The Undying Grass Page 19

  ‘He will come,’ the Bald Minstrel said with faith. ‘He’ll come one day and bring relief for our woes and a salve for our wounds. Hail, saint of saints, sultan of the world, our Lord Tashbash …’

  A soothing balm had been spread on the hearts of the dispirited, rain-weary villagers.

  ‘There are no miracles, of course,’ Okkesh Dagkurdu said. ‘Tashbash is only a human being like all of us. He’s not a saint. He can’t be, but this Memidik here has spoken beautifully, though he may have made it all up. Tashbash isn’t a saint, that’s out of the question, but one can’t help wishing for his return …’

  Nobody was listening to him.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ Shirtless roared. ‘Haven’t I always said that our Lord Tashbash will never abandon us in this rain? He’s our very own saint who comes to us in times of need. He was born in our village, it’s there he became a saint, it’s from our village that he went to join the Forty Holies. Ah yes, Tashbash will come to us again. Next year the cotton will be three times as good. And, what’s more, there’ll be no mosquitoes at all. Our Lord Tashbash who sees how we suffer from these mosquitoes will simply wipe them off the face of the earth. Just annihilate the whole lot …’ And Shirtless kept on in this vein, bragging about the wonders to be worked by their saint.

  His head held high, with the air of a general who has put armies to rout, Memidik strode proudly through the humming crowd and went straight to Long Ali. He was stretched out under a dirty mud-soiled rug. His hands like yellow parchment lay inert over the rug. There was a bandage over one of his eyes. The other eye was free, but swollen. He opened it with difficulty and looked at Memidik.

  ‘Get well soon, Ali brother,’ Memidik said. ‘Those monsters were jealous of you, of your quick hands. That’s why they did it. That’s why they nearly killed you. Otherwise, doesn’t everyone here know you didn’t kill your mother? Anyone else, even our Lord Tashbash, would kill his mother, but you, never!’

  He sat down beside Ali and related to him his encounter with Tashbash, embroidering a hundredfold on the story he had just told the others.

  As Memidik was leaving, Zaladja Woman pounced on him: ‘How is he?’

  ‘He doesn’t look well at all,’ Memidik replied.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Zaladja wailed. ‘To think I helped to do it with these hands; may they be crippled by the spell!’ She rushed in. ‘Get well soon, Ali brother. It’s just that the villagers were fed up. They took it out on you. Don’t hold it against us.’ And she placed a wrinkled, aromatic mountain apple on the bed.

  ‘Thank you, Zaladja sister.’ His voice was barely audible. He smiled, a thin bitter smile.

  They all drifted in, in ones and twos, to beg his forgiveness, even those who had struck at him the most furiously. They squatted by him, took his hand and looked into his eyes. ‘We’re sorry for this, brother,’ they said. ‘God knows how it happened. Don’t hold it against us.’ And all left some present, big or small.

  Ali felt better, but not quite comforted. What did this sudden change portend? Was it just a feint to lull him so that they could fall upon him unawares later?

  Then Old Halil came storming up, heaping abuse upon the villagers. ‘Damn you all, you worthless wretched people,’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Curse you to the end of the earth, every one of you from the smallest to the biggest! … First you thrash a man to within an inch of his life, breaking every bone in his body, then you come and say you’re sorry. Sorry! Ali, my son, I’m going. If I’m not back in a few days, then you’ll know I’m dead. I’m not taking any leave of these worthless wretches. They’ll never get my forgiveness nor my blessing either. Not even at my last breath. Keep well. You’ll be all right now.’

  He turned and went out. Crossing the field at a running pace he gained the road skirting the river. His feet were bare and he held his shoes in his hand. He went with not a parting glance at anyone.

  In the sky the great eagle was wheeling ponderously, sleepily, casting a dark elongated shadow over the hazy earth.

  28

  Several times in the past few days Meryemdje has caught glimpses of Spellbound Ahmet streaking through the village and vanishing into the mountains. She calls after him, begging him to stop, to come to his Mother Meryemdje … She’s got something to tell him which … But the idiot never even turns to look. His tattered clothes trailing and flapping about his thin body, he pursues his wandering path over the steppe.

  It was a beautiful day. Not a shred of cloud in the clear, sparkling blue of the sky. A warm light breeze blew in from the steppe. The cock stood quite still outside Slowcoach Ali’s barn, his gaudy tail glistening, his head held high. From behind the hut Meryemdje crept up, nearer and nearer. ‘Now I’ve got you, speckled cock,’ she gloated. ‘I’ve got you, I’ve wrung your neck and plucked your feathers. I’ve roasted you to a turn over glowing embers. I’ve eaten you, my little speckled cock. I’ve had my fill for two whole days. You just wait!’ Meryemdje turned the corner. The cock was motionless, only a couple of paces from her. ‘He hasn’t seen me,’ she thought. ‘He’s tired perhaps, poor thing, tired to death of being chased like this day after day. He’s giving himself up …’

  Another step, a swift pounce, and once again she found herself sprawling on the ground. Her hand had not even touched the cock. He had simply given a hop and was now standing, as still as ever, before Bayram’s barn a little farther away.

  ‘So you’re playing with me, eh, you wretched bird of those rascally villagers? I’ll show you how to play tricks on me. You’ll see what’s what when you’re sizzling over red-hot embers. So you think I won’t catch you, eh? You just wait! Go on with your shifting and dodging. Go on …’ And she inched stealthily along the wall of Bayram’s barn. Holding her breath she turned the corner and lunged at the cock. As she fell the bird gave a spring and escaped. Meryemdje hit the ground with a thud, her right elbow knocked against a stone. She howled with pain. Her screams and imprecations resounded through the village and the surrounding hills and valleys.

  Almost weeping with rage she got to her feet, grabbed a huge stone and flung it at the cock who had posted himself only a little way off. The stone was too heavy and fell short. She picked up another, and another. She rained stones at the cock, screeching with pain and fury and heaping curses upon him. But the cock remained imperturbable. Only when a stone dropped a few feet from him did he stalk off with measured steps to take up a stance on a log a little farther away.

  Meryemdje broke into a run. Picking up stones as she went and hurling them at the cock, she chased him all over the village until she could run no longer. She dropped down at last, panting, at the door of Okkesh Dagkurdu’s house and lay there drenched in sweat, covered with dust and earth. The cock had stopped a little way off and seemed to be watching her. He took a step or two and turned back to look. This drove Meryemdje to fresh fury.

  ‘I’ll show you, you heathen! You’re no better than those rascally villagers to whom you belong. And as for that Tashbash, yesterday’s little whipper-snapper turned saint who doesn’t deign to come this way now … Can’t he see what that low-down villager’s low-down cock is doing to me? Tashbash, my son, since you’re a saint now and can see everything, why don’t you come down from your mountain and catch this cock who’s making a mock of me? Why don’t you, you saintly son of a bitch? Look, I swear that if you come and catch the cock I’ll roast him for you over a huge glowing fire. For you, only for you, my Tashbash. Crisp and red as a pomegranate. I swear on that blessed saintly head of yours I won’t touch a morsel of the meat. You may be a saint now, you may live among the Forty Holies, but I know you. You’re a timid soul, easily imposed upon. You must be starved to death up there in the wilds. Come, my Tashbash, come and let me give you a good square meal. Come and hear the things your Mother Meryemdje’s got to tell you. Don’t you ever get bored up there with those gloomy immortal forty brothers? Who knows how high and mighty they are, how swollen with pride because t
hey’ll never die … You must have got a swelled head too or you’d have paid some attention to your old Mother Meryemdje. Does a man lose all human feeling when he becomes a saint?’

  For some reason she felt a sudden twinge of pity for Tashbash as she brought to mind his downcast mien when the gendarmes had come to arrest him. Had his hands been manacled? She could not remember. She saw his face, a deep saffron yellow. Like a man being led to the gallows he was, not a whit like a saint. Only when he had pointed to Sefer and commanded the village not to kill him, not to touch a hair of his head, but simply never to speak to him again, only then had he grown in stature. He had stood before them, majestic, just as you’d think a saint would be. Then the gendarmes had taken him away and the villagers had wept and keened for him. No one had ever seen or heard of him since. Some said he had frozen to death in the blizzard. Others that he had gone to join the Forty Holies … Who knows … They said he was a great saint now, clad in green robes, taller, and with a long white beard that flowed like a waterfall down to his knees. They said that wherever he set his foot the earth turned green and lush, that wherever his eyes rested large dawn-roses unfolded into bloom. A dawn-rose! She had always wondered what that could be; a kind of special rose for saints, no doubt. They said also that a snow-white cloud followed him wherever he went like a canopy over his head to protect him from the sun and the rain …

  If Tashbash were to appear before her draped in those green garments, with his newly-acquired white beard, Meryemdje knew she would die of laughter. Who wouldn’t? Think of our Tashbash all got up like that! Why, he’d be the first to laugh himself! If only he would come, what a good laugh they’d have together. It would not hurt Tashbash’s saintly reputation, for there was no one in the village to see them.

  ‘Well, why don’t you come then, Allah’s wretched saint?’

  And they said also that seven balls of light followed him wherever he went, as tall as seven minarets. Think of it! The night was always bright as day for him, with those balls of light heeling him like so many mongrel dogs. Bright as day …

  The pain in her arm was agonizing. She rose with difficulty. ‘I’ll bind it if it’s broken. I’ll make a good salve for it,’ she thought. ‘And if it isn’t, then the pain’ll pass soon enough.’

  She was going to lie in wait for Spellbound Ahmet now. The place she had chosen for her ambush was a good one, a narrow pass on the Chukurova road which Spellbound Ahmet was bound to take whether he came from above or below. There was a hollow tree-trunk beside the pass, the remains of what must once have been a huge planetree that had perished and crumbled away. Each spring a single green limb would shoot out of the hollow. It would dry up and wither in the winter, only to come out again in the spring, all green and fresh …

  Meryemdje went home first. She made herself a roll of yufka bread and cheese and set out again munching it hungrily. There was a fountain beside the hollow tree. She drank some water to wash down the bread and cheese and then settled herself to wait in the empty trunk.

  ‘Let’s see you get away this time, son-in-law of the Peri King! I’ve got you now,’ she muttered. A strong odour of wet, rotted bark filled the inside of the tree. After a while she got used to it and found it pleasant enough.

  I’ll catch that Spellbound Ahmet. And then …

  She began to dream of how he would take her to the Peri King’s palace, how she would meet his wife, the Peri King’s daughter, how she would help her with the children. Even the Peri King …

  One day the Peri King hears that an earthling has come to the land of the peris, Ahmet’s mother … Not his real mother, but such a staunch steadfast soul that in the whole of the Taurus and the Chukurova lands she is known as Mother Meryemdje. Ahmet, the Peri King says, I’ve heard of your Mother Meryemdje … Yes, what do you think, even the Peri King calls her Mother! They say she’s an upright soul, as staunch as Slim Memed’s Mother Hürü. There’s not much to be said for these earthlings, the Peri King says. They wage war and kill one another. They gouge each other’s eyes out. They wrong and oppress each other with cruel, evil acts. They sell their fellow creatures into slavery and reduce them to poverty and hunger. They are a craven race, these earthlings, that’s why they rave so much of bravery and courage. They trample on the fallen and cringe before the strong. They’re a miserable lot, but once in a while you come upon someone like Mother Meryemdje, good and honourable. Bring her to me, Ahmet. I want to know her too, to pay my respects to her and kiss her hand.

  So in the end Meryemdje meets the Peri King. He is bathed in light, but really quite like a human being, a tall handsome man, his face a little like that of her dead husband Ibrahim, gentle and good. Only, like all the peris, he has no bridge to his nose. But that’s a trivial defect. You’d never notice it unless you looked very close.

  The Peri King seats Meryemdje beside his throne. His golden throne! He takes her hand and kisses it. You are a credit to the human race, he says, you have always stood up and denounced wrongs. That is why I respect you and you alone among the earthlings. And then a table is laid, large enough to seat a hundred people, with plump roast quails and ducks and geese. Stuffed tomatoes … Sweet sesame halva … And delicious snow-white bread. Town bread … Anything you could wish for is set on that table. But best of all is the bread and the sweet halva …

  Meryemdje sighed with longing. She loved halva.

  Then the Peri King licks his magic ring once … The table is spirited away and a colossal Negro stands before him, one of his lips stretching to the heavens, the other hanging down to the earth. Go, the Peri King says …

  Just then Spellbound Ahmet’s hirsute figure came into view. He was limping. Slowly he approached and sat down on the stone before the fountain. Meryemdje’s heart began to beat more quickly. His shalvar-trousers were torn and hung in tatters about his legs. His feet were bleeding. He had no shirt left to speak of, only a few rags dangling here and there. Meryemdje found it difficult to connect this pitiful creature with a Peri King and his daughter. Could it be that it was all lies? Quickly she chased this unpleasant thought away. Maybe the Peri King wanted it this way. Maybe he wore garments that a human being could not see.

  She emerged from the hollow, her heart tightening. His back was turned to her, his head bent over his torn feet. Silently, she tiptoed up to him and grabbed his arm.

  ‘Wait, Ahmet! Wait, my child, I’m your mother.’

  He made no attempt to move, but remained quite still, his large, glittering, black eyes fixed dazedly on Meryemdje. He smiled, then his face changed. It became tense with fear. He began to tremble all over and burst into tears. ‘What have I done?’ he whimpered. ‘Mother, what have I done that you do this to me? This, this, this … To me … me … me.’

  He sobbed and blubbered, sniffling like a child. Meryemdje stroked his hair gently and talked to him as to a little boy of five.