Chapter 9 #3
I giggled. “We have lighters. It’s the same principle, more or less. I think so. But everything is simpler. You just press a button or flick a … kind of spark wheel.” God forbid he asked me how it actually worked.
“Do you also use flint stone and steel?” Jean inquired.
“Yes! Exactly! I think so,” I said. “It just doesn’t look so nice,” I added as he held out the hookah to me. While I smoked, he created a small bonfire from the pile of weeds.
We then drank wine out of the little ceramic cups. When Jean noticed I was a little lightheaded, he took out a piece of bread wrapped in a handkerchief from the same satchel. The bread was slightly hard, but my dizziness passed after I ate it.
“When I rode away from the spring after your mysterious disappearance, I was stupefied,” Jean began.
He replaced his cowl and leaned back against the tree trunk.
I leaned back as well. Our arms grazed each other as we reached out to take a walnut or a date from the wooden bowl that Jean had placed between us.
Brunette sniffed the bowl, withdrew politely, stretched out at our feet, and rested her head on Jean’s shins and her tail on mine.
“When I arrived at the fortress, it was already time for the evening meal. I wanted to eat quietly with the other knights in the great hall, but one of the brothers told me to go directly to Périgord’s chambers and to dine there with him and Thibaut …”
Jean intended to go on, but I interrupted him. “Who’s Périgord? Isn’t that the truffle district in France?” I asked, taking another sip from the wine. Jean guffawed. “Armand de Périgord, Grand Master of the Order of Solomon’s Temple,” he said in a vaguely condescending tone.
“Okay. Go on,” I told him.
“What is this word that you say so often … ‘okay’ … what does it mean?” He tapped me three times on my arm with the date he was holding.
“It means ‘fine’ or ‘very well’ in English,” I said, amused by this little gesture of his.
“Do you mean the Normans or the Saxons?”
“Forget it,” I said. “I’ll try to use ‘okay’ less, okay?”
“Okay,” Jean replied. We exchanged sideways looks and inclined our heads a little closer together.
“And so,” Jean went back to his story, “I reached Périgord’s private chambers, where I was received with much fanfare.
‘Where is the fairy you promised, Thibaut?’ Périgord shouted.
He already reeked of wine. He and Thibaut continued their banter, and it occurred to me that Thibaut, in his depictions, had already transformed you into some imaginary creature.
I, however, was still trapped within the web of your very real disappearance, and I did not appreciate their revelry.
I said that in all probability, you were some insane poulain or a pilgrim who had lost her mind, since it happened that as soon as I looked away, you disappeared, and all I wanted to do was escape the pitch black and return to the safety of the fortress. ”
“What’s a poulain?” I asked, praying it wasn’t “whore” or something similar. “I heard Thibaut use that word as well.”
Jean’s face distorted in disgust. “It is an abhorrent word, and I try not to use it,” he began, and once again I felt my face grow hot.
“The Frankish descendants of this land and those who mixed with the locals—Greeks, Armenians, Copts, and so on. It could be said that I myself am a poulain, since my ancestors arrived here about one hundred and fifty years ago, with our first king, His Holiness Godfrey of Bouillon, whereas my grandmother, Queen Maria Komnene, had been a Greek princess.”
I stared at him, and he must have misinterpreted my reaction. “Only those ignoramuses who have recently arrived use that despicable expression,” he added. “I beg your forgiveness for using such inappropriate language in the presence of a lady,” he concluded on a formal note.
“I’m not from these parts, so no harm done,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“It’s awesome that your family has been here for the past hundred and fifty years, and your grandmother was a queen, and all that.
My parents arrived here less than forty years ago, without a penny to their name.
I’m the first person in the family to be born here. ”
Jean raised his eyebrows and said, “And where is ‘here’? Where were you born, Lady édith?”
“In Jerusalem,” I said.
“Indeed?” he said, his eyes round like saucers. Suddenly, I could imagine him as a kid. “Indeed,” I replied boastfully, although I wasn’t totally sure why. “I lived in Jerusalem until I was about twenty-five years old.”
“I have been but once to Jerusalem,” he said, staring out into the distance, “when I made a pilgrimage with my elder brother, Balian, Lord of Beirut. Jerusalem was dilapidated, devoid of a king to maintain order, full of cripples and amputees, scheming Saracens and wretched Jews. I could, however, see the hills upon which our savior preached, and I walked in the way of the cross, and my heart expanded. I will return there one day and do everything in my power to restore Jerusalem to greatness, as in the days of my grandmother the queen.” He sounded determined, which surprised me.
Talk of his queen grandmother stressed me out for some reason.
I said nothing about the wretched Jews. I concentrated on scratching Brunette’s ears.
Jean sighed. He surveyed me and my clothes without saying a word, as I rolled a cigarette from the tobacco pouch I’d removed from my bag.
I couldn’t find a lighter in the bag, so I lit the cigarette in the little bonfire Jean had made.
He watched me smoking, distrust written over his face.
He demanded an explanation, so I said that where I come from, it’s totally acceptable to smoke dried weeds rolled up in paper.
“Paper, and such fine paper!” he said in astonishment, his eyes like saucers again. “Where did you procure such a precious commodity? And you are burning it for no reason!” He was unable to keep his cool.
“In the time and place I come from, paper is taken for granted.”
“In all my days, I have never met a lady such as you,” Jean marveled, shaking his head slowly. It made me want to nestle up to him. I stroked the back of his hand fleetingly and withdrew it swiftly. I had no idea how to behave with him.
“Okay,” I said and clapped a hand to my mouth, giggling. “Sorry. Very well. And so, what happened after that? How does the story continue?” I asked.
“Okay,” Jean smiled. “Accordingly, I lay down on my pallet at first watch and fell asleep immediately. I dreamed of you, as I have already relayed. The dream shook me to my very bones, as though it were not a dream at all but a voyage I had taken out of my own body.
“I awoke at break of dawn and was wholly unable to go back to sleep. I felt the urge to attend confession, if only to pour out my heart, but resolved to ponder the matter awhile. Albeit confession is bound by strict confidentiality, but rumors spread swiftly in the fortress—the holy brothers gossip like laundrywomen—and I had no desire for further jokes at my expense.” He frowned, and I pressed my shoulder against his, indicating I was on his side.
“Not long after I awoke,” Jean went on, “we rode to Acre. Thibaut and I, and a small band of knights. Lady Alice, my wife, sent me a missive some time earlier declaring her wish for me to spend the last Saturday of April at the family residence, and to further tarry for Sunday Mass at our church in Acre. We rode swiftly, and when we arrived in the city, we parted ways. Thibaut continued with the brothers to the Templar palace, and I made my way to the house of my wife’s father, Rohard, Master of Haifa.
Everyone rejoiced at my arrival, and the Saturday and Day of Resurrection of our Lord I spent in the pleasant warmth of home, at sumptuous meals and prayers for my sinful soul. ”
I couldn’t decide whether he was serious or just fooling around. After his fervent confession about Jerusalem, his Christian locutions appeared more sincere; nonetheless, there was a perceptible note of irony in his words.
“In the company of my family and under the auspices of familiar household practices, your magical disappearance seemed like a hallucination,” Jean continued, and I could see he was enjoying the story.
“I told myself that such a thing could never happen. The Saracen who bestowed the hashish upon me informed me that partaking of too much might cause delirium, but up until that moment, I thought he was hyperbolizing for no reason, as is the way of the Saracens.”
He drank from his ceramic cup, refilled it, and continued.
“Thibaut decided to stay in Acre in order to clarify … several issues, but he asked me to return to Chateau Pèlerin and supervise his men, to ensure they were training as befit them and conducting themselves with humility. Last night I returned with the fatigued Templars, who had practiced abstinence and prayed with devotion for the past two days with their brothers in the city. We reached the area at late dusk and passed close by this very place. I fancied I could see a strange light, skipping and dancing around, precisely at this spot. I wanted to ride over here, but Brother Hugues told me it was surely the will-o’-the-wisp, and that I should continue onward.
I listened to the voice of reason, yet anguish rose up within my heart.
What if your disappearance was a figment of my imagination and the real you were out there alone, a lady lost at the mercy of wild beasts, helpless and starving?
I vowed to return the next morning to examine the area, and here I am.
” He paused and then added, “I cannot comprehend this.”
“Neither can I,” I whispered. I tried to imagine him as a contented landlord, sitting in an easy chair by the fire, surrounded by little children and a wife fussing over him. I couldn’t really see it.