Iron Earth, Copper Sky Read online

  Hasan had seen the children discover his stone. As soon as they were gone, he came back and slowly, caressingly lowered it into its place. Then he knelt beside it, motionless.

  He was roused by an outburst of wild shrieking. All around him the children were leaping madly, jumping on to each other’s backs, rolling in the snow, working themselves into a frenzy. He rose and looked at them darkly, hands on hips. He saw that Ummahan was deep in the fray. ‘I’ll show her,’ he thought vengefully. ‘Tumbling about with all those big boys, and without even asking me.’ He turned his back on them, found his faggot, heaved it up and made for the road without a word. One and all the children picked up their faggots and rushed after him. The first to catch up was Veli, a dark wizened boy with hunched up shoulders that gave him a permanently frightened air.

  ‘I saw it!’ he said. ‘It had eyes of fire and its head flashed like the lightning. The minute the others arrived, it became invisible. Yes, indeed.’

  Hasan flung him a scornful glance and turned away with a disdainful curve of his lips.

  Veli was enraged. ‘Why don’t you answer, you son of a donkey?’ he cried. ‘You dirty grandson of mulish Meryemdje! As for your father, he’s so long he’ll soon be piercing the sky! Whoever saw such a man!’

  Hasan quickened his step. He knew instinctively that if he quarrelled with Veli now, all the children would fall upon him and beat him to pulp. But Veli ran after him and clung to his arm.

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Hasan,’ he said anxiously. ‘I thought you didn’t believe me and … I did see it, didn’t I?’

  Hasan was silent.

  ‘Look,’ Veli said. ‘Has it got to do with the man from the town? Will he come?’

  Hasan paused, fixing his eyes, fiery with anger, on Veli.

  ‘He’ll come,’ he said darkly. ‘He’ll come and set the whole village afire.’

  At that moment a fearful clamour rose in the direction of the village.

  ‘It’s him!’ Veli cried, terrified. ‘He’s come and he’s butchering everyone.’

  ‘He’s come! The man’s come!’ The children flung down their faggots and huddled close to each other.

  The sun was sinking fast and the western peaks were all aglow. A cold knife-like wind was blowing ever more strongly from over the steppe. No one spoke. No one moved except to press more closely together.

  And then, as suddenly as it had begun the noise was cut short to be replaced by an even more terrifying stillness. The children dared not look at each other.

  Veli spoke in a whisper. ‘He’s killed them all, hasn’t he, Hasan?’

  Hasan drew a deep sigh. ‘Every single one,’ he said.

  The sun had long disappeared and a biting frost had set in, but they were still crouching there, still straining their ears towards the village.

  At last Stumpy Memet’s son could stand it no longer. ‘I’m going home,’ he announced. ‘Let them kill me too, if they will. We’ll die of cold here anyway.’ He paused. ‘Isn’t anyone coming with me?’ he blurted out resentfully.

  No one stirred.

  He stamped his foot and stormed off. But as the group of children receded into the gloom, a paralysing fear gripped him. He could not take another step. He was freezing. Without a second thought he pelted back and slumped on to his faggot. His teeth were chattering. Soon everyone’s teeth were chattering too.

  It was Durmush who had the idea. Durmush was just eleven. His yellow hair stood straight up on his head and his eyes, like streaked grey marbles, looked out at the world unblinkingly.

  ‘I’m going to light a fire,’ he shouted, stamping his bare feet wildly on the snow. ‘I don’t care if they see us. We’ll be dead of cold by the morning.’

  Hasan stood up. ‘Let’s go to the forest,’ he said. ‘We can light a fire there, behind the rocks, and nobody’ll see us.’

  Not another word was spoken. Barefoot on the frozen snow, desperately struggling in the teeth of the stinging north wind, the swarm of children was making back for the forest.

  ‘Here,’ Durmush cried, pointing to a sheltered spot among the rocks. ‘There’s no wind here. Come on children, go and gather wood quickly, quickly. Hasan, where are your matches?’

  A rain of sticks poured into the clearing. The wood kindled instantly. They threw in more and more, and hunched around the fire almost squeezing themselves into the blaze. Gradually, they grew warmer, the blood flowed again into their frozen feet and hands. And with the quickening of their limbs, their fear mounted. None of them had ever spent a winter night in the open before.

  Veli was the first to voice the common terror. ‘What if the wolves come and devour us all?’ he burst out.

  ‘Wolves don’t come where there’s a fire,’ Hasan said.

  ‘They might,’ Veli insisted.

  ‘They can’t!’ the others shouted him down. Veli fell silent. Another word and they would have pounced upon him.

  But the fear was there. The wolves would attack them any minute now. They kept their eyes fixed on the flames. No one spoke. No one stirred except to throw more wood into the fire.

  Wolves are particularly fond of children’s flesh. That’s what the grown-ups always say.

  Hasan kept casting fearful glances into the darkness beyond the fire. It was the same with the others. Weird shadows moved about the rocks, fleetingly. They imagined they saw snarling wolves creeping nearer, in and out of the trees. Behind them, strange figures, holding long rifles. Suddenly, one of the children leapt to his feet screaming in terror.

  ‘They’re coming! Listen!’

  They hurled themselves into the deeper recesses of the rocks, a panting, clambering mass of pounding hearts. One or two children burst into tears. And soon they were all howling at the top of their voices.

  The sounds were drawing nearer. The children heard human voices calling. Their sobbing abated.

  ‘Children!’ They recognized Durduman’s voice. There was an answering chorus of snivelling, blubbering cries, and suddenly Long Ali came into view, followed by Batty Bekir and Osmandja, and the other men of the village. Cries of joy echoed among the rocks as the children threw themselves into their fathers’ arms.

  Then there was a deep silence. The villagers squatted around the fire, warming themselves and lighting cigarettes. Nobody asked the children what had happened to them, why they had remained so late in the forest, and the children said nothing at all.

  Later, they told the story of the stone, and clung to it as to a lifebuoy.

  The next day, at the first crack of dawn, Veli’s mother was bending over her son, her eyes wide as saucers.

  ‘Hasan lifted the stone, but before that he looked around to make sure no one was following him. I’d always wondered what he was up to, going to the forest day in, day out. That was fishy, wasn’t it, Mother? Well, he lifted the stone and looked underneath and then put it down again. When he’d gone, I went to look and the moment I lifted that stone a blinding light blazed out and I couldn’t see a thing. I called to the children. They all looked and someone said there was a whole bazaar of gold buried down there and the stone was the gate to it. I didn’t see anything because the light had blinded me. So we decided to sit there and wait and see what would come out of that gate. If they hadn’t found us …’

  Without even stopping to cook the morning soup, Veli’s mother made off at full speed for the forest, only to find that all the women and most of the men had already got there before her. Not a single child was about. She cut through the crowd. There was nothing to be seen at all, except a bare hollow, a gaping blackness in the surrounding snow.

  ‘Where is it?’ she cried.

  ‘Are you blind? There, right before you!’ people told her.

  She stared. ‘But that’s only where the stone was,’ she said. ‘Where’s the stone?’

  They pointed to the foot of the long rock, where the stone had been cast off. She drew near and touched it lightly, lovingly. ‘So this is it?’ she said. Then she turned to
the others. ‘Who threw it here? Shame on you all! How d’you know there isn’t something in this stone? They don’t show themselves to us, ever. They only let themselves be seen by children, because they’re as pure as angels. I can’t move it. Come on, help me put it back. Quick, before some ill fortune befalls us. Have you gone out of your minds, all of you?’

  The women were struck with fear. With great care they carried the stone back and deposited it safely into its hollow.

  Meryemdje had been standing at a distance leaning on her stick, watching them. Now she walked up and tapped the stone with her stick a couple of times, then smiled.

  ‘Huh,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘These fool villagers! Hasan’s always been like this, playing with stones and birds and bees.’

  The women strained their ears, but did not catch a word of what she was saying. Giving the stone another rap Meryemdje turned away, laughing secretly. And suddenly the crowd burst into motion after her, talking their heads off. As they were drawing near the village a quarrel broke out between two women and for a while it looked as though it would be a worse brawl than the day before, but somehow no one wanted to fight today. The women had had their fill yesterday evening when, returning from the fountain, Hidir’s daughter had dropped her jug and it had smashed to smithereens. ‘What a pity!’ Mahmud’s wife had exclaimed. ‘Such a beautiful jug …’ This had infuriated Hidir’s daughter. She had hurled a curse at the older woman who had cursed back, and before anyone knew it, they were at each other’s throat. The girl’s relatives had flown to her aid, which led to the woman’s relatives joining the fray. In the end, the whole village had been involved in the brawl which had lasted until nightfall. That was the noise which had terrified the children on their return from the forest.

  Today, the women kept quiet, thoughtful. ‘That stone … there’s definitely something under it.’

  Veli’s mother, for one, had no doubt about it. ‘They didn’t see it,’ she whispered to her son. ‘Not one of them saw the gate under the stone. We’ll wait till things are quieter here and one night we’ll go there together, the two of us, without telling anyone and we’ll find the golden gate.’

  Veli’s eyes shone with anticipation.

  The affair of the golden gate preyed on everyone’s mind and there was not a soul in the village who did not plan to visit the forest secretly one night. But a new turn of events was to divert their attention and during the next few days the incident was forgotten by all. By all except Hasan. Whenever he thought of the stone a warm love surged within him, a joyous feeling like an intimation of spring.

  Chapter 12

  Tashbash was in a raging fury. His wife had hurt her head during the brawl at the fountain and now she was laid up, burning with fever. Suppose she died? What was he to do with all those children? He had rushed off to fetch Meryemdje who knew how to brew healing ointments. But Meryemdje, curse her, persisted in remaining dumb as an oyster. If she would just say something.

  ‘Mother Meryemdje, how’s the wound?’

  Don’t worry, it won’t kill her, Meryemdje reassured him with a shake of her head, as she bustled about the hearth, throwing things into the soot-blackened cauldron over the fire.

  On one side of the fireplace was a cupboard for the bedding and on the other a store of neatly stacked wood, and beyond, suspended from the ceiling, the large flat wicker basket where the yufka bread was kept. Three small children with frightened, woebegone faces crouched beside the hearth. A good half of the house was taken up by the livestock, a couple of cows, a bullock, a calf, the oxen, the goats and the chicken coop. Facing the door was a pile of fodder. The acrid animal smell of sweat and hay and fresh cow dung which usually pervaded the whole place was now drowned in the spring-time fragrance of a pinewood forest, the powerful penetrating scent of Meryemdje’s healing ointment, brewed from a thousand flowers and herbs.

  Ah, Tashbash thought, if only this fragrance would seep into the walls, the doors, the sooty ceiling, into the animals and the hay and the ashes in the hearth, if only it would settle here and never go, never for a thousand years! If only the whole village smelt like this always, if only the falling snow, the blowing blizzard … Meryemdje removed the bubbling cauldron from the fire. Swiftly she spooned out some of the steaming salve on to a piece of cloth and applied it over the wound. The woman let out a shriek, then clenched her teeth.

  ‘I’m burning,’ she moaned. ‘I’m dying.’ Her face twisted with pain.

  ‘Mother Meryemdje …’ Tashbash whispered.

  Meryemdje’s heart thrilled warmly. Ah, how I wish I could speak to you, my Tashbash! There’s none in these mountains knows the secret of this ointment but your own Mother Meryemdje. It comes to me from the great House of Yellow Tanish-man, to whom Allah himself revealed the formula of herbs and flowers to be used. So don’t trouble yourself at all, my own Tashbash, my good clever son.

  She made ready to leave.

  ‘How right you are not to speak to these villagers, Mother Meryemdje!’ Tashbash said. ‘They’ve asked for everything that’s coming to them.’ Meryemdje shot him a pleased look and went her way with the sprightliness of a young girl, her bare feet tripping over the snow.

  The very thought of the villagers was enough to drive Tashbash into paroxysms of fury now. If he had possessed a gun he could easily have burst out of the house and killed every single one of them. He went to his wife and laid a hand on her brow.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

  ‘A little better,’ she replied faintly.

  Now, what was this woman’s crime that these scoundrels should do this to her? But wait! Wait and see what’s in store for them! Wait and see how they’ll soon fall foul of each other and cut each other’s throats …

  Those who saw Tashbash these days said he had gone out of his mind. And it was true there was something strange about him. Ever since that fatal night at Sögütlü on their way down to the cotton picking, when the Muhtar had thwarted his plans and drawn the villagers over to his side, Tashbash had never been the same again.

  At first, when they had come to the arid cotton field into which the Muhtar had led them just for the sake of the bribe he would get from the owner, Tashbash had thrown up his cap in triumph and laughed wildly. ‘Didn’t I say so?’ he had shouted. ‘Didn’t I tell you that Sefer would gull you again? Well, let me see what cotton you’re going to pick now! Go ahead and pick if you can find a single boll of cotton on a plant!’

  ‘He’s right,’ they had said. ‘It’s the plain truth. Everything’s turned out just as he said. There’s something about this Tashbash …’

  And all through the cotton picking, he had jeered and gibed at them, his every word more venomous than a rattlesnake, and they had swallowed it all without a murmur. But when the cotton picking was over and it was clear that they would all return home empty-handed, a sudden change came over Tashbash. He fell into such a state of despondency that knives would not open his mouth. This lasted until they were back in the village and the fear of Adil Effendi had taken hold of them. Then his tongue loosened, but it was only to pour abuse on the whole village, young and old.

  ‘This Tashbash has gone really mad,’ they said fearfully. And they avoided his path as much as they could.

  His wife’s wound was the last straw. The villagers felt they were in for trouble. But they knew Tashbash was right, so what could they do but let him curse away to his heart’s content?

  ‘The flying bird itself shuns this village now. Thanks to you! There is a blight upon it, upon its very stones and plants, upon its ants and smallest insects. Thanks to you! The rain will never more freshen its earth. The snow will come down in flames. Thanks to you! And for ever, dearth in place of plenty, evil in place of blessing. Your crops shall wither, there will be no more red-eared wheat. Thanks to you! Pestilence and floods and earthquakes shall lay waste this village. And one day, creeping up from that great wide steppe you will see a thousand green heads, a thousand forked tongues,
a thousand red eyes … Hundreds and hundreds of serpents come to scourge the village! The air you breathe will be poison. Poison the water you drink, the food you eat, the beds you sleep in. The earth under your feet, the blue sky over your heads, the clouds, the stars, everything will be poison to you. All thanks to you! Even the birds of the air alter their course now, at the sight of this village. Because even they feel the fear and abjectness here. Many a time have I seen swarms of bees arrested in mid-flight as though bumping into a wall and turning away with a panic buzzing … Fleeing far, far from this village as though it were hell itself …

  ‘Serve you right! Yes, it’ll serve you right, all of you, when Adil comes and seizes everything, down to your women’s drawers! So Sefer Effendi tells you to hide your belongings and you hide them, he tells you to bring them out again and you do so, without a murmur? So you let him play with you? In the end Adil will come and take your women away too, and sell them in the town, and for nothing! Serve you right, a hundred times right! Just imagine it, a troop of women with bare rumps in the middle of the town market! How will you like that? Where will you ever be able to show your faces again? Why you wretches, can’t you be men enough to go and tackle Adil Effendi yourselves? And if the worst comes to the worst, can’t you take his bald pate and crush it between two boulders? What’s this fear, this shame, this cowardice that’s come over you all, that’s tainted the very stones and earth of this village?

  ‘Hear me well, oh you craven creatures! Spring will not come this year, out of fear. There shall be no sprouting of grass and plants, no flowering of shrubs and trees in the mountains and the forests. The birds shall not hatch, the horses shall not foal, nor the sheep and goats yean. Your women shall be barren. Your streams and fountains shall flow like blood. And worse, worse things still shall plague you because you would not listen to me all these years.