Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants

by Mathias Enard

  Having arrived at the palace, the omnipresence of armed men reminds Michelangelo of his visits to Julius II, the warrior Pope. The vast courtyard where they step down from the carriage is both brilliant with sun and shaded. A crowd of janissaries and functionaries organize the arrivals. The buildings are low, new, dazzling; the artist can make out some stables, apartments, the palace guard; the passageways and hallways through which he is led are nothing like the dark, crumbling vaulted ceilings of the pontifical palace in Rome where neither Raphael nor Michelangelo himself have yet set brush.

  The Grand Vizier’s name is Ali Pasha; he receives visitors in a beautiful, ceremonial room decorated with ornate woodwork, faience, and calligraphy. It wasn’t necessary to explain to Michelangelo that he should kneel before this imposing, turbaned man, one of the most powerful men in the known world, surrounded by a flock of scribes, secretaries, soldiers. Quickly, Falachi the page signals to the artist to come forward. The Vizier has a firm voice. He speaks a strange Italian, peppered with Genoese, Venetian, or perhaps Castilian. Maestro, we thank you for accepting the task that befalls you. Maestro Buonarroti, the Sultan, your great Lord Bayezid, rejoices to know you are among us.

  Michelangelo lowers his eyes as a sign of respect and gratitude.

  He can’t help but imagine the reaction of Julius II when His Holiness the Very Christian Pope learns of this interview, and the presence of his favorite sculptor with the Grand Turk.

  This thought instils in him a rather pleasant mixture of excitement and terror.

  The Vizier Ali Pasha has a contract delivered to Michelangelo in Latin, and a purse of 100 silver aspers for his expenses. The secretary who hands these papers over to him has soft hands and thin fingers; his name is Mesihi of Prishtina, and he is a well-read man, an artist, a great poet, protected by the Vizier. The face of an angel, a somber gaze, a sincere smile; he speaks a little Frankish, a little Greek; he knows Arabic and Persian. Then a series of dignitaries arrive: the shehremini, responsible for the city of Constantinople; the mohendesbashi, the chief engineer, who is not yet called Chief Architect; the defterdar, the bailiff; an abundance of servants. Falachi and Manuel translate the words of welcome and the encouragements of the crowd as quickly as they can; the sculptor is taken by the arm and led to the adjoining room, where a meal is set; already the uniformed pages half-hidden behind their long golden ewers are pouring scented water into tumblers. Michelangelo the frugal half-heartedly nibbles on the beef with dates, the stewed eggplant, the fowl with carob molasses; disoriented, he doesn’t recognize the taste of cinnamon or camphor or mastic. The artist thinks all these people are ignoring him despite the sumptuousness of the reception; for them he is nothing but an image, a reflection without substance, and he feels slightly humiliated.

  Michelangelo the divine has only one desire: to see the studio he has been promised, and get to work.

  Your arm is hard. Your body is hard. Your soul is hard. Of course you’re not sleeping. I know you were waiting for me. I noticed you looking at me before. You knew I would come. Everything is ordained. You desired my presence, I am here. Many people would like to have me near them, lying in the dark; you turn your back to me. I feel your tense muscles, the muscles of a barbarian or a warrior. You must handle a sword to have such strong arms. A sword or a scythe. I can’t picture you as a farmer, though, or a soldier, you wouldn’t be here. You’re much too coarse to be a poet like your Turkish friend. So are you a sailor, a captain, a merchant? I don’t know. You weren’t looking at me like a thing that can be bought or possessed by weapons.

  I liked the way you observed me when I sang. The precision of your eyes, the delicacy of their desire. And now what? Are you afraid, foreigner? I’m the one who should be afraid. I’m nothing but a voice in the darkness, I will disappear with the dawn. I will slip out of this room when you can tell a black thread from a white and when Muslims give the call to prayer.

  They will pay me, you have nothing to feel guilty about. Let yourself give in to pleasure. You’re trembling. You don’t desire me? Then listen. Once upon a time, in a country far away . . . No, I won’t tell you a story. The time for stories has passed. The era of fairy tales is over. The kings are savages who kill their horses beneath them; it’s been a long time since they offered elephants to their princesses. My world is dead, stranger, I had to flee it, abandon even my memories. I was a child. All I remember is the day of the fall, my panicked mother, my father, confident in the future, who tried to reassure her, our prince the traitor who fled after opening the city up to the Christian armies. It was in January, a soft snow was gleaming on the mountain. The weather was fine. Ysabel and Fernando, your coarse Catholic sovereigns, slept in the Alhambra; Fernando took off his armor to mount his royal female, in the most beautiful room in the palace, after sponsoring a victory Mass where all his knights, having entered the citadel without fighting, prayed fervently. Three months later, when we had seen the noble Spaniards settle in the medina, they chased us away. Departure, conversion, or death. We respected the Christians. There were pacts, agreements. Vanished overnight.

  I’ll probably never see the place where I grew up again. I could hate you for that, you and your cross. I’d have that right. My father died in the sufferings of the journey. My mother is buried two parasangs from here. Sultan Bayezid welcomed us, into this capital conquered by the Romans. That’s justice. Eye for eye, city for city. You’ve stopped trembling. I’m caressing you gently and you remain icy, cold as a river. You don’t like my story? I doubt you’re really listening to me. You must understand some words, a few scraps, bits of phrases. You’re surprised that I can speak Castilian. Many things would surprise you more if you had seen Grenada.

  I have no bitterness. A pale winter sun shines down today on Andalusia, never will spring return there. Things pass.

  They speak of a New World; they say that beyond the seas are infinitely wealthy lands that the Franks conquered. The stars are turning away from us; they are plunging us into twilight. The light goes to the other side of the earth, who knows when it will return. I don’t know you, stranger. You know nothing of me, we have only the night in common. We share this moment, despite ourselves. Despite the blows we have brought against each other, the things destroyed, I am pressed against you in the dark. I will not entertain you with my stories till dawn. I will speak to you neither of good genies nor terrifying ghouls, nor of journeys to dangerous islands. Let yourself go. Forget your fear, take advantage of the fact that I, like you, am a piece of flesh that belongs to no one except God. Take a little of my beauty, the perfume of my skin. I’m offering it to you. It will be neither a betrayal nor a vow; neither a defeat nor a victory.

  Just two hands imprisoning each other, the way lips press against each other without ever joining.

  Manuel the translator visits Michelangelo every morning to ask him if he needs anything, if he can accompany him anywhere; usually he finds the sculptor busy drawing, or else compiling one of his countless lists in his notebook. Sometimes, he is fortunate enough to be able to observe the Florentine as he outlines, in ink or graphite, an anatomical study, or the detail of an architectural ornament.

  Manuel is fascinated.

  Amused by his interest, Michelangelo shows off. He asks him to place his hand on the table and, in two minutes, he sketches the wrist, all the complexity of the curved fingers and the flesh of the fingers.

  “It’s a miracle, Maestro,” Manuel whispers.

  Michelangelo bursts out laughing.

  “A miracle? No, my friend. It’s pure genius, I don’t need God for that.”

  Manuel remains stunned.

  “I’m making fun of you, Manuel. It’s work, above all. Talent is nothing without work. Try it, if you like.”

  Manuel shakes his head, terrified.

  “But I don’t know how, Maestro, I know nothing about drawing.”

  “I’ll teach you. There’s no other way
. Lean your left arm on the table in front of you, with your hand half-open, thumb relaxed, and with your right hand draw what you see, once, twice, three times, a thousand times. You don’t need a model or a master. There is everything in one hand. Bones, movements, materials, proportions, even drapery. Trust your eye. Begin again until you know how. Then you’ll do the same thing with your foot, placing it on a stool; then with your face, with the help of a mirror. Only then can you move on to a model, for the poses.”

  “You think it’s possible to get there, Maestro? Here no one draws like you. Icons . . .”

  Michelangelo interrupts him abruptly.

  “Icons are children’s images, Manuel. Painted by children for children. Believe me, follow my advice and you’ll see that you can draw. Afterward you can amuse yourself by copying icons as much as you like.”

  “I’ll try, Maestro. Would you like to go for a walk or visit a monument?”

  “No, Manuel, not now. I’m fine here, the light is perfect, there are no shadows on my page, I’m working, I don’t need anything else, thank you.”

  “All right. Tomorrow we’ll go see your studio. See you soon, then.”

  And the Greek dragoman withdraws, wondering if he’ll dare to place his hand on the table and begin drawing too.

  The studio is in the outbuildings of the former palace of the sultans, a stone’s throw from a grandiose mosque whose construction has just been completed. The secretary-poet Mesihi, the page Falachi and Manuel accompanied Michelangelo to take possession of the site, a little worried about the artist’s reaction.

  A tall, vaulted room, furnished with a crowd of draftsmen and engineers, standing in rows in front of large tables cluttered with drawings and plans.

  Some models on display stands, several different models of strange workmanship, a singular bridge, two parabolas that form a deck at their asymptote, supported by a single arch, a little like a cat arching its back.

  Here are your kingdom and your subjects, Maestro, Falachi says. Mesihi adds a phrase of welcome that Michelangelo does not hear. His gaze is fixed on the models.

  “They are models made from the drawing proposed by Leonardo da Vinci, Maestro. The engineers thought it inventive, but impossible to build and, how to put it, the Sultan thought it rather . . . rather ugly, despite its lightness.”

  If the great Leonardo understood nothing of sculpture, then he understands nothing of architecture either.

  Michelangelo the genius walks over to the project of his famous elder; he looks at it for a minute, then, with a broad swipe, propels it to the bottom of the pedestal; the glued-wood edifice falls on its feet without breaking.

  The sculptor then places his right shoe on the small-scale model and crushes it furiously.

  The bridge over the Golden Horn must unite two fortresses, it is a royal bridge, a bridge that, from two shores that everything keeps apart, will form a huge city. Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing is ingenious. Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing is so innovative that it is frightening. Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing is devoid of interest because he is thinking neither of the Sultan, nor of the city, nor of the fortress. Instinctively, Michelangelo knows he will go much further, that he will succeed, because he has seen Constantinople, because he has understood that the work demanded of him is not a vertiginous footbridge, but the cement of a city, of the city of emperors and sultans. A military bridge, a commercial bridge, a religious bridge.

  A political bridge.

  A piece of urbanity.

  The engineers, model-makers, Mesihi, Falachi, and Manuel all have their eyes riveted on Michelangelo, the way one looks at a bomb whose fuse has been lit. They wait for the artist to calm down.

  Which he does. His eyes sparkle, he smiles, he looks as if he has just emerged from an overstimulating dream.

  He shoves the model’s debris away with his foot, then says calmly:

  “This studio is magnificent. To work. Manuel, take me to see the Santa Sophia Basilica, please.”

  On May 18, 1506, Michelangelo Buonarroti, standing on the short esplanade, looks at the church that, just fifty years earlier, was still the center of Christianity. He thinks of Constantine, of Justinian, of the imperial purple, and of the more or less barbaric crusaders that have entered it on horseback to emerge loaded down with relics; twenty years later, drawing a dome for the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, he would think again of the cupola of that Santa Sophia whose profile he can see from the square where the people of Istanbul crowd together for afternoon prayer, guided by the human clock of the muezzin.

  Next to him, Mesihi, native son of Prishtina, perhaps also remembers his emotion when he first arrived in Constantinople, in Istanbul, the newly appointed residence of the Sultan and capital of the Empire; in any case, he takes the sculptor by the arm and says, pointing to the faithful passing through the building’s vast narthex:

  “Let’s follow them, Maestro.”

  And Michelangelo, aided by the poet’s hand and the fascination exercised on him by the sublime edifice, overcomes his fear and distaste for Muslim things and enters it.

  The sculptor has never seen anything like it.

  Eighteen pillars of the most beautiful marble, serpentine tiles and porphyry inlays, four perfect arches that bear a vertiginous dome. Mesihi leads him upstairs to the gallery overlooking the prayer hall. Michelangelo has eyes only for the cupola and especially for the windows through which pours a sun divided into squares, a joyful light that outlines imageless icons on the walls.

  Such an impression of lightness despite the mass, such a contrast between the outer austerity and the elevation, the levitation almost, of the inner space, the balance of proportions in the magical simplicity of the square design in which the circle of the dome fits perfectly, it nearly brings tears to the sculptor’s eyes. If only his master Giuliano da Sangallo were here. The old Florentine architect would no doubt immediately begin drawing, bringing out details, plotting elevations.

  Below him, in the choir, the faithful are prostrating on countless rugs. They kneel down, place their foreheads on the ground, then get up, look at their hands held out in front of them as if they were holding a book, then place them behind their ears the better to hear a silent clamor, and then they kneel down again. They are murmuring, chanting, and the hum of all these inaudible words buzzes and mingles with the pure light, without any pious images, without any sculptures to divert the gaze from God; just a few arabesques, snakes of blank ink, seem to float in the air.

  Strange beings, these Mohammedans.

  Strange beings, these Mohammedans and their austere cathedral, without even an image of their Prophet. Through Manuel, Mesihi explains to Michelangelo that the white plaster coats hide the Christian mosaics and frescos that used to cover the walls. Calligraphies are our images, Maestro, images of our faith. Manuel deciphers the barbaric writing for the artist: There is no god but God, Mohammed is the prophet of God.

  “Here, Mohammed is the one you call Maometto, Maestro.”

  The one Dante sends to the fifth circle of Hell, thinks Michelangelo, before resuming his contemplation of the building.

  Constantinople, May 19, 1506

  To Buonarroto di Lodovico di Buonarrota Simoni in Firenze

  Buonarroto, I received today, May 19, a letter from you in which you recommend Piero Aldobrandini and enjoin me to do what he asks of me. Know that he has written to me here requesting I make him a dagger blade, and that I make a special effort for it to be marvelous. I don’t know how I could serve him quickly and well: first of all because that is not at all my profession, and second because I have no time to devote to it. However I will strive to satisfy him in one way or another.

  For your affairs, especially those of Giovan Simone, I understood everything. I would like him to set himself up in your shop, for I want to help him just as much as the rest of you; and if God grant me his aid, as he always has up til
l now, I hope to have finished rather quickly what I must do here and will return to do what I promised you. For the money you say Giovan Simone wants to invest in a trade, you should urge him to wait until I return, and we will settle everything all together. I know you understand me, and that is enough. Tell him from me that if he still wants the sum you mention, he’ll have to take it from the Santa Maria Maggiore account. From here I have nothing to send you yet because I’ve only acquired a little money from my work, which is still a doubtful thing, and which could cause my ruin. For that reason I ask you to be patient for a little while, until I return.

  As for Giovan Simone’s wish to join me, I do not advise it for the moment, for I’m staying here in a mean chamber, so I would not have the possibility of receiving him as he should be. If he insists, tell him one can’t come here in a day on horseback!

  That’s all.

  Pray to God for me and for everything to go well.

  Your Michelagnolo

  May 19: candles, lamp, two small coins; pottage (herbs, spices, bread, oil) the same; fried fish, two pigeons, one ducat and a half; plates & cutlery, one small coin; wool blanket, one ducat.

  Clear, cool water.

  A lute, a mandola, and a viol that Michelangelo does not know are called oud, saz, and kaman, accompanied by a tambourine played with fingers alternately caressing and violent by a young woman dressed as a man, whose metal bracelets jingle in rhythm and from time to time, adding a metallic percussion to the concert and distracting the Florentine artist a little from this music that’s both wild and melancholic: it is with this accompaniment that the young woman — or the young man, it would be hard to swear to the sex, thanks to the harem trousers and billowing shirt — sings poems of which Michelangelo can make nothing. Between couplets, as the little orchestra is playing to its heart’s content, she, or he, dances; an elegant dance, very restrained, in which the body spins, moves around a fixed axis, almost without the feet moving at all. A slow undulation of strings released, manipulated by the wind. If it’s a woman’s body, it’s perfect; if it’s a man’s body, Michelangelo would pay dearly to see the muscles of his thighs and calves stand out, his bone structure moving, his shoulders animating his biceps and pectorals. At times, the baggy trousers allow glimpses of a thin but powerful ankle, twisted by the effort; the shirt, which stops below the elbow, before the bracelets, rhythmically reveals the muscles of the forearm jutting out, which the sculptor cherishes as the most beautiful part of the body, on which you can most easily imprint movement, expression, will.