Swords of Ice

by Latife Tekin

  To their new partner, still a stranger to their profession, Halilhan presented the following explanation: ‘We’ve got five hundred job-related details in our business. The craftsmanship itself is rough, and not every man can handle it because of all the mess involved. But in fact, it’s quite simple. What’s hard is keeping your spirits up. You suffer most in the waiting stage. You’ve got to cope with the fear that it won’t happen at all, so you find yourself swinging from one mood to another and you don’t dare let yourself even dream about the deal. Then again, it’s possible for a person who’s never picked up any working skills in his life to give full rein to his intelligence and hustle up an income big enough to spit out a gold tooth every time he coughs – a man like himself, for instance, who, because his brothers were merely the workers and his father’s nature was too fragile, has had to take on the burden of getting involved in the sistematik aspect of the market and perform an analiz of the scientific dimensions of the subject. That person’s got to have an imaginative and orijinal character to keep business moving, given the rat race nature of the market…

  Take this example. Four years ago, he’s working on a job for a medium-sized chocolate factory, and unskilled craftsman that he is, he keeps twisting and turning the boiler. Taking about ten seconds to plan what to do next – no need to shilly-shally! – he wraps the sheet iron round the boiler that he’s barely steadied by knocking in some vertical supports. Then, driven nuts by that wonderful smell, he waltzes up to the foreman and asks for some chocolate. The guy objects, saying, “Pay for it and I’ll let you have some.” Annoyed by the fellow’s lack of humanity, he replies, “Okay, that’s it, the job’s done!” Then, to even things out he steals some chocolates and sticks them in his pocket, where in a short while they melt. When the men come up to him, asking, “What’re these ropes for?” he announces, “It’s a thing to hold it steady, something important, you know – don’t worry, once the iron sheets heat up the ropes will drop off on their own.” Then he pockets his money and takes off.

  Of course, the next day the men see that the ropes are still on, they haven’t burned, but are still keeping things balanced, so they say let’s strip off the ropes (Mesut tagged on the rest of the story) and down comes all the sheet-iron wrapping. The man who contracted the job to his big brother Halilhan calls up again, embarrassed but having no other choice. This time it’s Mesut who goes and does the same job for them, but at more than double the cost. In just three days time they end up with three times the original sum, as if it had dropped on them from heaven.

  If you think about it, it’s easy to pinpoint the contradiction in this situation. It all boils down to one man’s meanness, to his unwillingness to offer a man a bar of chocolate.

  Such enteresan things happen quite often because in all-Turkish firms even the teknik personalite types know nothing about our kind of work.

  Here’s the tricky thing about using the money you make this way: if a guy happens to be fundamentally unhappy and has no real idea how all that money fell into his hands, all at once he finds himself dragged off into an adventurous life. He’s only been granted this life once, and if he wants to he can heap the money up in piles on a tray and, without thinking once about his wife and kids, hire the Resali Cumhur Saz Music Group to keep his spirits pumped-up for fifteen days straight. Or, feeling cocky about his cash-stuffed pocket, he heads off for one of those big wide avenues, out on a spree to snatch stuff. He snatches and snatches, ripping the chains off young girls’ necks, as if they belonged to his own daddy. Halilhan knows this from personal experience. He always remembers how much pleasure he got from watching those girls crying in the middle of the street.

  Whether he fully understood the matter at hand or was simply dumbstruck by Halilhan’s kültür savvy, the new partner lacked sufficient oomph to even ask any questions. At least this was how the others took it as he sat quietly, listening. And on leaving the fellow limply shook everyone’s hand, in a sort of hangdog fashion. But as Gogi walked him out to the street, the man leapt at the chance to fire off a warning in a string of obscenities that screwed their mothers and wives up one side and down the other and left them all laid out flat. His looks had fooled them completely, because his true business turned out to be praying at the funeral of each and every person who tried to con him by playing fast and loose with his money. Crestfallen, Gogi rushed back in to report what their partner had just said – ‘I’ll bury you all in a block of cement and your fathers will keep coming back to look’ – and Hazmi took off like an arrow but couldn’t catch up with the dirty-pimp-bastard. On flying back in, he nailed his big brother to the spot with his ferocious glare, doubtlessly intending to give him a thrashing.

  Halilhan shuddered as if he’d just been stabbed, fully aware that his brother had passed over into the crisis stage. He couldn’t even get out ‘What did I do wrong?’ before Hazmi fell upon him and in two seconds flat pummelled him into a fistful of flesh. ‘You!… You!… You!… You!’ his screams echoed while Gogi and Mesut could only sit still and gape.

  Unable to show anything resembling love or understanding, Hazmi flung himself down onto the sofa, grumbling deeply like a volcano that, by force of habit, has to spew out its heart every so often.

  Halilhan was addled by the attack, shocked even more to hear this fierce rumble erupting from the brother he loved best. He figured he’d better try to act very mature at this juncture. When they faced each other squarely, he chuckled, recalling how his brother never missed a chance to give him a good thrashing. ‘Too bad,’ he said, ‘that all my dreams have finally come to a dead end!’ He’d even thought of purchasing a calculator for the company on credit, he explained, turning to Gogi and breaking into tears – his good intentions had drawn him into a romantik state of mind, leading him to assign a life span of seventy years each to his brothers and Gogi, a means by which he could calculate with milimetrik accuracy how many heartbeats were still left to them.

  Luckily for everyone Halilhan’s weeping spell passed swiftly, like a light drizzle. He brushed his unfair treatment aside and started making jokes about it. As his sentiments lightened the atmosphere a little, he arose, walked over to his brother, and planted kisses on both his eyes. Just as Hazmi was about to make the most of this, his mood suddenly changed. He withdrew any feelings that might’ve been about to spill over, ironing them back down flat. Ignoring Gogi’s plea for an explanation as to why he’d beaten up his big brother, he adopted a mysterious air, fixing his gaze on his nose and squinting. ‘It’s a dead question, Gogi,’ he said stiffly. ‘That’s all you’ll get out of me.’

  Back on the street, Mesut confided to Hazmi: ‘Every time I draw up a list of my business schemes, I end up just like you do,’ he murmured. ‘Just when I feel like I’m closing in on the money, along comes this guy with his game-playing.’ His big brother had undermined every one of his projects.

  As long as the fellow stayed clear of them, their lives rocked along in a regular fashion. But as soon as they started getting along well and setting up their own sistem he got resentful. The minute he got a whiff of their success or guessed they were about to latch onto some new business plan, he started sending out strange vibes. His brain, like a space station, repelled anything good that might be heading his brothers’ way. For at least eight or nine months every year the guy seemed to be in the clutches of some underworld force. ‘You know when he gets that darting look,’ said Hazmi, ‘he’s got to be caught up in some brainwave.’ Halilhan looked on them more as capital than as brothers. Having no job skills himself, he made it his work to block their every attempt at independence. His one desire in life was to keep his brothers under his thumb. And he was an expert at doing that.

  Many years earlier, during the times when he’d lied to them, they’d noticed how his pupils seemed to shrink down into spots like insect bites. The guy was unspeakably sick, he could only be a piskopat. (Overcome by their rage, they couldn’t let up.) Even his laughter after his beating had been
secretly calculated. Halilhan would make it his business to use his brothers and Gogi as pawns whilst he made his play for the number one position – that’s what they believed and feared most as they thought about the future of the market. Since he couldn’t possibly exist without money, he’d set his sights on running as a candidate for the most tyrannical imperial power ever known. Right now he was struggling within narrow margins because he hadn’t yet caught up with everything that was happening. However Hazmi believed that ‘Hitlerism’ was sure to figure into his big brother’s future. He’d seen him pictured this way in his dreams no less than three times. The only person Hazmi could summon up any pity for was Gogi.

  Their greatest weakness was their inability to break away from him, as if they were being drawn fatefully toward the grave, under the spell of some atmosferik force. As their curiosity drew them closer to Halilhan’s glimmering nature, they felt their own spirits glowing less and less brightly. They’d taken as their subject the family wolf, but did they really have a choice? In the world these two inhabited, their elder brother had become a special field of study for them. And they worked hard at it.

  In view of the fact that Hazmi had sworn an oath against anyone who cursed his mother, it was important for him to catch and beat up their partner in the next hour or two, before his anger cooled down. Striding into the coffee house where they’d hoped to catch up with him, they found all the chairs filled with the weightless bodies of the ragged men. So, while Halilhan and Gogi had jumped into the Volvo and hit the city streets in search of consolation, Hazmi and Mesut wound up having a neighbourly chat with the ragged men in the coffee house.

  There they were going on about how Nero had set fire to Elenika, the Greek beauty. The head of Lily Ali – the manager of the coffee house – overflowed with subjects of this kind because his family line reached all the way back to the legendary Üsture Efendi. He’d multiplied the TV screen eight times by surrounding it with mirrors, and now, from his seat in the midst of the ragged men, he was leading the storytelling at the top of his voice.

  The ragged men had heard striking stories about how the country and the world were being governed in an underground café where they usually gathered to fish for jobs. Now, hot on Nero’s heels, the conversation’s path wound along in this direction. Branching off from the book of cruelty, it led somewhere different, into ‘the black book’, to which new pages were added daily. They’d learned from N. Çevik, a contractor and underground café regular, that the people running the world had formed a secret organisation which was in charge of sixty-five super nations. Any person in these countries who had reached the position of general manager automatically became a member of the Organisation. N. Çevik had read the infamous ‘black book’, which contained the names of all those who had made the grade for any given year. ‘But that’s impossible!’ he thought, thunderstruck. Then it dawned on him that in truth the country’s governing body was nothing but a false front. Birds that hadn’t been plucked from the flock would never perch on the topmost branches. All high-ranking individuals were Organisation puppets. They were forced to shave and wear ties. Their family values were secretly destroyed. Their political values and all human compassion were annihilated as well. As the Organisation saw it, human beings were nothing but dogs. If they deemed it necessary, they could force a person into revizyon: a makeover of his face, of all his features even. The person wasn’t even allowed to choose the colour of his own eyes. Nobody in all the world knew that they’d performed a sex-change operation on the Shah of Iran. ‘Dead!’ they’d declared him. In fact, they kept him alive, but as a woman.

  After hearing this report that flowed along like a fairy tale, Mesut and Hazmi left without asking any questions. They’d saved their thoughts about it all for the walk back home. As they talked, both felt the same surge of fear. ‘If our man starts acting wild on the market they’ll really work him over!’ They had to get their big brother to focus, to really zum in on this matter, so he’d realise that the road to his dreams of getting ahead was blocked by the Organisation. If he happened to draw any adverse attention from them, he’d wake up every morning looking in the mirror for his missing face.

  With the help of nightfall, Halilhan and Gogi had lost themselves in deep thought. They were light years away, fully occupied with their subject…beating their hearts over the issue of communication between the male sex and the female sex. And since Gogi was expecting to hear from the girl, the focus was on love. ‘Don’t worry, Gogi, now that you’ve put on your coonskin cap, you’ll bag the rabbit too.’ The girl had been primed and was surely ready for the taking. ‘Come on, let’s make tracks and get a little shut-eye.’ As the Volvo eased ahead as if caressing life itself, Halilhan was moved. ‘Being alive is good, isn’t it, Gogi?’ he murmured. ‘Because of the fact of not-being, I mean,’ he added. ‘Humanity’s reward is to have been created in the first place,’ Gogi replied. ‘This is an honour in itself.’ ‘But it’s to get ready for not-being, isn’t that right, Gogi?’ Halilhan persisted, for some reason. ‘Not-being is meaningless, it can’t even be defined,’ Gogi answered. Thus before settling down for a snooze they’d cleared up any misunderstanding they might’ve had on this subject. Refusing to let themselves be divided by a difference of opinion, even on the simplest matter, they agreed that being could be seen as preparation for not-being, and that being was, in itself, a great privilege indeed. The hours they passed together were truly sublime.

  The girl’s reply to Gogi

  My faith doesn’t allow me to imagine myself on the plane of stars. I write this letter knowing that angels bow before the human being in reverence, so I see myself as a creature bestowed with pride. While I have learned that Allah places us above angels, I have never indulged in haughtiness. I consider it a duty to live in wedlock with a man and to be attached to him with my heart and my body. I am filled with the desire to avoid becoming Satan’s sister by condemning myself to chastity. It is mandatory that after a certain age human beings are obliged to be moved by feelings for marriage. All of us on earth are being tested for subservience. Isn’t that a fact of life shared by everyone? If we see one part of the divine trial as connected with sexual life, then the path we must follow has already been ordained. Human beings have been commanded to conform to the values of halal and haram in their sexual desires and conduct. Obviously, we were all created in such a way that these feelings arise at a certain point in our lives. And in this lies the truth we must follow. A foundation for Allah’s existence rests in the creation of spouses blessed with satisfaction, serenity and mutual love and compassion. Nurtured by food and sleep, adults can keep their dreams on hold, but can’t keep their emotions from emerging and developing. There comes a moment when life’s natural course arises as a need. Then such feelings and desires will be heightened and seek an outlet. The self too has certain rights over us.

  Hazmi was desperate to beat up their partner who’d slipped through their fingers after cursing them. His fury rose to an even higher pitch when he found that the guy had filed a complaint against Gogi and the police had booked him at the station. But then Hazmi decided to ditch the idea because it would look like he’d beaten him up for accusing Gogi of swindling him and not because he disapproved of the man’s morals. His sense of honour wouldn’t let him stoop to putting his strength on the line for money’s sake. Anyone who hadn’t observed his karakter closely enough would link the beating to a demand for repayment. If the situation were viewed in that light, Hazmi would really be screwed. ‘Damn the bad timing, I’ve blown my chance for revenge,’ he said and quit tracking the guy.

  Halilhan, seeing the money as less than a postage stamp, had spent every bit of it. And poor Gogi! When he at last walked out of that hellish place called the ‘Block’ where he had been held hostage for something like three days, his eyes shone with the black, tortured light of all the minutes he’d passed there. Steeped in foggy dreams of love, his spirit had unravelled and he moved lifelessly, shattered by
the charges that he’d filched a poor stranger’s money. As he took his first steps towards freedom he appeared to be swimming in a sea of shame. An onlooker, seeing Halilhan and Hazmi supporting his limp arms, might’ve thought they were playing a game called ‘walking the corpse’. Granted, his innocence was beyond doubt, but getting hard proof was a different matter altogether. And with regard to his future bride, his situation was dire. He’d spent the whole time praying that she wouldn’t get wind of his jailing. In a voice trembling with fear, he murmured, ‘I may as well have had a heart attack!’ If Halilhan hadn’t lit on the idea of telling some jokes to console him, Gogi would’ve started whimpering like a child.

  Whether he showed it or not, Halilhan, with his sentimental nature, was the worst off emotionally. The matter of Teknojen had become a screw turning forever inside a void. The family crowd of wives and children were accustomed to going hungry, but for too long now their lives had been running on empty. They needed to get something going before they got stuck in this black spot. If they didn’t, Gogi, his brothers, and their wives were going to declare the Volvo useless. No voice of protest had been raised yet, but he knew very well that the family looked on the car as an enemy. Even the children eyed it with hatred. He urgently needed to get his act together. If he didn’t somehow hit the jackpot, their love affair with the Volvo would come to a screeching halt. It was this thought which had been plaguing him and which troubled him so deeply.