Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (30 page)

“Do you want to eat?”

Everything around me seemed so dirty, slimy, and rotten that I felt sick at the very thought of food.

“I don’t want to eat.”

“That’s how they all are. The first day. And then they want to. Don’t call for me later.”

“Has anyone come to ask about me?”

“No. No one.”

“My friends will come to ask about me. Come and tell me when they do.”

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

“A dervish, the sheikh of the tekke. Ahmed Nuruddin.”

He closed the little door, and opened it again.

“Do you know a prayer? Can you write an amulet? Against gout?”

“No.”

“That’s a pity. It’s killing me.”

“It’s damp here. We’ll all fall ill.”

“You’ve got it easy. They’ll let you go. Or kill you. And I’m here forever. Like this.”

“Do you have any kind of mat or board? I can’t lie down.”

“You’ll get used to it. I don’t have anything.”

The dervish Ahmed Nuruddin, light of faith, the sheikh of a tekke. I had forgotten about him, the whole night I had not had a title or a name. I remembered him, I brought him back to life in front of this man. Ahmed Nuruddin, preacher and scholar, foundation and roof of his tekke, glory of the kasaba, master of the world. And now he was asking for a
mat or board from Jemal the bat, so he would not have to lie down in the mud; he was waiting to be strangled and laid out dead in the mud that he refused to lie in alive.

It was better to be nameless, with wounds and pains, oblivious, with wounds and hopes for morning, but that dead morning without a dawn had awakened Ahmed Nuruddin, stifled his hope, driven his bodily wounds and pains into nonexistence. They had again become unimportant before a more severe and dangerous threat that was rising from within me to destroy me.

I tried to keep myself from going mad; anything, but not that. Once that started, nothing would be able to stop it, it would burn and destroy everything inside me. Only a waste would remain, more terrible than death. But I could feel it stirring, squirming. There was nothing for my thoughts to hold on to; I turned around in amazement, searching for something. It had been there until the day before, until the moment before. Where was it? I was searching, in vain. I had nothing to support me; I was sinking into the mud. No matter, it’s all in vain, Sheikh Nuruddin.

But the wave that had welled up in me stopped, and did not grow. I was waiting, surprised: silence.

I got up slowly, holding on to the walls, leaning with my palms on the slimy bumps. I wanted to stand. I still had hope; they would come looking for me. The day had just begun. A moment of weakness would not kill me, and it was good that I was ashamed of it.

And I waited, waited, keeping the flame of my hopes alive as the long hours passed. I comforted myself with my pain and burning wounds. I strained to hear footsteps and kept expecting the door to open, a voice to reach me. And night fell, I knew because I no longer needed my eyes; I slept in the stinking muck, exhausted, and woke up without the desire to sit on the stone. In the morning I ate Jemal’s food, and waited again. Days passed, dark dawns followed one after another, and I no longer knew whether I was waiting.

And then, drained of my strength, dazed from the fatigue of waiting, weakened by the moisture that my bones had absorbed, in a fever that warmed me and led me out from that grave for a while, then, I say, I spoke with my brother Harun.

Now we’re equal, brother Harun, I said to him who was still, silent. I saw only his eyes, distant, stern, lost in the darkness. I followed them, placed them before me, or I went after them. Now we’re equal; both of us are miserable. If I was guilty, there’s no guilt now. I know how alone you were, and how you waited to hear from someone. You stood at the door, straining to hear voices, footsteps, words; you thought that they had something to do with you, time and time again. We’ve been left alone, both of us, and no one has come, no one has asked about me or remembered me, and my path is now empty, without a trace or a memory. I’d have preferred never to have seen it. You waited for me, and I waited for Hassan. We didn’t wait long enough. No one ever waits long enough; in the end everyone is always left alone. We’re equal, we’re unhappy, we’re human, brother Harun.

I swear by time, which is the beginning and end of all things, that every man always suffers loss. “Did anyone come?”

I asked Jemal by habit, no longer hoping for anything.

“No. No one.”

I wanted to hope—no one can live without expectations—but I did not have the strength. I abandoned my sentry post by the door and sat somewhere, quiet, defeated, more and more quiet. I was losing my sense of life; the border between dreams and reality was disappearing. What I dreamed actually happened, I walked the paths of my youth and childhood freely. But I never walked the streets of the kasaba, as if they could take me into the prison even from my dreams. I lived with people that I had met long ago. And it was nice because I never woke up; I did not know about being awake. Jemal was also a dream, as was the darkness
around me, and the wet walls. Even when I would come to, I did not suffer very much; one has to have strength to suffer.

It became clear to me how men die. I saw that it is not so hard. Or easy. It is nothing. One just starts living less and less, being less and less, thinking, feeling and knowing less and less. The rich flow of life dries up, and only a thin thread of uncertain consciousness remains, more and more meager, more and more insignificant. And then nothing happens, there is not anything, there is nothing. And nothing matters—it is all the same.

And when, at one point, in that withering without time—because time had been interrupted before it could establish itself as duration—Jemal said something through the opening in the door, I did not immediately understand what he was saying, although I knew that it was important. I awoke and realized: my friends had brought me gifts.

“Which friends?”

“I don’t know. Two of them. Take it.”

I knew, I did not even have to ask, I had known that they would come. I had known for a long time, the wait had been a long one, but I had known.

I clawed at the door with my fingers, to get up. I had not been sitting there without reason.

“Two of them?”

“Two of them. They gave it to the guard.”

“What did they say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell him to ask who they are.”

I wanted to hear familiar names. Hassan and Harun. No. Hassan and Is-haq.

I took the food—dates and cherries—they had been like small green berries when I had gone in there, they had been pink blossoms. I had desired for their colorless blood to flow into me so that I would bloom without pain every spring, as they had then. That had happened once, a long time before,
when life had still been beautiful. Maybe life had seemed difficult to me then, but when I thought about it in this place, I wished that I could go back.

I was afraid that I would drop the bundle. My hands were unsteady, joyous, crazy and weak; they pressed that proof that I was not dead firmly against my chest. I had known that they would come. I had known it! I lowered my head and breathed in the fresh scent of early summer, greedily, wishfully, more, more—the dankness would soon creep into the transparent red fragrance of the cherries. I touched their tender young skins with my soiled fingers. In a moment, in an hour they would shrivel and age. No matter, no matter. That was a sign, a message from the outside world. I was not alone; there was hope. I had shed no tears when I had thought that the end was near. And now they effused continuously from the revived springs of my eyes. They must have left their traces on the muddy coating on my face. Let them flow; I had risen from the dead. The least sign that I had not been forgotten was enough for my lost strength to return. My body was weak, but that did not matter; I felt a warmth within myself. I did not think about death, and I was no longer indifferent to everything. This happened at the last moment, to stop me on the slope down which I had been sliding, to keep me from dying. And I had indeed begun to die. (I realized, as I had many other times, that the soul can often hold the body together, but the body can never hold the soul together: it stumbles and loses its way all on its own.)

I was waiting again.

I said: they remembered, Harun.

And I thought about Hassan. And I thought about Is-haq.

They would start a rebellion and free me.

They would slip through secret passageways and smuggle me out.

They would turn into air, into birds, into spirits; they would turn invisible, but they would come.

It would take a miracle for it to happen, but they would come.

An earthquake would demolish these old walls, and they would be waiting for me, to lead me out of the rubble.

Hassan and Is-haq would be the first to open the door, no matter who came, no matter what happened.

There was not a single ordinary thought in my head; they were all beyond the usual and the familiar. I strained to hear the joyful roar of my deliverance. I waited for that rumble, as if it were vengeance for things that I had fearfully stifled inside myself whenever I sensed the slightest hint of them. There could be no ordinary end to all of this waiting. Maybe because of the grave in which I was shut and the nearness of death, the odor of which had already engulfed me; maybe because of the deep passageways and hard gates that could not be opened by a word or an appeal; maybe because of the horror that had befallen me and that might be eliminated by another, greater horror. I waited for a day of judgment and was sure that it would come. The two of them had announced it to me.

The next day I received gifts again. Time was beginning to flow again, uninterrupted. There had been two of them again, nameless. But I knew who they were and waited for the earthquake.

“What if there were an earthquake, a fire, or a rebellion?” I asked Jemal, puzzled that he did not understand. Or did he? And he asked me: “You’re a dervish. Do you know the verse: ‘When the great event comes to pass’?”

Were we really thinking the same thing?

“I do.”

“Come here. Speak.”

“No.”

“A pity. You’re not a good man.”

“What do you want to hear it for?”

“I like it. I like to listen to it.”

“How do you know about it?”

“From a prisoner. The one before you. A good man.”

“That’s from the Koran. The ‘Waqiah’ Sura.”
²
“Maybe.”

“
‘When the great event comes to pass . . .’”

“Not so loud. Come here.”

“
‘When the great event comes to pass, some will be exalted and others abased. When the earth is shaken by violent quakes, you will be separated into three classes.’”
³

In the gray darkness, leaning with my chin against the sharp edge of the iron frame, I could discern his formless face in the rectangular opening, very close to my eyes. He listened to what I said with surprise, with an interest that I could not understand.

“That’s not it.”

“Maybe it’s the ‘Spider’ Sura?”
⁴

“I don’t know. No matter. What three classes?”

“
‘One are the happy companions, equal in their happiness. They stood ahead of all men and preceded them. They approached near unto Allah, and dwell in the heavenly gardens of delight. This is the group of the first, and a few will also come later. They sit upon thrones adorned with gold, pleasantly reclining opposite one another. They are served by youths who never grow older, and who go round about with jugs, beakers, and cups filled with pure drink that flows from one spring. Their heads will not ache from that drink, nor will their bodies be weakened. And they will take fruits that please them, and the flesh of birds, whichever kind they desire. And they will be accompanied by fair maidens with large eyes, beautiful as pearls hidden inside their shells. This is their reward for their good services. They will not hear empty words or the speech of sinners. They will only hear the words: peace! Peace!

‘And the companions of the right hand are companions in happiness. They sit under a bountiful lotus tree that has no thorns, and under banana tress whose fruit hangs in bunches, in shade that has spread along clear, flowing waters. And in
an abundance of fruit that will never fail or be forbidden; they repose on lofty beds.’”
⁵

“Nice. And for them, too.”

His whispers were amazed, full of envy.

“
‘And how miserable are the wretches who have been struck by misfortune! Their place is in a glowing fire and scalding water, in the shade of dark, black smoke, which is neither pleasant nor beautiful. You will eat the bitter fruit of the tree of
Zaqqum,*
and you will drink boiling water. You will drink as a thirsty camel drinks. We have decreed that death will reign among you, and our power is great and it will be so.’”
⁶

“But why? Are they guilty of something?”

“God alone knows that, Jemal.”

“Is there any more?”

“
‘The unfortunate will tell the chosen: wait, let us take a little of your light! They will answer unto them: go back and find light for yourselves. Then a wall will be erected between them; mercy will be on the inside, and suffering will be on the outside of the wall. Those on the outside will shout: Were we not together with you?’”
⁷

“O merciful God. Again. Without light.”

After that he said nothing for a while, his excited brain was straining to think. His breathing was heavy.

“And I? Where will I be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will I be on the right hand?”

“Maybe.”

“
‘Heavenly gardens, through which rivers flow, await you.’
⁸
That’s what he said. Before you. And about the sun. Where will I be? That’s for good service. Have I done any? Good service? Fifteen years like this. Here. And there the sun. Rivers. Fruit. For good service.”

“What happened to that man?”

“He died. He was good. Quiet. He spoke to me. Like that. And you will too, he said. There. And all good people.
That’s good. I said. Because of the sun. And the water. Clear. And because of gout. Mine.”