The Bridge on the Drina (27 page)

'Otuz bir! 
The field is mine!'

Then came the turn of the other fields, then both houses and then the oak grove at Osojnica. They invariably agreed on the values. Sometimes Milan would win and would snatch up the ducats. Hope shone before him like gold but after two or three unlucky hands he was again without money and again began staking his property.

When the game had swept away everything like a torrent both players stopped for a moment, not to take breath for both of them it seemed feared to do so, but to consider what else they could wager. The stranger was calm like a conscientious worker who has finished the first part of his task and wants to hasten on with the second. Milan remained tense as if turned to ice; his blood was beating in his ears and the stone seat beneath him rose and fell. Then the stranger suggested in that monotonous, even, somewhat nasal voice:

'Do you know what, friend? Let us have one more turn at the cards, but all for all. I will wager all that I have gained tonight and you your life. If you win, everything will be yours again just as it was, money, cattle and lands. If you lose, you will leap from the 
kapia 
into the Drina.'

He said this in the same dry and business-like voice as he had said everything else, as if it were a question of the most ordinary wager between two gamblers absorbed by their play.

So it has come to losing my soul or saving it, thought Milan and made an effort to rise, to extricate himself from that incomprehensible whirlpool that had taken everything from him and even now drew him on with irresistible force, but the stranger sent him back to his place with a glance. As if they had been playing at the inn for a stake of three or four grosh he lowered his head and held out his
hand. They both cut. The stranger cut a four and Milan a ten. It was his turn to deal and that filled him with hope. He dealt and the stranger asked for a complete new hand.

'More! More! More!'

The man took five cards and only then said: 'Enough!' Now it was Milan's turn. When he reached twenty-eight he stopped for a second, looked at the cards in the stranger's hand and at his enigmatic face. He was unable to get any idea at how many the stranger had stopped, but it was exceedingly likely that he had more than twenty-eight; firstly, because all evening he had never stopped at low scores and secondly, because he had five cards. Summoning the last of his strength Milan turned over one more card. It was a four; that meant thirty-two. He had lost.

He looked at the card but was unable to believe his eyes. It seemed to him impossible that he should have lost everything so quickly. Something fiery and noisy seemed to course through him, from his feet to his head. Suddenly everything became clear; the value of life, what it meant to be a man and the meaning of his curse, that inexplicable passion to gamble with friends or strangers, with himself and with all around him. All was clear and light as if the day had dawned and he had only been dreaming that he had gambled and lost, but everything was at the same time true, irrevocable and irreparable. He wanted to make some sound, to groan, to cry out for help, even were it only a sigh, but he could not summon up enough strength.

Before him the stranger stood waiting.

Then, all of a sudden, a cock crowed somewhere on the bank, high and clear, and immediately after, a second. It was so near that he could hear the beating of its wings. At the same time the scattered cards flew away as if carried off by a storm, the money was scattered and the whole 
kapia 
rocked to its foundations. Milan closed his eyes in fear and thought that his last hour had come. When he opened them again he saw that he was alone. His opponent had vanished like a soap bubble and with him the cards and the money from the stone flags.

An orange-coloured moon swam on the horizon. A fresh breeze began to blow. The roar of waters in the depths became louder. Milan tentatively fingered the stone on which he was sitting, trying to collect himself, to remember where he was and what had happened; then he rose heavily and as if on someone else's legs moved slowly homeward to Okolište.

Groaning and staggering he scarcely reached the door of his house before he fell like a wounded man, striking the door heavily with his
body. Those in the house, wakened by the noise, carried him to bed.

For two months he lay in fever and delirium. It was thought that he would not survive. Pop Nikola came and consecrated the holy oils. None the less he recovered and got up again, but as a different man. He was now a man old before his time, an eccentric who lived in a world apart, who spoke little and associated with other men as little as possible. On his face, which never smiled, was an expression of painful and concentrated attention. He concerned himself only with his own house and went about his own business, as if he had never heard of company or of cards.

During his illness he had told Pop Nikola all that had happened that night on the 
kapia, 
and later he told it all to two good friends of his, for he felt that he could not go on living with that secret on his mind. The people heard the rumours of what had happened but, as if what had actually happened had been a small matter, they added further details and elaborated the whole story, and then, as is usually the case, turned their attention elsewhere and forgot all about Milan and his experience. So what was left of the one-time Milan Glasičanin lived, worked and moved among the townsfolk. The younger generation only knew him as he was in their time and never suspected that he had been different. And he himself seemed to have forgotten everything. When, descending from his house to the town, he crossed the bridge with his heavy slow sleepwalker's step, he passed by the 
kapia 
without the least emotion, even without any memory of it. It never even crossed his mind that that 
sofa 
with its white stone seats and carefree crowd could have any connection with that terrible place, somewhere at the ends of the earth, where he had one night played his last game, staking on a deceiving card all that he possessed, even his own life in this world and the next.

Often Milan asked himself if all that night episode on the 
kapia 
had been only a dream which he had dreamt as he lay unconscious before the door of his house, the consequence and not the cause of his illness. To tell the truth, both Pop Nikola and those two friends in whom he had confided were more inclined to regard the whole of Milan's tale as a hallucination, a fantasy which had appeared to him in a fever. For none of them believed that the devil played 
otuz bir 
or that he would take anyone he wished to destroy to the 
kapia. 
But our experiences are often so heavy and clouded that it is no wonder that men justify themselves by the intervention of Satan himself, considering that this explains them or at least makes them more bearable.

But whether true or not, with the devil's help or without it, in dream or in fact, it was sure that Milan Glasičanin, since he had lost
his health and his youth and a large sum of money overnight, had by a miracle been finally liberated for ever from his vice. And not only that. To the story of Milan Glasičanin was added yet another tale of yet another destiny, whose thread started also from the 
kapia.

The day after the night when Milan Glasičanin (in dream or in waking) had played his terrible final game on the 
kapia 
dawned a sunny autumn day. It was a Saturday. As always on Saturdays, the Višegrad Jews, merchants with their male children, were gathered on the 
kapia. 
At leisure and in formal dress, with satin trousers and woollen waistcoats, with dull red shallow fezzes on their heads, they strictly observed the Sabbath Day, walking beside the river as if looking for someone in it. But for the most part they sat on the 
kapia, 
carrying on loud and lively conversations in Spanish, only using Serbian when they wanted to swear.

Among the first to arrive on the 
kapia 
that morning was Bukus Gaon, the eldest son of the pious, poor and honest barber, Avram Gaon. He was sixteen and still had not found permanent work or a regular occupation. The young man, unlike all the other Gaons, was somewhat scatter-brained and this had prevented him from behaving reasonably and settling down to a trade, and drove him to look for something higher and better for himself. When he wanted to sit down, he looked to see if the seat was clean. It was while doing this that he saw, in a crack between two stones, a thin line of shining yellow. That was the shine of gold, so dear to men's eyes. He looked more closely. There could be no doubt; a ducat had somehow fallen there. The young man looked around him, to see if anyone was watching, and searched for something to pry loose the ducat which laughed at him from its hiding place. Then suddenly he remembered that it was a Saturday and that it would be a shame and a sin to do any kind of work. Excited and embarrassed, he went on sitting on that spot and did not move until noon. When it was time for lunch and all the Jews, old and young, had gone home, he found a thick barley stalk and, forgetting the sin and the holy day, carefully pried the ducat loose from between the stones. It was a real Hungarian ducat, thin and weighing no more than a dead leaf. He was late for lunch. When he sat down at the sparse table around which all thirteen of them (eleven children, father and mother) were sitting, he did not hear how his father scolded him and called him a lazy wastrel who could not even be in time for lunch. His ears hummed and his eyes were dazzled. Before him opened those days of unheard-of luxury of which he had often dreamed. It seemed to him that he was carrying the sun in his pocket.

Next day, without much reflection, Bukus went to Ustamujić's inn and edged his way into that little room where at almost any time of the day or night the cards were in play. He had always dreamed of doing this, but had never had enough money to dare to go in and try his luck. Now he was able to realize that dream.

There he passed several hours filled with anguish and emotion. At first they had all greeted him with disdain and mistrust. When they saw him change the Hungarian ducat they at once thought that he had stolen it from someone but they agreed to accept him and his stake (for if gamblers questioned the origin of every stake, the game would never begin). But then fresh miseries commenced for the beginner. Whenever he won, the blood rushed to his head and his eyes clouded with sweat and heat. When he made a rather greater loss it seemed to him that he stopped breathing and his heart died. But despite all his torments, each of which seemed insoluble, he none the less left the inn that evening with four ducats in his pocket. Though he was broken and feverish with emotion as if he had been beaten with fiery rods, he walked proud and erect. Before his glowing imagination opened far and glorious prospects which threw a glittering sheen over his poverty and swept away the whole town down to its foundations. He walked with a solemn pace as though drunk. For the first time in his life he was able to feel not only the shimmer and the sound of gold but also its weight.

That same autumn, though still young and green, Bukus became a gambler and a vagabond and left the family home. Old Gaon shrivelled up from shame and grief for his eldest son, and the whole Jewish community felt the misfortune as if it had been its own. Later he left the town and went out into the world with his evil gambler's destiny. And nothing more was ever heard of him for all those fourteen years. The cause of all that, they said, was that 'devil's ducat' which he had found on the
kapia 
and had pried loose on the Sabbath Day.

XIII

It was the fourth year of the occupation. It seemed as if everything had somehow or other calmed down and 'was working'. Even if the sweet peace of Turkish times had not been restored, at least order had been established according to the new ideas. But then there were once more troubles in the land, fresh troops arrived unexpectedly and a guard was once again mounted on the 
kapia. 
This was the way of it.

The new authorities that year began recruiting in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This provoked great agitation among the people, especially the Turks. Fifty years before, when the Sultan had introduced the 
nizam 
(the first Turkish regular army), clothed, drilled and equipped in the European manner, they had revolted and waged a series of small but bloody wars, for they would not wear the infidel clothing and put on belts which crossed over the chest and so created the hated symbol of the cross. Now they had to put on that same odious 'tight clothing' and that, furthermore, in the service of a foreign ruler of another faith.

In the first years after the occupation, when the authorities had begun numbering houses and taking a census of the population, these measures had already excited mistrust among the Turks and stirred up undefined but deeply felt misgivings.

As always in such cases, the most learned and respected of the Višegrad Turks met stealthily to discuss the significance of these measures and the attitude they should adopt towards them.

One May morning these leaders gathered on the 
kapia 
as if by chance and occupied all the seats on the sofa. Peacefully drinking their coffee and looking straight in front of them, they talked in whispers of the new and suspicious measures of the authorities. They were all ill at ease about the new ideas, the very nature of which was contrary to their ideas and habits, for each of them considered this interference by the authorities in his personal affairs and his family life as an unnecessary and incomprehensible humiliation. But no one knew how to interpret the real sense of this
numbering, nor could suggest how it could best be resisted. Amongst them was Alihodja who otherwise rarely came to the 
kapia, 
for his right ear always throbbed painfully when he happened to look at those stone steps leading up to the 
sola.