Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants

by Mathias Enard

  I ask you again, my dearest Giuliano, to send me His Holiness’ reply about the tomb.

  Nothing more.

  This day June 6, 1506,

  Your Michelagnolo, sculptor in Florence.

  Michelangelo is dazzled by the opulence and splendor of the court. The crowd of slaves, ministers, the highest-ranking janissaries, the noble, serene look of the Sultan wearing a white turban adorned by a golden aigrette with diamonds — all these fascinate him. Bayezid’s architects have built the model in just three days, and it now sits enthroned on a rich display stand, which irritates the artist; the model is six cubits long and one and a half high. He would have preferred it to be shown on a simple table, but the rules of etiquette demand that only noble objects may be presented to the sovereign.

  Bayezid does not hide his joy.

  He displays a wide smile.

  He congratulates the sculptor himself, directly, and even goes so far — a rare event — as to thank him in Frankish.

  Ambassadors from Venice or from the King of France are not so well received.

  Bayezid solemnly gives the order to the mohendesbashi to start construction as soon as possible.

  Then the Shadow of God on Earth has the Florentine approach and hands him a rolled parchment covered in his tughra, his calligraphic seal; Michelangelo respectfully bows.

  He is then given permission to leave.

  The interview lasted a few minutes at most, but the artist has had time to stare at the Sultan, to note his robust constitution, his aquiline nose, his large, dark eyes, his black eyebrows, the marks of age around his cheekbones; if he didn’t hate portraits so much, Michelangelo would set to drawing him immediately, before he forgot the great lord’s features.

  Michelangelo is furious, seething; he breaks two phials of ink and a small mirror, unceremoniously sends the monkey flying across the room, then summons Manuel the dragoman who, after translating the parchment offered by the Sultan, had thought it wise to disappear.

  “Find me Mesihi,” he shouts.

  Manuel obeys immediately and returns an hour later in the company of the poet-secretary.

  “What is this,” the artist asks, pointing to the piece of paper without any preamble, not even greeting the man who would so like to be his friend.

  “It is a gift from the Sultan, Maestro. A deed of property. An immense honor. Foreigners are excluded from these kinds of benefits. Aside from you, Michelangelo.”

  Mesihi is both sad and angry at Michelangelo’s rage. How can he not understand that this parchment represents an exceptional homage?

  “You’re telling me that I am the owner of a village in the middle of nowhere I know nothing about, is that right?”

  “In Bosnia, that’s right. A village, the lands attached to it, and all their income.”

  “So those are my wages?”

  “No, Maestro, it’s a gift. Your wages will be paid once the construction is well underway.”

  Mesihi is angry with himself for disappointing the object of his passion in such a way; if he could, he’d shower Michelangelo in gold that very instant.

  The Florentine sits down and sorrowfully takes his head in hands.

  Turk or Roman, the powerful demean us.

  God have pity on me.

  Michelangelo understands that Bayezid is holding him in his power for as long as he likes.

  He looks at Mesihi with hatred, with such hatred that the poet, if he weren’t at least as proud as the sculptor, would burst into tears.

  It is the second night. The fire is projecting its reddish glints onto your shoulder. You are not drunk.

  You are a child, fickle and passionate. You have me lying next to you, but you’re not taking advantage of it. What are you thinking about? About whom? You have nothing to do with my love. I know who you are.

  They told me.

  You are a slave of princes, just as I am a slave of innkeepers and procurers.

  Maybe you’re right. Maybe the best part of childhood is this stubborn rage that makes us destroy the sandcastle if it isn’t perfect, if it doesn’t measure up to our desires. Maybe your genius blinds you. I am nothing compared to you, that’s for sure. You make me tremble. I feel this dark force that will break everything in its way, destroy everything with its certainties.

  You didn’t come here to know me, you came to build a bridge, for money, for God knows what else, and you’ll leave exactly the same, unchanged, you’ll return to your destiny. If you don’t touch me you will remain the same. You won’t have met anyone. Locked up in your world you see nothing but shadows, unfinished shapes, lands to be conquered. Each day pushes you on to the next, a day you don’t really know how to inhabit.

  I’m not looking for love. I’m looking for consolation. Comfort for all these countries we have lost since we left our mother’s womb, which we replace with stories, like greedy children, our eyes wide open to the storyteller.

  The truth is that there is nothing but suffering: we try to forget, in the arms of strangers, that we will soon vanish.

  Your bridge will remain; maybe it will take on, as time passes, a very different meaning from the one it has today, just as in my vanished country they’ll see something quite different from what it actually was, our successors will hang their stories on it, their worlds, their desires. Nothing belongs to us. They will find beauty in terrible battles, courage in men’s cowardliness, everything will enter into legend.

  You remain silent, I know you don’t understand me.

  Let me kiss you.

  You elude me like a snake.

  You are already far away, too far for anyone to reach you.

  The next day, when Mesihi arrives for their daily stroll, Michelangelo is in an excellent mood. He doesn’t know how to apologize for his behavior the day before. He tactfully welcomes the poet, showers him with compliments, invites him up to his room.

  “I have something to show you,” he says.

  Surprised, Mesihi accompanies him.

  Once in the artist’s apartment, they keep silent. Mesihi, feeling awkward, doesn’t know where to sit; he remains standing.

  The monkey seems to respect their silence and remains equally motionless and silent in his cage.

  Michelangelo is embarrassed; he observes Mesihi, his elegant bearing, his delicate features, his dark, oiled hair.

  Suddenly he hands him a piece of paper.

  “This is for you,” he says, using the formal word for “you.”

  This sudden, respectful term of address is very sweet to the poet’s ears.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a drawing. A souvenir. An elephant. It brings luck, they say. It can take the place of a monkey for you,” he adds, laughing.

  Mesihi smiles.

  “Thank you, Michelangelo. It is magnificent.”

  “And this too is for you. I’m giving it to you.”

  Michelangelo offers him the roll of parchment the Sultan gave him.

  “I cannot accept it, it’s a gift from Bayezid, Maestro. It’s worth a lot of money.”

  Michelangelo insists, protests, saying he can’t do anything with it, and that, surely, it’s possible to have Mesihi’s name inscribed in place of his own on this deed of land.

  Mesihi continues to refuse energetically, smiling.

  “I’ll keep the elephant, Maestro. That’s enough.”

  Michelangelo makes as if to give in to Mesihi’s arguments and then, a few seconds later, as they’re getting ready to leave the room, he says very quietly:

  “You know, this paper belongs to you as much as it does to me. Without you, I’d never have gotten anywhere.”

  And he forcefully places the firman in his hand.

  Mesihi feels his heart swelling to the point of breaking.

  To outwit boredom, Michelangelo draws glyphs, mol
dings, and scotias on pieces of paper already covered in thighs, feet, ankles, and hands.

  He waits.

  He jots down endless lists in his notebook.

  He works a little on the tomb of Julius Della Rovere, the intransigent Pope who ten years earlier, while still a cardinal, led the Vatican troops against Bayezid’s janissaries in southern Italy. Michelangelo has met the two enemies, one after the other, and offered the first a mausoleum, the other a bridge.

  Every day, Manuel comes to read to him.

  Michelangelo loves stories.

  He appreciates nothing so much as tales about battles, the machinations of the wonderful gods on top of Olympus, the combats of angels and demons. He hears images in them; he sees a hero bent by the weight of his sword decapitate the Gorgon, a drop of blood rising up from a young deer’s wound, Hannibal’s elephants bending their knees in the snow.

  He writes a few madrigals.

  The memory of the Andalusian beauty, of her whispers in the night, of the contact of her hands, comes back to haunt him often.

  Several times, he has almost returned to the tavern, or asked Mesihi to accompany him there; but he confusedly senses the Turk’s feelings for him and doesn’t want to wound him. He likes this strange friendship; despite what his mood swings and fits of anger might lead one to believe, he feels something for Mesihi and, in the most secret part of his soul, where desires burn, no doubt the poet’s portrait can be found there, well hidden.

  Michelangelo is obscure even to himself.

  When he receives a visit from Arslan one morning, as the completion of the opening in the ramparts preliminary to construction has just been announced to him, he is full of joy. Arslan has heard about the start of work on the bridge, he knows the Sultan is proud of his architect, and he has come to congratulate him and offer his regards. The man is friendly. His conversation is pleasant. The whole capital is talking about nothing but this new work, he says. You’re going to be the hero of this city, as in Florence.

  Michelangelo, a little embarrassed, doesn’t know how to approach the subject that interests him.

  They sit down in the courtyard, in the shadow of the fig tree.

  They talk about Florence, politics, Rome, in the company of the merchant Maringhi, who already knows Arslan; this coincidence seems like an excellent omen to the artist. He tries to find a way to see the object of his passion again.

  It’s Maringhi who finds it for him.

  “Soon it will be St. John’s Day, the patron saint of Florence,” the trader says. “I’m going to give a party; I’m counting on you to come.”

  “I know some excellent musicians,” Arslan says, turning toward the sculptor.

  Michelangelo can’t help but blush.

  The worksite for the new bridge over the Golden Horn opens officially on June 20, 1506, with the closing of part of the harbor and the building of a platform to handle the thousands of stones needed for the construction. Earlier on, a large area had been prepared at the foot of the ramparts and the Porte della Farina was enlarged. Michelangelo is still waiting for the promised money; as of now, only a purse containing a hundred silver coins for his expenses has arrived, quickly eaten up by the exorbitant prices Maringhi is demanding for rent and furnishings.

  Michelangelo is now even more impatient to get back to Italy since his brothers are constantly pressuring him to return and since he knows, after that mysterious missive from Rome, that certain people are eager to destroy him, to make him look like a renegade, possibly, or worse. He is used to conspiracies. The corridors of the pontifical palace swarm with plotters and assassins; his enemies, Raphael and Bramante especially, are powerful.

  They promise he’ll soon be able to leave.

  Michelangelo is afraid that Bayezid and Ali Pasha are too pleased with him to let him go so quickly.

  Constantinople is a very sweet prison.

  The city is balanced between east and west as he himself is between Bayezid and the Pope, between Mesihi’s tenderness and the burning memory of a dazzling singer.

  Arslan came back once to visit the sculptor.

  He found him in his room, busy jotting down the list of his latest expenses.

  Arslan is surprised by the presence of the monkey gamboling freely outside its open cage, yelping, leaping from the table to the artist’s shoulder, then onto the bed and even onto the visitor’s lap.

  The Turk roughly shoves it away with his foot.

  “Where did you find this creature?”

  “It’s a gift from Mesihi. It comes from India,” Michelangelo proudly adds, smiling.

  Arslan shrugs.

  “It’s horrible, it shouts and smells bad. Be careful, it could bite you.”

  Michelangelo bursts out laughing.

  “No, no, up till now it’s only bitten Maringhi, who deserves it. I named him Julius, for his bad character. With me he eats out of my hand, look.”

  He takes a hazelnut out of a little bag and holds it out to the monkey, who approaches and delicately takes the nut in its tiny fingers, with great respect and real nobility.

  Michelangelo can’t help but laugh again.

  “Isn’t he distinguished?”

  Arslan looks disgusted.

  “There is something diabolical in their almost human behavior, Maestro.”

  “You think? I find it amusing.”

  Arslan prefers to change the subject.

  “Is there any news about your bridge?”

  “Yes. The engineers are arguing over the size and height of the pilings. Construction has begun on both shores; soon I’ll draw the details of the arches and pillars and will draft the plans with all the dimensions.”

  “That hasn’t been done yet?”

  “No, I’m waiting for the engineers’ opinion.”

  “So you’ll be with us for quite a while longer, then.”

  Michelangelo sighs.

  “Possibly.”

  “You don’t seem happy about that.”

  “I confess I miss Italy. My brothers are asking for me, too.”

  “If I can help you in any way, don’t hesitate to ask. What could make your stay more pleasant?”

  The sculptor can’t help but think of the Andalusian singer, her voice and hands in the night.

  “Nothing you haven’t done already, thank you. And Mesihi is seeing to my every wish.”

  “Ah, Mesihi.”

  There’s something like reproach in Arslan’s voice.

  “He’s a charming companion and a pleasant guide.”

  “A man who loses himself in wine and opium loses his self.”

  “True. But he is a great poet.”

  Arslan pauses.

  “Have you heard his poetry, Maestro?”

  “I know the extracts that have been translated for me. They’re as beautiful as our Petrarch.”

  “If you say so.”

  Michelangelo is slightly annoyed by the young man’s insinuations. As usual, he can’t help replying directly:

  “Do you have anything against him?”

  Arslan doesn’t hesitate for a second.

  “No, of course not, on the contrary. He is the protégé of the Grand Vizier; a person’s importance can be measured by the power of his friends.”

  Even without being a seasoned courtier, Michelangelo has grasped the perfidy of Arslan’s words.

  He’d like the monkey to seize the moment and urinate on the merchant’s shoes, but the animal has caught hold of the quill on the writing table and is trying — a furry knight clumsily handling a lance too large for him — to hold it upright and draw God knows what on the paper.

  Michelangelo bursts out laughing.

  “You see? None of this is very important.”

  Arslan feels obliged to guffaw with him.

  “It’s
all just a matter of monkeying around, if we are to take your horrible animal literally.”

  Michelangelo remains silent for a while, before whispering:

  “It’s true. We all ape God in His absence.”

  On June 24, feast day of St. John the Baptist, Maringhi’s caravanserai is in full celebration. Michelangelo is more or less the guest of honor; a few Genoese and Venetian traders are there, forgetting their rivalry for once; Mesihi is there too, of course, along with Falachi and all the Florentines and Tuscans present in Istanbul. In the morning everyone went to Mass in the Latin church on the other side of the Golden Horn; everyone is thinking that when evening falls in Florence, they’ll light fires along the Arno, and this makes them a little melancholy. Michelangelo keeps company with Mesihi, radiating beauty in his embroidered kaftan. The summer has barely begun and yet the heat is already stifling despite the shade in the courtyard, where the banquet tables are set up. Arslan arrives and respectfully greets the host before coming over to Michelangelo and Mesihi. The sculptor notices the poet wince with surprise or displeasure; he seems not to be very fond of his cosmopolitan compatriot.

  Michelangelo is disappointed to see that Arslan has come alone; he had secretly been hoping he’d arrive with the eagerly awaited singer; he dares not ask.

  Everyone sits down to eat.

  Maringhi has done things well. The banquet is copious, unending.

  Michelangelo the frugal, bothered by the heat, eats sparingly.

  Halfway through the meal, he abandons his fellow guests and withdraws to his room, claiming fatigue — he, the indefatigable.

  He rereads a sonnet written the day before, finds it bad and tears it furiously to pieces.

  He doesn’t go back down to the courtyard until some hours later.

  Mesihi has disappeared.