Hamam Balkania. Vladislav Bajac

to decide about important matters of state. And up there, near the top of this wall, right next to the ceiling where you see that small screened window, behind its curtain sits the Sultan, listening from above to the work of his viziers.”

      “Just as Allah watches all of us from above,” Bajica blurted out, at which most of his comrades looked at him in amazement: some with annoyance, some with approval.

      However, the real amazement came when Deli Husrev-pasha dismissed his escorts and the boys’ guardians, and led them to the outer court, where he spoke to the boys in Serbian!

      “You have proven to be good students of the empire. When I report that I am satisfied to our ruler, that will mean that you all will soon begin to head off in different directions, based on the detailed information given about each of you by your teachers and supervisors. You will be assigned to various jobs in different parts of the world.”

      There was a pause.

      Then he approached one of Bajica’s companions, now known as Mustafa, and suddenly hugged him and said to him gently,

      “My brother.”

      The boy was confused, not comprehending what was happening, afraid that he had perhaps not heard the pasha correctly. The pasha then whispered something for several moments to him, and then he put his arm around Bajica’s shoulder and whispered to him,

      “He’s my brother, but he’s also your cousin.”

      Then he once again addressed the group,

      “It is clear to you that I am also one of your people. I was brought here just like you. From Herzegovina a full twenty years ago. I am of the Sokolović family, and I requested some of you be brought here. I’m now seeing my younger brother for the first time since he was born. Isn’t that wild and wonderful?”

      Mustafa looked at him, his eyes and mouth wide open. Bajica observed him in no less amazement. To hear, from these lips, after all this time, their own surname, not quite forgotten but completely suppressed!

      The pasha’s whole story, they understood, was aimed at encouraging them to not back out on the chance they were given to get as good an education as possible, to use what they were offered to the greatest possible extent and, when the time came, to utilise all of that to meet their own goals – whatever they might be and whenever they might become known. He showed a measure of intimacy, touched by their presence and overwhelmed with feelings. He tried to be clear, but he was careful not to reveal too much. And each of them understood, without being told, that they should help and support each other as much as possible, using every opportunity offered to them. That they should never forget where they came from, but they should also never shy from what was awaiting them. If they were already destined to have a given past, but a different future, they were to create and retain something from it that would, either in secret or visibly, make them different from all the others. Only in that way would they be able to maintain peace in themselves and with themselves. He emphasised that, if they were not conscious of the duality into which they had been cast, they would never be able to withstand even one of the trials awaiting them.

      “Whoever among you manages to rise above his own duality will turn misfortune into an advantage. To not have either of your parents is a real tragedy. To have both is great happiness, but it should be remembered each and every day. Perhaps it seems to you now that you have no parents, but very soon you will see that you have both of them.”

      The pasha’s speech helped Bajica to come up with his first, youthful piece of wisdom: if something cannot be avoided, then it must be confronted.

      One strange consequence of Deli Husrev-pasha’s was that after his departure, this handful of chosen lads began to openly speak Serbian among themselves, respecting their own unspoken rule that they did so only outside of their training, but no longer trying to hide it. And just imagine – no one objected, and certainly no one tried any longer to forbid it! Why would they? The time was inevitably coming, and they knew this very well, when they would be disbanded and there would be nobody to speak Serbian with.

      From its over-use during schooling, I have an aversion to the definition of anything. Yet, continuing with the topic of the melding of literature and maths (another school word that introduced children into the sphere of operations with numbers), I developed an irresistible urge to define money. And this is the conclusion I came to: money is a value expressed in numbers. It may seem that such a conclusion does not require a lot of intelligence. Couldn’t we say the same thing about, for instance, time: years are a value expressed in numbers. Ha! Precisely, just as many other things could be expressed with the exact same definition. But that’s not the point. If it is true that this ‘wisdom’ can be applied to many other concepts and phenomena, that does not mean that the original definition is not correct nor does it annul the existence of things.

      What do I want to say? Well, that value cannot be equated with quality. Therefore, there is a different meaning in the claim ‘money is a value expressed in numbers’ and ‘money is quality expressed in numbers’. Now we are getting to the so-called crux of the matter: imagine when certain writers give in and equate the system of value expressed in numbers (the place held by their book on the top-list, let’s say) with the quality of their book. You do not know which is harder to forgive: the vanity of the writer or the creators of those monstrous apparatuses – the top-lists.

      Yet such phenomena would not be worrisome if they remained at the level of phenomena. However, they move on to becoming the focus, with the aim of becoming the rule and the natural order of things. No longer incidental or ephemeral, their goal is to become, and remain, a lasting value: quantity is equal to quality.

      But how does this look in practice? Recently I was invited to a presentation by a popular authoress defending numbers. In order to prove that her first-place ranking on the list of most read books was unquestionable in every way, she compared herself with the most highly regarded writers of the century! Of course, in her ego-research she did not seek or find any corresponding numbers like, for example, the places held by the books of those respected writers in the top-lists of the time. True, she could not find them because at that time such lists did not even exist, because they were also not necessary. Writers then held their positions based on merit, and they did not mark them numerically. I guess my message is clear. Our writer was offended because earlier someone had publicly dared to challenge her claim that the first place is also the place of the best. She confused this formula with another, rather enticing one: that the first place is also the best one.

      And let there be no mistake: the first place may be the best place, but that does not in any way mean that it is the place of the best.

      Several months later, the greatest and most important consequence of the pasha’s visit (it turned out he had been spying on them) was the arrival of His Majesty in person among the boys of the blood tribute. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that, this time, they were allowed to stand before the great sultan. His generosity amounted to having the patience to look the group up and down once, to wave his hand indicating that they were to be at ease, and to sit on the couch and allow the ten of them to be introduced individually. This was done by their teacher-aga, as was his right, and Deli Husrev-pasha as a man from the ruler’s escort, and therefore a man of special trust.

      The pasha spoke with unfathomable self-confidence about each of the boys individually: from where he was brought, from what kind of family, the things he had shown special talent for during his studies and where, in the pasha’s opinion, he should continue his schooling and his service. Thus, it was in front of the Sultan that Bajica found out that his destiny was planned to be closely connected to the supreme ruler: the imperial caravansary in Istanbul!

      For one brief moment he had the chance to glimpse the Sultan’s looking at him; and it made his blood run cold. In the Sultan he saw an odd combination of lethargy and interest, but above all, an icy coldness born from the ubiquity of his power: from questions concerning the tiny destinies of