The Few

by Hakan Günday

  “Don’t worry about him, they’ll be fine, you come with me,” Israfil said, leaving the warehouse.

  Derda followed two steps behind him. They got into a twenty-year-old Mercedes and pulled out onto the main road. From there they turned into major traffic, and they moved forward slowly in fits and starts. Israfil was totally silent. And so Derda didn’t say anything either. But as soon as they’d made it onto the highway around the city, Israfil’s grating voice cut into Derda’s ears.

  “How old are you?”

  “About seventeen.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Have you seen your father again?”

  “No,” Derda answered.

  “Now, look, you can count on me like a big brother. So don’t feel uncomfortable or shy. Is there anything you need, any problem you have?”

  “No, brother,” said Derda. At the same time he was looking at a face of Istanbul he’d never seen before. He was looking at glass-faced skyscrapers.

  “In that case, Derda efendi, seeing as you don’t have anything to ask me for, would it be okay if I asked something of you?”

  Derda was sitting up straight in the leather seat, his eyes overflowing with the view from the windshield. It was the first time he’d even seen the Bosphorus. The first time in his life. And to add to that, they were headed straight for the bridge he’d always heard about, but had never crossed.

  “Derda!” said Israfil. “I asked if it would be okay if I asked you for something.”

  “Of course, of course,” said the kid without even thinking. He was looking into the Bosphorus as if it were a mirror of waves reflecting from deep inside Istanbul.

  “There’s a guy,” Israfil continued. “A thug, goes by the name Hanif the Trashman.”

  Derda had both hands on the dashboard. His back was straight as a bolt, his lips pulled away from his teeth. His pupils were playing a game of tag with what he was seeing. If he looked to the right, he regretted losing the view of what was on the left. And if he looked to the left, he regretted the loss of the view out the other side. Just then the traffic opened like an accordion’s bellows and the front tires of the Mercedes lunged onto the Bosphorus Bridge. And just then his heart started pounding so loudly that Derda closed his mouth so no one would hear its deafening beat. He saw white islands floating on the water below. White ships. He looked out to the horizon. Everything was so beautiful. The sky looked so beautiful. He looked at Israfil, seated at his side. He wanted him to look at it, too. Just for a moment, and he’d be so happy and then he’d smile until it hurt. And in that moment he could hear Israfil. Sixty-four meters over the deep blue waters, kilometers and kilometers under the snow-white clouds.

  “So, you’re going to shoot that guy. For me.”

  Derda didn’t get it.

  “What?” he asked. There was still a smile on his face.

  “That guy called Hanif. You’re going to shoot him.”

  That time he got it. That moment of clarity was the moment the bridge ended and Istanbul made everything ugly once again. Even Derda.

  “Yes sir, brother.”

  Israfil chuckled and lowered his fist onto Derda’s knee.

  “Good for you, man.”

  Israfil laughed again.

  “Hey, man, what’s your hurry? Wait at least a second there, we’re on our way.”

  Derda was rubbing his tattoos through his gloves with his fingertips. Just a little bit longer, he said to himself. To Oğuz Atay.

  “There’s just a little bit longer, anyway,” said Israfil. Derda smiled.

  They turned onto a dirt road leading to the vineyard covering the slope across from them, and they stopped at a gate with iron spikes that loomed before them. Israfil opened the garden gate with a remote control he slipped out of his pocket, and the Mercedes pulled inside. The first thing Derda heard was the barking, then he saw the slobber smeared across the windows. Two leaping black dogs running alongside the slowing car were looking at Derda like they wanted to kill him.

  “Those are my babies,” said Israfil.

  When the car stopped, the dogs ran to Israfil’s door. They were so impatient to be under their master’s control that they were butting into each other, trying to get ahead.

  Derda got out of the car and looked first at the two-story house, then at the man in the black suit coming out of the house’s French doors.

  “Brother Tayyar, we’re here!” yelled Israfil, as he stroked the dogs’ heads with his palms. Derda didn’t recognize Tayyar. For one, he wasn’t wearing a long robe, and he didn’t have a beard covering his face like a veil. But Tayyar didn’t take his eyes off the boy; he thought that for sure he knew that face from somewhere. But from where? Anyway, there was no hurry. It would come to him eventually. Whatever else, they had two days together before them. Two days that they’d spend together, face to face, at the house. Two days out in the country, at this house, to teach Derda how to use a gun. The closest person to the house would have to spend an hour and go a hundred kilometers from the highway out on the horizon to get there.

  “Look, this is Derda.”

  Israfil was holding the boy by his shoulders and pulling him to the steps going up to the front door.

  “He’s like a brother to me,” he was saying, with a wink at Tayyar. Tayyar’s bulging physique covered half the front door. Derda shook Tayyar’s outstretched hand.

  Israfil spoke again.

  “And this is our brother Tayyar.”

  Tayyar didn’t let go of the hand in his and looked into Derda’s eyes in silence. The boy didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t well pull his hand away. It was like his hand was buried inside firm, dense, flesh. They seemed clamped together by their hands and their frozen, staring eyes. Finally, Israfil untangled them. He put one hand on each of their shoulders.

  “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  They went inside. In the house’s ample living room there were two couches, two big coffee tables, at least six easy chairs, two or three televisions, and a round dining table with chairs around it. That was as much as Derda could see in his first two steps inside. He couldn’t be exactly sure of the numbers or of how big the living room was. It looked like there was just too much furniture. Like everything already had its spare lined up next to it.

  “Derda, have a seat, I’ll be right there,” said Israfil. Then he walked deep into the living room, went up, and was lost from sight. Only then did Derda realize where the stairs to the second floor were. Only when he saw Israfil disappear from view after going up two stairs.

  Tayyar hadn’t yet spoken. “Sit down, let’s see now.”

  Derda pulled his eyes from the spot where Israfil had disappeared and looked at the couch Tayyar was pointing to. He took two steps and sat down. Tayyar took his hands out of his pockets, spread open his jacket, and displayed two butts of two pistols at his waist.

  “Where do I know you from?”

  “Me? I don’t know,” said Derda.

  “You ever been to Çemendağ?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, we’ll figure it out,” he said, sitting down on the couch opposite Derda. He spread his arms out like wings and leaned the back of his head back against the couch and threw one leg over the other. His eyes, like a net made of iron, fixed Derda in their trap.

  “What’s your father’s name?”

  “Celal,” answered Derda.

  “Celal? That’s right, Israfil mentioned him. Just out, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to remember where I know you from, just give me a minute. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  Derda didn’t want to calculate the months and make things any more complicated than they needed to be. From the very first moment he’d seen him, he’d felt the crushing pressure of Tayyar’s jet black eyes. Like twin pistols. Like he was under the weight of reinforced concrete. After he answered a question, he quickly lowered hi
s head and his eyes. He couldn’t get free of the weight of the iron net. At the same time, he was thinking about why he could possibly know Tayyar. If I’d seen that man before, I’d definitely remember him, he said to himself. He didn’t hear Tayyar’s questions. Because at the time he was talking to himself.

  “Any at all?” Tayyar was saying, this time raising his voice.

  Derda looked up all of a sudden. “Any at all what?” he asked.

  “Any clue! Do you have any clue about what you’re going to do, I said.”

  “Yes, brother,” said Derda. “There’s this guy …”

  “What guy?”

  “A guy called Hanif the Trashman.”

  “And what is it that you’re going to do to him?”

  “I’m going to shoot him.”

  “And how do you know that I’m not from the police?” asked Tayyar, the question flowing from his mouth like a river. It fell out so fast, it stung Derda’s face and made his forehead break out in a sweat. As soon as he heard the word police, he forgot the rest of the question and Derda’s temples started to throb. He didn’t know what to say. First he lowered his eyes, then his shoulders collapsed like he wanted to be small enough to squeeze in between the thick tufts of the carpet under his feet. His head hung low below his shoulders.

  “If someone asks you something like that, are you really going to say you’re going to shoot a man?”

  Derda buried himself even deeper.

  “Ok, then. Who is this guy? What is it you’re going to do?”

  Derda’s voice barely reached his lips, but he just couldn’t get it through his closed mouth. Even as it was, he was only going to say, “I don’t know.”

  “That’s exactly right,” said Tayyar. “Do not speak. Just listen. If you’re going to learn anything, you’re going to learn by listening.”

  He shifted his legs, crossed them the other way, and lowered his arms. He held one fist at his waist and the other against his knee.

  “Now this Hanif, he’s the kind of guy that, if we don’t shoot him, he’s going to shoot us. Only he’s not going to shoot me. He’s going to shoot Brother Israfil. He’s going to shoot you. He’s going to shoot up everyone you’ve got in that warehouse, you understand?” he said.

  Derda hesitated. He didn’t know if he should respond or not. He just nodded. He did the right thing.

  “Good! He lives on the coast, in Maltepe. Israfil will show you his house. First you’re going to learn everything you can about where and how he lives. Then, when Israfil tells you to go, you’re going to go in the morning and you’re going to wait there. You been out there before?”

  He shook his head right to left. Tayyar leaned over the coffee table in front of him and started to mark on it with invisible ink. With a pointer finger as thick as the barrel of a gun.

  “So there’s a road along the coast. There are houses on this side, and the sea’s on this side. There’s a sidewalk along the coast, too. You understand?”

  He signaled his understanding with a rise and fall of his chin.

  “Hanif leaves his house around noon, but you’re going to be waiting there from early morning. He leaves the house from the front door, he crosses the street, then he has his walk along the coast …”

  As Tayyar spoke, Derda started to think that maybe it was possible that he had met the man across from him before. But it was just a feeling. A feeling that had a lot to do with the man’s face and physique, but most of all with his voice. He was sure that he’d heard that voice sometime before. But somehow he just couldn’t place it. Now he looked into Tayyar’s eyes as he listened.

  “Don’t bring anyone with you. There’s a streetlight in front of the house. Cross the road there. You’ll wait on the sea side.”

  For a second Tayyar felt the boy’s eyes glaze over and to test him he asked: “So, what is it you’re going to do?”

  “I’m going to wait on the other side of the street by the sea.”

  “Right. Good.”

  Then Derda heard the sound of a pair of feet behind, a sound that got louder as they approached. It was Israfil, coming back. When he passed by Derda he grabbed his shoulders and said, “Listen up good to Brother Tayyar.” Then he sat in the easy chair diagonally across from him.

  Tayyar continued, “Then he’s going to leave his house. He’ll cross the street to where you are, then he’ll start to walk. You’re going to get up and follow behind him.”

  Tayyar suddenly broke his focus and turned to Israfil.

  “Get the kid some sweats and some sport shoes. He can’t go around there like this, Hanif will know something’s up.”

  “Ok,” said Israfil, “leave that to us.”

  Tayyar turned back to Derda. Like he’d just thought of it, he straightened his back and took out one of the revolvers at his waist.

  “There are six shells inside this. You’re going to approach him from behind and plug him with all six. Two in his head, the other four between his shoulder blades. Understand?”

  “I understand,” said Derda, but his mind was all a blank. So he decided just to stay silent. He didn’t understand where the blades were. What blades? His mind had gone blank since the moment Tayyar had pulled out the gun; his eyes had been glued to it. And, as a consequence, his ears had gone blank, too.

  The weapon Derda couldn’t take his eyes off was not just a Smith & Wesson 38-caliber, short-barreled revolver. It was the machine for Derda’s revenge. With that, he would make reparations for the past. Tayyar realized that Derda was daydreaming.

  “Watch,” he said. He opened the cylinder and knocked the six shells into the palm of his hand. With one flick of the wrist the cylinder was back in place. He handed the empty weapon to Derda.

  “Take this.”

  Derda took the revolver.

  “Now get up.”

  He got up.

  “Israfil, you get up, too.”

  Israfil got up.

  “Israfil, now just walk like you’re going for a walk. And you, track him from there at the door. Then like I told you, put two in his head, four in his back. Ok, come on, let me see how it works.”

  Israfil started walking, plodding around the living room. Derda followed after him. Three steps later he raised the revolver and pulled the trigger. One time right after another.

  “No, not like that,” Tayyar said. He got up and told Israfil to stand still. Then he pointed to a region of Israfil’s back with his hand.

  “Look, this is where between the shoulder blades is. Not any lower. Ok, go back there, both of you, to the door. First Israfil, you start to walk, then you. Let’s do it again, let me see now.”

  They did as Tayyar said and after Derda had taken three steps, he raised the revolver. Six times his fingertip fell on the emptied trigger, then he looked at Tayyar.

  “This time was better. But next time, be more careful.”

  All of a sudden Derda remembered that morning in the cemetery. He remembered running into that man. And he remembered what the man had said. He had said the same thing then. “Next time, be more careful.” And his jet-black eyes had bored into Derda. And now he was looking at Derda again. Derda didn’t want to believe it. But he had to believe it. Because it was all true. For years, he had lived in fear of the man in the long robe, this man called Tayyar, with every breath he drew. Hundreds of drops of sweat appeared all over his body. The sweat of fear emptied out of his every pore. A cramp in his stomach that felt like it was going to burst spread all over his body. The revolver in his hand trembled.

  Tayyar stood up and Derda thought that the man had understood what he’d been thinking. He knew that Derda had recognized him. As Tayyar approached him, Derda scanned the room for a way out. But he couldn’t find an escape route. He didn’t walk nor run nor scream out. He only trembled and waited for fear.

  “Come with me.” Tayyar took the revolver in Derda’s hand by the barrel. “Let’s go outside and take some shots. Let your hand get used to the feeling.”
/>   Israfil had locked up the dogs in their kennel in the front garden. He knew all too well the way they went crazy at the sound of a weapon firing. And added to that, Derda was a stranger to them, and they were trained to rip off the hand of any stranger holding a gun. But their knowing how to take off a hand from the wrist down couldn’t be entirely attributed to their training. They’d just kept up with the life their owner led, that’s all. Like dogs trained to be seeing-eye dogs for the blind, these dogs burned with passion to take out someone’s eye. They were just like the hundreds of thousands of child soldiers all over the world. Just like them, the dogs in the front garden had no choice how to lead their lives. They were encouraged to develop their natural, God-given brutality to an even higher level of brutality. The only difference between child soldiers as tall as their rifles and all the attacking dogs in all the gardens of the world was their reward. But if you think about it, the rewards weren’t so different after all. One was given cooked meat, the other raw. Children cannot eat raw meat. If they could, they’d eat the corpses of their enemy child soldiers. And they would that much more affordable to keep.

  They went to the back garden so they wouldn’t have to hear the dogs barking. They walked between two old plane trees and stopped at a distance of five steps from a high sand dune. Tayyar took the shells out of his pocket and inserted them into the round in the revolver’s cylinder. Then he handed the weapon to Derda, holding it from the barrel. Israfil was a couple steps away, trying to light the cigarette pressed between his lips despite the wind. Derda looked at the revolver he was gripping from its hilt and heard Tayyar’s voice.

  “Ok, now let’s see you hit the sand dune there. Let’s see how you place your hands.”

  He watched Tayyar take two steps to Israfil’s side. Both men were now standing behind Derda. Derda turned and looked at the sand dune. There was nothing between him and it.

  “Just stay calm,” said Tayyar. “Don’t bend your arm. Just before you pull the trigger, take a breath and hold it, okay?”

  Derda didn’t say anything and Tayyar asked again: “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you,” said Derda as he slowly raised his arm. He took aim at the sand dune.