The Traitor's Niche. Ismail Kadare
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years, as well as very recent additions. Now winter had come to all of them: to the old domains of the imperial heartland, or Dar-al-Islam, as they were called, and to the new possessions—known as the Dar-al-Harb, which might be translated as “foreign lands” or “lands of war”; to the great renegade pashadoms, to the regions put to sleep after losing their nationhood, to the regions that enjoyed privileges—or the halal lands, as they were once called; to the snowfields, to the treacherous shadowlands where the sun never penetrated, and to the marshes made all the more desolate by the clamor of geese. In short, to all the provinces whose stations and destinies had been laid down in the recent special decree, “On the Status of the Empire.”
Only clouds, mists, rainbows, winds, rains, and the royal messengers on the muddy highways roamed freely from one part of the mighty state to another. As winter approached, there had been more couriers than ever.
The winter was harshest on the frontier of the empire, and especially in the land of the Albanians. Or perhaps it seemed this way because of the rebellion. It had been apparent for many years that conflicts increased the heat when they occurred in summer, but had the opposite effect in winter, when the wind cut more sharply than a sword.
This was Albania’s second major uprising since its subjugation. Throughout the autumn, it was rumored in the capital city that the sultan-emperor himself would march against the distant territory, just like at the time of Scanderbeg’s great rebellion. This plan was considered to have good and bad aspects. The good was obvious, in that it was clear to everybody that a campaign led by the sovereign himself would quickly suppress the uprising. The bad was that an imperial offensive stuck in the memory and, unlike in previous times, the capital increasingly set store by forgetting.
It was previously thought that states had so many memorials and monuments in order that nothing should be forgotten. But it was discovered later that a major state had as much need to forget as to remember, if not more. The memories of events and statesmen paled as the years passed. Dust covered them, mud stained them, until they were finally erased as if they had never been. But recently people had come to understand that forgetting was more difficult and complicated than remembering. It was forbidden, for example, to mention the name of Scanderbeg in books or the press, but there was no such ruling regarding the two sultans’ campaigns against him in Albania. Nobody dared say that poems and chronicles could no longer mention the sovereigns’ battles. But at the same time, nobody could advise how to answer bothersome questions: who had the great emperors set off to fight against, and what had they done when they arrived?
The Central Archive could perform many miracles, as it had done with the Balkans, but it was beyond its skill to hide these looming questions that emerged through the fog like mountaintops and seemed to glint above the entire world.
Albania had rebelled many times since the death of Scanderbeg, may he never rest in peace, but never like this. This was an extended rebellion that came in waves like the shocks of an earthquake, sometimes overtly, sometimes in secret. It had been started long ago by the old Bushatli family in the north and continued by Ali Pasha Tepelena in the south, and was shaking the foundations of the historic empire.
During the long autumn, everybody in the capital talked about the Albanian affair. Obviously, the rebel territory would be severely punished, and the era of the great pashadoms in Albania would come to an end. But this was not enough for the old aristocratic and religious elites. They wanted to know why matters had been allowed to go so far, and who was to blame. For years they had opposed the favors shown to Albania. They had written letters and issued warnings. But the rot had not been stopped.
Instead, something unprecedented had happened. For forty years, the great native pashas of Albania, Kara Mahmud Bushatli in the north and Ali Tepelena in the south, had kept the country beyond the reach of the Sublime Porte. They said that Kara Mahmud, the pasha of the north, rushed out like a tiger from the ravines of his frontier domain at whim and attacked neighboring states without the permission of the capital, breaking all the alliances, treaties, and agreements that had been reached with so much effort, and turning the state’s entire foreign policy upside down. The foreign minister, the Reiz Efendi, appeared before the sultan, rending his cheeks and beard, and demanded that either this rampaging pasha be put in his place, or he himself should be dismissed.
“Kara Mahmud Bushatli, a model civil servant,” the British consul, famous for his quips, had once said. If he was not mistaken, this pasha had waged war on neighboring states six times without the sultan’s permission. He had been pronounced a traitor on each occasion and sentenced to death, but was always pardoned. The seventh time he had attacked a foreign country, again without permission, and he had been killed there. Oh God, such pashas existed only in the Balkans. And just look at his name: Kara Mahmud, with that handle, Kara, meaning “Black,” attached by the official curse. Apparently he’d liked the sobriquet, and besides, he was aware that after every pardon he would be condemned again, so he kept it joined to his name, rather as we hesitate to put down a wet hood when we come in from the rain, knowing that we are going straight out again.
People laughed at the Englishman, although everyone knew that the European consuls were, without exception, embroiled in the business of both Kara Mahmud and Ali Pasha. Carriages bearing their diplomatic crests swept through the renegade pashadoms like the north wind. But to the consuls’ surprise, apart from its besieged castles the vast province of Albania was to all appearances at peace. With their faces glued to the little windows of their coaches, they expected to see turmoil and bloodshed, but found only silence. They referred to their newspapers, as if trying to confirm from the headlines that there was indeed an uprising, and poked their heads outside, but everywhere there was the same desolation. It was as though the noise and mayhem had been projected to the royal capital, while here at its source everything was frozen in silence.
Newspaper headlines reported to all corners of the state that Ali Tepelena, governor of Albania, a seven-times-decorated pasha and member of the Council of Ministers, proclaimed by royal decree as Kara Ali, meaning “Black Ali,” was besieged in his last fortress. Hurshid Pasha, the army’s rising star and the emperor’s favorite, was suppressing the rebellion, and had refused all meetings with journalists and consuls.
On the fourth of February, the French consul’s carriage was traveling past the encampment of a unit of the besieging army. From deep inside the camp came the sound of festive drumming. The consul stretched his head out the window to ask what all this pounding was about. “The hayir ferman,” several voices replied from the semidarkness. “What?” the consul asked. “What’s that?” “It’s the decree pardoning Ali Pasha’s life,” someone replied. “The war’s over.”
How was this possible, the consul wondered, and stretched his head out of the carriage to ask more questions, but around him there was only dusk and spoiled snow. How was this possible, he wondered again. The whole world was waiting for Ali Pasha’s severed head. In the capital, there were people who kept vigil all night by the Traitor’s Niche, and curses against the black vizier had been sung from the empire’s hundred thousand minarets. How could it all come to this ordinary end?
It was totally dark outside. The snow now looked black, and the French consul, wrapped in his fur-lined cloak, racked his brain to think of what he would report to his king.
They must come now, thought Hurshid Pasha for perhaps the hundredth time. He paced from one end of the tent to the other with long strides, and as he walked he shifted his rings from one trembling finger to the next. They must come now, he almost cried aloud. He thought he heard footsteps, and listened. But it was not footsteps, only the rustling of his robe, which stopped as soon as he stood still.
No more gunshots or shouts of war were audible. It seemed that everything was over, and still they hadn’t come. For an instant, he imagined them walking towards him with heavy feet, like in a nightmare. Hurry up a little, for God’s sake, he appealed silently. But their feet stuck as if in dough. The script of the sultan’s decree, which Ali Pasha perhaps held in his hands, flashed in front of his eyes. That decree pardoned the empire’s greatest rebel . . . but the sultan’s signature strangely resembled a scorpion with its poisonous sting pointing upward. The decree was false. Ali would be beheaded as soon as he surrendered.
Then