Hasan Toptas - Reckless

And so they picked up their pads and began to scrub those huge vats with sand and water.

The sergeant stood in the shade of the wall, watching them closely. He seemed transfixed, but his hazel eyes shone like ice, signifying nothing. His thoughts seemed to have taken him far, far away. Then suddenly he came back to himself. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a cigarette. He lit up and exhaled, and then, in a peeved voice, he said, ‘No! That’s not how you do it. You’re not caressing a baby there. No! Get into those vats now and scrub them with your feet!’

So they got into the vats, and began to scrub them most ferociously with their feet.

There was a silence.

Ziya lifted his head, to see what was going on. He found himself eye to eye with a swarthy commander he’d never seen before. He had two stars on each shoulder, this commander. His features were as hard as steel and the fire in his eyes was real. Lunging forwards, and puffing up his cheeks, he yelled, ‘What are you doing inside that vat, you animal?’ And then, without waiting for an answer, he set about beating Ziya as if all the enemies he had ever imagined were lodged inside his body. And Ziya watched the grey building slam to the ground, taking the trees with it, as the sky went black. As he swayed in the blackness, now this way and now that, Ziya wondered why this commander was beating him. When he felt the man’s fists on his face, he recoiled, but at the same time, and in a way he could not begin to fathom, he felt a strange sort of intimacy. As if, even if they never saw each other again, there would always be a bond between them that neither could deny. He even felt as if he and this commander now knew each other intimately, and understood each other perfectly. When this thought came to him, he wanted to shout, ‘I got into that vat because the sergeant ordered me to!’ but he couldn’t get his tongue to work. His mouth was brimming with blood, that’s why. His lips were so swollen he couldn’t even feel them. Then suddenly the ground itself seemed to rise, and it crashed mightily into his face. It did not stop there: it slipped out from underneath him like a sheet, this ground, and as it slipped, Ziya tried to stand at attention, but because his knees buckled, he couldn’t quite manage it. The commander was in such a rage he didn’t notice, though. Teeth gritted, he kept on punching with all his might, and once he had knocked Ziya down, there was no knowing where the next kick might land. Now it was his side, now it was his groin, now his face. And then, after twenty-five minutes or maybe half an hour, he ran out of energy. As his hands fell to his sides, he looked at them, this commander, as if he were seeing them for the first time. It was as if he did not even own these fists that had just pummelled Ziya, as if he hated them for their stupidity. And then he walked away, towards headquarters, and soon he and his stars were lost amongst the trees.

Ziya was still lying on the ground, moaning helplessly and reaching out for something to hold on to, while he pulled himself up. Kenan and a few others ran out to help him at that point, but when they stretched out their arms, he pushed them away with a sudden burst of anger. Then slowly he straightened up. He turned his bloody face this way and that, as if to figure out where he was; he picked up his cap and put it back on, and hobbled off towards headquarters. When he finally reached it, he tried to go inside, but, seeing his condition, the guard wouldn’t let him pass. When he heard that Ziya wished to see the battalion commander, he even lost his temper. Lowering his voice, he told Ziya that unless he wanted to ruin his military service by kicking up another fuss, he’d better leave quietly, and without anyone seeing him. His face streaked with blood and tears, Ziya continued to insist on being let in. And soon it turned into an argument, of course, and as they talked over each other, their voices reached as far as the office at the front of the corridor. Out of this room came a tall officer with a fat, round sergeant. They came together to the doorway, as if by common agreement, and there they stood, staring silently at Ziya. Then the officer gave the signal, and the sergeant took Ziya by the arm and led him quickly down the corridor, to a little room at the end that had frosted glass on two sides. He sat Ziya down on a chair, and said in a voice thick with compassion, ‘What happened to you? Please tell me.’ Ziya wanted to tell him the whole story, but he couldn’t speak, he just looked around him, and then, when he couldn’t bear it any more, he let out a little cry that sounded to him like a cat’s meow. It was such a weak little cry that it sounded like it was coming from the tears streaming down his face. Seeing those tears, the sergeant did not know what to do; turning his head, he wrinkled his forehead and stared at the medicines in the cabinets. Then he made a decision; he put his hand on Ziya’s knee, and in a voice that strained to make his feigned compassion sound genuine, he said, ‘All right, all right, just try to calm down.’ This went on until the sergeant could no longer hold himself back. He asked what had happened. Ziya took a deep breath, and then, in a trembling voice, he told him what had happened, and when he was finished, he said that he wanted to make a complaint to the battalion commander about having been beaten for no reason.

And this was when the officer who had come to the door with the fat, round sergeant came into the room. Ignoring Ziya, he turned to the sergeant and in an icy voice, he said, ‘Tell this dog that he can’t just go barging into the commander’s office any time of night or day.’ Then he added, ‘If he wants to make a complaint, then take him to the clerks so that they can take down his statement.’

The sergeant, who was standing at attention, said, ‘Yes, sir.’

When the officer had left the room, the sergeant turned back to Ziya. Leaning slightly to look him in the eye, in a concerned voice he said, ‘You heard that, did you?’

‘I did,’ Ziya said.

The sergeant said nothing. Straightening himself up, he began to pace the room, back and forth between the frosted glass and the blue curtains, leaving a cold silence in his wake. Then once again he planted himself in front of Ziya. Leaning on the steel table, he told him about other incidents he’d seen of this sort in this battalion, and what had become of the parties involved; for a time he spoke of the crude machinery of military courts, and of the endless string of hearings. Then he moved on to legal petitions, and the municipal police, and the various different types of documents, and their details. Then he spoke of their commander’s character, and his habits, and his love of discipline, and the legal rights of those above and below him. As he spoke, he waved his hands about, his fingers spreading like tongues of fire, and from time to time those flames would flare out at Ziya to burn his skin. They would reach forward, these fingers, and then pull back. And every time they pulled back, his eyes would grow larger.

In the end, Ziya could make neither head nor tail of what the sergeant was saying to him; not knowing what to do, he begged him with his eyes.

‘Look,’ the sergeant said then. ‘I can’t know if what you told me is true, but the decision to make a complaint or not is yours. I am not going to make that decision for you. But at the present moment, we cannot know how the commander against whom you will be making your complaint will defend himself, or how he’ll tell the story. Do you see my point? When he’s asked why he beat this soldier, well, who knows what he might say? So let’s see. He could say: I gave him an order and instead of obeying it, he let loose a string of curses, and why would I beat someone for no reason? Or he could say: your honour, I heard him taking the name of our glorious armed services in vain, he said each and every member of it was the son of a whore, and in the face of such insults, I couldn’t restrain myself. Who knows, he could even say he caught you red-handed when you were trying to steal something. We cannot know whom the judges will choose to believe — a commander with a clean record and many years of service to the army, or a new recruit like you, with only two weeks of training under his belt. And even if we found eyewitnesses, we could not be sure how many of them would have the balls to tell the truth about what they saw. Over and above all that, we cannot know how many stages the case might have to go through, and sadly, we cannot foretell the outcome, either. Who knows, it could tie itself up in new and unexpected knots, and with every hearing, the plot could thicken, and the whole thing could drag on for four or five years. So when the happy day arrived when you got your discharge, there would be years of hearings still ahead. There are even those who are found guilty and have to leave their families and jobs behind to do a few more months of military service. So this is what you can expect, my ram. Time to get up. If you want to make a complaint, let’s get you to the clerks so that they can take down your statement.’