By now the muhtar’s anger was all but spent. He was still kicking and punching Cennet’s son, but with one ear on the door. He thought he could hear people breathing outside. ‘The band of nobodies,’ he said to himself. ‘They’ve arrived!’ At that same moment, all sound ceased. So great was the silence that the muhtar had to ask himself if there was a new sort of nothingness out there, wandering amongst the nobodies.
The muhtar froze . . . Casting the watchman a sidelong glance, he directed his attention to the door. At that same moment, they heard, or seemed to hear, what sounded like hundreds of hands, all swaying together, then hundreds of fingernails scratching the door. The watchman caught his breath, but the muhtar managed to convince himself that this must be an illusion. He lit a cigarette. Took a deep drag. Armed in smoke, he strode fearlessly across the room.
He threw open the door, flooding the village square with candlelight. Before him was a sea of faces, and hats, and shoulders and hands: a great mute mass, shuddering with the night; a vast expanse of flashing eyes that gave the muhtar pause. But this was the moment to stand up to them. Let them stare, he thought. Let them witness his fury unleashed. He would hunt down the crowd like a pack of dogs, so they would never again dare to create nobodies by doubting their own existence!
The watchman was standing behind him now. Through sleep-fogged eyes, he looked down at the village square, as the shadow of a watchman holding a rifle crossed the threshold, and fell across the crowd.
‘What do you want?’ cried the muhtar.
No one said a word. Everyone exchanged looks, as the crowd shrank back from the watchman’s armed shadow and the muhtar’s accusing voice. And perhaps that was when the villagers noticed the plane tree, and heard it rustling behind them; as fast as they could, they moved on past it, to return to their houses, throw open their doors, marvel in the sounds and smells of home, stroke their children’s heads as they lay sleeping on their pillows, and cast their wives longing glances, before returning one by one to the village square to gather in front of the muhtar’s office. The muhtar was still there, standing in the doorway. Now and again, Time’s fingers grazed the tip of his cigarette as they passed him by. Whenever the embers burned, it took life from the crowd; whenever the embers died, it gave life back. And then those fingers let go of the muhtar’s cigarette to pass over the crowd. It searched and searched until it had the shadow named Cennet in the palms of its moist hands. There followed the silent mystery of creation, as the hands pressed and tugged: they might have been a pair of blind and trembling sparrows, kneading something out of nothing.
The muhtar tossed his cigarette to the ground. He stamped it out. For a moment it seemed to him that the men standing before him, silent but for their breath, were not from this village. For they were all eyes, and nothing but eyes. Even their ears were eyes, now – their hands and mouths, too. Who could say where they’d come from, or how they’d arrived, these disembodied eyes? They must belong to the nobodies, who had sent their eyes ahead.
Whatever happened, it was the eyes that took the lead. On another night, after another ghastly disappearance, they’d bring their feet with them. Eyes needed feet, you see, which is why they were so often invited along. Later on, it would be ears raining down on the village square; great multitudes of ears, each doubting its own existence . . .
The watchman coughed. The crowd took this opportunity to move forward, as shapeless shadows slipped back in the direction of the plane tree.
‘Please, Muhtar, listen . . .’
Anxiously, the watchman searched the crowd for the voice.
‘I’m Cennet. Cennet,’ said the same voice. ‘I want my son back!’
The muhtar swallowed hard. Then he stepped back, to slam the door, on her and everything else.
17
The barber’s apprentice had still not returned.
The barber was losing his patience. He kept going to look outside, and grumbling: this apprentice of his was as stupid as an ape. It was, I thought, like watching a ball of fire roll back and forth between the door and the chair. Now I could hear it roaring right next to me; now it seemed far away. It was outside the door, but also inside it. It was running up the street, while we sat on edge, awaiting its return. I was watching two barbers, through a single pair of eyes. It was making my head spin.
‘He’ll be here in no time,’ I said, to calm him down. ‘There’s no need to get upset.’
‘This is just not acceptable,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not as if he had to go all the way to Fezzan. There are hundreds of markets along this street and they all sell razor blades. Just look at the state we’re in!’
He pointed at the man in the chair, his face obscured by foam. If that was how you looked at it, then there wasn’t any room for doubt. He was absolutely right. But I didn’t want to tell him that. Not even in a whisper. Because I didn’t want to say a word against the apprentice, who could, for all I knew, be just around the corner, running towards the shop, clutching those razor blades. And I couldn’t bear for him to get the same drubbing as Cennet’s son. So I didn’t tell the barber he was right. I said something worse.
‘Maybe he’s not coming back.’
He turned those furious executioner’s eyes on me. I fell into my chair, as if I’d been slapped. For a moment, I tried to think of some way to undo what I had said. But it was too late, for the barber was pacing the shop now, as he wrestled with the possibility that the apprentice might not return. I could hear the fury in the way he ground his teeth. He was using them, perhaps, to chew an imaginary apprentice.
Then he suddenly stopped.
In a deep, dark voice, he said, ‘Please excuse me. But I have to go out now, to track down my apprentice.’
18
When Cennet’s son emerged from the muhtar’s office late the next morning, he was bent over double. He could barely put one foot in front of the other. But when he reached the village square, he made an effort to straighten himself out.
The watchman was just a few paces behind him; the muhtar had told him to be this boy’s shadow, and to follow him wherever he went, in the hope that, sooner or later, he would lead them to Güvercin. This was more than an expectation. In fact, it was a must, now that the villagers were coming out in the middle of the night to crowd around the muhtar’s office. That said, it was unthinkable that Cıngıl Nuri’s disappearance had anything to do with Güvercin’s: the two cases could not have been more different. Güvercin, after all, was a tender blossom, whose honour every villager from seven to seventy would protect. First in line was the muhtar, of course – of this the watchman was in no doubt. Just as he knew that he, too, was next in the list of likely suspects. But still he couldn’t quite believe that the scrawny lad in front of him had it in him to kidnap this girl. They had made a mistake, that was clear, but after all that had happened, he couldn’t bring himself to say so to the muhtar. What was done was done: the arrow had left the bow!
Cennet’s son came to a stop. So did the watchman.
At every window was a villager, watching. Inside every courtyard, behind every chimney, outhouse and sack of chickpeas, there was a face, peeking out. The white-bearded old men sitting along the far wall were shielding their eyes from the sun and squinting – as if Cennet’s son still had thousands of kilometres to cross before arriving. Perhaps, in their minds, they were all walking alongside him, waging the War of Independence. Hungry and thirsty and caked with blood . . . Leaving one battlefield in springtime, only to arrive at another.
At one point Cennet’s son turned around to look at the watchman. He laughed. It was a strange laugh – unreadable – and the watchman was not sure how to respond.
How could anyone laugh, after such a beating? Could this mean that he was in fact the guilty party? It crossed the watchman’s mind that this pimp might be making fun of him.
He stopped, without thinking, and lit a cigarette. Cennet’s son was now entering his courtyard. He was still doubled up in pain. He staggered t
owards his mother, who had come out to meet him.
‘Like a baby bear, running back to his mother,’ thought the watchman.
He waited to see whether the lad would start laughing again. But Cennet’s son didn’t laugh; indeed he didn’t even look back; instead he threw himself into his mother’s arms. As odd as all this looked to the watchman, he slung his rifle over his shoulder and hurried back to the village square. Passing by the coffeehouse, he glanced through the dusty windows and caught sight of the proprietor. He had a steaming towel draped around his shoulders and was sucking on a cigarette, when their eyes met.
‘Have you got any tea?’ asked the watchman.
The proprietor raised his chin to indicate that he did not.
This despite the fact that the barber was sitting at one of the low tables, drinking tea. God only knew where he’d found it, but for the past few days he’d been wandering about with a cap pulled down over his ears. Now he’d lifted up the visor slightly, to listen to the radio that sat next to the partridge’s cage. Voices of the Nation’s Choir Hour was just coming to an end. There followed the strains of a wild folk dance, accompanied by madly clicking boxwood spoons that somehow made the coffeehouse expand, until it was as large, and as loud, as a threshing floor. Then the saz players began to slacken. Each note lingered, like a drop of viscous amber, before dying away for the sly and spritely pipes, which jumped so high and swayed so low as to conjure up the folk dance itself, led by a man waving a triumphant handkerchief.
‘Let me get you another tea,’ said the proprietor.
‘No, no,’ said the barber, getting up. ‘I have things to do; the shoemaker’s waiting for me.’
Leaving the proprietor alone in the middle of the dance, he set off to see the shoemaker. The dog at the shop door greeted him with a snarl; it was a dirty yellow little thing, with teeth that called to mind a row of shrouded corpses. And that could explain why this cur was so interested in humans. Or so the barber thought, until he looked again at its filthy yellow fur, its callused paws, and wheeling tail. It was, he decided, no match for a man. But still a shudder went through him, as it opened its mouth wide to bark.
Looking inside, he saw the shoemaker beckoning. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said. The barber broke into a smile, and the bark got lost inside it.
The scent of hides made it difficult to breathe. They were hung one or two to a hook on the walls. Through the gloom he could see rows of old nylon shoes, and a pile of wooden heels. The shoemaker was sitting at the entrance on a cobwebbed mat, breaking in slippers with a fired iron rod.
‘Did you hear?’ he asked.
‘Is there anyone who hasn’t?’ the barber replied.
They exchanged looks.
‘Who do you think kidnapped Güvercin?’
‘How would I know?’ said the shoemaker. ‘If you ask me, they beat up Cennet’s son for nothing. The boy doesn’t have the look of a kidnapper.’
‘He’s an odd one, though.’
‘Let him be . . . The boy wouldn’t hurt a fly. If he’s odd, that’s his business.’
Neither spoke.
‘I don’t think it was anyone from this village who kidnapped Güvercin,’ said the shoemaker, after a pause. ‘Because all the men are still here. I mean, even all the old men are still about. No one’s found any excuse to leave.’
‘Couldn’t someone be hiding her somewhere here in the village?’
The shoemaker let out a discouraging laugh.
‘You haven’t been paying much attention,’ he said, looking straight into the barber’s eyes. ‘They’ve searched this village from top to bottom.’
‘When?’
‘No time in particular . . . Would you even call it a search if they broadcast in advance? The muhtar made his investigations without anyone being the wiser. One person pops over to ask his neighbour for salt, another goes from house to house looking for pitch, a third goes from door to door asking for mallow. And so on, and so forth. Always a new excuse. They’ve looked everywhere: everyone’s accounted for. No stone has been left unturned.’
‘They even searched my shop?’ asked the barber.
‘Of course . . .’
‘But they didn’t look behind the curtain, did they? I mean, where I sleep?’
‘You may like to think so,’ said the shoemaker. ‘But when we went out for tea, didn’t I reach behind the curtain for the glasses?’
That took the barber by surprise. How was it that the shoemaker knew every last detail of everything that happened in this village?
‘So it was you?’
‘Of course it was me . . .’
The shoemaker got up and went to get the tea glasses. The barber looked over at the iron rods, still molten red, and took a deep breath, recalling how Cennet’s son had limped from the muhtar’s office into the village square, doubled over and half dead, with the watchman a few paces behind, stopping whenever the boy stopped and walking when he walked, but faltering every time. Struggling, even, to keep his rifle straight, while the whitebeards leant drowsily against the wall, watching through narrowed eyes as the village came out in force, stepping one by one into the crowd encircling Cennet’s son.
‘You’ve drifted off,’ said the shoemaker. The barber jumped. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why I called you here?’
‘Why did you call me here?’
‘I’ve found you an apprentice,’ said the shoemaker, holding out a glass of tea. ‘As you know, Cıngıl Nuri has forgotten his trade . . . I don’t think he’ll ever hold a pair of scissors again in his life. To make a long story short, you’re the only one left in the village who knows the trade. What’ll happen when you go? Don’t you think you need to take on an apprentice?’
‘Of course I do,’ said the barber. ‘But how did you find someone just like that?’
‘To be honest, he came of his own accord. He’s at our place now, sleeping . . . The poor thing’s been on the road for days, and when he knocked on our door – in the middle of the dawn call to prayer – he was ready to drop. He’s a distant relation, in fact. Comes from a village the other side of the mountains. His father gave him first to a barber in the city, and he worked there for a year, more or less. I mean, he’s no longer green about these things; he’s more or less ready to go. Over there he would live and sleep in the shop. Then one day, his master sent him to get some razor blades or something, and he never went back. Though it took him days, he went straight back to his village. His father was pretty upset when he found out what the boy had done. So he said, “If you’re not going to be a barber, then go and be a shoemaker,” and sent him to me. But the boy’s already done time as a barber’s apprentice . . . So I’m saying, why doesn’t he stay with us and we’ll feed him, while you teach him your ancient art?’
‘I wouldn’t mind that at all,’ said the barber.
The twinkle in his eyes changed colour.
19
After the barber left, a deep silence fell over the shop. So deep, in fact, that it seemed as if many hours had passed since any noise had come in from the street, as if all the cars had come to a stop, and every workplace closed, and everyone outside was moving around on tiptoe, and I had been abandoned in this city of death, alone but for the man sleeping in the chair next to me.
And it crossed my mind that I should get up and leave this desolate and disordered place, which bore no resemblance to a real barber’s shop, with customers who fled babbling nonsense instead of paying, or fell asleep with their faces lost in lather. It did not take me long to realise I could never do such a thing. Whatever happened, I was going to have to wait until the barber or his apprentice returned. This despite the fact that I knew the apprentice was never coming back with those razor blades. But I was sure that, after searching the streets, the barber would come back, huffing and puffing. And when he came in through the door, he would be looking for me, the person he’d left in charge of the shop. He’d look me in the eyes and take it all back. With a single look, it would
all pass back into his hands. The scissors, the powder boxes, the cologne bottles, the brushes, the cotton balls and the mirrors – they would all be his.
The man sleeping in his chair still knew nothing of what had happened. When he’d closed his eyes, he’d been with a barber who was waiting for his apprentice to fetch some razor blades. As far as he knew, the barber was still sitting next to me; I couldn’t abandon him. Leaving was therefore out of the question. It could well be that somewhere in my muddled mind, I was plotting out a novel I had yet to name. By which I mean to say that my mind had wandered many words – many pages – away from where I was sitting. And in that distant place, I could see a boy with flapping ears – a boy fashioned from my childhood memories, a boy who had yet to be born. But before I could work out what to do about this premature encounter, he had escaped my grasp, to occupy some other chapter. I was, nevertheless, confident that I could ferret him out, and consign him to his rightful place, some way after the book’s last page, but something told me this wouldn’t suffice. For all at once, a gust of mountain air rushed over me, bringing with it juniper-covered hills and mist-covered forests, lost valleys and bare slopes.