Hasan Toptas - Reckless

Ziya lit another cigarette. He was so upset he hardly knew what to do.

‘I just don’t understand why he never told me about any of this,’ he said. ‘If only he’d told me, I could have given him all the money he needed.’

‘In the beginning, I didn’t understand either,’ said Kâzım. ‘What I mean is that I didn’t understand why he had to hide it from you. In the end, I pulled him aside and asked him outright. I can’t tell you, he said. I owe my life to him, he said. How can I let a few kuruş get in the way, when this man saved my life? That’s what he said. The long and the short of it is that he was indebted to you for something you did for him when you were in the army. Something good. A very good deed. In fact, you saved his life.’

Ziya’s head began to swim.

‘His mother said the same thing to me,’ he told Kâzım. ‘But I have no idea what this good thing was.’

Kâzım gave him a long, hard look, as if to say, are you playing games with me?

‘How can you not know?’ he said. ‘How is it possible for someone not to remember his own good deeds?’

‘Do you know what it was? Did Kenan tell you?’ Ziya asked.

‘I know what it was,’ Kâzım said. ‘When I pressed him about the money, I left him with no choice but to tell me. Otherwise, he’d never have told me. Our dear departed friend wasn’t the type to talk about such things, after all. According to what he told me, one day when you were in the army, Kenan fell very ill, and on his way out to guard duty, he collapsed. You ran right over, and with the sergeant’s help, you pulled him up. You poured water over his face. Then you turned around and said, our friend is running a high fever, he can’t go out on patrol. But the sergeant was a coward, and the commander wasn’t there, and so he just hemmed and hawed and said he couldn’t see what he could do. And then you picked up Kenan’s rifle and put on his cartridge belt and said, in that case, I’m Kenan. And then, so that everyone would think you were Kenan, you lay him down on your own bunk, and wrapped him up well, so no one could see his face. Stay here, you said. Don’t get up, on any account. And then you went out on guard duty. And that night, his station was involved in a skirmish. And it was you who fought it out with the smugglers until dawn. At the crack of dawn you rushed back to the dormitory and took him very quietly out to the trench, so that the commander wouldn’t find out. What our dear departed friend told me was that if he’d gone into that skirmish running that high fever, he’d have taken a bullet, most definitely. Because it was a serious skirmish, a few smugglers were killed and a few soldiers wounded, and sheep and horses lost their lives, too. .’

‘It’s like a dream,’ said Ziya. ‘I remember him collapsing on his way out to guard duty, and I remember he had a fever, but the rest is a blank. I was blind drunk at the time, though.’

‘How strange,’ said Kâzım.

For a time neither spoke.

‘So, fine,’ said Ziya in a trembling, plaintive voice. ‘What led to this knifing?’

‘I didn’t want to do it,’ Kâzım said softly. ‘Such a thing would never occur to me. I don’t even carry a knife. Everyone in the village knows this. . On the day of the incident, I was sitting with our dear departed friend in the Coffeehouse of Mirrors. As always I was advising him to tell you what the situation was. I was telling him that he was never going to be able to repay his debt just by taking a donkey up the mountain every night and selling wood. I was saying it would never work. And he was sitting there, clutching his knees, and nodding his head off, saying, all right, brother. You’re right, brother. Hem brother. Haw brother. But then, for some reason, his mood changed. Little by little, he became more stubborn. And when he started making faces — and God is my witness, I have no idea why — something strange came over me. And then, before I knew it, we were arguing, and then suddenly the flame shot up, and he was so furious when he stood up he almost knocked over his chair. He didn’t know what he was doing, and that’s why I’m sure he had no idea what he was going to do next. I jumped out of my chair, too, of course, and as God alone can tell you, I didn’t know what I was going to do either. There was no next step. We had jumped to our feet and that was all that kept us there. I can’t tell you about mine, but our friend’s eyes were on fire, and he was trembling — I could almost see the waves travelling down his arms and legs. And so we stood there, ready to pounce on each other, yelling and shouting, but I have no idea what we said. And then, I have no idea how, but there, in my hand, was that infidel knife. It was almost as if someone had come and put it into my hand on purpose. Do you know what I’m saying? Or they put it near me, so that I could use it. Or my hand wandered off like an animal, without my knowledge, and came back with that knife. I still haven’t found a way to understand this part of it. Honestly, I still can’t understand it. It was as if someone else had control of my hand, and it was not until afterwards that I had any idea what I’d done. To tell the truth, it was only when I saw blood spurting from Kenan’s leg that I realised what I’d done. And all this while, everyone else in the coffeehouse just sat there, dumbstruck. No one tried to pull us apart. They just sat there, watching the fight. Maybe it was the knife, or the way it glittered, or maybe it was because nothing had happened yet. Maybe they were under the control of some other power, too, I just don’t know. If I know anything, it’s this: as I stood there with that knife, the person I was facing was not Kenan. It was afterwards he turned back into Kenan. Our beloved Kenan. .’

Suddenly Kâzım’s hands shot up to his face as he burst into tears. Ziya was already distraught beyond words, and now, as he looked at Kâzım, he had no idea what to do.

‘I felt such shame,’ Kâzım said as he blew his nose, ‘I couldn’t even go to Kenan’s funeral. I spent that day pacing up and down this courtyard like a mad cow.’

‘If only none of this had ever happened,’ said Ziya in a mournful voice.

Then he stood up and made his excuses, saying he was feeling ill. Kâzım stood up with him. After blowing his nose again, he wiped the tears off his cheek with the back of his hand.

‘Are you going to stay here in this village?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Ziya said. ‘In fact, I have to stay. How could I ever leave, if it meant leaving Kenan’s mother in the lurch, not to mention his sister, and his nephew, and his uncle?’

Kâzım looked at him in anguish.

‘I’ll pay you back your money,’ said Ziya. ‘Tomorrow’s Tuesday, isn’t it? I can take the Ovaköy minibus to town and withdraw the money from the bank.’

Kâzım nodded.

The next morning Ziya woke up early and rushed down to the village meydan . Off he went to town in the Ovaköy minibus. But he did not see the forests they passed through, or the hills, or the curves, or the pure waters running under the stone bridges. He did not even see the town. Instead of waiting for the Ovaköy minibus, he rushed back in a taxi at midday. The moment he arrived back in the village, he walked underneath the nettle tree and went straight into Kâzım’s house to give him the money. This time he did not pause to knock on the door. He just turned the handle and opened the door and looked straight over at the sedir on the left-hand side of the courtyard. And there he saw Kâzım, sitting in just the same place as the day before. At the foot of the bench were two bald chickens wandering amongst their own feathers. As soon as they had greeted each other, Ziya handed him the money he’d withdrawn from the bank. Kâzım didn’t count the notes. He just put them into his pocket, looking ashamed, and took in a deep breath.