The Traitor's Niche

by Ismail Kadare

  People listened and shrugged their shoulders and went away with bowed heads. Others came and looked at this man who was dying and couldn’t tell who had killed him. There was no way they could understand that this person, for the first time since the last of their ballads had disappeared almost two hundred years ago, had been trying to compose a new one.

  Tundj Hata entered the capital city by the Seventh Gate just before midnight. The guards opened the doors, muttering curses and yawning, and only pulled themselves together when they saw his papers under the light of the lantern.

  ‘Another head,’ one of them said, when the carriage had clattered away deep into the city. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Why so surprised? Don’t you read the newspapers?’ the other man replied.

  Meanwhile the carriage wheels made a deafening sound through the sleeping streets. In the darkness, the high walls of the government buildings loomed over the road. Lanterns dimly illuminated iron gates with handles in the form of human hands. On that cold March night, it seemed as if the emptiness of the silent, deserted passages behind the gates would seep out through their keyholes like black liquid.

  The carriage rattled across the Square of the Ottoman Crescent, past the gates of the Imperial Bank and the grim building of the Foreign Ministry. In the distance, under the rising moon, the Obelisk of Tokmakhan appeared, painfully illuminated by a faint gleam that suggested the ethereal voice of some creature, whose plaintive tears misted it from tip to toe.

  The inner trembling that Tundj Hata experienced whenever he returned from a mission and entered the capital made his teeth chatter. The closed gates with black keyholes, through which it seemed all life had drained away, made him shiver. What had happened during his absence? he wondered. It must be something terrible. They might tell him, for instance, that he was late, or they might have heard about his head displays. Or, worse, some disaster might have befallen them simply because he wasn’t there.

  The carriage passed the gloomy lead-roofed palace of the Sheikh-ul-Islam. Its walls seemed to reflect back the noise of the wheels, angrily casting it back against Tundj Hata. Glued to the window and with a tightened heart, he looked at the great government buildings as they passed by in the semi-darkness. There was the menacing bronze gable of the War Ministry. There were the gates of the Fourth Directorate. The long walls of the prison of the ‘Accursed Courtyard’ were not far from the towers of the Palace of Dreams. For a while the carriage wheels rumbled alongside the rectangular palace of the Great Registry, in whose ancient ledgers, it was said, all the empire’s real estate, every property large or small, was listed. Tundj Hata sighed, without knowing why. It was said that in this Registry everything had a number, whether it was an inn, a mausoleum, an olive tree or an entire ocean. Everything – field, sea or olive tree – had a number. Tundj Hata sighed even more deeply. He felt like this whenever he was confronted by the majesty of the state, and his sense of its greatness was never stronger than when he returned from a mission at night.

  Here was the Temple of the Ottoman Spirit, and there was the western corner of the Admiralty, with the six-storey building of the First Directorate immediately behind it. They were all in their places, as they always had been and always would be, heavy grindstones ceaselessly turning.

  Yet out there – the thought made him laugh – far away, a few Albanians wanted to bring down this might.

  Tundj Hata would have released a guffaw if he hadn’t been in the capital city, whose walls seemed to press on his temples. Out there far away … he repeated to himself two or three times. There were Hungarians, Albanians, Serbs, Greeks, Croats, Romanians, and a swarm of other non-Islamic peoples. Out there … a vague, obscure anxiety lapped at his consciousness.

  He had slowly become familiar with this anxiety during his long missions, racing by day and by night through the interminable expanses of this centuries-old state. Its provinces, governments and great pashadoms stretched away one after another. The innumerable peoples of the empire lay spread out, each in their own lands and with their own fate. As faint as a distant galaxy in autumn, inscrutable, remote, their regions covered with indifference like frost, the thought of them made him huddle inside his carriage as he flew through their provinces like the north wind. There were times when, amidst this multitude of peoples, the palaces and columns and towers of the capital looked small to him, like children’s toys. These were brief moments and he laughed at himself afterwards for his weakness, as if he had been scared by a dream. But recently the bitter taste of this anxiety, which usually vanished as soon as he drew near the capital, had lingered.

  It was this that really prevented Tundj Hata from laughing out loud into the night.

  He wiped the steam of his breath from the carriage window and tried to work out which street they had taken, but could not. The carriage stopped at last in front of the house of the chief medical officer, Evrenos, who was also the court’s protocol officer. The procedure was to wake this doctor immediately when heads arrived late at night, to avoid the slightest delay in supplying medical attention.

  One of the Tatars knocked loudly at the gate. It was a heavy gate of oak, braced with iron. As at all houses where senior officials lived, there was a lantern fixed to the wall beside it.

  Tundj Hata stepped from his carriage and paced up and down the street to stretch his legs. The house was in darkness; the Tatar knocked again. Tundj Hata saw a torn newspaper, thrown on the street. He bent down, picked it up and tried to read it under the low light of the lantern. The decree condemning Hurshid Pasha had been published. Tundj Hata screwed up his eyes and made out a few words here and there. Something about the sequestration of Ali’s treasure.

  The Tatar knocked for the third time. Tundj Hata could also discern the name of Ali Pasha’s widow in the society column. Below this, the price of bronze had fallen again.

  Finally, a voice replied from inside the house:

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A servant of the state, looking for Chief Medical Officer Evrenos,’ Tundj Hata called out.

  ‘He’s not here,’ the voice replied.

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ said Tundj Hata. ‘Wake him up at once. It’s important.’

  The voice speaking through the grille insisted that the master of the house was not there. Tundj Hata finally accepted that he had been invited to an after-dinner party. He noted the name of the street and the house number and set off at once.

  It was an hour past midnight. The carriage wheels rumbled even more loudly on the paving. Tundj Hata touched the leather bag. Did you ever think that this is how you would return to the capital? he silently asked the severed head. You imagined entering in triumph on a white horse, with music and speeches, but here you are in a saddlebag. Here I am carrying you from door to door before I hand you over.

  The house where the chief medical officer was dining appeared dark, but a ray of light came from the garden. The Tatars took turns knocking until someone opened the gate. The man who answered was tipsy and barely understood what they wanted. Eventually he grasped the gist and went to look for the doctor. Yet on his way up the stairs he must have forgotten his errand, because nobody came back out. Tundj Hata pushed the gate that the drunk man had left half open and entered.

  He climbed the stairs and followed two or three cold corridors and saw the whole company through a glass door, in a room strewn with rugs, in front of a hearth with a glowing fire.

  ‘My dear Tundj Hata,’ Chief Medical Officer Evrenos called out. ‘Come in and let me introduce you to my friends.’

  Tundj Hata shook his head. He whispered something in Evrenos’s ear, while the other diners looked in horror at this phantom, white with dust, which had suddenly appeared among them.

  ‘Take a glass of rakia, sir,’ one of them said in a trembling voice, perhaps wanting to test if this uninvited guest were really human.

  Tundj Hata did not even turn his head. Doctor Evrenos finally understood the purpose of the visit, sobered up
instantly and asked for his cloak.

  They busied themselves getting ready. Shutting the glass door, they left behind the glowing fire, the excited faces of the guests, a little dampened here and there, and whispers: Who is it? Someone so sick that they call Evrenos at this time? Some vizier for sure. Yes, yes, it must be a member of the government.

  ‘We must wake the Keeper of Poisons,’ Evrenos said, climbing into the carriage. ‘He will issue the embalming fluids.’

  Tundj Hata did not answer. Let them follow all the rules, he thought. His duty was to bring the head all the way from the frontier of the state. There were other people to deal with the rest. After the Keeper of Poisons, they would wake the Chief of Protocol, who also had to be present when the head was delivered.

  Get them all, then, Tundj Hata thought, annoyed and a little hurt. It’s easy to make a face at the sight of this head, but try fetching one yourself. Ride hundreds of miles through the cold winter, only to find the man you’re looking for already dead and buried. Five fathoms deep. He had handled this alone.

  Trrak, trrak trrak … one of the Tatars knocked at the gate of the Keeper of Poisons.

  Let the Keeper of Poisons come, or the keeper of boiled sweets, but don’t argue with Tundj Hata, he muttered to himself. He was in the state of rage that he always suffered before handing over a head, especially when he suspected that there would be problems with the delivery, as there usually were. The protocol staff would argue about the appearance of the head, possible scratches and especially the firmness of the flesh. Everyone wanted to keep to the rules of his own job, and paid no attention to anyone else’s.

  The Keeper of Poisons, holding his enormous bag, climbed into the carriage as if drunk.

  ‘To the Chief of Protocol,’ said Tundj Hata and the doctor almost in one voice, as they bunched closer together to make room for the new passenger.

  Now we’ll shake this little bird out of his nest too, Tundj Hata said to himself.

  The carriage wheels rattled like chains through the midnight streets. The head of the Keeper of Poisons, no doubt fast asleep again, nodded back and forth. Tundj Hata wanted to shout: Wake up, servants of the state, leave your warm feather beds. Look at this cabbage I’ve brought you! But he knew he could not hand it over yet, and his excitement subsided.

  Trrak, trrak, trrak, the Tatars knocked at the tall and narrow gate of the Chief of Protocol.

  Tundj Hata touched his bag. My pasha, did you ever imagine coming to the capital like this? Hurshid Pasha, carried from door to door, knocking here, knocking there. Let’s see if they’ll take you in.

  He felt something resembling a perverted kind of sympathy.

  The Chief of Protocol finally came out, thin, grey-haired, sleepy, his locks poking out from under a carelessly donned turban.

  He climbed into the carriage, which set off for the Directorate of Protocol, where he would now deliver the head. The clock in a nearby square chimed two.

  Again the carriage drove along a street lined with government buildings. The Palace of Seals and Decrees. The Islamic Academy. Tundj Hata trembled. To his right he made out the wing of a sombre building that appeared powdered with leaden dust: the centuries-old Palace of Psst-Psst.

  Tundj Hata instinctively tensed whenever he passed in front of it. The thought that someone might have made a report about him from the regions where he gave his displays made his flesh creep. At times he thought that some hint must have arrived but, fortunately, remained filed among billions of other rumours whispered from one person to another, the stale gossip and tittle-tattle that millions of mouths passed on.

  Without turning his head, Tundj Hata sensed the wall of this repulsive palace still looming to the right of the carriage. Oh God, he said to himself, everything is there. His hand touched the saddlebag. No doubt your rumours too, my pasha.

  Tundj Hata shivered again, imagining the reverberation of rumours coming from the depths of the earth, from graves and tombs topped with stone turbans. The files of the age-old Palace of Psst-Psst were said to contain everything that anybody, anywhere, had whispered at any time during the last eight hundred years.

  Tundj Hata breathed again in relief. They had left the Palace behind with the roar of its thousands of files, like the waves on an infinite sandy beach. The empire makes a noise, the director of the Palace, Izgurlu Effendi, was reputed to say whenever the long-standing sickness of his right ear was mentioned.

  Let him go deaf, Tundj Hata silently cursed him and touched the saddlebag again. My pasha, perhaps this Palace was your downfall too.

  The carriage, its lanterns now extinguished, drove down some narrow lanes and stopped in front of the Directorate of Protocol. They all entered the building. Clasping the saddlebag, Tundj Hata forgot about the Palace of Psst-Psst. The blind fury that had gripped him a short time earlier took hold of him again. The delivery took a long time. The officials argued about the condition of the head, and although Tundj Hata waved the exhumation certificate at them, proving that the body had been under the earth for forty hours, they would not believe it, but carefully examined the cheeks, bringing a lamp close to the eyes of the deceased pasha, and sighing.

  Finally, the two parties reached a sort of agreement: the head was accepted, but the delivery note was heavily annotated with the head’s flaws, and the exhumation certificate was attached.

  When everything was done, Tundj Hata and the Chief of Protocol left, while Evrenos and the Keeper of Poisons remained behind to treat the head.

  So that is all, Tundj Hata thought as he pushed open the door of his house. There had been no shouting or celebrations to welcome him back to the city, only a few knocks on doors at midnight before his saddlebag was passed from one hand to another.

  His small house was surrounded by a garden. The moon shone on the bare branches of the almond trees, silvered with frost. It was a clear, crisp light that came from high above, beyond the reach of human hands and minds.

  Tundj Hata stood still, staring at this icy lacework. He was totally exhausted, but thought he could stay for a few moments like this. On his right hip, he felt at the same time an absence and the touch of something, such as a patient feels after the removal of a tumour. He understood and took a deep breath. He was relieved after delivering the head. Now Evrenos and the Keeper of Poisons are decking you out for your wedding day, he thought. The frost-covered branches of the almond tree scattered indifferent sparks of light like jewels.

  He felt that this bath of moonlight was rinsing the pollution of death from his body. He took out his key and slowly opened the gate. Inside it was dark and warm.

  He heard the gently tremulous voice of his wife: ‘Tundj, is that you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, almost in a sigh.

  After a moment, her silhouette appeared at the bedroom door, in a white nightdress down to her feet.

  He touched her hands.

  ‘How was it?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine. And you here? How are the children?’

  ‘They’re fine.’

  The hint of a cold made her voice seem even warmer.

  ‘What’s been happening round here?’ he asked.

  ‘The Veterans’ Circle asked about you the day before yesterday,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Anything new? All the smart people are talking about Ali Pasha’s widow Vasiliqia. They say that so far she’s turned down two proposals. Still, Lady Makbule said yesterday that she’s no great beauty.’

  ‘Hmm. Nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Oh, yes, they say that things are not going well for Gizer, the minister.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Jakup Pasha’s daughter said so yesterday at the tailor’s.’

  ‘Anyway, don’t repeat that to anybody,’ he said, taking off his sheepskin cloak.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I’ve no need to say anything. Are you going to have a bath?’

  ‘Yes.’

>   ‘There’s hot water in the bathhouse. I’ll bring you fresh clothes.’

  As he closed his eyes under the trickling water, he imagined how she was getting ready too, slowly taking off her underwear, splashing her sex with sweet perfume and then, smiling vaguely as people do when they think of someone’s irrational fancies, sprinkling her bush with white powder.

  Fine rain had started to fall as soon as the weather turned milder, and a huge crowd of people swarmed to the square to see the head of Hurshid Pasha, once the hero of the hour. Just a few days ago, everybody had been discussing, speculating and arguing about him, to the point of jeopardising friendships of two, five or even sixteen years. All these debates and conjectures and squabbles focused entirely on the future career of the victorious pasha, whom some confidently appointed as the minister of war, others as governor of Rumelia, and others still, who were few in number but for this reason all the more stubborn, to the post of grand vizier. Of course, there were those who doubted he would rise to any of these posts and shook their heads in bewilderment, before finally supporting one of the widespread predictions that imagined Hurshid Pasha in one of many possible roles, but never in the Traitor’s Niche.

  A general dismay had reduced most of the people who thronged the square to a uniform state of mind, just as the unexpected change in the weather had made their faces more or less identical, with their reddened eyes, running noses and sneezes. As always, among the crowd were journalists, the staff of foreign embassies, veiled women and curious spectators of all kinds. The faces of this swarm were all turned towards the niche, and they trod on each other’s feet while their elbows, knees and legs jostled and their bodies were pressed together. The artist Sefer had come as usual to paint in front of the niche. The pushing crowd had bent the supports of his easel, which now resembled the spindly legs of a stork.