The Bridge on the Drina (6 page)

All this was watched by those who up till then had lived peacefully in their scattered houses on the slopes near the Drina ferry. And it would have been well for them had they been able only to watch, but the work soon became so extensive and its impetus so

great that it drew into the whirlpool everything alive or dead, not only in the town but also from great distances away. With the second year the number of workers had grown to such an extent that they equalled all the male inhabitants of the town. All carts, all horses and oxen worked only for the bridge. Everything that could creep or roll was taken and pressed into service, sometimes paid but sometimes by force. There was more money than before, but high prices and shortages increased more rapidly than the money flowed in, so that when it reached men's hands it was already half eaten away. Even worse than the rise in prices and the shortages was the unrest, disorder and insecurity which now enveloped the town as a consequence of the incursion of so many workmen from the outer world. Despite all Abidaga's severity, there were frequent clashes among the workers, and many thefts from the gardens and courtyards. The Moslem women had to keep their faces veiled even when they went into their own yards, for the gaze of the countless workers, local and foreign, might come from anywhere and the Turks of the town kept the practices of Islam very strictly, the more so since they were all recently converted and there was scarcely one of them who did not remember either a father or a grandfather who was a Christian or a recently converted Turk. Because of this the older persons who followed the law of Islam were openly indignant and turned their backs on this chaotic mass of workers, draft animals, wood, earth and stone which grew ever larger and more complicated on both sides of the ferry and which, in the underpinning operations, broke into their streets, their courtyards and their gardens.

At first they had all been proud of the great bequest which the Vezir was to erect in their district. Then they had not realized, as they now saw with their own eyes, that these glorious buildings involved so much disorder and unrest, effort and expense. It was a fine thing, they thought, to belong to the pure ruling faith; it was a fine thing to have as a countryman the Vezir in Stambul, and still finer to imagine the strong, costly bridge across the river, but what was happening now in no way resembled this. Their town had been turned into a hell, a devil's dance of incomprehensible works, of smoke, dust, shouts and tumult. The years passed, the work extended and grew greater, but there was no end or thought of end to be seen. It looked like anything you like, but not a bridge.

So thought the recently converted Turks of the town and, in private among themselves, avowed that they were fed up to the teeth with lordship and pride and future glory and had had more than enough of the bridge and the Vezir. They only prayed Allah to
deliver them from this disaster and restore to them and their homes their former peace and the quietness of their humble lives beside the old-fashioned ferry on the river.

All this affected the Turks, but even more it affected the Christian 
rayah 
of the whole Višegrad district, with this difference, that no one asked their opinion about anything, nor were they even able to express their indignation. It was now the third year since the people had been on forced labour for the new bridge, they themselves and all their horses and oxen. And that too not only for the local 
rayah 
but also all those from the nearby districts. Everywhere Abidaga's guards and horsemen seized the 
rayah 
from the villages and even the towns and drove them away to work on the bridge. Usually they surprised them while sleeping and pinioned them like chickens. Through all Bosnia, traveller told traveller not to go to the Drina, for whoever went there was seized, without question of who or what he was or where he was going, and was forced to work for at least a few days. The young men in the villages tried to run away into the forests, but the guards took hostages from their houses, often women, in place of those who fled.

This was the third autumn that the people had been forced to labour on the bridge and in no way could it be seen that the work was progressing or that the end of their misfortune was in sight. Autumn was already in full spate; the roads were breaking up from the rains, the Drina was rising and troubled, and the bare stubble full of slow-winged ravens. But Abidaga did not halt the work. Under the wan November sun the peasants dragged wood and stone, waded with bare feet or in sandals of freshly slaughtered hide along the muddy roads, sweating with strain or chilled by the wind, folding around themselves cloaks full of new holes and old patches, and knotting up the ragged ends of their single shirts of coarse linen, blackened by rain, mud and smoke, which they dared not wash lest they fall to pieces in the water. Over all of them hovered Abidaga's green staff, for Abidaga visited both the quarries at Banja and the works around the bridge several times each day. He was filled with rage and fury against the whole world because the days were growing shorter and the work had not progressed as quickly as he wished. In a heavy surcoat of Russian fur and high boots, he climbed, with red congested face, over the scaffolding of such piers as already arose from the waters, visited forges, barracks and workers' huts and swore at everyone he came across, overseers and contractors alike.

'The days are short. Always shorter. You sons of bitches, you are eating your bread for nothing!'

He burst out in fury, as if they were to blame because it dawned late and darkened early. Before twilight, that relentless and implacable Visegrad twilight, when the steep hills seemed to close in over the town and each night fell quickly, as heavy and deaf as the last, Abidaga's fury rose to its height; and having no one left on whom to vent his wrath, he turned it on himself and could not sleep for thinking of so much work not being done and so many people malingering and wasting time. He ground his teeth. He summoned the overseers and worked out how, from then on, it would be possible to make better use of the daylight and exploit the workers more effectively.

The people were sleeping in their huts and stables, resting and restoring their forces. But all did not sleep; they too knew how to keep vigil, to their own profit and in their own manner. In a dry and spacious stable a fire was burning, or more exactly had been burning, for now only a few embers glowing in the half-lit space remained. The whole stable was filled with smoke and the heavy, sour smell of wet clothes and sandals and the exhalations of about thirteen human bodies. They were all pressed men, peasants from the neighbourhood. Christian 
rayah. 
All were muddy and wet through, exhausted and careworn. They resented this unpaid and pointless forced labour while up there in the villages their fields awaited the autumn ploughing in vain. The greater number were still awake. They were drying their gaiters by the fire, plaiting sandals or only gazing at the embers. Amongst them was a certain Montenegrin, no one knew from where, whom the guards had seized on the road and had pressed for labour for several days, though he kept telling them and proving to them how wearisome and hard this work was for him and how his honour could not endure this work for slaves.

Most of the wakeful peasants, especially the younger ones, gathered around him. From the deep pocket of his cloak the Montenegrin drew out a 
gusle, 
a tiny primitive fiddle, clumsy and as small as the palm of a man's hand, and a short bow. One of the peasants went outside and mounted guard before the stable lest some Turk should chance to come along. All looked at the Montenegrin as if they saw him for the first time and at the 
gusle 
which seemed to disappear in his huge hands. He bent over, the 
gusle 
in his lap, and pressed its head under his chin, greased the string with resin and breathed heavily on the bow; everything was moist and slack. While he occupied himself with these petty tasks, calmly and self-confidently as if he were alone in the world, they all looked at him without a movement. At last the first notes wailed out, sharp and
uneven. The excitement rose. The Montenegrin found the key and began to sing through his nose and accompany himself with the 
gusle. 
Everyone was intent, awaiting the wonderful tale. Then, suddenly, after he had more or less attuned his voice to the 
gusle, 
the Montenegrin threw back his head proudly and violently so that his Adam's apple stood out in his scrawny neck and his sharp profile was outlined in the firelight, and sang in a strangled and constrained voice: A-a-a-a- a-a-a-a- and then all at once in a clear and ringing tone:

'The Serbian Tsar Stefan

Drank wine in fertile Prizren,

By him sat the old patriarchs.

Four of them, the old patriarchs;

Next them were nine bishops

And a score of three-tailed Vezirs

And the ranks of Serbian nobles.

Wine was served by Michael the cup-bearer

And on the breast of his sister Kandosia

Shone the light of precious stones. . . .'

The peasants pressed closer and closer around the singer but without making the slightest noise; their very breathing could be heard. They half closed their eyes, carried away with wonder. Thrills ran up and down their spines, their backs straightened up, their breasts expanded, their eyes shone, their fingers opened and shut and their jaw muscles tightened. The Montenegrin developed his melody more and more rapidly, even more beautiful and bolder, while the wet and sleepless workmen, carried away and insensible to all else, followed the tale as if it were their own more beautiful and more glorious destiny.

Among the countless peasants pressed for hard labour was a certain Radisav from Unište, a small village quite close to the town. He was a smallish man, dark-faced, with restless eyes, a little bent, and walked quickly, spreading out his legs and moving his head and shoulders from left to right, right to left, as if sowing wheat. He was not as poor as he appeared to be, nor as simple as he made himself out. His family were known as the Heraci; they had good land and there were many males in the house, but almost the whole village had been converted to Islam over the past forty years so that they were lonely and isolated. This small, bowed Radisav had been scurrying about from one stable to the next these autumn nights 'sowing' revolt and had insinuated himself among the peasants like an eel, whispering and counselling with one only at a time. What he said was roughly this:

'Brother, we have had enough of this. We must defend ourselves.

You can see for yourself that this building work will be the death of all of us; it will eat us all up. Even our children will have to do forced labour on the bridge, if there are any of us left. For us this work means extermination and nothing less. A bridge is no good to the poor and to the 
rayah, 
but only for the Turks; we can neither raise armies nor carry on trade. For us the ferry is more than enough. So a few of us have agreed among ourselves to go by night, at the darkest hour, and break down and spoil as much as possible of what has been done, and to spread the rumour that it is a 
vila, 
a fairy, who is destroying the works at the bridge and who does not want any bridge over the Drina. We shall see if this will be of any help. We have no other way and something must be done.'

There were, as always, some who were fainthearted and unreliable, who thought this to be a sterile idea; since the cunning and powerful Turks would not be turned away from their intention they would have to do forced labour even longer since God so willed. They should not make bad worse. But there were also those who felt that anything was better than to go on slaving and to wait until even the last rag of clothing fell from a man and the last ounce of strength be wasted by the heavy labour and Abidaga's short commons; and that they must follow anyone who was willing to go to extremes. These were for the most part young men, but there were also serious married men, with families, who agreed, though without enthusiasm or fire, and who said worriedly:

'Come and let's break it down; may his blood eat him up before he eats us up. And if that does not help....'

And at that point they waved their hands in desperate resolution.

So in these first autumn days the rumour began to spread, first among the workers and then in the town itself, that the 
vila 
of the waters had intervened in the work on the bridge, that she destroyed and pulled down overnight what had been built by day and that the whole scheme would come to nothing. At the same time, inexplicable damage began to appear over night in the revetments and even in the masonry itself. The tools which the masons had up till then left on the piers began to get lost and disappear, the revetments to break down and be carried away by the waters.

The rumour that the bridge would never be finished spread far afield. Both Turks and Christians spread it and little by little it took form as a firm belief. The Christian 
rayah 
were jubilant, whispering it stealthily and soundlessly but from a full heart. The local Turks, who had earlier looked on the Vezir's building work with pride, began to wink disdainfully and wave their hands. Many of the converted Turks who, in changing faith, had not found what they had
hoped for, but had continued to sit down to a meagre supper and go about with patched elbows, heard the rumour and repeated with enjoyment the story of the great lack of success and found some sort of proud satisfaction in the thought that not even Vezirs could carry out everything they had a mind to do. It was already being said that the foreign 
maestri 
were preparing to leave and that there would be no bridge there where no bridge had ever been before and where it should never have been begun. All these tales blended and spread quickly.