The Bridge on the Drina (4 page)

that they should be able to advance no farther than the bridge at Višegrad. And therefore heaven now and again shed its light upon his tomb.

Thus the life of the children of the town was played out under and about the bridge in innocent games and childish fancies. With the first years of maturity, when life's cares and struggles and duties had already begun, this life was transferred to the bridge itself, right to the 
kapia, 
where youthful imagination found other food and new fields.

At and around the 
kapia 
were the first stirrings of love, the first passing glances, flirtations and whisperings. There too were the first deals and bargains, quarrels and reconciliations, meetings and waitings. There, on the stone parapet of the bridge, were laid out for sale the first cherries and melons, the early morning 
salep 
and hot rolls. There too gathered the beggars, the maimed and the lepers, as well as the young and healthy who wanted to see and be seen, and all those who had something remarkable to show in produce, clothes or weapons. There too the elders of the town often sat to discuss public matters and common troubles, but even more often young men who only knew how to sing and joke. There, on great occasions or times of change, were posted proclamations and public notices (on the raised wall below the marble plaque with the Turkish inscription and above the fountain), but there too, right up to 1878, hung or were exposed on stakes the heads of all those who for whatever reason had been executed, and executions in that frontier town, especially in years of unrest, were frequent and in some years, as we shall see, almost of daily occurrence.

Weddings or funerals could not cross the bridge without stopping at the 
kapia. 
There the wedding guests would usually preen themselves and get into their ranks before entering the market-place. If the times were peaceful and carefree they would hand the plum-brandy around, sing, dance the 
kolo 
and often delay there far longer than they had intended. And for funerals, those who carried the bier would put it down to rest for a little there on the 
kapia 
where the dead man had in any case passed a good part of his life.

The 
kapia 
was the most important part of the bridge, even as the bridge was the most important part of the town, or as a Turkish traveller, to whom the people of Višegrad had been very hospitable, wrote in his account of his travels: 'their 
kapia 
is the heart of the bridge, which is the heart of the town, which must remain in everyone's heart'. It showed that the old masons, who according to the old tales had struggled with 
vilas 
and every sort of wonder and had been compelled to wall up living children, had a feeling not only for

the permanence and beauty of their work but also for the benefit and convenience which the most distant generations were to derive from it. When one knows well everyday life here in the town and thinks it over carefully, then one must say to oneself that there are really only a very small number of people in this Bosnia of ours who have so much pleasure and enjoyment as does each and every townsman on the 
kapia.

Naturally winter should not be taken into account, for then only whoever was forced tp do so would cross the bridge, and then he would lengthen his pace and bend his head before the chill wind that blew uninterruptedly over the river. Then, it was understood, there was no loitering on the open terraces of the 
kapia. 
But at every other time of year the 
kapia 
was a real boon for great and small. Then every citizen could, at any time of day or night, go out to the 
kapia 
and sit on the 
sola, 
or hang about it on business or in conversation. Suspended some fifteen metres above the green boisterous waters, this stone 
sola 
floated in space over the water, with dark green hills on three sides, the heavens, filled with clouds or stars, above and the open view down river like a narrow amphitheatre bounded by the dark blue mountains behind.

How many Vezirs or rich men are there in the world who could indulge their joy or their cares, their moods or their delights in such a spot? Few, very few. But how many of our townsmen have, in the course of centuries and the passage of generations, sat here in the dawn or twilight or evening hours and unconsciously measured the whole starry vault above! Many and many of us have sat there, head in hands, leaning on the well-cut smooth stone, watching the eternal play of light on the mountains and the clouds in the sky, and have unravelled the threads of our small-town destinies, eternally the same yet eternally tangled in some new manner. Someone affirmed long ago (it is true that he was a foreigner and spoke in jest) that this 
kapia 
had had an influence on the fate of the town and even on the character of its citizens. In those endless sessions, the stranger said, one must search for the key to the inclination of many of our townsmen to reflection and dreaming and one of the main reasons for that melancholic serenity for which the inhabitants of the town are renowned.

In any case, it cannot be denied that the people of Višegrad have from olden times been considered, in comparison with the people of other towns, as easy-going men, prone to pleasure and free with their money. Their town is well placed, the villages around it are rich and fertile, and money, it is true, passes in abundance through Višegrad, but it does not stay there long. If one finds there some thrifty and

economical citizen without any sort of vices, then he is certainly some newcomer; but the waters and the air of Višegrad are such that his children grow up with open hands and widespread fingers and fall victims to the general contagion of the spendthrift and carefree life of the town with its motto: 'Another day another gain.'

They tell the tale that Starina Novak, when he felt his strength failing and was compelled to give up his role as highwayman in the Romania Mountains, thus taught the young man Grujić who was to succeed him:

'When you are sitting in ambush look well at the traveller who comes. If you see that he rides proudly and that he wears a red corselet and silver bosses and white gaiters, then he is from Foča. Strike at once, for he has wealth both on him and in his saddlebags. If you see a poorly dressed traveller, with bowed head, hunched on his horse as if he were going out to beg, then strike freely, for he is a man of Rogatica. They are all alike, misers and tight-fisted but as full of money as a pomegranate. But if you see some mad fellow, with legs crossed over the saddlebow, beating on a drum and singing at the top of his voice, don't strike and do not soil your hands for nothing. Let the rascal go his way. He is from Višegrad and he has nothing, for money does not stick to such men.'

All this goes to confirm the opinion of that foreigner. But none the less it would be hard to say with certainty that this opinion is correct. As in so many other things, here too it is not easy to determine what is cause and what effect. Has the 
kapia
made them what they are, or on the contrary was it imagined in their souls and understandings and built for them according to their needs and customs? It is a vain and superfluous question. There are no buildings that have been built by chance, remote from the human society where they have grown and its needs, hopes and understandings, even as there are no arbitrary lines and motiveless forms in the work of the masons. The life and existence of every great, beautiful and useful building, as well as its relation to the place where it has been built, often bears within itself complex and mysterious drama and history. However, one thing is clear; that between the life of the townsmen and that bridge, there existed a centuries-old bond. Their fates were so intertwined that they could not be imagined separately and could not be told separately. Therefore the story of the foundation and destiny of the bridge is at the same time the story of the life of the town and of its people, from generation to generation, even as through all the tales about the town stretches the line of the stone bridge with its eleven arches and the 
kapia 
in the middle, like a crown.

II

Now we must go back to the time when there was not even a thought of a bridge at that spot, let alone such a bridge as this. Perhaps even in those far-off times, some traveller passing this way, tired and drenched, wished that by some miracle this wide and turbulent river were bridged, so that he could reach his goal more easily and quickly. For there is no doubt that men had always, ever since they first travelled here and overcame the obstacles along the way, thought how to make a crossing at this spot, even as all travellers at all times have dreamed of a good road, safe travelling companions and a warm inn. Only not every wish bears fruit, nor has everyone the will and the power to turn his dreams into reality.

The first idea of the bridge, which was destined to be realized, flashed, at first naturally confused and foggy, across the imagination of a ten year old boy from the nearby village of Sokolovići, one morning in 1516 when he was being taken along the road from his village to far-off, shining and terrible Stambul.

Then this same green and awe-inspiring Drina, this mountain river 'which often grew angry', clamoured there between barren and naked, stony and sandy banks. The town even then existed, but in another form and of different dimensions. On the right bank of the river, on the crest of a precipitous hill, where now there are ruins, rose the well preserved Old Fortress, with widespread fortifications dating from the time of the flowering of the Bosnian kingdom, with casements and ramparts, the work of one of the powerful Pavlović nobles. On the slopes below this fortress and under its protection stood the Christian settlements, Mejdan and Bikovac, and the recently converted Turkish hamlet of Dušče. Down on the level ground between the Drina and the Rzav, where the real town later spread, were only the town meadows, with a road running through them, beside which was an old-fashioned inn and a few huts and water-mills.

Where the Drina intersected the road was the famous Višegrad ferry. That was a black old-fashioned ferryboat and on it a surly, slow old ferryman called Jamak, whom it was harder to summon when awake than any other man from the deepest sleep. He was a man of giant stature and extraordinary strength, but he had suffered in the many wars in which he had won renown. He had only one eye, one ear and one leg (the other was wooden). Without greeting and without a smile, he would moodily ferry across goods and passengers in his own good time, but honestly and safely, so that tales were told of his reliability and his honesty as often as of his slowness and obstinacy. He would not talk with the passengers whom he took across nor would he touch them. Men threw the copper coins that they paid for the crossing into the bottom of the black boat where they lay all day in the sand and water, and only in the evening would the ferryman collect them carelessly in the wooden scoop which he used to bale out the boat and take them to his hut on the river bank.

The ferry only worked when the current and height of the river were normal or a little higher than normal, but as soon as the river ran cloudy or rose above certain limits, Jamak hauled out his clumsy bark, moored it firmly in a backwater and the Drina remained as impassable as the greatest of oceans. Jamak then became deaf even in his one sound ear or simply went up to the Fortress to work in his field. Then, all day long, there could be seen travellers coming from Bosnia who stood on the farther bank in desperation, frozen and drenched, vainly watching the ferry and the ferryman and from time to time yelling long drawn summonses:

'O-o-o-o-o.... Jama-a-a-k....'

No one would reply and no one would appear until the waters fell, and that moment was decided by Jamak himself, dark and unrelenting, without discussion or explanation.

The town, which was then little more than a hamlet, stood on the right bank of the Drina on the slopes of the steep hill below the ruins of the one-time fortress, for then it did not have the size and shape it was to have later when the bridge was built and communications and trade developed.

On that November day a long convoy of laden horses arrived on the left back of the river and halted there to spend the night. The aga of the janissaries, with armed escort, was returning to Stambul after collecting from the villages of eastern Bosnia the appointed number of Christian children for the blood tribute.

It was already the sixth year since the last collection of this tribute of blood, and so this time the choice had been easy and rich;

the necessary number of healthy, bright and good-looking lads between ten and fifteen years old had been found without difficulty, even though many parents had hidden their children in the forests, taught them how to appear half-witted, clothed them in rags and let them get filthy, to avoid the aga's choice. Some went so far as to maim their own children, cutting off one of their fingers with an axe. The chosen children were laden on to little Bosnian horses in a long convoy. On each horse were two plaited panniers, like those for fruit, one on each side, and in every pannier was put a child, each with a small bundle and a round cake, the last thing they were to take from their parents' homes. From these panniers, which balanced and creaked in unison, peered out the fresh and frightened faces of the kidnapped children. Some of them gazed calmly across the horses' cruppers, looking as long as they could at their native land, others ate and wept at the same time, while others slept with heads resting on the pack-saddles.