Latife Tekin - Berji Kristin - Tales from the Garbage Hills

Discriminating people of Flower Hill, Would Nylon Mustafa make you a good headman?

A fellow who says ‘Adam and Eve are the forbears of man but who are the forbears of dogs?’

Would he who kept watch at the building site of the chemical factory make you a good headman?

Ferat Karabacak the grocer,

your candidate for headman.

Following the Grocer’s appeal to the people’s critical faculties, Nylon Mustafa came out from his hut and knocked on the door of each and everyone who had laughed at him for saying that men who wanted to find out about the world must let their intelligence take its course. He reminded them that curiosity was controlled by of the mind. He began his election campaign by explaining that an enquiry about the forbears of dogs was a way of finding out about the world and, to convince the squatters of the agility of his mind, he gave examples of the range of his own enquiries. He also declared he couldn’t work out why God wanted men to pray to Him when He had so many angels. When he saw what astonishment his words aroused in people he became quite pedantic and asked them if they knew that men had dealt a blow at the Prophet of God. He had always wondered why God had not protected His Prophet from blows. He announced that in his hut he kept a precious illustrated book that had everything in it about the ways of the world and he hinted that for a long time he had been close to discovering the secret of man. He said the path was open to those who went about meditating and told them how he had spent his childhood wondering whether people with green eyes saw the world green. He explained to the electorate that those who were curious were also soft-hearted, and that all habits were acquired in childhood. While on the one hand he delved deep into his memories, on the other he accused Garbage Grocer of being slow-witted. Flower Hill was filled to the brim with people who spent all day at the factory gates, in front of the stadium and on the streets. He swore he didn’t know who could be expected to vote for the Grocer. The power of his intellect shook Flower Hill and his comments on Garbage Grocer sparked off much discussion among the hut people. Liverman, who had so far tried to keep his hold on their hearts with the help of Beybörek and Keloǧlan, now came forward with new tales and wrestling stories. All those who had spent the day in discussion gathered in his hut in the evenings. ‘When snow fell on Flower Hill and chimneys blazed’ was how he began his speech for the headmanship. He switched from tales to wrestling stories, breaking off at the most exciting moment with the problems of Flower Hill, and he made his appeal to the electorate with spitfire eloquence.

While the people of Flower Hill lay down to sleep, relaxed by Liverman’s tales but muddled by the multitude of Nylon Mustafa’s enquiries about the world, Garbage Grocer held conversations in quiet corners with Garbage Owner. After a while the Grocer made his way among the squatters with plans of settlement and started talking about something called ‘bureaucracy’. He announced he would go into bureaucracy when he was elected headman of Flower Hill and referred to the party and the flag, spreading the word that he would distribute title deeds for the huts. He talked about gleaming golden water taps in the homes, promising that Flower Hill would be flooded with lights, and that power lines would encircle the huts. He took Flower Hill by storm with his speech on bureaucracy and the settlement plans drawn up on purple paper.

Nylon Mustafa was alarmed when he saw people running towards the Grocer’s hut and proclaimed that he was ‘the candidate of the workers and watchmen with crooked necks’. But the Grocer was quick to corner Nylon Mustafa with God’s angels and the blows at His Prophet. He kept saying Nylon Mustafa had let his mind run dry and spread the word that he denied God. Nylon Mustafa insisted that curiosity was not denial, that as a child he would sit by the rocks and wonder if the world was nothing but his village. But such words were in vain, and so were his efforts when he tried to prove that he was a soft-hearted candidate by describing how as a child he used to make hammocks and rock the baby goats in them. Nylon Mustafa was turned away from every door he knocked at. Leaving the people of Flower Hill to their own aspirations, their eyes dazzled by the gleam of bright yellow taps and their ears hearing nothing but the sound of running water, he retreated to his hut. He bent over his precious book with the illustrations and began to wonder why animals fed on each other. He was surprised that the snake would swallow a nestling. He tried to understand why God hadn’t put the world in better order and set himself to think.

After Nylon Mustafa had withdrawn to his hut, Garbage Grocer revived the rumour that Liverman’s family would quarrel and disperse. Relying on the knowledge he acquired from the papers as he ate sunflower seeds, and on the excitement of his wrestling stories, Liverman stood firm. Every evening he let his wrestlers come to rest at the most unexpected moments, saying ‘so now let’s hear what Liverman’s wife has to tell us’, and passed the word to his spouse of the sagging hips. Facing the people of Flower Hill as they all sat sighing and panting in excitement, Liverman’s wife said, ‘We may quarrel and break up, but we always return and make peace with each other’. She then went on at great length about what a loving and devoted family they were. Although they split up every year, she boasted, they could never stay apart but rushed back to embrace one another because they could not stand separation. But breaking up and reuniting was not accepted as something to boast about on Flower Hill. Once it was confirmed by Liverman’s family that they did quarrel and split up, it was thought disgraceful that they should boast about it too. What Liverman’s wife said made the hut people laugh and his family were left on their own with their wise old men and sweaty wrestlers. Liverman stopped telling stories; Beybörek went to rest on the divan, holding his sword, and Keloǧlan hung his head. Liverman’s hut was buried in silence and, as the snow caressed the huts of Flower Hill, the silence grew more and more uneasy. Soon after, a fight broke out between Liverman’s family and the rich merchants. All sorts of noises came from the hut, grumbles and screams mingled with shouts and curses, and one evening Liverman left his hut and went away, cursing and swearing. Then his sons and daughters took to the streets and finally Liverman’s wife charged out of Flower Hill, beating her breast. For days nobody went near their hut, and the doors and windows stayed open.

I’ll swoop from the huts like a bird,

I’m a Garbage Hill youth,

See how I’ll spread the word

For Cemal the Kurd.

In the early spring, Kurd Cemal knocked on Garbage Grocer’s door, now Garbage Chief, carrying a white-flowering branch as long as his arm and accompanied by two of his gunmen. The story went that the huts on the garbage hills were originally founded ‘in Kurd Cemal’s name’. He was the one responsible for the restless spreading of the huts. One morning he had come to the garbage heaps, far down Flower Hill at that time but now submerged under a rash of huts. The place was like a devil’s lair; not a soul was to be seen but the truck drivers. Round about was pure desolation. As the early sun struck the mounds, Kurd Cemal could hardly see for the gleam and glitter of fragments of tin and broken glass. He compared the surrounding scene with his own village and wept, and when he had wiped away his tears which dripped on the glitter and mingled with the water trickling down the garbage, he established his authority on the slope. He divided up all the neighbouring land into plots and sold them. After the wrecking of the original huts had stopped, one by one he gathered the young layabouts who wandered aimlessly about the huts and distributed knuckledusters, money and guns. The young fellows called themselves ‘Pot Belly’ and ‘Dragon’. They were swift as seabirds swooping from the roofs, as they opened the way for Kurd Cemal. They learned to say — ‘Here in garbage land we’re the ones to lay down the rules and regulations’. Gunfire replaced the noise of wreckage and demolition, and so began the ‘Youthful Days’ of the huts on the garbage hills.