Iron Earth, Copper Sky Page 14

  He ran upstairs to the Muhtar. ‘Memidik was dead,’ he panted, ‘but now he’s breathing again. Only just.’

  Sefer smiled. ‘Look at you!’ he mocked. ‘A big strapping man quaking with fear. By your size I’d have thought you had some mettle in you. Let me tell you this, Ömer, the human being is tougher than any creature on earth. A man doesn’t die so easily.’

  Ömer was disconcerted. ‘But I gave him such a beating that he died three times, I tell you.’

  Sefer smiled more broadly. ‘Ömer, my child, you’re just a raw recruit. Any old policeman in these parts would have had him singing like a nightingale in no time. You need some training from me. Go now. Let’s see this hard-hearted Memidik!’

  Memidik was still lying where Ömer had left him. The Muhtar gave him one look and smiled again. Then his face changed and he began to shout.

  ‘Wretched, wretched man! What have you done to the child? Didn’t I tell you I wanted no fighting? Why, you’ve nearly killed the poor lad.’

  Ömer blinked, taken aback. Then he saw that Sefer was winking at him.

  ‘You foul creature,’ the Muhtar continued. ‘You’ll pay for this. I’m a man of the law, yes, the keeper of the high law, if something happens to this child here, I’ll deliver you into the claws of justice and see that you go straight to the rope. And truly, that’s what I shall do!’ He patted Memidik’s head and would have forced a tear or two had Memidik’s eyes not been closed. ‘My poor brave child, what has this monster done to you? Ah, it’s all my fault for delivering you into the hands of such a savage. But then, why didn’t you say what he wanted and be done with it, you foolish child, instead of taking such a beating? You could always have denied everything when you came out.’ He straightened up and turned to Ömer. ‘As for you, you’ve disgraced my house. What will people say when they hear of this! That the Muhtar lures people into his house and beats them to pulp … No, you can’t get away with this, my fine friend. You can’t play with my honour. Now, wipe the blood off the lad’s face and have them prepare some poultice for his wounds.’

  He went out, Ömer following him.

  ‘There’s nothing the matter with the son of a bitch. He’s just shamming.’

  ‘Really?’ Ömer cried with relief.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Now tell me, what do you think, will he say it?’

  ‘He’ll never say it.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see. Wipe him clean. Then take a rag and soak it with oil and wedge it between his toes.’

  ‘I see!’

  ‘Wait! That’s not all. You’ll do the same for the other foot but with paper this time. Then set a match to it. If this doesn’t make him open his eyes and talk …’

  Ömer went back. He cleared the mess and wiped Memidik clean.

  ‘You just wait,’ he muttered between his teeth. ‘Wait and see what’s what! Deceiving me like that … Tashbash’s dog … Just you wait!’

  He moistened a bit of cloth with oil. Then he did the same with a scrap of paper. He clamped the rag between the toes of the right foot and the paper on the other foot and set them afire. What happened then even Ömer had not looked for. Memidik jumped to his feet as though catapulted from a sling, then fell back, screaming and thrashing like mad. Sefer was waiting outside. He came in shouting.

  ‘What’s this? Now what have you done to the boy?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Ömer replied innocently. ‘He just got up and then fell down by himself.’

  ‘Well, help him up and let him go home now. I don’t want to see such doings in my house again.’

  Ömer heaved Memidik to his feet. Memidik swayed, but managed to take one or two steps to the door.

  ‘Sol’ Ömer growled. ‘So you’re going home just as if nothing had happened, you son of a bitch? So you didn’t dream it? So it was Tashbash you saw, eh?’ He advanced upon him menacingly, but Sefer stopped him.

  ‘Don’t touch the child. I want no fighting in my house.’ He took Memidik’s hand in his. ‘My brave little Memidik,’ he said, ‘it was a dream, wasn’t it?’

  Memidik realized he must do something to save his life. ‘Please Uncle Sefer,’ he said, ‘don’t let Ömer kill me!’

  ‘He can’t do anything to you,’ Sefer said. ‘I’ll wring his neck first. It was a dream, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Will you tell the villagers that tomorrow?’

  ‘I will.’

  The Muhtar clasped Memidik in his arms. Then he turned to Ömer. ‘Bring the Koran.’

  Ömer returned immediately with the book.

  ‘Say it now. It was just a dream, not Tashbash at all. Swear to it on the Koran. Come on, say it and put your hand on the book.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Memidik said. ‘I can’t swear to it. I did see it, Uncle, I did. With these two eyes …’

  Sefer shook his head. ‘So you were trying to trick me? Just to get away from Ömer …’

  And so they began all over again. All through the night, they tried everything, blows, pleading, torture. Memidik was at his last gasp, but still he would not put his hand to the Koran. In between the blows, whenever he came to, he kept on trying to convince Sefer.

  ‘The forest of lights … May my two eyes drop out … I saw it with these two eyes.’

  During the night Memidik’s mother knocked twice at Sefer’s door to ask after her son.

  ‘He did come in the evening,’ Sefer told her. ‘But he left long ago, going to set his traps for martens, he said. He told me his tale too. A pretty dream he dreamed, your son.’

  Chapter 23

  The baking sheets had been set over the fire and the house reeked with smoke. Three women were rolling out the dough while another laid the flat yufka bread to bake on the sheets. Their eyes were streaming, their hands and faces and clothes white with flour. Little flames shot out from under the sheets. The smell of burning flour spread far and wide so that the whole village was aware it was baking day in that household.

  This morning, after his sleepless night, Sefer’s eyes were swollen, his face puffy and yellow. Everywhere he went there was smoke stinging his eyes.

  ‘God damn this baking day!’ he muttered. ‘A man doesn’t know where to put himself.’

  He hung around, restless, thinking how it was all over with him, how Tashbash was now firmly enthroned among the saints, and a bitter wave of envy swept through him. A man can have just so much luck. Many of these small hamlets, nestling on the slopes of the Taurus Mountains had produced holy men, but there had never been one out of Yalak village. And why pick on Tashbash? Why not Spellbound Ahmet, the ideal holy man, with his hardy half-naked body tanned by sun and snow, his large, mournful, haunted black eyes, his tawny shaggy beard? And this business of Memidik’s? That baffled all description! There he was, ready to give his life rather than betray Tashbash. Obviously, he had made up this story of the lights and then worked himself into believing it was true, and now he would not recant. But why? What was it to him? What an unlucky star-crossed man Sefer was! Everything had conspired against him, Adil, the villagers, his own men, everything.

  He wandered into the room where Pale Ismail’s daughter was tending Memidik’s wounds.

  ‘Has he come to?’ he asked.

  ‘He opened his eyes and said a few words,’ she replied. There was pity in her voice. ‘But he’s burning. He asked for water and drank a little. He won’t die.’

  ‘Well, it’s his fault,’ Sefer said as he went out. ‘I can’t help it if he does die.’

  But, he thought, was it Memidik’s fault? Wouldn’t anybody else have come out with something sooner or later? People were always ready to make up such tales, deluding themselves and eager to convince the rest of the world too. That was human nature.

  ‘Damn this smoke! These women always hit on the worst possible day for their baking.’

  He drifted out of the house. The sky had cleared today. Even the weather had been against him, favouring Tashbash. Was there
really something in that man? His throat tightened. A weight had settled on his chest. A strange dread was spreading like poison into the very marrow of his bones. He slumped down against the sunny wall of the house and held his head between his hands. How would it all end?

  Suddenly, moved by a feeling, he raised his head and nearly choked with excitement. There before him were the long-awaited members of the Village Council, and they were smiling at him happily.

  He rose with difficulty. ‘Say it,’ he cried. ‘Quickly. Good news or bad?’

  ‘Good. Very good,’ Mealy Muslu said. ‘He’s acquitted us of all our debts. What’s more, the villagers can go and take whatever they need from his shop this winter, and on credit too. Adil Effendi told us to tell you that you’re his deputy here. Whatever’s mine is Sefer’s too, he said. Look!’ He swung down a bundle from his back and opened it. ‘Look what I got!’

  Sefer stared at the lengths of cloth, transfixed. His lips were trembling. ‘Thanks be to God!’ he murmured. ‘Praise be to the almighty God for allowing me to see this day!’

  He sank down and held his head in his hands again. The four members of the Village Council squatted about him, waiting.

  After a while Sefer leaped up and rushed inside to Memidik. ‘My little Memidik,’ he said, patting his head, ‘you’re all right now. No fever, nothing. You can go. Don’t hold it against me if that dog roughed you up a little in my house. I didn’t know what he was up to. But then, why begrudge me what I asked of you? Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. You can go out into the village right away if you like and invent all the stories you fancy. Tell them you saw Tashbash on Mount Tekech with fifty thousand suns at his heels. It’s all right with me. Nobody needs you any more.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Send him back to his mother. Let him dress and go at once.’

  He went back outside.

  ‘Aghas,’ he said, ‘the good tidings you bring me today are like telling a condemned man standing under the gallows, go, you’re free, we won’t hang you. That’s what this news means to me. God bless you all. Still, my friends, I’m a little hurt. Wouldn’t a man do everything in his power to bring this news a moment earlier?’

  ‘But we did try!’ Mealy Muslu protested. ‘Only the road was impassable. I set out three times and got buried in snow up to my neck. The flying bird couldn’t have got to the village in this storm.’

  ‘Well, anyway, that’s all past and done with,’ Sefer said. ‘Now we’ve got to plan how to make the most of this news.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we must do,’ Muslu concurred.

  ‘Let’s not act hastily,’ Sefer said. ‘The villagers will go mad with joy when they hear this. As for Tashbash, he’s done for. I’ll show him how to be a saint! Listen, this calls for a big feast. I’m going to kill a calf. Each of you will contribute a goat. This will be like an offering to God for having delivered us from evil, and the villagers will eat their fill too. Only you mustn’t breathe a word to anyone. Just spread it around that you’ve come back with great news. Set them wondering, itching to know. And tomorrow … Now, go home and send those goats to me at once.’

  They departed with alacrity, eager to show their wives and children the things they had brought back.

  ‘Watchman!’ Sefer shouted.

  The watchman had been around the corner all the time.

  ‘Yes, Agha!’

  ‘You heard, didn’t you?’

  ‘Every single word.’

  ‘Well then, run out into the village now. Tell them … Just say this. Our Muhtar has tidings for you of the greatest importance. Tomorrow at break of day you’ll hear the good news from Sefer’s own golden tongue …’

  In an instant the whole village was astir. For the first time in days Tashbash was forgotten and people spent the evening wondering what the news could be.

  Early next morning they were all there, young and old. Even Memidik had come, supported by his mother.

  The Muhtar cleared his throat, threw his chest forward and began to speak with the air of a general who has just put the enemy to rout. He made the most of what he had to say, adding flourish and detail, praising Adil to high heaven and enlarging on his own role in the affair. It was getting on for midday when he wound up and invited everyone to partake of the feast.

  The villagers pressed about the big cauldrons. They were in seventh heaven. This was a feast indeed, such as they had never seen before, with meat and pilaff enough for five villages and to spare.

  Sefer looked for Tashbash, but he was nowhere to be seen. This irritated him. ‘Well, anyway, I’ve broken your wings, my friend,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I’ve cooked your goose, once and for all …’

  For a full three days a white bird had perched on Tashbash’s house, huge and motionless, the size of two eagles, a bird such as had never been known before in the Taurus Mountains, or in the Chukurova, with one of its eyes blue and the other golden. The minute the news of Adil’s munificence came, the bird vanished …

  ‘Hah! If it hadn’t been for Tashbash …’

  ‘If he hadn’t breathed mercy into Adil’s heart of stone …’

  ‘Adil’s still the same Adil!’

  ‘One night Tashbash turned himself into a white dove and came to settle on Adil’s windowsill. Listen, o Adil! spoke the white dove, and sparks darted out of his eyes, have you heard what the women of Sakarjali did to that Agha? If you love your life, don’t come to Yalak village! Forget about those debts. Your shop abounds with goods. Minister to the needs of those poor villagers …’

  ‘And here’s Sefer bragging …’

  ‘When we all know it’s for the grace of Tashbash …’

  ‘If it weren’t for him, it would be all over with this village.’

  ‘The white dove fixed its flashing eyes on Adil, and Adil wetted his pants with fear.’

  ‘And that’s the reason why, my good neighbours, we’ve all been able to sleep soundly for the past three days.’

  ‘As long as our Lord Tashbash is among us, we’ll be safe from all evil.’

  ‘Adil won’t come …’

  ‘There will be no pestilences.’

  ‘The serpents won’t attack us.’

  ‘The earth will yield in plenty.’

  ‘The women won’t be barren.’

  ‘They’ll even give birth to twins.’

  ‘And here’s Sefer preening and swaggering, as if he had anything to do with it!’

  ‘Ungrateful man!’

  ‘Where would he be, the lousy brute, without Tashbash!’

  As usual, all this was reported to the Muhtar in double quick time. His rage knew no limits and he began whirling about his house like a madman, cursing the villagers.

  ‘I’m choking! Quick, water,’ he cried out suddenly. His face was purple.

  Outside the blizzard was raging with renewed fury.

  When he had recovered from his faint, Sefer summoned the watchman. ‘Go and fetch the members of the Village Council,’ he panted.

  ‘But for the grace of Tashbash, Adil would have seized everything, down to our last rag.’

  ‘He did it once, remember!’

  ‘He’d have taken the cooking pots …’

  ‘Even the spoons!’

  ‘The little bulgur we have left …’

  ‘Down to our women’s drawers!’

  ‘I’m going!’ Sefer shouted the minute the members of the Village Council had filed into his house, their clothes white with snow. ‘I’m going straight to Adil. I’ll show them white doves and Tashbash miracles!’

  ‘Don’t,’ they begged him. ‘These people have gone through a lot this year. They’re not in their right minds.’

  Sefer did not even hear them. ‘Women,’ he cried, ‘bring me my sheepskin cloak, my woollen hood, my snow-glasses. I’m setting out now, without letting a moment pass.’

  ‘But how can you, in this blizzard?’ they begged him. ‘You’ll freeze to death before you’ve even crossed the Long Valley. Look what happened to Old Ha
lil. And Rejep and Hüsneh … Wait until it clears up a little …’

  ‘I can’t wait! There’s a fire in my heart, stifling me. I can’t wait to get to Adil and show those ungrateful villagers what’s what.’

  He flung himself out of the house and vanished into the whirling blizzard, oblivious to the pleas and screams of his wives and friends.

  ‘So it’s for the grace of Tashbash is it, you idiots?’

  He was going at breakneck speed and was soon in the Long Valley. There was a rushing in his skull, as though a hive of bees had been stuffed into it. By dawn the next day he had reached the Mortar Stone. The storm raged on more violently than ever.

  ‘I ought to stop awhile in the cave by the Mortar Stone,’ he told himself, ‘and light a fire …’

  His legs were giving way under him. He hesitated, then spurted on towards the cave, the snow lashing at his back like a whip. The cave was alive with bats, hanging in clusters from the roof and walls. It made him sick. He dashed out again into the teeth of the unrelenting blizzard.

  ‘I must get to Adil by this evening. White doves, eh? The rats! Let them see how that soft heart of Adil’s can be turned to stone again!’

  He pressed on, almost running, slipping, falling, getting up again, stumbling, running, the flame of vengeance fanned at every step, the corroding poison of anger lending him strength to battle against all the blizzards in the world.

  Chapter 24

  ‘And you see what they did to me,’ Memidik said, as he finished his story.

  ‘Now look at me carefully,’ Tashbash said. ‘Was I the man you saw with all those lights behind him?’

  Memidik considered him gravely. ‘It was you,’ he said with finality.

  ‘Well, let me tell you something, Memidik,’ Tashbash said. ‘That night I was right here, sleeping in Ali’s house. And when I say sleeping, don’t imagine the Forty Holy Men carried me off somewhere unawares, for I really didn’t sleep a wink. You must be mistaken. You’ve mixed me up with someone else. Maybe the green-glowing man was too far from you …’

  ‘He was just two paces in front of me,’ Memidik replied, ‘and you were alike as two peas.’ He extended his hand and touched Tashbash’s shirt. ‘You were wearing this same striped shirt. But your face was a little pale. Maybe because of the green light that shone out of you …’