The Bridge on the Drina (19 page)

Also well known and esteemed in the town was the head of that house, Avdaga Osmanagić, a bold and fiery man in private life as in business. He had a shop in the market, a low twilit room in which maize, dried plums or pinecones lay scattered over planks and plaited mats. Avdaga only did a wholesale trade, therefore his shop was not open every day, but regularly on market days and through-out the week according to the needs of business. In it was always one of Avdaga's sons, while he himself usually sat on a bench before it. There he chatted with customers or acquaintances. He was a big and imposing man, ruddy in appearance, but with pure white beard and moustaches. His voice was harsh and throaty. For years he had suffered cruelly from asthma. Whenever he grew excited in conversation and raised his voice, and that was a frequent occurrence, he would suddenly choke, his neck tendons stand out, his face grow red and his eyes fill with tears, while his chest creaked, wheezed and echoed like a storm on the hills. When the fit of choking had passed, he would pull himself together, take a deep breath and go on with the conversation where he had left off, only in a changed thin voice. He was known in the town and the surroundings as a man of harsh words, but generous and brave. So he was in everything, even in business, though often to his own hurt. Often by a bold word he would reduce or raise the price of plums or maize even when this was not to his own advantage, only to spite some avaricious peasant or rapacious merchant. His word was universally listened to and accepted in the market-place, though it was known that he was often hasty and personal in his judgments. When Avdaga came down from Velje Lug and sat before his shop he was rarely alone, for men liked to listen to his talk and wanted to hear his opinion. He was always open and lively, ready to speak out and defend what others considered was best passed over in silence. His asthma and attacks of heavy coughing would interrupt his conversation at any moment, but for a wonder this did not spoil it but made it seem the more convincing and his whole manner of expressing himself had a sort of heavy and painful dignity, which it was not easy to resist.

Avdaga had five married sons and an only daughter, who was the youngest of his children and just ripe for marriage. She was called Fata and it was known of her that she was exceptionally beautiful and the very image of her father. The whole town and to some extent even the whole district discussed the question of her marriage. It has always been the case with us that at least one girl in every generation passes into legend and song because of her beauty, her qualities and her nobility. So she was in those few years the goal of all desires and the inaccessible example; imagination flared up at mention of her name and she was surrounded by the enthusiasm of the men and the envy of the women. She was one of those outstanding persons set apart by nature and raised to dangerous heights.

This daughter of Avdaga resembled her father not only in face and appearance but also in quickness of wit and the gift of words. The youths who, at weddings or meetings, sought to win her by cheap
flattery or embarrass her by daring jests, knew this well. Her wit was no less than her beauty. Therefore, in the song about Fata the daughter of Avdaga (songs about such exceptional beings spring up of themselves spontaneously) it was sung:

'Thou art wise as thou art lovely, Lovely Fata Avdagina . . .'

So they sang and spoke in the town, but there were very few who had the courage to ask for the hand of the girl from Velje Lug. And when they had one and all been rejected, a sort of vacuum was created about Fata, an enchanted circle, made of hatred and envy, of unacknowledged desires and of malicious expectation, such a circle as always surrounds beings with exceptional gifts and an exceptional destiny. Such persons, of whom much is said and sung, are rapidly borne away by that especial destiny of theirs and leave behind them, instead of a life fulfilled, a song or a story.

Thus it often happens amongst us that a girl who is much spoken of remains for that very reason without suitors and 'sits out', whereas girls who in no way measure up to her marry quickly and easily. This was not destined for Fata, for a suitor was found who had the audacity to desire her and the skill and endurance to attain his ends.

In that irregular circle formed by the Višegrad valley, exactly on the opposite side from Velje Lug, lay the hamlet of Nezuke.

Above the bridge, not quite an hour's walk upstream, amid that circle of dark mountains whence, as from a wall, the Drina breaks out in a sudden curve, there was a narrow strip of good and fertile land on the stony river bank. This was formed by the deposits brought down by the river and by the torrents which came down from the precipitous slopes of the Butkovo Rocks. On it were fields and gardens and, above them, steep meadows with sparse grass which lost themselves on the slopes in rugged stone crops and dark undergrowth. The whole hamlet was the property of the Hamzić family, who were also known by the name of Turković. On one half lived five or six families of serfs and on the other were the houses of the Hamzić brothers, with Mustajbeg Hamzić at their head. The hamlet was remote and exposed, without sun but also without wind, richer in fruit and hay than in wheat. Surrounded and shut in on all sides by steep hills, the greater part of the day it was in shadow and in silence, so that every call of the shepherds and every movement of the cowbells was heard as a loud and repeated echo from the hills. One path only led to it from Višegrad. When one crossed the bridge coming from the town and left the main road which turned to the
right down river, one came upon a narrow stone track to the left across a patch of waste and stony ground up the Drina along the water's edge, like a white selvedge on the dark slopes which ran down to the river. A man on horse or on foot going along that path, when seen from the bridge above, seemed as if he were going along a narrow tree trunk between the water and the stone, and his reflection could be seen following him in the calm green waters.

That was the path which led from the town to Nezuke; and from Nezuke there was no way on, for there was nowhere to go. Above the houses, in the steep slopes overgrown with sparse forest, two deep white watercourses had been cut, up which the shepherds climbed when they took the cattle to their mountain pastures.

There was the great white house of the eldest Hamzić, Mustajbeg. It was in no way smaller than the Osmanagić house at Velje Lug, but it was different in that it was completely invisible in that hollow alongside the Drina. Around it grew fifteen tall poplars in a semicircle, whose murmur and movement gave life to that spot so shut in and difficult of access. Below this house were the smaller and humbler houses of the remaining pair of Hamzić brothers. All the Hamzićs had many children and all were fair-skinned, tall and slender, taciturn and reserved, but well able to hold their own in business, united and active in all their affairs. Like all the richer people at Velje Lug, they too had their shops in the town where they brought for sale everything that they produced at Nezuke. At all times of the year, they and their serfs swarmed and climbed like ants along that narrow stony track beside the Drina bringing produce to the town or returning, their business concluded, with money in their pockets, to their invisible village among the hills.

Mustajbeg Hamzić's great white house awaited the visitor as a pleasant surprise at the end of that stony track that seemed as if it led nowhere. Mustajbeg had four daughters and one son, Nail. This Nail-beg of Nezuke, only son of a noble family, was among the first to cast an eye on Fata of Velje Lug. He had admired her beauty at some wedding or other through a half-opened door, outside which a group of young men had been hanging like a bunch of grapes. When he next had the chance of seeing her, surrounded by a group of her friends, he had essayed a daring jest:

'May God and Mustajbeg give you the name of young bride!'

Fata gave a stifled giggle.

'Do not laugh,' said the excited youth through the narrow opening of the door, 'even that marvel will take place one day.'

'It will indeed, when Velje Lug comes down to Nezuke!' replied the girl with another laugh and a proud movement of her body, such
as only women like her and of her age can make, and which said
 
more than her words and her laugh.

It is thus that those beings especially gifted by nature often provoke their destiny, boldly and thoughtlessly. Her reply to young Hamzić was repeated from mouth to mouth, as was everything else that she said or did.

But the Hamzićs were not men to be put off or discouraged at the first difficulty. Even when it was a question of minor matters, they did not come to a conclusion hastily so how much less in such a question as this. An attempt made through some relations in the town had no better success. But then old Mustajbeg Hamzić took into his own hands the matter of his son's marriage. He had always had common business dealings with Osmanagić. Avdaga had recently had some serious losses, due to his explosive and proud character, and Mustajbeg had helped him and supported him as only good merchants can help and support one another in difficult moments; simply, naturally and without unnecessary words.

In these cool half-lit shops and on the smooth stone benches before them were settled not only matters of commercial honour but also human destinies. What happened there between Avdaga Osmanagić and Mustajbeg Hamzić, how did Mustajbeg come to ask for the hand of Fata for his only son Nail, and why did the proud and upright Avdaga 'give' the girl? No one will ever know. No one will ever know either exactly how the matter was thrashed out up there at Velje Lug between the father and his lovely only daughter. There could, naturally, be no question of any opposition on her part. One look filled with pained surprise and that proud and inborn movement of her whole body, and then mute submission to her father's wishes, as it was and still is everywhere and always amongst us. As if in a dream, she began to air, to complete and to arrange her trousseau.

Nor did a single word from Nezuke filter out to the outer world. The prudent Hamzićs did not ask other men to confirm their successes in empty words. They had achieved their wish and, as always, were content with their success. There was no need of anyone else to share in their satisfaction, even as they had never asked for sympathy in their failures and their misfortunes.

But none the less people talked of this widely and unthinkingly, as is the habit of men. It was told throughout the town and the country around that the Hamzićs had got what they wanted, and that the lovely, proud and clever daughter of Avdaga, for whom no suitor good enough had been found in all Bosnia, had been outplayed and tamed; that none the less 'Velje Lug would come to Nezuke' even though Fata had publicly proclaimed that it would not. For people
love to talk about the downfall and humiliation of those who have been exalted too much or have flown too high.

For a month the people savoured the event and drank in tales of Fata's humiliation like sweet water. For a month they made preparations at Nezuke and at Velje Lug.

For a month Fata worked with her friends, her relations and her servants on her trousseau. The girls sang. She too sang. She even found strength to do that. And she heard herself singing, though she still thought her own thoughts. For with every stroke of her needle she told herself that neither she nor her needlework would ever see Nezuke. She never forgot this for an instant. Only, thus working and thus singing, it seemed to her that it was a long way from Velje Lug to Nezuke and that a month was a long time. At night it was the same. At night when, with the excuse that she had some work to finish, she remained alone there opened before her a world rich and full of light, of joyful and unlimited change.

At Velje Lug the nights were warm and fresh. The stars seemed low and dancing, as though bound together by a white shimmering radiance. Standing before her window, Fata looked out at the night. Through all her body she felt a calm strength, overflowing and sweet, and every part of her body seemed a special source of strength and joy, her legs, her hips, her arms, her neck and above all her breasts. Her breasts, full and large but firm, touched the frame of the window with their nipples. And in that place she felt the whole hillside with all that was on it, houses, outbuildings, fields, breathing warmly, deeply, rising and falling with the shining heavens and the expanse of the night. With that breathing the wooden frame of the window rose and fell, touching the tips of her breasts, leaving them once more for some vast distance and then returning once again to touch them, then rising and falling again and again.

Yes, the world was great, the world was limitless even by day when the valley of Višegrad quivered in the heat and one could almost hear the wheat ripening and when the white town was strung out along the green river, framed by the straight lines of the bridge and the dark mountains. But at night, only at night, the skies grew alive and burst open into infinity and the power of that world where a living being is lost, and has no longer the sense of what he is, where he is going or what he wishes or what he must do. Only there one lived truly, serenely and for long; in that space there were no longer words that bound one tragically for one's whole life, no longer fateful promises or situations from which one could not escape, with the brief time that flows and flows onward inexorably, with death or shame as the only outcome. Yes, in that space it was not as it is in
everyday life, where what has once been said remains irrevocable and what has been promised inescapable. There everything was free, endless, nameless and mute.

Then, from somewhere below her, as from afar, could be heard a heavy, deep and stifled sound: