Ismail Kadarе - The Palace of Dreams

“So then there was a row with the head of the Yenisehir office of the Tabir. I told him, ‘I can’t take your dreams…. Come and see for yourself—my horses refuse to move as soon as I put your file in the wagon.’ So the silly oaf yells, ‘That makes five weeks that no one will take my dreams, and now you want to leave them on my hands too! I’ll complain, I’ll write to Head Office, to the Sheikh-ul-Islam himself!’ ‘Complain as much as you like,’ I said. ‘My horses won’t stir and you needn’t think your five lousy dreams are going to stop me from delivering all the rest.’ You should have heard him then! ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said. ‘That’s all you care about our dreams. Naturally you find them crude—you prefer the dreams of artists and courtiers in the capital. But in the highest circles it’s been said it’s our dreams that are the real ones, because they come from the depths of the Empire, not from dandies covered in paint and powder!’ The swine kept on and on—I don’t know how I kept my hands off him!

“Well, I didn’t hit him, but I did give him a piece of my mind, I was so furious at being held up! I told him what I thought of him and his rotten little subprefecture inhabited by a handful of drunks and dodderers whose dreams were so rotten they even frightened the horses! I said that after this, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t let Yenisehir have its dreams examined for at least another ten years! He was so angry he started to foam at the mouth worse than the horses! He said he was going to write a report to the authorities about what I’d said, but I said if he did I’d tell about how he’d insulted the Tabir. ‘What!’ he yelled. ‘Me insult the sacred Tabir Sarrail? How dare you say such a thing!’ ‘Yes, you said it was the haunt of courtiers and painted dandies!’ That was too much for that fool of a yokel, and he started to weep and ask for mercy. ‘Have pity on me, aga, ’ he said. ‘I’ve got a wife and children, don’t do a thing like that….’”

For a while the carrier’s words were drowned in laughter.

“And what happened then?” someone asked.

“Then the subprefect and the imam came on the scene. Someone had told them about the row that was going on. When they heard what it was all about they scratched their heads at first and didn’t know what to do. They didn’t like to force me to take the file, because that would have amounted to keeping me there. For both of them were sure the horses would never leave if the file was up behind them. On the other hand, they couldn’t admit that the dreams sent in by their subprefecture were so evil they prevented the couriers from going about their business. But my time was precious. I was carrying more than a thousand dreams from other regions, and delay might be dangerous. So I told them to come with me to the part of the plain where I’d left the file, to see for themselves.

“They agreed to come; we all piled into the wagon, and I drove them to the place. The file was still there. I picked it up, got into the wagon with it, and whipped up the horses. They started to whinny and lather where they stood, as if the devil had got up behind them. Then I gave the file back to the subprefect and the iman, and the horses set off at a gallop. I did think of making off there and then, leaving the two officials standing there openmouthed with their file in their hands, but I thought that might get me into trouble, so I turned back. ‘Did you see?’ I said. ‘Are you convinced now?’ They were dumbfounded. ‘Allah!’ they muttered. As they tried to think of a way out of the impasse, the head of the local section, terrified that he might be the first to suffer for having allowed such a diabolical letter to be sent to the Tabir at all, decided to get the letters out of the file one by one to identify the cause of the trouble and prevent the others from being implicated. We all approved of this idea, and duly took the dreams out of the bag. It wasn’t difficult to find the culprit and remove it from the file. And then I was able to go on my way.

“That was no dream—it was pure poison!” said someone.

“And what will they do with it now?” asked another. “No wagon will be able to carry it, I suppose?”

“Let it stay where it is,” said the man with the hoarse voice.

“But with that strange power it might be important.…”

“Let it be what it likes,” said the courier. “If it’s made of gold and the horses refuse to carry it, that means it’s not a dream—it’s the devil incarnate! Horns and all!”

“But…”

“There’s no buts about it. If the horses won’t bring it, it’ll just have to be left to rot where it is, in that godforsaken hole of a Yenisehir!”

“No, that’s not right,” said an elderly courier. “I don’t know how they manage things now, but if anything like that happened in my day we fell back on the foot couriers.”

“Were there really foot couriers then?”

“Of course. The horses didn’t often refuse to carry dreams, but it did happen sometimes. And then they made use of foot couriers. There were some good things about the old days.”

“And how long would it take a foot courier to get the dream from there to here?”

“It depends on exactly how far it is, of course. But I think the journey from Yenisehir should take about a year and a half.”

There were two or three whistles of amazement.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” said the old man. “The government can catch a hare with an oxcart!”

They started to talk about something else, and Mark-Alem pressed on a bit farther. There was the same loud chatter everywhere, from the doors to the middle of the room and around the Reception windows, where the couriers handed in their files according to some order, the rules of which were not apparent. One fellow—Mark-Alem heard someone say he’d got drunk at an inn and lost his bag with the files inside—sat apart from all the rest, his eyes red as fire, drinking and grumbling at the same time.

From the courtyard came a constant hubbub of voices mingled with the sound of wheels on the flagstones. Some wagons had just arrived from distant parts; others were setting off again after making their deliveries. The neighing of the horses struck terror into Mark-Alem’s very soul. And this is going to go on until dawn, he thought. Eventually he pushed his way through the crowd and set out for home.

*Contemptuous term denoting Christians.

He woke up two or three times with a start, afraid he was going to be late for work. His hand was just reaching out to throw off the blanket when his sleep-numbed brain suddenly remembered he had the day off. He lapsed back into uneasy slumber. It was the first time since he’d started working in the Palace of Dreams that he’d been given a rest day.

At last he opened his eyes. The daylight reaching his pillow was dimmed by the velvet curtains. He stretched for a moment, then threw off the blanket and got up. It must be late. He went over to the mirror and looked at his face, which was still puffy with sleep. His head felt as heavy as lead. He’d never have believed that on this, his first day off, he’d wake up feeling more jaded than on the other mornings, when he had to hurry out into the damp, foggy streets to get to the office on time.

He washed his face and felt a bit fresher. It seemed to him that if he made an effort he might be able to remember two brief dreams he’d had in the early morning. Since he’d been working in the Tabir Sarrail he hardly ever dreamed. It was as if dreams no longer dared visit him, knowing he’d fathomed their secrets and could tell them to go and find someone else to play their tricks on.