The Undying Grass Read online

  That night after midnight Memidik went to Tashbash and knelt before him beside the heap of cotton in front of the wattle-hut.

  ‘My saint, my lord,’ he said reverently, ‘tell me what to do. I believe in you, I have faith in you. We all know how he abused you, and look what’s come to Bald Osman now. Gooey Apti will get his deserts too. God forbid, I never doubted it was you I saw walking with those seven balls of light behind him. You were twice as large, your face blazed with light, but it was you all right. I know it. I have faith in you.’

  Tashbash was silent. He stood very straight looking down on Memidik. The moonlight threw his shadow far out to the east.

  ‘My Lord, I take my knife and hide in wait for him. And then he comes, this Sefer, and as soon as I see him I go limp. All the strength goes out of me and I just sink to the ground. Maybe a dozen times I’ve tried, but it’s no use. I can’t do it. And yet if I don’t kill this man my life is not worth living. Food and drink are poison to me as long as he’s there for me to see. I cannot bear to live like this, alongside that man who broke my bones because I would not deny you. I must kill him. Help me, saint of saints!’ He clasped Tashbash’s knees and kissed them. ‘Say a prayer for me that when I set out to kill him my body should not betray me …’

  Tashbash made him rise. He placed his right hand on his head and held it there for some time. Then he turned and walked away towards Long Ali’s wattle-hut. Ali was sitting on a cotton heap, waiting for him. He rose aghast. Even in the darkness he could discern Tashbash’s haggard countenance, his wasted body.

  ‘Come, let’s go down to the riverside,’ he whispered, taking his hand. ‘We can talk more quietly there.’

  When they were seated side by side under the cover of a chaste-tree Ali spoke again: ‘I’m glad you’ve come, brother.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you too.’

  ‘You must tell me all about how things have gone with you. But first you must know that people will be more afraid of you than ever after that child’s death. Today there was not one of them that dared look your way even. Yet they can’t believe you’re a saint. After all, you’re not really a saint …’

  ‘But I am!’ Tashbash said sharply. ‘I’m a real saint now. I’ve tried myself again and again. I know.’

  ‘Hassan told me it was like that, but somehow I couldn’t believe it … So you’re really a saint now, brother?’

  ‘Yes, Ali.’

  ‘Well, I believe you,’ Ali said. ‘But the villagers don’t believe in you now … If only you’d never come back. What will you do? It’s a bad business.’

  ‘I know …’

  ‘I think you ought to go away. The villagers are sure to do you some mischief They’re in such a state these days …’

  ‘How can I go anywhere?’ Tashbash groaned. ‘You can see for yourself. I can hardly walk. D’you think Gooey Apti could have got anywhere near me if I’d been myself?’

  ‘But, brother, don’t you realize how scared they are of you? This fear can make them do anything.’

  ‘I know,’ Tashbash said.

  ‘They can insult and humiliate a man so that death would be better. You’ll never be able to bear it …’

  ‘I know …’

  37

  Muhtar Sefer is quite certain now, after the public beating of Tashbash by Gooey Apti, that the spell is broken and that the villagers will speak to him at last. Still, he feels he must do something himself and give the legend of Tashbash’s holiness its death blow. One must take time by the forelock, the Muhtar tells himself. Tashbash is a clever man. Who knows what he may yet do?

  He had dressed in his best clothes again and had shaved carefully. His whiskers were waxed with blackcurrants and they bristled stiff as an awl.

  Today the villagers were working in two long rows, each stretching a thousand yards. Their hands barely moved. The air was stagnant. Not a leaf flickered. A hazy pall of dust hung over the plain that steamed in the dazzling, blinding heat.

  The labourers’ faces were black with midges. Their huge hands brushed them away, but almost at once the midges were there again plastering their faces.

  Today Long Ali had joined the others for the first time. It was mid-morning. Now, after the rain, they seldom had the chance to snap the bolls straight off the plant, but had to strip the cotton out of its bur there and then. As they went along they also gathered the bolls that had been cast to the ground by the rain. These last they picked up and shook clean of the earth, blowing over them before throwing them into the sacks. This earth-soiled cotton was a nightmare for them. Who knows what the owner of the field would pay them for it, how much he would cut the price? They were careful to store it apart, the pure clean white cotton off the plant in one sack, and the dirty grey earth-soiled cotton in another.

  The two long rows moved sluggishly with the torpor of a snake in a hot shade. At this rate a man could only make five kilos a day. Not nearly enough. But they were tired, their backs ached, and they had the finger-tip fear. There was nothing for it but to go slow for a few days before pressing on again.

  Memidik’s hands were idle. Abstractedly he watched Tashbash dragging himself along the ground in a desperate effort to pick as much as the others. His eyes were unseeing. He groped blindly, oblivious of all and everything about him. To Memidik he seemed like a cat with a broken back and trailing legs. Not once could he catch a glimpse of his eyes under his black bushy eyebrows. It was as though he was not there, not of this world, a man in a dream. Memidik picked up his basket and went over to his side. Tashbash gave no sign that he had noticed him. His face was elongated, crinkled, greenish yellow. Memidik took stock of him more closely. It was Tashbash all right, his features, his voice, every bit of him, yes, but this was a tiny midget of a man. Tashbash was huge, two metres tall. And then, he was all light, with the most terrible blazing eyes you ever saw. Could it that he had come to them like this, miserable, close to death, on purpose to test them? If it was like that, then God help the villagers! God help them all … Why, Gooey Apti would find that even Hell could not hold him!

  Suddenly Muhtar Sefer’s voice burst through the hot air like a cannon-ball. ‘Gooey, my friend,’ he called, ‘come here! I’ve got something to say to you.’

  Hands stopped in mid-air. Everyone was alert, all ears, as Gooey Apti stepped out of the row. Only Tashbash, as though he had heard nothing, went on as before, slowly plucking at the cotton, oblivious of the whole world and even of the very cotton he was picking.

  ‘Is this man the same Memet Tashbash from our village or isn’t he?’

  The villagers held their breaths. Would Gooey Apti speak to the muhtar, setting at naught the saint’s injunctions?

  Gooey stood there dumbly, rooted to the spot.

  ‘Look here, you dog carrion, I’m talking to you! Isn’t this man Tashbash himself? Why don’t you answer? Isn’t this the very Tashbash who called himself a saint? Didn’t you give him a sound hiding yourself only yesterday? Isn’t that enough to show that his holiness is not worth a curse? Fool, can’t you see this is just scruffy Tashbash from our village? Idiot, is there such a thing as a living double? That’s only on paper, a photograph … This is that miserable Tashbash himself, escaped from the madhouse, no doubt, and with nowhere to go. If he’d been a saint your hand would have withered, wouldn’t it? Nothing happened at all and that shows he’s not a saint or anything like that, but only an ordinary man like you and me. So why don’t you speak to me? Why? If he were a saint, all right, I’d understand that. One doesn’t flout a saint’s orders. But here you see him before you, dragging himself miserably like a mangy dog with a broken back … If he’d got the smallest power he’d use it for himself first … Man, tell me this, is that man Tashbash or not? Answer with a sign if you won’t speak!’

  Gooey Apti seemed turned to stone. The muhtar raged on, thundering, threatening, but Gooey remained mute and still.

  Sefer had never expected this. He had been sure that Gooey would answer him bef
ore them all, saying that of course this was Tashbash himself whom he’d beaten and reviled. And afterwards all the villagers would have followed suit and spoken to him again.

  ‘Wretch,’ he hissed into Gooey’s ear. ‘Not a penny will you get out of me now. You’ve spoilt all yesterday’s work. And I’ll do nothing to get you married either.’

  In despair he turned to Tashbash’s wife. He asked her whether this man was Tashbash or not. He asked Tashbash’s children. He went from one villager to another, but no one answered, no one would speak a word to him.

  At last he lost all control and rushed up to Tashbash. ‘You would play hell with me, eh?’ he snarled. ‘Well, now you’re satisfied. Nobody’ll talk to me, nobody, to the end of my days, not even my wives and children. But you’ve cooked your own goose too, my friend. These people will mock and insult you your whole life long. From now on you’re nothing but a plaything, Tashbash. A plaything for the villagers. They’ll shit in your mouth one day and make a saint of you a couple of days afterwards, just because they need you at that moment. Then when they’ve done with you they’ll push a finger up your arse, for in their heart of hearts they don’t want to worship you. You’ll be nothing but a big plaything for evermore. You’re like death, you mangy cur, like death’s woe. I spit at you, spit at you …’

  He spat in front of Tashbash and turned away, his face contorted with bitterness. His head bent, almost weeping, he walked down to the river. All his efforts had been in vain. There was nothing for him now, nothing but endless darkness.

  Evening came and the sun set and the mosquitoes appeared again with their insistent whine. Crusted sores broke open and bled as the villagers scratched away. Not until after the evening prayer was there a breath of wind. Then the south wind came up, bringing some relief to the suffocating villagers as it swept up the mosquitoes into the distance. People could sleep at last, but no sleep came to Tashbash or to Muhtar Sefer. It was three or four days now since Tashbash had got a wink of sleep. He felt strange and dizzy as though he were being plunged again and again into a great darkness, as though he would never know sleep again to the end of his days.

  Muhtar Sefer was afraid. The villagers were ready to make a saint of Tashbash once more. The tiniest spark and they would be at his feet again, worshipping him. This time Tashbash would give him no quarter, certainly not after that beating from Gooey. He’d have the villagers tear him to pieces. And not a sign of Omer yet either. He should have been back days ago. Could it be that he too …? He too …? A cold sweat broke out over his whole body.

  Memidik awoke with a start and his hand went to the willow-leaf knife at once. There was a rustling in the sky and he saw the great eagle gathered in a black ball swooping down furiously like a thunderbolt from the skies. At barely a tree’s height his huge wings opened out and he glided along, grazing the ground, on towards the white luminous clouds over the Mediterranean Sea.

  38

  No word has been heard of Old Halil since the day he left. Nobody, not even his son, not even Long Ali, has given him a second thought. It is just as though such a man had never existed. If Old Halil knew this he would drop down dead of mortification.

  A large yellow sheepdog had been following Old Halil like a shadow. It had a reddish-gold streak all down its back and tail and a huge lolling tongue. Old Halil had never liked dogs. He was rather afraid of them and had an idea that they brought a man bad luck. Again and again he chased the yellow dog away. It simply stopped and stared him angrily in the face without retreating an inch. Then, as soon as Old Halil walked on, it padded after him as if nothing had happened.

  ‘This is an omen, God knows,’ Old Halil thought. ‘Let’s hope it spells something good …’

  The grass was scorched yellow and on the tall, tree-like plants the flowers had withered. The Chukurova crackled under the sun, as though the whole plain would have blazed into flames at the stroke of a match.

  A long-winged, very long-necked silvery bird glided past him with still, open wings and moved off towards the blue-steaming haze of the Taurus Mountains, keeping very close to the ground as though it were searching for something. This unnerved the old man. He knew the bird’s habit of flying like this at the height of a man, starting from the shores of the Mediterranean and going steadily on till it reached the Taurus, only to swerve back again. Sometimes when it came to the sea it would wing on, for the sea simply extended the flatness of the plain. Then, flying low, it would become aware of the absence of grass and trees and turn back, confused. This bird too, Old Halil thought, augured no good.

  The sun was sinking. There was something different about this cursed Chukurova that evening. Suddenly everything about him was dyed red, the earth and river, the trees, the Anavarza crags, the cotton, the hay-ricks, the horses and oxen, the trucks and tractors, the white sail-clouds bubbling up over the Mediterranean Sea … The whole world turned a fiery red. This frightened Old Halil. The next minute all was blue, a heart-warming crystal blue. The Taurus Mountains shimmered in a blue haze and drew so near you could put your hand out and touch them. This too seemed unnatural to the old man. Even the dog was blue now with a narrow deep blue streak all down its back, sharp as a razor’s edge. It made his flesh creep. He stopped and the dog stopped too. He shouted to make it go away. He yelled and pelted it with clods of earth, but it stood its ground, still as a statue. Old Halil did not dare go near it, so he simply walked on and the dog fell in behind him as though nothing was the matter.

  The last rays of the day were playing on the Anavarza crags which stood out like a bright island on the flat, shadowy, smoke-smothered plain. At the summit of the crags the remains of an ancient city could still be distinguished with its aqueducts and fortress walls. At night, especially in the moonlight, Anavarza was like a galleon of old, its unfurled sails swollen by the wind, gliding on at a dizzy speed. Rock snakes, spotted the colour of the earth or of iron rust, infested the crags. Their eyes were bright and warm, like stars. No creature has eyes like the cold snake, so endearing, so friendly, like the stars of the Chukurova sky.

  Old Halil sat down with his back against a tree. He was sweating. In front of him was a huge mound of cotton. The dog ambled up and laid itself down at his feet, resting its head on its front paws. Somehow this time Old Halil was not angry. There must be something in this, he thought, as he stood there waiting for the labourers to go to sleep. Or rather the watchman, for he knew that such a huge mound of cotton standing like that in the middle of a field could only be cotton for which picking wages had already been paid. In all his life Old Halil had never touched any other cotton. It would have gone against the grain with him to rob the labourers of the fruit of their hard sweating toil in the yellow heat of the Chukurova land. A working man’s due, be it only a penny, weighs heavy and will never foster the fortune of whoever steals it. Old Halil was an old hand at pilfering cotton, among other things. Fifty years of his life had been spent like that. But he had had to give up some years ago. He would never have done this now, were it not for Long Ali’s predicament and for Meryemdje, left up there all alone in the mountains.

  At last he moved and the dog rose too. They reached the huge heap of cotton without making a sound and Old Halil began filling up the sack he had brought, calmly, unhurriedly, as though all this cotton was his very own property. He had marked the watchman who was sitting under a tree drinking his soup. This he could tell by the up and down movements of his arm. Old Halil was quick and the sack was soon full. He heaved it up and crept away. But as he was getting out of the field the watchman raised a hue and cry. Old Halil had barely time to throw himself into a large clump of tamarisks. The dog crawled in after him.

  They were looking for him all over the place, the watchman and three other men. Once or twice they passed quite near. The dog crouched beside him, hardly breathing. Old Halil stroked its head gently. ‘He’s an old thief dog, to be sure,’ he thought, ‘who’s been through many such perils …’

  The watchman seemed t
o have no intention of giving up the search and after a while Old Halil thought it prudent to change his hiding-place. Swiftly he let himself roll down the slope into a hollow. The dog slipped down after him, but the sack remained in the thicket.

  Old Halil heard the watchman’s voice. ‘I spotted him at once,’ he was saying. ‘I thought I’d plenty of time to drink my soup and nab him before he’d got that big sack of his even half full. When did he do it? Where did he vanish to? I’ve never seen such a cotton thief in all my forty years as watchman!’

  After this they went away and disappeared into the field. Old Halil crawled out of the hollow and returned to the thicket to get his sack. But to his surprise it was not there any longer. Together with the dog he began to sniff about in the dark. Old Halil had a wonderful sense of smell. He could ferret out anything with only his nose to guide him. But now there was just an odour of burnt grass and rotted tree roots, and not a whiff of cotton or canvas. He began to panic. He must get away from here and into the safety of the town before daybreak. If he were to be caught on the flat plain with a sack of cotton on his back … God forbid, he knew what that would mean! Suddenly, the headlights of a truck were upon him. He threw himself down. The dog did the same. But the lights held him spitted, weighing on him like lumps of lead.

  He heard men laughing out loud, their laughter echoing back from the Anavarza crags, then footsteps dangerously near. He clung closer to the ground, but a hand clamped down over his wrist like a vice and dragged him up. He stood exposed in the glare of the headlights, blinking his eyes, unable to see who held him. After a while he made out a hefty youth and five other men. The oldest of them laughed.

  ‘You’d have thought the man was invisible!’ he exclaimed. ‘Three of us looking for him and if it hadn’t been for the headlights we’d never have found him.’