Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (43 page)

He was trying to figure me out because of his son, and he accepted me because of him as well. His cunning and confidence had the same roots.

Hassan’s absence led us to begin to invent a fairy tale about him. Once upon a time there was a prince.

And surprisingly, Hassan himself spoke most often about his own defeats, without regret, laughing. But by the effect of such contrary thoughts (he noticed this very keenly) his defeats never looked serious or convincing. The magic of his easygoing sincerity even turned them into victories that he did not want to discuss and did not particularly care about.

Later I tried to distinguish between the fairy tale and reality, but as much as I knew the truth I could hardly free myself from that spellbound state, in which we often trap ourselves, wishing for our own heroes.

According to what was not the fairy tale, it seemed that there was nothing unusual about him. Having passed in school through the fire of religious fervor, and still as a young man having learned Avecena’s natural and critical philosophy with some free-minded, poor thinker, of which there are many in the East, and whom he often mentioned with affection and scorn, he entered into life with a burden that most of us bear: with the example of great men before his eyes and the desire to follow in their footsteps, but without any knowledge of petty men, who are the only ones we meet. Some get rid of these useless models more quickly, some more slowly, others never. Hassan adapted badly. He was oversensitive about everything concerning himself and his homeland and convinced of human values that he thought would be recognized everywhere. Finding himself in the rich imperial city, with its intricate connections and relationships between people—necessarily merciless, like among sharks in the deep sea, falsely polite, hypocritically polished, interwoven like the threads of a spider’s web—the inexperienced honesty of one young man was drawn into a genuinely vicious circle. With his outdated attitudes, by which he tried to make his way through the Constantinople wilderness, with a naive belief in honesty, he resembled a man who goes into battle empty-handed against skilled pirates armed to the teeth. With the benevolent serenity, honesty, and knowledge that he had gained, Hassan entered
that den with the confident steps of an ignoramus. But as he was not stupid, he soon realized what a bed of coals he had stepped onto. He could either have agreed to everything, or remained unnoticed, or left. But he, unusual as always, rejecting Constantinople’s cruelty, began more and more to think about his kasaba, and to contrast its quiet life with that commotion. They mocked him and spoke scornfully about his remote, backward region. “What are you talking about?” he would ask with surprise. “Not an hours walk from here there are regions so backward you can hardly believe your eyes. Here, in your back yard, not far from this Byzantine splendor and wealth, which has been hauled in here from the whole empire, your own brothers live like beggars. But we belong to no one, we’re always on some frontier, always someone’s dowry. Is it then surprising that we’re poor? For centuries we’ve been trying to find, trying to recognize ourselves. Soon we won’t even know who we are, we’re already forgetting that we’ve even been striving for anything. Others do us the honor of letting us march under their banners, since we have none of our own. They entice us when they need us, and reject us when we’re no longer any use to them. The saddest land in the world, the most unhappy people in the world. We’re losing our identity, but we cannot assume another, foreign one. We’ve been severed from our roots, but haven’t become part of anything else; foreign to everyone, both to those who are our kin and those who won’t take us in and adopt us as their own. We live at a crossroads of worlds, at a border between peoples, in everyone’s way. And someone always thinks we’re to blame for something. The waves of history crash against us, as against a reef. We’re fed up with those in power and we’ve made a virtue out of distress: we’ve become noble-minded out of spite. You’re ruthless on a whim. So who’s backward?”

Some hated him, some scorned him, others avoided him; he felt an increasing loneliness and longing for his homeland. One day he hit one of his countrymen, who was
telling jokes about Bosnians, and went out into the street, saddened and ashamed of both that man and himself. Then, by a market he overheard the woman from Dubrovnik and her husband. They were speaking his language. Never had a human language seemed so beautiful to him; never had anyone been more charming than that slender woman of noble appearance and the plump merchant from Dubrovnik.

It had already been months since Hassan had done anything, and his idleness and the pointlessness of his roaming around that big city had begun to gnaw at him. But his father kept generously sending him money, proud of his son’s imperial service. And while the Dubrovnik merchant was attending to his own affairs, Hassan accompanied his wife to the most beautiful places in Constantinople, listening to the most beautiful language from the most beautiful lips, forgetting his silly problems; and it seems the woman did not try to avoid him, either. What had most attracted this gentle noblewoman of Dubrovnik, educated in the Lesser Brethren Monastery,
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to the young Bosnian was not his good looks, polish, and education, but his being all that and yet a Bosnian. She had thought that people from those remote regions were rude, crazy, wild, and pigheaded; that they had a courage that reasonable men would not always think too much of, and some silly pride because of their faithful service to those who were not their friends. But this young man was neither rude, nor wild, nor uneducated. He was equal in bearing to any Dubrovnik aristocrat, a pleasant interlocutor, a useful escort who was delighted with her (that increased the value of all of his qualities), and so restrained that she had doubts when she watched herself in the mirror at home. She was not thinking of love at all; she was just used to men courting her. She waited with anxiety and unease for that to happen, but when it never did, she was surprised and began to watch him more closely. Hassan, very young and honest, did not know about glib words that would oblige neither him nor her, and was not thinking of
love, either; the delight he felt at their encounter was enough for him. Yet love thought of him: he soon fell for her. When he discovered this for himself, he hid it from her, trying not to give himself away, even with a single look. But the woman realized it at once, as soon as a passionate fire appeared in his eyes (she had to admit that they were beautiful), and she began to protect herself by strengthening their friendship, acting like a sister, without inhibitions. Hassan sank deeper and deeper into this love, or rose higher and higher on its wave; and no one should have been surprised by that, as she was beautiful (I say this by the way, because with love that is unimportant). She was gentle and sweet (and with love that is important), and she was the first creature to chase away his murky restlessness and convince him that there are things that a young man cannot forget and remain unpunished.

He helped the Dubrovnik merchant with a Bosnian, the son of the goldsmith Sinanuddin, to finish more quickly the business for which he had come, to get permission and privileges for trade with Bosnia. Thus he acquired his friendship but shortened their stay, happy about the man’s trust, which seemed to pardon the sin of his love, and unhappy about their approaching departure, which would leave him more dejected than he had been before. And whether the Dubrovnik merchant really felt any trust, or just tied Hassan’s hands with it, since he knew how people are, or whether he trusted his wife that much, or just had no imagination, or did not care, it is hard to say, but he was not important in their silly love. I say: silly, and I say: love, because it was both one and the other. Frightened or encouraged by her approaching departure, Hassan told Maria (that was her name: Mayram)
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that he loved her. Whether it was because of the paleness that appeared in her face, even though she had not heard anything she did not know, or because of his naïveté, Hassan said what a wise and experienced man would never think of saying. He said he
was sorry, because of her husband, since he was his friend, and maybe that would offend her as well, since she was a virtuous woman, but he had to tell her that, and did not know what would happen to him when she left. Thus the woman was also forced to hide behind her husband and her virtue, and to return him to the harmless position of a family friend. It seems that then, miraculously, as if Hassan’s naïveté had defeated her austerity, she fell in love with him. But that Franciscan protégées Catholic sense of marital faithfulness and her deep fear of sin buried her love in the most secret part of her heart, obliging him as well not to force her to uncover it, he who was overjoyed since he knew of its existence. As he had told her everything about himself, revealing what he had not revealed to anyone, she suggested that he come along with them, by boat, to Bosnia, by way of Dubrovnik, since in any case nothing was keeping him in Constantinople. She wanted to show both of them that she was not afraid of him or herself. It was sort of “la route des écoliers,” she said, and explained, since he knew no French, that it was the roundabout way by which children go home from school, longer but safer. She even tried to protect herself with French, because she sensed his delight at her knowledge of that strange language, created for women. She forgot that he would have been delighted even if she spoke Gypsy. Just as she forgot that delighting him was a poor way of protecting herself. On the boat they saw each other less than Hassan had hoped. The merchant could not take the rough seas, and he spent almost the entire trip lying in bed, suffering and vomiting. Hassan saw all of it. He smelled the heavy stench, because of which the cabin had to be aired for hours, so that the very moment when everything had been cleaned and aired out, it would be soiled and stunk up again. And the poor man was yellow and blue, as if he were dying. “Maybe he’ll die,” Hassan thought with fear and hope, but afterward he felt remorse at such a cruel thought. Maria, with some unbecoming sense of sacrifice and
sufferance, spent most of the time with her husband, cleaning and airing the cabin, comforting him and holding his hand, supporting his head when he retched, which did not decrease his suffering, just as that ugly sight did not increase her love for him. When he fell asleep, she would go up on deck, where Hassan was impatiently waiting to see her swaying, slender figure, and then with fear she would count the minutes until her duty would call her into the stinking cabin again, where—moved by her own sacrifice—she would think of the fresh sea air and the tender voice that spoke of love. They did not speak about their own love, but about that of others, and it was the same. She recited European love poetry and he Eastern, and they were the same. They had never made such use of the words of others, and that was the same as if they had invented their own. Shielded from the wind behind the captain’s cabin or behind boxes and bundles on the deck, they shielded themselves with poetry as well, and it was then that poetry found its full justification, no matter what else may ever have been said about it. And when the woman became aware of her sin, when she felt that everything was too beautiful, she would punish herself with her husband and her sacrifice. “Maria,” the young man whispered, taking advantage of her permission to call her by her name, which seemed like the greatest mercy to him, “will you come out this evening?”

“No, my dear friend, too much poetry at once isn’t good, it could become oppressive. And the wind is also chilly. I’d never forgive myself if you caught a cold.”

“Maria,” said the young man, breathless. “Maria.”

“Yes, my dear friend?”

“Then I won’t see you until tomorrow?”

She let him hold her hand and listened to the beating of the waves and the pulsing of his blood, maybe wanting to forget about time, but then she woke up:

“Come into our cabin.”

And he went into their cabin, to choke in the rancid air
and in those narrow confines, and to watch in amazement the devotion with which Maria nursed her husband. He was afraid it might make him seasick as well.

As they drew near to Dubrovnik, on the last night, she squeezed his hand (he unsuccessfully tried to keep hold of it) and said:

"I’ll always remember this trip.”

Maybe because of Hassan and the poetry, or maybe because of her husband and his vomiting.

In Dubrovnik he was a dear guest in their house twice, among numerous aunts, relatives, acquaintances, friends, and both times he could not wait to escape from those strange people, who in the streets hardly noticed his Eastern dress but who looked at him in the salon of Master Luke and Madam Maria as if at a wonder. As if there were something indecent in those visits of his, and so he was also flustered and unnatural. And when he encountered a coldness in Maria’s attention, because of which she appeared almost completely different, distant, feigning smiles, it became clear to him that her house was where he could see how far apart they really were. There they were two strangers, with everything between them, and not since yesterday. The habits and customs there, the ways people spoke and also kept silent, and what the two of them had thought about each other earlier, without even knowing each other—all of that created a chasm between them. He realized that in this city Maria was shielded and protected by houses, walls, churches, sky, the smell of the sea, and by people. But this side of herself, it was not the same anywhere else. And he was the one from whom she was protected, maybe from him alone. And maybe even he from her. Because he shuddered at the thought of living in this wonderful place, either alone or with her, and a sorrow like he had never felt crept into his soul. He took his leave gladly when he came across a merchant caravan that was about to leave for Bosnia from Tabor in Ploche.
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He was still happy
when he saw the snows on Mount Ivan,
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the Bosnian fog, and when he felt the biting wind from Mount Igman.
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Filled with joy, he entered the dark kasaba nestled tightly between the mountains, and kissed his countrymen on the cheek. The kasaba seemed smaller to him, but his house was larger. His sister told him politely that it would be a pity for their mother’s house to stand empty. She was afraid he would move into his father’s larger house. He fell out with their father at once, maybe mostly because the old man felt personally deceived and shamed, since he had been spreading word about his glory and successes in Istanbul, to spite his son-in-law, the kadi, whom he could not stand. The locals interpreted his return as a failure, since no one with any common sense would have come back to the kasaba from Constantinople or left a high imperial position if he did not have to. He got married, because of Maria, because of his memories, because of the empty chambers of his mother’s house, at the insistence of others. He barely endured a single winter with his wife, a stupid, garrulous, greedy woman. He freed himself of her and her family, giving them the estate near the town and some money, ostensibly lending it to them. And then he began to laugh. His homeland was not the land of dreams; his countrymen were not angels. And he could no longer change them for the better or worse. They gossiped about him, were suspicious of him, and tried to provoke him. His in-laws robbed him blind, taking advantage of his wish to get rid of his wife as soon as possible. He was the talk of the town for a long time; they welcomed him because he chased their boredom away. He remembered how in Constantinople he had spoken about the dignity of his countrymen, and laughed. Fortunately for himself, he did not hold anything against anyone or complain. He took everything that happened to him like a cruel joke. Others are even worse, he would say, and it seemed to me that he was defending his earlier enthusiasm more than the truth. After two or three years he began to love them again. He got
used to them and they to him, and he began to value them in his own way, scornfully but without malice, respecting life the way it was more than the way he wanted it to be. “They’re a clever people,” he told me once, with the strange mixture of sarcasm and seriousness that so often perplexed me. “They get their idleness from the East, and their nice life from the West; they’re in no hurry, because life itself is in a hurry; they’re not interested in seeing what tomorrow will bring, what’s destined will come, and few things depend on them; they come together only when they’re in difficulties, and therefore they don’t like to be together often; they hardly trust anyone, but they’re most easily deceived with pretty words; they don’t look like heroes, but they’re most difficult to frighten with threats; for a long time they won’t pay attention to anything, they won’t care about what’s happening around them, and then, all of a sudden everything matters to them, they mess with everything and turn everything on its head; then they doze off again, and don’t want to remember anything that’s happened; they’re afraid of change because it often brings them misfortune, and they easily get annoyed with one man, even if he’s done them good. A strange people. They’ll talk behind your back and love you; they’ll kiss your cheek and hate you; they’ll ridicule noble deeds and remember them for generations; they live by spite and generosity and you never know which will prevail or when. Bad, good, gentle, cruel, lethargic, tempestuous, open, closed—they’re all of that and everything in between. And on top of everything, they’re mine and I’m theirs, like a river and a drop of water, and everything I’ve said about them I might as well say about myself.”