by Yashar Kemal
He fought shy of any human touch, and even of bird and beast. Ever since that day he had not been able to look into a mirror. He had always liked his own face. It seemed to him that God had never created such a handsome, noble, lovable countenance. That was why people were jealous of him. If he hadn’t been so handsome, they wouldn’t have been so nasty to him, would they? But now he could not bear his face. His hands too were horrible to him and he would do all in his power to keep his eyes off them whatever he was doing, even when he was repairing his nets. He longed to get away from the people he knew, from everything, into some other world, free of pain and sorrow and shame. To forget … But he could not forget, nor could he live on with that memory. Every moment, morning, noon and night, it was constantly in his mind, that shameful act. A loathsome sensation had come to settle in his heart and would not leave him. As he was throttling Zeynel, a drop of blood had trickled on to his hand, warm, sickening. At the very thought of it his gorge rose. And then, surely people knew that he had killed Zeynel. They knew it, surely, or why all those shifty looks? They despised him, they thought he had done it just for a handful of money, and he despised himself more than anyone.
Then, one morning, he woke up feeling light and joyous as a bird. His boat, which he had approached with loathing all these days, was as beautiful as on the first day he had boarded it, its paint fresh and shining, its nets glistening wetly. He went into the coffee-house and saw only kind, friendly faces. A mad impulse seized him to embrace them all, one after another, breathing in to the full their familiar sweaty smell. His eyes, bright and laughing, darted eagerly from face to face and the joy in him grew apace. He went out and saw a little boy. Lifting him up, he tossed him playfully into the air, then set him down and put some money into his pocket. The men in the coffee-house had never seen him do such a thing before. Singing one of his old familiar Circassian songs, he walked off towards Florya and they heard his voice from way off along the beaches.
He went straight up to Beyoğlu and strolled along the avenue and the Flower Market, looking happily at the passers-by. He did not want to drink, afraid it would spoil the magic feeling in him, this joyous sunny euphoria. He trembled lest it should elude him. He was a man reborn and the thought of Zeynel never crossed his mind.
And so he drifted through Istanbul, Fisher Selim, seeing in a new flood of light the sun and the sea, the crowds and crowds of people, the elegantly arrayed dummies in the shop windows, the toys, the assortments of gleaming crystal glasses, the ancient plane trees bathed in brightness … Laughing, dancing the lezginka, singing, reeling in front of the hundreds of car headlamps beamed at him, slipping in and out of the heavy traffic, his feet barely touching the ground …
There was nobody left in the streets. Taksim Square was strewn with heaps of garbage upon which hundreds of cats were carrying on their struggle for existence, fighting over every scrap of refuse, clawing at each other’s eyes, leaping, slinking from heap to heap … Yellow, orange, black, white cats, tabbies … These were the only living creatures abroad now, the soul of Taksim Square.
Selim stood planted on the green lawn of the square, a solitary figure in the few lights leaking from the high-class hotel nearby. His elation was slowly draining away, like a pink balloon pricked by a needle. Terrified, defeated, he saw the magic receding, escaping him like an agonizing palpable thing, and a sensation of imminent death overcame him. It was his life that was slipping away. Panic-stricken he rushed this way and that, struggling to recapture that vanishing magic. His heart hammering at his chest, he jumped into a taxi, with the vague idea of getting to a doctor, a friend, any living creature, before the last remnants of gladness were extinguished, and for a moment the sense of loss was suspended. Only for a moment … ‘To Menekşe,’ he said.
He came home utterly spent, writhing with shame. He had seen his hands as he paid the driver. He had even seen his own face as he wandered about Beyoğlu, joyful, like a shameless flower in bloom. Shameless, odious … He threw himself on to his bed. Everything that had taken place was passing through his mind again, down to the smallest detail, every word as clear as though it was being spoken now, this very moment.
You killed him, it was you, a voice inside him was screaming. You wanted to. To get his money … You killed a man who sought refuge with you …
But it’s not my fault, it’s not as if I really wanted to, another voice protested. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t … And if I did, then what? It’s one microbe less in this world. He killed Ihsan, didn’t he? And that woman at Beşiktaş, and the Bebek couple, and the student at Unkapani … Who knows who else and who knows how many more he would have killed …?
He clung to this argument with all the force of his will, attributing to Zeynel all the most dreadful murders perpetrated in Istanbul. Why, if he’d been fool enough to take him to Vasili, he would have murdered him too, together with his wife and children, and gone on to Germany to commit further outrages, to kill Turkish workers and rape their wives and daughters. He was a madman, a butcher, a vampire …
But the next moment he knew it was all false, that the only person Zeynel had killed was the gangster Ihsan, and he sank again into the blackness of shame.
All through the night he wandered wretchedly round and round his little garden, shrinking even from the moon-drenched sea crossed by brightly lit ships. He was not ashamed of having killed. Everyone killed. Millions of men had killed other millions in wars without turning a hair. And so could Fisher Selim, now, this instant. For instance, he could have killed Ihsan without a qualm and drunk raki on his grave and danced the lezginka too. But this boy, helpless, friendless, trembling like a leaf, who had come to him for asylum, who had trusted his life to him, who had no one else to turn to in the whole wide world. The shame of it … Nothing, no amount of reasoning, could relieve him of this shame, not Zeynel’s monstrous crimes, not the people he had killed or was going to kill, nothing …
As day dawned, he rushed into the house and wrapped the red kerchief round his neck, instinctively moved to hide the purple welt even from the rising sun.
So it went on for days. He could not sleep, he could not even get into bed, he could not bear to show himself to other men. He could not even look at his boat moored under the bridge at the mouth of the little stream. His hands buried in his pockets, the red kerchief always round his neck, crushed with shame, sinking below the surface of the earth if he met anyone, creeping through unaccustomed country lanes, he went to Yeşilköy to buy some food from a dim-sighted little grocer whom he imagined would only discern him as a shadow, though the little he ate, a bit of bread, some olives, a slice of cheese, was only just enough to keep him alive. He never touched Zeynel’s money.
There were days when the weight of guilt so overwhelmed him that he threw himself down between the cherry laurels in the little garden, writhing, moaning, biting his arms, tearing at his hair and moustache. But on other days he would get up a different man, as though waking from a long sleep, a nightmare. Full of joy, he would hurry out to Menekşe or Beyoğlu to be with other people, praying to God that it would last, straining every nerve not to fall again into that bottomless void.
It was on one of these happy mornings, when the world rippled fresh and bright, that Fisher Selim ran to find Leon, the master mason.
‘Master Leon, Master Leon! Get up quick! We’re starting to build my house. Hurry, my friend, it must be finished in less than three months.’
His enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Wait a minute, Fisher Seliim,’ said Master Leon, smiling as he got up from his bed. ‘What’s got into you so early in the morning? Wait.’ He went out to a tap fixed to the trunk of a tree and washed his face and neck with plenty of soap and water, dried himself and turned to Selim, who was standing above him like a restive horse champing at the bit. ‘What’s this now, so early in the morning?’ he repeated.
‘We’re going to start building my house at once, tomorrow. I’m going to Zeki Bey now to buy that land of his, the
plot under the big plane trees.’
‘You know I’m always ready for you,’ Master Leon said. ‘Just say the word and I’ll leave whatever I’m doing and come. Trust me.’
Fisher Selim embraced him. ‘Tomorrow, then,’ he said. ‘Before daybreak …’ And off he rushed to the carpenter. He found him drinking his morning tea, and all in one breath told him about his project. The fisherman’s excitement spread to the carpenter too. ‘Tomorrow,’ he assured him. ‘I’ll be there before daybreak.’
Fisher Selim flew to the other craftsmen, barging into their houses like a whirlwind, infecting everyone with his eagerness.
‘Tomorrow, early, before daybreak.’
‘Before daybreak,’ they promised him, one and all.
Then he went to Zeki Bey.
This Zeki Bey had at one time fallen in love with a girl from these parts and he had bought this land for her. He was going to build a beautiful house on it, but after the girl ran away with Cemal, the fisherman, the land remained unused for many years, a long plot that sloped down to the railway, overgrown with weeds and brambles. The sea was only two hundred metres away. All around, the land was fringed with large terebinths, planted no one knew when, their thick trunks rotting and hollow, and in the middle were three plane trees, their intermingling branches full of birds’ nests. This was one place where Fisher Selim had never planted anything, not a single tree, not even a rosebush. He regretted it now, but this was no time for regrets.
He found Zeki Bey at home, an old man with a white, frizzy mane of hair and a bushy moustache yellowed with tobacco.
Fisher Selim introduced himself.
‘I know you very well, Fisher Selim,’ said Zeki Bey.
‘I thought you’d forgotten me, Bey …’
‘How could I forget you, Fisher Selim? Even if you don’t talk much, even if you keep away from people, you’re a man that one will remember always …’
With anxious pride Selim stated his business. As he spoke Zeki Bey sighed a deep sigh. He was strangely stirred, this man who for many years had forgotten how to laugh and love. ‘It’s a deal, Fisher Selim,’ he said. ‘The land’s yours. It didn’t bring me luck. God willing, it will prove more fortunate for you …’
Fisher Selim produced a large packet of money from his inside pocket. ‘Take this, Bey,’ he said.
‘Why, thank you,’ Zeki Bey said. ‘I’ll send you the title-deeds in a few days through my lawyer.’
‘That’s all right, Bey.’ Selim’s hands were trembling. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll start building. Tomorrow, at break of day …’
‘God willing … God willing, you’ll be happy and prosperous in your new house.’ Zeki Bey’s eyes filled with tears.
Fisher Selim made his way into the overgrown garden, repeating to himself, ‘Tomorrow, before daybreak, before daybreak.’ He sat down under the large plane trees from where he could see clear out to the Princes Islands. They seemed to have drawn nearer today. A warm sea smell floated to his nostrils.
In the morning, Master Leon found him there, leaning against a tree trunk, fast asleep.
By noon, the place was teeming with masons and carpenters. The foundations were quickly laid. For years now, most of these workers knew every detail of Selim’s dream-house by heart, where the various rooms were to be, the kitchen, the balcony … It was to be something like Selman Bey’s house at Yeşilköy, that Selman Bey who, because he was too poor to marry the girl he loved, had disappeared from Yeşilköy to return years later, a rich man with cars, chauffeurs and servants galore, and had built his house. Everyone thought it was for the girl he had left behind, but instead he had brought to it as a bride an eighteen-year-old beauty, after a fabulous wedding at the Hilton Hotel, and his old love had taken herself off and never been heard of again.
The house was completed in five and a half months, paint, polish and all, and even the garden was planted with new trees and flowers. On the last day, Fisher Selim gave a great feast for the builders and other workers and invited all of Menekşe too. He and some other fishermen put out to sea in the early morning and returned with mountains of fish. On the shore at the mouth of the old weir, a fire was lit and soon a tall pile of embers glowed on the shingle. A long table was laid there by the sea and countless chairs placed around it. Everyone brought plates and knives and forks. Truckfuls of bread were heaped on to the table and, while the fish were being grilled on one side of the wide circle of glowing embers and lamb and other meat grilled on spits on the other, the guests began swigging the purple wine Selim had bought. The feast lasted well into the night, to everyone’s delight, and as the guests made their way back they could talk of nothing else but Selim’s new palatial house.
For some time after that, Fisher Selim seemed tired. His arms dangling by his sides, he would wander in and out of the empty rooms or sit under the plane tree, never taking his eyes off the house. Then he would get up, circle the garden and go inside again, inspecting every corner, running his fingers over the windows and doors, the chimneys, the polished boards, rejoicing, sorrowing, swelling with emotion and hope, a constant smile on his lips. So it went on, far into the night, and then, his head dropping with sleep, he would make for his bed in his old shanty-house. And the next morning, he could not wait until he was there again, avidly inserting the key into the lock and rushing in, his eyes dwelling caressingly on every nook and cranny. Then he would go out and sit under the plane tree, staring unblinkingly at the house, lost in wonder, never tiring of looking at this palace that was his.
‘Why, he’s fallen in love with a house at his age, bless the man!’ his Menekşe neighbours marvelled.
‘Sitting there all day long … Forgetting to eat and drink …’
‘Just as he fell in love with the dolphin …’
‘He must have a screw loose.’
‘And where did he find all that money?’
‘Well, remember how he scraped and saved all these years?’
‘If only he’d sleep in it one night at least …’
‘Before Zeynel Çelik comes and sets fire to it …’
‘And that Zeynel’s sure to do.’
‘Yes, Zeynel Çelik will never rest until he bums his house down and him too.’
‘Only yesterday he was seen prowling around here.’
‘With his whole gang …’
‘Fifteen men!’
‘With bombs …’
‘And machine-guns!’
‘My, my, my! What a blaze it’ll make, that new house!’
‘Well, what business had he to slap the great gangster Zeynel Çelik?’
‘A man who has all Istanbul trembling before him!’
‘Would Zeynel Çelik ever forget such a thing?’
‘Never!’
All this talk certainly reached Fisher Selim’s ears, but he had long stopped paying attention to what went on outside his house. And now, too, he had the garden to dig and prune and plant. Soon it was blooming with roses, specially brought in from the Italian’s famous nursery near the old walls, with dahlias, forget-me-nots, large poppies, mauve pansies, scarlet sage, and even wild climbing roses, yellow, pink, red, a garden of paradise stuck there on the slopes of Menekşe, gleaming in the light reflected from the sea. The trees too, well looked after now, flourished and grew even more beautiful. The old peaches and cherry trees along the garden wall would revive next spring, their fragrant double-petalled flowers would open more vigorously and swarms of bees would cluster over them, their humming to be heard from way down on the asphalt road below.
Then one day it struck him that the house was still quite empty, that there was not a stick of furniture in it. He rushed off to Istanbul and went from shop to shop, finally settling on a set of gilt-framed, mauve velvet armchairs and a console table for the drawing-room, a bedroom suite complete with dressing-table and a full-length mirror, some chandeliers and chairs, and several coffee tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl. When all this had been put in place, Selim realized that his house
had begun to look very much like Blind Mustafa’s. ‘Well, let it,’ he said to himself. ‘He’s a good man, Mustafa. It’s better like this.’
His Menekşe neighbours kept pouring in to see all these new things and Fisher Selim welcomed them all humbly, showing them over the house, always smiling as they marvelled over the gilt armchairs, the pink silk coverlet spread on the mahogany double bed and the elegant dressing-table on which stood a whole array of expensive perfumes in filigreed bottles, all waiting for their woman …
The house was finished and furnished, the garden in order, everything complete, but the miracle of which Selim had been so sure never materialized. For days, he shuttled between his shanty-house and his new palace, restless, expectant, running down to the station at every incoming train, cold shivers of joy and hope tingling down his spine, starting at every car that stopped on the asphalt, at every white ship that glided past on the sea … Every day, morning and night, his whole body a statue of expectancy, he waited there, unseeing, unconscious, not even knowing what he was waiting for as he sat stone-like in front of the rose-twined garden gate.
Suddenly, he lost all interest in the house. Now he spent all his time walking between Florya and Yeşilköy, his eyes on the sea, taciturn, not speaking to anyone any longer.
And one day he woke up utterly drained, empty, without support, the world about him black, his body numb, insensible. Without knowing what he was doing, he ran down to the little stream under the beach bridge, cast off his boat, fired the motor and quickly put out to sea.
The sky over the Marmara was darkening. Black swelling clouds churned in from north and east and west, and soon streaks of lightning flashed through the clouds, reaching right down to the sea.
From the tip of Hayirsiz Island, the sound of a shot reached some fishermen. At first they paid no attention, but then, as they steered their skiff in that direction, they caught sight of Selim’s boat drifting haphazardly six hundred metres off the point of the island. They approached quickly and discovered Selim lying steeped in blood, his right hand dangling in the water. The bullet had penetrated his chest, a little below the old wound, and emerged, tearing the muscles. They felt him and found he was still alive. Without wasting another second, they took him to Menekşe. Özkan’s son-in-law, Emin Efendi, who worked as a dresser at Cerrahpaşa Hospital, called a taxi and conveyed him as quickly as he could to the hospital.