Oya Baydar - The Lost Word

Three fingers on the boy’s right hand are bent inwards, rigid.

‘Was that from using arms?’

‘No, it happened because I didn’t want to use a weapon. There was this sergeant of ours; he saw that during target practice I hit the target spot on, not missing a shot and he got it into his head that I had learnt to shoot in the mountains, that a separatist bandit had taught me how to use a gun. I kept telling him that I had never been up the mountains, but he didn’t believe me. One day he got really angry and kept going on at me saying, “Why don’t you say it? Why don’t you admit it?” I almost said that I’d been up the mountains and admitted to something that hadn’t happened. However, I was frightened that they would throw me in prison, take me to court for belonging to the rebel organization. I stood my ground saying, “I’ve never been on the mountains. I’ve had nothing to do with the guerrillas.” Then he thrust metal rods between my fingers and kept on hitting them. I fainted from the pain. My fingers have never been right since.’

‘So you can’t you use a gun any more.’

The boy gives an innocent, roguish laugh. ‘I’m good with my left hand, abi. If you’ve a good eye and the will, you can hit a target with your left hand just as well. In the barracks at the shooting range they had a sign up saying, “Shoot, hit the target and be proud.” By God, we can be proud of our shooting skills!’

Passing along the dusty streets in front of single-storeyed mudbrick houses, ugly, depressing apartment blocks of two to three storeys that have not been plastered and empty shops with broken windows, they arrive at a sizeable square of beaten earth with rubbish piled up in a corner.

‘Look. Here it is,’ he says, pointing to the house that has been painted with blue limewash in a corner of the square. He leads the way and taps on the half-open wooden door. ‘Hüseyin Dayı, you’ve got a visitor!’

The swarthy, hairy man who comes to the door in a white vest and blue tracksuit bottoms is astonishingly like Mahmut. For some reason Ömer had imagined that he was going to meet someone old, decrepit and slightly bent and had prepared himself accordingly, yet the man looks about fifty, well built and robust.

‘This man has brought news from your son. He’s one of our writers — one of us.’

The boy’s rash ingenuous trust unsettles Ömer. Only ten or so minutes earlier the boy had been mistrustful, suspicious and distant. To have half-heartedly defended the boy’s right to learn his mother tongue was enough to win his friendship, his trust. Innocence still maintained amid so much blood…

‘I hope there’s nothing wrong. Come and sit down,’ says the man somewhat anxiously. From inside he brings out two plastic chairs and places them on either side of the table covered with a floral plastic tablecloth. The lad who has shown the way sits on the door-sill. A little girl with black curly hair wearing a long printed cotton dress is running around.

‘Our grandchild,’ explains the man, ‘a reminder of my eldest son. Mahmut is the youngest.’

His speech and voice remind him of Mahmut. What am I going to tell him? How am I going to tell him why I came? ‘My name is Ömer. Ömer Eren. I met Mahmut by accident in Ankara. He’s in good health. I was coming this way on business, and he said that if I happened to pass by I should call in on his parents — tell them not to worry about him. He told me a little about you leaving your village and your efforts to encourage him to study and get a good career.’ He is aware that his words sound artificial and insincere. These words would not open any doors, reach people, reveal any truths or pull the word out of the depths in which it was lost.

The man, to buy time or to save himself time, calls to the little girl in Kurdish. As far as Ömer can make out, he asks for tea. She runs inside. A few minutes later she returns with a the bottom half of a plastic bottle with yellow, red and green artificial flowers in it. She places the vase, the sight of which pulls at Ömer’s heartstrings, in the middle of the table covered with the plastic cloth. She says something in Kurdish. Her eyes are sparkling with joy, crystal clear, wide open and gleeful.

‘She has brought you flowers,’ says the man. ‘She says she likes you very much. Ever since her father left she always does this when a strange man comes to the house. She gets really excited.’

They cease talking. The lad who showed the way breaks the silence. ‘She doesn’t know Turkish. None of us do until we start school when it gets beaten into us. Then we are angry with our mothers because they don’t know Turkish. We are angry because they are not Turks. The teacher bans Kurdish, and we remain mute until we have learnt Turkish.’

A tall, very slim young woman brings tea on a copper tray. She has a band of gold coins on her forehead, and her black hair escaping from her white headscarf has fallen on her shoulders. She says something to the little girl who has knelt down at Ömer’s knee. Perhaps she doesn’t want her to annoy the guest. She leaves the tray on the table and goes inside trailing her long colourful, flowery skirt. It is hot. The breeze that blows intermittently causes the fresh leaves of the poplar trees to tremble and pollen to scatter in the air. Crows fly about in the sky, emitting a continual hideous cawing.

‘Our tree is the poplar,’ says the man. ‘No other tree grows, and if it does we don’t know how to cultivate it successfully. Our tree is the poplar. Our bird is the crow. No other bird comes to these parts. And we have snow in winter. It stays on the ground for seven or eight months. Then the roads are completely closed. We can’t get out of the town even if someone is desperately ill.’

From where they are sitting Ömer looks at the bare grey hills visible on the horizon. Soft hills that are unlike the formidable majestic, rugged mountains that he saw on the road, that have a mysterious attraction and stretch in waves as far as the eye can see. ‘How beautiful the hills are over there — but quite barren.’

‘Those are our burnt mountains,’ says the man in a voice resigned to fate and sadness which no longer harbours anger.

Damn it! Why didn’t I think of it? How could I forget? Is this the fire that burns the place it falls on? We spoke a lot, and we wrote a great deal about the burning and destruction. But then we forgot. I forgot. That means that the fires that scorch the villages, forests and mountains could not get past our tongues and reach the depths of our hearts. What we said and wrote remained merely an idea, a political stand, and could not be transformed into conscience, emotion, pain and rebellion. Ömer Eren feels a strange uneasiness. He could feel his scalp prickling with sweat. Now the little girl returns with some sickly-looking daisies with crushed petals and puny stems. Holding out the drooping flowers to her beloved stranger, where words are insufficient, the child tries to speak with the language of her eyes in which all the hopes and longings of her childhood are concentrated.

Opposite burnt mountains; the artificial flowers on the table covered with a plastic cloth, the drooping daisies in the child’s hand, the longing in her heart for the father she doesn’t know, the square of beaten earth stretching away in front of the house — it’s obviously the place where the youths play football — poplar trees here and there and cawing crows … Within him sadness that grows more oppressive the longer it stays and is internalized and which sits on his chest like a cannonball, and shame that brings tears to his eyes — why am I ashamed? — desperation and rebellion. He sits the little girl on his lap. ‘What a pretty little girl you are! How do you say thank you in Kurdish?’