Latife Tekin - Berji Kristin - Tales from the Garbage Hills

While Şini Erol, in the words of the hut people, was ‘playing a hot game’ in the shop, Flower Hill resounded with news that was to ruin the happiness of all the huts including Şini Erol’s shop. They heard that in thirty days the government would tear down the homes built on the garbage hills. Garbage Chief with the Elders of Flower Hill behind him set off for the municipal office. But before they had even got down to Panty Way, the hut people had set up another committee of three, charged with the job of finding a piece of land suitable for hut building in the hills behind the city. The committee explored the far reaches of the city for three days and found a flat hilltop which overlooked the dazzling blue sea from among the pines. In alarm Garbage Chief made moves to prevent his leadership slipping from his grasp, but finally joined the Committee for Hut Locations. He abandoned his hut after being reassured that he would be made headman again, and off he went to the flat hill.

When the government heard that the Flower Hill folk were digging up and dividing the top of a hill overlooking the dazzling blue sea, they gave up the idea of destroying Flower Hill. They produced a document informing Flower Hill that the area on which it stood was the property of something called a Foundation and called upon the people to pay a settlement fee of 70,000 lira each. They announced that those who paid this sum could live in the huts, provided they all paid a yearly rent to the Foundation. After the announcement, the first step was to split up families, and brides, the elderly and children were charged with keeping watch on the flat hilltop which overlooked the dazzling blue sea. The others became responsible for the future of Flower Hill.

Mustafa Gülibik had a job in a workshop at the Flower Hill Industries producing armchair tassels. Spurred on by the squatters, he made a stirring speech before the municipal office which began, ‘Ataturk, for whom I would willingly lay down my life …’ He told how his grandfather had gone to fight in the First World War; even the hunting dog had followed him and wasn’t seen for seven years but returned with him from the war. He described how the dog, faithful to its owner, had made the whole village weep and did not forget to mention that his grandfather and his dog died fighting the Greeks. ‘Ataturk gave Flower Hill into our keeping’, he spluttered, flinging the words at the municipal office. As he tried to gather strength his face became bathed in sweat. Wiping away the sweat with one hand, he raised the other in the air and swore an oath that they would never hand over Flower Hill to be anyone else’s property. Elated by the squatters’ excited shouts and yells, he lost his head and let slip that he would do God knows what obscene act to the Foundation. The Flower Hill people applauded him warmly for this. He finished up speaking nervously in spurts and broken words and poured out curse after curse. The police who were trying to disperse the people had to fire in the air.

Cursing and swearing, the squatters made their way back to Flower Hill, and an argument erupted as to whether Mustafa Gülibik had spoken inappropriately. Some of the hut people agreed that although they had applauded him, there was no place for bad language in a speech, and others claimed that Flower Hill had nothing at all to do with wars past and gone. It emerged from these arguments, which ended in a beating for Mustafa Gülibik, that not only his grandfather’s dog but the dogs of all the grandfathers of the Flower Hill folk had gone to the war. But while the squatters were gathered together in their houses telling competing dog stories, four smartly dressed men who said they had come to Flower Hill from the Foundation looked round the huts. They collected money and gave false receipts and they left behind four more dog stories.

Nothing more was heard from the smartly dressed men and the suspicion grew that their stories had not been true either. The squatters who worked as regular municipal garbage collectors were asked to investigate. Much later the garbage collectors brought news that Flower Hill’s name had been erased from the map of the garbage hills and FOUNDATION had been written in red in its place. At the news, the word ‘Foundation’ suddenly took fire on the squatters’ tongues. They amicably drew up petitions together, signed them and went in a body to the police station and the municipal office. No one ever discovered what this ‘Foundation’ really was: what finally emerged was simply a new name for Flower Hill.

The Flower Hill people had set out as a community to found new quarters by dividing up the flat hilltop, and had already given it the name ‘Unity Neighbourhood’. But when they discovered that the name of Flower Hill had been struck off the map, they decided to call their new quarters ‘Unity Flower Hill’ instead.

Unity Flower Hill was so far, so very far away from

Foundation Hill that Flower Hill children who set off from there could only see the sky.

The Flower Hill people’s attempts to inhabit these two neighbourhoods simultaneously exhausted the children. The dream of the old and infirm was to see Unity Hill with their mortal eyes before they went on their pilgrimage to Mecca. As people shuttled to and fro between Flower Hill and Unity Hill, it became customary to see them off with tears and welcome them back with embraces. Every day the hut people took a few of their belongings to Unity Hill and after their final crowning move, the name Unity Hill survived for ever. But the new name, Foundation Hill, fell from favour and did not last a year. Several different names like ‘Flower Hill — Hashish Hiding Hole’ or ‘Flower Hill — Nest of Whores’ took its place.

While the Flower Hill people were going crazy between the two communities great numbers of men were fired from the Rubbish Road factories with their silent workers and noisy machines, and the Flower Hill women heard they would be taken on instead of the men. The Flower Hill girls gathered round factory doors were asked if they intended to get engaged, and the women if they intended to have babies. Those who were not going to marry or have a child were taken on and put to work. The result was broken engagements and a rush to the midwife to get rid of babies swelling in their wombs. When the women came to work on Rubbish Road, Unity Hill was left to the old and the men. With most women working on Flower Hill and their men on Unity Hill a condition called ‘the family disaster’ reared its head.

Three Flower Hill men had postponed marrying a second wife from Unity Hill because of an alert that the huts there might be demolished, but as soon as the danger was over they each looked around and took a second wife. Then one of the legally married wives murdered her fellow-wife with two stabs of the knife in the street. Another legal wife came from Foundation Hill to Unity Hill to stir up trouble and was carved up by her husband who had taken a second wife. After that, the third squatter’s new wife took all her bits and pieces and ran away. This woman managed to save her life, but the number of men and women who failed to save their lives increased every day. Ehmail the squatter who ran the grocery shop on Unity Hill heard that his wife who worked on Foundation Hill in the bulb factory had gone bareheaded and tossed her hair in the men’s faces as she passed the coffeehouses. He set out for Foundation Hill and tore out her hair until she bled. Some time later, when they had gone for a stroll one evening and she had refused his arm, he played the dictator even further. Forcing his wife back into his hut he strangled her with a piece of wire.

Although the other male squatters did not turn out as tyrannical as Ehmail, those women who lived on Foundation Hill and managed not to get shot or stabbed were considered to be of ‘exceptional ingenuity’. But Unity Hill became the stage for their raids, and only two male squatters succeeded in raising a family there with their second wives.