Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (52 page)

I avoided the townspeople. Partly because I scorned them, but more because I remembered well how much evil and destructive rage they carry within themselves. I did not know how to talk with those people any more, since I no longer knew who they were; and they sensed my dislike of them and gave me dead looks, as if I were an object.

I would go to see the mufti. Everything was as it had been before, when I had tried to save my brother, playing the fool before him. Only now I did not consider it necessary to humble myself, at least not too much. He asked: Which musellim? Which kadi? Or he began to talk about the Constantinople mullah, as if he were the only man in the world whom he knew. And once he even called my brother Harun forth from his memory, by some belated connection, as if in the cruellest of jokes, asking me whether he had been released from the fortress. Malik looked at him as at a treasury of wisdom. In the end he would send me away with an impatient wave of his yellow hand, and I stopped visiting that wretch, who would have been an ordinary fool had he not been the mufti. Malik spread the word that the mufti could not stand me. And everyone believed it, because they wanted to.

I had decided to refuse my pay, but had to give up that nice idea. I surrounded myself with trustworthy people, so I would not be groping in the dark, but they troubled me again and again with ugly rumors that they heard or made
up. Everyone did this, and we knew everything about each other, or thought that we did. I paid Kara-Zaim to tell me what he heard at the mufti’s office. God only knows who of my people were eavesdropping on me for others!

Only Mullah-Yusuf, whom I kept with me because of his pretty handwriting and out of caution, remained silent and went quietly about his work. I believed that he was loyal to me, out of fear. But I watched over him, too.

I was living as if in a fever.

Less and less at ease, I got involved in a business that was fairly ugly though understandable. In search of protectors, I began writing letters to the vizier’s assistants, to the vizier, to the imperial silladar, sending gifts and complaints. The gifts were useful, but the complaints were annoying. I knew that but I could do nothing else—it was as if I were losing my common sense. I gave warnings that the path to godlessness must be stopped, calls for the imperiled faith to be saved, cries for them not to abandon me in this place that was so important to the empire. And no matter how much I felt the harmfulness of those oaths and curses, with which I could offer neither alliances, nor more powerful friendships, nor substantial benefits (so I even discovered how helpless and alone I was), I felt an indescribable satisfaction at sending them into the world and awaiting a solution. Just as a besieged military leader with no troops left sends calls for help and awaits reinforcements.

Do I even need to say that none of this helped me?

It only broke the neck of the former musellim, because upon my request that the lawlessness be stopped, the vali’s
defterdar*
arrived and, after he summoned the musellim for a talk, sent him under guard to Travnik, where he was strangled.

I was accused of this death as well. In return the vali bound me to obedience, which had been denied to him here for a long time. I accepted, in an effort to save myself.

I considered backing out and leaving everything, but I
knew that it was too late. They would destroy me as soon as I stepped out from behind this bastion.

(I know I am telling things too quickly and confusedly; I know how much I am skipping over, but I cannot do otherwise. Everything has closed around me, like a hoop, and I do not have the time or patience to write slowly and meticulously. I did not hurry while I was calm; now I am rushing and condensing things, as if a fire were closing in on me. I do not even know why I am writing; I must resemble a lonely, dying man who scratches a sign of himself into a rock with a bloody fingernail.)

And Hassan keeps drifting farther and farther away. At first I thought Mullah-Yusuf had told him about Hadji-Sinanuddin, but I became convinced that the reason was something entirely different. It was not even because of the lady from Dubrovnik: she had fled our harsh winter, and he knew that springtime would bring her back to the kasaba.

To both his and my misfortune he went away to get some relatives in the vicinity of Tuzla,
²
who had suffered in the revolt, like many others. Miralay Osman-bey had done his work well; he killed, burned people’s houses, drove them from their land, sent them into exile, and the people met the winter in great misery. Hassan brought back his relatives, women and children, and took them into his house. From then on he was a completely different man, difficult, tiring, boring. He told about uprooted lives, burned ruins, unburied corpses, and especially about children next to gutted houses, hungry, rattled, with a living fear in their eyes because of everything they had seen.

His careless superficiality had disappeared, as had his scornful ease, his cheerful glibness, his ability to construct bridges out of airy words. All he did was talk disturbedly about the tragedy in the Posavina, and he did that uneasily, without his earlier playfulness, confusedly and gravely.

He called the victims, who lay murdered under the black soil of the Posavina or dragged themselves along distant
roads into exile, suicides and Bosnian fools. Our enthusiasm, he said, is just as dangerous as our lack of common sense. What did they think, if they thought anything at all? That they could hold out against the imperial troops, who need neither courage nor enthusiasm, because they’re armed and ruthless? Or did they hope that they’d be left alone, as if anyone would ever leave a spark to turn into a fire, however dilapidated the house might be? Haven’t we had enough of our mindless strength, and our heroism, which leaves only desolation behind? Do fathers dare to determine the fate of their children thus, bequeathing them suffering, hunger, unending poverty, fear of their own shadow, cowardice for generations, the destitute glory of sacrifice?

Or he talked completely differently, saying that nothing was so humiliating as cowardly acquiescence and petty common sense. We’re so subordinated to someone else’s will, above and beyond our own, that this is becoming our destiny. The best of men, in their best hours, try to escape from that powerlessness and dependence. The refusal to admit weakness is already a victory, a conquest that will one day become more enduring and widespread, and then it won’t be an attempt but rather a beginning, not defiance but rather self-respect.

I listened and waited for him to get this out of his system, because I knew that neither his enthusiasm nor his bitterness ever lasted long. Only one mad passion endured, his love for the woman from Dubrovnik, but it was really so inexplicable that it seemed more like a need for love than love itself. He never tried to reach his potential, to figure out who he was, or to define himself; he tried everything but finished nothing, allowing himself to be a continuous failure. He would also fail at kindness.

Once he showed me the cripple Jemail, who was pulled by his children from place to place in a cart and who would hobble into his tailor’s shop on two canes, dragging his lame, withered legs. When he was seated he astonished
everyone with his beauty and strength, his masculine face, the warmth of his smile, his wide shoulders, strong arms, and wrestler’s build. But as soon as he stood up all of his beauty disappeared, and he would hobble toward his cart, a cripple whom it was impossible to watch without pity. It was he who had crippled himself. While drunk, he had stabbed himself in the thighs with a sharp knife until he severed all of his tendons and muscles; and even now, when he drank he would drive the knife into the withered stumps of his legs, not allowing anyone to approach him. No one could restrain him, either; his arms were still incredibly strong. “Jemail is the true image of Bosnia,” Hassan said. “Strength on mutilated legs. His own executioner. Abundance with no direction or meaning.”

“So what are we then? Lunatics? Wretches?”

“The most complicated people on the face of the earth. Not on anyone else has history played the kind of joke it’s played on us. Until yesterday we were what we want to forget today. But we haven’t become anything else. We’ve stopped halfway on the path, dumbfounded. We have nowhere to go any more. We’ve been torn away from our roots, but haven’t become part of anything else. Like a tributary whose course has been diverted from its river by a flood, and no longer has a mouth or a current; it’s too small to be a lake, too large to be absorbed by the earth. With a vague sense of shame because of our origins, and guilt because of our apostasy, we don’t want to look back, and have nowhere to look ahead of us. Therefore we try to hold back time, afraid of any outcome at all. We are despised both by our kinsmen and by newcomers, and we defend ourselves with pride and hatred. We wanted to save ourselves, but we’re so completely lost we don’t even know who we are anymore. And the tragedy is that we’ve come to love our stagnant tributary, and don’t want to leave it. But everything has a price, even this love of ours. Is it a coincidence that we’re so overly softhearted and overly cruel, so sentimental and hard-hearted, joyful and
melancholy, always ready to surprise others and even ourselves? Is it a coincidence that we hide behind love, the only certainty in this indefiniteness? Are we letting life pass by us for no reason, are we destroying ourselves for no reason, differently than Jemail, but just as certainly? Why are we doing it? Because we’re not indifferent. And if we’re not indifferent, that means were honest. And if we’re honest, then let’s hear it for our madness!”

His conclusion was as unexpected as all of those reflections were strange. But it was convenient, since it could explain anything a man might or might not do. I did not suffer from that historical and patriotic illness, as I was bound by faith to eternal truths and to the wide expanses of the world. His point of view was narrow, but I did not argue with him, since I had more important worries, since he was my friend, and since I considered his views in fact to be heretical but harmless, because they vitiated themselves. Some things were even explained for me by this imaginary pain, which was a kind of poetic explanation of his failure, or the excuse of a big, clever child, aware that he is squandering his life to no end. In fact, as he was rich and yet honest, what else could he do? He had not acquired his wealth himself, and accordingly did not respect it, but he did not want to deprive himself of it, either. For this reason he artificially arranged for his life to fit him badly, imagining these small, interesting lies so he could calm his conscience.

And I was mistaken about that, as I was about many other things concerning Hassan.

Once more, a long time has passed since I have written anything down. Life has become troublesome.

And as it became more troublesome, I thought more and more about Hassan’s sister. I remembered her strange look and the hand that had betrayed her sorrow. She did not want to let me enter her house when I went there to refute the ugly rumors about me. Then I sent her a message that I
would propose to her, if she would agree. She refused, without explanation. I learned that she was indeed pregnant. And that she sincerely mourned her kadi. I had thought she saw him through my eyes, but apparently she found something in him that no one else did. Or he had been as tender to her as he was cruel to everyone else, and that was the only side of him she knew. Her widow’s grief would pass, but I had approached her too early. A pity. Marriage to her would have defended me from accusations better than anything, and I would have entered into a prominent family, which would have served as protection for me. But you see, Ainieffendi could still get in my way, even from the grave.

My good Hassan has gone completely out of his mind. I explain this by the fact that everything that can enter the human mind can become a passion. This is not really an explanation at all, but there is no other. He went to the Posavina a few times, thinking only of what went on there. I heard that he was going to buy some of the land confiscated from the Posavina rebels. I asked his father if it was true. The old man gave me a cunning smile.

“It’s true, we’re buying it. It’s a good deal; it’ll be cheap.”

“Do you have money?”

“I do.”

“Then why are you borrowing it?”

“You know everything. I want to buy a lot of it. That’s why I’m borrowing. Never in my life have I gotten such a good deal.”

“You’re going to buy poor people’s property?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, cheerfully, like a child. This would put him back on his feet. He had also lost his senses, out of love for his son. The reasons were different, but the consequences the same. They would destroy themselves.

“This will cure you of your illness,” I said, also laughing, as cheerful as he was, more than I had been for a long time.

“I can feel myself recovering.”

“You’ll be healthy and poor. Is that happiness?”

“I’ll be healthy and I won’t have anything to eat. I don’t know whether that’s happiness or not.”

“Who’ll feed you? Your son or your daughter? I can also send you the food from the tekke. One can live that way, too.”

“I’ll stand in line in front of the
imaret.”*

We laughed like lunatics. We laughed, as if all of it were the best of jokes, as if it were something clever and profitable. We laughed because a man was destroying himself.

“So you know, you old fox?” he asked me. “How did you find out? Why don’t you believe I’m getting a good deal?”

“I know. How could the two of you do anything intelligent? Especially if your son persuaded you? It’s not intelligent, but it’s good.”

“It’s true, my son persuaded me. And then it’s both intelligent and good. If you had a son, you’d know that.”

“I’d know how joy can be created from loss.”

“Is that really so little?”

“No.”

Surely they would not be left destitute, buying confiscated property in order to settle it with poor people, who had been driven from their homes. Ali-aga’s common sense would overcome both his own and his son’s enthusiasm, but the damage would be great, since Hassan would make sure to do as many foolish things as possible once he had already begun. He did everything on the spur of the moment, in a fervor that was short-lived. Now he was sure that this was the only thing he should do, and by the time he grew weary of it, by the time he got bored with it, and that would happen quickly, he would already have gotten his father and himself deeply into debt.