10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

by Elif Shafak

  There were no Buddhist graveyards in the city. There were various graveyards – historical and modern; Muslim (Sunni, Alevi and Sufi), Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Jewish – but nothing specifically for Buddhists. In the end, the grandmother was brought to the Cemetery of the Companionless. Her family had given their consent, saying she wouldn’t have minded as she was at peace even among strangers.

  Other graves near Leila’s were occupied by revolutionaries who had died in police custody. Committed suicide, it said in official records, found in his cell with a rope [or a necktie or a bedsheet or a shoelace] around his neck. The bruises and the burns on the corpses told a different story, one of severe torture in police custody. A number of Kurdish insurgents were also buried here, carried from the other end of the country all the way to this graveyard. The state did not want them to turn into martyrs in the eyes of their people, so the bodies were carefully packaged, as if made of glass, and transferred.

  The youngest residents of the graveyard were the abandoned babies. Wrapped bundles deposited in mosque courtyards, sun-drenched playgrounds or dimly lit cinemas. Those who were lucky enough were rescued by passers-by and handed to police officers, who kindly fed and dressed them, and gave them a name – something cheerful like Felicity, Joy or Hope to counter their dismal beginnings. But every now and then there would be babies who were not as fortunate. One night out in the cold was enough to kill them.

  On average fifty-five thousand people died in Istanbul every year – and only about one hundred and twenty of them ended up here in Kilyos.

  Visitors

  In the depth of the night, silhouetted against a sky sliced by flashes of lightning, a Chevrolet pickup truck zoomed past the old fortress, kicking up billows of dust. It rattled forward, skidded its way over a kerb, swerving violently towards the outcrop of rocks that separated the land from the sea, but managing to swing back on to the road at the last second. A few yards on, it finally jerked to a halt. For a moment there was no sound – either inside or outside the vehicle. Even the wind, which had been blowing hard since late afternoon, seemed to have died down.

  The driver’s door opened with a screech and Nostalgia Nalan jumped out. Her hair glowed in the moonlight, a halo of fire. She took a few steps, her gaze fixed on the cemetery spreading out in front of her. Carefully, she surveyed the scene. With its rusty iron gate, rows of decrepit graves, wooden boards passing for markers, broken fence offering not a speck of protection from hoodlums, and gnarled cypress trees, the place looked eerie and uninviting. Just as she thought it would. Inhaling a lungful of air, she glanced over her shoulder and announced, ‘We’re here!’

  Only then did the four shadows, huddled against each other in the back of the truck, dare to budge. One by one they raised their heads and sniffed the air, like deer checking whether there were any hunters about.

  The first to stand up was Hollywood Humeyra. As soon as she scrambled out, a rucksack on her back, she patted the top of her head and checked her chignon, which stuck out at an odd angle.

  ‘Oh, God, my hair is a mess. I can’t feel my face. It’s frozen.’

  ‘It’s the wind, you wimp. There’s a storm tonight. I told you to cover your heads. But oh no, you never listen to me.’

  ‘It wasn’t the wind, it was your driving,’ Zaynab122 said, lowering herself with difficulty from the back of the pickup.

  ‘You call that driving?’ Sabotage jumped down and then helped Jameelah.

  Sabotage’s sparse hair stood in quills. He regretted not wearing a woolly hat, but that was nothing next to the regret he was beginning to feel for having agreed to visit this wretched place in the dead of night.

  ‘How on earth did you get your licence anyway?’ asked Zaynab122.

  ‘Slept with the instructor, I bet,’ Humeyra muttered under her breath.

  ‘Oh, shut up, all of you.’ Nalan frowned. ‘Didn’t you see the road? Thanks to me, we’ve at least arrived safe and sound.’

  ‘Safe!’ said Humeyra.

  ‘Sound!’ said Sabotage.

  ‘Bastards!’ Swift and purposeful, Nalan stomped towards the back of the truck.

  Zaynab122 sighed. ‘Um, could you watch your language? We made a deal. No yelling and no swearing in the cemetery.’ She pulled her rosary out of her pocket and began to finger it. Something told her that it was not going to be easy, this night-time venture, and she would need all the help she could get from the good spirits.

  Meanwhile, Nalan had pulled down the tailgate and started taking out the tools – a wheelbarrow, a digging hoe, a mattock, a shovel, a spade, a torch, a coil of rope. She placed them on the ground and scratched her head. ‘We’re missing a pickaxe.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Humeyra. ‘I … I might have dropped it.’

  ‘What do you mean, you might have dropped it? It’s a pickaxe, not a hanky.’

  ‘I couldn’t hold on to it. Blame yourself. You were driving like a maniac.’

  Nalan gave her a cold glare, which went unnoticed in the dark. ‘Okay, enough chit-chat. Let’s get a move on. We don’t have much time.’ She took hold of the spade and the torch. ‘Everyone grab a tool!’

  One by one, they followed her lead. Somewhere in the distance the sea roared and crashed to the shore with enormous force. The wind picked up again, carrying with it the smell of brine. In the background, the old fortress waited patiently – as it had for decades – and the shadow of an animal scurried past its gates, a rat perhaps, or a hedgehog, running for shelter before the storm.

  Silently, they pushed the cemetery gate open and went in. Five intruders, five friends, looking for the one they had lost. As though on cue, the moon disappeared behind a cloud, plunging the entire landscape into shades of black, and, for a passing moment, this lonely site in Kilyos could have been anywhere in the world.

  The Night

  Night-time in the cemetery was not like night-time in the city. Around here, darkness was less an absence of light than a presence of its own – a living, breathing entity. It followed them like a curious creature, whether to warn them of a danger lying ahead or to shove them towards it when the moment came, they could not tell.

  Onward, against the fierce wind, they walked. At first they moved briskly, with an eagerness sparked by discomfort, if not plain fear. They proceeded in single file with Nalan leading the way, spade in one hand, torch in the other. Behind her, each with their own tools, were Jameelah and Sabotage, then Humeyra, pushing the empty wheelbarrow. As for Zaynab122, she brought up the rear, not only because her legs were shorter, but also because she was busy sprinkling salt flakes and poppy seeds to ward off evil spirits.

  A pungent smell rose from the ground – of damp earth, wet stone, wild thistles, rotting leaves, and things they did not wish to name. A heavy, musky smell of decay. They saw rocks and tree trunks covered with green lichen, its leaf-like scales bright and ghostly in the dark. In places, an ivory mist hovered before their eyes. Once they heard a rustle that sounded as if it rose from below the earth. Nalan stopped and panned her torch around. Only then did they grasp the vastness of the cemetery and the size of their task.

  For as long as they could, they stuck to a single path, undeterred by its narrowness and slippery surface, for it seemed to be taking them in the right direction. But soon the path disappeared and they found themselves trudging up a trackless hill among the graves. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, most marked with boards that bore a number, though quite a few seemed to have lost theirs. In the anaemic light of the moon they looked spectral.

  Occasionally, they came across graves privileged with a limestone slab, and once they found an inscription:

  Assumest not that thou art alive but I am gone.

  Nothing is what it seems in this forgotten land …

  Y. V.

  ‘That’s it, I’m going back,’ said Sabotage, his hand closed around his shovel.

  Nalan removed a bramble from her sleeve. ‘Don’t
be daft. It’s just a silly poem.’

  ‘Silly poem? This man is threatening us.’

  ‘You don’t know it’s a man. There are only initials.’

  Sabotage shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. Whoever’s buried here is warning us not to go any further.’

  ‘Just like in the movies,’ murmured Humeyra.

  Sabotage nodded. ‘Yeah, when a group of visitors enter a haunted house and by the end of the night, they’re all dead! And you know what the audience think? Well, they had it coming, really – which is what the newspapers will say about us tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning’s papers have already gone to press,’ said Nalan.

  ‘Oh, great then.’ Sabotage tried to smile. And for a brief moment it felt as if they were in Leila’s flat on Hairy Kafka Street, all six of them, chatting and teasing each other, their voices tinkling like glass chimes.

  Another flash of lightning, this time so close the earth glowed as though illuminated from below. It was followed almost instantly by a crack of thunder. Sabotage stopped and removed a tobacco pouch from his pocket. He rolled himself a joint but struggled with the match. The wind was too strong. Finally, he managed to light it and took a deep drag.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Nalan.

  ‘For my nerves. My poor, frayed nerves. I’m going to have a heart attack in this place. The men on my father’s side of the family have all died before hitting forty-three. My father had a heart attack when he was forty-two. Guess how old I am! I swear it’s a health hazard for me to be here.’

  ‘Come on, if you get stoned, what good will you be?’ Nalan arched an eyebrow. ‘Besides, a cigarette can be spotted from miles away. Why do you think soldiers on the battlefield are banned from smoking?’

  ‘Good grief, we’re not in a war! And what about your torch? Can the enemy see the tip of my joint but not that glaring beam of yours?’

  ‘I’m aiming it at the ground,’ said Nalan, shining the torch on a grave nearby to make her point. Disturbed, a bat flew off, flapping over their heads.

  Sabotage flicked away his joint. ‘Fine. Happy now?’

  They zigzagged around wooden planks and gnarled trees, sweating in spite of the cold; tense and irritable like the unwanted visitors they knew they were. Ferns and thistles brushed against their legs; autumn leaves scrunched underfoot.

  Nalan’s boot got stuck on a tree root. She staggered to regain her balance. ‘Oh, shit!’

  ‘No profanities,’ warned Zaynab122. ‘The djinn might hear you. They live in tunnels underneath graves.’

  ‘Maybe now is not the right time to tell us,’ said Humeyra.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to scare you.’ Zaynab122 surveyed her mournfully. ‘Would you even know what to do if you came across a djinn? Don’t panic, that’s rule number one. Don’t run, number two – they’re faster than us. Number three: don’t scorn him – or her, female djinn have the worst tempers.’

  ‘That I can totally relate to,’ said Nalan.

  ‘Is there a rule number four?’ asked Jameelah.

  ‘Yes: do not let them charm you. The djinn are masters of disguise.’

  Nalan snorted, and then caught herself. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Zaynab122 pressed on. ‘If you had read the Qur’an, you’d know. The djinn can take the form of anything they want: human, animal, plant, mineral … See that tree? You think it’s a tree, but it could be a spirit.’

  Humeyra, Jameelah and Sabotage stole sideways glances at the beech tree. It seemed old and ordinary, with a knotty trunk, and branches that appeared as lifeless as the corpses underground. But now that they were staring at it closely, perhaps it did exude an uncanny energy, an unearthly aura.

  Nalan, who had carried on unperturbed, slowed down and glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Enough! Stop freaking them out.’

  ‘I’m trying to help,’ said Zaynab122 defiantly.

  Even if all that nonsense were true, why load people with information they wouldn’t know what to do with? Nalan wanted to say, but refrained. In her view, human beings resembled peregrine falcons: they had the power and the ability to soar up to the skies, free and ethereal and unrestrained, but sometimes they would also, either under duress or of their own free will, accept captivity.

  Back in Anatolia, Nalan had seen at close hand how falcons would perch on their captors’ shoulders, obediently waiting for the next treat or command. The falconer’s whistle, the call that ended freedom. She had also observed how a hood would be put on these noble raptors to make sure they would not panic. Seeing was knowing, and knowing was frightening. Every falconer knew that the less it saw the calmer the bird.

  But underneath that hood where there were no directions, and the sky and the land melted into a swathe of black linen, though comforted, the falcon would still feel nervous, as if in preparation for a blow that could come at any moment. Years later now, it seemed to Nalan that religion – and power and money and ideology and politics – acted like a hood too. All these superstitions and predictions and beliefs deprived human beings of sight, keeping them under control, but deep within weakening their self-esteem to such a point that they now feared anything, everything.

  Not her though. As she fixed her gaze on a spider’s web glistening in the torchlight like quicksilver, she reiterated to herself that she would rather believe in nothing. No religion, no ideology. She, Nostalgia Nalan, would never be blindfolded.

  Vodka

  Having arrived at a corner where the path started up again, the band of friends came to a halt. Here the grave numbers seemed haphazard, out of sequence. In the passing light of her torch, Nostalgia Nalan read aloud: ‘Seven thousand and forty, seven thousand and twenty-four, seven thousand and forty-eight …’

  She frowned, as if suspecting someone was mocking her. She had never been good at maths. Or at any other subject, really. To this day, one of her recurring dreams involved her being back at school. She saw herself as a little boy clad in an ugly uniform, hair cropped painfully short, beaten by the teacher in front of the whole class for poor spelling and poorer grammar. Back then the word ‘dyslexia’ had not yet entered the Dictionary of Daily Life in the village, and neither the teacher nor the headmaster had shown Nalan any sympathy.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Zaynab122.

  ‘Sure!’ Nalan pulled herself together.

  ‘These markers are so weird,’ muttered Humeyra. ‘Which way do we go now?’

  ‘Why don’t you all stay here? I’ll go and check,’ said Nalan.

  ‘Maybe one of us should come with you?’ Jameelah looked concerned.

  Nalan waved her hand. She needed to be alone for a brief moment and collect her thoughts. Taking out a flask from the inside of her jacket, she drank a hefty glug to fortify herself. Then she handed the flask to Humeyra, the only other person in the group who could consume alcohol: ‘Try it, but be careful.’

  So saying, she disappeared.

  Now without a torch, and with the moon hiding momentarily behind a cloud, the four of them were left in the darkness. They inched closer together.

  ‘You realize this is how it begins,’ Humeyra murmured. ‘In the movies, I mean. One of them leaves the others, and is brutally killed. It happens only a few yards from the group but they don’t know it, of course. Then another walks off and meets the same end …’

  ‘Relax, we’re not going to die,’ said Zaynab122.

  If Humeyra, despite the tranquillizers she had taken, was becoming nervous, Sabotage was feeling worse. He said, ‘That liquor she gave you … Why don’t we have a sip?’

  Humeyra hesitated. ‘You know it’s a disaster when you drink.’

  ‘But that’s on a normal day. We are in a state of emergency tonight. I told you girls about the men in my family. I’m not scared of this place exactly. It’s death that makes my blood run cold.’

  ‘Why don’t you smoke your joint?’ Jameelah suggested helpfully.

  ‘Don’t have any left. How am I goin
g to walk in this state? Or dig up a grave?!’

  Humeyra and Zaynab122 glanced at each other. Jameelah shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Fine,’ said Humeyra. ‘I need a sip myself, to be honest.’

  Grabbing the flask from her, Sabotage guzzled an impressive draught. Then another.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Humeyra said. She, too, knocked back a slug. An arrow of fire shot down her throat. She screwed up her face and hunched over. ‘What … argh … What was that?!’

  ‘I don’t know, but I liked it,’ said Sabotage, and snatched the flask for another quick gulp. It felt good, and in a flash he downed another slurp.

  ‘Hey, stop it.’ Humeyra took back the flask and put the lid on. ‘That’s strong stuff. I’ve never –’

  ‘Okay, let’s go! It’s this way,’ rose a voice from the shadows. Nalan was coming back.

  ‘Your liquor,’ said Humeyra walking towards her. ‘What kind of a poison is it?’

  ‘Oh, did you try it? It’s special. They call it Spirytus Magnanimus. Polish vodka – or Ukrainian, Russian or Slovak. We fight over who invented baklava, was it the Turks or the Lebanese or the Syrians or the Greeks … and those Slavs have their own vodka wars.’

  ‘So that was vodka?’ Humeyra asked incredulously.

  Nalan beamed. ‘You bet! But no other vodka comes close. Ninety-seven per cent alcohol. Functional, practical. Dentists give it to their patients before they extract teeth. Doctors use it for surgery. They even make perfume with it. But in Poland, they drink it at funerals – to toast the dead. So I thought it’d be appropriate.’

  ‘You brought a lethal vodka to a cemetery?’ said Zaynab122, and shook her head.

  ‘Well, I’m not expecting you to appreciate it,’ said Nalan, sounding offended.

  ‘And were you able to find Leila’s grave?’ Jameelah enquired, changing the subject to dispel the tension.