Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (45 page)

And then he suddenly changed his mind:

“But maybe it’s better if he stays in the tekke. Fazli has gone to meet Hassan, and Zeyna has enough to do caring for me. I wouldn’t be able to receive him properly.”

I knew why he had changed his mind; it was because of Hassan. I calmed him down.

“I don’t believe he’d come. Imperial officials go to the tekke when they don’t want to offend anyone somewhere. Or when they don’t trust anyone.”

“Where will he bivouac his troops?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t tell him anything. Maybe Hassan wouldn’t even like it if the Miralay spent a night in our house. I wouldn’t, either,” he added, magnanimously agreeing with his son. “If you need any bedding, food, or dishes, let me know.”

“May some of the dervishes spend the night here, if need be?”

“All of you may.”

In the street I met Yusuf Sinanuddin, the goldsmith. He was going to see Ali-aga, as he did every evening, but when I saw him he was standing on a corner as if he were listening to something. He started walking when he saw me.

“You have a famous guest,” he told me, strangely absentminded.

“I’ve just heard.”

“Ask him how he feels. He gained his fame fighting against the enemies of the empire, and now he’s going to kill our people. In the Posavina. Old age is ugly. If he’d only died on time.”

“It’s not for me to ask him that, Sinanuddin-aga.”

“I know it’s not, and I wouldn’t either. But it’s difficult not to think about it.”

He stopped at the gates, it seemed to me that he was trying to hear something.

I sent Hafiz-Muhammed and Mullah-Yusuf to spend the night at Ali-aga’s. I took Hafiz-Muhammed’s room and gave my own to Osman-bey. We put the guards in Mullah-Yusuf’s room.

I was surprised how old, white-bearded, tired, and reticent the miralay was. But he was not rude, as I had expected. He apologized for disturbing me, but he did not know anyone in the kasaba, and it seemed most convenient to come to the tekke; most convenient for him, though certainly not for us. But he hoped we were used to unexpected guests, and he would stay only that night and continue his journey early the next day. He could have spent the night with his troops in the field, but at his age he preferred to stay
under a roof. He thought about going to the local goldsmith, Hadji-Yusuf Sinanuddin, whose son was a friend of his, but he did not know who would like that and who would not, and therefore he decided to do this. Although he had news to pass on to Hadji-Sinanuddin about his son: immediately before he had left to come here, Hadji-Sinanuddin’s son had been named the imperial
silladar.*
I could pass word of it on to him; it might make him happy.

“Of course he’ll be happy!” I said, almost stunned. “No one from the kasaba has ever risen to such a high position.”

But the officer had expended all his words and attention, and fell silent, tired, without a smile, eager to be left alone.

I went to my room and stood by my window, awake and extremely upset.

The imperial silladar, one of the most powerful people in the empire!

I did not know why I was so excited by that news. Before, I would not have cared. I might have been surprised or gladdened by his good luck. Maybe I would even have pitied him. But now it was almost like poison. Good for him, I thought, good for him. The time had come for him to pay back his enemies, and he certainly had them. And now they waited in fear for his hand, which had become as heavy as lead overnight, to fall on them, a hand pregnant with many deaths. It seemed impossible, like a dream, like an illusion, too nice. God, what inconceivable happiness—to be able to act. Man is pitiful with his vain thoughts, with his wishes for the stars. His powerlessness humiliates him. Silladar Mustafa was not sleeping tonight, just as I was not: everything inside him was stirred up by the happiness he had not yet grown accustomed to. Below him was Istanbul, all in moonlight, quiet, plated with gold. Who else was not sleeping tonight, because of him? He knew all of them, by heart, better than his own kinsmen. “How are you?” he asked softly, patiently. “How do you feel tonight?” Destiny had not elevated him for their sake, to punish or frighten them. He had more
important matters to attend to, but it was precisely because of those matters that he could not leave those men alone. Oh, and because of hatred, for sure. It was impossible that he did not feel it. It was impossible that he had not hidden it within himself, carrying it like fog, like poison in his blood. It was impossible that he had not been waiting for this night as if it were sacred, to pay them back for all their evil and for his earlier powerlessness.

There were two sides to me that night. I knew how greatly the silladar was rejoicing; I even felt his triumph myself, as if it were mine. But I also felt worse because my desires were nothing but air and light, which shone and burned within me alone, comforting and torturing me.

I wanted to howl into the night: Why he, of all people? Was he the one who needed most to get even? Was my desire really less than his? To which devil would I have to sell my miserable soul in order to have such luck shine on me?

But I was torturing myself to no avail. Fate is deaf to laments, and blind when it chooses its executors.

If it had not been night I would have gone to the goldsmith Yusuf Sinanuddin, to tell him the good news about his son. He still did not know; he had no inkling of it. It had been left for me like a valuable, to keep and enjoy, although it was not mine. It would not have bothered me that it was night; he would have been grateful to me even if I woke him up. He would have forgotten that he had spoken reproachfully of the miralay, and hurried off to thank him. I did not go. Maybe I would not even have been able to, because of the guards by the door. It would have been unpleasant if they stopped me or sent me back; it might have seemed suspicious and been dangerous for me. And I did not want to go to the miralay’s room to ask for permission. He would have been surprised: Is it really so important and urgent?

Indeed, why was it so important to me?

I had become excited out of envy, out of hatred, out of a vicarious experience of someone else’s happiness. And there
was no other reason, since it was none of my business. I was not in a hurry to take the news to those whom it concerned. I stayed in the tekke.

I could not have dreamed how important that trivial decision would prove to be.

If I had gone to Hadji-Sinanuddin and told him what I had learned, if only to make him happy, or to stay up all night talking together, my life would have taken a different direction. I am not saying that it would have been better or worse, but it would have certainly been different.

Under the weight of its sleep, the kasaba smoldered quietly in the autumn moonlight. There were no sounds, none at all: the people had all died, the birds had all flown away, the river had dried up, life had burned out. But somewhere far away it was still humming, somewhere things were happening that people here desired. We were surrounded by emptiness and darkness. What did we have to do to leave the emptiness of that long night? O God, why did you not keep me blind, and let me rest in that dark, calm sightlessness? And why are you now holding me crippled in the trap of powerlessness? Free me, or put out the useless ray of light inside me. Release me, it does not matter how.

Fortunately, I did not lose my senses, although my prayer seemed like raving. My weakness did not last long, and before sunrise a dawn began in me. My darkness slowly faded, a single thought began to form, vague, uncertain, distant, but ever closer, clearer, more definite, until it illuminated me like the morning sun. A thought? No! A revelation from God.

My anxiety was not unfounded. Its cause had been planted inside me, although I did not yet comprehend it. But the seed had sprouted.

Quicker, time, my moment has come. My only one, since tomorrow it might already be too late.

In the early dawn there was a restless clatter of horses’ hooves in the street. The miralay left his room at once, as if
he had not slept at all. I went out as well. In the dim morning light he looked old and blind, because of his swollen eyelids, gray, exhausted. How had he spent that night?

“Please excuse the smoke in the room. I smoked a lot. I couldn’t sleep. And neither could you; I heard you walking around.”

“If you’d called me, we could’ve talked.”

“A pity.”

He said that in a dead voice, and I did not know whether it was a pity that we had not talked or would have been if we had wasted any time talking.

Two soldiers lifted him onto his horse. He rode away down the empty street, hunched in his saddle.

On my way back from the mosque I saw Mullah-Yusuf in front of the bakery, talking with the night-watchman and the baker’s journeyman. He hurried to catch up with me, explaining that he had not come to the mosque because he had said the morning prayer with Ali-aga and Hafiz-Muhammed. And then he had been stopped by those two men, who told him that some Posavina rebels had escaped from the fortress the night before.

Three guards rushed by in the street. The musellim certainly had not slept that night; neither had the kadi. Many of us had spent it sleepless. We had each been in a different place, but fate had spun a strong thread between us. It had taken care of everything and now gave me the final solution. I had been waiting, knowing that it would come, and when I caught sight of it, my knees started trembling, my stomach began to hurt, my brain glowed red-hot. But I did not let go of what I had caught.

We stood next to Harun’s grave. I looked at the tombstone covered with drops of wax from burned-out candles, and said a prayer for my brother’s soul.

Mullah-Yusuf also raised his hands, whispering a prayer.

“I often see you praying over this grave. Do you do that for others or for yourself?”

“Not for others.”

“If you do it for him and for yourself, then you’re not completely corrupted.”

“I’d give everything to forget.”

“You inflicted a great evil on both him and me. On me more than on him, because I’ve been left alive to remember and to hurt. Do you know that?”

“Yes.”

His voice was tired, sunken somewhere deep in his throat.

“Do you know about my sleepless nights, about the darkness you pushed me into? You’ve driven me to think about how to destroy you and the evil in you, to wonder whether I should hand you over to the law of our order or strangle you with my own hands.”

“You’d be right if you did, Sheikh-Ahmed.”

“If I’d known what’s right, I’d have done it. But I didn’t. I left everything to God and you. Yet I knew that there are others who are more guilty. You were a pawn in their hands, a trap with which they caught idiots. I felt sorry for you. And maybe you felt sorry for us.”

“I did, Sheikh-Ahmed. God is my witness, I did and still do.”

“Why?”

“That was the first time someone suffered so much because of my obedience. The first time I know of.”

“You say you’re sorry. Is that just a word?”

“It’s not just a word. I thought you were going to kill me. I waited nights on end, listening for your footsteps, certain that your hatred would bring you to my room. I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to defend myself. I swear to you by the name of God, I wouldn’t have opened my mouth to call anyone.”

“If I’d asked something of you then, what would you have said?”

“I’d have done it, anything.”

“And now?”

“Now, too.”

“Then I ask you: will you do everything, truly everything I tell you to? Think before you answer. If you won’t, go your own way peacefully, I won’t so much as reproach you. But if you agree, you mustn’t ask anything. And no one must know, only you and I, and God, who showed me the way.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You’re answering too quickly. You haven’t thought about it. Maybe it won’t be easy.”

“I thought about it a long time ago.”

“Maybe I want you to kill someone.”

He looked at me horrified, caught unaware; his words of agreement had slipped out too quickly. His memory and that grave had made him obedient. He said: everything, but he had his limits. And now he did not want to back out.

“Let it be so, if it’s necessary.”

“You can still back out. I want a lot. Later there’ll be no turning back.”

“No matter. I agree. What your conscience can do, let mine accept as well.”

“Good. Then, swear before this grave, which you dug: may Allah condemn me to the worst torments if I say anything to anyone.”

He repeated that, seriously and solemnly, like a prayer. “Be careful, Mullah-Yusuf, if you say anything, now or later, and if you don’t do it, if you betray me, nothing will be able to save you. I’ll be forced to protect myself.”

“You won’t have to protect yourself from anything. What do I need to do?”

“Go to the kadi, right now.”

“I don’t go to the kadi any more. All right, I’ll go.”

“Tell him: Hadji-Yusuf Sinanuddin helped the Posavina rebels to escape from the fortress.”

The youth’s blue eyes widened with fear and astonishment. It seemed that he would not have been less surprised if I had asked him to kill someone.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“If he asks who told you, you heard it by chance, from strangers in the inn, or someone whispered it to you in the darkness, or you can’t tell who it was. Make up something. Don’t mention me. And tell them not to mention you, either. The name you’re giving them is enough.”

“They’ll kill him.”

“I told you not to ask anything. They won’t kill him. We’ll take care that nothing happens to him. Hadji-Sinanuddin is my friend.”

He did not look very intelligent with the expression of utter bewilderment that showed on his face. He tried in vain to make some sense of everything he had heard.

“Go.”

He kept standing there.

“And then? Afterward?”

“Nothing. Come back to the tekke. You don’t need to do anything else. Make sure that no one sees you with the kadi.”

He left, as if blind, without knowing what he was bearing or what purpose he was serving.