Ismail Kadare - The Siege

“Traitor! Dog! Son of a bitch! Shithead!”

Kurdisxhi held his peace. He strongly suspected that if his commander had possessed any rights over him, he would have had him executed. But, although nothing was written down about this, he also knew that the Pasha had no right to lay a finger on him, just as he could not discipline Old Tavxha, the Mufti or the Alaybey. However he was equally aware that if he answered back, the Pasha would fly into a rage and would request Kurdisxhi’s head from a higher place, which would come to the same thing.

Meanwhile, in the main avenue of the camp, the harassed akinxhis , their turbans all dirty and torn (many soldiers had torn strips off them to bandage their wounds) were dismounting, walking over to their comrades or else going to their tents without a word. Tuz Okçan gaped as he watched the units arrive one after the other. He was trying to spy the black curly hair of the man with whom he had made a deal. He noticed that a lot of other people were as impatient as he was.

“So where are the captives?” someone asked from behind.

“They’re surely on their way.”

Suddenly he saw Çelebi.

“Mevla! Mevla!” he shouted for joy.

The chronicler put a smile on his sallow and horribly downcast face. The janissary held out his hand to help him off his horse.

“Are you sick?” he asked.

“No, but I’m wiped out.”

“I can see that.”

A voice in the crowd behind them was asking worriedly for news of someone called Ulun. Mevla recognised the handsome young man in the uniform of a sapper. An akinxhi with wandering eyes whispered the sad news into his ear, and the sapper put his head in his hands.

“Are there many dead?” the janissary asked.

Çelebi glowered at him and answered feebly, “Don’t ask.”

Apparently quite a few of the people waiting had asked the same question, because the jolly hum of the crowd gradually turned into an angrier noise.

“Were you up against Skanderbeg?” the janissary asked.

“Perhaps.”

“What do you mean, ‘Perhaps’?”

“We were harried, especially at night.”

Çelebi was staring at his friend as if he was seeing him for the first time. For a brief moment the janissary thought the chronicler had lost his wits.

“Maybe, Tuz Okçan, as I said. It usually happened at night, and how can you know who is attacking you in the dark?”

“Strange. Did you bring back any captives?”

The chronicler smiled sourly.

“Around a couple of dozen.”

“So few!”

“I reckon it’s quite a lot.”

Tuz Okçan now thought he had done well not to buy a dress in a hurry. Dozens of men were standing around nearby looking downcast as they twiddled with adornments they no longer knew what to do with.

“The captives!” someone yelled. “Here they come!”

People jostled to get a view. Voices cried out, “Here they are!” They were chained together in groups of four or five. Their clothes were stained with mud, and so was their hair.

A great tumult arose from all around. They’ve been spoiled, upon my word! The poor girls have been raped! Why? Did you think they’d wait for you to service them? If they did it, then good on their pricks. Look, there’s a blonde. And look at that other one, what a beauty! A redhead, the way Suleiman likes his girls. But what a pity, she’s been damaged. So what? They’ve left her little bird’s-nest, it’s still there! Look, I’d be willing to pay three hundred aspers. Look at that one over there, she’s laughing, she’s gone quite mad, poor thing. Well, that’s a fine job you akinxhis have done! You can tell the hunter from his catch.

More and more men joined the crowd. Some were waving bulging purses under the girls’ noses. Some muttered dirty words. Voices called out: “Give way!” but the soldiers did not stand aside. Most of them seemed to be drunk. For many of them, it was the first time they had seen women without veils over their faces. They found it odd that the girls were chained when their eyes were freely available. They would not have been more fascinated if they had been allowed to take their pick from a fistful of emeralds strewn on the ground. Some of the girls let out little screams. The men thought they were laughing, but they were actually sobbing. Unless it was the other way round. Those eyes have quite an impact, someone standing behind the chronicler said.

“Move back!” someone said. “Soldiers, give way! The captives will be sold at the market according to custom. Are there so few? Aren’t there any more?”

“This is but a drop of water in the salty desert of our desire,” Çelebi said, feeling more and more happy just to be still alive.

“They’ll be gone in a few hours’ time. They won’t last beyond midnight,” someone spoke out from nearby.

Tuz Okçan turned round and without thinking asked: “Why so?”

“What do you mean, ‘Why so?’” a middle-aged azab answered. “That’s what always happens when there’s only a handful of girls. They last until the evening. At best, until midnight.”

“Do you reckon everyone will get a turn?” Tuz asked.

“Of course we will. As usual.”

Tuz Okçan noticed the eunuch standing not far off. He was on his way back from the river but had stopped to take a look at the akinxhis , or so it seemed. He had put his pitchers, now full, down on the ground, and with fearful eyes watched the captive women being led to market. The janissary was struck by the pleasant smell of perfume coming from the eunuch’s body.

The chronicler also turned his head to look at the source of such an agreeable odour, then felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Effendi,” someone said softly to him.

He looked round. It was one of the Quartermaster General’s orderlies. He whispered something in Çelebi’s ear, then the chronicler turned back towards Tuz Okçan.

“Please excuse me,” he said. “A highly placed friend of mine wants me to go to his tent. I’ll be back.”

Çelebi felt new energy in his stride as he walked towards the tent where, in a few minutes’ time, he would, almost unbelievably, be sitting on a soft divan beside his eminent friend, drinking pomegranate syrup, and discussing elevated, agreeable topics far away from the fear and frost of mountain nights. In fact, he hadn’t talked to anybody for several days. His tongue had gone dry. But now Allah was compensating him for all that suffering. Suddenly the world around him, from the cropped grass beneath his feet on the side of the road to the rumble of a chariot rolling somewhere behind him, seemed more magnificent than ever.

“Heavens! You’ve lost weight!” the Quartermaster General exclaimed when he saw Çelebi come into the tent.

The chronicler recognised compassion in his friend’s eyes and felt comforted by that.

“Sit down. You look shattered. Maybe you would like a bath?”

Çelebi could feel himself blushing. He must surely smell of sweat, and the surge of warmth prompted by his interlocutor’s kind words must have made the smell even worse.

“How can I say … Excuse me … for turning up in this state …” he mumbled.

But his host interrupted him. “No, excuse me for having had you brought here before you even had time to take a rest. I wanted to see you as soon as I could to find out how the expedition went. And then, I was worried about you, too.”

The chronicler felt almost happy.

“The friendship you grant me is like a jewel in my life.”

The Quartermaster gave one of those special smiles that lit up his face every time anyone mentioned money or precious stones.

“Go and have a bath,” he told Çelebi. “It’ll cleanse your spirit even more than your body.”