Byron and the Beauty. Muharem Bazdulj

‘Even in love, you make the calculations. Here in the Orient, he went on, a girl who is even halfway attractive has dozens of suitors. This Leila, who at this very moment’ and here he rubbed his hands together lasciviously, ‘is probably being deflowered by Ahmed, the son of Zaim Aga, received proposals from thirty other men.’

      Byron remarked that Leila must be a real beauty.

      ‘She’s pretty,’ came Isak’s somewhat indifferent reply. ‘Listen, my lord,’ he went on. ‘You were very forthright with me, but I have not been completely so with you. I told you that I didn’t invite you to the wedding so as not to abuse my host’s hospitality, but I withheld the actual explanation. It would, for instance, have been no problem for me to take Hasan with me, although he was already invited. I could not take you,’ and here he averted his eyes, as if by way of apology, ‘because Zaim Aga simply would not tolerate the presence of a giaour’.

      Byron looked at him curiously.

      ‘An unbeliever,’ Isak said: ‘A non-Muslim. Those people are giaours. Make a note of this expression, my lord, for when you hear it uttered, people are talking about you. Zaim Aga would not have invited me either, for I am distasteful to him, but I once saved the life of his son. I healed a wound he had sustained in battle, after everyone else had written him off. Thus he is for all time indebted to me, and he forgives me for being an infidel. But I doubt that he would forgive a companion of mine. I wanted to confess that to you, my lord,’ Isak concluded.

      ‘There is no cause for concern,’ Byron said in turn, ‘but one thing still intrigues me. If he is indebted to you, then why did you still have to go to the wedding? If I understood you correctly, he would not have held it against you if you hadn’t gone.’

      Isak beheld him with bright eyes filled with what Byron took to be fondness, ‘you are a wise man, my lord: so young, and yet so wise. Yes, he said, in this matter also I was not honest with you. Have you read that book containing the stories from A Thousand and One Nights?’ he asked. ‘You must have read it, for you are an educated man. You must be familiar with Galland’s translation.’ Byron nodded. ‘Do you recall the story of Shahriman’s son Badr Basim?’ Isak inquired. ‘Or the one about Ibrahim and Jamilah?’ Byron didn’t remember them.

      ‘It contains a disguised tale about love in the East,’ Isak added. ‘Here we do not discover love ourselves. You asked if Leila is beautiful,’ he went on, speaking faster and faster. ‘Yes, she is a beauty from Yannina, but that’s nothing. The whole land knows of true beauties; there is a certain Nizama from Tepelena who is known as such a beauty. Meanwhile there are other beauties, of whom entire countries speak.

      In Shkodra, a good thirty years ago, there was raven-haired Belkisa, who had hundreds of wooers but finally took up with Ali Pasha. She died giving birth to Veli Pasha. Once in Thessaloniki there was Rahel, a Jewess, who made the old man Bilal Pasha and his five sons lose their minds. Eventually, she drowned herself in the harbour like Aegeus. No one knows why, although people say it was on account of her beauty. And a long while ago, Sarajevo had Katinka, about whom people sang songs while she still lived; for her, not even Djerzelez Alija – a figure like Robin Hood in your country – was good enough. Once every three hundred years there is born a beauty who becomes known throughout the entire Empire. And then we live those stories from A Thousand and One Nights. Men fall in love with these women by hearsay alone. Nobody, or almost no one, has ever seen one of these women, but every man in the Empire daydreams of one of them, and is sure he would recognize her the moment he laid eyes on her – from the beardless Roma youths right up to the Sultan himself. She’s a beauty of the order of the city Sintra you were talking about; no one could invent her, or dress her in the right words, but she is lovlier than any city, because she’s a living being. You also know that a woman such as this truly exists, because no one could invent her. One may well be able to describe her in metaphors: hair as dark as a night of farewell, a face as beautiful as a whole day of ecstasy, eyes as blue as the sky in May, globes of ivory for breasts, hips as powerful as the crown of a tree, and feet like spearheads. But words are nothing, my lord.

      It is a splendid thing to be born at a time when a woman like this treads the earth, let alone appears before our eyes. That is the reason I went to the wedding, my lord. It was rumored that such a woman would be in attendance; since she’s a relative of some sort of the unfortunate bridegroom, Ahmed. But she did not come, and perhaps it’s better that way.’

      A bit out of breath, Isak paused momentarily and then added, ‘It’s time to go to sleep, my lord.’

      ‘Why now?’ Byron asked.

      ‘Ask me no more,’ Isak said, ‘for I can talk no more tonight, my lord, but perhaps tomorrow. Morning brings fresh counsel.’

      ‘Very well,’ said Byron. ‘But at least reveal her name to me.’

      ‘Zuleiha.’

      Chapter Four: October 9, 1809

      Another sleepless night: Byron lay awake until morning, looking up at the ceiling. But anyone in the same room with him would have believed him to be sleeping. He did not move, neither turning from side to side nor sitting up nor rising; no, he lay there quietly on his back and stared at the ceiling. ‘Zuleiha,’ he repeated to himself. ‘Zuleiha!’ His lips formed the word silently. Three syllables: zu lei ha. Zu: the incisors in his mouth clicked briefly to make the sound. Lei: the tip of his tongue flitted over his teeth. And ha: his lower lip leapt out as if he were amazed. Oh, how tenderly had Isak pronounced this name! Byron doubted he could do the same.