To Crush the Serpent

by Yashar Kemal

  A smile flitted across Hassan’s face. At this Kerim flew into a towering rage. He rose and stalked off cursing up hill and down dale at Hassan, Esmé, at ghosts and all and sundry.

  Words poured over Hassan like rain. The villagers, young and old, had made it their sacred duty, wherever they could corner him, to speak to him about the plight of his father. There was no escape for Hassan. Like a sleepwalker he drifted through the village, caught in a roil of wagging tongues.

  Only his encounter with old Dursun shook him out of his daze.

  Dursun must surely have been a hundred years old. He could hardly walk any more. His neck was so deeply furrowed that bits of straw and chaff stuck in the folds of skin. His eyebrows hung in thick tufts, hiding a pair of grey-flecked blue eyes. Hassan had never spoken to him in his life and was all the more surprised when the old man waylaid him one day as he was passing by his house.

  “Stop Hassan,” Dursun said in his thin wheezy voice. “Stop and let old Dursun have a few words with you.”

  And hooking his cane about the boy’s ankle he drew him down beside him and peered into his face with an expression of childlike wonder.

  “But how you’ve grown, Hassan!” he exclaimed. “Why, you’re a full-fledged lad now! And these stupid people are trying to stuff you full of nonsense … Listen to me, my child, your mother’s a beautiful woman. I’ve lived all these years and never come across such beauty as hers. And when a person is so beautiful, and what’s more, sweet and kind as an angel, people can’t bear it and won’t rest until they’ve killed off this beautiful thing. That’s what they want Hassan, your mother’s death.”

  He lifted the long tufts of his eyebrows with his two hands as was his habit and fixed a clear blue gaze on Hassan, then bowed his head and sank into thought. After a while he looked up again and laid his hand on Hassan’s shoulder.

  “Listen to me, my child, don’t let them make you kill your mother. How could anyone destroy this beautiful thing that Allah must have taken a thousand years to fashion, with who knows how much love and care? Such creatures are Allah’s beloved ones on earth. Don’t you go paying heed to any ghost or to that mangy Kerim and tell your mother not to let herself be upset and kill herself because of those gabbling fools. Esmé is Allah’s beloved. If she’s killed, Allah will put a curse on us all, he’ll rain stones upon us, strike us with pestilences …”

  He stopped and smiled, his kind toothless smile.

  “D’you know what I’d do now, right away, Hassan, if I was young?”

  Hassan did not answer.

  The old man repeated his question again so eagerly that Hassan smiled too.

  “What would you do then, Uncle Dursun?” he said.

  “Well, well! So you can talk, can’t you?” Dursun’s smile widened.

  “Of course I can!” Hassan retorted. “Provided I find the right person.”

  “Well then, what I’d do is this. I’d move myself bag and baggage to your house. And if I was thrown out I’d ask for work as a farm hand. And if that was refused, I’d fall sick on your doorstep, anything to be allowed to remain and be able to look at your mother all day long, day after day. And, doing this, I’d go straight to Paradise, for I’ll have you know, Hassan that no man who has looked to his heart’s content on so much beauty will be allowed to go to Hell. Yes, it’s Paradise in this world and the next for the man who has been granted such a privilege. Even now, Hassan, even now, if you take me to your house, if I can look at Esmé with these failing old eyes of mine, with all the fervour left in me … It’s a sin to look at such beauty with eyes that can only see so dimly, but …”

  He fell silent and the tufted eyebrows hid his gaze.

  Hassan was delighted. “Oh, do come, Uncle Dursun!” he cried. “Let me take you home and mother will make you some coffee and cook for you too if you wish.”

  “All right, let’s go,” Dursun said, trying to push himself up with his hands. Hassan helped him to his feet and they slowly wended their way through the village. People stared. They could put no meaning to this sudden companionship and openly cursed the old man and the boy.

  Esmé greeted Dursun with pleasure. It was noon, so she laid out lunch under the chardak2. A weeping willow to the west cast its shadow over the well and the chardak too. Esmé invited Dursun to break bread with them.

  The meal lasted a long time. Dursun kept holding up his tufted brows to gaze at Esmé, muttering prayers of thanksgiving under his breath and forgetting to eat. When he did put a morsel into his mouth, it was with difficulty that he chewed it with his toothless gums, reverting again to his prayers. “Thanks be to Allah, praised be Him for granting me this day …

  He sat with them till sunset.

  That night Hassan’s sleep was troubled by confused dreams. It was his father always whom he saw, trapped in the swamp by the reed-bed, struggling to free himself, changing into a serpent before his eyes, twisting and turning and sinking ever more deeply into the mire, vanishing altogether, only to reappear as a lizard, a frog, a wide-eyed owl starting up from the swamp with muddy straggled feathers and flapping off into a blackberry bush … Suddenly the ghost again, wrapped in his white shroud, all wet and slimy now, with gaping bulging eyes that were the owl’s really, all eyes, nothing but the owl’s eyes, growing larger and larger … Bearing down upon him …

  Hassan was awake long before daybreak. He rose and stopped a moment to look at his mother. She was fast asleep, her long hair spreading over the pillow. It was dressed in the forty-plait style, intertwined with silver and gold thread and coral beads. How beautiful she was, even more beautiful than old Dursun could say … He stood entranced for a while, unable to tear himself away.

  The night before he had packed some food into an embroidered saddle-bag, taking care that his mother should notice nothing. He had plenty of money too, which he stuffed into a pouch hung from his neck. Soundlessly, he put on his best clothes, picked up his rifle and went down the stairs.

  The stable was still quite dark and he had to grope to find his colt and saddle it. He rode out of the yard, paused a moment at the gate, looking up at the window of the room where he had left his mother asleep, then guided the horse eastward in the direction of Kozan town. Once out of the village, he shifted into a gallop and only reined in on reaching the town. It was midday by that time. He hitched the horse to a tree and went into a restaurant, the saddle-bag with all his food hanging from his shoulder. He sat down and took some yufka-bread out of it, as the restaurant keeper came up to him.

  “I’ll have the dish of the day,” Hassan ordered. He’d been in restaurants before.

  “Right away, Agha,” the restaurant keeper said. He was a Kurd with long tapering mustaches. Hassan had heard of him.

  “We’ve got a nice sweet too today,” the man ventured.

  Hassan smiled. “I’ll have that too,” he said, and added: “I know who you are, Uncle.”

  “Where d’you know me from?” the Kurd asked.

  “Aren’t you Sülo the Kurd?”

  “That I am! And who are you?”

  “I’m Halil’s son. You know, the one who was killed by Abbas …”

  “Why of course!” the Kurd exclaimed. “I know you now, you’re Hassan, aren’t you? How’s your mother? I’ve heard say your uncles want to kill her, but that you won’t let them. Well, Hassan my child, your father was a good man, what can I say … I never thought his son was a grown lad already … They say your mother had your father murdered, but don’t you believe it. A beautiful woman will always have the gossips after her. Your mother comes from an honourable family. A woman like her would never stoop to have her husband murdered. As for your father, he was a dear friend of mine. We used to go drinking and gambling together. Many’s the time we engaged a whole night-club in Adana with all the staff just for the two of us … An eagle of a man he was, your father. In all the Chukurova no one would have dared touch a hair of his head. Only a bloodthirsty reckless man like Abbas … Listen my young frien
d, don’t let them make you kill your mother. I know that’s what your uncles are planning. They’d kill her themselves if they could, would have done it long ago, what’s it to them to kill a woman, only they’re afraid of your mother’s brothers. They’re very powerful and rich, you know, and would stop at nothing if anything happened to their sister. So you see, your uncles know that if they killed your mother her brothers would descend upon them from the hills and not one of them would they leave alive. Why, they’d wipe out the whole family root and branch! But if you do it, if you were to kill your mother, her brothers would never kill you.”

  Hassan had finished eating while the Kurd spoke. He looked up at this.

  “Are you sure they wouldn’t kill me too?” he asked surprised.

  “Never,” the Kurd assured him. “Only,” he added quickly, “don’t for God’s sake kill her. You’d be damned for all eternity, prodded with red-hot pitchforks by the demons of hell. Whatever they do, whatever they tell you, don’t let them persuade you to kill your mother. You won’t now, will you, child?”

  Hassan took courage. “Where do they live, my mother’s brothers, do you know? Perhaps if I could find them …”

  “I don’t know,” the Kurd replied. “Your father had told me about them, but I can’t remember. When your father fell in love with your mother and carried her away, her brothers were bent on having his skin. If it wasn’t for the intervention of all those Chukurova Beys they would have finished him off there and then. Now, look here child, don’t kill your mother. You never know, her brothers might kill even you …”

  Hassan produced a fifty-lira note from his embroidered silk pouch and the Kurd hurried to the safe to get the change.

  “Thank you,” Hassan said as he rose to go. “Keep well, Uncle.”

  The Kurd saw him to the door. “Don’t let them make you kill your mother,” he repeated after him in a low voice. “Anyone who’d kill such a beautiful thing would be damned forever.”

  Hassan jumped onto his horse and sat for a moment, unable to make up his mind where to go now. The restaurant keeper was watching him intently. Annoyed, Hassan spurred the horse and was out of the town at a flying gallop. He stopped at the ford to the stream. Which way should he go now? Where? If only he had thought to find out where those other uncles of his lived … He didn’t even know their names. And what if it were all lies? What if his mother had no brothers at all and the Kurd had just invented them to frighten him? But then, when his mother had tried to escape, where had she meant to go to? No, no, they must exist, these brothers. She must have a father, a family, friends, but where? Surely somewhere up there in the hills …

  Slightly dizzy, he turned the horse’s head towards the mountains and whipped it on.

  There was a path leading through a wooded ascent. He took it and pressed on between the tall scented blue pines. A smoke haze hung lazily beyond the slope and when he came to the top he discerned the tip of a minaret down in the valley. There was a village there, the houses hidden under the thick curtain of smoke. A cock crowed, dogs barked and the tinkle of cattle bells sounded, slow and tired, as bells will at evenfall.

  As the village houses came into view Hassan reined in, struck by a sudden doubt. His grandmother’s face rose before his eyes … Then he heard voices echoing back from the high crags above, a child wailing, an old man calling from one hill to the other … He could not explain why he felt suddenly so happy, so confident. After all he did not even know what village this was. But his horse had brought him here. It would also lead him to a house. He would leave it to the horse to choose. I’m a guest of Allah, he’d say, travelling to find my uncles … How would he be welcomed? Why, with pleasure of course, anyone would be pleased to receive Allah’s guest. Maybe the inhabitants of this village were Kurds, Alevi Kurds whom everyone said were fine honest people. Or perhaps impoverished remnants of the great Farsak nomads … Anyway, mountain people were the most hospitable on earth.

  The horse ambled on and came to a stop before the gate of a large house with a mud-daubed roof and walls decorated with many-hued earth. An ancient plane-tree spread its wide branches over the front yard. Hassan did not move. His hands holding the reins lay idle over the pommel of his saddle. The horse’s tail switched rapidly to and fro, chasing away the flies.

  After a while an old man emerged from the house. Screwing up his eyes he took a few steps towards Hassan and exclaimed: “Why, here’s a wayfarer to bring us good cheer! Welcome to our house, wayfarer. Hey lads!” he called into the house. “Quick, come here, we’ve got a guest.”

  A couple of men ran out and helped Hassan dismount. Then the old man led him into the house. Producing a key from his waist he unlocked a carved oaken door and ushered him into a room furnished with divans all around and spread with real madder-dyed kilims, rich in colour and design. The walls were wainscoted with carved walnut from floor to ceiling, and on one of them hung a colour picture of Atatürk standing, his right foot planted forward, a whip in his hand, beside him the head of his chestnut horse, and a blue lake in the background. In this picture Atatürk’s eyes seemed unnaturally blue.

  The room had begun to fill up with men in homespun woollen shalvars. They all bid a solemn welcome to Hassan and took a seat on the divans, their legs folded beneath them. Coffee was brought in and Hassan was the first to be served. He drank his coffee in silence, holding the cup delicately by the handle as he saw the others do.

  Then his host introduced himself. “My name is Murtaza,” he said. “Murtaza Demirdeli. And what’s yours, good guest?”

  “I’m called Hassan,” the boy replied, slightly embarrassed. “My family are the Cholaks from down on Anavarza plain.”

  “I know them,” Murtaza Agha said.

  “I’m Halil’s son …”

  “I remember Halil,” Murtaza Agha said. “A good worthy man he was, your father. One doesn’t often see the likes of him in this world.”

  “Indeed not,” the others concurred. “We all knew him very well. Many’s the time Halil Agha lent us his aid down there in the plain. A generous hospitable friend he was in that inhospitable Chukurova.”

  Of the rest of that evening Hassan only retained a vague recollection. He was very tired, ready to drop off, and to keep awake he began to talk. It was the first time people had treated him like a grown-up person and he did not want to act as an inexperienced child. So he talked, but what he said he could not for the life of him recall. He must have spoken of his father and told of how he rose from his grave as a snake, a huge rattlesnake, for he remembered the eyes of the villagers wide open, fixed on him in astonishment. Food was brought in too, all fragrant of fresh butter, all, the potato stew, the bulgur pilaff, even the bread and yogurt …

  He fell asleep before the meal was over.

  When he woke it was not quite day. He was lying in a bed of white sheets smelling of soap and green apples, and through the open window the scent of wild roses came to his nostrils. He sprang up and ran outside. Beyond the wide plane-tree was a frothing mountain spring. He washed his face and relieved himself behind a rock.

  Inside, the bedding had been removed. A large tray stood in the centre of the room. On it was a copper tureen of piping hot tarhana soup, smelling of mint, and also butter, honey and village skin cheese.

  It seemed to Hassan that people were eyeing him strangely this morning. He sat down shyly, not daring to look at anyone. Murtaza Agha poured some soup into an engraved copper bowl and set it before him.

  “Did you sleep well last night, my guest?” he inquired. “Were you comfortable?”

  “Yes, oh yes,” Hassan stammered, his face flaming. “Very well.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Murtaza Agha said. “I want you to feel at home here. As in your own house …”

  Hassan cast him a grateful look.

  He could not say how long he had remained in that mountain village.

  A serpent was chasing him all the time, asleep, awake, a huge rattlesnake was on his track.
He could not shake it off. It crossed his path on the mountain, among the crags, crept up to the top of the pinetrees after him, followed him into the very room he slept, made him scream out in anguish in the night.

  The idea of going to his uncles, his mother’s brothers, was rapidly fading away. How could he find them when he didn’t even know their names? Something, somehow, kept him from asking his host, who may have known about them.

  And suddenly a harrowing thought struck him. What if anything had happened to his mother while he’d been away? What if they had killed her or done even worse to her? He rushed up to his favourite haunt, a spring that bubbled forth high up in the crags, with mauve watermint growing all around it, its fragrance mingling with that of the pines, and stumbled to the ground, assailed by a thousand doubts. How could he have left his mother alone, defenceless, among those monsters, in the jaws of death? Here he’d been, all this time, taking his ease, with not a thought for the hell she must be going through. Perhaps they had already killed her, perhaps …

  He rose abruptly and stared into the distance. Eagles swooped up and down over the high distant crags and all at once Hassan felt himself shrinking, dwindling to a tiny tiny size, nothing but a black crawling insect. And he knew … He knew what he had done. It was all crystal-clear to him now. He had run away on purpose. On purpose so that his uncles should kill his mother …

  “I don’t want to see it. My eyes mustn’t see it … But she has to be killed, she has to die … We can’t live on like this, despised by all in the Chukurova plain, my father doomed to burn in Hell forever, to haunt the earth in the shape of a rattlesnake … She must die. My mother must die … Esmé must die. She shall die.”

  That had been the awful thing inside of him all these days, the wicked sinful wish that his mother might die! How could any human being wish for such a thing …? But what if his mother had indeed killed his father? What if he was not avenged and left to suffer all the torments of Hell? Why should his grandmother feel hatred towards Esmé, for what reason except the one intent, to save her son from rising from his grave every night till kingdom come? Wouldn’t Esmé have done the same for him, Hassan? Why then, could Hassan not do it for the sake of his own father?