Three Arched Bridge

58

IT WAS MARK HABERI who was the first to bring the news of the Turks, “commination” against Europe from across the border, Pleased that the event seemed so important to me, he looked at me with eyes that reminded me of my displeasure at his change of surname, almost as if, without that Turkish surname, he would not be able to bring news, in other words habere, from over there.

Indeed, his explanation of what had happened was so involved that while he talked, he became drenched with sweat, like a man who fears to be taken for a lian Speak clearly, I said to him two or three times, because I cannot understand what you are trying to say. But he continued to prevaricate. I can’t say it, he repeated. These are new, frightening things that cannot be put into words.

He asked for my permission to explain by gestures, making some movements that struck me as demented. I told him that the gesture he was making is among us called a “fig,” and indicates at the same time contempt, indifference, and a curse. He cried, “Precisely, Father. There they call it a ‘commination, and it is of state importance.”

I did not conceal my amazement at the connection between this hand movement, which people and especially women make in contempt of each other, somewhat in the sense of “may my ill fortune be on your head,” with the new Ottoman state policy toward Europe, of which Mark Haberi sought to persuade me.

He left in despair to collect additional data, which he indeed brought me a few days later, always from the other side. They left me openmouthed. From his words and the testimony of others that I heard in those days, I reconstructed the entire event, like a black temple.

The Commination against Europe had taken place in the last days of the month of Michaelmas, precisely on the Turkish-Albanian border, and had been performed according to all the ancient rubrics in the archives of the Ottoman state. Their rules of war demanded that before any battle started, the place about to be attacked, whether a castle, a wall, or simply an encampment, had to be cursed by the army’s curse maker.

It was said that the old archives described precisely, even with the help of a sketch, the gesture of the curse. The palms of the hand were opened and moved forward, as if to launch the portentous curse on its flight. This gesture was repeated three times, and then the curser’s back was turned on the direction in which the curse was headed.

Their chronicles told of the cursing of castles and the domains of rebellious pashas, and even whole states, before an attack began; but there was no case of an entire continent being cursed. It was perhaps for this reason that even the most important curse maker in the state, Sukrullah, who had arrived on the empire’s extreme border the previous nighty,was slightly shaken, as those who saw him reported.

The sky was overcast and damp, and the whole plain around the small temporary minaret erected specially for the purpose was swathed in mist.

The curse maker climbed the little minaret and stared for a while in our direction, toward where, in Turkish eyes, the accursed continent of Europe began, The weather was indeed extremely bad, and almost nothing could be seen in the fog. The small group of high dignitaries who had accompanied Sukrullah from the capital to the border stood speechless, Down below, at the foot of the minaret, the imperial chronicler had opened a thick tome to record the event.

Sukrullah raised his arms in front of him, so that they emerged from the wide sleeves of his half-clerical, half-laic gown. Everybody saw that the palms of his hands were exceptionally broad. However, nobody was surprised at this, because he was not the state’s foremost curse maker for nothing,

He studied his hands for a while and, turning his eyes toward the ash-colored distance, raised his palms in front of his face to the level of his brow, His palms paled as the blood drained from them, He held them there for a time until they were as white as the palms of a corpse, and then thrust them violently forward, as if the evil were in the form of a bubble he was dispatching into the distance,

He did this three times in a row. The commination was complete.

In silence, without a word’ he climbed down first from the minaret, followed immediately by his escorts. Together with the other officials, they accompanied him to his carriage, whose doors were embellished with the emblem of the Great Royal Commination. He climbed into the carriage together with his assistants and guards, and as the vehicle departed through the winter cold in the direction from which it had come, the curse traveled in the opposite direction, toward us toward the lands of Europe. It went (or rather came) through the fog like some bird of ill omen, like a herald or a sick dream.

So’ God on high, there it is! What sort of country is this with which fate has embroiled us? What signs it sends through the air to us! And what will it send after them?