Ismail Kadare - The Siege

“Maybe they aren’t looking in the right place?” Lejla suggested.

She was the only one of the four to have heard of such things before, even though the previous campaign she had been on had not needed to take such steps.

“The sappers dig where the architect Giaour tells them,” the eunuch said. “He’s supposed to know all the secrets of earth and water.”

“Talk talk, Hasan! Bring water quick!” the blonde girl shouted.

“Immediately, ma’am,” the eunuch replied.

He went out, and the clatter of empty pitchers moved away into the distance.

Exher was leaning her head on her forearm.

“How are you feeling?” Ajsel asked her. “Do you want to vomit again?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve gone white again.”

“Does he know you’re pregnant?” Lejla asked.

“Hasan must have told him.”

“They have a weakness for children conceived on campaign,” Lejla remarked.

She spoke as if in a daydream. She was on the point of adding something, but seemed to hold back.

“And why is that?” Exher asked.

Lejla didn’t answer the question directly but said, “Especially if it is a boy …”

“So why do they have a special fondness for such children?” Exher asked again.

Lejla lowered her eyes. “I don’t really know,” she said. “Perhaps it’s because they come into being amid devastation and death, on which their fathers’ whole existence is grounded. Or else it may be because by spreading grief all around they incur a debt towards life, and are therefore glad to be able to return to it a tiny part of what they have taken away.”

“ He is very glum these days,” Ajsel observed. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“That’s right. He never smiles.”

“But I like men of mystery,” Exher blurted out.

“ He has ear trouble,” Ajsel added. “A week ago, when I slept with him, he suddenly put his hand to his right ear. When I asked what was wrong, he told me he could hear buzzing in his head.”

“With the din of battle and the banging of all those drums, how could he not have trouble with his ears?” Exher said.

“But I don’t think that’s what’s making him grumpy,” Lejla objected. “What’s getting him down is the outcome of a battle that seems to have no end.”

“And the collapse of the tunnel also upset him greatly,” Exher added.

“The tunnel? Of course it affected him. Actually, I think that’s where it all began …”

Rattling buckets could be heard coming nearer outside. It was the eunuch. They rushed over to him as soon as he came inside the tent.

“Hold your horses, you witches!” Hasan shouted at them.

He finally got them into the compartment of the tent that was used for steam baths. For a long while the women’s laughter mingled with the sound of spilling water.

Once they had relaxed they came back into the main tent and started to do up their hair.

“Hasan, tell us all the news!” Lejla said.

The time after a bath was when Hasan was at his most fluent. He chatted about whatever came into his head, in no particular order, pell-mell. All over the camp people were talking of nothing but the imminent trial of the spell-caster. He was supposed to be mainly responsible for the failure of the first assault. Learned men from the Palace of Great Damnation in the capital had arrived at the camp, bringing instruments and little lengths of string that were to be used to establish the man’s guilt. Proper measurements had been made, and had persuaded the estimators that the spell had been badly cast. A curse made with the palm of the hand had to be as precise as a shot with a bow, because the slightest error in aim increases in magnitude the further the arrow flies. So when the curse reached the citadel, it just glanced off the right hand wall and a great deal of its force frittered away in empty space and fell to ground on some far-off beech-wood or meadow, which would surely wither in a couple of years’ time, but what good was that to anyone? The fortress would remain intact.

“Well, Hasan, that’s all very complicated, isn’t it?” Exher sighed.

“Wait a moment!” the eunuch said. “Things are even more complicated than they seem. To begin with, the spell-caster was suspected of having made a crass mistake, but what we’re now learning is that none of this happened by chance … Under torture, his assistants, first of all, and then the man himself admitted they had acted knowingly, that they are in cahoots with enemies of the state, and there’s even a rumour that they’ve got their own men planted in the council of war. If none of that was made public knowledge up to now, it was probably so as to lull the traitors into a false sense of security, and then — clack! — close the trap on them like rats.”

“Come on, Hasan,” Lejla said. “Why are you boring us with all this nasty business? Go get us some juicy fruit instead. We’re parched.”

“Tell us something more amusing!” Exher insisted.

“Amusing? The whole army is gossiping about Kurdisxhi and Karaduman! They’ve fallen in love with the same boy, and are at daggers drawn …”

Almost simultaneously the four women lowered their gaze with that touch of melancholy aroused by a revolting act that nonetheless retains something of the beauty it smothers.

Hasan chatted on interminably about trivia but the women were hardly paying attention any more, as their minds had been diverted to thoughts of a squabble of which they would be the object. They were well aware that if such a dispute broke out, it would not be settled in the field, to the sound of clashing sabres, but in the marketplace, over a matter of price, and to the tinkling of silver coins.

“Well! That’s enough for now!” Hasan said. “Put your legs up one more time, because I didn’t examine you properly when we were in the hammam just now. I’ve the impression that your little nests have gone darker already and that in a few days they’ll be as black as the crows. Especially yours, Lejla and Ajsel. Get ready, we’ll clean you up.”

“Pfui!” Ajsel said. “So soon?”

“I’ve noticed that the little bush grows faster in summer,” Hasan pointed out. “Come on, girls, let’s get on with it. Otherwise Hasan will get the blame.”

“And is she going to always be allowed to keep her forest?” Exher asked, nodding towards Blondie.

The foreign wife smiled mockingly as she listened to the conversation.

“On such matters, the decision is his ,” Hasan answered. “Orders are orders. You three: as smooth as a mirror. That one: don’t touch a hair on her … head, as you might say. And do you know why?” he asked in a whisper. “Because she is fair. They all drool like dogs when they come across a blonde girl with dark pubic hair … If it were as fair as her head, you’d see me shaving away. But there you are: hers is black … I remember when I was working for a beylerbey, my master once bought a blonde girl of much the same kind as this one. He was dying to have her in bed with him. As I was washing and perfuming her inside the hammam, he called to me from outside the door: ‘Make sure you don’t shear her fleece! Otherwise you know what’ll happen to you!’ But he called me back after dinner. He was in a lousy mood and looked upset. He said grumpily: ‘Shave her, like the others.’ I guessed straight away what the reason for his mood was: unlike most blondes, she had pubic hair that was as fair as the hair on her head. I’d never seen a prettier little brush. Like a ray of sunlight had fallen between her legs. And I swear to you I had tears in my eyes when I shaved her, as if I was cropping fenugreek, and my teardrops fell like dew where my master’s seed should have been sprinkled. I cursed him under my breath. ‘Why the devil don’t you appreciate this golden honey down? Why do you prefer a thicket as dark and frightening as a bottomless pit? Because all you are yourself is a crow and an abyss! That’s why!’”