Ismail Kadare - The Siege

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.”