The Palace of Dreams

by Ismail Kadare

  “So then there was a row with the head of the Yenisehir office of the Tabir. I told him, ‘I can’t take your dreams… . Come and see for yourself—my horses refuse to move as soon as I put your file in the wagon.’ So the silly oaf yells, ‘That makes five weeks that no one will take my dreams, and now you want to leave them on my hands too! I’ll complain, I’ll write to Head Office, to the Sheikh-ul-Islam himself!’ ‘Complain as much as you like,’ I said. ‘My horses won’t stir and you needn’t think your five lousy dreams are going to stop me from delivering all the rest.’ You should have heard him then! ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said. ‘That’s all you care about our dreams. Naturally you find them crude—you prefer the dreams of artists and courtiers in the capital. But in the highest circles it’s been said it’s our dreams that are the real ones, because they come from the depths of the Empire, not from dandies covered in paint and powder!’ The swine kept on and on—I don’t know how I kept my hands off him!

  “Well, I didn’t hit him, but I did give him a piece of my mind, I was so furious at being held up! I told him what I thought of him and his rotten little subprefecture inhabited by a handful of drunks and dodderers whose dreams were so rotten they even frightened the horses! I said that after this, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t let Yenisehir have its dreams examined for at least another ten years! He was so angry he started to foam at the mouth worse than the horses! He said he was going to write a report to the authorities about what I’d said, but I said if he did I’d tell about how he’d insulted the Tabir. ‘What!’ he yelled. ‘Me insult the sacred Tabir Sarrail? How dare you say such a thing!’ ‘Yes, you said it was the haunt of courtiers and painted dandies!’ That was too much for that fool of a yokel, and he started to weep and ask for mercy. ‘Have pity on me, aga, ’ he said. ‘I’ve got a wife and children, don’t do a thing like that… .’ ”

  For a while the carrier’s words were drowned in laughter.

  “And what happened then?” someone asked.

  “Then the subprefect and the imam came on the scene. Someone had told them about the row that was going on. When they heard what it was all about they scratched their heads at first and didn't know what to do. They didn’t like to force me to take the file, because that would have amounted to keeping me there. For both of them were sure the horses would never leave if the file was up behind them. On the other hand, they couldn’t admit that the dreams sent in by their subprefecture were so evil they prevented the couriers from going about their business. But my time was precious. I was carrying more than a thousand dreams from other regions, and delay might be dangerous. So I told them to come with me to the part of the plain where I’d left the file, to see for themselves.

  “They agreed to come; we all piled into the wagon, and I drove them to the place. The file was still there. I picked it up, got into the wagon with it, and whipped up the horses. They started to whinny and lather where they stood, as if the devil had got up behind them. Then I gave the file back to the subprefect and the iman, and the horses set off at a gallop. I did think of making off there and then, leaving the two officials standing there openmouthed with their file in their hands, but I thought that might get me into trouble, so I turned back. ‘Did you see?’ I said. ‘Are you convinced now?’ They were dumbfounded. ‘Allah!’ they muttered. As they tried to think of a way out of the impasse, the head of the local section, terrified that he might be the first to suffer for having allowed such a diabolical letter to be sent to the Tabir at all, decided to get the letters out of the file one by one to identify the cause of the trouble and prevent the others from being implicated. We all approved of this idea, and duly took the dreams out of the bag. It wasn’t difficult to find the culprit and remove it from the file. And then I was able to go on my way.

  “That was no dream—it was pure poison!” said someone.

  “And what will they do with it now?” asked another. “No wagon will be able to carry it, I suppose?”

  “Let it stay where it is,” said the man with the hoarse voice.

  “But with that strange power it might be important. …”

  “Let it be what it likes,” said the courier. “If it’s made of gold and the horses refuse to carry it, that means it’s not a dream—it’s the devil incarnate! Horns and all!”

  “But …”

  “There’s no buts about it. If the horses won’t bring it, it’ll just have to be left to rot where it is, in that godforsaken hole of a Yenisehir!”

  “No, that’s not right,” said an elderly courier. “I don’t know how they manage things now, but if anything like that happened in my day we fell back on the foot couriers.”

  “Were there really foot couriers then?”

  “Of course. The horses didn’t often refuse to carry dreams, but it did happen sometimes. And then they made use of foot couriers. There were some good things about the old days.”

  “And how long would it take a foot courier to get the dream from there to here?”

  “It depends on exactly how far it is, of course. But I think the journey from Yenisehir should take about a year and a half.”

  There were two or three whistles of amazement.

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” said the old man. “The government can catch a hare with an oxcart!”

  They started to talk about something else, and Mark-Alem pressed on a bit farther. There was the same loud chatter everywhere, from the doors to the middle of the room and around the Reception windows, where the couriers handed in their files according to some order, the rules of which were not apparent. One fellow—Mark-Alem heard someone say he’d got drunk at an inn and lost his bag with the files inside—sat apart from all the rest, his eyes red as fire, drinking and grumbling at the same time.

  From the courtyard came a constant hubbub of voices mingled with the sound of wheels on the flagstones. Some wagons had just arrived from distant parts; others were setting off again after making their deliveries. The neighing of the horses struck terror into Mark-Alem’s very soul. And this is going to go on until dawn, he thought. Eventually he pushed his way through the crowd and set out for home.

  *Contemptuous term denoting Christians.

  A DAY OFF

  iv.

  He woke up two or three times with a start, afraid he was going to be late for work. His hand was just reaching out to throw off the blanket when his sleep-numbed brain suddenly remembered he had the day off. He lapsed back into uneasy slumber. It was the first time since he’d started working in the Palace of Dreams that he’d been given a rest day.

  At last he opened his eyes. The daylight reaching his pillow was dimmed by the velvet curtains. He stretched for a moment, then threw off the blanket and got up. It must be late. He went over to the mirror and looked at his face, which was still puffy with sleep. His head felt as heavy as lead. He’d never have believed that on this, his first day off, he’d wake up feeling more jaded than on the other mornings, when he had to hurry out into the damp, foggy streets to get to the office on time.

  He washed his face and felt a bit fresher. It seemed to him that if he made an effort he might be able to remember two brief dreams he’d had in the early morning. Since he’d been working in the Tabir Sarrail he hardly ever dreamed. It was as if dreams no longer dared visit him, knowing he’d fathomed their secrets and could tell them to go and find someone else to play their tricks on.

  As he went down the stairs he was greeted by the agreeable smell of roasted coffee and toasted bread. His mother and Loke had been waiting for him for some time.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” they answered, looking at him fondly. “Did you sleep well? You look nice and rested.”

  He nodded, and sat down near the glowing brazier; the coffee things had been put on a low table close by. Now that he had to rush out every morning at the crack of dawn he’d almost forgotten this pleasant hour, when reflections from the silver, the coals, and the copper edges of the old brazi
er all combined with the pallid daylight to create the impression of an eternal morning steeped in affection.

  He ate slowly, then had another cup of coffee with his mother. As usual, when she had finished she turned her cup upside down on the saucer and Loke came and read the grounds. This used to be the time when the family told one another their dreams of the previous night, but since Mark-Alem had started working in the Tabir Sarrail, this custom had been abandoned. This happened after a little incident that had occurred during his first week in the Palace, when one of his aunts had arrived in great excitement to tell him about a dream she’d had that night.

  “How lucky we are!” she cried. “Now we’ve got the key to the meaning of dreams in our own home, and we don’t need to go and see Gypsies and clairvoyants anymore!”

  Mark-Alem had scowled and lost his temper—a rare thing for him. How dare this silly woman bring her stupid, uninteresting dreams to him? Who did she take him for?

  At first the aunt was stupefied; then she went off in a huff, and her daughters had a lot of trouble calming her down.

  Mark-Alem contemplated the embers, pale now under a layer of ashes.

  “It’s quite mild today,” said his mother. “Are you going out for a walk?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “There isn’t any sun, but it will do you good to get some fresh air.”

  He nodded.

  “Yes, it’s a long time since I went for a walk.”

  He sat for a moment without speaking, his eyes fixed on the brazier; then he got up, put on his coat, kissed his mother good-bye, and went out.

  Yes, it was a dull day, as his mother had said. He looked up to seek at least some traces of the sun in that empty sky. Its emptiness suddenly seemed unbearable. It was some time since Mark-Alem had seen the sky over the city at this time of day, and it struck him as amazingly insipid with its scattering of insignificant clouds and its few uninteresting birds. Since starting work at the Tabir he’d gone out very early in the morning, generally in bad weather and with his head still swimming after an unsettled night, and come home at dusk, too tired to pay attention to anything. So now he looked at the city like someone returned from a brief exile. He looked right and left, almost with astonishment. By now not only the sky struck him as washed-out and insipid, but also all the rest—the walls, the roofs, the carriages, and the trees. What’s happening? he wondered. The whole world seemed to have lost all its color, as if after a long illness.

  He had an icy sensation in his chest. His legs, after taking his body down the street where he lived, now led him toward the town center. The pavements on both sides of the road were overflowing with people, but they moved stiffly, with a kind of grudging precision. Just as niggardly seemed to him the movement of the traffic and the call of some wretched town crier in Islam Square, who sounded as if he were yelling out all the troubles in the world.

  What had happened, then, to life, to mankind, to everything here below? There—he smiled inwardly as if at some precious secret—there, in his files, all was so different, so beautiful, so full of imagination… . The colors of the clouds, the trees, the snow, the bridges, the chimneys, the birds—all were so much more vivid and strong. And the movement of people and things was freer and more graceful, like stags running through the mist, defying the laws of space and time! How tedious, grasping, and confined this world seemed in comparison with the one he now served!

  He went on gazing at people, carriages, and buildings in amazement. Everything was so ordinary, meager, and depressing! He’d been quite right not to go out and not to see anyone these last months. Perhaps that was why they gave the people who worked in the Palace of Dreams so little time off. He realized now that he didn’t know what to do with it. There seemed no point in walking about this faded city.

  Mark-Alem continued to cast a cold eye on all around him. It seemed increasingly clear that there was nothing accidental about what he was feeling. That other world, however exasperating he sometimes found it, was much more acceptable than this one. He’d never have believed he could become detached so quickly from the ordinary world—after only a few months’ absence. He’d heard about former employees in the Palace of Dreams who had in a manner of speaking withdrawn from life while they were still alive, and who, whenever they found themselves among people they used to know, looked as if they had just come down from the moon. Perhaps he’d be like that himself in a few years’ time, thought Mark-Alem. What if I am? Look at the nice world you’d be leaving behind you! The passersby directed sardonic smiles at the wild-looking employees of the Palace of Dreams, but they never dreamed how arid and wretched their own lives seemed to the visionaries from the Tabir.

  He had now reached the terrace of the Storks Café, where he generally used to have a coffee in the days when he was … the word that came to mind first was “alive,” but it was soon supplanted by “awake.” Yes, this was where he used to drop in for a coffee when he was only an idle young man-about-town. He went in and without looking around made straight for the corner on the left and what had once been his usual seat. He liked this café. It had comfortable leather armchairs instead of the sofas still to be found in old-fashioned tearooms.

  The café owner struck Mark-Alem as looking very sallow.

  “Mark-Alem!” he said in surprise, coming over with the coffeepot in his hand. “Where have you been all this time? I thought at first you must be ill—I couldn’t believe you’d taken your custom elsewhere.”

  Instead of providing an explanation, Mark-Alem only smiled. The proprietor of the café smiled too, then leaned over and whispered:

  “Later on I found out what had happened… .” Then, seeing the other’s face darken: “Will you have your coffee with a little sugar, as usual?”

  “Yes, as usual,” said Mark-Alem, without looking up.

  He stifled a sigh as he watched the thin stream of coffee being poured into the cup. Then, when the café owner had gone away, he looked around to see if the usual customers were there. They nearly all were: the hodja from the neighboring mosque, with two tall men who were never heard to utter a word; Ali the acrobat, surrounded as always by a group of admirers; a squat little bald man poring as usual over some old bits of paper. These were described by the café proprietor, according to his mood, as ancient manuscripts which his learned client was arduously translating, or vestiges of an ancient lawsuit, or an abstruse and useless document found in some silly old dodderer’s wormeaten trunk.

  And there are the blind men, thought Mark-Alem. They were in their usual place to the right of the counter.

  “They’ve done me an awful lot of harm!” the proprietor had confided to Mark-Alem one day. “I’d have a much better class of customer if those repulsive-looking fellows hadn’t chosen to come to my café—and to sit in the best seats always, just to drive me really crazy! But there’s nothing I can do—I have no choice. The State protects them, so I can’t throw them out.”

  Mark-Alem had asked what he meant by “The State protects them,” and the proprietor, who was expecting the question, told him a truly amazing story. The blind men who came to his café hadn’t lost their sight through illness, accident, or war. If that had been the case he would have welcomed them gladly. But the cause of their blindness was different, and very difficult to comprehend. They had never suffered from any physical infirmity, and at one time could see, but their eyes, unlike other people’s, had a baneful effect. And so, as Mark-Alem must know, the great Ottoman State, in order to defend itself and protect the rest of its subjects, decreed that these people were to have their eyes put out. And by way of compensation the State in its mercy awarded them each a pension for life.

  “So now do you see why I can’t throw them out of my café? Goodness knows who they take themselves for! They’re proud of their sacrifice—probably take themselves for heroes!”

  Mark-Alem hadn’t known anything about this decree, and at first regarded the proprietor’s story, which he probably repeated t
o every new client, as the creation of a deranged mind. But on looking into the matter he found the decree did exist, and that it was put into practice throughout the Empire.

  Strangely enough, in spite of their black bandages, Mark-Alem didn’t find them frightening anymore. There, in theTabir, he had read about all kinds of terrifying looks, and he thought of those eyes now in their supreme horror, opening not out of human brows but out of the edge of the sky or the deepest heart of the mountains, and lighted sometimes by a sliver of moon like a waxen stalactite.

  Neither the denunciation of people with the evil eye, which had horrified Mark-Alem when the café owner first told him about it (for anyone could write a letter accusing someone else of this offense); nor the monthly meeting of a government committee to decide which of the wretches who had been arrested really did have the evil eye and were to have it put out; nor even the cruelty itself, referred to as “in the public interest” in the traditional speech delivered to those who had just been blinded—none of these things horrified Mark-Alem now as they had done in the past. Sometimes he found himself thinking that a few years hence neither the wonders nor the horrors of this world would have any effect on him; they were, after all, pale copies of the wonders and horrors there, in the Tabir, which had succeeded in crossing the frontiers between this world and the other. Hell and heaven are indistinguishable there, he observed whenever he heard anyone say, “How wonderful!” or “How horrible!”