Uncle Güllü sank his neck into his shoulders. ‘Hah!’
And off he went into the crowd to stand next to cross-eyed Bekir, who was, he thought, the only one who understood him. And there he stayed until the wheat was pounded, calling out from time to time in a sour voice that struggled for its old sparkle. Essence! Essence!
And then the growing crowd began to make its way back to the wedding house, rounding the same corners to flow down the same lanes in the same high spirits, with two saddlebags full of keşkek.
At the back of the crowd came cross-eyed Bekir and Uncle Güllü, talking all the way. Setting up their stalls under the almond tree, they continued to sell their scents and their chewy sweets. There wasn’t too much demand for the scents. Every once in a while a few panting youths would come over to point at the bottles, asking, is this scent oleaster? Is that one lilac, is that other one rose or the one behind it hyacinth? Surprised by the prices being asked, they would cast a doubtful look over their shoulders and back away. And that was why Uncle Güllü kept looking over at cross-eyed Bekir’s colourful sweets. With his eyes still fixed on them, he would mumble, Essence! Essence! Not so much to the people in the courtyard but to the guests who lived only in his dreams.
The musicians were back in those chairs by now, playing one tune after another. But whenever they tired they took a break. And whenever they took a break, they would chain-smoke with such ferocity you’d think they’d just been rescued from a famine. Between tokes, they exchanged stories about all manner of things, each more astounding than the last. These were things they had witnessed themselves while playing at weddings in neighbouring towns and villages. Some were about normal journeys going suddenly wrong, ending with deaths so horrifying as to pierce all their hearts. Others showed how avaricious people could be, and cruel, and bloodthirsty. Some were about vicious knife fights started by drunks wandering around like lost souls, while others had former lovers coming face to face with grooms while in the act of kidnapping their veiled brides. Sometimes these stories didn’t end there; sometimes, once the shock had worn off, the grooms armed themselves with guns and set off with a group of kindred spirits to save their brides. As they set off, they would salvage their pride from the wreckage to the extent that they could turn to the musicians and announce that the wedding would soon continue from where it had left off, and command them to stay where they were, no matter what.
While the musicians were telling their stories, they gathered a crowd. Some stood, some sat at their feet, mouths agape, some looked over their shoulders with bulging eyes and there were even those who lined up shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, before the musicians’ chairs. The stories lit up little flames inside them all, and from each flame came a little lick of smoke. Sometimes the stories made them laugh, and sometimes all anyone could say was, ‘Oh, what a terrible shame,’ and sometimes, of course, they were left half told; because whenever new guests arrived, the musicians would pick up their instruments and rush to the gate to welcome them with a tune, and accompany them inside with such delicacy and decorum that they might have been made of china, and after the musicians had escorted them inside, they would turn back to the crowd to celebrate the new arrivals with yet another tune. Or else, at the most exciting point in the story, they would catch sight of a distinguished guest leaving the wedding, and jump to their feet to accompany that guest to the gate. Each time it was the fattest of them, Black Davut, who was most tired out and sweaty from running. Yet now and again he would still pull out a handkerchief to give his clarinet a better shine.
No one was sure quite how many guests had come and gone, of course, but by now Hacı Veli’s single-storey mud-brick house was buzzing like a beehive.
This continued without interruption through a second day, during which Black Davut carried on perspiring and giving his clarinet quick polishes.
Late in the morning of the third day, after the musicians had played a few tunes, they led a crowd all the way to the other side of the town, to the home of some of Hacı Veli’s kinsfolk, to fetch the best man, who, like the groom, had colourful scarves pinned to his shoulders. The musicians piped both men up and down the streets of the town, slowly winding their way back to the house. Then suddenly the music stopped, for the time had come for the ritual collection. Two middle-aged men laid out an embroidered rug from Çataloba — never used, and still smelling of mothballs. The groom and his best man stepped on it timidly, and there they stood, staring at their feet. By now there were more people filing in through the gate. The women of the town made one line and the men another, going all the way up to Hacı Veli’s house with their gifts under their arms. They came inside and deposited on the rug the shirts and pots and trays and kettles that they had brought as gifts. They draped the floral prints and fine fabrics over the men’s shoulders. The banknotes they pinned to their collars, and they did the same with the gold pieces they had brought with them, dangling from red ribbons. No one stayed to see what everyone else had brought; it was expressly to avoid seeing any of it that they turned their eyes away so quickly. Before long they had so many prints and fabrics wrapped around their necks that they looked as if they were poking their heads through the rack at a clothes store.
After everyone had left their presents, and all those presents had been taken inside in the silk bags that a number of far-sighted women had left for them, Ebecik the Midwife appeared carrying a zinc pot, and as soon as the townspeople saw her, they opened up a long and winding corridor for her. Bent over double, she walked down this corridor with slow little steps, a shivering cloud bound for other realms. Reaching the groom and his best man, she crouched down. Dipping her finger into the pot, she dabbed a little henna on the tips of their shoes. And as she did so, she said, ‘May good fortune shine on you, my handsome boy, may God give you health and harmony.’ As soon as she had drawn back, the groom strode to the sherbet bowl sitting at the edge of the rug, and launched it into the air with an almighty kick that would stay in their memories. And off it flew over the heads of the crowd, glinting as the children cheered. It landed on the other side of the wall, and in no time a group of boys was kicking it down the street. And thus the collection ceremony ended. The rug was lifted up, and the instruments came back to life, filling the yard and making it tremble. The drum beat more deeply and with more lust this time. Each lithe note from the clarinets wriggled from the players’ grasp, while the trumpet sent cloud after cloud of golden sound wafting across the town. And all along the way, the snare drum beat out a cheerful rhythm as it swayed this way and that.
In the late afternoon, the town imam tapped his finger three times against the microphone, as he always did before the call to prayer, and the music stopped. And in the courtyard, even the aroma of food and grass wafted through the air more slowly, the noise died down to some degree, and everyone waited for the call to prayer to finish. When the imam turned off the microphone with that strange sizzle and pop, the musicians struck up again, as a teeming crowd of men and women followed a packed and decrepit car to take the bride from her home. And suddenly there was no one in Hacı Veli’s once-packed courtyard, and because there was no longer need for the cooking pots, these were taken away, too. After they had been dealt with, one of the cooks, an old woman, turned to the others and said, ‘Don’t just stand there, we have to clean this place up before the bride gets here’ — as if the bride might take one look at the state of the courtyard and say, ‘I can’t live in such disorder,’ and turn around to go back home. They gathered up the clothes and cups and glasses that were scattered across the courtyard. To keep the ashes from spreading when the guests returned, they got a few boys to shovel up the ashes in the corners and carry them to the back of the house, then they spread water over those corners and swept them with brooms. And then, when they were done, they washed their hands and straightened up their clothes, and there they waited, light with excitement, for the wedding party to arrive.