The Confusion Read online

  "May I infer, from this, that insurance fraud is a common failing of slave-owners?"

  "Some of them are completely unethical," Moseh confided. "So I was ordered to lead the hoca el-pencik back to the banyolar and show him your body—but not before I was made to wait for hours and hours in his courtyard, as midday came and went, and the hoca el-pencik took a siesta under the lime-tree there. Finally we went to the banyolar—but in the meantime your wagon had been moved to the burial-ground of the Janissaries."

  "Why!? I'm no more a Janissary than you are."

  "Sssh! So I had gathered, Jack, from several years of being chained up next to you, and hearing your autobiographical ravings: stories that, at first, were simply too grotesque to believe—then, entertaining after a fashion—then, after the hundredth or thousandth repetition—"

  "Stay. No doubt you have tedious and insufferable qualities of your own, Moseh de la Cruz, but you have me at a disadvantage, as I cannot remember them. What I want to know is, why did they think I was a Janissary?"

  "The first clew was that you carried a Janissary-sword when you were captured."

  "Proceeds of routine military corpse-looting, nothing more."

  "The second: you fought with such valor that your want of skill was quite overlooked."

  "I was trying to get myself killed, or else would've shown less of the former, and more of the latter."

  "Third: the unnatural state of your penis was interpreted as a mark of strict chastity—"

  "Correct, perforce!"

  "—and assumed to've been self-administered."

  "Haw! That's not how it happened at all—"

  "Stay," Moseh said, shielding his face behind both hands.

  "I forgot, you've heard."

  "Fourth: the Arabic numeral seven branded on the back of your hand."

  "I'll have you know that's a letter V, for Vagabond."

  "But sideways it could be taken for a seven."

  "How does that make me a Janissary?"

  "When a new recruit takes the oath and becomes yeni yoldash, which is the lowliest rank, his barrack number is tattooed onto the back of his hand, so it can be known which seffara he belongs to, and which bash yoldash is responsible for him."

  "All right—so 'twas assumed I'd come up from barracks number seven in some Ottoman garrison-town somewhere."

  "Just so. And yet you were clearly out of your mind, and not good for much besides pulling on an oar, so it was decided you'd remain tutsaklar until you died, or regained your senses. If the former, you'd receive a Janissary funeral."

  "What about the latter?"

  "That remains to be seen. As it was, we thought it was the former. So we went to the high ground outside the city-walls, to the burial-ground of the ocak—"

  "Come again?"

  "Ocak: a Turkish order of Janissaries, modeled after the Knights of Rhodes. They rule over Algiers, and are a law and society unto themselves here."

  "Is that man coming over to hit us with the bull's penis a part of this ocak?"

  "No. He works for the corsair-captain who owns the galley. The corsairs are yet another completely different society unto themselves."

  After the Turk had finished giving Jack and Moseh several bracing strokes of the bull's penis, and had wandered away to go beat up on some other barnacle-scrapers, Jack invited Moseh to continue the story.

  "The hoca el-pencik and several of his aides and I went to that place. And a bleak place it was, Jack, with its countless tombs, mostly shaped like half-eggshells, meant to evoke a village of yurts on the Transoxianan Steppe—the ancestral homeland for which Turks are forever homesick—though, if it bears the slightest resemblance to that burying-ground, I cannot imagine why. At any rate, we roamed up and down among these stone yurts for an hour, searching for your corpse, and were about to give up, for the sun was going down, when we heard a muffled, echoing voice repeating some strange incantation, or prophecy, in an outlandish tongue. Now the hoca el-pencik was on edge to begin with, as this interminable stroll through the graveyard had put him in mind of daimons and ifrits and other horrors. When he heard this voice, coming (as we soon realized) from a great mausoleum where a murdered agha had been entombed, he was about to bolt for the city gates. So were his aides. But as they had with them one who was not only a slave, but a Jew to boot, they sent me into that tomb to see what would happen."

  "And what did happen?"

  "I found you, Jack, standing upright in that ghastly, but delightfully cool space, pounding on the lid of the agha's sarcophagus and repeating certain English words. I knew not what they meant, but they went something like this: ‘Be a good fellow there, sirrah, and bring me a pint of your best bitter!' "

  "I must have been out of my head," Jack muttered, "for the light lagers of Pilsen are much better suited to this climate."

  "You were still daft, but there was a certain spark about you that I had not seen in a year or two—certainly not since we were traded to Algiers. I suspected that the heat of your fever, compounded with the broiling radiance of the midday sun, under which you'd lain for many hours, had driven the French Pox out of your body. And indeed you have been a little more lucid every day since."

  "What did the hoca el-pencik think of this?"

  "When you walked out, you were naked, and sunburnt as red as a boiled crab, and there was speculation that you might be some species of ifrit. I have to tell you that the Turks have superstitions about everything, and most especially about Jews—they believe we have occult powers, and of late the Cabbalists have done much to foster such phant'sies. In any event, matters were soon enough sorted out. Our owner received one hundred strokes, with a cane the size of my thumb, on the soles of his feet, and vinegar was poured over the resulting wounds."

  "Eeyeh, give me the bull's penis any day!"

  "It's expected he may be able to stand up again in a month or two. In the meanwhile, as we wait out the equinoctial storms, we are careening and refitting our galley, as is obvious enough."

  DURING THIS NARRATION Jack had been looking sidelong at the other galley-slaves, and had found them to be an uncommonly diverse and multi-cultural lot: there were black Africans, Europeans, Jews, Indians, Asiatics, and many others he could not clearly sort out. But he did not see anyone he recognized from the complement of God's Wounds.

  "What of Yevgeny, and Mr. Foot? To speak poetically: have insurance claims been paid on them?"

  "They are on the larboard oar. Yevgeny pulls with the strength of two men, and Mr. Foot pulls not at all—which makes them more or less inseparable, in the context of a well-managed galley."

  "So they live!"

  "Live, and thrive—we'll see them later."

  "Why aren't they here, scraping barnacles like the rest of us?" Jack demanded peevishly.

  "In Algiers, during the winter months, when galleys dare not venture out on the sea, oar-slaves are permitted—nay, encouraged—to pursue trades. Our owner receives a share of the earnings. Those who have no skills scrape barnacles."

  Jack found this news not altogether pleasing, and assaulted a barnacle-cluster with such violence that he nearly stove in the boat's hull. This quickly drew a reprimand—and not from the Turkish whip-hand, but from a short, stocky, red-headed galley-slave on Jack's other side. "I don't care if you're crazy—or pretend to be—you keep that hull seaworthy, lest we all go down!" he barked, in an English that was half Dutch. Jack was a head taller than this Hollander, and considered making something of it—but he didn't imagine that their overseer would look kindly on a fracas, when mere talking was a flogging offense. Besides, there was a rather larger chap standing behind the carrot-top, who was eyeing Jack with the same expression: skeptical bordering on disgusted. This latter appeared to be a Chinaman, but he was not of the frail, cringing sort. Both he and the Hollander looked troublingly familiar.

  "Put some slack into your haul-yards, there, shorty—you ain't the owner, nor the captain—as long as she stays afloat, what's a little dent o
r scratch to us?"

  The Dutchman shook his head incredulously and went back to work on a single barnacle, which he was dissecting off a hull-clinker as carefully as a chirurgeon removing a stone from a Grand Duke's bladder.

  "Thank you for not making a scene," Moseh said, "it is important that we maintain harmony on the starboard oar."

  "Those are our oar-mates?"

  "Yes, and the fifth is in town pursuing his trade."

  "Well, why is it so important to remain on good terms with them?"

  "Other than that we must share a crowded bench with them eight months out of the year, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "We must all pull together if we are to maintain parity with the larboard oar."

  "What if we don't?"

  "The galley will—"

  "Yes, yes, it'll go in circles. But why should we care?"

  "Aside from that the skin will be whipped off our ribcages by that bull's pizzle?"

  "I take that as a given."

  "Oars come in matched sets. As matters stand, we have parity with the larboard oar, and therefore constitute a matched set of ten slaves. We were traded to our current owner as such. But if Yevgeny and his bench-mates begin to out-pull us, we'll be split up—your friends will end up in different galleys, or even different cities."

  "It'd serve 'em right."

  "Pardon me?"

  "Pardon me," Jack said, "but here we are on this fucking beach. And I may be a crazy Vagabond, but you appear to be an educated Jew, and that Dutchman is a ship's officer if ever there was one, and God only knows about that Chinaman—"

  "Nipponese actually, but trained by the Jesuits."

  "All right, then—this only supports my point."

  "And your point is—?"

  "What can Yevgeny and Mr. Foot possibly have that we don't?"

  "They've formed a sort of enterprise wherein Yevgeny is Labor, and Mr. Foot is Management. Its exact nature is difficult to explain. Later, it will become clear to you. In the meantime, it's imperative that the ten of us remain together!"

  "What possible reason could you have for giving a damn whether we stay together?"

  "During the last several years of touring the Mediterranean behind an oar, I have been developing, secretly, in my mind, a Plan," said Moseh de la Cruz. "It is a plan that will bring all ten of us wealth, and then freedom, though possibly not in that order."

  "Does armed mutiny enter into this plan? Because—"

  Moseh rolled his eyes.

  "I was simply trying to imagine what rôle a man such as myself could possibly have in any Plan—leastways, any Plan that was not invented by a raving Lunatick."

  "It is a question I frequently asked myself, until today. Some earlier versions of the Plan, I must admit, involved throwing you overboard as soon as it was practicable. But today when fifteen hundred guns spoke from the three-tiered batteries of the Peñon and the frowning towers of the Kasba, some lingering obstructions were, it seems, finally knocked loose inside your head, and you were put back into your right mind again—or as close to it as is really possible. And now, Jack, you do have a rôle in the Plan."

  "And am I allowed to know the nature of this rôle?"

  "Why, you'll be our Janissary."

  "But I am not a—"

  "Hold, hold! You see that fellow scraping barnacles?"

  "Which one? There must be a hundred."

  "The tall fellow, Arab-looking with a touch of Negro; which is to say Egyptian."

  "I see him."

  "That is Nyazi—one of the larboard crew."

  "He's a Janissary?"

  "No, but he's spent enough time around them that he can teach you to fake your way through it. Dappa—the black man, there—can teach you a few words of Turkish. And Gabriel—that Nipponese Jesuit—is a brave swordsman. He'll bring you up to par in no time."

  "Why, exactly, does this plan demand a fake Janissary?"

  "Really it demands a real one," Moseh sighed, "but in life one must make do with the materials at hand."

  "My question is not answered."

  "Later—when we are all together—I'll explain."

  Jack laughed. "You speak like a courtier, in honeyed euphemisms. When you say ‘together,' it means what? Chained together by our neck-irons in some rat-filled dungeon 'neath that Kasba?"

  "Run your hand over the skin of your neck, Jack, and tell me: Does it feel like you've been wearing an iron collar recently?"

  "Now that you mention it—no."

  "Quitting time is nigh—then we'll go into the city and find the others."

  "Haw! Just like that? Like free men?" Jack said, as well as much more in a similar vein. But an hour later, a strange wailing arose from several tall square towers planted all round the city, and a single gun was fired from the heights of the Kasba, and then all of the slaves put their scrapers down and began to wander off down the beach in groups of two or three. Seven whom Moseh had identified as belonging to the two Oars of his Plan tarried for a minute until all were ready to depart; the Dutchman, van Hoek, did not wish to leave until he was good and finished.

  Moseh noticed a dropped hatchet, frowned, picked it up, and brushed away the damp sand. Then his eyes began to wander about, looking for a place to put it. Meanwhile he began to toss the hatchet absent-mindedly in his hand. Because its weight was all in its head, the handle flailed around wildly as it revolved in the air. But Moseh always caught it neatly on its way down. Presently his gaze fastened on one of the old dried-up tree-trunks that had been jammed into the sand, and used to prop up the galley so that its hull was exposed. He stared fixedly at this target whilst tossing the hatchet one, two, three more times, then suddenly drew the tool far back behind his head, stuck his tongue out, paused for a moment, then let the hatchet fly. It executed a single lazy revolution while hurtling across several fathoms of air, then stopped in an instant, one corner of its blade buried in the wood of the tree-trunk, high and dry.

  The seven oar-slaves clambered up onto the footing of the colossal wall and made for the city gate. Jack followed along with the crowd, though he could not help hunching his shoulders, expecting to feel the whip across his back. But no stroke came. As he approached the gates he stood straighter and walked more freely, and sensed a group coalescing around him and Moseh: the irritable Dutchman, the Nipponese Jesuit, a black African with ropy locks of hair, the Egyptian named Nyazi, and a middle-aged Spaniard who seemed to be afflicted with some sort of spasmodic disorder. As they passed through the city gates, this fellow turned and shouted something at the Janissaries who were standing guard there. Jack didn't get every word of the Spanish, but it was something like, "Listen to me, you boy-fucking heathen scum, we have all formed a secret cabal!" Which was not exactly what Jack would've said under the circumstances—but Moseh and the others only exchanged broad, knowing grins with the Janissaries, and into the city they went: Den of Thieves, Nest of Wasps, Scourge of Christendom, Citadel of the Faith.

  THE MAIN STREET of Algiers was uncommonly broad, and yet crowded with Turks sitting out smoking tobacco from fountain-sized hubbly-bubblies, but Jack, Moseh, and the other slaves did not spend very much time there. Moseh darted through a pointy keyhole-arch so narrow that he had to turn sideways, and led the others into a roofless corridor of stone that was not much wider, forcing them to go in single file, and to plaster themselves up against walls whenever someone came towards them. It felt much like being in a back-hallway of some ancient building, save that when Jack looked up he could see a splinter of sky glaring between blank walls that rose ten to twenty yards above his head. Ladders and bridges had been set up between rooftops, joining the city's terraces and roof-gardens into a private net-work strung high up above the ground. Sometimes Jack would see a black-swathed form flit from one side to the other. It was difficult to get a clear look at them, for they were dark and furtive as bats, but they seemed to be wearing the same sort of garment as Eliza had when Jack had met her beneath Vienna, and, in any even
t, from the way they moved he could tell they were women.

  Down in the street—if that word could even be used for a passage as strait as this one—there were no women. Of men there was a marvelous variety. The Janissaries who made up the ocak were easy to recognize—some had a Greek or Slavic appearance, but most had an Asiatic look about the eyes, and all went in splendid clothing: baggy pleated trousers, belted with a sash that supported all manner of pistols, scimitars, daggers, purses, tobacco-pouches, pipes, and even pocket-watches. Over a loose shirt, one or more fancy vests, used as a sort of display-case for ribbons of lace, gold pins, swatches of fine embroidery. A turban on the top, pointy-toed slippers below, sometimes a long cape thrown over the whole. Thus the ocak, who were afforded never so much respect by all who passed them in the street. Algiers was crowded with many other sorts: mostly the Moors and Berbers whose ancestors had lived here before the Turks had come to organize the place. These tended to wear long one-piece cloaks, or else raiments that were just many fathoms of fabric swirled round the body and held in place by clever tricks with pins and sashes. There was a smattering of Jews, always dressed in black, and quite a few Europeans wearing whatever had been fashionable in their homelands when they'd decided to turn Turk.

  Some of these white men looked just as à la mode as the young gallants who'd made it their business to pester Eliza at the Maiden in Amsterdam, but too there was the occasional geezer tottering down a staircase in a neck-ruff, Pilgrim-hat, and van Dyck. "Jesus!" Jack exclaimed, observing one of the latter, "why are we slaves, and that old moth a respected citizen?"

  The question only befuddled everyone except for the rope-headed African, who laughed and shook his head. "It is very dangerous to ask certain questions," he said. "I should know."

  "Who're you then, and how came you to speak better English than I?"

  "I am named Dappa. I was—am—a linguist."

  "That means not a thing to me," Jack said, "but as we are nothing more than a brace of slaves wandering around lost in a heathen citadel, I don't suppose there's any harm in hearing some sort of reasonably concise explanation."