Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (15 page)

“A bad master,” said Hassan, laughing.

That was how the argument and their whole conversation had begun: man had set up the world badly, as Hassan had asserted, although he was not angry that it was so. But Hafiz-Muhammed did not agree, and sought his proof as far back as the beginning of the world.

A hundred objections could be made against what Hafiz-Muhammed was saying, from his view of the origin of life, which had occurred spontaneously, to his assertion that man was master of the earth, almost independent of God’s will. But when I joined their conversation, I did not reproach him for these transgressions; it seemed silly to argue about such familiar issues. Something else was more important to me: was it not naive to think that man was comfortably settled on earth and that this was his true home?

Space is our prison, I said, listening to the echoes of my unfamiliar thoughts, thus bringing an unexpected verve into that dead and unnecessary conversation. Space owns us. We own it only as much as our eyes can pass over it. And it wearies us, scares us, challenges us, pursues us. We think that it sees us, but we don’t matter to it; we say that we’ve overcome it, but we only make use of its indifference. The earth isn’t friendly to us; lightning and the waves of the sea aren’t here for us; rather, we exist in them. Man has no true home, he can only wrest one away from those blind powers. And the earth is a foreign domain; it could be a dwelling only for any monsters that might be able to come to grips with its abundant plights. Or else it’s no one’s. Certainly not ours.

We haven’t conquered the earth, but only a clod to put our feet on; we haven’t conquered mountains, but only their image in our eyes; we haven’t conquered the sea, but only its resilient firmness and the reflection of its surface. Nothing is ours but illusion, and therefore we hold onto it firmly.

We’re not something in the world, but nothing in it; we’re not equal to what’s around us, but different, incompatible with it. In his development, man should strive for the loss of his self-consciousness. The earth is uninhabitable, like the moon, and we only delude ourselves thinking that it’s our true home, since we have no other place to go. The earth is good for those who are irrational or invulnerable. Maybe mankind will find a way out by going back, by becoming sheer strength.

Yet when I had said all of these absurdities, I became fearful that I had exposed everything that I wanted to conceal. I had responded to the present day and to my own bitterness. I had put both myself and them in an awkward situation.

Hafiz-Muhammed looked at me with surprise, almost frightened, but Hassan smiled absentmindedly. Only in their eyes could I see the full weight of these words that I had not thought about beforehand. But my conscience did not reproach me, and I even felt better.

The expression on Hassan’s face became unexpectedly composed. No, he told me, slowly shaking his head, as if to excuse himself for speaking seriously. Man shouldn’t become his opposite. Everything of any value in him is vulnerable. Maybe it’s not easy to live in this world, but if we don’t think that we belong here, so much the worse for us. And to wish for strength and insensitivity is to take revenge for our disenchantment. Therefore, that’s not a way out; it’s giving up on everything that man might achieve. Denial of all responsibility is a primeval fear, the ancient essence of man, who wishes for power because he is afraid.

“We’re here, on the earth,” said Hafiz-Muhammed, flustered. “To deny that this is our place is to deny life. Because . . .”

He started coughing, and went on waving his hand to show that he did not agree with me, but did not manage to soothe his agitated illness.

“You should go to your room,” Hassan suggested to him. “It’s cold and damp. Do you want me to help you?”

He refused with a wave of his hand; it was not necessary. And he left, coughing. He did not like for people to witness his illness.

Hassan and I were left alone.

It was a pity that we could not part without explanation or further words. It would have been best to get up and leave. Our discussion was one that was hard either to interrupt or continue, and Hafiz-Muhammed was no longer
there to serve as a link between us and as a reason for general conversation. We were awaited by matters that concerned only him and me.

But Hassan did not feel uncomfortable; he always found a way to make everything natural. As Hafiz-Muhammed walked away he shifted his eyes to me and laughed. His laugh was his path to people. It expressed understanding and put them at ease.

“You frightened Hafiz-Muhammed. He looked astonished.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you know what I was thinking while you spoke? That some people can say whatever they want, and whether you agree or not, it doesn’t upset you. Others throw themselves into a single word, and suddenly everything glows red-hot and no one can keep calm. We sense that something important is happening. That’s no longer conversation.”

“Then what is it?”

“Readiness to set everything on fire. Your brother’s misfortune has hit you too hard.”

Normally I would not have allowed anyone to speak with me like that; I would have forbidden it angrily. But he stunned me with his ability to guess the essence of my rebellion, and still more with his good intentions. They were not conveyed so much by his words as they were by his eyes, his deep sincerity, understanding, and concern, in the entire attitude that he projected, as if he had seen me only then, a side of me that was usually hidden. But I did not forbid him, I still wanted to turn the conversation to other things. I did not like anyone prying into my life.

“What did you mean when you spoke of the primeval fear that we’ve been carrying since ancient times?”

“Is this really the first time that we’ve met? I’d like to talk about your brother. If it’s not unpleasant for you.”

I could have told him: this isn’t your concern, leave me alone, stay out of my secret places, I’m sick of people giving
me advice. That would have been most sincere. But I could not stand rudeness, not mine or anybody else’s. I felt ashamed when it got the better of me and remembered it for a long time when I encountered it in others. Excusing myself, I said that my father had come to see me today and that I was not in the best of moods.

“This is the second time that you’ve refused me,” he said laughing.

“What can I tell you? I haven’t found anything out.”

“Not even why he’s in prison?”

“Not even that.”

“Then I know more than you do.”

He was not easy to refuse.

He told me a strange tale, one that I could barely comprehend with my narrow and limited experience, which was childlike because of my unfamiliarity with the world that I lived in.

Near the town there used to live a small landowner, Hassan said, he lived, and now he’s dead. It’s hard to say whether he had a real reason, because something had hurt him, or whether he was naive, or honest, whether he was hot-tempered, a ruffian, an idealist, whether he had someone backing him or had proof, whether he was crazy, or whether he didn’t care what happened to him; it’s hard to say and now it’s not important, either, but that man began to say the worst things about certain people in power, accusing them loudly and openly of what everyone knows but no one ever mentions. They let him know nicely that he should straighten up, but he thought they were afraid of him and kept doing things that didn’t do anyone any good. Then they sent soldiers after him, tied him up, and brought him to the kasaba, locked him in the fortress, wrote out interrogations in which this unfortunate man admitted to many sins and himself quoted his own words against the faith, the state, the sultan, and the
vali,*
explaining that he had spoken in anger and rage. He admitted that he had even maintained
contacts with rebels in the Krayina,
⁶
that he had aided them, and that his house had been a meeting-place for their messengers and confidants. They sent him along with all of the transcripts to the
vizier*
in Travnik,
⁷
but on the way they sabered him to death, because he tried to escape. Now regarding that attempted escape, people can think what they want; maybe he tried to escape or maybe not; it was all the same to him anyway, because the vizier would have killed him if the soldiers hadn’t. And Hassan wouldn’t be telling me about him, that man wasn’t the first or the last, if my brother hadn’t been mixed up in all of it. And my brother didn’t even know him; he probably never even saw him, and that man probably never even knew of my brother’s existence; his fate would have been the same even if my brother hadn’t become involved. They didn’t know each other, they were different and yet somehow similar: there was something suicidal in each of them. Unfortunately, my brother worked for the kadi. Unfortunately, he says, because being close to powerful men is dangerous and difficult. As a trusted clerk he had access to secret documents. How he came across them no one will ever know; they certainly didn’t show them to him, he must have found them by accident, and they were the most fateful thing he could have found.

“What did he find?”

“He found the transcripts of the man’s interrogation, written before he was interrogated, before he was imprisoned, before he was even brought to the kasaba, and in that lay their fatefulness and danger. Do you understand? They knew in advance what he would say, what he would admit, what would kill him. Very well, it’s not that unusual; they were in a hurry; they needed to finish everything quickly and safely, and everything would have remained the way it was if the young clerk had left that prepared interrogation where he had found it. And forgotten what he had seen. But he didn’t. I don’t know what he did; maybe he showed it to someone, maybe he said something about it, maybe they
caught him with the documents—anyway, they imprisoned him. He knew too much.”

I listened with disbelief. What was this? Madness? The terror that seizes us in bad dreams? The dark side of life, of which most people never get a glimpse? It seemed unbelievable that a man could be unaware of so much. Had people been silent before me? Had this been whispered too softly for me to hear? Had I been ready in advance not to believe it, since this discovery would have jolted me out of the calm that I had achieved and ruined the image that I had created of a fairly balanced world, in which I had a place? Even if I had not thought that it was perfect, I had believed that it was bearable, so how could I now accept that it was unjust? Someone might have doubted the sincerity of my words and asked me: How is it that a grown man who has lived for so many years among people, in the belief that he is close to them and can see what they hide from others, and who is not stupid, does not know what is going on around him, all of which is anything but trivial? Was that hypocrisy? Or blindness? If it were not sinful to take oaths, I would swear firmly that I had not known. I considered justice a necessity and guilt a possibility. And all of this was too complicated for my naive ideas about life, which had been formed in isolation and obedience; a lot of dark imagination would have been necessary to enter those intricate relationships, which I accepted as a difficult and honorable, though rather vague struggle for divine knowledge. Or had people hidden this from me, careful not to mention what I would not want to hear? That was hard to believe. And even then, when I had heard, I was prepared not to believe it, at least not entirely: to believe this was to be deathly afraid, or to take action—I did not even have words to express the unknown duty that my conscience would thrust upon me. I admit, and I am not ashamed of it, the sincerity of my thoughts justifies me, that Hassan’s very character diminished the importance of the information he passed on. He was well intentioned but
superficial, honest but reckless, and his irresponsible imagination could invent God-knows-what kinds of tales, adding a load of conjecture onto a grain of truth. He had just returned from his trip, how could he know?

I asked him, searching for some solid ground to stand on: “How did you find out?”

“By accident,” he said calmly, as if expecting that question.

“Maybe it’s all just speculation, empty talk?”

“It’s not speculation or empty talk.”

“The man who told you this, is he in a position to know?”

“He knows only what I’ve told you.”

“Who is he?”

“I can’t tell you, nor is it important. He wouldn’t tell you any more than this. What else do you need to hear?”

“Nothing.”

“He was so scared that I felt sorry for him.”

“Then why did he tell you?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe to rid himself of the burden. So what he knows won’t choke him.”

I was so upset by what I had heard that I could not collect my thoughts at all. They fled like birds from a fire; they hid in dark holes like partridges. A terrible image of omnipotent evil appeared before my eyes.

“This is terrible,” I said. “So terrible that I can hardly believe it. I’d have preferred for you not to tell me.”

“And I as well. Now. Well, let it be as if I hadn’t said anything, if it’s of no use to you.”

“That’s not possible. Nothing exists until it’s told.”

“Nothing can be told until it exists. The only question is whether anything should be told. If I’d known how much I’d upset you, I’d have kept silent. Why are you afraid of the truth?”

“What use is it to me?”

“I don’t know. And maybe it’s not the truth.”

“It’s too late for you to retreat. We can’t take back what’s been said. Do I know the man who told you this?”

He looked at me with surprise.

“I wanted to help you. I expected that you would think about how to save your brother as soon as possible, as quickly as possible. But it seems that you can only think of that wretch, who surely doesn’t sleep at night out of fear. It’s as if you don’t care to know about anything else.”

Maybe that was true, maybe he was right. Maybe I eased my horrible burden with the thought of something trivial. Only, we should not have been talking like this, and it seemed to me that I knew how we should have. On the tip of my tongue there was a silly, childlike question: What am I to do, good man, you who’ve ignored the warnings of your reason and gone to meet another man, tell me, what should I do? I’m astonished by what you’ve said; it’s as if I’ve been brought to the edge of an abyss, and I don’t want to look. I want to return to what I was, or not to return; I want to save my faith in the world, but that is impossible until this terrible, murderous misunderstanding has been removed. Tell me, where should I begin?