Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (58 page)

Then the bells stopped; the world returned, I regained my sight and saw her reborn, strangled, white on the grass, which was green, like bile; she was transformed into a white river pebble, grown into the ground, a bears foot bloomed from her armpit, snowdrop bloomed from between her thighs, catkins from a poplar drifted over her light skin, I did not know whether to leave her to be buried in them, or to lay her into a deep whirlpool, or to carry her away and place her in the stone grave above the forest. Should I have lain down beside her and turned into spring grass and willow branches?

I left without turning around. I do not know whether she called to me, and I remembered her as strange, like that tombstone.

“Hey!” I cried occasionally, through the expanse of time, calling to that white spring grave, but no echo ever came back from the distance.

And so I forgot.

And I believe that I would not have remembered now, if tonight, tonight of all nights, her son had not come. And maybe my son, too.

I know, like every fool, I could say: if what happened
hadn’t happened, my life would be different. If I hadn’t gone off to war, if I hadn’t fled from her, if I hadn’t called Harun to the kasaba, if Harun hadn’t . . . It’s ridiculous. What would life be then? If I had not left her, if it had not seemed easier to me to run away than to defy the whole world, maybe this night would not have even come, but I would certainly have begun to hate that woman, thinking that she stood in the way of my happiness, keeping me from succeeding in life. Because I would not know what I do now. Man is damned, and regrets all the paths he never took. But who knows what would have awaited me on others?

“You’re lucky to have left the village,” the youth said to me dreamily.

“Go to bed, sleep. You’re tired.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I’ll wake you early. I’m going on a journey.”

“Are you going far away?”

“Hafiz-Muhammed will look after you. Do you want to stay in the tekke?”

“I don’t care.”

Neither did I. Let him make his own decision, let him try it. I cannot help him. No one can help anyone.

He wanted to kiss my hand; they must have advised him enough to do it, so he would win my goodwill and show a gratitude he did not feel. I did not let him.

He left, tired—it is a long way from the village to the kasaba (and even longer from the kasaba back to the village)—maybe a little surprised that everything had ended well, and maybe saddened that he was going to stay. We passed each other coldly, like strangers.

I thought almost with disgust how it could have been different. I could have embraced him. We could have kissed one another on the cheek. I could have given him clever advice, held his knotty hand in mine, my eyes full of tears, whispering sorrowfully: my son. I could have tried stupidly to find my own features in his face, I could have moved him
with the final image of myself, which would remain in his memory. It was really better if he remembered something nicer and more sensible.

Yes, I stood over him, with a candle in my hand, as he slept a deep sleep given only to the young and to idiots, and I tried in vain to find tenderness within myself. The light leapt across the hollows of his face, his bony breast breathed peacefully, his stark mouth, similar to mine, was smiling at something he had left but was still bound to. I thought: he’ll take my place here, and in life, my bones, perhaps, I as I once was; life goes on. But nothing stirred within me; that forced thought remained cold, and I did not bend down to kiss him or touch him with my palm. I am not capable of tenderness.

But still, I wish you luck, young man.

Somewhere in the darkness the night-watchman has called out midnight. My last midnight, my last day: my end will meet its beginning.

I know this, but surprisingly, everything that must happen seems far away and completely unreal. Deep within myself I do not believe it will happen. I know it will, but something within me is smiling, resisting it, denying it. It will happen, but it is not possible. I do not know enough yet. There is still too much life in my heart, and I refuse to accept it. Maybe because I am writing this: I have not despaired, I am rejecting death.

But when I set down my reed a while ago, I could not take it up again into my numb hand for a long time, because of weariness, or a lack of will. Because of a cowardly thought that came to me—that what I am doing does not make any sense. And since I was left defenseless, the world around me came to life. But that world is silence and darkness.

I got up and went to the open window. Silence, darkness. Complete, final. Nothing anywhere, no one anywhere. The last vein had stopped pulsing, the last flicker of light gone out. Not a sound, not a breath, not a trace of light.

O world, wasteland, why do you have to be like this right now?

Then, somewhere in that deafness, in that death, a voice sounded out, serene, young, clear, and began singing a strange song, dreamy and soft, yet fresh and resistant. Like the song of a bird. And it ended as suddenly as it began. Maybe the voice had been strangled, like a bird.

But it has remained alive in me, moved me, excited me, alarmed me. That ordinary, unfamiliar human voice, which until now I would not even have noticed. Maybe because it appeared in the silence, from the other world; maybe because it was not frightened, or because it was, because it was calling to me, with sympathy and assurance.

I have begun to feel a belated tenderness. You who are singing in the terrifying darkness, I hear you. Your frail voice sounds like a lesson to me. But why now?

Where are you, Is-haq, you renegade, did you ever exist?

Golden bird, you are nothing but an illusion!

In the next room Hafiz-Muhammed is keeping his vigil. Maybe he has found out and is waiting for me to call for him or to go to him, giving me time to settle accounts with myself and to ask God for mercy. He is surely shedding his helpless, aged tears at the sorrow of this world. He pities all men. He fails to love them in one way, and I in another. That is why we are lonely.

But maybe he would pity me more than others, maybe he would pick me out of this general misery and accept me as the last man would the last man.

Should I say to him: Hafiz-Muhammed, I’m alone, alone and sad, give me your hand and be my friend, only for a while. Be my father, my son, a dear man whose nearness gladdens me; let me weep on your sunken chest, and you weep as well, for me, not for all men. Put your moist palm on top of my head: it won’t last very long, but I need it; not long, since I can already hear the first roosters crowing.

The first roosters! Those malicious heralds, they goad
time onward, spur it along to keep it from falling asleep, hastening our misfortunes, rousing them from their lairs so they will wait for us, with their hair bristling. Be silent, roosters! Stop, time!

Should I shout into the night, to summon people, to look for help?

It is no use. The roosters are merciless; they are already sounding the alarm.

I am sitting on my knees, listening. In the silence of this room, from somewhere in the wall, from somewhere in the ceiling, from some unseen space I hear the striking of the
kudret-clock,*
the unrelenting step of fate.

Fear is flooding over me, like water.

The living know nothing. Teach me, dead ones, how to die without fear, or at least without horror. Because death is senseless, as is life.

      
I call to witness the ink, the quill, and the script, which flows from the quill;

      
I call to witness the faltering shadows of the sinking evening, the night and all she enlivens;

      
I call to witness the moon when she waxes, and the sunrise when it dawns.

      
I call to witness the Resurrection Day and the soul that accuses itself;

      
I call to witness time, the beginning and end of all things—to witness that every man always suffers loss.

With his own hand wrote Hassan, son of Ali:

      
I did not know he was so unhappy.

      
Peace to his tormented soul!

1962–1966

NOTES

Chapter 1

1
. “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful!”—the opening line of each of the
suras
(chapters) of the Koran.

2
. This passage consists of several lines that belong to different
suras
(S. lxviii, 1; S. lvi, 75; S. lxxiv, 33–34; S. lxxv, 1–2; S. ciii, 1–2).

3
.
Mevlevi
: Muslim mystical order, founded in the thirteenth century in Konya, Anatolia, by the Persian poet Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi, whose popular title
mawlana
(Arabic for “our master”) gave the order its name. The Mevlevi are also called “dancing” (or “whirling”) dervishes on account of their ritual prayer, which is performed while spinning on the right foot to musical accompaniment.

Chapter 2

1
. S. xvi, 61.

2
.
Saint George
’
s Day:
An important Christian holiday (old style 23 April, new style 6 May); for the South Slavs it celebrates the passage from winter to summer. Among the numerous activities performed on the eve of this day was the ritual of bathing in rivers, especially at water mills, as a symbol of the awakening of new natural forces. Saint George’s Day, which had pagan proto-Slavic origins, had become deeply entrenched in the Christian tradition of the South Slavs by the time of the Turkish conquest, and was later celebrated
by Bosnian Muslim Slavs even after their conversion to Islam.

3
. Selimović alleges that he drew this and the following quotations from works by the Islamic thinkers and poets Abu Faraj, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazzali, and Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi, although he never specifies the exact sources. Indeed, a basic assumption of al-Ghazzali’s philosophy is the dichotomy between certainty and doubt; similarly, in his
Metaphysics
Ibn Sina talks of death as the decay of matter, not of the soul.

4
.
Dawud
: David in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

5
. This passage is another instance where Selimović quotes inexactly from the Koran, grafting passages together (cf. for example, S. xxxiv, 13; S. xvii, 81; S. xxix, 6; S. xli, 30; S. lxxxix, 27–30).

6
. In the contemporary Bosnian vernacular the capital of Turkey is variously referred to as either Carigrad (Constantinople) or Stambol (Istanbul). Selimović uses both names, and the translators have remained faithful to the original in this respect.

7
.
Wallachia
: Region in present-day Romania, between the Transylvanian Alps and the Danube.

Chapter 3

1
. S. xliii, 88.

2
.
Lovage
: European herb (
Levisticum officinate
), formerly cultivated in gardens and used as a domestic remedy.

3
.
Sinan Tekke
: Hadji Sinan Tekke in Sarajevo, built between 1638 and 1640.

4
.
Bayramiyya order
: Mystical order founded in Ankara sometime during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by Hadji Bayram-i Wali.

5
.
Ahriman
: Evil spirit in the dualistic doctrine of Zoroastrianism.

6
.
Asaf
: Asaf Ibn Barahija (Hebr. Asaf b. Berkjab), legendary
vizier of King Solomon; in Islamic legend he is a symbol of wisdom.

7
.
Anka-bird
: Large legendary bird, which is said to have received its name from its long neck. The name of the biblical “Anakim” is derived from the same root. Some Arabic authors suggest both the griffin and the phoenix.

8
.
Ibn Arabi
: Celebrated mystic of pantheistic doctrine (1165–1240). His works were thought by many to border on heresy.

Chapter 4

1
. S. liii, 24.

2
.
Constantsa
: City and port on the Black Sea, located in present-day Romania. A well-known center of learning and calligraphy since the ninth century.

Chapter
5

1
. S. xlvii, 24.

2
. These three lines come from S. xxxvii, 109, 120, and 130 respectively; Ibrahim, Musa, Harun, and Ilyas are Abraham, Moses, Aaron, and Elijah in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

3
.
Dubrovnik
: City-republic on the southern end of the Adriatic coast in present-day Croatia; a strategic treaty with the Ottoman Empire protected the city’s liberty and established it as a major trading center linking Europe with the Ottoman Empire.

4
.
Latin mahal
: Christian quarter in Ottoman Sarajevo, built by merchants from Dubrovnik.

5
.
Avicenna
: Ibn Sina (Selimović uses the Latin transcription of the name, from Hebr. Aven Sina, 980–1037), for centuries considered the most important Muslim scholar. Some of his opinions are strongly influenced both by Neoplatonic and Aristotelian works.

6
.
Krayina
: Northwest Bosnian borderland between Aus-tro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires.

7
.
Travnik
: Administrative center of Bosnia during the Ottoman occupation, the seat of the vizier.

8
.
Abu Faraj
: Arab historian and poet (897–967); his most important work, on which he apparently worked for fifty years, is the
Book of Songs.
It is this work that Selimović undoubtedly has in mind here.

Chapter 6

1
. S. xxii, 73.

2
.
Smyrna
: City in Western Turkey (modern Izmir), the chief port in Asia Minor.

3
. Hassan’s words may echo several verses from the Koran. See, for example, S. xi, 93, 121.

4
. A slightly modified version of S. ix, 20, 24.

5
. S. v, 101.

6
. This exact line is presented as a quotation from the Koran, but it is not.

7
. A generic version of a common Koranic line; see, for example S. lxxvii, 15, 24, 37; S. lxxxiii, 10.