The Few

  He nudged his mother’s hand into the hole and then pushed the dirt he’d dug out back in to cover it. Then he stood up and started walking. Walking fast. He walked past the front of the tombs lined up side by side, the row where behind each tomb a part of his mother lay. Actually, to be more correct, he passed behind them. Because the tombs’ owners lay in the other direction. On the other side of the slab. When Isa began his apprenticeship he told him, “They’re called şahide,” the marble tombstone’s other side.

  Soon enough he was worried that he hadn’t buried his mother’s hand deep enough and so he turned and looked over his shoulder as he sped away. Just to check he hadn’t left the hand uncovered. But out of nowhere he ran smack into something and fell to the ground. He looked up to see what he’d run into and he saw a man. A man with a beard. In a long robe. Derda knew the cemetery mosque’s imam and this wasn’t him. It was Tayyar. And he was meeting him for the first time.

  Tayyar silently watched Derda get to his feet like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. Like he wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes away even if it was the end of the world. He watched the boy brush off the dust. But this time he wasn’t just brushing away the dust of death, he was also chewing his heart, which had leapt into his mouth. And he was asking himself, “Did the guy see what I did?” He didn’t dare look up. He couldn’t look the man in the eye. He kept looking down at himself, trying to look like he was looking for more dust to brush off. Then Tayyar spoke. Derda listened with his eyes still lowered. Still afraid.

  “Next time, be more careful.”

  Then he stepped to the side and walked away. Derda turned around but the man was gone. What did he mean? What am I going to be careful about? What did he mean by that? Derda stood frozen. It was like the dirt under his feet had turned into a marshy bog. He was rooted to the spot. Then the marsh dried up and he took one step. No way, he said to himself. Is that even possible? You went and ran into a guy in a huge cemetery. What’s he going to say? Of course, he’s going to say be more careful. He laughed. He was sure he had been afraid for nothing. He shook his head and told himself he was an idiot. If he’d seen me bury the hand there, wouldn’t he come running up to me? Wouldn’t he grab me by the neck and haul me to the police? Who would see something like that and just say, “Be more careful”? He laughed again, walking away. Then he stopped and turned to look back at the tomb.

  He wanted to die. Tayyar had stopped where he’d just buried the hand and was looking back at him. He had no hope but to turn and walk away. He left his steps behind him faster and faster until he was running. If he’d heard any sound behind him he would have found a way to sprint even faster. But behind was only silence.

  He got as far as the cemetery gates and stopped to catch his breath. He shook his head. “For nothing,” he said, “you’re scared for nothing!” And he laughed.

  “What are you laughing about so early in the morning? Take this and go get me some bread.”

  Yasin’s hand stuck out of the guard shed’s window. Derda took the money and asked, “Keep the change?” He was still laughing.

  “Keep it, boy, keep it,” Yasin said.

  Once again waking up had put Yasin in a foul mood. Also because he was hungry. Also because he’d given his money away to Derda. He’d only been out of bed for two minutes but he’d already been ripped off. He hadn’t even had a bite to eat yet. Fuck the change from the bread and Derda with it!

  “Bastard,” he said. Then he got back into bed. “I’ll just sleep a little till he comes back,” he said without really thinking about it. He fell asleep.

  “Anything else?”

  Derda didn’t answer the grocer. He didn’t even hear him. Because his mind had gone back to the fabric he’d peeled off his mother’s hand and tossed aside. Did the man see it? Is that why he stopped there?

  He shot out of the grocer’s like a guided missile. A rocket was smaller, but he was more agile. There were at least ten corners to turn on the way to his target. He flew through the whole cemetery until he got near the last row of tombs closest to the wall. He hadn’t planned what he was going to do when he got there, but when he got there he found a surprise he hadn’t been expecting. The man in the robe was standing at the head of the tomb where he’d buried the hand.

  He stopped and hid himself behind the first tree he saw. He hid behind it and peeked around the trunk. But it didn’t do him much good. There were at least fifteen rows of tombs between them. Forty meters. He thought he shouldn’t get too close to the man, but he could watch him from an angle. He figured he should leave twenty tombs between them, just to be safe. He made a quick survey of the trees. He looked at their branches, winding around each other. He had to get over there and hide in those branches. He would be able to see everything from there.

  He ran like a squirrel, leaping, quick on his feet. He hid behind every fifth tree to survey the scene. Finally, he bounded behind a mess of green leaves that, from the number of branches and their closeness to each other, seemed like one tree from three roots. He held his breath.

  He straightened his back against the tree and peeked around the trunk, his left eye peering between the branches. It was as brave as he could bear to be. But he had to at least be able to see what the man was doing.

  He was leaning against the base of the tomb, burying a large white envelope in the grave bed contained by the marble edging around the tomb. There were two red roses on the tips of the branches coming out of one single trunk near the tomb’s front side. He measured and buried the envelope five hand-spans away from then. Close to where birds were drinking water from the birdbath in the grave bed. He smoothed the dirt with his hand and looked around. Derda’s single eye disappeared behind the trunk. He could hear his heart thumping in his ears. It was beating like it wanted to break out. He collapsed to the foot of the tree trunk again. He couldn’t bear to turn around and look again.

  He stayed there for about half an hour. He’d taken root there, he’d become a part of the tree. Only his hair rippled in the light breeze, like the leaves around him. He knees were pulled up to his chin. His arms were around his folded legs. He was entirely motionless.

  When he’d decided he’d waited long enough, he stood up slowly, scooted over slowly, then stuck his head out and checked to see if the man was gone. The coast was clear. He left the trees and walked, his eyes scanning thirty steps ahead of him, when all of a sudden he bent over with the pain of a fist smashing into the back of his neck.

  “You ass, did I not tell you to go buy me bread? You animal!”

  It was the first time in his life that he was happy Yasin was hitting him. That morning Yasin had left the house without having eaten his breakfast and he was in such a bad mood that he never wanted to stop pummeling Derda.

  After three punches he got up and ran out of the cemetery to get the bread from where he’d forgotten it on the grocer’s counter. He dropped it through the open window of the guard’s house. “The window’s open. Stick your arm in and drop it on the table,” Yasin had told him. So Derda did as much. He stuck the bread in under the curtains and left it on the table by the window, then kept running. He had to find the bloody fabric and get rid of it.

  It was the same scene; the same day all over again. There was a man in front of the tombstone. But it was a different man. A man wearing a short-sleeved shirt. A man with glasses. The man looked around and adjusted his necktie. A man in his late fifties.

  Derda hid in the same place again. He watched the same white envelope with the same eye. He watched the man pull the envelope out of the ground and leave a yellow one in its place.

  Covering the top with dirt and looking around once more, the man left, walking down the road to the cemetery gate. He didn’t walk slowly like the man in the robe. His movements were hasty. He’d finished his work within a minute. And now he was leaving. Derda could see his face but he didn’t look like anyone he knew. He was slim, and his hair and skin were fair. His face betr
ayed no emotion. His wrinkled face seemed impenetrable.

  Derda waited for the man to be out of sight. Then he got out from behind the tree and ran straight to the tomb. He walked behind it. He fell to his knees and searched for the fabric. He found it. He gave a long deep sigh. He hadn’t been caught. He laughed. He took out the box of matches and lit one. The skinny little match roared into a fire and he held the fabric by one corner and held it away from himself. He gave the loose end of the fabric to the fire. The fire burned furiously, devouring the fabric. He held onto it for a while until he had to drop it. Then he stomped it out. The pitch-black ashes flew away and the bloody sheet was no more.

  Then he went to the tomb. To the envelope at the tomb. He got into the grave bed of the tomb and looked around. He didn’t see anyone. With a quick movement he drove his hand into the earth and pulled out the envelope. It was taped closed. Happily it was same kind of tape they sold at the corner grocer so he knew he could reseal it if he needed to. He opened it slowly, cautiously. He opened the envelope without damaging it at all.

  Then he knew that this couldn’t possibly be real. Because inside the envelope was a thick stack of money. Derda’s trembling hand pulled five banknotes out of the stack and slipped them into his pocket. Then he took out five more. As long as that enveloped stayed open he couldn’t help himself. He was afraid of taking too much so he closed it up and ran his fingernail down the tape to reseal it. He looked at the hole he’d pulled the envelope out of and covered it over with dirt. He had to run. He ran. He had to run fast. He ran even faster. He ran out of the cemetery gate and to the bus stop on the dingy street. He waited, terrified. He was terrified he would see the man who’d left the envelope or the other one with the long robe. He didn’t stop looking to the left, to the right, or behind him for even a second. He was like a dog chasing his own tail.

  The old lady sitting at the bench at the bus stop even said, “What’s got into you, son? Sit down like a man!” gesturing to the empty spot next to her.

  But Derda didn’t hear her and he fidgeted relentlessly until the bus came.

  He got off the third bus he’d gotten on to. The name of the stop he’d gotten off at was the same as the name on the sign on the huge building. He walked up to the gate. People just called the stop “Prison.” “Drop me off at prison.”

  He walked up to the private at the gate.

  “I have something to give to my father, my mother sent it.”

  The private banged at the big iron door behind him and a few seconds later a prison guard stuck his head out from behind it.

  “What?”

  “It’s for my dad,” said Derda. “I wanted to give him something, my mother sent it.”

  “What is it?”

  He showed him the five banknotes he’d taken out of his pocket. He kept the others in his pocket. The guard glanced at the money in the kid’s hand and quickly added it up.

  “Who’s your dad?” he asked.

  Derda said the first and last names of the man he hadn’t seen since he was five years old and whose face he couldn’t remember.

  “Ok,” said the guard. Only his head was visible through the crack in the door. Then a hand stuck out. He took the money and while he was closing the door he heard the kid and stopped.

  “How is my dad? Is he Ok?”

  “This is a prison, son. You think anybody’s “Ok” here?” he said, disappearing behind the door.

  It went in through the kid’s ears then welled behind in his eyes.

  At the sight of the spring of tears about to be punctured, the soldier said, “Don’t listen to him, your dad is fine, don’t worry.”

  Derda swallowed, raised his head, and looked at the private.

  “He’s good, right? And would you tell him, my mom died,” he said, and walked away.

  He believed that his father in prison loved him enough not to send him to the orphanage. He couldn’t tell anyone his secret. Derda’s biggest secret would isolate him for the rest of his livelong days. Because his secret was that he had chopped up his mother and buried her in pieces. But you could tell even from the way he walked. From the way his hands were jammed into his pockets. From the way his head was bowed. From the way his feet shuffled against the ground at his every step. From the way he walked slow, like he had no place to go. Or the way he walked fast, like he was late for everything. And then from his smell. Sweat and loneliness. Maybe people across the street or in passing cars couldn’t understand why, but once they looked in his face, it wasn’t long before they noticed. The gendarme who watched him walk away noticed. Maybe that’s why he shook his head and muttered, “Life’s a bitch. Fuck it!”

  And so the news received into the soldier’s ear and the money received into the guard’s pocket were gone and forgotten. Neither reached their destination. But Derda, on his way back home, said with silent lips, “Wait and see, Dad, wait and see how much more money I’m going to bring you!” For three days, he didn’t leave his post near the tomb that people seemed to be using as some sort of mailbox. But no one came, and no one left an envelope.

  But on the fourth day it happened. Just what he was waiting for. He saw the man with the long robe. But this time the man passed the tomb he’d used before. He was in front of the tomb to its right. From behind the trees, Derda, if he didn’t remember incorrectly, was thinking that at the base of that tomb was another piece of his mother. The piece of her right leg, knee to ankle.

  The man in the robe buried a white envelope and, staring straight ahead, walked away. Derda didn’t lose a second. He ran to the tomb. He opened the big white envelope trying to imagine what could be more valuable than money. Inside was a stack of papers. Papers and photographs with writing on them. Photographs of groups of men with beards and robes. Some of their turbaned heads were circled with red pen. There was something written close to them. With the same red pen. But Derda still couldn’t read. If he could, he could have read names like “Sheik Gazi” and “Hıdır Arif.” But even if he could read he still wouldn’t have understood anything. Because he’d never heard of MI6, the British intelligence service, or of the members of the Hikmet Tariqat in England. In fact, even if he could have read every single one of those papers, he still wouldn’t have understood a damn thing.

  The stack of paper he held in his hand, in exchange for money, became the information property of the intelligence service. Even if he had known what post at the consulate the man with the glasses who came through the cemetery gates to this row of tombs held, he still wouldn’t have been able to get what was going on. Because, of course, Steven’s business card didn’t say he was MI6’s man in Istanbul, but that he was the commercial attaché. The swapping technique he used with Tayyar was called a dead drop in MI6 lingo. It was a method of exchange where the giver and the receiver never met face to face. It saved them from having to use a safety deposit box or something like that, like they had had to before. But there had to be some sort of signal to show if the drop point was empty or full. Steven had chosen a streetlamp on the street leading to the cemetery. A streetlamp post, to be more precise. After leaving an envelope, he put one of two bike locks around the post. One was blue, the other red, two bike locks. They passed between Tayyar and Steven, back and forth. The result was first and foremost that the exchange was secure. The safest place to do such an exchange was a cemetery where hardly anyone ever went. There are no casual passersby in a cemetery. Because there, the majority of eyes are underground. But maybe Steven chose the cemetery on account of his own personal style of dark romanticism. After all, it was called a dead drop.

  The reason for Tayyar’s treason was a lot simpler. It amounted to nothing more than a mere sentence Sheik Gazi had said years before: “Know that Hıdır Arif is my only successor.” But Tayyar had devoted his life to Sheik Gazi. Tayyar, when he was just eighteen years old, threw himself into the middle of a missile assault orchestrated by a man known as Tehran Selahattin and saved Sheik Gazi’s life. He was in a coma for seven
days. And then he acted as witness as Sheik Gazi and Tehran Selahattin made peace, kissing each other’s cheeks and agreeing to divide the region between the two of them. The result was, like his spiritual father had said once upon a time, there was no reason for him to cry anymore. Steven was experienced enough to know how to find the rotten tooth in a mouth of tens of thousands of teeth, and to know how to pull it out. In the end Tayyar accepted Steven’s offer. In any case, since the day the successor had been indicated, that is, for years, Tayyar had been waiting for such an offer. What he did wasn’t treason exactly. It was taking his due. In cash. It was impossible for Derda to have known about any of that.

  He was putting the papers back in the white envelope and burying it where he’d found it. If he didn’t, maybe Tayyar would catch him. But Derda, with the mugger’s instinct he’d inherited from his father, with some strange unconscious motivation, decided to take half of the papers. He stuck them up under his T-shirt, securing the corners in the waistband of his pants. He quickly buried the rest and ran away. While he was running, he thought that if these papers were really worth money, then he wasn’t going to have to clean tombstones anymore. But he wasn’t going to take money from the yellow envelope that day, he said to himself. Two misdeeds in one morning were enough for the kid.

  With the five bills in his pocket he ate and smoked cigarettes for five days. Eventually he even forgot to knock on Süreyya’s mother’s door at night. He hid the papers he’d taken from the white envelope in his pillowcase on the floor mattress, and every night he lay his head on them and dreamt of being rich. But it wasn’t long before he realized he didn’t know who he could sell the documents to. “That’s Ok,” said Derda. “I’ll find a way.” Then, after waking from dreams of becoming a professional thief, he slipped into sleep like a child.