The Flower Hill women underwent a crisis of belief after this, and their faces showed traces of deep confusion. They plastered make-up on their cheeks and lips and around their eyes to hide the traces and when they reappeared, beaten black and blue as never before, the multi-coloured clouds of the Flower Hill Industries burst open from envy.
~ ~ ~
Şini Erol, the president of Flower Hill Sports Club, raced about the huts whipping up the young workmen in the repair shops to dream of becoming football stars. The shining hero of the Flower Hill football team was Hidir who pursued this dream so fervently that he beat up his mother day and night for money so that he could eat his daily ration of half a kilo of hazel nuts which Şini Erol had recommended instead of milk and eggs. Hidir’s brothers in the dream chose the same method of extracting money and one by one the women of Flower Hill were subjected to the ‘Hazelnut Ordeal’.
Şini Erol sold glass, mirrors and birds in Factory Foot Quarter and devoted his life to the young gypsies and squatters for the love of football. Before a match he shut up the flower of the team in his shop, got to work on their backs and gave them all a thorough massage. The match over, he gathered the team and took them to the hamam where he carefully kneaded their backs, fronts and legs. The hamam outing was followed by orders of new bread for everybody, hot from the oven and spread with two packets of margarine for each player, all part of the diet. Every time they scored Şini Erol kissed the lobes of their ears and when one of the young men fell out with his father, Erol put up a bed in his shop and stayed the night with him.
While Şini Erol, in the words of the hut people, was ‘playing a hot game’ in the shop, Flower Hill resounded with news that was to ruin the happiness of all the huts including Şini Erol’s shop. They heard that in thirty days the government would tear down the homes built on the garbage hills. Garbage Chief with the Elders of Flower Hill behind him set off for the municipal office. But before they had even got down to Panty Way, the hut people had set up another committee of three, charged with the job of finding a piece of land suitable for hut building in the hills behind the city. The committee explored the far reaches of the city for three days and found a flat hilltop which overlooked the dazzling blue sea from among the pines. In alarm Garbage Chief made moves to prevent his leadership slipping from his grasp, but finally joined the Committee for Hut Locations. He abandoned his hut after being reassured that he would be made headman again, and off he went to the flat hill.
When the government heard that the Flower Hill folk were digging up and dividing the top of a hill overlooking the dazzling blue sea, they gave up the idea of destroying Flower Hill. They produced a document informing Flower Hill that the area on which it stood was the property of something called a Foundation and called upon the people to pay a settlement fee of 70,000 lira each. They announced that those who paid this sum could live in the huts, provided they all paid a yearly rent to the Foundation. After the announcement, the first step was to split up families, and brides, the elderly and children were charged with keeping watch on the flat hilltop which overlooked the dazzling blue sea. The others became responsible for the future of Flower Hill.
Mustafa Gülibik had a job in a workshop at the Flower Hill Industries producing armchair tassels. Spurred on by the squatters, he made a stirring speech before the municipal office which began, ‘Ataturk, for whom I would willingly lay down my life …’ He told how his grandfather had gone to fight in the First World War; even the hunting dog had followed him and wasn’t seen for seven years but returned with him from the war. He described how the dog, faithful to its owner, had made the whole village weep and did not forget to mention that his grandfather and his dog died fighting the Greeks. ‘Ataturk gave Flower Hill into our keeping’, he spluttered, flinging the words at the municipal office. As he tried to gather strength his face became bathed in sweat. Wiping away the sweat with one hand, he raised the other in the air and swore an oath that they would never hand over Flower Hill to be anyone else’s property. Elated by the squatters’ excited shouts and yells, he lost his head and let slip that he would do God knows what obscene act to the Foundation. The Flower Hill people applauded him warmly for this. He finished up speaking nervously in spurts and broken words and poured out curse after curse. The police who were trying to disperse the people had to fire in the air.
Cursing and swearing, the squatters made their way back to Flower Hill, and an argument erupted as to whether Mustafa Gülibik had spoken inappropriately. Some of the hut people agreed that although they had applauded him, there was no place for bad language in a speech, and others claimed that Flower Hill had nothing at all to do with wars past and gone. It emerged from these arguments, which ended in a beating for Mustafa Gülibik, that not only his grandfather’s dog but the dogs of all the grandfathers of the Flower Hill folk had gone to the war. But while the squatters were gathered together in their houses telling competing dog stories, four smartly dressed men who said they had come to Flower Hill from the Foundation looked round the huts. They collected money and gave false receipts and they left behind four more dog stories.
Nothing more was heard from the smartly dressed men and the suspicion grew that their stories had not been true either. The squatters who worked as regular municipal garbage collectors were asked to investigate. Much later the garbage collectors brought news that Flower Hill’s name had been erased from the map of the garbage hills and FOUNDATION had been written in red in its place. At the news, the word ‘Foundation’ suddenly took fire on the squatters’ tongues. They amicably drew up petitions together, signed them and went in a body to the police station and the municipal office. No one ever discovered what this ‘Foundation’ really was: what finally emerged was simply a new name for Flower Hill.
The Flower Hill people had set out as a community to found new quarters by dividing up the flat hilltop, and had already given it the name ‘Unity Neighbourhood’. But when they discovered that the name of Flower Hill had been struck off the map, they decided to call their new quarters ‘Unity Flower Hill’ instead.
Unity Flower Hill was so far, so very far away from
Foundation Hill that Flower Hill children who set off from there could only see the sky.
The Flower Hill people’s attempts to inhabit these two neighbourhoods simultaneously exhausted the children. The dream of the old and infirm was to see Unity Hill with their mortal eyes before they went on their pilgrimage to Mecca. As people shuttled to and fro between Flower Hill and Unity Hill, it became customary to see them off with tears and welcome them back with embraces. Every day the hut people took a few of their belongings to Unity Hill and after their final crowning move, the name Unity Hill survived for ever. But the new name, Foundation Hill, fell from favour and did not last a year. Several different names like ‘Flower Hill — Hashish Hiding Hole’ or ‘Flower Hill — Nest of Whores’ took its place.
While the Flower Hill people were going crazy between the two communities great numbers of men were fired from the Rubbish Road factories with their silent workers and noisy machines, and the Flower Hill women heard they would be taken on instead of the men. The Flower Hill girls gathered round factory doors were asked if they intended to get engaged, and the women if they intended to have babies. Those who were not going to marry or have a child were taken on and put to work. The result was broken engagements and a rush to the midwife to get rid of babies swelling in their wombs. When the women came to work on Rubbish Road, Unity Hill was left to the old and the men. With most women working on Flower Hill and their men on Unity Hill a condition called ‘the family disaster’ reared its head.