Birds Without Wings

by Louis de Bernières

  When he crested the brow of the hollow, Ibrahim’s great dog was the first to see him. Kopek was a giant among dogs, of that breed which in Anatolia has been used for centuries to fight off the wolves, feral dogs and lynxes that harass the flocks of sheep and goats. Some herders take particular delight in the terror that these dogs evoke in the human strangers that they confront, and certainly Mehmetçik could remember Ibrahim’s relish when recounting tales of Kopek’s feats of intimidation. The dog was possessed of a formidable memory, and knew exactly which goat to return to each owner when the flock was brought down into the town in the evenings. He also knew the smell of everyone in the community, and therefore knew who to threaten and who to leave unmolested. Whether he knew this because living there caused everyone to share something common in their scent, or because he knew the smell of each person individually, is a question that cannot be answered, although everyone assumed that it must be the latter.

  Mehmetçik felt a prickle of fear in his throat. He had had some memorably terrifying encounters with these dogs during his years of brigandage, and considered them to be more truly dangerous than most of the human flotsam with whom he had had to deal. Once or twice he had been forced to shoot particularly aggressive ones, and this had always weighed very heavily upon his conscience, because it was common knowledge that, whereas one sheep or a goat was not too unbearable a loss, a good dog was a herder’s most precious possession, combining the roles of stalwart protector, loyal friend and body-warmer on freezing nights.

  Kopek hunkered down into the stalking position, and Mehmetçik’s heart sank. He saw Ibrahim sitting on a rock amid the black goats, playing his kaval, but apparently paying no attention to the dog. Then Kopek rose suddenly to his feet, and began the ritualised routine of the hunt. His hackles standing in a bristling ridge, raising his forefeet delicately high, pausing at every step, he advanced on Mehmetçik, a deep growling rumbling in his chest. Mehmetçik knew that this was a preface to his being violently rushed, and most probably pinned to the ground with the animal’s feet on his chest, and its teeth in his throat. He struggled to remember the dog’s name, and did so only just in time.

  “Kopek, Kopek,” he called. “Kopek! Good dog. Kopek, it’s me, it’s me!”

  The dog stopped dead just as his charge commenced, and raised his ears as if thinking, “I wonder who this person is, who seems to know me?” He sniffed the air to catch Mehmetçik’s scent, his black jowls quivering.

  Courageously, Mehmetçik came forward slowly, extending his hand to the dog so that it could be sniffed. Kopek did so, and considered the matter. The hand did seem a little familiar. “Good dog,” said Mehmetçik, in as confident and friendly a voice as he could manage under the circumstances, and Kopek recognised something in the voice as well. He licked the proffered hand, and decided that its owner was acceptable. He allowed Mehmetçik to pat him on the head and ruffle his chest, and then he rolled over on the ground and submitted.

  Profoundly relieved, Mehmetçik ruffled the animal’s ears and chest, and then approached his old friend, with Kopek following happily at his heels. “You could have called him off,” said Mehmetçik.

  Ibrahim did not reply. He sat on his rock and continued to play the same thin and meandering melody.

  “Ibrahim,” said Mehmetçik, putting a hand on his shoulder, but Ibrahim merely played on. Puzzled, Mehmetçik stood back a little and looked down. He bent to look into Ibrahim’s face, and was shocked by what he saw. Ibrahim was not just eight years older, he was also quite clearly in a reduced state. His face was drawn, pale and thin, saliva trickled from the corners of his mouth as he played, his lips trembled, which perhaps accounted for the attenuation of the flute’s sound, and his eyes darted about without settling upon anything. He would not, or could not, look Mehmetçik in the eyes, and quite clearly did not recognise him.

  “Ibrahim, Ibrahim, old friend,” said Mehmetçik sadly, feeling utterly helpless. Seeing his old playmate in this condition made him feel unnaturally strong and healthy. He could make no connection between this haggard ruin and the bright and funny youngster who had once kept everyone entertained with his bleat of a goat that is surprised, a goat that is looking for its kid, a goat that is protesting, a goat that is hungry, a goat that is in rut, a goat that has nothing to say.

  “It was me,” said Ibrahim abruptly, removing the kaval from his lips.

  “Ibrahim?” said Mehmetçik.

  “It was me. I did it.”

  “What did you do? Ibrahim, what are you saying?”

  “I killed the little bird.”

  “The little bird?”

  “It was me.”

  “What’s this little bird?”

  “It tried to fly,” said Ibrahim.

  “They do fly,” said Mehmetçik.

  “It was my fault,” said Ibrahim, and he resumed playing the kaval. As he did so, he began to weep silently in a most unnatural fashion, without sobbing or catching his breath. Large silent tears followed each other down his cheeks and disappeared into the corners of his mouth, as if he were drinking them as he played.

  “Come,” said Mehmetçik, “a man doesn’t weep like this. You must stop, Ibrahim. Ibrahim, you must stop.”

  The dog Kopek settled next to his master, and looked up at Mehmetçik, as if to say: “Oh well, what’s to be done?” Mehmetçik stooped to place his hand on the dog’s head, as if in benediction, and then stood upright. He looked down at the abject Ibrahim for a few moments, and then turned on his heel and walked away. There was nothing to be done. The fact was that in this life things change and pass away, and, whatever the reason, the days of Ibrahim’s radiance had clearly gone for ever.

  It was not long afterwards that, down in the town, Karatavuk heard something that made him stop his work, stand perfectly still, and listen. He heard it quite distinctly. It was the sound of a robin, singing very loudly and clearly. It was a little too loud and clear, and it was not exactly like a robin. It was more like somebody executing a near perfect imitation. His heart seemed to leap in his chest, and he stepped out of the tank, hastily wiped his feet on a piece of rag, and ran indoors. He rummaged about among his few possessions and found what he was looking for. He took the small terracotta whistle to the water jug on the table, and carefully filled it with water. He blew into it to make it warble, and, emptying a little out, he tried it again.

  He ran outdoors, and listened for the robin, but heard nothing. He put the small clay bird to his lips and blew a few notes. The song of a blackbird, very loud and clear, floated out over the town. He stopped to listen. Out among the tombs, the song of the robin briefly resumed, and stopped. He played a few more notes of blackbird. The robin in the tombs answered, mimicking the same intervals. Elated, his heart thumping with excitement, Karatavuk ran up through the narrow streets, tripping over dogs and recumbent mules, accidentally elbowing people in his passage, and then he emerged into the dense maquis of the hillside, and paused to blow into his whistle. Further up, the robin replied.

  In this manner the two friends found each other behind the boulder whence Mehmetçik had previously surveyed the town. They embraced, kissing each other on the cheeks, and giving each other great thumps between the shoulder blades. “Oh, my friend, my friend,” exclaimed Karatavuk, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “I never thought I would see you again.”

  “It’s been eight years,” said Mehmetçik. “Eight years,” repeated Karatavuk.

  “Look at the state of you,” chuckled Mehmetçik. “What on earth have you been doing?”

  Karatavuk looked down at his own legs as if he did not know how they had been occupied. They were caked and dripping with a grey earthy slime. “I have to tread the clay in the tank these days,” he said. “It’s down to me to find the little stones with my feet, and get them out. I’ve developed very deft toes since you saw me last.”

  “I thought you had an old man to do that.”

  “We did, but he died.”

  “Oh, I am so
rry.”

  “It was a good thing in the end. He became very ill.” Karatavuk paused. “So, everything’s changed for you, according to all I hear. You’ve gone from being a little robin to being the great big famous Red Wolf.”

  “Another outlaw,” Mehmetçik shrugged, a little abashed.

  “A very famous one.”

  “Half the stories aren’t true. A lot of those things were done by other people. Everyone blames me and my men for everything. We don’t commit half the cruelties that people say we do. We’re not the only bandits in the mountains. By the way, do you remember Sadettin, the son of Yusuf the Tall?”

  “The one who left after his father made him shoot his sister? Yes, we all remember him.”

  “When I joined the outlaws, he was the leader. They captured me when I was trying to make my way home, and then I realised that I ought to ask them if I could stay, because no other life was possible as long as the authorities were looking for me. I looked at all those men, and they were all kinds. There were Christians and Jews and Muslims, and Armenians, and two Arabs, and even a black man from Ethiopia. Sadettin remembered me, and he asked me about the town and about his mother, and they accepted me, all because of Sadettin. Otherwise I think they might have killed me.”

  “What became of Sadettin?”

  “He was very reckless and brave. Some of us considered that he took great risks on purpose, because he wanted to get finished with life. He was never reconciled to having killed his sister and lost his family, and he used to talk about it when he was drunk. The raki made him stupid, and one day he was killed by a gendarme. He was going to shoot the gendarme, and confronted him in broad daylight in the meydan of a town near the place we were hiding. He had a pistol with a safety catch, and he forgot to release it, so by the time he realised why the gun wouldn’t fire, he was dead, with the gendarme standing over him. We had two more leaders after that, and now it’s me.”

  “The famous Red Wolf! I can’t believe it’s you! But tell me, how did it happen? I mean, what happened that made you run away to be a brigand?” “It was the labour battalion,” said Mehmetçik. “Didn’t you hear?”

  “No, I didn’t. How should I know what happened? I just heard you were a deserter. I was ashamed for you when I heard.”

  “A deserter? That’s not how I would put it.” Mehmetçik thought about what he was going to say, and then began: “After they wouldn’t take me into the army when I volunteered—you remember, we went along together, and they wouldn’t take me because it was a jihad, and I was a Christian—well, you remember how disappointed I was. I wanted to serve the Sultan and the empire very badly, but I wasn’t allowed. I took it as an insult, and I am still often offended when I think about it. It was a great slight to my honour.

  “Not long afterwards the recruiting people returned, and they enlisted all the Christian boys into the labour battalions. They said we could serve the Sultan and defend the empire against the Franks by doing essential work, you know, building bridges and roads, making railway tunnels, constructing docks, all those kinds of things. They were going to feed us and pay us, and they made it seem an honourable way to serve.”

  “And it wasn’t?”

  Mehmetçik shook his head. “It certainly wasn’t. They treated us not like men, but like slaves. We worked from dawn to dusk, without food or water, more often than not. If we were sick, or fainted, or rested they beat us and kicked us, or even whipped us. We became skeletons draped in rags. We were covered in sores and blisters, and the fleas and lice tormented us. We slept in a sort of tunnel made of scraps of wood and cloth, all crammed together without a pallet and with nothing to cover ourselves, and all the time we were shitting ourselves with diarrhoea, and some people were even shitting blood, but we still had to work.”

  “It sounds a bit like being in the army,” observed Karatavuk.

  “At least a soldier is a man and not a slave. I could have taken it if I hadn’t been a slave.”

  “Anyway, for us it was holy war,” said Karatavuk. “The thought of that kept us going.”

  “There was nothing holy about being in a labour battalion,” said Mehmetçik. “It was when the men started to get typhus that I ran away. That wasn’t how I wanted to die. I knew I would die if I stayed, and that isn’t how a man should die, not a man who wanted to be a soldier, and face the enemies of the empire.”

  “Most of my comrades didn’t die of bullets,” said Karatavuk, “but I suppose we weren’t slaves.”

  “Well, I’ve gone from being a slave to being a bandit,” said Mehmetçik bitterly. “At least I’ve gone from a greater shame to a lesser one.”

  “Some people admire you,” said Karatavuk. “I suppose you know that there is a big reward for information leading to your death or capture?”

  “I know that. It was after that business with the governor’s administrator.”

  “You don’t think it was a big mistake to rob and strip one of the governor’s men, and make him walk away naked? And tell him that Red Wolf wishes him a safe journey? It made everyone laugh who heard of it, but you didn’t think that was a stupid thing to do?”

  “Yes, it was stupid,” agreed Mehmetçik, “but the man was an arrogant piece of shit, and he asked for it. He annoyed us all by repeating how important he was, and telling us of the things that would happen to us.”

  “Take my advice,” said Karatavuk, “get rid of your red shirt that makes you such an easy target, and go and find your family, and till the soil like everyone else, and live in peace.”

  “I noticed that you don’t wear a black shirt any more.”

  “I would if I had one,” laughed Karatavuk. “All I have now is the nickname. If I ever have any money, perhaps one day it will be a vanity I can afford, and my wife can cut me a new one from black cloth.”

  Mehmetçik held up the small clay birdwhistle. “And you still have one of these. I’ve had mine all these years, and I have never broken it. It’s a miracle when you think of all it’s been through. Does Iskander Efendi still make them? You know, I have always wondered why he made mine with a turban on its head. Whoever heard of a robin wearing a turban?”

  “It was just my father’s fancy. There isn’t a reason. He still makes them like that, and now I know how to make them myself. I have taken up my destiny after being so much interrupted, and now I am a potter like my father, just as it was always set out for me. All my brothers but one were killed in Mesopotamia, and now we two are the only ones left to carry it all on. Now I have a wife, so I have some hope that all will be well.”

  “I have gone a long way off course,” reflected Mehmetçik sadly, carefully replacing the whistle in his sash. “I am very like Sadettin.” He paused, and then looked up. “I have to ask you … actually, this is the reason I had to speak to you … who are those people in my father’s house? Where have my family gone?”

  Karatavuk looked at him with astonishment. “You don’t know?”

  “I have no idea. In the last years I’ve been everywhere from Kemer to Konya. I haven’t been able to return.”

  “You must surely know that all the Christians have been deported?” Mehmetçik blanched. “All of them?”

  “As far as I know, all of them. They’ve all gone from round here. It was some months ago. The gendarmerie from Telmessos came, and took them all away. My father has the keys to many people’s houses.”

  “How long have they been taken for?”

  “For ever, it seems.”

  “Holy Panagia, have mercy,” exclaimed Mehmetçik, utterly appalled. “Obviously I knew that all the Greeks had been taken away. I saw the columns. But I didn’t think my own family was included, I didn’t know we counted. Where have they gone?”

  “Well, the people who came here to replace them were from Crete, wherever that is. They were a sorry bunch when they arrived, and they were many fewer than the number of people who left. That’s why the town seems so empty. There’s a big shortage of customers for us, and natural
ly the Cretans have nothing at all to buy anything with.”

  “Crete,” said Mehmetçik, wonderingly. “Where is it, though?”

  “I heard that it’s in Greece, which they say is not far across the sea in the west. If I were you I would go to Crete and try to find them. You should give up this outlaw business. You’ll come to a bad end, all for nothing, with no children or brothers to follow you to your grave.”

  “We don’t know how to speak Greek,” said Mehmetçik. “What will they do in Greece?”

  “Well, these Cretans are Muslims, but they mostly don’t speak Turkish. They mostly speak Greek, and life is very hard for them here. There are many people who spit at them and call them filthy Greeks, because of the bad feeling after the war. The ones in your house are Cretans. But you shouldn’t worry about your family. It was agreed by the great Frankish pashas and Mustafa Kemal that when they arrived they would receive compensation to the same value as everything they lost when they left.”

  “That would be a good thing. I hope it has happened. They were not born to be beggars. But how will I find Crete?”

  “Go to Kaş. I have heard that just opposite the town is a very small island called Megiste, which is full of Greeks, except that the Italians took it over a couple of years ago. You should get to the island. Perhaps a fisherman will take you. The Greeks on the island will probably know where Crete is and how to get to it. I think that’s the best thing to do. A lot of people who got left behind have done the same thing, which is how I know about it. Apparently the Greeks on Megiste and the people of Kaş smuggle between each other at night.”