by Yashar Kemal
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Yashar Kemal
Pronunciation Guide
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Copyright
About the Book
There is an ancient Turkish tradition which promises a place in paradise to anyone who sets a small bird free. Three boys start up a bird-catching business to enable people to free them in order to secure their place in heaven, but the city-dwellers have become sceptical, and tragedy lies in wait for the boys.
About the Author
Yashar Kemal was born in 1923 in the small village, Hemite, which lies in the cotton-growing plains of Chukurova. Later, in Istanbul, he became a reporter on the newspaper Cumhuriyet and in 1952 he published a book of short stories, Yellow Heat. In 1955 came his first novel Ince Memed, published in English under the title Memed, My Hawk. This won the Varlik Prize for the best novel of the year. His novels include Beyond the Mountain (3 volumes), The Legend of Ararat, The Drumming-Out, The Legend of the Thousand Bulls, Murder in the Ironsmiths Market (3 volumes), To Crush the Serpent, The Saga of the Seagull, The Sea-Crossed Fisherman, Little Nobody and The Pomegranate Tree on the Knoll. Other published works include a volume of Collected Short Stories, Essays and Political Articles, God’s Soldiers (Reports on Delinquent Children), and a novel for the young, The Sultan of the Elephants and the Red-Bearded Lame Ant.
Yashar Kemal is married and has one son. His wife, Thilda Kemal, translates his books into English.
By the same author
Memed, My Hawk
The Wind from the Plain
Anatolian Tales
They Burn the Thistles
Iron Earth, Copper Sky
The Legend of Ararat
The Legend of the Thousand Bulls
The Undying Grass
The Lords of Akchasaz
The Saga of the Seagull
The Sea-Crossed Fisherman
Yellow Heat
Murder in the Ironsmiths Market
To Crush the Serpent
Little Nobody
The Drumming-Out
The Pomegranate Tree on the Knoll
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Letter Approximate pronunciation
a as in French avoir, English man
c j as in jam
ç ch as in church
e as in bed or the French e
g as in goat
ğ a soft g that lengthens the preceding vowel and never occurs at the beginning of a word
h as in house
o like French eau
ö as in German König, French eu in deux
s as in sing
ş sh as in shall
u as in push
ü as in German führer, French u in tu
y as in yet
1
Tuğrul came walking along the fringe of the wood and stopped by the tents.
Though it was not yet mid-September, three boys from the old quarter of Fatih had already set up a tent near the aged poplar on the eastward side of the green meadow and had even begun to weave clap-nets and place snares. They kept at it from early dawn to nightfall, humming strange old tunes as they worked. One of the boys was short and broad-shouldered. He had large hands and a huge head with hair that stuck out stiff as quills. His three-cornered eyes were marked by casts. The one in his left eye spread right into the dark iris. He hardly ever uttered a word, only opening his mouth to sing. The second boy was tall as a beanpole, with a long neck and bulging eyes that seemed about to pop out of their sockets. This one talked twenty to the dozen, stopping abruptly with his thin neck stretched taut, longer than ever. The third boy was one of those tough city urchins, a real firebrand, never still for a moment. His hands were constantly occupied making and unmaking things while he talked, shouted and teased his companions. Yet his blue-grey eyes were infinitely sad, and though his chin jutted out in a strong curve, there was something sad about it too. A thin yellow moustache, only just sprouting, drooped over his lip and, whenever his hands were free, he tugged at it angrily, as though determined to pluck it off.
Tuğrul settled down on a mound in front of the barbed wire that fenced in the ancient poplar. For the past ten days I had seen him sitting there, hugging his knees to his chin, unmindful of the thistles that covered the mound, sometimes even leaning on the barbed wire. Strangely enough, he never looked at the noisy bustling boys, nor did he lift his head at the roar of the helicopters and airplanes that passed low over the field.
On Sundays that police chief from Kinali Island would always be there, flying one of those toy planes that are operated from the ground. And not only the police chief, but many others too came to this flat field behind Florya beach. They arrived in posh cars, Mercedes, Volvos, Volkswagens, Murats, to fly their toy planes which made more noise than any real airplane as they whirled and dived in the skies above Florya. Crowding around them would be children from the suburbs of Çekmece, Menekşe, Cennetmahallesi, and even from as far away as Yeşilyurt, all watching in awed reverence, silent, quite still, only their eyes moving from the toy plane to the person who controlled it.
Not once did Tuğrul look up, not even when a helicopter whirred low above him, almost licking the crest of the big poplar. It could have crashed right there beside him for all he seemed to care. So many times I walked past him, but he did not see me. Or did it only seem so? Perhaps he saw it all. Perhaps he did not miss a single thing taking place on the plain, saw the glowing radiance cast by the sea over the land, heard the chug-chug-chug of the fishing boats and caught the salty tang and the odour of rotting seaweed and iodine, moist and warm and penetrating.
One fine morning, I found the wide expanse of Florya Plain dotted with bird snares. They had been set up everywhere, along the fringe of the wood, on the little slope that inclined towards the railroad, under the almond and fig trees, beside the clump of poplars and even among the patches of thistles. Children, men, young and old, well-dressed or down-at-heel, lottery hucksters, three-card tricksters, apprentices to repair workshops, or to blacksmiths and tailors, small-time fishermen, one and all had spread their clap-nets, tied their live decoys to a string and placed the cages containing the captured songbirds around them. They knelt on the ground, their eyes fixed on the sky, uttering bird-like whistles that rose to a crescendo whenever a flight of birds showed up in the distance.
The greenfinch is a darkish ash-grey bird, slightly smaller than the sparrow. The goldfinch is yellow. Then there is the chaffinch, the coal titmouse and a host of other tiny bright-coloured birds, yellow-breasted, the most brilliant of yellows, or red, flame-like, or green, all so vivid you can see them even in the dark. And there is the blue one, no bigger than a thumb, flashing like a ball of blue light through the sky, leaving a fulgent blue trail in its wake.
Tuğrul was there as usual, his chin on his knees, his arms hugging his legs.
“Hello, Tuğrul.”
He pretended not to hear, but his right shoulder twitched.
“Come now, Tuğrul! I said hello to you. What are you doing, sitting here, day in, day out?”
His back heaved and his frail scraggy neck shrank even lower between his shoulders. A leaf from the poplar tree fluttered down and rested on his foot.
I sat down beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s the matter, Tuğrul?”
Slowly he turned to me, a little embarrassed perhaps, his eyes glowing, as though with tears. He tried to smile, but his thin cracked lips froze. Then he bent his head again.
“Nothing’s the matter, Abi,”fn1 he mumbled.
“But there is,” I insisted.
“Well, there is, then!” he flared up. “Why should I care?”
“Care about what, Tuğrul?”
“All that!” He gestured angrily towards the tent. “Those fellows there …”
“What’s wrong with them?”
He glared at me and relapsed into silence.
I gave up and left him to himself.
I was quite annoyed with Tuğrul. Why didn’t he speak out like a man and tell me what was going on in that tent? Perhaps he was vexed now that I hadn’t insisted a little more, perhaps he would never speak to me again. Well, that was his problem.
But after this, every time I passed that way, I stopped and took a closer look at the tent and its inmates. Nothing unusual was taking place there as far as I could see. The three boys, like everyone else, had fixed a clap-net, positioned a few cages with songbirds around them, and fastened their decoys. Whenever a flight of birds passed above, they pursed their lips in a loud whistle, and if the birds alighted on the thistles, they swiftly pulled the net down, their hearts bounding, their eyes almost popping out. And in the same instant they shot out, the three of them as one, in a hectic eager sprint to the trapped birds that were fluttering frantically in the meshes of the net.
In the end, curiosity got the better of me. Like Tuğrul, I too sat down to watch, but on the opposite side of the tent, under the old terebinth. Then I noticed Tuğrul giving me a meaningful look.
Each time a flight of birds appeared in the sky, alighted on the thistles and were crammed into the big cages by the boys in a screeching welter of bright colours, Tuğrul’s eyes went from the sky to the net, from the boys to the cages. Then he lowered his head to his knees again, until a fresh flight of birds came to rest on the thistles, until again the boys were scampering up to the closed net with cries of triumph.
My evening walk would often take me past the old poplar tree, and one night what should I see but Tuğrul, sitting there in his accustomed place, though it was quite late. A bright light issued from the tent, and the sound of voices too. One of the boys was laughing, a fitful broken sound, more like sobbing than laughter, more like a lament, like the note of some strange bird. I could have sworn it was that beanpole lad who was laughing so. I stopped a little way from Tuğrul and called to him.
He made no answer. Did his back heave, his shoulder tremble? It was too dark to see.
“Tuğrul, Tuğrul,” I called again.
Very slowly, he rose and brushed his clothes with both hands. Then he walked off towards the seashore, not even bothering to look at me. His stooped figure, round as a ball in the darkness, disappeared among the shanties.
A fire was burning in front of the tent, and now and again one of the boys, the short tough one, would come out to gather thistles from round about and throw them onto the fire.
fn1 abi: big brother.
2
The boys were always up very early in the morning, but even before they had woken, at the first glimmer of dawn, Tuğrul would be there already. How many times had I seen him rushing along the fringe of the wood towards the poplar tree, as though fearful of missing something, and then, if the boys were still asleep, he would draw a deep breath and slump down in his accustomed place in front of the barbed wire, resting his chin on his knees.
On Florya Plain, the bird hunt was in full swing now. So it is each year when October comes, when the north wind is blasting, ice-cold, keen as a razor’s edge, or when the sea is churned into a furious foaming mass by the lodos that blows from the south. Then, clouds of tiny birds are tossed hither and thither, tracing zigzags in the air, flurrying down over the thistles, only to rise again in the same instant, veering swiftly over the sea, on to Çekmece Lake and back to the wood, grazing the crests of the trees, a scatter of many-coloured specks in the sky, vanishing from sight and appearing again. But on warm sunny days, they swarm down over the thistles in thousands, twittering madly, and devour with frightening rapacity the seeds of the dried shrubs that, in the summer, had flowered bright yellow, dyeing the whole plain saffron.
Ever since ancient Byzantium, through Ottoman times to this day, these tiny birds, coming no one knows whence and going no one knows where, have sojourned here, on Florya Plain, from October to the end of December. And ever since, the people of Istanbul town have set all kinds of snares to capture them. They capture them, and then sell them, in front of churches if they are Christians, synagogues if they are Jewish, or mosques if they are Moslems. “Fly little bird, free as the air, and meet me at the gates of Paradise.” And so, all over Istanbul town, the sky will be swarming with little birds delivered from captivity by those who wish to ensure a place in Paradise cheaply. Children especially, and also the very old …
Many years ago, it must have been when I first came to Istanbul, I had seen in Taksim Square a very old gentleman, wearing a fur-collared coat, and a little boy of six or seven. From a barefooted youngster they were buying tiny wild-eyed yellow birds and casting them up into the air. They would take it in turns, first the old gentleman, then the little boy, and at every throw the three of them would cry out in pure joy. And there was that cat huddling in the bushes under the plane trees … Every now and again, one of the small birds, unable to take wing, would fall to the ground and flutter off into the bushes. No sooner there than that monster of a cat would pounce on it, tear it apart with claws and teeth, and devour it greedily. Then, licking its chops, the cat would lie in wait, quite still, its eyes on the air, for its next prey.
Nowadays, it is only in the courtyard of Eyup Mosque that children manage to sell a bird or two to be set free. So they prefer to take them to the bird market in Eminönü where the dealers select a few of the finest out of hundreds, in order to sell them at a high price to bird fanciers. And the children go back home, weary, disappointed, toting their cages still filled to the brim, wondering what to do with all these birds.
If the chroniclers of Istanbul city neglect the history of these birds and of the fowlers on Florya Plain, then their work, according to me, will not be worth much. Indeed, it will all have been in vain. The joy of millions of little birds set free in front of churches, synagogues and mosques for hundreds of years, and the joy of so many people too … Is that an adventure of small importance? One day, I know it, some person, imaginative, wise, pure of heart, will come forward and write the fine history, full of hope and gladness, of the birds of Florya Plain, and then Istanbul city will be a more beautiful, a more enchanting place. Is the magic of Istanbul only in its sea and sky, its rivers and monuments? And what of the Florya birds then?
A few days later, I saw that another lad had joined Tuğrul. They were sitting side by side, chin on knees, just like that. And not two days had gone by before six were squatting on the mound in front of the barbed wire fence, hugging their knees, staring vacantly into space. Were they angry, crazy, pensive? Their faces gave nothing away.
The boys from the tent darted busily here and there, calling to the birds, agitating their decoys and bringing down the clap-net over the thistle shrubs. Now and again they cast a glance at the motionless group on the mound, perplexed by their strange attitude. Soon, a second cage was filled. Then a third. And now there were eight cages in the tent, all crammed with terrified little birds, yellow, red, blue, their eyes rolling like gleaming grapeshot, fluttering madly as they knocked against the wire of the cages in a frenzied attempt to escape. The cages were of the ordinary kind, fifty centimetres wide, eighty long and sixty high.
These boys from Fatih … Now I come to think of it, who had told me they came from Fatih? I don’t know. Perhaps it just seemed so to me. Maybe I said to myself, that’s the quarter of the to
wn which suits them best … Well, these Fatih boys had begun to look with growing bewilderment at the silent group of six on the mound, with a little bit of fear too …
They were in luck this year. The birds had come in great numbers and there were some in those cages that they had never seen before, did not even know their names. They had caught six of one rare kind with pure red plumage that grew paler under the wings and on the breast, and each one was sure to sell for seven liras at least. They had captured a falcon too and put it in a separate cage. Every day, they fed it with half a dozen live goldfinches and chaffinches, and the rapacious bird, its anger sharpened by captivity, would tear the little birds to pieces the instant it had them in its talons, just like that cat.
Yet falcons are quite rare in these parts. Maybe this one had come all the way from the Istranca forests in pursuit of the migrant birds. From high up, it had swooped down over the live decoy of the Fatih boys and, just as it grasped the tiny goldfinch, the net had closed over it. The children had tried to wrest the goldfinch from its talons, but the falcon had lashed out at them with its beak. Their hands were all tom and bloody.
It was a motley-feathered falcon. They sold it to Gypsy Halil for thirty-five liras. Then they bagged two brown hawks which Gypsy Halil again bought from them for twenty-five liras each. The gypsy would take these birds to Kavak village and re-sell them to the hunters there at a good profit.
3
Way up, high over the sea, a bird of prey was circling in the sky. I went up to the tent.
“Look,” I said. “That’s a falcon.”
“We’ve seen it,” the short boy said, the one who had triangular eyes.
“Will it come down, d’you think?”
“It’s sure to, in a little while, but …” He sighed.
“But what?”
“The trouble is, Abi, these birds tear the net to rags. What’s more, nobody wants them except Gypsy Halil. And he only pays twenty-five or thirty liras for each bird. It’s not worth it.”