The Bridge on the Drina (10 page)

Twilight came quickly and the workers hurried to their hovels in the wish to get as far as possible from the staging. Before it was quite dark, Merdjan and a trusted servant of Abidaga once more climbed the staging and definitely confirmed that Radisav was even then, four hours after the sentence had been carried out, alive and conscious. Consumed with fever, he rolled his eyes slowly and painfully, and when he saw the gipsy below him, he began to groan more loudly. In this groaning, which showed his life was ebbing, it was possible to distinguish only a few isolated words:

'The Turks ... the Turks ... the bridge!'

Having satisfied themselves, they returned to Abidaga's house at Bikavac, telling everyone whom they met on their way that the criminal was still alive; and since he ground his teeth and spoke well and clearly from the stake there was every hope that he would live
until noon the next day. Abidaga too was satisfied and gave orders that Merdjan was to be paid his promised reward.

That night everything living in the town and about the bridge slept in fear. Or rather those who could slept but there were many to whom sleep would not come.

The next day which was a Monday dawned a sunny November morning. There was not an eye in the whole town or about the building work that did not turn towards that intricate criss-cross of beams and planks over the waters, at the farther end of which, upright and apart, was the man on the stake. Many who, on waking, had thought that they had dreamt all that had taken place the day before upon the bridge, now rose and with fixed eyes looked at the continuance of this nightmare which remained there stark in the sun.

Amongst the workers there was still that hush of the day before, filled with pity and bitterness. In the town there was still that whispering and anxiety. Merdjan and that same servant of Abidaga's climbed up the scaffolding once more and examined the condemned man; they spoke to each other, lifted their eyes and looked upwards into the face of the peasant and then, suddenly, Merdjan pulled at his trousers. From the way in which they made their way downwards to the bank and walked silently through the men at work, everyone realized that the peasant had at last died. Those who were Serbs felt a certain easing of the spirit, as at an invisible victory.

Now they looked more boldly up at the scaffolding and the man who had been condemned. They felt as if fate, in their continual wrestling and measuring of forces with the Turks, had now inclined to their side. Death was the greatest trump in the game. Mouths till then contracted in fear now began to open. Muddy, wet, unshaven and pale, rolling great blocks of Banja stone with pinewood levers, they halted for a moment to spit on their palms and say to each other in hushed voices: 'May God pardon him and have mercy upon him!' Ah, the martyr! It is hard for such as we!' 'Don't you see that he has become a saint?' And everyone glanced up at the dead man who stayed there as upright as if he had been marching at the head of a company. Up there, so high, he no longer seemed terrible or pitiful to them. On the other hand, it was now clear to all of them how he was exalted and set apart. He no longer stood on the earth, his hands held to nothing, he did not swim, did not fly; he no longer had any weight. Freed from all earthly ties and burdens, he was no longer a prey to troubles; no one could do anything more against him, neither rifle nor sword, nor evil thoughts, nor men's words, nor Turkish courts. Naked to the
waist, with arms and legs bound, his head thrown back against the stake, that figure no longer seemed to bear any likeness to a human body which grows and then rots away, but seemed to be raised on high, hard and imperishable as a statue which would remain there forever.

The men on forced labour turned and crossed themselves stealthily.

In Mejdan the women hurried through the courtyards to whisper to each other for a moment or so and weep, and then at once rushed back to see if the luncheon had burnt. One of them lighted an ikon-lamp. Quickly, in all the houses, ikon-lamps hidden away in the corners of the rooms began to glow. The children, blinking in this solemn atmosphere, looked at the brightness and listened to the broken and incomprehensible sentences of their elders: 'Defend us, O Lord, and protect us!', 'Ah, martyr, he is chosen before God as if he had built the greatest of churches!', 'Help us, O Lord, Thou Holy One, drive away the enemy and do not let him rule longer over us!'; and incessantly asked who was the martyr and who was building a church and where. The small boys were especially inquisitive. Their mothers hushed them:

'Be quiet, my soul! Be quiet and listen to mother. As long as you are alive keep away from those accursed Turks.'

Before it began to darken, Abidaga once more went around the construction work and, satisfied with the result of this terrible example, ordered that the peasant be taken down from the stake.

Throw the dog to the dogs!'

That night, which fell suddenly as soft and moist as spring, there began an incomprehensible murmuring, a coming and going among the workers. Even those who had not wanted to hear of destruction and resistance were now ready to make sacrifices and do all that they could. The man on the stake had become an object of general attention as if he had been holy. Some hundreds of exhausted men, moved by an inner force made up of pity and ancient custom, instinctively joined in an effort to get the corpse of the martyred man, to prevent it from being profaned and to give it Christian burial. After cautious whispered consultations in the huts and stables, the men on forced labour collected among themselves the considerable sum of seven grosh with which to bribe Merdjan. To carry out this work they chose three of the craftiest among them and succeeded in getting in touch with the executioner. Wet and tired from their labours, the three peasants bargained, slowly and cunningly, going round and round the point. Frowning, scratching his head and stuttering intentionally, the oldest of the peasants said to the gipsy:

'Well, it's all over now. It was so fated. Still, you know it is, a human being, one of God's creations ... it shouldn't. . . you know what I mean ... it shouldn't be eaten by beasts or torn to bits by dogs.'

Merdjan, who knew well enough what was in the wind, defended himself, more sorrowfully than obstinately.

'No. Don't even speak of it. You'll get me well roasted. You don't know what a lynx that Abidaga is!'

The peasant was troubled, frowned and thought to himself: 'He is a gipsy, a thing without cross or soul, one cannot call him either friend or brother, and one cannot take his word by anything in heaven or earth', and held his hand in the shallow pocket of his cloak tightly grasping the seven grosh.

'I know that very well. We all know that it is not easy for you. Only, no one can blame you. Here we have got together four grosh for you which, as we see it, should be enough....'

'No, no, my life is dearer to me than all the treasure in the world. Abidaga would never let me live; that one sees everything, even when he is asleep. I am dead at the mere thought of it!'

'Four grosh, even five, but that's all we can do! We could even find that much,' went on the peasant, paying no heed to the gipsy's laments.

'I dare not, I dare not....'

'Very well then. . . . Since you have got your orders to throw the... the body ... to the ... to the dogs, you will throw it. But what happens after that is none of your affair, nor will anyone ask you about it. So you see if we, for example, should take that . . . that body ... and should bury it somewhere according to our law but, let us say, stealthily so that not a living soul will know . . . then you will, for example, say next day that the dogs have . . . have carried away that... that body. No one will be any the worse and you will have got your share....'

The peasant spoke carefully and with circumspection, only he halted with a strange uneasiness before the word 'body'___

'Am I to lose my head for five grosh? No, no, n-o-o-.'

'For six,' added the peasant calmly.

The gipsy drew himself up, spread out his arms, and assumed an expression of moving sincerity, as only men who do not distinguish truth from lies can do. He stood before the peasant as though he were the judge and the peasant the criminal.

'Let it be on my head, since that is my fate, and let my 
chai 
remain a widow and my children beggars; if you give me seven grosh, take the body away, but no one must see and no one must know.'

The peasant shook his head, regretting deeply that this scab must get everything right down to the last farthing, as if the gipsy had been able to see into his closed fist!

Then they came to an agreement, down to the last detail. Merdjan was to bring the corpse, when he had taken it from the scaffolding, to the left bank of the river and there, as soon as it grew dark, was to throw it down on a stony patch near the road, so that it could be seen both by Abidaga's servants and by anyone who might be passing by. The three peasants would be hidden in a thicket, a little farther on. As soon as darkness fell, they would take the corpse, carry it away and bury it, but in a hidden place and without any visible trace, so that it would seem quite likely that the dogs had dragged it away overnight and eaten it. Three grosh were to be paid in advance and four more when the job was finished.

That same night everything was carried out according to the agreement.

At twilight Merdjan brought the corpse and threw it on the roadside. (It no longer resembled that body which all had looked at for the past two days, upright and stiff upon the stake; this was once again the old Radisav, small and bowed, only now without blood or life.) Then he went back at once with his assistants by the ferry to the town on the other bank. The peasants waited in the thicket. One or two late workers passed, and a Turk on his way home to the town. Then the whole countryside became quite still and dark. Dogs began to appear, those powerful, mangy, hungry cowardly curs without masters or homes. The peasants concealed in the undergrowth threw stones at them and drove them away. They ran with tails between their legs but only for twelve paces or so from the corpse where they waited to see what would happen next. Their eyes could be seen glowing and shining. When it was clear that night had really fallen and there was no longer any likelihood that anyone else would come along, the peasants came out of their hiding place carrying a pick and shovel. They had also brought two planks with them on which they placed the corpse and so carried it away. There in a gully caused by the spring and autumn rains rushing down the hill into the Drina, they removed the larger stones which formed the bed of a dry watercourse, and dug out a deep grave quickly, silently, without words and without noise. In it they placed the cold, stiff, twisted body. The oldest of the peasants leapt into the pit, crossed himself carefully a few times, lit first a piece of tinder and then a small candle of twisted wax, shielding the light with his two hands; he placed it above the head of the dead man and crossed himself, repeating three times quickly and aloud, 'In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.' The two men with him crossed themselves in the darkness above. The peasant then made a movement with his hands over the dead man as if pouring from his empty hand the unseen wine and said twice, softly and reverently:

'Peace with the saints, O Christ, for the soul of Thy slave.' Then he whispered a few more words, disconnected and incomprehensible, but sounding like prayers, solemn and reverent, while the two men above the grave crossed themselves continually. When he had ended, they lowered the two planks so that they formed a sort of roof over the dead man. Then the peasant crossed himself once more, extinguished the candle and climbed out of the grave. Then, slowly and carefully, they replaced the earth in the grave, treading it down well so that no swelling could be seen. When that was done, they put back the stones, like the bed of the stream, across the freshly dug earth, crossed themselves once more and went back home, making a wide detour so as to rejoin the road at a point as far away as possible.

That night there fell a dense soft rain without wind, and in the morning that dawned the whole river valley was filled with milky mist and a heavy moisture. In a sort of white resplendence which now rose and now fell, the sun could be seen somewhere struggling with the mists which it was unable to pierce. All was ghostly, new and strange. Men suddenly appeared out of the mist and equally suddenly were lost in it. In such weather, early in the morning, there passed through the market-place a simple country cart and on it two guards watching the man from Plevlje, their leader until the day before, bound and under arrest.

From the previous day, when in the access of unexpected emotion at finding himself still alive and not on the stake he had begun to dance before them all, he had never calmed down. All his muscles twitched, he could no longer keep still, but was constantly tormented by the irresistible urge to prove to himself and show others that he was still healthy, whole and capable of movement. At intervals he would remember Abidaga (that was the black spot in his new joy!) and would fall into a dark reverie. But while he was in this mood, fresh forces would collect within him which drove him irresistibly to wild and spasmodic movements like a madman. He would get up again and begin to dance, spreading out his arms, clicking his fingers and twisting like a dancer, showing by sudden and lively actions that he was not on the stake and gasping to the rhythm of his dance:

'See ... see ... I can do this . .. and that.. . and that!...'

He refused to eat and would suddenly break off every conversation that he began and start to dance, affirming childishly at every movement: