Omer Pasha Latas

by Ivo Andrić

  The major listened calmly to the officer reporting on the incident that had recently taken place in the town. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sent him straight to the civil governor, Hajrudin Pasha, with the strict instruction that the civil authorities hand over further investigation to the army, since it involved an employee of the seraskier.

  Without waiting for Hajrudin Pasha’s response, confident of the seraskier’s support, the major ordered that the door to Kostake’s apartment be forced open and a search of the premises be carried out under his personal supervision.

  The faces of the junior officers who carried out the search reflected all shades of surprise and amazement at what they found in the cupboards and chests. And had Major Sabit not been there personally, they would certainly have expressed loudly in jokes, laughter or curses their opinion of the luxurious clothes and sundry toiletries, gadgets and trifles they had no idea existed. As it was, they had to restrain themselves and, heads bowed, silently lay out and record all the jewelry, clothes, paintings and books.

  As soon as the inventory was complete, the major ordered the door be sealed. He took several sheets of paper that had lain next to the inkwell on the dressing table. Returning to his office, he looked through the papers, for the most part blank. On two sheets were the beginnings of letters in Romanian. When translated, it emerged that the first was to a friend in Bucharest, but it had been crumpled up, unfinished. The other was evidently intended for Saida Hanuma.

  “With the greatest humility, I beseech you, my deeply respected mistress, not to think too badly of me . . .”

  Here the writing was interrupted and the text crossed out with two thick strokes of the pen.

  The major straightened and smoothed the papers and placed them in his black leather folder, with a lock and little silver key.

  As he was carrying out this task, the officer returned with Hajrudin’s response. It was signed by the pasha’s adjutant, also a major by rank, but it was clear from its self-important tone that it had been dictated by Hajrudin himself. The pasha was of the opinion that the investigation should be carried out by his official, because the crime had been committed in the town, in a public place, and because that is what the law decreed, but he had no objection to the participation of an officer. It was clear that an opportunity had suddenly arisen for yet another conflict between military and civil authorities, and, for both parties, this would most probably be more interesting and more important than the incident itself. But it was also clear that, despite the acerbic tone of his response, the pasha would have to defer yet again to the military authorities and in reality leave it to them to carry out the investigation.

  Before the end of the day, the seraskier summoned Major Sabit for a briefing. They quickly understood one another, as it was obvious that Kostake’s unexpected crime had nothing to do with either the army or politics. An investigation would certainly have to be undertaken, but its outcome was certain: “Due to a mental disturbance . . . etc.” And secondly, which was more important, something must immediately be done to counteract the gossip and scandal-mongering that would no doubt spread through the town, where the residence and everything connected with it was castigated and slandered on the slightest pretext.

  For the seraskier and his chief of police this was effectively the end of a strange and disagreeable incident. The next morning, the major summoned Junus Effendi, known as Demirbaš, and Idris Effendi Ruščuklija, his assistant and closest colleague. The former would lead the judicial investigation, while the latter would carry out the necessary arrests and monitor the mood of the citizens in relation to the murder.

  So two more figures from the seraskier’s large retinue were drawn out of the shadows. Sabit’s assistant Idris Effendi and the judge Junus Effendi. Something should be said about each of them, starting with the latter.

  The chief military judge in Omer Pasha’s army was Zejnil Effendi, a talented and astute lawyer, who would certainly have been able to achieve a more important and higher position had he not lacked ambition, and been a merrymaker and carouser. Prematurely gray, talkative, sprightly, with lively, clever eyes under gray brows, he was known for his courage and integrity. He had accompanied Omer Pasha on his earlier campaigns as well. He was liked and respected in the headquarters and this made him appear indispensable. In reality, he didn’t have much to do. Cases of theft, affray and conflicts in the units were dealt with by disciplinary procedures. Only the most serious matters came before Zejnil Effendi, and with his sharp wits and conciliatory nature he simplified them, reduced them to their least possible dimensions and, as far as he could, deprived them of their cutting edge. He was the diametric opposite of those judges who liked to exaggerate and complicate a case in order to appear particularly skillful and clever when the matter was resolved.

  When he left for Bosnia, Omer Pasha knew that there would have to be peremptory judgments, swift, severe sentences and the confiscation of property. This would entail procedures and rulings for which Zejnil Effendi would not be the most suitable judge. Hence, in consultation with Sabit and with Zejnil’s agreement, he also engaged Junus Effendi as a junior cadi.

  He was a tall man, somehow badly put together and off balance, with a white, regular face and a black, sadly drooping moustache. His movements were formal, and the gaze of his large, cold eyes fixed. He neither understood joking nor engaged in it. He never laughed and he looked in surprise at anyone smiling, as at an unfortunate, who did not know what he was doing or what dangers he was exposing himself to. And when, out of politeness, he tried to smile, his face looked as if he was about to sneeze, wanted to but could not. For the most part, he remained stubbornly silent, and when he did speak he did so loudly and solemnly, as if pronouncing the justification for a sentence or quoting legal regulations.

  People described him as “a deep lawyer,” and he did give the impression of a man often able to plunge into his vocation, right down to its depths, where the roots of human relations are hidden. What he caught sight of as he dwelled in those depths must have been terrible. It seemed this was what had set his face in a grimace of cold horror, which later, when he resurfaced, he could never completely dispel. What he saw and learned down there stifled in him the belief in anything other than the bare, hard word of the law. He lost all understanding of humanity and the last vestige of love or compassion toward people, whom in his understanding and judgment he placed lower than any other form of life. Over time, people became for him simply objects in the free play and indiscriminate application of the law; he knew only how to judge them, and he judged them as if they were lifeless nature, desert sand or dead rock.

  While still young he had acquired the reputation in Istanbul of being a skilled lawyer, with a sound legal knowledge, a seasoned civil servant and defender of state interests. He made his profession—interpretation of the laws and their application to the complex and unpredictable phenomena of life—into a high vocation. And that profession turned him into a creature of a special kind.

  He was a man and judge who looks on the world around him solely as the territory of his vocation, where he is always at peace with himself and his conscience. And, as is well known, there is nothing, either good or bad, that such a reputable lawyer with a clear conscience is incapable of doing. He has but one ambition: to apply his exceptional sharpness of mind to outwitting even the most obvious truth and life itself, transforming them into lies, just to apprehend and hand over for “deserved punishment” a human being who, in his heedless pursuit of happiness, or what he considers happiness, has deviated from the path of the law.

  He was the kind of man and lawyer that governments and state authorities need: in any conflict between the state and some lesser institution or individual, he had the exceptional ability to find quickly in a text of the law exactly the wording that made the case for the state, clearly and convincingly. Higher authorities often wished to have such a man within reach, particularly in unsettled and exceptional circumstances. Such people
were useful, they enjoyed the confidence of their superiors and were well paid, even if they sometimes had nothing to do for months. But when some state or government decision, of whatever kind, had to be given a sound basis in law, this could be done only by someone who knew the law and regulations and how to interpret them, such as Junus Effendi. And so it was possible to achieve what brute force or simple commands could not, or at least not so easily or quickly.

  Otherwise, this Junus Effendi, fearsome and sharp as a saber in his role as judge and state attorney, was an ordinary bumbler, a great nonentity in his private and family life. The best source for this was the kavedžibaša, who always characterized and judged everyone in the seraskier’s service and who, for whatever reason, both hated and despised the rigid lawyer. For him he was a dangerous fool whom people considered clever only because three fingers of his right hand were always black with ink, a heartless person who could use that poisonous legal ink to destroy the best of men or an entire family, whole towns and districts.

  It was true that Junus Effendi was a dull, morose man with no life of his own, with no human joys or passions of any kind, condemned to judge and punish instead of living and enjoying life. In addition, he dragged around with him a large family, where it was not quite clear who was related to whom. In addition to a sick wife and five children, all girls, there were just as many, or more, sisters-in-law, his wife’s and his own aunts and other female relatives, and a large number of their children. They all had to be clothed and fed, and they all spent, ate and squandered without thought, emptying the householder’s pockets, while the house was filled with children’s squeals and muffled, silly women’s quarrels in which this otherwise awesome, merciless lawyer was simply a pathetic bystander and helpless victim. He supported them, but no one in the house liked or respected him. This was why, despite his high position and good salary, Junus Effendi went around scowling and ill-tempered, in a shabby jacket and worn-out boots, a little in debt to everyone.

  That was Junus Effendi, the man who was next morning to be given the task of initiating legal proceedings to bury the “unfortunate” incident of Kostake Nenishanu as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and who would no doubt carry out the task as it should be done.

  The other official who was to be involved, Idris Effendi, was Sabit’s chief assistant. This was an important position as Sabit had his own special way of doing things. He always worked through his colleagues, and particularly Idris Effendi. Except in unusual circumstances, he himself never appeared in person but stood aside, as if he were miles away from what was going on right next to him, concealed somewhere underground or under water. From that hiding place, he employed his assistants to collect information, assess and calculate, as if working with lifeless objects. Then he studied all the files and papers, and only after lengthy examination, comparison and assessment did he reach a decision as to what had to be done. Then he would inform the seraskier about the affair and, once he had his agreement, he would again entrust his assistants with the task of putting the decision into practice, or, if necessary, pass it on to the judicial authorities.

  In this way, he carried out the work and made all the decisions, but the responsibility and resentment fell not on him but on his assistants, who were the ones to appear in public. His men accepted this, as they did all other difficulties and troubles, calmly and patiently, and each was prepared to endure even more. Sabit was a boss who knew how to choose his assistants and bind them to him, just as he knew how to put them to work and burden them, chide and praise them, spare and reward them. And they did all they could to carry out his instructions to the best of their ability, as if their greatest reward lay in serving Major Sabit, or more exactly the cause he served.

  Idris Effendi was born in Rusçuk, the son of a shopkeeper. He attended elementary school there, and then while still young began to work as a literate and diligent junior civil servant in the local administration. With the help of influential relatives, he was transferred to the military service and moved to Istanbul. There he progressed rapidly, ending up as assistant to Major Sabit.

  Along with his social advance, his sickness also grew, a great misfortune for himself and his family. At first sight a normal, sober administrator, he was in fact deeply troubled. At every step, he was dogged by a mania: fear of hunger and poverty, and an unhealthy greed, which all the riches and property of this world couldn’t satisfy. And this fear—entirely unfounded, since Idris Effendi was a well-paid official, married to a wealthy heiress—affected everything in his life, particularly his attitude to food and clothing and objects of everyday use. It poisoned his life from morning to night and destroyed his sleep. He was neither a gourmet nor a greedy man, just as he was not essentially either selfish or miserly. It was his unbalanced fear of hunger and indigence that made him the way he was.

  His wife was barren, but he did not let her go, as he could have done, nor did he take a second wife. Several years earlier, they had adopted a little girl from his extended family. His wife was a thin, timid creature who suffered most from his sickness, because she could never please or satisfy him. Their adopted daughter, now fourteen, looked prematurely withered, like an old maid. Their house was characterized by bad temper and distrust. It all came from him and his unfortunate illness, while his service in the army, moving constantly through districts under military rule or battlegrounds, only increased his torment. But he clung tightly to his superior, Sabit, who, grounded and self-confident as he was, seemed to offer the surest defense against his fear and all evil, and that was why he served him with such devotion.

  It seems that on the edge of a society where there have long been disorder, violence and abuse, illnesses such as this often appear in an individual and, unnoticed, grow steadily into absurdity and open insanity.

  Idris Effendi’s distorted image of the world was becoming increasingly fixed, a constant presence. Just as snowy regions spread such an intense cold that it is sometimes felt—like a shiver or an icy current—even in areas where there is no snow, so it seemed that distant regions, laid waste by constant shortages and long-lasting hunger, had spread their destructive breath into the places and towns where Idris Effendi set foot. That was the case with most regions where he had stayed in the course of his working life, and, ever more bleakly, in Bosnia. Not naturally lush or abundant, a land where few sow and toil, it had been eaten away by both local and foreign idlers, and trodden down by warring armies, so that over the years it had been stripped bare and now resembled stables in which hungry horses gnawed the wood of their mangers.

  Idris Effendi was sensitive to this specter of hunger and deprivation, which followed him wherever he went, poisoning his meals and haunting his dreams, in which he was offered all kinds of foods that as soon as he tried to eat were snatched from him or the spoon grabbed from his hand. Here in Bosnia, he felt the breath of hunger at every step and at every moment.

  As he saw the world—and he could see it no other way—hunger is the constant companion of living beings. It is man’s destiny on this earth and it is hard to fight against; we are obsessed with it, as in a besieged citadel, and we reject it and deceive it only incompletely and temporarily, for even while we are eating and drinking our portion, we know that there is not and never will be enough food for everyone, that we ourselves will soon be hungry and thirsty again, for each new day brings new hunger and thirst, while there’s no way of insuring against it or satisfying it forever. Satiety is an exceptional and transient state, threatened from the outset on all sides. Many people eat as much as they want, and will perhaps live like that for the rest of their lives, but what good does it do them when, at the same time, they’re consumed by the thought of all those who are hungry, and they may the very next day find themselves chewing their own fingers from hunger and gasping with thirst like a chicken run over on a scorching summer road.

  For the time being, it wasn’t like that, perhaps it never would be, but who could know for certain. His thoughts, once they had
become so warped and taken such a direction, could no longer be put right or halted. They made him see the whole world as devastated, indebted, destitute. It was an illusion that there were all kinds of abundance in this world, because if there was plenty in one place, just a little further on there were, stretching into infinity, regions of want and poverty, expanses of infertile and unworked earth, whole nations of hungry, undernourished people, whom only a miracle could feed. And miracles did not happen. And as he ate the best possible meal, thinking such thoughts, he was constantly observed by the reproachful gaze of someone’s hungry eyes.

  And the question was not only: to have or not to have, a lot or a little? The torments around food were numerous and varied. Everything that feeds, strengthens and satisfies us—is hard to come by, expensive, but quickly and easily used up or squandered. Many things are required to make a meal: meat, flour, vegetables, fat, sugar, and dozens of other ingredients and condiments. All that has to be found, bought, brought in, then prepared, mixed, roasted, boiled. Wood for fuel is hard to find, dishes have to be washed, water carried, ash discarded; soap is costly, servants inept and useless. And, once ready, the food is swiftly devoured by the greedy, profligate household and all manner of guests and scroungers. But even if no one touched it, you could not preserve it, because it dries up and spoils of its own accord. After just a few moments, what was hot is lukewarm and insipid, and then rapidly cold, stale or sour. Then new dishes have to be prepared. So, in fact, hunger plagues a man constantly. And this thought—that one comes by it all with difficulty and it’s all quickly used up—precedes any food and drink, spoiling prematurely all possible pleasure. And what has been eaten and drunk doesn’t feed a man or make him happy, rather it poisons and embitters him.