Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) Page 2
The novel’s Koranic language and references to Islam deserve special comment. The motto at the beginning of each chapter is based on a text of the Koran. Other quotations and quasi-quotations occur in various places. Many of Selimović’s quotations are less than exact, others are taken out of context, and some consist of lines from different chapters (suras), grafted together. Therefore we have in general followed his versions instead of relying on any English translations of the Koran itself. We have footnoted all the quotations we could identify.
We would like to express our gratitude to Henry R. Cooper Jr. and Vasa D. Mihailovich, who reviewed the manuscript and provided many helpful comments, and to Yusuf Nur, whose assistance with quotations from the Koran proved invaluable.
The preparation of this work was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. We acknowledge their support with gratitude.
Finally, we dedicate this translation to Mirna Dickey, with whom it all began, and to the memory of Nikola Rakić.
PART 1
1
Bismilâhir-rahmanir-rahim!1
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 loss2.
I BEGIN MY STORY FOR NOTHING, WITHOUT BENEFIT FOR myself or anyone else, from a need stronger than benefit or reason. I must leave a record of myself, the chronicled anguish of my inner conversations, in the vague hope that a solution will be found when all accounts have been settled (if they may ever be), when I have left my trail of ink on this paper, which lies in front of me like a challenge. I do not yet know what will be written here. But in the strokes of these letters at least some of what was in me will remain, no longer to perish in eddies of mist as if it had never been, or as if I had never known what happened. In this way I will come to see how I became what I am—this self that is a mystery even to me. And yet it is a mystery to me that I have not always been what I am now. I know these lines are muddled; my hand trembles at the task of disentanglement that I face, at the trial I now commence. Here I am everything: judge, witness, and accused. I will be as honest as I can be, as honest as anyone ever could be, for I have begun to doubt that sincerity and honesty are one and the same. Sincerity is the certitude that we speak the truth (and who can be certain of that?), but there are many kinds of honesty, and they do not always agree with one another.
My name is Ahmed Nuruddin. It was given to me and I took what was offered with pride. But now, after a great many years which have grown on me like skin, I think about it with wonder and sometimes with a sneer, since calling oneself “Light of Faith” evinces an arrogance that I have never felt and of which I am now somewhat ashamed. How am I a light? And how have I been enlightened? By knowledge? By higher teachings? By a pure heart? By the true path? By freedom from doubt? Everything has been cast into doubt and now I am nothing but Ahmed, neither sheikh* nor Nuruddin. Everything has fallen from me, like a robe or a suit of armor, and all that remains is what was at the beginning, naked skin and a naked man.
I am forty years old, an ugly age: one is still young enough to have dreams, but already too old to fulfill any of them. This is the age when the restlessness in every man subsides so he can become strong by habit and by the certainty he has acquired of the infirmity to come. But I am merely doing what should have been done long ago, during the stormy flowering of my youth, when all the countless paths seemed good, all errors as useful as the truth. What a pity that I am not ten years older, then old age would protect me from rebellion; or ten years younger, since then nothing would matter. For thirty is youth that fears nothing, not even itself. At least that is what I think now that thirty has moved irretrievably into the past.
I have just spoken a strange word: rebellion. My pen hesitates above this straight line, upon which a dilemma has been impressed, but all too easily uttered. This is the first time I have so named my anguish, and I have never before thought of it in this way. Where did this dangerous word come from? And is it only a word? I have asked myself if it might not be better to stop writing, so as not to make everything harder than it already is. What if writing, in some inexplicable way, draws from me even things that I do not want to say, things that I have not intended, or that have hidden in the darkest depths of me, just waiting to be stirred up by my present agitation—a feeling that is hardly likely to obey me? If that happens, then writing will be a merciless interrogation, a hellish affair. And maybe it would be better to break the reed that I have so carefully sharpened at the tip, and toss the ink out on the stone tiles in front of the tekke.* That black stain would remind me never again to take up the magic that wakes evil spirits. Rebellion! Is it only a word, or a thought? If it is a thought, then it is my thought, or else my delusion. If it is a delusion, then woe to me! If it is the truth, then woe to me even more!
And yet I have no other path to take, I can tell all of this to no one except myself and the paper. Therefore I will continue to write these irrepressible lines, from right to left, from margin to margin, from thought to thought as if from one chasm to the next. The long rows of these lines will remain as a testimony, or an accusation. But whose accusation, almighty God, you who have abandoned me to the greatest of all human miseries, which is to face oneself? Whose accusation is it? And against whom? Against me or against others? No matter, there is no longer any way out, this writing is as unavoidable as life or death. What must be will be, and my guilt lies in being what I am, if that can be guilt. It seems that everything is changing completely; everything in me is shaking right down to my very foundations. And the world sways with me, because it cannot be in order if there is no order in me. But still, everything that is happening and has happened has one and the same cause: what I want, and what I must do, is respect myself. Without that I could not find the strength to live like a man. It might seem absurd, but yesterday I lived like a man. I want to live like a man today, which is a different day, perhaps even contrary to the old one. This does not disturb me, because a man changes constantly, and it is a sin to ignore your conscience when it speaks.
I am the sheikh of a tekke of the Mevlevi3 order, the most widespread and purest of orders. The tekke in which I live stands at the edge of the kasaba,* between black, gloomy cliffs that block out most of the sky and leave only a blue fissure above me, like a meager act of mercy or a remembrance of the endless expanse of the sky in my childhood. But I do not like that distant recollection—it torments me more and more, like a missed opportunity, though I do not know which. I make a vague comparison between the lush woods above my father’s house, the fields and orchards around the lake there, and the rocky gorge where the tekke and I are trapped, and it seems that there are many similarities between the narrow confines inside me and those around me.
The tekke, pleasant and spacious, overlooks a river that makes its way down from the mountains and through the rocks of the gorge. There is a garden, a plot for roses, and a veranda covered by an arbor. Upstairs there is also a long porch where the silence is as soft as cotton, and seems all the more silent because of the soft gurgling of the river below. This building was formerly the harem* of the ancestors of the wealthy Ali-aga* Janich, who donated it to the order to serve as a meeting place for dervishes and a shelter for the poor, “since they are brokenhearted.” Through prayer and incense we cleansed the house of its sin and the tekke acquired the fame of a holy place, although we never rid it entirely of the shadows of young women. At times it seems that they pass through the rooms, leaving their fragrances to linger behind.
The tekke, its fame and holiness—that was me. I was its found
ation and roof. Everyone knew this, and therefore I make no effort to hide it. Otherwise these lines would contain a conscious lie (no one is to blame for lying unwittingly and thereby inadvertently misleading himself). Without me the tekke would have been just another five-room house, but with me it became a bastion of faith. Since there were no houses beyond it, the tekke seemed like the defense of the kasaba against all evil, known and unknown. Thick wooden lattices over the windows and a massive wall around the garden made our seclusion more impenetrable and secure. But the gate was always open, so that those who needed comfort or purification from sin could enter. We received them with kind words, although our words were scantier than their troubles, scantier still than their sins. I am not proud of my service, that was just how one really serves his faith—sincerely and wholeheartedly. I considered it a duty and a blessing to shield myself and others from sin. Yes, myself as well; there is no point in hiding that. Sinful thoughts are like the wind—who can hold them back? And I do not think this is a great evil. What is the purpose of piety if there are no temptations to resist? Man is not God, his strength is the ability to restrain his own nature, so I thought, and if he has nothing to restrain, then what are his merits? Now I think somewhat differently about this, but I should not bring up anything before I need to. There will be time for everything. The paper rests on my knee and waits quietly to accept my burden, although without taking it from me, without feeling its weight. There is a long, sleepless night ahead of me, many long nights—I will come to everything. I will do everything I must, I will accuse and defend myself; there is no need to hurry, although I see that there are things that I can write about now and maybe never again. When the time comes, when I wish to talk of other things, they will also have their turn. I can feel how they are piled up in the stores of my brain, all connected, all pulling at one another. None of them exists independently, and still there is a sort of order in that turmoil, and one of them always leaps out from among the others, I do not know how, and comes to light either to hurt or comfort me. At times they jostle and assail each other, impatient, as if afraid of remaining untold. No hurry, there will be time for everything; I have allotted it to myself. A trial consists of confrontations and testimonies; I will not circumvent them, and in the end I will be able to pass a verdict on myself, since this is about me and no one else. The world has suddenly become a secret to me, and I a secret to it. We have come face to face and look at each other in amazement. We no longer recognize each other, no longer understand each other.
Let me return again to myself and the tekke. I loved it, and still love it. It is quiet, clean, mine. It smells of tansy in the summer, and of harsh wind and snow in the winter. I also love it because I made it what it is, and because it knows secrets that I have never revealed to anyone, that I have hidden even from myself. It is warm and peaceful; in the early morning pigeons coo on the rooftop, and rain drums lightly on the tiles. It is raining now as well, persistently, perpetually, even though it is summer. The rainwater drains away through wooden gutters into a night that has descended ominously on the world. I fear that this night might never be lifted; at the same time I hope that the sun will soon rise. I love the tekke because it protects me with the peace of my two rooms, where I can be alone when I wish to rest from people.
The river resembles me: sometimes turbulent and foaming, more often calm and inaudible. I was sorry when they dammed it up below the tekke and diverted it into a trench to make it obedient and useful, so it would run through a trough and drive a mill wheel. And I was happy when it swelled, destroyed the dam, and flowed free. I knew all the while that only tamed waters can mill wheat.
But the rain is still pouring down, as it has for days, and the pigeons coo in the attic, since they cannot go out from under the eaves. They announce a day that has not yet come. My hand has become stiff from holding the pen, the candle spits and sparks a little to stave off its death. I look at these long rows of words, the tombstones of my thoughts, and I do not know whether I have killed them, or given them life.
2
If God were to punish every evil deed, not a single living creature would remain on earth.1
EVERYTHING BEGAN TO GET COMPLICATED TWO MONTHS AND three days ago. It seems I should count time from the night before Saint George’s Day,2 because this has been my time, the only time that matters to me. My brother had already sat imprisoned in the fortress for ten days.
Toward dusk on Saint George’s Eve I walked the streets, embittered and upset beyond words. Yet I appeared calm (one gets used to doing that) and my gait did not betray any agitation. My body attended to my disguise by itself, leaving me free to be as I wanted in the unseen darkness of my thoughts. I would have gladly left the kasaba in that quiet, late afternoon hour, so that night might find me alone, but my duties led me in the opposite direction, among people. I was taking the place of the ill Hafiz*-Muhammed, who had been summoned by Janich, our aging benefactor. I knew that Janich had lain sick for months, and that maybe he would ask one of us to come to him before his death. I also knew that his son-in-law was the kadi* Aini-effendi,* who had signed the order for my brother’s arrest. For that reason I had gladly agreed to go, filled with a vague sense of hope.
As I was led through the courtyard and house I walked as always, used to not seeing what did not concern me—I kept closer to myself that way. Then I was left alone in a long corridor, where I waited for the news of my arrival to reach wherever necessary, and I listened to the silence. It was absolute, as if no one lived in that great edifice, as if no one moved through its corridors and rooms. In the quiet of that muffled life, beside the dying man who still breathed there somewhere, in the silence of steps fading on the carpets and in soft, whispered conversations, the old wood of the ceilings and window frames split with a faint, creaking noise. As I watched evening surround the house with silken shadows and the last reflections of daylight quiver on the window-panes, I thought about the old man and what I would say to him at this last meeting. I had spoken with the sick more than once; I had sent a dying man on that long journey more than once. Experience had taught me, if any experience were necessary, that every man feels fear at what awaits him, at the unknown that already knocks, unrevealed, in a terror-stricken heart.
To comfort them I would often say:
Death is a certainty, an inevitable realization, the only thing that we know will befall us. There are no exceptions, no surprises: all paths lead to it. Everything we do is a preparation for it, a preparation that we begin at birth, whimpering with our foreheads against the ground. We never move farther away from death, only closer. But if it is a certainty, then why are we surprised when it comes? If this life is a short passage that lasts only an hour or a day, then why do we fight to prolong it one more day or hour? Worldly life is treacherous, eternity is better.3
I would often say:
Why do your hearts tremble with fear when in your death-agony your legs twitch and squirm? Death is a move from one house to another. It is not a disappearance, but a rebirth. Just as an eggshell bursts when the chick inside is fully developed, there comes a time for the soul and body to part. Death is a necessity in the inevitable passage to the other world, where man makes his full ascent.
I would often say:
Death is the decay of matter, but not of the soul.
I would often say:
Death is a change of state. The soul begins to live by itself.
Until it parted from the body, it held with hands, saw with
eyes, heard with ears, but it knew the heart of the matter on its own.
I would often say:
On the day of my death, when they carry my coffin,
do not think that I will feel pain for this world.
Do not cry and say: it is a great loss!
When milk sours, the loss is greater.
I shall not vanish when you see them lay me in the grave.
Do the sun and moon vanish when they set?
This seems like
a death to you, but it is a birth.
The grave seems like a prison to you, but the soul has been freed.
What grain does not sprout when it is put into the ground?
So why do you not believe in the grain of men?
I would often say:
Be thankful, O House of Dawud,4 and say: the truth has come. The hour has come. Because every man travels his path until the appointed time. God creates you in the womb of your mother and he changes you from one form to another in a threefold impenetrable darkness. Do not grieve, but rejoice at the paradise that has been promised to you. O my slaves, do not fear for yourselves today, you will not be sorrowful. O peaceful soul, return to your master satisfied, because He is satisfied with you. Join my servants, come into my paradise.5
I had said these things countless times.
But now I was not sure that I should say them to the old man who was waiting for me. Not for his sake, but for mine. For the first time (how many times these days will I say: for the first time?) death did not seem as simple as I had believed or had made others believe. It happened that I had a terrible dream. I stood in an empty space above my dead brother; at my feet his long coffin was covered with a piece of blue broadcloth, and around me there was a distant circle of people. I saw no one, recognized no one, the only thing I knew was that they formed a ring around us and left me alone, above the corpse, in a painful silence. Above a corpse to whom I could not say: Why does your heart tremble? because my heart also trembled, and I was afraid of the dead silence. A secret pained me, one that I did not see any purpose for. There is a purpose, I said, shielding myself from terror, yet I could not find it. Arise, I said, arise. But my brother was hidden in darkness, vanishing in mist, in a greenish gloom, as if underwater, a man drowned in an unknown void.