by Ivo Andrić
Then too a song about Kostake and the girl came into being, one of those not sung or recited out loud, but in which the heroic, or simply unfortunate, protagonist can live for centuries, just as the trace of a petrified shell can endure in the rocky shore of long vanished seas. There was everything in that song: Kostake’s great spurned love which senselessly and with no evident reason killed itself and everything around it, a Sarajevo Saturday after which Sunday never dawned, and even Kostake’s “six-shooter” that had resounded through the streets of Sarajevo in broad daylight, pouring out its thunder and lightning. The large soldiers’ barracks past which he had run in pursuit of his victim also featured, and Fadil Bey’s gate where the race between the man and the woman reached its bloody end, like a preordained target. Only the name of the tall girl, Andja, was not mentioned anywhere in the song: she remained a nameless but essential object, without which neither Kostake’s desperate exploit nor the song about it, nor the pleasure the song brought people in various ways, could have existed.
The song and the story alternated and intermingled.
It is strange that every human being in Bosnia enjoys a terrible story, all the more so the less real life offers in the way of joy and amusement. This was the case with the account of the foreigner who, like so many others, had wanted by all possible means and at any price to capture the cursed, inaccessible and unfathomable female beauty, to fix it to one spot, understand it and hold onto it for himself, but who had not known when to stop, a man who had maniacally “chased a woman.” Many have the same urge and many do what they can and dare to, as best they can, within the limits of their urban life. But none had been driven so openly and so terribly as this man.
The event that had taken place here, in the middle of town, quite exceptionally and unexpectedly, became all at once lore, natural and everyone’s property. The curious race that only a small number of people had been able to witness, those who happened to find themselves in the streets, was now talked about by everyone, mostly and most vividly by those who had not seen it with their own eyes, because they were not constrained by fact. Everything in their accounts was multiplied, acquiring unnatural dimensions, and it went on growing, because everyone had a need to tell or to listen to the story.
More than one of them dreamed in a restless night that he was running in a frantic race between knives and pistols, as the pursuer, or else as the pursued. More than one, in the delirium of fevered sex, fantasized that he had total control, total to the point of painful, fatal climax, over the firm but mastered and unresisting body of a beautiful nameless woman. But it all remained within them, hidden, vivid but far from realization and any responsibility. And now, all that had happened, for the whole world to see. And everyone was able to talk about it as someone else’s crime and fate, about something terrible, terrible for others, and painfully exciting for them; everyone dared to rise, to fly unpunished and to fall with the exceptional people who had paid for their exploit with the heaviest punishment, which was the price of such deeds and misdeeds.
The story that was carried from person to person aroused in the townspeople many of those secret, unrealized and unacknowledged desires, and at the same time served as a terrible example that protected them, like a kind of vaccination, from the fatal thought of realizing such desires. In that way, the townspeople, skilled at exploiting everything around them, also exploited this tale of a lewd crime; it served them as satisfaction, and as medicine and insurance, and also as a means for affirming religious and family morals and protecting the law, which everyone broke and cursed constantly, cautiously and in part, while it nevertheless remained in force and was applied whenever it was needed, to whoever needed it.
If we all had the opportunity, courage and strength to transform just a part of our imaginings and most ardent desires into reality, at just one moment of our lives, it would be immediately clear to the whole world and to ourselves who we are, what we are, what we are like and what we are capable of becoming and being. Fortunately, for most of us, that opportunity never arises and we never cross from imagination and transient irrational thoughts to deeds and actions. But if, by some misfortune, it does happen to someone, that someone finds that we are all merciless judges. Our severity or indifference toward that unfortunate person unconsciously betrays our double revenge. We avenge ourselves both because he found the courage to do what he did and because we did not find it and never would. Or else we exploit his ruin to avenge ourselves on some third person, against whom we cannot and dare not act. That was the case here.
Sarajevo is not a city of crime, at least not public and bloody; one could rather say that it is a city of hate, and hate easily finds new causes and confirmation to justify it everywhere. So it was possible to spot in all these tales some degree of understanding and sympathy for the obviously deranged supervisor of the seraskier’s kitchens, and even for the nameless girl, while all people’s hatred and condemnation was directed at the seraskier, his army and entourage. Even a person not interested in either Kostake or his victim imagined what bad and unfavorable things he could say about the seraskier in connection with the tragedy, never mentioning him by name. With a master like that, even the cooks commit murder. That is essentially what everyone said, or would have liked to say.
Skinny Šaćir Effendi Sofra, who spent his days drinking coffee and entertaining people in the open shop fronts in town, said the same thing, only in an indirect and cunningly learned way. Among his sacred texts, he had found an old saying: “May God protect both the pursued and the pursuer!” And now he repeated that quotation relentlessly, turning it in innumerable sophisms, and applying it to Kostake’s case. And in each of his gestures and glances there was a hidden allusion to the seraskier and the times and customs he had brought with him and his retinue into this otherwise peaceful, civilized town. Everything bad, difficult and unusual that had happened in the town earlier, before Omer and without him, was forgotten or arbitrarily blamed on him.
The following Friday, the bloody event was publicly condemned. In the courtyard of the bey’s mosque, the Imam Jakubović, famous for his strict morals and sharp eloquence, gave his sermon to a crowd of veiled women. Not mentioning the unfortunate foreigner or the murdered Christian girl, he attacked the wicked customs and habits brought by foreigners, and also the commanders and leaders, for the superiors were responsible for the actions and infringements of their subordinates and the young. And let no one imagine that he will escape divine punishment because he is powerful and armed. Were all the sabers of this world, said the imam, melted into a single one, they would be just a straw compared to the saber of God, which punishes the corrupt and public or secret sinners, and those who shield them.
The faithful listening to him did not understand every one of the imam’s words, perhaps not all of them even grasped who they were aimed at, but all of them, in their great dread, felt they could hear Allah’s all-powerful and ever-present saber swishing over their heads.
On Sunday, at the main Mass, the Catholic priest spoke about the event. The Catholic congregation of Sarajevo was few in number, but the parish church was so small that it was full to bursting every Sunday. From the wooden pulpit, in which he sank to his shoulders because of his small stature, the priest launched an attack with harsh words and pointed gestures against the “scurvy sheep,” as he called women who took the wrong path and did not heed the commandments of the Church. His lively, shining eyes took on a piercing expression, like a hawk’s, and from his height sought the gaze of the women who, with eyes lowered, stared straight in front of them. “And what happens, my dear Christian men and women, to such a woman?” he asked sternly, then, after savoring their humble silence for a few interminable seconds, he answered himself, still more sternly: “She perishes like a beast. As we have seen.”
Once again, the sturdy girl from Bistrik, a public sinner, was exposed from that pulpit in her shame. Because, while the imam directed all his fury not against the murderer but against his maste
rs, the priest reserved his fiercest judgments and condemnation for Andja, the girl who had been the scurvy sheep of his flock and “got what she deserved and reaped what she had sown.” There was no word about the murderer, nor any thought of linking the crime with the residence and the seraskier.
In a voice hoarse with anger, the priest spoke of the way “Jesus Christ spilled his most holy blood for us and for our sins,” but he repeated it often and in his rhetorical enthusiasm he went too far. So suddenly he stopped, in a quandary. For if it was a matter of sin, there was an abundance of it here, and if anyone had needed that divine blood for forgiveness and redemption, then it was precisely that unhappy, sinful girl against whom he was now fulminating so bitterly. He paused and reflected on the contradiction he had been led to by his own zeal. He hesitated for only a moment. And then, controlling his confusion and abandoning his inappropriate parable of Christ’s blood, he drew a handkerchief out of the wide sleeve of his monk’s habit, wiped the sweat from his face and in a slightly altered, weary voice continued to threaten each and every one of those present with the definitive ruin and eternal torment into which the souls of sinners were rushing headlong.
It is not known exactly what took place in the Orthodox church or the synagogue, because neither the rector nor the rabbi said anything, at least not in public. But there would certainly have been discussion of Andja and Kostake in those communities as well, because in those days the two of them were exposed to everyone’s scrutiny and judgment. Everyone now dared and was able to speak about them and, hiding or masking their own intentions and motives, to interpret, judge and condemn those of others. There was almost no adult being in this large town who did not pause in the face of the event everyone was talking about, and devote to it a word of condemnation or sympathy, a thought or just a sigh. Because during those days they had all glimpsed the dark, immeasurable world of madness and crime in one way or another, a world that was different but no less complex than the world in which we all live within the borders of reason and the law.
Even boys too young to understand anything, but who watched everything and found a pretext for play in everything they saw and heard, began playing new games. One would run like the girl-victim, terrified and defenseless, while another chased her, holding in his right hand a short piece of wood, like Kostake’s already legendary pistol, shooting mercilessly and deafeningly: bang-bang! bang-bang! Except that here, in this game, no one who played the boy-victim wanted to fall, although he kept being told that he had been hit and that he was supposed to lie down by the gate and die. And when the boy-pursuer saw that there was no way his companion was going to play his part properly, he lost interest, tossed away the wooden pistol and, offended, announced that he wasn’t going to play anymore.
And in the end, it was similar with the adults. After the great agitation that accompanies exceptional events, calm seemed to descend. As though the adults had grown bored with the game. The hodjas and priests discarded the topic like a squeezed lemon. The military authorities, once they had triumphed in the conflict with the civil authorities and taken over the investigation, stopped after the initial steps. Those leading it realized at the outset that their superiors did not wish this affair, disagreeable in itself and with no connection to the army or politics, probed too deeply or drawn out. Old Ivka, who had been arrested at the beginning, was released from prison. The dossier “Kostake Nenishanu” was closed without a formal conclusion. Even Saida Hanuma mentioned Kostake and his unhappy fate rarely.
Within the governing authorities, in the town and among the citizens, the commotion abated, according to the laws by which such agitation comes into being, grows and declines. Only among the people, somewhere deep down, in their closed and silent houses, particularly among the women, the story of Kostake and the girl continued to endure and there, in all probability, it would go through new transformations and, changing its form, endure who knows how long.
MUHSIN EFFENDI AND NIKOLA
WHAT CAN be said about Muhsin Effendi and his position in the residence? He was a stocky, portly, rotund but strong and very mobile fifty-year-old, with gaps between his good white teeth, always cheerful, lively and smiling, and neatly dressed. If you were to ask anyone from the residence what exactly Muhsin Effendi’s duties were, he would look at you in some surprise, think for a while and then smile and shrug his shoulders:
“Well, he’s just Muhsin . . . How can I explain? He’s just Sir-Yes, Evet Effendi!”
And that was what they called Muhsin Effendi, much more often than by his real name, and the nickname explained his position in this community. People used to say that, long ago, at the sultan’s court there had been a special employee whose job it was to follow the sultan everywhere and in words, gestures and facial expression confirm each and every least word of his, to answer every question with: Yes! Muhsin Effendi was just such a yes-man. On the payroll of employees in the residence, he was named as the chancellery clerk, although in fact there was no chancellery or any particular responsibility of that kind, but he was simply, in most tasks that needed doing, present. He considered this his job and his duty, and everyone else had always agreed, at least tacitly, without ever wondering why it was so or whether it had to be. On the other hand, if he did not appear somewhere, no one noticed his absence. Essentially, his job was to repeat and approve everything others said, especially if those others were older and higher in rank, to support everything official positively, favorably and admiringly, and to suppress and gloss over anything disagreeable or discordant that contradicted generally held opinions, all denial, doubt, resistance, difference of views or confrontation. He gave every phenomenon, even the most trivial, the most favorable possible interpretation, consistently and decisively. And he did so, it must be said, with great persistence and skill, with a kind of naive and startling impudence. As time went on, he had made himself the embodiment of optimism, greeting every opinion expressed in his presence with either loud or discreet applause.
Of course, this was the case as long as it was known that was how the seraskier and those around him saw the matter. But when it happened, as it sometimes did, that views at the top changed, Muhsin Effendi was never ruffled or discouraged. He would pause in his “work” for a moment, just long enough to overhear and grasp the nature of the change, and immediately afterward turn his whole yes-apparatus a hundred and eighty degrees and swiftly set it in motion, with the same energy, only in the opposite direction. So Evet Effendi remained always consistent and always true to himself and his vocation.
It was not the opinion he praised and approved that mattered, but the conviction and persuasiveness with which he did so. The main thing was that even in the face of obvious facts he did not acknowledge any fault or failure, any damage, illness, sorrow or loss; for him everything had to be good, beautiful and in order, or at least on the way to becoming so. And he did not simply wait for some discord or argument, sad tale or unhappy event to come up, he did not confine himself merely to denial, he himself went on the attack. While everyone was silent, going about their own business, he would pass through the residence, smiling, gleefully rubbing his hands and nodding his head:
“Good, good, gooood! Good, God-willing! Good, why ever not?”
His entire vocabulary consisted of some hundred words, always positive and pleasant, light and empty, and he uttered those words for the most part simply as enthusiastic expressions of satisfaction, endorsement or encouragement.
An important instrument of his effectiveness in the residence was his laughter. He did not laugh like other people, now and then, sometimes more loudly, sometimes less so, depending on the topic. No, his laughter was in him, built in, like a device, a rattle, say, and when he wanted to emphasize his optimistic speech, and that was after every fifth or sixth word, he turned that mechanism on. Then something in him creaked, began to hiss consumptively, then to guffaw and his characteristic laughter resounded around him. This laughter sounded like someone scattering dried peas ov
er a glass surface: “kkkk-shshsh-ssss!” It was an audible image of the true state of his smoker’s lungs, bronchial tubes and vocal chords. It marked the end of each of his sentences and the ultimate confirmation of his optimism, a fanfare of his unconditional endorsement of everything and everyone, and boundless agreement with everyone and everything. His words sailed and bobbed about on the waves of that laughter like tiny paper boats. Everyone knew this laughter and everyone knew that it cost nothing, meant nothing, committed him to nothing, but still it affected his interlocutor and achieved its aim.
No one remembered whether Muhsin Effendi ever himself affirmed or denied anything, just as his empty words never changed anything for the worse or for the better, nor really helped or hindered anyone. Everyone knew what Muhsin represented as a person and how much his approbation was worth, but they all accepted him for what he was. Some were even inclined to consider him necessary, almost essential in this residence where so many came into conflict, offended and maligned each other. They saw it as entirely natural that this man, red-haired, small and chubby, with his large head, should do the rounds of the residence and everything in and near it, scampering about and exclaiming, scattering broad smiles, short phrases and cries without much connection or specific meaning: “May you be well and swift uphill!” “Mashallah, mashallah!,” “Good, good!,” “No ill befall you!,” “Stay handsome and clever, calm and good!,” “It’s good and it will be better!” Muhsin did this tirelessly, always and on every occasion, year in, year out. And so, superfluous and useless, he was able, if nothing else, to serve as an example that optimism and cheerfulness, properly understood and zealously and consistently applied, may bring a person a good position and a reasonable income.
But the years took their toll even on the apparently indestructible Evet Effendi. He passed fifty-five, which for him was the threshold of old age. At first sight, he did not change much. He put on weight, but he was still mobile. His optimism was undiminished, and he expressed himself even more frequently, excitedly and loudly than before, but, as if the core of his being had gone to seed and grown moldy, Muhsin had become blind and insensitive to the reality around him, and acted like a senseless automaton. Once a comic phenomenon, he was now pathetic. Crowing his eternal “Nice, nice, of course!,” “Good, goood!,” like an elderly parrot, he now provoked boredom, then exasperation, and even antipathy. He had never thought about what he was saying, and now he could no longer see anything clearly, neither the place nor the time, nor the status and mood of the person he was speaking to. In the euphoria of his portliness, he no longer knew how other people lived or what was going on right here, let alone in the world beyond the residence.