaching us from the darker interior of the house. “Collecting fiame, are we?” And his black beard split in a bright white grin, as he shouldered past us and went out the door toward the stable.
The remark was a play on the word fiame, since in Venice “flames” can mean—in addition to fire—either red-headed persons or secret lovers. So I assumed that my uncle was jocosely twitting what he took to be a boy-and-girl flirtation.