Moliwda would like to examine his life now with a certain distance, like these Jews from Poland he’s met here. By day they do what they’re supposed to, focused and always in good moods. In the evenings, they converse without pause. At first, he eavesdrops—they assume he cannot understand. They’re Jews and yet Moliwda feels so close to them. He even wonders, quite seriously, if it might be that the air, the light, the water—nature—just sort of settle into a person, so that those raised in the same country must bear similarities to one another, even when everything divides them.
He likes Nahman best. Clever and talkative, he knows how to twist things around in a debate to prove any assertion, even the most absurd. He also knows how to ask questions that astonish Moliwda-Kossakowski. Nonetheless, he sees that the vast knowledge and intelligence of these people gets used up in bizarre word games, of which he has only the most general idea. One time he buys a basket of olives and a large jug of wine and goes to visit them. They eat the olives, spitting the pits under the feet of passersby who are running late, for dusk is coming; the heat of Smyrna, sticky, moist, is loosening its grip somewhat. Then the oldest of the men, Reb Mordke, begins to lecture on the soul. It is in effect in three parts, he says. The lowest part—the hungering part, the desiring part, the part that gets cold—that is nefesh. That part animals have, too.
“Soma,” says Moliwda.
“The higher part, that’s the spirit, ruah. That part animates our thoughts, makes us become good people.”
“Psyche,” throws in Moliwda.
“While the third part, the very highest part—that’s neshama.”
“Pneuma!” Moliwda exclaims. “What a fine discovery for me!”
Reb Mordke, unruffled, goes on:
“This is the truly holy soul, which only a good holy husband and Kabbalist can obtain; and one gets it only by delving into the mystery of Torah. Thanks to that we can view the hidden nature of the world and of God, for it is a spark that chipped off Binah, the divine intellect. Only nefesh is capable of sin. Ruah and neshama are impeccable.”
“Since neshama is God’s spark in man, how can God punish us for our sins with hell? If he did, wouldn’t he be punishing himself as well, in particle form?” asks Moliwda, a little overexcited by the wine. With this question he gets the attention of both of his companions. All three of them know the answer to this question. Wherever there is God—the great God, the greatest God—there is neither sin nor any feeling of guilt. Only the little gods produce sin, similar to how dishonest craftsmen counterfeit coins.
After their work for the Trinitarians, they sit down in the kahvehane; Moliwda has learned to take pleasure in drinking bitter coffee and smoking long Turkish pipes.
Moliwda takes part in the payment of 600 zlotys by way of ransom for Piotr Andruszewicz of Buczacz, and another of 450 zlotys for Anna of Popielawy, who spent a few years at the court of Hussein Bayraktar of Smyrna. He remembers their names because he wrote up the purchasing agreements, in Turkish and in Polish. He knows the prices paid for people here in Smyrna: for one Tomasz Cybulski, a forty-six-year-old nobleman, quartermaster of the Jab?onowski regiment, in captivity for ten years, they paid the great sum of 2,700 zlotys and sent him straight to Poland, under escort. For some children they paid 618 zlotys each; for Jan, an old man, the price was just 18 zlotys. Jan comes from Opatów and weighs about as much as a goat; he spent his whole life in Turkish captivity, and now, it seems, he doesn’t have anyone left in Poland to go back to; still, he’s overjoyed. Moliwda watches the old man’s tears flow down his face, made swarthy by the sun, wrinkled. Moliwda also pays careful attention to Anna, who is a mature woman now. He likes the imperiousness and pride with which she treats the Trinitarians and himself, the translator. He can’t understand why a rich Turk would get rid of this beautiful woman. Judging by what she has told Moliwda, he promised her her freedom out of love, because she was homesick. In a few days she is to board a ship to Salonika, and then travel over land to Poland. Moliwda, possessed by some incomprehensible passion, tempted by her white, abundant body, once more throws all caution to the wind and agrees to the insane escape plan she proposes instead. Anna Popielawska does not intend to return to Poland at all, not to some boring estate somewhere in Polesia. Moliwda doesn’t even have time to say goodbye to his friends. They flee on horseback to a small port city north of Smyrna, and there, with Moliwda’s money, they rent a home from a Christian woman, the wife of a Greek merchant, where for two weeks they give themselves over to every form of delight. They spend their afternoons on the expansive balcony that looks out over the waterfront, where every day at around this time the Turkish agha passes by with his janissaries. The janissaries have white feathers in their caps, and their commander wears a purple coat lined with a thin silver fabric that shines in the sun like the belly of a fish just tossed up onto the shore.
In the heat, on the balconies, Anna Popielawska and Moliwda lie out on ottomans, catching the eyes of the young men who strain and flex before them. They are a previously unimaginable sight for the Turks. This is how the blond Anna Popielawska catches the eye of that agha. A short conversation starts up between the two of them one afternoon while Moliwda is reading inside the house, in the shade. The next day she vanishes along with all of the money Moliwda had saved from his work with the Trinitarians.
Moliwda goes back to Smyrna, but the Trinitarians already have another dragoman, and the two endlessly conversing Jews have gone. He signs on to a ship’s crew and goes back to Greece.
Looking out at the marine horizon, hearing the splash of waves hitting the sides of the hull, he becomes amenable to recollection. Thoughts and images come together in long ribbons; he could look at them closely and see what comes out. He remembers his childhood. Those years seem stiff to him, like the starched dress shirts his aunt prepared for him and his brothers on Easter, the roughness that took days to surrender to the warmth of the body and its sweat.
Moliwda always reflects on his childhood when he finds himself at sea—he doesn’t know why. Evidently the water’s limitlessness makes him feel a little dizzy; he has to grasp at something.