Omer Pasha Latas Read online

  Things were harder with his mother, who kept trying to persuade him ever more vehemently to marry. That summer such conversations, which he had always found disagreeable, became a real torment. But by the autumn, ever since his sister was betrothed, his mother had become ever more persistent.

  That is how it was that November morning. Dawn had only just properly broken. They were sitting, as usual, over coffee. His mother was complaining that she would soon be left alone in this big house, where there should long ago have been a daughter-in-law singing and a grandchild crying. She listed all his contemporaries who were married. She pleaded with him to marry this autumn because she had run out of answers for the people surprised such a fine young man was not married, and for her it was hardest of all. She begged fervently as never before, asking him to promise. The young man gazed at the coffee in front of him, cracking his fingers, the color of his face changing, and when the old woman embraced him, he resisted and, averting his gaze from those dear, familiar eyes, muttered:

  “All right, all right!”

  “This very autumn?”

  “All right, I will . . . I will.”

  In her joy, the woman let her hands fall by her side, but at the same instant the young man leaped up in alarm and set off for work. He left his little cup of coffee unfinished behind him.

  In the routine of his work, he managed to forget the morning’s conversation. He ate in the shop. But when he was returning home at dusk, something unexpected and incomprehensible occurred.

  A strong wind was blowing and, caught in the narrow Sarajevo valley, it howled as it reverberated from hill to hill, tossing up leaves, twisting columns of smoke and seeking out badly secured tiles on the roofs. When he reached the corner of his street, the young man was struck by a powerful gust of wind and an unusually painful agitation at the thought of returning to the place of his rash promise. To avoid that pain, he slipped quickly and silently into the house, like a criminal, and climbed the stairs unseen. He could hear the lively preparations for his sister’s wedding going on downstairs. He wanted to get his breath back, to pull himself together. Calming his rapid breathing, he looked out of the window at the lights of the town in the valley and listened to the roar of the wind in the tall trees behind the house. But the unease that had driven him there would not let him settle, sending him from window to window, from corner to corner.

  Then for the first time, or so it seemed to him, he felt, in disbelief and with a cold prickling on his scalp, that the smile that had become part of him was no more, that darkness and blindness had come over him. Shivering and not knowing what to do, he sped down the wide staircase. Preoccupied with their tasks, no one in the house noticed when he ran out into the yard. He stopped there for a moment, wondering anxiously what was happening to him and what he was doing, struggling like a drowning man to glimpse that familiar smile again. No, it was not there! There was just the memory of it, and that memory was itself dark, and it hurt and burned him like a hot coal, driving him on to seek it. It was not there. But since when was it not there? Perhaps it had vanished long ago without him noticing? No, that was impossible. This very evening, as he climbed home up the hill, before turning the corner, the smile had been with him. And now, all at once, it was extinguished like a light, lost like a coin. No, no, it had been there, he remembered clearly, and it seemed to him that if he went back to that corner the smile would blaze once more. The memory drove him on, to seek what he was accustomed to seeing, without which he could not survive, just as he could not do without air, and which was suddenly not there. He opened both gates quietly, one after the other, came out into the street and made his way to the corner. There a gust of wind met him. And nothing else. In the dim light falling from a window onto the narrow lane, he caught sight of another corner. It was round a corner, he repeated to himself, but which one? Could it be the one he could see up there, ahead? He ran there. He was met by a still stronger gust of wind.

  He ran on and on, from corner to corner, until he emerged into the main street. Then he saw again the town in the valley, with lights in the windows, a malevolent night and its stars over everything. Seeing the town shrouded in night, the young man suddenly came to his senses, alarmed by what he was doing, and somewhat ashamed. He went home.

  That is how it began. To start with, no one noticed the young man’s agitation or the changes in him. His sister’s wedding took place and she was led away from the house. He was left alone with his mother. And it was his mother who first noticed him getting up, disturbed and dejected, going out, then after wandering about a while, returning, drenched and muddy, even more disturbed and dejected. No longer mentioning marriage, she endeavored to find the reason for these changes but with no success. He remained stubbornly silent. She enquired among his friends, but they could not tell her anything except that they had noticed how he had changed. He began to neglect his shop. The winter had not yet passed when all could see that this house had suffered a heavy blow, greater than if all they owned had been burned. The only son of the house, Osman, lay as if seriously ill, silent and motionless. His mother bent over him. With the soft persistence of a parent, she succeeded in drawing out the occasional word, or overhearing it as he slept, and concluded that the problem was a girl. Something like a secret love it was hard to confess to. Her son lay with his eyes closed, fully clothed, while between his trousers and his thin, tight shirt his sides and slender ribs could be seen rising and falling with heavy breathing.

  “Osman, my dear,” she asked tentatively, “tell your mother who she is and she will ask for her hand and bring her, even if she is the sultan’s daughter. Tell your mother!”

  The young man was not asleep, but he closed his eyes more tightly. He heard every word, but could not connect them in his mind, or catch their meaning. Who? Whose hand would she ask for? Who, and for whom? He could see no connection here to his torment. He leaped up, left the house and started running through the streets, from corner to corner. Now it was happening in the afternoon and in broad daylight for the whole mahala to see and know.

  He shuddered at the thought that yet again he would be running through the familiar streets, out of his mind, that passersby would stare at him, that yet again it would all be useless; he struggled with himself, but in the end he could not resist the powerful pressure, gave in and set off. And once he had left, after the first few steps, he would forget both himself and the world and be unable to stop. There, in the very next street, the face of beauty and her smile would be waiting for him. One more corner, another. No, that was not the one. But perhaps the next. Not that one either, must be the next. And so it went, until, utterly exhausted, he made his way back home.

  The following summer, a close relative was appointed to supervise the young man’s business and take over the shop. For four years his mother cared for and nursed her sick son, she paid hodjas and shamans, bought medicines and amulets. Nothing helped. In the fifth year she died. Relatives moved into the house. Everyone was by now reconciled to the fact that the former Osman had vanished and for a long time all they saw was a lost, gaunt madman, who would run a dozen times a day through the streets, then, without a word to anyone, return home, fall flat on the ground and weep. He was particularly agitated when the nights were bright. At first his madness upset people. They were afraid of him. His relatives had to shut him in the house for days and weeks at a time. Later it became clear that this was far worse for him and unnecessary.

  People got used to the town lunatic. The women in particular avoided him. But that passed. Everyone knew he was innocent and harmless. Sometimes he would run around a corner and, catching sight of a woman at a fountain, approach her, look at her closely and smile sadly, acknowledging her with a nod and continue on his way.

  Only the children would sometimes tease him and shout:

  “Run, Osman, run!”

  But he took no notice of them. He said nothing to anyone, nor did he hear what people said to him. It was the eighth year that he ha
d been running through the streets, day after day, sometimes more often and longer, sometimes less often and briefly, pausing at each corner, then running on. He was no longer the former Osman. Thin, muddy or dusty, ragged, with every muscle on his tortured face taut, his eyes anguished, with an unhealthy gleam, his gaze strained and vacant. When he tired of running, he stopped at the large, steep crossroads, collapsed onto the wide floor of the baker’s open stall and sat, arms wrapped around his raised knees, head bowed, weeping with exhaustion and disappointment. The baker, whom the relatives paid weekly, offered him bread, as much as he could eat. As soon as he had eaten and drunk his fill of water, he set off again.

  People were beginning to forget that he had ever been different.

  •

  The policeman who had taken Osman from the enraged officer was at a loss what to do with him. He knew Osman well. He was one of God’s children and an unfortunate creature, who had suddenly become a great criminal, an offender against the security and renown of the empire. What good were the meager resources of a humble and fearful keeper of public order in such a situation? And he was relieved when the leader of the district council, Sabitaga, a calm, dependable citizen, happened to come along. The policeman explained what he had been ordered to do, and Sabitaga simply stretched out his hand between him and the young man.

  “You get on with your work and leave him to me. Who could ever beat someone like this?”

  Glad that his unpleasant responsibility was over, the policeman went off to keep order, while Sabitaga took the young man into his own courtyard and told him to sit still. From the house with a boy, he sent a large piece of the sweet pie left over from dinner the previous night. The young man sat on the stone trough beside the fountain and ate, to the very last crumb. Then he drank water from his cupped palm, in little gulps, tossing his head back like a bird.

  Half an hour later, he was running from street to street chasing the eternal and eternally inaccessible smile of beauty, as if there were no emperors or imperial armies in the world, no seraskier and his terrible cavalrymen.

  Meanwhile, down in the crowded market district, the army was settling in. The parade of soldiers, officers and prominent citizens gradually dispersed, filling the houses, inns and barracks.

  •

  Omer Pasha was lodged in a tall, dilapidated state building on Gorica Hill. This was where the Bosnian viziers traditionally stayed on their way to Travnik. The soldiers of the seraskier’s escort set up their tents here, while on the steep slope two batteries of heavy German field guns of the latest design were dug into a semicircle, their barrels pointing toward all parts of the town. In the eyes of the townspeople, the low rise with the docile name—Gorica, little hill—began to darken and acquire an ominous look.

  At the same time, other units began to arrive. In size and equipment, this was a real army the like of which Sarajevo had never seen. As they arrived, these troops were placed over the northeastern slopes. Now the town was exposed to the barrels of the seraskier’s guns from two sides.

  Then, on Sunday morning, the local leaders and a crowd of people gathered to hear the solemn reading of the imperial decree that gave Omer Pasha unlimited authority, in association with the civil governor, Hafiz Pasha, to mobilize an army from among the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to introduce all the necessary administrative measures and to bring into line any who did not comply.

  It had happened before that, when they arrived in Bosnia, the governors of various provinces had brought decrees and read them at their residence in Travnik to the local leaders assembled there. But Omer Pasha had chosen Sarajevo for this purpose, the town of a haughty oligarchy, where until now the viziers had not been permitted to stay, and he had summoned all the leading men of Bosnia and Herzegovina to get on their feet and come to the town. Now they were all standing, in ceremonial dress, grim-faced and pale, in the strong spring sun. On a small platform were chairs on which sat Omer Pasha, Hafiz Pasha and several other senior officers, all in their perfectly tailored dark uniforms, gleaming with medals, bright buttons and gold and red braid. To the left and right of them sat the most prominent Muslim leaders, the first among them the gray-haired, portly Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović, the vizier of Herzegovina. At each end of that semicircle, sat—a great innovation—an Orthodox priest and a Catholic friar, even the Sarajevo rabbi and two representatives of the citizenry of Sarajevo. All the others stood like obedient children, their faces turned toward the seraskier. Apart from that, the whole flat, circular expanse of the musala, the space for open prayer, was lined by two rows of soldiers. Everything on them was new and clean. Standing at attention, faultlessly lined up, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, they looked like any Western army. Beside them and their dazzling officers, the ayans and leading people of the country, in their long coats of various colors, with cloth or leather leggings and heavy turbans wound round their heads, looked, for all their dignified bearing, somehow like highlanders or provincials, threadbare and shabby, and in all honesty, they gave an old-fashioned and somewhat pathetic impression.

  Omer Pasha stood up and at the same moment a young fair-haired officer appeared beside him and began to read the imperial decree. His Turkish pronunciation was correct but slightly foreign and his delivery offensively sharp.

  The leading men, all standing, listened with clenched jaws and lowered eyes, but whenever one of them shot a glance at the supreme seraskier, out of the corner of his eye, he could see that there was something about this slender, strong man that was alien, brazen and provocative, that went against their whole concept of imperial service and Muslim military dignity.

  The moment the officer read out the last words of the decree, the field guns on the Gorica and Yellow Fort hills boomed simultaneously as at a command. The earth shook underfoot. The three- and fourfold echo of the intolerable roar ricocheted from hill to hill, while individual reverberations collided, seeking vainly for a way out of the deep valley. It was only when the din subsided that it was possible to make out that the military band was playing a loud, lively march. And many a leader who had not so much as blinked during the gunfire, holding himself erect and defiant, now bowed his head in shame before the onslaught of this brazenly and intrusively deafening music, new and offensive to the Bosnian ear.

  But the worst was yet to come. Although it was nearing midday, the seraskier did not give the leaders time either to pray or to eat. The most prominent and influential, fourteen in number, were bidden to come at once to his lodgings on Gorica Hill. They mounted their horses and set off sullenly with their escort up the slope. They made slow progress through the mass of draught horses, gun carriages and milling soldiers, none of whom thought of making space for them and getting out of their way, as every living thing in Bosnia had always done. No one acknowledged them. The foot soldiers carried on with their business or roamed aimlessly along the road, paying them no attention, while the officers called greetings to one another in an incomprehensible language. In their tight, dark uniforms they looked like cockroaches. And, in that throng, the Bosnians felt as if they had wandered in their sleep into an unfamiliar, Christian country and were now forcing their way through an enemy army. Nothing worse could have been imagined. They trembled with suppressed rage, sweating under their heavy robes. For the first time in their lives, they had a sense of inferiority, which they did not wish to admit to themselves. It was as if they could only now see what a well-organized and armed imperial army was and what it could mean in a particular country. It represented might and order combined. And should it happen that such an army became the main and decisive power in a given land, it would never be so in half measures.

  The meeting that began at once in a sparsely furnished ground-floor room of unusual size showed the leaders that there could well be far more unpleasant encounters. At the end of the room were three large windows without curtains. This was where Omer Pasha was seated. With his back to the windows, he gave the appearance of a silhouette cut out of black paper. Be
hind him stood a young major, a red-haired man with an expressionless face and a leaden look that no one wished to meet. However terrible and hateful the seraskier was, that silent escort, standing like a shadow behind him, made him seem still more terrible and intimidating.

  The first few seats in front of the seraskier were taken by Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović, Mustaj Pasha Babić, Mahmud Pasha Tuzlić, Captain Mahmud Fihadić and Fazli Pasha Šerifović. The others found seats where they could. No one showed any concern about them, where they should sit and how to arrange themselves. No one offered them anything, not so much as a glass of water. No one smoked. As though this too had been planned, no one paid them any attention here either. Facing the windows through which bright light was pouring, they squinted and blinked, hardly able to make out the lines of the seraskier’s face, while he, on the contrary, could watch them calmly and observe them freely. This too put them at a disadvantage. They felt most uncomfortable as they strove not to show it. They did not even notice when the seraskier began speaking. He seemed to be holding a barely audible, confidential discussion with those immediately in front of him, but his voice soon grew stronger and clearer.

  He spoke like a busy man, with a trace of anxiety, about order and authority, about the imperial army and the need for it to be organized in an up-to-date manner. He enumerated instances of resistance over many years by Bosnian leaders to the introduction of reforms in their land. He endeavored to speak in the Bosnian dialect as far as he could, but his Lika accent betrayed him and he hesitated over certain words. Sometimes, not finding the correct expression, he made use of Turkish. He declared that the entire Turkish Empire had now submitted to the sultan’s salutary reforms, willingly or by force; only Bosnia and Herzegovina had not yet done so.