One

We were sailing from Venice to Naples when the Turkish fleet appeared. We numbered three ships all told, but the file of their galleys emerging from the fog seemed to have no end. We lost our nerve; fear and confusion instantly broke out on our ship, and our oarsmen, most of them Turks and Moors, were screaming with joy. Our vessel turned its bow landward, westward, like the other two, but unlike them we could not gather speed. Our captain, fearing punishment should he be captured, could not bring himself to give the command to whip the captives at the oars. In later years I often thought that this moment of cowardice changed my whole life.

But now it seems to me that my life would have been changed if our captain had not suddenly been overcome by fear. Many men believe that no life is determined in advance, that all stories are essentially a chain of coincidences. And yet, even those who believe this come to the conclusion, when they look back, that events they once took for chance were really inevitable. I have reached that moment now, as I sit at an old table writing my book, visualizing the colours of the Turkish ships appearing like phantoms in the fog; this seems the best of times to tell a tale.

Our captain took heart when he saw the other two ships slip away from the Turkish vessels and disappear into the fog, and at last he dared to beat the oarsmen, but we were too late; even whips could not make the slaves obey once they had been aroused by the passion for freedom. Cutting the unnerving wall of fog into waves of colour, more than ten Turkish galleys were upon us at once. Now at last our captain decided to fight, trying to overcome, I believe, not the enemy, but his own fear and shame; he had the slaves flogged mercilessly and ordered the cannons made ready, but the passion for battle, late to flame, was also quick to burn out. We were caught in a violent broadside volley - our ship would surely sink if we did not give up at once - we decided to raise the flag of surrender.

While we waited on a calm sea for the Turkish ships to draw alongside, I went to my cabin, put my things in order as if expecting not arch-enemies who would change my whole life, but a few friends paying a visit, and opening my little trunk rummaged through my books, lost in thought. My eyes filled with tears as I turned the pages of a volume I'd paid dearly for in Florence; I heard shrieks, footsteps rushing back and forth, an uproar going on outside, I knew that at any moment the book would be snatched from my hand, yet I wanted to think not of that but of what was written on its pages. It was as if the thoughts, the sentences, the equations in the book contained the whole of my past life which I dreaded to lose; while I read random phrases under my breath, as though reciting a prayer. I desperately wanted to engrave the entire volume on my memory so that when they did come, I would not think of them and what they would make me suffer, but would remember the colours of my past as if recalling the cherished words of a book I had memorized with pleasure.

In those days I was a different person, even called a different name by mother, fiancée and friends. Once in a while I still see in my dreams that person who used to be me, or who I now believe was me, and wake up drenched in sweat. This person who brings to mind now the faded colours, the dream-like shades of those lands that never were, the animals that never existed, the incredible weapons we later invented year after year, was twenty-three years old then, had studied 'science and art' in Florence and Venice, believed he knew something of astronomy, mathematics, physics, painting. Of course he was conceited: having devoured most of what had been accomplished before his time, he turned up his nose at it all; he had no doubt he'd do better; he had no equal; he knew he was more intelligent and creative than anyone else. In short, he was an average youth. It pains me to think, when I have to invent a past for myself, that this youth who talked with his beloved about his passions, his plans, about the world and science, who found it natural that his fiancée adored him, was actually me. But I comfort myself with the thought that one day a few people will patiently read to the end what I write here and understand that I was not that youth. And perhaps those patient readers will think, as I do now, that the story of that youth who let go of his life while reading his precious books continued later from where it broke off.

When the Turkish sailors threw down their ramps and came on board I put the books in my trunk and peered outside. Pandemonium had broken out on the vessel. They were gathering everyone together on deck and stripping them naked. For a moment it passed through my mind that I could jump overboard in the confusion, but I thought they would shoot me in the water, or capture and kill me immediately, and anyway, I didn't know how close we were to land. At first no one bothered with me. The Muslim slaves, loosed from their chains, were shouting with joy, and a gang of them set about taking vengeance right away on the men who had whipped them. Soon they found me in my cabin, came inside, ransacked my possessions. They rifled through my trunks searching for gold, and after they took away some of my books and all of my clothes, someone grabbed me as I distractedly pored over the couple of books left and took me to one of the captains.

The captain, who as I learned later was a Genoese convert, treated me well; he asked what my profession was. Wanting to avoid being put to the oars, I declared right away that I had knowledge of astronomy and nocturnal navigation, but this made no impression. I then claimed I was a doctor, counting on the anatomy book they'd left me. When I was showed a man who'd lost an arm, I protested that I was not a surgeon. This angered them, and they were about to put me to the oars when the captain, noticing my books, asked if I knew anything of urine and pulses. When I said I did I was saved from the oar and even managed to salvage a few of my books.

But this privilege cost me dear. The other Christians who were put to the oars despised me instantly. They would have killed me in the hold where we were locked up at night if they could have but they were afraid to, because I had so quickly established relations with the Turks. Our cowardly captain had just died at the stake, and as a warning to others they'd cut off the noses and ears of the sailors who'd lashed the slaves, then set them adrift on a raft. After I'd treated a few Turks, using my common sense rather than a knowledge of anatomy, and their wounds had healed by themselves, everyone believed I was a doctor. Even some of those who, moved by envy, had told the Turks I was no doctor at all showed me their wounds at night in the hold.

We sailed into Istanbul with spectacular ceremony. It was said that the child sultan was watching the celebrations. They hoisted their banners on every mast and at the bottom hung our flags, our icons of the Virgin Mary and crucifixes upside down, letting hotheads from the city who jumped aboard shoot at them. Cannon fire burst across the sky. The ceremony, like many I would watch from land in later years with a mixture of sorrow, disgust, and pleasure, lasted such a long time that many spectators fainted in the sun. Towards evening we dropped anchor at Kasimpasha. Before bringing us before the sultan they put us in chains, made our soldiers wear their armour back to front in ridicule, put iron hoops around the necks of our officers, and blasting away on the horns and trumpets they'd taken from our ship, raucously, triumphantly, brought us to the palace. The people of the city were lined up along the avenues, watching us with amusement and curiosity. The sultan, hidden from our view, selected his share of slaves and had them separated from the others. They transported us across the Golden Horn to Galata on caiques and crammed us into Sadik Pasha's prison.

The gaol was a miserable place. Hundreds of captives rotted away in filth inside the tiny, damp cells. I found plenty of people there to practise my new profession on, and I actually cured some of them. I wrote prescriptions for guards with aching backs or legs. So here, too, they treated me differently from the rest, and gave me a better cell that caught the sunlight. Seeing how it was for the others, I tried to be thankful for my own circumstances, but one morning they woke me along with the rest of the prisoners and told me I was going out to work. When I protested that I was a doctor, with knowledge of medicine and science, they just laughed: there were walls to be built around the pasha's garden, men were needed. We were chained together each morning before the sun rose and taken outside the city. While we trudged back to our prison in the evenings, still chained to one another after gathering stones all day, I reflected that Istanbul was indeed a beautiful city, but that here one must be a master, not a slave.

Yet still I was no ordinary slave. People had heard I was a doctor, so now I was not just looking after the slaves rotting away in the prison, but others as well. I had to give a large part of the fees I earned for doctoring to the guards who smuggled me outside. With the money I was able to hide from them, I paid for lessons in Turkish. My teacher was an agreeable, elderly fellow who looked after the pasha's petty affairs. It pleased him to see I was quick to learn Turkish and he'd say I would soon become a Muslim. I had to press him to take his fee after each lesson. I also gave him money to bring me...