No one knows when the siege began; but that is not technically correct. It is said that the siege began in 1529; but no one knows when that was. Amassed far as the eye can see, we are told, is the Ottoman army, spiraling toward the horizon: sipahis on horseback, tall-hatted janissaries, beys in palanquins being stuffed with lentils by slaves, all centered on the magnificent one, Suleiman, Custodian of the Holy Mosques.

It is said that his persistence is the force that acts upon the ecliptics of the planets. That his persistence is impossible and unknowable. All that is known is that because of him the siege persists, and we are under it.

Conditions are deteriorating; but then, they have been since from when I can recall. Deterioration is all we have known during the siege, and the siege is all we have ever known. I was born during the siege, as was my father, whom I have not seen in many years, and my father’s father. Some date my great grandfather’s birth to its earliest days, but this simply cannot be known. All that is known is that it is. The siege is, as the saying goes, a blanket draped over the lamp of knowledge. To glimpse the light, we must peer through it. The siege is at the beginning and end of what can be known, in other words.

But that is a topic for another time. Tonight, unlike other nights, I am by the fire with visitors from afar. Rarely have I peered upon the visages of newcomers, so lonely have I been during the siege. Communication has been limited. Families are not only isolated from other families, but also from themselves. Deaths and marriages are mourned or celebrated long after the fact. Meals are, like messages, distributed using an elaborate system of tunnels, the very tunnels you used to travel to find me here, created long ago in the early days of the siege, and manned by anonymous messengers.

Such is life under the siege. Have you known anything different? Surely not, for you, too, have lived so long under the siege. In whatever faraway land from which you have come, the siege has undoubtedly shuttered windows and boarded up doors. The kids have crawled inside. Nothing stirs. This past Easter, I found the courage to peer out of my window, only to see desolate streets that once, I am led to believe, bustled with laughter and enterprise. Have you seen otherwise? Around All Saints’ Day, I tore through the scriptures in search of spiritual counsel, but no clergy was there to guide me. I doubt whether I am even correct as to the date when I presumed the holidays to be taking place – though each year around Christmastime the sound of singing can be heard throughout the city, floating on the air like melancholy clouds. I set my calendar to this and this alone.

Ah! Do you hear that? The church bells still ring to warn us of the hour. I know not who stays in the church, who follows the sundial and preserves for us the day. The water clocks have long since fallen into disrepair. As for the news of the day, there is nothing, and this you know well, to report. The siege persists, that is all.

And yet you have found me here. How? Did my cries bellow out through the winding passages of our subterranean burg? Are you Death come to drag me into nothingness? Do you bear tidings of the men on the other side, who bravely face the enemy in the field of battle?

Come, sit with me. Tell me of your travels, of those whom you have lost. But promise me this: that you’ll rejoice with me in the comfort of the Lord and the miracle of the day. Promise me this. I will suffer nothing else.