Bliss: A Novel (9 page)

Months ago, Cemal would have felt their anguish, and perhaps even tried to console them, but his experiences in the mountains had numbed him. A few houses collapsing in flames paled in comparison to what he had witnessed. Just two weeks ago he had gazed at the corpses of two schoolteachers executed by the PKK. A band of guerrillas had stopped their minibus, ordered the couple out, and shot them on the spot. Cemal had been struck by how quickly their bodies, especially their faces, had turned black.

During his broadcasts over the wireless, Memo declared that the guerrillas were the “rulers of the mountains and the night.” They certainly knew each crag and cave better than the soldiers. The local Kurds, as well as their animals, also liked them. Whenever Cemal and his comrades approached a village, they were immediately set upon by dogs and were often forced to kill one or two. Yet, when the PKK entered the same place, the dogs did not even growl. Cemal finally solved the mystery when he heard a Kurdish villager calling out to some dogs one day in a strange, guttural voice that silenced the animals. Even though he knew Kurdish, Cemal could not imitate that sound, and like the rest of his comrades, never learned to communicate with the dogs.

The villagers also directed their mules with strange cries, like a foreign tongue. In this they were not always successful, perhaps because a mule has a mind of its own.

Several days earlier, Cemal’s unit had been lying in a streambed. The terrain in front had been mined, and they saw an old man with his mule walking slowly toward the danger zone. If they warned him, they would disclose their position, but an explosion would attract even more attention.

“Stop,” they shouted, “the area’s mined!”

The man halted in his tracks, but despite his frantic calls, the mule did not. Desperate to save the animal, he chased after it. The mule had almost passed through the mines when the ground erupted under its feet. The explosion blew off its front legs, and Selahattin put the creature out of its misery with a shot from his rifle. The old man sat in the dirt beside the dead animal. His livelihood gone, he wept inconsolably.

Cemal imagined Memo as being one of the snipers the guerrillas positioned on the high hills. Memo had always been a good shot, even as a child.

Cemal no longer felt any warmth when he heard Memo’s voice, and each time someone in his unit was killed or wounded, he blamed his former friend. His anger soon deepened to hate. If he ever came face-to-face with Memo, he vowed he would shoot him without a second thought. He would avenge all those youths, dead, or missing an arm or a leg, and kill Memo or any enemy of his country and nation.

Their faces reddened by anger as well as the heat of the flames, the villagers turned away from their burning homes. With their bundles on their backs and their mules and children in tow, they trudged slowly down the hillside.

Near the edge of the village, an old man with a long white beard and sunken eyes was lying on a mattress in front of his house, untouched because of its distance from the other dwellings. Standing beside him was a small boy of nine or ten. These two were the last survivors of a family wiped out by the war.

Tears staining his cheeks, the old man was pleading with the captain, “Please, commander, let us stay. I’m crippled … we have no place to go.”

With little other choice, the captain relented, and Cemal saw the boy’s face light up. The boy knew nothing of the world beyond these hills and the routine of taking their few animals out to pasture. Leaving these mountains for some distant place would, for him, have meant losing all that was familiar and dear.

Trying to avoid the glances of the other soldiers, Cemal quickly took a few coins from his pocket, placing them surreptitiously in the boy’s hand as he patted his head. He was careful to frown as he did so in order not to spoil the child with kindness. The boy looked up, smiling his gratitude.

Back at the outpost that evening, Cemal again heard Memo conversing with his comrades on the wireless. As usual he cursed the Turkish army, then said,
“Ez dicim Nuh Nebi”
(“I’m going up to Noah”).

Cemal understood from this Kurdish sentence that Memo was going toward Mount Ararat, where the remains of Noah’s ark supposedly lay. Memo had once related to him how he wished to climb the mountain one day and discover the ancient ship.

Cemal at once suspected that the guerrillas, having seen the flames, were withdrawing from the peaks where they had spent days sniping at them and retreating toward Mount Ararat, a mountain where the soldiers knew the trails well. After they had eaten, he turned to the captain saying, “I have something important to tell you, sir,” his face flushed hot with excitement.

WHY DON’T THE COCKS CROW?

Meryem had prayed to god and the virgin Mary for a miracle, and when, instead of Döne, she saw Gülizar, the village midwife, enter the barn, a wave of gratitude swept over her as she felt her wish had been granted. Joyfully, Meryem noted the old woman’s white muslin scarf, her invariable headcovering, her tender eyes, and gentle hands. Through the open door, the sun streamed in and lightened up the darkness of the barn.

Gülizar had been a midwife for so long that she had been at the birth of everyone in the village under a certain age. It was as if they were all her children.

She had played a very special role in Meryem’s life. The tiny girl, weighing just one and a half kilos, had emerged into the world unable to breathe, strangled by the umbilical cord around her throat. It was Gülizar’s deft hands that had unwrapped the cord from her neck, and it was Gülizar who then breathed into her lungs, enabling the blue baby to start breathing on her own. Although she could not bring the mother back to life, she had succeeded with the child.

Whenever she thought about death, Meryem remembered this incident and would say to herself, “I’ve already died once.” Others in the house would add, “Meryem was born dead. She can’t die again!”

After so many frightening days of solitary misery, Meryem flung herself into Gülizar’s arms. The scent of her headscarf was fresh and sweet, and Meryem began to weep.

“They’ve done awful things to me, Bibi!” she cried, using the childish name for the midwife. “They want me to kill myself.”

“I know,” replied Gülizar. “Make sure you don’t.”

Then she explained to her what a cruel fate it is to be born a woman and the difficult path each woman has to tread. She emphasized the fact that women are born accursed. “God rot womanhood,” she cried. “You know, even the blessed Mother Mary had her troubles to bear.”

When Meryem asked her what she meant, she exclaimed, “They killed her son. Didn’t you know?”

“Oh, I know that!” Meryem replied. “They also killed our Mother Fatima’s children—the grandchildren of our blessed prophet.”

“Yes, at Karbala …

“Look here, my dear. I’ve been through a great deal of trouble to get here. They don’t want anyone to see you. I’ve had to plead with them for days before they would consent. Your father seemed about to relent, but your uncle refused to hear of it. Listen to me … this may be your last chance; I may not be able to come again. Everyone in the village has been feeling bad about you ever since the day you were found by the graveyard, flapping around like a wounded bird.”

Her face scratched with thorns and with blood running down her legs, Meryem had been a pitiful sight when she was found lying in the road near the cemetery, uttering terrible cries, scratching the dust and jerking her arms and legs in the air, her headscarf in the dirt beside her. The young men who discovered her thought she had been bewitched, but when they saw who it was they took her by the arm to take her home. She did not go quietly but kicked and struggled, at times conscious, at others falling in a faint to the ground. They had to drag her like this through the square and marketplace, where all the villagers came out to watch.

Meryem lay in bed at home for two days, fever-stricken and moaning as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Called to examine her, Gülizar quickly realized she had been mercilessly raped. The old woman used all her skills to heal her, placing pieces of cloth moistened in vinegar on her forehead, swabbing iodine in a crisscross pattern across her chest, and forcing her to sniff hydrochloric acid to bring her out of her delirium. As soon as she seemed to be herself, Meryem was condemned by the family council to be thrown into the barn.

“Many respected people in the town have spoken up on your behalf and talked with your uncle,” Gülizar continued. “They’ve tried to convince him you’re not to blame, and old traditions shouldn’t be followed. Everyone wants to rescue you.”

“Don’t they want me to hang myself?” asked Meryem.

Gülizar was silent for a moment. “Some might, but others want you to live.”

“They could send me to Istanbul, like other girls in the past.”

“Child.” Gülizar sighed, caressing Meryem’s hair. “My poor child. Istanbul’s no solution. It’s best that we persuade your father and uncle to let you out. You must help me by telling me everything that happened … everything! Who was the monster who hurt you?”

Meryem said nothing. Her eyes clouded and her head drooped. “Tell me his name,” said Gülizar gently. “You must tell me who the wretch was, or who they were,” Gülizar said, “to save yourself. Don’t worry. He’ll be punished. The gendarmes will break his bones and lock him up. Or your family can take care of it.”

Meryem remained silent without opening her mouth, as if afraid to draw breath. She began to rock back and forth as if in a trance.

In spite of all Gülizar could do, Meryem still refused to say a word, and after trying for a long while to reason with her, Gülizar gave up, convinced the girl could not identify her attackers. Perhaps they covered her head with a sack, or she had lost her memory from shock.

Even if she did remember, it would have been of little use. Gülizar had suggested to Meryem’s uncle that the best solution would be to find the rapist and force him to marry Meryem. But he had snapped back, “Whether a bastard or a rapist, it’s all the same. Neither of them is entering my family!”

Realizing Meryem would not give her any information, Gülizar changed the subject.

“My child, if you’ve become pregnant on account of this happening, so much the worse. If they realize you’re carrying a bastard in your belly, God forgive us; if that’s true, and I think it may be, we must try to get rid of it.”

Meryem continued to rock silently, as if she heard nothing and knew nothing of what had happened to her. Her eyes were fixed on the stream of light coming in though the open door, and she seemed lost in her thoughts.

Suddenly, Gülizar began to spit out all the curses she had ever heard in her life as she bewailed the fate of this unfortunate child. Arms outstretched, as if in supplication, she railed, “God, strike down those who violated my innocent girl, let them be dragged on their backsides till they die!”

After this outburst, she looked at the girl and saw that she had returned to normal and was back in the real world again.

Staring at her with her green eyes, Meryem asked softly, “Bibi, do you think they’d let me get washed? My hair’s greasy, and I stink. All I want is a bucket of water.”

Meryem, however unwillingly, had to eat something, even if only a few spoonfuls of what the women put on the tray for her. Afterward, it was unbearable to have to go out into the garden, take down her panties and squat in the snow under Döne’s disdainful gaze.

Gülizar must have understood her feelings, because she rose and left the room. Since it was daytime and the men were out, she settled the matter with Meryem’s aunt, returning half an hour later with a small plastic tub, a metal bowl, and a bucket of hot water.

Meryem heaved a contented sigh. At least her aunt had given permission for her to wash.

“Bibi,” she said, “Auntie never came to see me.”

“That’s no surprise,” Gülizar muttered.

They both knew that her aunt blamed Meryem for her much-loved sister’s death. If her sister had not told her the dream about Mother Mary, she would have tried to feel that, like other women, her sister was simply a victim of circumstances. The ill-omened dream, however, was proof of the girl’s guilt.

As a child, Meryem could not comprehend her aunt’s behavior. Later, when she understood the reason, she did her best to win her approval, hoping that one day her aunt would forget her grudge and give up her taunts. But Meryem was never forgiven, and, because of the way her aunt treated her, gained a reputation for being ill-starred.

Gülizar gently undressed Meryem and started to wash her in the plastic tub as though she were a little child. A long-forgotten feeling of warmth enveloped the girl as the steaming water poured over her head, and the old woman tenderly washed her hair.

Gülizar wrapped Meryem tightly to protect her from the cold in a towel she fetched from outside. One hand massaged her gently as she rubbed her dry with the other.

“Now, dearest, do what I tell you and we’ll get rid of that thing in your belly. I know it’s there, I can see it in your eyes.”

Meryem said nothing. Obediently, she let Gülizar rub her with poisonous hemlock balm and drank without protest the foul-smelling liquid she gave her.

Gülizar was more cautious than other midwives. She never used dangerous methods to induce a miscarriage, such as thrusting a chicken quill or dried eggplant stalk inside the woman’s body.

When she had finished, Gülizar laid Meryem’s head in her lap and softly stroked her hair.

“Bibi,” Meryem moaned, “my tummy hurts!”

“Don’t worry, love. It will soon pass.”

Meryem felt herself falling asleep under Gülizar’s soothing caresses. Just before she dropped off, she murmured, “Why don’t the cocks crow anymore, Bibi?”

“The cocks always crow, sweetheart—some can hear them, some can’t.”

“I don’t hear them.”

“Because you don’t want the morning to come.”

AT NIGHT DON QUIXOTE, SANCHO PANZA IN THE MORNING

İrfan had not closed his eyes all night. Without feeling the need for sleeping pills, he had stayed awake till morning, pacing through the house, tidying up the papers in his study, and sitting by the covered pool in his rattan chair, watching the refracted movements of light as they shifted here and there. Oddly enough, for the first time in years the terror chilling his heart had evaporated. Sitting by the pool, he planned the coming day—a day of emancipation from a life ruled by fear and the restrictions imposed by others. Like a man drowning, his feet caught in weeds, İrfan wanted to kick the bottom, rise to the surface, breathe the fresh air, and see the light again. Purified of fears and weaknesses, he would feel the indescribable joy of changing his life and creating a new sense of well-being.