Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (27 page)

Only a few inches, that much, and right away everything would be different.

Everyone should go to see those few inches, so that they can hate them. Or no, they should be hidden from people; people should never go there before they are taken there, so that they will not conceal all of their thoughts or make everything they say repulsive.

I returned with my eyes lowered, searching for his footprints on the uneven cobbles where no grass grew, searching for the place where he had stood for the last time outside the fortress walls. There was no longer any trace of him in the world. Everything that remained was inside me.

I felt the greedy stone eyes in the slit of the gates piercing the back of my head: they would burn through me.

I had been at the edge of death, at the gates of fate, and had learned nothing. Only those who enter learn something, but they cannot tell it.

Maybe it will occur to people to make this the sole entrance to death and to herd all of us in, one after the other, in droves—why should we leave it to chance and our fated hours?

But this crazy thought was only a defense against the unspeakable horror that had seized me, an attempt to lose my own troubles in a common misery. I had gone to look for the last traces of my murdered brother, but I was at his funeral, without him, without anyone, all by myself. I had not meant to do it, I did not know why I needed to go to that place, to remember him who had died. Maybe because it was the saddest place in the world, and the commemoration
of the dead was most needed there. Maybe because it was the most horrible place on earth, and there it was necessary to overcome one’s fear in order to remember those who had been killed. Or because it was the most repulsive place on earth, and there the memory of one’s former self could be a horrifying epiphany. I had sought none of this, but it happened; I had not needed it, but I could do nothing else.

At the entrance to the bazaar there were ten or so people, waiting, as if I were returning from another world. They watched me, motionless; their eyes were calm, but remained fixed on me. They were a burden to me; many of them pressed against my forehead, swarming around it. I would stumble and fall. I did not know why they had come; I did not know why they were blocking the way or what they were expecting; I did not know what to do.

I stepped out of the street leading to the fortress, as if stepping out of the night (I could hear the muffled beats of the kettledrum again; up there I had not), among the people who were waiting, protected by the sun and separated by the bridge from that path into nothing. And I saw Is-haq, the fugitive, wearing a shoe on one foot only—the other was bare. His face was hard, like those of the others. They were one; they did not differ in any way. I saw them like a multitude of Is-haqs, with many eyes and a single question. It seemed that it was because of Is-haq that I could tell why they were standing on that edge and what they wanted to find out. I knew it very vaguely; I sensed it, because of him, and I did not dare to raise my gaze from the cobblestones. Maybe the people would move apart; maybe we would somehow pass by each other. I would pretend that I was absorbed in thought and did not see that they were expecting something. No matter if they knew that it was not true, no matter if they thought that I was avoiding their eyes. Only I would have wanted for him not to be among them. They would not have been there if he had not brought them.

But when the wall of their legs prevented me from passing, I raised my eyes toward Is-haq’s face; I needed to see what he wanted, I could not avoid it. He was not there. I knew where he had stood; he had been the third from the left. But from that spot a thin youth now looked at me, not at all surprised that I had stopped in front of him.

Their eyes were wide open, determined, waiting. Where was he? He was not to the right of the youth, or to his left, all the way to the end of the line. I did not count but I knew that there were nine of them now. My eyes passed along their faces; I inspected their closed lips and tensely knit brows. I forgot that they wanted something; I was searching for Is-haq. I did not know why I needed to see him, or what I would say to him, but I was sorry that he was not there. Yet I had seen him. From afar to be sure—I had gone twenty paces with my eyes lowered, and the sunlight glittered on the men, gilded them in that other world; they glowed like torches and deflected my gaze, but it did not matter. I would have pawned my soul to recognize him. To the others I did not need to say anything, even if I had known what to say.

I went on, and they parted to let me pass. For a few moments it was quiet; I was walking alone, but then I heard feet scraping on the cobblestones. They had started after me. I quickened my step, to keep ahead of them, but they hurried after me. They were not deterred by the distance between us. It seemed that their numbers were growing.

The spring twilight fell, and the streets were bluish, restlessly quiet.

I did not hear the
muezzin,*
I did not know whether it was time for the prayer. But the mosque was open; only one candle was burning, in a tall candlestick.

I went in and took my place at the front. Without turning around, I heard how people entered and sat down behind me, without words, without even a murmur. They had never been so quiet. And it seemed to me that during the prayer
they were silent and solemn. I was moved by that earnest rustling behind my back.

While the prayers still continued, I began to feel that they were strange, different from any before, that they were more passionate and dangerous, that they were a preparation for something to come. I knew that they could not end as they usually did.
Amen
is a beginning, not an end: its sound was muffled, thick, full of waiting. But for what? What was going to happen?

In the silence, in the motionlessness, in their determination not to leave, although the prayers were over, I realized something that I did not want to know. They wanted to see me after I learned of this tragedy; they wanted me to show what I was at that moment.

I myself did not know what I was, and I did not know what kind of answer to give them.

Everything depended on me.

I could have got up and left, fleeing from both them and myself. And that would have been an answer.

I could have asked them to go out, so that I would be left alone in the silence of the empty mosque. And that would have been an answer.

But then everything would have remained inside me. Nothing would have reached anyone. In front of the fortress gate I had still been afraid of the pain and remorse that was to come, I might still have been consumed by fire, stifled by grief, or forever dumbfounded by unspoken rage and sorrow. I had to say something. For those who were waiting. I was a man, at least then. And for him, the undefended. Let it be a grievous brotherly prayer, the second already that day, but the first that people would hear.

Was I afraid? No, I was not. I was not afraid of anything, except whether I would do what I had to do well. I even felt a calm readiness for everything, a readiness that came with the inevitability of action, and a deep acceptance of it, more
powerful than revenge, more powerful than justice. I could no longer oppose myself.

I got up and lit all the candles, carrying the flame from one to another, I wanted each of them to see me, I wanted to see each of them. For us to remember each other.

I turned around, slowly. No one would leave, not a single one of them. They watched me, sitting on their knees, excited by my silent movements and the flames that burned along the whole front side, releasing the thick smell of wax.

“Sons of Adem!”
³

I had never called them that.

I did not know what I was going to say, nor had I a moment before. Everything happened on its own. My grief and excitement found a voice and words.

“Sons of Adem! I will not give a sermon, I could not, even if I wanted to. But I believe that you would hold it against me if I did not speak about myself now, at this moment, the darkest in my life. What I have to say has never been more important to me, but I am not trying to gain anything. Nothing, except to see compassion in your eyes. I did not call you my brothers, although you are that now more than ever, but rather the sons of Adem, invoking that which we all have in common. We are men, and think in the same way, especially when we are in distress. You have waited, and wanted for us to be together, to look one another in the eye, sorrowful about the death of an innocent man, and troubled by a crime. And that crime concerns you as well, since you know: whenever someone kills an innocent man, it is as if he has killed all men. They have killed all of us countless times, my murdered brothers, but we are horrified when they strike our most beloved.

“Maybe I should hate them, but I cannot. I do not have two hearts, one for hatred and one for love. The heart that I have knows only grief now. My prayer and my repentance,
my life and my death—all of it belongs to God, creator of the world. But my sorrow belongs to me.

“Allah has commanded: remember your duties toward your kinsmen.
⁴

“I did not remember them, O son of my mother. I did not have the strength to protect you and me from this misfortune.

“Musa says: O my Lord! Give me a helper from among my kin, give me my brother Harun, strengthen me with him. Make him my helper in my work.
⁵

“My brother Harun is no more, and I can only say: O my Lord, strengthen me with my dead brother.

“With my brother who is dead but not buried according to the laws of God, who was not seen or kissed by his family before he embarked on the great journey, from which there is no return.

“I am like Qabeel,
⁶
to whom God sent a crow that dug up the soil, to teach him how to bury the body of his dead brother. And he said: ‘Woe to me, can I not do as much as a crow, can I not bury the body of my dead brother?’
⁷

“I, the unfortunate Qabeel, more unfortunate than a black crow.

“I did not save him while he was alive; I did not see him after he died. Now I have no one except myself and you, my Lord, and my sorrow. Give me strength, so that I will not despair from brotherly and humanly grief, or poison myself with hatred. I repeat the words of Nuh:
⁸
‘Separate me from them, and judge us.’
⁹

“We live on this earth only for a day, or less. Give me the strength to forgive, since he who forgives is greatest. And I know that I cannot forget.

“And I ask of you, my brothers, do not hold these words against me, do not hold them against me if they have hurt or saddened you. Or if they have revealed my weakness. In front of you I am not ashamed of this weakness; I would be ashamed if I did not have it.

“And now go home, and leave me alone with my misfortune. It is easier to endure, now that I have shared it with you.”

I was left alone, alone in the entire world, in the strong candlelight, in the blackest darkness, and felt no better inside, as the people had carried only my words away, and all of my sorrow remained for me, untouched, blacker still because my hopes that it would be lessened had been betrayed. I struck the floor with my brow, and knowing, alas, that it was in vain, recited in my desperation the words of the Baqara Sura:
¹⁰

      
Our Lord, we seek your forgiveness.

      
Our great Lord, do not punish us if we forget, or commit sin.

      
Our great Lord, do not place upon us a burden that is too heavy for us.

      
Our great Lord, do not charge us with that which we cannot endure and accomplish.

      
Forgive us, have mercy and give us strength.
¹¹

Maybe he forgave me, maybe he had mercy; he did not give me strength.

Weaker than I had ever felt, I began to weep like a helpless child. Nothing that I had ever known or thought had any meaning then; the night beyond those walls was black and threatening. The world was terrible, and I was small and weak. It would have been best to stay like that on my knees, to pour myself out in tears, never to rise again. I knew we must never be weak and sorrowful if we are true believers, but I knew that in vain. I was weak, and did not think about whether I was a true believer or a man lost in the deaf loneliness of the world.

And then there was an empty silence. Something was still rumbling somewhere within me, more and more distant; screams could still be heard, but fainter and fainter. The storm had worn itself out and abated, all on its own. Because of my tears, perhaps.

I was tired. I was an invalid who had just arisen.

I put out the candles, taking their lives one by one, without the solemn feeling that I had had when I lit them. Grief had destroyed me, and I was alone.

I feared that I would remain in the darkness for a long time. Alone.

But when I snuffed out the soul of the last candle, my shadow did not disappear. It swayed, heavy, on the wall in the half-darkness.

I turned around.

In the doorway stood the forgotten Hassan, with a live candle in his hand.

He had been waiting for me, silently.

9

      
Everything that you can do against me, do it, do not give me even a moment of rest.
¹

AS IT HOLDS THE REED MY HAND STILL TREMBLES, AS IF THE things that I am writing were happening right now, as if a month had not passed since the moment when my life changed. I cannot exactly say what all I have gone through, or in which fires I have been burning (they have been my own as well as those of others), or all that I thought and felt when the storm hit me, because from this distance all kinds of things are obscured by the fog of my unrecognition, as if I were in a state of fever. But let me tell in turn everything that happened to me and around me. And I will tell, as much as I can, what went on inside me, as much as I myself know.

The day after my speech in the mosque, in the evening, they responded to my blow.