Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (23 page)

“I’m fine,” he said looking at me cheerfully. I forced myself to look calmly at his scarred face. “My work isn’t hard. And the mufti trusts me. I’m sort of like the head of the guards. I instruct them a little, watch over them, and that kind of thing.”

“You could’ve become something else. The
dizdar*
of a fortress. An assistant to a
kaimakam.*
And they could’ve given you an estate, like they give the rest, so you’d have something of your own.”

“Why?” he asked, disturbed. “They offered that, but I
didn’t want it. I’m content. Not just anybody can serve in this place.”

I felt offended and hurt that the onetime hero Kara-Zaim now had to look fearfully toward the house. If I went there, should I look at it the same way? What did he fear, this man who had never feared anything?

Not wanting to hurt him, I said:

“What a hero you were! Great God, what a hero!”

And regretted it immediately. Why should I have reminded him of his past? Why should I have woken him from his slumber? He had not forgotten (that was impossible), but he had calmed down, resigned himself, gotten over it, maybe. I should not have opened his old wounds.

Alas, I was talking about myself as well.

Now it was too late; I had said what I should not have.

He looked at me, astounded. Surely no one had mentioned his past for years; maybe he had mentioned it himself, trying to get others to say something, to remember him as he had been. Had even the memory of him died? Did he really no longer exist in anyone’s recollection? But maybe even he did not talk about it any more. Why would he? Or maybe the more distant his past became the more he talked about it, losing hope that anyone would remember it. Everything was still alive in him, but for others he had died.

And so, some dervish had spoken of how he had been. And how he had spoken of it! Maybe he had dreamed that someone would say exactly what I said: Great God, what a hero you were! My words surely struck him in his heart, shooting through his blood like a hot wind, deafening his ears. Or he thought that those words were from his dreams; no one had uttered them, it was only his desire that heard them. But no! This old fool of a dervish had said it. He had remembered and spoken.

For a moment he looked at me, lost, like an epileptic. I did not know what he would do: maybe he would jump for joy and collapse on the stones, vulnerable, or embrace me in
order to stay on his weak legs, or laugh, or weep, and then die. But I did not know the brave Kara-Zaim well enough. I remembered a hero: How could he be any different now? Only his trembling voice and a soft wheezing in his pierced lungs betrayed him, because of his excitement.

“You remember? Do you really remember?”

“I do. Whenever I think about those times, I see you.”

“How do you see me?”

He whispered softly, calling me from the darkness of time.

“Surrounded by light, Kara-Zaim. On a wide field. Alone. You’re marching calmly, without turning around, without waiting for anyone. All in white. Your arms are bare up to the elbows. In your hand a saber, and maybe the light is from the sun on its blade. You’re unstoppable, like the wind. You resemble a ray of sunlight that can penetrate anywhere. All the others have stopped and watch from afar. You alone.”

“I didn’t march like that.”

“That’s how I remember it. What might really have happened has been erased, and my memory is the only thing left.”

“That’s beautiful. More beautiful than it was in reality. Or maybe not. Surrounded by light, you say? On a wide field?”

He whispered drunkenly and then looked at me, searching for his image in my words, for his distant glory on my lips.

He thought that I was singing a song about his courage, but I only felt sorry for him.

And I could not any longer.

“I’m glad I saw you,” I said, taking my leave.

“Wait.”

He did not want to let me go, I was the one whom he had awaited for so long, the one who knew. I was a witness that memories do not die, an affirmation that he was more
than just a shadow. My memory made up for his lengthy oblivion; it rewarded his long, patient wait.

The same words and two different moods. Both of ours had the same source, but his happiness was my sorrow. No matter, they were both a thousand years old. Even more. None of it was worth much bother.

“I have to go.”

“Wait. The mufti is here, in the house. Come in, if it’s something important. Tell him that I let you in. No, don’t. Tell him that he called for you to come.”

“He didn’t call for me. I’ve come on my own.”

“I know. You just say that: you sent for me to come. He’s so busy that he won’t remember. And if he asks you about me, if you get an opportunity to say it, tell him what you know. About long ago.”

I had thought that the mufti was gone. I was sorry, but I had accepted it. It was almost easier for me to put everything off. And now things suddenly changed, and what I had wanted would now happen. I was confused and unprepared. I was not surprised that Kara-Zaim wanted me to mention him, but I was sorry that he had suddenly retracted his offer to let me rely on his position with the mufti. Still thinking about his image, in the light, on a heroic battlefield, he had offered to protect me. And refused in the same instant, as soon as he remembered how distant his past was. He flared up and burned out in the same moment. His scarred face still shimmered with happiness at what he had been, and with fearful insecurity at what he was now. Had two periods of time always collided in him? They were so different, and yet inseparable: he could not leave either of them.

As he whispered with some man at the entrance to the house, I thought, confusedly, regretting that his wretched support had slipped out of my grasp, that my insecurity was the same as his. It was pathetic how we expected help from one another, relying little on ourselves. We were trying to combine two weaknesses into one feeble hope. There was
still hope left in him, but it was worth as much as mine, which had been shattered.

When the man came out of the house and told something to Kara-Zaim with a sign, or a quiet word, he motioned to me with his hand: I’ve helped you, come on! And without saying anything, he sent me toward the entrance. Now that meant: go in, maybe everything will be all right. But I saw all of it only in passing, uncertainly, in the same vague way that I saw the stunted lemon tree in front of the house, and an even more stunted palm tree that had barely survived our harsh winter, dozing in the spring sun like an invalid. I do not remember where I went, or how many people followed me with their eyes; I was thinking the whole time about the first word that I would say. The first word! It was like a weapon or a shield. Everything depended on it, not because it would explain anything, but because I could lose all my courage if it were inappropriate. It could make me look ridiculous and impose itself like a judgment about me. I tested innumerable words in my head, and all the things that I imagined as my opening remark were truly amazing, as if I were suffering from a mental breakdown, or a concussion that shook up everything, leaving only confusion and nonsense. While I walked through that passage, which remained dark and unidentified in my conscience, everything came to mind, from solemn oaths to curses. I cannot even write down everything that wanted to come out at that first meeting, at that first encounter. What I, what my brain conceived then was incomprehensible; it was a madness that is difficult to explain. I was raging, and mocking everything sensible. It was as if the devil had taken hold of me, and whispered the most unseemly and repulsive words to me, the silliest and most undignified acts. I was shocked. How had he found me at that very moment when I needed the utmost composure? But he comes whenever you do not expect it, whenever you are feeling your worst. Because to consider going up to the mufti and calling him an Antiochian
²
ass, as I, a serious and peaceful man, did, could only be the work of the devil. Leave me alone, you renegade against God! I threatened, agitating him even more.

I was also upset by those tropical plants in their wooden coffins, the palm and lemon in front of the house. I knew that the mufti was from Antioch, and that he did not know our language, but I could not remember where that Antioch was, in which land, and what language was spoken there.

Fortunately, I did not need a first word. I did not need to say anything, I did not need to do anything.

In the room into which I was led, the mufti was playing chess with a man whom I had never seen before. Actually, the game was finished, or had been interrupted. At first I did not know what was going on, nor did I care. But the other man, whom I did not know, unhealthily obese, with a tired, patient and humble smile, agreed with everything the mufti said, and kept turning his head toward me, to divert the muftis attention from himself. He certainly wished me success in all that I sought, just as long as the mufti noticed me.

But for a long time the mufti did not see that someone had come into the room (and yet he must have told them to let me in when they asked him), and did not respond to my greeting.

All winter he had languished in his overheated rooms, frightened by the harsh cold that lined the eaves with icicles a couple of feet long. He must have looked at them in amazement, weary and yellow, like his tropical plants that had barely lived to see the spring. He warmed himself in the sun, with his back toward the window and a fur coat over his shoulders, withered and irritable.

Both of them were obese; only their fat was distributed differently. They appeared colorless and shriveled, dried out by the inside air, as if they had been sitting since autumn over that black ebony table and ivory chess-set.

At first angrily, and then more feebly and apathetically, the mufti made objections and the other man agreed with
him. It seemed strange how the mufti asked questions, how he argued, and how he answered. I could barely make any sense of it.

“Something’s wrong.”

“I can see.”

“You can’t see anything.”

“Something’s wrong.”

“The whole time I was in a better position.”

“I know.”

“What do you see?”

“I made a bad move somewhere.”

“How is it that I’m losing then?”

“It’s not clear to me at all.”

“You must have made a bad move.”

“I must have made a bad move.”

“How did your knight get here?”

“There, that’s the mistake. I couldn’t have moved there from where I was.”

“Then, check.”

“Exactly. Look, a sheikh has come.”

“Why don’t you watch what you’re doing? I can’t keep track of everything.”

“It usually doesn’t happen to me.”

“If your knight’s there I’ll take it, right? I’ll take it. Take it. It.”

“And checkmate.”

“Which sheikh?”

The man pointed to me, happily, and the mufti turned around. His face was yellowish-gray, sagging, with heavy bags under his eyes. Without getting up, he asked me:

“Do you play chess?”

“Not very well.”

“What do you want?”

“You told me to come. I asked to speak with you”

“I said that? Yes, yes. To whom? What’s it like outside?”

“Sunny. Warm.”

“That’s what they said last winter: it’s not cold. Are the winters here always so harsh?”

“Almost always.”

“A terrible land.”

“One gets used to it.”

“A boring land. Do you play chess?”

The fat man cut in softly:

“He doesn’t. He already said so.”

“What does he want?”

“He has a request.”

“Who is he?”

I said who I was, that I was in trouble and seeking justice, and that if he did not give it to me no one would.

The mufti looked at the man in front of him without concealing his boredom, almost in despair.

Where had I gone wrong?

He got up, turned to the left and to the right, as if he were looking for some place to escape, then began to walk around the room, stepping carefully on the patches of sunlight. But then he stopped and became absorbed in thought, looking at me cheerlessly:

“I spoke with the Constantinople mullah about this. I used to like to talk to him, occasionally, not because he was intelligent, intelligent people can be very boring, but because he knew how to say something unexpected, that would surprise you and wake you up—do you understand, Malik? Surely you don’t understand!—something that made it seem worthwhile to listen and answer. He said: human knowledge is trivial. For this reason, a clever man does not live from what he knows. But I wanted to say something different. . . . What was I talking about?”

“About the Constantinople mullah,” Malik said.

“No. About justice. ‘Justice,’ he once said, ‘We think we know what that is. But nothing could be more indefinite. It might be the law, revenge, ignorance, injustice. It all depends on one’s point of view.’ I answered . . .”

He began walking again, silent, but suddenly faltered. It seemed to me that there was a clockwork inside him, which kept him moving and gave life to his speech and body. And when that clockwork ran down he stopped as well, and was overcome by languor.

He did not offer me a seat, nor was he interested in what I had to say; the only thing left for me to do was to start speaking or leave. That way I might become a second Malik, one more shadow of the mufti, as useless as the first. I decided to speak.

“I’ve come with a request.”

“I’m tired.”

“It might interest you.”

“Do you think so?”

“Let me try. You spoke of justice. Justice is like health, you think about it only when you don’t have it. And it’s truly indefinite; maybe more than anything it is the desire to wipe out injustice, something which is, on the other hand, very definite. All injustices are equal, but one always thinks that the injustice committed against him is the greatest of all. And if one thinks that way, then it must be true, because one cannot think with someone else’s head.”

The mufti’s clockwork wound up again. He gave me a surprised look; his heavy eyes stopped on me with a recognition that was not very strong, but enough to encourage me. I had aroused his attention. And that was what I wanted: he had taught me that himself, with his ineffectual story about the Constantinople mullah. But I soon realized that it was easier to play with words about general matters than about particular affairs, which are ours and do not matter to anyone else.