by Yashar Kemal
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Yashar Kemal
Map
Pronunciation Guide
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Glossary
Copyright
About the Book
A tale of greed, hatred and decay from Turkey’s legendary novelist Yashar Kemal
Yashar Kemal was an unsurpassed storyteller who brings to life a world of staggering violence and hallucinatory beauty. Kemal’s books delve deeply into the entrenched social and historical conflicts that scar the Middle East. At the same time scents and sounds, vistas of mountain and stream and field, rise up from the pages of his books with primitive force.
In a sudden, chance encounter in a coffee-house in a fishing village near Istanbul, Zeynel Celik shoots a local gangster. Only one man intervenes – the village outcast Fisher Selim – and in doing so inadvertently transfers the blame for the murder onto himself. From this one simple act, Zeynel becomes a legendary outlaw in the minds of the people, whereas Fisher Selim, passionate about the sea and haunted by a lost love, is cast as an eccentric oddball. Each is pursued by his own paranoia, memories of the past and hopes for the future, until their paths cross once again on Selim’s boat, and their obsessions come to a resolution. Reflective and lyrical, the novel offers insight into the Turkish mentality while drawing universally valid conclusions, and manages to be both brutally savage and deeply humane.
About the Author
Yashar Kemal was born in 1923 in the small village Hemite, which lies in the cotton-growing plains of Chukurova. Later, in Istanbul, he became a reporter on the newspaper Cumhuriyet and in 1952 he published a book of short stories, Yellow Heat. In 1955 came his first novel Ince Memed, published in English under the title Memed, My Hawk. This won the Varlik Prize for the best novel of the year. His novels include Beyond the Mountain (3 volumes), The Legend of Ararat, The Drumming-Out, The Legend of the Thousand Bulls, Murder in the Ironsmiths Market (3 volumes), To Crush the Serpent, The Saga of the Seagull, The Birds Have Also Gone, Little Nobody and The Pomegranate Tree on the Knoll. Other published works include a volume of Collected Short Stories, Essays and Political Articles, God’s Soldiers (Reports on Delinquent Children), and a novel for the young, The Sultan of the Elephants and the Red-Bearded Lame Ant.
Yashar Kemal is married and has one son. His wife, Thilda Kemal, translates his books into English.
By the same author
Memed, My Hawk
The Wind from the Plain
Anatolian Tales
They Burn the Thistles
Iron Earth, Copper Sky
The Legend of Ararat
The Legend of the Thousand Bulls
The Undying Grass
The Lords of Akchasaz
The Saga of a Seagull
The Birds Have Also Gone
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Letter Approximate pronunciation
a as in French avoir, English man
c j as in jam
ç ch as in church
e as in bed or the French e
g as in goat
ğ a soft g that lengthens the preceding vowel and never
occurs at the beginning of a word
h as in house
o like French eau
ö as in German König, French eu in deux
s as in sing
ş sh as in shall
u as in push
ü as in German führer, French u in tu
y as in yet
A glossary of Turkish words that appear in the text may be found at the end of the book.
1
The rough-hewn door was kicked wide open, letting in a dusty blast from the mad south wind that was churning up the sea that day, and Zeynel appeared on the threshold, a gun in his hand. He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, with slow deliberate aim, he pointed the gun at Ihsan and fired shot after shot. The men in the coffee-house froze in their seats.
Ihsan uttered a piercing scream. Blood gushed from his neck and he slipped from his chair to the floor.
Almost in the same instant, Fisher Selim sprang up and seized Zeynel’s wrist. He wrenched the gun from his hand, then looked in amazement from the smoking muzzle to the young man who made no attempt to get away. Suddenly, a resounding slap startled us all. Selim’s left hand was at Zeynel’s collar, while his right pounded away like a sledge-hammer. The gun, no longer smoking now, had rolled under the coffee-range.
At last Selim let go, breathing hard, while Zeynel still cowered there, seemingly quite at a loss. The dead man lay on his side, hands clenched, legs drawn up to his belly, steeped in the blood that had trickled all the way to the door, his long yellow moustache stained with blood, his eyes bulging in a stare of horror and disbelief.
Selim looked at Zeynel wonderingly, as though he were seeing him for the first time, then bent down over the corpse, touched a finger to it and quickly snatched it away, as from a flame. He straightened up and came nose to nose with Zeynel. ‘Take this,’ he hissed, and spat in his face. Again and again the spittle struck Zeynel, whiplike. Then Selim staggered drunkenly out of the coffee-house, past the Seagull Casino, and on towards the Florya beaches, oblivious of the waves that crashed like thunder over the asphalt road.
Only then did Zeynel lift his head, as though waking from a dream. He stepped over Ihsan’s body, retrieved the gun from under the coffee-range and walked to the door. There he stopped, leaning on the jamb, and gazed at each one of us in turn until his eyes rested on Ihsan. A tinge of astonishment flitted across his face. ‘Son-of-a-bitch,’ he muttered, ‘I’m done for now because of you.’ He glared at us all. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘you’ve witnessed everything. What harm did I ever do to that bastard Selim that he should treat me like that?’
No one answered him.
‘Speak, damn you! You saw how he shamed me in front of you all. Shouldn’t I now do something to him, too? Tell me … Why don’t you speak out? Are you all tombstones?’
He started pacing up and down the coffee-house, taking care not to step in the pools of blood.
‘Speak, damn you! Cowards! Just because I’m holding a gun and this wretch is lying there in his blood, you’re all tongue-tied, aren’t you? Scared spitless! Why don’t you answer me, you tombstones? You, Süleyman, look at you, you lumbering lout, you great clumsy bear! Where’s all that swagger of yours gone to? You’ll be grovelling under the table next and wetting your pants too …’ He gave a mad shout of laughter. ‘Who knows, maybe you’ve done so already and that’s why you won’t budge.’
He aimed the gun at Süleyman. ‘Get up, blunderbuss! Just look at that bulk! You could hack three men out of him.’
Süleyman put his hands on the table and tried to rise, only to fall back helplessly. His face was white as parchment.
‘You, Laz Erkan, see if Süleyman’s mucked up his pants.’
Laz Erkan seized Süleyman by the arm and hauled him up. He looked at the chair, then dutifully inspected the seat of his
pants. ‘Unh-unh,’ he shook his head. ‘He hasn’t.
Zeynel laughed. ‘He was so frightened, the old gasbag, he couldn’t even move his bowels.’
Süleyman muttered something under his breath and, at that, Zeynel stepped up to him. ‘What did you say, what?’ He thrust the gun at Süleyman’s face. ‘Say it again or I’ll pump some lead into you too.’
‘Don’t, Zeynel, my child,’ Süleyman breathed as if in a prayer. ‘Don’t … There’s a God above …’
Zeynel ground his teeth. ‘What? Why, you bastard whose mother I … So it’s a God above when it comes to me, eh? What about you?’ And he swung the gun at Süleyman’s head as hard as he could. The blood began to stream down Süleyman’s face and shirt and gathered in a pool on the table.
‘Laz Erkan, wipe that bastard’s blood off. He won’t croak, never fear. This’ll just keep him from the sea for a month so he won’t be after catching all the fish of the Marmara in one night.’
Erkan promptly grabbed the napkin from the coffee-house keeper’s shoulder and mopped up the blood.
‘Wretch!’ Zeynel snarled at Süleyman. ‘D’you remember how – was it five years ago – once when we were taking fish from the trawl, you stepped on my hand with your hobnailed boot? How the flesh peeled off and the white bone was laid bare? How you laughed, you godless scoundrel …?’
He went to the door, looked out into the road and swerved back, tackling now another man, then another and another. It was as though he was bent on settling a lifetime’s accounts. When he came to me, he smiled bitterly and his eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ve heard it all, brother,’ he said mournfully. ‘Aren’t I human too? Didn’t a woman give birth to me like all of you?’
I was silent.
‘At least say something, brother. You’ve been around. You know the ways of the world.’
‘What can I say, Zeynel?’ His revolver was trained right on my heart.
‘Look,’ he continued. ‘This one’s dead, that one’s wounded. As for the others, I’ve got them where they’re worse than dead. And now the police will come. But I won’t give myself up. See!’ He indicated his pockets. They were bulging with bullets. ‘I came prepared. I’m not one to let my skin be punctured easily! D’you think Selim’s gone to the police?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I replied calmly.
‘Now tell me, I haven’t done such a bad job, have I?’
‘I don’t know, Zeynel.’
‘He deserved it, the bastard. So did he,’ he added, pointing to Süleyman. ‘And the others too.’ He glanced outside. ‘The street lamps are on. Good … In a little while I may be killed. Who knows how it feels to die …? That bastard’s dead all right, but look at his eyes …’
Nobody uttered a word. Zeynel switched on the light. Under the naked glare of the huge hundred-and-fifty-watt bulb the men’s long yellow faces seemed even longer. Only Laz Erkan was smiling.
‘Tell me, brother – you know about such things – would they hang me if I gave myself up? Just because I’ve killed this son-of-a-bitch and wounded a miserable gasbag? They wouldn’t, would they?’
‘Who knows …? Maybe …’
‘Who knows! Maybe!’ he mocked me. ‘Your kind can be such diplomats!’
At this moment Selim appeared on the threshold and at the sight of him Zeynel was thrown into a panic. He rushed to the door, pushed Selim aside and fled into the night.
‘What happened?’ Selim asked. ‘Haven’t the police come yet?’
‘Did you call them?’ I asked.
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said gruffly.
‘Then whatever have you been doing all this time?’ old Father Hakki enquired.
Selim ran his hand through his hair. ‘Why, Hakki, this gun … I put out to sea in my boat and fired a hundred shots maybe … Just to see … What a gun! Like the Angel of Death … And then I realized I’d run out of ammunition … So … Ah, if I’d had just one bullet left, he’d never have been able to get out of here …’
The police finally turned up late in the night. I was woken up at home and detained for questioning, together with the whole of Menekşe village. Fisher Selim was there too and I heard him muttering to himself several times: ‘Aaah, if only I’d had just one bullet left …’
2
Ihsan’s funeral took place on the following day and all of Menekşe flocked into the new mosque of Cennetmahalle. Ihsan’s virtues, his courage, his good looks, his generosity were extolled, while his dubious activities as pimp and bodyguard to Meliha’s notorious bawdy house were passed over in silence.
After the funeral we all went down to the coffee-house. Remzi, the only one not to have attended, was outside selling fish, which he had displayed on a large tin sheet. ‘I wouldn’t go to the funeral of that pimp, that cuckold!’ he shouted to the world at large, exhaling a devastating stench of wine. ‘Who would attend such a low-down creature’s funeral? Only low-down creatures like him …’
Şaban, the coffee-house keeper, had brewed the tea. It was ready for us, steaming in the slim-waisted gilt-rimmed glasses. Everyone was tired. We sipped our tea in silence. Then some men sat down to play gin rummy, while others paired off at the backgammon boards. Outside, a bright sun flooded the sea, which today was not like water at all, but a rippling expanse of blinding blue sparks that filled you with joy and made you long to sail away to its very limits.
Ibo Efendi leaned on his cane, his chubby face with its grizzled week-old beard rapt in thought. Laz Erkan was scrawling little drawings on a large sheet of paper. He had enormous hands and eyes that squinted slightly. Now and then, laying his ballpoint aside, he looked around expectantly, as if to say: Well, come on, what are you waiting for …?
There was something heavy in the air, a frustrated, seething impatience. The men seemed to be bursting to talk. It wanted but a little prod to get them going. Remzi’s voice could be heard outside against the rat-a-tat of a motorboat. A cock crowed from over Yeşilköy way. The tension was too much for me and I was about to make my escape when Fisher Selim stood up, his tall broad frame reaching almost to the ceiling. The tips of his greying ruddy moustache were twisted to a fine point. His wide brow was deeply furrowed like that of a man who has gone through much in life. A strong chin lent character to the full lips and sunken cheeks, and the large blue eyes shone all the more brightly for the web of wrinkles about them. They were usually narrowed, though, peering steadfastly as if at something which he could never have enough of looking at. He took some coins out of his pocket, put them on the table and buttoned up his brown serge parka. His brown trousers hugged his strong thighs and he was wearing yellow rubber boots. A red sash bound his waist. He strode out with long steps, then, for some reason, poked his head in again. His eyes swept over the men a little haughtily, then met mine, and the semblance of a smile flitted over his face. It seems to me it was at this moment our friendship and his trust really began, the upshot of many years’ unspoken sympathy. He turned away and made for the little bridge that leads to one of the public beaches.
An aeroplane roared past, very low above us, followed by the helicopter which flew over the coffee-house every day at this hour, making for Thrace.
‘Bastard! Murderer!’ Süleyman snarled. ‘He’s the one who killed Ihsan. He could have snatched that revolver from Zeynel before it went off.’
‘Of course he could!’ Ibo Efendi concurred, lifting his bearded chin from the cane. ‘It was all a put-up job.’
‘It was indeed!’ Şaban, the coffee-house keeper, agreed. ‘I had a good view from here. Selim never moved until Zeynel had fired. And three times too …’
Süleyman turned to me. ‘Tell me, wasn’t it a put-up job? They must have plotted it together.’
‘Plotted it together!’ old Father Hakki mocked, ignoring Süleyman’s black look. ‘Why, you heathen, when did you ever see Fisher Selim so much as speak one word to Zeynel?’
‘It’s Selim who killed Ihsan, not Zeynel,’ Süleyman insisted.
&n
bsp; Remzi, who had been listening through the door, now strode in angrily, filling the whole room with his sour, wine-laden breath. ‘Have you no fear of God, you bastards?’ he shouted. ‘How dare you slander a man so?’
Atom Salih darted forward. ‘Dog!’ he hissed. ‘Fisher Selim’s dog, that’s what you are!’
‘Dog yourself!’ Remzi retorted. They fell on each other with fists and blows. No one attempted to stop them and after a while they left off by themselves and drifted out of the coffee-house.
Ibo Efendi struck his cane on the floor. ‘If Fisher Selim had been a better man,’ he said, ‘Ihsan would have been with us now and not in his grave.’
Şaban brought us all fresh glasses of tea.
‘That skinflint Selim killed Ihsan as sure as if he’d fired the shot,’ Circassian Yusuf chimed in.
‘Of course!’ Süleyman said, puffing hard at his cigarette. ‘It was all on purpose. Catching Zeynel by the wrist and all that … Why didn’t he tie him up and hand him over to the police?’
‘Why did he spit on him?’
‘Because it disgusted him even to touch him,’ Laz Erkan laughed.
‘He was afraid.’ Mahmut, who had been sitting in a corner, spoke out for the first time. All eyes turned to him. ‘You shouldn’t be deceived by his high and mighty airs. He’s something of a coward really. Not that he’s a bad man, but he’s afraid of things, of the dark and the graveyard. Even of fish and cats and dogs … Even of himself …’
‘Oh, come on, Mahmut!’ I protested. ‘That’s a bit thick …’
‘But it’s true, brother. I swear it. He’s not one for talking and I know why. It’s fear ties his tongue and makes him stutter. He’ll kill himself one day because of that fear.’
‘You’re making it up!’
‘Cross my heart, brother, that man might go crazy with fear.’
Atom Salih burst into the room. ‘The mean wretch!’ he cried. ‘To think we were almost killing each other, Remzi and I, because of him!’
‘Have you made it up, then?’ Kurdish Hasan asked.