“’77. 1977.”
“You see?” said Süleyman. “Look how the time’s passed. How old was I then? Twenty-three, twenty-four? Something like that, anyway. Anyway, then we were on the inside. In prison. And there I discovered him again. Then I read him, as a man. I read and I understood. Like I said, this guy understood, he knew. Look, I still don’t really know, but I do know that this guy had something like a vocation, he had something to say, that much I know, you understand? Just once, there was this man like a genius. He was going to write something else … that’s what they said, anyway. What was that, anyway?”
Derda knew. What Oğuz Atay would have written if he hadn’t died. Anyone who’d read his Journal would know.
“The Soul of Turkey.”
“Hah,” said Süleyman. “That’s it. The Soul of Turkey. The name itself is nice. But look at what happened then. Does Turkey still have its soul? Turkey’s soul has been sold. Years ago they sold it. They sold it like a pimp. You’ll see, the soul of this country went to the coffers of sons of bitches. Son, bottoms up!”
Derda winced all over all over again. The vodka sparked the fire, and his fatigue extinguished it.
“Brother, is it okay if I go to sleep?”
Süleyman nudged his chin in the direction of Derda’s resting spot.
“Pull out those there. Lie there.”
The things to pull out were collapsed empty boxes, the spot where he could lay out to sleep was on top of them. Derda did what he was told and lay down. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw Oğuz Atay’s photographs. They laid that man to waste: the words echoed between his two ears.
He opened his eyes and asked, “Brother Süleyman, if you saw them, would you recognize them?”
“Hmm?”
“Well, the men who laid him to waste, like you said. Whoever they were, if you saw them, would you recognize them?”
“Lie down, man, go to sleep,” said Süleyman, and he laughed. “Why man, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to cut them down, all of them,” said Derda. It was like he was talking about cutting a loaf of bread. Maybe that’s why Süleyman didn’t know what to say.
“The kid’s going to sleep here?” asked Israfil. Then he turned to Derda.
“You’re going to sleep here?”
“If it’s okay, just a few days,” said Derda.
“Fine,” said Israfil. “Stay. That way you two can keep an eye on each other.” Then he added, gesturing to Süleyman, “Don’t let this one have too much to drink.” He looked at Süleyman.
“Süleyman, for God’s sake. Look, you’re the one heading up these operations. Don’t do anything to yourself you won’t be able to reverse. One day you’re going to doze off drunk, and you’re going to burn the place down with those cigarettes, sucking on them like they’re some sort of teat.”
“Okay, okay. Just mind your own business,” said Süleyman. He wandered off toward the machines. Israfil threw a hand onto Derda’s shoulder and smiled.
“You know how to use a gun?”
“No, brother,” said Derda.
“Well, seeing as you’re going to stay here, you’re going to watch the place at night. Süleyman doesn’t know his ass from his face. So we’re going to trust in you to take care of any nonsense, should it arise. Anyway, hang on, we’ll arrange everything. Abdullah isn’t here yet?”
“He hasn’t come yet, brother,” was what he was going to say, but then he heard two raps on the depot door so he ran over and asked, “Who is it?”
“Remzi, Remzi.”
Derda threw the bolt and pulled open the iron door. Remzi was laughing.
“Derda, man, you really turned Uncle Celal’s head a ripe shade of red! Boy, how many years you haven’t seen the man and you throw yourself on him as soon as you see him?”
“Your dad’s out?” asked Israfil.
Derda was forced to admit it. He hadn’t wanted to mention anything about his father being out. Or his beating him up.
“I was going to wish him all the best, but it won’t help much now, I think.”
“We had a little fight,” said Derda, practically in a whisper. He was embarrassed. But Israfil didn’t react at all like he’d expected.
“Good on you!” he said. “Before you become a real man, you have to fight with your father.” His thoughts on the matter were clear and he added, “Derda, man, you’re one crazy kid.” Then he turned to Remzi, “Come on, don’t hang around like that. Go help Süleyman.”
Derda was going to follow Remzi, but Israfil caught him by the arm.
“You have any money?”
He didn’t, but he said “yes.” Israfil pulled a pistol out of his pocket and handed it to Derda.
“Anyway, take this, keep it at your side.”
“Thank you, brother,” said Derda. And he held the door open for Israfil. Abdullah was parking the van near the top of the stairs. When he came to the top of the stairs, Israfil laughed and called out to Abdullah.
“Apo, watch out for this kid! Check it out, the bastard practically destroyed his own dad!”
Abdullah responded with a feigned smile, pushing it as wide as it would go. Then, as Israfil walked away, he dove right in with his usual “Derda, hurry up, we’re already late.”
That night, as the illegal printing world came down and a cardboard box castle was erected in its place, the first thing that was put in place was the after-work vodka spread. But this time there was only one glass next to the bottle.
“You’re not going to drink anything?” asked Süleyman.
“No,” said Derda. He showed him the book in his hand. “I’m going to read for a while.”
“You know best.”
Since the night before the ghosts of the past were still very much inside him. Maybe if he talked about them more, then he’d be able to fall asleep like everyone else. But Derda didn’t know about Süleyman’s ghosts. How would he know, he thought, how could he know about the revolutionaries of those times? How could the kid know? He tipped the glass into his mouth with a greedy violence. He wanted to get drunk, drunker than he usually did. But Derda interrupted his drunken reveries, coming in to ask some names from the book in his hand. He asked about Oğuz Atay and The Men Who Saved the World who didn’t even have the power of speech. He asked some questions about a small group of people who called themselves socialists but wanted to be perceived as social realists by others. And Süleyman spoke of it all so vividly that the enormous depot was transported back in time. He talked about anything he knew. He even tried to explain some of what he didn’t know.
But after every name, the same question: “Is he still alive?”
“What do I know, he died, probably,” Süleyman would say. “Look, a new book came out. There, I printed it yesterday,” he would say sometimes. Derda was marking the book with a pen. He was creasing the pages of the book in front of him and flipping the pages violently. He was drawing in oxygen and exhaling poison into the growing pyre of the endless names. All at once Süleyman realized that Derda was making out a hit list.
“Hey, what are you doing, man?”
Derda looked up but he didn’t say anything. No matter how drunk he was, Süleyman was going to remember.
“Boy, are you crazy? Of all the people in the world, what are these men to you? Don’t let me hear you say that you’re going to cut them down or anything else ever again!”
Derda looked at the floor and spoke.
“Didn’t you say they laid him out to waste?”
“Yes, but—” said Süleyman. He was going to continue, but Derda was getting to his feet and Süleyman saw he was going to speak.
“What’s written here, do you know? Look, you know what’s written all over this book? They killed the man. They say Oğuz Atay had this brain tumor, right? Then he went and died at such a young age. That’s just it, this tumor is bullshit, it’s those bastards you were talking about, they were the tumor. The man died of sadness. You still don’t
see it? Look, it’s written here. They didn’t get up and curse the man down. You know what they did? Nothing! They didn’t do anything. Just like that, like some dog just walked past them or something, they didn’t even turn back and look. That’s why the man died. No one turned around and looked. How’d they get away with it? You tell me. Can anyone with a conscience do this? Fuck! The man died right in front of their eyes.”
Derda was crying like a child. Because he was still a child, a newborn in fact. His world was as wide as his swaddling clothes. He couldn’t hear Süleyman telling him, “Calm down, son, sit down! Go splash some water on your face.” Because Derda the newborn had just opened his eyes, but his ears had yet to start to hear.
“I’m going to find them one by one and fuck them all!” he said in the end.
Süleyman’s voice came on top of him.
“Sit down like a man. Don’t make me get up and stop you. Are you on drugs, boy?”
Derda looked at Süleyman like he was the wildest creature to come out of the most untouched jungle of the most remote corner of earth.
“No,” he said. “I’m fine, in fact I’m more than fine.”
After that they didn’t talk anymore. Derda buried himself in his book, muttering to himself as he read. And shaking his head. And wiping his tears with the back of his hand. And swearing. And all the while whetting his desire.
In the morning, Süleyman woke up coughing and saw Derda was still reading. There were some things he wanted to say, but he gave up. Derda reminded him of himself, of his life, in the deepest days of the revolution. Torture, fights, those nights when they handed out pamphlets, all the swindles they ate and all the swindles they served. What does someone learn from life, what does it teach Derda? “Fuck it,” he said to himself. “Fuck it all.”
Every night that week Süleyman and Derda sat side by side in silence. One drank vodka, the other never stopped reading. Then, one day, Derda went into a shop in an industrial park and came out with a can of spray paint in his hand. He had asked for black. They were all out. In the end he was willing to settle for red. That night he left, telling Süleyman, “I have to go do something.” And Süleyman had told him, “Get cigarettes on your way back.”
Derda walked forever until he made it to the overpass where Saruhan sold his books. It took him a good hour of walking. He pulled the scarf he’d gotten from Remzi off his neck, wrapped it around his face, and shook the can in his hand. That’s how the man who’d sold it had told him to do it. It was five steps to the door of the bookstore where he’d stolen the book from. He checked the stairs on both sides of the overpass then looked around him to make sure no was there, and then he sprayed a big O. Right on the glass door of the bookstore. Everywhere else was covered by metal shutters.
There were only four words he knew how to write: His name, his last name, and Oğuz Atay. But he had drawn the letter O too big so there wasn’t any space left to put the rest of it. No room for either Oğuz or Atay. So much for writing the whole name, now he was forced to content himself with just the initials. But he hadn’t even left enough room next to the O to stick one measly A. Derda had let his excitement get the better of him. He had been too hasty.
But he had no time to waste standing around, making a decision. There was only one empty space near the O to put the A, and that was inside the O. He spray painted an A inside the O and took two steps back to admire his work. A letter A inside a letter O. Bright red. It was a symbol that perhaps for others would signify something entirely different, but for Derda it was the signature of Oğuz Atay.
An A inside an O looked so nice to him that it was some time before he could tear his eyes off the sight of it. But then noticing oncoming blue and red lights flashing from the end of the street, he took off running in the opposite direction. He couldn’t get caught by the police. Not yet, at least.
He’d chosen to mark a bookstore of all places with Oğuz Atay’s signature because he was under the impression that all the names of the men he wanted to take revenge on for Oğuz Atay could somehow be found there. True, perhaps, that he didn’t know where any of them lived, if they lived at all, but all of them must appear somewhere in the books in the bookstore. Resting on the shelves of that bookstore. Lined up side by side.
A twisted smile flashed across his face. Streets passed, stairs changed. His smile turned into laughter. And as he laughed he ran faster. The streets rang out with the sound of him as he passed. Finally, finally! he was able to really do something for Oğuz Atay. He couldn’t clean his tomb anymore, but at least he could plaster the bookstores with his signature. He started to pay attention to the shops he was running by. By chance he passed two more bookstores and started the can in his hand shaking again. He hardly needed to—as it was, it was well shaken from his run. He drew two more A’s inside of two more O’s, and left them to mix with the night.
“Where were you, boy?” Süleyman asked.
Derda smiled.
“It took me two hours to find a shop open to buy your cigarettes.”
Abdullah, relieved to see there was no book in Derda’s hand, barked “Light this” at him. There’s something different about the kid, he thought. He was smiling and looking out the window. Despite the weather being cold the window was open, and he was rubbing his arm against the van’s hood and swinging his hand holding the cigarette.
When they arrived at the overpass he saw three people gathered in front of the bookshop’s door. One was the woman he’d taken Oğuz Atay’s biography from. The van had drawn near the opposite side of the overpass so there was no way they could see Derda. They were looking at the symbol on the door and talking to each other, their hands at their waists. They must be deciding who’s going to wash it off, thought Derda. Maybe they’re talking about how they can wash it off. Laughing, he started up the overpass’s steps, with two boxes in his hands.
“What’s up?” said Saruhan. “I see you’re in a good mood.”
“I’m good, I’m good,” said Derda. He even tossed a hello to the clock seller when he passed him on his way back down. Usually he couldn’t even look at him because of all those alarms going off. But that morning, nothing was as usual. He wished it were that night again. He wanted to be running down the streets, seeking out all the bookstores, and spraying Oğuz Atay’s signature on them all over again. On all the bookstores’ windows, on all of them, and maybe on all the walls of every street.
He was leaping down the stairs two by two thinking all this, when for a second he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He stopped, staring at the symbol, willing himself to believe. There, on the building across the street, on the wall, was a symbol spray-painted in pitch-black. It was the letter A inside the letter O. Barely different from Derda’s symbol, only that the legs of the A slipped out a bit from inside the O. He didn’t know what to think. But who? was the only thing he could say. Who did that?
He heard Abdullah’s voice loud and clear, but as much as Abdullah spoke, he stayed motionless. He eyes fixed on the symbol.
“Hey, ding-dong, get over here, why’d you stop there? Come on, get down here, we got more work to do.”
“I knew it,” Derda said. He was smiling. Squeezing his fists tight, jumping down the stairs.
“I knew it! I knew it!”
“Boy, what did you know?” said Abdullah, crossing in front of the van to the driver’s side.
“Nothing,” said Derda. He got into the van and shut the door. This time it was he who held out a cigarette.
“Light this.”
“Well, all right then!” said Abdullah.
After his first drag, Derda leaned his head back against his seat and thought. For the first time in his life he wasn’t alone. Yes, he said to himself. There’s someone else out there. Maybe a whole slew of people. People just like me. People out on the streets taking revenge for Oğuz Atay. Maybe they’re on every corner. He sighed. If only I could meet them. He still couldn’t completely believe it. He couldn’t believe he??
?d known how to draw the correct symbol. That means it works like that, he said to himself. That means that however someone feels, their hand knows and just does the right thing. When they were stopped at a red light he watched the faces passing in front of them. Which one, he thought. Who could it be? Maybe it’s everyone, he thought, laughing.
Just a few short days earlier Derda had thought that every single person who crossed the face of the earth was bad to the core, and now, if even for a split second, he believed in the possibility that everyone could be good. He fantasized that all people and all of mankind could love Oğuz Atay. Because Derda believed that Oğuz Atay was everything good. Everything that touched goodness originated in him. The photographs at the end of his Journal passed before his eyes, especially the very last one. The one where Oğuz Atay looked straight into Derda’s eyes. Maybe it was only his own voice ringing in his own ears: I am not alone.
Meanwhile, he wasn’t listening to anything Abdullah was telling him. But the guy must’ve been talking nonstop for the last half hour they’d been stuck in traffic. He talked about all the phlegm he was coughing up at night ever since he was forced to stop smoking, and he just kept talking. Derda was paying so little attention to Abdullah that he took the packet out of his pocket, took out a cigarette, and offered it to Abdullah. And even with great joy. As if to celebrate his not being alone. Like it was his birthday. As if because there weren’t candles to blow out, he wanted to light a cigarette instead.
“Light another one.”
Abdullah looked at the cigarette, then at Derda’s smiling face.
“You’re right, boy,” he said, taking the cigarette. “If we’re going to die, may as well die doing this.”
Maybe life is beautiful when it’s misunderstood. But only when it’s misunderstood.
Then there came to pass three more nights of signatures. The windows of newspaper stands, bookstores, bus stops, whenever he found himself alone with a wall before him, he tagged it with Oğuz Atay’s signature. For three nights, Derda put Oğuz Atay’s seal on whatever place he could. And he passed his daytimes looking for more places he could tag, always on the lookout from the windows of Abdullah’s van. He saw four more symbols that weren’t his. He had four more dreams. I wonder who did them? It was like he was suddenly part of a secret underground organization. So secret that even the members of the organization didn’t know each other. He wondered about the name of the organization. What could it be? he thought. Then, all of a sudden, he remembered the name of one of the children’s books Saruhan had had him read. It was called The Oğuz Turks. Derda smiled. Why not? he thought. And he thought about that for a while. Then he forgot about it totally and didn’t think about it anymore. Anyway, he said, the most important thing was that he was not alone. Because up until that day, the most important thing had been that he was alone.