Latife Tekin - Berji Kristin - Tales from the Garbage Hills

A new business, ‘Door Trade’, emerged from the enthusiasm of the Flower Hill community for the old embossed doors. And from that day trucks loaded with old doors roamed around the squatter communities. Whenever a community was starting up on one of the city hills, harvests of doors were stored at the top. The doors of crumbling mansions and stone buildings had climbed the hills, and the reign of Garbage Grocer’s lion-headed embossed door had ended.

While the huts were being fitted with embossed doors, Garbage Grocer shut himself up for a time. Then, after a long silence, he summoned the men of Flower Hill to a meeting in his shop. He announced that Flower Hill mosque was too far from where his father lived; and asked for a second mosque to be built nearer. He said he had come to an understanding with Garbage Owner that if they agreed to build a mosque he would distribute money to the houses to wash the bits of plastic rummaged from the refuse. He rejoiced that the job of refuse-washing would eradicate unemployment. But Garbage Grocer’s request for a mosque met with opposition on Flower Hill and the news that he had come to an understanding with Garbage Owner led to comments he found intolerable. He was so furious that he enclosed the land facing his front door. He built a mosque with a brass-knockered door for his father and he planted a tin minaret in his garden, the height of two men, that shone when the sun caught it. When he planted the minaret, words passed between Garbage Grocer and the Flower Hill folk and whatever he said was exaggerated and taken the wrong way. Then competition set up. First of all, Nylon Mustafa built a mosque in front of his hut, the height of his father. He stuck a bent tin can on the top and called it a minaret, and he perched a star and crescent on the point of the minaret. Following Nylon Mustafa’s example, a few more rebellious huts demanded mosques and they were joined by others complaining, ‘What about our fathers!’ In the other huts anger swelled against those who fooled about with mosques as though they were toys. But when the third mosque hut was built in the Garbage Pit neighbourhood the anger turned into a race which ran and ran until snow fell on Flower Hill. Thanks to Garbage Grocer’s heart which was exalted as the stars, Flower Hill was endowed with seven mosque huts.

Snow came sifting and drifting from heaven and stopped them planting minarets in front of their huts. And along with the wind it forced the Flower Hill folk inside and shut their embossed doors on them. Its flakes were caught in the roaring wind and tossed away. The factory rejects turned to ice under the snow. Where the bluish hot water slipped past, a bluish vapour licked at the snow and swallowed it up. It tore off the white snow cover and dissolved it. Everywhere the seagulls screeched together with laughter and swarmed over the garbage hills, their cries stifled, as they buried their beaks in the refuse. The factory rumble turned into the growl of the giant who lived over the mountains in Liverman’s stories.

Here today, gone tomorrow

There were many men to follow

With the beginning of winter one of these men appeared on Flower Hill, a snowy scene surrounded by factories and garbage mounds. As well as clever Keloǧlan and brave Beybörek he conjured up giantesses and rich merchants, wise old men and fairy folk and began telling his nightly tales to the people of Flower Hill. Before launching into his story he rolled his clicking tongue round his mouth and recited a long jingle, inspired by his trade as liver-seller at the stadium gates. Then he took up the ‘Epic of the Livermen’ and related the fortunes of a huge family who had been selling liver fries for seven generations. Seven times during the Epic the Livermen quarrelled and broke up, but each time they reunited. In the end they parted, never to come together again. The Livermen Epic began many many years ago at the foot of white, foam-like hills of salt merging with the clouds, and as it ended with the Livermen dispersed to the four corners of the earth, the Flower Hill folk sighed and sobbed. The Epic was followed by Beybörek’s relentless struggle with the merchants and the giantesses. After a breathtaking account lasting three nights, all about Beybörek’s adventures, Liverman was firmly enthroned in the hearts of the hut people. Once he started the tale of Keloǧlan, his name took precedence over Güllü Baba’s, Kibriye Ana’s and Garbage Grocer’s. His stories even replaced Fidan’s night lessons.

Liverman had four grown-up sons and two daughters. People talked about his wife rather than his daughters because of her enormous sagging hips. Before capturing the hearts of the Flower Hill folk, Liverman had been best known for the double pair of spectacles which he kept in his chest pocket, and for the pile of newspapers tucked under his arm when he made his regular appearance every evening on Flower Hill. Since no one on Flower Hill was as fond of newspapers as Liverman, they used to mock the way he read lying down in the middle of his hut. As soon as he reached his hut he would stretch out on the floor and spread out the papers like a huge rug. He picked at the seeds of a large dried sunflower by his side and read the papers, changing his spectacles every now and then. He lay motionless in the middle of the hut, breathing softly until he nodded off. Then he curled up under the papers and fell asleep. During the day he and his sons sold liver at the stadium gates he mentioned in his jingle, at the head of Rubbish Road and at the horse races. His sons donned white aprons like his and white puckered bonnets. On their way to work, each held a glass bowl in his right hand full of tiny pieces of liver that stared with demons’ eyes at the Flower Hill children. As the children scattered to the garbage mounds Liverman would reach Rubbish Road, his sons following him in descending order. Rumours about Liverman’s family ran rife in the huts on Flower Hill. One was about how they quarrelled and broke up every year and how they never managed to stay in any one place for longer than a winter. No one on Flower Hill knew the reason for the quarrels which made them leave their homes and disperse, nor was it known how they found one another again or where they reunited. They had lived for a while in each of the neighbourhoods in the area known as the city’s garbage hills, including Flower Hill, but had quarrelled and fled from each one of them.

This rumour was strengthened by the squatters from other communities who came to Liverman’s hut and knelt there for three nights to listen to the story of Beybörek. More and more people believed in the truth of the rumour as Liverman would always begin a new tale by first reciting the episode of the dispersal from the Livermen Epic. Everyone, young and old, began to look forward to the quarrel that would break out in Liverman’s home. As they waited in anticipation of a fight, they heard that an election would be held for a headman of Flower Hill. Then the word spread that Liverman had announced he would stand as candidate with the blessing of his giantesses, merchants and wise old men. Next day they heard that Nylon Mustafa too would be leaving the privacy of his hut to stand in the election. As whispers raced from hut to hut, Garbage Grocer’s aspiring heart took fire, and his eyes were clouded by the vision of headmanship. Taking a square sheet of paper, he wrote down the reasons why he thought he should be elected, and stuck it up on his shop window. So white was this paper that the snow felt envious.

Worthy people of Flower Hill!

Would he who sleeps on the floor of his hut under a pile of newspapers make you a good headman?

Would he who sells liver at the horse races make you a good headman?

A fellow who stands by the stadium gates until dark and keeps company with Keloǧlan until morn?