Afterwards the Tent Stewards were dismissed and ‘New Blood’ workers were taken on at the car battery factory. The strikers with lead poisoning went off down Rubbish Road and kept looking back until they were out of sight. The name ‘Tent Steward’ was left behind as a reminder to the workers on the road. After that strike, anyone who called a meeting in the factory changing-rooms, or in the toilets or picket lines and spoke of exploitation and the existence of a working class, was known as Tent Steward. Like raising the tent, the banner and the song, it became the custom to fly pigeons during strikes and they believed that the factory where the pigeon settled on a roof or chimney would have the next strike. The workers of that factory would be called out with shouts and applause, and while they were all dancing, the strikers’ tent would be passed on to the workers of the factory elected by the pigeon.
The white dove swooped on the lightbulb.
Were her wings empty or laden?
Laden! Oh laden!
With what was she laden?
With yoghurt and gifts
Of tobacco and sugar
And packets of tea!
The chemical workers gave their tent away to the workers of the lightbulb factory and their banner — ‘We Support You’ — was hung on the factory wall. There was a united shout of ‘Long Live Strikes!’. Then they lined up shoulder to shoulder to dance. The men of Flower Hill joined in too, shaking their shoulders. The children clapped, the women pointed at the dancing women workers and giggled and pinched one another.
Holding a white kerchief, Kara Hasan sprang from the line of dancers into the middle. With outstretched arms and bent knees, he started up a song about having his white horse shod. Gradually the song grew faint, high-pitched and breathless. Then Kara Hasan dropped his head on his twisted neck and slapping his hands on the soles of his feet whirled round and round, in ecstasy. The others had stopped dancing and everyone in Rubbish Road came to watch. Kara Hasan waved his kerchief and wriggled his shoulders until his shirt was stained with sweat. The more he danced the more he enjoyed it. And when he finally dropped back among the Flower Hill folk to general applause, he could not help dashing back to his hut where he looped wire round his ears and attached animal skins to his back and front. He came back to the picket line with a thin stick in his hand and began to dance again, swinging and dangling the animal hides. The entire Rubbish Road was on its feet. As he leapt about, the strikers watched and guffawed, and the Flower Hill folk clapped their hands. His stick lunged at the strikers and squatters, he rolled over and over on the ground and then took off the skins and spread them out on the picket line. He did not leave his place by the tent until the chemical workers went back to work.
While Kara Hasan was sitting by the tent with wires round his ears, all kinds of rumours were circulating through the Flower Hill community. On the first day of the strike the story spread that a sacrificial sheep was slaughtered at the tent door and its meat distributed as ‘The Chemical Workers’ Tool’. According to those who went to pray at the Flower Hill mosque with the tin minaret, the sacrifice was intended as an offering by the chemical workers to the Union. Most of the workers in Rubbish Road had hastened to join the Union, but the chemical workers could not make up their minds though they had meetings at night in their homes and by day in the coffee houses on Rubbish Road. They had been described as ‘Tool-less’ for not belonging to the Union, and they took the insult hard — it likened them to impotent husbands. So they distributed sacrificial meat as the ‘tool’ of their work-force and shouted and danced, their foreheads smeared with the blood of the sheep.
This story was mixed up with nasty rumours about why the hot water fountain had gone dry. Many cursed the workers for raising such a hue and cry, banging tin cans and flying pigeons, and others said that this was not the proper way to go out on strike. Then they heard that the Union would hire drummers and zurna players to play music for the strikers for three days and nights in Rubbish Road. When they heard this the Flower Hill folk were full of curiosity and began to argue about whether there was a place for music in a strike. The argument developed when some queried the reason for the strike in the first place and came to a head when they asked why people were constantly coming and going to the picket line carrying bits of cloth with writing on them. Some thought it was due to the sacrificial rite; those who had wishes they wanted fulfilled wrote them on the cloth which they had brought to hang up at the picket line. They had particular hopes and expectations from the tent and the sacrifice. Others believed that those who came were supporters of the strike who would still have come even if no sheep was slaughtered and no pigeon flown. The Union’s orders were that all its members should have support in a strike, and the tent and the pigeon were also subject to the Union. While everyone was asking one another what ‘The Union’ (sendika) meant, Güllü Baba explained that the name derived from the word ‘box’ (sandik). He told the Flower Hill folk, when they came to have their fortunes told, that where he used to work there were certain boxes into which the workers would cast bits of paper on which they had written their wishes and desires. He said that money was paid from these boxes for those who got married, or were bereaved, or who had an arm or leg caught in the machines. Güllü Baba’s explanations put the lid on the nasty rumours about why the hot water fountain had gone dry. The wishes of the Flower Hill folk were written on a piece of cloth, and the men and women of Flower Hill paid a visit to the picket line, with Güllü Baba in the lead. Flour, lentils and cracked wheat were collected from the households and given to the strikers and after reciting a prayer before the tent, Güllü Baba told the fortune of the strike, saying there was light at the beginning and end of it. He interpreted the dreams of the workers around him and foretold the future of Rubbish Road. Then in return for the breath and energy spent he asked that the banner bearing their wishes be hung in the right-hand corner of the picket line. The banner with the Flower Hill wishes was hung according to his request and remained at the factory entrance, adorning the picket line, until the last day of the strike.
The downy dove,
The strike-tent’s pole,
Water to drink
Is Flower Hill’s goal.
The hut people wrote long strings of verse in crooked writing expressing their wishes for work, roads, buses and schools. Dancing about in his animal skins, Kara Hasan recited these to music for all who came and went on the picket line. And he developed a new skill. Cupping his hands round his nose he began to imitate the melancholy notes of a zurna mourning the hut people’s troubles. He composed a song about their sufferings during the founding of the community, and about the roofs and cradles which flew away, and the snow which fell on the babies; it made the Rubbish Road workers weep. When he saw their tears Kara Hasan abandoned his skins and his white horse act. He removed the wires from his ears, and by listening to the talk of the workers and union members he discovered the factories’ secrets. He told the hut people about the moving conveyor belts, the drills that scattered sparks as they revolved, and the blades that cut through glass. He was quite beside himself when he described the machine that poured ‘snow’ on the huts.