Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (36 page)

I smiled silently and warmly, maybe I could barely remember everything that I wanted to tell him and that seemed important to me. And I was somewhat uneasy because of the thought that Hassan would not explain his friendship at such length. But everyone has his own way of doing things, and my task was more difficult.

Mullah-Yusuf was more withdrawn and unwilling to talk than during our first conversation. But he was not less upset. He sat in front of me on his knees, tense, feverish, in a constant effort to relieve the cramps in his fingers, which he dug into his thighs, helplessly closing and opening his burning eyes, raising them to me in pain. He could not hide that my calm words were raging within him, like storms. At one moment, when I thought that he would burst into tears, I wanted to let him go, so that I would not torture him or myself, but I forced myself to finish what I had begun. Our fates were being decided.

I said that Hassan’s friendship and his gift, with which everything between us had started, had led me to reflections and decisions that saved me. The only thing that I had from my home, from my mother, was a kerchief with four golden birds embroidered on it, which I kept in a chest. Hassan had had them put on the cover of the book, and thus moved me, like a child, like a fool. Then I realized what was most important. Did he remember? I had also asked him once about the golden bird that meant happiness. Now I understood: that was friendship, love for another. Everything else can deceive us, but that cannot. Everything else can slip away and leave us empty, but that cannot, because it depends on us.

I could not tell him: be my friend. But I could say: I’ll be yours. I had no one closer than him, than Yusuf. He’d be like a son to me, the son I’d never had; he’d be like a brother to me, the brother I’d lost. And to him I’d be everything he wanted but didn’t have. Now we were equals; bad people had made us unhappy. Why couldn’t we protect and comfort each other? Maybe it would be easier for me because the boy from the plain had always been in my heart, even when my own misfortune overshadowed everything else. And I hoped it would not be difficult for him, either: I’d be patient, I’d wait for the friendship, which—I knew very well—he’d once felt for me, to revive.

Had he bent over? Had he groaned? Had he suppressed a cry at the very edges of his dry lips?

It’s futile, there’s no saving us, you who were not meant to be my friend.

That was why I could tell him (I continued, mercilessly) even what I wouldn’t say if I didn’t care about him. Otherwise I’d have said differently, with different intentions, with the purpose of protecting the reputation of our order. As it was, this could be a friendly conversation, which concerned only him and me. It would not be easy for me to speak of it, or for him to listen to it, but it would be still worse if we kept silent.

Yes, he said, barely breathing, frightened, upset and curious, already stunned by what he had heard, and not sure whether there was more to come, since his attentiveness indicated that he was expecting something more all the time, something important, more important than anything else: the real reason for this conversation. I gave it to him, without revealing it, I wanted to let it reveal itself.

I told him: I’m not asking where he goes and what he does, I found out by accident, and I’m sorry I found out, if what I fear is true. (It seemed as if his eyes were going to fall out of his head; he looked at me as if I were a snake, spellbound; he hastened my words, but he was frightened by them.) What was he looking for in front of the kadi’s house? Why is he getting pale? Why is he trembling? Maybe it’s better to end the conversation if it’s upsetting him so much, and yet this is precisely what makes me want to continue it, as it seems that this matter isn’t trivial. I know a lot about him, I know or can imagine what’s happening to him; and although all of it’s shameful, his anxiety is a witness that his conscience is still strong and that it’s reproaching him.

The youth’s head sank lower and lower. He bent under the weight of the fear that was bearing down on him, as if his backbone were breaking.

He made a feeble attempt to repeat his story of how he had ended up there by accident, but I dismissed it with a wave of my hand, refusing even to talk about it.

He waited, breathless; I also waited, hardly breathing. Until the last moment I did not know if I would say the only thing that mattered, for which I would burn him alive, just to get him to admit to it. This accusation cried out within me, maddened, bloodstained, but I pressed my lips together, struggling to hold it back. If utter fear took control of him and made him deny everything, I would be left in the dark.

This way I had pressured him, pushed him to the limit, driven him mad: I almost expected him to bare his teeth, to
start growling, to tear me to pieces so that he could see what I had hidden in my heart.

This strengthened my suspicions, but there was still no proof.

Now I needed to ease up, suddenly, and make everything seem silly. If an expression of relief appeared on his face, then I was on the right track. He was guilty.

Overcoming the turmoil within me and the deafening rush of my blood, I repeated Hafiz-Muhammed’s naive assumption that he was perhaps in love with Hassan’s sister. I’d have been sorry, since his heart, thirsting for love, would’ve been left black and shriveled by this sinful and hopeless desire. That would’ve finished him, alienated him from people, maybe even from me. And he shouldn’t hold it against me; I was talking to him as I would to my own brother, who could no longer benefit from my advice. So I hoped he’d understand why I was crying, that he would understand maybe now, or later, when the greater part of his life was behind him, when he’d only have losses to think of, and would only fight to keep the love of those friends that he still had.

I really cried, shedding tears of sorrow and rage, upset as much as that confused youth. We only needed to conclude this horrible conversation with an embrace. But I could not go that far. And if he had done it, I fear that I would have strangled him, since I already knew everything.

I knew everything. When I came out of the wilderness of hints, which were a thousand raised knives, one of which would bring death (and he was expecting it), when I led him to clear ground, loosening the countless knots that I had mercilessly bound him with, when I freed him from his animal fear with my gentle warning, clear sky suddenly opened above him, unthreatening, and his tormented face glowed with wild surprise, with mindless joy at the sparing of his life.

Fool, I thought, watching him with hatred, he thinks he’s escaped the trap.

But then something happened that I had not expected, that I had not predicted. The joy of deliverance illuminated him only for an instant. It lasted only for a very short moment, and lost its initial strength and freshness immediately. He was struck by another thought almost simultaneously; all signs of liveliness disappeared from his face, and it became heavy with helpless grief.

Why? Was he ashamed of his jubilation? Had that sudden joy swept him off his feet? Did he feel sorry for me because of my childish naïveté? Or did he remember how dangerous his denial might be?

Slowly, with surprisingly slow movements, he bent down, all the way to the floor, as if he were bowing to me, as if he were falling. He could barely support himself with his arms; it seemed that they would not hold him up. Then he stood up, as if he were asleep. And he left the room, as if asleep, completely lost.

I had been cruel to him, and to myself as well. But I had not had any other choice. I wanted to find out. Hassan lived among different people, in another world, everything was revealed to him easily. But no one ever told me anything, and I had to turn my own soul and Yusuf’s inside out to find the truth. That journey had been long, I had learned little by little, bit by bit. It took a long time for me to find out what two ordinary men tell each other in whispers during a short encounter on a street corner. I was stunned by the realization that occurred to me then: how much I was cut off from people, how lonely I was. But I put that aside, I would think about it later, when everything was over.

The rains stopped and warm, sunny weather followed, almost without transition. I went out in the street and walked along the river for a long time. I watched the mist rising from ground covered with lush grass; my eyes stopped on the wide, clear sky, the same one as above the plain and my village. I did not feel any desire to leave; my fear and the
threatening roar of water rising in the darkness were no more; my powerlessness was gone. Here I am! I said to someone maliciously, knowing that there was a threat in the very fact that I was alive. I felt a need to move, to do something definite and useful.

I had a goal.

I went out among people, calm, quiet, armed with patience. I received with gratitude everything they might offer me—their rebukes, mockery, and information.

I did not act randomly. Even if I occasionally left my path and wandered in desolate places, I always found the direction that I sought. My landmarks were my own perseverance, someone else’s words, hints, enjoyment at my misfortune, or surprise at the change in me. And I became more and more self-confident in my search for the solution to the mystery, both richer and poorer from those gleanings, from the alms that I received in others’ words, from their hatred and compassion.

I spoke with the night-watchman, Kara-Zaim, guards, softas, and dervishes; with embittered, dissatisfied, suspicious people; with men who knew little on their own, but who, when put together, knew everything. I showed them the gentle face of a man who seeks neither revenge nor justice, but endeavors to establish his severed ties with the world around himself and to find peace in his love for God, which remains even when we have lost everything else. Many of them were distrustful, many cruel and inconsiderate, but I remained humble even when they hurled insults at me, and tried, with my head bowed, to recognize even the smallest particle of truth in the change of a voice, in a curse, in exultation, in feigned or genuine pity, even in generosity, which surprised me more than malice. And I remembered everything.

When I had completed that painful journey and learned even what was of no use to me, my naïveté died, from shame.

Thus I learned the final lesson and reached the end. What I had been expecting should have happened. But there was nothing to happen anymore, and I no longer expected anything, either. I was defeated; that was all I had achieved. And among people there remained a nice story about a silly dervish who had calmly spoken with them about their lives and his own life, urging them to love and forgive, as he himself had forgiven, and who always consoled them and himself with God and the faith, and with the other world, which is more beautiful than this one.

When I returned from a visit to Abdulah-effendi, the sheikh of the Sinan tekke (I had visited him as well: it turned out that we were both suspicious of each other, and that we were both in the wrong, but God knows how much evil he had inflicted on me because of that empty suspicion, and how much I had on him), I saw Mullah-Yusuf in the garden, by the river. He started when I opened the gate and entered; he looked at me disturbed, with eyes that were glowing unhealthily.

He knew where I had been going and what I had been looking for.

We did not greet each other. I went to my room; it appeared dark and cold. I had imagined that it would be like a spacious, bright courtroom, when that hour came, but it was not even what it had been. It repelled me with its desolation. We had forgotten each other while I had been searching for the solution to the mystery. I had lost its favor, and I had found nothing in other places.

I stood by the window and, confused, watched the day gleaming with sunshine. That was all I could do, although I knew that it was senseless.

When the door opened I knew who had come in. I did not say anything. Neither did he. I thought I heard his heavy breathing by the door.

That uneasy silence lasted for a long time; he stood behind me for a long time, like my black thoughts. I had
known that he would come, like this, uninvited. I had been waiting for this moment since long before. And now I only wanted him to leave. But he did not leave.

He spoke first, his voice was soft and clear: “I know where you’ve been going and what you’ve been looking for.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You didn’t search in vain. Judge me, or forgive me, if you can.”

“Go, Mullah-Yusuf.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Go.”

“I could bear it more easily if you hated me.”

“I know. You’d feel that you also have a right to hatred.”

“Don’t punish me with silence. Spit on me, or forgive me. It’s not easy for me.”

“I can do neither.”

“Why did you talk to me about friendship? You already knew everything then.”

“I thought that you did it accidentally, or out of fear.”

“Don’t send me away like this.”

He was not begging humbly, he was demanding. It resembled the courage of despair. And then he fell silent, discouraged by my coldness, and went toward the door. But he stopped and turned around. He looked alert, almost cheerful.

“I’d like you to know how much you tortured me, speaking about our friendship. I knew it couldn’t be true, and yet I wanted it to be. I wanted a miracle to happen. But miracles don’t happen. It’s easier now.”

“Go, Yusuf.”

“May I kiss your hand?”

“Please, go. I want to be alone.”

“Very well, I’m going.”

I went up to the window and stared at the sunset, not knowing what I was looking at. I did not hear him when he left; I did not hear the door close. He was quiet and humble
again, pleased that everything had ended that way. I had let the rat out of the trap, feeling neither magnanimity nor scorn.

My eyes roamed over the hills above the kasaba and over the windowpanes gleaming with the sunset.

Well, that’s it. And then what? Nothing. Twilight, then night, dawn, day, twilight, and night. Nothing.

I knew that this was not particularly clever, but it was all the same to me. I even looked at myself somewhat mockingly, as if I were someone else: it would have been better if my search had continued, uninterrupted; then I would have had a goal.