Reckless

by Hasan Ali Toptas

  And that was why, every once in a while, Ziya would take him by the arm and lead him out to the courtyard for a bit of fresh air. They’d sit there side by side in those white plastic chairs for hours on end. If it began to rain, or snow, they just threw a few blankets over their shoulders. In fair weather Kenan would sometimes get a rush of energy and try to walk. He would hobble to the mulberry tree and back again, his grimace changing shape as he went. Once, when he was hobbling along like that, he stopped and placed his hand on his bad leg, and turned his head to look up at the mountains.

  ‘I saw it!’ he cried. ‘I actually saw it!’

  Ziya jumped, just a little.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ he said. ‘You saw what?’

  ‘That shadow you said you saw, on the mountaintop!’

  When he heard his uncle shouting, Besim came running out of the house. He, too, looked up at the mountain.

  ‘Can you see it too?’ Ziya asked him.

  ‘No,’ said Besim. ‘I don’t see anything different. They’re still the same mountains.’

  ‘Maybe they’re building an observation tower,’ Kenan murmured.

  Slowly he limped over to a chair next to the wall, holding his right leg as he went. He spent the rest of the day there, and each time he looked up at the mountain, it was as if he was doing so for the first time, or had forgotten where he was looking – as if his soul had flown far away and he was waiting now for its return. He would stare at it for many long minutes, unmoving, and unblinking.

  A week after Kenan first noticed the shadow, it snowed in the village for an entire day. And soon every courtyard, every lane and vineyard and hill and mountain was as white as Uncle Cevval. The houses moved away from each other, as each sank into its own solitude, and sent up its own trail of grey smoke. Eager to see more, Kenan pulled himself along the walls to get outside the next day, and tried to walk in the knee-deep snow. It was late in the morning, and the courtyard was sparkling in the snow-light, almost, and as he went back and forth with a blanket hanging from his shoulders, he looked thinner and shakier than he really was. Besim was sitting in front of the door, a cardigan on his shoulders. He was looking at the mountains, lost in thought.

  And that was the day that Kenan fell, right there in the courtyard, and died.

  They washed him with their tears and the water they boiled in sooty cauldrons. They wrapped him in a shroud and over this they draped a green rug with golden tassels at each end. When they left the courtyard with that green-covered coffin, Ziya was amongst the pallbearers, but after he had gone a few steps, one of the villagers had to come to take his place. Moving with difficulty through the drifting snow, they left the village with a large and silent crowd behind them. When the pallbearers turned past the sheep pens to climb up the hill towards the barn, Ziya didn’t know what to think. He looked wildly at those around him. But they continued flowing past him, their grief-stricken faces half hidden by their caps. They were purple from the cold. On they went up the hill, losing their balance from time to time as they struggled to keep up with the coffin.

  Fifteen or twenty metres beyond the barn, just beyond the hedge, they entered the cemetery on the other side of the hill. In stops and starts, they carried the coffin to the grave they had already prepared. Ziya was only able to throw three shovels of earth over it; when his eyes filled up with tears, one of the villagers came and took the shovel from his hands. Ziya moved to the back of the crowd, and watched the rest through tears. After the grave had been closed, the mourners began to disperse, and he followed after them hopelessly, struggling through the snow. Sometimes, when he stumbled into a ditch or a drift as high as a gravestone, he sank into it. And then, even as he struggled to get back on his feet, he would, without willing it, look back at those snow-covered gravestones, his eyes brimming with tears. Once, when he looked back like that, he saw a gravestone behind the almond tree, and there he saw the name Hayati. That reminded him of Hayati of Acıpayam, of course. And his insides began to tingle. He could almost hear him talking to him, from inside that outhouse behind Seyrantepe. Just then, Ramazan the Grocer came up and reached out a hand to help him out of the ditch. And that is how they ended up walking side by side in silence. When they reached the bottom of the hill, Ziya slowed down to look back at the cemetery. Then he said, ‘I had no idea the cemetery was that close to my house.’

  ‘It’s not the cemetery that’s close to your house,’ said Ramazan. ‘It’s your house that’s close to the cemetery.’

  Ziya said nothing and carried on walking.

  ‘It’s in just the right place,’ said Ramazan, after they had walked a few paces. ‘You know what they say. Build your house near the cemetery, and far from the mosque.’

  ‘I do know,’ Ziya said.

  And that was the last thing either said until they reached the village.

  Here Ziya parted company with Ramazan and went on to Kenan’s house. He offered his condolences to Cevriye Hanım, Nefise and Besim. And then he walked through the crowd of wailing women and their white headscarves and went out into the courtyard. For the next few hours, he paced back and forth under the mulberry tree, a cigarette in his hand. He had no idea what to do. At nightfall he put out his cigarette and walked through the crowd of women and went up to Cevriye Hanım. He found her sitting on the edge of the divan. She had a black headband lined with yellow on her forehead. Her eyes were blood-red from crying, as she stared into space. Leaning down, he whispered, ‘Shall I take over some food for Uncle Cevval?’

  ‘Take it over, if you wish,’ she said, in a voice that trembled like a leaf. ‘But don’t tell him about Kenan. Whatever you do, don’t tell him.’

  So Besim and Ziya went together to Uncle Cevval’s house that night. In silence they walked past the sheepdog lying at the foot of the wall opposite; and under this dog’s gaze they stepped inside. As Uncle Cevval sat quietly on the divan, eating his food, he asked after Kenan a few times, as always.

  And Besim said, ‘He’s feeling poorly.’

  When he asked the same question the next day, he got the same answer.

  But on the third day, Uncle Cevval refused to believe them, for some reason. He sat there as if someone very far away was answering his question, and suddenly he stopped listening. ‘That’s a pile of shit. He’s not poorly. You’re lying to me.’ As he spoke, two tears fell down his cheeks. And then Besim seemed close to tears, too. Bowing his head, he kept gulping.

  And that was why, when they were outside again, Ziya patted him gently on the shoulder, and then on the head. As he did so, he felt Kenan’s hand reaching out through his to Besim’s father’s hand, all the way from Germany, and that unnerved him.

  For months and months, he and Besim went back and forth to Uncle Cevval’s house, every day without fail.

  When the weather grew warmer, and everything was green again, and the leaves returned to the vines and the trees, and the earth sang with morning glories, poppies, delphiniums, campion, ox-tongue, vetch and butterflies, that was when the brambles came alive with clacking grouse, while the village swooned to the scent of thyme and gum, and sunlight soared into the mountains’ deepest shadows. The world had opened itself to spring, of course, but Cevriye Hanım, who had yet to remove that headband from her forehead, was still lost inside the day that had taken away her son, and she wandered through her house like a woman possessed. And there were times when she would mumble, ‘Oh, Kâzım the Bellows Man, come back to the oily bullets.’ Each time he went to the house to fetch Uncle Cevval’s food, he would find her walking around like this, muttering curses. And each time he ached for her, though he had no idea what to say, what to do.

  In the end, and without telling Cevriye Hanım, Ziya went to talk to Kâzım the Bellows Man. Besim took him over late one morning, pointing out a double door before backing away. And Ziya walked through the shade of the nettle tree, and when he reached the door he knocked a few times on its blackened boards.

  ‘Come on in, Ziya Bey,’ Kâz
ım called from inside.

  Surprised that Kâzım had managed to see through these high walls, Ziya paused for a moment. Then, doing his best to hide his confusion and excitement, he opened the door and stepped inside. Kâzım was sitting in the left-hand corner of his courtyard on a high wooden bench. When he saw Ziya, he put out his cigarette and stood up, struggling to keep his balance, as if he were drunk or very ill. He staggered over to Ziya. His daughter, his two sons and his wife all came running into the courtyard: since Kenan’s death the whole family had been under attack and so they were always on guard.

  ‘Welcome,’ said Kâzım, offering his hand.

  For a moment Ziya hesitated. He was not sure if he could extend a hand to the man who had caused Kenan’s death. Then he pulled himself together. With some reluctance, he extended his hand. But as they were shaking hands, Kâzım averted his eyes. He looked very pale; he had sunken cheeks. He looked taller than before and his voice was fogged, as if he was speaking from behind a curtain, or from very far away.

  ‘I’ve come to talk to you,’ Ziya said.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ Kâzım replied. ‘Come sit down with me on the bench.’

  He relaxed somewhat once they were seated, but he kept looking at Ziya with anxious eyes, as if he could read his inner turmoil on Ziya’s face.

  ‘How did you know it was me knocking on your door?’ asked Ziya.

  ‘There was no need to see you,’ Kâzım said. ‘No one in this village ever knocks. They just push open the door and come in. When I heard that knock on the door I knew at once that it was you. And anyway, I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time. I guessed that you would come to see me sooner or later.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ziya.

  Then they both took out their cigarettes and lit up. Ziya was not sure how to open the subject, so for a while he looked at the barn next to the courtyard, and the straw baskets hanging from its front wall, and the coil of rope, and the shovel leaning against the door.

  Then he asked, ‘What happened between you and Kenan?’

  For a time Kâzım said nothing, as he traced a line between the little flowers on his cushion.

  ‘Last year,’ he said finally, ‘Kenan took a loan from me, so that he could finish work on the barn. That’s what happened between us.’

  ‘He took a loan from you for the barn?’

  ‘Yes, the loan was for the barn. He needed the money. The work was only half done. All the materials were just sitting there. And I took pity on Kenan, and so I lent him seven thousand lira.’

  ‘Seven thousand lira?’ Ziya gasped. ‘Why did he have to take money from you, when I was sending him all the money he needed?’

  ‘I know. You sent twenty thousand. But Kenan gave five thousand of it to a builder from town. He found this man and bargained with him and put down a deposit, but then suddenly this builder vanished. He was just another one of those conmen, I guess! And that was it – your five thousand lira gone. And Kenan had already laid out twenty-two thousand lira for this barn. In other words, two thousand more than you sent him.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Ziya. He looked doubtfully at Kâzım. ‘The day I arrived, Kenan told me that I’d sent him more money than he’d needed in the end. He gave me back a hundred and fifty lira.’

  Kâzım smiled faintly.

  ‘He gave you that money to be convincing,’ he said finally. ‘He was a good boy. An angel. May he rest in peace.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Ziya, shaking his head. ‘Why didn’t Kenan tell me any of this? He knew I was prepared to pay whatever he needed for the barn. If he’d told me, I could have sent him more money.’

  ‘That was my thinking, too, when I lent him the money,’ Kâzım said. ‘I thought that he would take the seven thousand lira from you when you arrived. But he didn’t do this. He wore himself out trying to earn it back with his own efforts. This was impossible, of course. Go out to the forest every night and cut up wood and load it on to a donkey, and then ride all the way out to another village on this plain and sell it for thirty or forty lira – how are you ever going to repay a loan like that, let alone keep a family going?’

  Ziya lit another cigarette. He was so upset he hardly knew what to do.

  ‘I just don’t understand why he never told me about any of this,’ he said. ‘If only he’d told me, I could have given him all the money he needed.’

  ‘In the beginning, I didn’t understand either,’ said Kâzım. ‘What I mean is that I didn’t understand why he had to hide it from you. In the end, I pulled him aside and asked him outright. I can’t tell you, he said. I owe my life to him, he said. How can I let a few kuruş get in the way, when this man saved my life? That’s what he said. The long and the short of it is that he was indebted to you for something you did for him when you were in the army. Something good. A very good deed. In fact, you saved his life.’

  Ziya’s head began to swim.

  ‘His mother said the same thing to me,’ he told Kâzım. ‘But I have no idea what this good thing was.’

  Kâzım gave him a long, hard look, as if to say, are you playing games with me?

  ‘How can you not know?’ he said. ‘How is it possible for someone not to remember his own good deeds?’

  ‘Do you know what it was? Did Kenan tell you?’ Ziya asked.

  ‘I know what it was,’ Kâzım said. ‘When I pressed him about the money, I left him with no choice but to tell me. Otherwise, he’d never have told me. Our dear departed friend wasn’t the type to talk about such things, after all. According to what he told me, one day when you were in the army, Kenan fell very ill, and on his way out to guard duty, he collapsed. You ran right over, and with the sergeant’s help, you pulled him up. You poured water over his face. Then you turned around and said, our friend is running a high fever, he can’t go out on patrol. But the sergeant was a coward, and the commander wasn’t there, and so he just hemmed and hawed and said he couldn’t see what he could do. And then you picked up Kenan’s rifle and put on his cartridge belt and said, in that case, I’m Kenan. And then, so that everyone would think you were Kenan, you lay him down on your own bunk, and wrapped him up well, so no one could see his face. Stay here, you said. Don’t get up, on any account. And then you went out on guard duty. And that night, his station was involved in a skirmish. And it was you who fought it out with the smugglers until dawn. At the crack of dawn you rushed back to the dormitory and took him very quietly out to the trench, so that the commander wouldn’t find out. What our dear departed friend told me was that if he’d gone into that skirmish running that high fever, he’d have taken a bullet, most definitely. Because it was a serious skirmish, a few smugglers were killed and a few soldiers wounded, and sheep and horses lost their lives, too . . .’

  ‘It’s like a dream,’ said Ziya. ‘I remember him collapsing on his way out to guard duty, and I remember he had a fever, but the rest is a blank. I was blind drunk at the time, though.’

  ‘How strange,’ said Kâzım.

  For a time neither spoke.

  ‘So, fine,’ said Ziya in a trembling, plaintive voice. ‘What led to this knifing?’

  ‘I didn’t want to do it,’ Kâzım said softly. ‘Such a thing would never occur to me. I don’t even carry a knife. Everyone in the village knows this . . . On the day of the incident, I was sitting with our dear departed friend in the Coffeehouse of Mirrors. As always I was advising him to tell you what the situation was. I was telling him that he was never going to be able to repay his debt just by taking a donkey up the mountain every night and selling wood. I was saying it would never work. And he was sitting there, clutching his knees, and nodding his head off, saying, all right, brother. You’re right, brother. Hem brother. Haw brother. But then, for some reason, his mood changed. Little by little, he became more stubborn. And when he started making faces – and God is my witness, I have no idea why – something strange came over me. And then, before I knew it, we were arguing, and then suddenl
y the flame shot up, and he was so furious when he stood up he almost knocked over his chair. He didn’t know what he was doing, and that’s why I’m sure he had no idea what he was going to do next. I jumped out of my chair, too, of course, and as God alone can tell you, I didn’t know what I was going to do either. There was no next step. We had jumped to our feet and that was all that kept us there. I can’t tell you about mine, but our friend’s eyes were on fire, and he was trembling – I could almost see the waves travelling down his arms and legs. And so we stood there, ready to pounce on each other, yelling and shouting, but I have no idea what we said. And then, I have no idea how, but there, in my hand, was that infidel knife. It was almost as if someone had come and put it into my hand on purpose. Do you know what I’m saying? Or they put it near me, so that I could use it. Or my hand wandered off like an animal, without my knowledge, and came back with that knife. I still haven’t found a way to understand this part of it. Honestly, I still can’t understand it. It was as if someone else had control of my hand, and it was not until afterwards that I had any idea what I’d done. To tell the truth, it was only when I saw blood spurting from Kenan’s leg that I realised what I’d done. And all this while, everyone else in the coffeehouse just sat there, dumbstruck. No one tried to pull us apart. They just sat there, watching the fight. Maybe it was the knife, or the way it glittered, or maybe it was because nothing had happened yet. Maybe they were under the control of some other power, too, I just don’t know. If I know anything, it’s this: as I stood there with that knife, the person I was facing was not Kenan. It was afterwards he turned back into Kenan. Our beloved Kenan . . .’

  Suddenly Kâzım’s hands shot up to his face as he burst into tears. Ziya was already distraught beyond words, and now, as he looked at Kâzım, he had no idea what to do.

  ‘I felt such shame,’ Kâzım said as he blew his nose, ‘I couldn’t even go to Kenan’s funeral. I spent that day pacing up and down this courtyard like a mad cow.’