Bliss: A Novel Page 12

  The minibus came to a place swarming with people and vehicles, and the driver turned off the engine. All the passengers grabbed their suitcases and got out. Meryem’s head began to spin.

  Cemal told her to follow him. They got off the bus and walked toward a row of lit buildings. He stopped in front of one. Women and men were lined up separately at opposite doors. Cemal gestured to her to wait with the women.

  When she finally got inside, Meryem was overcome by the smell of urine. She saw her ghostlike face in a filthy mirror in the corner. She looked older in the dim light, but her green eyes were still the same. A woman pushed past her, going toward the basin and washing her hands. Meryem waited for the woman to finish, then asked, “Is this Istanbul?”

  The woman looked at her and laughed. “No, my dear. Istanbul is two days farther on from here.”

  Meryem was confused. When she left the toilet, she saw Cemal waiting for her. He told her to follow him.

  The street was full of vendors: Some were selling rice with chickpeas from their carts covered by a glass dome, others boiled corn on the cob or meatballs. The smell of different kinds of food reminded Meryem that she was very hungry. Cemal led her to a street vendor with a small cart illuminated by a single bulb. He bought two sandwiches filled with meatballs, tomato slices, and fried onions and handed one to Meryem. They went to a secluded corner and devoured the sandwiches that Meryem found incredibly tasty. As if synchronized, the call to prayer began at the same instant from all the mosques in the city.

  “This place is marvelous,” Meryem thought. She could not imagine what Istanbul would be like. She had already forgotten about her aunt and her strange and humiliating departure from the village. An indescribable joy had enveloped her. After being locked up in the barn for so many weeks, and, indeed, after having had a rope around her neck, life had begun to seem like an enjoyable holiday. Even Cemal’s rudeness did not spoil her happiness. She followed obediently in his footsteps when they left the bus terminus, and together they trudged along the streets for a long time. To Meryem, accustomed to everything being at most only a few minutes’ walk away, the road seemed endless. But at the end of this long march, a surprise awaited her. For the first time in her life, Meryem found herself in a train station. The noise, the hurry and bustle of the crowds, and even the pungent smell of smoke from the trains captivated her. For the first time, she was seeing things that she had only heard of. She wanted to laugh aloud and shout, as in the past, “Hooray, Cemal!” She felt so grateful to him for saving her from the barn and bringing her to the doors of heaven.

  At one point, some military policemen stopped Cemal and questioned him gruffly, in answer to which Cemal took a paper out of his pocket and showed it to them. They smiled after looking at it carefully and walked away.

  Meryem noticed that the women around her were dressed in a variety of styles. Some, like her, were wearing the baggy pants of villagers, but others wore dresses of the kind suitable for the wives of city officials. The contrast was striking. Some women had their hair covered, others let it fall free on their shoulders. Looking at the various sights, seeing how people behaved toward one another, and trying to understand what it all meant was an engrossing occupation for Meryem.

  Cemal led her to a crowded platform, and they boarded a train, along with hundreds of others. Even the corridors were crowded, but Cemal and Meryem managed to find two empty seats in what Meryem thought of as a “room.” Meryem sat next to the window, Cemal beside her. Opposite them were an old woman wearing a scarf and a girl with her head bare. Next to the women, an old man with a gray moustache coughed continuously. A young couple, newlyweds perhaps, sat beside Cemal. The girl was bareheaded and wore a short skirt. It revealed her bare legs.

  Meryem tried to engrave all the images in her mind, delighted to make the most of this unexpected adventure. She watched the young couple hold hands and saw their thick wedding rings. She looked at the girl across from her, sitting modestly between her parents. Meryem noticed, however, that she was secretly making signs to a young man outside on the platform. The girl’s mother, with melancholy eyes fixed straight ahead, was oblivious to their silent communication. The young man walked backward and forward in front of the compartment, from time to time glancing discreetly at the girl, who sometimes tossed her head and sometimes allowed her gaze to meet his in silent farewell. Meryem was amused. Even though they had been on the train for only a few minutes, she felt comfortable, as though she had been accustomed for years to this form of travel.

  Meryem had always enjoyed watching what went on between boys and girls, but she had often been reprimanded for talking about such subjects. She remembered the time she had been scolded at the village clinic for laughing at the little balloons. It was during a public health session, when the nurses were teaching the village women birth control methods and had showed them some condoms. For fun, they inflated a few, and the sight of the colorful little balloons bouncing on the floor had so amused Meryem that she started to run around chasing them until her aunt slapped her on the neck.

  Later in the afternoon, when the women in the family had gathered for their afternoon nap, they joked about the balloons. The story that made them laugh the most was about a man from the village, who had gone to the clinic to ask for a condom. Not knowing what it was called, he had said to the nurse, “You know, that thing … the pleasure balloon!” The women immediately collapsed into a chorus of girlish giggles.

  Her aunt had scolded her for having fun with the same things, thought Meryem. Well, let them share their everlasting gossip behind the doors they would not open to her. She did not care anymore. She wouldn’t think about Döne with her snake eyes ever again. It was as if she had left there a month ago, not just that very morning.

  Suddenly, the train lurched forward, and Meryem’s heart missed a beat. A water bottle on the small table in the middle of the compartment started to fall, but Meryem reached forward and caught it. The old woman across from Meryem smiled at her warmly as the train went on puffing along, wheels rattling, whistle blowing, reminding her of a song she had sung as a child. She started to hum an old melody, “I hope the black train won’t come, I hope the black train won’t whistle.”

  If only Cemal would smile and act as he used to. But she did not despair of putting things right on the journey so they’d be like childhood friends again. Poor Cemal. The army had turned him into an old man.

  * * *

  “Where are you going?” asked the old woman sitting opposite Meryem. Of course, the train would stop at many stations.

  “To Istanbul,” Meryem replied proudly. “We’re going to Istanbul.”

  Meryem glanced at Cemal. Had she said too much?

  “Is the young man a soldier?” asked the old woman.

  “He’s just finished his military service,” said Meryem.

  “Is he your fiancé?”

  “No.” Meryem giggled. “He’s my cousin.”

  She was grateful to the old woman for breaking the wall of silence that had enveloped her since leaving the village. Perhaps it would make Cemal think of speaking to her. “Where do you get off?” Meryem asked, as if she knew all the stations the train would stop at on the way to Istanbul.

  “In Ankara,” replied the woman. “This is my daughter Seher. We’re going there to visit her brother … if we can get there in time.…”

  The old woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she lowered her head.

  Conscious of the woman’s pain, Meryem turned to look out of the window. It reflected all that went on inside the compartment. She saw herself and the other passengers in the glass. The newlywed couple were leaning close to each other as if asleep, the old man was smoking a cigarette, while the old woman wept silently and wiped her eyes. Seher was lost in thought. Cemal sat still and silent like a statue. “Yes,” thought Meryem, “he is not a human but a lump of stone.”

  NOAH’S ARK

  Tacka-tack-tacka-tack-tacka-tack!

  A machi
ne gun was blasting off, but there was something strange about the noise Cemal thought, especially as it continued without stopping. It was too regular and went on without a pause, like the rattle of a train. He sat up in his bunk and saw that all his comrades were dead, lying under white quilts covered with blood from their smashed-in faces. The machine gun continued its rhythm. I’m going to die, too, if I don’t get out of here, he said to himself.

  He slid down from his bunk bed and crawled to the door. Just as he was about to go through it, he realized that there was water outside the door. It was higher than the door, higher even than the building. How could it stay there like a transparent blue curtain without flowing into the room?

  The machine gun continued its rattle.

  Cemal realized his only escape was to plunge into the water. Surprisingly, it was not cold but warm, even warmer than the lake he used to swim in every summer. He swam upward toward the light. Reaching the surface, he stuck his head above the water and gasped for breath. There was no sign of the military post, nor of the mountains and valleys either. Everywhere was flooded, and Cemal found himself in the middle of a sea of water.

  Suddenly, he heard a sound. A boy with big black eyes was rowing toward him in a small boat. “Come here, or you’ll drown,” he called out.

  Cemal recognized the little shepherd boy. “I thought you were dead!” he exclaimed.

  The boy laughed.

  “I saw your head explode under the force of a G3 shell,” Cemal continued.

  “It’s still in its proper place,” the boy replied. “Climb in.”

  “What happened?” Cemal asked, pulling himself into the boat.

  “It’s the Flood,” the boy answered, “and this is Noah’s ark.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Mount Cudi … to Noah.”

  The boy’s features were slowly transforming themselves into those of Memo when Cemal woke up.

  The conductor had just entered the compartment and was checking everyone’s tickets. The monotonous clicking sound was the noise made by the train as it ran over the rails.

  Cemal took the tickets out of his pocket, thinking how much quicker and more comfortable a bus would have been. But it would have been too expensive. His father had given him only just enough money for the long journey to Istanbul, partly from poverty, partly from his ignorance of the world outside his village. So it had not been enough for two tickets on the bus, and the train was so much cheaper.

  * * *

  Opposite Cemal sat a black-haired girl with what must be her parents. The man next to him was hugging a woman who was obviously his wife. Cemal turned to look at Meryem. She was sitting still, quietly staring out of the window.

  “What am I going to do with this girl?” he wondered, reverting to the problem he had been trying to push from his mind since the beginning of the journey by reminiscing over his days in the army.

  He could not oppose his father’s will and defy his family. Killing her would be easy from what he remembered of her as a small girl, but doubts had begun to grow in his mind after he had spoken with Emine when they had met in the seclusion of the poplar grove.

  “The whole village knows the duty you’ve been given,” she said. “That poor girl’s being sent to Istanbul, just like others before her. Can such a thing be happening in this day and age? Your family’s crazy. At least, don’t you murder her! What’s the poor child done?” Then, more to the point, she added, “I’ve waited two years for you to come back from the army, and I’m not waiting for you to come back from jail.”

  Cemal had not had the courage to explain to his father that he wanted to marry Emine, with whom he was deeply in love, and these words struck him a great blow. He knew there were many previously rejected suitors waiting to step into his shoes if he should go to prison, and here she was telling him she would wait no longer.

  “Let somebody else do it,” she said.

  “There’s no one else in the family who can.”

  “Then spare her.”

  How could he possibly explain that to his father, in front of whom he had never dared to open his mouth? For years, all he had done was meet and talk with Emine in secret and suffer the frustration of not being able even to touch her hand. He was too afraid of what would happen at home. His hope was that if he did what his father wanted, an opportunity would arise to tell him about Emine. He had often thought about her during his military service, but never in the same way that he thought of the innocent bride. Emine was his wife-to-be. The innocent bride was different. Even though he never saw her face, his thoughts about her always caused him to have wet dreams.

  However hard Cemal might try to forget Meryem, she was real and sitting there by his side. However much it might cost him, he had to fulfill his duty. Emine was right, but the matter was beyond his control. He had no choice.

  Maybe he could take Meryem to the end of the carriage that night while everyone was asleep, strangle her, and throw the body into a deserted field. In two minutes the train would have left that place behind. Someone would probably find her the next day, but what could they prove? Maybe it would be better to push her off the train while they were crossing a bridge. Even if her body were found at the bottom of a gorge, who would care about a dead girl in baggy pants?

  Cemal had become familiar with death during his time as a soldier. In fact, life without death seemed strange. He never forgot the captain’s words spoken during their training: “It is you who will punish the traitors who are trying to destroy the nation and divide this country created through the blood of countless martyrs, who died in the service of the Turkish state. It is your honorable duty to protect the unity of the Republic and the nation. Whoever dies for his country goes straight to heaven. Kill the terrorists on sight, my sons—remember, it is they who are murdering your friends.”

  The captain then told them that there was no such language as Kurdish, and that those who called themselves Kurds were actually mountain Turks who had come to Anatolia from Central Asia like all other Turkish peoples.

  Cemal did not understand the meaning of this as he knew that Kurds spoke a different language. He himself could speak their language a little. Even the dogs in the region understood Kurdish, not Turkish, and would attack if the soldiers used Turkish to send them on their way.

  Cemal got up, left the compartment, and went to the toilet on his way to inspect the door at the end of the corridor. On the floor there was a sick woman lying on a pile of newspapers. She was moaning, as a man and two children looked on.

  When Cemal returned to the compartment, he found himself in the middle of a commotion. Everybody was talking at the same time. He sat down. Seher was exchanging words with the young man sitting beside him, while everyone else was either taking sides or trying to hush things up.

  Curled up in her seat, Meryem sat watching in silence. The quarrel had broken out because of her. Taking advantage of Cemal’s absence, she had tried to strike up a conversation with the old woman by asking her why she had cried earlier when she had said, “If we’re in time.”

  The woman said that her son, a university student, had been put in prison where he was taking part in a hunger strike. Along with several others, he was protesting against the conditions in the jail. For the past seventy days, the protestors had not taken any nourishment. All that had passed their lips was a little sweetened water. With red bands tied around their heads, they were lying there waiting for death. Each day their condition worsened. First their eyesight failed, then they began to suffer from amnesia. A few days ago, she had seen her son on television and had hardly recognized him. Even when the microphone was held out to him, he said nothing. He just stared blankly at the camera. The leader of the protest had sworn they would starve themselves to death. The woman’s older daughter, who lived in Ankara, had gone to the prison to see her brother, but had not been allowed to do so. Most of those who had begun fasting with her son had already died, or were at death’s door. The old woman w
as going to Ankara to try to see her son and beg him to abandon the fast. As a mother, what else could she do!

  When the old woman finished her story, the young man across from her said that he could understand a mother’s pain, but that terrorists had been using the strike for political propaganda. All hell had then broken loose—just as Cemal entered the compartment.

  “What kind of person are you?” Seher was shouting at the young man. “Hundreds of young people are dying. Besides doing nothing to help them, you tell a mother her son’s a terrorist! What right have you to say such things?”

  “Wasn’t your brother arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act?” replied the young man calmly.

  “My brother isn’t a terrorist. He never joined in any of their activities.”

  “Why was he arrested then? Wasn’t it for terrorism?”

  The young man was an aggressive, quarrelsome type, whom his wife strove in vain to keep quiet.

  “My brother worked for a student association and read books,” Seher retorted. “That’s all.”

  “But this law only punishes terrorists.”

  “Ten thousand people are in jail because of that law,” Seher yelled, “and nine thousand of them are there because they wrote slogans on walls, read certain books, or set up student associations! You have no feelings.”

  Seher’s mother tried to calm her down. “Don’t get upset,” she pleaded. “Keep calm.”

  Silently smoking his cigarette, Seher’s father looked on without taking any part in the argument, careful not to meet anyone’s eyes.

  “Student associations?” the young man sneered. “I know what kind of students they are!”

  “What do you know?” Seher exploded. “Have you ever met my brother?”

  “No, not your brother, but I’ve come face-to-face with those like him. I’ve fought against them. I know their type.”

  Seher’s mother suddenly reached over and covered her daughter’s mouth with her hand. It was clear that the man was either a policeman, a member of the secret service, or part of a special military unit. She did not want more trouble.