The Case of Cem by Vera Mutafchieva

A song about homeland and exile, that's what I wanted to write--I who thought I did not have a homeland and that my home was the world; I who thought exile was simply a journey, a change in place. For the price of thirteen years, I have paid for one piece of wisdom, which I would like to leave to my people. I want to tell them--and to warn them. The world is not only large, I shall sing, it is also hostile. Hide away from it in a single homeland, a single city, a single home; fence off a small part of that big world so you can master it and warm it; find yourself one trade, one sipahi commander, one line of work; have your own children. Cling to something amidst the boundless current of time, amidst the boundlessness of the universe. Choose one truth as your own.

By his virtues, Cem should be the heir of Mehmed the Conqueror, who took Istanbul for the Ottoman Empire: he is handsome, courageous, creative; a leader, a poet, a warrior. But when Mehmed dies, his brother Bayezid moves swiftly to consolidate his power over the sultanate, and Cem is forced to flee. He schemes to reconcile with his brother, and failing that, to raise an army of his own, but when he crosses over to the island of Rhodes, he finds himself suddenly the prisoner of the Knights Hospitaller, who recognize the strategic value of holding onto Cem. Along with his friend--and, it is strongly implied, his lover--the poet Saadi, Cem becomes a bargaining chip, shuffled around the powers of Europe for thirteen years. His jailers pretend to be his hosts; they provide luxurious quarters and food, even hashish, and they tell Cem that he cannot leave for his own safety.

The Case of Cem is, supposedly, a classic of Bulgarian literature, and newly translated into English by Angela Rodel. The Bulgarian Mutafchieva, perhaps, found in the historical figure of Cem a powerful metaphor of the clash between the East and West. Mehmed's acquisition of Istanbul, after all, set off centuries of conflict between Christendom and the Islamic world. Not knowing all that much about the particulars, I found The Case of Cem often very confusing, but the larger story comes through quite clearly: it's in the best interests of all sides to maintain a kind of status quo, and Cem gives up his life to provide it. He moves from Rhodes to Nice to Rome, but everywhere he goes, the situation remains the same. Outside the walls of the various castles where he is trapped, they begin to sing songs about him; tragic songs about the poet-warrior who was betrayed and imprisoned.

The Case of Cem is organized into a series of first-hand accounts by historical figures involved in Cem's "case," all of whom are speaking in the authorial present from within the grave. The most common narrator is Saadi, the poet and lover of Cem, who knows his master best and who is affected the most when, throughout his long exile, Cem begins to wither away and lose all of his natural virtues. This is the most touching aspect, I think, of Cem's story, the way he becomes listless and fat, addicted to hashish and half-mad. It's all the more powerful because what is dissolved is not just Cem himself, but the pure love that Saadi bears for him. It's this love, in the end, that is difficult to watch curdle and die. When Saadi decides, after many years, to do what he said he would never do--abandon Cem and escape on his own--is it a betrayal? Or does the man he abandons contain so little of Cem himself that there is no one left to betray? Only Cem is unable to speak for himself in the novel (a trait that reminded me of John Williams' Augustus), and the effect is that we feel that Cem's dissolution has moved him into some place farther away than death. If Cem speaks, it's only with the voice of the songs that spring up about his ordeal, and even then those voices are less Cem's own than imagined substitutions.