by Elif Shafak
It was Sinan who came to their rescue. ‘Effendi, this bridge can carry fifty elephants if need be.’
The Subashi grunted his approval. ‘If you say so …’
Turning to Jahan, Sinan said, ‘Come, I’ll walk with you.’
Thus they crossed the bridge together, the elephant lumbering behind them.
Once on the other shore, Sinan was called urgently. He quickened his steps. Having not been told to stay behind, Jahan followed, and so did Chota.
Ahead of them the notables were having a debate over what would happen to the bridge after the army left. From their expressions Jahan saw that things had become tense. Lutfi Pasha wanted to construct a watchtower and detail a regiment to guard the bridge; the Grand Vizier and the Governor-General of Rumelia, Sofu Mehmet Pasha, disagreed. Unable to reach an agreement, they had decided to consult the architect.
‘My Lords, if we build a tower, the enemy will capture both the tower and the bridge,’ said Sinan. ‘They can ambush us from behind.’
‘What do you suggest?’ the Grand Vizier asked.
‘We made it with our hands; we can destroy it with our hands,’ Sinan replied. ‘Then we can build a new bridge on our return.’
Lutfi Pasha, who, because he had recommended Sinan to the diwan, expected obedience from him, became furious. ‘Coward! You are scared you’ll be left behind to guard the tower.’
Sinan paled but when he spoke he sounded placid. ‘My Lords, I’m a Janissary. If the Sultan orders me to raise a tower and to guard it, I shall do as he says. But you have asked my honest opinion, and this I gave.’
Into the ensuing silence the Governor-General said, ‘Well, the Arabs have been burning their ships.’
‘This is not a ship and we are not Bedouins!’ Lutfi Pasha snapped, throwing a cold glance in Sinan’s direction.
The meeting came to an end without a solution being reached. Later in the afternoon, the Sultan, who had been informed of the argument, announced his decision. Apparently, he had favoured Sinan’s suggestion over Lutfi Pasha’s. The bridge was to be demolished.
Destroying a bridge was easier than building it, Jahan soon found out. Yet it pained him to see the stones they had toiled so hard to gather and carefully position now come tumbling down. He disagreed with Sinan more than anyone. How could the man recommend wrecking the bridge, as if the sweat of their brows meant nothing to him?
When he found his chance to talk to Sinan, Jahan began by floundering. ‘Effendi, forgive me. I don’t understand why we are doing this. We worked so hard.’
‘We shall work harder the next time.’
‘Yes, but … how could you so easily say, “Let’s knock it down”? Doesn’t it make you sad?’
Sinan regarded the boy as if they had already known one another in a different time. He said, ‘My first master was my father. He was the best carpenter in the region and he was the one who trained me from boyhood. Every Zatik* he’d fast for forty days. Meanwhile he would ask me to carve a lamb out of wood. Then he’d tell me it was not good enough and take it from me. “I have destroyed it,” he’d later say; “go make another one.” I resented this but my lambs got better.’
Jahan’s back tightened as he thought about his stepfather. He recalled how once the man had scoffed at the furnace he had built in the backyard for his mother. Now, years later, he was not surprised to see that the anger he had felt back then was still entrenched deep in his heart.
Oblivious to his thoughts, Sinan continued, ‘When my father passed away, we found a chest in his shed. Inside were all the lambs that I had carved as a boy. Father had kept every one of them.’
‘I understand he made you a better craftsman, but he wounded you.’
‘Sometimes, for the soul to thrive, the heart needs to be broken, son.’
‘I don’t understand, effendi. I wouldn’t want anyone to waste my work.’
‘In order to gain mastery, you need to dismantle as much as you put together.’
‘Then there’d be no buildings left in the world,’ Jahan ventured. ‘Everything would be razed to the ground.’
‘We are not destroying the buildings, son. We are destroying our desire to possess them. Only God is the owner. Of the stone and of the skill.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Jahan again, albeit this time not as loudly.
Thus, on the bank of the River Pruth, they left behind them their sweat, their faith and their work, lying in ruins that gave no clue as to what an exquisite bridge had once stood in that place.
It was the night before the battle, not the nights afterwards, that would stay etched on Jahan’s soul – when he was still complete, still unbroken, and would have remained so had this been a different world. Jahan had been lying on his pallet thinking of Mihrimah. He couldn’t help it. His eyes acted on their own, seeing her combing her hair, or strolling through the rose gardens, her smile everywhere. His ears heard her voice. He was powerless as his senses conjured her out of the air.
After sunset the mood in the camp began to shift, and restlessness settled in. By the time darkness had completely descended there was a kind of anticipation in the wind, so intense as to be tangible. All the soldiers in the camp, no matter how high or low in the echelons, knew deep in their hearts that the star-filled sky they looked at could be their last. Tomorrow, when the sun was up and the enemy was within sniffing distance, none of them would hesitate in doing what they had to do. But now they found themselves dangling in a limbo between faith and doubt, bravery and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal.
A feeling of foreboding tore at their nerves. It wasn’t this bleak, doomed valley where they wished to die, their bodies picked apart by vultures, their bones left without a headstone and their ghosts wandering till eternity. They would rather be buried in a tranquil graveyard, dotted with cypress trees and roses in bloom, where the soil was familiar, where people knew their names and would say a prayer or two for their souls. The promise of victory and loot was sweet, yet life was sweeter. Many secretly pondered saddling up a horse and breaking loose, as if, being unable to return home, they could now go anywhere.
Despite the sounding of the night drum, the soldiers found it hard to fall asleep. Murmurs percolated inside tents as stories were shared, secrets revealed, promises made, prayers uttered. Walking past a marquee that belonged to the Bombardiers, Jahan came across a grenade-thrower singing in a strange language. The Janissaries were from myriad backgrounds, sons of the Balkans and Anatolia among them. Memories of their previous lives had been locked inside caskets, the keys thrown away. Still, at times like these, when they stood face to face with death, the caskets opened of their own accord and released fragments of their childhood, like a dream they had once had but couldn’t piece together.
On the pretext of fetching food for the elephant, Jahan rambled around the camp with a bucket in his hand. He came across dervishes whirling in circles within circles, their right hands open towards the sky, their left hands turned towards the earth, receiving and giving, dead to everyone and yet perhaps more alive than many. He watched pious Muslims praying on tiny rugs, a faint mark on their foreheads from all their kneeling. He met an armourer who kept a scorpion in a box in his sash, which, he said, would sting him should he fall captive to the idolaters. He overheard Janissaries cursing under their breath, a row between mates that would be forgotten tomorrow morning. He saw prostitutes who, even though they had been forbidden to work the day before the battle, prowled among the tents. Tonight of all nights was the most lucrative, since many a man would need their comfort.
Ahead of him were three whores, their faces half hidden under their capes. Curious, as always, Jahan began to follow them. One woman – young, slender and dressed as a Jewess – stopped and glanced back.
‘Brave soldier,’ she said silkily, ‘you couldn’t sleep?’
‘I’m not a soldier,’ said Jahan.
‘But you are brave, I am sure.’
Jahan shrugged, not knowing how to respo
nd.
Her smile grew broader. ‘Let me look at you.’
At her touch Jahan flinched. She put her arm through his, clutching his hand with so tight a grip that he could not pull away. Her fingers were soft; her body smelled of wood-smoke and damp grass. Trying to hide the shudder that had seized him, Jahan pulled himself free.
‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded like a heartbroken lover.
The request was so unexpected and so innocent, he was nonplussed. When he began to walk, she trotted behind him, the swish of her skirts reminding him of the sound of pigeons ruffling their feathers under the eaves. Staring ahead, as if the night held a riddle he had to solve, Jahan continued onwards. It was getting late, and moving around the camp with a whore on his heels was dangerous. Reluctantly, he headed to his tent.
There were three stable-grooms inside. ‘Hey, Indian lad, what did you bring us?’ one of them asked. ‘A gazelle, eh?’
‘She came on her own,’ Jahan said scathingly.
For a moment they were silent, considering what to do. The eldest groom, who had a fine pair of boots with which to trade, took the whore to his bed.
Jahan, feigning indifference, retreated to a corner and unrolled his pallet. Sleep would not come. His face set into a grimace as he listened to the grunts, the panting. When he thought it was finally over, he propped up on one elbow and glanced around. By a candle’s weak glow he saw them, he rocking on top of her, she lying limp and listless, her eyes wide open and fixed on the shadow of something that wasn’t there. She turned to one side. Their gazes locked. In her eyes he glimpsed her universe; in her loneliness he recognized his own. He felt ill, dizzy, the ground tilting beneath his weight. At that moment Jahan discovered – against his better judgement – a wild power smouldering in his heart. There was a dark side to his nature, a secret cellar under the house of his soul that he had not yet visited but always sensed existed.
He jumped to his feet, stomping towards the groom, who didn’t notice him until it was too late. He shoved him off her and hit him hard, a punch that sent the man tumbling to the floor, though in truth it hurt Jahan’s hand more than the man’s chin. The groom, less furious than perplexed, blinked back up at the boy. His lips twisted in disdainful recognition of what had happened until he emitted a chuckle. The other grooms joined in. Jahan looked at the whore and saw that she, too, was laughing at him.
Trembling, he slipped outside the tent, in need of seeing Chota, who was always sweet-tempered and tender-hearted, and, unlike human beings, knew no arrogance or malice.
As usual the elephant was dozing on his feet. Every day he slept no more than a few hours. While Jahan changed his water and checked his food, his mind was awash with images of the whore – her touching him, her following him, her sprawled on a dirty mattress, half naked. Yet, when he lay down on a pile of straw and closed his eyes, it was Mihrimah who appeared, once again, leaning towards him in a kiss. He opened his eyes in panic, embarrassed for daring to think of her in that way – a woman of noble birth, not like that ruined harlot from nowhere. Still, try as he might, he could neither banish the harlot nor stop dreaming of the Princess.
Next morning at dawn he woke with the sound of prayer. The grooms were up and ready. Jahan searched them for a trace of guilt or a sign of fatigue. Nothing. It was as if the night before had never happened.
Slow and tedious the prelude to war had been; the battle itself was swift – or so it felt to Jahan. He heard a rumbling echo, first far off, then too close. The enemy was no longer an obscure shadow: it had a face – a thousand faces, in fact, peering from under their helmets. Atop his elephant Jahan raked his gaze across the battlefield. In the distance, where the two armies were colliding, the colours melted into a cascade of grey. Sparks of light flashed and died, flashed and died, as blades struck against each other. Everywhere he turned he saw metal and flesh: spears, swords and knives; bodies hurling across the plain, staggering, falling.
The sound was deafening. The clatter of iron-shod hooves, the clash of steel, the thwack of catapults; the yelling, the choking, the constant repetition of Allah, Allah. They fought for the Sultan. They fought for the Almighty. But also for every wrong they had suffered since they were boys, the whips and sticks and blows they had endured. Blood soaked into blood on patches of earth that turned so dark as to be black. Their cheeks puffing, their mouths foaming, the horses galloped, their riders standing in the saddles. Clouds of smoke billowed far and wide. Though it was mid-afternoon, the light was already receding, the sky a mantle of smoke.
Bewildered, flustered, Chota clumped left and right, uneasy under the huge plate armour, which he had still not got used to. His tusks had been honed into sharp blades. Jahan tried talking to him but his words were swallowed up by the clamour. In the periphery of his vision he caught a movement. A hefty Frank, crossbow over his shoulder, lurched forward upon a Janissary, who, having tripped over and dropped his javelin, lay on the ground, momentarily confused. The Janissary ducked the first lunge of the sword, but the next one pierced his shoulder. In an instant Jahan steered Chota in their direction. The elephant barged into the Frank and lifted him up in the air, with his tusk jammed into his abdomen.
‘That’s enough, Chota,’ Jahan yelled. ‘Let go!’
The elephant obeyed, for a fleeting moment, dropping the screaming soldier. But instantly he hauled him up again, thrusting his tusk into his chest. Blood spurted from the man’s mouth, a look of disbelief in his eyes at meeting his end at the hands of an animal. Jahan watched terrified, only now realizing he had not been commanding Chota; Chota had been commanding him.
After that, Jahan felt more and more like a spectator. Chota propelled himself towards enemy lines, picking, hoisting and dropping off soldiers; he crushed two Franks under his weight. With one soldier he took longer, like a cat with a mouse, as if he wished him to suffer longer. He attacked a Janissary, too, not making any distinction between friend and foe. It was sheer luck that saved the man from being trampled.
Yes, the battle happened quickly, though afterwards Jahan would relive it in his head a thousand times. The deaths he had witnessed but did not see, the cries he had caught but did not hear, would rush back to him. Even decades later, as an old man, Jahan would find himself remembering that afternoon: a blood-stained shield in the mud, a burning arrow with lumps of flesh attached, a horse split open, and, somewhere, behind the veil of time, always, always, the face of the prostitute, laughing at him.
Further off, amid the sea of flames, he saw a soldier tottering, his face a carved mask, his midriff gored with a spear. Jahan recognized the foot-soldier whom he had befriended on the way.
‘Halt, Chota!’ he shouted. ‘Put me down.’
Both orders the elephant disobeyed. Without thinking Jahan threw himself off the animal’s back, dropping heavily on his side. He reached the foot-soldier, who, by now, had fallen down on to his knees. His fingers were entwined, as if grabbing an invisible rope. Blood gurgled out from his nose, a few drops spilling on the talisman around his neck. Jahan took off his mahout jacket and pressed it on the wound, from which the head of the spear poked out. He sat beside him, holding his hand between his palms, the man’s pulse a fading drum.
The foot-soldier broke into a smile: it was impossible to say whether this was because he was relieved to see a familiar face or because he thought Jahan was someone else. His teeth chattering, he stammered something incomprehensible. Bending over, Jahan listened, his breath warm against the man’s cheek.
‘The light … did you … see?’
Jahan gave a tight nod. ‘I have. It’s beautiful.’
A shadow of solace flitted across the foot-soldier’s face. His body grew heavy, his mouth sagged, his eyes remained open as though fixed on a cloud that had already passed.
Later on, when everything was over and the Ottoman Army had triumphed, Jahan could not bring himself to join the revelry. Trudging wearily, he drifted away from the camp into the heart of the battleground. It was a reck
less thing to do. He had no weapon on him other than a dagger he wasn’t sure he could use. Still, he lumbered across the valley shrouded in mist, pushing on through the field strewn with bodies that only a few hours before had been sons, husbands or brothers. He had the feeling that this place with its shadows and smoke was the end of the known earth, and that if he kept walking he would fall off the edge. He knew Chota would be starving, waiting for him to bring food and water. But the last thing he wanted was to see the elephant.
A few times he stepped on a soft mound here and there, and found out, to his horror, that it was a dead man’s thigh or a severed hand. The stench was fierce. The lingering sounds were eerie: the crackle of burning wood, the hoofbeats of riderless horses and, from corners he could not make out, the moans of soldiers still alive.
The pain, when it finally caught him, was like nothing he had experienced before. He checked himself over, unable to find anything. It was in his head, in his limbs. He couldn’t tell where it ached, for the pain travelled, now eating at his bones, now clenching his insides. Hunched up, he vomited.
Drawn by a mad instinct, he picked his way through the field, his feet sore, his legs heavy like timber, his forehead beaded with sweat, until he found an old gnarled tree to sit by. A troop of Ottoman miners was excavating a huge pit in the distance. When they were done, they would separate out the dead, and bury their own. What would happen to the corpses of the Franks, he didn’t know. So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he did not hear anyone approaching.
‘Indian lad,’ came a voice from behind. ‘What are you doing here?’
Gasping, Jahan turned around. ‘Master Sinan!’
‘You should not be here, son.’
It didn’t occur to the boy that neither should Sinan. He said, apologetically, ‘Don’t want to go back.’
The man inspected the boy’s swollen eyes, his marred face. Slowly, he sat down next to him. The sun was setting, a crimson tinge on the horizon. A flock of storks flew over, heading towards warmer lands. Jahan started to cry.