“In other words … you … to put it differently …”
The chronicler was stuttering. The Quartermaster noticed.
“What’s wrong with you, Mevla Çelebi?” he asked in a gentle tone. “Have a drink of syrup.”
“No, I’m quite alright, thank you … My Lord!”
“What …? Are you feeling better now? Alright. I was about to confide in you the secret of my main occupation. My function is not specifically connected to this army, nor to any other more or less similar entity. It’s related to a much bigger action. The Padishah has set up a kind of semi-official supreme council, so to speak, and its task is to answer a major, difficult question: what will we do with the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula? That’s why I’m here, Mevla Çelebi.”
The chronicler felt his throat going so dry that he dared stretch out his hand and take hold of the goblet of pomegranate syrup without being asked.
“I am deeply touched by the confidence you show in me,” he mumbled.
“So now I come to the third question, which, as I told you, is always the most diabolical. Must we, should we, debilitate these nations? Annihilating them, as I think you are now persuaded yourself, is just eyewash. What we have to do is to weaken them, render them bloodless. But the question that arises is: would that even be wise?”
This man will make me go mad! Çelebi said to himself.
The Quartermaster’s gaze, flimsily, transparently veiled, bore down upon him like the eyes of an inquisitor.
“Our side is of a different opinion,” he said. “We see the Balkan peoples as the new star that fate has put in the path of our empire.”
The chronicler began to realise just what a scandalous turn the conversation was taking. In the midst of a campaign, with battle raging all around, the talk was of an alliance with the Balkan nations …! Before his eyes flashed visions of a deep hole underground where the astrologer was allegedly serving out his sentence, of a man being flayed, of limbs sawn off, and then the question: so what did you answer when he declared that we should love our enemies? Each vision felt like another nail being driven into his skull.
“I have reason to believe that our side will win,” the Quartermaster pursued. “At the present time people are still too excited and a thick pall of death shrouds the issue, but the picture will become clear in the long run.”
This man has really lost his mind, Çelebi thought, and I’m even crazier to sit here listening to him!
“Aren’t you feeling well?” his host enquired. “Your lips have gone quite blue. Should I call a doctor?”
“No … No. Just a bit dizzy. It’ll pass.”
“It’s fatigue, my dear friend. Now, what was I saying … Ah, yes, about the turn of fate that put the Balkan peoples in our way. The Anatolian soldier is the best in the world. As unshakeable as the earth itself. And just as faithful and obedient. But he needs leadership. And the best leaders don’t grow on placid ground, but in demented lands like these. Have some more halva!”
The chronicler was now trying to stop his ears … I wasn’t feeling very well, your honour. That’s why I missed a lot of what was being said, particularly all that venom he wrapped up so cleverly …
“We confronted the Balkans sixty years ago, on the plains of Kosovo. My father was there, and he never stopped talking about that battle. That’s when we saw them all gathered together — Serbs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Croats and Romanians, all allied against us. The fight lasted ten hours, as you know. For the first time we saw our army based on land and obedience up against an opponent driven by pride and daring. Our soldiers, who had no titles or noms de guerre, some of whom didn’t even have a family name, just their first name, overcame those proud counts and barons. Now, Çelebi, think what a marvel it would be to mix the noble earth of Anatolia with those rocks that spark! Do you see what I mean? We all need each other. They need our generosity and we need their hotheadedness … I guess you’ve read plenty of chronicles about that war in Kosovo?”
“Of course,” Çelebi replied. “Especially because that is where our glorious Sultan Murad I fell as a hero.”
He mentioned the heroic death of the sovereign in the hope that the conversation would take a different turn. But the Quartermaster General’s eyes clouded over even more.
“That plain …” he drawled. “That’s where the most tragic mystery of our empire is hidden …”
The chronicler didn’t really understand what his eminent friend was talking about. He couldn’t help thinking: He’s going from bad to worse! The Quartermaster’s eyeballs seem to have become opaque, as if they were steamed up on the inside.
“You’re a historian … You have read many chronicles …”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well, what do they say on the subject …? I mean, about the death … about the murder!”
Çelebi knew by heart everything that had been written about that fateful day, especially after sunset, when the victorious Sultan Murad had ridden with his escort among the corpses of the fallen. And suddenly … just there … a Balkan soldier …
He retold the tale, but the official’s eyes got no clearer, they darkened even further.
“And then …? What happened?”
The Quartermaster’s voice was distant and muffled, and the chronicler realised he was undergoing a second interrogation, just as he had been fearing for a while.
“The Sultan’s death was kept secret so as not to damage the army’s morale.”
“And then?”
“There then occurred another murder, that of Jakup, one of the Sultan’s sons.”
“And who did it?”
The chronicler wasn’t sure why, but he found himself staring at his own hands. He had heard said that sometimes the whim of the gods makes bloodstains migrate to innocent hands.
“The Council of the Viziers did it, sir. To ward off disputes over the throne.”
“You’re hiding something, chronicler!”
Çelebi thought the tent was falling on his head. He stared at his hands again, and even did so in a way that made it possible for the Quartermaster to see what he was doing, as if to let him know that he was in no way responsible for those chronicles.
“You’re hiding something!” the Quartermaster repeated icily.
“You mentioned the murder of one of the two sons without recalling that contrary to what might have been expected in such circumstances, the one killed was the elder brother.”
“You are quite right, sir,” Çelebi replied. “The elder son, the legitimate heir to the throne, was the one who was killed, and the younger, Bayezid, was declared Sultan.”
“In other words, everything happened back to front, didn’t it? Or to put it another way …”
The official drew his face unbearably close to the chronicler’s.
“To put it another way, the other murder … the murder of the Sultan himself … wasn’t perpetrated by a Balkan assassin at all … but … Ah! You poor man, you’re trembling all over …! But now listen to what really happened …”
It was too late. The chronicler had not time to wave it all away, to turn his head to the side, to block his ears or to puncture his eardrums. The Quartermaster had literally grasped him by the neck and was pouring into his auricle a poison so venomous as to send every historian of the Empire raving mad. O Allah! Make me deaf, so I may not hear these abominations! he pleaded inwardly, yet the bitter truths entered him willy-nilly. He was so flummoxed that he had no difficulty in pretending to pass out. It was probably only his accursed curiosity that prevented him from really losing his senses.
In the end something happened over his head. The lugubrious muttering of the Quartermaster General gave way to homelier words: “Mevla, my poor chap, what’s the matter? Must be the fatigue … Yes, fatigue. Probably.”
He felt a wet towel on his forehead and when he opened his eyes he saw it was the sergeant wiping his brow. The Quartermaster was leaning over him, looking like his old self, beaming and co
ncerned.
“Don’t worry,” he was saying, “it’s just a bad turn. I’ve sent for the war council’s doctor …”
“Oof! What a crazy day this has been!” the doctor blurted out as he hurried into the tent. “So what’s up, Kurt?”
The chronicler was astounded by the doctor’s familiar tone, but even more by the first name, “Kurt,” that he had never heard uttered before.
“I wouldn’t have troubled you on a day like this for myself,” the Quartermaster said. “But it’s about my friend here … Mevla Çelebi, the army’s historiographer, I imagine you’ve heard of him …”
From the doctor’s lack of reaction to these words and especially from the way he pulled back Çelebi’s eyelids to examine his pupils, the chronicler deduced that historians were not very high on the man’s list of priorities. They’re only accustomed to examining important personages, he thought spitefully. But the good smell of his own body that arose when he’d had his tunic undone to have his chest sounded filled him with some pride.
“It’s due to two kinds of fatigue,” the medical practitioner said, turning round to face the Quartermaster, as if the patient were a mere token. He repeated the words “two kinds” while tapping the side of his forehead.
Çelebi felt mortified again. I’d like to have seen you listening to all those horrors! he muttered to himself.
“He should drink a little of this,” the doctor said to the Quartermaster as he took a vial from his satchel. The two began to confer in a whisper, as if the chronicler were not even present in the tent. Then, in response to a question from the host, the doctor said: “Fine, fine, go on using the balm I gave you. Right-ho. Farewell, Kurt.”
No, I’ll never be one of them, Mevla thought with despair. Right-ho. Farewell, he repeated in his mind as if he were learning a phrase in a foreign language. In fact, he had noticed every now and again a slight foreign accent in the Quartermaster’s diction, but like most people he had put such worries aside … Wasn’t the name “Kurt” quite widespread among the Osmanlis?
Not in a thousand years could he learn to say “Right-ho. Farewell, Kurt” with ease. The Quartermaster had only made a friend of him so as to have someone into whose ear he could drip the poison that people cannot bear to keep inside themselves, just like he had been doing before the doctor’s visit.
In any other circumstance he would have been proud to be the depository of a secret of such magnitude. On first hearing it, he had been scared out of his wits. Now, he thought it was just offensive. But who could know how he would view it over the coming days?
“What were we talking about when you came over queer?” the Quartermaster General asked. His manner was casual but in the man’s eyes Çelebi could see the icy glint of a stalactite.
“I don’t recall very well …” he answered. “About the Balkan peoples, I think. About Skanderbeg.”
“Ah yes, Skanderbeg,” his host said. His face lit up. “You didn’t hear the rest of the story …? So much the better!” he added.
Çelebi felt a wave of relief. His regret at losing the secret entrusted to him wasn’t enough to disturb the peace of mind he had just recovered.
The Quartermaster also seemed relieved and in an excellent mood. He urged the chronicler to rest a while and then let the orderly accompany him back to his tent. In the meantime they could resume their interrupted conversation. Hi-hi! What they’d been saying about … Skanderbeg! The Quartermaster said that one of his friends had actually met him, at peace negotiations that had been held at a secret location. The Albanian leader had refused to go to the Turkish capital, even though the great Padishah, Murad Han, had begun his letter of invitation with the words “My son”.
“What an ungrateful man!” Çelebi remarked.
The Quartermaster went on to say that during the said negotiations, Skanderbeg would speak only Latin, the better to mark his complete break with the Empire.
“The ungrateful man!” the chronicler repeated. “Renegade!”
“Worse than a renegade!” the Quartermaster insisted. “He broke one of the dreams of our empire. You know which one? The most beautiful dream of all: bringing the Albanian Catholics back into the bosom of Islam.”
Their conversion had been a miracle. To be sure, there hadn’t been many of them, only a handful really, but you mustn’t forget they were ancient Christians, they had adopted the faith thirteen centuries ago and since then had been attached to the Church of Rome and under allegiance to it. So it was a sign that Islam was managing to make a breach in Christianity in one of its staunchest bastions. No better news had ever reached the heart of the Empire. But the dream was soon destroyed by that demon with a double name, George Castrioti-Skanderbeg … The chronicler’s jaw dropped in astonishment.
“Everything about him is double. His name, the ram’s horns he puts on his helmet, and the two-headed bird on his banner. And do you know what he did as soon as he had consolidated his power over the other local princes? He ordered the Albanians who had become Muslim to return to their original faith, or else die by the sword. And he kept his word. He forcibly reincorporated into Christendom those new Muslims who had just donned their first thin cloak of Islam. So there, Çelebi …”
“He’s a two-horned devil!” the chronicler exclaimed, then asked what the Albanian leader looked like.
“What he looks like?” the official rejoined. “I remember asking my friend the same question at the time he told me the story. According to him, Skanderbeg appears completely normal. On the day of the talks, his voice was hoarse, he must have caught a cold. All through the negotiations he kept a scarf wrapped around his throat.
“A scarf around his throat,” the chronicler repeated mechanically, almost dropping off to sleep again.
“Normal-looking people are those I fear the most,” the Quartermaster said.
His voice had a different resonance, as if the dimensions of the tent had suddenly altered.
Then came the first pause in the talking since the doctor had left. The Quartermaster’s long fingers counted the beads on his chaplet faster than usual. One bead in particular seemed to have lost its brilliance.
“In the report I wrote, I reckoned the Albanians should be put alongside the Greeks and the Jews as the first peoples we should integrate.” Unlike his hands, the Quartermaster’s voice was slow and calm. “Only there’s this Skanderbeg fellow in the way.”
“I understand,” the chronicler said.
In his mind’s eye he could see the plain of Kosovo strewn with uncountably many corpses and Murad Han on horseback, at dusk, riding among them at walking pace … He had to wipe that vision from his mind, sweep it from his memory for ever if he wanted to stave off his own fall.
“Albania has to get rid of Skanderbeg. It’s the only solution,” the Quartermaster went on. “But he’s doing all he can to prevent that happening. He knows full well that he’ll lose the war in the end. But in spite of that, he’s hanging on to Albania.”
Skanderbeg and Albania can go to the devil! the chronicler thought, without daring to say so aloud.
“He’s in the process of achieving an uncommon exploit,” the Quartermaster continued. “An extraordinary exploit … Just now I was telling you about the heavens where peoples put their relics for safekeeping … Well, as from now, that man is aiming for the heavens … I don’t know if you get my meaning. He’s trying to create a second Albania, outside of anyone’s reach, a kind of immaterial Albania. So that when one day this Albania, the terrestrial one, falls to the Empire, that other, ghostly Albania, its shadow-self, will go on wandering among the clouds … Do you see what I mean?” (Actually, the chronicler was increasingly befuddled.) “He’s devoted himself to a task which almost nobody has ever thought of before: how to re-use a defeat. Or, to put it another way, the eternal recycling of defeat in battle …”
Çelebi was in such a mental muddle that he wondered if his interlocutor was not trying to daze him so as to make him forget the Sultan’s wh
ite horse on the Kosovo plain. But even if you don’t ask me to do so, he promised silently, I will be sure to wipe it from my memory.
The Quartermaster was now almost tearing the beads off his prayer-string.
“You see, Mevla, he’s trying to oblige us to fight his shadow. To vanquish a ghost, so to speak, the image of his own defeat. But how can you overcome a defeat, a rout? It’s like trying to hollow out a ravine. It already is hollow! You would make no difference to it, whereas you could yourself fall into it … A while ago — I don’t know if you happened to hear this — a strange rumour spread among officers that Skanderbeg didn’t exist, and never had existed. At first this struck everyone as good news, but we soon saw that it was the opposite. Those responsible for the rumour were caught and punished. Why? Because, as I told you before, if there is no Skanderbeg, then we are fighting a ghost. It would be like struggling with one of the departed. What can you do if you are attacked by the dead? The dead already are what we fear for ourselves. So if you try to slay a ghost, all you do is bring it back to life. End of story. But I must have worn you out, my dear friend. Maybe it is time for you to go back to your tent. My orderly will escort you.”
He did feel exhausted, to tell the truth. His head was a jumble of unclear ideas. It was evening. Life went on in its usual way in the vast camp. Men came and went, this way and that, like so many ants. He was walking along the main thoroughfares when he heard the sound of cartwheels from behind. He turned around, and on one of the carts he thought he could see the astrologer. He quickened his step so as not to be overtaken, but as he felt the convoy draw near him, he took a side path among the tents of a volunteer unit.
Once inside his own tent he threw himself fully dressed on to his bedding of animal skins. As he fell into sleep (at that moment the astrologer on the tumbrel was waxing indignant at Çelebi’s faithlessness) he was gently overcome by a vague feeling that in spite of everything, life was beautiful. The same feeling, though mixed with bitterness, overcame the astrologer too as he got down from the cart and made ready to climb down underground with the detachment of sappers about to relieve the current detail. Before each journey into the tunnel he cast a sad glance at all around him, astonished that he had never previously noticed how beautiful the world was. All his life he had been dissatisfied with his position and had thought only of his own advancement by any means, but he had never fully tasted the satisfaction that comes from realising a dream entirely. Now fate had thrown him into a dark, damp hole underground, he realised that many of the days he had spent on earth could have been happy ones, had he not darkened them with his inextinguishable hunger for yet greater felicity.