Hasan Toptas - Reckless

It was hot as the fire Nimrod built to burn the Prophet Abraham.

And then the shoeshine boy came up to them, his case swinging from his shoulder. Stopping two paces in front of them, he said, ‘Should I give them a shine, brother soldier?’

At first neither of them heard the boy.

That’s why they both looked down, as if their boots were speaking. ‘Should I give them a shine, brother soldier?’ the boy asked again.

‘Go away, son. Go away. We’re from faraway towns. If a crow squawks around here, we jump,’ said Kenan. Looking as if he were about to cry, Kenan flapped his arms, as if to shoo away a chicken.

The boy turned away at once, and soon he and the case on his shoulder had vanished into the crowd.

No sooner had he done so than the passengers appeared. They rushed in from all directions, their baggy trousers flapping, and piled into the minibus.

When they reached the Viranşehir Company, it was still as hot as it had been in Urfa: the single-storey prefabricated building lined up on that great plain sizzled and swayed as if they’d been thrown into a flaming vat of oil. Sitting in the sun on the sandy field between the buildings was a two-wheeled water tanker; some soldiers had gathered around it and were taking turns drinking from the tap. First the new arrivals went up to these gasping soldiers, whose lips and tongues were parched from the heat, and asked where they should go. Pointed in the right direction, they raced across the field, and one by one they printed out and signed their names on a paper that burned to the touch. But after that, no one paid them the least attention. No one told them what to do, or what not to do. And so they waited with those who had come before them, wondering if they were being punished, wondering what they had done. For days and days they waited in the sun. Finally, on the thirteenth day, a sergeant lined them up. After pacing from one end of the line to the other, he asked, ‘Does anyone here know how to type?’

‘I do,’ said Ziya.

They waited for the sergeant to ask if there were any tailors amongst them, or barbers, or anything else he might wish to know, but that was it. ‘Come with me, then,’ he said, and he took Ziya off to the building next to the mess hall. He took him into Room S-1, which was tiny, and filled with metal cabinets, sat him down in front of a typewriter and gave him a typing sample. Trying not to show his excitement at being spared the watchtower on the border, Ziya typed up the sample, pulled it out, and handed it to the sergeant who was waiting beside him. The sergeant gave it a long inspection, searching for mistakes. Then he said, ‘Fine, you’re the person we’re looking for. Congratulations. You’ll be the company’s S-1 clerk.’

Ziya did not get up from the typewriter once that day. He carried on typing the documents the sergeant gave him, and that was why he did not see Kenan again until he walked into the dimly lit mess hall that evening. All day he’d been elated at the thought of being spared the watchtower on the border, but when he went over to Kenan’s table and sat down across from him, he suddenly felt ashamed, as if he’d done something wrong. He felt so ashamed that he hardly knew how to hold himself, or where to look, or what to say.

‘Come on now. Congratulations. You’ve managed to escape, at least,’ Kenan said, as he made an effort to smile.

Ziya’s face burned.

‘It’s just luck,’ he said quietly.

The next morning he raced off to his typewriter as soon as he had finished breakfast. He opened the window, picked up a cloth and dusted off the desk, and gladly went to work. Twenty-five or thirty minutes later, the sergeant arrived, and he was very happy to see Ziya there typing away, of course. Then he sat down on one of the chairs lining the wall, threw one leg over the other, and, without so much as a good morning, he asked, ‘How old are you?’ And Ziya told him he was twenty and a half years old. He said this without pausing to think or make a calculation, and neither did he give any indication of an ulterior motive: he simply said the first words that came into his head, as if he were breathing them. And the sergeant burst out laughing. He laughed so much he almost burst his sides. So he got up. Clutching his belly, he spun around, and his belly swayed this way and that. He went out the door, still laughing. ‘So he’s twenty and a half, ha, ha. He’s twenty and a half. Ha, ha!’ Ziya sat there stunned, as he listened to the laughter bouncing down the corridor. He was still sitting there when the sergeant returned, throwing open the door. Then, as he left again, he threw back his head, as his mouth lost its shape. Ziya listened to the laughter. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Then suddenly he was back with two other sergeants, and as he laughed, he kept pointing at Ziya, now with one hand, and now with the other, as if he were watching a naughty monkey at a zoo. As if he were reporting some sort of miracle. Ask him yourself, he said. He really is twenty and a half. Twenty and a half! That’s how old he is! While all this was going on, Ziya tried to keep his cool, but he couldn’t quite manage it. And before long he was lost in confusion.

Then suddenly the sergeant stopped laughing. With the back of his hand, and with a certain agitation, he wiped the tears from his eyes. When the other sergeants had left the room, he walked to the window, plunged his hands into his pockets, and for a time he stared out at the sandy field and the water tanker.

And then, without so much as turning to face him, he said, ‘That’s all for now, my ram. I’m giving you the rest of the day off. Go outside, and spend a little time with your friends.’

‘All right,’ said Ziya, and he left the room.

Still in confusion, he went to find Kenan. The two sat down in the shade of those ovens they called buildings. And there they sat, for three long hours, talking anxiously about what had just happened, and smoking one cigarette after another. The field on which the camp stood had no trees, so by now everyone else was sitting in the shade of the buildings; it was one long line of heads and knees and stretched-out legs, hiding from the sun while wreaths of smoke swirled over them. And with so many people crowded there together, time simply forgot how to move. And when it did, it seemed almost to become a second source of heat. It was almost as if time itself was beating down on them. Just then, an order came for them to line up outside the mess hall, and they all stood up, rushing like bent little shadows to the front of the building. A sergeant had planted himself at the mess-hall door. And while he waited for the men to arrive, he kept turning his head to catch what the corporal behind him was saying.

And now they were all standing in front of the officers. They hadn’t bothered to line up.

‘My friends,’ said the sergeant, walking towards them. ‘I have put up the lists on that window over there. Each of you should look and see what platoon you’ve been assigned to. You are to report to Ceylanpınar by nightfall.’

There was some rustling in the crowd.

‘Quiet!’ barked the sergeant. ‘I haven’t finished speaking. Now listen to me carefully. When you get to Ceylanpınar, you are to go straight to the mobile gendarmerie unit. The first and second platoons are stationed there. The third platoon should wait there to be picked up. In the meantime, don’t think you can slip off home just because there’s no officer there watching over you. The police will pick you up before you’re halfway there, and then you’ll have failed your military service, and all for nothing. But if there’s still an idiot out there who wants to slip off home, don’t hold them back! Let them go! So now find out where you’re going. Hurry up!’