The Undying Grass Page 16

  He turned and went to pick in the row between Shirtless and Zaladja Woman who promptly turned their backs on him.

  ‘Damn you all,’ he growled angrily. ‘Damn you lock, stock and barrel! What have I done to you, you heathens?’ He picked up his basket and sack and stalked off to the extreme end of the field away from the others.

  Memidik was growing more and more uneasy. He felt the villagers’ mood, furtive, keyed-up. There’s no doubt about it, he thought, no doubt at all. They’ve discovered the body. They knew from the first. They were just biding their time, watching me, baiting me. Didn’t Old Halil know why I was watching those eagles? Of course he knew. People aren’t all fools. If only it had been Muhtar Sefer! I’d have carried his body on my back till I died, and I wouldn’t have minded if all the villagers had watched me …

  Yes, something was brewing, but was it against him, or did it concern Long Ali and the murder of Meryemdje? … The body was there, in its grave … So near, and yet so far … His heart was bursting with anxiety. He put down the basket, but the expression of his mother’s face, angry, aloof, frightened him. For the past few days he had often left her to pick alone. Now he could not meet her eyes. He was ashamed. It was the same when he saw Zeliha. He would change his path and avoid her. Once, one night, she had come to his bed, but Memidik had pretended to be asleep. What could he say to her? That instead of Muhtar Sefer who had humiliated him, broken his bones, made him piss blood for months on end, that instead of him he had killed someone else, some stranger? And, what’s more, that he couldn’t get rid of the body? She had knelt beside him pleading, even baring her full breasts to touch his face, warm, palpitating, maddening … Memidik had throbbed with desire, his hands had grown taut, his bones hurting as though they would break, but he had willed himself to be still, to feign sleep, and at dawn she had gone away. He had watched her leave, her shoulders shaking as though she were crying, and this had pierced his heart like a dagger. There and then he made a vow. ‘I’ll kill Sefer,’ he swore. ‘And afterwards I’ll take Zeliha by the hand and bear her off to a distant land where nobody will find us.’

  The labourers watched Ali, some surreptitiously, out of the corner of their eye, others quite openly, keeping a wide stare fixed on him. Ali was uneasy. He could not help it, he was growing more and more nervous. Elif and the children felt the tension too. Everyone was looking at Ali as at a sheep marked for sacrifice. No one spoke, no one made a sound. The silence was complete, rock-like, but hands worked more quickly than ever, picking away frenziedly.

  The sun was going down.

  ‘Mother,’ Hassan said, ‘I don’t feel well. Let me go down to the river with Ummahan.’

  Elif sighed. ‘All right, you may go.’

  The children did not stop running until they came to the tamarisks. Hassan’s eyes had become enormous. ‘They’re going to kill Father,’ he whispered.

  Ummahan began to cry.

  Very few of the villagers slept that night. They lay awake, waiting for Ali to get up and start picking.

  When Old Halil rose at the usual time, a few hours before dawn, and crept up to Ali’s hut, those who had been asleep woke up too and everyone held his breath. Tonight nobody else had gone cotton thieving. Everyone was waiting to catch Ali.

  ‘I’ve come, Ali,’ Old Halil whispered. ‘But it’s no use. They’re all awake, waiting to catch us.’

  ‘I see,’ Ali said.

  ‘You know what they’ll do if they catch us?’

  ‘Tear us to pieces …’

  ‘Yes,’ Old Halil sighed. ‘They’re in a wild mood. But they’ve reckoned without Old Halil, the eagle of these mountains. I knew by their eyes what they were about. So you just go to sleep, Ali. Have a deep, sound, restful sleep. That’ll make them burst with vexation, the rabid dogs. I’m going. We’ll pick again tomorrow night, or if not the next …’

  Old Halil crawled back stealthily in the dark and went to bed.

  The villagers, kept up their vigil, eyes wide open, ears on the alert, one single body ready to pounce, until the first rays of light shot down the slopes of the Gavur Mountains.

  ‘He got wind of it,’ Gooey Apti lamented. ‘He’s a fox of a man, a wolf. If he weren’t a wolf would he ever have killed his mother? Why can’t we kill our mothers? Tell me that. Ah, he won’t go cotton thieving again, that one …’

  In the hazy radiance that fell over the hills the cotton heaps and the unpicked cotton blooming in the field began to whiten and to take shape. A sharp, warm odour of burnt grass filled the air.

  It had been a long vigil, full of suspense. Now that nothing had come of it the tension snapped and the villagers dropped into a doze.

  Shirtless’s voice rang through the huts: ‘Come on, people, to work! Get going, no room for sluggards here!’

  People started to drift into the field. Ali drew on his stockings and tied his sandals. ‘Come, Elif,’ he said after he had slapped a couple of handfuls of water to his face. ‘Children, are you awake?’

  Neither Ummahan nor Hassan had slept a wink that night. They had lain awake waiting to see what would happen to their father.

  As Ali came to the field the labourers stopped and stared at him for a long time, as though he were some strange creature they had never seen before.

  The day grew hotter. The pickers, working in a long row, were in a state of pent-up rage, ready to pounce upon Ali at the slightest pretext. He felt this threatening weight upon him and was at a loss. There was nowhere he could flee to, nothing he could do except hide his fear by working more quickly. But the sight of his swift nimbly-moving hands only served to madden the others.

  Old Halil hurried up to him. ‘Come, Ali,’ he whispered. ‘Get back to the hut. Don’t stay here among them today. They’ve gone mad. They’ll do something to you.’ He took his arm. ‘Ali’s sick,’ he declared and dragged him away to the huts. Ali’s legs were weaving into each other.

  For a long while the villagers’ hands remained suspended above the cotton. Their eyes were fixed hard on the wattle-hut into which Ali had disappeared.

  23

  Memidik is on the town road. Sometimes running, sometimes walking, he is making for the town. There is no way of getting rid of this corpse except to hand it over to the Government. So Memidik is going to the Government. I’ve found a corpse, he’ll say. Come and take it. For good or for bad I’ve looked after it quite a while now … Above him the stray eagle is still wheeling in the sky. Memidik is uneasy. Suppose anything happens to the corpse before he comes back? But now that he has made up his mind, a great load is off his back. Memidik feels light as a bird.

  Shevket Bey was a harmless sleepwalker. He had once had three wives, but one day in a fit of anger he had divorced them all. He had six children, four of whom were being educated in private schools in Istanbul. He had no town house like the other aghas, but lived in a rented place. His farm house was more like a hangar, a huge building with enormous rooms. The farm was situated on the Chukurova plain on the reach of the Jeyhan River nearer to the Mediterranean Sea. It was said of Shevket Bey that in his youth he had killed three persons: his mistress, a hired labourer, and Turna, the Kurdish servant who had witnessed the murder of the other two. Turna’s son had been away on army service when he heard about his mother. At once he deserted and took to the mountains with his gun, bent on killing Shevket Bey. But a couple of days later, before he had time to do this, he was himself killed by unknown persons. Shevket Bey had three brothers and two sisters, one of whom was reputed to be the richest woman in the Chukurova. All the brothers possessed more or less prosperous farms.

  It was after the murder of those three persons that Shevket Bey had taken to sleepwalking. His farm was a large one, ten thousand dönüms of fertile land, left to him by his father. All night long Shevket Bey would wander about the broad Chukurova land, asleep. His days were spent bragging and spinning yams. No one knew his age, not even himself, but he looked very young. He was a generous man who threw his mone
y around without counting it. Each harvest a great deal of money would flow into the farm. But it would flow out just as quickly. Shevket Bey was handsome, but when he walked in his sleep his face would light up strangely and he would grow even handsomer.

  For the first five days his absence went unnoticed. Then one of the hired labourers asked: ‘Where’s Shevket Bey?’

  People were alerted. ‘Where is Shevket Bey?’

  His men, his relations, everyone began to search for him. They scoured the Chukurova plain looking into every nook and cranny, questioning every living soul, but he was nowhere to be found. The police, the gendarmes were informed. The newspapers bore large headlines: RICH LANDOWNER DISAPPEARS. FOUL PLAY FEARED. There were big photographs of Shevket Bey which, if he had been able to see them, would have delighted him.

  The search was still on, on foot, on horseback, labourers, policemen, gendarmes, when the burning of Shevket Bey’s wheat-rick took place, complicating matters. Up to that moment suspicions had centred on the tractor mechanic’s apprentice, Nevzat, a long-necked youth with a goose-like stare, whom Shevket Bey had beaten to within an inch of his life a couple of months earlier. Now fresh conjectures arose. The burning of the harvest could only be the vengeful work of landless peasants from one of the nearby villages. So the search was directed towards those villages. They overflowed with Shevket Bey’s men and relatives, with policemen and gendarmes. Shevket Bey’s children had all come over. The search for their father held for them the passionate interest of a murder movie.

  ‘Where’s Shevket Bey’s house? Hasn’t he got a wife, a son, anyone I can see? I have something to say to them.’

  ‘Shevket Bey’s dead,’ was the only answer Memidik got.

  He was standing on the town bridge. Far down he saw his blurred, undulating image in the water. There were pink laurels in full bloom growing thick as a small forest all over the pebbly banks of the river. A colony of bees had broken away from the hive and was swarming in a yellow amber-like cluster over the bough of a mulberry-tree. Then it went up in the air, a bright ball illuminated by the sunlight, and buzzed off in a slow zigzag course over the town.

  ‘Shevket Bey’s house? …’

  ‘Shevket Bey’s been murdered. They burnt his harvest too, enough to feed a village for one whole winter. But it’s a good thing he was murdered.’

  ‘A good thing?’

  ‘Why, yes! A man like that! With three apartment blocks in Istanbul and herds of horses, money hoarded up in banks, and a hand in Government circles … Seven mistresses he kept, and a table where you could find bird’s milk even! Of course he would have as many enemies as he had friends. Look at his harvest, still smouldering … He’d wear a new pair of shoes every day, never the same pair twice! He was killed in his sleep. He slept all the time, that man. You don’t feel a thing if you die in your sleep. Whoever killed him was a good person. He did right …’

  A school of fish flitted up to the surface of the clear water in silvery streaks. One large fish leapt out of the water three times with three blinding flashes and for a while blurred fish shadows fluttered before Memidik’s eyes.

  It was very hot. The parapet of the bridge seared his hands. The bridge’s shadow was very black on the water. In an untended orchard opposite, three donkeys were grazing. A layer of dust covered the whole town and not a single creature was to be seen. The streets were deserted.

  The leaves of the mulberry-tree were layered with dust. The shadow of the tree was dense, its smell sultry and heady.

  ‘Is this Shevket Bey’s house?’

  ‘Shevket Bey’s not at home. They set fire to his harvest last night.’

  ‘Ah, one doesn’t know what’ll happen to one next! Troubles never come singly …’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone at home?’

  ‘They’ve all gone to the fields, to try and put the fire out.’

  The garden was overgrown with huge fading marigolds, each one as large as a fist. Half smothered in dust, they gave out a peculiar quality of loneliness and dereliction.

  ‘Give my greetings to Shevket Bey …’

  The marigolds exhaled a strong hot bitter scent.

  The police-station was a two-storied building, unplastered, the stones and boards of its walls exposed. The stairs were outside, running up one of the walls. The yard was wide and strewn with wild fig-trees, squirting cucumber stalks and thistles. Several brood-hens, that belonged to the chief of the police, stalked about the yard, their chicks behind them. In the middle was an ancient marble stone, inscribed and carved with figures of half-naked warriors holding shields. The stone was incredibly white. It seemed to Memidik that nothing so white had ever been seen in the world. He sank down upon it and looked up at the window. He saw the back of a police officer, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, still as a rock. His ears were dusty. Suddenly the officer’s right shoulder twitched and Memidik’s heart gave a jump. A gendarme emerged, running down the wooden steps that creaked as though they would split open. The cracked wooden boards of the old grey staircase rocked under his weight and he rushed out of the yard. He was back in an instant, still running, herding two men before him, all three of them panting and blowing. Through the side window Memidik saw them enter the officer’s room.

  Memidik sweated under the sun. The perspiration squirted from the tips of his fingers, it gushed down his nose, it made his feet in their sandals feel as if they had been plunged in water.

  In the window it was the police officer’s left shoulder that twitched this time. Memidik’s heart jumped again. A handcuffed man was brought in. The handcuffs had been bolted over his two thumbs. He was bent in two, dirty with dust, and blood had clotted on his face. His wide shalvar-trousers hung in tatters about his legs, and the white of his pants showed underneath. His eyes were blinking rapidly all the time.

  ‘I know about Shevket Bey … Why am I sitting here? Why not? I’m doing no harm. I can sit where I like, can’t I? Besides, I’m going to see the commandant, the chief commandant …’

  ‘Have you discharged your army service? Where? In what class? What’s your record?’

  ‘I have. As a corporal in the engineering corps. My record … Memidik Delibash, born 1940, son of Osman Delibash … Delibash? Everyone asks me that! It means Crackhead. It’s the grocer Mustafa who chose that family name for my father when the great Atatürk issued the decree that everyone was to have a family name. Osman, he said, you’re cracked in the head anyway, so why not have it inscribed in the Government’s books too! Why, when Blind Hadji learned of the name Muhtar Sefer had picked for him – it’s too indecent to repeat – he almost killed him in his rage. Shevket Bey’s family name? That’s Steelhead, a good strong name …’

  A woman, her breasts hanging bare, her clothes in rags, her face bleeding, clawing at her cheeks, screaming … Loud long shrieks … Her bare feet leaving imprints of blood in her wake as she enters the police officer’s room … The officer’s right shoulder twitched again. Otherwise, he was perfectly still.

  The woman was out again in no time. Still screaming, she threw herself at the stairs, slipped and fell in a heap at the bottom, inert and silent.

  ‘I don’t know. I’d never even seen Shevket Bey’s face before. Who? How should I know? Why? I’ve no idea. I swear it’s the truth. You can kill me if you like. Hang me … I’m telling you just what I know, what I’ve seen. Didn’t I come to you of my own accord? How would you have known if I hadn’t come?’

  A door opened and a group of fifteen men appeared, clad in rags, their arms tied to each other. Quickly they were hustled through an iron-barred gate, which closed upon them. Two guards paced up and down on the wall above the iron door. Their faces gleamed black with perspiration. The sweat ran down their backs, leaving large patches on their tunics.

  Memidik rose, his eyes riveted on the police officer’s back in the window. Slowly, with shrinking steps he began to walk towards the stairs.

  Suddenly a cool gust sprang up, raising the dust all abo
ut. Memidik paused, unable to see an inch before him. The wind grew stronger and colder and Memidik shivered. Then from the north, from over the Taurus Mountains, a giant cloud bore down upon the Chukurova, shutting out the sky and spreading gloom over the whole plain. The wind died out as suddenly as it had begun and a few large heavy drops of rain pattered to the ground. The dust that had remained hanging in the air was slowly settling. Claps of thunder burst in the skies, far and near. Lightning flashed again and again and the window-panes rattled. The rain came crashing down, hard, solid, denting the earth and beating a noisy tattoo on the zinc roofs of the houses.

  Memidik stayed rooted to the spot, unable to take another step either forward or backward. The police officer’s bulky body moved and Memidik’s heart leapt into his mouth as he saw him rise to face the window. His body went limp. He turned his back on the officer and like a bed-ridden person who has forgotten how to walk, his legs weaving weakly into each other, he crept away. Once out of the yard he looked back. The police officer was still there, looking down into the yard, his body filling the whole embrasure. Memidik took to his heels. The rain poured down angrily.

  ‘Shevket Bey! … Shevket, Shevket Bey …’ His ears roared. ‘The body! In this rain … Anything may happen to it. I’ll come again tomorrow and tell the commandant everything. Even if I don’t, they know. It isn’t as if they don’t know. They’re just waiting to see what I’ll do, watching me. Oh dear, what will happen to the body in this rain? I didn’t put enough earth over it …’