by Yashar Kemal
Just then Zaladja took a cringing step forward. With trembling fingers she untied the knot in her headscarf and handed over the donkey-boll to Muttalip Bey.
‘Why, thank you indeed, my clever woman,’ he said.
Suddenly she seized his sleeve. ‘In my dream I saw you,’ she cried. ‘In my dream … Bathed in brightness … Four green eagles, their wings of green light, were circling above you. You entered a big city and the largest of the eagles came to settle on your head, beating its wings and shooting sparks of green light. Such a crowd, such a crowd all around you … Yes, it was you and no other. The people were pleased, cheering and clapping their hands. And all the time green sparks rained over them …’
Muttalip Bey heard her out with a sceptical, belittling smile. It was obvious that he was both pleased with the dream and eager to show he did not believe in such things.
‘May your dream augur well,’ he said when she had finished. Taking out his wallet he drew from it with the tips of two languid fingers a fifty-lira bill and held it out to Zaladja. Then he turned to his dark-eyed young attendant. ‘Drive into town right away and get seven crates of fresh grapes which you’ll bring here and share out to these people.’
Then Shirtless spoke up. ‘Bey,’ he said, ‘it isn’t right what you’ve done.’
‘What isn’t right?’ Muttalip Bey asked, slightly taken aback.
‘Giving Zaladja that fifty lira. She’ll be seeing dreams all the twenty-four hours of the day now. She used to dream only at night, but now … Even in the day …’
There was a burst of laughter. Just at that moment Tashbash appeared in front of the watchman. He came to a standstill before Muttalip Bey, hunched forward as if his belly ached. His eyes were sunken and his face had a suffering look.
‘So this is the great saint?’ Muttalip said, laughing. ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?’
Tashbash did not answer. He did not even lift his head.
‘Hey there, saint! People say you’re a companion of the Forty Holy Men … That you’ve laid a ban on this man here … That you’ve forbidden people to speak to him … Is it true? Why did you do it?’
Tashbash’s head remained bowed.
‘Look here, saint, your fame has spread down to the Chukurova and through the whole of Turkey too. They say a huge tree of light descends over your house every night and shines there for all to see. Is that so?’
Tashbash shrank visibly. He changed colour and his right leg began to tremble.
‘Is the man dumb? Speak up, saint. Have the mice eaten your tongue?’
He now realized that nothing would be got out of Tashbash. ‘Well,’ he sneered, ‘one can’t expect such great and holy men to talk to us poor mortals after having consorted with the Forty Holies!’
A number of trucks and tractors with trailers in tow were drawing up into the field. The bright-coloured vehicles, blue, green, red, orange, yellow, were layered with dust and this gave them a uniformly dun hue. Three platform-scales were lifted down and set up in three different parts of the field. The weighers, three young men, fell to work at once, weighing the cotton and baling it into huge sacks which they loaded into the trucks and trailers.
Muttalip Bey led the muhtar away from the field to the cool spring under the huge planetree. He wanted to know more about this saint. How had he become holy, what miracles had he performed, how had he fallen into this pitiful state? How had he managed to gain so much influence over the villagers as to prevail on them not to speak to a man who was the powerful muhtar of the village? And above all, more important than anything else, what party did this saint vote for? Who knows but that his influence might spread far and wide, this miserable, wretched, crushed, moribund creature … What if he supported the opposition? He must learn all about him and inform the Party headquarters.
There, beside the spring, Sefer told Muttalip Bey all about Tashbash. He had quickly guessed what was on Muttalip Bey’s mind and he lost no time in representing Tashbash as the most militant element of the opposition party.
It was well into the afternoon when they returned to the field. The weighing was over and a clerk with a sun-broiled face and a red tie was calling the villagers one by one by their names and doling out the pay. He looked up at Muttalip Bey. ‘That long fellow there,’ he said. ‘He’s the one who’s picked the most. It’s unbelievable. I made enquiries and it’s true. He picked it all himself, single-handed, not even filching by night like some others do. It seems he tried that once but the others caught him at it and broke his bones. And the one who’s picked least of all is that saint fellow. Even the children did better.’
‘Come here then, long man,’ Muttalip Bey said. His hand went to his wallet and he drew out another fifty-lira bill with the tip of his fingers.
Ali stood at attention before him and without relaxing took the money and saluted. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘May Allah shower his blessings on you and the Lord Halil Ibrahim his plenty on your lands. May they overflow with cotton, always …’
‘Where’s the saint?’ Muttalip Bey enquired.
Tashbash was sitting in a ditch on the side of the field. They pointed him out.
‘Come here, saint!’
Tashbash rose reluctantly. His legs were weaving into each other. Muttalip Bey drew another bill from his wallet. ‘Well, my good saint, it seems you’ve picked no cotton to speak of, not even as much as a child. Is it that saints don’t deign to do such work? Then why not have performed a miracle, some magic that would have gathered you the whole crop in the twinkling of an eye?’
He laughed and the villagers joined in.
‘A real saint will prove himself by picking ten thousand dönüms in one hour and not by bragging and pulling wool over people’s eyes …’
Tashbash’s face twitched and turned purple. His right hand clutched his left and kneaded it.
‘Come now, saint, tell me. Since you’re such a great saint, why didn’t you summon the green-turbaned Invisibles to your aid? Talking big and bluffing’s not enough to make a saint …’
His hearty laughter encouraged the villagers to laugh even more loudly. Then he extended his hand with the fifty-lira note he had been holding all this time. Tashbash looked at the money, but made no move to take it. Abruptly, he turned and walked away, his legs dragging.
Muttalip Bey had not expected this. He felt snubbed and slightly ashamed. Then his eyes rested on Old Halil and at once saw in him a means to save his face. ‘You there, old man,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘They call me Old Halil.’
‘Take this, and be welcome to it.’
Old Halil clutched at the money. He was wild with joy. ‘Bless you, thank you,’ he shouted and rushed off to Long Ali as quick as his legs would take him. Since his misadventure he walked with a limp as though he had suddenly gone lame. ‘There!’ he said, thrusting the money into Ali’s hand. ‘Now, isn’t that enough? Why don’t you go back to Meryemdje at once? But mind, you promised me, not a word to her about all this, that I cried when I thought she was dead or that I went stealing cotton for her. And you’re not to tell her about this money either. You’ve promised.’
Muttalip Bey had got over his discomfiture by now. ‘Saint indeed! The quack …’ He laughed scornfully. ‘Mystifying people with fabrications about lights, that mangy wretch …’
‘That mangy wretch!’ a few villagers echoed him. ‘Just look at him. A mangy wretch …’ They hooted with laughter. ‘A mangy saint! A mangy mongrel of a saint!’
Tashbash’s head whirled as he walked and it was all he could do to keep himself from falling. He did not want to break down now before the eyes of all those brutes. Every mocking word, every hoot of laughter, hit him on the head like a hammer. He went doggedly on until he came to the door of his wattle-hut and there he collapsed.
It was very hot. Fire rained from the skies.
Girls and youths, young people and old, all had gone to the river. They had thrown themselves into the water,
stark naked. Scarred bodies, covered with crusted sores and burns, arms and legs thin as drumsticks, shrivelled bellies, withered sagging breasts … And young girls’ bodies, fresh and full, but marred with scratches and boils. Handsome youths, wiry and sunburnt, but scarred …
Only a little before sundown did the white sail-clouds rise over the Mediterranean and the cooling south wind begin to blow. Dust-devils whirled all over the plain, sparkling. Clouds of dust rose over the web of roads.
The Bald Minstrel produced his saz and struck up a gay tune. The young people eagerly fell into place for the halay dance. Then the grapes arrived, a whole truckload of them. Muttalip Bey had been very generous. Also he had not cut the price of the after-rain cotton, but had paid twenty kurush the kilo for it, just the same as for the unsoiled cotton. Their happiness was complete. In the evening they lit the fires for the ritual sinsin dance.
Only two persons in the village had any knowledge of reading and writing, Long Ali and Memidik. Long Ali had mastered the art while doing his military service. All the letters that came to the village were brought to him, and he also wrote the answers. As for Memidik, after long efforts he had managed to learn a few letters of the alphabet. He was especially proficient in the first three and was now busy tracing them over the waiting trucks. Red, blue, green and yellow a’s, b’s, c’s shone out of the dust.
It was very hot. Fire was pouring out of the sky.
Stretched out in his wattle-hut, Tashbash shivered. His teeth chattered.
Memidik was sweating. He was bathed in perspiration.
41
Memidik is seething with revenge, taut and quivering as a steel wire. People notice his restlessness at last, his agitation, how he roams all over the field like one possessed.
Forcefully he plucked the willow-leaf knife from its sheath. The knife whirled through the air three times, tracing three long steel-blue sparkling arcs that flashed again and again.
Steel-green flies in hundreds were weaving their many webs of light. Wasps, yellow-jackets, honey-bees swarmed over the water-melon rinds, their wings a scintillating whirl. Jet planes whizzed up over the Mediterranean leaving streaks of molten silver suspended in the windless sky.
His shadow fell right at his feet, a dark black disc. He had tied a kerchief about his head, but his eyes burned in the glare of the open plain. The angry sun beat down over the stubble and stalks, lashing up millions and millions of tiny sparks as from fragments of broken glass. He was sweating and the sweat on his back was turning to mud with the dust. His lips were cracked from thirst, yet he never even thought of stopping to drink.
Darker now against the incandescent molten silver of the sky, his outstretched wings longer than ever, the lone eagle whirled wildly round and round. With dizzy speed he spiralled up higher and higher until he was only a tiny speck. Then he fell, a round black ball, hurtling to the ground. Memidik heard a loud swishing. At the height of a poplar the eagle flung out his wings and glided off Dumlu Castle way. Memidik followed him with his eyes until he vanished behind the Anavarza crags. Then he hurried on. He entered the woodswamp, he scoured through the marsh where the water bubbled and foamed from the heat. A gunshot rang out from the Dry Jeyhan. He rushed over and hid in the mauve tangle of camel-thistles. The hunter passed in front of him, a slim-necked bird tied to his belt. The bird’s head hung down, limp and sad. Another rifle cracked, another hunter strode by with green-glinting blue birds tied by the legs, their heads dangling.
Rifle shots exploded to right and left.
His eyes narrowed to slits, his face drawn and black with sweat, he emerged from the camelthistles and dashed down to the river. The eagle was coming back, drifting in from Anavarza very slowly, without moving his wings at all, simply floating through the air. Memidik pressed on along the bank. His foot caught in a cleft and got badly twisted, but he never even felt the pain, nor the sun searing into his flesh like a red-hot iron. Breathless, choking, he reached the shelter of a thicket and flung himself against a tree. A slight breeze whiffed in and a twitter of birds arose from the trees.
When he opened his eyes again the sun had set. In a little while the moon rose and the shadows deepened. The darkly-winging eagle was now many times larger. Not a soul was about and the silence rang out hollowly. Then the chirr of crickets filled the emptiness, rising from a nearby mulberry orchard. It came and went, came and went. And now the night was alive with the sounds of many insects. Three long-shadowed men were coming down the bank, heeled by three enormous hounds. When they stopped to talk, the dogs stopped too. Seven hawks fluttered over their heads. Memidik counted them. Lights blinked in the sky from a distant plane and a moment later he heard the roar of its engines. More planes zoomed past tracing red lines under the moon. A large fox slunk past him, flourishing its long tawny brush, so near he could have caught it by only extending his arm. The fox snuffled at the path twice, then, sensing some evil abroad, turned tail and streaked away.
Birds flew overhead with shrill cries. A brief shower of tinselled light fell, snow-like, and then the whole place was aglow from the headlights of a passing truck. On the crest of Mount Hemité a luminous cloud trailed down the slope.
The three men with the dogs no sooner got to the foot of the hill than they disappeared and the road stretched out again empty and white and smooth. Memidik was tired of waiting, tired of the emptiness. He walked over to the shore, his feet sinking into the fine cool sand, and quickly dug himself a little spring. The water gushed out, ice-cold. He drank and felt better. Three times he stamped his foot as he thought of Tashbash. He reminded him of Job, all covered with boils from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, gathering up the maggots that dropped from his sores to press them in again … Could it be that Allah was testing Tashbash just as he had tested Job? To see whether he would rebel or bow to His will … And Tashbash refused to rebel, that was clear. They could jeer and jibe at him, beat him, humiliate him, but he never uttered a word of protest. The old Tashbash would never have suffered all this. At the first mocking word he would have given as good as he got. Why, he’d have set fire to all the wattle-huts. No, this man was Tashbash of the Lights and no other. He was wearing this disguise on purpose. Ah, these villagers would see what was coming to them! And still they listened to that dog, that hound, that lowdown cur … Gripping his knife until the blood settled in his palm, he rushed to the top of the bank. But there was no one. No one, no one … He dashed down again and leaned against a plane-tree. His feet ached.
The eagle, huge now, was wheeling darkly under the moon. A fiery beam struck the water and skimmed over its surface like a flame.
‘I picked more cotton than anyone else except Long Ali,’ he muttered to himself. ‘And yet what’s the use? What’s the use, Memidik, when you’re dead? Dead, dead, dead! You’re dead as long as that man exists and walks and breathes … You’re a coward, Memidik, a coward, starting up at the flight of a bird, afraid of a shadow, standing by to watch your saint beaten and reviled, God’s very own holy man!’
A long black dust-devil whistled by and the moonlight was drowned in dust. Tiny particles glittered over the stagnant water where waterflies shuttled to and fro under the willows. A stork stretched down its neck, snapped up a frog and gulped three times. The cicadas took up their tremolo and fell silent again. Then everything went dark and black and a deep rumble shook the earth.
Memidik clattered on over the pebbles and up to the top of a hillock overgrown with marjoram. The man must come tonight, he must, he must …
The moon was toppling over to the west when he came back and threw himself panting on to the pebbly bank. A large fish leapt out of the water, three times, casting its silvery reflection down on the pebbly bed.
Memidik’s body arched like a bow. Mad with rage, his heart beating, tearing at his breast, he whirled round and found himself face to face with Sefer, a Sefer twice, three times as big as normal. Fear gripped him in a vice, his arms and legs went limp. Sefer eyed him contemptuou
sly, curled his lips and laughed outright, just as he had laughed at Tashbash. Proud, fearless, swaggering, he walked over to the river-bank, squatted down and struck his lighter with a crack that rang loud in the silence of the night. The flame spurted up and the cigarette glowed and went out, glowed and went out.
Memidik raised himself on his right knee, but Sefer was on his feet again, his shoulders broad as a dark wall. With long ponderous steps he strode into the shadow of the willows and lay down there full length. And still Memidik waited, his knife clutched tightly in his hand, waited for the moment when he would jump and strike without giving his limbs the time to betray him.
He waited and Sefer came back. He sat down on the bank right before Memidik and dangled his feet into the water. Two feet that expanded, contracted, broke up and flowed down with the current, then reappeared in the same place, two enormous feet …
Memidik leaped, and suddenly there before him, barring his way, were the three barebacked horsemen with their panama hats.
‘We couldn’t find Shevket Bey,’ the white-horsed one said.
‘Not even on the shores of the Mediterranean,’ the bay-horsed one added.
The rider of the black horse who mumbled his words said: ‘He’s not in that well either.’
‘But you know where he is! You, only you!’ the white-horsed rider shouted, and his voice rang back from the Anavarza crags. ‘No one else knows. No one, no one …’
‘Show him to us,’ the bay-horsed rider urged. ‘Show us where he is.’
‘Shevket Bey’s dead,’ Memidik whispered. ‘Dead, the poor fellow …’
The black-horsed rider took a jangling pair of manacles from the horse’s neck. ‘Hold out your hands,’ he ordered. ‘We couldn’t get to the bottom of this. You’ll have to deal with the Government then … The gendarmes.’
Memidik put out his arms. The manacles clinked.
‘Oh, let him go,’ the white-horsed rider exclaimed. ‘Damn him to hell, is this a man, this milksop, this coward? He’s not worth your manacles. Come, let’s look for Shevket Bey in that woodswamp.’