The Siege

by Ismail Kadare

  He skimmed through the Alaybey’s report a second time and stopped to read the passages quoting soldiers’ conversations verbatim. A distant rumble rising like sea-swell from a thousand tents sounded in his ear. It was his habit never to talk to his men. During their exhausting march he had watched regiment after regiment file past, with heavy packs on their backs and covered in the dust of two continents, but he had never even bothered to ask himself what might lie beneath those identical, indistinguishable shaven skulls. He would have been inclined to think there was nothing there, save a handful of ash, and maybe a few names, of a mother, a father, a family, except for the janissaries, who were not allowed such things … Nonetheless, on the first day of the assault, when he watched the men scaling the ramparts, with blood and ash dripping from their backs, he had felt curious for the first time in his life about what might have been going on in their minds. “You are a great leader,” Tabduk Baba told him when summoned to have this task entrusted to him. No previous Pasha had ever bothered to find out what his men were thinking. That was perhaps the main reason why they had all fallen in the end.

  And now he could hear their rumbling. He recalled that long-past summer when for the first time the sea had come into his view. This buzzing of the soldiery was a bit like the noise of the sea, except that waves made a sound that was heart-rendingly beautiful. If that noise goes on for very long, however, an army that seems flawless will lose its will and go to pieces.

  He was still lost in thought, wondering whether he should act now or wait until the tunnel was finished, when one of his orderlies came in to tell him that the doctor, Sirri Selim, wanted to see him on urgent business.

  The Pasha found this late-night call surprising. He put the report down and waited for the doctor to come in.

  The epidemiologist came in bent double, not just because he was too tall to enter the tent standing straight, but also from a long habit of obsequiousness.

  “Pardon me, Pasha, for disturbing you at such an hour,” he said in a baritone voice that made a strange contrast with the long, thin body that he could not straighten up beneath the tent roof.

  “It is very late, indeed,” said the Pasha. “What is the matter?”

  “There is urgent business I have to report to you,” the doctor replied.

  His eyes met the Pasha’s quizzical glance. He raised his hand and pointed his index finger towards the tent door, and after a short pause, he asked:

  “Can you hear them?”

  The Pasha pouted. “What?”

  “The barking.”

  The Pasha nodded.

  “That’s what I have come about.”

  Tursun Pasha scowled as if he thought this was a ridiculous joke to bring him so late in the night. This scarecrow is so tall, he thought, that I can’t even have him sent down to the tunnel. The Alaybey had told him that not only the sappers, but the janissaries who had been infiltrated under the citadel had been selected for shortness.

  Seeing that the Pasha’s patience was very limited, as with any great leader, the doctor hastened to explain.

  “The day before yesterday, the dogs you can hear barking and sometimes wailing even here dug down into one of the mass graves where our dead are buried.”

  The Pasha grimaced.

  The doctor went on: “They’ve clawed up and dismembered the cadavers. A plague could break out.”

  The shadow of terror passed across the Pasha’s face at the word “plague”.

  “Sire, the sappers did not do their job conscientiously. The graves were hastily dug, and when I went to inspect them just now I observed that in some places there is less than one foot of earth covering the bodies.”

  The Pasha cursed under his breath. He clapped his hands.

  An orderly appeared at the tent door.

  “Get Ulug Bey! I need him here this instant!”

  The orderly vanished. The Pasha said nothing for a while. The doctor stood as if rooted to the ground. From afar, somewhere over on the left, came muddled sounds that sharpened into the barking of dogs.

  “They barked all last night, too,” Tursun Pasha observed.

  “Yes, they did, Pasha. But nobody knew why. One of my men told me this evening, he’d got it from a carter during the afternoon.”

  The tent fell silent once again and the sound of barking seemed to them both to grow nearer. Then came the footfall of a man running. Ulug Bey, the captain of the sappers, burst in, panting heavily. Before he had even finished bowing low, as regulations required, the Pasha yelled:

  “Can you hear them? Can you hear, you wretched man?”

  Ulug Bey couldn’t say a thing.

  “The dogs are unburying our dead,” the Pasha resumed, in a grating tone.

  Ulug went pale. He had understood.

  “Our heroes give their lives for the glory of the Osmans, whereas you can’t even be bothered to put a spadeful of earth over their bodies!”

  The commander’s voice, broken by a kind of hiccup, fell mercilessly on Ulug Bey. The Pasha went on to call him a cur, even insinuating that the sapper had purposely left the graves in that woeful state so as to give the other members of his pack something to eat, and so forth. But Ulug Bey did not feel offended. He thought: It serves me right. Or else: May God protect me. He would have liked the Pasha to insult him even more gravely, to call him a jackal, a hyena, or even to whip him — anything to put a stop to the terrible barking of the dogs.

  When the vituperation fell away and the yelping could be heard loud and clear, as if it was coming from just behind the tent, Ulug Bey thought his own end was nigh. He was tempted to prostrate himself before the Pasha or else to explain that as he had been incarcerated night and day in the tunnel with his sappers, he had been obliged to pay less attention to his other responsibilities. But as he was paralysed with remorse, he did neither of these things. He just lowered his eyes and waited. Perhaps it was to that posture that he owed his salvation.

  “If all the graves are not covered with four cubits of earth by tomorrow morning, I shall have you buried alive. Dismissed!”

  Ulug Bey bowed and went out. From the tent you could hear the sound of his steps, which were speedy to begin with, and then turned into a run.

  “Sirri Selim,” the Pasha asked when the footsteps had faded into the distance, “is there really a risk of plague?”

  “No, not yet, Pasha,” the doctor replied in a measured tone.

  He thought he saw a gleam of scorn in the Pasha’s eyes, and, fearing that he was perhaps suspected of having raised a false alarm, he hurriedly added: “No. This evening, we still have time. If we had waited until tomorrow it might have been too late.”

  The Pasha lowered his gaze. Sirri Selim took his leave, bowed low, and went out.

  The Pasha stood for a while with his arms crossed. Barking and yelping could still be heard at intervals, from the same direction. Listening hard, he stared at a single spot on the kilim. It was only when the noise of the dogs suddenly ceased that he reckoned Ulug Bey and his men had reached the graves, and he sighed a deep sigh of relief. He lay down and leaned on a cushion, half closing his eyes. His weary mind ranged over the huge camp. He didn’t linger on the myriad tents, but followed the akinxhis as they marched through these horrible mountains, then wandered back to the sentries, glanced along the ramparts, returned to the lilac-blossom tent, then alighted once more on the dogs and the graves, wavered for a while before the shady entrance to the blonde girl’s vagina, then all of a sudden abandoned everything to plunge underground and crawl unseen along the dark, damp tunnel under construction. He dropped off to sleep. One of his orderlies tiptoed up to him and covered him with a soft cloak as he gazed with fearful veneration at his master’s creased and weary face.

  We came to understand the significance of the flowery dresses that the soldiers had been flaunting and to realise what was hidden by the Turks’ ploy of silence. The dresses and baubles were the signal for an imminent raid by the akinxhis. Naturally, the soldie
rs had to be ready to purchase captive girls. As for the calm, it was a prelude to death.

  Our first suspicions were aroused by the construction of what was supposed to be a bread oven bizarrely close to our ramparts. We had it watched. Carts were seen going in without interruption; smoke came out of the chimney. Trained eyes could see that despite their slow pace the carts going in were empty, while those that left were full. Similarly, observation of the smoke plume and especially of the time lag between the thickening of the smoke corresponding to the lighting of the oven and when it thins out again, which is when the baking begins, convinced our bakers that no oven in the world could work like that. It is therefore obvious that the carts do not bring in any flour and that the oven cooks no bread. But when they leave the carts are laden. What with? It can only be earth.

  The Turks must be digging an underground passage, that’s certain. It’s a stratagem they often use in sieges. We lost no time and went down to check our dungeons and cellars, and posted observers in every corner. They lay flat out with their ears to the ground for nights on end. Many fell ill. Then we remembered that vessels made of beaten brass amplify underground noise. Our watchmen could thus keep their ears open for many more long nights. Sometimes the strain of concentration makes them hear banging. But at last we did spot where the besiegers were. They have already got several cubits’ length inside the perimeter of the citadel. They are digging, or rather nibbling, at the earth with some difficulty. They sound like an animal scratching itself incessantly in the bowels of the earth.

  Lying on the cold flagstones with their ears to the ground, our watchmen are following the hidden advance of the enemy step by step. The Turks are now digging with such caution that they could have faded away. But they are still there. They have split the tunnel into two branches, like a two-headed snake, forever slithering forwards beneath our feet. We are listening so hard that we have a constant ringing in our ears.

  THE MIDDLE CHAPTER

  The akinxhis had returned. We could hear their drums. The camp emerged from drowsiness and sprang to life. Soldiers rushed out of their tents, calling to comrades who were still reclining. Those who rushed the fastest were men who had done deals with the akinxhis for a woman or some other trophy. Some had already grabbed the flowery dresses they had bought at the army bazaar, with which they now hoped to drape their captives. As he navigated his way through the throng, Tuz Okçan regretted not having made such a purchase. At the time he had thought it was premature and might even bring misfortune, whereas now he was nervous that there would be none left to buy. On two or three occasions when he caught sight of the returning column in the distance he was tempted to rush towards the market stalls, but he held back from fear of being late and missing the akinxhi who had more or less promised to sell him a slave woman.

  The crowd buzzed with excitement. Soldiers were laughing and joking, swearing and telling dirty stories. The black eunuch Hasan went by, carrying an empty pitcher in each hand. Soldiers gave each other nudges and winks as they pointed to the jugs.

  “He’s going to fill them with water for them.”

  “For them?”

  “Sure he is. Can’t you see the pitchers?”

  “Them girls are hot! They’ll need to cool down!”

  “So the poor lasses are hot, are they? What about us? Aren’t we just boiling as well?”

  “We could melt steel faster than Saruxha’s furnace!”

  “Shush! Someone will hear you.”

  The eunuch strode among the soldiers with haughty disdain. For a while their blazing eyes followed a man who strangely reminded them of the mysteries of women. Often, on seeing him, men’s eyes would flash and their knees would go weak, but this morning, their eagerness to see the akinxhis return was so great that they paid the eunuch hardly any attention at all.

  The first columns were now coming into the camp. Kurdisxhi’s big flame-red head swayed sleepily in time with his horse’s trot. As he traversed the crowd with his escort at his side, men shouted out huzzahs, but his eyes remained half-closed and, without halting or even acknowledging the salutes, he guided his horse straight to the commander-in-chief’s tent, dismounted, and went inside.

  While the long columns of dust-whitened akinxhis slowly merged like a weary river into the mass of the azabs, the janissaries and other troops, in his tent Tursun Pasha snapped his long fingers as he listened superciliously to Kurdisxhi’s brief report.

  “Is that all?” he asked when the soldier had finished.

  “Yes, that’s all.”

  The Pasha sighed deeply, and restraining himself with difficulty from aiming at the ill-healed wound at the corner of Kurdisxhi’s mouth, he spat on the ground. Kurdisxhi, as if he had guessed what was in his chief’s mind, raised his hand to wipe that part of his face.

  “Traitor! Dog! Son of a bitch! Shithead!”

  Kurdisxhi held his peace. He strongly suspected that if his commander had possessed any rights over him, he would have had him executed. But, although nothing was written down about this, he also knew that the Pasha had no right to lay a finger on him, just as he could not discipline Old Tavxha, the Mufti or the Alaybey. However he was equally aware that if he answered back, the Pasha would fly into a rage and would request Kurdisxhi’s head from a higher place, which would come to the same thing.

  Meanwhile, in the main avenue of the camp, the harassed akinxhis, their turbans all dirty and torn (many soldiers had torn strips off them to bandage their wounds) were dismounting, walking over to their comrades or else going to their tents without a word. Tuz Okçan gaped as he watched the units arrive one after the other. He was trying to spy the black curly hair of the man with whom he had made a deal. He noticed that a lot of other people were as impatient as he was.

  “So where are the captives?” someone asked from behind.

  “They’re surely on their way.”

  Suddenly he saw Çelebi.

  “Mevla! Mevla!” he shouted for joy.

  The chronicler put a smile on his sallow and horribly downcast face. The janissary held out his hand to help him off his horse.

  “Are you sick?” he asked.

  “No, but I’m wiped out.”

  “I can see that.”

  A voice in the crowd behind them was asking worriedly for news of someone called Ulun. Mevla recognised the handsome young man in the uniform of a sapper. An akinxhi with wandering eyes whispered the sad news into his ear, and the sapper put his head in his hands.

  “Are there many dead?” the janissary asked.

  Çelebi glowered at him and answered feebly, “Don’t ask.”

  Apparently quite a few of the people waiting had asked the same question, because the jolly hum of the crowd gradually turned into an angrier noise.

  “Were you up against Skanderbeg?” the janissary asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Perhaps’?”

  “We were harried, especially at night.”

  Çelebi was staring at his friend as if he was seeing him for the first time. For a brief moment the janissary thought the chronicler had lost his wits.

  “Maybe, Tuz Okçan, as I said. It usually happened at night, and how can you know who is attacking you in the dark?”

  “Strange. Did you bring back any captives?”

  The chronicler smiled sourly.

  “Around a couple of dozen.”

  “So few!”

  “I reckon it’s quite a lot.”

  Tuz Okçan now thought he had done well not to buy a dress in a hurry. Dozens of men were standing around nearby looking downcast as they twiddled with adornments they no longer knew what to do with.

  “The captives!” someone yelled. “Here they come!”

  People jostled to get a view. Voices cried out, “Here they are!” They were chained together in groups of four or five. Their clothes were stained with mud, and so was their hair.

  A great tumult arose from all around. They’ve been spoiled, upon my
word! The poor girls have been raped! Why? Did you think they’d wait for you to service them? If they did it, then good on their pricks. Look, there’s a blonde. And look at that other one, what a beauty! A redhead, the way Suleiman likes his girls. But what a pity, she’s been damaged. So what? They’ve left her little bird’s-nest, it’s still there! Look, I’d be willing to pay three hundred aspers. Look at that one over there, she’s laughing, she’s gone quite mad, poor thing. Well, that’s a fine job you akinxhis have done! You can tell the hunter from his catch.

  More and more men joined the crowd. Some were waving bulging purses under the girls’ noses. Some muttered dirty words. Voices called out: “Give way!” but the soldiers did not stand aside. Most of them seemed to be drunk. For many of them, it was the first time they had seen women without veils over their faces. They found it odd that the girls were chained when their eyes were freely available. They would not have been more fascinated if they had been allowed to take their pick from a fistful of emeralds strewn on the ground. Some of the girls let out little screams. The men thought they were laughing, but they were actually sobbing. Unless it was the other way round. Those eyes have quite an impact, someone standing behind the chronicler said.

  “Move back!” someone said. “Soldiers, give way! The captives will be sold at the market according to custom. Are there so few? Aren’t there any more?”

  “This is but a drop of water in the salty desert of our desire,” Çelebi said, feeling more and more happy just to be still alive.

  “They’ll be gone in a few hours’ time. They won’t last beyond midnight,” someone spoke out from nearby.

  Tuz Okçan turned round and without thinking asked: “Why so?”