Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

“You are dripping on my floor.”

They looked at each other once more, and then both began to laugh without restraint. Every few moments one tried to stop, then looked at the other and erupted again. Olivier knew that he should take her in his arms then and there, and she knew he should do so, but the rules of life prevented him. The fact that he did not, that there was an absence where there should have been movement, made the stillness even more potent, lasting until both, finally, managed to wipe their eyes and stop.

Both knew full well what would happen sooner or later; the inevitable, fate, God’s will—none of these can be denied or avoided or even postponed for long. But Rebecca tried her best, becoming the guardian of household purity in her master’s honor even though he was absent. But the times were as extreme as their emotions, otherwise she would not have dreamed of allowing him to stay; would not have allowed him to eat with her, and would not have allowed him to help collect her master’s papers—not that he was much help as he could not read the writing on most of them. Olivier noted that she, too, had trouble; indeed that she could barely read.

“I have heard it said that Jewish women are often well taught,” he mentioned.

She hesitated for a moment and looked at him carefully. “Indeed,” she said. “Some are. But all the education in the world would not help with handwriting like this.”

She put down the papers. “I cannot do this now,” she said, “not while I cannot see properly.” They had a few good wax candles in the house, jealously saved for high days, and she had recklessly gotten two from the kitchen and lit them, only to find that the yellow sputtering light they gave off was little better than darkness. Gersonides’s handwriting was as illegible in Greek and Latin as it was in Hebrew, so bad, indeed, that only he could even tell which alphabet his terrible scrawl was using. To make out in the darkness which manuscript was which was almost impossible.

“Come and sit by the fire,” she said. “I will get some food while you warm yourself, and then you can tell me news.”

“I thought you did not encourage Christians to eat in your houses? Or am I wrong?”

“We will not eat in yours, because your food is unclean. You may eat as much of ours as you wish. It is just that we do not like Christians in our houses. In fact, we do not like Christians, on the whole. But you may sit down. Unless you are uncomfortable being in a Jew’s house.”

“I am not at all uncomfortable,” he said. “The fire is as warm as a Christian fire, the roof as strong, and the food will be welcome whether it is clean or unclean. I am merely confused, that is all. You are serving me with food, even though it is Friday and darkness has fallen.”

“Rules can be broken under necessity.”

“A Jewess who can barely read, who serves me with food and lights me candles and brings me wood for the fire on a Sabbath?” He smiled softly.

She sucked in her breath for a moment and looked at him in the firelight, but saw no anger in his eyes and heard no criticism in his voice.

“Why do you pretend to be a Jew?” he asked, eventually.

She hung her head. “Because I am even more unfortunate than one,” she replied. “Because it is only among them that I have found safety.”

He looked at her curiously. He could think of almost nothing more unfortunate than that.

She looked at him seriously. “My parents died when I was fifteen, and I went wandering; there was no one who would take me in, not to give me safety. I traveled around France but found no help, then crossed into Provence. I came to Avignon but that frightened me; I could find no one who wouldn’t question me. Eventually I came here; the old man found me and said he needed a servant. He also wanted someone who was not Jewish to look after him on the Sabbath as well. But it is illegal for a Jew to employ a Christian. So for the outside world I pretended to be a Jew. He got his servant, I got my protection.”

“And you like this life?”

“I love him. He has been as kind and as good to me as any father. He never criticizes, never hectors me, and would die rather than betray his trust to me. What more could I want?”

“You are one of those heretics, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “If you wish.”

“I didn’t know there were any of you left.”

“More than you think. A hundred years ago, the church murdered as many as they could find, but they did not find all. We learned discretion, and learned to hide ourselves. Now, if we are discovered we are almost safe, because we do not exist anymore, and the churchmen cannot admit they left the job undone. My parents were hanged for theft, which they did not commit, not for their beliefs, which they openly admitted.”

“I heard a phrase recently. It begins ‘The water of life ...’ ” Olivier said, and looked at her expectantly.

“Yes?”

“What does it mean?”

“It means that we are all part of the divine, and that our desire is to return to the ocean from whence we came. We must purify ourselves on earth, and put aside our taste for material things, for the world is our prison, even though we don’t realize it. We are in hell now; but we can escape it.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then we are reborn, and must live again. This interests you?”

“I read it in an old manuscript. And heard it on the road when I was traveling.”

The genealogy of ideas did not interest her, the similarities between Neoplatonic thought and her beliefs prompted her to no amazement or questioning. She nodded merely and fell silent.

“And us?” he asked after a while. “Is it evil what I feel for you? How can it be?”

“The flesh is the creation of evil. But the love is God’s touch; it is our wish to become complete. It is our memory of God, and our sense of what we might become.”

“Do you believe all this?” he asked suddenly.

“Do you believe that God took on material form and washed away the sins that his own wishes imposed on us in the first place? That our bones will come together out of the earth when a trumpet blows? That Heaven is to be locked into our bodies for all eternity?”

“I do,” replied Olivier stoutly.

She shrugged. “Then we would say you are still in the darkness, that you understand nothing of yourself or creation. That when you do good, you cannot know it, and when you do evil you cannot stop it. You are ready for nothing, and will get what you wish, which is to stay in your prison.”

“And you?”

“I know when I do evil. I think that makes me worse than you.”

“What do you mean?”

She thought carefully. “When they came for my parents I was outside, picking berries. I heard what was going on, but did nothing. I hid, and watched them being taken away. Then I ran, and kept running. I never came to them in their prison, never brought them food. I abandoned them and left them to die knowing their daughter’s faith was so feeble she would not admit who she was or what she was. And I am still hiding and pretending.”

“Being burned alive is virtuous? What would it achieve?”

“You don’t understand. I have condemned myself to spend the rest of my life in hatred, for those who did this to my mother and father. I cannot escape it. I wished to live quietly until I died, and could at least hope that death would come soon. But then you came along, and made me want to live. Do you see?”

Olivier shook his head in bewilderment. He didn’t see at all. She stood up abruptly, took one of the candles, blew out the other, and walked away from the fire out into the small room with thick stone walls where food was kept cool. The house was small; one room downstairs and another upstairs, serving all the purposes they needed as bedroom, study, with a place to eat and sit and read and pray. There had once been a great crush, when Gersonides’s wife was alive and all his children were there, but now it was almost empty. It was warm, though, and the food was wholesome and plain. Olivier ate it eagerly and in silence. Neither was able to talk.