Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) Read Free Page B

travels his path until the appointed time. God creates you in the womb of your mother and he changes you from one form to another in a threefold impenetrable darkness. Do not grieve, but rejoice at the paradise that has been promised to you. O my slaves, do not fear for yourselves today, you will not be sorrowful. O peaceful soul, return to your master satisfied, because He is satisfied with you. Join my servants, come into my paradise. 5
    I had said these things countless times.
    But now I was not sure that I should say them to the old man who was waiting for me. Not for his sake, but for mine. For the first time (how many times these days will I say: for the first time?) death did not seem as simple as I had believed or had made others believe. It happened that I had a terrible dream. I stood in an empty space above my dead brother; at my feet his long coffin was covered with a piece of blue broadcloth, and around me there was a distant circle of people. I saw no one, recognized no one, the only thing I knew was that they formed a ring around us and left me alone, above the corpse, in a painful silence. Above a corpse to whom I could not say: Why does your heart tremble? because my heart also trembled, and I was afraid of the dead silence. A secret pained me, one that I did not see any purpose for. There is a purpose, I said, shielding myself from terror, yet I could not find it. Arise, I said, arise. But my brother was hidden in darkness, vanishing in mist, in a greenish gloom, as if underwater, a man drowned in an unknown void.
    How could I now tell the dying man: follow the path of your Lord obediently, when I shuddered at that hidden path, of which my minute knowledge did not have the slightest notion?
    I believed in the Last Judgment and in eternal life, but I also began to believe in the horror of death, in the fear of its opaque blackness.
    I had not yet made a decision when I was led into one of the rooms. A young maidservant showed me the way. I walked with my eyes lowered, so I would not see her face and could think up something, anything. I’ll lie to you old man, God will forgive me; I’ll tell you what you expect to hear, and not these muddled thoughts of mine.
    He was not there. Without raising my eyes I noticed that the room was free from the heavy odor of the sick, which, after a prolonged illness, cannot be removed by cleaning or airing, nor by the burning of incense.
    When I looked up and searched for this man who had long been ill but did not smell of death, I beheld a beautiful woman on a divan, a reminder of life more powerful than could be good for me.
    Maybe it is strange for me to say this, but it is true: I felt uncomfortable. There could have been a number of reasons. I had prepared for a meeting with an old, dying man, and was oppressed by dark thoughts myself, but I came before his daughter (although I had never seen her, I knew who she was). I am unskilled in conversations with women, especially with women of her beauty and age. Around thirty, it seemed to me. Young women merely imagine life and believe words. Old women fear death and listen to tales of paradise with a sigh. But women like her know the value of everything they gain and lose, and they always have their own reasons for what they do, reasons that might be strange, but are rarely naive. Their mature eyes are free even when lowered, and unpleasantly open even when hidden behind their eyelashes. Most unpleasant of all is our awareness that they know more than they show and measure us by their own strange standards, which are beyond our understanding. Their undeceivable curiosity, which emanates even when concealed, is protected by their inviolability, if only they want it. And as we stand before them we are protected by nothing. They are certain of their strength, which they do not use but keep like a saber in its sheath, always with a hand on the hilt, and they see in us potential slaves or despicable creatures who are proud of our