Iron Earth, Copper Sky Page 3

  The sound of many voices, laughing and shouting, could be heard clearly now, ringing in the morning air, growing louder and louder. A big crowd was approaching the house. Fatma’s voice rose above the din.

  ‘Open the door, Hadji.’

  ‘Don’t, Hadji!’ Old Halil shrieked. ‘Aren’t you my son? It’s your father they’re going to kill. That whore of yours has betrayed me. Don’t let them in, my Hadji. This year I’ll pick cotton for you like five men, I will. And I’ll spend nothing at all on tobacco …’

  ‘Hadji, open the door!’

  Old Halil scrambled out of the grain crib, but it was too late. The door was open and there he stood, exposed in the bright glare of day, a huge crowd facing him. He blinked, then hopped back into the crib, pulling the blanket over his head. Gusts of laughter swept the crowd and echoed through the village. This gave him a jolt. What were they up to now? Mocking phrases mingled with laughter reached his ears.

  ‘Hey, Old Halil! Come out of your hole!’

  ‘Come out and see what we’ll do to you!’

  ‘Meryemdje’s here too! Meryemdje’s after you!’

  ‘Try and save your beard from her clutches, Uncle Halil!’

  The children had made up a refrain:

  ‘Old Uncle Halil

  His tail’s got a frill!’

  Then he heard Shirtless’s deep voice rising angrily above the others.

  ‘Shut up, will you? Are we here to do the poor fellow a good turn or to make fun of him? Halil Agha, don’t be afraid.’ Shirtless was standing over him now. ‘Nobody wants to kill you. You’re all wrong about these villagers. Come.’

  Suddenly Old Halil found himself swooped up and deposited like a bundle on the threshold of the house. There he remained, quite still, crouching in the snow, waiting for the crowd to set upon him, to strike him. One blow at least … But he knew now that they would not touch a hair of his head. Still he waited. A last glimmer of hope …

  Shirtless tugged him to his feet.

  ‘There now! You see, Uncle Halil? The whole village is here, and they haven’t touched you. Nobody will, as long as I’m alive. Ahmet, my child,’ he called, ‘come and kiss your Uncle Halil’s hand.’

  The lad ran up.

  ‘You too, Hadji. Kiss your father’s hand.’

  Soon there was a long line of smiling villagers waiting to kiss Old Halil’s hand.

  ‘All right,’ Shirtless said at last. ‘Halil Agha’s our respected grandfather and the elder of this village, but that’s enough now or he’ll catch his death of cold. The rest of you come back and kiss his hand tomorrow.’

  He swept the old man up in his arms again and carried him indoors.

  ‘There, Uncle Halil!’ he said, setting him down by the fire. ‘You’re the beloved grandfather of the whole village. May Allah never take you away from us.’

  The crowd broke up.

  Old Halil was burning with shame. Hadji brought him a large bowl of warmly fragrant soup. He pushed it away.

  ‘Take your soup and leave me alone, snivelling Hadji. If I were you I’d never waste this warm good soup on Old Halil. Because I’ll have you know Old Halil’s your sworn enemy. It’s his fault you were late for the cotton. It’s his fault Adil Effendi’s hanging over you all like the Angel of Death. Yes, my son, no one else’s. Ah, there’s no blood left in this village! Kissing the hand of the man who’s brought all this upon them! You’re not worth a decent Moslem burial, not one of you.’

  He stalked off to the grain crib and crept under the blanket. There was an aching void in him. He had not wept for years, but now he wanted to throw himself out of the house, to stand in the snow and howl his heart out.

  Outside the storm was wild again. Shrill whistlings came from the frozen steppe, which surged like a violent sea.

  God forbid that any human creature should be caught out in this weather! Why, a man would freeze to stone in no time! And what of the wolves, the foxes, the bears? And the birds? The eagles in their eyries on the high mountains?

  ‘Oh, almighty Allah!’ he sighed. ‘They’re your very own creatures, the sweat of your brow, the light of your eyes. Safeguard them against this hard cruel winter.’

  The bright-eyed martens, the weasels, the deer and wild goats. He conjured up every minute detail of their separate lives, how they gave birth and fed their young and foraged and how they must be running now, hither and thither, frantic under the driving blizzard. Till nightfall he lay there, casting about in vain for something to cling to. Nothing could fill the emptiness in him. They had not killed him, they had not even struck him. He was alone, despised, the laughing-stock of all.

  Suddenly, he sat up, galvanized by the horribly insinuating idea that had come to him. He laughed exultantly.

  Fatma was calling to him. ‘Father! Come and eat. I’ve cooked you up such a soup as you’ve never tasted before! Tarhana, with lots of butter and mint and red pepper.’

  He clambered out and patted his daughter-in-law’s head.

  ‘Bless you, my daughter,’ he exclaimed as he drank up the soup eagerly. ‘I’ve never eaten anything so good.’

  It was nearly midnight, but he was still awake in the grain crib, listening. Let them all be sound asleep and then he’d show them. They’d see what kind of man Old Halil was!

  He waited until the first roosters of the false dawn had crowed and then he tiptoed out of the grain crib. He had an ancient shepherd’s cloak that he loved and never allowed anyone to touch. His felt-lined boots were ready behind the door. In a trice he was dressed, a bundle of bread and cheese tied to his waist, a store of matches in his pocket, his stick in his hand, and out he went, reeling under the buffeting blizzard.

  ‘Hehey!’ he cried as he plunged forward. ‘Old Halil’s survived many a worse storm, eh, my beauty?’

  He resolved to keep going south, always south. The blizzard would batter itself out against the shepherd’s cloak, it was perfectly windproof. When the last houses were behind him and the mad winds were flailing at him on all sides, the first doubt flashed through his mind. He chased it away. Think of the villagers’ surprise in the morning! No Old Halil?!! Where could he have gone to on this night of devils? Not out to his death in this blizzard, surely? Or could it be that he had been lifted bodily into the sky?

  ‘Who cares!’ he shouted out loud. ‘Even if you don’t make it, you’re well out of that village, Old Halil. Let the whole wide sky crumble down on the earth in snow and blizzard. Who cares!’

  He struggled forward blindly, the biting snow working its way down his nape. Then he realized that for some time he had been walking back in the direction of the village. Old Halil lose his bearings! Never! But he had to find the Mortar Stone or he would never be able to make his way through the Long Valley. Soon he was going downhill, and suddenly he came upon a quiet spot, sheltered from the blizzard. He breathed with relief, there must be plenty of places like this where I can rest. He sat down on the snow.

  Far down below is the Long Valley. It was there they had found Young Veli last spring, huddled up under the thawing snow, smiling as though in his sleep. You felt like giving him a nudge to rouse him. There is no counting those who have gone to their death in the Long Valley. The lost caravan … That was long ago. Just that one star in the sky to guide them, and they followed it all the time, and the morning never came. In the spring, as the snows melted, they emerged, horses, mules, donkeys and men, intact, as though making ready to set out on a fresh journey.

  He rose slowly, reluctant to face the blizzard again. But his hands and feet were beginning to freeze. I must go on, he thought, or I’m finished. The Mortar Stone can’t be far now. If I keep this pace up, I may be out of the Long Valley by morning.

  It was when he found himself nailed to the spot, drowning in a stormy sea of snow, gasping for breath, that he knew he had missed the Mortar Stone and had reached the very bottom of the Long Valley, the place of no return, of death. It’s this fear that’ll kill me, he told himself, not t
he storm, not the cold! Death was difficult. Death was the greatest void. He felt it in the marrow of his bones, and the fear of it drove him on. The forest, that was his only hope now. Which way did it lie? He could not think. A warm drowsiness was creeping over him, pleasant, irresistible, the surest way to death, he knew it. But he must sleep. His body felt light at the thought of sleep. Then the ground was no longer under his feet. He had fallen into a crevasse. He struck the ice and the pain shooting up his right arm jolted him out of his numbness.

  ‘Help! My arm’s broken. This will be the end of me,’ he cried.

  But he got up and rushed on, wide awake now. For the first time he really felt the elemental fury of the blizzard. He wrapped himself up more tightly in his cloak.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Ah, Sefer Agha, these dreams will be the death of me. I’m afraid to sleep. I’m afraid to go to bed. And it’s getting worse every day.’

  Zaladja Woman was pleading with the Muhtar again, begging him to interpret her dreams.

  ‘A cloud, Sefer Agha, blacker than any thundercloud, is after me and I’m running like the wind on the Chukurova plain. And then crack, the earth splits open and horses come galloping out with flying manes and tails. I cry to them to stop, but they rush by, heedless. Then I grab a horse’s mane just as it springs out of the earth. Swiftly, the horse carries me away from the angry cloud. But suddenly, instead of a horse, I’m riding a poor scraggy greyhound and then it throws me down and I’m all alone on the flat empty plain, and that furious black cloud is upon me, coming lower and lower, pressing me to the ground, stifling me in its swirling blackness. Now tell me what it all means, Sefer Agha. And here’s some butter I saved for you and two dozen eggs.’

  ‘Is that all you dreamed?’ the Muhtar asked, surprised.

  ‘Of course not. But explain this one first.’

  ‘A black cloud,’ Sefer began, ‘is always a sign of evil, and the black cloud in your dream is clearly Adil Effendi. The horses fleeing at his approach are the poor harassed villagers. The thin greyhound is a sign that their welfare hangs on a thread just as thin. The blackness that stifles you is a sign of the black evil night that will rain stones on us, that will devastate this village, if people go on listening to that Tashbash and his friend, Long Ali …’

  It was noon by the time Zaladja Woman had exhausted her store of dreams. She left in a highly exalted state.

  ‘It’s coming!’ she cried to the first person she met. ‘The black cloud, coming to destroy the village.’

  ‘Are you mad, Zaladja?’

  ‘Go and ask the Muhtar. A black cloud …’

  A group of women pressed around her, laughing.

  ‘What have you been dreaming about this time, Zaladja?’ one of them jeered. ‘Another male deer going to bed with you and turning into a handsome young man?’

  Zaladja was incensed. ‘Laugh away, laugh away, you bitches. It’s Adil Effendi who’s coming. He’s the black cloud! Let me see you laugh after he’s taken away the last of your food and blankets and rugs.’

  The women laughed again, but uneasily this time, for every one of them feared Adil Effendi.

  It was all over the village in an instant. Adil Effendi was coming, descending upon the village like a thundercloud. Nobody asked where the news came from. Zaladja’s dream was forgotten. The group of women swelled, but they were silent now, gazing out at the wintry steppe. The men had begun to gather before the Muhtar’s house. They stood about, grim and apprehensive, not uttering a word. Then one of the women caught sight of Old Meryemdje, barefoot on the frozen snow, heading for the Muhtar’s house. Soon all the women were following her, muttering among themselves.

  ‘Have you heard? Old Halil disappeared last night!’

  ‘He’s gone to Mount Tekech to die. He said so.’

  ‘No, it’s because he was afraid.’

  ‘He knew Adil Effendi was coming. That’s why he ran away!’

  ‘He couldn’t bear to see what Adil was going to do to us.’

  ‘Allah!’ an old woman cried. ‘Take our lives before we see that day!’

  At last the Muhtar appeared at his door. Ever since it had become clear that the villagers would be unable to settle their debts that year, he had felt thoroughly disgraced. That out of the hundred and sixty-odd villages in these parts, his should be the only one to break the age-old custom! How could he ever hold his head up in the town again? He, the son of the famed Hidir, Headman of seven villages! Adil Effendi would come any day now to claim his due. As a mighty eagle swoops down on a covey of pigeons, scattering them in a flutter of flying feathers, so Adil Effendi would swoop down on Yalak village. And then there was no knowing what these villagers might do. A hungry villager can turn into a rabid dog. They might well tear Adil to pieces, and the armed policemen with him as well.

  Then an idea struck him like lightning.

  ‘Are the members of the Village Council here?’ he called out. ‘We’re going to hold a very important meeting.’

  They were all there, waiting expectantly.

  ‘A great evil is threatening us,’ the Muhtar began. ‘It’s the second time that this village has come to such a pass. There are some of you who will remember. It was during the Chukurova drought, twenty-five years ago. Not only was the cotton crop scorched black, but even grass didn’t grow that year. We all went down for the cotton picking just as usual, and what did we see! Parched, lifeless fields, not a green plant anywhere, so we came back home empty-handed. Adil Effendi was young then. Everyone was up to their ears in debt to him, just like today, and one morning he came to the village with twenty policemen and a Government official. Do you owe this man anything, they asked us. Yes, we do, we replied. To deny one’s debt is to deny Allah, we said. Well then, they said, Adil Effendi is going to seize your belongings as payment. Let him, we said, it’s his due. Those of you who were there will never forget what happened then. Adil Effendi took away everything, our grain, our flour, our bulgur, our chickens, our goats and donkeys and cows, whatever he could lay his hands on. And he did something else. He took the drawers of Bald Mustafa’s wife right off her legs! You may forget everything, he said, but you won’t forget this, and it’ll teach you to be more careful about your debts in the future. So, that winter we went hungry. We ate pinenuts and berries off the trees. We devoured the green wheat before the ears had even ripened. A great number of children died that year, Mad Mustan lost three of his children. He wanted to go and kill Adil Effendi, but we held him back. What are you doing, Mustan, we said. If you kill him, who will give us credit, who will sell us food? We’ll all go naked without him. So Mustan did not kill Adil after all, and Allah gave him another three children. Now Adil Effendi’s coming again, he’ll pick the village clean and this time we shall all die of hunger. What’s worse, we shall be shamed for ever. I’ve called this meeting to decide what we’re to do. Has anybody got any ideas?’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ an old man suggested promptly. ‘Adil will find the village empty and he’ll think we never returned from the Chukurova.’

  The veins on the Muhtar’s neck began to swell.

  ‘And where would we go in the dead of winter?’ he shouted. ‘And doesn’t Adil know we came back? What d’you think he’ll do when he finds the village empty? He’ll set a torch to it, that’s what he’ll do.’

  ‘But what else can we do?’

  ‘So that’s all the help you can give me!’ the Muhtar sneered. ‘I thought our villagers were clever. Well then, since you can’t think of anything, open your ears and listen to me. And mind you do just what I tell you. If you don’t then don’t blame me afterwards. And I’ll have you know it’s Mother Meryemdje herself who came to me early this morning and gave me this idea.’

  Everyone stared at Meryemdje. She started up on hearing her name then angrily struck her stick twice on the ground.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ pursued the Muhtar slyly. ‘Mother Meryemdje, the wisest, the most valiant of mothers. She said to me, Muhta
r, my son, Allah has sent you among us as a saint. Give the village my message.’

  Meryemdje flailed her stick furiously, but the Muhtar knew she would sooner die than break her vow of silence.

  ‘I want you to go to your homes and hide your barley and wheat, your horses and donkeys, your cows and oxen, your butter and bulgur, all your belongings of any worth. Where? Don’t ask me! Everyone must find a good hiding-place, I’ll do the same, so that when Adil Effendi comes he’ll see a village so bare, so miserable, that he’ll take pity and go away. Now, are we all agreed?’

  The thin anxious faces seemed to come to life. There was a shuffling of bare feet on the frozen snow.

  ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’ the Muhtar said. ‘I, for one, I’m going off right now to hide my things.’

  He turned and went inside, barely avoiding the stick which Meryemdje suddenly hurled at him in a paroxysm of anger.

  Chapter 5

  A wave of joy swept over the village. Nobody had ever played such a trick on Adil Effendi before. Had they been asked to hide the whole village, houses, trees and all, they would have found a way of spiriting it out of sight. Meryemdje hurried home like the rest and went straight to the worm-eaten chest which half a century ago had held her trousseau. She had just begun to empty its contents into her lap when Ali noticed her.

  ‘Mother!’ he laughed. ‘Nobody’s going to touch those baubles of yours! What they’ll look for are things that are worth money, like livestock and grain. So put all that away and don’t worry.’

  Meryemdje gave him a withering glance and turned back to her chest.

  Her most precious possession was an inlaid silver ring, a present from her husband Ibrahim. It was inscribed with the word of the Prophet. Ibrahim and Old Halil had stolen it from the Circassians, but even so it was a holy ring and would bring abundance and good luck to its owner. Now, wouldn’t Adil seize upon such a ring? Silver too. Of course he would. It had to be hidden away. And here was the silver nose-ring her grandmother had given her, which she had been given by her own grandmother. Wouldn’t Adil want this priceless heirloom? Was Adil a fool?