Now I saw that it did. Not only reality, but a depth and life that sometimes made me doubt the reality of the life I had left behind. I listened to these men as they sat about on the deck in the evenings talking of their homes as sailors all over the world do, and I found my view of life to be doubling in size.
My first attempts to join in this talk were met with hearty laughter. It was not, I soon learned, a mockery of my clumsy speech, but rather a true delight to have one more added to their numbers. Haifa dozen or so of my countrymen, realizing that the alternative was an early death at the Turkish oars, soon professed Islam and joined with us as well. I did not scorn them for their apostasy. How could I, seeing that only a statement of ten words or so stood between our two virtues? Soon we were a very merry company indeed.
One thing only I felt was missing. Saracens, you must know, never speak of their women. They are quite particular about this; it is a tenet of religion with them. Even Husayn the Syrian was different from Enrico the Venetian I had jested with earlier on the Santa Lucia in this respect. When one of the converts sought to entertain us with a tale of his adventures in an Algerian brothel, he received such a look from my friend that he let the subject fall as decidedly bad taste. From then on, we might have been a ship of monks.
Madonna Baffo and the single female companion left to her remained guarded and separate, even though this called for the construction of a sort of screen about one end of the small ship because there were no cabins. Makeshift as the bits of canvas and broken crating were, they were effective, and so, besides being unspoken of, the women were also unseen and it was possible to ignore them altogether.
For others it was possible, but not for me. One day as I happened to pass near their corner of the ship, the guard motioned to me. I remembered him as the fellow who thought Madonna Baffo was my sister. I approached and saw through a flap in the canvas that the Governor’s daughter had been trying to ask something of her captors, but without success.
Smiling more at the guard than I dared to at the girl, I asked, “What is the matter?”
“I only wanted to know,” Madonna Baffo said with extreme and sudden coldness, “where they are taking us.”
“Constantinople,” I said, full of glad tidings.
“Constantinople. I see. Thank you, Signor Veniero,” and the canvas dropped behind her.
I explained the exchange to the guard as best I could. He nodded, and we shared a good laugh over something that, without direct reference to them, might well be translated as “the simplicity of women.”
Later, however, I thought the matter over and was deeply moved to pity. There those two women had been for over a week now without any knowledge of what their future might be. What dreadful fancies must have stirred their imaginations! Now that they knew the truth, surely their fancies could be no less oppressive. Madonna Baffo had been in sight of her father’s ships and his safe harbor, but had been violently torn away. If Corfu seemed a nowhere place, then Constantinople was the end of the world, a land of barbarians and infidels.
I thought perhaps I might go and lighten her heart somewhat with assurances that it was really a grand and civilized place, actually larger than any city in Christendom, more decently policed, and wealthier, even, than Venice. But that would be telling her fairy tales she would never experience in true life. If it was the galleys and the mines for the men, it was slavery in the harems for the women. Ah, there was a thought, the pain of which I had gladly and purposely avoided until that brief interview brought it home. And when it hit, the pain was great indeed.
Still, I could not share my pain with anyone. It would not be seemly to speak of women so to the Turks—and besides, these were less than women; they were slaves; it was Allah’s will. Now I knew some of the stifle the young women suffered. It turned the pain inward, made it fester and turn to gangrene. At least they had one another to cling to. Their talk could serve as a surgeon’s lance to let infection out. I had no one. I could not even speak to Husayn, my dear and closest friend. No, I had made my choice and, like a Turk now, I must learn to be satisfied.
For days on end the doubts and fears ran like a drunken brawl through my mind. Sometimes it grew so fierce that I could no longer bear to sit among the quiet, pleasant company of sailors and I had to seek out a lonely spot to suffer it alone. The spot I found was behind some boxes and barrels of provisions.
Turks are mistrustful of the loner. For them, even the most stifling company is preferable to the terrors of solitude. That comes, Husayn once told me, from the old
