Ismail Kadare - The Siege

A shiver ran down the chronicler’s spine. He recalled Tuz Okçan and the proverb about the two scourges, each more fearsome than the other.

“But the authorities are blocking it,” the doctor went on. “They bring up a host of objections. They won’t let me have either of the two sovereign maladies — neither plague nor cholera. I bet they’re keeping them for themselves!”

The chronicler butted in during a long sigh to ask the doctor what other maladies he had requested from on high. Sirri Selim reeled off a list, but most of the medical names meant nothing to him. Some of them rotted the gut, two or three of them made you blind, and another one drove men mad.

“But what’s the point?” Sirri Selim moaned. “Like I told you, those are common afflictions. The two sovereign maladies I mentioned are quite different. They wipe you out, they don’t just raise your temperature and make you retch.” He sighed once again, and his eyes began to gleam as if lit from within. “A plague-infested rat … Ah, if only I were given that … I would send that in, like a seven-tailed page, or pasha … Why are you making that face, Çelebi?”

“Oh no, I’m not making a face, Sirri Selim. How can you say such a thing?”

The doctor’s face hardened. His blush darkened.

“Well, that’s what you say, but I’m sure you’ll manage not to write about the rats in your chronicle!” he shouted, raising his voice all of a sudden.

The cannons fired again, in close sequence, and for no obvious reason Sirri Selim turned his back on the chronicler and strode away on his long legs. A moment later, he stopped, turned his head round, and shouted from afar: “Shall I tell you what I’ll do with your chronicle, Çelebi? Do you really want me to tell you?”

He then uttered words that left the chronicler quite flabbergasted …

Before coming on this campaign he had never heard so many or such varied expressions referring to the human posterior. He had often pretended not to hear them, even when raw recruits quite gratuitously called him an “old bum,” or, worse still, when in the half-light of dusk shameful propositions were hissed at him. “Hey, old man, you want a feel?” He comforted himself with the thought that if they knew the work he was doing, and how he was watching over them for their own good, they would be sorry for saying such things. He took even more solace in hearing that a man as eminent as Saruxha was also prey to this common fever, and never missed an opportunity to exclaim that whenever he relieved himself all he wanted was to wipe his arse on the Mufti’s beard. But now a cultivated man, a colleague, and a most learned one to boot, had told him to his face and without so much as a smile that he intended to use the chronicle for the same purpose as the one to which Saruxha wanted to put the Mufti’s beard!

Feeling pained and unsteady on his legs, Çelebi walked away in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile in the Pasha’s tent the council had begun its debate. The sanxhakbeys reported in turn on the state of their units.

Suddenly, in the pause that followed the end of one of the reports, Tavxha gave a little scream of pain and put his hand to his legs.

He wanted to say something, but the silence grew more complete, and all eyes turned to the Pasha. Everyone knew that Tavxha had rheumatism, and his wail meant that his short and crooked limbs felt rain coming on. The cry had a sinister echo.

The Pasha’s eyes grew harsher.

“Speak!” he said.

The Mufti rose to take the floor. He spoke of the dead and of their souls now tasting the glorious nectar of martyrs in the gardens of paradise.

The Pasha was not really listening to anything they said. He only noticed the way his subordinates’ eyes looked away each time his glance met theirs. He realised that this evasiveness was the first but infallible sign that, as from that instant, they were separating their own fate from his. There they were in front of him, sitting in a half-moon, cheek by jowl, with their worry-beads between their fingers, bearing their insignia of office and the decorations they never forgot to display. He thought back to the day last spring when he was planning the expedition and first looked carefully at the list of his general staff, which he had to submit to the Grand Vizier for approval. All their names were on it. Some of them he knew personally, others by repute; and others he had never heard of had been warmly recommended to him. All had been in and out of the Sultan’s favour at different times, and had had careers filled with expeditions, hard campaigns, long-drawn-out sieges, wounds, garrisons taken by stealth or by valour, enemies vanquished and regions laid waste, where not even grass would ever grow again. At that time he had hoped they would all get along, which was always easier between men of quality. To begin with they had in fact had good working relationships. But now, rather sooner than he had expected, the days of shifty glances had come. Contrary to what might have been expected, he was now the one to be consumed with envy. The campaign was coming to an end, and whatever its outcome, their careers would go on, they would fight another day, they would pitch their tents before castles new, they would climb up or slide down the rungs of the military or administrative hierarchy. He would not. His own path ended at the foot of these ramparts. What awaited him now was either the peak of honour or descent into the abyss. This they knew, which was why their eyes kept racing towards the back corner of the tent, as far as possible from his own. And that was also why silence fell upon them all when Old Tavxha’s limbs (which the Pasha found so short as to be deformed) foretold rain. It suddenly occurred to him that not only did none of them fear the rain any more, but that they actually wanted it to pour. They were weary and wanted to get back to their harems. In their eyes the commander-in-chief was getting more detrimental to their interests with every day that passed. Like a drowning man who clings to anything still afloat, he might drag them down with him to the grave.

Gradually and progressively, he formulated all that in his mind. They were trying to step aside. To drop him. But he was still their commander-in-chief and he was not going to let them get away as easily as that. He would show them what a real leader was capable of in a desperate situation. They were expecting a shower. Like idol-worshippers, they venerated the misshapen legs of Old Tavxha that had anticipated rain. They had their ears open for the sound of the rain drums. Fine and good. He would fulfil their wishes, he would give them rain! He would drench them with rain — of a kind they were not expecting.

The great muster drum banged away outside. Its muffled thudding blanked out all other sounds, overwhelming everything like a tidal wave.

The last speech was ending. The Pasha looked at all those closed faces. He announced that the attack would take place shortly. He said that the full complement of the entire army would be deployed in successive waves of attackers. He added that none should imagine that the start of rain would affect the assault in any way. Of course he knew that the first drop would finish everything off, irremediably, and he found it hard to hold back words that could not be easily spoken either. Instead, raising his head in a threatening manner, he announced:

“Today I shall take part in the fighting myself.”

Nobody said a word. They all understood what that statement meant. It meant that all of them without exception, from the Mufti to the architect, had to join in the fighting. A smile lit up Old Tavxha’s face.

“Tell the soldiery that members of council will join them in battle, in person,” the Pasha said, and stood up.