Byron and the Beauty

by Muharem Bazdulj

  But the sun seemed to be imparting new strength to both fighters. The more the dawn yielded to the ethereal and stately morning, the more forceful and frequent was the clashing of swords. The first thrusts came straight up the middle, premeditatedly, with the metal giving off hollow clanks, like stone against stone or wood against wood; then the fighting grew hard, swift, and intrepid, and the noise given off by the blows of sabre upon sabre had something like music about them, like bursting crystal, sublime and tragic and at the same time celebratory. Selim Beg did not sally forth blindly anymore, but Byron now had to invest ever more will and skill into beating him back.

  In the observers, Isak and Osman, enthusiasm at the battle scene was itself duelling with the concern that each of them felt for his friend. Respect grew in them, nonetheless, for their opponents. From the beginning Isak had had a very high opinion of Selim Beg, but Osman’s attitude toward Byron had now changed. At one point he whispered into his beard: ‘The giaour fights well, although I won’t praise his faith.’ Yet now the clatter of swords was no longer the only sound accompanying the fight.

  With the first signs of fatigue, the first heavy breaths, Byron and Selim Beg began attacking each other with words. Each would eject expletives and curses in his own language, and beads of spit would hit the other in the face. The words slowed them down, and Selim Beg charged less often. That was the moment Byron had been waiting for; and now he prepared to attack. He was only marking time until that moment when, after one of Selim Beg’s unsuccessful sorties and his rebound, his opponent’s concentration would let up just a trace. So when Selim Beg attacked, in what was now almost a routine; Byron forced him to retreat and made his own advance, for the first time. Selim Beg was surprised, as were Osman and Isak. Osman even unconsciously took a couple of steps forward, parallel to Selim Beg’s withdrawal. Byron came at him harder now: swiftly, forcefully, and unwaveringly. These bore no similarity to Selim Beg’s attacks, which Byron had deflected standing in one spot. Now Selim Beg, confronted with Byron’s powerful blows, had to retreat stubbornly, step by step, towards the han.

  Even the sound of the weapons was now different. Byron’s sabre sang; Selim Beg’s blade merely added an echo to Byron’s. It was obvious that Selim Beg was fading. He no longer had the strength to counter Byron’s ever-faster swings. But at the moment when Osman and Isak, one of them full of anxiety and the other full of hope, were waiting for Byron to point his sabre in the air and draw his arm back for a final blow, Byron slipped and stumbled. Selim Beg could scarcely believe his luck. The man who had driven him back to the wall of the han, pushing at him as inexorably as a torrent and cutting off all avenues of his retreat, now this man was reeling like a drunk. The arm holding the sword was no longer pointing in Selim Beg’s direction, but was aimed off somewhere to the side, like a bird’s wing, in an attempt to maintain his balance.

  For a moment or two Selim Beg stood there calmly, and then he drew back his sword. Byron was in the process of falling, and the blow only grazed his forehead, just above his right eyebrow. Blood gushed forth. Byron lay there, his sword raised at an awkward angle, and Selim Beg stood over him with the bloody point of his weapon poised above Byron’s chest.

  Byron saw his opponent huge and impassive. Isak shut his eyes and Osman clenched his fists in delight. Byron couldn’t look Selim Beg in the face; he diverted his eyes to the han, to the window, to Zuleiha’s window. The blood was pouring across his face, and yet he continued to stare at the window, through half-closed eyes, in anticipation of the final blow. The curtain quivered, the window opened, and Zuleiha’s head appeared above him. She uttered a cry. She called out something in a trembling voice, and her brother turned around and began bellowing furiously in her direction. Byron understood nothing of it, but from the motions of Selim Beg’s hands he knew that he was telling her to shut the window and go back inside the room. She, however, didn’t want to obey. Staring the whole time at Zuleiha, Byron propped himself up with his left arm and got slowly to his feet.

  Now both of them were standing there, holding their weapons with their heads titled up at the window. Zuleiha seemed ready to obey her brother. She disappeared from the window but returned almost immediately. She focused now on Byron, uttered something unintelligible his way, and threw him a white silk headscarf. The light piece of silk floated through the air like a falling leaf, and Byron caught it in his left hand. He gazed deeply into Zuleiha’s eyes, then bowed his head and exclaimed: ‘Thank you, my lady.’

  Isak and Osman, meanwhile, had walked over to the wall of the han, and Isak translated Zuleiha’s words for Byron. She gave a barely perceptible smile, with her lips pressed together, and then disappeared into the room and shut the window. Selim Beg lowered his sabre, turned to Isak, and said something. Isak was listening, and he translated. ‘My sister said that she wouldn’t marry anyone at all if he were to kill you. Those were Selim Beg’s words. And if he spares you, then you must give up on your marriage bid.’

  Byron nodded in agreement: ‘He fought well, and he won fairly. Translate that for Selim Beg.’

  Isak did so, whereupon Selim Beg returned his sabre to the scabbard and held out his hand. Byron stuck his weapon behind his belt, tied Zuleiha’s cloth around his forehead, and shook Selim Beg’s hand. As he grasped Byron’s hand tightly, Selim Beg said something more. Isak translated his words. ‘He has never encountered a better sword-fighter. You were close to victory, my lord, he said, and if you weren’t a giaour, then he wouldn’t hesitate to give you his sister’s hand. You will go down in song, he said; a Bosnian song will enshrine your memory.’

  * * *

  After the morning’s excitement, the rest of the day passed very quickly. Byron and Isak had breakfast with Hobhouse, who apparently did not find the white silk cloth on Byron’s head remarkable, or, if he did, he didn’t let on about it. The two Albanians and the English attendants prepared to continue the journey.

  ‘It would be ideal if we could leave very early tomorrow morning,’ Isak said, ‘so that we could reach Tepelena before nightfall.’

  ‘In time for sabah,’ Byron said, and Isak nodded in assent: ‘Yes, my lord, in time for sabah.’

  After breakfast, Byron went back to his room. He felt like resting for a bit and then taking a walk; the gorgeous day was enticing him back outdoors. But sleep duped him, and he didn’t wake until the late afternoon. Isak was lying on his bed awake.

  ‘I slept like a baby, ‘Byron announced contentedly.

  ‘In these parts, we say that we slept like we were slain,’ Isak said with a laugh.

  ‘If things had been a little different, I would have slept that way, and forever,’ Byron joked.

  They both laughed long and hard, like children.

  ‘I’m going out for a bit of a walk,’ Byron said, ‘while there’s still some daylight. Tomorrow we’ll be in the saddle all day long again.’ He stood up.

  ‘I would accompany you, my lord, but I’ve been on my feet almost the entire day.’

  ‘To be honest, a little time alone will do me good.’

  Isak expressed his approval. Byron was already leaving when Isak called out: ‘They’ve already gone.’

  Byron stopped in his tracks.

  ‘The Bosnians have left: Selim Beg, Zuleiha, all of them, right after the duel this morning. Unexpectedly. The innkeeper told me that they hadn’t even breakfasted, Isak continued.’

  Byron shrugged his shoulders and went out without a word. He crossed the clearing between the han and the grove. It had not even been ten hours since he had been fighting for his life here, sword in hand. Now twilight was in the air. The sun appeared to be shining at the same angle as in the morning, but from the opposite side. The ground under his feet was noticeably drier, but the window above his head was closed and gave off a sense of mystery. The shading of the blue sky was gradually growing darker. When Byron got back to the room, Isak was sitting by a burning candle. Byron took a seat on the bed.

  ‘How’s you
r forehead, my lord?’

  Byron loosened the cloth, and Isak came over with the candle.

  ‘It’s not a large wound,’ Isak said. ‘It isn’t deep, but a lot of blood has clotted there. When the scab falls off, you’ll have a scar as a lifelong souvenir.’

  ‘It will be a beautiful scar,’ Byron said, and he tied the cloth around his head again.

  For the rest of the evening, they did not talk much, and the little that they said concerned the next day’s journey. They were both wrapped up in their own silent thoughts and for the most part avoided eye contact.

  ‘Good night,’ said Byron, as Isak put out the light.

  Chapter Fourteen: October 19, 1809

  ‘What does it mean to be memorialized in a song?’ Byron asked of Isak before dawn was even close. Both of them were awake very early, like the morning before, and these were the first words spoken after sleeping. Isak’s silence gave way to a deep sigh. ‘In these parts, my lord,’ he said at last, ‘that’s the only kind of glory – and it is more lasting than brass. Frail, and brittle and fleeting, is every kind of glory except the kind that song bestows. Books count about as much as stones in people’s memory, my lord. The same piece of parchment can be written upon many times over, and horse excrement now falls onto the stone slabs from ancient emperor’s palaces and medieval fortresses. Walls are constructed of the marble of old grave markers; people feed fires with books; but inside the walled courtyards, around the fires, songs are sung! Kings and sultans are quickly forgotten, but songs are remembered: songs about the strength of a man’s arm or the beauty of a woman’s countenance.

  Only in Bosnia, my lord, have there been more than enough songs sung about unhappy loves, enough for the entire world, and yet still, to everyone in Bosnia, a pair of unhappy lovers means more than any number of Caliph Omars or Virgin Marys. The same people, who in real life pushed lovers to calamity, find themselves swimming in tears over a song. In these songs, heroes who have the world at their feet get their hearts broken by love; in these songs, a beautiful woman sets a city afire with a glance. To be preserved in a song, my lord, means being larger than life; it means being transformed into words, not into a written text but into a voice, not into letters but into a verse, not into a line or the rustle of paper but into a melody. If they should marry, these people, of course, sing nothing at their own celebrations; and if death overtakes them in the song, at least the song itself does not die.’

  With that, Isak concluded his report. Byron was quiet.

  ‘I’ll go check and see if everyone’s ready, and if our horses have been saddled,’ Isak stated after a significant pause.

  He left the room, and the door closed behind him. Byron remained behind alone lost in

  thought and looking gloomy. He thought of Bosnia, this unknown and unseen land, and of the songs that the Bosnians sing. Not even fire can touch these songs, he thought, and that means they are real indeed. The poet remembers, and the poems will be remembered. That is as it should be, he contemplated; remembrance for what deserves to be memorialized, and what is forgotten was from the very beginning destined for oblivion.

  Byron had to grin as he imagined the earnest, frowning faces of the first turban-bedecked men singing around a fire. The flames crackled, the strings of the gusle quivered, and their robes rustled in the wind. The song makes them sweat, and makes their skin crawl, and from time to time one of them takes a gulp of something bitter from a slender bottle, something that makes the tongue burn and the throat clench. A knock at the door interrupted these thoughts. Isak opened a crack in the door and asked: ‘Are we ready to leave, my lord? Everyone is set, and we are just waiting for you.’

  Byron followed him out in silence. Indeed, the entire company was already in the saddle. They all greeted Byron cheerfully. He found his horse and, before mounting, stroked his mane. In the resplendence of the first light of morning, the han dropped behind them like a conquered castle keep.

  * * *

  The sun was spring-like, the sky clear, and the morning warm. It’s enough to fool a blind man, Byron mused; because only with eyes could one detect how far along October was. Such rains awaken the earth in spring, but now they are barren. Isak was riding along right beside him. When Byron mumbled something about spring rains as opposed to autumn rains, Isak understood him well.

  ‘I know what you are thinking, my lord. In spring the rains wash away the snow, and the land and trees turn green. There is nothing more beautiful here than the first few days after the spring rains begin. It’s a shame that you did not come at that time of year. Spring arrives overnight, and then the grass is greener than jealousy, and the petals of the blossoms are more fragile than butterfly wings. When the warm wind blows, it reveals one’s soul,’ Isak added. ‘Meanwhile these rains wash the remains of life from the earth, as if one were washing a meyt.’

  ‘Meyt – that’s a corpse?’ asked Byron. Isak nodded.

  ‘I would have liked to see the birth of a spring,’ Byron announced. ‘In England we have no proper winter or spring. After a brief pause, he added: ‘But we also don’t necessarily wash dead bodies.’ At that they both chuckled.

  ‘It’s that way here, too, my lord,’ Isak went on. ‘Some wash their dead, others bring them flowers, but both groups do what they do for their own sake and not for the sake of the dead.’

  ‘So it is,’ Byron said. He looked around. The countryside actually did resemble a corpse. Everything had been reduced to black and brown, to white and grey, and the blue skies were preternaturally lovely.

  ‘I envy you, my lord.’

  ‘For what,’ Byron wanted to know.

  ‘I envy you Athens and Istanbul: the whole south, to be more precise. Winter is on the march here, and it will not be pretty. The heavens will turn grey, the earth white, and all living things will be frozen. One can only wait for spring. And after spring, the order of the day is preparation for the new winter. That’s life here, my lord, half waiting and half trepidation.’

  Byron repeated Isak’s statement in agreement. They were riding fast. Towards noon they stopped briefly to eat something and give the horses a short rest. From the han they had brought enough provisions for just one meal.

  ‘By evening we will be in Tepelena anyway,’ Isak said.

  They ate while standing in the shade cast by a few trees. The trunks were still wet, and the shadows were short. The pleasant warmth of morning was now bordering on turning humid. The riding had warmed the men further. Hobhouse made a joke about Byron’s white silk cloth, which he had not removed from his brow. Byron was laconic, though; the wound on his head hurt more than the day before. His face was covered in sweat, and Hobhouse ventured that he was hot because of the scarf. Isak whispered something to him, though, and Hobhouse fell silent. Back on their mounts, Byron asked Isak what he had said. ‘That the white deflects the sun, my lord, and that’s why you are wearing it.’ Byron smiled contentedly. They rode for perhaps another half hour across level terrain, and then the trail began to climb once more.

  ‘Now we are quite close,’ Isak announced. The incline was not particularly steep, and the path did not become any narrower. The refreshed horses crested it easily and swiftly. When their little column had gained considerable altitude, Byron turned around and looked back. Far below them a whitish spot stood out on the horizontal greyness. The han, thought Byron, as he turned around to face forward again.

  * * *

  Time slowed to a crawl. The afternoon was as slow as the morning had been quick. The climb was gentle, but it seemed infinite. Even the horses seemed fed up with it. Fortunately we are very close now, Byron thought; and soon it will all be over. If it weren’t, even I could start to be bored. The East has ceased to be full of surprises for me, and I once considered that impossible. My old problem: I’m alive to everything, and then indifference creeps in. I maintain no enthusiasm for anything, and neither can I hate. All of this was jumbled up in Byron’s mind: In a few days I will be done with Albania
and Ali Pasha. I will have satisfied the vanity of a powerful old man and quenched my own curiosity, and then it’s on to ancient Hellas. Let’s let the past jolt my soul awake a little if the present cannot manage it. But if I had lived in that past, I would have found it to be drab, too. Only the unattainable entices me, thought Byron.

  All at once he was struck by his own ludicrousness. Take a look at yourself, Byron, he said to himself; have a look at your self, my lord, dragging yourself cumbrously around the globe in order to learn what you’ve known since childhood. You scurry through the world like the Wandering Jew, the Flying Dutchman, and everywhere it’s the same: men, trees, women, and cities. Everywhere the same thing, and you also remain the same naive and arrogant Englishman.

  He looked around: a number of men, a number of horses, bodies, perhaps souls: They live, they move, they eat, they sing. And time passes. Byron felt, he even sensed physically, the way the anxiety in him mounted. His heart seemed to grow heavy, like a weight in the left side of his chest. The oppressiveness spread through him. His hands were shaky and unsteady, his palms sweaty and slippery. There was a weakness in his legs, a pain in his head; and anguish, fear, and heaviness. He thought back to the severed arm he had seen on the road to Yannina. How long had it been since then, two weeks? Blood had once flown in that arm, and that hand had also held a sword. Today perhaps only white bones remained. Not too long ago, Isak had mentioned a curse common in these parts. ‘If you curse a man here, you wish for the earth to spit out his bones. And everyone curses everyone else.’ Byron had before his eyes an image of the earth spewing things forth. Of an earth that vomits like a person, ejecting white foam and bones like dirty snow. He felt the sour contents of his stomach climb to his mouth, but he suppressed it and swallowed hard.