‘Maybe,’ I said to myself, ‘I, too, fell asleep a little while . . . and that’s when these men came then. They crept through the door and went each to their own table and sat down. And after that, they slurped down their tea too quickly for me to notice. Then they coughed, but I didn’t hear that either. Or they spoke amongst themselves as the waiter was bringing them tea. Asked for an address, for example. Conversed about work, or money, or women, without my hearing a thing. I didn’t hear them looking at me, either. Just as I did not hear the silences in between their words. Or was I seeing what happened after I left? The men in the coffeehouse weren’t there yet, and after I left they all came in one by one, settling down at these same tables to sip these same teas until they dozed off. And then, maybe one of them would stare blankly at this empty table, and, catching a glance of someone who looked like me, they would shudder. Or was I that person? Or is that just how we are all born, with a fleeting shudder – doesn’t the whole adventure begin there? I jumped up from the table, desperate now to pay for my tea and leave before I fell prey to this nonsense. But I couldn’t find the waiter. I lingered there awhile, pacing back and forth, thinking he must have gone to the toilet or gone to throw out the rubbish, and would presently return. Now and again, I would peer out into the darkness, until at last one of the sleeping men lost patience.
‘What are you doing, walking around like that?’ he asked, as once again he rested his head between his arms.
‘I can’t find the waiter,’ I said, impatiently. ‘I was going to pay for my tea.’
But already, the man was drifting off to sleep.
‘Leave the money on the counter,’ he mumbled.
‘How much does a tea cost?’
‘Leave as much as you want, what difference does it make?’
42
Knowing that her son had been allowed to go hungry for days on end, Cennet would bring a few sheets of yufka and a bowl of yoghurt to the muhtar’s office every morning. Every morning, she’d whip across the village square like a whirlwind, so fast and furiously that it seemed her own body might come undone. Planting herself at the door, she would wait for the watchman to come outside, and after he did, she would plead with him for hours on end, crying her eyes out, and even grabbing his legs and begging, but no matter how she implored, he wouldn’t let her see her son. The watchman was at least as stubborn as Reşit, and in much the same way that Reşit had, in essence, become the stable door, the watchman had become the door of the muhtar’s office. Standing firm, rifles in hand, they each served as the other’s echo. Blind as doors, they were, and deaf as walls. They had both turned to stone, while their minds wandered far, far away.
‘On your way, and stop yowling like a cat,’ the watchman would cry. ‘I’m not letting that scoundrel eat a mouthful!’
Cennet, still holding the yufka, would stop and stare.
‘You still say you have a son?’
And still, she’d stare.
‘You have nothing remotely resembling a son!’
And this was her cue to bow her sad head and set out for home, clutching the yufka that would soon go stale. She would turn now and then, hoping for some drop of mercy, but to no avail. With time, she began to worry that the watchman might get so fed up seeing her at the door of the muhtar’s office that he’d take it out on her son, so she decided to keep her distance, and took to sitting at the foot of the plane tree instead, her bowl of yoghurt at her feet. From here, she would watch the muhtar’s office for hours on end. Maybe she thought the watchman would see the bowl of yoghurt and remember how hungry her son was inside; ground down by his own stubbornness, his heart might begin to soften . . .
But the watchman’s heart refused to soften. He wandered through the village like a mad cow, and when the old men tried to reason with him, even, he paid them no heed. He seemed at times to be a ghost in watchman’s clothing. Still fearing Rıza’s rage, he’d keep looping back to the muhtar’s office, to check on Cennet’s son. In fact, he hadn’t even decided how long he was going to keep him there. He could fix the sentence and hold him here for the duration, or he could bind him hand and foot and cart him off to the city. Though taking him into the city didn’t seem like a very good idea; he didn’t think those State officials would know what to do with a madman. They would laugh at him, laugh him right out of court, saying, ‘Whatever possessed you, to bring us a madman?’ ‘Güvercin,’ the watchman would say, ‘but Güvercin the Dove . . .’ And the State officials would say, ‘Hmmmmm.’ ‘What is Güvercin the Dove?’ they would ask, just as they had asked the muhtar. ‘Isn’t that a kind of bird?’ ‘No, no,’ the watchman would reply, just as the muhtar had done, months earlier, ‘Güvercin is the most beautiful girl in our village!’ Hearing that, the men would fix their eyes on him, and say, ‘So. Was that the girl that this dog kidnapped?’ The watchman would stammer out a yes, before adding, ‘What’s more, he got her pregnant!’ Again the men would say, ‘Hmmmm,’ exchanging silent looks, exuding such fury that Cennet’s son would begin to shake like a leaf, his eyes widening as he appealed to the watchman for help.
The watchman would pay him no attention, of course. Instead, he’d frown importantly. And then the men would gulp a few times, and one would say, ‘That means . . . That means Güvercin is a girl?’ ‘Yes, a girl . . .’ ‘And not a bird?’ ‘No, not a bird . . .’ ‘You’re absolutely sure of this – she’s not a bird?’ ‘She’s not!’ But the next in line would say that she certainly sounded like a bird to him. ‘And to me,’ another would say. ‘In fact it sounds like a novel I read months ago, and then forgot . . .’ The watchman would stand there helplessly. So would Cennet’s son . . . They would stand there for hours as the men argued amongst themselves as to whether or not she was a bird. Maybe days, maybe months . . . And then one would say, ‘Hey! I just remembered what this was all about!’ ‘What was it?’ they’d ask, in a chorus. ‘Um, didn’t a muhtar come in to see us?’ the man would say. ‘Didn’t he tell us about a girl like that, who had disappeared?’ Whereupon the men would again say, ‘Hmmmmm,’ as they took their minds back. ‘Hmmmm,’ this chorus would say. ‘And didn’t we show him how important this girl was in the eyes of the State?’ ‘Did he faint?’ one would ask. ‘Why?’ another would reply. The first would say, ‘Why would . . .’ only to pause and burst into laughter. And then the others would join in. They would laugh and laugh, for days, perhaps years . . . Unable to get a word in edgewise, the watchman would give up, and take Cennet’s son back to the village, bemoaning his fate with every step.
‘Get up,’ he said one day. ‘Get up and fuck off!’
At first, Cennet’s son was too shocked to move. He looked up at the watchman, expecting another beating.
‘Get out of my sight!’ said the watchman. ‘Go to whatever hell you like!’
But Cennet’s son was in no hurry. He stumbled over to his mother, who was sitting under the plane tree. Before long there was a great crowd in the village square, watching mother and son embrace. And then Cennet linked arms with her son and led him home, leaving her yoghurt bowl behind. Rıza came out of his shop to scowl at them.
‘Don’t stare like that,’ said Cennet. ‘He’s half-dead already, come and take the rest!’
Rıza didn’t know what to say for a moment. Then he waved his hand, as if to say ‘Take him away’, and went back inside. This cheered up the watchman no end. Standing at the window, he mumbled a few words. ‘At last,’ he said, ‘you’re safe. From now on, you need no longer fear Rıza’s wrath . . .’
But in the days that followed, there was no way of knowing if Cennet’s son was still alive. No one had seen him since he stumbled out of the muhtar’s office to be taken home by his mother; no one had heard him speak, or breathe, or caught even the most fleeting glimpse of him. Everyone was curious to know, of course, but no one dared to ask. The villagers had somehow come to a silent agreement that he was not to be touched, not even by words. Instead they had to wait and see . . . If something
should emerge from this silence, it would do so of its own accord. The boy was already as damaged as could be. The blows had been struck, and his bones had been broken. They had to wait and see . . . If he was back in the mountains, then they should leave him to wander as far as he liked, breathing in the scent of thyme, listening to the birds’ wings flapping, and the snakes hissing, to his heart’s content . . . If he wasn’t in the mountains, but by his mother’s side, then let him sleep like the lambs of May . . . Let him drink ayran, and scratch off his scabs, while his mother shooed off the flies that swarmed around the pus, and wailed. They had no choice but to wait and see . . .
Cennet’s son was alive, and at his mother’s knee. He stayed there for weeks, maybe, and at just the point when they’d almost forgotten about him, he started wandering the streets again. He had an odd way of walking, and he gave odd looks to the children dancing in his wake, and every so often he would stop to shake out an imaginary sheet and grin. This may explain why the children started calling him ‘the ghost’. Soon everyone else in the village was calling him that, too. It almost seemed as if a stranger going by that name had just arrived in the village, to scare the children on the streets. Every time he gave them a scare, they would, even as they scattered, try and scare him back. But they could not ruffle him: he smiled calmly when he smiled, talked calmly when he talked. He’d assemble them in front of him and prattle on for hours. They might not understand a thing he said, but somehow he had become their teacher and commander – sometimes he would get them in line and made them put their hands on the ground, then on his order they would run to whatever point he indicated. The children would skip about like a battalion of skittish rabbits, leaving behind them a cloud of dust.
One day, the ghost picked up a snake from somewhere, coiled it around his neck and started marching in front of the children. First they did a grand tour of the village, laughing together each time they stopped in front of a courtyard gate. Peals of laughter would emerge from the dust clouds, as reflections of breathless children flashed across the windows. Birds flew out of this cloud of laughter, to scatter in all directions, like leaves. Then suddenly the village itself seemed to float away, from its streets, walls and windows, its chimneys and sounds, and in the void it had left in its wake, there was only silence. There was only the gaze. Suddenly the children came back into view again. They were following the ghost, and followed by great mountains of dust, as they marched towards the village square. And here this motley crowd of waving limbs lost momentum, and came to a halt. The ghost raised his hand, first to silence them, and then to call them to order.
‘This is my belt,’ he said, showing them the snake. ‘Do you like it?’ The children beamed, and some tittered.
‘I have a question for you,’ said the ghost.
They waited.
‘Who sent me this belt, do you think?’
The children exchanged looks.
‘Whooo?’ he wailed. ‘God,’ said the ghost. ‘God, who created the muhtar! And the watchman, and my mother, too!’
The children fell about laughing.
‘Take this belt and look at it,’ he said.
Planting his legs wide apart, the ghost surveyed them, and it almost seemed as if he were drawing new faces for them, and repointing their eyes, in preparation for the show. Then, taking the snake from his neck and wrapping it around his waist, he fed its tail into its mouth. The snake seemed to want to help him, for now he bit off some of its tail and even swallowed it. The ghost raised up his hands in victory. The children enjoyed it – in fact, they roared. Some jumped on their friends’ shoulders, some beat their knees in laughter, while others sat down and bent over, almost hitting their heads on the ground before straightening up again. Hearing the clamour, the men came pouring out of the coffeehouse, the women from their courtyards, and the whitebeards from the wall where they’d been sunning themselves, and they all moved slowly towards the village square, to find out what was happening.
The snake that was coiled around the ghost’s waist was still trying to swallow its tail. The ghost was grinding his teeth, and writhing in pain, and the more he writhed, the more the children shouted. Everything seemed to be lost in the children’s screams, everything seemed to change from dust to noise and noise to dust again. Suddenly, there was a round of applause. The ghost waved his hands, to say something no one understood, as the applause grew louder. When the ghost bent over, it again grew louder, and then louder still, until the entire village square was writhing and hissing like a snake. And this was the moment when the men and women converging on the village square started running, fearing they were already too late.
Suddenly the children fell silent.
The ghost was crumpled up on the ground, a greenish liquid seeping from his mouth.
43
It had been a long time since I’d left my tea money on a table near the stove and put the coffeehouse behind me. With growing apprehension, I plunged into the darkness, determined to go straight back to the barber shop. I turned into a street, waited for a spluttering rubbish truck to struggle up the slope, spreading a foul smell, and then fluttered like a lonely moth through a neighbourhood of huge apartment blocks, to be swallowed up by a deep, dark hole that turned out to be a street lined with stairs. Still I walked on.
And the longer I walked, the more urgent it seemed to reach the barber shop before it was too late. So great was my sense of urgency that I paid little attention to the streets as I was passing through, or the stairs, or the balconies hanging over me, or the billboards submerged in darkness, or the rubbish on the pavements. All I could think about was the barber’s shop. The mirror shone like a lake as I approached. The scissors sparkled and flashed as the night receded, moving ever more distant until it vanished into thin air.
I paused as I entered a wide avenue lined with palm trees. It occurred to me then that I had been passing through a neighbourhood I’d never seen before. I looked around me in fear. All I could see was humming desolation. ‘I must have been daydreaming,’ I said to myself. ‘I must have taken a wrong turn . . .’
Then I tried to retrace my steps, running down the hill I hoped would return me to the neighbourhood of huge apartment blocks. Instead it took me to a tiny little street filled with the smell of leather. Breathlessly, I ran from one end to the other, diving into the first street on my left. This took me into another street in which the air rang with a watchman’s whistle. In time it led me out to a winding cobblestone avenue. I continued along this avenue for many hours. My feet began to drag, but still I kept looking for the barber shop. I was losing hope: I didn’t know what to do, or which street I should dodge into, or where I was going. It was as if a great hand were playing with my memory, or erasing all the streets of the city from the face of the earth, or taking just the avenue that was the key to all else, and moving it to some other city . . . At that moment, any or all of these things could be true, but there was no way of knowing.
I knew just one thing: either the barber shop was lost, or I was.
44
When the first snow fell over the village, Reşit was still standing in front of the stable door. Behind him was a sheepskin, and on his shoulders rested a rose-patterned quilt that reeked of rancid sweat. He was stiff as stone, and cold as the snow. From the moment he’d thrown Güvercin, punching and kicking, into the stable, he’d been living a new life. Every mealtime, cooked food was brought to the door; everything he needed – socks, tobacco, tinder, water, flint and tea – was brought to the door and left at his feet. Now and again Reşit would get up to relieve himself: he’d walk over to the left-hand corner of the courtyard, place his rifle on the pile of rotten planks, amongst the spider-webs, slip down his trousers and strain, but not for a moment did he take his eyes off the stable door.
For he feared that if he left her alone for just a moment, the villagers would rush in and take Güvercin home with them. At each hearth there would be a Güvercin, he thought, at each table another. In every
half-lit closet, at the edge of each sofa and under every set of blankets, there would be a Güvercin, and Reşit wouldn’t know where his daughter was or who he could take her back from. And this was why he hadn’t gone to Cennet’s son’s funeral all those months ago. While all the other men in the village, and their wives and children, had assembled in the village square, he was in front of the stable door. When the children took the snake that had swallowed its own tail, killing both Cennet’s son and itself, and mounted it on to the end of a stick, and paraded it through the streets, he was in front of the stable door. When they spoke of the boy’s waist being squeezed tighter and tighter, until it was the width of an oleaster branch, he was in front of the stable door, no doubt, and when they spoke of Cennet going blind from crying, he was still there. He heard everything from the villagers as they came and went. They told him that the children had been even sadder than the adults about what had happened; that they had walked behind the coffin all the way to the cemetery. They told him all this while he sat entirely still in front of the stable door.
A few times a week he went inside to interrogate his daughter, but he had yet to get an answer. Güvercin kept her silence, as slowly it faded into the darkness of the stable. It was difficult even to see her; for her eyes had got lost in the silence, and her eyebrows in her hair, and her hair in the darkness, and the darkness in the distance. The only thing he could see was her swollen belly, and whenever Reşit opened the door, the fact of that belly resounded like a drum. The larger it grew, the more his world narrowed. He would rush for the door, taking his unanswered questions with him, but also the image of that belly, which he could not erase from his mind.