The Convert Read online

  It’s pitch-dark around them, the deepest hour of the night. The Great Bear has drifted out of heaven’s dome. From somewhere, an owl’s melancholy cry. A few vague stars twinkle between the silent, wind-ruffled leaves. Something is moving, not far from her, she is cold, her whole body shivering. Then a figure teeters over her, dark and swaying. This is my death, she thinks. She hears panting. Only then does she recognise David. He falls again, next to her, they clasp hands, lie that way till morning.

  The cold awakens them. The mutilated bodies next to theirs send them scrambling to their feet in confusion. The man feels the sting of his stab wounds, the woman the burning and chafing of the rape inside her. They stand shivering in the dew, then stagger a few metres away from the horror. Their mule is gone and their bags along with it. The wallet of silver coins still hangs from David’s belt. They sink to the ground again, lie there till the sun brings warmth. ‘Warmth of the dew,’ he says, a long time after. ‘In Hebrew, that’s a girl’s name: Hamoutal. That will be your new name, when you have your Jewish baptism: Hamoutal, warmth of the dew. He tries to embrace her; she twists out of his arms with a raw sob. Saying nothing, she stares at the passing clouds. Through her head runs an old prayer she dares not say aloud. Lustrous bluebottle flies are already buzzing around the giant’s corpse.

  7

  Something inside them has snapped. They shamble on, broken and exhausted, to a large farmhouse where the farmer treats them with a herbal balm and shows them to a couple of hard benches where they can rest. They answer his questions in one or two words, unable to string whole sentences together. When he hears who stabbed David, he crosses himself three times and mumbles something they can’t make out, except for the word Samule. David asks what he means by that, but the farmer shakes his head in a vigorous no, places his gnarled index finger over his mouth, and looks at them wide-eyed with warning.

  They sit on a bench staring ahead till night falls. At some point, they notice their mule grazing in the field in front of the farmhouse, unflustered, the full bags still strapped to its sides.

  Vigdis has nightmares. The next day she wakes with a fever; her whole body trembles. She knows nothing about infections but can feel that something in her pelvis is burning. Days go by before she begins to recover; David stays with her, his injuries healing. Only his wrist still bears a festering wound where the knife went into it. He cares for her and for himself. They bathe in infusions of herbs that the farmer’s wife gathers on their instructions. They drink broth and eat chicken; Vigdis vomits it all back up.

  After a week David finds her kneeling next to the hard bed, beset by fears and surrendering to the prayers of her youth, her fine lace undergarment stained by her dingy surroundings, her blood and her recurring fits of sweating, her hands folded and shaking, a rosary looped around her thin wrists, weeping: she wants to go back home, she can’t do this, it’s too much, she can’t betray her God, it’s all impossible, it’s pride, and this is her brutal punishment for denying the God of her parents, in fact she deserves to die, she should join a convent to atone for her sins, the Devil will find her. David remains silent, kneels beside her, murmurs a Jewish prayer, closes his eyes, stays there by her side. Then says, There’s no way back. If you ever return to Rouen you’ll be burned as a heretic. She stands up without words, lies down on the bed, stretches out, and remains there motionless as an effigy on a Gothic tomb, her arms alongside her frail body. She hardly breathes. She shuts her eyes.

  They are more than halfway there. The fields are barren; the scents of the north gradually give way to drier southern smells. There are small farmhouses roofed with primitive slabs of shale or thick layers of thatch, and now and then fences braided from supple willow branches, inside which goats and sheep or a few pigs roam. Then once again there is nothing at all but land, a road pocked with bumps and hollows, an old maple tree under which they rest, a ruin with a mean, growling dog. Then the dark wooded slopes of the Auvergne rise up ahead. Almost from one day to the next, it turns damp and chilly in the shade. They search for level routes through valleys and passes but sometimes have no choice but to go up or down a steep incline where their mule must feel its way forward, step by step. Near the Church of Saint-Éloy, they run into a huge boar snorting and churning the soil with its head. It looks up, startled, and charges; they flee into the church.

  The road winds left and right, up and down. A light mist shrouds the forbidding gorge carved by the Sioule. The next day, the ground beneath their feet is black with volcanic ash. Here and there they stumble upon a menhir and don’t know what to make of it. They move on. Small churches are often a refuge for the doubt-ridden woman, who has fallen silent. Then one day they see Clermont’s two Romanesque churches in the distance. They fall into each other’s arms and take heart again.

  8

  By evening, I am driving into the city of Clermont-Ferrand. The heat is still oppressive, cars swarm out of the market halls and supermarchés, it’s hard to find a parking spot, I’m hungry and tired. Walking out of the parking garage, I see the black volcanic stone of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption looming ahead. This is not one of the Romanesque churches the two fugitives saw. A century before Vigdis and David arrived here, her Viking forefathers had destroyed the city’s holy places. By the time the two of them reached Clermont, three successive churches had been erected on this site; they saw the third, built at the behest of Bishop Stephen II. Today’s cathedral dates from three centuries later, but the tenth-century crypt has been preserved, though I won’t have the chance to see it for myself. It’s open to visitors for just one hour on Wednesdays; the old God must know why. The cathedral’s lofty interior is too crowded; I step back outside. Among the paving stones are metal plaques depicting Vercingetorix and Pope Urban II.

  I search for the Basilica of Notre-Dame-du-Port and find it in a small, enclosed square. The great age of the church is apparent from the fact that you have to descend more than ten steps, well below street level. What you find when you enter is stunning. The interior is tinged a surprising shade of light yellow; despite its brightness, the architecture is massive. The rays of evening sun fill the space as if it were new and weightless; there’s something Byzantine about it. The basic structure dates back to the sixth century, but the church was rebuilt in the eleventh after being torched by Normans. It must have been a meaningful, poignant place for Vigdis, stirring up all her conflicting feelings anew. The church is so exceptional that in 1998 UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List.

  I look around in amazement at the short, squat columns on the upper level of the central dome, and at the contrast between the massive pillars and the allegorical scenes in relief on their grey stone capitals. Austere chandeliers hang low like the outlines of six-petalled flowers, almost reminiscent of a synagogue. The stained-glass windows are intact and filter the light in a hushed, mystical way. A basin of holy water protrudes from one wall, so massive, dark and old that I feel new hope of touching something Vigdis once touched.

  The sense of standing at a momentous crossroads becomes overpowering as I descend into the crypt. I picture the young refugee coming here to pray for the last time, to ask forgiveness for her conversion. She knows that soon enough she’ll be immersed in the mikveh, the ritual bath, and become Jewish, and she knows she can’t go home again. David is waiting outside; he has Jewish acquaintances in the city, people he met on his way to Rouen, and he knows that Vigdis must find her own resolution here. This is where Hamoutal must begin to say farewell to Vigdis Adelaïs.

  But what she cannot know is that this crypt is the very place where, several years later, Pope Urban II will come to pray, the day before he goes to the fields outside Clermont – now taken over by supermarkets and petrol stations – to make his historic speech calling for the First Crusade. This will have the incidental, irreversible effect of ruining her life in the distant village in Vaucluse.

  After the Rouen yeshiva, this crypt, with its columns more than a thousand year
s old, is the second place where I’ve come so close to what she saw and touched. One building is Jewish and the other Christian, but they stem from the same uncompromising age, built in the same spirit. Long before those tall, impressive Gothic churches, there was this austere, fundamental intimacy, which offers a strange consolation and shelter from the slaughter, fanaticism, poverty, misery and riot outside the doors, from malodour and decay, from all the foulness of the world that has left her scarred, from the whole of that violent, volatile, irresistible life that has brought her to this place – here it falls silent, here the stone of the basilica reaches out a hand to the stone of the Rouen yeshiva, and makes her realise how truly she is driven by love, by passion for the man who is waiting for her somewhere in this city. She forgets time, sinks into thought, and feels everything come to rest.

  An hour later, she bobs back up into the light of the evening sun. She is walking a few metres ahead of me in black leggings, a light blue shirt and white trainers. She sees the crowd; she smells the stupor of the present. She enters a tall dark house, takes her lover’s hand and feels encouraged. A few more weeks and they’ll be in Narbonne. The twilight is brief and warm.

  I spend the night in an old castle south-east of Clermont. Château des Martinanches is a dark and somewhat dismal building, some of which dates back to the eleventh century. It lies hidden in the wooded depths, encircled by a canal partly lined with stones from an earlier building. The forests of the Auvergne are dark and lonely.

  9

  David and Vigdis have now arrived in the Cantal region. Sometimes he affectionately calls her Hamoutal, though she’ll have a different, official Hebrew name after immersion in the mikveh. She responds with a shake of her head and a half-smile, putting a playful finger to his lips: Narbonne is still far away, she says.

  They see Saint-Flour ahead, a fortified town on a high rock. Something tells them not to enter, even though they cannot know that a few days earlier Norman knights passed this way and gave out their description. Clouds of butterflies and moths: peacocks, red admirals, hawkmoths, blues. Bee-eaters come out in flocks, swerving silhouettes with translucent wings against the hot blue sky.

  They follow the bank of the Alleuze for a while, to the Bès river gorge, which they cross. Before nightfall they have reached the abbey in Nasbinals. As fugitives, they are entitled to spend the night at the monastery of Saint-Victor de Marseille. The next day they hike through the Aveyron region, passing the hill of Severus, named after its sixth-century Roman owner. The landscape opens up again; they are moving faster every day.

  Not long afterwards, they stand at the confluence of the Tarn and the Dourbie, just before arriving in Millau. There they stock up on fresh provisions, cross the Tarn and make their way through the hills, where the road rises again. They must continue due south. They track the position of the sun and sometimes stop around noon to nap under an oak tree. Each day, the heat grows more intense.

  Almost ten centuries later, I drive across the spectacular bridge high above Millau. It feels like flying over the valley in a miniature plane. Below, like tiny insects, they plod onward, past the Millau Valley now and searching their difficult way through the Causses. The pastures are dotted with rocks and boulders; there is fierce light, stinging sun, small white clouds dispersed by the hot wind soon after sunrise, arid grassland, low shrubs, palm trees, juniper bushes, wild apricots, undergrowth. Hérault is close by, and David is feverish with excitement. They no longer travel in the afternoon now, but only in the morning, from the first hint of dawn to around eleven. Then they rest and eat, sleep until late afternoon, move on in the early evening, and stop at dark. Near Larzac, monks are hauling large stones for an abbey or hospital.

  In the little village of Lunas, near the banks of the Orb, they rest for a few days. Just north of the village is a sixth-century church dedicated to St George. They sit down on a few Roman stones. Below, on the riverbank, a church of St Peter is being built. They hear the slow, tired rhythm of the stonemasons. Vigdis describes the churches of her childhood and how the Christian faith filled her with awe. David lays his hand on hers. He has a distant cousin here, who puts them up for a few days. They gather their strength for the unknown adventure awaiting them. From Lunas, they more or less follow the course of the Orb to Bédarieux, where for the first time the landscape becomes truly southern. At every step, swarms of locusts fly out of the dry grass on colourful wings. Just before they reach Bédarieux, they pass underneath the large Roman aqueduct, still in use in their time. David is in high spirits and relieved to feel the southern heat again; for him, this climate is a homecoming. The young northern woman finds it harder to adjust. So much is unfamiliar: she’s never heard the chirping of the cicadas before, the scent of thyme and rosemary is sharp and bracing. She smells and tastes wild fennel for the first time, and something like homesickness mixes with jittery anticipation.

  France has cast its spell on me: I’m behind schedule. To avoid a traffic jam, I drive through the sheltered Alagnon river valley, turn onto a still narrower road, and find myself in the tiny village of Blesle. Time comes to a halt again. Water murmurs behind small kitchen gardens; in the graveyard, lizards guard the souls of the dead; one old church has its doors open. Cool air, blue light. Ah, this is what I’m meant to see here; my detour has put me back on track, their ancient trail is under my feet. There’s an ageing cartwright, who has a covered wagon for them. They buy it for a song; the man harnesses their reluctant mule and invites them to join him for supper. They feast on bread, vegetables and clear water and feel themselves breathe freely again, as do I. In the Abbey of Saint-Pierre, a convent, they pay for lodging; no one asks who they are.

  I return to exploring the streets, drawing deep breaths. History is out here for the taking, a skittish thing, like a patch of light with a human shape, surrounded by dark, lost lives. Look, David scrapes his hand on a thick wall; it’s not serious, but it swells and bothers him. They leave in their new wagon, rattling over the bumps and potholes in the old roads. They are a half-day’s journey ahead of me. In that time, they could travel about the length of this line of cars inching along the hot highway.

  A few days later, near the present location of Octon, they sleep amid unkempt vineyards in a kind of barn, a large building open on the south side, where the Salagou reservoir is today. A cooling breeze blows through it; they see the stars through the holes in the roof and curl up in stale straw. They nod off to the sound of wolfhounds howling in the distance. In the middle of the night, they hear voices. Vigdis, awake in a flash, shakes David’s shoulder. The voices are rough, boozy and full of laughter, coming ever closer. What David does then is nothing short of absurd; his fear brings it welling up out of him. He barks, loud and gruff like a wild dog, growling and howling like a man possessed. He sits upright, and the noises he makes become more and more alarming. A devil seems to have taken hold of him. When he stops, he can hear the men walking away again, talking in low voices. He slumps back into the straw; Vigdis lays her hand on his thumping chest. It’s been a long time, but they make cautious, tentative love, moving against each other in silence, slow and subdued, half undressed, pulling their clothes awkwardly out of the way.

  The next day, as they pass Béziers heading west in the late sun, dusk comes sooner than expected. Not long after that, the darkness is complete – gone are the long northern twilights of her childhood. It takes them a while to find shelter; they grope their way towards a fire in the distance till at last they reach a group of drunk fishermen. One of the voices sounds familiar from the night before. Ha ha, a tall thin man says, there’s a fine-looking thing. Isn’t that the blonde bitch those two knights were asking about yesterday? The fishermen point the way to a barn, shouting obscenities. They walk on past, afraid the men will come after them in the night. A couple of kilometres further, they find a deserted reed hut where they fall fast asleep as the warm wind blows through the crevices. Around them, pine trees rustle. The wind is mild and tastes of salt.
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  They awaken with a start at first light to the braying of a wild ass next to the hut. Vigdis’s body burns with the knowledge that today they will reach their journey’s end. Excited, they take to the road. Later that day they pass the Oppidum d’Ensérune. Even there, so close to their destination, they must remain on guard. They’ve heard tell of the blood feud between the supporters of Raymond Bérenger and those of the vicomtes of Carcassonne. Vicomtesse Ermengarde was in power in their day. There is unrest in these parts; the Peace of God has been imposed but is often breached. The fugitives avoid contact with the locals. David is well informed about this conflict, which goes back several decades and has led to disputes even in Narbonne and Barcelona. His excitement grows; he is on familiar terrain. In a few hours, he will be home and can introduce his blonde, Christian, Norman fiancée to his Jewish family. But instead of cheering him up, this thought sobers and worries him. He is tense, squeezing her tight every time they stop to rest, as if trying to protect her from what’s coming. After another ten kilometres or so, they bathe on the banks of the Aude. They are nearly there. Every horseman they hear in the distance sends them racing into the trees for cover. A church tower gradually comes into sight in the flat landscape, shimmering in the hot, salty air. Cicadas screech in the dry branches above them.

  They sell the small black mule to a merchant and take a ferry across the slow-flowing Aude. On the other side, they find another, smaller boat, which carries them to the waterway in the heart of the old city, later known as the Canal de la Robine. This is where Vigdis, stepping out of the boat with shaky legs, overheated and tired, first sees, on the bank by the market, the famous Chief Rabbi Richard Todros, le Roi aux Juifs de Narbonne, the man who will become her father-in-law. And the moment she sees him, she knows she has become Hamoutal for the rest of her days.