Shadowless

by Hasan Ali Toptas

  ‘How are you going to make that happen?’

  Rıza leant over the counter.

  ‘We decided this together,’ he said in a whisper. ‘We thought and we thought, until we came up with this ploy. So listen to me. In a few minutes, you will go and pay Reşit a visit. He’ll give you a hair. Then you’ll pocket the hair and go straight to the imam’s door. Tell him you’ve fallen in love, all right? Say you are at your wits’ end . . . You can’t eat, you can’t drink, and you can’t stay still. Whatever you do, you can’t get that girl out of your mind. You’ve got to spin a mighty tale, you hear? Talk about your dreams and your daydreams, and the fire burning inside you, really lay it on . . . Whatever you do, stay serious. We can’t have him wising up. Keep your eyes on the prize! Just go in there and kiss his hand and tell him how you’re suffering . . .’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then the imam will ask for the hair of the girl you’ve become infatuated with.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know, because that’s how these things are done.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I am. Then he’ll start blowing on the hair. He’ll make the girl it came from fall in love with you. Not only that – she’ll fall so deeply for you that she’ll come and stand outside our house bleating for you. And at that moment Reşit will see what the imam can do!’

  Ramazan gave him a sidelong look.

  ‘That’s all fine and good,’ he said dubiously. ‘But who’s the girl?’

  Rıza gave his son a stern frown; downing his glass, he slammed it on the counter.

  ‘You’re a bit slow, my boy,’ he said. ‘If we knew who the girl was, we’d never be able to convince Reşit that the imam did it, would we?’

  Ramazan looked helplessly at the floor. The shop fell quiet, as the funk of soap and grease grew thicker and the darkness deepened. Soon they were no longer father and son, but executioner and victim. And then, without warning, Rıza stood up to pace behind the counter. Every now and again, he would throw his son a suspicious glance.

  As for me, I was still in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. But there seemed to be no point in waiting any longer, so I slowly entered the shop. Weaving my way past between the drums of paraffin, the bags of soap, and the glass candles hanging from nails on the wall, I headed for the counter.

  ‘Look, it’s the barber,’ said Rıza to his son. ‘Go and order us some tea!’

  26

  As the imam drifted off to sleep, his hands stayed awake, leaping from the ground to the divan, and from there to his knees, like two enormous frogs. A knock at the door made them jump just enough to disrupt the shadows. The imam sat up. Muttering a few bismillahs, he pulled up his socks and made for the door. While opening the latch, he gave so long a bismillah that even God himself was surprised.

  There, on the doorstep, stood Ramazan, his face dark with worry.

  Together they made their way through a series of half-lit rooms, each one adorned with bunches of dried thyme. Arriving at last in the darkest, dankest of them all, they sat down on a low bed. On the opposite wall hung a portrait of the sainted Ali, sparkling like the desert sun against a background of heavenly green. Sinking back into the straw cushions, Ramazan could look at nothing else, for it seemed as if Zulfiqar, his legendary sword, was pointing straight at his forehead.

  ‘Welcome,’ said the imam.

  Ramazan kissed his hand and leant back again. He clasped his hands, gazing up at the sainted Ali as if to ask for his assistance in escaping the plot he’d been forced into. He had no choice but to take the plot a step forward. The imam was watching his every move.

  ‘You have a problem,’ he said.

  ‘I do,’ Ramazan replied.

  Saying this, he took his eyes off the sainted Ali to sigh deeply. It wasn’t fake, this sigh, and it occurred to him that he had unwittingly made himself more convincing. Though of course he had reached the point where anything he felt would make him more convincing.

  ‘And?’ said the imam. ‘Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

  ‘I’ve fallen in love, sir, that’s my problem . . .’

  The imam rested his chin on his chest, playing with his prayer beads, as if Ramazan had not even spoken. He looked so unconcerned that Ramazan feared the man had seen through him. Though it wasn’t just fear he felt then: half of him hoped that the imam would foil the plot his father and uncle had foisted on him.

  ‘To love is to reach the highest state of being,’ said the imam suddenly. ‘How wonderful that you have reached it . . .’

  ‘But the girl doesn’t love me.’

  The imam raised his head to smile sweetly at the window.

  ‘There are remedies for that,’ he said gravely. ‘You need only to bring me a few hairs from the girl’s head, and the rest is simple!’

  Ramazan gulped.

  ‘I c-c-c-ame prepared,’ he stammered. ‘I have the hairs with me.’

  The imam dropped his prayer beads and lurched forward, as if to grab a stray wind before it left again.

  ‘Then give them to me,’ he said, stretching out his hand. ‘Hand them over!’

  Reaching into his pocket to pull out the napkin in which he had wrapped the hairs, Ramazan glanced up at the sainted Ali. It was almost as if he were in the room with them. This only added to the tension.

  ‘They’re very short,’ grumbled the imam as he opened up the napkin.

  Ramazan looked down despairingly. Meanwhile, the imam was slowly turning his back on him, bending over double to examine the hair in his right palm. To look at him, you would think he was staring into a deep well; his eyes grew ever wider as they bored into their black depths. He muttered a few prayers, or rather, he whistled them – no doubt to bring some light into that dark abyss. These prayers grew longer, until it seemed to Ramazan that the imam would soon melt into them and disappear.

  But he didn’t. Instead he sat there, hour after irksome hour, never moving his eyes as he prayed.

  At last he stopped . . .

  ‘My task is completed,’ he said in a tired voice. ‘Carry this hair with you wherever you go. From now on, the girl will love you back, until you are as close as the water is to the soil.’

  ‘When will it start working?’ asked Ramazan.

  ‘That’s up to God, my son. I can’t say a time for sure. If his loyal servant is truly certain of his love, then the fire will surely be spreading to the girl’s heart too . . . We’ve just made the spark, with God’s blessing: maybe it will take a month for the fire to catch, but it might have already happened by the time you step through my door . . .’

  Ramazan refolded the napkin with care before putting it back into his pocket. An odd and unexpected shiver passed through his heart, as though somewhere inside it a match had just been struck. He gave the imam a pained look, as if he could already feel that small flame searing him. Then he came back to himself, and leant over to kiss the imam’s hand again with genuine gratitude.

  ‘You have nothing to worry about,’ murmured the imam.

  One after the other, they rose from the divan. As they passed back through the dim and thyme-scented rooms, the imam bent over to pull up his socks. At that same moment, Ramazan caught sight of a black cat peering in through a door that had been left ajar. Its eyes were burning like embers. Ramazan wanted nothing more than to narrow the distance between them, but it was not to be: he had no choice but to follow the imam from room to room.

  But as he made his way from the imam’s house to the village square, he could still feel the cat’s eyes burning inside him. And perhaps this was why, though he went right past it, he failed to notice the crowd of boys that was howling with laughter as Cennet’s son did more tricks with his snake.

  Entering the shop, he found his father behind the counter, drinking rakı.

  ‘All done?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘All done,’ said Ramazan.

  Rıza leant back against his rough shelves, which
were black with dust. He let out a great sigh of relief.

  ‘So it’s done,’ he said edgily. ‘Now go and tell Uncle Reşit!’

  Ramazan shuffled out of the shop, mute as a lamb. Embarking on what he knew to be the most direct route to Reşit’s house, he kept wondering if he had lost his way. When at last he stopped, he felt as if he’d aged years in a matter of hours. Each step he took forward was slacker than the last, and the orders his head was issuing didn’t translate to his legs. Struggling to point himself in the right direction, he found himself back in the village square, but this time he didn’t notice Cennet’s son either. He was too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other, and wondering which of the girls of the village the hair might belong to. No one on earth but Uncle Reşit knew who it was and yet a shiver went through him each time he passed a girl in the street. It did not escape his notice that a number of the black-haired girls let their eyes linger, to cast him longing glances.

  Just then, fifteen or twenty paces from the barber shop, he caught sight of the barber, standing at the window, gazing out at the village square. A moment arrived when he saw Ramazan, but his eyes slipped away, as fast as sun slipping across his window. It slipped across that window to hit the barber in the eyes, flooding his shop with a dark red light that oozed through the door and into the village square. It was at that very moment, in a doorway darkened by that shining light, that Ramazan caught sight of the cat whose eyes burned like embers. His legs melted beneath him as he feasted his eyes, in rapt concentration. It seemed to count his steps, then it used its paws to toy with its ears, and then, at long last, it gravely turned its head.

  When he reached the end of the street, Ramazan’s heart still ached. He turned around to steal another look. The cat’s eyes were still following him. Although far, far away, they were bright with a light that lightly tripped over the stink of soil to mingle with swallows in flight and the mid-afternoon sun as they silently approached.

  Turning the corner, Ramazan walked as fast as his feet would take him. Though the cat was far behind him now, it still seemed to be watching him, through each and every wall he passed. With this thought, he sped up. Then he tried to slow down, but to no avail. This strange cat was teasing him, that much was clear. As often as it moved, it stood still. It had powers and motives he could not begin to fathom. It was playing with him, just like his father and his uncle, and the more he struggled to free himself, the deeper he sank. By the time he reached Reşit’s courtyard gate he was completely out of breath. If he could only calm down and collect himself, this absurd game of tag – that could be real, or could be a dream – might come to an end, restoring him to gentle laughter as life returned to normal. But this proved impossible: he could not for the life of him catch his breath. He kept huffing and puffing, faster and faster, while his chest began to rattle, just behind the pocket in which he had hidden the hairs.

  Somewhere nearby, a horse let out a neigh, sharp and clear. He breathed in, just as sharply, and pricked up his ears, but all he could hear in the ensuing silence were hornets buzzing and birds singing.

  He pushed open the gate and crept in. When the wooden latch fell into place behind him, he was struck by a great wave of regret: he had no idea why, but his regret was overwhelming, pulsing through his body, gripping him like a vice. He took another few steps towards the stairs in the corner, then heard the neighing again. This time, it was a lot closer. He turned towards the stable door and timidly advanced. All of a sudden he noticed the horse’s eyes flashing like silver pebbles; flaring its nostrils to submerge him in its warmth. And there it stood in the darkness, stamping its feet while it modestly bent its head, as though it knew it was being watched. It kept letting out short whinnies, as if to tell him something. Ramazan, meanwhile, stood there transfixed, his eyes caught by those flashing pebbles.

  Then, with an enormous smash, the horse broke through the door. Faster than an arrow it circled the yard, rearing up with its ears still pricked.

  Ramazan was stunned. His first thought was to run and catch it: maybe this is why he opened up his arms and jerked a few paces forward. But the horse reared up again, crushing a cheeping chick as it descended. Ramazan staggered back blindly until his back was pressed against the courtyard wall. He opened his eyes to look in horror at a pair of horseshoes and a gaping yellow-toothed mouth . . . Rather than trying to catch the beast, he was thinking now of how to escape its hooves. The stairs were in the far corner of the courtyard. He would never reach it in time. As he watched the horse furiously pawing the ground, it occurred to him that there was no time for anything. Then he realised that he was leaning on a door; and before he could feel surprise at his good fortune, he was hurling himself through it.

  Reşit, hearing the commotion, came rattling down the stairs, arms akimbo. But he couldn’t stop the horse from bounding over the courtyard wall. He reached the courtyard in time to see a black tail vanishing. He ran as far as the gate, through a cloud of desperate, flapping, squawking chickens. He looked out into the street. Nothing.

  Ramazan, meanwhile, was still running away from hooves he could hear pounding behind him. The horse was now a fierce black wind, raging through the village, street after street. Huddled in the shadows of the old men by the walls, the boys of the village found outrageous pleasure in the sight of a horse chasing Ramazan. But the whitebeards were as worried as those who watched from behind their courtyard walls. Ramazan couldn’t even see them: if ever he turned his head, he was met by a cloud of dust.

  Cennet’s son was sitting in the village square at that point, trying to find a new way to entertain the many boys and assorted men who were not as amazed as they had been when he wrapped the snake around his neck like a scarf, or kissed it, or wound it through his belt loops to hold up his trousers. When he first spotted Ramazan, with a sable horse in fast pursuit, he paused. He failed to notice that the snake had slipped from his hands and was now twisting through the soil. In the blink of an eye, it was already beyond his grasp, hissing as it headed towards the boys, who now ran off screaming and running in all directions. Taken by surprise, Cennet’s son did not know where to look. Should he watch the horse as it raced after a terrified Ramazan, or the dust cloud the crowd were running into, or the snake slipping through it? In any case, he seemed to have given up on catching the snake, or eating, or drinking or asking why the snow fell; indeed, he even seemed not to be breathing.

  Suddenly a crowd of men rushed out of the coffeehouse, pushing and shoving.

  ‘What’s happening?’ shouted one.

  He pointed towards the panic-stricken crowd.

  The others stopped to look.

  Ramazan, bent over double, was still running from the horse. The sky above was alive with pounding of horses’ hooves, which kept changing direction, like an ill wind. The horse’s whinnies, meanwhile, bounded off the walls of the village square and did not appear to be slowing. No one moved. No one exchanged looks, or a single word. They might have been dead, for they could not touch, or run, or scream.

  But then, sight restored, they could see it as it happened: Ramazan’s knees giving way, and Ramazan on all fours, Ramazan crawling across the ground, as if possessed. The horse towering over him, rearing higher than ever before, to bring its forelegs down on him, neighing with an animal – even lustful – abandon that was beyond human understanding. The village square shuddered with the sound of bones cracking. As those cracked bones began to spray blood, the boys ran home to their courtyards. But Ramazan, writhing beneath the horse’s hooves, could not follow them . . . He couldn’t even scream, unless he screamed so violently that no one could bear to hear . . .

  Finally, after an eternity that no man could measure, the horse stopped.

  The earth below was so red it might have been a poppy field. For a short while, the horse contemplated the bloodstains. Then, as the village square came back to life, it listened. Then it picked its way through the scattered flesh and bones, pausing now and again to sniff Ra
mazan’s blood.

  And this was when the villagers took action. In silence, and as if in keeping with a well-made plan, they fanned out in an arc to catch the horse. But the moment the horse saw them, it reared up, rising several times on its hind legs before galloping off.

  The village gasped as one . . .

  Rıza slammed down his rakı. Ashen-faced, he raced out of his shop. Seeing the blood, he stopped short. Seeing his son, he stared in horror, and collapsed.

  On hearing the news at her courtyard gate, and even before she saw the ribs jutting from Ramazan’s chest, or the teeth sticking from his cheek, or the fast-clotting lake of blood around him, Hacer fainted.

  27

  Once again I was alone in the sighing silence of the barber’s shop. By now I had given up on the barber and his apprentice; as I sat next to the window and watched the passing traffic, my thoughts wandered off to that faraway village.

  In fact I had no choice in the matter. For by now they were all inside me. Güvercin, who was still nowhere to be found. Cennet’s mad son, who wanted to know why the snow fell. The watchman. Rıza. The imam who didn’t know which girl’s hair he had enchanted. The muhtar who had still not managed to return from the city. Cıngıl Nuri, who still could not say where he’d gone all those years ago, or where he had returned from. Reşit, who wandered between his house and the muhtar’s office and back like a rickety old skeleton. Hacer, whose smouldering skin set the stable aflame, and Ramazan, who was crushed by the horse: they were all inside me, just as I was inside them. Which meant, perhaps, that I might also be the girl from whom Reşit had asked for a lock of hair, that my name was Güldeben, that I was sitting on the divan next to the window, looking across the rooftops to the wooden minaret, recalling the night just past. The night I’d cut off a lock of my hair – my hair, that was as black as sorrow – and dropped it into Reşit’s hand . . .