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by Hakan Günday

  Kandalı was the town we fought one another to live in. I’d come too late to see the days it had been called Kandağlı. The letter Ğ didn’t wait for me and had long taken its leave. Seated in the middle of Kandağ, which resembled a couch more than it did a mountain, and thus not a recipient of much wind unless it one day chanced to get lost, Kandalı was a small town that everyone insisted on calling a county. Perhaps calling it a county brought them close, if only phonetically, to the possibility of living in a city. In reality Kandalı was a town-sized pit where the humidity was practically a glass curtain, so you had to part it with your hands to move forward, measure it with scales instead of a barometer. A flowerpot that couldn’t pull any more than its weight in population, where anything that overgrew would dry up and croak before long. It was a place of olive consumption, of olive tree harvesting, of downing a spoonful of olive oil to fortify oneself for rakı drinking. And sawdust was all over the place.

  Wherever I looked I saw sawdust scattered everywhere, so that whatever was about to be spilled would be easier to sweep up later. There was sawdust in all of its five town buses, four coffee houses, its one main street, and numerous small streets no one cared to count. Sawdust in the houses, sawdust in the shops, on the soles of shoes and the knees of children, everywhere. All of Kandalı was covered in sawdust like it’d rained from the heavens. So that nothing would be left of Kandalı and of us …

  It was in the back of our truck as well, of course. I scattered it on and swept it off. I did it so often it felt like it would stay in my life no matter where I went in the world. Maybe that was as it should be: the whole world should be covered in sawdust! That would make it easier to sweep up entrails spilled by knife, sword, or lead, or the blood from the rape of girls by baton, prick, or fist, everywhere in the world. Because sawdust was magic! It absorbed everything and was cleared away with the sweep of a mop. That was what sawdust did: it sucked up the shitty past and cleared the ground for an even shittier future.

  Our own sweet home was at the end of a two-hundred-meter-long dirt road just past the sign at the town exit, one side of which read “Welcome to Kandalı!” and the other “Good-bye!” As for some reason my father refused to have the road paved, we’d emerge at the main road covered in dust. So I’d made a sign reading DUST STREET and tacked it up at the entrance of the road. The sign had been so well received even the postman had written it in his address book. Henceforth our address was Dust Street, Kandalı. No number, since ours was the only house there. I even hated our address. If it were a living thing, I’d kill it! Anyhow …

  Our plot of land was one and a half acres. Left to my mother by her father who’d died when she was just a girl. It was basically as if the plot were the only relative I had besides father. We had no one else. I had absolutely no knowledge of the whereabouts or activities of my father’s family. Father didn’t tell me anyhow. All I knew was that he’d come from far, far away. He had up and come to Kandalı from Bosnia or Bulgaria or South Africa or some other place I couldn’t care less about, maybe lost his family on the way.

  He must have seemed interesting to my mother because his looks differed from that of the town average. He was pale, with eyes of even paler blue, and he was handsome as a cat. Genetically speaking he was a dickhead. So it hadn’t taken him long to catch my mother in his web, and then I was born. And when mother died, it was my turn to fall into the web. I don’t know if at any point in his life he had a legitimate job. Perhaps he had gotten into this line of work at nine, like me! Ultimately, all I knew was that the house, shed, and the reservoir underneath the shed were his places of business and that he occasionally transported vegetables and fruits. For the sake of giving the impression he was working, I suppose …

  Aruz’s eighteen-wheelers took off from Kandalı into the depths of Asia Minor, arrived at the entrance of the village of Derç that was three hundred kilometers away, and drove along the Derçisu Creek, in the winter a thousand times its summer width, before entering the forest. The road ended a few hundred meters in, but the huge eighteen-wheeler would already have been swallowed up by the surrounding red, black, and stone pines, becoming invisible. That was the exact point at which the fifteen-minute run of transporting the goods would take place and, having nothing to do except open and close the vault doors, I’d breathe in the fragrances of thyme, sage, and lavender and imagine burning down the whole forest so it would smell even more strongly. That was the precise spot my father had buried Cuma. Among the lavender …

  That morning, I’d neglected to turn on the conditioner when I was supposed to, and then forgotten about it completely. According to father’s plan, we were to put Cuma on the boat toward nightfall and then return to Derçisu to pick up new goods. Father must have counted on me, since he didn’t check the back when we were setting out. But when we made it to the cove where the boat was waiting and opened the back, we’d encountered not Cuma, but his corpse. This had forced my father to make a decision. He would have to either bury Cuma somewhere in the cove and be late for the delivery, or take him to Derçisu and figure it out there. He chose not to be late. And to give me a lesson … thus I’d had to ride to Derçisu not on the passenger seat next to my father, watching the road, but in terror in the back, trying not to look at Cuma’s corpse. For hours on the road—trying to stay as far away as possible from Cuma’s constantly shifting corpse …

  When we got to Derçisu, my father dug away like a beaver and quickly buried Cuma. That was why the forest was as cursed to me as it was sacred to the immigrants. Because there they were one step closer to their goal. When their transition to the truck was complete, there was a brief transaction, then the same three hundred kilometers back until we entered Dust Street. We’d park the truck in the shed and open the doors of the vault. As we opened the lid in the corner of the shed, we’d say, “Come on!” and even if they didn’t know the words, our gestures would immediately tell the immigrants what to do and they’d disappear through the hole just wide enough for a human to fit through.

  Father had had the reservoir installed two years ago. Due to the security necessities of the chaining method—that was dependent on the steps prior and subsequent to the delivery, which could end up being delayed—he’d decided the shed was no longer suitable. So he’d called in constructors from Barnak, a village two hundred kilometers away, and told them, “I want a water reservoir.” He’d even drawn a water pipe from the main grid to the reservoir so they wouldn’t get suspicious. Although the men had pointed out that the reservoir should be nearer the house for the stability of the water pipes, they hadn’t been too insistent since my father was paying their wages. When he said he wanted a cast iron door, they hadn’t made a peep, since it was much more costly than a simple iron door. It wasn’t their problem if some nut wanted to seal off his water reservoir like it was a manhole!

  When the lid was installed, further confirming my status as a sewage worker, we had at our disposal a hell pit large enough for two hundred people to fit in, provided they sucked in their bellies and stayed close to one another. A perpetually warm tomb where the tropical maps on the damp concrete walls and the ponds accumulating on the floor constantly shifted places and shapes. A cell lit by the diffused shadows of spiderwebs rather than by the bulb I had to replace two or three times a week. A cellar we used to age people in …

  Yet the immigrants, who’d traveled who knows how many thousands of kilometers to get here, never paid attention to the décor and immediately lined up to sit on the wet floor like they came here every day, resting their heads between their palms and taking up their pose of the waiting. The perfect waiters! They could wait days, weeks, months without tiring. Once they rested their heads on their palms, they disengaged like space shuttles and sank into a strange sleep until they were woken up again. A kind of standby mode that wasn’t quite like sleep … auto-anesthesia!

  Since experience had taught me that sitting on that wet floor eventually gave them diarrhea and left me with longe
r sawdust-sweeping duty, I handed out pieces of newspaper and Styrofoam. Then, for obvious reasons, I’d put buckets in front of them. One per family. One per set of friends. I’d ask the lone ones, “Who would you like to shit with?” They wouldn’t understand, of course. I couldn’t be bothered to explain.

  Just as I was headed to the six wooden steps leading up from the reservoir to the shed, one of them would step forward and ask. They usually had a spokesman. Someone who could string together about four words in English or who’d had the right mind to learn useful words in the languages of the countries he’d be traversing. Someone clever … I’d know what he was asking, of course. But I’d pretend I didn’t. “When?” he’d say. In all the languages he knew. He’d ask when they’d be setting out again. I’d tell him to forget about it and concentrate instead on the more pressing issue of what the hell they were going to do when they had to use the buckets in a few hours. He’d make nothing of this long reply and repeat his question. I’d ignore this again, of course, and walk out. I’d return with a clothesline for them to stretch from the hooks on the walls and an old sheet to hang over it, and hand these to the spokesman who’d be in my face again. As he stared dumbly at me, unaware that he’d just been given the materials to partition their home measuring twelve by six meters in perimeter and twelve meters in height, and fashion a toilet for themselves, however primitive, I’d already be up in the shed, pulling the lid down. They’d very well figure out the curtain thing by themselves. I’d never encountered anyone who hadn’t. Leave people with no resources and they’ll make a rocket out of innards!

  Depending on the situation, they’d stay in the reservoir half a day or two weeks, and then be on their way. Dordor and Harmin were the ones who determined this. With respect to the course of the pattycake they played with the coast guard, they’d decide on a date for the departure of the boat and call to give my father the code for the place and time of their meeting. And one night the lid would open, a route ranging from fifty to two hundred kilometers would be traveled, and they’d jump on a boat on one of those coasts of the Aegean that looked like it had been gnawed on by wolves and vanish into the darkness …

  That was the whole job. It wasn’t much … But on that morning … There was more. That morning, there was more than more! My awakening was more. The way I got out of bed, the way I walked, it was more. The way I washed my face and walked some more, again; more. I was immersed in something similar to happiness. My hands, my eyes, and what I saw were more. There was something about me that made me forget about my life … something more … It was love.

  There was a party of twenty-four in the reservoir. As Dordor would say, a parade! They’d been there for two days. Among them the one who’d dipped me into that something more, the world’s most beautiful girl … She must have been around my age. Or maybe a year older. Maybe two. She had black hair. Black eyes … I didn’t know where she was from, but I wanted to ask. Her name, age, what she liked, what she wanted to be when she grew up … I couldn’t get her out of my mind ever since I’d seen her passing from the eighteen-wheeler into our truck. I couldn’t sleep. I held my breath without realizing it, leaving myself breathless, then chortled to myself like Ender used to do. I didn’t know how to fall in love but felt it must be something like this: planning like I was preparing for a robbery … chasing the right moves, the right places, the right moments … It wasn’t that much different from hunting. In fact, the man who’d made the first leopard print must have thought the same thing. Love had to do with hunting. What woman would want to look like an animal otherwise?

  Time was running out. Dordor and Harmin might send word any minute, and the most beautiful girl in the world would disappear in a matter of hours. I was waiting for father to leave the house, but he just wouldn’t. It was like he was nailed down! So I decided to ignore him. This was a big decision. Very big! I’d take my only chance that day and place a bet to the possibility of my father not going down to the reservoir. I was a born gambler. A million to one odds was enough for me. That, and I was counting on the fact that Father woke around noon, came around in the afternoon, started drinking before nightfall, and made me do everything shed- or reservoir-related. So I might not have been that big a gambler. I’ve always felt more like a gambling ticket anyway. I was even willing to put in my will that my bones be made into gambling tickets. That wouldn’t be halfway bad. At least, it wouldn’t be against my nature!

  All I’d thought about the last two days was how to make the world’s most beautiful girl happy. Obviously I didn’t have much to offer her. I had a necklace of my mother’s. A gold chain with an angel on the end. I could give her that. But what use would it be to her, given the situation she was in? I needed something more real. That’s when it occurred to me that all they’d been eating was the sandwiches I gave out. I made them. Tomato-and-cheese sandwiches. That and I gave them water. For free, even! So that the world’s most beautiful girl would see what a thoughtful person I was. I couldn’t tell if she noticed, though. It didn’t seem that way. She didn’t even look at me, even though I did everything I could to prolong my time in the reservoir. Still, she was having the worst days of her life. For now …

  Anyway … I’d made up my mind. My present to her would be a nice meal, one that left its taste in her mouth for the rest of her journey and reminded her of me. But what was a good meal? For me, it was meat … would she like that too? Also, was it romantic to give food to someone? Maybe that, and to let her out of the reservoir so she could breathe for a while … without Father knowing. That was the most knightly I could be in my current circumstances. I didn’t know how much more dangerous you could get with the one you love. Because it couldn’t get more dangerous than that for me.

  I was up early that morning. I’d dressed quietly and left the house because I was sure my father was still sleeping. Yet when I shut the door and looked out at Dust Street, I saw something that upset all my plans. On a chair at the beginning of the dirt road was Father, just sitting there. There were about forty meters between us and his back was to me. He seemed to be waiting for someone to come from the direction of the main road. Yet he was so still I thought for a second he might be dead. Maybe that was a wish, I can’t say for sure. With every step I took in his direction, I tried to think up a lie so I could go into town. I’d just come up to him silently when I saw that his chin was practically on his chest. He was sleeping! He’d fallen asleep on that chair. He’d probably drunk till morning and passed out. I had no idea why he was seated to face Dust Street. Why ever he had been drinking there when he had the whole yard to get drunk in? I didn’t care a bit. All I cared about was that he was passed out … I passed him discreetly and took off running when I was a good distance away. Sadly, I arrived in town to realize it was still too early. Upon which I paced the pavement in front of the three restaurants on Kandalı’s main street until they opened up shop.

  One was a kebab joint, the other fish. The last one made casseroles. When noon came I started going back and forth between them. A waiter, thinking I had no money and was too embarrassed to say so, said, “Come, let me give you some soup.”

  “No,” I replied, “thanks.”

  I had other things on my mind and no one could possibly understand. I was looking for something that wouldn’t lose its taste when it got cold on the walk home. In the end I wasn’t able to decide. So I went into all the restaurants and ordered food. While I waited for them to prepare it, I watched the girls on the street. Their hair, clothes, shoes … so I’d get an idea … The world’s most beautiful girl sat in that hell of a reservoir in just a sweater. I should get her a T-shirt, I thought. I went into a shop and examined at least thirty T-shirts like I’d never seen one in my life. I’d never bought a girl a T-shirt before, after all. When they asked, “What size?” I was struck dumb, and bought two T-shirts emblazoned with an angel like the one on my mother’s necklace. In two different sizes. I was so flustered doing all this that my hands shook and I kept sca
ttering change whenever I took money out of my pocket. I think I was also grinning like an idiot …

  When I went back to the three restaurants and collected the bags, I realized just how over the top I’d gone. I’d bought food enough for five people. I didn’t get hung up on it. My only goal now was to make it to the reservoir before any of it got cold. I began running. I stopped twice on the way to put the bags down because I burned my hands. I thought at some point that my father might still be sitting in the same place. But then I thought that the sun was now so high up that it must even have woken up a drunk like Ahad, and I kept on running. When I got to Dust Street, neither the chair nor my father were there. They were gone …

  So I was able to get into the reservoir without Ahad catching me. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t gotten anything to drink. There should at least be Coke to wash it down. There was a bottle of it in the house. On my way out of the reservoir, my father busted me. A gun in the hand of that other guy I didn’t know. I was accustomed to both. To strangers and to the guns in their belts. I didn’t get hung up on it. I only started praying internally, “Not now! Don’t let them leave now, please! Let them stay one more day!” because such strangers usually materialized before departure. Since I doubt the existence of a godly power in favor of illegal immigrants and those who transport them, I don’t know who I was praying to. As they walked to the arbor behind the house, Father turned and yelled:

  “Where the hell have you been! Go, clean the trailer and throw down some sawdust!”

  He referred to the enormous box behind the truck as the trailer. I preferred to call it a vault. It felt more logical. It was a vault! A vault we put humans into, saved humans in, always locked the doors of, and constantly emptied and filled up … Didn’t we do everything in our power to make sure it didn’t appear to be a vault? The huge AHAD LOGISTICS—FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE TRANSPORTATION inscription on the outside, wasn’t that for this very reason? It was like a crap painting hung up on the wall to disguise the vault underneath …