by Elif Shafak
‘Yes, yes! It’s on the other side. Ready, everyone?’
Without waiting for an answer, Nostalgia Nalan pointed her torch to the path on their left and marched on, failing to notice the strange smile that had descended on Sabotage’s face and the glaze that had settled in his eyes.
To Err is Human
Finally, they had made it. Leaning in towards one another, they stared at a particular grave as if it were a riddle they needed to decode. Like most of the other graves, this one, too, had just a number on it. Neither ‘Tequila’ nor ‘Leila’ was engraved on her headstone. She did not have a headstone. Nor a well-tended plot with a neat border of flowers. All she had was a wooden board scrawled on by some cemetery worker.
Disturbed by their presence, a lizard scurried from beneath a rock and ran for cover, disappearing into the tangle of bushes ahead. Dropping her voice to a whisper, Humeyra asked, ‘Is this where Leila-jim is buried?’
Nalan stood with a quiet intensity. ‘Yes, let’s dig.’
‘Not so fast.’ Zaynab122 raised a hand. ‘We must pray first. You cannot exhume a body without a proper ritual.’
‘Fine,’ said Nalan. ‘Just make it short, please. We need to hurry.’
Zaynab122 produced a jar from her bag and sprinkled around the grave the mixture she had prepared earlier: rock salt, rosewater, sandalwood paste, cardamom seeds and camphor. With eyes closed and palms turned upwards, she recited the Surah al-Fatiha. Humeyra joined her. Sabotage, feeling dizzy, had to sit down before he could say his prayers. Jameelah crossed herself three times, her lips moving silently.
The ensuing silence was imbued with sadness.
‘All right, time to move on,’ said Nalan.
Using her full weight, Nalan drove her spade deep into the earth, pressing hard on the top of the blade with her boot. Earlier she had been worried that the ground would be frozen, but it was fairly soft and wet, and she quickly set to work, falling into a rhythmic motion. Soon she was surrounded by the familiar, comforting smell and feel of the soil.
An image flashed through Nalan’s mind. She remembered the first time she saw Leila – at first she was just another face in the windows of the brothel, her breath misting the glass. She moved with a quiet grace that almost belied her surroundings. With her hair falling over her shoulders, and her large, dark, expressive eyes, Leila resembled the woman on a coin that Nalan had once found while ploughing the fields. Like that Byzantine empress, there was something elusive in her expression, defying time and place. She remembered how they used to meet in the börek shop, trusting and confiding in each other.
‘Have you ever wondered what happened to her?’ Leila had asked out of the blue one day. ‘That young bride of yours … you left her in that room – alone.’
‘Well, I’m sure she got married to someone else. She must have a troop of kids by now.’
‘That’s not the point, darling. You send me postcards, no? You should write her a letter. Explain what happened and apologize.’
‘Are you serious? I was forced into a sham marriage. It would have killed me. I ran away to save myself. Would you rather I’d stayed and lived a lie my entire life?’
‘Not at all. We must do what we can to mend our lives, we owe that to ourselves – but we need to be careful not to break others while achieving that.’
‘Oh, God!’
Leila had looked at him in that patient, knowing way she had.
Nalan had thrown her hands up. ‘Okay, fine … I’ll write to my dear wife.’
‘Promise?’
As Nalan continued to dig up Leila’s grave, her thoughts flicked involuntarily to that long-ago forgotten exchange. She heard Leila’s voice inside her head and she also remembered that she had never written that promised letter.
Sabotage now stood on the edge of the grave, watching Nalan with a wonder tinged with admiration. He had never been good at manual labour; at home, whenever a tap needed fixing or a shelf had to be put up, they would call a neighbour. Everyone in the family saw him as a man absorbed in boring subjects, such as numbers and tax returns, whereas Sabotage preferred to think of himself as having a creative mind. A neglected artist. Or an unappreciated scientist. A wasted talent. He had never told Leila how he had envied D/Ali. What else had he not told her? Memories raced through his mind, each a separate and distinct piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was his long relationship with Leila, a picture full of irreparable cracks and missing pieces.
Speeded up by the vodka coursing through his system, blood pounded in his ears. He almost closed his ears, trying to shut out the sound. He waited. When the impulse did not pass, he threw his head back as if hoping to find consolation in the sky. Up there he noticed the strangest thing; his expression went slack. A face was staring down at him from the surface of the moon. It was surprisingly familiar. He squinted until his eyes became slits. It was his own face! Somebody had drawn him on the moon! Stunned, Sabotage let out a gasp of disbelief, loud and wheezy like a samovar hissing before coming to the boil. He pursed his lips and bit at the inside of his mouth, trying to control himself, but to no avail.
‘Did you see the moon? I’m up there!’ Sabotage said, his cheeks aflame.
Nalan stopped digging. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
Sabotage rolled his eyes. ‘What’s wrong with me? Absolutely nothing. Why do you always assume something’s wrong with me?’
With a sharp intake of breath, Nalan dropped the spade and strode over to him. She held him by the shoulders and inspected his pupils, noticing they were dilated.
Swiftly, Nalan turned to the others. ‘Did he have a drink?’
Humeyra swallowed. ‘He wasn’t feeling well.’
Nalan clenched her jaw. ‘I see. And what exactly did he have?’
‘Your … vodka,’ said Zaynab122.
‘What? Are you out of your minds? Even I’m cautious with that. Who is going to take care of him now?’
‘I will,’ said Sabotage. ‘I can take care of myself!’
Nalan grabbed the spade again. ‘Make sure you keep him away from me. I mean it!’
‘Come, stay by my side,’ Humeyra said as she gently pulled Sabotage towards her.
Sabotage sighed with a weary exasperation. Once again he was seized by that all-too-familiar feeling of being misunderstood by the people closest to him. He had never set great store by words, expecting the people he loved to read him through his silences. When he had to talk openly, he often hinted at things; when he had to disclose his emotions, he concealed them even more. Perhaps death was scary for everyone, but more so for the one who knew, deep within, that he had lived a life of pretences and obligations, a life shaped by the needs and demands of other people. Now that he had reached the age his father had died – leaving him and his mother all alone in a parochial, gossipy neighbourhood in Van – he had every right to ask himself what would remain of him when he, too, was gone.
‘Didn’t anyone else see me on the moon?’ Sabotage asked, rocking on his heels, his entire body swaying like a raft on choppy waters.
‘Hush, my love,’ said Humeyra.
‘But have you seen?’
Zaynab122 said, ‘Yes, yes. We did.’
‘It’s gone now,’ said Sabotage, eyes cast down, despondency settling into his features. ‘Poof! No more. Is that what happens when you die?’
‘You’re here with us.’ Humeyra opened her Thermos and offered him some coffee.
Sabotage took a few sips, but did not seem comforted. ‘I wasn’t exactly telling the truth when I said I wasn’t scared of this place. It gives me the creeps.’
‘Me too,’ said Humeyra quietly. ‘I was feeling brave when we set off, but not any more. I’m sure I’m going to have nightmares for a long time.’
Although they felt ashamed for not helping Nalan, the four of them stood helplessly side by side, watching lumps of soil being scooped out of the ground, one after another, destroying what little order and peace there was in this strange place.
Nalan climbed out of the hole she had dug, panting and covered in mud. She wiped the sweat off her brow, not realizing she had smudged dirt across her forehead. She said, ‘Thanks for the help, lazy bastards.’
The others did not respond. They were too scared to talk. Agreeing to this crazy plan and hopping into the truck had felt like an adventure, and the right thing to do for Leila. But now, all of a sudden, they were seized by a raw, primordial fear; the vows they had taken earlier had little bearing when faced with a corpse in the middle of the night.
‘Come on. Let’s get her out.’ Nalan panned her torch around the inside of the grave.
A few tree roots became visible in the light, wriggling like snakes. At the bottom of the hole was the shroud, speckled with clods of earth.
‘How come there’s no coffin?’ asked Jameelah when she managed to inch closer and glance down.
Zaynab122 shook her head. ‘Christians do that. In Islam we bury our dead with a simple shroud. Nothing else. It makes us all equal in death. What did your people do back home?’
‘I never saw a dead person before,’ said Jameelah, her voice catching. ‘Except my mother. She was a Christian but converted to Islam after she got married … though … there were disagreements about her funeral. My father wanted a Muslim burial; my aunt, a Christian one. They got into a big fight. Things got ugly.’
Zaynab122 nodded as a cloak of sadness engulfed her. Religion for her had always been a source of hope, resilience and love – a lift that carried her up from the basement of darkness into a spiritual light. It pained her that the same lift could just as easily take others all the way down. The teachings that warmed her heart and brought her close to all humanity, regardless of creed, colour or nationality, could be interpreted in such a way that they divided, confused and separated human beings, sowing seeds of enmity and bloodshed. If she were summoned by God one day, and had a chance to sit in His presence, she would love to ask Him just one simple question: ‘Why did you allow Yourself to be so widely misunderstood, my beautiful and merciful God?’
Slowly, her gaze wandered down. What she saw there jolted her out of her thoughts. She said, ‘There should have been wooden planks over Leila’s shroud. Why wasn’t her body protected?’
‘I guess the gravediggers just didn’t care.’ Nalan dusted off her hands and turned to Zaynab122. ‘Okay, jump in!’
‘What? Me?’
‘I need to stay here and pull the rope. Someone has to get in. You are the smallest.’
‘Precisely, I can’t go down there. If I do, I won’t be able to get out.’
Nalan gave this some thought. She glanced at Humeyra – too fat; then at Sabotage – too drunk; and finally at Jameelah – too weak. She sighed. ‘Fine, I’ll do it. I’ve been down there long enough already, I suppose.’
Putting her spade aside, she moved closer and peered over the edge. A wave of sorrow rose in her chest. Down there was her best friend – the woman with whom she had shared more than two decades of her life – good times, bad times and terrible times.
‘Okay, here is what we’re going to do,’ Nalan announced. ‘I’ll crawl down, you’ll throw me the rope, and I’ll tie it around Leila. At the count of three, you pull her up, got it?’
‘Got it!’ Humeyra rasped.
‘How are we going to pull? Let me see,’ Sabotage said and, before anyone could stop him, he had pushed his way forward.
Under the influence of the knock-out vodka, his normally bloodless complexion had flushed a shade of red reminiscent of a butcher’s block. He was sweating profusely, although he had taken off his jacket. He craned his head as far as he could and squinted into the grave. He paled.
A few minutes earlier, he had seen his face on the moon. That had been a shock. But now there was a ghostly imprint of his face on the shroud below. It was an intimation from Death. His friends might not get it, but he knew that Azrael was telling him that he would be next. His head began to spin. Feeling queasy, he staggered forth half-blind, losing his balance. His feet shot out from under him; sliding down, he tumbled straight into the grave.
It all happened so fast that the others had no time to react – apart from Jameelah, who let out a scream.
‘Now look at you!’ Nalan stood with her legs wide apart, hands on her hips, surveying Sabotage’s predicament. ‘How could you be so careless?’
‘Oh dear, are you all right?’ Humeyra peeked cautiously over the edge.
Down in the pit, Sabotage stood perfectly still but for his trembling jaw.
‘Are you even alive?’ asked Nalan.
Finding his voice, Sabotage said, ‘I feel … I think … I’m inside a grave.’
‘Yes, we can tell,’ said Nalan.
‘Don’t panic, my dear,’ said Zaynab122. ‘Think about it this way. You’re facing your fear, it’s good for you.’
‘Get me out. Please!’ Sabotage was in no state to appreciate any counsel. Careful not to step on the shroud, he moved aside, but instantly shifted again, fearing unseen creatures in the pitch-black recesses of the grave.
‘Come on, Nalan, you must help him,’ said Humeyra.
Nalan heaved her shoulders in a shrug. ‘Why should I? Maybe it would be good for him to stay there and learn a lesson.’
‘What did she say?’ Sabotage’s voice came out in a gurgle, as though a solid substance were stuck in his throat.
Jameelah broke in: ‘She’s just teasing. We’re going to save you.’
‘That’s true, don’t worry,’ said Zaynab122. ‘I’ll teach you a prayer to help –’
Sabotage’s breathing accelerated. Against the darkness of the grave’s side walls, his face had taken on a ghastly pallor. He placed a hand on his heart.
‘Oh, my God! I think he’s having a heart attack – just like his father,’ said Humeyra. ‘Do something, quick!’
Nalan sighed. ‘Okay, fine.’
No sooner had Nalan jumped down into the pit and landed next to him than Sabotage wrapped his arms around her. Never in his life had he been so relieved to see her.
‘Um, can you take your hands off me? I can’t move.’
Reluctantly, Sabotage loosened his arms. Time and again in his life he had been castigated and whittled down to the nub by others: at his childhood home by a strong, loving but strict mother; at school by his teachers; in the army by his superiors; in the office by almost everyone. Years of browbeating had crushed his soul, leaving a pulp where courage might otherwise have bloomed.
Regretting her tone, Nalan leaned forward and knitted her hands together. ‘Come on. Up you go!’
‘You sure? I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Just get on with it, honey.’
Sabotage put a foot in Nalan’s hands, a knee on Nalan’s shoulder, and his other foot on Nalan’s head, clambering his way up. Humeyra, with a bit of help from Zaynab122 and Jameelah, reached down and hauled him out.
‘Thank you, God!’ Sabotage said as soon as he reached ground level.
‘Yeah, I do the hard work, God gets the credit,’ grumbled Nalan from down in the pit.
‘Thank you, Nalan,’ said Sabotage.
‘You’re welcome. Now can somebody please throw me the rope?’
They did. Grabbing the rope, Nalan tied it around the body. ‘Pull!’
At first the corpse refused to budge, determined, it seemed, to stay where it was. Then, inch by inch, they were able to lift it up. When it was high enough, carrying it carefully, Humeyra and Zaynab122 placed the corpse on the ground, as gently as they could manage.
Finally, Nalan scrambled up, her hands and knees covered with scratches and cuts. ‘Phew. I’m exhausted.’
But no one heard her. The others were all staring at the shroud, eyes wide with disbelief. While being hoisted up, a part of the fabric had been ripped open and a fac
e was now partly visible.
‘This person has a beard,’ said Sabotage.
Zaynab122 looked up at Nalan in horror as the truth dawned on her. ‘Allah have mercy on us. We exhumed the wrong grave.’
‘How could we make such a mistake?’ asked Jameelah, after they had reburied the bearded man and smoothed over his grave.
‘It’s because of the old man at the hospital.’ A tinge of embarrassment in her voice, Nalan took out the piece of paper from her pocket. ‘He’s got the worst handwriting. I wasn’t sure whether this was seven thousand and fifty-two or seven thousand and fifty-three. How was I to know? It’s not my fault.’
‘It’s fine,’ Zaynab122 said tenderly.
‘Come on.’ Humeyra composed herself. ‘Let’s dig up the right grave. We’ll help you this time.’
‘I don’t need help.’ Nalan, back to her assertive self, grabbed her spade. ‘Just keep an eye on him.’ She pointed a finger at Sabotage.
Sabotage frowned. He hated being seen as a weakling. Like so many timid people, he secretly believed there was, and always had been, a hero within him, itching to come out and show the whole world who he really was.
Meanwhile, Nalan had already started digging, despite the burning ache between her shoulder blades. Her arms and the rest of her body felt sore too. She glanced furtively at her palms, worrying that she might be getting calluses. During her long, arduous transition from the outward appearance of a man to the woman inside that she already was, it had been her hands that had frustrated her the most. Ears and hands, they were the hardest parts to change, her surgeon had explained. Hair could be transplanted, a nose could be reshaped, breasts could be made bigger, and fat could be removed and injected elsewhere – it was amazing how you could become an entirely new person – only there wasn’t much to be done about the size or shape of your hands. No number of manicures could compensate for that. And she had the strong, solid hands of a farmer, which she had been ashamed of all these years. But tonight she was grateful for them. Leila would have been proud of her.
She excavated slowly and deliberately this time. Humeyra, Jameelah, Zaynab122 and even Sabotage worked silently by her side, removing small amounts of soil at a time. Again the grave was unearthed, again Nalan jumped in, and again the rope was tossed in.
