Niketas sighed, climbed down, had someone find a basket with a string, filled it with bread, cooked greens, olives, and pieces of meat; one of Theophilactus’s sons threw the string up, Baudolino caught it, and drew up the basket. He took only the bread and olives, and gave back the rest. “Now leave me, I beg you,” he cried to Niketas. “What I wanted to understand, telling you my story, I have understood. We have nothing more to say to each other. Thank you for having helped me arrive where I am.”
Niketas went to see him every day. Baudolino greeted him with a gesture, and remained silent. As time went by, Niketas realized it was no longer necessary to take him food, because word had spread in Selymbria that, after centuries, another holy man had isolated himself on top of a column, and everyone went there, to stand below and bless himself, putting in the basket something to eat and drink. Baudolino pulled up the string, kept for himself what little he needed for that day, and crumbled the rest for the many birds that had taken to perching on the banister. They were his only interest.
Baudolino stayed up there all summer without uttering a word, burned by the sun, and though he often withdrew into the pavilion, tortured by the heat. He defecated and urinated obviously at night, over the balustrade, and his feces could be seen at the foot of the column, tiny as a goat’s. His beard and hair kept growing, and he was so dirty that it could be seen and, also
was beginning to be smelled, from down below.
Niketas twice had to be absent from Selymbria. In Constantinople, Baudouin of Flanders had been named basileus, and the Latins were little by little invading the whole empire, but Niketas had to look after his property. Meanwhile, in Nicaea, the last bulwark of the Byzantine empire was being constructed, and Niketas was thinking he should move there, where they would need a counsellor of his experience.
Therefore it was necessary to make approaches and prepare for that new, very dangerous journey.
Every time he came back, he saw an ever-thicker crowd at the foot of the column. Some had thought that a stylite, so purified by his constant sacrifice, could not help but possess profound wisdom, and they would climb the ladder to ask his advice and solace. They told him of their misfortunes, and Baudolino would answer, for example: “If you are proud, you are the devil. If you are sad, you are his son. And if you worry over a thousand things, you are his never-resting servant.”
Another asked his advice on settling a dispute with his neighbor. And Baudolino said: “Be like a camel: bear the burden of your sins, and follow the steps of him who knows the ways of the Lord.”
Yet another complained that his daughter-in-law could not bear a child. And Baudolino said: “Everything a man can think about, what is under the sun and what is above the sky, is vain. Only he who perseveres in the memory of Christ is in the truth.”
“How wise he is,” they said, and left him a few coins, going off, filled with consolation.
Winter came, and Baudolino was almost always huddled inside the pavilion. Rather than listen to long stories from those who came to him, he began foreseeing them. “You love a person with all your heart, but at times you are overcome with the suspicion that this person does not love you with equal warmth,” he would say. And the visitor would say: “How right you are! You have read my soul like an open book! What must I do?” And Baudolino would say: “Be silent, and do not measure yourself.”
To a fat man, who arrived after climbing up with great effort, he said: “You wake every morning with an aching neck, and you have trouble pulling on your boots.” “That’s right,” the man said, with wonder. And Baudolino said: “Don’t eat for three days. But do not take pride in your fasting. Rather than become proud, eat meat. It is better to eat than to boast.
And accept your pains as a toll for your sins.”
A father came and told him that his son was covered with painful sores. Baudolino answered: “Wash him three times a day with water and salt, and each time say the words ‘Virgin Hypatia, take care of your child.'” The man went off, and a week later he came back, saying the sores were healing. He gave Baudolino some coins, a pigeon, and a flask of wine. All cried miracle, and the sick went to the church, praying: “Virgin Hypatia, take care of your child.”
A poorly dressed man with a grim face climbed the ladder. Baudolino said to him: “I know what’s wrong with you. In your heart you bear rancor towards someone.”
“You know everything,” the man said.
Baudolino said to him: “If someone wants to return evil for evil, he can hurt a brother with the simplest gesture. Keep your hands always behind your back.”
Another came with sad eyes and said to him: “I don’t know what my sickness is.”
“I know,” Baudolino said. “You are slothful.” “How can I be cured?”
“Sloth appears the first time when you notice the slowness of the movement of the sun.”
“And then—?”
“Never look at the sun.”
“Nothing can be hidden from him,” the people of Selymbria were saying.
“How can you be so wise?” one man asked him. And Baudolino said: “Because I hide myself.”
“How can you hide yourself?”
Baudolino held out his hand and showed his palm. “What do you see before you?” he asked. “A hand,” the man answered.
“You see I know well how to hide myself,” Baudolino said.
Spring returned. Baudolino was increasingly dirty and hairy. He was covered with birds, who swarmed to peck the worms that had begun to inhabit his body. Since he had to nourish all those creatures, people filled his basket frequently during the day.
One morning a man on horseback arrived, breathless and covered with dust. He said that, during a hunting party, a nobleman had clumsily shot an arrow and had struck the son of his sister. The arrow had entered the son’s eye and had come out from his nape. The boy was still breathing, and that nobleman asked Baudolino to do whatever could be done by a man of God. Baudolino said: “The task of the stylite is to see his thoughts arrive from the distance.
I knew you would come, but you have taken too much time, and you will take just as long to go back. Things in this world go as they must go. I must tell you that the boy is dying at this moment, or rather, he is already dead. May God have mercy on him.”
The knight went home, and the boy was already dead. When the news was known, many in Selymbria cried that Baudolino had the gift of clairvoyance and had seen what was happening miles away. But not far from the column there was the church of Saint Mardonius, whose priest hated Baudolino, because for months the offerings of his regular parishoners had been diminishing. This priest took to saying that Baudolino’s miracle didn’t amount to much. Anybody could work such miracles. He went to the foot of the column and shouted to Baudolino that, if a stylite wasn’t even capable of removing an arrow from an eye, it was as if he had killed the boy himself.
Baudolino answered: “Concern with pleasing humans causes the loss of all spiritual growth.”
The priest threw a stone at him, and immediately some other fanatics joined in flinging stones and clods at the balcony. They hurled stones all day, as Baudolino huddled in the pavilion, his hands over his face. They went off only when night had fallen.
The next morning Niketas went to see what had happened to his friend, but never saw him there again. The column was deserted. He went home, uneasy, and found Baudolino in Theophilactus’s room. He had filled a barrel with water and with a knife he was scraping away all the filth he had accumulated. He had roughly cut his beard and hair. He was tanned by the sun and the wind; he didn’t seem to have lost much weight, but it was hard for him to remain erect and he moved his arms and shoulders to loosen the muscles of his back.
“You saw for yourself. The one time in my life I told the truth and only the truth, they stoned me.”
“It happened also to the apostles. You had become a holy man, and you let such a little thing discourage you?”
“Maybe I was expecting a sign from heaven. Over these months I have accumulated no small number of coins. I sent one of Theophilactus’s sons to buy me some clothes, a horse, and a mule. My weapons must still be somewhere around this house.”
“So you are going away?”
“Yes,” he said, “staying on that column, I have come to understand many things. I have understood that I sinned, but never to achieve power and wealth. I understand that, if I want to be forgiven, I must pay three debts. First debt: I promised to have a stone raised to commemorate Abdul, and for this I kept his Baptist’s head. The money has come from elsewhere, and that
