Hasan Toptas - Reckless

And so they all set out for the town meydan , lighting up the streets with their lively chatter as they went. In front were the two strong and finely dressed youths carrying saddlebags of wheat on their shoulders; behind them a line of seven or eight people, arm in arm, dancing the Halay . After them came the musicians, and last came a motley crowd of guests and children. Then, just as they had passed Ziya’s house, one of the dancers pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, as fast as if he were slipping a dagger from its scabbard. At that very moment, a crowd slipped forward, skirting gracefully to the right to join the front of the dance, while the man with the handkerchief slipped to the back, to wave it with unbridled joy. The handkerchief looked almost like a bunch of pale white grapes when he waved it like that, a white glow that played for a time on the walls and the trees, swirled above the dancers’ heads, and, taking flight, it whirled its way through the echoing music. The dancers seemed to be connected to it. Suddenly they sped up, overtaking the two youths who were carrying the wheat. Then the glowing handkerchief sailed to the back of the stream of sound and colour. And so it went, floating through orange-scented cobblestone streets, spinning around the corners, until it reached the mortar stone to the left of the great plane tree.

And while the music played and the dancers’ hands waved and the moistened wheat on the mortar was pounded, cross-eyed Bekir joined the crowd with his many-coloured chewy sweets. He set up his stall, and lay out all the sweets he had prepared at home, and soon he was selling them to the children crowding around him. Then came Uncle Güllü, who always walked like he had swallowed a rolling pin. From his glass case of sparkling perfume bottles he brought out a small syringe, which he began to squirt on to the chests of young and old alike with the greatest solemnity. As usual, while thus engaged, he didn’t waste the opportunity to exaggerate the esses in ‘e ss en ce ’ for all to hear. Everyone knew that his syringe was empty, but they all held down their collars for him and thanked him afterwards, with false half-smiles.

Passing anxiously through this smiling crowd, Uncle Güllü went over to Hacı Veli, but instead of squirting any scent on him, he put the syringe back in its place and swiftly lifted up his glass; pointing to the little scent bottles inside it, and in a peeved voice, he said, ‘Look how sweet these are, you didn’t take me up on my offer, sir, but how lovely it would have been if you had.’

‘It wouldn’t have been lovely in the least,’ said Hacı Veli. ‘Did you really think you were going to introduce a new custom to this old town? Where on earth do people send scent bottles as favours for a wedding?’

‘You can’t be sure that this has never happened anywhere,’ snapped Uncle Güllü, gazing sourly into the distance. ‘To tell you the truth, I would never agree to that line of reasoning. That being the case, I can’t accept your position. If you can send towels as favours, and handkerchiefs, and even soaps and matches, why can’t you send bottles of scent? It used to be done, in my view. It was even quite the fashion. And anyway, you could have been the first in our town to do it, and over the years, it would have become the custom. Your name would have been uttered with awe and envy.’

‘Your mind is working,’ said Hacı Veli, smiling softly. ‘But if you ask me, it’s always working in the same direction.’

The other man fell silent, swallowing hard as he looked down at the ground.

‘You’re mistaken,’ he said finally. ‘My mind works in all directions!’

‘Oh does it really?’ asked Hacı Veli.

‘Yes, it does,’ said Uncle Güllü, nodding vigorously. ‘It thinks ahead, it thinks back, it thinks to the left, and to the right. Or to put it another way, it thinks to the north and the south and the west and the east. In all four of these directions!’

Hacı Veli smiled. ‘If that’s the case, then it’s not working at all!’ Without waiting for the next question, he continued. ‘Because there are not just four directions. There are at least six, my most honoured sir. The fifth direction is beneath our feet, and the sixth is above us. This thing about there being only four — that’s nothing more than a tired old saying.’

Uncle Güllü sank his neck into his shoulders. ‘Hah!’

And off he went into the crowd to stand next to cross-eyed Bekir, who was, he thought, the only one who understood him. And there he stayed until the wheat was pounded, calling out from time to time in a sour voice that struggled for its old sparkle. Essence! Essence!

And then the growing crowd began to make its way back to the wedding house, rounding the same corners to flow down the same lanes in the same high spirits, with two saddlebags full of keşkek .

At the back of the crowd came cross-eyed Bekir and Uncle Güllü, talking all the way. Setting up their stalls under the almond tree, they continued to sell their scents and their chewy sweets. There wasn’t too much demand for the scents. Every once in a while a few panting youths would come over to point at the bottles, asking, is this scent oleaster? Is that one lilac, is that other one rose or the one behind it hyacinth? Surprised by the prices being asked, they would cast a doubtful look over their shoulders and back away. And that was why Uncle Güllü kept looking over at cross-eyed Bekir’s colourful sweets. With his eyes still fixed on them, he would mumble, Essence! Essence! Not so much to the people in the courtyard but to the guests who lived only in his dreams.

The musicians were back in those chairs by now, playing one tune after another. But whenever they tired they took a break. And whenever they took a break, they would chain-smoke with such ferocity you’d think they’d just been rescued from a famine. Between tokes, they exchanged stories about all manner of things, each more astounding than the last. These were things they had witnessed themselves while playing at weddings in neighbouring towns and villages. Some were about normal journeys going suddenly wrong, ending with deaths so horrifying as to pierce all their hearts. Others showed how avaricious people could be, and cruel, and bloodthirsty. Some were about vicious knife fights started by drunks wandering around like lost souls, while others had former lovers coming face to face with grooms while in the act of kidnapping their veiled brides. Sometimes these stories didn’t end there; sometimes, once the shock had worn off, the grooms armed themselves with guns and set off with a group of kindred spirits to save their brides. As they set off, they would salvage their pride from the wreckage to the extent that they could turn to the musicians and announce that the wedding would soon continue from where it had left off, and command them to stay where they were, no matter what.

While the musicians were telling their stories, they gathered a crowd. Some stood, some sat at their feet, mouths agape, some looked over their shoulders with bulging eyes and there were even those who lined up shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, before the musicians’ chairs. The stories lit up little flames inside them all, and from each flame came a little lick of smoke. Sometimes the stories made them laugh, and sometimes all anyone could say was, ‘Oh, what a terrible shame,’ and sometimes, of course, they were left half told; because whenever new guests arrived, the musicians would pick up their instruments and rush to the gate to welcome them with a tune, and accompany them inside with such delicacy and decorum that they might have been made of china, and after the musicians had escorted them inside, they would turn back to the crowd to celebrate the new arrivals with yet another tune. Or else, at the most exciting point in the story, they would catch sight of a distinguished guest leaving the wedding, and jump to their feet to accompany that guest to the gate. Each time it was the fattest of them, Black Davut, who was most tired out and sweaty from running. Yet now and again he would still pull out a handkerchief to give his clarinet a better shine.