Birds Without Wings (7 page)

The people who had remained in the town, rather than gone to harvest tobacco, raisins and figs, came to their doors and gazed in wonder at the wild man and his retinue. Some women snatched their children away, but these were soon replaced by new ones. The men at the coffeehouses stopped their games of backgammon, and came out into the streets, their fat cigarettes clamped in their lips, and their fezzes at individual angles upon their heads. They stroked their stubble in amusement, or twisted the ends of their hyperbolical moustachios, exchanging amused smiles and wry comments, shrugging their shoulders, and then returning to their idleness. They had seen more than a few itinerant beggars in their time, although very few kept their eyes on the distance as this man did, as if he were at the helm of a ship whose crew was thirsty for land. One might think that at some time this man had been important, and had never lost his habit of lordly foresight and indifference.

Through the narrow walkways he went, pausing for nothing, even striding over the back of a recumbent camel that had obstinately blocked the route, placing his foot at the base of its neck, and causing it to grunt in protest and surprise. Dogs cowered away and chickens scattered; travelling merchants stared after him; the imam, Abdulhamid Hodja, reined in his silvery horse to let him pass; the priest, portentous and dignified in his black robes and grizzled beard, moved aside, struck suddenly by the strange and disorientating feeling that he did not exist.

People noticed that the Dog’s feet were cut and bloody, as if he had walked for days, unconscious of his pain or of the danger of infection. They noticed that there was something untamed and prophetic in his demeanour, and assumed that he must be a dervish belonging to one of the many brotherhoods of Sufis. The town had not yet had a genuine saint in residence, and there were those who were struck immediately by the hope that one had at last arrived. Lovers of wonders looked forward to miracles, and traders and artisans clapped their hands together at the thought of the custom of pilgrims. Those of extreme theological sophistication, of whom, it must be admitted, there were practically none apart from the imam, were gratified that someone might have turned up who would lend their shoulder to the great cosmic wheel, directing their spiritual power to the sustention of the universe.

The Dog perplexed everybody on his passage through the streets by omitting to beg for anything. Onward he strode, his eyes fixed on another
world, perhaps upon the past, or perhaps upon the inward turmoil of his thoughts. He passed the last houses, turning leftward and upward, surmounting the crest of the slope, standing there for a moment, his head moving mechanically from side to side as if waiting to be inspired. Suddenly, his mind made up, he headed towards the open cave from which the lime was mined. Watched by the children, who had now grown solemn and silent, some of them holding hands, he entered it, ran his fingers over the rough surface of its walls, and sniffed the atmosphere, his nostrils flaring with each breath. He smelled the sour perspiration of the generations who had hacked away at this powdery stone, he smelled the excrement of bats, and then, making the decision that he would not live in there, he left.

Still ignoring the children, he approached a pillar tomb, twenty feet high, curiously touched the Lycian script, and gazed upward, blinking against the clean light of the sky, contemplating the possibility of inhabiting the flat roof, like a latter-day Simeon Stylites. He grasped the massive stone and climbed a few feet, his muscles knotting, his fingers and toes seeking out the chips and indentations left by the ancient masons, his breath coming in rasps, and then he leapt back down, evidently uninspired.

The Dog began to explore the few sarcophagi that the centuries had left intact, followed by the children, who now began to join in the hunt, touching his elbow and pointing the way from one tomb to another. He ignored them still, peering inside each structure, caressing the carvings of warriors, lions and chimaeras. He inspected the huge slabs that made up the roofs, some of them carved in the shape of a keeled boat, but upside down, and some of them scalloped to represent the roof tiles of a house. He lay experimentally upon the stone bench inside each tomb, searching among those resting places for the couch that would be most comfortable.

Dissatisfied with the sarcophagi, realising perhaps that they were too much in the sun, he approached two large tombs that had been carved into the vertical face of a small cliff nearby. One was cut in the shape of a temple, and the other in the shape of a house. Inside each were three benches, one at the back and one at each side. The paintings upon the walls had been much defaced, partly by those who disapproved of figurative art on religious grounds, and partly because of the smoke and soot of two thousand years’ worth of goatherds’ fires. The Dog found these two spacious tombs to be both airy and well aspected, giving a fine view over the valley, and accordingly he laid down his quarterstaff, unslung his water flagon, and sat down on the step, between the porticos of the temple tomb. On the pediment above was inscribed in the as yet undeciphered Lycian
script “Philiste, daughter of Demetrius, built this for Moschus, whom she loved.” Underneath were written details of the fine for violation, and at the apex was carved in bas-relief a pair of open hands, the Lycian symbol for unnatural, violent and untimely death.

The Dog looked at the children for the first time, and smiled.

So horrifying was that smile that the children screamed, and ran, tumbling helter-skelter over the rocks, cutting themselves on thorns. Drosoula, Philothei, Karatavuk, Mehmetçik, Ibrahim and Gerasimos would remember that appalling sight as long as they lived, and it would haunt their nightmares forever, sometimes coming back to them at moments when they should have been at peace.

That evening, the priest, Father Kristoforos, and the imam, Abdulhamid Hodja, encountered each other before the tomb, coincidentally but for identical reasons. Both men wished to know whether or not the newcomer was a member of his flock, and both were just as curious as the children had been, if not more so, now that the latter had told everyone about the Dog’s disfigurement.

Abdulhamid Hodja reined in the spirited and exquisite Nilufer, and was tying her somewhat insecurely to an oleander bush, when Father Kristoforos came from another direction, having perspired his way up the slope in a route more direct, but steeper, than that followed by the imam and his horse.

Abdulhamid touched his right hand to his chest, to his lips, and to his forehead, saying, “Ah, Imansiz Efendi, iyi akşamlar.”

The priest smiled, returned the flowery gesture, and replied, “And good evening to you, Apistos Efendi.” The two men had for many years enjoyed the pleasantry of greeting each other as “Infidel Efendi,” the one in Turkish and the other in Greek, and had struck up a cordial relationship based upon mutual respect, somewhat tempered by an awareness that there were many of both faiths who would look askance at such a friendship. They visited each other’s houses only when it was dark, and were much inclined to waste entire nights in long and occasionally heated theological discussions that enervated their families, who were trying to sleep, and always ended with one or other of them saying, “Well, after all, we are both peoples of the Book.”

The two men presented an alarming sight to the Dog, appearing like that, both at once, at the entrance to his new accommodation. It was not often that a Christian priest, in his capacious black robes, bosky beard and lofty headdress, poked his head round one’s door at the same time as an
imam with his white turban, well-combed beard and green cloak. The Dog cowered, placed his arms across his forehead and eyes, as if to protect his face, and shrunk into the corner where he had been sitting, until then, in the perfect stillness of contemplation.

Abdulhamid Hodja and Father Kristoforos exchanged glances, and the latter said “Merhaba” in the hope that such an informal and friendly greeting would reassure the trembling man. “Salaam aleikum,” said the imam, wishing to emphasise by his greeting that they had come in peace.

“We have come to find out who you are, and whether you want anything,” he continued, subduing his voice in a spirit of gentleness.

The man lowered his arms and looked at them. Suddenly he wiped soot off the wall with one finger, and on the bench he wrote something in swirling Arabic characters that the priest did not understand. Abdulhamid Hodja noticed the priest’s puzzlement, and said, “It means ‘The Dog.’ Perhaps he is telling us that he is unclean.”

“From where do you come?” asked Abdulhamid, and the Dog dipped his finger in the soot, and wrote again. Once more the imam read it for the priest: “It says ‘Hell.’ ”

“We have come to see if we can help you,” offered Father Kristoforos, whereupon the Dog wrote “Yalniz kalmak isterim.”

“He says, ‘Leave me alone,’ ” said Abdulhamid Hodja.

“We will bring you food and blankets,” persisted the priest, and it was then that the Dog smiled, causing both of the visitors to recoil in alarm. “God have mercy,” exclaimed the imam.

CHAPTER 8

I Am Philothei (2)

Once when I was about eleven I heard that Ibrahim was ill, and we didn’t have any candles to take into the church, so instead I stole some bread from the table, and some figs, and I took them out and went out to find a beggar, but there weren’t any in the vicinity except for the one called the Blasphemer, and he was very abject because he was the most unpopular beggar in the town because he said filthy things whenever he saw a man of religion, and I didn’t want to give him the bread and figs, but finally I couldn’t find another beggar to give it to, and I said to the Blasphemer, “This is because Ibrahim is unwell,” and he was aware that charity cures the sick, and so he was good about it, and he said, “May the sick one get well, little girl, and may God make you strong as well,” and not long afterwards Ibrahim recovered, and after that I always gave alms to the Blasphemer as long as no one was looking.

This happened not long after the day of St. Nicholas, when all the young men who have gone to the cities return for the feast, and so this is the best time of year for the beggars, because the young men get drunk and become generous, and the Blasphemer was the only one who had received nothing until I gave him the bread and figs.

CHAPTER 9

Mustafa Kemal (3)

Mustafa Kemal is fourteen and has gone to the Military Training School at Manastir. It is 1898 and here beneath Mount Pelister the Greek and Slav bandit-liberators are still bringing chaos to the region, and even in the school itself there is vicious gang warfare. Greece sends irregulars to fight the Ottomans in Crete, and the Sultan declares war. The streets are crowded with soldiers, drummers, flag-wavers. Mustafa wants to run away to join the army, but the war turns out to be too short, and he will have to wait for another one.

At school Mustafa Kemal has a history teacher who enlightens him as to matters of politics, and there is a boy called Ömer Naci who writes poetry, and whose enthusiasm causes Mustafa to open his mind to literature. He learns the art of oratory, and dabbles in verse himself. He has another friend called Ali Fethi, also a Macedonian, who is crazy about French philosophy. Mustafa is ashamed of his poor French, but he knows that it is the key to European civilisation, and so he studies it in his spare time at a course run by French Dominicans. Before long he and Ali Fethi will be discussing the deliciously forbidden texts of Voltaire and Montesquieu.

At home in Salonika Mustafa’s social and sexual education proceeds with even greater élan than his academic. He shuns the Muslim cafés, and goes instead to the Kristal, the Olympus, the Yonyo, where he and his friends can play backgammon for five-para coins, drink beer and stuff themselves with meze in the ribald company of Greeks. He takes dancing lessons, and goes to the
cafés chantants
, where there is music and dance performed by Jewesses, Italian girls, all the feminine exotica of the Levant, and they come and sit at his table and flirt with him. He understands that infidel girls are amusing, mettlesome and intriguing because they are allowed to be, unlike the quelled, imprisoned and uneducated women of his own race, who are only exceptionally more companionable or interesting
than an ox. In the brothels, Mustafa Kemal is sometimes entertained for free, because the girls adore his fair good looks and his extraordinary blue eyes. A girl of good family, whom he is supposed to be tutoring, falls passionately in love with him.