Alhas’ astounding depth of knowledge made the hut people forget about the arrival of the gypsies on Flower Hill. His narrative was so embellished with references to unknown places and lists of dates that the squatters became curious about how all this knowledge had filtered into his head; they were no longer interested in the cardboard houses the gypsies would build or the pills that would float them to dreamland. Honking Alhas became the most talked-about squatter on the garbage hills. His hut was singled out from the others and people kept going up his street to knock on his door.
Throwing back his head haughtily and narrowing his eyes Alhas answered the questions put to him. He listed his reasons for accumulating all this knowledge, saying that the subject he had been most curious about all his life was the origin of human beings. The squatters gaped with amazement as he explained how he had discovered the chief ancestors and greatest saints of all the races of men. He told them the story of some of the races. He announced that the Laz were the grandchildren of the fishing tribes who had come as settlers from the north seas and that their ancestor was Chief Istafanos, leader of the first tribe to arrive. He smiled as he reminded them that most of the Laz did not even know the name of their ancestor. After Chief Istafanos he named a holy man of the Chinese, ‘Konfektyon’, and had much to say about him. He told them that the people of China lived their lives according to his teachings which they kept in a huge book that was one of the most valuable in the world. Then he gave them some of Konfektyon’s counsels.
Konfektyon’s name and counsels brought fame to Honking Alhas almost as great as Mr. Izak’s and Kurd Cemal’s. He felt he had to have a suit of shiny sky-blue material tailor-made for himself to merit the interest shown by the squatters. First he welcomed the squatters who came to his hut to receive Konfektyon’s words of wisdom and learn the names of their ancestors, then he withdrew to his back room. Donning his shiny sky-blue suit he came out to meet them. His hair was combed back except for a single wet curl, shaped like a rose leaf, which fell on his forehead. He raised his head high and took his place on the divan to deliver his lessons in history and humanity.
As the Flower Hill folk sat gazing at Honking Alhas on his divan, innumerable cardboard houses were set up on the garbage mounds. The gulls had their legs bandaged and came back to life, and while they perched on the backs of the bears and flew back and forth, the cardboard houses were having their interiors decorated with an assortment of objects retrieved from the garbage. Lines were stretched from one corner to another, and plastic dolls scavenged from the garbage, their hair and arms torn off, hung from them like bunches of grapes. Old fashion magazines thrown on the refuse heaps were stuck up on the cardboard walls, pinned open at their cover pages. The rest of the spaces were adorned with coloured glossy paper picked from the rubbish and cleaned up. Round or flattish bottles and tin cans with picture labels hung from the ceilings. Volumes of books in languages which even the Romanies did not understand were rescued from the garbage and spread on the floors. The divans made of garbage books were covered with gull feathers. The centre pages of the fashion magazines dangling on the walls like lanterns, turned this way and that to the sound of baǧlama and tambourines. The shiny coloured paper gleamed, and feathers flew about in the cardboard houses. The voices of Romany children and the sounds of Romany instruments streamed into the huts of Flower Hill and some of the squatters went to see, wondering what it was like in the decorated homes of the Romanies. They described what they saw and others in turn reported what they heard. The cardboard décor of the garbage mounds and the gypsy songs which ran, ‘the moon turns with a rustle, the huts gleam’, spread to the huts of Flower Hill.
Under paper sheets
Romanies shiver.
~ ~ ~
The moon rustled and turned. The factories gleamed, and the men worked faster than flying. The moon sank, the sun came up, and over the garbage hills the shouts of the metal workers rose to the heavens. In the huts vibrating with these cries they heard that the metal workers from the refrigerator factory were being joined by other workers on their march to Minibus Way. It was reported that the marchers were homeless men without families who would try to attack the people and take away their homes. Further rumours followed that the marchers on their way had smashed the factory windows and beaten up laggard workers, forcing them to join the march. Then the hut community rose up to follow the workers. Rubbish Road, only just cleared of the marching, shouting workers who waved banners overhead, now filled up with squatters pouring from the huts and cardboard houses. Flower Hill was empty except for a few people fearfully nailing boards over their doors and windows and securing them with locks. While they kept guard on their huts, the sound of distant gunfire halted the squatters as they followed behind the workers. News rippled through the crowd that the workers were clashing with the police, at which point the crowd began to flow back, colliding with the huts, and broke up in Flower Hill’s narrow alleys.
On Minibus Way the workers’ banners were torn to shreds and their cudgels broken. The sun seemed to rustle and turn. On Asphalt Road a worker was shot and died shouting along with the others, ‘If you grab the worker’s share, it’ll stick in your throat.’ The sun withdrew and sank behind the rubbish mounds.
The wingbeats of the gulls tore the smoke from the Flower Hill Industries to rags; dispersing slowly, it mingled with the dappled sky. The gleam of the garbage hills died away. In the cardboard houses the gypsies left off playing and singing, and while a rumour swept through the huts like a gust of wind that the workers’ unions would be closed down, mother-of-pearl buttons opened over Flower Hill. The stars shone. Bejewelled with huts, the world’s face darkened, and night fell. Those who complained they had had enough of the workers and their pigeons, tents and unions went to bed early and slept. But others who were shocked and bewildered by the workers’ march assembled in the huts.
From his knowledge of the world and human nature, Honking Alhas was the first to maintain that communism had come to the garbage mounds and that the community’s unity and harmony would be destroyed. From now on, he declared, they would have no sleep. He reminded them of the days when Garbage Owner had sent large tins of halva to the fridge workers’ strike tents and claimed that the workers would never again taste halva from Garbage Owner. The word ‘halva’ became a joke to the simit-sellers on Rubbish Road and the silent seagulls on the cardboard houses. Bayram of the Pine (the only one on Flower Hill to have a pointed pine tree before his hut) said that what had come to Flower Hill was not communism but workers from the bicycle and cable factory with star and crescent flags. He repeated what the workers from the seacoast had shouted when they met and mingled with the men from the garbage hills. Waving his hands about, he declared that most of them were guffawing as they marched and had no idea of what would happen. Mikail the simit-seller, well known among the workers on Rubbish Road for his mimicry of all kinds of animal cries and best of all for birdsong, backed up Bayram of the Pine. He described how the women in their white headgear streamed from the chemical factories like a foaming torrent, and swore it was a lie that the workers had beaten up the men unwilling to come out. He said they had marched in an orderly way, but when they saw the women thrown down and beaten they had flared up in anger. ‘The women were treated very badly’, he said, and he called his two eyes to witness, beady as a bird’s. He said most of the women were screaming and shrieking from broken arms and backs. Never again would they be able to lie on their sides, he grieved, then opened his mouth and gave vent to screams like the screams of the women being dragged along the ground.