The sergeant, who was standing at attention, said, ‘Yes, sir.’
When the officer had left the room, the sergeant turned back to Ziya. Leaning slightly to look him in the eye, in a concerned voice he said, ‘You heard that, did you?’
‘I did,’ Ziya said.
The sergeant said nothing. Straightening himself up, he began to pace the room, back and forth between the frosted glass and the blue curtains, leaving a cold silence in his wake. Then once again he planted himself in front of Ziya. Leaning on the steel table, he told him about other incidents he’d seen of this sort in this battalion, and what had become of the parties involved; for a time he spoke of the crude machinery of military courts, and of the endless string of hearings. Then he moved on to legal petitions, and the municipal police, and the various different types of documents, and their details. Then he spoke of their commander’s character, and his habits, and his love of discipline, and the legal rights of those above and below him. As he spoke, he waved his hands about, his fingers spreading like tongues of fire, and from time to time those flames would flare out at Ziya to burn his skin. They would reach forward, these fingers, and then pull back. And every time they pulled back, his eyes would grow larger.
In the end, Ziya could make neither head nor tail of what the sergeant was saying to him; not knowing what to do, he begged him with his eyes.
‘Look,’ the sergeant said then. ‘I can’t know if what you told me is true, but the decision to make a complaint or not is yours. I am not going to make that decision for you. But at the present moment, we cannot know how the commander against whom you will be making your complaint will defend himself, or how he’ll tell the story. Do you see my point? When he’s asked why he beat this soldier, well, who knows what he might say? So let’s see. He could say: I gave him an order and instead of obeying it, he let loose a string of curses, and why would I beat someone for no reason? Or he could say: your honour, I heard him taking the name of our glorious armed services in vain, he said each and every member of it was the son of a whore, and in the face of such insults, I couldn’t restrain myself. Who knows, he could even say he caught you red-handed when you were trying to steal something. We cannot know whom the judges will choose to believe — a commander with a clean record and many years of service to the army, or a new recruit like you, with only two weeks of training under his belt. And even if we found eyewitnesses, we could not be sure how many of them would have the balls to tell the truth about what they saw. Over and above all that, we cannot know how many stages the case might have to go through, and sadly, we cannot foretell the outcome, either. Who knows, it could tie itself up in new and unexpected knots, and with every hearing, the plot could thicken, and the whole thing could drag on for four or five years. So when the happy day arrived when you got your discharge, there would be years of hearings still ahead. There are even those who are found guilty and have to leave their families and jobs behind to do a few more months of military service. So this is what you can expect, my ram. Time to get up. If you want to make a complaint, let’s get you to the clerks so that they can take down your statement.’
Ziya had no idea what to do.
‘So you are making a complaint, or not?’ asked the sergeant.
‘No,’ said Ziya. He paused to swallow. ‘No, I’m not.’
Then he stood up and washed his hands and face in the sink that the sergeant indicated and went outside.
That evening, while sitting under the almond trees, eating the boiled eggs and green onions that he’d bought from the children of Silvan, Ziya turned to Kenan and whispered, ‘Do you see how it is, then? They beat us in broad daylight, and we can’t do a thing.’
‘If you ask me, that sergeant used all his wiles to talk you out of it,’ said Kenan, quickly swallowing his food. ‘Who knows? Maybe it wouldn’t have turned out like he said.’
‘I have no way of knowing,’ said Ziya. ‘Really I don’t. All I know is this: if I’d complained, that commander would have given me no peace. And anyway, the case would have gone on for years, and as that sergeant at headquarters said, there’s no way of knowing how it would have turned out. So in one way, at least, it’s good that it ended like this. Let’s just get through our military service as quickly as we can and then get out. I don’t know if you noticed, but the lieutenant called me an ox, and the commander who beat me up today called me an animal. The officer at headquarters called me a dog. That is not just an insult to humanity, but to animals.’
Holding his flatbread to his mouth, Kenan smiled.
‘With all the bad things going on around it, you’re going to worry about this now? Wouldn’t most people agree with you anyway?’
Rather than answer, Ziya looked over at the barbed wire beyond the almond trees, and for a moment each and every one of the Silvan children seemed to flare up and glitter with all the possibilities of life on the other side. After that, he couldn’t take his eyes off them for the longest time. It was almost as if his soul had flown over the fence, to hover over those black-eyed, black-haired children and their swinging baskets.
‘If you ask me, you shouldn’t let anything worry you,’ whispered Kenan. ‘I say we just buckle down and hope for the best and finish our military service and leave. And anyway, we don’t have much choice, as you know.’
Ziya nodded slowly in agreement. But then, in a harsh voice, he said, ‘I hate the food. I hate that mess hall. And most of all, I hate that kitchen. I never want to see it again.’
Kenan raised his head and looked quickly up at the sky. He closed one eye, moving his lips very slightly. His face still raised up, he told Ziya that according to his calculations, they’d have one more week of mess duty while they were here, and that would be in two months’ time.
The next time he was on mess duty, Ziya was very tense. He kept trying to lose himself in the crowd, and every time the mess sergeant issued an order, he watched what those around him were doing and silently did the same. Until lunchtime, they worked in that room whose walls were thick with the stink of old oil; furiously they peeled onions and potatoes, and chopped up the meat; they sifted through sack loads of lentils; they washed vegetables in the long sinks, and cleaned the hall; over and over, they mopped the blackened concrete floor. Then, with giant spoons, they ladled the food into lidded metal pots. Just before lunch was served, they threw the sacks of bread over their shoulders, and each squad went to its own company’s mess hall. Fearing that something might go wrong in the commotion of passing out the food buckets, and land him with another problem, Ziya chose to pick up one of the sacks of bread. When they had filed in with all the others in the squad, those carrying the sacks went from table to table, leaving a ration of bread at each place. Ziya was making his way towards a table in the corner when the mess sergeant gestured to him from the door. ‘You!’ he said. ‘Look here! Now!’ When Ziya had turned around, he said, ‘You know that you’re to leave two rations of bread at each place on that table. Don’t you?’
And at that moment, the Ziya who had spent the day being so very meek gave birth to a new Ziya, almost. This new Ziya stared back at the sergeant, as if he was about to bite him.
‘What are you looking at, boy? Didn’t you understand what I just said?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said the newborn Ziya. ‘Why should I give the people at this table a double ration?’
‘Because that’s where your sergeants sit,’ muttered the mess sergeant. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know that, oh bird of God.’
Ziya said nothing. Returning to the tables, he started with the one in the corner, putting down a single ration of bread at each place.