The Undying Grass

by Yashar Kemal

  ‘Don’t cry, my baby, don’t cry. This world is full of troubles. Look at me, left here all alone, a prey to the birds and beasts, and by my own son too. There, baby, don’t cry. Have the peris done something to you? Have you quarrelled with your father-in-law, the Peri King?’

  His sobs abated. After a while he stopped crying altogether and smiled, a wide radiant childish smile. Meryemdje was delighted.

  ‘Look, my child, even if the Peri King has said something to hurt you, you mustn’t mind. After all, he’s your father-in-law, and that’s how fathers-in-law are … Don’t worry about it any longer. How are your children? Have they grown? And your wife? She loves you, doesn’t she? Never mind about the rest …’

  Ahmet was relaxed now, basking in Meryemdje’s affection. Her words held no meaning for him, they were just a soothing lullaby.

  ‘Take me to the kingdom of the peris, to your father-in-law’s palace. Don’t be afraid I’ll disgrace you. Mother Meryemdje knows how to keep her dignity in a palace as in a village. Once when I was young, I stayed in a big plantation down in the Chukurova and the Lady said to me, Meryemdje, you’d hold your own even in a king’s palace. That’s what she said, so you may be sure I wouldn’t do anything that would make you ashamed in front of the peris. I’d learn their ways and customs in a couple of days and I’d also instruct your children in the ways of men. After all, if they’re half peri, they’re also half human. Suppose one day the King, your father-in-law, should come to die? Suppose that because you are an earthling they drive you out of the land of the peris, together with your wife and children? What will happen then? Tell me, what, what?’ She raised her voice and jerked his arm in her excitement. ‘Tell me what’ll happen? What, what?’ She jogged him again. Ahmet started. ‘Speak!’

  ‘What, what, what?’ the idiot echoed at the top of his voice.

  ‘Hush,’ Meryemdje said. ‘Anyone would think someone was pinching your balls! What would happen? Why, your children would go wandering through the world quite ignorant, acting like fairies still, and they’d die of hunger.’

  ‘Die of hunger?’ Ahmet repeated faintly.

  Meryemdje held his hand. ‘Yes, my child, of hunger. That’s why, for the good of your children, you’ll take your Mother Meryemdje to the peri palace and let her stay there until the villagers return from the Chukurova.’

  The idiot gawked. His eyes were wide as saucers.

  ‘Well, come on, take me!’

  Suddenly he blenched. His face turned yellow as a quince and his lips became livid. He wrenched himself from Meryemdje’s grasp and snatching up his long staff from the ground, he mounted it, threw back his head and neighed long and shrill like a horse. The sound rang through the steppe.

  He whipped at his staff. ‘Gee-up, whinny whinny! Gee-up, whinny whinny!’ he yelled and galloped on to the village.

  ‘Ahmet!’ Meryemdje shouted after him. ‘Wait! Don’t go! Catch that cock for me at least. Listen, I’ll give you half the meat. You’ll take the feathers to the Peri King for a pillow. Kings like their pillows stuffed with feathers …’

  She ran after him, begging, pleading, trying to catch up with him.

  Spellbound Ahmet went prancing through the village for a while whinnying at the top of his voice. Then he whipped up his make-believe horse and galloped off full tilt until he was lost to sight.

  Sweating, her knees doubling under her, Meryemdje slumped down on the horse-block before Muhtar Sefer’s house.

  ‘Eat poison, you son of a bitch, before you eat my cock,’ she panted wrathfully. ‘The very root of poison. And as for your father-in-law, that peris’ muck, he can put his head on a dung-heap for a pillow. Feathers indeed! That’s what comes when a huge peri king takes a wretched dog like you for son-in-law. Just let me lay my hands on you again, you snivelling pig, just let me! …’

  She sat there on the stone, muttering to herself until the sun went down.

  29

  Drenched to the bone, his legs useless now, his body numb from the waist down, surrendering to the deathly drowsiness that was slowly seeping into his brain … Sleep. A mortal fear shook him into consciousness. He was half buried in the snow. With his last remaining strength he drew himself up towards the cave. The dog inched along beside him, as though crawling too. And then he felt the matches in his pocket. ‘These are my Hassan’s matches,’ he thought. ‘His keepsake to me …’ A warm feeling of love swept through his body.

  Tashbash would never forget that night of death. When he closed his eyes it would come back to him, sending tremors through his body. On that night he had died and had come to life again. The last thing he remembered was the cave in front of which he had collapsed. Then everything went black. He recalled that day, the villagers bidding him a last farewell, escorting him way down out of the village, some weeping, some beating their breasts, others simply silent, the crippling blows Corporal Jumali had rained on Muhtar Sefer with the butt of his rifle, Sefer’s lying face like a loathsome mask, the boy Hassan and his gift of matches … He remembered how he had been gripped by doubts, how the hellish question had tormented him: Was he a saint or not? And his dread of meeting the gendarme Captain after having broken his promise to him never to work cures on the people again … The cave in which they had sheltered from the sudden blizzard and how he had slipped away while the exhausted gendarmes slept, choosing a certain death in the snowstorm rather than to face the Captain … How he had lost his way in the driving snow … The yellow dog … How he had pushed on blindly, north, south, this way and that in a desperate effort to find the Frozen Men Cave. And how, when he had come to it at last, his strength had failed him, and he had dropped down on the snow, unable to take that last step which would bring him inside, giving himself up to sleep, that heavy dangerous sleep which meant death. He could retrace it all, step by step, but afterwards there was only a bottomless black hole.

  And then a soot-blackened ceiling … Trailing black cobwebs, a large girder … A kingpost with worm-eaten carved old wood-work … A huge fireplace, its hearth piled high with crystal-red embers … A tall white-bearded figure with kindly eyes and a genial face … A beautiful young girl … A youth, children, one of them with eyes like Hassan, huge, sad, wondering eyes … Someone leans over him. Where did you find me, he wants to ask, but he is silent. The mouth of the Frozen Men Cave flickers before his eyes …

  Two long months he lay there, and how they looked after him! Not only the family that had taken him in, but all the village. Then one day he noticed that people stooped to kiss the threshold before entering the house, that they stood at attention before him. They had recognized the saint of Yalak village and paid deference to him, even though their faith may have been shaken a little by his nearly freezing to death.

  Then he learnt how it had happened. After he had let himself drop exhausted at the mouth of the cave the yellow dog had gone in. There, comfortably straddling a warm fire, was Eseh the shepherd who had sought shelter in the cave when the blizzard broke out. He was playing his pipe to while away the time. The yellow dog had approached Eseh and had pulled at his sleeve with its teeth.

  This is how Eseh told it, swearing his solemn oath.

  At first Eseh took this huge snow-mantled creature for a bear. Then he realized it was only a harmless domesticated sheep-dog. Come to take shelter like me, Eseh thought. Well, let him stay and warm himself too. But the dog would not be still. It kept tugging at his sleeve urgently. There was someone outside in the snow, that was clear. Wrapping his shepherd’s cloak about him, Eseh stepped out and what should he see? A man lying just outside the cave, unconscious, half buried in the snow. He dragged him in at once. The man was still breathing, though very faintly. In the warmth of the fire the blood began to run through his veins again. But his eyes remained closed and he never moved. I know this man, Eseh thought. He racked his brains, but could not make him out. Suddenly he saw sharp sword-like rays of light shoot out from the man’s face again and again. It was then that he began to
tremble in all his limbs. Wasn’t this the saint of Yalak village, that saint of saints, the great Lord Tashbash? Wasn’t the yellow hound that guarded him Kutmir, the legendary dog of the Seven Sleepers? The light that flowed out of our Lord Tashbash’s body was spreading gradually, a green magic light. Soon the whole cave was aglow, shining in a green spring-like radiance. And then Eseh had thrown himself down and kissed the saint’s feet.

  The morning dawned, calm and balmy. Not a trace of last night’s wild snowstorm. Eseh shouldered the still unconscious Tashbash and with the yellow hound at his heels brought him to his village. ‘Here you are, Yerlidjik people,’ he said proudly. ‘Such a good turn I’ve done you, you’ll remember it to the end of your days. Here, see who I’ve brought you: the saint of saints, Tashbash!’ They had all fought to have him as a guest, but in the end it was decided that he would stay at Ummet Agha’s because his was the most comfortable house in the village. Renowned healers and specialists in cases of frozen limbs were summoned from distant villages, but it was three days before Tashbash even opened his eyes, and only two months later was he fully recovered.

  The minute he felt a little better he found himself assailed by the sick and the maimed. There was nothing he could do about it. He himself was now thoroughly convinced of his own holiness. Only a saint sacred to Allah could survive such a freezing.

  Spring came and his presence became known far and wide. People poured in from the most distant villages; the sick, the maimed, and also religious men came to see the saint. Yerlidjik village overflowed and Tashbash began to be really afraid now. Not only was he a fugitive from justice, but installed as a saint and working cures again. Once the Captain of the gendarmes got wind of it he would give him no quarter.

  One night while everyone slept he disposed torches of resinwood all about his bed, heaped them with embers and made his escape. Awakened by the unusual light, Ummet Agha rushed in, only to find the bed empty and bathed in a glowing brightness.

  The news was over the village in an instant and soon a hundred rumours were flying.

  This is what Mangy Veli said: ‘I saw it with these two eyes, may they drop down in front of me if it’s not true. I was down in the flats below the village looking for my lost ass when suddenly I saw thousands of flaming wolves streaking across the plain and making for a mountain of light. There at the foot of the mountain was a man all of sparkling emerald green. As I drew nearer I recognized our Lord Tashbash with his staff in his hand and his yellow hound beside him. One after the other they came up to him, those wolves of flame, and rubbed their muzzles meekly at his feet. Our Lord Tashbash was the shepherd of this horde of wolves which dotted the wide plain like flares …’

  And this is Telli Woman’s story: ‘You’d never believe it!’ she kept repeating. ‘It was just before dawn. I was walking up the gully and I heard a swishing sound in the sky. I looked up and what should I see! You’d never believe it! A dragon swooping down from the sky. It alighted and filled a space as large as a threshing-floor. I was scared out of my wits. Then, before my very eyes the dragon began to shed its skin and in no time it had turned into a glowing green man. You’d never believe it! Our Lord Tashbash himself! I cast myself at his feet. And when I raised my head again he was gone. Vanished into the blue …’

  The boy Mustafa told it this way: ‘He took me by the hand. Who? Tashbash, the saint. He swung me up. Fly, Mustafa, he said. And I did fly. I flew right into an eagle’s eyrie up on the crags. The eagle took me on his back and as we winged across the sky I saw the green man beside me. He gave me ten walnuts. I cracked them open and ate them. Then he gave me another ten, then another. As many as I wanted …’

  Ahmet the Mollah’s story went like this: ‘Last night I was just coming down the mountain after laying my marten traps when I ran into him. He was streaking off like the wind. Hallo, where are you going to? I asked. I’m leaving, Ahmet, he said. I was called for. I can’t stay. And at once he was lost to sight. But not long after, there he was before me again, the same face, the same voice, but attired in robes of white this time. He talked to me and smiled, then he was off and over the hill like the wind. And then I saw flames shooting up in the darkness of the night. It was our Lord Tashbash swathed in garments of fire this time … He spoke to me again and the flames rolled on through the night. I must have lost consciousness and when I came to there was no sign of him. But what should I see? Three martens caught in one single trap! Here, you can see them for yourself …’

  As for Tashbash, he had made good his escape and was down in the Chukurova plain, only to find that his fame had gone before him. Everyone had heard of the new saint up in the Taurus and of the miracles he worked. But Tashbash feared that if he made himself known, people would only laugh and take him for a madman. He found work as groom to an agha somewhere on the Mediterranean coast. He knew a little about horses. The agha paid him seven and a half liras a month to tend his three horses, but that was barely cigarette money. In this village also, the talk centred on the holy man who had vanished and had gone to join the Forty Holy Men. Wondrous tales about the saint came to Tashbash’s ears and, against his will, he began to believe them. He would go to bed, his head filled with these tales. That’s me, he would tell himself proudly and fall asleep happy.

  When cotton time came and the Taurus villagers began to pour down into the plain a fever of excitement seized him. He could not stay. The longing to see his people again was too strong. He knew it would cost him dear. The law was still after him and who knows what the villagers might bring upon his head this time. He might even pay for it with his life, this urge to see his fellow villagers. But his wife … How he yearned for her …

  At times Tashbash really believed that he was a saint, that Allah had invested him with a mission among men. He would take on stature and go about proudly erect in an exultant mood. At such times, and he had noticed it often, people’s attitude changed towards him. But when he lost faith and was the lowly, crushed, timorous peasant, people would behave to him accordingly.

  One night he crept out of the agha’s stable and made for the road. For three days without stopping to rest he roamed the cotton fields looking for the people of Yalak. Only twice could he find food. He had grown very thin. Twice that winter he had almost frozen to death and this had drained him of all resilience. His clothes were worn, almost in rags. His neck stretched forward, scrawny and shrivelled. His elongated face was yellow with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. His lips were purplish. He looked old and shrunken. At a casual glance no one would have recognized him.

  Since last night Tashbash had been waiting, crouched in a thicket of bay-trees. He was so hungry that nausea clawed at his stomach. Yet he could not pluck up the courage to enter the cotton field. He braced himself to rise and walk forward, but his legs refused to take him farther than the brink of the field. There he would stand rooted as firmly as a tree for an hour, two hours, until, too tired to stand, he would stagger back into the thicket.

  Bright hopeful fancies would take hold of him for a while and his spirits would soar. How surprised they’ll be when they see me, he would think. How they’ll rush to meet me, everyone from seven to seventy, crying for joy, kissing my hands and feet. Their saint, their saviour restored to them when they had given him up for dead! And why shouldn’t I be a saint after all? If there hadn’t been something holy in me would I ever have found that shepherd with a warm fire in the Cave of the Frozen Men? The shepherd himself said it was the first time he had ever set foot in that cave. I looked out, he said, and saw that the storm had suddenly abated. The forest was still and balmy as on a summer day. And all at once a light burst out flooding the night and making it as bright as day, and I saw our Lord Tashbash lying there in the snow, asleep … That’s just how the shepherd told it. If I hadn’t been holy … But then, would a saint ever let himself freeze to death? Wouldn’t he go straight to the mountain cave-dwelling of the Forty Holy Men?

  What crime have I committed? Have I rebelled again
st Allah that he should afflict me like this and make me a plaything of the whole world? To be worshipped as a saint … And if I’m not one, that’s the worst punishment Allah could have inflicted upon me. And as if it wasn’t enough I’ve been driven from my home, I’ve gone hungry and cold, twice I’ve come near to freezing to death, I’ve drudged in other people’s stables, enduring that agha’s foul offensive curses all day long. Truly I am a creature that has fallen in the eyes of Allah. What if they make a mockery of me now when I show myself? What if they laugh and say, just look at that so-called saint, that wretched crawling creature … No, I ought to go away and never appear in this village again. Besides, the Captain would be sure to catch me this time. And that would mean either the asylum or the prison for me. But my wife … The children … If they dare to mock me, if they so much as say one doubting word about my being a saint, then I’ll kill someone … Or I’ll kill myself … Because I did see the sign after all! I saw the luminous Holy Walnut come to rest on my roof and shed its brightness through the dark night. Everyone saw it too, even Mother Meryemdje … Would that tree of light have come to visit a poor man’s house if he wasn’t a saint? And every night too … No, this is a judgement passed on me. This is how a saint is punished when he has committed some sin. I’ve done something, I must have, and Allah is chastizing me. He’s turning me to scorn in the eyes of all the world. Oh Lord, please deliver me! Give me the trappings of a saint if I’m really one. Make me sure … How can I go to my people like this, in this wretched state? They would never know me. No one, not even my wife, would recognize me …

  He gave up and walked swiftly down along the Jeyhan River, pressing on for half an hour, an hour even. Then his feet dragged to a standstill. He stood hesitating, then turned and made straight back for the thicket of bay-trees.