The Undying Grass Page 17

  The rain was coming down in unleashed torrents. Memidik was out of the town now, still running for dear life.

  24

  Omer is on his way to Yalak village. The Savrun Spring is behind him now. He is nearing Chamurlu, crossing a dense forest that allows no glimpse of the sky, when he is caught in the rain. He is in a hurry. He must do his job with Meryemdje quickly and return to the Chukurova as soon as possible. So he does not take shelter and wait for the rain to stop. He presses on.

  Torrents of water inundated the vales and hollows, scooping up trees, rocks, anything that was in the way. Water gushed out everywhere, from the trunks of the trees, from the leaves, the rocks. The mountains seemed drowned in a huge ocean. Thunderbolt after thunderbolt struck the pinnacled crags and the high-crested trees, bringing them crashing to the ground. Omer’s clothes stuck to his body, his feet splashed in their sandals. Now and again the sandals came off and got left behind. He would go back for them and tie them on more securely. The steam rose from his back.

  He came to a gorge where a stream had swelled into a wild torrent. But he could not afford to stop. He plunged into the turbulent waters. Any man less powerfully built would have been swept away, but Omer reached the opposite bank. He sank down on a rock, half fainting, but he soon began to feel chilly. It was very cold now. The forest boomed and thundered in ear-splitting reverberations. It seemed to be on the move, with all its stones and undergrowth, making south for the Chukurova. Omer rose and shook himself. His clothes were heavy and water trickled down his body. After he had gone a little way his clothes again clung tight to him.

  It was not rain but torrents falling from the sky. A murky wall of water reared up before Omer’s eyes. He went on, groping blindly at this wall which was a mixture of water and dense grey vapour. Were it not for the occasional flashes of lightning it would have been like walking in the dark of the night.

  Should I shelter in some cave, he thought? No, he said, it won’t do to tarry, not even for one hour. I must finish this job and get back as quickly as possible. Back to that cursed Chukurova and its mosquitoes …

  This business was a stroke of luck for him. He would never have had the means to get married otherwise. Nowadays those who had daughters demanded extravagant marriage dowries. No young man in the village could meet these demands. The fathers of the girls were right, of course. After all they had brought them up and fed them for so many years … But here was Muhtar Sefer offering him one hundred liras! And not only that, a pair of oxen as well. Muhtar Sefer was a rich man. Who knows, if he was pleased he might even give him two hundred. And he’d get the girl for him, that was certain too, by hook or by crook. The village may fear Tashbash because he’s a saint, Omer reflected, but they fear Muhtar Sefer just as much though they won’t show it. Nobody loves him and yet everyone always does just what he wants. They won’t talk to him because Tashbash ordered them not to when he went off to join the Forty Holies, but they’re all terrified that he’ll do something to them. He knows how to lead those people by the nose. Now he’s got it in for Long Ali. Well, God help Long Ali, that’s all …

  And the wedding festivities would be managed by Muhtar Sefer too. He knew how to do that better than anyone. Omer would buy four nanny-goats. This would cost about fifty liras. Red dappled ones … They always give more milk. He must get a donkey too, and a cow, and … But a hundred liras would never go that far … There was also what he would earn from the cotton this year. Omer had no debts. He hoped it wasn’t raining down in the Chukurova because if so the cotton would be ruined, steeped in mud, and would only fetch half the normal price …

  Omer thought of the Bald Minstrel. For some reason he and his five sons had always disliked Omer. They would never come to play at his wedding, that was sure. A wedding without the Bald Minstrel! This had always been considered an ill omen. But let them refuse to come and play at his wedding, just let them! Why, Muhtar Sefer would bring down their house over their heads! Sing, Bald Minstrel, Sefer will command, play your saz your very best at my nephew Omer’s wedding. Give us your gayest tunes, for he is the apple of my eye. D’you hear that, you wretched Baldish Minstrel? Let’s see you refuse to play now! Stay away if you dare!

  Bedriyé was sleeping quite close to him in the fields. Half asleep, half on purpose, he stretched out his hand and clasped her foot. It was hot as a flame. His body trembled with desire and he could not sleep again that night. Since then, whenever he saw Bedriyé he felt that same tingling sensation that left him faint and paralysed. Everyone in the village knew of his love for her, every single person, even the flying birds, and that was why they could never meet or be alone together. How had they got wind of his passion? He had never told anyone. But that’s how it was, these villagers always knew everything, even the innermost thoughts in a man’s heart. They know everything but keep it to themselves. Won’t they know who killed Meryemdje? Of course they will. But they’ll never admit it even to themselves. Don’t they know that Ali would never kill his mother? Of course they do. Why are they after his blood then? At any other time even if Ali had murdered his mother before their very eyes they would have stood by without turning a hair. Ali was just a scapegoat. If he hadn’t been there they’d have found someone else to vent their fury on, they’d have invented another reason or just raged on for no reason at all.

  Omer smiled thinly as he wiped off the water that ran down his face and covered his eyes. People would throng to his wedding … Bedriyé was a slim, shapely girl. What was it her mother had said? Give my Bedriyé to that orphan? I’d rather die first! Let’s see her refuse now … Why, Muhtar Sefer would throw her out of the village and send her packing to the other end of the world! How white her skin was, like snow. And so soft … If her foot was so warm, who knows how burning hot the other parts of her body would be … A tremor ran through Omer’s wet body. An image of Bedriyé naked rose before his eyes and would not leave him. His body pulsed with deep unbearable passion. It would not be long now. The wedding would be held as soon as they came back from the cotton.

  ‘Long live Mother Meryemdje!’ he exulted. ‘If it weren’t for her I’d never have been able to have a wife, not for donkey’s years. She’s doing me a good turn with her death. When good people die, even their death is of service to others. And Mother Meryemdje is a good woman, one of the best. A little stubborn perhaps, but stout-hearted. Why won’t she talk to the villagers? Anyway, she’s never done anyone any harm in all her life. She’s always been ready to lend a helping hand, even to the birds and beasts. And now she’s helping me with her death. She’ll die to help someone, not just a useless death … Long live Mother Meryemdje! There’s no one like her in all the world.’

  Suppose you come to the village, open the door and find Mother Meryemdje stretched out there on the floor, dead, green flies buzzing all over her. Not one, not five, but swarms of green flies. Her eyes gouged out by yellow ants, her body swollen as a drum … Yellow ants, rats … The yellow ants are at her tongue … A dead person’s mouth always stays open. And the rats have devoured her ears. There is a pool of dried blood on the ground … A huge spider has woven a large web between the hennaed hair and the wall. Hundreds of green flies are trapped in it, thousands of yellow ants. A giant spider, white-streaked …

  You slam the door shut at once, careful not to touch anything. Anyway the stench is all over the village. Why, you’ll smell it even before …

  ‘If only it could be like this,’ he sighed aloud. ‘If only …’

  A thunderbolt fell with a fulgurating flash on a rock not ten paces before him. Omer’s knees buckled under him and he sank to the ground, his eyes blinded. All around him lightning struck and thunder clapped in an uninterrupted cataclysmic roll.

  He opened his eyes fearfully, then closed them. After rubbing them for a while he opened them again. The rain came down in sheets, steaming, dense, blurring to a vague shadow even the trees that were quite close to him. Should he take shelter somewhere until the rain let up? B
ut it showed no sign of slackening. It looked as though it would go on for ever.

  If Mother Meryemdje were really dead, then when they all returned from the Chukurova, after everyone had seen the body, he must build her a shrine, just like the shrine of Hassan Dédé, the Sheikh. And then he must have a dream, that Mother Meryemdje has been taken into the bosom of the Forty Holies, so that people should always go to her grave to pray and to bring offerings.

  Suddenly, without warning, he found himself swept away by a torrent, tossing in a flood of water, pounded from rock to rock. He tried to get a hold on a rock, a trunk, but the torrent dragged him on relentlessly.

  ‘I’m dying, I’m lost,’ he kept shouting. ‘So you want to kill an innocent woman? This is what Allah does to you … I’m dying, I’m lost … help!’

  But he could not expect help from anywhere. The frenzied torrent bore him on, dashing him from rock to rock. Suddenly his leg tangled in the roots of a huge tree. The flood was rushing over him now. He was almost drowning when his hand closed over a knot in the tree’s trunk. He hauled himself up and remained hanging there on a branch, trembling, his teeth chattering. A cave, he must find a cave … But how to get off the tree with this mad torrent rushing beneath him, uprooting everything in its path, rocks, earth and trees? Dimly he could make out a flat slab of rock a little way off where the branch ended. Could he get there? Wouldn’t the branch snap? He balanced himself full length and edged himself forward inch by inch. It was a stout cedar bough and it bore his weight. Only when he was swinging himself down on to the rock did it break, emitting a pungent rain-sodden odour that went to Omer’s head.

  His limbs shaking as though they would fly off, he cast about for a shelter and discovered a small cave a little farther away. He threw himself into it, at his last gasp. The matches in the little plastic bag were quite dry. He set a match to some dry sticks and grass strewed about the depths of the cave. They flamed up instantly and he felt less cold. As he grew warmer fear gripped his heart. Could it be that the great Allah? … Quickly he banished the thought from his mind and went out into the rain to get some wood. The fire was blazing away now. Omer undressed and laid his clothes out to dry about the fire. They began to steam, filling the cave with warm vapour.

  Outside the rain gathered strength and lightning struck here and there over the rocks and trees. But Omer was warm now, wrapped in a magic world of dreams. The only trouble was, what if he found Mother Meryemdje alive and had to kill her?

  ‘It would be so good if you died like that, of your own accord, Mother Meryemdje,’ he said, and smiled blissfully. ‘I’d build you a shrine and adorn it with flowers and offerings, just to show you how thankful I am. Ah, my good mother, why has it got to be me? Why didn’t Long Ali do it?’

  Good people should be granted a painless death. In their sleep … She’ll be fast asleep. You’ll just squeeze her neck. One hiccup and she’ll be dead in a jiffy. She’ll never know. Yes, she’ll never know she’s dead till kingdom come. She’ll always think that she’s just asleep. What a beautiful death! A fit death for that best of souls, Mother Meryemdje. She won’t be dead, she’ll just be slumbering on and on and on …

  The thought soothed him.

  25

  It is swelteringly hot, the hottest day so far, a torrid hellish heat that hits the Chukurova only once in a year or two. Long Ali’s hands will not obey him. He is oppressed and anxious. Whichever way he turns he sees hostile angry eyes fixed on him, full of hate and venom.

  Old Halil picked at the cotton for a while, then paused and looked about him. He was afraid. They’re going to do some mischief today, he thought.

  No one spoke, but the silence held a simmering, threatening quality. The labourers worked languidly, their movements hampered by the heat, their mouths dry and bitter. On such hot days a man’s mouth feels as though he has swallowed poison and he lets himself sink into a bottomless pit of despair.

  Old Halil was filled with misgivings. ‘They’re quite capable of killing the lad,’ he was thinking. ‘They couldn’t catch him red-handed and they know they never will. The gendarmes wouldn’t arrest him. There’s not a thing they can pin on him. They’re just mad with frustration …’

  Slowly, unobtrusively, he began to weave his way towards Ali. For some reason Ali’s hands were flagging. He was hardly doing any picking. The villagers had slowed down too. Against their will they followed Ali’s rhythm today, when on other days they had been mad with envy at the swiftness of his hands. No one moved; the long line of cotton pickers was still. There was no chirp of bird or insect either, as though the leaden sky had pressed all sounds deep down into the earth. The Chukurova seemed flatter than ever, dull and colourless. Not the tiniest sparkle on the wide level plain which on other days would flash and shimmer like the hard bright carapace of a golden beetle. The air was heavy; not a leaf stirred. The encircling mountains had vanished, as though spirited away by some powerful, magic hand, and the plain stretched flat into the Anatolian steppe beyond the Taurus range.

  The only living creature in the sky was the huge old eagle. He hung in the air with outstretched wings, motionless. It was only when you looked at his dark man-sized shadow on the ground that you knew he was moving. Slowly, imperceptibly the shadow was gliding eastward, then just as imperceptibly it traced a wide circle on the ground. The eagle was not very high above, only the height of two or three tall poplars. He seemed nailed to the sky.

  Old Halil had finally crept up to Ali’s side. ‘Ali, listen,’ he whispered. ‘Do what I tell you. Get out of here. They’re going to kill you. I know them. Try and slip away without their noticing. Quickly …’ And he glided off again to the extreme end of the row.

  Ali was trembling all over. ‘But where can I go?’ he murmured. ‘Where can I hide?’ He sank to the ground.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ali?’ Elif asked in a thin anxious voice.

  ‘Let them kill me then,’ Ali blurted out as though recovering from a faint. ‘I won’t move a step from here. Let them kill me and get it over.’ He was crushed beyond caring. Trembling, he stretched out his hand and plucked at a cotton boll with the tips of two fingers.

  All at once an icy blast blew in from the north. The frozen frame of the huge old eagle was shaken with a jolt. It lurched wildly, then resumed its smooth stance facing the wind. From the south and west and east, from all directions the wind started up, stronger and faster, now coming in cold freezing waves, now belching scorching flames over the plain and whipping up the dust in an all-obscuring pall. Up in the air the eagle held on, vanishing in the clouds of dust, then coming out again.

  The wind gathered force. It whisked away the women’s headkerchiefs and snatched up tents and wattle-huts. Branches snapped and the lake-smooth river tossed and fumed, hurling angry waves at the shore. A long pillar of water jetted up and dashed at the bank. The whole of the Chukurova ran wild, whirling through the air, its ricks and stalks and cotton heaps all in havoc.

  The labourers stopped dead. Then they sank to the ground without a word.

  From the north, from far over the Taurus Mountains a cloud came sweeping down over the plain like a pitch-black night. On it rolled, swelling until it spanned the whole sky right down to the Mediterranean Sea. One after the other flashes of lightning forked through the cloud, followed by earth-shaking claps of thunder. The first drops, large and warm, rapped down over the Chukurova land, boring holes into the earth. One hot gust, flame-like, then a cold icy blast, and the rain began. It was pouring in an instant, in sheets unfurled from the skies.

  The labourers made no attempt to run. They did not stir. They remained where they were, transfixed. This rain meant death to them. Nothing worse could befall a cotton labourer. The cotton would now be dashed to the ground, sullied with mud and earth. Clean it as well as you can, it will still stay muddy and heavy. It is difficult to gather and the owner of the cotton field never pays you as much as for pure cotton. Instead of twenty kurush a kilo you only get ten kurush, o
r at the most fifteen, all depending on the good-will of the owner.

  Nothing was left now of the full-blooming cotton that had been there a moment ago. The villagers were stunned. No one spoke, no one moved. They were drenched to the skin, as though they had taken a plunge in the stream.

  Up in the sky the huge eagle still hovered with his great wet wings outstretched, oblivious of the pelting rain.

  In no time puddles had gathered at the foot of the cotton plants. By the afternoon all the ditches, hollows and water-beds were full and now the water overflowed into the wide plain, rising to half-way up the hillocks and trees. Even from the hills, from the high crags of Anavarza and Hemité, torrents of water came pouring down, and soon not a patch of land was to be seen. And still the rain went on, the notorious long-legged autumn rain of the Chukurova region.

  Long Ali stretched out his arms until the joints cracked, trying to wake his numb body. Now was his chance to get away, now under the cover of this rain. He knew that the destruction worked by the rainfall and the boredom of the long idle days that were to follow would all be laid at his door.

  Dark evening shadows had begun to strike at the curtain of rain, yet the labourers still crouched in the field with their heads hanging. They were thinking of him, Ali felt it, nursing their anger. He knew this ominous silent fury. He knew that once it broke its bounds nothing would stand before it and he would be lost.

  Old Halil was scared stiff at the sight of Ali’s long arms stretching up into the air. ‘Get them down, for heaven’s sake,’ he muttered. ‘That’s just what they’re waiting for. A move from you …’