by Ivo Andrić
“Well, the time has now come for this to be accomplished, once and for all.”
He said this more animatedly and immediately rose, not to end the meeting, but to continue his speech. Now that he was standing, it was easier to see his face. His hair, still black and unusually long for a Turkish officer, fell abundantly from under his dark-red fez, meeting his short, graying beard to form a frame for his regular olive-colored face in which the eyes were particularly prominent. The liveliness of these eyes attracted all the attention of the audience; they altered the expression of the seraskier’s face, not always in keeping with what he was saying. His eyes were dark, full of forest gloom and shade, now brown, intelligent and a little sad, now amber, almond-shaped—one could say almost beautiful, had it not been for their intermittent dangerous gleam.
“And what has to be done, is done. Everywhere, including in Bosnia.”
At these words, spoken in an unexpectedly thin voice, the seraskier’s face rapidly changed. First it twisted into an ugly grimace, then abruptly relaxed, taking on an enigmatic, mischievous expression, and spread into a Mongolian mask in which all that remained of his large eyes were two black slanting lines. All this lasted only a fraction of a second. Like a deceptive flash, that mask too dissolved, revealing under it once again Omer Pasha’s real face, calm and regular, with murderously raised and merging eyebrows above huge, shadowed eyes, out of which a cold, quick fire glowed sporadically, bathing his cheeks, chin and moustache in a granite-green glow.
After those successive, lightning-quick changes on the seraskier’s face, the leaders would exchange glances, checking their impression and wondering silently whether it had been real or whether they had imagined it. And finding the same question in the others’ eyes and only confirmation of their own confusion and bewilderment, one after another they lowered their gaze to the ground, rigid with resentment and prepared for anything.
Then the seraskier’s face stopped changing. He now stood before them calmly and spoke, as if reading a printed text, saying things that they heard with disbelief and against which everything in them rose and rebelled, but to which they listened quietly, stiff and motionless.
“I am saying this here in front of you, not because of you yourselves—because, thank God, there’s no need for that. I am saying it because of those among you who think differently and are plotting something else.”
Here he paused, just for a moment, and then continued more firmly and harshly, looking brazenly at them, but addressing “those people over there.”
“I will accomplish all I have been sent here to accomplish. And you are mistaken if you think you can manipulate me the way you manipulated those who came to Bosnia before me on the same business. This is a different command, with a different kind of man to carry it out. I know you believe that this time too, in your old way, you will be able to agree to everything, then secretly create so many obstacles and difficulties that I will grow weary and eventually leave, my business unfinished. While you laugh behind my back. Beware, however, that I know you always say one thing but think another. You keep repeating, ‘Of course, sir, of course.’ But your eyes say, ‘This is Bosnia, you fool, a land that yields, but doesn’t change.’ Let me tell you once and for all, that I count your words as nothing, that I read your thoughts clearly, and that, should it be necessary, I will reduce your entire Bosnia to rubble, so no one will know who is a bey and who an aga, and you will not even dream of obstinacy or noncompliance.”
The seraskier shifted his position a little, barely perceptibly raising his right clenched fist, but his face did not change. He continued:
“When you reach your homes,” at which point the leaders relaxed and brightened a little, “tell all those contemplating defiance and disobedience that I will dress them in the uniforms worn by the imperial army and sew them so tightly that they will not be able to breathe and their eyes will bulge in their sockets. I shall force both their feet into one boot and drill them until they learn the military drill, so their great-grandsons will not forget it. They deserve nothing better. Because they are ignorant and idle—neither workers nor warriors. People who believe they can laze around and live off the lands and estates acquired by their grandfathers, and on their reputation and standing, while they amuse and entertain themselves in a lordly way by disobeying the government’s orders and resisting the emperor’s representatives. Warn them that those days are over. Tell them not to rely on their limited intelligence or on their shallow cunning because this time it will not work. And let no one come near me with a bribe, as is their custom, because their bribe means nothing to me when, by the authority I have, I can take their heads and along with their heads all their property and possessions.”
Here the seraskier lowered his voice and continued more quietly, but steadily and tersely.
“I know that people say all kinds of things about me and call me by many names, but let them know that their hatred and slander cannot harm me. Their false and abusive words are praise and honor to me. And one more thing: let no one shelter behind his religion, because I have not come to convert anyone but to organize this country in such a way that every person will live peacefully in it, pursuing his own beliefs and observing imperial order and the law. Their insults cannot touch me, just as their weapons cannot either, should it come to a battle; just as, later, I will not be remotely moved by their weeping or the prayers of their dependents. Let them know that wherever I was sent I have completed every task, and I will do the same here. And I will not leave until I make of them either good, faithful subjects of the sultan or graves throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. And I will not waste time either. In a month or two, you will see that I have spoken the truth here today. But it will be better for those who already believe my words. I have nothing further to say to you, unless you have something to say to me.”
No one had anything to say. Most of them were silent, though some mumbled, waving their hands impatiently, as if dismissing the very idea that anyone could object or have anything to add to these “wise and just” words.
The seraskier now left his place to meet with them. He was a different man. Softly spoken, charming and lively, he made his way among them. It was clear he took physical pleasure in his superior game, in what he would to say to them, even more in what he would not say but kept to himself. The leading men were deeply and terribly offended by his pleasure; they felt he was abusing them and sullying them by his proximity. He conversed with individuals, smiling, affable, confiding in an almost familial way. He assured them of the emperor’s kind disposition toward them and of his own goodwill. His door was open to each of them, at any hour of the day or night. Admittedly he would initially be on the move, with the army, but wherever his tent was erected, anyone whose thoughts were good and behavior honest would find justice and protection. The army would pay for all they took for their sustenance and would not dishonor anyone or touch their property, but they would cut down, burn and destroy wherever they met resistance. If that was not necessary, so much the better.
The leading men approved all he said, with anxious, serious faces. At last they managed to detach themselves from this man and his smiling, cruel ruthlessness. As they parted, the seraskier confirmed to the leading men that they would be able to return to their homes the very next day. There they should use their influence to assist his endeavors by reassuring the people and explaining the demands of the imperial decree concerning the great changes in their country. Only Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović would remain in Sarajevo as his guest.
Needless to say, those who had been dismissed did not openly display their pleasure, just as Ali Pasha did not show his anxiety. Each of them took his leave of Omer Pasha individually, at length, with many solemn words, which did not commit anyone and did not in fact mean anything. Ali Pasha remained with the seraskier for dinner.
As soon as they had left the hateful “palace” on Gorica Hill and extracted themselves from the mass of tents, horses’ harnesses and milling soldie
rs, the leading men divided into two groups. Some went to the house of Mustaj Pasha Babić and others to Fazli Pasha Šerifović to eat and make plans.
There they found those who had not been invited to the meeting at the seraskier’s and who were eager to find out what had been said there but without wishing to seem inquisitive. It was only when they had said their noon prayers and eaten that a quiet conversation began over coffee and tobacco.
It was clear there were two kinds of leading men. Some who chose their words carefully and prevaricated, hoping that it might yet be possible to reach an understanding even with this imperial envoy. And others who no longer had any illusion about the seraskier and were prepared for anything. They were in the majority, although they did not all speak with the same acidity and openness.
The group gathered at Mustaj Pasha’s house was particularly embittered and uncompromising. The host himself inspired confidence in everyone. He was still young, a tall, handsome, fair-haired man from an old family that had produced pashas and administrators over the last hundred years. Because of his calm disposition and innate reticence, he had not earlier stood out in the struggle against the new directives from Istanbul, though like the others he decisively opposed them. But everyone knew him by name and reputation as a man of his word, and all knew whatever was said in this house would go no further.
After they had eaten, one of those present, Tuzla Pasha, asked that the message from the delegate whom the Krajina leading men had sent to Istanbul be read out. He had been sent to discover at the source what measures the government was intending to undertake against Bosnia and the rebellious Muslims. The copy of the letter that had reached the Krajina representatives a little before Omer Pasha’s arrival and was now circulating in copies throughout the country contained a grim message. It ended like this: “On your feet, heroes! I searched for the Turkish faith from Novi Pazar to Istanbul, and found it nowhere other than in Bosnia. I was in Istanbul as well. It is not there either. This is what a sheikh told me: ‘Go to Bosnia, my son! That’s where Omer has gone to make infidels of you all. You should seek the faith from him not in words but through the sights of your guns.’”
The language and style of this message, angry in the manner of that border region, was too sharp for these respectable and for the most part elderly men, but its underlying concerns—faith, tradition, autonomy and resistance—were close and comprehensible. That way of conversing with an opponent, through the sights of a gun, was in their blood. And now, too, forgetting what they had heard and seen earlier and losing a true sense of the dimensions of power and actual relations, they could see themselves in a battle in which they had always felt at home, like fish in water.
No more specific conclusions were reached here. They did not require them. That had always been their way of working, with no fixed plan and without looking too far ahead. They would disperse, each to his own part of the country, and there, according to their circumstances and possibilities, each one would do what he could to confound the seraskier’s intentions and assist those with the same aim. They did not even say much about Omer Pasha. This was their way too: what is most difficult and most unpleasant is not discussed. The seraskier’s name was mentioned only once. Then Fidahić said firmly, with a brief manly sigh:
“Ah well, there is not a trace of the Turk in him!”
And that was all. Nothing more to be said.
The gathering at Šerifović’s was a little different. Here there was less mutual trust and sincerity. They were all of the same opinion: the reforms could not be accepted, the seraskier must be resisted. They too knew of the Krajina message, but they preferred to keep their thoughts to themselves rather than express them in company. The host, a cunning man, portly and energetic, set the example. He did not disagree with the others, but he turned everything into a joke and endeavored with laughter to disguise his own anxieties and intentions and those of his companions.
After lunch there was even a singer from Bijelo Polje, known especially for his comic songs. He knew many short, naive and lascivious songs, and he sang them in a thin, somewhat nasal voice, accompanying them on a tamboura. It would be hard to explain the precise effect of the songs with no real meaning; even so, the singer from Bijelo Polje made people laugh wherever he appeared.
Here he was received coldly. The guests looked at each other, wondering in surprise whether Šerifović felt like songs and jokes at such a difficult and serious time. As the singer started performing, they looked darkly and distractedly out of the windows, thinking their own anxious thoughts. But he seemed unaware and continued to sing unobtrusively and softly. Suddenly, one of the ill-tempered listeners who was paying attention laughed against his will. Another followed him, then a third. In the end, no one thought of serious conversation. The songs followed one another.
When Rice-Pilaff got married
Son of Hošaf Aga,
He chose Halva-Pie,
Daughter of Baclava.
Easily and blithely, his head thrown back, a mock-solemn expression on his face, the singer embellished his song as if nothing in the world mattered apart from joking and banter. Most of the leading men were by now laughing heartily, and that laughter brought them relief. Now no joke seemed too absurd or inappropriate. On the contrary, many felt that underneath those songs, alongside their innocent, almost meaningless word games, there was another, special meaning that had some connection with what was eating them up, and burning them, and that had brought them together here at Šerifović’s house.
THE ARMY
FOR A LONG time now, the word army had been uttered everywhere, in every tone of voice, usually in a whisper, and always anxiously. It was spoken in this way even by those who had nothing to lose and who knew nothing of state politics or social unrest and conflict. For they had all decided that this was not going to be an “army” of just a few regulars and some disorderly reservists common in Bosnia till now on so-called exercises, but one that came to fight and to kill, to lay waste and burn, like the army from a fairy tale, which, regardless of the outcome, would alter the destiny of the country and its people.
All the regular armies that various viziers had brought into Bosnia over the last twenty or so years, large or small, well or poorly organized, had come not to guard the borders against an external enemy, but to curb the local beys and men of power, though that had not been acknowledged. Now it was out in the open. This army was a punitive expedition. Under the command of the sultan’s already renowned marshal, the notorious “suppressor of every uprising in Turkey,” its task was to facilitate a change of the existing order and introduce innovations essential for the survival of the state and consolidation of the sultan’s authority. First the powerful and irrationally stubborn feudal lords had to be broken and brought into line, then the army had to be strengthened and reforms introduced. Or at least something resembling reforms to satisfy the great powers and European public opinion that was constantly demanding such reforms, but that would not in fact fundamentally alter much in the Turkish Empire. And so two forces, both conservative in different ways, found themselves in a fairly illogical conflict. In this struggle, the Istanbul government had to employ both military force and “reforms,” while the Bosnian feudal lords appealed to both their traditions and their rights, as well as armed insurrection against their legitimate ruler. When two such forces come into conflict and engage in an absurd struggle, it is the beginning of great turmoil in which both are submerged and, directly or indirectly, countries and towns and all manner of people will suffer.
The units of the Anatolian army and the detachments of Albanian mercenaries that Omer Pasha led into Bosnia brought the country and its people unease that could not be curtailed. No one in Bosnia could have greeted this army with pleasure or considered it its own. All anyone was aware of was its damaging and negative side. The beys saw it as not only the enemy of their interests, but a blind and insidious tool against the Muslim faith and state. This was the opinion and mood of the othe
r Muslims as well, for in this matter there was not much difference between the feudals under immediate threat and the ordinary citizens and poor townspeople. And the rayas of all three faiths did not see this army as their savior, knowing that no salvation could come from that direction. And, finally, the army was a burden.
Among the horrors told of the seraskier Omer Pasha Latas and his army was that it contained a whole unit of foreigners, Christians or Jews, who wore imperial army uniforms and had Muslim names but who were in effect nonbelievers and the perfidious enemies of everything Muslim. That unit of foreigners was known as the murtad-tabor, the traitors’ unit.
In times like these, when many people are afraid and upset or hurt and their interests threatened, bad news is easily believed and passed on. The story of the traitors’ unit had reached Bosnia long before Omer Pasha and his army. It was an ugly, dark story about a reality that was neither pleasant nor bright. And, as happens, the story, nourished by fear and hatred, kept growing. In endless retelling and whispered exchanges, each wove into it something of his own personal trouble, and, slandering and cursing strangers, took revenge on life for the evil it had brought and the good it would never bring. So the story of the terrible unit became ever darker, drawing in everything ugly and difficult that could be thought or said about life and people.
And when the army about which so much had been said became a reality, when it settled in Sarajevo and began to spill over Bosnia and Herzegovina, no one saw it the way it was but continued to see what they had heard; and each of its actions, condemned in advance, was experienced and interpreted not for what it was but as confirmation of its blackest reputation. That was particularly the case with the traitors’ unit.