Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (49 page)

To take part in what?

Indeed, what was I expecting? What was I hoping for?

All my hope lay in the letter that the courier had taken to Silladar Mustafa in Constantinople. If a
katul-ferman*
did not arrive soon, or at least a letter about the removal of the guilty parties, then there was no longer either filial love or honesty in the world. But that was not worth thinking about, because in that case life would be worth less than a copper piaster.

But even if there was none of that any more, I trusted in the arrogant pride of powerful men. It could not fail. Would the imperial Silladars vanity let some petty kasaba scum drag his father from prison to prison? He would resist such shame even if he were up against someone stronger; and as for the locals here, there would be hell to pay, without a doubt. His temper was certainly not angelic, nor his hand light, since he had succeeded in rising to such a position.

He was going to take care of everything for me. All I had to do was wait, and that would be best and safest. But there was no way I could avoid the bazaar shopkeepers. As soon as I had chosen Hadji-Sinanuddin as the bait, I had gotten them involved as well. They might ruin everything, but what else could I do? If Hadji-Sinanuddin were released too soon, without any fuss or harm, everything would have been in vain. Nevertheless, I had expected them to do more, something more serious. I did not know what. Maybe their messenger had already gone to the vali with their complaint. Maybe they would pay some ruffians and ex-soldiers to go and break out the prisoner. Maybe they would incite the
janissaries*
to remove the authorities from power. Hardly anyone knows their dealings, but I hoped that this would not pass quietly. As many people as possible needed to hear about it. And I did not want anything to happen without me. I had to get even.

At the stone bridge I met the night-watchman.

“Where are you going so early, Sheikh-effendi?”

“I read my clock wrong.”

“My God, see what life is like? Those who can sleep don’t, and those who are always sleepy are condemned to roam around all night.”

“What’s going on?”

“All sorts of things! Something new is happening all the time. Only nobody tells me anything, so I don’t know.”

“A few moments ago someone was shooting somewhere.”

“Fortunately, it wasn’t in my area.”

“Could you ask around a little?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“You didn’t even pay for what was more important to you. Or is this more important? Wait, don’t get mad. I’ll tell you for free. I asked the night-watchman from the neighboring area. He doesn’t know, either. And if he doesn’t know, nothing might as well have happened. There’s no one else for me to ask.”

Lights began to appear in the windows; the houses were opening their eyes.

After daybreak Mullah-Yusuf brought me two pieces of news: first, that Hassan had returned earlier that morning, he had been traveling all night; and second, more strange, that all the shops in the bazaar were closed.

Indeed, the stores and shops were bolted shut, their shut-ters lowered, their padlocks securely fastened. Not even on the most solemn holy day was it so empty.

A young tailor, a newcomer, was hurriedly closing some wooden shutters, looking around fearfully.

“Why are all shops closed?”

“I don’t know. I came early, and was going about my work when I looked out and saw that none of the shops were open.”

He checked the door, put the key in his pocket, as if he were hiding it, and went hastily down the street.

Two merchants came up, walking unhurriedly, like sentries, and calmly watched the tailor go away.

I asked them:

“Didn’t you tell him the bazaar would be closed?”

“Who’d have told whom?”

“You mean you didn’t all make an agreement?”

They looked at each other, surprised:

“Why would we make an agreement?”

“Then why did you close your stores?”

“I thought: ‘Let’s not open up shop today.’ That’s probably what the others are thinking.”

“But why?”

“Why? What do we know why?”

“So you really didn’t all make an agreement?”

“Come on, Effendi. How could the whole bazaar come to an agreement?”

“But don’t you see? Everything’s closed.”

“Yes. And that’s exactly why it’s closed.”

“Why?”

“Because there wasn’t any agreement.”

“Fine. So it’s not because of what happened yesterday?”

“Well, it’s also because of what happened yesterday.”

“Or because of the shooting this morning?”

“Well, it’s also because of the shooting.”

“Or because of something else?”

“Well, it’s also because of something else.”

“What’s going on in the kasaba?”

“We don’t know. That’s why we’re staying closed.”

They looked past me, serious, distant, worried, elusive.

“And what happens now?”

“Nothing, with the help of God.”

“But if it does?”

“Well, there you are—we’ve closed our shops.”

Does our dervish reasoning seem as incomprehensible to such shopkeepers as theirs does to us?

And I would not say that they were insincere or overcautious. They just sensed some approaching danger: when that happens, everyone has his own language.

I told Hassan about this conversation. A peculiar impression had been made on me by those two merchants, who had turned into strangers overnight, because of what I had started. Should they not have become closer to me? I asked Hassan that, differently: should we not have thought more alike, since we were both troubled by the same thing?

Hassan was getting dressed in his room. He had bathed for the second time already—he was tired, he said, they had been in a hurry, because of his father. His friend from Dubrovnik was exhausted, he would certainly sleep for two days and nights. Hassan did not seem tired, but rather absentminded; the lost serenity of his expression made him seem dreamy and detached. He was illuminated from within by something like moonlight, a silly happiness, something not very clever that blinded him to the world around him. He answered: yes, of course. But it seemed that he did not understand me at all, as I had not understood the merchants.

“You’re not really back in the kasaba yet,” I said, somewhat confused, somewhat amused by his absentmindedness.

“What? Oh, yes! Well, I’m here, I already know what’s going on: my father is seriously ill, Hadji-Sinanuddin is in prison, and Miralay Osman-bey has left to butcher the Posavina rebels. Is there anything else?”

He smiled happily, as if those things were the most cheerful pieces of news that he could ever have heard.

“How can Ali-aga be seriously ill? Last night he was fine.”

“He’s been upset by Hadji-Sinanuddin’s arrest.”

“We’re all upset. Were afraid for him.”

“Why? They’ll release him. Men who love money have already been found. Imagine, such people do exist!”

For him there were no grave matters that morning. He laughed and said: “For his whole life he cared for prisoners, until he became one himself. Strange, isn’t it: to become the object of one’s passion.”

“We’re very sorry for him.”

That was a reproach. I wanted to draw him away from
his strange thoughts. But he would not let anything bother him.

“I also feel sorry for him. And I think how all his life he’s sought God’s reward by doing good for others, but now the others are doing the same with him. Maybe that serves him right.”

I knew he did not like tender displays of emotion, but this was too harsh. Maybe I was asking too much of him. Today he could think only of his own happiness.

“How was your stay in Dubrovnik?”

“Nice. It’s still summer there.”

I wondered that it was not spring.

In the yard the gates opened and Hassan went up to the window.

The servant Fazli, who had come in from the street, signaled for him to come down.

“Can you stay with my father?” he asked me.

“I don’t have much time.”

“Stay for just a little while. I’ll be back soon.”

Ali-aga was the same as the night before; he was even livelier.

“Where’s Hassan gone off to?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. He said he’d be back soon.”

He asked me what was going on in the kasaba and was surprised to hear that the bazaar was closed. He also asked me to persuade Hassan to stay at home, for him: who knows what can happen when one’s ill?

“Why did you tell Hassan you’re feeling worse?”

“It’s true. I am feeling worse.”

“Since when? Last night you were as good as ever. I was about to tell Hassan, but I didn’t get the chance.”

“Don’t you have something better to talk about? I felt better, but now I feel worse, and I’d like to have him by my side. What’s so strange about that?”

“Nothing. In fact, you want to keep Hassan by your bed until all of this is over. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s better for him. You know how rash he is. He’ll do what you’d never expect. Look and see if he’s come back.”

Then everything became clear to me—his strange behavior, his whimpering before his daughter, his request that the kadi release the prisoner, his bad condition that morning. All of it was because of Hassan, to shield him from danger, to keep him from doing something hasty. Therefore he tried to bind his son with his illness, therefore he had been playing that strange game that I could not understand. He wanted to save Hadji-Sinanuddin as quickly as possible, so that Hassan would not do it himself. His love had endowed him with fear, resourcefulness, and imagination.

I calmed him down:

“Don’t worry about Hassan. He won’t do anything hasty.”

“Why not?”

“He’s only thinking about his woman from Dubrovnik. Larks are singing in his heart. I can almost hear their chirping.”

“Do you think I can’t? That’s what I’m afraid of, my friend.”

“What?”

“Those larks. It’s because of them that he might do something stupid. At such times all men are good and pity others.”

“Yes, they feel pity, but they don’t do anything. Love is selfish.”

“Come on, dervish, what do you know about love? I stuck my neck out because of him. Is that selfishness?”

I wanted to ask the old man, and I would have to at some point, how far he would go for his son, and what he would betray. And what would his love turn into if his son ever perished? That would be the deepest hatred I know of.

This love was the only thing that existed in his life, it and nothing else. Even on his deathbed, waiting to breathe his last, he still cherished it. And maybe it also sustained him,
kept him alive. Maybe that was the deep and complex cunning of old age, the fear of death turned into love, so that the last buds would flower in his aged heart. A son’s heart is like a bush of flowers that you do not have to dung so it will flourish; a father’s love is just one of those many flowers. Maybe it is even an obstacle, a bother imposed by duty. But it is an old man’s only anchor.

I say: maybe, because I do not know.

The kasaba was quiet. As if it had begun to die, breathing more slowly, living more and more faintly.

I sat in the yard of the mosque, on a stone beside the fountain, while people walked through the bazaar and in the streets, singly or in groups. They walked as if asleep, absorbed, barely conscious, unhappy about something, feeling betrayed and empty. They walked and waited for time to pass, or for a time that would come, enshrouding me with their drowsy circling and the thick web of their footsteps.

I asked: “What’s going on?”

No one heard me.

Had Hadji-Sinanuddin’s arrest upset them so much? With what strange bonds were they tied to each other, in what kind of closed circle, unknown and inaccessible to me, did they live? What had happened to them? They were not enraged, they were not even depressed: they just seemed detached from everything. As if they viewed the kasaba and the world with some dead curiosity, sleepy but persistent, and were waiting. They had lost their own features, and acquired new ones, common and indistinct.

I had to do something, because it seemed to me that the germ was growing, invisible; but time was empty and separated me from myself and from them, although I did not know where I belonged.

It was as if I had strayed into an unfamiliar region, among unfamiliar people.

I hid my eyes from them and watched the narrow stream
of water that splattered against the stone and sprayed into swarms of droplets, colorless, because the sun was not shining: I thought I would be calmed by what lives on its own, and forever. But my anxiety was growing.

Then I saw them stop, listen to something I could not hear, and then start off in one direction.

“Where are you going?” I asked one of them.

“That way.”

“Why?”

“Everyone else is.”

Shouting reached us from the Kurshumli mosque.
²

The people came alive and started walking faster.

The streets were crowded. I could not see anything; I could not hear what was going on. I tried to push my way through and was suddenly drawn into the surging mob, as if into a whirlpool. It pushed and pulled at me, forward and backward, from one wall to the other, refusing to leave me to myself, not even for a moment, holding me firmly in its embrace, hot, restless, close, unpleasant. It was ugly and silly, as if the devil himself had made sure to entangle me in hundreds of vines of human legs and arms, and in this way to separate me from everything that was happening. Squeezed into the mob, I could push, like them, I could shout and make threats, but I could not make decisions. So irreversibly enmeshed, I was one of many, a senseless and terrible power that became lost in it.

Then something strange happened: I forgot how impossible and unacceptable my situation was, and for entire moments my roots and the fanned embers of my memory would return me among them, rendering us equal. I was no longer a captive. I was not offended at being shoved back and forth; the smell of sweating bodies was not unpleasant. I forgot that I had to make my way through them, to go somewhere, to get to the right place, to decide something. The right place for me was here, I was the same as they, excited by our numbers, excited by the shouting, excited by
our common strength. I was shoulder to shoulder with the others. I raised my arms and threatened someone who was not there, freed from all fear, convinced that the time had come for all sins to be paid, even ancient ones passed on through blood. And I shouted, loudly, like the others. What was I shouting? I do not know. Maybe: death to them! That was what I thought. Or I added my featureless voice to theirs, like a scream, like a threat, to make it stronger, since I was a part of them. But no! I was myself, with a hundred voices, a hundred arms, a hundred heads. A thousand problems gnawed at me; they belonged to everyone but were also mine. I howled: Aaah! Thinking: revenge! Thinking: blood! Thinking: the end! The end of what? Oh, of everything that is wrong, that is inhuman. I knew that, without even thinking. Bright skies were opening in front of me.