Iron Earth, Copper Sky Page 2

  ‘That’s true,’ she cried. ‘If only we were never, never hungry at all … But Hasan, we’d better be quick. Look at the sun.’

  He grabbed his axe and ran up to an oak. The blow rang out loud in the emptiness of the wood. A dark cloud was advancing over the steadily fading steppe. It came, black and angry, sweeping away before it the scintillation of the snow, staining the whiteness of the earth and sky. He swung the axe furiously, almost at random. With each stroke, frozen flakes dropped to the ground.

  ‘Hurry, Ummahan! Hurry!’

  She was darting to and fro, piling up the sticks and binding them into faggots.

  ‘All right, Hasan. We’ve got enough,’ she said at last.

  He threw down the axe and looked at his sister suspiciously.

  ‘You wait here,’ he ordered, ‘and don’t dare turn to look where I’m going, or I’ll hack you to pieces here and now with this axe.’

  Each time it was the same. Where did he go? What did he do? Ummahan was burning to know. But she never could pluck up the courage to go after him.

  He ran swiftly, jumping over the rocks and fallen trunks until he came to a great rock set like an island in the midst of a clump of pines. There he paused, his heart beating loudly. Then slowly, as though touching a sacred object, he lifted a large stone. There was nothing under it except a feeble stirring of yellowish, ant-like creatures. With infinite care, as though he feared it would break and the magic would be shattered, he lowered the stone.

  On the way back Ummahan looked at him reproachfully.

  ‘Hasan …’ she began.

  ‘Shh!’ he whispered.

  ‘But you haven’t told me the secret of the forest,’ she protested. ‘You promised …’

  ‘Shh!’ he said sharply.

  fn1 Mevlut: a memorial service for the dead.

  Chapter 2

  They were all squatting about the hearth. The wood Hasan and Ummahan had brought blazed and crackled, filling the hut with its forest fragrance. Old Meryemdje sat still as a stone, her back to the wall, her head bent. Ali eyed her uneasily, thinking of other winter evenings when his mother would while away the long hours with an endless store of tales and reminiscences. If only she would be her old self again now, in these days of trouble … If only …

  How long was it since the evening prayer? No one spoke. The children were quiet, listless, buried in themselves. Elif had tried to cheer up the household, but she too was silent now. Only the long mournful ululations of the wind from the steppe filled the night.

  ‘Mother,’ Ali said in a wheedling tone, thinking of the wonderful stories Meryemdje could tell of the steppe and its wolves, ‘what of the wolves now in this cold, with the whole world frozen over? What do they eat? How do they keep alive?’

  Meryemdje did not seem to hear him.

  ‘Mother …’ Now if this doesn’t shake her into talking, he thought, then nothing ever will to her dying day. ‘Mother, people are saying Old Halil isn’t dead. They say he came back here while we were still down in the Chukurova plain and when his son returned to the village and opened the door, who should he see inside but Old Halil fast asleep! And you knew it all the time, Mother! You said he wasn’t dead. And now he’s ashamed to show himself because he thinks it’s his fault the village was late for the cotton picking. He’s made his son swear not to tell a soul that he’s alive. Yes Mother, just like that …’

  Meryemdje did not stir. A threatening rumble came from the steppe.

  Ali’s hut was built in a hollow with the bare earth for its back wall. Uneven stones daubed with mud made up the other three walls. Though the roof was of stout oakwood, the house itself was old, dating back to Ali’s grandfather. In stormy weather Ali always feared that the snow-laden roof would cave in. Yet he knew this was unlikely in the winter when the whole house with its walls and dirt floor was frozen hard. Houses collapsed only during the spring thaw.

  Their one cow, one calf and three goats were lying by the hay stacked in the far corner of the room. It was cold in spite of the brightly burning fire. What they needed was more livestock to warm up the place with their breath, Ali thought.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘the crop’s bound to be plentiful this year, after all this snow. I’ll buy a few more goats and another cow with the money. That’ll be more than enough to heat this house, now won’t it?’

  But he might as well have spoken to a corpse.

  His thoughts wandered to Adil Effendi and his threats. I intend going to that village myself, Adil Effendi had told the Muhtar,fn1 and take the goats and cows from their hearths and the butter from their firkins, yes everything, down to their women’s last drawers. All the villages have paid their debts. Your village went down to the Chukurova just like the others, so how is it they all picked good cotton and you didn’t? You’re simply lying, and this is the last time you get any credit from me. Why, the villages around here have been dealing with us for nearly a hundred years, ever since my grandfather set up shop, and this is the first time a debt hasn’t been settled. The village of Yalak is the first to have broken the age-old bond. You’ve sown the seeds of evil in these mountains …

  A voice at the window roused him.

  ‘Ali! Ali, open the door!’

  ‘Tashbash, is that you?’

  It wasn’t like Tashbash to come visiting so late in the night. Something must be wrong, Ali thought as he opened the door.

  ‘What news, brother?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Bad,’ Tashbash replied, as he sat down by the fire in the place Elif had left for him. ‘Adil Effendi’s coming.’

  ‘When?’ Ali asked wearily.

  ‘Well, nobody knows exactly. Perhaps this very minute …’

  ‘What shall we do? Have you thought of something?’

  ‘What’s there to think of? We can’t pay, that’s all. I haven’t been able to buy a yard of cloth this year. My wife’s in rags …’

  ‘It’s the same with everyone.’

  ‘It’s no use telling Adil Effendi it wasn’t our fault, that we were led into a barren cotton field, that we’ll repay him next year with double interest. No … Ah, it’s that Muhtar Sefer who’s brought this upon us, and Old Halil too.’

  At this Meryemdje raised her head. Her lips moved silently in a sullen mutter.

  Tashbash stared at her in amazement.

  ‘Ali, will Mother Meryemdje still not talk?’

  Ali shook his head despondently.

  ‘Well!’ Tashbash exclaimed. Then he went on quickly. ‘Have you heard? Old Halil isn’t dead. He’s right in the village, hiding in his son’s grain crib.’

  ‘I know,’ Ali replied.

  fn1 Muhtar: village headman.

  Chapter 3

  Old Halil had made his bed in the grain crib. He never came out except under cover of darkness, and then only when he had to relieve himself. Day and night he lay there, cowering into a corner every time the front door was opened. He had got it into his head that the villagers intended to kill him, and nothing his son could say made any difference.

  ‘But Father,’ Hadji would plead, ‘you haven’t done them any wrong. Everyone knows it’s the Muhtar’s fault that we didn’t find a good cotton field. Just show yourself once, and if anyone so much as wags a finger at you, then come back here and never go out again.’

  ‘You’re only a child,’ Old Halil would answer obstinately. ‘You don’t know those wily villagers. All they want is to get hold of me and tear me to pieces. Ah, don’t I know!’

  ‘But you’ll just rot away here, in this dark hole, without ever seeing the light of day.’

  Old Halil cut him short. ‘I’d rather die than come out!’

  That day there was anxious whispering about the house. Something was brewing. He read fear on his son’s face.

  ‘Hadji!’ he called. ‘Come here. What’s wrong? Tell me, have they found out that you’re hiding me?’

  Hadji sat down beside him on the low wall of the crib and explained about Adil
Effendi and the threat that hung over the village. Old Halil did not believe a word of it, but still it was a straw to cling to.

  ‘You go and tell those villagers,’ he said craftily, ‘that Old Halil knows how to get them out of this fix. They’ll all be amazed to see how. I’ll save them, but only if they promise not to kill me. You must make them promise before telling them I’m alive or they’ll tear me to shreds.’

  ‘There you go again, Father! Why should anyone want to do that?’

  ‘Do as I tell you. You can’t understand these things. You’re only a child.’

  ‘Father, are you mad? A child? I’m getting on for fifty! And anyway, everyone knows you’re here.’

  ‘They know?’ Old Halil cried out in terror. ‘I’m dead, finished. Bolt the door! Quickly! Now!’ He flung himself down and drew the blanket over his head. ‘Murderer! Bolt that door …’

  Hadji shook his head in exasperation as he went to the door.

  ‘Ah, aaah!’ the old man wailed. ‘That my son, the apple of my eye, should be the cause of my death! I didn’t eat to feed him, I went in rags to clothe him, and in return he’s bringing down my house over my head!’

  He lay there, moaning, working himself into a frenzy. They might be here any minute, the Muhtar, the villagers, all itching to lay their hands on him, to kill him … Then they would go to Adil Effendi and say, ‘See, we’ve done away with the culprit. Such a thing would never have happened in this village but for him.’ At any moment now that door would burst open. Leading the crowd would be Meryemdje, her hair bristling like a broom. He could hear her screaming vengeance. ‘Kill him, women! Kill him! Tear him to pieces, the infidel, the unholy renegade! Kill him!’

  ‘Ah, Meryemdje!’ he cried aloud. ‘If it weren’t for your poor dead husband, my dear friend Ibrahim, if it weren’t for him, I know what I’d do to you.’

  And then, as always when the fear became unbearable, he saw himself in his prime, riding below Chiyshar village on a late autumn afternoon through a wood of luminous plane trees. He had just stolen the horse from Göksün on the Long Plateau, a sorrel that galloped like the wind, its colour blending with the russet trees … They were skirting a brook, so thickly coated with leaves it looked like a red carpet flowing down into the valley, when the horse had baulked. And then he had seen the wounded man lying half hidden by the undergrowth. Quickly he had got off and ripped up his own shirt to make a bandage.

  ‘I can’t go to a town. I can’t see a doctor,’ the man had moaned. ‘I am Memo, the bandit.’

  Halil had taken him to Aslan Agha, chief of the horse-thief gang. And there the outlaw had remained until his wound healed.

  Memo, the lord of these mountains, ready to lay down his life for Halil. If only he were alive now, alive to teach these villagers a lesson!

  He hears them, a howling pack at the bolted door. ‘Come out, you godless heathen, you traitor!’ And then with a great crash the door breaks open. They come pouring through, but almost in the same instant they reel back, scrambling over each other, yelling with fear. Three hefty outlaws rigged out in cartridges from head to toe are aiming their gun muzzles at them.

  ‘Let them have it, Memo,’ Halil shouts. ‘Shoot them all down, the rascals!’

  But Memo laughs. ‘Why waste good bullets! Half of them’ll die of fright anyway!’

  And now Halil is swaggering up and down the village and the villagers come cringing up to him.

  ‘Please forgive us, Halil Agha. Don’t turn the bandits on us …’

  The door creaked open. His heart began to thump.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he quavered.

  ‘It’s me, Father.’

  ‘Look, Hadji, you must get me out of here. Take me to that cave at the foot of Mount Tekech.’

  ‘But Father! There’s a raging snowstorm outside, enough to freeze you if you go next door, let alone to Mount Tekech!’

  ‘You do as I tell you. There, in that cave, with my faithful friend Memo …’ Something seared through his heart. ‘Ah,’ he cried, ‘if he were alive now, I’d have him mow the whole village down!’

  ‘Father, I’ve told you again and again no one’s giving you a thought. The villagers have enough to worry about as it is. If you’d only go out just once, you’d see how they’d open their arms to you. Why, at the Mevlut, when we thought you were dead, they all came and cried their hearts out.’

  Old Halil sat up. ‘So you mean I’m not important enough, eh? You snivelling whelp, this village is in debt, hungry, naked in the dead of winter, and you think they don’t know it’s my fault? Shame on you! A fine son for an old eagle like Halil to have!’ He slumped down. ‘I’m cold,’ he groaned. ‘Bring me another blanket, quick, and tell that whore of yours to cook me some tarhana soup. Piping hot I want it. Let me drink something warm before I die …’

  He lay there till nightfall, trembling with expectation, straining his ears towards the door. Weren’t they going to come after all?

  ‘Father,’ he heard his daughter-in-law call, ‘the soup’s ready. We’re waiting for you.’

  A tantalizing fragrance filled the house. His stomach rumbled with hunger.

  ‘Is it really night? Quite, quite dark?’

  ‘Quite, Father,’ Hadji assured him.

  ‘Go out and have a good look, for pity’s sake, to make sure.’

  Hadji opened the door, slamming it to again.

  ‘It’s so dark outside,’ he announced solemnly, ‘you could cut through the night with an axe.’

  Old Halil skipped out of the crib, nimble as a child. He snatched up a spoon and began to gulp down his soup as though he had been starved for days. When he had had his fill, he raised his head and looked warily at the door. Village folk are cunning, he thought. They’ll wait till it’s night to get their man. In the dark of the night …

  He rushed back to the grain crib. ‘Hadji!’ he shouted in agitation. ‘Put a heavy log against the door. Do something to save your poor father from those wild beasts. They’re hiding outside in the deadly night, and soon they’ll be creeping up, one by one, closer and closer, until there’s a human mass heaving at that door. They’ll grab me by the scruff of the neck like a rabbit and drag me out into the cold snow. And there, by the light of torches, they’ll fall upon me like hungry wolves and at one swoop each will have torn a piece of my flesh. Eh, a meet death for Halil, the eagle of these mountains … But then, I’m so old now, they ought to spare me, isn’t that so, son?’

  ‘Father! What are you imagining? Nobody’s thinking of you. Go to sleep.’

  Old Halil was outraged. ‘Tonight,’ he spluttered, ‘this very night, they’re coming to butcher me. Rejoice, snivelling Hadji! Rejoice that the morsel I eat in this house will be yours at last.’

  Hadji had had enough. ‘Oh well, Father, perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they do bear you a grudge and mean to kill you.’

  This was what the old man had been wanting to hear.

  ‘They will, Hadji, they will, you’ll see. Now, come here. Hold my hand. Let Fatma come too, and my grandchildren. Yes, all my progeny, because this is the end for me. Even now …’

  At a sign from Hadji they all crowded around the grain crib.

  ‘Forgive me everything, my dear children,’ Old Halil began, his voice warm and soft with emotion. ‘This is to be Halil’s fate then, to suffer death at the hands of his fellow villagers!’ He patted his grandchildren on the head and stroked his daughter-in-law’s hand. ‘Forgive me all. Farewell …’

  Hadji had never seen his father in this fond paternal mood. Could it be that he really felt his end drawing near?

  Far into the night Hadji and Fatma sat by the hearth listening to the old man’s moaning and muttering. At last he fell asleep and Fatma turned to her husband.

  ‘We can’t let him suffer like that. Tomorrow, I’m going to do something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll see. I never cared for him much. You know how he’s treated me all these years. Bu
t this evening my heart has gone out to him. Poor creature, I’ll rid him of this fear that’s killing him.’

  Old Halil had never been strict about religious observance, and if he did wake up at the time of the early morning prayer it was not to make the namaz, but to stir up the ash-covered embers in the hearth and throw on a few logs. When the others awoke the fire would be burning brightly and the house pleasantly warm.

  This morning he felt a sudden longing. Ever since taking up his abode in the grain crib he had not even once tended the fire. Lithe as a cat, he crept out and quickly kindled up a blaze. Then he withdrew into his hide-out again and waited with pleasurable anticipation for Fatma to begin her daily bout of bickering with Hadji.

  He waited in vain. The last cock had crowed, and still no quarrel. Not so much as a word exchanged!

  ‘Hadji,’ he called, ‘isn’t Fatma there?’

  ‘She’s gone out, Father. She had something very important to do.’

  ‘I was wondering …’ He stopped.

  ‘What is it, Father?’

  ‘It’s just that …’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, why don’t you speak out?’

  Old Halil’s head shot into view.

  ‘See here, snivelling Hadji, how dare you speak to me like that? Only yesterday’s little whipper-snapper … All I was going to say is … Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Because … It’s just that …’

  ‘I’ll be damned if I know what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Just that …’ Then quickly – ‘You and Fatma haven’t had words this morning. So …’

  Hadji laughed. ‘We didn’t have the chance, Father. She was off before daybreak.’

  A horrible suspicion filled old Halil.

  ‘Bolt that door, Hadji,’ he cried.

  Hadji fastened the door, then lifted the bar again stealthily.

  ‘I’ll thank you, snivelling Hadji, not to try and fool Old Halil. You go and bar that door properly this very minute or …’ Suddenly he let out a frenzied shout. ‘They’re coming! I knew it!’ There was a jubilant note in his voice. ‘Can’t you hear them? Hundreds and hundreds of feet! The whole village, young and old, children and all, coming to kill me! Help! Help me, all-powerful Muhammet. Don’t forsake me.’