My soul is many-coloured, my eyes dead,
I broke my mirror in a fall.
No use at all!
Güllü Baba made various predictions about the future of Flower Hill. They were so mysterious that nobody could understand them. He said that one day the earth would form a crust over the garbage hills and new huts would be raised on the garbage, and flowers of all colours would spring up around the huts. And even inside the huts green, green grass would sprout. According to him, the tins and bottles and bits of plastic which gleamed under the brilliant green grass on both slopes of the refuse would bring crowds to Flower Hill to look at the iridescent effects of these hills, and at the huts where grass and flowers sprang up inside. He said that the huts on Flower Hill would multiply even more, and the wind would lose its former strength but would carry sounds from ear to ear and hut to hut. Whenever a group of women in need of water knocked on his door he muttered to his stick, listened to the earth and announced that eventually water would be found at the end of a long road. He advised the women who came with their newborn babies, asking for his blessing and kissing his hand, to bury shrivelled umbilical cords in the factory gardens. This, he said, would help their children find work in the factories when they grew up.
So they secretly buried in the factory grounds the dried-up umbilical cords of the children born on Flower Hill and offered prayers that when they grew up they would not be unemployed. People of ambition buried their babies’ cords in the gardens of workshops and repair shops, in the hope that their children would learn a craft. Some even took them to the garden of a distant school. Morning and evening, men kissed Güllü Baba’s bramble-stained stick to find work. And the women brought him their sick children with headaches and fevers and running eyes and noses. Güllü Baba, pouring tears and listening to the earth, sent up an aches-and-pains prayer every day. He recited his prayers and blew on the aching heads and eyes and ears of the children who knelt before him. He touched their backs three times with his stick.
O Rose-stick, set the eyes aright,
Dry up the ears that weep,
Bring comfort with your healing touch
And lull this child to sleep.
Summer came with all sorts of trouble and new kinds of sores and the frequent kissing wore away the rosewood stick. The bramble dye and violet colour rubbed off, and the thin shaft was bent and its handle crooked like the necks of the Flower Hill men. Moreover, its power was affected by the factory waste and gradually it began to confuse squinting eyes with fainting fits brought on by chemicals, and squinting eyes with the stifling effects from the garbage. Eventually the stick completely lost its power to cure fevers by making sweat pour, and aches and pains by calling up a wind to blow them away. It had become an insignificant yellow wand which slipped off their backs and was no longer spoken of or respected by the Flower Hill folk. Only one saying remained from the purple stick which they alone understood — ‘My troubles fade with bramble-dye.’
As the factory waste eroded and undermined the stick’s power, Flower Hill transferred all its hopes to the waters of wisdom shed from Güllü Baba’s eyes. Güllü Baba put forward all sorts of views on the factories, the wind, the garbage and unemployment. He listened to the earth and wept unceasingly for water, for work and for the cure of the illnesses spread by the garbage and the factory waste. For a long time his torrents of tears made up for the weakness of his stick. But gradually the tears which had streamed so rapidly it first became harder to shed. He grew deaf to the sounds of moaning women on their knees before him, children yelling in pain, and men writhing and pleading for work. His callused hands lost their sensitivity to fever and trembling. To produce a single tear he had to squeeze his eyes shut for a long time, moaning and struggling to fill his heart with grief, and when his last two teardrops had been shed for Şengül to make her milk flow, Flower Hill was deprived of the water of wisdom.
When they brought Şengül to Güllü Baba, two bags of mint were tied over her breasts which were completely filled and clogged with milk. For ten days milk oozed into her breasts, while pain spread from her armpits, and her shoulders sagged from the weight. Her face turned blue from pain, then reddened, then paled, and she moaned interminably in a high quavering voice. Besides Şengül, there were two women with ‘problems of bleeding’ and a little girl who wanted Güllü Baba’s tears. For a long time Güllü Baba’s heart had not been deeply touched but Şengül’s cries moved him far more than the others’ shouting. ‘When I cry my tears belong to everyone,’ he said as he set her by his knees. Şengül looked into his face hopefully, then unbuttoned her blouse and quietly told him her age, her name, and her husband’s name. She kissed Güllü Baba’s hand, and he felt for her right breast and held it. He gave her one of his hands and told her to bite it if she could not stand the pain. He squeezed her right breast as hard as he could, and Şengül’s eyes filled with tears, blood streaming from her breast. She collapsed on the ground. Then Güllü Baba quietly took from his pocket a fine-toothed plastic comb and knelt by her. For a long long time he stroked her breast with the comb and passed his hands over her. He breathed a prayer from his heart, and with difficulty he made out Şengül’s face as she lay fainting on the ground — her shapely mouth, her black curved eyebrows and lashes sweeping her cheek. Lost in thought, Güllü Baba moved his hands over her milk-filled breasts, and then two teardrops fell from his eyes. ‘Let me waken your milk, my little quail, so you may wake up too’, he said. He sighed and shook Şengül gently. Still stroking and praying he opened her eyes. He advised her to bind her breasts with rose petals when the moon came up that night; and when the moon was fading to loosen her hair and comb both her hair and breasts: he said that if the milk flowed and her baby still didn’t suckle, she should steal another baby’s swaddling clothes, burn them at midnight, and hold her breasts to the smoke. She kissed his hand again, buttoned up her blouse and picked up her baby. That night when the moon rose she wrapped her breasts in rose petals and when it faded she freed her hair and combed her hair and breasts. She stole swaddling clothes and burned them but instead of milk, blood poured from her breasts and open sores appeared.
Şengül’s lament reached the sky over Flower Hill. Those who were pained by it came knocking at her door, some recommending a mixture of dough and pepper to be slapped on the breasts, others to pound down Turkish delight and apply it. They shed tears for Şengül’s breasts and beat their bosoms. She showed her breasts hopefully to every comer and let everyone handle them, until they were nearly ready to drop off. Then Mother Kibriye came staggering to the rescue and said, ‘If you can find me some silver thread I’ll turn them into weeping brides.’ She swore she’d cure them. She told the women that she knew where everything was in the body, and she recited the names of the complete anatomy of the chest and the base of the neck. Soon, she promised, there wouldn’t be a single infertile woman left on Flower Hill; she would distribute prescriptions to the women suffering from exhaustion and loss of blood which would cure them like magic! For years she had been soothing the lovesick hearts of the young with seeds and herbs and relieving their pains, and getting rid of unwanted children. After listing all her skills, she told the story of how a torrent had carried herself and her seven children to Flower Hill. Before dealing with Şengül’s breasts, she made the women cry as she described the spouting foam and the water reaching the sky and, while they were all in tears, the silver thread was found. Mother Kibriye dried her eyes on her yashmak and sat down in front of Şengül. She mixed dough in a bowl, cut the silver thread in tiny pieces and stuck them on the nipples with the dough. The bosom shone. She blackened her finger with soot from the pots and drew a huge eyebrow and eye on each breast: she drew lashes for the eyes. Şengül was breathless with pain, but Mother Kibriye stroked her hair and whispered in her ear, ‘Now you’re a bride, you’re a bride, now you can cry.’ Quickly with a razor she cut first one breast then the other. And tears of blood flowed from the cheeks of the two brides who gazed from Şengül’s full bosom. And when the brides wept Şengül was at peace, her heart relieved.