At that moment, all of a sudden, someone knocked at his door. Byron’s muscles grew taut, like a cat ready to leap. That’s not Hobhouse, he thought quickly; his knock is much lighter. Byron picked up his pistol and walked to the door. So this is how it begins, he thought. With his back pressed to the wall, he slowly turned the key without opening the door. For a few seconds all was quiet in the corridor, and then the door opened. Byron’s perspiring hand clutched the grip of the pistol. I want to see you before I kill you… And into the room walked Isak. He was not taken aback when he saw Byron, pistol in hand, leaning against the wall. Instead, he tottered into the room and tumbled onto his bed. Surely he’s drunk, Byron assumed, but he could detect any stench of alcohol on the man. Isak had left the door open, so Byron closed it and crossed over to Isak’s bed. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, but not drunk at all.
‘What happened to your key?’
Isak made no answer.
‘Where were you?’ Still no reply. ‘Are things all right?’
Isak neither grunted nor spoke, nor did he open his eyes. He was pressing his eyelids together like a cowed child.
‘Fine,’ Byron said, as if to himself. ‘Fine. So now I get it. This is the place where boys behave like adults, and grown men behave like children.’ Meanwhile it seemed that nothing could make Isak utter even one word. A few more times over the course of that evening Byron sought to converse with him, but his words were in vain. At some point, Byron extinguished the light and lay down to sleep. In the pitch-black room, Isak’s voice echoed in a ghostly way.
‘They’re here,’ he said.
‘Ali Pasha is here?’ Byron replied in a sleepy mumble.
‘No, Zuleiha,’
And Byron was awake in an instant. But he didn’t have time to say a single word.
‘Don’t ask me any questions, my lord,’ Isak protested. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I promise.’
Chapter Eleven: October 16, 1809
Byron had slept well. He woke up feeling rested and cheerful. In the night the rain had sung him a lullaby, while Zuleiha’s presence resounded, refrain-like, in his head. Still lying down, Byron looked over at Isak’s bed. Isak was lying on his stomach, hugging his pillow. He appeared to be sleeping. Byron did not want to wake him. But he had to move, had to sit up, even though he knew that would make the bed creak. Some kind of energy was bubbling up within him. Energy – that everlasting joy, as someone had once said – although Byron could not remember at the moment who that was. The rain gave signs of slackening, even if only gradually. It continued to fall steadily, but the horizon was no longer so grey. The light spilling across the room was no longer as subdued; it contained minute traces of sun, like a river flowing with gold. The light must also have awakened Isak, for a moment later he turned over on his side, rubbed his eyes, and opened them. His gaze met Byron’s immediately, and he furrowed his brow in puzzlement upon noticing his room-mate’s euphoric mood. But Isak had been much restored by his sleep, as well. There were no more traces of yesterday’s confusion and exhaustion, of the silence and secrecy. He stood up quickly, and, as was his wont, began to pace back and forth.
‘Last night it took me a long time to go to sleep, my lord, in contrast to you. I was wound up like a top, and I talked and talked and wondered why you didn’t answer, but you were asleep. I talked and talked, like seldom before in my life, so perhaps it’s actually better that you didn’t hear it. I talked for so long that it must have finally worn me out, and I fell asleep. I had great need of a proper sleep.’ Isak blurted all of this out as he moved about, and then he sat down on the edge of the bed. He looked at Byron. A smile hovered on the Englishman’s face.
‘What was the subject of this nocturnal monologue directed at a sleeping man?’
‘It was about Zuleiha, my lord. Only I’m thinking that the monologue wasn’t for you; I was talking for my own benefit. It was necessary for me to find the words for everything that had built up inside me. To me it seems the more important conversation is with myself, even when my counterpart is asleep,’ Isak continued. ‘Poets know this quite well, because, while a poem is, for convention’s sake, addressed to a listener, its essence lies in what the poet is saying to himself.’
Isak stopped talking; Byron thought of Marcus Aurelius.
‘I saw her, my lord,’ Isak said after a short silence.
Byron said nothing. He vowed to himself: don’t interrupt him, don’t ask him anything, let him say it all himself. Isak paused again, looking past Byron at the wall, but soon his words began to flow rapidly.
‘Shortly behind us, my lord, a large caravan from Bosnia came in. Wealthy and respected people, I could tell, because the owner of the han took them in as if they were his own kith and kin. They arrived from the opposite direction: they are headed to Yannina, and after that Istanbul. I heard the way the innkeeper turned to the leader of the caravan and called him Selim Beg. From somewhere in Bosnia that name was familiar to me, but at first it didn’t ring a bell. I spent the whole afternoon mulling it over, my lord, after we had taken our lodgings here. Then, my lord, in the evening I heard someone singing in Bosnian – beautifully, slowly and effortlessly. And then it all clicked in my head. Of Zuleiha’s brother, Selim, it is said that he is a lovely singer. People were saying that at the wedding of Zaim Aga’s son. ‘You are going to hear a proper song when Selim Beg gets here,’ they said. That means that Zuleiha must have also been in the caravan, I thought, but surely they are going to keep her hidden. I made an effort to strike up a conversation with several of the Bosnians, about topics like the rain and the condition of the road, but they all made a point of avoiding contact. Fine, Bosnians are known for being cautious, and acting arrogantly, and I knew that this need not be anything out of the ordinary. But something in my gut told me that Zuleiha was there; somehow my nose was twitching at the prospect; I sniffed it out, the way a dog finds its master. And then around noon yesterday, almost accidentally, I saw her at a window, the one far back in the corner of the han.’
Up to this point, Isak had been speaking volubly and fairly loudly, as if he were delivering a text he had memorized. But now he paused. And when he started up again, his words were very quiet; the sentences were truncated and vague. He said that he couldn’t describe Zuleiha, not at all. It would be a sin to talk of her skin or the colour of her hair or eyes. ‘Either it is seen, or it isn’t, my lord. Either one remembers it for his whole life, or one passes that whole life in blessed ignorance, the way a blind man must live. A Franciscan who is said to have seen her abandoned his order and took to drink, but he never married. They say he said of Zuleiha that her feet were like paradise lost, her breasts more beautiful than any altar, and her countenance like the Promised Land.’ At this point Isak stopped, got to his feet and walked out of the room.
* * *
I should eat something, Byron said to himself. He left the room a few minutes after Isak, and was surprised when he ran into him in the refectory; somehow he thought he would have wandered off again. Byron joined him at the table. In a moment a boy served milk, bread, and cheese, and Byron and Isak eagerly set about eating. Byron was ravenous, and the food very much agreed with him; it was as if it turned to honey in his mouth. The two men did not speak as they ate. But afterwards, they looked at each other and Byron got the impression that Isak had regained most of his composure. The grimace on his face, which was the stamp of extraordinary romantic suffering, had faded.
‘Let’s go outside for a bit, my lord,’ Isak said, ‘the air and the rain will be good for us.’
They went outside and stopped under the eaves. It was cold, but the rain seemed to have relented even more.
‘There won’t be much more rain,’ Isak asserted, ‘and I think that we can continue on our way on the morrow.’
Byron nodded. They stood there for a while longer under the eaves, in silence, and then Byron took a step out into the rain. He raised his eyes and searched for Zuleiha’s window. He’d ta
ken careful note of Isak’s description, and he knew that it could only be the window on the far right. Byron continued staring up at it, and he sensed at the same time that Isak was staring at him with an equal amount of concentration. Finally he turned to his side, and his eyes met Isak’s. Now Isak came out, too, and both men stood in the steady rain in the courtyard and looked towards the same window. The heavy white curtain had been let down like a closed eyelid.
‘There’s only one reason, my lord, why she would travel with her brother and such a retinue to Istanbul,’ Isak said.
‘A wedding,’ Byron mumbled very softly.
‘That’s the only reason, my lord,’ Isak confirmed. ‘At the court she will end up with a vizier or a prince. That’s the way it always goes.’
‘Yes, always,’ Byron groaned, as the raindrops streamed down his face.
They looked towards the window and said nothing for a few minutes. After some time, though, Isak added: ‘Maybe it’s better, my lord, if you do not lay eyes on her. I myself don’t know if I should rejoice in, or regret the fact that I’ve seen her, nor do I know if I would want to see her again. It’s like when you have an unfaithful wife or a traitorous friend: you seem stupid when you are ignorant, but knowing breaks your heart.’
When he finished this reflection, Isak walked back towards the han. Byron remained standing in the rain, looking up at the window. He stood like that for a long while, not conscious of the time, and then he slowly directed his steps to the grove of trees behind the lodging. He did not enter it, however, but instead circled the building several times, the way the moon orbits the earth. On each round of walking, when Zuleiha’s window came into view, he locked his eyes upon it as if bewitched. And suddenly it seemed to him that the curtain moved, as if someone were peeping out. His heart pounded. On the next round, the curtain trembled anew. And again! Yet again! Then nothing. And again Nothing! Byron picked up the pace. He walked as fast as he could. His lame leg ached tremendously, but he paid no attention to it. Alas, all was in vain. The curtain hung there as immobile as a flag in the rain.
When Byron finally returned to the building, wet through and through and totally worn out, it was already late afternoon. The owner of the han stared at him with a slight jeer on his face. He slowly mounted the steps, and, when he was about halfway between the two floors, he caught sight of a group of people on the first story: several men escorting three women. He felt as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning, and was rooted to the spot: he no longer even saw the men, or the other two women, although he knew they were there. The only thing that he saw was the woman in their midst – Zuleiha. The encounter was brief, lasting but two or three seconds at the most, but for Byron it seemed like forever. His eyes and Zuleiha’s happened to meet for a second before all the members of the group disappeared quickly around the corner, into their chambers. Byron remained standing on the steps. He stood on the landing for a long while, like a victim of the Medusa, and then he slowly limped off to his room.
* * *
‘You have seen her, my lord,’ Isak uttered knowingly, as soon as Byron appeared in the doorway.
For now Byron said naught. He went to his bed and lay down on his belly, his head turned towards the wall. His eyes were open. He stared at the grey wall, or rather at a single point, a dark red point about two inches below a deep notch that extended horizontally across the wall to where his pillow lay. Apparently, someone had smashed a bug on this spot, leaving behind a red streak. Byron focused on this point, but in his mind he was seeing nothing but a single vivid face, a woman’s face, Zuleiha’s. From the stairs he had seen her for a moment, but in his mind he could more easily visualize her face than any other on earth, including his own.
In the brief confusion of the Bosnian company’s retreat to their rooms, a few intermingled voices could be heard, and he was certain that one of them was hers, and that he would recognize it if he ever heard it again. It was unusually deep and decisive for a woman – for a girl, actually. And yet it was somehow fragile and bright and transparent. She herself was the same way, put together from incompatible elements. Tall and shapely, with a torrent of heavy black hair, with a high, broad forehead and breasts that looked massive despite being corseted, and hips as wide as a river delta: and then again she had a delicate mouth and ears, and small hands and feet, with almost child-like, delicate ankles and a neck as slender as a bow and a waist almost as thin. Of course Byron knew that he could not have seen all that in those few seconds, but he also now understood why the old philosophers in the Balkans had defined love as “a recognition”. He recognized Zuleiha. Every previous recognition from Annesley to Sintra, had been a shadow and an intimation of this.
With a smile on his face, Byron rolled over onto his back and then sat up: ‘I shall seek her hand.’
Isak said nothing for a long time – for what seemed to Byron a very long time. He had a stiff, mysterious look on his face. Byron nonetheless thought he could read his thoughts: I’m a foreigner, a giaour, a limping devil, and she’s a beauty, known to the whole Empire and spoken for at the court. I’m from one world and she’s from another. Only Isak knows them both, and he also knows that there is no bridge or reconciliation between them; we are far too different, and that’s worse than being too much alike. It would be easier if we were brother and sister. Isak is in love with her, too. He’s resigned to the fact that he’ll never have her, but he loves her, and he always will.
Byron was running through all these thoughts knowing that Isak was also thinking along the same lines. He waited for the other man to say something, for him to begin an all-out campaign to persuade Byron that all this was impossible, that he should not waste his time on it. He was supposed to dissuade Byron from this mad intention, and explain to him how dangerous it was and even threaten him, cautiously, ambiguously. But Isak remained fixedly silent, on and on, like a grave; like the sky; like one of the novices of Pythagoras. Eventually his lips began moving, slowly, very slowly, and they formed a smile.
Now comes the ridicule, Byron thought. But Isak smiled at him with boundless affection, and when he did speak, it was almost a shout: ‘Well, I’ll be damned! That, my lord, is a hell of a plan. Bravo! Woo her, and I’ll be honoured if you take me with you as an interpreter and, if I may be so bold, as a friend.’
At precisely that moment, as if by silent agreement, they both stood up. They strode towards each other and embraced warmly. The hug lasted some time.
When they separated, Isak thundered: ‘Tomorrow we will present you as a suitor!’ And they both laughed, unreservedly, heartily, happily.
They spent the entire evening making plans for the next day, and their conversation was punctuated only occasionally by intervals of silence, but frequently by bursts of laughter. ‘Time to sleep, my Lord,’ Isak finally said around midnight. ‘We will need to sleep, because tomorrow you make your offer of marriage.’
Chapter Twelve: October 17, 1809
Byron was awakened by the thud of footsteps on the floor. Squinting through sleepy eyes, he saw Isak again pacing around the room. He’s indefatigable, Byron thought. In his hoarse voice he attempted to bring forth the usual “Good morning.” Isak stopped.
‘It is a good morning, my lord but may God grant us a good day, too. The rain has almost stopped,’ he added.
Byron propped himself up on his elbows. Indeed, the stubborn murmur of the strong rain had disappeared. Small drops still pinged rhythmically against the window, but gone was the heavy, opaque curtain of precipitation.
‘Maybe that’s a good sign,’ Byron noted.
‘For travellers, that is the case,’ Isak replied. ‘But whether or not it’s also true for suitors, I don’t quite know. Maybe it would be better if it snowed.’
‘Why?’ Byron asked with irritation.
Isak smiled. ‘It’s customary, my lord, in these parts to go courting at the beginning of winter. In the month of December, when the first snow lies gleaming.’
Now By
ron was grinning as well.
‘But this courtship will be anything but traditional.’
Isak burst out laughing: ‘Yes, that is what you said, my lord.’
Byron sat up now on the edge of the bed, and Isak resumed his measured strides across the room. Byron fixed his eyes on the other man’s feet. “How many times have his feet beaten time on this floor”, he asked himself. ‘It’s a miracle that there isn’t a trail here, like in the snow,’ he whispered, scarcely loud enough to hear. But Isak had heard him. He looked at him searchingly.
‘I was just thinking,’ Byron said, ‘how strange it is that no traces remain on the floor after so much walking.’
‘It takes a long time for that to happen, my lord. A very, very long time… Have you heard of Bonnivard?’
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