Latife Tekin: Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills

After giving the wreckers three days the hut people gathered at the garbage heap. They picked out a broken, splintered chunk of wood and with a piece of coal scrawled on it the letters ‘Battle Hill’. Then they carried it down and hung it on the wall of a workshop at the top of Rubbish Road. A month later this wooden nameplate was removed by two official-looking men and replaced by a blue metal plaque inscribed FLOWER HILL.

After the renaming, people heard the demolition had stopped and came to the Hill in their hundreds, deceived by the charm of its name. Deep holes were dug in Rubbish Road to stop them, and sand and gravel were brought up in huge trucks and dumped. But the people who swarmed to the hill grabbed their shovels, filled in the holes with the sand and gravel and continued up the road. In one night by lantern-light, a hundred more huts were erected on Flower Hill and next morning all adjacent vacant lots were shared out and the allotments marked off with small stones and wire. The owners arrived in ones and twos, laden with belongings from their villages. They set up their huts and took possession.

Before the flowers opened on Flower Hill, three separate communities had sprung up from the huts — some of which stood face to face and others sulkily back to back. The children gave names to all three. They called them Factory Foot, Garbage Pit, and Rivermouth.

When Flower Hill broke into blossom, the first thing to be erected by daylight was a mosque with a minaret made of tin plate, but the very day the mosque went up the night wind tore it apart and blew it away. The rumour spread that if anyone found the minaret and brought it back, everything they touched would turn to gold, and many went without sleep to search hilltop and valley. But in spite of all the searching the minaret was never found. The discussion over the lost minaret lasted for days until finally a decision was reached to build a new one, and as a result of these discussions one more commandment was added to the Five Pillars of Islam, ‘Thou shalt hold down the minaret at night.’ It was decreed that children, the handicapped, nursing mothers and pregnant women would be excused from holding the minaret, and it would be counted a sin if they did.

One morning a stone with an inscription was uncovered behind the mosque on Factory Foot. Word spread through the huts that a saint lay under the stone, and it was considered an offence to urinate or spit on the spot or pass by without saying a prayer. The whole community went to the stone and prayed for water. Metal bowls and little tins were filled with water and lined up round the stone to show the saint what water was. They explained the difficulties of carrying water from wells on top of far-away hills in tins dangling from both ends of a yoke slung across their backs. Buttons were undone and backs bared, and everyone in turn showed the stone the calluses on their necks and backs. From then on they carried water to the stone and bared their backs with prayers and invocations. But not one drop of water could be had from ‘Water Father’ and in time people forgot they had ever prayed to him for water. Instead, childless women and those with wishes to be fulfilled took him whatever they could spare from the little water in their cans — until there were so many bowls and tins at Factory Foot that they blocked the way.

One of the chemical factories was built over Water Father who lay right under the warehouse for raw materials, so when the warehouse workers began to die of poison, Flower Hill believed they had incurred Water Father’s anger.

In early summer, showers of pure white from this factory began to pour over Flower Hill. At first they thought it was snow and were amazed. Then an intolerable stench reached the huts and within three days this factory snow had withered the first blooms on Flower Hill and wilted the branches of trees. Hens curled up with drooping necks and died, and people were unable to hold their heads upright. In the middle of playing, children turned dark purple as if drugged and fell into a deep sleep. One of the sleeping children never woke up.

For days the factory which rained snow was pelted with stones. Its garden wall was torn down, gates were smashed and windows broken. There were rumours that the factory owner was going to bring down the huts and clear the neighbourhood. Flower Hill exploded with anger. Women marched on the factory with clubs, and when they entered and failed to find the owner they knocked the workers to the ground and beat them up. For days the men kept watch on the road for a glimpse of the owner but it was a never-ending vigil. Over the huts the factory snow grew to six inches deep. One noon when Flower Hill was only half conscious from the foul stink, a gift of yoghurt in white bowls arrived for everybody from the owner, followed by a man in white who went round the huts one by one examining the people. They gave up cursing the owner and everyone raised their hands in prayer to him. Once rewarded with their prayers, he flooded the neighbourhood with the hot bluish water in which the factory serum and medicine bottles were washed. That was a truly festive day for Flower Hill. They diverted the first jet of hot water and cemented round the channel where it flowed. A fountain was built there and for three whole days clothes, kilims, scraps of wool, pots and pans were washed in the hot water, and the children bathed. Only Flower Hill had the good fortune to wash in blue hot water under snow on a summer’s day. The men dragged an old truck chassis a long distance to the fountainhead and from then on married couples on the Hill took it in turns to get inside this chassis at night after intercourse and wash themselves in hot water. The enervating snow still fell, and in the light of the moon the blue water gleamed and splashed.

Before long, odd changes began to appear in those who washed in this water. The skin of some began to peel while the faces of others turned purple. Bright blue spots came out on the children’s bodies and the hair of two women went white. The clothes took on a blue colour which came to be known on Flower Hill as ‘Squatter’s Blue’.

Squatter’s Blue got into everything on Flower Hill. Lime for whitewashing the huts was mixed with the water and the huts, dyed blue, all looked alike and confused people. Then everyone put an individual mark on his hut; one inlaid the walls with coloured stones; another planted a tree in his garden; and another stuck a post in front of the hut and tied a rag to it. People were just becoming acquainted, so when they did not remember each other’s names, they were called after their signs, like ‘Waving Rag’ and ‘Inlaid Stone’. Some of the names were dropped altogether and forgotten and replaced by signs.

Ever since the first homes went up on Flower Hill, the women had organized nightly lantern groups. Lavatory pits had not yet been dug so they assembled and went off down to the stream together, initiating an entirely new custom as they went up and down. It was not done for women to go down to the stream in daytime and, if they saw a man bounding downhill, they giggled and shut their eyes. But when it was quite dark they quietly slipped out of their homes and tapped on each other’s windows. Every night there was a long procession as the women emerged holding their lamps and skipped quietly down to the stream.

These were the earliest customs established on Flower Hill. In time other customs were added to do with unemployment, wind and garbage. Some took root and remained, others vanished.

At one baby’s birth an argument over different customs and beliefs ended in a violent quarrel. Some women said that the baby girl arrived with Mother Fadime’s veil, a lucky omen, and they maintained that the Bird of Luck would perch on the head of anyone who took the veil and hid it in their bosom for three days. They advised the recital of the Mevlut. Another said that a woman who put the veil under her pillow for three days and slept on it would lengthen her days. Yet another declared that if any woman held the veil in her hand or in her bosom she would never in her life be hit by a bullet. The baby’s veil rose in value and got stolen, and immediately the child sickened. An old woman summoned to pray for the child said that unless the veil was found and put on its chest, the child would die in three days. In desperation Flower Hill chased after the veil to save the baby’s life, but meantime the baby died. The mother rose from her childbed and stoned the huts: she rushed on every woman she saw. Some ran inside and closed their doors, others threw stones that cut her head. When the men interfered, a fierce fight suddenly broke out involving the three communities. The dispute jumped from adults to children and for a time no one could go out alone on Flower Hill.