Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (40 page)

Or also: “How could I know? Look how many of them there are, without markers or names.”

He walked between the graves, which were scattered without order. They had been dug hastily and without respect for the dead, like potato pits. He would stop over one of them, look for a moment at the sunken earth and shake his head: “Nikola. The highwayman.”

Or: “Bekir. Mashas grandson.”

Over others he was just silent.

“Where’s Harun?”

“Here.”

I went alone among the filled pits to find my dead brother. Maybe I would recognize him from my excitement, from my sorrow, from some sign; maybe the rush of my blood would warn me, or a tear, a shudder, a strange voice; maybe we are not always the helpless captives of our five senses. Could the mystery of the same flesh and blood not somehow speak?

“Harun!” I called silently, waiting for an answer from with
in myself. But there was no answer or sign, none at all, no excitement, not even sorrow. I was like clay, the mystery remained dumb. I was only overcome by a feeling of bitter desolation, of a peace that was not mine, of some distant meaning, more important than anything known by the living.

Solitary among the graves, I forgot about my hatred.

It returned when I joined the men again.

They stood over a pit, which was the same as others.

“Is that it?” asked Hassan. “Are you sure?”

“It doesn’t matter to me, take whoever you want. But this is him.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. He was buried in an old grave.”

And indeed, the servants found two sets of bones, put one into the coffin, covered it with a shroud and started down the slope.

Whom have we taken? I wondered in horror. A murderer, a killer, a victim? Whose bones have we disturbed? There are many dead here, Harun is not the only one buried in someone else’s grave.

We walked behind the servants, who carried on their shoulders the coffin and someone’s bones under the green cloth.

Hassan touched my elbow, as if he were waking me.

“Calm down.”

“Why?”

“You’ve got a strange look on your face.”

“Is it sad?”

“I wish it were sad.”

“A few moments ago, in the graveyard, I waited in vain for something to give me a sign when I came to Harun’s grave.”

“You ask too much of yourself. It’s enough that you grieve.”

I still did not understand what he had wanted to say, but I did not dare to ask. I was afraid he might figure out what
was happening inside me. He was not trying to return me to sorrow for no reason.

At the bazaar, in the streets, people approached us. I could sense more and more feet behind us. The rumble of their steps grew louder, the human barrier thicker. I had not expected them to show up in such numbers. I had done this for myself, not for them; but you see, what was mine was being taken away from me and becoming theirs. I did not turn around to look at them, yet in my excitement I felt the throng carrying me forward, like a wave. I grew with it, I became more important and powerful; it was the same as I, it was myself magnified. They grieved, they condemned, they hated with their silent presence.

This funeral was a vindication of my hatred.

Hassan said something softly.

“What did you say?”

“Don’t speak. Don’t say anything over the grave.”

I shook my head. I would not speak. It had been different then, in the mosque. They had followed me as I returned from the gates of death, and we had not known, neither I nor they, what was supposed to happen. Now we knew. They did not expect words from me, or condemnation; something had matured in them, and they knew everything. It was good that I had done this. We would not bury this former man to confirm his innocence; we would do more: we would sow these bones as a reminder of injustice. And anything, whatever God decided, could sprout up from them.

Thus my hatred became nobler and deeper.

In front of the mosque the servants placed the coffin with the green shroud on the
meytash.*
I performed the abdest, stood in front of the coffin and began the prayer. And then I asked, not out of duty, as I always had before, but defiantly and triumphantly:

“Tell me, people, what kind of man was the deceased?”

“A good man!” a hundred voices responded with conviction.

“Do you forgive him all of his trespasses?”

“We forgive him.”

“Do you vouch for him before God?”

“We vouch for him.”

Never had the testimony for a dead man before his eternal journey been more sincere and defiant. I could have asked ten times, and they would have answered louder and louder. Maybe we would have begun to shout, threateningly, fiercely, foaming at the mouth.

Then they carried that long-dead corpse away on their shoulders, passing the coffin to one another, paying their respects, for the sake of a good deed and spite.

We buried him next to the tekke wall, at the spot where the street opens toward the kasaba. To be between me and other people, a shield and warning.

I had not forgotten, Muslims had at one time buried their dead in common graves, to be equal in death as well. They had begun to separate when they had become unequal in life. I also set my brother apart so that he would not mix among others. He died because he had resisted; let him fight on in death.

When the people went away, each throwing a handful of earth into the grave, and I was left alone, I knelt by the swollen mound, someone’s eternal dwelling, and a reminder of Harun.

“Harun!” I whispered to that earthen dwelling, that guardian mound. “Harun, brother, now we’re more than brothers, you gave birth to me as I am today, so I can remember; through me you were reborn and set apart to serve as a marker. You’ll meet me in the morning and evening, every day; I’ll think of you more than when you were alive. And let everyone forget, since human memory is short. I won’t forget, neither you nor them, I swear by this and the next world, brother Harun.”

Ali-hodja was waiting for me in the street, out of respect for my conversation with the dead man’s shadow. I would
have preferred not to meet him, especially now, when I was upset after the funeral, but I could not avoid it. Fortunately, he was serious and kind, although strange, as always. He expressed his sympathies and wished me patience, me and all the people, because of the loss, which was a loss for everyone, although it was also a gain, because the dead can be more useful than the living. And we need them that way—they don’t grow old or quarrel, they don’t have their own opinions, they silently agree to be our warriors, and will commit no betrayal until they are called under different banner.

“Can you see me?” I asked him. “Do you know who I am?”

“I see you, and I know who you are. Who doesn’t know Sheikh-Nuruddin?”

He did not scorn me; I was no longer only air for him.

What hopes did he have for me, now that he acknowledged my existence?

Hassan and the goldsmith Sinanuddin paid to have a memorial of hard stone erected above the grave and a pretty iron fence around it.

Coming back from the nighttime prayer, on the first Friday after the funeral, I saw a candle burning in the darkness above Harun’s grave. Someone was standing beside it.

I came closer and recognized Mullah-Yusuf. He was praying.

“Did you light the candle?”

“No. It was here when I came.”

Someone’s hands had placed it there, and lit it for the memory of the murdered and for the repose of his soul.

From then on, on the eve of every holy day there were candles burning on the memorial.

I always stop in the darkness and look at those small, trembling lights, excited; at first I was moved, now I am proud. That is my former brother, that is his pure soul shedding the light of the flames, that is his shadow luring strangers to light those tender little fires in his memory.

After his death he became the love of the kasaba. During his life hardly anyone had known him.

For me he was a bloody memory. During his life he had only been my brother.

13

      
A beautiful word is like a tree, its roots are deep in the ground, its branches rise up to the sky.
¹

MY DEVOTION TO MY DEAD BROTHER GAVE HASSAN’S FRIENDSHIP back to me. Maybe in his words and deeds there was even some hidden intention, a wish to stop me on the path that he suspected I was taking. Or maybe I am mistaken; maybe my sensitivity saw what was not there. But, however that might have been, I could have no doubts about his friendship.

Nor could he have any about mine. I began to love him. I knew because I could no longer do without him, because I never reproached him for anything he did or said, and because everything about him had become important to me. Love is probably the only thing in the world that does not need to be explained and whose reasons need not be discovered. And yet I will try to do that, if only to mention one more time the name of the man who brought so much happiness into my life.

I bound myself to him (a good word: bound, like on a ship or a cliff, in a storm), because he was born to be a friend to people, and because he had chosen me of all of them. But I continually and repeatedly felt joyous that I could have such a friend in him, a man who seemed so wild and scornful.

I had always thought that a friend is someone who himself needs someone to turn to, a half looking for its complement; he is unconfident, somewhat languid, necessarily boring (although dear), since his company grows stale, like that of ones wife. But Hassan was a whole person, always fresh and always different, clever, daring, restless, confident in everything he undertook. I could not add or take anything away from him. He was himself with or without me, and he did not need me. And yet I did not feel inferior. Once I asked him how was it that he had bestowed his friendship on me, of all people. Friendship is not chosen, he said, it happens, who knows why, like love. And I haven’t bestowed anything on you, but on myself; I respect men who remain magnanimous even in their misfortune.

I was grateful to him for that admission, and I believed it was true.

But his friendship was also precious because of the hatred that was growing within me. I do not know; it surely could have lived on its own, but this way it was better. One side of me was black, the other white. That was how I was, divided and yet whole. Love and hate did not mix, did not bother each other. They could not kill each other. I could not do without either of them.

I entered Hassan’s life by the right of friendship and because he let me; but if I had hoped or feared that everything about him would become clear and familiar, I was mistaken. Not because he would have hidden anything from me, but because he was a deep and shadowy well, whose bottom could not be seen easily. And not because he in particular was like that, but because people are like that in general, unfathomable as soon as we get to know them better.

He took his father into his house. He showered him with attention that was somewhat strange, joyful, somehow carefree, as if he did not worry much about the old man’s illness. He treated him as if he were healthy. He told him about everything, about the bazaar, people, business matters,
weddings, even about girls who got better-looking each year—maybe only because he was getting older—but if that were true, then it was a pity his father could not see them; they would seem like heavenly
houris*
to him. The old man pretended to frown, but it was obvious that he was content. He had had enough of being left to his illness and being prepared for death. “In front of children and old men people speak only stupidities,” he said angrily, probably thinking of the large, dark house in which he had lain. “Only this stubborn son of mine treats me like a man, because he doesn’t respect me, thank God.”

Hassan laughed and responded to him in the same measure, as if he had before himself a friend and a healthy man.

“Since when don’t I respect you?”

“For a long time now.”

“Since I left Constantinople and came here? Since I became a vagabond and a cattle drover? You’re unjust, father. I’m a small man with an ordinary mind and modest abilities. Schoolchildren would never learn about me.”

“You’re more capable than many in high positions.”

“That’s not difficult, father; there are many idiots in high places. And what would I do with such a position, and that position with me? Like this, I’m content. But let’s drop this conversation; we’ve never managed to finish it. Let me ask you for some advice. I’m having to deal with one man, he’s unpleasant, conceited, stupid, dishonest, uncouth. He looks down on me, and I can tell he despises me. He almost expects me to kiss his slippers. And it’s not enough for him that I say nothing about his stupidity and dishonesty. Rather, he’s angry that I don’t tell him he’s clever and honest. And worst of all, he believes that himself. Please tell me, what should I do?”

“Why are you asking me? Tell him to go to hell; that’s what you should do.”

“Father, I told him to go to hell, then, in Constantinople,” Hassan said, laughing, “and came here to be a cattle drover.”

They loved each other with a strange, whimsical affection, but it was truly tender, as if they wanted to make up for the time when their hardheadedness had kept them apart.

The old man demanded that Hassan marry (“I can’t until you do,” Hassan made fun of him), to give up cattle driving and the long journeys, and not to leave him. He even tried trickery, claiming that he was seriously ill, that his last hour might come at any time and that it would be easier for him if his own flesh and blood were beside him, so that his soul might depart without difficulty. “Who knows who’ll go first,” Hassan answered. But he agreed to the sacrifices that love imposes; without much enthusiasm, of course, especially because of his journeys. It was autumn, the time for traveling, he had gotten used to it, as storks do. The swallows had already flown south; soon wild geese would begin honking high above, flying their courses, and he would look into the sky at their formations and imagine the strange pleasures of his wanderings. He was kept from one love by another.