BRANKOVICH, AVRAM

(1651-1689)--one of the authors of this book. A hired diplomat in Edirne and to the Porte in Constantinople, a military commander in the Austro-Turkish wars, a polyhistor and a learned man. Brankoviches donor portrait was painted on the wall of the Church of St. Paraskeva in Kupinik, the Brankovich family estate. There he was shown with his kin, offering on his sword the completed Church of St. Petka to his great-great-grandmother, the despot and saint, the holy mother Angelina.

Father Theoctist Nikolsky, assistant to head scribe Nikon Sevast, describes Avram Brankovich as "a man who led with his pen and built churches with his sword. . . . He was feared as much as he was loved."

"People used to say:" writes Nikolsky in his dying confession, " 'Brankovich is not alone.' They believed that when he was young he did not wash for forty days, that he had put his foot into the devil's plate and became a warlock. A whip of hair grew on each of his shoulders; he became a clairvoyant, sleepy in March, lucky. He could jump far with his body and farther still with his soul, which, while his body slept, flew like a flock of doves, led winds, chased clouds, brought and carried off hail, and protected crops and cattle, milk and wheat against warlocks from the sea, not letting them wrest the harvest away from his region. Hence, people believed that Brankovich met with the angels, and about him they said, 'Where warlocks spread there is bread.' He belonged, they claimed, to the warlocks of the second camp, along with the Skadar viziers and the beys of Plav and Gusinje, and in a clash with the warlocks of Trebinje he repulsed Mustaj-Beg Sabljak Pasha, who belonged to the third camp. In that battle, in which he carried sand, feathers, and a bucket as his weapons, Brankovich was wounded in the leg; after that he took a black horse, the sultan of all horses, which neighed in its sleep and was also a warlock. The lame Brankovich would go off into heavenly battle riding the soul of his horse transformed into straw. They also say that in Constantinople he confessed and admitted to being a warlock, after which he ceased being one, and the cattle in Trasylvania no longer walked backwards when he passed by the pens.

"This man, who slept so soundly that they watched over him to ensure nobody would turn him around and put his head where his feet were (for tehn he would never wake up again), this man who is buried on his stomach and loved even after death. . . . "

"Avram Brankovich hails from a family that moved from the South to the Danubian basin after the Serbian Empire fell to Turkish rule," wrote Nikon Sevast in his confidential report to the Viennese court. "Family members swept up in the move to abandon territory that had fallen into Turkish hands migrated to the Lipova and Yenopolje provinces in the 16th century. It has been said ever since that the Brankoviches of Erdely count in Tzintzar, lie in Walachian, are silent Greek, sing hymns in Russian, are cleverest in Turkish, and speak their mother tongue--Serbian--only when they intend to kill. They come from western Herzegovina, from the environs or Trebinje, from the town of Korenici, near Lastva in Gornje Police, whence they derive their second family name, Korenci.

"Since the time of their migration, the Brankoviches have held a respected position in Erdely, and for two hundred years now they have had the best wine in Walachia; whence the maxim 'They can get you drunk on their tears.' While distinguishing themselves in military battle on the border of two centuries and two states--the Hungarian and the Turkish--the Brankovich family also provided a number of distinguished clerical figures along their new territory along the Muresul River, in Yenopolje, Lipova, and Pankota. Moses Brankovich, as Bishop Matthew, was a metropolitan of Yenopolje, and the walnuts he tossed into the Danube were always the first to reach the Black Sea. Solomon (named Sava I when he was bishop of Yenopolje), his son, and uncle to Count George Brankovich, governed the Yenova and Lipova eparchy without ever dismounting from his horse and drank exclusively in the saddle until Lipove was taken from the Turks in 1607. The Brankoviches claim they are descendants of the Serbian despots Brankovich, but it is difficult to determine the origin of their property.

"There is a saying that everything gained between Kavalla and Zemun in Tzintzar dreams actually goes to the Brankovich bag of booty. Their jewels are cold as vipers, birds cannot fly over their land, and folk poems already confuse them with the ruling families. The Brankoviches are the patrons of monasteries in Walachia and on Mt. Athos in Greece; they build fortresses and churches, like those in Alba Reale in Kupinik or in a place called Teus. Prince Sigmund Rakoczy has bestowed colonies, heaths, and noble titles upon the female members of the Brankovich clan, and though the female line of the family the Brankoviches are related to the Sekels or Erdely, and thus one part of their property was obtained from the Sekels as a dowry. It is worth mentioning that in the Brankovich family inheritances are meted out according to the color of one's beard. All heirs with red beards (which they get from the female side, since Brankoviches take red-haired women for wives) relinquish priority to the black-bearded men, whose beards testify that they descended from the male line. The Brankoviches' possessions are currently valued at nearly twenty-seven thousand forints, and produce an annual revenue estimated at over fifteen hundred forints. Their family heraldry may not be the most reliable, but their wealth is both undisputed and firm as the ground on which they ride, and for two hundred years the smallest coin never once escaped their chests of gold.

"Avram Brankovich arrived in Constantinople lame, with a raised heel, and there is a story circulating here about how he was crippled. When Avram was a mere boy of seven--so the story goes--the Turks raided his father's property and on the road encountered a small contingent from the court, accompanying the child on a walk. When they saw the Turks, the escorts fled, leaving Avram and an old man who deftly staved off all the horsemen's attacks with a long stick, until their leader hurled a spear that he had kept between his teeth, hidden in a piece of reed. Struck, the old man fell, but Avram, who had a stick of his own in hand, swung it with all his might and caught the Turk by the boots. Yet, for all the despair and hate behind the boy's blow, it was not enough. The Turk only laughed and rode off, ordering the village to be burnt down. Years passed like turtles, Avram Brankovich grew up, and the event was forgotten, for there were other battles to be fought, and Brankovich now led solders of his own, bearing a flag on his sleeve and a reed with a poisoned spear in his mouth. Once they came across an enemy spy traveling with his son, a mere boy, on the road carrying only a stick and looking innocent enough. One of the soldiers recognized the old man, spurred his horse toward him, and tried to tie him up. But the old man defended himself so tenaciously with his stick that everyone thought there was a secret message rolled up in it. Then Brankovich withdrew the poisoned spear and killed the old man. At that same moment, the boy struck him with his own stick. He was barely seven years old and, truth be told, not with all the force of his hatred and love could he have harmed Brankovich. At the same time, Brankovich laughed and fell as if he had been cut down dead.

"That blow left him lame in one leg, so he gave up the military and was brought by his relative Count George Brankovich into the diplomatic corps in Edirne, Warsaw, and Vienna. Here in Constantinople, Brankovich worked for the English envoy and had an apartment in a spacious castle on the Bosporus, between the castles Yoroz Kaleshi and Karatash. On the first floor of the castle, Brankovich built exactly one-half of the church dedicated to his great-great-grandmother Angelina, who was declared a saint by the Eastern Church, while the other half of the church was located in Erdely, where Brankovich's father came from.

"Avram Brankovich cuts a striking feature. He has a broad chest the size of a cage for large birds or a small beast, and is often the target of murderers, for there is a popular poem saying that his bones are made of gold.

"He arrived in Constantinople and traveled on a tall camel that was fed on fish. The animal strided so smoothly beneath him that wine did not spill from the glass set in its harness. Since earliest childhood, Brankovich had slept not at night, like the rest of the saucer-eyed world, but only during the day; no one knew exactly when he tucked in his hair and gave up day for night. But even at night, when he was awake, he couldn't settle down in one place for long, as if he had fed on another's tears. Hence, two plates, two chairs, and two glasses were always set for him at the dining table, and in the middle of a meal he would suddenly jump up and change his seat. Similarly, he could not stay with one language for long: he would change them like mistresses, speaking Walachian one minute and Hungarian or Turkish the next, and he began to learn Khazar from a parrot. They say he also spoke Spanish in his sleep, but that knowledge melted by the time he was awake. Recently someone in one of his dreams told him a poem in an unintelligible language. He remembered the poem, and in order to interpret it, we had to find someone skilled in languages Brankovich does not know. This lead us to a rabbi, and Brankovich recited the memorized verses for him. There were not many, and they went:

"Having heard the beginning, the rabbi interrupted Brankovich and continued to recite the remainder of the poem from memory. Then he wrote down the name of the author. The poem had been written back in the 12th century, and had been compiled by a man named Judah Halevi. Since then, Brankovich has been learning Hebrew. His daily occupation, however, is entirely practical. For he is a man of many talents, and his smile is alchemy among the other knowledges and skills of his face.

"Every evening, as soon as he rises, he prepares himself for war. In fact, he practices his speed with the saber with a locally renowned expert, a Copt by the name of Averkie Skila, whom Kyr Avram hired as a servant. This Averkie has one ravenous and one Lenten eye, and all the wrinkles of his face are tied up in a swathed knot between his brows. He possesses the most complete description and list of every saber move ever performed, and, before adding new ones to his handwritten manual of saber techniques, he personally tests them on human flesh. There is a spacious hall with a carpet the size of a small meadow where Lord Brankovich and the aforementioned Copt lock themselves in and practice with their sabers in total darkness. Averkie Skila usually takes one end of the camel's reins in his left hand; Kyr Avram takes the other, and in his right holds the saber, which weighs the same as the other one held there in the dark by Averkie Skila. Slowly they coil the rein around their elbows, and when they sense each other's nearness they ruthlessly strike out at each other in the deafening darkness. Songs of Brankovich's speed are sung to the strains of the gusle. Last autumn I saw him stand beneath a tree, his saber drawn, waiting for the wind to blow; as the first fruit dropped, he slashed it with his saber in mid-air, splitting it in half. He has a harelip, and brows whiskers to hide it. He looks as if he has no lips and whiskers grown on his teeth.

"Serbs say he loves his native land and is both candle and salt to his people, but he has habits that are strange and unbefitting to his calling. He does not know how to put an end to a conversation and never seizes the moment when it is time to get up and leave. He always drags it out and tarries too long, leaving people more confused at the end than when they met him. He smokes hashish prepared specially for him by a eunuch from Kavalla, and by no other. But, strangely enough, he has no constant need for opium, and in order to maintain himself thus, he periodically sends a messenger with a sealed chest of hashish as far as Pest, whence he receives it unopened, under the same seal, two months later, just when he knows that he will again need opium. When he is not traveling, his enormous camel saddle, with its little bells, stands upright in his spacious library and serves as a standing desk on which one can write and read. In the rooms around him are piles of household articles that look intimidated, but nowhere in his immediate vicinity are there, not will there be, two identical objects. Every object, animal, and person around him must be from a different village. Among his servants he has Serbs, Romanians, Greeks, and Copts, and recently he hired a Turk from Anatolia as a valet. Kyr Avram has a large and small bed, and when he is reposing (he sleeps only during the day) he moves from one bed to the other. While he sleeps, his valet, an Anatolian by the name of Yusef Masudi, watches him with a look that fells birds. When awakened, Kyr Avram sits in bed and, as if out of fear, sings troparia and contakia in honor of his ancestors, whom the Serbian church has declared saints.

"It is impossible to determine the extent of his interest in women. A life-size wooden monkey with an enormous penis crouches on Brankovich's table. Kyr Avram is sometimes wont to say, 'A woman without a behind is like a village without a church!' but that is all. Once a month my lord Brankovich goes off to Galata, always to the same fortuneteller, and she reads the cards the old way, very slowly. The fortuneteller has a special table for Brankovich, and she thrown a new card on the table every time the wind changes outside. Which wind blows determines what card will fall on Brankovich's table, and so it has been for years. Last Easter, a southerly wind blew as soon as we entered, and she was able to offer him a new prophecy:

" 'You are dreaming of a man with a mustache, one half of which is gray. Young, with red eyes and glass fingernails, he is heading for Constantinople and soon the two of you will meet.'

"This news so pleased our master that he immediately ordered a golden ring to be placed in my nose, and I barely managed to dissuade him from such kindness . . . ."

"Aware of the Viennese court's great interest in the plans of my lord Brankovich, I can say that he is a person who tends to his future like a garden--with special attention and zeal. He is not one of those who will journey through life on the run. He settles his future very slowly and conscientiously. He uncovers it piece by piece, like an unknown shore; first he clears it, the he builds on the best site, and finally he rearranges the objects inside at great length. He tries not to let his future slow down its pace and growth, but he also takes care not to rush ahead of it. It is a kind of race: the quickest is the loser. At present, Kyr Avrams's future is like a garden where a seed has already been planted, but only he knows what will sprout. Still, the direction in which Brankovich is heading can be determined from a tale whispered about him. It is The Tale of Petkutin and Kalina.

And so we come to the plans of Kyr Avram Brankovich. The plans on which he is staking his future are tied to two key persons. One is Brankovich's distinguished relative Count George Brankovich, about whom the Viennese court has more information than we do here. The other is an individual whom Kyr called Kuros (which means 'boy' in Greek) and whose arrival he awaits here in Constantinople as the Jews await the coming of the Messiah. As far as can be discovered, Brankovich does not know this individual personally, does not even know his name (thus the Greek nickname), and sees him only in his dreams. But this individual appears to him regularly in his sleep, and when Brankovich dreams, he dreams of him. According to Master Avrams's own description, Kuros is a young man, one half of his mustache is gray, he has glass fingernails and red eyes. Brankovich expects to meet him some day and, with his help, to discover or achieve something he very much desires. In his dreams, Brankovich has learned from his Kuros to read from right to left, in the Jewish manner, and to dream dreams from their end to their beginning. These unusual dreams in which Kyr Avram turns into Kuros, or, if you like, into Jew, began many years ago. Brankovich himself says that his dream first appeared in the form of a restlessness that, like a stone thrown into his soul, fell through it for days, stopping only at night, when his soul fell along with the stone. Then, however, his dream took complete control of his life; he became twice as young in his dream as in reality. First birds, then his brothers, and finally his father and mother disappeared from his dreams forever, saying goodbye as they parted. Subsequently, all the people and cities that belonged to his surroundings and memories disappeared from his dreams without a trace, until finally he too disappeared from this totally alien world of dreams, as though at night, while dreaming, he turned into a completely different person, whose face, seen in the mirror of the dream, frightened him, as if his mother or sister had grown a beard. This other person had red eyes, a mustache, half of which was gray, and glass fingernails.

"In these dreams, as he took leave of everybody, Brankovich dreamed of his late sister the most, but each time she would lose some part of her familiar appearance, and would acquire parts of a new, unfamiliar, different body belonging to someone else. First she exchanged her voice with the unknown person into whom she was being transformed, then the color of her hair and her teeth, until only her arms still embraced Brankovich, with increasing passion--the rest was no longer her. And then one night, a night so thin that two men, one standing in Tuesday and the other in Wednesday, could shake hands, she came to him completely transformed, so beautiful that the very sight of her frightened people away. She threw herself around his neck with double thumbed hands. At first, he almost fled from her out of his dream, but then he yielded and picked one of her breasts like a peach. And, as if he picked his days from her as from a tree, she offered him a different fruit each time, each one always sweeter than the last, and he slept with her during the day in different dreams the way other men sleep with their mistresses at night in borrowed homes. When one of her double-thumbed hands periodically emerged from these embraces, he was unable to determine which hand she was using to caress him, since they did not differ. But this dreamed love so truly and completely exhausted him that he was almost entirely drained from his dreams into his bed.

"Then she came to him one last time and said, 'He who curses from a bitter soul will have his wish granted. Perhaps we shall meet somewhere in another life.'

"And Brankovich never found out if she had said that to him, Kyr Avram Brankovich, or to Kuros, the double with the gray half-mustache from his dream, into whom Brankovich was transformed while he slept. For he had stopped feeling like Avram Brankovich in his dreams, He felt completely like the man with the glass fingernails. For years he hadn't limped in his dream, as he did in real life. In the evenings he felt as if he were being awakened by someone else's fatigue; in the mornings he felt as though he might fall asleep, because somewhere he felt rested, alert, and awake. He had eyelids that would shut whenever someone else's would open. He and his anonymous double had connecting vessels of energy and blood, and this strength flowed from one to the other, the way wine is poured from one container to the other to keep from souring. As the one became more and more rested and energetic at night, while he dreamed, the energy would increasingly desert the other, edging him toward fatigue and sleep. most horrifying of them all was when one of them would suddenly fall into a sleep in the middle of the street or wherever he might be, as though it were no sleep but the echo of someone's momentary awakening. Recently, while observing the eclipse of the moon, Kyr Avram fell into a sleep so suddenly that he immediately began to dream he was being whipped, and he was entirely unaware that in falling he had struck his head, cutting himself in the same place on his forehead where he had been struck with the whip in his dream.

"It is my impression that this whole affair--involving both Kuros and that fellow Judah Halevi--is directly tied in with a project my lord Brankovich and we, his servants, have been working on for years. This is a glossary, or an alphabetized list, that could be called The Khazar Dictionary. He has been working on it tirelessly with a fixed goal. Brankovich had eight camel-loads of books brought to Constantinople from the Zarand district and from Vienna, and more are still arriving. He has sealed himself off from the world with walls of dictionaries and old manuscripts. I, who have experience with colors, inks, and letters, recognize each letter by its smell in the damp night, and, lying in my corner, I read by their smells entire pages of the sealed and rolled scrolls that lie somewhere in the attic of the castle. Kyr Avram prefers to read in the cold, clothed only in a shirt, subjecting his body to shivers, and the only part of his reading he considers worth remembering and noting in the book is what penetrates the shivering to reach his attention. Brankovich's card file, created along with the library, encompassed a thousand pages, covering a variety of subjects: from catalogues of sighs and exclamations in Old Church Slavonic prayers to a register of salts and teas, and enormous collections of hair, beards, and mustaches of the most diverse colors and styles from living and dead persons of all races, which our master glues onto glass bottles and keeps as a sort of museum of old hairstyles. His own hair is not represented in this collection, but he has ordered that strands of it be used to weave his coat of arms with a one-eyed eagle and the motto 'Every master embraces his own death'.

"Brankovich labors over his books, collections, and card files every night, but he has devoted himself with utmost secrecy and special attention to compiling an alphabetized list, a dictionary on the conversion of the Khazars--a long-lost tribe from the Black Sea coast that buried its dead in boats. It is a sort of family tree, a catalogue or collection of biographies of all the people who, a few hundred years ago, participated in the Khazars conversion to Christianity, or of those who later left some written account of the event. Only Theoctist Nikolsky and I, Avram Brankovich's two scribes, have access to this Khazar Dictionary. This precaution is probably due to Brankovich's consideration of various heresies in this work, not only Christian, but also Jewish and Mohammedan: our Pec Patriarch would be sure to save for Kyr Avram one of his anathemas which he counts every August on the Day of St. Anne's Ascension, if he knew what he was up to. Brankovich possesses all the available information on Cyril and Methodius, the Christian enlighteners and missionaries who participated on the Greek side in the Khazars' conversion. One of the main difficulties is, however, is that he is unable to alphabetize the Jewish and Arab representatives in the Khazars' conversion, although they too took part in the event and the related polemic conducted at the court of the Khazar kaghan, Not only has he been unable to learn anything about the Jew or the Arab other than that they existed, but neither he nor any Greek source he could find on the Khazars knows their names. His men made the rounds of Walachian monasteries and Constantinople's cellars in search of Hebrew and Arabic documents on the Khazars' conversion, and he himself came here to Constantinople, whence the missionaries Cyril and Methodius had once been sent to the Khazar capital to convert the Khazars, in order to find manuscripts and people interested in the event. However, you cannot rinse a well with mud and he has found nothing. He does not believe that he is the only person interested in the Khazars, or that in the past no one outside of the Christian monasteries who left behind information on the Khazars, no one from St. Cyril to the present day, studied them. Certainly some dervish or Jewish rabbi--he contends--knows some particulars about the life and work of the Jewish or Arab participant in the polemic, but such are not to be found in Constantinople, or they simply don't want to say that they know. He presumes that, aside from the Christian sources on the Khazars, there also exist extensive Arab and Jewish sources on the same question and people, but something is preventing the individuals working on this from meeting and collating their knowledge, which, if only it could be pooled, would provide a clear and complete picture of everything concurring this question.

" 'I don't understand,' he often says. 'I probably always stop thinking about everything too early, and then these things remain half-formed inside me and reveal themselves only as far as the waist . . . .' In my opinion, the reason for Kyr Avram's excessive interest in such an insignificant matter is not difficult to explain. My lord Brankovich concerns himself with the Khazars for the most selfish of reasons. He is trying to cure himself of the dream that holds him captive. The Kuros of his dreams is also interested in the Khazar question, and Kyr Avram knows this better than we do. The one and only way for Kyr Avram to free himself from his dream is to find this stranger, and only through the Khazar documents will he find him, because they are the only trail leading to him. I think this stranger has the same thing in mind. Their encounter, therefore, is as inevitable as the encounter between jailer and prisoner. Thus, it is no wonder that lately Kyr Avram has been practicing so intently with his master of sabers. He detests his Kuros so much that he will swallow him like bird's eggs. As soon as he grabs hold of him . . . . This is but a supposition. If, however, it is inaccurate, then we must recall Avram Brankovich's words about Adam and his successful experiment with Petkutin. In that event he is dangerous, his intentions will have unforeseeable consequences, and his Khazar Dictionary is but a bookish preparation for forceful action . . . ."

With these words, Nikon Sevast's report on Avram Brankovich comes to an end. Sevast was unable, however, to report or anyone on his master's final days, since both master and servant were killed on a Wednesday shrouded in fog, somewhere in Walachia. A record of this event was left by another of Brankovich's servants, the above mentioned master of the sabers, Averkie Skila. This not looks as though Skila had written it on the ground with the tip of his weapon, dipped in ink, while holding down on the paper with his boot.

"On the last evening in Constantinople prior to his departure"--wrote Averkie Skila--"Papas Avram assembled us all in his hall, which overlooked three seas. Green winds blew from the Black Sea, blue, translucent winds from the Aegean, and dry bitter winds from the open Ionian Sea. Our master was standing by the camel saddle, reading, when we entered. Anatolian flies were feasting before the rain, and he defended himself and beat them off with a whip, unerringly hitting the bites on his back with the tip. We had already finished our regular practice session with the sabers that evening and had I not taken his shorter leg into account, he would have slashed me wide open in that darkness. He was always faster at night than during the day. Now he had a bird's nest instead of a gaiter on his shorter leg, because it was a better warmer.

"We sat down, the four of us who had been called in--myself, two of his scribes, and the valet Masudi, who had everything for the trip prepared in a green feedbag. We each took a spoonful of cherry preserves sprinkled with hot pepper and drank a glass of water from the well that stands here in the room but echoes somewhere in the castle's cellar, burying our voices. Then Papas Avram paid us and said whoever wanted to could stay, the rest would go with him to war, to the Danube.

"We thought that that was all he had to say to us and that he would not detain us any longer. But Brankovich had a peculiar trait: he was always at his wisest just when he was parting with his interlocutors. He would pretend ineptness on these occasions and always left his company a little later than what is considered polite and natural. He always overstepped the moment when everything had already been said, when everyone had long since removed their masks and showed themselves as they were when they were alone. So he dallied on this occasion too. He squeezed the Anatolian's hand, surreptitiously observing the others. Then suddenly, between Masudi and Nikon Sevast, there flashed a violent hatred, a hatred that had gone unnoticed until then and had been diligently hidden by both parties. This occurred when Masudi said to Kyr Avram: 'Sire, allow me to return a favor before we part. I shall tell you something that will bring you great joy, for you have long yearned to hear it. The one you dream of is named Samuel Cohen.'

" 'He lies!' Sevast cries out unexpectedly, grabbing Masudi's greed feedbag and hurling it into the burning hearth.

"Surprisingly quietly, Masudi turned to Papas Avram and, pointing to Sevast, said: 'Look at him, Sire. He has only one nostril in his nose. And he pisses with his tail, like all satans.'

"Papas Avram took the parrot that was clutching the lantern in its claws and lowered both to the floor. In the light, one could see that Nikon Sevast's nose was a solitary, black, undivided nostril, the kind that devils have.

"Papas Avram said to him: 'So, you are one of those who dare not change their shoes?'

" 'Yes, I am, Sire, but I am not one of those whose shit stinks of fear. I do not deny that I am Satan,' he admitted without hesitation. 'I only say that I belong to the underworld of the Christian universe and sky, to the evil spirits of the Greek lands, and to the Hades of the Eastern Orthodox faith. Just as the sky above us is divided between Jehovah, Allah, and God the Father, so to is the underworld divided between Asmodeus, Iblis, and Satan. I happen to have been caught on the soil of the present Turkish Empire, but this does not give Masudi or other representatives of the Moslem world the right to judge me. That can only be done by representatives of the Christian faith, whose jurisdiction alone can be recognized in my case. Otherwise, Christian or Jewish judges may start judging those of the Moslem underworld, if they fall into their hands. Let Masudi think about this warning . . . .'

"To this, Papas Avram replied: 'My father, Yoanikie Brankovich, had some experience with your kind. Each of our houses in Walachia always had its own small witches, tiny satans, and vampires, with whom we supped. We sent after them vampire killers and Sabbat's children, gave them a sieve to count the holes, and found their dismembered tails lying around the house, picked black berries with them, ties them to the door or to an ox and whipped them as punishment, and closed them up in wells. One night, in Gyula, Father came across a giant snowman seated on the hole of the latrine. He struck him with the lantern, killed him, and went to dinner. Dinner was cabbage soup with boar meat. He tasted the soup and all of a sudden--plop!--his head fell into the bowl. He kissed his own image sticking out of the bowl and drowned in the cabbage soup. Right there before our very eyes, before we realized what was happening. To this day I recall that while he was drowning in the soup he acted as though he were embracing a woman, put his arms around the wooden bowl as if her were holding not a boar but the head of another human being. In short, we buried him as if we were wrenching him from someone's powerful embrace. . . . And we threw his boot into the Muresul so that he would no become a vampire. If you are Satan, as indeed you are, then tell me the significance of my father, Yoanikie Brankovich's death.'

" 'You will discover that for yourself, without my assistance,' Sevast replied, 'but I will tell you something else. I know the words that sounded in you father's ears when he died. they are: "A bit of wine to wash my hands!" This rang in his ears while he was dying. And now one more thing, so that you do not say that I sucked all of this out of my hollow bone.

" 'You have been working on the Khazar alphabet for decades, so allow me to add something to your Khazar Dictionary. Listen then, to what you do not know. The three ancient rivers of the dead--the Acheron, the Phlegthon, and the Cocytus--today belong to the underworlds of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity; their flow divided the three hells--Gehenna, Hades, and the icy hell of the Mohammedans--beneath the one-time Khazar lands. And there, at the junction of these three boarders, are confronted the three worlds of the dead: Satan's fiery state, with the nine circles of the Christian Hades, with Lucifer's throne, and with the flags of the Prince of Darkness; the Moslem underworld, with Iblis' kingdom of icy torment; and Gebhurah's territory, to the left of the Temple, where the Hebrew gods of evil, greed, and hunger sit, in Gehenna, under Asmodeus' rule. These three underworlds do not interfere with one another; their common borders are drawn by an iron plow, and no one is allowed to cross them. It is a result of your inexperience that you have misconceptions about these three underworlds. In the Jewish hell, in the state of Belial, the angel of darkness and sin, it is not Jews who burn, as you think. Those like yourself, all Arabs or Christians, burn there. Similarly, there are no Christians in the Christian hell--those who reach the fires are Mohammedans or of David's faith, whereas in Iblis' Moslem torture chamber they are all Christians and Jews, not a single Turk or Arab. Imagine Masudi, who fears his own horrible yet so-familiar hell, but finds himself in the Hebrew Sheol or Christian Hades instead, where I will be waiting for him! Instead of Iblis, he will come upon Lucifer. Just imagine the Christian sky above the hell in which a Jew does penance.

" 'Take this as a powerful and ultimate warning, my lord, as the greatest words of wisdom. Have nothing to do with things that involve the three worlds of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism here on earth, so that we may have nothing to do with their underworlds. For those who hate one another are not the problem in this world. They always resemble one another. Enemies are always the same, or become so with time, for they could not be enemies otherwise. It is those who actually differ among themselves who pose the greatest danger. They long to meet one another, because their differences do not bother them. And they are the worst. we and our enemies will combine forces to fight those who allow us to differ from them and do not left this difference disturb their sleep; we will destroy them in one fell swoop from three sides . . . .'

"To this, Kyr Avram Brankovich said that there was still something unclear to him. He inquired: 'Why haven't you done this yet--if not you, because your tail has yet to fall off, then those who are older and more experienced? What are you waiting for, while we are building a house for our father?'

"'We are waiting for time, my lord. Besides, we devils cannot take a step until you humans have taken yours. Each of our steps must fir in your footstep. We are always one step behind you, we eat our dinner only after you have eaten yours, and, like you, we cannot see the future. So you are always first, and we follow. But let me tell you this too: you have not yet taken a single step that would impel us to pursue you. Yet, if you or any of your descendants ever do so, we will catch up with you on a day of the week whose name shall go unmentioned. For the present, however, everything is all right, because there is no way for you and that red-haired Kuros of your to meet, even if he shows up here in Constantinople. If he dreams of you as you dream of him, if he constructs your reality in his sleep as his reality is constructed in yours, then the two of you can never look into each other's eyes, for you can never be awake at the same time. Still, do not try our patience. Believe me, my lord, it is much more dangerous to compile a dictionary on the Khazars out of strewn words, here in this peaceful castle, than to go to war on the Danube, where the Austrians and the Turks are already fighting; it is much more dangerous to wait here in Constantinople for an apparition from your dreams than to unsheathe your saber and charge at the enemy--something, Sire, you do well. Think it over. Go to wherever you were going without worry, and don't listen to this Anatolian who dips his oranges in salt. . . .'

" 'As for the rest, Sire,' Sevast concluded, 'you may, of course, turn me over to the Christian spiritual authorities and let the court for devils and witches deal with the matter. But, before you do so, allow me to ask you just one question. Do you believe that your church will exist and be able to pass judgment in three hundred years, as it does today?'

"'Of course I do,' replied Papas Avram.

" 'Then prove it: exactly two hundred and ninety-three years from now, we will meet again, at this same time of year, for breakfast here in Constantinople, and then you will judge me just as you would today . . . .'

"Papas Avram laughed, gave his consent, and killed another fly with the tip if his whip.

"We cooked the wheat porridge at dawn, wrapped it and the pot in a pillow, and put it in a traveling net to warm Papas Avram while he rested. We started out on our journey by boat across the Black Sea and then upstream along the Danube. The last of the swallows were flying on their backs instead of their white stomachs. We entered fogs, but they moved, carrying through the woods and across Djerdap a hard, deafening silence into which all other silences flowed. On the fifth day, near Kladovo, we were welcomed by a cavalry unit from Erdely that was covered with bitter Romanian dust from the other side of the water. As soon as we found ourselves in Prince Badensky's camp, we learned that Count George had himself set out for the battlefield, that Generals Haydersheim, Veterany, and Heisel were already prepared to attack the Turkish positions, and that for two days now the barbers had been running around them, shaving and combing in mid-stride. That same night we witnessed the incredible expertise of our master.

"The seasons of the year were in flux, the mornings cold, but the nights still warm--summer and midnight, autumn at dawn. Papas Avram selected a saber, they saddled his horse, and a small division of cavalry with live doves in their sleeves rode out to him from the Serbian camp. They smoked long-stemmed pipes as they rode and blew rings of smoke around their horses' ears. Brankovich mounted up, and he too was given a lighted pipe; as they went off into a shroud of smoke to receive their orders from General Veterany, a cry suddenly rang out from the Austrian camp:

"'Naked Serbs are coming!' and indeed, behind the cavalrymen appeared a division of infantry men who had thrown everything off themselves save their caps. Naked, they passed through the light of the campfires as if through gates, and behind them, in the darkness, moving swiftly, came their naked shadows, twice as old as they were themselves.

"'Are you really going to attack in the dark?' Veterany inquired, stroking a dog so tall it could slap a man in the mouth with its tail.

"'Yes,' replied Kyr Avram, 'the birds will show us the way.'

"Above the Austrian and Serbian positions was a hill called Rs where rain never fell; there stood a Turkish fortress with cannons. For three days now they had been unable to approach it from any side. The General told Brankovich to attack the fortress.

"'If you capture the position, light a green fire of maplewood stick,' added the general, 'so that we know how to orient ourselves.'

"The cavalrymen received their order and rode off, smoking their pipes. Shortly afterward we saw ignited pigeons soar up above the Turkish position--one, then a second, then a third--and we heard a little gunfire, and Papas Brankovich and the cavalrymen returned together to the camp, still smoking their long-stemmed pipes as before. Surprised, the general asked why they were no attacking. Papas Avram pointed silently to the hill with his pipe. A green fire was blazing, and the Turkish canons could no longer be heard. The fortress had been taken.

"The following morning, Papas Avram, worn from the night's battle, was resting in front of his tent, and Masudi and Nikon Sevast sat down to play dice. For the third day running, Nikon was losing an enormous sum, but Masudi would not stop the game. They must have had some terribly strong reason to have stayed there, Brankovich in his sleep and the two of them in their game, when the bullets started raining down on them. In any case, their reasons were stronger than mine: I took refuge in a secured shelter. Just then, Turkish solders attacked our trench, slashing everything that stirred, and directly behind them came Sbljak Pasha of Trebinje, who looked only at the dead, not at the living. Rushing onto the battlefield behind him came a pale young man with a half-gray mustache, as though only half the man had aged. Embroidered on Papas Avram's silk vest was the Brankovich coat of arms, with the one-eyed eagle. A Turkish soldier raised his spear, and lunged at the embroidered bird with such force that the iron blade went through the sleeping man's chest and could be heard hitting the rock beneath him. Awakening in death, Brankovich raised himself up on one arm, and the last thing he saw in life was the red-eyed man with glass fingernails and a half-gray mustache. Then Brankovich broke out in beads of perspiration, and two streams of sweat joined together in a knot at is neck. The arm he was leaning on began to shake so badly that, dispute his wound, he looked at it curiously and pressed down with all his weight to steady it. But is continued to twitch for some time, slowing like a plucked string; when it had become quite still, he fell on the arm without uttering a sound. That same instant, the pale young man collapsed into his own shadow, as though felled by Brankovich's look, and the feedbag he carried on his shoulder rolled away.

"'Is that Cohen who was killed?' cried the pasha, and the soldiers, thinking that one of the gamblers had shot at the young man, immediately slashed Nikon Sevast to pieces, the unthrown dice still in his hand. They then turned toward Masudi, but he said something in Arabic to pasha, warning him that the pale young man was not dead, just asleep. Masudi thereby prolonged his own life by one day: the pasha ordered him to be slain by the sword not that day, but the one following, which is what happened.

Averkie Skila concluded his report on Avram Brankovich as follows: "I am master of sabers and I know: when you kill, it is different every time, just as it is different with every new woman you take to bed. Later, some you forget and some you do not; then again, then again, some of those you killed, like some of the women you bedded, never forget you. The death of Kyr Avram Brankovich is remembered. It happened like this. The pasha's boys ran out from somewhere with a trough of warm water, bathed the limp body of Kyr Avram, and turned him over to an old man who wore around his neck a third shoe that was filled with scents, balsams, and hemp. I thought he would heal Papas Avram's wounds, but instead he rubbed him with bleach and rouge, shaved and brushed him, and took him thus groomed into Sabljak Pasha inside the tent.

" 'Yet another naked Serb,' I thought. He died in that tent the following morning. That was 1698, according to the Eastern Church's calendar, on the day of the hold martyr Eutychius. As Avram Brankovich breathed his last breath, Sabljak Pasha went out of the tent and requested a bit of wine to wash his hands."