The Book with Twelve Tales Page 6

  The morning got warmer. I continued to zig and then zag. Above me, the top of the hill burst into a cold explosion of sharp rocks. Below, the greenbrown slopes ran away into a glistening flatness. The long, straight road back to Diyarbakir lay along it like a scratch scored in wood.

  3 The shepherds and their sheep

  I stopped. The wind blew the cherry blossom below me. It frothed. I saw three shepherds with their dogs purposefully driving flocks of sheep along the hillsides, each invisible to the other, each in a different direction. I hurried on and soon reached the top.

  4 The man in the mosque

  The wind squealed through a patch of scrubby bushes. I could have touched the clouds racing over my head. Piles of snow rattled like nails in the hollows. The Diyarbakir road, now in sunshine, gleamed like a chrome-yellow ribbon.

  A small mosque lay low in the shelter of a stone wall. Beside it, a spiky tree with coloured rags for leaves shook and snapped in the wind. I went carefully closer. A man was crouched in the porch. I stopped. He was wearing a knitted beanie and a white flannel shirt. He looked at me. I stayed where I was. He manipulated his galoshes. I couldn’t decide if his manner was normal. I bowed.

  He flapped a hand at me. The rags cracked like fireworks on the spiky tree. I tiptoed from stone to stone to the porch. He took my hand as a matter of course. I couldn’t help noticing that his ears were red and worried. He led me inside.

  In an outer room something lay on the floor wrapped completely in a blanket. The noise of the wind and the rags ran out. We walked purposefully into the inner rooms. They were green and dark. Green windowpanes let in a little wobbly light. The building shook. He took off his shoes: therefore, so did I. We walked into the innermost room. The windowpanes here were yellow. His ears gleamed. Plastic lamps hung from the ceiling on bits of string. The lights were small and still.

  We stood in front of a green, green-embroidered curtain. The man pulled the curtain back. In the wall was a metal grille. Behind it reared a piece of pink and turquoise cloth, glittering darkly with sequins. The man pushed me towards it. I was surprised at his violent manners.

  5 Shame

  I goggled at the cloth. What a shame. Although it might only take a second, to express veneration was beyond me. I had none of the signs. I shrank from guessing. I stood still, aware that my confusion, the longer it lasted, might be taken for defiance. The lamps swung in circles, carrying their yellow lights. They seemed happy. I had trespassed without care. For a while, this pleased me. As I grew more desperate, it pained me that while I had learned to be less of one thing, I had failed to become more of another.

  I put on a look of serviceable humility. Perhaps it seemed rude. He pushed me out. He pulled his beanie over his ears. I put on my shoes anyhow. We stood in the porch. The rags snapped. The man directed me to the grey edge of the hilltop instead. I stumbled away purposefully, not to satisfy his judgement of me as a man who had mistaken his soul, but to escape from an affair that intimated that although I may somewhere have had a soul, I didn’t know where it was.

  6 A monastery

  The ruins stuck up from the foundations of the highest rocks. Ergani looked pale and distinct, way below. I felt cold and sick. The wind, unable to move this tangle of boulders, buffeted me on purpose. We nearly came to blows. Suddenly, I was standing on a gleaming stone toilet seat. Its beautifully polished rim shone at the sky. All their arses were bones. I clattered down over the ridge. I reached the zigzag path. Rain shot out of the clouds. Now the world was moving. I stopped in a puddle. The rain rapped into it like gravel. I took a deep breath. Then I started purposefully down.

  7 Dogs one

  In the quiet of my breather, on a zig of the greenbrown hillside, I had listened to my heart. But only its beating, which was literal. Now, as I jumped down the hill in the rain, it couldn’t be heard above the woundup world. So I stopped again, in case it wanted to tell me something else. It didn’t get the chance.

  At first, I thought it was the rain rattling through some scrubby bush. It might have been the echo of stones bursting out from my feet. It might have been the first crackle of thunder. The clouds began to stand up. The sun looked through. It might have been a horse scrambling purposefully up the scree. It might have been snakes going home. It might have been the cherry blossom boiling over. But it was dogs.

  8 Only a tree

  They pattered purposefully up, still out of sight, the hillside below me. I began to cry and talk. Whatever monsters breasted the little stony brown horizon, they might be disarmed with tears or persuaded by reason. It wasn’t what I called me that threw up these defences. It was something saving itself. I didn’t know it. I am only a tree on the mountain of me.

  9 Dogs two

  Three white dogs swarmed up onto the zag. They tiptoed between the puddles. Their mouths were winched open. Their gums were shocking pink. Their tongues were glossed with saliva, which drooled over. The clouds drew up into cones. Sunshine shot down the sides and shimmered on the tiny drops at the end of each doghair. The dogs stood still, like glass freaks. The wind darted hither and thither, then threw itself round the hillside. This arrangement lasted a minute or two. Having looked at them first in the face, as I would a new friend, I looked further. They wore metal collars, out of which stuck a crown of metal spikes. My hair stood on end. While there was time, I felt some satisfaction. It’s not every day a dysphemism comes true. They trotted forwards. The mountain got ready the tree to die by shooting its roots full of anaesthetic. It would still hurt. They sat down round me.

  I said goodbye to the part of me I knew. My surroundings shut up shop. I stood on a pinhead. At least I was half way to nothing now. So it might be quick.

  The dogs stood up again. One barked, the second dribbled and the third snapped. By this fairytale round I saw they were a family. We were drenched in sunshine. Beyond its spotlight, the greenbrown hillsides looked grey. The dogs scrabbled nearer. My legs shook. As I reeled like a sapling, they all barked. Screws of spit flew around like septic glue. One wrapped itself onto my cheek. I raged. I roared. They strained backwards and howled. Their teeth slid out of their gums to full length. They yawned like apes. I armed myself purposefully with my beastliness. No one, after all, wants to be eaten alive.

  10 A bite and a whistle

  They snapped at me in a circle limelit by the sun. The dogs turned canary yellow. I had hopes that such freaks wouldn’t ordinarily bite me. I squared up purposefully to two. I howled at them. The dog I’d called Dad slavered behind me. I turned round. It didn’t work. He picked his way suddenly between the puddles and injected his teeth through my thigh. It made the noise of a dropped egg. I swayed like a chopped tree. I faced him. Myself, I was no good. I needed other arms. The divine spark that fires mankind up from the company of dogs lay exactly in those things that were most useless to me now: my intelligence, my humanity and my soul. I bent over for a handful of stones that shone wetly between the puddles. I only touched one.

  The wind sent a shiver down the path. I saw it go, like it was cut with a cheesewire. It promised salvation. The clouds climbed themselves away into backbones, their heavy ends, like wrung cloths, dropping rain. The sun glared. The dogs looked close to ignition. They burst over the stones that lined the path and, all orange, melted away.

  11 The yellow road home

  The truth was more plain. I ran purposefully down to Ergani. I waited half an hour for a bus. Different, flat clouds closed on the sun. When I got back to Diyarbakir, at the end of the yellow road, I sat on my bed at the Institute and read the news with a dictionary. The pages shook. The flue sucked my fire out of the stove into a starry black sky. Don’t be disturbed, I worked out, by the bombers. I dreamed a metal wood spilled through the door to my bed. It waited, packed closely round me, while I finished a melon called sleep.

  12 Sevtap rings

  In the morning, which was warm and white, I was innocent for two seconds. I rolled away from the sunshine in my big window. My tr
ousers, standing from a wire round the stove, looked at me with two astonished eyes, bloodshot round the edges. I stared at them with pity. I’d taken a wound off. I didn’t feel my leg.

  I got up, got dressed and went out. I bought a wet cheese from a shop across the road. At the end of Ali Emiri 4 the city walls stood up, deckled and black in the sky. The elastic back of my leg tightened. I walked purposefully to the Preparation Room at the Institute. Azize Ipek swayed at her desk and wrote. I said good morning. Fikri Dikmen lay in his chair and looked sideways out the window at the brown rosegarden. Good morning, they said. I sat down tautly. I was on two hot coins. I dropped the cheese on my desk. Did I enjoy my day off. Yes, I said, Ergani was very beautiful. Fikri Dikmen rolled his head and looked at me emptily. Especially the cherry blossom. Azize Ipek smiled with watery kindness. Except, I said, I’d been bitten by a dog on the way down. By a what, said Fikri Dikmen. He sat up and came to a point. Dogs. Fikri Dikmen disappeared through the door, which banged shut. I looked at the roses. Fikri Dikmen shouted. The noise came deflectedly through the window. He is telling Sevtap to ring the hospital, said Azize Ipek, her eyes swimming with excitement. Suddenly, the brightness spilled out. How awful, she whispered.

  13 Terror

  Fikri Dikmen threw the door open. He was panting. Quick, he said. I got up. The punchholes stretched and hurt. Through the window, sudden rain smacked the brown roses. We ran to the gates. Ali Emiri 4 was buzzing with water. Wait a minute. Fikri Dikmen splashed away for his car. I stood purposefully still in the doorway. I was still well. The rain leapt down the street. The sky quickened. The front garden jostled. Fikri Dikmen’s car, like a red fish, glided to the gates.

  I was on my way.

  The city walls showed up and spilled away while the wipers flapped at the rain. Someone urged a horse between two taxis. We stopped at Fikri Dikmen’s house. Lunch, he said, and smiled. We had hamburgers. The windows steamed up. We sat at a red formica table. The hospital could have prescribed lunch. We sat in the livingroom and watched TV. I sat on nails. Fikri Dikmen uncovered his watch. Okay, he said, time to go.

  We drove down rivers. The windows steamed up. This is it, said Fikri Dikmen. Quick.

  14 State Hospital for Chest and Lung Diseases

  The doors were crowded. We barged in. Blue smoke surged round the ceiling. Fikri Dikmen pushed a line of people away. We ran past numbered clinics. We stopped in a corridor. Have a cigarette, he said. Wait here. I turned into a rosegrey window where a man in a big turban was smoking with a long cigarette holder. We bowed a little at each other. The hospital garden fell down to the Dijle. Stick houses hung on the bank. His hand trembled. Our smokes wandered around together. The wet glass spoiled the view.

  Quick, said Fikri Dikmen. We ran upstairs. He was holding a card. My leg didn’t hurt. We ran down an empty corridor and stopped at a temporary door. This is it, he said. He knocked. While we waited, he gave me the card. Shoes squeaked on the lino. Darkness stole along the temporary walls. Come in, said a light voice.

  We sat in a wide, white and glassy room like a carpark level. Dr Nejati Koch sat behind his desk. A plastic rose in a glass vase faded in the brightness. Good morning, he said. I sat on skewers. I’d seen him often at the Institute. His white shirt crackled. His brush moustache rustled. His hair lay like liquorice. Tea’s on the way, he said lightly. Let’s look at your leg.

  Hobbled in chinos, I stared purposefully across the floe of tiles. Breath from the doctor’s nostrils warmed my ham. I wished he would never decide. My eyes unfocused. Whiteness flooded in. Thanks, said Dr Koch. He sat behind his desk. I pulled up my trousers and sat on swords. His fingers made a wigwam. His face had a smile and a frown. Fikri Dikmen took out his worrybeads. They started clacking. The treatment for rabies, said the doctor, isn’t very nice here. He sighed and looked at the floodlit windows. His porcelain skin beamed. The beads stopped. He picked a stethoscope out of a drawer. And there might be side effects. I blanched further. Would I die of a cure.

  Fikri Dikmen started his beads again. Clickclack. Clickclack. Dr Koch rang his intercom. There might be some serum left at Pirinjlik, he said. It’s less risky. It was greek to me. The intercom rang back. Hello, said the doctor.

  15 Three dark roads

  While he talked I clittered my teeth and folded the card. Fikri Dikmen clacked his beads. Someone brought a tray of tea. Dr Koch covered the intercom with his hand. Help yourselves, he said. He listened again. My teaspoon tinkled on the glass. My hand shook. I watched the sugarcubes burst and fizz. Dr Koch sat back. He left his tea.

  Well, there’s a choice, he said lightly. Fikri Dikmen clacked faster. How did I know. Three dark roads. Begin the treatment. Wait a couple of days to go to Pirinjlik. Do nothing. Ha ha ha.

  16 We ran for the door

  Dr Koch stood up. He put his unused teaglass carefully on the tray. The specialist told me the chances are very small. I gasped. I stood up. Two lances sucked out of my leg. Fikri Dikmen put his beads in his pocket. There hasn’t been a case of rabies in Diyarbakir for five years. He picked up the stethoscope. Not one. Fikri Dikmen grabbed my hand. I’d start the treatment. Dr Koch advanced purposefully. First, he said, go back to Ergani. Quickly. Find the dog. Fikri Dikmen started for the door. Thus so did I. Tie it up. If it doesn’t die in three or four days you’re safe. Let’s go, said Fikri Dikmen. We rushed out. The walls wobbled like cardboard. The corridor was empty. We ran down the stairs. We barged through the crowd at the door. Mud spat at the cars. What do I do if it dies? But the rain was too noisy.

  17 Return to Ergani

  We hurled back to Fikri Dikmen’s. The red fish swam and popped. Hang on, said Fikri Dikmen. I meant to. I waited. Someone ran past the gushed window pushing a glass cart full of nuts. A tilley lamp shone milkily inside like a mobile shrine. I sobbed. Fikri Dikmen slammed the door. I got these, he said. Raincoats and waders. This is Erkan’s. He put a Sluggers baseball bat on my lap. We hurtled purposefully out of Diyarbakir. The road was black. We jumped the lights. One headlight peered sideways. It lit up holes we didn’t need to avoid. I held the bat and cried. Evening came down like ink in the rain. You can’t beat these Murat stationwagons, said Fikri Dikmen as we crashed into Ergani.

  18 Back on the black hill

  Nothing did. We slipped and slapped up the greenbrown hill, hurling bright brown earth at the sky. The neat stones rolled away down the hillside. We lurched round the explosion of sharp rocks and stopped by the ragtree. The car clicked and popped. The ribbons hung heavy and still. No one crouched in the mosque porch. Come on, said Fikri Dikmen. Things darkened. We put on raincoats and waders. Fikri Dikmen made purposefully for the monastery ruins. Why not? I tried to keep my heart slow. I flapped forwards after him. And do everything quickly. From this paradox I sank into muddy obscurity.

  Fikri Dikmen looked at the shiny toilet seat. Look at this, he said. I stared over the edge instead. Way below, plains carried the grey road to Diyarbakir into the clouds.

  19 Looking for shepherds

  Back at the car, Fikri Dikmen took out the Slugger and said right, let’s go. What was down there, said Fikri Dikmen, pointing the bat at the zigs and zags. Nothing, I said. Right, said Fikri Dikmen, his hem a little waterfall, let’s go this way. We squelched to the opposite hillside and stood at the edge. Yellow and green windowpanes oozed on the back of the mosque. But. Quick, he said. We jumped over. I slid on stones. I ran sideways. My waders buckled and popped. The hillside got greener. The sky blackened. We splashed in meadowy herbage. Have a cigarette, said Fikri Dikmen, holding out a packet. We smoked in the open rain.

  I could have been a knight in a symbolic landscape, looking for a revelation that depends on a purity of heart he knows he hasn’t got and for which he must rely on someone else.

  We sploshed purposefully along the darkening meadow. A tree like bent iron stood on its higher edge. Come on, said Fikri Dikmen. He swung the Slugger. I stopped. Two men crouched under the iron branches. Dogs, said Fikri Dikmen.
The shepherds crouched under their aeroplane coats. Their eyes glinted through the flaps. Four dogs were tied to the iron trunk.

  20 Sunset

  We oozed closer. The dog silhouettes snapped and tugged like cardboard cutouts against a bloodred sky. The coats stayed still. Smokepuffs came out of the flaps. The dogs gaped. I waited behind Fikri Dikmen. The walk had elasticated my scabs. They tingled like sherbert fizz. Fikri Dikmen yelled at the coats. Then he flung a storm of words at them. They turned their doors in my direction. Smoke puffed out. I leaned towards the iron tree. The dogs were black. I turned back into the plashy meadow. I was face to face with the shepherds. We shook hands purposefully. Their eyes glinted. They looked like cartoon triangles, nodding, shuffling and stiff. Don’t worry, they said. My teeth chattered. The flat dogs danced in front of the red sunset in their collars of metal thorns.

  21 Round and round the hill

  The shepherds pointed round the hillside. Fikri Dikmen shouted. We shook hands. I wanted to stay: not me was safe. There’s more shepherds, said Fikri Dikmen, splashing off. They’ve got white dogs. Is that what I said? I went after. My waders wobbled and popped. I must have. Boulders burst out of the slimy hillside. On a rolling edge I saw two triangles running towards us. I stopped. Fikri Dikmen stood purposefully in front of me. He waved the Slugger. The sky was hectic. Four dogs ran out under its curtain. My skin crept. They’re brown, said Fikri Dikmen. The shepherds squelched nearer. They stopped to talk. The rain drummed on their coats and their eyes glinted. Fikri Dikmen shouted. They gathered their coats. There’s no rabies here, they said. Then they ran on. The dogs bristled behind. The triangles rolled round the hillside and sank, like yachts in a pitched sea. They don’t know where they are, said Fikri Dikmen.