Hasan Toptas - Reckless

There followed a lot of pushing and shoving, as they cast their large eyes over the lists. But when they did find their names, they didn’t move, they just stood there staring, as if by doing so they might release the miracle that would save them from the border. Finally Kenan and Ziya moved forward. Standing on tiptoes, side by side at the back of the crowd, they scanned the lists.

‘Oh, no. Oh, no,’ said Ziya when he found his name. ‘Look what I’ve done. Just a few words that came out wrong, and now I’m doomed!’

‘Don’t take it too hard,’ said Kenan, trying to console him. ‘All this means is that you were never fated to stay at headquarters.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Ziya murmured.

Then they put the field and the battalion behind them; boarding one of the minibuses they found waiting for them in Viranşehir meydan , they headed for Ceylanpınar. For an hour they passed through a dry and copper-coloured wasteland, accompanied all the way by a low moan that seemed not to come from the road so much as the depths of the bus itself; and all around them was a yellow glow pushing against a sky that seemed to grow before their eyes; now and again they caught sight of a bird in the far distance, or a bush they could barely see, or a shape that was almost certainly a tree. On entering Ceylanpınar, they were met by a procession of earthen-roofed shacks, most of which looked as if they’d been built in a day. And with them came their courtyards, of course, and the trees in those courtyards, and the laundry hanging out to dry, and the dusty clouds of children, and a garish spattering of distant and disconnected noises that, as they died away, seemed more like silence. Lurching across the potholes in the asphalt road, they arrived at a sharp bend and, hitting the brakes, the driver called out: ‘So, boys, the gendarmerie is on our right, and the mobile unit on our left, so are you getting out, or what?’ No one moved, except to look at the little single-storey guardhouse on their right and the grey two-storey building on their left. No one got out. And this was how they all came to alight at the village marketplace instead; here they filed into a long, narrow restaurant whose walls were lined with pictures of the Kaaba Stone; after filling their stomachs to a Ferdi Tayfur song, they made their weary way back to the buildings on the sharp bend.

‘What’s this writing all about?’ asked Kenan.

Ziya turned his head to look: painted in red letters on the wall he saw the words: Belik is a murderer .

‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘When we were passing through Diyarbakır, I saw Freedom for the Kurds on some walls and the name Mehdi Zana, too, and these I understood, but this one — I have no idea.’

Kenan turned back to give the wall a second look.

They saw the same slogan on a few other walls on their way to the sharp bend, and each time Kenan and Ziya could not stop themselves from looking.

On walking inside that big and menacing grey building, they were all thinking of the stories those convicts had told them, and when they looked around them, it was with the same distracted air they had seen in those convicts. A hump-backed sergeant came rushing down in some agitation when he saw them standing there; he pulled out the men who’d been assigned to the second platoon and lined them up, after which he strolled back and forth in front of them, hands on hips. Then he stopped. In a hoarse nasal voice, he asked, ‘Do any of you know how to type?’

‘I do,’ said Ziya.

The sergeant’s eyes lit up when he heard that. He asked Ziya where he was from.

‘I’m from Aydın,’ Ziya replied.

‘It’s your lucky day,’ said the sergeant. ‘The company commander is from Aydın, too.’

They all turned to look at Ziya, as if seeing him for the first time.

Then this sergeant said, ‘Follow me,’ and led them down a gloomy, high-ceilinged corridor to the company commander’s office. One by one they stepped into his office, walked up to his steel table, and saluted. The commander had not yet raised his head; he was gazing icily at the yellow onion-skin documents he was still busy signing. Grimacing strangely, he held his pen in the air with one hand, while with the other he was scratching his crotch. And whenever he did that, it almost seemed as if he wanted to look down there, too, but he never did; instead he’d venture to look all the more solemn as he carried on signing. When he’d signed the last document, he’d put it face down on top of all the others, and finally raise his head to take a good look at the soldier standing before him. In a stern voice he’d say, ‘Well, then. Identify yourself.’ And then, without missing a beat, the soldier would identify himself. When it came to Ziya’s turn, he took one step forward and said, ‘Ziya Kül, son of Mehmet, born in 1958, in Aydın, at your service, sir!’

The commander shifted slightly in his chair. And then, making as if it were a coincidence that he had shifted, he gave his balls another good scratch. In a stern voice he asked Ziya which part of Aydın he was from. And what district, and what town. And then, glancing up at the ceiling, he said, ‘Hmmm. So you live next door to Veli Sarı, also known as Hacı Veli. Don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ziya.

‘Good,’ said the commander. ‘So now tell me. Is Halime Çil still alive?’

Ziya just stared at him.

‘Don’t tell me you don’t know Ebecik?’ The commander raised his hand in consternation.

‘Yes, sir. Of course I know her. And yes, she’s still alive.’

As he said those words, he saw Hacı Veli. He strolled around Hacı Veli’s house, and as he did, he suddenly saw Ebecik, and after she had looked at him for a good long while, she cleared her throat.

‘Are you from our town, sir?’ asked Ziya.

The commander shifted again in his seat. Glaring at his hands, he placed them on the edge of his desk. ‘Son of a donkey! Know your place. I’m the one who asks the questions round here!’

Hearing his answer, Ziya turned deep purple.

‘Get out!’ bellowed the commander. He lowered his head as he pointed to the door. ‘All of you, get out!’

And that was when Ziya caught sight of the brass nameplate standing there on its wooden base: First Lieutenant Necdet Belik. That stopped him in his tracks, but only for a moment. Then he raced out of the room with all the others. The sergeant stood waiting at the door, and when they were all out, he stepped inside, but he didn’t stay in there long; two minutes later, he was out again, and from the look on his face you would have thought he’d just been punched. He turned around to give Ziya a mournful look. ‘He won’t agree to your staying on here as a clerk.’

Ziya gave him a blank stare.

The sergeant hurried them over to the ammunition depot. He gave them each one canteen, one G-3 infantry rifle, two cartridge belts, one cartridge clip, and eighty rounds of ammunition, recording each consignment with the blue ballpoint pen he’d pulled from his breast pocket and then signing for it. Then they all piled under the tarpaulin at the back of a rickety truck, and with the commander in the driver’s seat, they put Ceylanpınar behind them, and with it, the State Battery Farm, and the dark little stream down from the Ali Yerelli and Sheikh Nasır brooks and flanked on both sides by lines of towering poplars. On they went in the direction of the asphalt road. With them in the back of the truck were several huge sacks of bread, and as they were knocked back and forth by the ruts on the dirt road, the sacks gave out clouds of powder that they could not stop staring at, if only because they were the only things visible under the tarpaulin.

And that was when Kenan slid over in Ziya’s direction, just a little, and whispered: ‘Let’s hope we end up in the same outpost.’