Omer Pasha Latas

by Ivo Andrić

  The next day comes and passes like any other day. And the day after he goes again to Bistrik with gifts. Again he finds Ivka alone, again she lies that the girl “has just this moment gone out,” and again he drinks her coffee, like poison, and smiles, while inside he is rent by shame and humiliation, and burns with the fearsome need for huge, urgent decisions.

  It seemed that all would just go on like this, that the thin, well-bred and polite foreigner would remain forever in the role of unhappy admirer in which he had found himself so unexpectedly, and late in life. But it did not continue.

  A man who has become so disturbed and lost at such an age is subject to all kinds of influences and is capable at any moment of turning in an unexpected direction, doing what no one, even he, could ever have expected.

  •

  In the residence an invisible web of intrigue, slander, whispering and particularly malicious gossip was constantly being woven, tangled, untangled and woven anew. Because even the least significant person, whom nobody fears and who has no hold over anyone, is able to spread gossip. That is generally how it works: the lower a person’s position, his abilities and education, income and standing, the more zealous and acerbic he is in his gossiping. Here in the residence, the old saying held true: not even a chair thinks well of other chairs, let alone a man of other men. Indeed, it would have been hard to find in a smaller space and among a smaller group of people, so much gossip, and in such ugly and unexpected forms as in the residence. Here people did not gossip in passing and jestingly, but darkly, passionately, viciously; they gossiped pedantically, calculatedly, premeditatedly, out of hate and self-interest, but also accidentally, thoughtlessly and inconsistently, with no aim or sense, out of habit, mischief or innate spite. As soon as two people met, they began to gossip about an absent third, meanly and despicably. It was like dragging a person, bound, naked and helpless, before an executioner. Then everyone fell on him. Regardless of whether they knew him or had shared food with him a short while before, or whether they had lived in enmity for a long time, they started to stab, cut, slice him, until they forgot the cause and aim of their gossip and the victim himself. For them the main thing was the pleasure they derived from mocking and sullying the absent person. And when they later met the victim of their gossip, they did not see him as the person they had been reviling and burying an hour earlier, in another room; they greeted him, smiled, and gossiped with him about some other absent person.

  A dense and inextricable tangle of calumnies was thus formed in the residence, balancing and canceling each other out, so that no one any longer knew, and did not ask, what was true and what a slanderous lie. People became accustomed to breathing poisonous air, to the fact that those slandered by everyone slandered others. And they lived in that world to a ripe old age, immune and content. Only exceptionally and only for those who did not gossip, a slanderous word would sometimes be too extreme and strike the man concerned in a particularly vulnerable spot.

  By chance, Kostake had that morning overheard a conversation in the courtyard between a few idlers who were mockingly and shamelessly talking about how Kostake’s masculinity had been belatedly aroused and he was madly pursuing a Christian woman from Bistrik but had hit upon a girl who would not hear of him or his money. She had become the concubine of handsome Djordje the Greek.

  “And anyway, what would she want with a girlfriend? The woman’s found herself a man,” someone snickered.

  Further talk was lost in raucous laughter.

  One can be indifferent to what people think and say, particularly people like this. Nevertheless, if one happens to overhear accidentally such a half-lie, half-truth directly from foul, merciless mouths, it can be a heavy, in some circumstances, critical blow.

  Kostake had not slept the previous night, beset by strange thoughts and a feverish unease he had not known before. Now he was crushed. It seemed to him that the whole wide world had become his pain and his shame. Only if that stupid, wicked girl gave in would he be saved in his own and other people’s eyes. It was crazy, unbelievable, but that is how it was.

  When he had done everything necessary for the preparation of luncheon, and given orders for dinner as well, he withdrew to his apartment, having eaten nothing. There he bathed and then put on his formal black suit, with wide trousers and a long jacket. He rarely dressed like that and in fact had no right to wear such a suit, but everyone knew his weakness for fine, distinguished clothes and turned a blind eye. He put on his best, ankle-high shoes made in Istanbul.

  And when he was ready, he opened his double-locked chest and took out a leather case containing a large American six-shooter pistol, then an innovation in gun design. He had bought it in Bucharest from an Austrian corporal, during the Russo-Austrian occupation, under the table, himself not knowing why, and kept it like a kind of talisman and protection against a misfortune whose name he did not know, whose form he could not discern, which never came, but constantly threatened, like an ultimate guarantee, unclear even to himself, against a life in which nothing was certain. Now it seemed to him that the time had come to summon this strange, costly metal object to his aid, to raise it from its dark resting place among his linen and bring it into the light of day.

  He did not know how and when this thought had come to him. He had no specific intention. He was not thinking of threatening the obstinate girl, let alone shooting her. No. But he felt so wretched and powerless that this implement, cold and black, with a bluish steel sheen, seemed like a tangible expression of his position and, at the same time, like a crucial friend and some small help, something like an amulet of unknown power and value, the only plausible proof for the creature who had blocked his way, oblivious of all else.

  It was one of those oppressive afternoons when the earth was bare, but the sun strong. Kostake headed to Bistrik. In his black suit, with a silk kerchief round his neck, more pale than usual, he had an air of funereal solemnity.

  At the door he was aware of the smell of incense, because, as always in preparation for Sunday, the whole house had been cleaned, freshly spread and scented. Once again, he found Ivka alone. Andja had been with her until a short time before, but as soon as she saw him approaching across the courtyard, she had taken refuge in the other room.

  She hid there for a while, and then silently opened the window through which it was easy to jump into the yard. She jumped, but as she did so, she knocked over a flower pot. Kostake, who was drinking coffee with Ivka, rose as from a blow, ran through the narrow, dark corridor and found himself in the yard. There he heard the gate bang closed. He ran out into the street and saw Andja walking quickly down Bistrik Hill, keeping close to the house and yard walls, looking around from time to time. He hurried after her. She quickened her step. He called the girl several times by name, raising his voice each time, but she did not look back, only passersby paused to watch the man hurrying, shouting. That pained him, he felt shame and anger, and it was this rather than his rapid pace that made the blood pound in his head. He stopped calling her and walked faster still. But as soon as the distance between them decreased, in turn she quickened her step and moved further away again.

  He did not know when or how he began to run, because at the point he noticed, they had both been running for some time. Everyone was watching them. It was all out in the open. No turning back now. All he could do was run faster.

  People paused to look, merchants came out of their shops, some called to him, but he could no longer make anything out, and the passersby seemed like shadows flitting past him.

  In front of the Great Barracks, soldiers leaped to their feet, some ran after them, but just far enough to see what was going on. Then it occurred to him that one of these soldiers might take the girl under their protection. It was then that Kostake remembered the weight on the left side of his chest was the American pistol. He pulled it out of his inside pocket as he ran.

  However, no one tried to help the girl who was being chased by an enraged man, nor did it occur to her
to seek protection from strangers.

  She turned into Mjedenica Street and increased her speed. She had long ago lost both her slippers and was left in her stockings, so her footsteps were inaudible, while the beat of his shoes echoed dully on the dry cobbles. She was hampered also by her harem trousers, wide and full, made of stiff, dark satin. To free her legs, she had lifted their front and was holding it in her right hand. Under her small dark-red fez, her two fair, heavy plaits had loosened and now fell down her back.

  They both ran as one runs for one’s life, and for more than one’s life. Her big, heavy but young and sturdy body carried itself with all the strength it was capable of in a supreme effort of self-defense. And he, tall and thin, his head thrust forward, charged as though drawing strength from outside himself, outside his wretched body, hurled himself into the space in front of him as if running for the first time in his life, as if he was a bit surprised but had no choice. He, who had never liked rough games, or running, or abrupt movement of any kind, never, not as a small boy with other children, or as a young man at the height of his strength, was now running, had to be running, and in his high-class suit, in front of hundreds of malicious eyes, with a pistol in his hand, like a brigand. Condemned to this race by his unexpected misfortune and all his previous, forgotten misfortunes, he knew that this was a race that could not be lost, and, having embarked on it, in the open, for all the world to see, he had to win.

  I’m running, he kept thinking, in the middle of the day, through the center of town, frantically, after this disheveled woman. This would be unbelievable in a dream! So what! So what if I’m running? People live their lives in thousands of different ways, but each one runs his own race once in a lifetime, whether it’s hidden and secret, with no witness or scandal, in his own room perhaps, perhaps only in his thoughts, in his dreams, or in public, festively, with music and cheering and the laughter of onlookers, or like this—crazy, shameful, criminal. That depends on a great many things, certainly more on a person’s origin, upbringing, way of life, and various circumstances, and less on him and his wishes and intentions. As destiny will have it. But, one way or another, everyone has to run.

  To run, yes, but now the woman is turning off again, this time to the right. She must be taking a shortcut to Fadil Bey’s residence, which is next to Djordje’s house, the only place where she can count on protection. Ah! He raises the pistol and, still running—he fires. Like a thunderclap. Perhaps that will startle and stop her. It usually frightens women. But, no, she won’t stop. Or give in. He fires again. The narrow street reverberates. The smell of gunpowder floods through him and instantly disperses. A big gray dog is running in front of him, thin and mangy, a typical Bosnian stray who feels every movement and every sound around as a blow aimed at it. Somewhere, excited hens cackle. Voices are heard, men and women calling to one another. Some open their courtyard gates to see what is going on, others, alarmed, slam them shut. In the silence that reigns for a moment, a clear, joyful child’s voice can be heard from a courtyard:

  “A wedding party!”

  A wedding party, yes! Now he remembers.

  It was a Sunday afternoon. In a garden, on the outskirts of town, it was lively and cheerful, music was playing, people were dancing. His mother, a widow, was sitting on the grass, holding him on her lap. He could have been five years old. Women were trying to persuade her to join in the dancing, but she held him tightly and, somehow solemnly, a little spitefully, replied:

  “This is all the dancing I need. When he grows up and I see him married, I’ll dance at his wedding.”

  And she bounced him energetically in her lap, as if she was already dancing with him. While he bowed his head, angry and embarrassed, because he didn’t like his mother to say such things, either about herself or about him. But he never forgot what she said.

  He fired once more, taking better aim. He thought the woman jerked her left shoulder and waved her arm. It looked as if she was about to stop. He felt joy at his success, but only for a moment, because the woman went on running at the same speed.

  So Kostake’s wedding party passed through the narrow lanes, with shouting, gunfire and celebration. Men, women and children watched them with horror. And so they would have passed through the whole town, from one end to the other, had not the long white wall around Fadil Bey’s property, with its large gate in the center, not come into view. Now they both increased their pace.

  It was obvious that the girl would turn in here. And everything depended on whether the main gate leading into the large courtyard was open. If it was open she would run in before he reached her and be saved. If not she still had to run to Djordje’s house, round the corner, in which case, he would certainly catch up with her.

  As though blind, she beat on the large gate and shook the handle that lifted the latch. Nothing helped. The gate was bolted on the inside. Then the woman turned swiftly with a catlike movement, to face her attacker. It was too late for further flight. With her arms spread, as if it was she who was barring his entry, leaning her back against the gate, she did not have to wait. He was there, right beside her. She looked for his eyes, but he was not looking at anything, not seeing anything. His face was blank. She tried to get a single word out of him. In vain. Nothing human could reach him anymore.

  With his arm outstretched and his head thrown back, he fired twice more, at close range, aiming straight at her chest. It seemed to him that those two bullets had pinned her body to the gate. But the next instant the woman began to fall. She slid slowly down, not taking her hands from the gate, as though caressing it. First she bent at the knees, then at the waist and then her head fell forward. So she went down quietly, cautiously, sinking into the big dark circle into which her heavy silk trousers, eight widths wide, folded.

  Kostake took a step back. He raised the pistol to his chest as if to put it back in the inside left pocket he had taken it from. But instead, he pressed the barrel between his ribs and fired once again.

  Passersby fled as far as they could from the place. But when the servants who had run out of Fadil Bey’s house arrived, Kostake too was lying motionless, curled up, on the very edge of the circle made by the woman’s silk trousers, but not touching them.

  AND THEN

  AND THEN, everything was different.

  And what was left to be done in the wake of such strange, terrible and incomprehensible events, was simple and ordinary, or so it seemed. A commission composed of a doctor, a town clerk, an officer from the residence and a scribe disclosed nothing that any passerby was unable to see. Two buckets of water to clean the cobbles of the mingled blood of the male murderer and suicide and the murdered woman who did not want him. Then the burial in the dark, in two different graveyards, with no funeral observances, in unconsecrated ground, on the edge of the cemetery, where public sinners and suicides were buried. And then everything vanished, as if buried forever with the two bloodless bodies in the two unmarked graves.

  The very next day, it all came back to life, in a new form, altered, magnified, embellished or distorted to the point of nonsense, and it began to grow, to circulate among people, first in the residence and the town, then throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. From Kostake’s wretched drama with an unknown girl, everyone tailored for himself a story to his own taste, according to his own needs and whims.

  So, in our memory, we exploit the unfortunate dead, defenseless and powerless, of whom we may have heard only by name, we lean our weight on those who are no longer here, to ease our way through the world of the living.

  It began that same afternoon in the residence. The news was brought by one of Ahmet Aga’s servants, who had heard something. He ran straight to the kavedžibaša but could simply not make himself understood or explain. Panting, the boy stuttered: “They say, they say Kostake Effendi killed . . . is dead . . . two dead”; while Ahmet Aga, who avoided unpleasant news and hated flustered, breathless people, would not let him say even what he knew, heaped reproaches on him.

 
; “It’s your head that’s dead!”

  “But he’s dead, I tell you, dead . . .”

  “Ass!”

  And it was impossible to disentangle who had killed whom, or why. But then an officer came from the army’s headquarters in the building opposite. Without emotion, straightforward and dry, he told the kavedžibaša what had happened to his friend Kostake. The fat man did not stir from where he stood, he did not utter a word, just licked his upper lip a few times, as if tasting some dubious, unfamiliar food, testing it. His gaze stayed strangely anxious and fixed.

  In the headquarters building, Kostake’s fate had already become a “file,” with its own number and “confidential” label. The investigation was carried out by the chief of the seraskier’s security service Major Sabit in person, on the basis of the duty officer’s report.

  Of a thousand people who take up a specific profession, only a dozen, or perhaps not so many, have a genuine inclination and real aptitude for it. One of these was Major Sabit.

  A stocky, burly man, neat and clean, in a black cavalry uniform of perfect fit. His face always bronzed, as if he had caught the strong mountain sun the previous day, hair and a short moustache of a copper red color. Under the moustache his regular, white teeth showed rarely, but when they did anyone who assumed he was smiling would be sorely mistaken. The major’s permanently red face and bright glint in his eyes led the uninformed to say that he was prone to drinking; in fact, he drank nothing other than water and fruit juice, and then only in moderation. Rare, slow gestures: his strong white hands lay for the most part motionless as his body’s center of gravity. A courteous, attentive man, but his courtesy was guarded, his attentiveness, impersonal, the same for everyone. He lived and worked with no particular personal connection to individuals. Low-key in words, he in essence was an exacting and decisive man.

  His home exuded order and prosperity. He had two wives in his harem: one older, from a good, wealthy Istanbul family, but barren; the other, young, a renowned beauty, with whom he already had his third healthy child. A man who had Omer Pasha’s confidence, without needs of his own but indispensable to everyone and always sure of himself. In his work and following his own inclination, he had an eye for what others did not see or deliberately refused to see. He looked on people around him and their lives calmly and dispassionately, until they and their actions implied some contradiction, disharmony or disruption, a deviation from the laws and regulations and the established order of things. At that point, such an individual became of interest to Sabit as that was where he was best able to act. With the instinct of a born upholder of order, he would focus all his attention on that broken place, excavating it and investigating its depths, zealously, without passion or personal calculation, without superfluous brutality, but with as much cunning and force as was required. In that work, he was conscientious and bold, mercilessly severe and consistent. He carried out every task, both the smallest and the hardest and bloodiest, with the same calm, as though the ultimate aim of all he did was far, far from this life, and everything he did and had to do at this moment was simply a trifle, one of hundreds of trifles furthering that aim.