The Few

by Hakan Günday

  “They’re going to put me in prison,” she whispered. “The gendarme will figure it out and they’ll throw me in prison!”

  But even before the gendarme there was another institution to be afraid of. The oldest institution in the world. Family. Or at least half of it. Mother. She didn’t have a father. He had left for Istanbul four days after he’d gotten her mother pregnant and he never came back. That was twelve years ago. At least he was thoughtful enough to leave her mother pregnant so she wouldn’t be left alone.

  They’d married in the presence of God, an imam, and two witnesses, but then everyone else left and she was left with only God. And God would only come help her at the end of her life. It was her one and only prayer. “God, please take my life away so that I will be saved!” Eventually God would hear her—the miracle of death comes to us all—but she was not a patient woman. She married Derdâ off before the girl even had breasts. She was all out of patience. She’d waited eleven years. For the first two years they’d stayed with her husband’s family, cursing her all the way for not having a boy. The rest of those years were spent cleaning the teachers’ residence in town where she’d escaped with her daughter. But she felt dirty. And she was wasting time. Her twisted body was sick of following a bucket up and down the three floors of the teachers’ residence, sick of destroying her knees, grinding them against the floor, sick of the bleach gnawing away at her hands. She wanted to get back to the village. Build a house, get a few animals.

  Her daughter didn’t want to stay at school anyway. If she did, she wouldn’t have fainted like that in the school garden, now would she? The assistant director would not have called her to tell her to come and see her daughter. That scumbag assistant director, does he have any idea how much the minibus costs? Is he the one scrubbing the teachers’ toilets? Is he the one coughing his lungs out from inhaling all that hydrochloric acid? She’d take her daughter out of school. If they tried to stop her, she’d kidnap her. She’d find a way. Then they’d go back to the village. In the end, she was one of us after all. Maybe she didn’t have any money, but she did have Derdâ. Her relatives would help her find a way. Who wouldn’t want an innocent eleven-year-old girl? If only they gave her a house and a few animals, she’d let Derdâ go just like that. She’d marry and make her mother comfortable. After all, a child owes it to her mother.

  “Sister Saniye!”

  She peeled her head away from the minibus window. She shook her thoughts away and gave the driver her fare. As they drove through the school gates she decided that on the way back Derdâ would sit on her lap so she wouldn’t have to pay for her.

  “Sister, your daughter’s ill. But don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. Forgive us for making you come out all this way. But the girl will be so pleased just to see you.”

  Nezih spoke to Saniye. Then it was Saniye’s turn. It was her turn to speak.

  “Let me take my daughter, sir. I’ll take her back to the village for a week. So she can rest. She’ll feel better and then I’ll bring her back.”

  Nezih’s mind was on Yeşim. He was thinking that some people just never get used to it. Some people just never get used to this part of the country. It was obvious, he thought, there was a strangeness about her from the day she arrived. She wasn’t right in the head. Why else would someone try to kill themself?

  “What do you say, sir?”

  “How’s that?”

  “The girl, let me take her to the village for a week.”

  “To the village? To Yatırca? But the road’s blocked.”

  “No, I’ll take her to Kurudere.”

  Nezih wasn’t interested and he didn’t extend the conversation any longer than he had to. His mind was on Yeşim. On her breasts to be more precise. He was thinking of that night he had touched them. That night in Yeşim’s room when he sat on the chair by the side of her bed. That night he pressed one hand over the girl’s mouth and pressed the other on her breasts. That night he looked into Yeşim’s eyes and whispered, “I’ll have you shot, they won’t even be able to find your corpse!” That night Yeşim trembled in icy fear. He was thinking of that dark room where he came on the girl’s face and told her as he left not to worry, that he wouldn’t fuck her. But Yeşim was gone. Who was he going to touch now? Who was going to be a good girl and go clean her face off and act like nothing happened? Who could be more of a coward than Yeşim? The girls in their last year? Or the younger girls? Nazenin passed him by. Nazenin with her blond hair. Why not? he thought. He felt better.

  “All right, take the girl. But make sure she’s back in a week.”

  “God bless you, sir.”

  Nezih didn’t like having his hand kissed. He held Saniye by her shoulders and made her stand up. A beautiful woman, he thought. If only she didn’t smell like bleach.

  Derdâ couldn’t understand. She asked again.

  “A whole week?”

  Saniye was taking the girl’s belongings out of her closet in the ward and packing them into two bags. She looked at Derdâ.

  “The assistant principal gave us permission.”

  “But I have school work.”

  Saniye looked into Derdâ’s eyes.

  “You can catch up when you come back.”

  “So I’ll be back a week from today?”

  Saniye looked deep into Derdâ’s eyes.

  “Yes, my girl, what should we do in the village? I got a week off myself.”

  Better than being arrested, Derdâ thought. Better than being taken away by the gendarmes. She thought of her school books. She was having some problems with fractions. She’d have lots of time in the village to figure them out.

  “Wait, let me go get my books from the classroom.”

  This time Saniye remained silent. She only looked up as the girl left, staring at the girl’s long braid that bounced and swayed with every step. They will like her, she said to herself. And she smiled.

  The classroom was empty. Derdâ opened her desk and took out her books and notebooks. She carefully slipped them into her bag. She hated it when the corners of the pages got bent. She was about to pack her math book when Nazenin came in.

  “Where are you going?”

  “My mother came. We’re going to the village,” said Derdâ. Whenever she was alone with Nazenin she felt a concentrated fear pounding in her forehead. She started to pack quickly so the fear wouldn’t burst. She didn’t even notice she was crumpling the pages.

  “When are you coming back?”

  “A week from today.”

  Nazenin was acting strangely. Her voice didn’t have a trace of its usual violence. Usually it was like getting punched when she spoke to you. She never had to use her fists. But now she was only watching. Silently. Derdâ was trying to zip up her overloaded bag, and she just watched. Nazenin was fifteen years old. In some places that’s the same as twenty-five.

  “You’re coming back, right?” she asked.

  Derdâ didn’t know how to react to this sudden interest. She hadn’t yet learned how to speak confidently.

  “Of course I’m coming back. My mother said so. I’m coming back next week.”

  Derdâ slung her bag over her shoulder and took a step. But Nazenin blocked her path at just a comfortable slap distance away. Nazenin was a thick book taller than Derdâ but Derdâ stood up tall to make up the difference. For a few heartbeats Derdâ saw Nazenin, and Nazenin saw all the girls like Derdâ who had left. Not one had come back. And not one had ever known she wasn’t coming back. She would go, too, when the day came. She would follow her uncle and never come back to this school ever again. She would leave. Leave and never come back. Nazenin stepped out of the way. Derdâ walked away. She wondered whether she should turn back and wave. But the thought scared her and she couldn’t do it.

  “Hey, Yatırca girl!”

  Derdâ froze. She turned around. She saw a hand. A hand in the air. Nazenin’s palm. A wave. And Derdâ smiled for the first time that day, maybe even that week.

  Derdâ took
small steps so she wouldn’t slip on the slushy snow. Her legs ached and her ears were already red from the cold. She was listening to her mother.

  “You wanted to bring all those books and now look, you can’t walk.”

  “Are we going to Kurudere?”

  “We’re going to your aunt’s. Do you remember your Aunt Mübarek? That’s where we’re going.”

  They had to get to the main road and get on the minibus before the biting cold went to their heads. Saniye warmed herself by talking.

  “What happened at school today? They were all talking about something, but I didn’t understand what.”

  Derdâ stared out in front of her. She wanted to press her face into her mother’s chest. Out of shame, and because of the cold.

  “There was a girl from our village. She fell off the bed and died. The gendarmes came. And Teacher Yeşim …”

  But those who warm themselves up by talking don’t listen. Saniye had already lifted her arms in the air and was fluttering like a silly bird to flag down a passing minibus.

  When the white door slid open the warmth of the bodies inside hit their faces. They stepped up the single step and sat down. Derdâ didn’t have to sit in her mother’s lap after all because the driver didn’t ask for Derdâ’s fare. He was a distant relative of Saniye’s. One of those endless, useless, good-for-nothing relatives.

  The snow that had piled up on their collars melted and slid down the backs of their necks. The warm smell of the breath of fifteen people packed into a small minibus made them sleepy.

  Their eyelids lowered and their frozen eyelashes melted and softened. Derdâ was sitting at the very back between her mother and an old man. Her head made pillows of their shoulders. The little girl fell asleep. As she slept she got smaller. And as she got smaller she had nightmares. She held the dead girl from Yatırca in her arms and cried until she woke up. When she woke up she didn’t remember anything.

  “Sister Saniye!”

  They were in Kurudere.

  Kurudere looked more like a rugged, undulating piece of land than a village. Smoke rose up from the windowed humps and stained the white sky. There were no streets or addresses in Kurudere. There were only man-made humps huddling close together for protection from the cold. And people lived inside, although just barely. Forty-three households, all right under each other’s noses. The Kender branch of the Aleyzam tribe. The broken one. The good-for-nothing one. A place good for the carcasses of dead ants and nothing else. Where Sheik Gazi didn’t even bother to stop by. A very dry stream. So dry that it wasn’t really there. Maybe it never had been. Or maybe, seeing the village, it had changed course.

  People don’t speak in Kurudere. They grumble when they’re angry and they mutter when they pray; between there is silence. And ravens. And the loudspeaker of the mosque: “People of Kurudere, His Highness Sheik Gazi Hoca Efendi is going to visit Girinti village. We will go welcome him. The minibuses will leave at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” Then crackling from the speaker and perhaps a cough or two from the imam. Then silence again. As if nothing existed. As if everyone were holding their breath. Forty-three households. Forty-three homes, each like a cracked jar full of mystery.

  “Sister, it’s us.”

  Mübarek looked at Saniye and Derdâ looked at Mübarek. Mübarek was so fat you couldn’t see the door behind her, though the doors in Kurudere were so small you had to bend over to go inside. A head poked out from behind Mübarek. A girl about Derdâ’s age who came up to the fat woman’s chest came out.

  “What’s going on, Saniye?” said Mübarek, or rather, grumbled.

  “Aren’t you going to invite us in? Let us in so we can sit down for a while.”

  Mübarek moved out of the way like a door opening, and the four of them went into one of the humps. It was like being buried alive.

  “She’s grown so much!” said Saniye as she stroked Fehime’s head. She was Mübarek’s youngest daughter.

  “She’s eleven,” said Mübarek.

  “Derdâ’s eleven, too.”

  Mübarek got right to the point.

  “What are you here for, Saniye?”

  Saniye was ready. She had thought about what she was going to say on the minibus.

  “They kicked us out of the teachers’ residence. And the girl’s sick. I have no one else to turn to, where could I go? I don’t have anyone but you.”

  Mübarek’s response was ready, too, but was threadbare from being used for so many years.

  “You should have thought about that before you married that guy from Yatırca. What happened to that dog—any news?”

  “No, sister. No news, nothing. I hope he’s dead.”

  “İnşallah!”

  They fell silent. They looked at each other. Mostly Fehime. She looked at Saniye. She looked at Derdâ. They examined each other like animals until the tea was ready.

  As Fehime poured the tea, Mübarek switched legs; the one she’d been sitting on had gone numb. She said, “Let’s wait until Ebcet comes home. Maybe he knows someone at the teachers’ residence.”

  Saniye looked at Fehime as she warmed her hands around her tea glass.

  “Fehime, show Derdâ around the village.”

  Fehime saw her mother nod approval and she walked toward the door. Derdâ followed her. When the door closed behind them Saniye began to speak.

  “I want her to get married. Do you know anyone? That’s why I brought her here.”

  Mübarek’s mouth gaped open in laughter; she looked like a hippopotamus. Then she closed her mouth and spoke: “So? First you send the girl to school, and now you want a husband for her! Who would want a girl who’s been to school? Poor girl, she’s no good anymore!”

  Saniye had already considered this, but what could she have done? They had nothing; she had to send her away to state school. To boarding school. Would she give her up to the state if she could have looked after her herself?

  “What could I have done, sister? I had no choice but to send her away. But it’s over now. I got her back. She’s not going back to school. What’s the situation here? Is there anyone suitable, someone with means?”

  Mübarek leaned back against the wall covered in carpets. She thought as she stared at the ceiling: What if Ebcet wanted Saniye? What if Saniye stayed here for good? What if Saniye doesn’t have enough money to go anywhere else? If Derdâ marries someone decent, Saniye will get the bride’s price and she’ll leave. Then she spoke and told Saniye one by one what the ceiling had told her.

  Fehime saw the hem of Derdâ’s school uniform hanging down from under her coat. She knew the color well. It was the color of school.

  “Do you know how to read?”

  Derdâ took some snow in her hands, pressed it into a ball, and threw it between two humps.

  “Of course I know how to read. I’m in fifth year. Don’t you go to school?”

  Fehime was trying to scrape off the snow stuck under her rubber boots with a broken branch.

  “No.”

  They fell silent. There was nothing else to say.

  “Do you think it would work?”

  Saniye was excited. She could practically see a few animals and a house already.

  “Of course it would. It’ll be spring in a few weeks. They’ll all come. They’ll come to kiss Sheik Gazi’s hand.”

  Saniye was even more excited.

  “So they really come from so far away?”

  “Of course they do. Just be patient. I’ll talk to Ebcet, too. He’ll find a way.”

  Saniye’s heart was pounding.

  “You swear it’s true?”

  “I swear, they come every year. They get girls from the village and leave. And they pay lots of money. But tell me something. Let’s say you get the money—what will you do?”

  “Forgive me, sister, but I wouldn’t stay here.”

  Mübarek felt happy for the first time since her sister arrived. She was so happy that she stood up and filled Saniye’s empty tea glass herself.
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  “I’ll go to Tomurcuk … Animals … House … A nice spot …”

  Mübarek didn’t listen. She didn’t care about the rest.

  Ebcet studied the newcomers closely as he drew the first drag of his cigarette. Mübarek and Saniye had settled themselves in a dark corner of the room like cockroaches, whispering to one another. Derdâ was teaching Fehime how to write her name. Why the hell did they have to come now? thought Ebcet. Two more mouths to feed. He hardly earned enough to feed himself. What were they going to eat, this woman and her bastard daughter? If he threw them out, he would be disgraced in the eyes of the villagers. What did Sheik Gazi say? You should be a father to the fatherless. But how? The snack shop was not doing well. Sales were down since the gendarme started cracking down on smuggled cigarettes. Nobody’s business was good in the village. His thoughts made him worry and he stood up. Everybody fell silent. Except Mübarek.

  “Do you want something?”

  “Come with me.”

  Mübarek followed her husband. They left the house and went out into the cold. Ebcet lit another cigarette off the one he was smoking.

  “When are they leaving?”

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you,” said Mübarek. “Saniye wants Derdâ to marry. Maybe you could tell Sheik Gazi’s son. Someone might come up.”

  Ebcet held the smoke in his throat and looked at Mübarek in the dark. God had seen him! He exhaled all his worries with the smoke leaving his mouth.

  “All right, I’ll speak to him. How old is she?”

  “Eleven,” said Mübarek.

  “Maşallah,” said Ebcet.

  The approach to Girinti village looked like a car lot. People from all over had come to see Sheik Gazi. They gathered together in the village square kissing the old people’s hands and offering each other cigarettes. They hardly had time to speak. Then a six-year-old boy shouted, “They’re here!”

  A caravan of four cars twice as long as normal cars pulled up into the village. The crowd swarmed the cars. The villagers had already decided among themselves who would be the first to kiss the Gazi’s feet. The chosen ones waited for the doors to open. Which car was Sheik Gazi in? Who would be the one lucky enough to kiss his feet first? Which door would he come out of? No one could see a damn thing through the tinted windows!