The Book with Twelve Tales Read online

  71 Spies

  The Director of the Institute was waiting at the twisted gates. His suit shone if black can. The long thin cloud glided over the sky. He grabbed my arm. He pushed me solicitously behind a small pillar. His neat moustache sat like a scrubbingbrush on the table of his lip. It waggled. His beautiful round black eyes rolled conspiratorially. Emergency, he whispered. The Institute’s Turkish flag dropped all the way down from its pole to the neat short thick black hair on the Director’s head. There are spies, he said. The sun beamed. The flag shifted suspiciously a bit nearer. Around about, he said. My blotched right side prickled and itched. Be careful, he said. I was surprised. His neat moustache waggled. I smiled. I worried. Be careful.

  He hurried out the gates. His shiny black shoes clicked and clacked. He waved at a taxi. They disappeared in a swarm of dust. I shook a bit. I sweated. I hurried inside. The flag stroked the blue air. The clouds poled on.

  72 Nice plaited bread

  I bought something to eat at the shop across Ali Emiri 4. The bread was soft and white and woven in beautiful plaits. I ate it in the brown rosegarden. Ali the caretaker arrived with a hose. Morning, he said. I smiled. The sky gleamed bluely. A voice went past the gates yelling lemons lemons. I closed my eyes. I heard Ali turn on the tap. The water fell. Perhaps he’d gone mad. The Director I mean. The sun warmed my ears, which didn’t go red. I chewed a piece of nice plaited bread. He was seeing things maybe. Swishswosh. I nearly dropped off. The sun beamed. I opened my eyes. An arch of waterdrops glittered through the blueness fallingly. What use was that? How lovely. The roses jiggled under a tapping rain. The soil pittered and puffed. The sun sparkled. Ah. I chewed another piece of nice plaited bread. I stood up. There was plenty to worry about. So I started again.

  73 A sweaty night

  I woke up, got up, and ran to the taps. I was still well. Sweat dribbled in the hot hollow on the top of my breastbone. The water swarmed down the plughole. Waterdrops raced round the sink. Bits and pieces flew off. They spattered the walls. The moon looked in lemonly. It slowly rose through my window. The twisted gates gleamed. Spray slapped my face and chest with little fingers. Pitterpatter. I drank under the tap. Water dribbled down my legs. I dreamed that a bus called Siverek drove a syringe into my head. I tripped over my shoes. I fell down and snapped my toothbrush. I cried. I woke up. I’d already got up. My back dribbled with sweat. I put the sheet between my teeth. I was still well.

  The heat came like I was blottingpaper put in a plate of hot red ink. It flew up me, seeping hungrily. I gasped. I jumped out of bed. It pushed beads of sweat out of me as it rose. I dripped. My skin burned. Tiny hot drops stuck on the end of each hair. I stood still like a hot glass statue. The mountain got ready the tree to die by shooting its roots full of anaesthetic. I swayed. I toppled. I woke up.

  Two wire worms of blood slid slowly out of my old dogholes. Like red railwaylines they lengthened parallelly. I stood by the window and watched them slide out of my body. They curved upwards, gleaming slightly. I gagged like a cat having grass pulled out of its throat. The red worms slowly pulled themselves out across the room and started to glide together over the bed. I grabbed the windowsill. The moon spied on me with lemony interest. I was sick on the floor. The red worms undulated slightly as they nosed over the sink together. Sweat rolled down my legs. Their blunt blind red noses reached the door. They waved about round the doorknob a bit like baffled snakes. I thought they mustn’t get out. I couldn’t touch them. Wind them in. Or cut them off. I didn’t know the somethings. Consequences. The moon rose disdainfully behind the glass. I roared. The moon went on. The night had hours of darkness left. They tangled the doorknob messily. They slipped instead of turning it. Sweat hung on my skin. My eyes stung. The doorknob glinted. It turned a little bit. I held my breath. My body was emptying. More slid out, slackening the ropes between me and the door. I was seized with a fear so great I started to talk. Gurgled whispering.

  They heard me. They slowly, inquisitively lifted their heads from the wet doorknob and turned slowly to look at me with blunt blind red noses. I said goodbye to the part of me I knew. They reared. My surroundings shut up shop. I stood on a pinhead. They made mouths. And teeth. They dribbled and snapped. The moon excused itself. They reared higher.

  Then they shot at me. They arrived before I yelled. They parted in front of my nose like a jet display team. Each took one ear. In their horrible hot little red teeth. And lifted me off the floor. Slowly we drifted across the room. Their ropes thrashed and tangled. Sweat pitterpattered off me all the way down to the sheet. Splat. Splot. Could I keep them out? We glided above the bed. The tap and the sink flicked little waterdrops at us. They hissed and turned to steam like bubbles on a hotplate. We reached the wall. My ears stretched. I covered my penis with my hands. They pressed me to the wall. I panted and gasped. The remains of moonlight painted my destruction light lemon and dust. This arrangement lasted a minute or two. Charity and hope. Brainhard. Dogdead.

  I hung there for ages. I swung slightly in the failing moonlight. I think I fell asleep in despair. Hanging in the air and flattened sometimes against the wall. Held there by monsters of my own sickness. When I woke up in a raincoat of sweat the tap was still running. Cold waterbeads flicked all round me. The wall was wet. The top of the stove dripped. The moon had rolled round the sun for me. It peeped in the window at horror, but missed what had made it. I had the form of it still. The rest tangled, fading in the invisible air, round my body, which was lying on the floor. A bit yellowy. One hand had nearly got to the sheet. I felt the gluey sweatballoons blobbing out all over me, like bubblegum blown out from a million little hot mouths. Well, it was a hot morning. The glass was slashed with sunshine.

  74 A new purpose

  I thought the hill would go on anyway. Doing what it did. Or what it must. Darkly. So my state of mind was to put it bluntly irrelevant. I thought I might as well be cheerful.

  After that.

  The sky was bright clear blue and hot. I got dressed purposefully. The sun beamed. I smiled back. I hurried to the Institute tearoom and had tea. The sugar swished beautifully. The sun danced on the formica tabletops. Sevtap clickclacked down the corridor with letters. Azize Ipek floated about nervously. The Director was in. I purposefully entered the Preparation Room. Azize Ipek was writing. I said good morning. Fikri Dikmen lay in his chair and stared sideways out the window at the less brown and greening rosegarden. Good morning, they said. I sat down. He’s back, said Fikri Dikmen, clacking his beads. Azize Ipek smiled waterily. I know, I said. I didn’t mention spies. I looked at Fikri Dikmen. The roses waved their green shoots at the sun. I nearly said. He sat up. He had a very bad time, said Azize Ipek. Tears lay in her eyes gleamingly. Apparently, she added, swaying back to her writing. Haha, said Fikri Dikmen, looking sideways out the window.

  This arrangement lasted for a bit. Which worried me. I got up purposefully. Come on, I said to Fikri Dikmen. I tapped my watch. Let’s go. He leapt out of his chair. We raced down the corridor and through the twisted gates. The city walls gleamed like liquorice. Dust danced in the yellowy air. We hurried off to the Health Centre.

  75 Rewards of having a new purpose

  The sun beat down goldenly. We rushed past the Atatürk Football Stadium. Stop, said Fikri Dikmen. We stopped in a cloud of sunfilled dust. Look, he said. Diyarbakirspor vs Erzurumspor. He tapped the paper poster with a hot finger. Tomorrow, he said. I smiled. Good, I said. I meant that will suit my new purpose. We rushed on.

  The fallen down entirely wall throbbed in the heat. Quick, said Fikri Dikmen. I had slowed down to find some money for the women on the green rug. Charity and forgiveness. Health and Something. Strength. The big yellow crane creaked noddingly on the first floor. No similes. We hurried through the prickling grass. No somethings. The wiry tree stuck up twistedly. Reverberations. In the hot blue sky. The little girl with her head wound round with bandages was asleep in the black black muslin shade with grandad. His little hat had rolled onto the
grass. His head bowed into her arm. Oildrums lay on their sides bleeding oil. The prisoner was late.

  Puddles of rotted fruit and vegetables steamed round our feet. The little boy stood at the top of the crumbly concrete steps. We hurried down together into the only halfdark waitingroom. My skin cooled. Nothing else happened. Fikri Dikmen stumbled in the halfdark. I nearly said again.

  The small window was bright yellow and threw a girder of bright sunlight through the room. A figure of speech. It made itself long. The tap dripped orange water brightly. The fridge wobbled and buzzed. The nurse slit open the cellophane on a new box of syringes with her fingernail.

  76 How painless no. 11 was

  How painless it was. The needle slid in purposefully, ejaculated and withdrew. A way of saying it more true than not. The serum was carried off to needy places. I smiled. Fikri Dikmen clacked his beads. The siren approached.

  The prisoner had a bandage round his head. His skin was yellow. His face was grizzled. The guards poked him in. Like a. No. I hurried past. Morning, I said quickly. He didn’t answer. I stopped. He stood still like. No. Quick, said Fikri Dikmen. Let’s go. We stumbled up the stairs. The sun slapped me in the face. My heart battered with confusion. I dropped my pink card. 2ccs. I was still falling. I gasped.

  Alien petals unfolded slowly just under all my skin. I burned. I cried. Help, I said. From these figures of speech. Fikri Dikmen rushed on ahead.

  77 Two useful presents

  The Director had left a present on my desk wrapped in pink paper. Worrybeads made of scented plumstones. With a yellow tassel. Erkan Yazirchioglu had left me a bottle of Caladryl for my itch. Aren’t people kind, said Azize Ipek waterily, swaying at the window, waiting for dark.

  78 A bit of good advice but a bit late

  If you get attacked by a dog, said Ahmet in the Institute tearoom. He stopped and glugged his tea. Its amber meniscus sparkled with sugar. Crouch down, said Suleyman into the space. He stirred his tea tinklingly. Ahmet nodded right. And it’ll go away, finished Ahmet, while Suleyman gulped his golden tea. The glass flashed. I smiled. Thanks, I said. You’re welcome, said Suleyman.

  Darkness got dark enough. Azize Ipek opened her plastic lunchbox. She looked in and lifted out a meatball. Ahmet hurried away. Suleyman smiled sheepishly. Bon appetit, we said. She waved meatball number two and said, it’s really hard to put more than two adjectives in the right order in a different language. I nodded happily.

  I hurried across the sweetscented rosegarden to my door. The moon hung like a slice of lemon above the halfbuilt block of flats next door. Wooden scaffolding poles stuck through it like cocktail sticks. A bit fell off. The block of flats. And crashed down on the Institute fence. I marched purposefully at my door. Suddenly something leapt out from the unmoonlit wall and barked at me madly. I gasped. I staggered back. Mad dog, mad dog, squealed Fatih Öztürk. He hiccupped with laughter. Then he rushed out through the twisted gates into Ali Emiri 4, which ran past the Institute like a yellow river, moonlit and rippled with long long shadows. I smiled at some stars that had just pricked through the black hemisphere of night and permission. I stamped inside.

  79 Adventure with a waterjug

  As I hurried to my twelfth injection, I started to worry. There’s no point, but it can’t be helped. Illogical, involuntary, ineffectual. I stopped at the end of Ali Emiri 4. The sun fell on the city walls like a lion on a panther. Sweat popped out of my forehead. Like a tree waving its leaves around I flapped my worry here and there in the hot sun. But it came from. Somewhere else. That hill. The smallest bit of me I knew watched while the rest did a sort of automatic semaphore. I sweated some more. Not with heat, I thought. My heart fluttered like a bit of hardboard. I waved my arms. I worried myself. I walked in all directions. I gasped. I vertigoed. I thought the tide of milky serum was swooshing on and on like waves against the tide of rabid germs. I sat on the grass near the chemist’s. I wiped my face with my sleeve. I thought it had got to depend on its daily reinforcements. I thought it didn’t make a chemical change. Aah. So I worried about the end of my treatment. I thought it would be followed by the victory of darkness, madness, froth etcetera. I huddled up in a little hot ball on the grass. My shirt got dusty. I thought why would the bit of me that made me think make me think that?

  An old woman with a big tin waterjug stopped and looked at me. I unrolled. Have a breadring, she said. I took one out of her barky hand. She crouched beside me and ate one of her own. I thought the answer was. The old woman munched with her head on one side to engage her back teeth. Her old toes gripped inside her plastic sandals. Her pink headscarf pinged sequins in the hot sun. She poured some water into her mouth from the jugspout. Have some water, she said.

  I opened my mouth. She poured the water in. I forgot the answer. Like two figures on a figured fountain we crouched there transferring water. This arrangement lasted a moment or two. Water dribbled down my neck. The sun threw heat all over the place witheringly. The old woman stood up. Get well soon, she said. Ah the old, the ill. I smiled. I was still well. Her sandals puffed away in the dust like birds walking over a cloud.

  80 Twelve right

  I was late. I made up my own mind. Be blank, I thought. See what happens then, you dark evolutionary things. I climbed into the couch blankly. Right right right, said the nurse merrily. I shut my eyes. Except they were me too. The things. I heard the nurse slit open a new box of syringes with her fingernail. I lay blankly in the pram. The needle punctured me against the resistance of my skin. I knew because the swoops of glinting steel tubing creaked down in a kind of squealing compression like a pram’s suspension. Then pushed me back up round the needle with a squeaky decompression. I lay pierced blankly. She pressed the plunger. Something filled me up shallowly. From a hole. I felt the milky ejaculation spread just under the skin on my stomach. I wanted to die. To be blank is dead. To be an evolutionary object is dead. To look too far and deep is miserable, unfathomable, vertiginous. Evolution has given us a bit of playful decoration to pass the time pleasantly with while it gets on. Let’s do that.

  81 That’s the new new purpose

  That’s the new new purpose.

  82 Freed from the disease if not the treatment

  Get well soon, said the nurse. I was still well. I rushed home. Perhaps they were all better too. That’s it. The girl with her head wound round with bandages. The prisoner who smelt of mud. The little boy with his foot bound up in a sheet from Siirt.

  The road along the Atatürk Stadium was full of playful decorative sorts of things. Good. I marched purposefully into them. Breadringsellers, lemoncarts, nutmen, used iron, horses, men in blue turbans. The sun yelled down. I whooped. All my life left now to be shallow. I lit up like a tilley lamp. I hissed. I radiated. I glowed.

  I raced down Ali Emiri 4. Fikri Dikmen was standing at the gates of the Institute in a fizzing white shirt. When he saw me he jumped up and down. I stopped. He waved more. He jumped up and down. I raced at him puzzledly. Hooray hooray, he yelled, going up and down. What what? I said. He whirled his worrybeads like a lasso. To catch happiness. The vet’s rung the vet’s rung. He grabbed me round my neck. His shirt fizzed whitely. I shut my eyes. Then I opened them. The twisted gates whirled over my head, piercing the sun over and over like arrows into a golden bullseye. The dogs of Ergani, he yelled, bouncing up and down with me, are com-plee-tlee-hell-thee!

  I fell on the street. My elbow bled. I cried. Fikri Dikmen danced round me clacking and whirling his beads. Com-per-leeeet-lee-hell-theeee, he yelled. I could have gambled and done nothing. Darkness madness and froth evaporated like spit on a hotplate. I was still well. I thought the serum. Death by side effects. I stood up purposefully. My head swayed. The sun banged congratulations on it. Fikri Dikmen smiled like a new piece of paper in the sun. I grabbed him. I thought not the serum. Thanks, I said. Oh have a cigarette, he yelled. Who cares? Let’s have tea. We’re going to the football. Hooray.

  83 Tea

  An army major was drinki
ng tea in the Institute tearoom. We clinked our glasses. The neon light duelled with the sunbeams. The sugar swirled and sparkled. The sun slashed a yellow sword of light over his uniform. Bon appetit, he said fatly. Whatever you like. As long as it’s not.

  84 Diyarbakirspor vs Erzurumspor part 1

  We raced purposefully to the stadium. People dressed as watermelons raced purposefully in the same direction. We raced through the narrow gates in a stew of red and green fruit and bunting. A man with a drum boomed in sideways. The sun let itself down a bit and burned right over the stadium. Fikri Dikmen fizzed. We burst into the stadium.

  I stared at the earth arena. A conflict outside me. Good. I thought, can I be in something furious, free as I am now of the something furious that was in me? Watermelons bounced round me shouting. Dust swirled dustily.

  Fikri Dikmen pulled my shirt. Here, here, he yelled. We sat down suddenly on the concrete terrace. It was hot. Fikri Dikmen yanked out two cigarettes recklessly. This is brilliant! he said, squiggling smoke at the sun. Watermelons smoked round us. His beads went clikettyclickettyclackettyclack at double speed. I grinned.