Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (19 page)

I told Hassan about my encounter with the boy after the humiliation that the musellim had bestowed on me.

“Why did you ask if he wanted to come to the tekke?” Hassan asked, laughing.

“He looked bright.”

“You felt bad, you were running from your troubles, you wanted to forget how the soldiers had turned you away at the musellim’s office, and then, in a moment of great personal hardship, you noticed bright boys and thought of future defenders of the faith. True or not?”

“If I feel bad, have I ceased to be what I am?”

He shook his head; I did not know whether he was laughing at me or feeling pity for me.

“Say that it’s not true, please, say that your brother is more important than everything. Say that everything else can go to hell as long as you save your brother. You know he’s not guilty!”

“I’ll do everything I can.”

“That’s not enough. We have to do more!”

“Let’s not talk any more about it.”

“Fine. As you wish. I hope you won’t regret this.”

He was persistent. I did not know why he wanted to get involved in the dangerous and risky business of saving a man whom he hardly knew; that was strange, because it contradicted everything I knew about him. But he was not lying, he was not only offering words because he knew that I would refuse: he would really have done it, without a moment’s hesitation.

Maybe someone will think that I was touched by his readiness to run to my assistance, that I accepted that unusual sacrifice of his with tears in my eyes. But I did not. Not at all. At first I hoped that his offer was only a lie, empty talk that did not bind him to deeds. But since I could not reduce it to that, since his sincerity was obvious, I felt anger and indignation. His keen interest seemed inappropriate and intrusive; it was unnatural. It threatened to surpass my own efforts, and indicated that my concern was inadequate; he was offering to sacrifice himself in order to show my lack of love, to chide and punish me. This conversation had worn me out, and I wished it would end, we could not understand one another. When he made his remark about my story of the boy, he caught me off-balance and revealed something I had not given any thought to. It was without a doubt true, but rebellion was lurking in everything that he said. When I reached that conclusion I shut myself up, like a besieged fortress that arrows strike to no avail. Whoever severs my roots or undermines my foundation is not my friend, or is a very strange kind of friend. No true friendship can exist between people who think differently.

This bitter realization (one that I needed like fresh air, or medicine) helped me to refuse him more easily, and to begin the unpleasant conversation that I had been delaying constantly, although it was always on my mind.

I could have asked him as a friend, I had a right to that, but my thoughts took another direction, and prevented it. I could have passed it on to him like a message from someone else, which was allegedly not my concern, but in that case I would have had difficulties expressing my request and everything would have gone wrong. This way was best: he was not my friend, that was certain, and I would present a demand made by others, from which I also expected some benefit. Maybe it was for this reason that I had not shown my anger a moment before: I would have turned him against me and reduced my chances for success.

I prepared to leave and told him, as if I had just remembered it, that I had visited his sister, that she had summoned me (I know, he added, thus warning me that I would have to tell more than I might have wanted to) and that she had asked me to tell him that his father was going to disinherit him (I also know that, said Hassan, laughing), and that it would be best if he renounced his inheritance himself, before the kadi, because of what people would think, so that there would be no scandal.

“No scandal for whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to renounce it. Let them do whatever they feel like.”

“Maybe that’s best.”

There is no point in hiding it, I trusted that my mediation in this shameful affair would help me and my brother. When he refused, it seemed that he was acting rudely and stubbornly, and it took great effort for me to support his decision. It was hard, the words burned in my throat like poison, but I could not do otherwise: I could not have forgiven myself if he caught me in such a game. I had begun badly, everything had come out wrong, it should all have been said in a simple way, without mincing words; it would not have even been inappropriate for him to refuse me, but now I had ruined everything. A long-awaited opportunity was irrevocably lost, and I was left helpless.

But just then, when I had lost all hope, when I had begun to think that my visit was pointless, he said: “If I renounce my inheritance, would my brother-in-law, the kadi, help your brother?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Let’s do that! If he’ll help you, I’ll renounce everything. I’ll shout it from a minaret if I have to. It doesn’t matter anyway, he won’t leave me a thing no matter what I do.”

“You could raise a lawsuit. You’re the first heir, and you haven’t offended your family; your father is sick, it would be
easy to claim that he’s doing everything under pressure from someone.”

“I know.”

I strained to say that, forcing myself with effort to act honorably, for a second time already. I wanted to be his equal, I wanted to have an answer for myself, later, whenever I remembered his generosity: I had done what I could, to my own detriment; I had not deceived him, I had left him to make his own decision.

“I know,” he said. “Let’s do this for now. My brother-in-law is also afraid of a lawsuit: he’s not stupid, just dishonest. And fortunately, he’s greedy. Maybe he’ll help, because he cares more about the estate than about some unknown, petty clerk. Let’s rely on human vice, since we can’t do anything else.”

“You’re too generous. And I can only pay you back with my gratitude.”

He laughed, and immediately denied the value of his gift:

“I’m not very generous; they’d take it anyway. Why should I drag myself from court to court?!”

Now, no matter how much I might try to dissuade him, he would not give up. But I no longer wanted to play with fate.

I thanked him and began to take my leave. My good mood, my hope had returned; he had won me over with his irresponsible generosity. Fortunately, he had renounced everything himself; he had not hung his sacrifice around my neck, or burdened me with expectations of gratitude, and was no longer my adversary (he could have turned out to be anything in those early days; he still had not become anything definite; I adjusted to him from one moment to the next, like one does with his first, uncertain love, which can easily turn into hatred).

“It’s a pity you’re a dervish,” he said suddenly, laughing out loud. “I’d invite you to a party; my friends are going to be there.”

And he added cunningly, openly: “I won’t try to hide it, since you’ll find out tomorrow anyway”

“So you don’t like order?”

“No, I don’t. I know, you’ll reproach me, but ‘You do your work, and I’ll do mine.’
³
It’s not important if we do not do good; it’s important that we do not do evil. And this is not evil.”

Thus, he even joked about the Koran, but without malice or mockery. He did not like order or anything sacred; he was indifferent to such ideas.

Suddenly, the cheerfulness left his voice. His smiling lips puckered into a cramped circle, and a barely perceptible paleness shot through his wind-leathered face. I looked through the window, following his eyes: the slender woman from Dubrovnik and her husband had entered the yard.

“Have they also come to your party?”

“What? No, they haven’t.”

He was overcome by excitement, and lost control of himself, but that lasted only for a moment. His eyes froze in the wide openings between his eyelids, and his hands fidgeted. But only for a moment, then everything was over, as if it had never happened. His smile returned, he was again unruffled and confident, calmly happy at the arrival of his friends. But although his look did not reveal it, he was still agitated. I knew because his eyes no longer saw me, as if I no longer existed. He was not unkind, he did not quit looking at me, he told me to stop by again, and reminded me to go see his sister. On the surface everything was as usual, but his thoughts were not with me: he was down there, in the yard, with the woman who had come to visit him.

We went out to see them. We met at the door and greeted each other; I took a quick, stealthy look at her face. She did not seem especially beautiful from up close, her cheeks were thin and pale, there were traces of fever or sorrow in her eyes, but there was something in her expression that was not easily forgotten. Her faint fragrance drifted past me and
I left, thinking how everything between them defied a solution. That was why he had spoken with such interest about the servant-woman and her two men! Did he have the same problem, was he at the same dead end? If he had not been in love, everything would have been easier and simpler. But his sudden pallor had not lied. Did she know? Did her husband know, the good-natured Dalmatian who bowed low before me, with the pleasant smile of a kind man, slow at everything? He could not have known; he was not torn by passion. And he would not have killed anyone, even if he had. His wife knew; women always know, even if nothing is said, and they are more likely than not to think that something is going on. What was happening between them, unsaid, unarticulated, in front of her husband whose presence kept them apart, and whose lack of suspicion encouraged them, her husband who was always ready to ease their dangerous silence with cheerful talk about nothing? What passionate, raging desire had those two young people tasted, or failed to satisfy, what enchantment had they been nourishing in their thoughts, which could grow into a dangerous obsession?! Or was it just that Hassan had fallen under the spell of her figure, which swayed like tall reeds, and of the quiet clarity of her glistening eyes, marked with illness? Had he become an outcast for that reason, to become irrevocably entangled in a passion that could not be consumed and that would not disappear? During the months that they were separated he would think of her, and meet her upon his return. Her beauty was enhanced by the longing he felt in his travels in distant lands, and he would drink her in with his thirsty eyes so he could remember her when he left on a new journey. How long could they move in this circle, nourishing their passion, but unable to sate it?

If he ever thought about me, he certainly forgot about me then; she had displaced me long before, me and everything that was not her. And if I hated her then it was because her long velvet dress, full girlish lips, and mature,
seductive voice were more important to him than I and my troubles. She reduced me to nonexistence; she undermined my only support—which had not existed either, although I would have liked for that illusion to continue.

I was alone again.

Maybe that was best, then you expect no help and fear no betrayal. Alone. I would do everything I could, without relying on support that was not there; then everything I achieved would be mine, both the good and the bad.

I passed by the mosque on the corner of Hassan’s street, passed along the wall that hides the madrasah, went down the street where the cobbler’s shops are, and came to the tanneries. The Catholic woman’s fragrance had vanished, and my thoughts about Hassan faded. I walked by workshops and craftsmen quietly going about their work; I was entering the realm of my own troubles again and starting out on a journey into the unknown. But why was it into the unknown? I did not doubt that I would succeed; I did not dare to doubt it, because then I would not have had the strength to take even one more step. But I had to; it was a matter of life and death, or of something even more important. At that moment I longed for peace. I walked past the storefronts with my head lowered; exhausted, I breathed in the smell of leather and the bark of alder trees; tired, I watched the feet of the passersby and the round cobblestones in front of me; tired, without even a shred of strength. I wished for my closed room and a long deathlike sleep, that of a drowned man, to lie behind a locked door and closed windows, like an invalid. But that weakness, fear of unimagined difficulties, and desire to lie down and die, to give up and accept fate—I did not dare to let them stop me now. I could not let any weariness or fatigue keep me from performing this duty. My remaining peasant stubbornness and the mercilessly clear realization of the need to defend myself urged me on. I had to. Go forward, die later.

What was the source of my fear and sense that trouble was imminent, when there was nothing in my experience that could have warned me?

When I heard the clatter of hooves in the street, I raised my eyes and saw two soldiers on horseback, armed, riding abreast, yielding to no one. People passing through the narrow street pressed themselves up against the storefronts and walls to avoid being struck by the horses’ crops or caught by the soldiers’ sharp stirrups. They rode slowly, and people were able to move out of the way, to wait without a word until they passed. The soldiers did not try to hit anyone on purpose, but they did not alter their path, either. It was almost as if they saw no one.

I wondered whether I should go into a shop to let them pass, or stand up against a wall like everyone else. I decided to stay outside, like all the others; I would let them humiliate me. The street was narrow; there was just enough space for them. A stirrup would catch me and tear my gown, and I would not even turn around; they could do whatever they wanted. I would do the same as the others, who said nothing and waited. What were they waiting for, what were those people along the storefronts waiting for as the soldiers rode toward me? To see them humiliate me, or to hear me shout at them (my rank and garb gave me the right to do that). At that moment I wanted both to happen. It suddenly seemed to me that what I would do was important, even decisive. I was upset that they watched and waited: Were they on my side, were they against me, or were they indifferent? I did not even know that. I did not dare to shout; the soldiers would mock me, and I would end up looking silly. The people would not feel sorry for me because of that defeat. No, let them humiliate me, everyone would see that I had moved out of the way, that I was the same as them, powerless; I even wished for my disgrace to be as great as possible, to be greater than that of the others. I stood with my back against a wall, barely feeling the uneven bricks, with my eyes low
lowered. I was not upset by the disgrace that awaited me, and chose the narrowest place in the street on purpose. I even waited with painful pleasure for it to come—people would hear about it, and pity me. I was turning into a victim.