Shadowless

by Hasan Ali Toptas

  But this was not to be. I was able-bodied, but also lame. I could see but I was blind. A few steps later I banged straight into a pile of bulging sacks. Sacks of chickpeas, I thought, or possibly wheat – there was no way of knowing. So I turned around, dodging the corncobs that hung from the ceiling to go back to where I’d started.

  My leg was still numb. Laying it out before me like a wagon beam, I gave myself over to the rustling darkness.

  Because now, from the depths, I could hear something moving – footsteps, perhaps, hiding their uncertainty as they climbed steadily upwards. I could hear breathing now, too – and this was steady enough for me to work out where the face might be, though it was something I had no desire to do.

  After a few minutes had passed, I called out into the darkness, ‘Is it you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the watchman. ‘It’s me.’

  He must be where the bags were, underneath the hanging corncobs.

  ‘For days now, I’ve been longing to talk to someone,’ he said, straight away. ‘And in the end, I came to you . . .’

  ‘It’s good that you did,’ I said. ‘So tell me. What happened?’

  ‘What didn’t happen?’ he said, closer. ‘Is there anything that doesn’t happen, outside these doors?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I know a bit about that.’

  ‘But I don’t have a clue,’ he said forcefully. ‘Or rather, I can’t even pull together a theory. Nothing fits. Everything in this village is getting more complicated by the minute. First things are strange, and then they get stranger . . . It’s like we’re cursed. Wherever I look, whatever I try to understand, I get dragged deeper into it. I can’t take it any more; I just want to pack up and leave, and never come back, ever . . .’

  ‘You shouldn’t worry so much. Everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you worry, though, if you were me? As you know, the muhtar still hasn’t returned. Whoever he was going to talk to about Güvercin’s disappearance, he would have talked to long ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, soothingly. ‘He’s a great man, our muhtar. If he’s still not back yet, he has his reasons, I’m sure. Perhaps his business in the city is not yet finished. He’ll return the moment you least expect it.’

  ‘He’ll be surprised when he does,’ sighed the watchman. ‘Very surprised indeed. He still doesn’t know about Ramazan. In his mind, Ramazan still lives . . . He still rides his horse, I mean; he still eats and drinks, and walks, and runs, and laughs, or – you know – pounds the keşkek before the wedding feast, and then dances the halay after . . . I’ve been thinking about this for some time, now: in some ways I hope the muhtar doesn’t return. Because if he doesn’t return, Ramazan can live on, somehow. He can spend the rest of his life dancing the halay to his heart’s content in the muhtar’s mind, and laughing, and pounding the keşkek. Of course, it saddens me, to think like this. I’m not being fair on the muhtar. And I know he must return, with some news of Güvercin. He has to find out that Cennet’s son has come undone, and that the horse is still missing. But he never returns . . . How all this weighs down on me! Every day, Reşit comes to see me, to squawk at me like a wounded bird. Then off he goes, to search for that phantom horse for the rest of the morning and the whole afternoon, to return empty-handed each night. Then there’s Cennet’s son, in a world of his own, wandering the streets to show off that snake of his, and asking everyone he meets why the snow falls. As for Rıza . . . He just sits there in his shop in a cloud of alcohol fumes, waiting to collapse in a heap, or go up in smoke, who knows which? It’s not clear when he’ll do himself in, or if he’ll just lose it. And then, to top it all off, there’s this smell . . .’

  ‘What smell?’

  ‘No one can figure it out. First we noticed it in the village square, then it got worse and now it’s everywhere. It’s such a strange smell. It smells like anything and everything, but most of all rotting meat. But I haven’t told anyone that, and I’m not going to. I’m afraid to. If I do, I’m frightened someone might say the wrong thing – say it’s coming from where Ramazan died. And that would be the last straw for Rıza. He’d pick up his gun and shoot whoever said it! I mean, we’re on the brink of disaster, I’m telling you. And Hacer. Above all, Hacer. If they started saying that the smell came from the place where Ramazan died, she’d be out in the village square, sniffing, searching for her son! It would spell the end for her. It would kill her!’

  The watchman stopped. To slip down to the floor, I thought. To rest against the sacks.

  ‘Sometimes I ask myself why the muhtar hasn’t returned, and I have all sorts of theories,’ he said, dropping his voice. ‘I get some very strange ideas.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I tell myself that if the muhtar hasn’t come back after all this time, he’s not going to come back . . . If Güvercin is still missing, too, couldn’t it have been the muhtar who kidnapped her?’

  ‘That’s absurd!’

  ‘Why is it so absurd? He had his eyes on that girl. He was just waiting for his chance. Then one night he saw his opening, and took the girl off to some faraway village, or else, who knows, left her in a field and came back. Then he made a fuss as though he knew nothing about it: looked everywhere, got everything searched, pretended to be upset. And then, he says he’s going off to the city to let them know, but instead he goes back to the girl . . . Couldn’t that be it?’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ I said, raising my voice. ‘Don’t talk nonsense for the sake of it! You don’t know what you’re saying!’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he murmured through the darkness. ‘If only I did . . .’

  I heard him stand up.

  ‘Are you off already?’

  ‘I’m off,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’

  After walking a few paces he stopped. From the way his coat rustled I guessed he was under the corncobs. He might even have turned his head, to look at me in tears.

  ‘For some reason my feet are bringing me back,’ he mumbled.

  ‘That means you haven’t finished what you were going to say,’ I said carefully. ‘Maybe you didn’t get around to mentioning the thing you came to talk to me about?’

  ‘You’re right, I didn’t.’

  Neither of us spoke, as a great silence descended, swimming with anxious questions. Then one by one the corncobs crumbled, and suddenly there were a thousand golden raindrops speeding through the night, or that at least was what I could, or could not, see . . . While with my right hand I took hold of the leg that was now only just a little numb, waiting for the watchman to tell me what he’d come to tell me. But for some reason, he still couldn’t speak, as if the words he wanted to say were locked away somewhere. And perhaps, once upon a time, the muhtar had done just this, while standing at the window, gazing into the village square: perhaps he too had tried to wrest himself free of the walls that locked him, arms and legs flailing, but still unseen.

  ‘Are you there?’ I called out after a time.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have something to tell me?’

  He didn’t.

  ‘I can’t keep this to myself, Musa,’ he said, hours later. ‘Ramazan was my son!’

  34

  The watchman was standing outside the muhtar’s office, keeping a close eye on the crowd of villagers gathered in front of him, though when he thought no one was looking, he glanced over at the road that led to the mill. He had no idea why these people congregated under the flagpole every day. That huddle of white-bearded old men – they were probably whispering to each other about the smell. They were so keen to find the source of that smell that they’d dropped everything else to come here and sit in the middle of it. Unless they had each decided separately to come and wait for the muhtar. As if to ensure that, if he did return, the muhtar would see them standing there, as he rode his horse down the mill road, now golden from wheat stalks dropped from the carts. He’d been away so long, he might even have found Güvercin, with her tresses swaying
around her waist . . .

  ‘What’s that?’ shouted the watchman.

  At the sound of his voice, the villagers jumped up. Shielding their eyes, they looked over at the windmill. Far, far away, at the end of the golden gleam, was a crooked shadow, which moved as if gliding on water, shivering down to the stream. When it came up, it had grown. It was probably tired, because it was moving very slowly, and every few steps, it stumbled.

  ‘Who could it be?’ said Nuri.

  ‘No one we know walks like that,’ murmured the watchman. ‘It has something on its back!’

  ‘Could it be Reşit?’ asked someone.

  ‘No,’ said another. ‘He came back a while earlier.’

  The watchman’s temper flared.

  ‘Shut up, you!’ he cried.

  They shut up . . . As they exchanged timid looks, a deep silence fell over the village square – deeper than the stench was wide. The silhouette was closer now and had grown even larger. It made an odd impression, as if with each new step it grew more limbs. Or perhaps it was preparing to take off into the air. As it wended its way down the golden road it slowly came to resemble Cennet’s son. On his back was what looked to be a sack so large that he could only just manage to carry it.

  ‘The madman must have caught all the snakes on the mountain,’ murmured Nuri.

  The crowd calmed down somewhat on hearing these words. Some were preparing to take their seats again when suddenly the watchman went racing off, his coat flapping behind him. A number of others jumped up to follow him. Cennet’s son stopped when he saw them running towards him, to give them a ghastly smile.

  ‘I fouuuuuund Güvercin!’ he shouted. ‘I fouuuund Güvercinnnn!’

  The watchman stopped short and aimed his rifle at him. Through gritted teeth, he said, ‘You filthy dog!’

  Taken by surprise, Cennet’s son turned to the villagers behind the watchman, as if to ask for their help. Then, with great care, he set the girl down. Moving a few paces away from her, he looked around him in alarm.

  ‘Don’t run,’ shouted the watchman. ‘If you try to escape, I’ll shoot!’

  Cennet’s son made no effort to run away. His ghastly smile was now tinged with fear. As his hands were secured with a dung-caked rope of unknown provenance, and his face hit with wads of spit, he said nothing. The watchman wound the other end of the rope around his wrist and pulled him in front of the crowd. Cennet’s son looked defeated, but as he scrabbled along on his knees, kicking up a cloud of dust, he lifted his eyes from time to time to stare at that soldier’s cloak, and smile, very strangely. He seemed to be mocking them from a great distance: he barely noticed the stones that grazed his face, the muddy dust in his ears or the feet swarming past him on either side. Every now and then, he would still raise his head and look for Güvercin; she was a long way behind, on one of the villagers’ backs. Her arms were as slender as oleaster branches. They kept vanishing, only to appear a moment later.

  When they reached the village square, the watchman led his captive towards the muhtar’s office. The crowd suddenly multiplied; the women who had been peering over their courtyard walls came running out, with the men who had been watching from their rooftops. The barns and threshing floors emptied. The children followed, trailed by the dogs. The women and children pushed to the front to form a circle around Güvercin, now lying on the ground. One unfastened her apron to place on the girl’s bare shoulders, another used her headband to cover her hair, another smoothed down her dress and placed her bloodstained feet inside it. Their compassion provoked them to action, yet Güvercin made no response, as if she couldn’t feel their warm hands, or the soft words in her ear, or their looks of concern. Instead, she curled up like a frightened hedgehog.

  When Reşit and his wife came running in, the watchman tied the rope to the flagpole and looked at Cennet’s son, unsure of what to do next. Reşit had his hands around his wife, who was wailing and beating her chest, and so he did not even see his daughter at first. He’d not put his cap on properly, and it rolled off as he moved through the crowd of women. Suddenly, the women took his wife by the hand and pulled her to Güvercin’s side. Mother and daughter clung to each other, sobbing, and there they stood for a very long time as the crowd surrounding them continued its lament. After a while, the mother asked her daughter what had happened to her, but when Güvercin opened her mouth, not a word came out of it. Instead she stopped crying, to fall into a silence that seemed all the deeper amidst so many shrieks and shouts and wails.

  Cennet’s son, meanwhile, was still tied to the flagpole, and gurgling like a dog. He couldn’t understand what had happened, and hadn’t understood from the start. He tried to tell them where he’d found Güvercin, but tripped over his tongue. No one was listening anyway; they all passed him by. Wherever they wandered, wherever they stopped, they never deigned to look him in the eye. Now even the children he had performed for in the streets were losing interest in him, and wandering off into the crowd. Soon they would decide to leave all this to the adults, and return to their own world.

  And then Rıza came running in from wherever he had been. The sound of his rakı-flavoured voice sent a ripple of apprehension through the crowd. Fearing that he might be intending to wring the boy’s neck, the watchman moved a few steps closer to Cennet’s son, but what Rıza did first was to rush towards Güvercin, letting out great growls as he weaved his way between the women and children, uncertain where to rest his swollen eyes. Finally he fell to his knees in front of Güvercin, asking her who had kidnapped her, and where this man had taken her, and what they had done to her. But still the girl would not talk. Lowering her eyes to the ground, she held her breath. Rıza sat down too for a while, asking with his eyes. He might have lingered, but a moment arrived when he could no longer stand it. With a speed that seemed almost to crack open Güvercin’s silence, he rose and drew his pistol. The village square began to hum. The crowd bubbled with fear. The women jumped in front of Güvercin, quickly hiding her from sight. Rıza broke his hand free of the few old men trying to stop him, and ignored the entreaties of the crowd as he made his way to the flagpole.

  ‘Stay there!’ shouted the watchman. ‘If you take another step, I’ll shoot you.’

  Rıza stopped. The two men glared at each other.

  ‘Hand this pimp over to me,’ he said, his voice trembling with anger. ‘It’s high time I drank his blood!’

  The watchman didn’t move a muscle. He wasn’t sure now if he could shoot the man who had fed and raised Ramazan all these years. As he lifted his rifle to aim, his hands began to shake.

  ‘Get out of my sight,’ he said, speaking more softly than before. ‘Until the muhtar gets back, I shall answer for Cennet’s son. I’m handing him over to no one!’

  Rıza didn’t go, of course. Despite the pleadings of the white-bearded old men, he just stood there clutching his pistol, stubborn as a goat. Reşit, caught between Rıza and Güvercin, had no idea how to calm things down. Muttering to himself, he would head straight for the watchman, only to race off to join the old men. Eventually, the imam persuaded Rıza to put his gun away. But even as he was taken off home, staggering as if he’d drunk all the alcohol in the world, he jumped into the air from time to time to announce that, sooner or later, there would be bullets raining down on Cennet’s son. The watchman did not bother to respond. He seemed immune to Cennet’s son’s vows and curses. The watchman just stood there watching his back, until, like a bouncing ball, he vanished from sight.

  ‘The show is over,’ he said to the crowd. ‘Time to go home!’ The women left first, linking arms with Güvercin as gently as if they feared she might break. Then the men wandered downhill in groups of four or five, crossing the village square to fade into the shadows.

  The imam had long since resigned himself to the prospect of no one coming to pray that night. When he went up the minaret to recite the evening call to prayer, there was hardly anyone left in front of the muhtar’s office.

  ‘Why are yo
u still here?’ asked the watchman.

  Reşit shrugged and wandered off. He was as worried as the watchman, and as hopeless, and though he didn’t know what to say, he kept glancing at the base of the flagpole. The watchman waited for a while to see if Reşit would lose his temper like Rıza and try to attack Cennet’s son, but as soon as he was sure this was not his aim, he came out to sit on the doorstep.

  ‘What’ll happen now?’ asked the watchman.

  ‘If only I knew,’ said Reşit. ‘If only I knew . . .’

  The watchman lit a cigarette, and for a moment it illuminated his whole face, but after that the only light that remained was in his eyes, which twinkled like a pair of stars. Then Reşit came over and leant against the wall next to him. They stayed like that for hours, without saying a word, listening disconsolately to the rustling of the plane tree in the village square.

  ‘Let’s marry these two off,’ whispered the watchman. ‘Cleanse the scoundrel of his crime. What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Reşit.

  Taking hope from the fact that this was not an absolute no, the watchman ambled over to Cennet’s son.