Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

Certainly he had dressed with care for the visit: red, tiara-shaped silk cap with a jewelled clip, pale-blue wide-sleeved silk gown, slashed at the shoulders to show the embroidered linen of his tunic below. But this finery served only to emphasise the grimness and stiffness of his face, with its small, deepset eyes and long nose and a mouth that was like a thin cut in a lemon. His two attendants he left outside the door, and came stalking in, no less arrogant for having been required to consign his sword to Sigismond before entering. He eyed Stefanos haughtily for a moment or two, then said, "My words are for you only, Signore."

Stefanos left without waiting to be asked, without glancing at Malfetta, saying to me that he had matters to attend to.

"Well," I said, " how can I be of service to you?"

"You permit a great deal from your clerk. He did not so much as give me good-day."

I said nothing to this. After a moment Malfetta allowed himself a smile and a truly calamitous smile it was: he had a face not constructed for smiling, the features seeming to resent the call made on them, cracking painfully only when they could resist no more. "It is a trifling matter," he said. "I hardly like to trouble you with it, but I thought your help might save me time that could then be spent on more important things."

"Please be seated," I said, and I waited while he took the chair on the other side of the desk.

"Some months ago," he said, "I had occasion to borrow a sum of money. It was a time of temporary difficulty, from which I am now happily recovered. However, this man, this money-lender, is making trouble for me."

"What was the debt?"

"Five hundred ducats."

"Full silver?" I asked, and he nodded. It was a sizeable sum. "A Jewish money-lender?"

"No, a Berber. His name is Zenega Waziri. Perhaps you know the man?"

"No, I do not know him." In fact I knew little of the Berbers of Palermo, other than that a good number had taken refuge here in recent years, having been driven from their lands by the Arabs.

Malfetta seemed disappointed. "If you knew him you would know what a scoundrel he is. He has that thick-lipped, flat-nosed look that some of them have. Negro blood there, without a doubt. He insists that I have not returned the money, when I have friends, men above suspicion, men of rank, who are ready to come forward and swear that they saw this money being handed back, principal and interest."

"And the paper, the contract, which you drew up together at the time of borrowing the money? Waziri must have returned this to you at the time you repaid the debt. He should also have given you a note, dated and signed, to acknowledge the repayment."

"There is the rub, you see. I suppose I was distracted at the time. I must have had my mind on other things." He paused, shaking his head. "A man cannot be thinking about money every moment of his life, can he? Of course, Waziri, being a man without religion, does not understand this.

We humans are midway on the ladder between angel and beast, so we are told. But it seems to me there are ladders for every kind and they each have their scales. Just as one beast may be superior to another, so it is with men. I would put Berbers on the lowest rung, along with Negroes.

Let them fight, and let the loser fall down among the beasts."

It was his second reference to Negroes. He was a vindictive man and I wondered if the greater success of the Negro acrobats, in outshining his Neapolitans, had turned him against the race as a whole. His dislike for Berbers was easier to comprehend…

"So Waziri still has the contract, and you have nothing to show in proof of repayment?"

"That is so, unfortunately, yes."

"And now he is pressing you for the money?"

"He has no shame. He is hoping to get the money twice over."

"Well, I see the plight you are in, but I do not see how we can be of help to you. It is a matter for the courts."

Malfetta leaned forward. "That is precisely why I have come to you. The Douana of Control has the ear of the judges, everyone knows that, especially in cases to do with contested wills, disputed debts, and so forth. Now judges are as various as other men. There are some with a very barren notion of justice, basing everything on scraps of paper, not admitting as relevant the excellent witnesses, Christian witnesses, that a man of my standing is able to bring forward. There are others with a broader view, who will accept the word of a man of honour against that of pagan Negroes. The trouble is, we do not know whose court we will end in. I thought you might steer my case in the right direction."

I remained silent for some moments, not quite knowing how to reply. I had no intention of doing as he asked and squandering what influence we had on such a case. Five hundred ducats was a very considerable amount of money. This Waziri would be a man of substance, if he could lend money on that scale. The Berbers kept together, there might be a family strong enough to cause trouble. Malfetta, on the other hand, could not do us harm, at least none that I could see. However, there was no sense in making an enemy of him, if it could be avoided.

The pause had been long enough for Malfetta to work up a degree of virtuous indignation. "Think of it," he said. "It almost defies belief.

A judge, professing to be a Christian of the Roman liturgy, will find in favour of a godless immigrant, ignoring the testimony of his own co-religionists! But it cannot endure long. This generation of vipers, these corrupt judges, will be swept away. People of the Latin rite are more and more numerous in Sicily, every day sees greater numbers."

"But surely these are immigrants too."

"Holy Mother of God, what are you saying? They are not immigrants, they are settlers. They are members of our community, people like us, people you can trust – in fact I never have dealings with anyone else."

"Except when borrowing money."

"Our religion forbids the breeding of money, we leave that to baser creeds."

Malfetta was attempting smiles no more. His face bore a look of great sincerity. But sincerity is not to be trusted, I had learned that in my time at the Diwan of Control if I had learned nothing else: a man is never more sincere than when he earnestly wants to be believed. What would Yusuf do? He was still my model. He would engage Mafetta in discussion of a more general nature, reach some accord of opinion, part on amicable terms so that his good offices would be taken on trust without his needing to make assurances, then do nothing.

"In the Sicily of today," I said, "a judge should be of all religions, or none. But I do not believe it is primarily a matter of religion.

Judges are attentive to documents because documents have material existence and the law does not, so they save themselves from nullity by grasping one, like clutching at a straw in a sea of abstraction. It can be anything, a witness, a weapon, a wound. And proceeding from this…"

What had begun as a means of distracting him ended by engaging my interest, there was paradox in it, this importance of the object in a system so codified. "Even proof itself is thought of as weight or mass,"

I said. "We speak of the burden of proof, onus probandi, and this comes from the law of the Romans, which we have inherited. The weight of proving a controversial assertion falls on the shoulders of him who makes it. I would be interested to hear your opinion on this."

"It is Waziri who is making the controversial assertion," he said.

"No, excuse me, it is you. Waziri is simply demanding that you fulfil your agreement."

"But I have fulfilled it."

"Listen," I said, "a document is not a controversial assertion, and Waziri has the document."

"Ah, so we come back to that."

I think he saw that he was not getting far with me, for he now played what he clearly felt to be his winning card. "You owe me something, your douana."