The Ghost Rider

by Ismail Kadare

  He gazed at her pubis and was almost surprised by the vigorous tuft that the eunuch had not had time to shave, as he usually did. With this shadow over her sexual organ, the girl looked slightly foreign, and all the more desirable for it. He often told himself that he should abstain from making love when an affair of State was on his mind, but swung just as often to the opposite view, that it would help him cope. On this night, he overcame his hesitation.

  He opened her legs with a gentle touch and, contrary to habit, as if he were afraid of bruising his young wife, he penetrated her with similar tenderness. The unusual consideration he showed did not surprise him; he guessed vaguely that it was connected to the long journey the girl had put up with alongside his soldiers, which made her almost part of his army.

  He moved clumsily, as if his desire lay outside of his body, and it was only when he felt his seed spurt from him into the girl’s warm belly that he livened up. His pleasure was brief but intense and sharp, as if it were all concentrated in itself, like the trunk of a tree with no branches.

  The girl realised he had made love without desire. As she ascribed his coldness to the black tufts of her pubic hair rather than to her not having been bathed beforehand, she apologised once again. He didn’t respond. He propped himself on his elbow, leaned back on the cushions, and started counting out his beads again. With a blush in her cheeks and her head on the pillow, she marvelled at the harsh and rough-hewn face of the man to whom she belonged.

  He forgot all about her. He reached over to the pile of documents and extracted the map of the fortress from it. He drew two signs on it, and then a third, in black ink. The girl raised herself on an elbow and with her beautiful eyes cast a quizzical glance at the paper and its multitude of strange marks. Her master’s cold, grey eyes did not budge from it. She made a small movement, as carefully as she could, so as not to disturb him. However, when she shifted her elbow, which was going numb, the bed moved, and one of its heavy pendants almost fell on to the sketch. She held her breath – but he hadn’t noticed a thing. He was completely absorbed by the map.

  She looked alternately at the Pasha’s face and at the marks he was making on the map. She was extremely curious, and just as bold, for she asked:

  “Is that what war is, then?”

  He looked up and stared at her, as if surprised to see her lying there, then turned away and went back to poring over the map.

  He carried on marking up the map for a long time. When he turned around, she had fallen asleep. She was breathing deeply, with her lips half-parted. She looked even younger than her years.

  Rain was still falling and drumming on the tent.

  As the Pasha gazed at the eyelashes and pale long neck of his fourth wife, his mind went back – who knows why? – to the latrines that had been constructed at top speed. The first ditch would now be creeping up to the river, like a water-snake … He lifted the blanket and, against his normal practice, took a look at his partner’s delta, with its lips still wet. He thought he might have impregnated her. In nine months’ time, she might give him a son … Approaching sleep made his mind wander to the matériel that should by now be under the tarpaulins, to the sentries, tomorrow’s meeting of the war council, and back again to that woman’s belly where his son may just have been engendered. When he grew up, would he ever imagine he had been conceived in a campaign tent, in the pouring rain, at the foot of a sinister citadel, far beyond the setting sun …? Maybe he too would become a soldier, and as he rose in rank, maybe his tent too would move two hundred, six hundred, twelve hundred paces from the ramparts … “Allah! Why hast Thou made us thus?” he sighed as his head nodded, as if over a bottomless pit.

  Their white tents have surrounded our citadel in the shape of an immense crown. At dawn on the morning after their arrival, the plain looked as if it were covered by a thick layer of snow. You could see no ground, no grass, no rocks. We climbed up to the battlements to get a view of this wintry scene. That was when we realised what a huge conflict our Castrioti had entered into with Murad Han, the most powerful prince of the age.

  Their camp stretches out as far as the eye can see. The ground has vanished from sight and our hearts sink. We are now alone with only the clouds for company, as it were, while at our feet, like some nightmare vision, a myriad tents are forging a new landscape, a nowhere world, so to speak.

  From here you can see the pink pavilion of the commander-in-chief. The day before yesterday he sent a delegation to seek our surrender. They stated their conditions quite clearly: they would not touch any of us, they would let us leave the citadel with our arms and chattels, and we could go wherever we chose. In return all they wanted were the keys to the castle so they could take down the black bird-flag (which is what they call our eagle) from the tower where it flies, for in their view it offends the firmament. In its place they want to raise the true son of the heavenly world, the crescent.

  That is what they have been doing everywhere in recent times: they pretend to be pursuing a symbol when their real aim is conquest. They kept the issue of religion to the end, since they were sure it would be their winning bid. Their chief pointed to the bell-tower and said that as far as the instrument of torture was concerned (that is what they call the Holy Cross), we could, if we wished, hang on to it, and also, obviously, keep our Christian faith. You’ll renounce it yourselves in due course, he added, because no nation could possibly prefer martyrdom to the peace of Islam.

  Our answer was short and firm: neither the eagle nor the cross would ever be removed from our firmament; they were the symbols and the fate we had elected, and we would remain faithful to them. And so that each of us may keep his own symbols and fate according to the dispositions of the Lord, they had no alternative but to leave.

  They did not wait for the interpreter to translate our last words before rising hurriedly to their feet in fury. They called us blind, said they had parleyed enough already, and that it was now time for arms to speak. Then they hastened towards the rear gate, taking a path through the centre of the courtyard so as to show off their magnificent costumes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mevla Çelebi, the chronicler, halted at fifty paces from the Pasha’s tent. He stared with interest at the members of the council going into the pavilion one by one. Before the tent stood a metal pole with a brass crescent – the imperial emblem – perched atop. As he gazed at the high-ranking officers he tried to summon up the adjectives he would use to describe them in his chronicle. But all he could find were a few weak words, most of which had been worn out by his predecessors. Moreover, if he set aside those he had to use for the commander-in-chief, there were precious few left, and he would have to take care not to use them up too quickly. It was as if he had in his fist a bunch of jewels which he would have to distribute parsimoniously among these countless combatants.

  Kurdisxhi, the captain of the akinxhis, had hardly got off his horse. His big ruddy head seemed to be still asleep. After him came the captain of the janissaries, the old but still ferocious Tavxha Tokmakhan, whose short legs looked as if they had been broken and badly put back together again. The commander of the azabs, Kara-Mukbil, strode in together with the army Mufti and two provincial commanders, or sanxhakbeys. Then along came Aslanhan, Deli Burxhuba, Ullu Bekbey, Olça Karaduman, Hatai, Uç Kurtogmuz and Uç Tunxhkurt, Bakerhanbey, Tahanka the deaf-mute, and the Alaybey of the army. It occurred to Çelebi that he would have to mention in his chronicle every one of these famous captains whose names echoed with the clash of steel, wild beasts, the black dust of long marches, storms, lightning and other suchlike subjects of fear.

  With the exceptions of the commander-in-chief and Kara-Mukbil, whose oval faces were agreeable to the eye, and also of the Alaybey who, like most officers of his army, was a fine figure of a man, all the leaders had features that seemed to have been designed solely in order to make it harder for him to write his chronicle. Traits unworthy of appearing in a battle epic automatically came into his mind: Olça Karaduma
n’s sty, the Mufti’s asthma, Uç Kurtogmuz’s extra tooth, the chilblains of his namesake, Uç Tunxhkurt, and the humped backs, short necks, scarecrow arms and sciatic shoulders of many others, and especially the coarse hairs sticking out of Kurdisxhi’s nose.

  He was musing on those nasal hairs, for who knows what reason, when he heard someone calling his name.

  “Greetings, Mevla Çelebi!”

  The chronicler turned round and bowed obsequiously down to the ground. The man who had hailed him was the army’s Quartermaster General. He was coming towards him accompanied by Engineer Saruxha, the famous caster of cannon. Pale of skin, with eyes that were bloodshot from many sleepless nights, the engineer was the only member of the council who wore a black cloak, which accorded well with the aura of mystery surrounding his work.

  “What are you doing here?” the Quartermaster asked Çelebi.

  “I am observing the members of our illustrious council,” the chronicler replied in a pompous tone, as if to justify his presence.

  The Quartermaster General smiled at him, and walked on with Saruxha towards the door of the tent where sentries stood guard like statues.

  Feeling guilty once again for the thoughts he had just had, the chronicler watched the tall, slim figure of the Quartermaster General, whom he had got to know during the long march. Quite unusually, this time he gave an impression of haughtiness.

  The last to turn up for the meeting was Giaour, the architect. Çelebi tracked him and was struck by how unnatural his gait appeared. Nobody rightly knew the origins or the nationality of the man who was acquainted with every secret of the structures of fortresses. He had no known family, which was not surprising for a foreigner, but he seemed doubly alone because of the way he spoke – in a peculiar kind of Turkish that few could fully understand. As his chin was smooth, many suspected he was really a woman, or at least half-man and half-woman – a hermaphrodite, as people say.

  The architect went in last. The duty guards were the only people left outside, and they started playing dice. The chronicler was burning to know what was being said inside the tent. Now, if he had been appointed secretary to the council of war as well as campaign chronicler, he would have been in a position to know everything. It was normal for the same man to occupy both positions. He accounted for his own limited station in various ways, depending on his mood. Sometimes he thought they had done him a favour by not overloading him with work and thus allowing him to concentrate entirely on the chronicle, which was intended to be an immortal record of the campaign. But at other times, such as now, as he looked at the Pasha’s pavilion from a distance, he guessed the real reason for his exclusion, and felt bitter and disappointed.

  He was about to move off when he saw several council members emerge from the tent. The Quartermaster General was among them. He saw Çelebi and called out to him.

  “Come on, Mevla, come for a walk, we’ll be able to chat. The council is now going over the details of the attack and those of us not directly involved have been asked to leave.”

  “When will the assault begin?” Çelebi asked shyly.

  “In a week, I think. As soon as the two big cannon have been cast.”

  They sauntered slowly, with the Quartermaster’s orderly following them like a shadow.

  “Let’s go into my tent for a drink and escape from all this racket,” the Quartermaster said, making a wide gesture with his arm.

  Çelebi put his hand on his heart and bowed low once more.

  “You do me great honour.”

  Being invited into the tent to talk about history and philosophy once more, as he had done a few days ago, filled him with a joy that evaporated instantly at the fear of disappointing his eminent friend.

  “My head’s bursting,” the high official said, “and I need some respite. I’ve still got a pile of things to settle.”

  The chronicler listened to him with a guilty air.

  “It’s very odd,” the Quartermaster said. “You historians usually attribute all the glory of conquest to military leaders. But mark my words, Mevla, mark them well: after the commander-in-chief’s, it’s this here head,” he said, tapping his forehead with his index finger, “that has more worries than any other.”

  Çelebi bowed in homage.

  “Supplying food to an army is the key problem in war,” the Quartermaster went on, in a tone close to irritation. “Anybody can wave a sword about, but keeping forty thousand men fed and watered in a foreign, unpopulated and uncultivated land, now that’s a hard nut to crack.”

  “How very true,” the chronicler commented.

  “Shall I tell you a secret?” the Quartermaster said all of a sudden. “The army you can see camped all around you has got supplies for only fifteen days!”

  Çelebi raised his eyebrows, but thought they were insufficiently bushy to give adequate expression to his amazement.

  “According to the plan,” the officer went on, “supply trains are supposed to leave Edirne every two weeks. Granted, but given the huge distance they have to cover, can I rely on them? Provisions … If you ever hear that I’ve gone out of my mind, you’ll know why!”

  The chronicler wanted to protest: Whatever are you saying? He nodded his head, even raised his arms – but they seemed too short to say what he now wanted to say.

  “So all the responsibility falls on our shoulders,” the other man went on. “If the cooks come and say one fine day that they’ve nothing left to fill their pots, who is the Pasha going to call to order? Obviously not Kurdisxhi, nor old Tavxha, nor any other captain. Only me!” And he stuck a finger into his breast as if it was a dagger.

  Çelebi’s face, on which deference and attentiveness were painted like a mask, now also expressed commiseration, which wasn’t difficult, seeing that in its normal state it was deeply lined and wrinkled.

  The Quartermaster General’s tent was pitched at the very heart of the camp so that as they drew nearer to it they were walking among throngs of soldiers. Some of them were sitting outside their tents undoing their packs, others were picking their fleas without the slightest embarrassment. Çelebi recalled that no chronicle ever mentioned the tying and untying of soldier’s backpacks. As for flea hunting, that was never spoken of either.

  “What about the akinxhis?” he enquired, trying to banish all reprehensible thoughts from his mind. “Aren’t they going to be allowed to pillage in the environs?”

  “Of course they are,” the officer replied. “However, the booty they take usually covers less than a fifth of the needs of the troops. And only in the early stages of a siege.”

  “That’s odd …” the chronicler opined.

  “There’s only one solution: Venice.”

  Çelebi started with surprise.

  “The Sultan has made an agreement with the Serenissima. Venetian merchants are supposed to supply us with food and matériel.”

  The chronicler was astounded, but nodded his head.

  “I understand why you are amazed,” the Quartermaster said. “You must find it bizarre that we accuse Skanderbeg of being in the pay of Westerners while we do deals with Venice behind Skanderbeg’s back. If I were in your shoes, I admit I would find that shocking.”

  The Quartermaster General put a formal smile on his lips, but his eyes were not smiling at all.

  “That’s politics for you, Mevla!”

  The chronicler lowered his head. It was his way of taking cover whenever a conversation wandered into dangerous terrain.

  A long line of azabs went past, carrying rushes on their backs.

  The Quartermaster watched them go by.

  “That’s what they use, I believe, to weave the screens the soldiers use to shield themselves from burning projectiles. Have you really never seen a siege before?”

  The chronicler blushed and said, “I have not had that good fortune.”

  “Oh! It’s an impressive sight.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Believe me,” the general said in a more informal
way. “I’ve taken part in many sieges, but this,” he waved towards the castle walls, “is where the most fearful carnage of our times will take place. And you surely know as well as I do that great massacres always give birth to great books.” He took a deep breath. “You really do have an opportunity to write a thundering chronicle redolent with pitch and blood, and it will be utterly different from the graceful whines composed at the fireside by squealers who never went to war.”

  Çelebi blushed again as he recalled the opening of his chronicle. “One day, if you like, I could read you some passages from what I have written,” he said. “I would like to hope they will not disappoint you.”

  “Accepted! You know how much I like history.”

  A squad of janissaries marched past noisily.

  “They’re in a good mood,” the Quartermaster said. “Today is pay day.”

  Çelebi remembered that pay was also never mentioned in that kind of narrative.

  Troopers were setting out some oval tents. Further off, carters were unloading beams and rushes beside a ditch that had just been dug. The camp looked less like military quarters than a construction site.

  “Look, there are the old hags from Rumelia,” the Quartermaster said.

  The chronicler turned his head to the left, where he could see a score and more of old women in an enclosure; they were busying themselves with pots hung over a campfire.

  “What are they cooking up?” Çelebi asked.

  “Balms for wounds, especially burns.”

  The chronicler looked at the tanned, impassive and aged faces of the women.

  “Our warriors are going to suffer horrible injuries,” the Quartermaster said sadly. “But they don’t yet know the real function of the Rumelian women. They’re reputed to be witches.”