Sins & Innocents

by Sonmez, Burhan;

  Haco, who had been an old man when he had arrived in the village, had started to work as an imam, and one day he had asked Kewê if she would accept him as her husband. Kewê was sitting under the apple tree. She had looked at Haco’s long white hair, then broken off a piece of the apple in her hand and held it out to him. Haco had told her then about his past.

  “My father and I used to travel from village to village sharpening knives; we had a herd of horses that went everywhere with us. Whatever a bird is to a birdman, or his beloved to a man in love, that’s how much my father adored his black horses. He would turn the blunt knives on the grinding stone and treat everyone who gathered around him to horse stories. When he touched my hair it was as though his hand was stroking a horse’s mane. Before he died he told me to set the horses free in the steppe. I married in the village where my father died and started working as an imam and prepared to be a loving father. But I never had any children and my wife and I lived alone for many years. After my wife died I followed in my father’s footsteps, collecting black horses and going from village to village sharpening knives. While trudging through the winters and the springs, one day I met Ferman on Mangal Mountain. I could sense that I was tired. My hands weren’t as strong as they used to be when sharpening knives and I often cut my fingers. I needed to stop and rest on the soil where I would be buried. Ferman told me to be an imam in the mosque of this village and promised to look after the horses on the moors himself.”

  Haco and Kewê took care of each other, like birds who knew the value of the solitary grains left over on the threshing floor. Life was a silently flowing river. The two old people awoke in the mornings together and worked in their small garden together. The sky was here today, gone tomorrow. When they fell ill they breathed their own lives into the fever on their brows, when they couldn’t sleep they stared into the darkness together. People were people’s best refuge. They sat under the apple tree and told romantic fairy stories to the little girl who was my mother.

  My mother also shared Haco and Kewê`s happiness. Their breath warmed her on cold nights and she believed their hands were as sublime as elderly trees. My mother sometimes took them for two orphans and she would throw her tiny arms around them and stroke their sweat-soaked hair in their sleep. Every child prepared itself to carry the world on its shoulders; my mother took charge of two worlds at once.

  When Haco collapsed to the ground that night, like every good person departing this world his face relaxed, releasing its tension. He took a deep breath. His mother, whom he had last seen when he was three years old, appeared before him. He understood that death was not a bad thing and spoke in strained tones, like the weary turning of an old grinding stone.

  “The black horses are coming from far away.”

  Kewê closed Haco’s eyes and pulled the quilt over his face. She took down the Qur’an hanging on the wall and placed it beside his head. A red breeze blew in through the open door. Kewê realized that her life was flowing before her eternally, like a river that can’t stop, and that she had lost count of all the deaths she had witnessed. She looked at my mother sitting on the ground in despair and saw before her a little girl experiencing a different form of loneliness in this world. She told her to go to the spring, to wash her face and to fetch water, to keep her away from death’s oppression.

  My mother went out into the darkness. She raised her head and looked up at the starry sky. She walked slowly in her bare feet. Tonight she saw the soil more as a hungry child than a fertile mother and went to the apple tree and wept silently. She did not startle the birds waiting amongst the branches and quietly tied a rag around a low-hanging branch. She put her head under the cool water of the fountain and sat on a stone carved with ancient Roman scripts until she was sated with crying. She remembered the song that said “You can’t appreciate sunshine without rain, nor spring without winter.” Without death you couldn’t appreciate the preciousness of life. As the poet said:

  The joy of loving and sleeping together,

  Every lover agrees.

  Death is just as enamoured of life.

  Death is just as enamoured of life.

  Ferman, who had roamed alone for so many years, was like the wind after he adopted Haco’s black horses. One moment he was on this side of Haymana Plain, the next at the other end. He traversed every inch of the mountains and discovered the goings on of the nearby villages by chatting to the shepherds. When he came across the valley that was the grizzly bear’s hiding spot he became its guardian angel, refusing to allow caravans or shepherds anywhere near it. The soldiers he had occasionally scrapped with were no longer after him, they had left him alone since the declaration of the amnesty.

  Ferman thought that time in the village had frozen. Life there had come to a halt sixteen years ago. If he had approached the village he would have seen it was still snowing, just like on that winter night when he had shot his brothers. He believed that, lost his temper with anyone who didn’t and pointed his gun at them. He prepared himself to die alone on the moors.

  Once someone bowed to their destiny they had nothing to wait for but the moment of their death. Ferman dug himself a grave. He lit a fire by the graveside and sang folk-songs. If losing his mind had any comfort it was that he grew accustomed to his solitude there and lived that way until he met Tatar the photographer. But the gate to the garden of destiny had not yet closed. The day Ferman looked at the photos Tatar gave him his mind became cloudy. A moss-grown stone in his soul suddenly cracked. He held Asya’s photograph between his slender fingers like a mirror that might slip and fall, and while he looked at her face he remembered himself. Sometimes a human mind needed a reflection. This was Ferman’s first look at such a mirror since he had taken to the moors.

  When the Claw-faced woman’s twin daughters suddenly appeared Ferman was not startled. He had just woken from a sleep that had lasted for years. He let the girls ride the black horses and took them round the hills. He rolled cigarettes for them as though they were adults. When he asked, “Who are you?” the girls burst out laughing and threw their arms around him. They said they were Asya’s confidantes. Ferman, who for years had paid no heed to travellers or to any sensible shepherd, believed the small girls. He took them to his grave and lit a huge bonfire. He said that when he died they were to bury him in that grave. The girls said, “Don’t worry, we’ll bury you here and dance above your head.” Then, tossing their hair from side to side, they danced around the grave with their hands in the air. They were as cheerful as the fairies that appeared before shepherds in the night. Ferman laughed too and danced arm in arm with them until he was exhausted. Completely out of breath and soaked with sweat, he stretched out on the ground and gazed at the shooting stars above his head. The girls talked to him about Asya. They told him that Asya too lay down beside graves at night and dreamed while gazing up at the stars. Then they played a game; one of the girls cried as though she were Asya, while the other roamed around her like a horseman, pretending to be Ferman. Ferman understood that these girls and Asya were all like him.

  As the full moon was ascending high in the sky the twin girls said, “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where to?” asked Ferman.

  “Where do you think? To Asya.”

  At that moment the skies thundered and a ray of lightning struck in the south. They didn’t understand what had occurred on that crystal-clear night. As my father was struck by lightning on the opposite hill while guarding sheep, Ferman and the twin girls gazed up in wonder at the infinite sky. Then they mounted the black horses. Leaving the roaring fire to fend for itself, they rode headlong into the darkness.

  16 She

  The Tree of Life

  The train pulled slowly out of the station.

  As I looked at the girl sitting opposite me I remembered Tolstoy’s words, and thought: Happy people are all alike; every unhappy person is unhappy in their own way.

  The girl cradled her tea in her hands as though she felt cold and looked at
me out of the corner of her eye.

  Her unhappiness was hidden on the side of her face that wasn’t revealing any secrets. She was one month pregnant and she hadn’t told her lover, who was married to someone else.

  The girl wasn’t drinking tea to stay awake, but to forget her misery.

  She had a melancholy kind of beauty.

  This was a game I liked playing with myself. I would observe strangers while travelling and invent their life stories.

  The day was just beginning to grow light.

  I was on my way to Norwich to interpret. A patient at the university hospital was having a kidney transplant and I had to be there in two hours.

  The passengers on the early morning train still bore the marks of the previous day. They weren’t a hospital worker, a university student, a company manager, but unhappy people all wanting to forget the miserable events of the day before. Besides, happy people were all alike.

  It had been three weeks since Feruzeh had gone to Iran. I didn’t know if she was coming back or not. Neither did Azita.

  Azita returned from London. I went to visit her.

  Stella came out of hospital. I went to her antique shop several times to help her out.

  I didn’t see O’Hara again. The previous day I had bought a loaf of bread from their stall in the market. His father told me the parcel I was expecting should arrive by the following week.

  The time was drawing near.

  I needed to look for flight tickets and tell Azita I was going to Iran.

  There was no news from Feruzeh.

  Uncertainty weighed heavier than time.

  The life I lived in this small city only a month ago was now as remote as a stone that has fallen over the edge of a precipice.

  I broke my own record for the past year when I fainted three times in a week. I wasn’t unduly concerned.

  Being alone bothered me much more.

  At night when I was half asleep I would raise my head and check my phone to see if anyone had called.

  I couldn’t be sure whether what was happening to me was real or not.

  My past was behind a curtain. I had to go to Feruzeh. I had to see her so I could open the curtain of both the future and the past.

  The train sped past green fields.

  Mist draped the trees and hills in the distance.

  I turned my head and caught the eye of the girl sitting opposite.

  I wondered what she could see in my face.

  What kind of a mirror was I to her?

  I lowered my eyes.

  I took a book out of my bag and opened it at the page where I had left off the night before. The novel was about the separation of happiness and a mind at peace. People might sometimes have to renounce one for the sake of the other.

  I should tell the girl sitting opposite that.

  The train stopped at a station.

  I raised my head from the book.

  The platform was crowded. A young couple, an old woman struggling to carry her bag and a man talking on his mobile phone passed by my window.

  I closed my eyes, as though I were going to sleep.

  I leaned my head against the window.

  I listened to the sound of the tracks as the train slowly pulled away.

  Train journeys reminded me of big cities. Old streets, skyscrapers, shadowy love affairs, a yearning for subversion, torture, fancy lifestyles and poverty flashed before my eyes.

  The monotonous sound of the tracks soon made me drowsy.

  I may have fallen asleep. Sometimes it was difficult to tell daydreams and reality apart.

  I raised my head.

  I looked out of the window at the green fields, the hills and the villages in the distance.

  The girl sitting opposite me had dozed off. Her head was tilted to one side, her pained expression was now relaxed. She didn’t seem to be breathing.

  She didn’t open her eyes until we reached Norwich station.

  She smiled at me as we got off the train.

  I understood her expression. She had read my face and perceived that I was unhappy.

  I slipped away from the crowd.

  I hurried to the hospital.

  The operation went on until after midday. I paced up and down as anxiously as the patient’s relatives until I heard that the operation had been a success. I felt relieved as I translated the doctors’ kind, reassuring words.

  On the way out I bought a cup of tea from the outdoor café and sat down. I noticed that the girl I had seen on the train earlier was now sitting beside me.

  She looked happy. The morning’s despondency was wiped off her face and she was humming a song to herself. She was holding a magazine and flicking through the brightly coloured pages.

  I took my phone out of my bag.

  Whilst checking my messages I knocked over the teacup in front of me. I leapt up to stop the tea from spilling over me and dropped my phone.

  As I was picking it up I saw that it was switched on. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  One of the messages was from Feruzeh.

  It said, “I’m in Cambridge. Phone me.”

  Feruzeh was back.

  I read the message several times.

  I looked around me.

  I met the eyes of the girl on the train. She was happy and now I was too.

  I took a deep breath.

  I went outside and leaned against the opposite wall.

  I called Feruzeh.

  The telephone rang.

  “Hello Feruzeh,” I said.

  “Brani Tawo …”

  Her voice was both distant and very near.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  “Were you asleep? Are you at home?” she asked.

  “No, I’m in Norwich. I’ve been interpreting,” I said.

  “So that’s why your phone was switched off,” she said.

  “When did you get back?”

  “This morning.”

  “You should have told me you were coming,” I said.

  “I couldn’t. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “I take it you’re here to stay?”

  “Yes, I’m here to stay,” she said.

  “Can we meet today?”

  “Yes. What time will you be here?”

  “I’m on my way to the train station. I’ll be there in two hours,” I said.

  “Where shall we meet?”

  “In the Fort St George. The first place we went to …”

  “Okay,” she said.

  I didn’t check the bus stop. I hailed the taxi that was coming towards me and went to the station.

  I ran to the platform.

  I just about made the train.

  It pulled away the moment I sat down.

  I leaned back and caught my breath.

  I immersed myself in the sound of the rail tracks.

  If everyone makes a journey they will never forget then perhaps this one would be mine.

  All the terrible possibilities that had been torturing me for weeks were wiped out of my mind.

  I looked out of the window.

  The hills and small towns were ablaze in the late afternoon sunshine.

  Horses plodded in the pastures flanking the green fields.

  I was gazing out at life like a child on its first visit to a city.

  I was the last one on the train and the first one off at Cambridge.

  As I strode away I heard Feruzeh’s voice.

  “Brani Tawo …”

  I looked around me.

  Feruzeh was waving to me from the other end of the platform.

  I walked through the buzz of the crowd.

  “Welcome back,” she said.

  “No, you welcome back,” I said.

  I hugged her silently.

  Then I looked at her face.

  She was thinner. She had dark rings under her eyes.

  “You’ve lost weight,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “It’s very crowded here.”

/>   “What made you come to the station? We were supposed to meet at the pub,” I said.

  “There’s an empty bench here, let’s sit down a moment,” she said.

  We wove through the crowd and sat down on the bench a little further ahead.

  It was cool.

  The sun had gone down behind the roofs.

  I thought Feruzeh must be cold so I took my cardigan out of my bag and put it around her shoulders.

  Feruzeh, who had refused my jacket by the church on the night we first met now responded with a smile.

  “Is everything all right in Iran?” I said.

  “It seems to be.”

  “How’s Roya?”

  “She’s better, she’s back on her feet,” she said.

  “That’s good news,” I said.

  Feruzeh hesitated.

  “Did you know she tried to commit suicide?” she said.

  “I guessed. How is her relationship with her husband?”

  “Fine.”

  Feruzeh started sniffing.

  I took a tissue out of my bag and gave it to her.

  “Are you all right?” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “The bridge between Roya and me was broken; we needed to repair it.”

  “If this hadn’t suddenly happened you might never have made up,” I said.

  “I realize that she lives in two worlds, one with me in it and one with her husband.”

  “Iran’s in one, Britain’s in the other …” I said.

  Feruzeh stopped and looked at me.

  “Roya tried to die because she wanted to have a firmer hold on life,” she said.

  “I hope that from now on she’ll hold on to life as tightly as you do,” I said.

  She paused for a moment and then took a deep breath.

  “It’s the first time I’ve been back to Iran since I was a child,” she said.

  “How did you feel?”

  “Shall I tell you how I felt? I wanted to grow a tree here that would be the same as a tree in Tehran, just like your grandmother Kewê’s apple tree.”

  “You should,” I said.