The Few

by Hakan Günday

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “There’ll be no more going through the cemetery to get home anymore. It’s forbidden.”

  Derda stared at the young security guard for a few seconds. In silence. Then he spoke.

  “Where’s Brother Yasin?”

  “I don’t know any Brother Yasin or anyone else.”

  Derda hadn’t gone through the cemetery gates for a few weeks so he hadn’t found out yet. Yasin and the job he’d held for twenty-four years had been terminated, and so he took his bağlama and left. It was the first thing that Yasin had done that he regretted. He thought that anything would be better than waiting around with the dead and gone. So he’d returned to his village and embraced his aging mother.

  “Son, what have you done all these years?” the woman asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just stood and waited.”

  “Well, what are you going to do now?”

  “I got tired of standing around. I’ll do something, that’s all.”

  “Fine, but what?”

  “Mama, I just got here, don’t make a man regret coming home.”

  But Yasin continued doing nothing but just standing around. Up until the day he died. He stayed there for a while, underground. It was like he’d never come, like he’d been different from all the other people on the face of the earth. Because all the others had done something, were doing something, and would do something. Even after they’d died. Some of them would go to heaven, some would become a part of nature, some would be reincarnated. No one could risk going and disappearing completely like Yasin. No one would have the courage to be lost without leaving a trace. Someone has to witness another’s passing over this earth. To grace the presence of their existence. Everyone but Yasin has a pyramid buried inside them. In some way, everyone has a plan for immortality. But Yasin had seen too much death, like he’d lived all his life on a battlefield. Like he’d seen death up to the very last person left living on the face of the planet. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t afraid of going. Because he was scared enough of existing at all.

  Derda ran around the perimeter of the newly erected cemetery walls, past the front door to his house, and continued in a walk. He walked around the corner, fighting his way through the tree branches. Just as he’d suspected, the hole in the wall had been filled in. Now it was closed up, but that very morning he’d passed through that same hole twice. Once out, and once back in. But now, the wall in front of his home was fully intact. They had poured concrete between him and Oğuz Atay. He turned around and walked toward the trees. He held his book tightly against him, protecting it from the branches, and he wondered what he’d do in the morning. Apparently, the new height of the walls wasn’t enough to secure the cemetery. They’d also laced the top of the walls with barbed wire. Now there was no way he could jump over.

  “I’ll just break open a new hole,” he said, pulling his key out of his pocket. “If I have to, I’ll put a hole in the side of the house.”

  He opened the door to find a man wearing nothing but long underwear on top of the floor mattress. A thin man with white hair, a wrinkled nape, and naked except for white long underwear. A man with his toes and palms pressing against the floor, rising and falling, like he was doing push-ups. On both sides of the man Derda saw thin, scrawny legs. And tiny little feet. The heels were raised off the ground. Both people were yelling. One from pain, the other from pleasure. Neither of them could have heard the door open. But when Derda screamed a glass-shattering scream, they flew apart like two pieces of wood flung by the wind. One covered himself with his hand, the other covered herself with the sheet.

  “What the hell are you doing here, you fuck?” said Derda.

  “Derda, I’m your father!” the man said.

  “Man, why are you yelling?” said the small girl.

  “Süreyya?” said Derda.

  He watched in silence as his father counted money into Süreyya’s outstretched palm. He was sitting on the only chair in the house, his elbows leaning on the only table. He looked at the Oğuz Atay books stacked near where his elbows were leaning. He was embarrassed. Of Oğuz Atay. Of them and for them. He couldn’t bear to watch any longer. Once Süreyya saw the agreed upon amount in her palm she closed her hand tight. He watched her mouth, opening like a spoiled child.

  “Good work barging in like that, like some ox.”

  Derda didn’t answer, and the girl left. The white-haired man, zipping up the pants he’d slipped over his long underwear, but without bothering to button them, walked straight to his son with his arms wide open. He was grinning from ear to ear.

  “My son! My lion!”

  Derda shoved the approaching man back with his two strong hands. His father took a step back. His face twisted bitterly and he shouted.

  “You ass, you animal, so many years and this is the way you greet your father? What, so we tossed a woman around in the house. I mean, it’s only too clear you’re familiar with the girl yourself.”

  At once he felt abashed and he laughed.

  “You ass, what, is that it? She your bitch? Hmm? Come on, tell the truth, out with it. Is that why you got so angry? Ok, man, we won’t touch her again. Get up, come on. Come here, let me hug you.”

  He took Derda by the elbows and pulled him toward him. He cried “son!” and threw his arms around Derda. But the son’s hands hung down at his sides like he was a corpse. Then the man righted himself and held his son by the shoulders.

  “Stop, let me take a look at you. You’ve grown into a big man now, eh? Man, you’re strong as a donkey now. Good for you, man, you look great.”

  At the same time, he threw soft punches into his son’s cheek. Trembling lightly at every blow, Derda finally spoke.

  “Mom died.”

  The man’s fist hovered in midair.

  “She died? I thought she went back to the village. That’s what the girl told me.”

  “That’s what I told everyone,” said Derda. “I said she went back to the village. But she died. Five years ago. Then I cut her up.”

  The man let his hands drop off his son’s shoulder as he took a step back.

  “Cut what?”

  “My mother. Then I buried her.”

  “What are you saying, boy?”

  “I chopped her up so they wouldn’t send me to the orphanage, and then I buried her. So no one would even know she was dead.”

  “Man, what are you saying?”

  “You’re not at all what I thought you’d be, you know that?”

  “Son, tell me straight. Where’s your mama?”

  “That girl’s only thirteen.”

  “Look, Derda, I’ll give you what’s coming to you … Speak like a man, where’s your mom? Man, what did you do to that woman?”

  “Well, did she at least give you a good fuck?”

  And when his father replied with a “motherfucker!” Derda buried his fist into his father’s still open mouth. Derda felt his fingers bust his father’s teeth. He pulled his fist away and leveled another blow with the same speed. This time, his fist landed square on his father’s nose. He must have broken it in several different places. The old man’s face was streaming with warm blood. The man tried to step back but he tripped over the floor mattress and fell down. Derda dropped to one knee and with one hand he pulled his father up by his hair, and with the other he landed one last punch clear in his face. And then everything went silent. The man hadn’t once put his hand up in defense, nor had he cursed his son when his teeth were smashed out of his blackening bloody mouth. There was complete silence.

  Derda loosened his fingers’ grip on his father’s hair and asked, “What, did you die? Eh? You dead?”

  He stopped and listened. He couldn’t tell if his father was breathing through his barely opened lips or not, nor whether he understood what he said to him. He started to curse the man. He grabbed his father under the armpits and dragged him onto the mattress and stuck a pillow under his head. N
ot so long ago the white-haired man had been rising and falling on that bed, feeling a thousand pleasures. Now he lay there like a corpse. A corpse who could breathe, short and jagged breaths though they were. Father and son were face to face, eye to eye. They had to have felt something, but neither could really see into the other’s eyes.

  The white-haired man’s name was Celal. He had a nickname leftover from his days as a mugger: The Tick. But nothing was enough to save him from the assault of his son’s marble-hard fist. Not his name, not his nickname, not his years in prison. Eleven years on the inside. Eleven years his hand hadn’t felt the flesh of a woman. And so, as he took the key out of his pocket where it had waited for eleven years and entered his house, out of the corner of his eye he had caught a glimpse of Süreyya. Süreyya, sitting out in front of her door, two houses down. “Get over here,” he had said. And Süreyya had come. The girl named her price before he even asked. Just like her mother had taught her, and just like she’d been doing for the last year. When they put an end to their work at the cemetery, Süreyya had simply switched sectors. And anyway, there was more to be earned in her new job. Her father didn’t care. Because he wasn’t awake enough at any hour of any day to even be able to care. Anyway, if he had been awake, would it have made a difference? In the end, this much money for just lowering your şalvar and pulling them back up again, who’d go and sell packs of tissues on the street? And, just to sweeten the whole thing, weren’t all the men in the neighborhood in love with Süreyya? Weren’t they all lining up at her door with boxes of chocolates in hand?

  Süreyya had also asked Celal, “Do you love me?”

  “Of course,” Celal had answered. “How could anyone not love a girl like you?”

  Süreyya loved men, too. It was only Derda she hated. Because Derda looked away when he walked by. He was the only one that didn’t see Süreyya. The most he ever said to her was a cold hello as he walked past. “Is he a fag?” she said behind his back to whoever was around. To two colleagues her same age. They laughed as she glared at Derda’s back, her eyes burning with hate. Because she was in love with Derda and he was the only man on the street left who hadn’t seen her naked. In fact, that was why she’d been so pleased when he caught her with his father. She relished it even more later, when she heard curses coming out of their house. He’s jealous, she thought. She walked over to their house and knocked at the door. Derda opened the door.

  “What?”

  Süreyya at eight years old and Süreyya on her back under his father, it all flashed before his eyes in a series of images.

  “I heard some noise. Thought I’d find out what’s going on.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Doing what?” Süreyya laughed. She wanted to hear Derda say it, say what her job was. She wanted it to sting him. Maybe she wanted it to hurt her, too. Maybe she wanted it to hurt the whole world. But Derda didn’t say it. He asked again without saying a word, just by his look. The question’s beams pierced into the girl’s eyes.

  “What’s it to you anyway?” said Süreyya, finally. “Why do you care? What are you, my boyfriend or something?”

  “Does your mother know?”

  Süreyya laughed.

  “You’re so stupid, you know that?”

  Derda didn’t know what to say. None of the words he knew would suffice. He felt so small in front of this thirteen-year-old girl; he couldn’t do anything but be silent. Nothing but silently watch her laugh. He thought that every single person, everyone, even babies born that very instant, were bad. Everyone, he said to himself. Everyone! They were all so miserably bad. So bad and so revolting. Kids, old people, cripples, sick people, everyone.

  “Where’s your dad?” the girl asked. She stretched her neck to try to see around Derda.

  “I’m going to destroy all of you.”

  “Eh?”

  The door hit her so sharply that she staggered a few steps back.

  She shouted, “What did you say, you fucking maniac?”

  Derda turned away from the door and walked over to his father, lying on the floor. Right over to his bloodied head. He raised his right foot and held it in the air just a hand’s distance away from Celal’s face. If Celal had come to at that moment and blinked open his eyes, he would have seen that the world had been blotted out by the bottom of his son’s shoe. But he didn’t. He just groaned softly. For a minute that felt like a year, Derda wavered between wanting to smash his father’s face in and not. In the end, he settled on mercy and took his foot away. He sat on the chair by the table and took the stolen book in his hand. On the cover was one of Oğuz Atay’s caricatures.

  Bringing it up to his lips he whispered, “Forgive them.”

  Then he opened the book and started to read. “Stop moving your lips,” Saruhan would have said if he’d been there. “When you read to yourself, don’t mouth the words.” But Derda wasn’t reading the book to himself. He moved his lips so that the whole world would hear and he whispered the words he read. As he read he looked up at the cemetery wall.

  “Sons of bitches,” he said. “I’m going to destroy all of you.”

  He read three pages, then abandoned the house without even bothering to close the door behind him. He took his books with him. Süreyya and her mother watched Derda leave, and they picked up stones from the ground and waited for him to move on like he was a rabid dog. Then they ran inside his house, and releasing a death’s wail they dropped to the ground by the man’s head. But they saw the man was still alive and they stifled their wails.

  “Go, get some cotton,” said the woman. Süreyya went. Whatever else, Celal wasn’t a mugger anymore, he was a promising new customer. And he hadn’t even been back from prison for a day. Who knew how thirsty he was for a woman?

  Süreyya’s mother turned Celal’s pockets inside out, but they were empty so she shouted toward the open door, “Someone come help us!”

  She thought someone else might as well bring the hydrogen peroxide. She had a point. Cotton bandaging was expensive.

  “Where have you been, boy? Last night we had the kids hauling all the stuff.”

  He couldn’t well say that the first time he saw his father, after eleven years and thousands of dreams, he’d beat his face in until it was good and bloody and then left home for good.

  “I’m sorry, Brother Süleyman,” was all he could manage.

  “Well, what’s going on, what are you doing here at this hour?”

  At least he might be able to say that he didn’t have a place to stay.

  “I left home. Maybe I could …”

  Süleyman cut him off. Opening the door and clearing the way, he said, “Get inside.” Derda went inside the depot. A question followed in his wake.

  “You hungry?”

  Derda remained silent. In the language of poverty, “Yes.”

  “There are some buns left over from breakfast over there. Sit, eat them if you want.”

  Süleyman had created a world out of empty boxes for himself in the depot. He’d laid out a spread with vodka and food and would be in his little world until morning. He slipped to the head of the table where he’d been when Derda had knocked, and he took the glass in his hand. He bit the top off a pastry almost entirely buried in the grip of his two hands, and he looked at Derda. He sighed, then took a gulp of vodka and spoke.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Derda was trying to get the stale pastry, as hard as smashed rock, down his throat. He swallowed and asked, “Could I stay here for a little while?”

  “How little?”

  “A few days. Then I’ll find something.”

  Süleyman didn’t believe it. But he didn’t think it was important, either. Whatever else, a person to talk to had emerged out of the nothingness of night. He looked at the books Derda had pulled out from under his arm and set on top of the box.

  “Son, a man who leaves home usually has a bag in his hand. You left with just these books?”

 
“Yes,” said Derda.

  “And what books are these?”

  He couldn’t see from where he sat. If he could have seen them, he’d have recognized them. Among them was a book he’d been printing for years. Derda said its name.

  “There’s Waiting for Fear, Oğuz Atay’s …”

  “Hmmm. Oğuz Atay … They laid that man to waste,” said Süleyman.

  Derda asked like he was going to learn a secret about his own past.

  “Why?”

  “In those days I was deep inside the movement, you understand? Anyway, one day one of our guys brought us Tutunamayanlar. We take a look at it, at its psychology and all. Fuck that, we said. We, we said, are here shoulder to shoulder at war for the homeland, and this guy goes and explains it all, going only by whatever’s going through his head, we said. We couldn’t have known of course … And what a mind, you know? Anyway, here you go, drink some of this. It’ll warm you up.”

  For a moment Derda remembered the fools Oğuz Atay had talked about.

  He asked, “That movement you mentioned, what movement was it, brother?”

  “Issues between the right and the left, son. You don’t know anything about the world. Shit. The people were eating each other up, arguing over which sidewalk is yours, which is mine, men knifing each other, then he goes and explains it all jagged like that, anyway, that’s what we said, you get it. Against us, I mean. Not just against us, against everyone. Against time, even time. Come on, son, don’t just stand there. Go get yourself a glass from over there.”

  Derda took one of the tea glasses lined up by the sink and went back to Süleyman’s dinner spread. He watched the man hold the bottle upside down as high as his mouth and he watched the vodka pour out.

  “Come on, let’s see now,” said Süleyman. He raised his glass and clinked it against Derda’s tea glass. Derda’s face and throat winced at his first swallow. But his mind winced, too.

  “Then what happened?”

  “What could happen? The guy wrote more of this type of thing but no one cared. Then he was dead and gone. When was that now?” he said, looking at the ceiling, and when Derda answered he stayed like that, staring up at nothing.