Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (13 page)

And I said it. That my brother,
as I have heard,
has done something that
maybe
he shouldn’t have, I don’t know, but I don’t believe that it’s anything serious, and therefore I’m appealing to the musellim to look into the matter so the prisoner won’t also be accused of something that he hasn’t done.

What I said was not enough, it lacked both courage and honesty. But it was all that I could do. A heavy fatigue came over me.

His face said nothing. It revealed neither anger nor understanding; either condemnation or kindness could have issued from his lips. Later I recalled with uncertainty how it occurred to me then that everyone who begs is in a terrible
position: he is necessarily small and insignificant, squirming beneath someone’s foot, guilty, humiliated; threatened by the whims of others and vulnerable to their power, he wishes for some inadvertent good will; nothing depends on him, not even an expression of fear or hatred that might ruin him. Under that dull gaze, which hardly saw me, I ceased to expect kind words or mercy, I wanted only to leave, to let everything end as Allah wished.

Finally the musellim spoke, in a voice as dead as his silence, but I no longer cared. Over the years he had grown accustomed to this attitude of impenetrability and scorn. But I did not care about that either. I felt slightly nauseated.

“Your brother, you say? In prison?”

I looked through the window. The fire was out. There was only some smoke, black and sluggish, drifting above the bazaar. It was a pity that it had not destroyed everything.

“Do you know why he’s in prison?”

“I’ve come to ask.”

“So, you don’t even know why he’s in prison. And you’ve come to beg, regardless of what he’s done.”

“I haven’t come to beg.”

“Do you want to accuse him?”

“No.”

“Can you bring witnesses for him or against him? Can you point to any other guilty parties? Or accomplices?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

He spoke lazily, interrupting himself and turning his head to the side, as if he were insulted, as if he were displeased that he had to explain such obvious things and waste his time with such an unreasonable man.

A feeling of shame came over me: because of my fear and cowardly selfishness, because of his scorn, because of his right to rudeness, because of the boredom that he did not try to hide, because he had humiliated me, and talked with me as if I were a servant, a
softa,*
or a criminal. I was used to
listening without objecting and to bowing my head. This inquiry about my brother even seemed like a transgression to me, but my old habits were stifled by the arrogance of this cruel man, or maybe more so by his vulgar impoliteness. I felt myself turning livid with rage, although I knew that this could not help me. It did not matter to him, but it did to me, and that was exactly what he wanted, what he was trying to do. No, he did not even have to try, he simply radiated a feeling of disgust at people. I did not know why he insisted on creating enemies, and it was not my concern, but how did he dare to behave like this toward me? I was still deceived by my ideas about the importance of my calling and the order to which I belonged.

People live quietly and die suddenly, Hassan had said, that strange cattle drover who never acted rashly or suffered because of his imprudence. And I had also believed that I was immune to any surprises that might come from within me.

“What do I want?” I said, startled at myself, aware that what I was saying was inappropriate. “You shouldn’t have said that. Is it a crime to inquire about one’s brother, whatever he’s done? That’s my duty, according to the laws of both God and men. People would spit on me if I neglected my right to do so. And we would all deserve to be spit upon if that right were ever questioned. Have we become animals, or worse than animals?”

“Your words are serious,” he said in the same calm manner, only his heavy eyes narrowed somewhat. “Who’s right in this affair? You’re defending your brother, and I the law. The law is strict. I serve it.”

“If the law is strict, must we then act viciously?”

“Is it vicious to defend the law, or to attack it, as you are?”

I wanted to tell him that it was vicious to be cruel in any circumstances. Men perish suddenly. It was good that I did not answer his challenge. He felt a need to drive people insane; it pleased him.

Afterwards I felt dejected. My anger passed quickly, and was replaced by regret at such rashness—it was not typical of me. I had responded to him sharply because I was too tense, unable to restrain my impulses. Everything done at such moments is usually harmful: it is a form of stupid heroism, a suicidal defiance with no purpose, which lasts but for a short time, leaving behind only discontent with itself. And a belated hindsight that does no one any good.

What I had feared most had happened, I had been told that my defense of my brother was in opposition to the law. If that were really true, or, since I knew that it was not, if it only seemed so to someone, if people thought that I considered a personal loss more important than anything around me, then everything had ended in the worst possible way, and my vague fears had been justified. And worst of all was the fact that I had not really defended my brother, I had only rebelled against terrible cruelty in a moment of irrationality. I had not been on either side, not on my brother’s, not on the musellim’s. I had been nowhere.

I was glad that it was almost noon and that I would not be alone. My prayers would sequester me from this day, and I would leave my painful thoughts at the gates of the mosque. They would certainly wait for me, but I would be away from them for at least a while.

When I took my place before the few believers gathered there and began the prayer, I felt more acutely than ever the protective peace of that familiar place, of the thick, warm odor of melted wax, of the healing calm of its white walls and its sooty ceiling, of the motherly tenderness of sunlight gleaming on golden motes of dust. That was my domain—the threadbare rugs, the copper candlesticks, the prayer-niche where I bowed in front of people humbly on their knees—that was my silence and security. I had belonged there for years: I knew the spot in the carpet where I placed my feet; its patterns were worn and faded. In performing my
sacred duties there from day to day, I had left my trace on something that endures longer than we do. That place had become mine, ours, and God’s, although I denied, maybe even to myself, that it was mostly mine. But that day, at that noon, freed from my nightmare, returned to that tranquil silence from a strange world I was not accustomed to, I did not actually perform my duties. I was sure that I served no one, and that everything served me, that everything shielded me and brought me back, erasing my murky, bad dreams. I dove into the pleasure of that familiar prayer, and aided by everything that had been mine for years, by familiar odors, by the indistinct murmur of the people, by the dull thud of their knees on the floor, by unchanging prayers, and by a circle that closed like a line of defense or a fortress, affirming and justifying me, I felt that my lost balance was returning. Performing the prayer by habit, without interrupting it, I watched a ray of sunlight that shone through a windowpane and reached from the window to my hand, as if at play, challenging me. I could hear the cheerful, twittering banter of the sparrows outside the mosque, the unceasing tones of their voices. They seemed brightly yellow, like wheat, or the sun. Something warm and serene hovered around me, separating me, waking memories of something that had once existed, I knew not when or where, but it had, and I had no need to revive it. It was vibrant, strong, and precious as it had once been, like it had never been, shapeless and therefore all-encompassing. I knew it had existed, maybe in my childhood, which no longer remained in my memory but rather in my grief, maybe in my desire that it become and be, translucent, weightless, like a soft movement, like the silent flow of water, like the silent rush of blood, like sunny joy at nothing. And I knew that it was sin, this absorption in prayer, this delight of the body and mind, but I could not tear myself away, I did not want to end this peculiar oblivion.

But then it ended on its own.

It seemed to me that the fugitive from the night before was standing behind me, among the people in prayer. I did not dare to turn around, but I was sure that he was in the mosque. Maybe he had come in after me, or I had not seen him. His voice sounded different from the others, deeper and more masculine; his prayer was not an appeal but a demand; his eyes were sharp, his movements supple. His name was Is-haq, or at least that was what I called him, since he was there and I did not know his name. But I should have known it. He had come on account of me, to thank me. Or on account of himself, to hide. We would be left alone after the prayer, so that I could ask him what I had not had the chance to ask the previous night. Is-haq, I repeated, Is-haq. That was the name of my uncle, whom as a child I had loved dearly. Is-haq—I did not know why I made a connection between them, how and why I so persistently yearned for my childhood. It was surely an escape. An escape from everything that was, an attempt to save myself with an unconscious memory and a mad, impossible desire to deny reality. If I had really believed it, I would have been driven to despair. But like this, it even became reality, at moments of warped, hazy rapture, when my body and unknown inner powers searched for my lost peace. At that moment I was not aware that oblivion lasts only for a short time, but when the thought of Is-haq appeared, I knew that my peace had been disturbed. For Is-haq also belonged to that world which I did not want to think about, and maybe for that very reason I wanted to relegate him to the distant realm of dreams, not to think about him when we were not meeting face to face. I wanted to turn around; my prayer was empty for him, reduced to words without meaning, longer than it had ever been.

What would I talk about with him? He did not want to say anything about himself, I had become convinced of that the previous night. We would talk about me. We would sit there, in the empty space of the mosque, in the world and
yet outside it, alone. He would smile with his confident, distant smile, which was not a smile but a piercing coldness, a look that saw everything but wondered at nothing. He would listen to me attentively, absorbed in the pattern in the carpet in front of him or in a ray of sunlight that stubbornly penetrated the sparkling, dusty darkness. And he would tell me the truth, which would ease my burden.

Imagining that conversation, I revived his face, and was not surprised that I remembered so much of it. I waited for us to be left alone, like the night before, to continue that unusual conversation openly. In a moment of utter inconsistency that restless, rebellious man, whose ideas contradicted everything that I could believe, seemed to me like someone whom I could rely on. Everything he did was mad, everything he said was unacceptable, but I could confide only in him, because he was unhappy yet honest; he did not know what he wanted, yet he knew what he was doing; he could kill yet would not cheat. And while in my heart I counted the good features of that completely unknown renegade, I failed to notice how far I had come since the previous night. In the morning I had wanted to hand him over to the guards, but at noon I was on his side. But I had not even been against him in the morning, and although I might have still turned him in right then, these two matters had nothing to do with each other. Or maybe they did, but in a bizarre way, very intricately. In fact, the only thing I was sure of was that Is-haq the rebel could explain some things that had been tied into a knot inside me. He alone. I did not know why, maybe because he had suffered and gained experience in his distress; because his rebellion had freed him from established ways of thinking that bind us, and he had no prejudices; because he had purged himself of fear and taken a path that led nowhere; because he was already condemned and was only delaying his death heroically. Such people know a lot, more than those of us who stagger from learned rules to fear of sin, from habits to worries of possible
guilt. And although I would never have taken the path of a renegade, not even in my thoughts, I would gladly have listened to his truth. But what was his truth?

I did not know.

I would tell him this:

I went off to school when I was a small child and have been a dervish for twenty years, but I know nothing more than what they wanted me to learn. They taught me to be obedient, to endure, and to live for the faith. Some were better than I, but few were more faithful. I always knew what I should do. Although the dervish order thought for me, the principles of its faith are firm and thorough, and nothing of mine existed that couldn’t fit into them. I had a family, which lived its own life; it was mine according to my blood and distant memory, according to a childhood that I’ve been trying to bury ever since, mistakenly believing it to be dead. It was mine because that is how it should be. I cherished that love from a distance, without benefit, although for this reason it was even cold. My family existed, it was mine, and that was enough for me. And it was probably enough for them. Three visits in these twenty years have neither harmed nor helped anything; they’ve neither disturbed nor aided my service to the faith, although I felt more pride in finding a larger family than sorrow because I’d strayed from my original one. And now, it happened that my brother was struck by misfortune. I say this word because I don’t know the right one, since I can’t say whether it was just or unjust, and that’s the source of the trouble. I don’t like violence, it’s a sign of weakness and bad judgment, a means by which people are driven to do evil. And yet, when it was exercised against others I kept silent and refused to condemn it. I either shifted the responsibility onto someone else or refused to think about what wasn’t my fault, even admitting that it’s occasionally necessary to commit evil for a higher and greater good. But when the rulers’ whips struck my brother, they drew my blood as well. I somehow think that this
action is cruel: I know that boy; he’s not capable of crime. And so, I’m not doing enough to defend him, but I’m not justifying them, either. It only seems to me that they’ve all inflicted evil on me, almost equally, they’ve disturbed me, forced me to confront a life beyond my own. They’ve forced me to take a side. What am I now? Some twisted kind of brother, or an unsteady dervish? Have I lost my love for mankind, or weakened the faith, thus losing everything? I’d like to weep for my brother, whatever he is, or to be a firm defender of the law, even if my brother is in question, even regretfully. But I can do neither. What is it, Is-haq, you rebellious martyr, who have taken one side, and don’t know indecision? Have I lost my human face, or my faith? Or both? And what, then, is left of me—a shell, a grave, a tombstone with no inscription? Fear has settled inside me, Is-haq, fear and confusion; I no longer dare to do anything for either side. I’ll lose my way and perish.