More: A Novel (17 page)

What he was really doing was shifting the source of the violence. The violence no longer came directly from the crazy boy, but from the people, and was returned to the people. So Rastin was always able to find some way to set them off against one another. Under so-called orders from me, he would declare, “Either the lights stay on, or the fans!” and withdraw, leaving the choice to them. Consequently those who wanted to read the Koran all night and those about to lose it from the heat would lay into one another. But he never discriminated between the Tajiks and Pashtuns. Because he must have known that a fight that arose between those two could only end with a murder or two, if not worse. So he would keep clear of ethnic issues and, by focusing on common problems, made sure that each discussion shuffled the persons comprising the opposing groups.

For example, he would adapt the enforcement about the lights and the heat to food and water, claiming that one would have to decrease if the other increased and of course, once again, the choice was up to the people. This way the people got the impression that they were consulted about everything and didn’t question Rastin in the slightest. They were divided into those that wanted more water and those that wanted more food, and occupied themselves only with the other.

Rastin was actually merely imposing the standard method that circumvented questioning of the administration. Millions of people were being ruled over out in real life with a similar method. They too were asked questions. They were asked to vote and handed questionnaires or forms to fill out. “Where would you like to be right now?” they were asked. Or, “Who were you in a past life?” Or, “Who is the most beautiful woman of the city?” Or, “Diet or regular?” or, “How would you like your steak?” Of course, those millions of people were as oblivious as the reservoir dwellers.
They
were the steak! They were being asked how well done they preferred
themselves
.

But since they couldn’t see this for the reality, they leaned back with the self-satisfaction of having the capacity to choose and said, “Well done!”

Then again some said, “Make it rare!” And it was done as they said. Bloody …

In addition to this method, Rastin had also begun taking another approach that could be considered a breakthrough in political science. Once his biggest enemy, the old man’s son was now his chief assistant. Rastin whispered into his ear the orders supposedly received from me, and he then told his own assistant. The orders moved from ear to ear, and Rastin didn’t have to directly engage with anyone. In this way the hierarchy in the reservoir was able to take on not a pyramidal, but more like a
spiraling
form.

First of all, in the center was Rastin. Directly to his right, the chief assistant. Next to him was the deputy assistant, then
his
assistant, and so on the chain went. Starting at Rastin and following a circular, widening curve, the orders moved along from ear to ear. At the end of the outermost ring of the spiral would be the reservoir’s only child or a middle-aged man that was almost as weak as the child, alternately … women, naturally, weren’t included in the spiral, because they weren’t included in anything. Even the champion screamer that was the child’s mother was a huge nothing. In the case that an issue concerned them, the order departed from the outermost ring of the spiral and was delivered to the women clustered some distance away.

In truth, it was evident that the reservoir people’s political venture had started with a democratic election but turned into a dictatorship in days. But this went even beyond the pyramidal ruling scheme of a regular dictatorship. Each individual was bound to the one person that was more powerful. The one on top, that is to say center, was the leader. Since their seating and dwelling situation constituted a spiral shape, they had to face one another, but could communicate with only the ones on either side of them and one each on the lower or upper rung of power. Whereas a pyramidal hierarchy would have power classes formed of people leveled equally. Classes that could be of a thousand or of three. But in a spiral hierarchy every individual was a class unto himself. Maybe this structure needed to be named something else. Like ultradictatorship or something. Because every individual was a dictator to the person below them. With the exception of the boy or that weak man, everyone was a dictator on varying levels. Yet they were all part of the same spiral, that is to say the same line. Hence it seemed that there was no hierarchy at all between them.

Perhaps that was why Rastin sustained this spiral scheme of seating. This way the people remained unaware that they were part of an ultradictatorship. After all, they were almost face-to-face with their leader, certainly on the same level. It was like their leader was
one of the people
! Plus when you looked from a distance, they appeared to be a closely connected group, gathered together, with no trace of a hierarchy to be seen. If Rastin had asked me for a stool, for instance, that would have been different. Rastin could have sat on the stool while everyone else sat on the ground and the thirty-centimeter discrepancy in height would have exposed the dictatorship to the naked eye. Instead Rastin insisted on the spiral dictatorship that was entirely his invention and inserted this innovative ruling scheme into political science as a class that could conceivably be taken at least four hours a week, although it was now unknown.

Of course, as with any structure, this too had its drawbacks. For instance, the context of the demands issuing from the outer rungs of the spiral deteriorated or altered by the time they reached the center. Or an order issuing from the center would have been modified completely by time it made it to the end of the spiral. But ultimately we were talking ultradictatorship. Due to the Chinese whispers mode of communication, it was completely natural and acceptable for such divergences to occur in the leader’s orders or the public’s demands. Compared to the level of communication my father and I had, the transmission of information in the shed was practically telepathy! In the meantime Ahad had returned and right away asked:

“They give you any trouble?”

“No,” I had said. What else could I say? He wouldn’t have understood anyhow. Or, I wouldn’t have been able to make him understand, anyhow …

The morning of the twelve-day anniversary of our reservoirland, I took my place in front of the monitor to see the women gathered in a corner facing the wall, eyes closed. It didn’t take me long to figure out what was going on. For at the other end of the reservoir, the weakling that usually assumed the tail end of the spiral was totally nude and under barrage of tens of fists and feet. All of this was happening so fast I couldn’t think of anything to do. I looked at Rastin. He was just watching. As always.

Several times I cried, “Stop it!” but he wouldn’t listen.

It was like he couldn’t hear me. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to lose any goods. What I was watching wasn’t one of the shows involving people whipping or slapping each other or doing push-ups until they were out of breath. They had the man shoved up against the corner where the wall met the ground and were kicking him like they meant to bury him in that very spot. I had to find a way to stop it immediately. The first thing I could think of was to kill the power in the reservoir.

And only then did Rastin pull himself together and shout, “Okay, Gaza! It is finished!”

When I turned the power back on, I saw the weakling on the ground in his own blood, trying to breathe, and yelled at Rastin, “Why’d you do that?” But he was unruffled.

“Not me!” he said and gestured to the people around him. “They did it!”

“They wouldn’t do anything unless you told them to!”

He shook his head several times first, slowly, then, “They would,” he said. “They would …”

Then he ordered the owners of the fists and kicks that were flying around a moment ago to help the man, who shuddered with every breath, to stand and to clean the blood off him. They did so, listlessly as though they were gathering up pieces of a broken machine.

“Tell me!” I shouted at Rastin. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he demurred at first, but then told me what that nothing was …

It had all begun with the weakling claiming that he could sneak up and disarm me next time I opened the lid of the reservoir. “I’ll take care of the kid, take the gun from him, and this whole ordeal can finally end!” he had said.

But the others countered that such action was highly risky, that everything was under Rastin’s control and that surely someone would come fetch them soon and send them on their way. At that the weakling accused them of cowardice. Accusing the public of cowardice, the ultimate taboo in ultradictatorship, had earned him the punishment he had deserved!

There wasn’t much I could say to that. I just stared. I watched the people. I watched the man they dressed and dropped in a corner like a sack, the women who weren’t the least bit surprised by what they saw when they opened their eyes and turned around, Rastin who sat in the center of the reservoir, and the spiral that formed around him. Then I looked back at the weakling. I think he also looked at me. Or I was imagining things. I printed out the article I was writing about reservoirland and shut down the computer. The screen went dark and buried the ultradictatorship below ground …

I spent the next two days penning corrections onto the article. Perhaps only to keep myself from going to the shed. But on the third day when I could no longer help myself, and turned on the monitor, the first thing I saw was the motionless body of the weakling. They had covered his face with his jacket and laid him down in front of a camera so I could see him. I had turned on the microphone and expelled the first syllable of, “Is he asleep?” when Rastin’s broken-spectacled face covered one-sixth of the monitor and spoke:

“Dead!”

For a second I wanted to ask, “Are you sure?” Another second later I changed my mind. It occurred to me to say, “Fuck!” but I didn’t say that either. I wanted to talk about coming forty-third place in all of Turkey or my mother wanting to bury me as soon as I was born, but that didn’t happen, either. At some point I even wanted to ask, “Where’s Felat?” That definitely didn’t happen.

Left at a loss for words by all these things that didn’t happen, I got up and went over to the reservoir lid. I went down on my knees and opened the lock with the key in my pocket. Instead of the world’s most beautiful girl, a thin man came out of the reservoir. And his exit was exactly as he’d described to the others! I brought out his body from underneath the lid that I opened two hand spans’ width and went to call my father. He was drinking beer.

“What?” he said.

Not knowing the real words for anything that happened aboveground, I said, “Something’s happened. Come!”

He stood and began walking to the shed. He was a step ahead of me. I was on his left, looking at his swinging left hand. Once upon a time, I used to play a game on the pavement of the town’s only main street. I’d come up about a step’s length away to women walking ahead of me and try to catch their swinging hands with my dick. It wasn’t hard at all. In fact, it would be such a casual collision that some women would apologize. And I, flustered by the momentary contact, would say, “That’s all right!” and keep walking. What I wanted to bump into my father’s hand as we passed through the garden was my right hand. Perhaps our hands would collide and hold on. We might even walk into the shed hand in hand. No matter who I was, what I was, he wouldn’t let go of my hand, he would hang on. But none of that happened.

Upon his first step into the shed, he saw that the dark purple lips that left no space for anything else on the man’s face and cursed. First at the body that lay at his feet, then at me! After all it had been my task to watch the goods. To boot, it had been my idea to place cameras in every corner of the reservoir! That left me as the sole culprit. I had put us out for nothing! Suddenly I thought of Dordor:

“Whatever I owe, I’ll pay!” I said. That shut Ahad up. He inhaled and exhaled a few times and scratched his head. Possibly he was calculating for how long he would have to suspend my pay. He had made it to the week’s worth of growth on his neck when he abruptly stopped. He must be done with the calculation. We were into the month of March. That was why his voice was cold. Not because he was a monster.

“Go, bury it!” he said, and pointed in the direction of the arbor.

It took me two hours to bury the weakling. One hour to dig the hole, another to cover it. My father had buried Cuma the same way years ago. I had even asked, “What if someone comes?” and he had replied, “We’re burying a hole here, not a corpse, don’t worry!”

Turns out that really was the case. Digging a hole and filling it was a matter of two hours. Burying a hole. If it had been a matter of burying a corpse, if I had stopped to consider for a single moment that what I was burying was a person, it probably would have taken ages. Especially when the person initiated into the earth was one that had died by my hand …

Perhaps that was how my father had stayed calm when he had buried Cuma. Because he hadn’t killed him personally. Although he was directly responsible for the death, but not the hand that killed him … like me. I wasn’t the one that killed the weakling. No matter that I was utterly responsible for his death, I was neither one of the ones who beat him nor one of the ones that watched the beating in silence. I was the same thing that had sent Rastin to prison instead of master’s studies at Istanbul University: fate! I was fate! I was the sum of the living conditions of those people. And that sum came out to zero. A colossal zero, large enough to swallow us all! A zero as large as the rings of Saturn!

That was why I wouldn’t be the one to hear that weak man’s voice in my ear for the rest of my life. It was Rastin! He now had a Cuma of his own. A scrawny man that would come to life for all the times he died and make all the deserted islands of the world hell for Rastin. For the ones that beat him were deaf! Their eardrums and their consciences were long perforated. The weakling’s voice would bounce off all those deaf ears and sooner or later find a way into Rastin’s mind. I knew all this because I remembered killing Cuma. I hadn’t gotten out of bed just because I was mad at father, and so I hadn’t turned on the air conditioner. Rastin wasn’t any different. He hadn’t intervened in the brutal beating of the weakling because he hated his people. So he could scoop up all his people in one move and toss them into a bottomless pit of guilt.