The Bridge on the Drina (8 page)

'Who let him go? Tell me who let him go, or I shall chop you all into small pieces, all of you.'

The men stood silently and blinked at the red flickering light while their leader kept turning around as if searching the darkness, and shouting insults at them such as they had never heard him use by day. Then, suddenly, he started, leant over the bound peasant as if over a precious hoard, and began to mutter through his teeth in a thin lachrymose voice:

'Guard him, guard him well! You bastards, if you let him go, not a single one of you will keep his head on his shoulders.'

The guards crowded round the peasant. Two more hurried to join them, crossing the ferry from the farther bank. The man from Plevlje ordered them to bind the prisoner more securely. So they carried him like a corpse slowly and carefully to the bank. The man from Plevlje went with them, not looking where he was treading and never taking his eyes from the bound man. It seemed to him that he was growing in stature with every step, that only from that moment was he beginning to live.

On the bank new torches were lighted and began to flare up. The captive peasant was taken into one of the workmen's barracks where there was a fire, and was bound tightly to a post with ropes and chains taken from the hearth.

It was Radisav of Unište himself.

The man from Plevlje calmed down a little; he no longer screamed or swore, but he was unable to keep still. He sent guards along the banks to look for the other peasant who had leapt into the water, though it was clear that on so dark a night, if he had not drowned, it would be impossible to find or catch him. He gave order after order, went out, came in again and then once again went back, drunk with excitement. He began to interrogate the bound peasant, but soon left off doing that also. All that he did was only to master and conceal his nervousness, for in fact he had only one thought in his head; he was waiting for Abidaga. He had not long to wait.

As soon as he had slept out his first sleep Abidaga, as was his habit, waked shortly after midnight and, no longer able to sleep, stood by his window and looked out into the darkness. By day he could see from his balcony at Bikavac the whole river valley and all the construction works, with the barracks, mills, stables and all that devastated and littered space around them. Now in the darkness he sensed their presence and thought with bitterness how slowly the work was proceeding and how, sooner or later, this must reach the Vezir's ears. Someone would be sure to see to that. If no one. else, then that smooth, cold and crafty Tosun Effendi. Then it might chance that he might fall into disgrace with the Vezir. That was what prevented him from sleeping, and even when he did fall asleep he trembled in his dreams. His food seemed poison to him, men seemed odious and his life dark when he even thought of it. Disgrace —that meant that he would be exiled from the Vezir's presence, that his enemies would laugh at him (Ah! Anything but that!), that he would be nothing and nobody, no more than a rag, a good for nothing, not only in the eyes of others but also in his own. It would mean giving up his hard won fortune or, if he managed to keep it, to eke it out stealthily, far from Stambul, somewhere in the obscure provinces, forgotten, superfluous, ridiculous, wretched. No, anything but that! Better not to see the sun, not to breathe the air. It would be a hundred times better to be nobody and to have nothing. That was the thought that always came back to him and several times a day forced the blood to beat painfully in his skull and his temples, but even at other times never completely left him but lay like a black cloud within him. That was what disgrace meant to him, and disgrace was possible every day, every hour, since everyone was working to bring it on him. Only he alone worked against it and defended himself; it was one man against everyone and everything. That had now lasted fifteen years, from the first time that the Vezir had entrusted him with

a great and important task. Who could endure it? Who could sleep and be at peace?

Although it was a cold damp autumn night, Abidaga opened the casement and looked into the darkness, for the closed room seemed stifling to him. Then he noticed that there were lights and movements on the scaffolding and along the banks. When he saw that there were more and more of them, he thought that something unusual must have happened, dressed and woke his servant. Thus he arrived at the lighted stable just at the moment when the man from Plevlje no longer knew what further insults to use, whom to order and what to do to shorten the time.

The unexpected arrival of Abidaga completely bewildered him. So much had he longed for this moment, yet now that it had come he did not know how to profit from it as he had hoped. He stuttered in excitement and forgot all about the bound peasant. Abidaga only gazed through him disdainfully and went straight up to the prisoner.

In the stable they had built up a big fire to which the guards kept adding fresh faggots so that even the most distant corner was lit up.

Abidaga stood looking down at the bound peasant for he was much the taller man. He was calm and thoughtful. Everyone waited for him to speak, while he thought to himself; so this is the one with whom I have had to struggle and fight, this is what my position and my fate depended upon, this wretched half-witted renegade from Plevlje and the incomprehensible and obdurate opposition of this louse from the 
rayah. 
Then he shook himself and began to give orders and to question the peasant.

The stable filled with guards, and outside could be heard the voices of the awakened overseers and workmen. Abidaga put his questions through the man from Plevlje.

Radisav first said that he and another man had decided to run away and that therefore they had prepared a small raft and set off downstream. When they pointed out to him the senselessness of this story since it was impossible in the darkness to go down the turbulent river full of whirlpools, rocks and shoals, and that those who want to run away do not climb on the scaffolding and damage the works, he fell silent and only muttered sullenly:

'Well, I am in your hands. Do what you like.'

'You will soon find out what we like,' Abidaga retorted briskly.

The guards took away the chains and stripped the peasant to the buff. They threw the chains into the heart of the fire and waited. As the chains were covered with soot, their hands were blackened and great patches were left on themselves and on the half-naked
peasant. When the chains were almost red hot, Merdjan the Gipsy came up and took one end of them in a long pair of tongs, while one of the guards took the other end.

The man from Plevlje translated Abidaga's words.

'Perhaps now you will tell the whole truth.'

'What have I got to tell you? You know everything and can do what you like.'

The two men brought the chains and wrapped them round the the peasant's broad hairy chest. The scorched hair began to sizzle. His mouth contracted, the veins in his neck swelled, his ribs seemed to stand out and his stomach muscles to contract and relax as when a man vomits. He groaned from the pain, strained at the ropes which bound him and writhed and twisted in vain to lessen the contact of his body with the red hot iron. His eyes closed and the tears flowed down his cheeks. They took the chain away.

'That was only a beginning. Isn't it better to talk without that?'

The peasant only breathed heavily through his nose, and remained silent.

'Who was with you?'

'His name was Jovan, but I do not know either his house or his village.'

They brought the chains again and the burning hair and skin sizzled. Coughing from the smoke and writhing from the pain, the peasant began to speak jerkily.

Th6se two alone had come to an agreement to destroy the work on the bridge. They thought that it had to be done and they had done it. No one else had known anything about it or had taken part in it. At first they had set out from the banks in various places and been quite successful, but when they saw that there were guards on the scaffolding and along the banks, they had thought of binding three planks together to make a raft and thus, unnoticed, approach the work from the river. That had been three days ago. On the first night they had nearly been caught. They only just got away. So the next night they had not gone out at all. When they tried again that same night with the raft, there had happened what had happened.

'That is all. So it was, and so we worked. Now do what you will.'

'No, no, that is not what we want. Tell us who made you do this! What you have suffered up till now is nothing to what you will get later on!'

'Well, do what you like.'

Merdjan then came nearer with a pair of pincers. He knelt in front of the bound man and began to tear the nails off his naked feet.

The peasant remained silent and clenched his teeth but a strange trembling shook his whole body up to the waist even though he was bound which showed that the pain must have been exceptionally great. After a few moments the peasant forced a few muttered words through his teeth. The man from Plevlje, who had been hanging on his every word and waiting eagerly for some sort of admission, made a sign with his hand to the gipsy to stop and at once asked:

'What was that? What did you say?'

'Nothing. I only said: why in the name of God do you waste your time torturing me?'

'Tell us who made you do it?'

'Who made me do it? Why, the devil.'

The devil?'

'The devil. Certainly that same devil who made you come here and build the bridge!'

The peasant spoke softly, but clearly and decisively.

The devil! A strange word, said so bitterly in so unusual a situation. The devil! The devil is certainly somewhere in this thought the man from Plevlje, standing with bowed head as if the bound man were questioning him and not he the bound man. The words touched him on a sensitive spot and awoke in him all of a sudden all his anxieties and fears, in all their strength and terror, as if they had never been swept away by the capture of the culprit. Perhaps indeed all this, with Abidaga and the building of the bridge and this mad peasant, was the devil's work. The devil! Perhaps he was the only one to fear. The man from Plevlje shivered and shook himself. At that moment the loud and angry voice of Abidaga brought him to himself.

'What's the matter with you? Are you asleep, good-for-nothing?' shouted Abidaga, striking his right boot with his short leather whip.

The gipsy was still kneeling with the pincers in his hand and looking upwards with black shining eyes, frightened and humble, at the tall figure of Abidaga. The guards piled up the fire which was already roaring. The whole place shone; it was like a furnace but somehow solemn. What that evening had seemed a gloomy and undistinguished building all at once was transformed, became larger, widened out. In the stable and around it reigned a sort of solemn emotion and a special silence as there is in places where one extracts the truth, a living man is tortured or where fateful things occur. Abidaga, the man from Plevlje and the bound man moved and spoke like actors and all the others went on tiptoe with lowered eyes, not speaking save when forced to and then only in a whisper. Everyone
wished to be somewhere else, only not to be in this place nor at this work, but since that was not possible, they all lowered their voices and moved as little as they could, as if to get as far away as possible from this affair.

Seeing that the interrogation was going slowly and did not give any hope of results, Abidaga with impatient movements and loud oaths went out of the stable. After him reeled the man from Plevlje, followed by the guards.

Outside it was growing light. The sun had not yet risen, but the whole horizon was clear. Deep among the hills the clouds lay in long dull purple bands and between them could be seen the clear sky almost green in colour. Scattered patches of mist lay over the moist earth out of which peeked the tops of the fruit trees with sparse yellowish leaves. Still striking at his boot with his whip, Abidaga gave orders. The criminal should continue to be interrogated, especially about those who had helped him, but he should not be tortured beyond endurance lest he die. Everything must be made ready so that at noon that same day he should be impaled alive on the outermost part of the construction work at its highest point, so that the whole town and all the workers should be able to see him from the banks of the river; Merdjan was to get everything ready and the town-crier to announce the execution through all the quarters of the town, so that at midday all the people might see what happened to those who hindered the building of the bridge, and that the whole male population, both Turks and 
rayah, 
from children to old men, must gather on one or other of the banks to witness it.

The day which was dawning was a Sunday. On Sunday work went on as on any other day, but this day even the overseers were distrait. As soon as it was broad daylight, the news spread about the capture of the criminal, his torture and his execution which was to take place at midday. The hushed and solemn mood of the stable spread over the whole area about the building works. The men on forced labour worked silently, each one avoided looking his neighbour in the eyes, and each man looked only to the work before him as if that were the beginning and the end of his world.

An hour before noon the people of the town, for the most part Turks, had collected on a level space near the bridge. Children were hoisted on to high blocks of building stone which were lying about. The workmen swarmed around the narrow benches where the meagre rations which kept them alive were usually distributed. Chewing at them, they were silent and looked uneasily about them. A little later Abidaga appeared, accompanied by Tosun Effendi,
Mastro Antonio and one or two of the more prominent Turks. All stood on a small dry hummock between the bridge and the stable where the condemned man was. Abidaga went once more to the stable, where he was told that everything was ready; lying there was an oak stake about eight feet long, pointed as was necessary and tipped with iron, quite thin and sharp, and all well greased with lard. On the scaffolding were the blocks between which the stake would be embedded and nailed, a wooden mallet for the impalement, ropes and everything else that was needed.