Byron and the Beauty

by Muharem Bazdulj

  Fortified by this decision, he emerged from under his blanket and sat up on the edge of the bed.

  * * *

  After breakfast Byron wanted to shave. A razor, as sharp as a sword, was brought to him, along with a jug of warm water and a large, lovely Venetian mirror. He liked to look at the reflection of his own face; he knew he had a handsome one. The curly, jet- black fringe, draped over his pale, high forehead. His skin had a distinctly white tone, like alabaster, and a woman he knew had once compared it to diamonds and moonbeams. He wasn’t the only one who liked the scruffiness on his cheeks and the short hairs in his nose; he realized that the effect of his white skin was even greater when it contrasted with the black of his hair. His sleep-dimmed eyes seemed to show indifference.

  Meanwhile, no one knew that his famous agonized look of secret mourning was the product of meticulous training. As a fifteen-year old, he had spent hour upon hour trying out facial expressions in front of a mirror. Women were transported by the way he looked when his eyes, as if irritated by the sun, teared up a little, and his brows tilted upwards towards his smooth forehead. His smile, proud and a touch contemptuous with its vibrating upper lip, was confined to the lower half of his face and did not extend as far as his eyes. A prominent nose, with a bit of the Bourbon about it; his delicate, chiselled lips, deep red, nearly purple; his teeth strong, with the narrow chin – the heart-shaped outline of his own face was thoroughly pleasing to him. He liked the way it gradually and evenly narrowed from his broad brow and protruding cheekbones to his lower jaw. It’ll make a beautiful skull someday, he thought; yet it would be a shame for it to turn to dust somewhere when he could bequeath it to the Royal Theatre.

  However, the visible hint of a double chin annoyed him. Since childhood he’d been inclined to corpulence. For him, boxing, swimming, and cricket had always had more of an aesthetic purpose than an athletic one. In the meantime, he had reconciled himself to the barely perceptible accumulation around his mid-­section. His clothes concealed that, but a double chin was something much more serious. Ultimately I’m going to have to grow a beard in order to mask it, he thought. His neck was thin, long, and white, with skin even softer than his face, almost swan-like. His shoulders and torso were perfect. His chest held a thick clutch of black hair, stiff as bristles; then came his powerful arms, slender legs, and the disastrously defective foot. He was born with this handicap, and because of it he had limped since he could walk, but that wasn’t the only agony that caused him to suffer: that crazy Bible-thumper, his governess May, who had deflowered him shortly before his 10th birthday, loved to tell him that he had no soul. ‘The soul is located in one’s feet, young master; wise people know as much. But you either have no soul or it is horrifically evil’ – those were her very words. Much later in life, when he read about such beliefs in a book from the Greeks or Romans he wondered where she had picked up such information. She had also told him that he was the devil, that he was Lucifer, Satan, Mephistopheles, the fallen angel; for the devil – as everybody knows – walks with a limp, because of his fall from the heavens. ‘He tumbled to earth and ever since then he’s been lame. Your mad father sold his soul,’ she said, ‘and now you’re paying for his sins’.

  Later on, at Cambridge, he had plunged into learning Greek myth­ology, mostly on account of Hephaestus, the lame blacksmith to the gods. And they had something more in common: they were both fatherless sons. While he had no memory of his own father, the man everyone referred to as ‘Mad Jack’, it was said that Hephaestus was born by means of parthenogenesis, which seemed to him like a heathen variant of an immaculate conception. Hephaestus’s disability had been inherited by the Roman god Vulcan, and even the Scandinavians and Slavs had their own gods that limped. In his view, the devil’s lameness belonged on this list: fire and a lame leg are what the devil inherited from Hephaestus.

  Just as he was finishing shaving himself, Byron nicked himself on the cheek. He wiped a drop of blood away with his thumb and stared at the blade: it was as thin and keen as a thread of silk.

  * * *

  Hasan turned up for lunch in the company of a man with a red beard. This fellow was of medium height and average build, and was dressed inconspicuously. His face, however, was quite striking; with its thick, red beard, gleaming green eyes and regular but yellowed large teeth. It was a face impossible to forget. The two of them sat silently at the table. The Englishman finished the first portion of their meal – a thick, greasy vegetable soup – but the two other men had not even started eating. They began conversing loudly, presumably in Turkish, uttering occasional guttural laughs. Byron put down his spoon and pushed the plate away. He looked at the wall and started drumming his fingers on the table, waiting to be served the main course. ‘Does the cuisine here appeal to you, my lord?’ someone asked him, and, without thinking, he replied that the food was splendid. A moment later he comprehended that Hasan’s red-bearded companion had addressed him in English. All the Englishmen looked over at him at once, as if by command, while Hasan and the newcomer began laughing seemingly without reason). Their laughter must have lasted for several minutes: they would stop for a moment, and then a glance at the dumbfounded faces around them would unleash fresh outbursts. At last they calmed down. Now Hasan rapidly spoke a few words to the new arrival, which the other man translated for him at once.

  ‘Hasan effendi apologizes,’ he said, ‘and I add my apology to his. He tells me that he informed you he was bringing me here, but he didn’t realize that you wouldn’t know that I was the person you were supposed to meet, or that I speak your language.’

  Byron suddenly realized that the man must be Isak, Ali Pasha’s physician, and he almost chuckled under his breath. To judge from his clothing and all the rest of it, the man looked quite Oriental, but Byron realized he had assumed that a doctor with knowledge of English would more closely resemble a Londoner.

  At this point the main course of roast meat and fresh cheese was served, and the conversation around the table livened up quickly. First they cleared up, once and for all, all the issues they had wrangled with on the preceding day. Indeed, they were told that Ali Pasha was in the north, subduing the disobedient Ibrahim, and that this matter would soon be resolved. They said he would be very pleased to receive the English nobleman and his entourage personally; both he and his son Veli Pasha, Lord of the Morea, who was sojourning at that time in Tepelena. In the event that neither his son nor Ali Pasha himself could come to Yannina in the next few days, he requested that Byron visit them in Tepelena.

  ‘It is not far away,’ said Isak. ‘Just a couple of days’ ride.’

  Byron and Hobhouse looked at each other. Apparently Hob­house was quite set on getting away to Athens as soon as possible. Byron, meanwhile, was happy at the prospect of an additional excursion on horseback across unknown land; and he was also interested in what kind of man this famed Ali Pasha, nicknamed the Lion of Yannina, would turn out to be. What would he look like, he whose fame reached all the way to England? Byron looked straight into Hasan’s eyes and said that he was looking forward to meeting the Pasha and that it made no difference whether it was in Yannina or in Tepelena. Isak translated and Hasan rubbed the palms of his hands together and then stood up from the table. The two of them exchanged a few brief words and then Hasan left the room, leaving him in Isak’s company.

  ‘I’ll be staying with you,’ said Isak: ‘I’ve been assigned to keep you company and to make certain that you want for nothing.’

  Byron made no reply.

  ‘Let’s drink a coffee,’ Isak continued. ‘I need one, and it won’t do you any harm.’

  * * *

  Byron asked himself that evening, when he retired to the quiet of his room, where Isak could have learned such good English. They had spent about three hours together after the midday meal, drinking coffee and chatting. Isak’s English was excellent: fluent, supple, and somehow bookish. Admittedly, one did notice the foreign accent, but it wasn’t definable. It was not th
e accent of someone from France or Spain; Byron would have recognized that readily, yet sometimes, when an English word escaped him, Isak would employ a French one. Byron wondered how many languages the fellow spoke. Their conversation today was fairly abstract and had touched only on general subjects. Neither one of them had dared to ask the other about anything at all personal. Nonetheless Isak had, at one point, asserted that he was a Turk and at the same time a Jew, and yet at the same time neither. Who is he? Byron asked himself. What is the story of his life? How old might he be? Judging from appearances, Byron thought he must be a little past thirty, but based on the amount of knowledge he possessed and the maturity that he exuded, he could well be twice that age. He liked Isak’s deep, sensual voice. The man spoke slowly and deliberately. Byron’s voice, in contrast, had something childlike or perhaps womanly in it. He had always been quick-witted, and the theatrical tone he had adopted in his early years in the salons of the aristocracy had unconsciously become a habit. Women loved the dulcet tone of his voice, calling it charming and magical, but here in the Orient, in the company of Isak, he came across, even to himself, as prolix and unworthy. He fell asleep that night with this concern on his mind.

  Chapter Three: October 8, 1809

  As breakfast was ending, Isak cleared his throat, seemingly to draw upon himself the attention of those present, and said: ‘Do not be frightened by the gunshots you will hear today.’

  ‘What shooting is that?’ One could detect the poorly concealed panic in Hobhouse’s voice, but Isak explained that it had to do with a wedding. ‘The lord of a small nearby manor, by the name of Zaim Aga, is marrying off his son. In these parts, people shoot their guns a lot, my lords,’ Isak went on with a smile. ‘But believe me, today’s shooting is only the pleasant kind.’

  Byron considered this warning superfluous, for a couple of bullets would hardly disconcert them. In fact, he might now well spend the entire day in anticipation of this event. Isak seemed to have guessed his thoughts.

  ‘I’d like to emphasize, my lord, that you are going to be surprised by the intensity of this gunfire. It won’t be the modest popping of a few rifles,’ he continued, ‘but rather a full salvo from an arsenal worthy of a real battle. You know,’ he concluded, ‘hereabouts the prestige and reputation of a notable are measured in part by the noise and tumult that he unleashes when his son gets married.’

  After breakfast, Isak sat sipping coffee again, and Byron joined him. He was slowly coming to appreciate the importance of the thick, bitter, black drink to these Orientals. It loosened their tongues, brought them closer together, raised people’s spirits, and apparently had the same effect as alcohol in the West, although it was somehow more elegant, and came with caution and wisdom both. It occurred to Byron, that after a few more rounds of coffee, he would be in a position to talk with Isak about nearly anything. Now, though, we are conversing just like two Englishmen: about the weather.

  According to Isak, the day was splendid, and almost spring-like, ‘God’s gift to the wedding party,’ he said, although Byron believed he heard a trace of irony in his voice. Byron said he’d enjoyed the sun, and according to Isak it was a good thing that he’d appreciated it so much, because the autumn rains were now, unavoidably, on their way. Isak sniffed the air like a dog, looked out at the horizon like a sea captain, and declared that this weather, was going to last for two or three more days, at most, and then autumn would begin in earnest. Byron just shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Indian summer, right?’ Isak said after a short pause. ‘That’s what you all call this kind of weather, right?’

  Byron mumbled something in the affirmative. It was hard to remain silent over coffee, he thought, and yet silence is a greater sign of intimacy than any other form of familiarity.

  After they had finished off another entire cezve of coffee, Isak explained that he was going to be unavailable until the evening meal.

  ‘I’m going to the wedding, my lord,’ he said. ‘I’ve been invited, and it’s a great sin to refuse hospitality when it’s offered. But unfortunately, I cannot invite you to join me, lest I abuse this offer of hospitality. It would be best if none of you went onto the street today,’ he added as he left, ‘it wouldn’t be the first time that someone got struck by a stray bullet.’

  ‘Well, it’s my life’, Byron mumbled under his breath, but Isak heard him nonetheless.

  ‘Ali Pasha entrusted you to Hasan,’ he said, ‘and Hasan entrusted you to me; woe to him who betrays Ali Pasha’s trust.’

  Isak stood there thinking for a moment, before adding: ‘honour, pride, vows, promises, trust, oathes – for all of that people here have one single word, and it rolls all of these things together into one. It’s bigger than any one part and greater than the sum of all the parts: you should note this word, my lord. It is besa.’

  * * *

  A wedding, Byron thought, is such a silly occasion for a celebration. What poet was it who came up with the image of the marriage hearse? Only once had Byron courted a woman, and he had no intention of ever doing so again. Mary Anne, beautiful Mary Anne Chaworth, his kinswoman Mary. The first time he saw her he was just thirteen and she fifteen. His face back then was still smooth as a girl’s, although several years had passed since he spent his first night as a man with his nanny, May. When they met for the first time, Mary Anne was taller than he. She was as beautiful as a goddess: slender and dark-haired, with budding breasts and curvy hips. She was his sun and moon and morning star, and for her he was apparently a tiresome little snot of a cousin.

  Over the next two years they saw each other only infrequently and for brief periods. By his fifteenth birthday, though, things had changed. Then Byron was markedly taller, dark sideburns framed his face, and Mary looked at him differently. Meetings at a halfway point between Newstead and Annesley became a matter of course. They talked and were silent, laughed and cried over England, pouted and then reconciled. She didn’t call him George, the way his mother did, or Byron like his friends, but rather used his middle name, Gordon. In turn, he thought up a nickname for her by combining her two given names into one: Marian. Lady Marian, as in the tales of Robin Hood. She was the first woman in whose company he didn’t feel embarrassed about his limp, and she was the first who didn’t ask him constantly whether his leg hurt, whether it annoyed him, or whether he was born that way or had hurt himself in childhood. The wonderful Mary Anne could slow her pace and stay beside him when they went on walks, so that he didn’t have to strain, but she did it naturally and unaffectedly, as if she always walked that way.

  Byron knew that she was engaged, but he never made mention of it. Engagements are a formality, he thought, but our love is a constant fire. Sometimes they kissed, on the banks of the river or under leafy boughs, passionately, fitfully, and abruptly. At times Mary Anne would simply push him away without a sound, but often she gave herself to him with the ardour of a lover who awaits her suitor after a year of separation. Her willfulness inspired him; never, neither before this nor later, had he experienced the same degree of excitement with a woman as when his lips approached hers. Coolness alternated with volcanic eruptions of desire; her lips would come close, as would the heavens for a great sinner, or they might open wide, like an unlocked chest harboring a legendary treasure.

  For two whole years, he lived for the meetings halfway between Newstead and Annesley, and then one day at dusk, he asked his kinswoman for her hand. He was seventeen, and to his mind, a mature man. He would soon enter into his inheritance, and he was ready to marry his beloved. He had never considered that she might reject him and actually give herself to her fiancé. He simply could not have imagined that she would choose this John Masters, of whom they had together so often made sport – over him Byron, in the flesh. ‘You know, Byron, that John and I are engaged’- those were her words. And Byron thought bitterly: I’m no longer Gordon, and he is no longer that mad and preposterous Masters, but rather John. ‘So does this engagement mean anything next to what we had tog
ether?’ he asked, and she shot back: ‘Does what we had mean anything compared to an engagement?’ That’s when he knew that it was over. He tried once more to kiss her, but he regretted it immediately, even though she didn’t push him away. Her lips, earlier so sweet and fresh, reminded him now of uncooked meat.

  For days and months afterwards, it was as if he had lost his bearings. He didn’t dare tell anyone what had befallen him. It was only the next year, when he and Augusta had grown close, that he could tell someone of that great love. ‘When I recognized the hopelessness of this love, little sister,’ he told her, ‘I felt I was completely alone on the wide open surface of the deep blue sea.’

  After Mary Anne he only indulged in embraces of convenience, rapid, frequent, and casual. But he supposed he would never again experience with a woman that swelling in his breast, when his heart threatened to burst; never more would his hands shake as they approached a woman’s face; never again would his lips go dry just before the sweetest moistening. Never more would things be as beautiful again as they had been halfway between Newstead and Annesley. Never again… right up until Sintra. Sintra stood beyond compare: the most beautiful place on the globe.

  He would write to his mother a letter with the following words: for me, the words the most beautiful now mean the most beautiful after Portuguese Sintra. Yes, Sintra was beyond compare. Its beauty surpassed everything that one could conceive of or explain. And that girl! When he first saw her, he thought he had before him the fifteen-year old Mary Anne once more, the way she had been when they met for the first time, or even more beautiful. She wore a spotless dress of white linen, with her dark brown, half-African face, and her small nose with the wide nostrils that imparted a sense of immediacy, and her worldly eyes full of health and merriment. She greeted him with words he could not understand, and quite bashfully, but in her voice and movements was something more than a usual greeting, although he knew not what it was. Her body rocked gently back and forth and she smiled at him, looking directly into his eyes, all the while wetting her dry lips with her tongue. Nothing is more arousing than lips like those. They had something of the world of plants and minerals about them. Irregular, like fruit accidentally split open, they showed what hot, dark, sweet blood comprised the inside of the mature little body. Only in the corners of the mouth were her sculpted lips drawn tight, as in a woman of the Caucasian race, but even these corners disappeared into indeterminate shadows, like the petioles of a leaf. They looked at each other for a long time, and Byron sank into her topaz pupils. They circled around each other, but nothing else happened. Voices crashed into their trance-like state, and Byron turned away, almost at a run.