Reckless

by Hasan Ali Toptas

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ Ziya said, struggling to hide his confusion.

  ‘Think about it,’ Hulki Dede said. ‘Because there is something strange about it.’

  ‘You really want me to say it?’

  ‘I really do, my son. I really do!’

  ‘The truth is, there are two strange things about this village. One is Uncle Cevval, and the other is . . .’

  ‘The other is . . .?’

  ‘The other is you.’

  Hulki Dede smiled, and as he did so, he looked Ziya up and down, as if seeing him for the first time.

  ‘As you know,’ he said finally. ‘In little places like this, when people get bored, they’ll see shit on the ground and use it as an excuse for an argument. If they can’t find a solid excuse then they’ll say, why did you let your chicken come into my courtyard? Or: your donkey brays every time it passes my house, you must be making it do that on purpose. They gain one kind of power from quarrelling, and yet another from making peace. But they have no idea that this is why they do either. But when they’re as tired as worms, they go out looking for a new excuse to argue with their neighbours. And the moment the quarrel starts, they’re bursting with life again. Their spirits soar, and everything they do, or don’t do, takes on new meaning. They feel themselves transformed. Not just the ones who start the quarrel, but the ones they accuse, as well. You know all this. What I mean to say is that Cevval’s quarrel has gone on much longer than it should have done. Over the years, it’s gone from bad to worse. What I think is, he’s angry with the world, and he’s blaming his sister. She’s as stubborn as a goat and sadly he is, too . . . And then you say I am the other strange thing in this village? Then perhaps this village thought it could convince you more easily if it threw in a few people who weren’t convincing at all. And isn’t that always the case? On the edge of every belief, there are always a number of doubts, and they have to be there, to give that belief its shape. Without a shape, what worth would it have?’

  Ziya said nothing.

  Hulki Dede pulled down on his shirt with his little freckled hands and began to cackle. He began to rock, too, and swing his feet. Ziya had no idea what to make of this. First he stared at Hulki Dede’s feet, and then at his own feet. Then suddenly Hulki Dede stopped. Taking a deep breath, he turned to look up at the darkening mountains.

  ‘Don’t you look at me,’ he said. ‘This is what I’m like. I come and I go. What I mean is, I can say mad things . . . So Numan came up here with his brother today, did he? Now that sounds ominous, if you ask me. Numan is a fine boy, one of the finest and bravest in our village, but he can’t stop pining for Nefise, somehow. Or rather, he hasn’t settled accounts with the monster inside him. But settling accounts with this monster doesn’t mean killing it, of course. Don’t get me wrong. I would never want him to kill it. He who kills the monster inside him turns to dust. But when he was listening to that monster living deep inside him, Numan could have said, we’re just human, for God’s sake! We also long for loss, my friend! So let’s stay where we are. He could have said all that, but he didn’t. And so now the wretched boy confuses the monster’s breath for his own. Like a fool, he’s walking up and down singing songs for Nefise. Who knows? Maybe, without knowing, he got a taste for loss. Maybe that’s why he keeps spinning this out . . . But we’ve been talking so much, you forgot about the tea, didn’t you, my son?’

  Ziya ran inside and came back with the tea.

  While they drank their tea, Hulki Dede said nothing. But from time to time he gave Ziya a sidelong glance. Then he said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way now.’ He rose from the bench, straightened himself out, and tugged a few times at his shirt. Propping his staff under his arm, he headed towards the gap in the hedge and into the vineyard’s whispering half-light. But when he got there, he didn’t go through it. It was almost as if he had emptied himself of all the things he had to say and become lighter. Because now, with an agility not to be expected in a man his age, he leapt right over the hedge. And as he did so, there was a moment when his shirt spread out like a fan. After sitting there stunned for a few moments, Ziya began to wonder why he’d not seen Hulki Dede pull himself up again on the other side of the hedge, and, fearful that he might have broken something or still be lying there, he ran over to check, but there was no one there. And neither could he hear footsteps on the darkening plain below. It was as if Hulki Dede had jumped higher than he’d needed, and vanished from the face of the earth.

  He searched for a while longer that evening, and then, giving up, Ziya turned back. He cleared the table and took the tray inside. He’d had enough of people for the time being, so for a few days he went into the village only when he needed water, hurrying down to the fountain before the morning call to prayer and filling his plastic bottles in semi-darkness before hurrying away again.

  One day Kenan came up and forced him to go with him to a wedding. It took place behind the Plane Tree Coffeehouse, this wedding, in the brick-walled courtyard of a house whose doors and windows were painted electric blue. By the time they arrived, almost everyone in the village was there already. On the front porch was a monstrous black four-legged contraption, flanked on each side by speakers that were even bigger and blacker. Some of the hymns blasting out of them were sung by a chorus, and others by a man with fire in his soul. Standing in front of all this was a young man in a black suit and pointy shoes. He worked for the wedding agency in town, and there were four others mingling with the crowd, all dressed the same. They were serving cakes and drinks to the guests, and looking as if they could not wait for the wedding to be over. As they picked up their plastic cups and flimsy paper-thin cake plates, the guests looked much the same. Nowhere in this gathering could Ziya see any sign of elation. As they listened to the songs blasting from those speakers – prepare yourself, my friend, the Angel Azrael is nigh, dear God, take me in, or the earth was crying for Hamza, the sky was crying for Hamza, and the swords were searching for Hamza – even the children stood around them, still as kittens that had spilt the milk. The grown-ups listened to these songs with a despondency even greater than their singers. They would nod sadly, as if to confirm the truth in the words, or cup their chins to stare into the distance, thinking deep and mournful thoughts, and all this made it seem as if it was not a wedding going on in this house, but a funeral.

  And then a fat man with a toothbrush moustache signalled to the employee standing in front of the sound system, and he changed the CD. And as soon as the music changed, the mood in the courtyard lifted. Without a word they sailed towards the front of the house, as smoothly as if the ground was slipping beneath their feet. And now the bride and groom stepped through the door. And there they stood in silence, side by side. The man with the brush moustache gave another signal, and the man on the porch stopped the CD, removed a microphone from its box, and took it over to the bride and groom, trailing the cable behind him as he ran. After he had tested it – One two three. Se se se. One two three. Se se se – he announced that the time had come for the collection ceremony and that the bride’s and groom’s families would go first. One by one, they came forward. A villager who knew who they all were would whisper into his ear, and the man with the moustache would broadcast their name, and then their gift. A gold piece for the bride, from the father of the groom! A wristwatch for the groom from the bride’s mother! A big piece of gold from the bride’s uncle!

  He was watching all this when suddenly Ziya felt a pang. Then he remembered how at Hacı Veli’s wedding they had all averted their eyes, so as not to see what the others had given as gifts.

  He touched Kenan’s arm. ‘I’m heading back.’

  ‘Why? What’s got in to you all of a sudden?’

  ‘I just want to go home and remember what village weddings were like when I was a boy,’ he said.

  Kenan looked at him blankly.

  And that was how Ziya left him. He left the wedding behind him and went straight back to the barn. Then he collapsed
on to the bench by the door, put his head in his hands, and just sat there. Then, when he had caught his breath, he lit up a cigarette and turned to look up at the mountaintops. And there it was – that nameless shadow no one else could see. Still in the same place. Still the same shape. He shivered, as if something cold had brushed against his skin. After that he began to feel cold, so he went inside.

  The brambles beyond the sheep pens had gone dry by now. There was nothing left but a great expanse of scrawny branches. The leaves had fallen from the poplars, and the fruit trees, and the vines. The grass had gone brown, and the thorns, and the flowers. And in addition to all this, the air had cooled. Cooled a great deal. A mist began to fall, very slowly, over the mountains just then, spilling its white foam over the cliffs and the pine forest, until it had reached the oak trees. Here and there it tore like a piece of gauze, looking as if a tree or a hilltop had been cut adrift to float up into the sky. With these apparitions came gusts of moist air, until suddenly it began to rain. It had not been raining every day – just every other day. First it would come down gently, as if through muslin. Then suddenly it would come down much faster and more heavily. And lightning would strike the mountain’s faces, bringing with it giant claps of thunder. The cliffs would blur into the trees, and the trees into the empty spaces between them. The sky would rip apart, and when it ripped, he could hear it echoing in his heart. And as he stood there watching, Ziya would feel joy in his heart, too. Sometimes he would watch through the window. Sometimes he would put on his coat and take his tea outside, to watch from the bench beside the door. When the lightning hit the face of the mountain, glittering grey and blue, it lit him up inside, too. He could even feel the rain pattering inside him, and the mist descending, and the sky spreading, while the scent of earth and stone caressed his mouth, his nose, his skin, his eyes.

  He was watching just such a rainstorm that night when suddenly Besim came running up to the window. His yellow phosphorescent raincoat – a gift from his father in Germany – was streaming with water, its edges caked in mud. Seeing Ziya at the window, he opened his mouth and stared at him with fearful eyes. Then he cried, ‘Ziya Bey, Ziya Bey! Hurry, Ziya Bey! They’ve stabbed my uncle!’

  7

  The Shadow

  Ziya quickly overcame his shock. Throwing on his coat, he rushed outside.

  ‘Was it Numan who knifed him?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Besim. ‘It was Kâzım the Bellows Man!’

  A new wave of shock crashed over Ziya, and as he stared down at the village, it was almost as if he expected to see the attack play itself out before his eyes. And then, without waiting to ask where Kenan had been knifed, he went coursing down to the village. Besim raced alongside him, his yellow phosphorescent raincoat streaked with mud. When they reached Kenan’s house, the rain was still pouring down like water from a pitcher. From time to time, the night was lit up by flashes of lightning, and with every thunderclap, the sky itself collapsed on them, as its echoes shuddered across the ground. Knowing that they would arrive sopping wet, Nefise was waiting at the door with two towels. Next to the door there were many pairs of shoes, some turned upside down, and some lying on their side. There were more shoes strewn across the floor. Ziya cast aside his coat. Taking the towel from Nefise, he stood in the white-walled hallway, and when he had dried himself, he stepped inside.

  Kenan was lying on his back in a room that smelled of dried thyme and sweat and looked out over the courtyard. He was surrounded by villagers. They had wrapped him in a brown-and-white-striped blanket, leaving his head and shoulders open. The villagers were conversing in whispers, while Kenan stared up at the wooden beams on the ceiling. When Ziya came to sit at his side, he almost smiled, and some brightness came into his face, but not for long. Soon it was lost beneath the thick blanket of whispers.

  ‘May it pass soon,’ said Ziya, putting a light hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Where is your wound?’

  ‘In his leg,’ said one of the villagers, before Kenan had a chance to reply. ‘His right leg.’

  Ziya fell silent. He didn’t know what to say.

  Turning back to Kenan, he asked, ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘Above his knee,’ said another villager, shifting his weight. ‘Right here, see? Close to his hip.’

  Ziya felt obliged to turn around, so that the villager could point out the place on his own leg. He traced a line, to show how long the wound was. The two burly villagers sitting in front of him leaned away so as not to obstruct the view.

  ‘I’m fine,’ mumbled Kenan. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘We need to get you into town,’ said Ziya. ‘We can’t leave it like this. We need to get you to a doctor.’

  ‘What good would a doctor be?’ said Kenan. ‘It’s not serious enough for that.’

  Ziya looked deep into his eyes. A moment arrived when he couldn’t bear it any more. He tried to look at the wound, but he soon gave up on the idea, after the villagers who had not seen the wound came crowding around the divan. With bated breath they craned their necks and waited, with hungry eyes.

  So Ziya said, ‘No, let’s not open it up. It could start bleeding again, after all.’

  Disappointed, the villagers drew back. Reaching out from underneath the blanket, Kenan stroked Ziya’s knee a few times, as if to thank him. And Ziya could almost see him smile through the darkness. He could almost see a little light blinking on and off at the corners of his mouth. It looked very far away.

  ‘Just look at this,’ Kenan whispered. ‘You spend twenty months on the Syrian border, surrounded by murderers, while thousands of bullets fly overhead, and you come out without a scratch . . . and now look at this. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ said Ziya.

  ‘What did Kenan say just now?’ asked an old, gap-toothed villager. ‘What did he just whisper to you?’

  ‘I couldn’t make it out,’ Ziya replied sternly. ‘He’s probably delirious.’

  His answer rubbed the villager up the wrong way. He looked around him, as if to say, ‘Tell me. Was I wrong to ask?’ So Ziya sat on the divan saying nothing, waiting for the villagers to leave. As curious as he was to find out what had happened, he asked nothing. At nightfall they got up at last. ‘May it pass soon,’ they said, as they filed out of the room. ‘May God preserve him from worse.’

  When they had all gone home, Ziya turned back to Kenan and, in a reproachful voice, he said, ‘And you told me Kâzım the Bellows Man was a very good person. Endlessly helpful. And merciful. And honest. You had all sorts of good things to say about him. I remember! You even said he loved you very much, that he’d move heaven and earth for you. You said all that, didn’t you?’

  In a shaky voice, Kenan said, ‘He’s all those things.’

  He was staring at the wooden beam in the corner. His eyes didn’t move. There was not a trace of anger in his face. Only pain.

  ‘So then tell me,’ Ziya said. ‘Why did this honest and merciful man knife you?’

  ‘We had an argument,’ said Kenan. ‘A pointless argument. Just this once. There’s no need to dwell on it. I am not opening a case against Kâzım the Bellows Man.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Ziya. ‘But what was the cause of it?’

  Cevriye Hanım came into the room, smoothing her white headscarf. She sat down at Kenan’s side.

  ‘Come on now. Answer your friend. Why were you arguing with that lout?’

  Propping his elbows, Kenan rolled over on his side. He placed his free hand as close to his wound as he could manage.

  ‘Please, Mother, let’s just leave it. It just happened. That’s all. Don’t go and say a thing about this to Kâzım the Bellows Man. Don’t ask him why and don’t ask him how. We’re putting an end to it, here and now.’

  Cevriye Hanım raised her eyes to look at her son.

  ‘In all the commotion we forgot about Uncle Cevval’s supper. The poor man is waiting there hungry.’

  ‘I can take him something,’ said Z
iya. ‘Don’t worry.’

  And so it was that Besim and Ziya took the copper tray over to Uncle Cevval that evening. They sat him down on the divan and fed this man who seemed no more than a white shadow. After taking a few slow bites, he suddenly asked why Kenan hadn’t come.

  ‘He’s feeling poorly,’ Besim said each time.

  When they were leaving the house, Besim noticed the sheepdog lying at the foot of the wall opposite, and suddenly he went stiff. Walking towards him a few steps with his arm upraised, he shouted, ‘Shoo! Shoo!’ But the dog did not budge. Its eyes glowed in the darkness as it blinked. Ziya pulled him by the arm. ‘Never mind, my boy,’ he said in a fatherly voice. ‘Best not to disturb the poor thing. Come on now, let’s go.’

  Besim relaxed a little. Putting the copper tray under his arm, he set off down the lane with Ziya. It had been washed clean by the rain, and as they went, Ziya cast a few sidelong glances at the boy he had addressed for the first time as his son. It felt as if it were his own son at his side, almost.

  Kenan couldn’t seem to get back on his feet, and so from then on it was always Ziya and Besim who took Uncle Cevval his meals. This meant that Ziya was now going to Kenan’s house several times a day, and each time he approached the door, he would imagine the moment when he’d set eyes on Nefise and Besim, and his heart would skip a beat. Leaving his shoes at the entrance he would always go first into Kenan’s room, of course. And at first Kenan would sit up in bed, looking paler every day – as pale as his uncle – and try to greet Ziya with a smile. But with time that smile faded. He would just lie there, lost in thought. Because he couldn’t walk. He couldn’t do more than hobble a few steps across his room. He would run out of energy, and go staggering across the room to fall back into bed.