by Mika Waltari
Though he strove to master himself I saw his tremulous hands and twitching face, and as a physician I knew how sick must be his heart. I said soothingly, “Noble lord, the month of Ramadan has begun-a month as trying for rulers as for slaves. When the fast is over you will see all with other eyes and laugh at your hallucinations. You would do well to eat and drink your fill, visit your harem, and linger there until the new day of fasting and it is light enough to distinguish a black thread from a white. Experience had shown that pious vigil among the women of the harem has a soothing effect on the mind during Ramadan, and is prescribed by the Prophet himself.”
He looked at me from out of his despair. “How can I eat or drink when because of his sickness my lord must fast? He is not my lord, he is my heart’s brother, and I have never felt it so strongly as at the beginning of this Ramadan. My heart’s brother and my only true friend on earth. For years I forgot this, arrogantly enjoying his gifts and his infinite favor. While his cruel father Selim lived we rode side by side and the dark wings of death hovered over our heads. He trusted me then-he knew I was ready at any moment to die for him.
But now his trust is gone. Were it not so he would not have given me this seal. He did it only to convince himself. He is a singular man, Michael. But why speak of that? It is all too late. My clock loses more and more and I have nothing to do but read words that have been beautifully strung together. For my eyes are still alive-”
He could sit still no longer, but rose to pace back and forth restlessly, the sound of his steps muffled by the gorgeous Oriental rugs. He cried out in despair, “My clock is losing! It has been slow from the first hour. The clocks of Europe tick more quickly than the best clocks of the East. Whatever I dreamed, desired, hoped, and even achieved, I heard only the answer of my dragging clock-’Too late, too late.’ It was too late before Vienna. Too late in Bagdad, too late in Tabriz. Khaireddin came too late. Whatever I have done or decided-all has been too late.”
Blood was mounting to his head and his eyes were suffused with it as he stared at me. “Allah, what can one man do! What armies of prejudice have I not had to fight, every moment! Everything I have achieved, every law I have made, has been met with hatred and ridicule. Yet when at length all opposition was vanquished the answer was the same-’’Too late!’ Only yesterday in my foolish conceit I could fancy no greater bitterness than this. But now at the beginning of Ramadan, as I sit reading words, I no longer care to defy my destiny.”
His arms fell limply and his face, beautiful in its pallor, became calm and peaceful. An almost mischievous smile played over his lips as he said, “One of the Roman emperors sighed, when he was at the point of death, ‘What an actor the world loses in me!’ But I can hardly call myself even an actor. For the sake of our friendship I have so renounced myself that I hardly know when I’m acting and when I’m in earnest. Too much power turns a man into an actor-above all if that power is dependent on the will and favor of another, though that other be the most excellent man in the world. Yet I know that it is the same with him and perhaps even worse, for after all that has happened he will never be entirely sincere with anyone. He must choose every word and control every change of expression. Michael, Michael, he will suffer worse than I, and he will never know which is truth and which is falsehood in his own heart. And so I shudder for him, knowing how hideously alone he will be in the world. God, Allah, unknown tempter! Whoever You be, You cannot deny our friendship.”
He fell silent and listened, shocked, to the echo of his voice. Then he whispered, “No man can trust his neighbor. That is the only enduring truth; there is none other in the world.”
“Noble lord,” I said, “too great mistrust is as bad as overconfidence. Both are disastrous in their effects. We should in all things seek the golden mean.”
The Grand Vizier looked at me scornfully and asked, “Is that unpleasant woman seeking, through you, to lull me once more into a false sense of security before the blow falls? What do women know of friendship? Listen carefully, Michael-if there is on earth a devil in human shape it is that woman. But she has only a woman’s understanding; she judges the world by herself and therefore could never see why the Sultan gave me the seal and its sovereign powers. Take her this greeting from me, Michael. To her life’s end she will never succeed in cracking that nut, and nothing angers a woman more than the discovery that in the relationship between man and man there are things that women can never understand.”
He surveyed me proudly with his brilliant eyes and seemed to me at that moment as beautiful as a fallen angel. With a gesture that waved away my attempts at contradiction, he said, “Perhaps you know that last night I dined with the Sultan. The more poison is dropped into his ear the more eager is he to keep me by him, to watch my thoughts and scrutinize my face. I chose for him as is fitting the best fruit in the dish. He peeled and ate it, and a quarter of an hour had barely passed when he felt a burning in his stomach and fancied he was going to die on the spot. He thought I had poisoned him. Exhausted by the emetics of the physicians he nevertheless realized that he would live, and looking me straight in the eye he handed me his personal seal. In this way he thought to bind me to him and prevent me from doing him harm. No stranger could understand his action, but ever since our boyhood I have shared his meals, slept beneath the same roof, and been his closest friend, until that fatal woman induced him to shut his heart from me. You spoke of too great mistrust, and I have reproached myself for it. But when with the sweat of terror on my brow I saw him poisoned I knew that the Russian woman had bewitched the fruit in my hand to cast suspicion upon me. Roxelana is no fool. I ate of the fruit-I ordered the slaves to eat the rest. Neither I nor they sickened. Only in the fruit I chose for him was there poison. Can you imagine anything more devilish than that?”
I shook my head compassionately.
“You are ill, lord. Your poisoned fancy has given you these notions. An infectious stomach disorder is rife in the city, and I myself fell sick the day before yesterday after eating apples. I beg you, lord, to drink this soothing medicine that I have brought. You need sleep-you need to forget your clock.”
“So, you would give me a soothing drink, Michael el-Hakim! That, then, was the object of your visit. When you denied your Christ you did it to save your own miserable life. This time no doubt you have been offered more than thirty pieces of silver. You see, I know the Christian Scriptures.”
Looking him in the eyes I answered, “Grand Vizier Ibrahim, I’m a poor man indeed, for I suppose I have neither God nor holy book on which I may swear a binding oath. But you I have never betrayed, and never shall. Not for your sake, but for mine-though I cannot hope you will understand that, since I hardly understand it myself. Perhaps to prove to myself that I, renegade and backslider, can be loyal to at least one person in the world and stand by his side in time of need.”
Despite the conflict within him I believe my words made their impression, and when he had sat for some time gazing searchingly into my eyes he rose, walked over to a chest with a golden lid, threw it open and tossed out onto the floor a number of purses so stuffed with coin that the thin leather split and the pieces rolled over the floor. On the heap of purses he threw handfuls of pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other stones; not even at Khaireddin’s arrival had I beheld so much gold and so many sparkling jewels gathered together in one place.
“Michael el-Hakim! As sure as I am that there was poison in the fruit the Sultan ate, so sure am I that you are a betrayer. I ask only to know the truth. Not even the Russian can pay you so princely a sum as I can. Tell me the whole truth, Michael, and you shall take all this treasure away. This time no mutes stand behind the curtain. Truth alone can bring some relief to my burdened mind. The swiftest galley and a hundred sea janissaries shall take you to what country you please. Only have pity, Michael, and tell me the truth.”
I stared as if bewitched at the dazzling heap, but soon with a bitter taste in my mouth I said, “My lord Ibrahim, if I were
to tell you that I am a betrayer you would believe it because you want to believe it.
But I cannot confess to what is not true. Let me kiss your hand in farewell and go, and no longer plague you with my presence.”
“If indeed you are loyal to me you’re simpler than I thought. In the world of statecraft, loyalty is a form of idiocy.”
I found the word of release and said smiling, “Then let us be two blockheads in the same boat. You are even more foolish than I, for you wear the Sultan’s personal seal and yet refuse to use it to save yourself.”
The Grand Vizier stared at me, and his eyes were weary with the struggle that rent his soul. His face was ashy pale and a dull film seemed to veil his eyes. In a lifeless voice he said, “Why, why do you stay by me? Are you bound to me by gratitude? It cannot be true. There is no more thankless creature than man, for unlike the beasts man hates his benefactor. Tell me why you will not desert me.”
I kissed his hand with veneration, sat cross legged on the floor before him with my head in my hand, and thought about myself and my life, and about him and his.
For a long time we sat in silence, and then I said, “The question is not easy to answer. It must be because of the love I bear you, noble lord. Not for your gifts to me, but because you have sometimes spoken to me and treated me as if I were a reasoning being. I love you for your beauty, your intelligence, your pride, your doubts, and your wisdom. Your like has hardly been seen upon this earth. It is true that you have your faults. You’re jealous of your power-you’re a spendthrift, a blasphemer, and many other things that people blame you for. But none of this affects my feelings for you. No one hates you for your human failings, Grand Vizier Ibrahim, though they like to talk of them and magnify them, to justify to themselves and to their fellows the malice they bear you. They detest you only because you stand so high above other men, and that is something that mediocre souls can never endure. And yet in each one of us lies the latent faculty of surpassing others. Of that I am sure.
“Perhaps I love you best for your high aims and motives and for never behaving with deliberate cruelty to anyone. Thanks to you no one in the Sultan’s dominions is persecuted for his faith, be he Christian or Jew. Do you wonder that men hate you, Grand Vizier Ibrahim? But because of these things I love you.”
He listened with a tired smile, as if mocking himself and admiring my talent for stringing words so pleasantly together. I tiptoed from the room and fetched the tray of covered dishes that servants had prepared, setting it beside him, lifting the silver lids and tasting a little of all the food to reassure him. Abstractedly he began to eat, and when I gave him the sleeping draught he took it without demur. I held his hand until he slept, kissed it once more respectfully, and then replaced all the money and jewels in the chest so as not to expose the servants to too great temptation. I called these men and ordered them to undress their lord and carry him to bed, and they obeyed me with gladness, having felt deep concern for the sleeplessness that the Grand Vizier had so long suffered.
Three days afterward Mustafa ben-Nakir appeared, unexpectedly, as was his custom. I feared the worst, for he seemed to bring with him a breath of cold menace. The silver bells at his knees rang as pleasantly as ever, but he was less carefully dressed and less clean than he was wont to be. He had even forgotten the Persian book. I asked where he had been and what he had been doing, and he said, “Let us go down to your marble quay and watch the stars come out. A poem is about to be born in my heart and I do not want your servants or even your wife to be present at this solemn moment.”
When we had made our way down to the water’s edge, Mustafa ben-Nakir looked about him and asked, “Where is your brother Antar the wrestler?”
I replied impatiently that I knew little of his movements, because since our return from Tunis he had gone barefoot, let his hair grow, and spent days together among the dervishes, watching their magic arts and listening to the shameless tales with which they beguiled credulous women into giving them money. Yet I called him and he emerged reluctantly from the boathouse, gnawing a bone.
“Ah, Antar, do you think to join our brotherhood?” asked Mustafa ben-Nakir in wonder at his appearance. Andy stared at him oafishly with his round gray eyes and said, “You see I have no lionskin over my shoulders. But my aim has indeed been to seek God upon the moun- taintops and in the desert. How could you guess my thoughts, when I have not hinted them even to the dervishes?”
Mustafa ben-Nakir was so greatly astonished that he touched brow and ground with his finger tips at Andy’s feet.
“In truth,” he said, “Allah is great and marvelous are his ways. This is the last thing I should have expected. Tell me what has led you to seek the holy path.”
Andy seated himself on the edge of the landing stage and dipped his weary feet into the water, gnawing meanwhile at his bone.
“How am I to explain to you what I hardly understand myself? While I had my friend Michael’s little dog beside me I felt a better creature. Rael hated no one and at once forgave all wrongs. If when I was drunk I happened to tread on his paws and make him yelp with pain, he’d come up to me at once to lick me as if asking forgiveness for having got in the way. He took the blame for my mistake, though over and over again I tried to explain the foolishness of this. On cold nights Rael would keep me warm. But who rightly values happiness and friendship before they’re gone? Not until that good dog found his well-deserved reward in the Seraglio did I see how much Michael and I had lost.”
He wiped away a few tears and went on, “Now that sorrow has found me I can see that the little dog was wiser than I; I see at last that I bear the guilt of the world’s evil. Whenever I see a man do an evil or a cruel deed I say to myself, the fault is yours! Alas, I’m a simple man and would do best to betake myself to a mountaintop or a desert, for these new thoughts of mine seem greatly to irritate other people, and I think I shall never again go to war. If I do it must be for some good and righteous cause.”
“I can offer you a good cause at this moment,” said Mustafa ben- Nakir eagerly. “Move away out of earshot and guard us against eavesdroppers; make short work of them if they appear. A poem is about to be born in my heart.”
Andy answered good naturedly, “I’m an ignorant fellow, yet I understand the anguish of such a birth. But I’ve noticed too that wine can allay much of it, and I will fetch Michael’s largest wine jar from the cellar.”
When he had gone, Mustafa ben-Nakir at once began, “I’ve been in the city to perform certain devotional exercises, and at the same time I heard news. There was also a story being told which I shall now repeat to you.”
In vain I protested that I was in no mood for stories and would prefer to hear his errand in plain language. He insisted in injured tones that ill tidings must be wrapped in silk, and in the name of the Compassionate he went on, “There was once a rich and respected lord whose falconer was a handsome youth of the same age as himself. The master became exceedingly fond of his servant and believed him as honorable as he was handsome, but when he would have entrusted him with the stewardship of his household, the guileful servant protested, saying, ‘It is not easy to govern so large a household. What surety have I that one day my lord will not be wroth with me and take off my head?’ The honorable master laughed and said, ‘I, wroth with thee? Thy friendship is more to me than the sight of my eyes. Yet, since neither of us can see into the future, I swear by the Prophet and the Koran that I will never dismiss or punish thee for any error. Rather I will protect and shield thee with all the power that Allah has given me, all the days of my life.’
“Not many years had passed before the slave squandered his master’s substance and endangered his house by forming connections in the teeth of law and custom. All too late the noble lord perceived his mistake and would have punished the slave who had so basely abused his trust, but he was a devout man and could not break his oath. The slave, who after the manner of slaves hated and envied his master because of his noble nature, crept to
his bedside one night, strangled him, and sold his house and possessions to the unbeliever, thus doing not only his master but all Islam irreparable harm.”
Mustafa ben-Nakir fell silent, and in the blue darkness I saw the glitter of his eyes. He added coolly, “Is not that a strange story? What would you have done, Michael, in that noble master’s place?”
“Allah, what a foolish question! I would have hastened to the Mufti and asked him for a fatwa to release me from my rash oath. That is what a mufti is for.”
“Exactly!” whispered Mustafa. “This very morning the story has been told to the Mufti. He has been asked to prepare a fatwa, in return for which Sultan Suleiman has promised to build the most splendid mosque ever seen, at the highest point of the city. The fatwa frees him from the sacred oath that he swore in the folly of his youth, and he can now act without offending against the laws of the Koran.”
I was silent, for the significance of the story had already dawned upon me. The Grand Vizier’s fate was irrevocably sealed, and no one in the world could help him now. Mustafa ben-Nakir covertly watched my face in the blue twilight and became impatient.
“Why don’t you speak, Michael? Are you as simple as your brother Antar? The opportunity will slip through our fingers. The Mufti has been given until tomorrow evening to consider. Tomorrow is the Ides of March, according to the Christian calendar, when all notable events are wont to take place. The time for action has come. The Ides of March favor the bold man, but crush the weak and vacillating beneath an iron heel.”
“If by action you mean that we must fly, it is too late. In any case I will not desert the Grand Vizier in his most desperate hour, however foolish this may seem in the eyes of the prudent/’
