The Colonial Conquest: The Confines of the Shadow Volume I

by Alessandro Spina

  In a subsequent dispatch, Rémond reported an even ghastlier detail. A lady from Bergamo (meaning someone wearing a mask) recognised that the precious body of the soldier lying face down in the dust while the exalted enemy stood next to him was that of her only son, and had written to Rémond, not to ask him to keep quiet, but to write even more about that dead soldier. How confused someone’s mind must be to watch that scene without feeling repulsed, to insert that into the sequence of memories that constitute her son’s existence, to accept it as a definitive seal on his life.

  May God grant peace to that young lieutenant who left this world with an enemy’s kiss on his lips instead of a viaticum …

  ROMANINO: Do you wish to know when an officer’s resolve cracks?

  FERRARA: It makes me apprehensive.

  ROMANINO: If the officer stops thinking of the enemy as automaton and instead considers him as guileful. It’s laughable to accord those things such abstract concepts as rights, responsibilities, consciences and souls … it’s an entertaining game, like hunting – and massacres are taken lightly. But if said officer is rash enough to think of those two peoples as living under the same sky and under the same law, lights and shadows begin to assume such a mysteri-ous shape that he’ll start questioning himself while absorbed in the act of killing the enemy; he’ll start to tremble and his anxiety will lead him down any number of paths. If that happens, the connection between the troops and their commanders will be severed. In times of war, isolation is fatal: enemies become supernatural knights, one’s own comrades become demons, comfort and morale vanish and an officer’s heart can rarely weather the ordeal. A hero can become a saint; but if he doesn’t, guilt will crush him and the warrior will begin to fear that he’s no better than a common murderer. Cruelty and suicide become the easiest way out of this dilemma. Just as a language is only useful in the area in which it is spoken, and is pointless outside of it, so it goes with Europe’s liberal moral values, which don’t extend anywhere south of the Mediterranean. As soon as one reaches the other coastline, one is ordered to do the exact opposite prescribed by God’s commandments: kill, steal, blaspheme … Once the Turkish garrison was defeated and a few key locations on the coast were occupied, we found a vast, obscure country stretching out before us, into which we were afraid to venture. Thus, we cloistered ourselves in the cities while waiting for daylight. Instead, the night is getting deeper, darker, deadlier and teeming with demons.

  CELLA: (WHO HAS IN THE MEANTIME JOINED THE GROUP AND IS LOOKING SOMBRE) We don’t have the slightest intention of wasting our soldiers’ lives.

  ROMANINO: The Arab patriots’ courage is admirable. They’re as nimble as acrobats.

  CELLA: Courage devoid of consciousness is pointless. Besides, we have no intention of competing with those people, but instead with other European nations. The latter will be more impressed by our efficiency than by our courage.

  ROMANINO: Yes, our preparations for the war were so judicious that we didn’t know who our enemy was. We thought we’d only have to fight an inadequate Turkish garrison and instead found ourselves faced with an entire nation who’d taken up arms against us. Our nationalism is very recent, being forged in the ideals and wars of the Risorgimento. But with this miserable venture, we’ve gone back to square one. What now? We return here only to trip over the various newspapers, all the lies, and the public euphoria for the colonial enterprise, for this new Risorgimento, and we can only feel tired, bored, or as Captain Martello drily put it, ‘estranged.’

  (A YOUNG MAN APPEARS IN THE DOOR THAT LEADS TO THE STAIRWAY. HE IS WEARING A ROMAN TOGA AND THERE IS A LAUREL WREATH ON HIS HEAD. HE STOPS ON THE THRESHOLD, AND THE MUSIC CEASES)

  ROMANINO: Time is tired and it’s vomiting history.

  FERRARA: Time is just drunk, that’s all. By tomorrow, this confused dream won’t have left a trace. Must we give this woebegone tradition any real significance? It has no political subtext, is in no way connected to the Tripoli enterprise and Giolitti certainly didn’t make it up. The handsome young Roman by the door with the laurel wreath doesn’t threaten our awkward foundations. Everywhere you look, you can’t help but see the omens of a tragedy hanging over our heads like a Damoclean sword, of which the Libyan enterprise is but the prologue.

  (SHE PLACES HER HAND ON THE COLONEL’S AND IN A HALF-FEELING, HALF-IRONIC TONE)

  Tell me, does the Mal d’Afrique really ache so bad?

  (MUSIC)

  Chapter 3

  Hajji Semereth’s House

  I

  Hajji Semereth was a reticent man. He had spent his entire life under an unmerciful light, but the essence of what he said, as well as the opinions he formulated, were always ambiguous. They characterised him in a misleading fashion, as did the sophisticated clothes he wore, his gait and his slow, heavy movements, which were those of a man wading through water with difficulty.

  In Istanbul, the Hajji had occupied several public positions that prophesied a stellar career, but after a plot had been uncovered, the shadow of conspiracy had settled on him and triggered his fall. He had then withdrawn to that obscure provincial backwater and been quickly forgotten. Regardless of whether he had in fact been guilty or the victim of calumny, he was out of the game. Salvation had come at the cost of silence and renunciation.

  He led a comfortable, quiet life, playing the role of a merchant to fill the void of his days, now that the arena in which he could move had been so drastically reduced and could barely contain him. People said his heart nursed a longing for the life of the public official he’d led in the capital, but no one else in that small African port city seemed less interested in titles and positions.

  The doors to his house were always open. It was amongst Benghazi’s most beautiful, but only silence grew within its walls. Hajji Semereth’s presence in that house accentuated the sense of encumbrance and isolation. He received guests with all due honours, but never warmly. His relationships with people were bland, insignificant, unsolicited and a pointless waste of his time. He was very tall, and his face was frightening. A gunpowder charge had exploded close to him during a military campaign and he had been left disfigured. His hair had been reduced to a few tow-coloured clumps. A foul smell emanated from the wrinkles on his skull. He exuded an air of seriousness and authority that made anyone who talked to him instantly bashful and hesitant. It was like a spell that separated him from everyone else, but he was a victim of it, rather than its conscious master, as others tended to assume.

  He had four wives and a great many servants.

  Zulfa, the youngest wife, was twelve years old and the daughter of a poor gardener. When word of her beauty had reached the Hajji’s ears, he had asked for her hand in marriage. The gardener, ignoring the girl’s sobs, had consented: Semereth Effendi’s wealth would dry all those tears. The advantageous match had been sealed with a contract.

  The wedding was celebrated in the most splendid pomp that provincial backwater could possibly offer. That night, when Zulfa saw the tow-haired giant who would call her his wife, she grew so frightened that she fainted before uttering a single word. Hajji Semereth was mesmerised: he caressed the little girl, and although he guessed he was the one who had made her faint, he didn’t become at all angry, but instead looked touchingly at her, with awe: he had never seen such light in anyone else. It was as though there were three people in the bridal chamber, one of them a shadow that didn’t seem to want to leave.

  Zulfa threw herself desperately at his feet, begged him to forgive her and send her back to her parents and her home – how could she ever be his wife? The girl was so afraid that her words fused into a whimpering song, or an unchanging dance that endlessly repeated the same movements. That repetition was agonising. It was as though she’d got lost in an unknown country, armed with a language known only to her. At best, she could have tried to soothe her heart by singing to it, but the gracious melody would’ve been unable to save her.

  Hajji Semereth took hold of Zulfa’s arm and help
ed her to her feet. He didn’t speak to her about his rights. In fact, he didn’t speak at all: he knew she wouldn’t have understood him and would have just grown more frightened. Zulfa continued imploring him, but the gargantuan idol stayed silent. Hajji Semereth’s hand scooped her up like a spoon. That gesture was tender, but the idol seemed either powerless, or subject to a higher authority. Endowing it with miraculous virtues, Zulfa kissed the Hajji’s blessed hand.

  Semereth Effendi let her implore him until her voice went hoarse, and she’d cried herself dry. Finally, more tired than scared, Zulfa let herself go, sinking into his arms as though she were drowning.

  Hajji Semereth had then tried to exercise his husbandly rights, but tormented his wife in vain: their bodies were so disproportionate that the marriage couldn’t be consummated. Wrath had taken hold of that fragile creature: Zulfa had begged, cried and threatened to end her life, to the point that in the end she’d reclaimed her liberty.

  Semereth Effendi’s body took up nearly the entirety of the room. Zulfa vainly tried to distance herself from him, but as in a nightmare, the monster loomed over her as though he were chasing her. However, Hajji Semereth hadn’t moved at all.

  Zulfa then crouched in a corner. She was so tiny that the giant might not have found her. Silence, thick as water, seeped into the room. If there had been no other way to separate herself from him, she’d have accepted to die without a word. Once the Hajji had also had enough, he decided to speak. He told his wife not to be afraid of him, that she would be his favourite, and that as soon as she’d learned to treat her husband with the deference he was due, he would divorce all his other wives so as to be hers alone. To conclude, he told her he would wait for nature to take its course until her body could allow the marriage to be consummated, whether it took a year, or two, or even ten.

  He nevertheless begged her to pretend to the other women – her mother and their relatives – that the marriage had indeed been consummated. He wanted her to hide her sadness, as he would do, and didn’t want her to show anyone how afraid she was of him. Perhaps with time their union would be blessed by nature. As far as Hajji Semereth was concerned, he would patiently try to earn such a blessing.

  II

  Time became the indifferent arbiter of that wedding which nature refused to bless. The days went by indistinguishably, a clock veiled by an invisible hand. Semereth Effendi returned to his routine, hoping it might bring them together. Although he found his other wives insufferable, he often sought out Zulfa’s company.

  Their souls were as equally mismatched as their bodies. Hajji Semereth would speak to her of his business, of his former life in Istanbul, which he hungrily sought news of when in the company of others, but the shadow cast by these subjects made the man who projected it appear even more frightening to Zulfa.

  Rejected, Hajji Semereth tried to dispel this shadow by adapting his interests to Zulfa’s in an attempt to enter her inner sanctum: he asked after the women who came to visit her and the topics they talked about, as though trying to force her to express her emotions. Sometimes he would tell her a funny story, or feed her bits of the gossip that made the rounds of the market about the private lives of the city’s most illustrious men. Zulfa felt her privacy was being intruded on.

  It was as if they were two beasts locked in separate cages and condemned to look at each other without ever drawing nearer: their proximity made irrelevant by the insurmountable distance – and the distance between them poisoned by their proximity. Hajji Semereth would bring the bland, broken dialogue to an end with an impatient jerk.

  Zulfa had learned to keep quiet and conceal her rebellious heart; it was the only deference she paid to her husband’s pride and social status. When other women came to visit her, she didn’t show how unhappy she was, nor how impatient or disillusioned. She even avoided crying and confiding in her mother and sisters. Hajji Semereth was fully aware of his young wife’s dignity, and attempted to show his appreciation by showering her with gifts. Zulfa had either consented to Hajji Semereth’s request on their unconsummated wedding night, or else feared his wrath lest she should disobey him. Regardless, she didn’t inflict any indiscretions on him.

  Henceforth, Hajji Semereth never returned home empty-handed. Zulfa would timidly accept his gifts: they were prayers she didn’t know how to answer.

  Hajji Semereth would experience the same humiliation he’d suffered on his wedding night when nature had rejected him. As soon as he returned home, he would shut the gates and refuse to receive any visitors. He would cloister himself in his majlis without speaking to anyone or doing anything with his time. His other wives vainly tried to fill that void.

  Those women became malicious: they hated Zulfa, who was the Hajji’s favourite, and made overt and excessive displays of kindness in an effort to gain the Hajji’s recognition but, safe in the knowledge that Zulfa would never summon the courage to denounce them, they pestered her with perfidious questions.

  Whenever Zulfa heard Hajji Semereth shut the gates with that melancholy, deafening clang, she would run and hide in her room, listening out for that monster’s steps in the silence, on the off chance he would go out into the courtyard or onto the balcony. Whenever the Hajji entered her room, Zulfa would freeze and the Hajji would feel every vein in her body tremble while she perched on her chair like a critter shivering in the cold. More often than not, Hajji Semereth wouldn’t even enter the room, but would merely block the doorway with his bulk.

  The spell of distance had been cast on them.

  III

  The Italian fleet under the command of Admiral Aubry had anchored before Benghazi. If the city didn’t surrender, it would be subjected to indiscriminate shelling.

  The council of the city’s notables would have to decide whether to give in to the ultimatum or reject it. Hajji Semereth was sitting among them. He observed himself, having been exiled to that isolated province, sitting on a council that could casually decide whether or not the city would resist, without being able to change the fatal course of events. Italy had been planning that campaign for years, while the Turkish government’s reaction had been sluggish at best. Pride, which the ultimatum had injured, and rights, were both useless. In fact, the council was powerless to do anything other than ratify the verdict.

  Having been torn away from his house and his shops, Hajji Semereth wasn’t able to focus on the fiery speeches being made; neither did he believe he belonged to a political and military force that was powerful enough to counter the aggression of another. Admiral Aubry had granted his victims a deferment to find out whether they intended to welcome him with suspicion or joy. The meeting was irritating Hajji Semereth: everything had been predetermined and the characters moved around like ghosts, like a dream that would vanish the following morning. He paid scant attention to the speeches the others were making, and only said that since the majority were leaning towards resisting the invaders, he would cast his vote in favour of that. It was useless to try to convince the others that their refusal didn’t matter, because they already knew that. It was only a means to soften the harsh blow that reality had dealt them. Why rub salt in the wound? Those who so passionately refused to resist, would tomorrow become devoted friends of the Italians.

  The city was shelled. A bomb struck the Franciscan mission where the Christians had sought shelter, killing six Maltese men. The mission was only a few steps from Hajji Semereth’s house.

  *

  Benghazi’s Turkish garrison had mostly evaded capture, and after beating a hasty retreat its soldiers had been forced to retrace their steps by the firm determination of the Sanussi Brotherhood and the tribes from the hinterlands to oppose the enemy’s infiltration: the resisters’ camp had been set up just twelve miles away from the city and it was swelling to a prodigious size.

  The enthusiasm that reigned in the Benina camp was a sound that eluded Hajji Semereth. It had nothing to do with his age, but was due to an even stricter impediment. It was as though he were still bound
by the oath he’d sworn never to meddle in politics again after he went into exile, and which he’d abided by during his time in that province. In the upheaval the country was experiencing, he could have finally found a destiny befitting his high ambitions, all without breaking a rule or carrying the heavy burden of guilt which fell squarely on others. Instead, his heart stayed cold. He was only interested in what dwelled in the realm of rules, because all transgressions were doomed to be short-lived. Without the heavy burden of guilt, even the wide expanses beyond the confines of rules became empty and insignificant. His business affairs, to which he devoted himself in order to fill his days, were going well, but it was an ironic and humiliating blessing imparted by destiny.

  The city belonged to the assembly of notables which had voted to reject the Italian fleet’s ultimatum, thereby only delaying the course of events by a single day. The two warring parties, the Italian government and the Sanussi Brotherhood, didn’t hold it in much esteem. The outcome of the war would be decided outside the city’s walls, in the immense country that opened up before the aggressors’ eyes like a great abyss, and into which nobody dared set foot.

  Hajji Semereth had been asked to spearhead a peace initiative or a compromise, and join the city’s other illustrious citizens, who had already embarked on this project; the city could mediate between the invaders’ strength and the uncompromising hinterlands. Some wanted the Hajji to help the invaders, others instead suggested they were emissaries from the other side, bearing mysterious messages so that the Hajji would stop dithering and flee the city. Hajji Semereth had told one of these guests that if he joined the other side, he would only weaken it, that he was unlucky, and that his passions had come to nothing. These sophistries bored him, but there was no other way to avoid declaring for one or the other.