by Rose Fox
The terrified passengers began to escape, some of them jumped off the top deck of the bus and fled in all directions, screaming in fear and within two minutes the bus was empty. Naziah climbed down the interior stairs clutching her baby in one arm and Andar, her mother, with the other. Their legs trembling, they ran through the open spaces, to the fields in front of them, among the masses of people fleeing for their lives.
Two huge trucks suddenly arrived and stopped near the empty bus. Turkish soldiers, wearing military fatigues, jumped off the trucks and, some standing and others kneeling, began firing indiscriminately at the backs of the fleeing crowd.
The shots echoed for a few minutes until all at once there was dead silence. Only smoke and fire and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh rose above the many corpses.
Night fell on the fields, roads and paths that were covered with thousands of bodies.
* * *
The first two front teeth appeared in Karma’s mouth. Nana Kahit tapped them with a spoon and ululated joyously. She held him up lovingly and laughed with happiness out of her toothless mouth.
Karma grew up on the knees of his Nana in the meager tent, one of tens of thousands of Kurdish tents.
When he learned to talk, she would embrace him in her skinny arms and tell him her life story. She chattered away in her language and told him about heroic people, who struggled and were killed to gain independence for the millions of Kurds who were dispersed all around.
“Where do they live?” he asked and she sucked her lips and threw her arms in the air excitedly. The flabby skin that shook on her arms told of her advancing age, but her mind was sharp and clear.
“The ancient country where we all lived together was called Kurdistan, which means “The Land of the Kurds,” she explained lovingly to the child. “Now, the Kurds are dispersed among four countries.”
He looked at her with adoration and she continued telling him the story of her tormented people.
“People invented borders and cut us in four. They divided Kurdish homeland between several countries and never recognized it as an independent state.”
The child did not understand why his Nana was crying, but he grasped that there was something important in what she was saying.
When Karma grew up, he learned that Kurds were divided into more than four parts. Millions of Kurds lived in North Iraq, many others dwelt in the mountainous region of Western Iran and millions more were to be found in Northern Syria and Armenia. After many years, he discovered that the vast majority of his people lived in the Eastern Mountains of Turkey. Here, in Turkey, young Karma also lived a neglected and meager existence in the tents of his adopted family, among thousands of other shabby tents.
No one could have known or seen where the vast sea of tents ended. They were spread out over tracts of barren rocky wasteland. The tents began from a flat plain, crossed mountain ranges then rose and fell according to the valleys and hills in the terrain as far as the eye could see.
The orphaned boy grew up to become a tall and handsome youth. His eyes glowed with the amber hue he inherited from his mother Naziah, a mother he would never know. All the dwellers of the land of the tents were familiar with the story of how he had been found in the mass killing field.
Even the children knew and almost every day they would encircle his Nana Kahit’s tent and the regular ceremony would commence. The children would begin clapping their hands rhythmically, wordlessly at first, with their fingers spread out. Then they distance themselves by several tents and from there they would peep out and sing on top of their voices to the beat of their clapping. They sang a song that a ten-year-old boy, Alai, had composed.
Here lives the tit sucker of Naziah the whore
Left abandoned, neglected and wanted no more,
Karma is the devil you must always ignore,
He’s the orphan bastard of Naziah, the whore.
In time, this song and the hand-clapping ritual became a really offensive ceremony and Karma despised it. When the children would assemble outside the tent, clap hands and sing that disgusting song, Karma would draw open the tent flap and stand opposite them in a threatening pose, with his hands on his hips. They would disperse with squeals of enjoyment, watching how Alai remained facing him courageously before running up to him to kick him, push him and then run off to join the fleeing children.
It carried on like that till the day Karma decided to outwit them.
That day, he heard the loathsome song but, he did not approach the opening of the tent. The song grew louder outside and the clapping hands beat their rhythm while Karma waited, held himself back and then slowly moved the tent flap aside and, as usual, stood at the entrance. All at once, he burst out and shoved Alai hard and saw him fall backward on the ground. Alai got up, joined the fleeing children as he ran with a limp and Karma knew he was weeping.
This was followed by several peaceful days without the song, the clapping of hands or mocking laughter. When Karma went out of the tent, he looked at the children, who kept their distance from him, and he enjoyed seeing the awe and respect, reflected in their eyes. The experience taught him a powerful lesson.
The muddy waters of the river in which fish raced around flowed a short way from there. Karma would run there every day, early in the morning, when the sun had only just risen, hesitantly. He bathed in the water and played happily, trying to grab hold of the fish around him. In time, he learned how to catch them in his hands and throw them on to the river bank with a quick flick of his wrist. He watched them flapping around, flipping back on the reeds and gasping for air until they stopped convulsing and lay still. He gathered the fish and brought them to Nazim, his adopted mother, to prepare a meal for all of them.
In the afternoons, he would sit on the mat, lean on Nana Kahit and listen to her tales. He would relax at the sound of her voice and grow languid from her caresses.
“Many years ago,” his Nana told him, “we did not live in one place. We would wander from place to place with our donkeys and camel and would only stop in a place where we found some grass or a well to water our herds.”
“Did you never remain in one place?” he inquired.
“Yes, when I was almost your age, I heard my parents discussing the fact that people had created political borders and concentrated us in the exact place we had reached. And there, we remained.”
She hummed a song from her toothless mouth and stroked his silky hair.
“My Dear Karma, I saw Kurds who live in mud huts and not tents.”
“What are mud huts?”
“They build walls from clay soil and they protect people from the wind and the rain. Many people, who lived in adobe huts, created permanent communities.”
“We’re called “Mountain People,” she told him, “we are always surrounded by mountains, sand, and desert.”
Karma understood very well that the nickname referred to their homeland. All he ever saw around him were rocks, mountain ranges, and endless barren drylands. He was accustomed to places where nothing grows out of the earth and he silently observed how they dug trenches in the sand and buried people they brought from other locations in them. He never noticed any inscriptions marked on the graves and took it for granted that this was the norm.
Scrawny cattle grazed close by and between the tents. Their pelvic bones stuck out under their emaciated and dirty skin. They would roam around, grazing on meager bushes that managed to survive and push up stalks and leaves from the blighted soil or crouched down and chewed the cud. Karma stared at the saliva dripping from their mouths and recoiled in disgust.
Three wasted cows like these were attached to their tent and his father urged him to herd them to pastures where broad-bladed tender leaves grew that were easier to chew. The father knew that these greener leaves would fill their udders and they would produce fatty yellow milk for the babies that were added to the family each year. Nana Kahit noticed how much Karma despised those animals and she came to his aid. She would hav
e him join her, asking that he come and help her with her daily chores.
There, in the distance, in some space cleared amid the sea of tents, Nana and other women of her age cultivated tracts of land. They planted seedlings of wheat and barley over the length and breadth of many dunams. Karma loved going there. Fascinated, he would watch the vast sea of ears of wheat undulating in the wind.
On another tract of land, there were scraggy fruit trees and broad-leaved tobacco bushes. Karma would join his mother, Nazim, there. She taught him how to thread the green leaves on long thin wires to dry. Later, they would come and observe how the green leaves changed their color to orange, yellow, then to brown.
No one knew Nana Kahit’s age and it was likely that even she did not know the date of her birth. So, when she did not get up one morning, his mother Nazim knew that she had lived fifty or perhaps fifty-five years.
“She lived long enough.” Karma heard her remark and understood later that his grandmother had outlived many women in his village and had actually reached a ripe old age.
Karma was almost fourteen when they buried his beloved grandmother, but her stories were deeply ingrained in his adolescent soul. It was she, who gave him the will to join in the struggle for his people’s independence a few years later. Nevertheless, he remembered, as if sharing a secret, she had added something that became an integral part of his personality:
“Always outwit them, my child. Don’t confront the enemy directly, rather surprise him. Hide and be furtive because that is the only way you will succeed.”
They lived in the constant shadow of war and Karma noticed the absence of many men who went out to join the rebel groups and never returned to the tents. Later, he would see their children wandering around the other tents where the men had returned to their families.
At night, when he lay beside his siblings, there were times when he saw the bent figure of his father entering the tent and heard sounds from his mother’s bed. Before he fell asleep, he heard the moans and grunts and saw the dark shape moving over the figure of his submissive mother. He was angry with him but said nothing.
Once, after too many days, Abdul, his father, did not return and Karma found he was longing for the shadow of his slim figure. Karma looked at the other men, who had left with his father but later returned to the tents. He thought how much he would have preferred to continue hearing the nightly cries, the sighs, and the groans, that he had once detested so much.
Many days later he saw his mother crying. At first she only cried at night, in secret and he knew that she was holding back and swallowing her sobs. Then he found her wiping her face openly. He knew that perhaps she didn’t miss his father and afterward understood that she was crying because she couldn’t get enough wheat to grind into flour to feed her nine children.
Karma was the third child and was already sufficiently mature to come to terms with hunger and the rumblings of his empty stomach. He looked at his hungry little brothers, whose stomachs were swollen because of their never ending malnutrition and whose legs were like thin sticks.
His heart went out to his emaciated little five-year-old sister, Kahil. Too weak to stand, she was at death’s door for many days. He looked at her helplessly and all he could do was to wave his hand all the time to drive away the flies that bothered her.
Like Nana Kahit, Kahil also did not get up one day.
“Come here, Karma,” his mother requested, “Get some cloth to cover her.”
He went outside, searched around and found a large section torn from an abandoned tent and pulled it after him to the tent. Together, they rolled her in the canvas he brought and Karma swung her up onto his shoulder.
It was mid-day and they proceeded slowly as he bore her wasted body to the distant fields, behind the cultivated tracts. Here, they laid her wrapped body on the ground and using sticks and broken branches, he and his two brothers dug her grave. They buried her and covered her tiny body with sand.
Karma knelt on his scrawny knees beside the mound of sand and stones that covered Kahil’s grave and did not rise. His mother turned to go back to the tents, pulling the hands of her two little daughters. His brothers and sisters moved to join her and he stared silently at them till the last of his siblings disappeared behind the distant rows of tents.
According to his sense of logic, Karma believed that what he was about to do would be the greatest help he could offer his mother. Without him, it would be easier for her to feed his brothers and younger sisters. He was sure that she would come to terms with his absence and understand the considerations that led to his decision.
When they were all out of sight, Karma lay down on his back. He gazed at the mound of sand and stones on top of little Kahil’s grave and noticed that their color was different from those in the area. A thin stalk pushed its way up beside a small mound and Karma picked it and absent-mindedly began chewing it. It was bitter and he twisted his lips and spat it out. He glanced around at the blue skies, the distant brown mountains and then got up, shook the sand from his clothes and began to walk. After a few paces, he stopped again and looked back, wondering and somewhat hesitant and finally decided. He spat on the sand again and continued on his way.
He recalled the stories of his grandmother and the adobe houses and quickened his strides deciding to look for the settled Kurdish villages. He decided to search out and find the people, who lived in houses that offered protection from the sun, the wind, and the rain.
Stretching out before him, as far as the eye could see, was another tent encampment and he stopped hesitantly. For lack of choice, he continued walking towards the camp and strode around for hours between the thousands of tents.
Sheep with meager wool and skinny cows were roaming around just like him when he noticed a yellow dog near one of the tents. His ribs were visible under his skin and his curly ears lent him the appearance of a sheep. Karma bent down and petted him, stroked his silky neck and affectionately patted his skinny ribs. When he continued walking, the dog followed him like a shadow. The dog became his companion and Karma knew that he now had two mouths to feed – his and the dog. The animal brushed up against his legs and looked at him submissively. In the distance, Karma saw a group of sheep coming towards them. They surrounded a dirty water trough and he immediately questioned whether it was wise to drink from it. He was very thirsty but decided not to take a chance. His dog ran ahead of him and lapped up the water eagerly and came right back, wagging his tail.
Towards evening, Karma was exhausted and sat down beside one of the tents. His dog lay down beside him, panting fast with his tongue hanging out. Karma looked at him and decided to name him Abdul after the Father he loved.
An old woman came out of the tent, said something that sounded like “Shu, Shu,” and waved her hand to chase the dog away, but Karma pulled the dog closest to him. He wanted to stand up and go away, but he was too weak, tired and hungry. The woman looked at him, disappeared into the tent and reappeared, extending some food for him in her hand and mumbling words he didn’t understand. It was the only food that entered his mouth that day. He tore a piece of the food he got and offered it to his dog. The dog grabbed it in his teeth, chomped it down quickly and begged for more with his eyes. The woman went back into the tent and Karma lay down on the ground, the dog stretched out beside him and they both slept.
Intense cold spread around them and Karma woke up, his whole body shivering. He clapped his hands together. It was still dark and all at once he smelled smoke that irritated his throat. He coughed and looked around.
A small fire flickered near one of the tents and Karma stood up and moved quietly towards it. A woman stood by the fire and busied herself with it. The smell of something baking rose in the air and saliva filled his mouth. Stealthily, he crept closer to the fire like a hungry animal but the woman noticed him and recoiled. The meager light from the coals illuminated the face of the scrawny boy and she relaxed.
Karma continued standing and, for a moment, he thought he
would grab what was cooking on the fire and run away, but the woman preempted him. She tore a piece off the large flat pita bread that lay on the ground beside her and held it out to him. Karma pulled it from her hand and bit into it hungrily. A high-pitched wail from the dog reminded Karma to tear off a piece and throw it to him on the sand.
He carried on, chewing the rest of the pita and ignoring the dog, who leaped up in the air and growled to demand more of the food he saw in his young master’s hand.
In the weak light of dawn, that began breaking through the receding darkness in the distance. Karma saw rows of narrow leaves and crowded bushes and realized he had reached a source of water. He did not know it was the continuation of the same stream from the mountains that also flowed between the tents of his childhood, in which he played and caught fish with his bare hands.
A group of children sat a distance away and their laughter was heard ringing out of the awakening day. Karma slowly drew closer to them, preparing for and fearing their reaction. None of them took any notice of him or his dog and Karma sat down beside them on the bank of the river. One of the children glanced at him. He was grasping a fish that was writhing and Karma put out his hand to him.
“Would you like me to cook that fish for you?”
The boy was silent and kept standing. The fish jumped out of his grasp and fell on the sand, as it continued writhing and jumping. More children joined them and stood in front him.
“I know how to light a fire and cook fish,” Karma announced.
The children still had not responded. Karma looked around him and began collecting dry twigs that were scattered around and a minute later saw how the children joined him to gather more firewood.
“Let’s dig a little well in the sand and put the wood we have collected in it,” Karma suggested aloud and immediately began to dig, using a branch and his fingers. Within a few minutes, a mound of branches formed in the little well and Karma looked at it and scratched his head.
