Iron Earth, Copper Sky Read online

  ‘If only that accursed man would come and get it over with,’ she kept saying to herself.

  That morning she left the house as usual, but instead of taking up her watch on the roadside she turned her steps towards the forest. Hasan and the other children tagged after her, and several women thinking something was afoot, followed. They crossed the forest and reached the Peri Caves where a group of villagers was tending the cows and stacking hay and clover.

  ‘Where’s our stock?’ she intimated by a sign.

  A young woman who was milking a cow pointed out a cave to her.

  Inside it was warm, with the long-forgotten smell of May in the air. The calf was lying on a bed of clover in a corner, beautiful to her even in the dim light of the cave. She held its head fondly and kissed it on the eyes. The calf leapt to its feet. If Meryemdje had not been bound by her vow not to utter a word again to any living creature in the village, she would have soothed the little calf with loving words. Then she thought: these caves aren’t part of the village. They belong to our great Allah. She could address the cave, where the fairies had their abode. Who knows but that Spellbound Ahmet’s fairy wife might be hovering near her this very moment.

  ‘Cave, cave,’ she said aloud, ‘I’m speaking to you and not to my purplish calf. You’re my great Allah’s cave, a gift to the fairies here below. You know how much I’ve missed my dear calf. God forbid he should ever be taken away from us. I think he’s missed us too, isn’t that so, cave? I’m telling you, cave, let that fellow come and be done with it. Then I can take my calf straight back home.’

  She kissed the calf again. ‘Keep well, cave,’ she said. ‘And look after my calf. I must go now. That man might have come.’

  When she went out she saw that most of the women of the village were there.

  ‘Everyone’s got a purplish calf they love,’ she mused. ‘And to think those women are mortally afraid of the Peri Caves. And not only the women, but the men too are scared of coming here.’

  She started back, the children trailing after her again. With her stick she motioned to the women to get going, but they were engrossed in their goats and cows and paid no attention to her. She was piqued.

  ‘Don’t come then,’ she muttered. ‘Inshallah, Adil will be there and you’ll miss everything. Inshallah …’

  The children skipped about her twittering like birds. ‘The best of a human being is in his childhood. May you grow well, my little ones, may you have long lives, my own white doves.’ She wanted to say this aloud, but that accursed vow sealed her lips. Whatever had possessed her to do such a thing! What if they had held a funeral ceremony for Old Halil? As if it mattered to her! But now he had vanished again. Maybe he was lying dead, buried under the cold snow. Oh no, Old Halil was not one to die! Just wait and see how he’d pop out from under the snow at the time of the spring thaw, alive as you and me …

  The village was just as they had left it. No one had come. As she walked home she was accosted by the Muhtar.

  ‘Listen to me, Mother Meryemdje. I’m telling this to you because for me you’re more than my own mother. There’s a foul-mouthed traitor in this village, a villain who’s given us away to Adil Effendi. Has anyone seen Tashbash these past four days? Why didn’t he hide his belongings like the rest of us? Even I did, I the Muhtar of this huge village, the son of the famous Headman Hidir? Think what a disgrace it is to have my house bare like this! But I did it for my villagers. What’s good for my villagers, I said, is good enough for me! That’s what I said. And indeed, I hid everything away, even the gold-plated dagger of my father Hidir. But Tashbash never hid so much as a rag. Why? Now can you wonder that Adil hasn’t come yet?’

  Meryemdje shook her head doubtfully. Would Tashbash ever do such a thing?

  It was soon all over the village. But people hesitated. If such a rumour had been spread about the Muhtar or that crazy Shirtless, or Batty Bekir, they would have believed it. But Tashbash? Now, that was quite another matter.

  And so the Muhtar’s attempt to stir up the villagers’ resentment against Tashbash came to nothing.

  A couple of days later he learnt that the plot of the Yalak villagers was an open secret bandied about in all the neighbouring villages and even in the town. He was not surprised. He knew that nothing could be concealed for very long in these villages. But he felt ashamed and blamed himself. The village was dishonoured, and he as their Muhtar would never be able to show his face in the town again. He’d be the laughing-stock of the whole country. It wasn’t as if the townspeople themselves did not cheat the tax-collector, and in the villages, when it was time to assess the livestock, was there a single man who did not hide away at least part of his animals? But this they did against the Government and not Adil Effendi who helped them with credit and loans in times of need. No, there was no doubt that Adil Effendi had got wind of everything. He knew, and he had probably spat in disgust. ‘Ah, man is just an animal,’ he must have said. ‘I’ve done so much for these people all these years and this is how they reward me!’

  As for the villagers they seemed to have been driven mad with waiting. The women did no cooking, the men hardly bothered to tend the livestock, the children stopped playing. Nobody did any work. The village was dead. Young and old, from seven to seventy, everyone hung around in a sullen silence, watching the town road. A strange feeling of shame had succeeded the malicious joy of having hoodwinked Adil Effendi. His absence weighed over the village like a gloomy pall turning the wait into an intolerable outrage.

  Even Hasan was worried to death. He kept a nightly vigil over his matches in the tree hollow. One night his father caught him sneaking out of the house with Ummahan.

  ‘What are you up to in the dead of night?’ Long Ali asked. But he could get nothing out of them. The two children just stood there, struck dumb.

  ‘Well, do as you wish, you little pests,’ he shouted at last. ‘Go out and see if I care if you catch your death like Old Halil!’

  After this, Hasan resolved to carry the matches back inside to their old hiding-place. But he was uneasy. At night, he would take them to bed with him and in the day if he left the house he would tuck them into the sash of his shalvar-trousers, where they bulged conspicuously.

  ‘If only that man would come,’ he sighed. ‘I wish he’d come and be done with it.’

  The same words were on everyone’s lips.

  The Muhtar was disgusted. He felt he had to do something before people began to get out of hand. One morning he rose with the sun and dressed in his best coat and town trousers. He shaved carefully and put on a necktie. Then he summoned the watchman.

  ‘Watchman,’ he said when the man was standing at attention before him, ‘you’re the best watchman this side of the Taurus mountains. I’ll chop off this head of mine if there’s a better man than you. Now, I want you to call out a proclamation to the village. Make it so urgent that everyone’ll come flocking to my door, young and old, down to the last man, to find out what I have to say. D’you understand?’

  The watchman rapped out a salute like a soldier, faced about expertly and made off at a run. He had a beautiful voice, as warm and powerful as the Bald Minstrel’s. It was not long before the Muhtar’s front yard filled up. Everyone was there, even Tashbash. They held their breaths as though a stifling dust-storm was upon them. But the sky was clear, the sunlight fell brightly over the spotless snow, washing the whole world clean, even down to the rags they wore.

  When the Muhtar appeared, he was assailed on all sides.

  ‘Speak, Muhtar!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Tell us quickly.’

  Meryemdje stood in front right under the Muhtar’s nose, staring at him as if she would eat the words that came out of his mouth.

  He squared his shoulders and stroked his chin like the Hodja of Karatopak. Then he coughed twice and cleared his throat importantly.

  ‘And truly, my friends and neighbours … And truly, my soul’s companions, my brother comrades …�
� he spoke out in sonorous tones, ‘this is a bad time for us.’

  ‘Terrible,’ they cried.

  ‘We hid away our belongings, and that was bravely done. Not all the policemen of the Turkish Republic, nor even the holy divining hodjas could have discovered them. I am justly proud of you. But something went wrong. The news of your heroic deed has spread abroad and reached Adil Effendi’s ears. That’s why he hasn’t come! We’ve waited in vain. And truly, we cannot wait any longer. One more day and we’ll burst.’

  ‘We’ll burst,’ they cried.

  ‘We’ll burst and do some madness. Yes, we’ve had enough. Enough! By hook or by crook we must find a way to make Adil come. We can’t live with this blot on our honour. Such a disgrace is unworthy of the noble race of the Turk.’

  He had worked himself up into his best speech-making form, but he checked himself. It would not do to exhaust the villagers’ patience.

  ‘So listen to me now and pay attention. Go straight back to your homes. No one ever hid anything in this village. All our belongings must be out in the open by tomorrow. Anyway, we’re sick of shivering in empty houses. Even today the news will reach Adil Effendi. Yes, my friends, there’s a foul-mouthed squealer among us, an enemy, who’ll carry the news to Adil like the wind. And if he doesn’t this time, because he wishes us ill, then I’ll send three members of the Village Council to town to fetch Adil. You can go now and godspeed to you.’

  Chapter 9

  Meryemdje was not pleased with the turn of events. Muttering imprecations against the Muhtar, the villagers, the whole of creation, she made for home post-haste and planted herself under the swallow’s nest. She was bursting with impatience, as if Adil Effendi would turn up this minute, ask for Long Ali’s house, discover the hiding-place and seize Meryemdje’s things. Then Hasan came in. She beckoned to him anxiously.

  ‘Ah,’ Hasan said regretfully, ‘if I were just a little bit taller I could reach up there. If I were only two years older. Now, when Father comes …’

  Meryemdje grunted. Then she pointed to a large log in a corner. They hurried to it and each grasped one end, but try as they would they could not move it.

  ‘Let’s roll it,’ Hasan suggested.

  Ali and Elif found them still struggling with the log.

  Ali laughed. ‘What are you going to do with that log?’ he said. ‘You want your bundle, Mother? Just a second.’

  He stood on tiptoe and reached for the bundle. Meryemdje let go of the log to which she had been clinging tenaciously and clasped the bundle like a mother her long-lost child. She sat down on the threshold and took out the old dress of her youthful days, slipped it over the one she was wearing, then fastened on the ear-rings and put on the bead necklace, the bracelets and the ring inscribed with the words of the Prophet. The two silk kerchiefs, orange and green, she tied over her white one. Thus attired she sallied forth into the village.

  ‘Mother Meryemdje’s going to be a bride again!’ people chaffed her.

  Ah, if only Meryemdje hadn’t sworn not to speak to them. She’d give them a piece of her mind!

  ‘Elif,’ Ali said thoughtfully to his wife, ‘one never knows what may happen. We’d better leave some of the grain hidden in the pit. As for the butter, let’s not take it out at all.’

  It was the same all over the village. Without consulting each other people seemed to have come to a mutual understanding. They brought out a few odds and ends, but left their more valuable belongings buried in the ground, firmly convincing themselves that they had nothing to hide. As for the livestock in the Peri Caves, most people had got used to that. It was a very good place and there they would remain from now on. It wasn’t as if they were buried and hidden away.

  And so they settled down to await Adil once more, this time with heads held high and conscience at peace.

  For the Bald Minstrel this was the day. The mood came upon him once or twice a year. Then he would adorn the neck of his saz with three tassels, one blue, one yellow, and one red, in place of the ordinary single white tassel. When the villagers saw the three tassels that evening they began to flow to the Bald Minstrel’s house. They knew this would be one of his special, joy-ridden days when he would regale them with unheard songs and legends and stories never told before.

  It was a night of white frost. The stars, cold and far apart, were buried deep in their frozen glitter. The full moon streamed over the houses, the lonely trees and the hurrying villagers, casting long shadows over the white snow.

  ‘Throw more wood into the fire,’ the Bald Minstrel ordered. ‘More, more! Let the flames flare up, let the fire go mad.’

  This was one of his needs. Summer or winter, he could not sing his best without a roaring fire at his side.

  They heaped logs into the hearth.

  The Bald Minstrel laid his saz across his knees and sat on in a trance, eyes closed, erect and silent. This was not an act. He could have deceived them once, twice, but not for ever.

  Gently he took up his saz, touched a chord, once, and started playing, rapt, timeless. Suddenly he broke off.

  ‘Today,’ he said, ‘you shall draw a moral from my tale.’ His eyes swept the crowd. ‘Hehey, tufted cranes!’

  ‘Hehey, tufted cranes!’ they responded with one voice.

  ‘In the name of our father-bards, Karadjaoglan, Pir Sultan, Dadaloglu, hehey, tufted cranes! Today, in the name of the Kurdish bard Abdal-é-Zeyniki, hehey storm-tossed mountain peaks!’

  He struck another chord, once.

  ‘Abdal-é-Zeyniki was valiant among men, a great bard, but blind in both eyes. He was not like other minstrels. As a running water never tires of flowing, never stays in its course, so it was with Abdal. He sang on the road, in the city, in the plain, in the forest, everywhere. And if there was no one to sing to, he would sing for the birds and beasts and flowers, for all the living things of creation. A single one of his songs lasted forty nights. He sang in Kurdish, but the Turk, the Arab, the Persian, the Russian, the Englishman, all were able to understand every word. This was a mystery that no man could understand. He would take up his saz each evening at the close of day and lay it aside when the sun showed its tip over the mountains. He burned for a love he had never seen nor ever touched, and before starting his song he would always sing one song dedicated to her. At midnight, he would stop and sing to his love again, and then once more at break of day. And thus he would end the night. Hehey, tufted cranes!’

  ‘Hehey, lonely cranes,’ came the crowd’s response. ‘And hehey snowy mountains.’

  The Bald Minstrel bent over his saz.

  This is Abdal-é-Zeyniki treading his way on the flat deserted road, Abdal the wandering bard of the lofty mountains, the wide plains, of birds and beasts, and of men, good and wicked. A black heavy night weighs upon him. He walks groping at his night, clinging to his night. He is blind, he cannot see his path. He is aged, alone in a desolate world where no creature but he breathes or moves. On and on he walks. In one hand he carries his night, in the other a knife with a luminous point, and as he walks he cleaves the night in two. Suddenly his foot trips against something alive, warm, soft. A bird. But why does it not fly away? He picks it up and holds it to his breast until he comes to a village. What bird is this? asks Abdal. What is wrong with it? It’s a crane, they tell him. The tip of one of its wings has been torn off. It will never fly again.

  This world is full to the brim. If I had my eyes I would blow the flowers open and stir the waves of the sea. I would make the clouds rain, burnish the stars and rouse the sun in the east. I would put fresh wings on insects and colour them bright. I would build nests for the birds of the air and feed their young. But a dark heavy night bows me down. I must fulfil my lot in darkness.

  This crane, if it could fly, would soar over deep seas and high above big cities. It would travel with other cranes in the wake of spring from land to land and never know hot summer or winter hoar, and its feathers would ever bear the scent of spring. Now, perhaps for the first time, i
t will see the winter, it will know snow and cold.

  This bird’s fate and mine are one.

  So Abdal takes the wounded bird and retires into the mountains. It is the last of autumn. Winter is setting in. Overhead, shrill-screeching flights of cranes pass by, heading for the land of spring.

  Abdal sets the crane before him and with the sunset he takes up his saz. But now he does not sing to his love. He sings only for the crane, sings to it of men, of high mountains, of the mother earth, of flowing waters, of the ant on the ground, the fish in the sea, the stars in the sky. For days, for months on end he sings, sings tirelessly, and the crane is always there, listening.

  It is dawn. The sun is about to rise. Abdal knows it in his bones and he ends his song. Suddenly a great light bursts before his eyes. The brilliance is too much for him. He throws himself face down on the ground, unable to bear the shattering of his long-accustomed darkness. He crouches there, eyes closed, senseless with terror. When he dares to raise his head the world opens before him. The first thing he sees is the wide deep blue of the sky. He gazes up at it, rapt, spellbound. Then he lowers his eyes to the ground and there are the ants and flowers and grass that he has never seen, the rich voluptuous earth, the life-giving mother. Marvelling, he bends and kisses the light.

  And the crane is there before him, a lovely tufted crane. He puts out his hand to touch it, to caress it, but with a flutter of wings the crane rises into the air. Abdal gazes after it in wonder as it dwindles into a dot and vanishes in the infinity of the sky.

  ‘And so, for ever after,’ spoke the Bald Minstrel, ‘our father-bard Abdal-é-Zeyniki sang only of the light and brightness of this world, and always he cursed the darkness. Let them rejoice, those who draw a moral from this tale. Hehey, bright lights, hehey tufted cranes, Abdal’s cranes! Let mankind rejoice.’

  The Minstrel was tired. He touched a chord, once, kissed his saz and laid it aside.