Iron Earth, Copper Sky Read online

  ‘Tonight,’ he resolved, ‘I shall know the whole truth. If I’m a saint I’ll go on with this to the bitter end. If not I must get out of here before people begin to mock me and call me Saint Memet, laughing at me behind my back.’

  Unable to stand still, he drifted in and out of the house, feeling the weight of the whole village’s eyes on him. It was like this always now. His slightest move was watched and a meaning drawn from it. Most of the time he kept to his house and spoke to no one but Long Ali. But even with Long Ali it was not the same any more. He sensed a new reticence in his friend. Now, Ali came to his house as to a shrine and approached him as he would a holy sheikh. The realization of his complete isolation would be brought home to him then and he would sink into fresh depths of despondency.

  But not for long. Again the sensation of his new-found power would take the upper hand, the certainty that, as King Solomon, he could if he wished command the birds and beasts, the waters on the earth and the winds in the heavens, the flowers, the trees, the whole of nature. Even Muhtar Sefer, his most bitter enemy, had come to prostrate himself before him like all the others. If he gave himself the trouble he could extend his sway over all the Chukurova, the Taurus and the steppe. He could make men do anything. They believed in him, and they must have seen something to make them believe.

  And then there were the dreams, dreams of other worlds, weird far-off worlds where the trees, the birds, the grass, everything was strange, with fantastic colours in the sky and dazzling streams of light gushing forth from the earth. The dreams would linger in his mind long after he had woken up and he would live on in these bright new worlds.

  Ever since he had been openly recognized as a saint, there had been a constant din of crowing cocks about his house. Twenty to thirty of them were sacrificed on his threshold each day, and their red-combed heads were hung on his walls, which had become a riot of vary-coloured cocks’ heads of all sizes, like a garishly embroidered kilim. What’s more, after immolating their cock, these mean-hearted villagers would stuff themselves with the meat there and then, or else take it home with them. What kind of a sacrifice was that? A sacrifice should be left where it was offered or should be distributed to the poor. He ought to tell them that. Yet they themselves were so poor. Perhaps they owned just that one cock … ‘Well then,’ he muttered to himself in sudden anger, ‘they shouldn’t offer sacrifices and think they’re fooling Allah! Eating their own offering!’ With bitterness he would see his children look on wistfully as the sacrificed cocks would be put to cook and eaten before their eyes, and the injustice of it all would sink like a knife into him.

  Tonight would decide everything. Once he had the proof that he was a saint, then he would show them all, he’d show those hypocrites who thought they could cheat Allah! He’d see that they never tasted a morsel of their sacrificed cocks again.

  In the afternoon, the head of the long caravan of sick came into view. Some were carried on donkeys or stretchers, others simply on somebody’s back. A couple of sheds had been emptied near Tashbash’s house as a shelter for the sick while they waited. As for Brisk Dervish, he had been quick to make capital of this opportunity. The minute he’d seen the flow of sick he’d rushed off to town and bought a good stock of raisins, sweetmeats and other things, and had set up shop in a corner of one of the sheds. He was doing a roaring trade and prayed that the whole to-do might last another year or two. By then he’d have made enough money to open a sizeable shop in the town itself. Every morning Brisk Dervish would relate a new miracle of Tashbash’s. To the sick from the distant villages, as they waited in the sheds, he’d give long accounts, with names and details of the cures and wonders worked by Tashbash, and his improvised shop in the corner of the shed had become a kindling hearth that radiated Tashbash’s reputation for magic to the far corners of the land.

  In the evening the sick began to be brought in to him. Tashbash had elaborated his cures now. Through the good services of Brisk Dervish he had ordered a store of candles, and he would pass a lighted candle three times over the sufferer’s head, then burn a tuft of cotton and hold it out for him to smell. He had devised other systems as well and would apply them according to the different kinds of complaints. Sometimes he would cast a burning ember into a basin of water and while it sizzled away he would sit in front of the patient with a lighted candle in one hand and gaze unwinkingly into his eyes. He would make some of the sick crawl on all fours from the threshold to the hearth, others he told to hop around the house on one leg. He would have them smell the dried-up remains of a dead bat or else brush their forehead with a bone called serpent’s horn. These last had been given to him by Meryemdje. ‘These are remedies for all ills. If they’re applied by a good man, they can save a life,’ she had intimated by signs. It had taken him quite a while to understand her, and the thought had crossed his mind that he could order her to break her vow and talk at last. He knew she would do so at once, but somehow he could not muster up the courage to do this.

  It was getting on for midnight and still the flow continued unabated. Some came who were not sick at all, but plagued with little worries and troubles. Those were the worst of all. This world is full of troubles, no man is free of them and once it began to get around that Tashbash was willing to listen and help, they came in swelling numbers; the humiliated, the rejected, the poor and the hungry. Those whose land did not yield enough to maintain them, those who had run foul of society, the thieves, the murderers, they would all come.

  He made his plan. A little after midnight he would slip off to Long Ali’s and borrow his thick cloak and felt boots, then go and hide himself in an old ruin nearby and set up a watch on his house. But he could not wait. Cutting short his ministrations, he threw himself out of the house. A dry bitter frost nipped at his face and he began to have doubts. How could he wait up all night in this cold? He could not light a fire. People would see him …

  ‘Ali,’ he said, ‘lend me your cloak and boots. And some matches if you can spare them.’

  Without uttering a word, not even to ask where Tashbash was going on this freezing night, Ali hastened to fetch the cloak and boots and also a woollen hood.

  Hasan was awake too. There were visitors in the house who had come from a distant village to see Tashbash. He sprang forward, holding out a brand new box of matches filled to the brim.

  ‘Is that for me?’ Tashbash asked. He stroked Hasan’s hair.

  ‘They’re mine and I’m giving them to you,’ the boy said proudly, his voice trembling with excitement.

  Tashbash slipped into the boots, wrapped the cloak about him and was gone in a flash.

  Ali stared after him. ‘He’s going somewhere, that’s plain. May Allah help him, in this cold …’

  Meryemdje gave him a contemptuous look as though to say, pooh, would he ever feel the cold?

  ‘Father,’ Hasan said, ‘they never feel the cold or the heat. The lightning cannot strike them. Even the serpent cannot bite them. Nothing can ever touch them.’

  Meryemdje embraced her grandson and kissed him.

  Tashbash had taken up his position on a stone among the ruins, his eyes riveted on his house, not even daring to blink for fear of missing the coming of the light. The hours passed and he did not move. His eyes watered with the cold and tears trickled down his cheeks, almost turning to ice before he could wipe them away. Why didn’t he see the bright Holy Walnut that was said to hover over his house all night long, vividly carved into the darkness, shooting out sparks all over the place? Why didn’t he even hear its swishing as it slowly swayed and whirled over the house?

  Suddenly he caught sight of shadows moving stealthily about the house. They had come again with picks and spades and were digging away at his threshold.

  ‘Damn it all,’ he cursed. ‘The house is about to collapse and still they’re digging. Oh God, deliver me from all this!’

  They were filling up whole sackfuls and carrying them away. In sudden exasperation he jumped up. ‘I’ll show yo
u,’ he muttered. He speeded towards the house by a roundabout way so they should not know where he had been hiding and loomed upon them from behind the wall. The diggers took one look and froze with dread. Then they threw themselves face down on the ground.

  ‘Rise,’ he commanded in grave sonorous tones. ‘I have something to say to you.’

  They scrambled to their feet. He touched each of them on the head with slow solemnity.

  ‘Pour back this earth,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you where the real blessed earth is to be found, that will make your fields yield ten-fold. But the hand that sprinkles it over the land must be pure, and the earth should be gathered only on the day of the Spring Feast. Go now and come back tomorrow.’

  Then he faded into the darkness.

  When he looked back there was no one to be seen. He settled down to wait again. Surely the Holy Tree would come at last. It was bitterly cold and his hands and feet had begun to freeze. Should he light a small fire? He had noticed some wood lying nearby during the day. He fetched an armful and set it ablaze, his frozen hands working with difficulty. Then he sat down again with the fire between his legs. But still no light. The villagers alleged that only the good and the pure could see it … Well, if he was a saint wouldn’t this light that came to glow over his own house be visible to him? He must wait a little longer. After all, the Holy Walnut had a long way to come, over hill and vale. As for the light, there was no place it could not penetrate, the thickest wall, the deepest of waters …

  He recalled a watercourse which he had seen when he was a soldier. It was called the Murat Stream and it flowed deep and copper-coloured between steep bare red rocks, but at times from the bottom of its depths a mossy green would shine out so clearly that the whole stream would be lit up and the encasing red rocks would glow greenly. Their sergeant had been a man even more terrible than Muhtar Sefer, he beat the men just for the fun of it. Every couple of days the whole squad would be made to run the gauntlet, just in case, the sergeant said, anyone had escaped the weight of his hand.

  Suddenly, he heard a rustling like the gliding of a serpent. He sat up eagerly, holding his breath, his heart beating wildly. In vain …

  ‘There must be something wrong with my eyes,’ he thought. ‘After all, I’ve heard the sound.’

  He pricked up his ears. The rustling, now accompanied by short bird-like sounds, seemed to him to be coming from the steppe, then from the Peri Caves, then … He whirled this way and that. The rustling was everywhere, swish, swish, swish … But the light? God, where was the light?

  The fire had long turned to dead ashes, but he was too tired now even to shiver. An irresistible desire to sleep swept over him. If he let himself go, they would find his frozen body in the morning, and who knows, perhaps the villagers would whisper that the Forty Holies had been angry with him and had strangled him to death. Reluctantly, without taking his eyes off the house, he started back.

  ‘There must be something wrong,’ he thought. ‘What could those sounds have been that I heard? Maybe the light didn’t come tonight because of those people digging …’

  His threshold was like a well. It was impossible to reach the door. He must fill it up first thing in the morning.

  ‘Woman, open the door!’ he called to his wife.

  She opened up at once. He jumped in and threw himself towards the fire, almost spreading himself over it. All his limbs were trembling.

  His wife stared at him. ‘God forgive me,’ she thought. ‘Is it possible a saint should feel the cold so?’

  Chapter 32

  Tonight the sky was dark and overcast, not clear and frosty like the night before. A furious blizzard tore down from the steppe bent on uprooting all the trees of the forest. This night not a living creature, not a wolf or fox or marten would so much as hazard its head out of its lair. The darkness was like a wall, hard as steel, as though it had been massing since the beginning of time for just this night.

  ‘It was too bright yesterday,’ Tashbash said to himself. ‘That’s why I couldn’t see the lights. Tonight … Just let me catch a glimpse of those lights tonight and I’ll show them in this land of the Taurus! I’ll show them how to be a saint!’

  He had lit no fire this time. The lights might have been disturbed by that too. For over three hours now he had been waiting without taking his eyes off the house, and suddenly he heard again the rustling and the faint bird-like sounds. In his excitement he jumped up. The blizzard struck him in the face forcefully and at that moment a brief fugitive flash passed before his eyes.

  ‘The light!’ he cried out triumphantly. ‘I’ve seen it … The light!’

  His head whirled. He was drunk with joy, confident now, the flame of holiness burning within him. Through the pounding in his ears he heard again the rustling sound, swish, swish, swish … Before his eyes, the green snake-like Murat River, black serpents basking on its warm copper rocks. A white cloud slowly consumed by the heat, its dwindling shadow flowing up, up, struggling against the swift downflow of the stream.

  Swish, swish … He took a hold on himself. He had seen the light, yes, but only for a fleeting instant, like a blow that makes you see a thousand stars. ‘This won’t do,’ he thought. ‘If the light comes just once more and stays just a little longer, then I’ll really be sure I’m a saint.’

  So he sat down again and waited. The cloak, the woollen hood, the felt boots were nothing against the biting blast from the steppe. He was faint with cold, dizzy with lack of sleep. The roaring in his ears grew louder.

  The sudden hooting of an owl roused him with a shock, bringing to his mind the Captain and the promise he had given him. If the Captain saw his house now and the endless flow of the sick, he would break every bone in his body. He was a sharp-tempered man and once he got on to his atom age stuff there was no restraining him. And he was right, thought Tashbash, a hundred times right. In this modern age, with people flying in the skies, to be waiting here for a miraculous light! The owl was an unlucky omen, he was sure of it. The Captain would never listen to him if he tried to explain how people invaded his house and how he could do nothing about it. Ah, if he could but see the light once more, then he would not care a fig about the Captain or the Government or the whole world for that matter! Then, the Captain could pound him to pulp, skin him alive, tear off his nails, anything. Whatever men did to him, it would be to his mortal flesh, they could not touch the holy part of him. And he would not be the only saint to be persecuted on this earth. Men had always dealt cruelly with the saints Allah sent them. Hadn’t they done so even to Allah’s beautiful prophet, our Lord Jesus, dragging him to Mount Ararat and nailing him to an ebony tree? Nailing him by the hands and feet and leaving him on the cold summit of Mount Ararat, leaving him there to freeze and die … He died, our Lord Jesus, without uttering a word of complaint or entreaty to anyone.

  ‘Aaah! If I could just see it once and be really sure, I know what I’d do …’ He trembled with cold and passion.

  Not even the outline of the house was visible now, so complete was the all-engulfing gloom. But he waited on and all the time he heard the sound of the bird, swish, swish, swish! Phewt, phewt, phewt!

  He waited until the east began to pale. Then, half-fainting, he dragged himself home. His hands were frozen and the fingers in danger of dropping off. Meryemdje was summoned in a hurry. She applied her secret ointments and salves, muttering to herself all the time. ‘Whoever heard of saints freezing like this? Freezing and in need of Meryemdje’s medicines?!’

  Tashbash detected the doubt in her eyes. ‘Tonight I’ll wait again,’ he resolved. ‘And if I do see the light, I’ll have a word with you, Meryemdje!’

  Prostrate on the ground in the ruin, Tashbash was praying.

  ‘Come Allah, show me this light. Don’t let me lose face before everyone. Why don’t you let me see this light you’ve already shown to everyone? If I’m a saint, a holy man, I must be able to see it or I’ll be deceiving all those poor people who come to me every day
for help, for cure. You’re the all-powerful who made the earth and the heavens. You made me a saint, show me the light then, so I can spread your good word among the peoples of the earth.’

  Then he kneeled for the namaz and said the ritual prayer twice.

  The blizzard struck at his face, shaking the breath out of him. This time he had wrapped himself up even more thickly and had made Meryemdje bind up his frozen hands in woollen stockings and old rags.

  Loud booming sounds came from the steppe, like an exploding cannon.

  ‘Oh Allah, either you show me the light or I stay here and freeze to death! Show me the light, please Allah, so my heart can believe …’

  Faint and far away, he thought he heard the rustling sound again. His heart gave a bound. He opened his eyes wide, but there was nothing to be seen.

  He was alone, walking in the Chukurova plain. About him were corn fields as far as the eye could see, the corn unripe yet, still in the ear, stirring softly in the warm spring breeze. Under the bright sun, grasshoppers bouncing through the air … More and more of them … A huge black cloud suddenly darkening the sky … The peasant on the roadside on his knees, hands extended to heaven, praying … ‘Oh Allah, if you are Allah, show your power and turn away the locusts! I have nothing in the world but this field to stave off hunger.’ A day later he passed that way again. Clouds of locusts still swarmed blackly over the field. The corn had been shorn to the roots and not a leaf or ear, not even a stalk was left. And in the middle of it all, a man lying face down on the earth. He had gone up to him and seen his face, wet and mud-caked, and he had understood. This is what Allah had done to him, and now he had nothing to live for. Without a sound he had slipped away.

  The long slim yellow arrow-snakes of the warm Chukurova land … The first time he had seen one was under a fig tree where a fountain gushed forth among jagged rocks. A glinting gold-like rod, lying there at the foot of a rock. Idly, he had stretched out his hand to pick it up but the rod had moved and suddenly it had whirred through the air, plunged into the rocks and vanished. ‘That’s an arrow-snake,’ the peasants had told him. ‘That fountain is full of them.’ The people of that village avoided the fountain and the huge dark bare rocks about it, that loomed like a small mountain on the flatness of the plain. But some said its waters had healing powers and were good for all kinds of pains like rheumatism and headaches. For the fever, you just spread a thin slice of dough around your throat and poured water from the fountain over it until it dissolved away. And if you spent ten nights stark naked on those rocks sickness would never come near you again …