Birds Without Wings

by Louis de Bernières

  Even before they saw him closely, they realised that he was unusual. There was something uneven and exaggerated in his stride, as if he was so used to hurrying that he was incapable of proceeding at a measured pace. Furthermore, he did not walk in a straight line, but veered slightly from one side to the other, so that his out-turned footprints in the dust left behind them the winding track of a river or a snake.

  The boys sat up and watched him approach with a mixture of fascination and fear. They jumped to their feet with the single idea that they should run away, but there was something about the man’s demeanour that prevented them. It was as if they were in no danger because the man did not live in the same world, and would not even see them.

  Indeed, perhaps he did not see them. He was tall and very thin, with spindly legs that were nonetheless tautly muscled from his years of walking, and he was clad only in a ragged scrap of grey sheet with a hole torn out for his head, and which at front and back hardly attained the level of his knees. He had a length of ship’s rope about his waist, the weight of whose knot at the front barely preserved his decency. One could see clearly the sides of his buttocks, and occasionally there were dark hints of his genitals as he walked.

  His arms were as thin and sinewy as his legs, and his fingers were long and spatulate. In his right hand he grasped a quarterstaff of well-worn ash, and with this he helped to propel himself along at his unnatural speed. His left hand rested upon the neck of a black-and-white goatskin water flagon, which was suspended on a leather thong that ran diagonally down across his chest.

  The tattered man was oblivious. He looked neither right nor left, with eyes that were lightest blue, like those of a Frank from the far north. His full head of disordered grey hair was knotted and matted, caked with dust, and the sweat of his brow ran down from it, leaving clean tracks across the filth that had accumulated upon his shrunken and aquiline face. With every step he groaned inarticulately, as if in conquerable pain, a groan such as one hears from a madman, or from a deaf man who has never learned to speak. These vocalisations, it seemed, were his marching song.

  He swept past the two boys, and they, as of one mind, followed him, mimicking his erratic stride and giggling to each other, timidly at first, but then with greater boldness, as the man who was the object of their mirth ignored them altogether.

  They approached the lower end of the town, and soon the procession grew as more children tagged along behind, in order to experience the novelty of imitating the extraordinary man. Fat little pug-nosed Drosoula, the exquisite Philothei, Ibrahim, son of Ali the Broken-Nosed, who even at that age was already following Philothei everywhere, and Gerasimos, son of the fisherman Menas, who was already feeling a fascination for Drosoula, all joined the happy ragtaggle of mockers and mimics, attracting also the town’s stray dogs, which barked senselessly, prancing at the edges of the procession, which before long numbered perhaps fifteen or twenty children.

  The people who had remained in the town, rather than gone to harvest tobacco, raisins and figs, came to their doors and gazed in wonder at the wild man and his retinue. Some women snatched their children away, but these were soon replaced by new ones. The men at the coffeehouses stopped their games of backgammon, and came out into the streets, their fat cigarettes clamped in their lips, and their fezzes at individual angles upon their heads. They stroked their stubble in amusement, or twisted the ends of their hyperbolical moustachios, exchanging amused smiles and wry comments, shrugging their shoulders, and then returning to their idleness. They had seen more than a few itinerant beggars in their time, although very few kept their eyes on the distance as this man did, as if he were at the helm of a ship whose crew was thirsty for land. One might think that at some time this man had been important, and had never lost his habit of lordly foresight and indifference.

  Through the narrow walkways he went, pausing for nothing, even striding over the back of a recumbent camel that had obstinately blocked the route, placing his foot at the base of its neck, and causing it to grunt in protest and surprise. Dogs cowered away and chickens scattered; travelling merchants stared after him; the imam, Abdulhamid Hodja, reined in his silvery horse to let him pass; the priest, portentous and dignified in his black robes and grizzled beard, moved aside, struck suddenly by the strange and disorientating feeling that he did not exist.

  People noticed that the Dog’s feet were cut and bloody, as if he had walked for days, unconscious of his pain or of the danger of infection. They noticed that there was something untamed and prophetic in his demeanour, and assumed that he must be a dervish belonging to one of the many brotherhoods of Sufis. The town had not yet had a genuine saint in residence, and there were those who were struck immediately by the hope that one had at last arrived. Lovers of wonders looked forward to miracles, and traders and artisans clapped their hands together at the thought of the custom of pilgrims. Those of extreme theological sophistication, of whom, it must be admitted, there were practically none apart from the imam, were gratified that someone might have turned up who would lend their shoulder to the great cosmic wheel, directing their spiritual power to the sustention of the universe.

  The Dog perplexed everybody on his passage through the streets by omitting to beg for anything. Onward he strode, his eyes fixed on another world, perhaps upon the past, or perhaps upon the inward turmoil of his thoughts. He passed the last houses, turning leftward and upward, surmounting the crest of the slope, standing there for a moment, his head moving mechanically from side to side as if waiting to be inspired. Suddenly, his mind made up, he headed towards the open cave from which the lime was mined. Watched by the children, who had now grown solemn and silent, some of them holding hands, he entered it, ran his fingers over the rough surface of its walls, and sniffed the atmosphere, his nostrils flaring with each breath. He smelled the sour perspiration of the generations who had hacked away at this powdery stone, he smelled the excrement of bats, and then, making the decision that he would not live in there, he left.

  Still ignoring the children, he approached a pillar tomb, twenty feet high, curiously touched the Lycian script, and gazed upward, blinking against the clean light of the sky, contemplating the possibility of inhabiting the flat roof, like a latter-day Simeon Stylites. He grasped the massive stone and climbed a few feet, his muscles knotting, his fingers and toes seeking out the chips and indentations left by the ancient masons, his breath coming in rasps, and then he leapt back down, evidently uninspired.

  The Dog began to explore the few sarcophagi that the centuries had left intact, followed by the children, who now began to join in the hunt, touching his elbow and pointing the way from one tomb to another. He ignored them still, peering inside each structure, caressing the carvings of warriors, lions and chimaeras. He inspected the huge slabs that made up the roofs, some of them carved in the shape of a keeled boat, but upside down, and some of them scalloped to represent the roof tiles of a house. He lay experimentally upon the stone bench inside each tomb, searching among those resting places for the couch that would be most comfortable.

  Dissatisfied with the sarcophagi, realising perhaps that they were too much in the sun, he approached two large tombs that had been carved into the vertical face of a small cliff nearby. One was cut in the shape of a temple, and the other in the shape of a house. Inside each were three benches, one at the back and one at each side. The paintings upon the walls had been much defaced, partly by those who disapproved of figurative art on religious grounds, and partly because of the smoke and soot of two thousand years’ worth of goatherds’ fires. The Dog found these two spacious tombs to be both airy and well aspected, giving a fine view over the valley, and accordingly he laid down his quarterstaff, unslung his water flagon, and sat down on the step, between the porticos of the temple tomb. On the pediment above was inscribed in the as yet undeciphered Lycian script “Philiste, daughter of Demetrius, built this for Moschus, whom she loved.” Underneath were written details of the fine for violation, and at the apex w
as carved in bas-relief a pair of open hands, the Lycian symbol for unnatural, violent and untimely death.

  The Dog looked at the children for the first time, and smiled.

  So horrifying was that smile that the children screamed, and ran, tumbling helter-skelter over the rocks, cutting themselves on thorns. Drosoula, Philothei, Karatavuk, Mehmetçik, Ibrahim and Gerasimos would remember that appalling sight as long as they lived, and it would haunt their nightmares forever, sometimes coming back to them at moments when they should have been at peace.

  That evening, the priest, Father Kristoforos, and the imam, Abdulhamid Hodja, encountered each other before the tomb, coincidentally but for identical reasons. Both men wished to know whether or not the newcomer was a member of his flock, and both were just as curious as the children had been, if not more so, now that the latter had told everyone about the Dog’s disfigurement.

  Abdulhamid Hodja reined in the spirited and exquisite Nilufer, and was tying her somewhat insecurely to an oleander bush, when Father Kristoforos came from another direction, having perspired his way up the slope in a route more direct, but steeper, than that followed by the imam and his horse.

  Abdulhamid touched his right hand to his chest, to his lips, and to his forehead, saying, “Ah, Imansiz Efendi, iyi akşamlar.”

  The priest smiled, returned the flowery gesture, and replied, “And good evening to you, Apistos Efendi.” The two men had for many years enjoyed the pleasantry of greeting each other as “Infidel Efendi,” the one in Turkish and the other in Greek, and had struck up a cordial relationship based upon mutual respect, somewhat tempered by an awareness that there were many of both faiths who would look askance at such a friendship. They visited each other’s houses only when it was dark, and were much inclined to waste entire nights in long and occasionally heated theological discussions that enervated their families, who were trying to sleep, and always ended with one or other of them saying, “Well, after all, we are both peoples of the Book.”

  The two men presented an alarming sight to the Dog, appearing like that, both at once, at the entrance to his new accommodation. It was not often that a Christian priest, in his capacious black robes, bosky beard and lofty headdress, poked his head round one’s door at the same time as an imam with his white turban, well-combed beard and green cloak. The Dog cowered, placed his arms across his forehead and eyes, as if to protect his face, and shrunk into the corner where he had been sitting, until then, in the perfect stillness of contemplation.

  Abdulhamid Hodja and Father Kristoforos exchanged glances, and the latter said “Merhaba” in the hope that such an informal and friendly greeting would reassure the trembling man. “Salaam aleikum,” said the imam, wishing to emphasise by his greeting that they had come in peace.

  “We have come to find out who you are, and whether you want anything,” he continued, subduing his voice in a spirit of gentleness.

  The man lowered his arms and looked at them. Suddenly he wiped soot off the wall with one finger, and on the bench he wrote something in swirling Arabic characters that the priest did not understand. Abdulhamid Hodja noticed the priest’s puzzlement, and said, “It means ‘The Dog.’ Perhaps he is telling us that he is unclean.”

  “From where do you come?” asked Abdulhamid, and the Dog dipped his finger in the soot, and wrote again. Once more the imam read it for the priest: “It says ‘Hell.’ ”

  “We have come to see if we can help you,” offered Father Kristoforos, whereupon the Dog wrote “Yalniz kalmak isterim.”

  “He says, ‘Leave me alone,’ ” said Abdulhamid Hodja.

  “We will bring you food and blankets,” persisted the priest, and it was then that the Dog smiled, causing both of the visitors to recoil in alarm. “God have mercy,” exclaimed the imam.

  CHAPTER 8

  I Am Philothei (2)

  Once when I was about eleven I heard that Ibrahim was ill, and we didn’t have any candles to take into the church, so instead I stole some bread from the table, and some figs, and I took them out and went out to find a beggar, but there weren’t any in the vicinity except for the one called the Blasphemer, and he was very abject because he was the most unpopular beggar in the town because he said filthy things whenever he saw a man of religion, and I didn’t want to give him the bread and figs, but finally I couldn’t find another beggar to give it to, and I said to the Blasphemer, “This is because Ibrahim is unwell,” and he was aware that charity cures the sick, and so he was good about it, and he said, “May the sick one get well, little girl, and may God make you strong as well,” and not long afterwards Ibrahim recovered, and after that I always gave alms to the Blasphemer as long as no one was looking.

  This happened not long after the day of St. Nicholas, when all the young men who have gone to the cities return for the feast, and so this is the best time of year for the beggars, because the young men get drunk and become generous, and the Blasphemer was the only one who had received nothing until I gave him the bread and figs.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mustafa Kemal (3)

  Mustafa Kemal is fourteen and has gone to the Military Training School at Manastir. It is 1898 and here beneath Mount Pelister the Greek and Slav bandit-liberators are still bringing chaos to the region, and even in the school itself there is vicious gang warfare. Greece sends irregulars to fight the Ottomans in Crete, and the Sultan declares war. The streets are crowded with soldiers, drummers, flag-wavers. Mustafa wants to run away to join the army, but the war turns out to be too short, and he will have to wait for another one.

  At school Mustafa Kemal has a history teacher who enlightens him as to matters of politics, and there is a boy called Ömer Naci who writes poetry, and whose enthusiasm causes Mustafa to open his mind to literature. He learns the art of oratory, and dabbles in verse himself. He has another friend called Ali Fethi, also a Macedonian, who is crazy about French philosophy. Mustafa is ashamed of his poor French, but he knows that it is the key to European civilisation, and so he studies it in his spare time at a course run by French Dominicans. Before long he and Ali Fethi will be discussing the deliciously forbidden texts of Voltaire and Montesquieu.

  At home in Salonika Mustafa’s social and sexual education proceeds with even greater élan than his academic. He shuns the Muslim cafés, and goes instead to the Kristal, the Olympus, the Yonyo, where he and his friends can play backgammon for five-para coins, drink beer and stuff themselves with meze in the ribald company of Greeks. He takes dancing lessons, and goes to the cafés chantants, where there is music and dance performed by Jewesses, Italian girls, all the feminine exotica of the Levant, and they come and sit at his table and flirt with him. He understands that infidel girls are amusing, mettlesome and intriguing because they are allowed to be, unlike the quelled, imprisoned and uneducated women of his own race, who are only exceptionally more companionable or interesting than an ox. In the brothels, Mustafa Kemal is sometimes entertained for free, because the girls adore his fair good looks and his extraordinary blue eyes. A girl of good family, whom he is supposed to be tutoring, falls passionately in love with him.

  One day Mustafa Kemal is at Salonika railway station with his poetic friend Ömer. There is more war fever, and troops are being entrained. There is a party of dervishes in their long pointed hats and voluminous robes, overblowing on their shawms and neys, crashing their cymbals and thrashing their drums, salivating, screaming, rolling their eyes. All around them the ordinary folk are falling into the contagious hysteria, crying out, swooning, in an ebullition of fanaticism.

  Mustafa Kemal sees this and feels a bitter shame and embarrassment on behalf of his people. The blood rises to his cheeks, and anger to his throat. He divines clearly the advanced symptoms of spiritual and philosophical immaturity, he smells a repellent backwardness, a radical irrationality and credulity which is only just beneath the surface, and he is increasingly convinced that it is Islam that is holding his people back, locking them behind the door that separates the medieval fro
m the modern age. He will never understand why it is that so many of them actually like to be there, locked behind that door, enwombed within their tiny horizon, perpetually consoled and reassured by their tendentious but unchanging certainties.

  CHAPTER 10

  How Karatavuk and Mehmetçik Came to Be Called Karatavuk and Mehmetçik

  “I bet that my father is stronger than yours,” said Mehmetçik, who at that time was known to everyone by his real name, which was Nicos.

  “Oh do you?” replied Karatavuk, whose real name was Abdul. “My father is stronger than your father and all your uncles put together. In fact, when there was an earthquake he stood in the doorway of the house and held it up all by himself, for two whole days.”

  Mehmetçik frowned sceptically. “What earthquake?”

  “Before we were born, stupid.”

  “Don’t call me stupid, stupid.”

  “Why not, stupid, if you are stupid?”

  “My sisters are stupid,” confided Mehmetçik, “all they do is whisper together, and then when anyone else comes into the haremlik they pretend to be busy.”

  “Everyone says that your sister Philothei is very beautiful,” said Karatavuk, “but I haven’t noticed myself.”

  “She’s the most beautiful in the world,” replied his friend, “and when she’s grown up she’s going to marry the Sultan Padishah himself, and she’s going to send us money and sweets from Constantinopoli.”

  “Ibrahim won’t like that,” giggled Karatavuk. It was a shared joke among everybody that little Ibrahim was besotted with Philothei even though they were less than ten years old. Philothei ignored him, as though he were a stray dog hoping for a pat on the head, but she had become used to his silent and respectful adoration, feeling uncomfortable without it, should she pass from one house to another and fail to glimpse him trailing in the distance, as often as not pretending to be poking in corners with a stick, affecting to have no interest in her whatsoever.