Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) (8 page)

I started toward the tekke, leaving the man to himself. Now he could do whatever he wanted. The chase was over, he could go his own way. I looked in front of myself, down at the gravel of the path and the green grass on its edges, to shut him out, to sever even those thin ties that had connected us only a moment before. I wanted him to remain what he was, a stranger, whose path and eyes would never cross mine. But even without looking I saw the whiteness of his shirt and the paleness of his face, maybe only in my imagination,
in an image I later remembered. I saw that he had lowered his arms and put his legs together. He was no longer tense, no longer tied in a knot of trembling nerves, living solely for an instant that would decide between life and death, but a man relieved from a momentary worry so he could be free to think about what awaited him. For I knew that nothing had been resolved between him and those who were after him, it had only been prolonged, postponed for an unknown length of time, maybe only until the next moment, since he was condemned to run, and they to chase him. And then I thought that he lifted an arm, indecisively, barely moving it away from his body, as if he wanted to stop me, to tell me something, to induce me to take part in his fate. I do not know whether I actually saw this, whether he really did it, or whether I imagined the motion that he might have, that he must have made. I did not stop. I did not want him to concern me any longer. I went into the tekke and turned the key in the rusty lock.

When I got to my room I could still hear the creaking sound that had separated us. For him it meant freedom, or maybe even greater fear, absolute solitude.

I felt the need to take a book, the Koran, or some other, about morality, about great men, about holy days. I would be soothed by the music of familiar sentences that I trusted, that I did not even think about but carried inside myself like the flow of my blood. We are not aware of it, but it is everything to us; it enables us to live and breathe, keeps us upright, and gives its own meaning to everything in our lives. Those processions of beautiful words about things I knew always lulled me in a strange way. In this familiar circle, in which I moved, I felt secure, safe from any traps that men and the world might set for me.

But it was not good that I wanted to take a book, no matter which, that I sought the protection of familiar thoughts. What was I afraid of? What did I want to escape from?

I knew, the man was still down there in the garden; I would have heard it if he had opened the gate. I did not make any light; I stood in the yellow darkness of my room, with my feet in the moonlight, and waited. What was I waiting for?

He was still down there; that was all that mattered. It was enough that the tekke had saved him; he should have left. Why did he not leave?

The room smelled of old wood and leather, of forgotten life. Only the shadows of young women, long dead, occasionally passed through it: I had become accustomed to them; they had lived here before me. But an unfamiliar man, a stranger with a white blot for a face and forked arms and legs, had taken up residence in this ancient sanctuary and crucified himself on the door in anguish. I knew that he had changed his position; I saw that his body had grown limp, as if all of his bones had suddenly been broken. This was something new, more important and more painful, but I remembered his previous stiffness and effort, his tension, which lived and fought, surrendering to no one. I remembered the taut springs of his muscles, capable of miracles. I preferred that image to the newer, broken one; I had hoped for more from it, it released me more easily from any responsibility, promising that he would rely on his own powers. The other was dependence, hopelessness, a need for support. I remembered the movement that I had seen, or not seen, with which he had wanted to draw my eyes to his. He had hailed me, begged me not to pass by him and his fear as if none of it concerned me. If he had not done it, if I had only imagined that inevitable movement of a life struggling and calling for help, then he had lost all of his strength, and now even his hope. It was a pity that I knew nothing about this man. If he were guilty I would not think about him at all.

I went up to the window, and was frightened by the moonlight that struck my face. It was as if it had given me away. I looked down, askance—he was not at the gate any
more, he had gone away. I looked more freely around the garden, hoping to find it empty. But he had not left. He was standing under a tree, in its shadow, up against its trunk. I saw him when he moved: his feet were also in the moonlight; the edge of a shadow cut across his legs above the knees.

He did not look at the tekke or my window; he did not expect anything more from me. He listened attentively toward the street; he certainly could have heard even the footsteps of a cat, the movements of birds, his own silent breath. I followed his eyes as he raised them to the treetop: it was swaying slightly in the midnight breeze. Did he beg it to be silent or curse its rustling, since he could no longer make out the noises beyond the tekke walls, noises that could be worth as much as life itself to him?

He went around the tree with his back against its trunk, moving his silvery feet in a circle, and then stepped away from it and approached the gate with silent, weightless steps. He carefully locked the bolt. Then he returned and, keeping in the shadows of the trees, crept up to the fence, leaned over the river, looked up into the gorge and downstream toward the kasaba, then retreated and disappeared among the dense bushes. Had he heard or seen something? Did he not dare to come out, or did he have nowhere to go?

I would have liked to know if he was guilty.

And so, I had walked past him, with my eyes lowered to the ground. I had locked the tekke door and shut myself in my room, but I had not yet separated myself from the man who had burst into this peace and compelled me to think about him, to stand by my window and watch his growing fear. He made me forget about the sins of others on this Saint George’s Eve, about the beginning of my own sins, about the two wonderful hands at dusk, about all of my worries. But maybe it was precisely because of them that this happened.

I should have turned away from the window, lit a candle, and gone into another room, if I did not want my lighted
window to torment him unnecessarily. I should have done anything except what I actually did. Because that meant concern, a morbid interest, a lack of resolve in me. It was as if I no longer trusted in myself and my conscience.

This hiding was childish, or even worse: it was cowardly. I had nothing to fear, not even myself. Why was I acting as if I did not see the man, and why did I give him an opportunity to leave when he did not want to? Why was I pretending not to be sure whether he was in the tekke garden, whether he was hiding a crime or fleeing from one? Something was happening that was not at all innocent. I knew that grave and cruel things happen all the time, but this was before my own eyes, and I could not brush it away into what I had not known or seen, like everything else. I did not want to be an outlaw or an unwilling accomplice. I wanted to be free to make my own decision.

I went down into the garden. The moon shone near the horizon, it would soon set. The oleaster was beginning to bloom, and the air was heavy with its scent. It was obtrusive, too strong, and the tree should have been cut down. Sometimes I am oversensitive to smells; the whole earth will reek unbearably and stifle me. That happens suddenly, when I am excited, it seems, although I do not know what the connection is.

He stood in the thick bushes, I would not have found him if I had not known where he was. His face was featureless, blotted out by the half-shadows; he could see me better. I was exposed by the light, and felt naked, but I could not cover myself. He had turned into bushes, grown into branches, and would soon begin to sway in the night breeze that descended from the mountains through the gorge.

“You have to go,” I said in a whisper.

“Where?”

His voice was firm, deep, as if he were not this small man in front of me.

“Away. No matter where.”

“Thank you for not giving me away.”

“I don’t want to get involved in other people’s affairs, that’s why I want you to go.”

“If you make me leave you’ll be getting involved.”

“Maybe that would be best.”

“You helped me once. Why spoil that now? You might need a nice memory sometime.”

“I don’t know anything about you.”

“You know everything about me. They’re after me.”

“You must have done something to them.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“What are you going to do now? You can’t stay here.”

“Take a look, is there a guard on the bridge?”

“Yes.”

“They’re waiting for me. They’re all around. Are you really going to send me to my death?”

“The dervishes get up early, they’ll see you.”

“Hide me until tomorrow evening.”

“Travelers might stop in. Unexpected guests.”

“I too am an unexpected guest.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Then call the guards, they’re there behind the wall.”

“I don’t want to call them. And I don’t want to hide you. Why should I help you?”

“For no reason at all. Now go away, this doesn’t concern you.”

“I could’ve destroyed you.”

“You didn’t have the strength, not even for that.”

He caught me off-guard, I had not been prepared for this conversation. As I listened to his words I was surprised, mostly because I had expected to meet a completely different kind of man. The image of those outstretched arms and legs on the gate had deceived me. The white blot of his face, the scant protection provided by the thin boards, the pity that I felt had formed my impression of him. I imagined him to be a poor, frightened, lost man, and I even thought
that I knew what his voice sounded like—trembling, insecure. But everything turned out differently. I had believed that a single word from me would soften him, that he would look at me humbly: he was in a hopeless situation, and depended on my good or bad will. But his voice was calm, not even angry. I thought that it sounded almost cheerful, mocking, challenging, that he did not answer gruffly or humbly, but rather indifferently, as if he were above everything that was happening, as if he knew something that made him feel confident. He flouted my expectations so much that I must have also exaggerated in my estimation of his composure. I was also astonished by the manner in which he requested that I hide him: as if that were something totally natural, a favor he would appreciate but that was not crucial for him. He did not repeat his appeal, or demand; he gave up easily. He was not angry that I refused it. He did not even look at me, he listened attentively, his head slightly raised, no longer expecting my help anymore. He no longer expected anyone’s help. He knew that now no one dared to offer him a hand, that he did not have family, friends, or acquaintances, that he was condemned to be alone in his distress. An empty space had been left around him and his pursuers.

“You must think I’m a bad man.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m not. But I can’t help you.”

“Everyone knows himself.”

That was not a reproach, or reconciliation to his misfortune. It was merely an acceptance of what is, an ancient, bitter recognition of the refusal of people, all people, to help a condemned man. He counted me among them, and was not surprised at all. That realization did not break him or take away his strength; he did not look around desperately, but very calmly and purposefully, determined to fight alone.

I asked why they were pursuing him. He did not give an answer.

“How did you escape?”

“I jumped from the cliff.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

“No.”

“Did you steal anything, did you rob anyone, did you do anything shameful?”

“No.”

He did not hurry to justify himself, he did not try to convince me, he answered my questions as if they were superfluous and bothersome. He no longer judged me according to good or evil, no longer regarded me either as something dangerous or as a source of hope: I had not given him away, but I was not going to help him. Surprisingly, that neglect, as if I were a tree, a bush, or a child, wounded my vanity; it somehow depersonalized and belittled me, deprived me of value not only in his, but in my own eyes as well. I did not care about him, I knew nothing about him, I would never see him again, but his opinion had become important to me, and I was offended because he was acting as if I did not exist. I would have been pleased if he were angry.

I was deserting him, but his independence upset me.

I stood there, and kept standing, in the stifling scent of the oleaster, on Saint George’s Eve, which had a life of its own, in the garden, which had become a world of its own. We stood there, face to face, joyless that we had met, incapable of going our separate ways as if we had not. I tormented myself trying to decide what to do with this man who had turned into branches, without doing anything evil or sanctioning his sin when I did not know what it was. I did not want to sin against my conscience, but I could not find a solution.

That was a strange night, not only because of what happened, but also because of how I perceived it. My reason told me not to get involved in something that did not concern me, but I had already gotten involved so much that I could not see any way out. My old practice of self-control
had led me into my room, but I returned, driven by a new need. The discipline of a dervish and of the tekke had taught me to be firm, but I stood in front of the fugitive not knowing what to do, which meant that I was already doing something I should not. I had every reason to leave the man to his fate, but I was following him down his slippery and dangerous path, a path not meant for me.

And while I was still thinking about this, searching for the right word to pull myself from this dilemma, I said suddenly:

“I can’t bring you in the tekke. It would be dangerous for both of us.”

He did not respond; he did not even look at me. I had not told him anything new. There was still time for me to go back, but I was already starting to slip, and it was difficult to stop.