The Undying Grass Read online

  She had taken to sleeping near the threshold at night, spreading her bedding right behind the door which she kept half open. But tonight she was afraid. She climbed up the ladder to the roof. Dusk shed its dappled shades over the steppe, which was light in places and strangely dark in others. The forest loomed cavernous and black, yet the crests of the trees were flooded with light. Silently, steadily the night pressed on and the shadows crept down from the mountains on to the flat solitary steppe. The sun had vanished now. Meryemdje was all alone. The houses stood as usual, and here were the familiar woods and streams. Yes, and the springs, the birds, the rich earth with its myriad plants and flowers, the ants and snakes and all the living creatures. A teeming, seething world, infinite in its profusion, lacking nothing. Colour and light and sound, the night, the stars, it had everything, everything. So varied, so bountiful … Yet how empty it was now, a desolation without sound or light or colour, with no movement, no life at all. The many swallows flitting into the houses, nesting there, friendly, with something about them so close to the human being, cleaving the sky with slim pointed wings, where were they? Not even a fly in the empty air. The insects on the grass, the bees, the scents … Nothing, nothing was left.

  Meryemdje felt all the dread of this desolate empty world in the very core of her heart. A world full to the brim, yet lifeless, dead. In the very core of her heart, piercing as a poisoned dagger, she felt the absence of the human being. So it is man that fills the world, man that is everything. Without him the world does not exist.

  She turned to the west and cried out aloud with all the warmth of the human voice: ‘God, please grant me just one whiff of a human body … Just one whiff … The smell of a human being …’ Her voice sounded out like the voice of a giant. It filled the whole world and echoed and re-echoed through the steppe and down the valleys. ‘Oh for the smell of one human being …’

  One little mangy child beside her now and the world would be full and rich again, no longer cold and empty … Just one miserable mangy child …

  ‘They could give me the whole of Paradise all to myself, I wouldn’t have it. I’d rather be cast into Hell and be with human beings. What’s the good of a world with nobody in it …’

  Cruel, evil, lying … Men are like that, ready to humiliate, to usurp, to kill. No creature on earth could think up the wicked things man can do to his fellows. Nor the good things either …

  The Bald Minstrel would sing a lay of the empty universe, with nothing, nothing at all, no earth, no air, no water, no emptiness even, nothing but a little blob of light no bigger than a hand, yet filling the whole universe with its brightness, dazzling, blinding to the eyes, had there been eyes to see … Well, that was man, that was the light that burned in every man. Out of that little blaze of light all human beings had been fashioned. God first created Adam out of mud and then he put this light in him.

  ‘Oh for the smell of a human being …’

  Meryemdje’s fear grew. The forest, the Peri Vale, the crags, the desolate steppe were on the move, advancing towards her, a rumbling march of giant shadows. Animals howled in the night, wolves and jackals and others she did not recognize made a confused clamour. And she heard the hissing of snakes and the hooting of owls. Then suddenly all was silent as though at the stroke of a wand and Meryemdje remained all alone with her soaring fear. A strange sensation stirred in her which she could not, dared not put into words. Tashbash came to her mind.

  ‘Maybe I have that thing in me that Tashbash has …’ She felt an intense exaltation that raised her above all other creatures and invested her with prodigious powers. ‘It’s being alone for so long,’ she thought. ‘I’m going crazy and imagining myself to be like him. God forgive me.’

  She was struggling in a welter of emotions.

  ‘Meryemdje’ll never sleep tonight, never. Meryemdje had better carry her bed up here to the roof, hadn’t she? Yes, but tell me, Meryemdje Sister, how can you go down and get it?’ The very thought terrified her, as though a thousand dragons with gaping jaws were lurking in the shadows about the house. ‘Well then, Meryemdje’ll have to sleep on the roof tonight without a bed. Meryemdje can go without sleep tonight too.’

  It comforted her to say Meryemdje again and again aloud as though there was someone beside her. But still she could not bring herself to stir from the roof. Then she remembered the ladder propped against the wall. She jumped up and drew it in quickly.

  ‘You’re a fool, Meryemdje,’ she muttered. ‘A poor scatterbrain. Leaving that ladder there for all the wild beasts to climb up at will, to say nothing of the peris and the jinn …’

  She crouched into a corner of the roof, drawing herself up into a shrinking ball. The sky was clear tonight, star-laden and streaked with meteors. At every star that shot across the sky Meryemdje started and her heart beat more fitfully. Try as she would she could not avert her gaze. She knew that with each star that fell a human being was breathing his last somewhere on this earth.

  Towards morning she dozed off, but was roused almost at once by the crowing of the cock. From the neighbouring village came the answering crows of another cock. She waited till it was quite light before leaving her refuge on the roof. Then she clambered down and making herself a large roll of yufka bread and cheese she hurried off to the forest munching hungrily. Wistfully she saw in her mind’s eye the juicy, crackling legs of a chicken roasting over glowing embers.

  The pebbly bed of the spring sparkled under the sun as she bent to drink of the cold clear water, perfumed with wild mint. The day before she had marked out a tall slim pine-tree. Such pines yielded the best yalabuk of all, softer and more fragrant. Extracting the yalabuk came easily to her now. Quite an expert Meryemdje had become. She had even fashioned a tool for this job, a long piece of wood chipped flat at one end. This she inserted under the bark after making two slashes, one span broad and two spans long, and hammered away with a stone until the bark came neatly off the trunk. Then, with her sharp Marash knife, she whittled off the outer covering from the thin white pellicle of sweet-scented, tasty yalabuk and chewed at it bit by bit.

  All through the morning Meryemdje went from tree to tree, peeling yalabuk. The green freshness of the forest coursed through her veins with all its scents and flavours. And when she took a draught of cool spring water after the yalabuk she was fifteen years old again, blithe and light as a bird.

  She had just gathered a large armful of marjoram and wild mint when she recalled the gypsies and their method of catching chickens. Not only the gypsies but that god-forsaken wretched Old Halil too … The corn all strung up in a row …

  Quickly she made her way back home. She found a length of twine and strung it with corn kernels. The cock was perched on top of Blind Ali’s dung-heap, one leg drawn up to his belly, straight as a poker, with a high and mighty air seeming to say, I am the sultan of this world and Meryemdje is only one of my subjects …

  This roused Meryemdje’s wrath. ‘Just you wait, you wretched bird,’ she muttered. ‘Playing at sultans with me, eh? You’ll see what’s what when I’ve wrung your neck!’

  ‘Chick-chick-chick!’ she called and cast the corn-strung twine before the cock. He came running at once and pecked at the first kernel. Meryemdje waited, tense and sweating, while he gobbled up grain after grain. Then she tugged at the string. The cock squawked and struggled but in vain. A wild flurry of wings and feathers and Meryemdje had caught him at last. He was a strong lusty fowl and even in her arms he was putting up a desperate fight. Finally, she trussed up his legs soundly with the other end of the string.

  ‘There!’ she cried as she cast him to the ground. ‘Let’s see you get out of that. Now Meryemdje’s going to cut your throat and make a fire, oh what a fire, and roast you on it.’ She sniffed with pleasurable anticipation. ‘Yes, little cock, I can smell you roasting already. That juicy meat of yours will last Meryemdje a good week. And then when she’s finished with you, there’ll be that friend of yours in the next village …’


  She took a great armful of dry sticks from Blind Ali’s yard and lit a roaring fire in the old disused hearth. Soon she had a tall pile of glowing embers ready. She fetched the grindstone from the house and whetted her knife until it was razor-sharp. Then she picked up the cock and laid him on the stone near the large mortar. He looked at her with startled, pleading eyes. Meryemdje put her right foot on his trussed legs, her left on his open wings, and held his head firmly with her left hand. The cock’s neck stretched out, longer than ever. She stroked it with the blade of the knife. Then suddenly she stopped. A wave of pity swept over her. She let go of the cock’s head, unbound his legs and drew the string out of his gullet. In a frenzied flapping of wings he fled to the top of a sheep-fold and crowed long and loud.

  Meryemdje looked at the glowing pile of embers, then turned her gaze to the cock.

  ‘Little cock,’ she said softly, ‘ah, little cock, Meryemdje’s only companion in this world of sorrow! D’you think Meryemdje would kill you? Not even if she were dying of hunger. God forbid that Meryemdje should be deprived of hearing your beautiful voice. Ah, little cock, lovely-feathered, beautiful little cock! Meryemdje’s only soul companion …’

  34

  Memidik’s anger knows no bounds now. How can he wait, with Zeliha always on his mind, every single moment? Too well he realizes that there can be no Zeliha for him as long as Sefer is alive. Sefer is the stumbling-block of his life. Without him the world would be a paradise for Memidik. His resentment grows deeper and stronger every passing day. The food he eats, the water he drinks, all is gall to him.

  Swiftly he drew the willow-leaf knife from its sheath. It traced a wide blue-sparkling arc through the air. He waited, his body rigid and still as a lump of iron. He was not trembling at all. I’ll do it this time, he thought. I’ll do it …

  Moonlight flooded the earth, gilding the sluggish river. Long tree shadows fell over the water. A marshy odour drifted to his nose from the distant rice-paddies and he could hear the rice-keepers firing at the wild boar. The crack of their shots reverberated from the Anavarza crags. Trees and plants loomed larger in the night. The thickets were aflame with glowworms.

  A flapping of wings overhead and the huge old eagle passed, spectral in the moonlight, enormous, four times as large as any other eagle. He wheeled around once and glided off Dumlu Castle way.

  Sefer’s head appeared over a clump of wild daisies, then the trunk of his body. He was larger in the night, a giant not a man. Memidik was sure that he would go numb again, but nothing happened. Firmly he stood his ground while Sefer’s huge figure approached. Then he lifted his right hand and held it in the air, ready to strike.

  Sefer came by swinging his gun. He passed right before Memidik and on down the slope into the creek, and Memidik still stood there rigid, the hand clasping the knife frozen motionless in the air. Sefer’s feet crunched over the shingle. With his long swinging stride he came to the shore and sat on a mound. Now and then he picked up a pebble and cast it into the clear moonlit stream. His shadow fell long and dark over the water, reaching to the opposite bank. A large fish swirled out of the water three times and splish-splashed back again.

  Why does he go wandering like this all night, Memedik wondered? Is there something wrong with him? Or does he know I’m following him? Is he testing me, leading me on? To kill me perhaps … Memidik felt a sudden twitch of fear. He squeezed out of the agnus castus thicket which exhaled a delicate fragrance in the moonlight, a fragrance that spread to the earth and the trees and the grass, that enveloped the night and impregnated Memidik’s whole body, even the willow-leaf knife in his hand.

  There’s something uncanny, something magic about this man, Memidik said. I kill him and another man dies … I will his death with all my soul, but somehow I can’t do it. Why should I be so afraid to kill a man? As though I were the first on earth to do such a thing! People kill all the time. Nobody’s afraid like I am, nobody breaks down and freezes with fear …

  He stopped on the ridge over the bank. A fish shot high into the air and splashed down. It startled Memidik. He sank to the ground, covered with sweat, his legs weak and trembling, almost weeping with rage and frustration. There was Sefer, his back turned to him. Memidik only had to get up. A swift dash, one blow, and another and another … The knife piercing the flesh again and again … Sefer would be unable to move. The blood would spurt out red and thick, staining the stream, and Sefer’s head would crash into the water … And that’s how they would find his body in the morning. Nobody would ever know who did it. But then, what was the use of killing him if nobody ever knew? People must know, ah, people must see with their own eyes how vengeance was wreaked, just as they had known and seen the beatings, the torture, the burnt feet, the blood …

  ‘For months I couldn’t look anyone in the face. I could not touch the hand of my loved one and she suffered because of me. I made her life hell.’

  The whole world should know who killed him and the papers should blazon the news. But that meant prison for him, and the hangman’s noose too … He rose, grasping the knife more tightly. But too late. Sefer was up and off down the stream. He vanished into a thicket of willows. Memidik began to turn around the thicket and suddenly Sefer emerged like a panther right before him. Cold things ran down Memidik’s spine. The knife was in his hand, but his hand was paralysed.

  ‘It’s you then, eh, Memidik? The great hunter! And what may your quarry be here in the Chukurova, in the dead of night? A jackal perhaps, a wild boar? Or an otter? There are plenty in that willow thicket. That’s where they bed. Why don’t you go in there? But you’re afraid, eh?’

  Without warning he was at his throat, squeezing, pressing until only a choking rattle came out of Memidik and he saw suns flashing before his eyes.

  ‘If ever I catch you following me again, I’ll kill you. Understand?’

  He chucked Memidik off like a dirty rag. Memidik’s head rolled into the water and he only just escaped drowning.

  The large fish spurted out of the water three times. Three times its shimmering body flashed, a blaze of light in the night. Memidik woke up. He followed Sefer again, trailing fifty paces in his rear. The stock of Sefer’s rifle was inlaid with silver. It glinted in the moonlight. Over the white stones the stream gurgled on, gleaming and glittering with many lights, and the large fish jumped out again, three times. Sefer turned his face. He looked at the fish and at the dancing stream. Then he walked on.

  Memidik was reeking with sweat. In the distance a blazing hay-rick cast a glow into the sky, and through this glow he saw the great eagle winging past. His shadow fell over the flames and Memidik felt better. The hand that held the knife was light now. He made a rush for Sefer. But just as he was about to strike, someone held his hand. He turned and saw the three men who rode their horses bareback. Sefer was running. He ran right into the water and threw himself under a tamarisk that hung over the bank. He was trembling with fear now. He knew he had narrowly escaped death …

  The rider let go of his hand. ‘Tell us, where is Shevket Bey?’

  ‘Shevket Bey?’

  The blaze of the fire dazzled him.

  ‘Shevket Bey, to be sure! That’s him we’re looking for all over the burning Chukurova land.’

  Mosquitoes in clouds fell upon them, ravening. Their whine swelled into a roar. The flames of the burning rick swept over them and the giant shadows of the riders broadened out, reaching far into the distance. But, try as he could, Memidik could not see their faces.

  ‘I haven’t seen him, not once,’ he said, hanging his head. ‘Look in that well, where the eagles have been turning all these days, all the eagles in the world …’

  ‘We’ve seen the eagles. But Shevket Bey isn’t there.’

  ‘Then he went floating down the river, just like that dead eagle. He was carried off to the sea.’ The sweat poured down Memidik’s back.

  ‘Liar! Shevket Bey’s here!’

  Memidik opened wide his arms towards the burning rick
. ‘Look, see that eagle wheeling right above the fire? You can even smell Shevket Bey. Oh, how he stinks! Hold your noses or you’ll faint.’

  Muhtar Sefer burst out from under the tamarisks. ‘Catch him!’ he shouted, and his voice rang back from the Anavarza crags. ‘Beat him. Break his bones. No one but he in the whole of the Chukurova knows where Shevket Bey is. Break his bones, make him piss blood, blood, blood!’

  The riders roared with laughter. Swiftly they galloped off across the stream and the water gushed up to the horses’ manes.

  Memidik swung the knife in the air three times. Three times it traced wide sparking arcs of flame that glinted lightning-blue under the moon. Three times Muhtar Sefer swayed and fell to the ground. Three times he rose again and his shadow loomed larger and darker, reaching right up to the opposite bank of the stream.

  35

  After sun-down Memidik turns up at the wattle-huts carrying a sack full of water-melons. Slowcoach Halil spies him out and learns where the garden is situated. So do Shirtless, Sefer, Gooey Apti, Fatmadja … The whole village hears of this windfall in an instant. Everyone grabs a sack and rushes off to the water-melon garden. The keeper of the garden has made a bed for himself in the branches of a large old planetree. At no price would he leave this retreat at night, not even if all hell broke loose down in the garden. He is much too scared and only contents himself with shouting out threats from his tree and firing his gun in the air. It has not taken Memidik long to find this out, and so the coast is clear!

  The water-melon garden stretched on this side of the Karabujak swamp, but quite some distance from the field where the Yalak villagers were picking cotton. How Memidik had hit upon this place was a mystery to everyone. At first when they arrived they were frightened by the loud vociferations and the occasional gunshot that came from the planetree. But Memidik, who had accompanied them, allayed their fears.