Sometimes, after looking long and hard at the dryness of the earth surrounding them, Kenan would begin to tell Ziya how beautiful his village was. For instance, one day he talked about the red-pine forest that wrapped itself around the village, while its depths throbbed and thundered. Another time, he spoke of the scent of thyme that floated down the slopes to lap against the courtyard gates. He spoke of the crystal-clear springs and brooks that wound through the forest, bubbling gently as they went. He spoke of the vineyards, and the orchards, and all the different types of fruit you could find in them, and the clacking grouse, and everywhere you looked, there were beds and beds of fragrant flowers, sparkling all the colours of the rainbow. He described all this in such detail, and with such pleasure, that Ziya could almost see Kenan’s village, there before his eyes. This cheered them both. Even the light in their eyes would change, and their expressions, too: you could see in them the lively intensity that only the hopeful can enjoy. But as soon as they stopped talking about that village, the joy would drain from their faces. And that was when Kenan would feel worse than before; he would stand up, saying that he needed to go get more sleep. Scraping his boots against the earth like a dark and weary ghost, he would make his way back to the dormitory.
He tried not to show it, but Ziya was just as miserable, really. He walked around looking tired and spent with no idea what to do. Not every day, but every other day, he would return from guard duty in the morning and draw a bucket of water from the well, and then he’d gather up some scrub and make a fire with it, and when it was hot, he would set about trying to wash himself in that wooden outhouse. The outhouse was so narrow that there was hardly room to bend down to the bucket to scoop water with his tin can, let alone stand up. And also, whenever Ziya headed into that stinking place with his steaming bucket of water, some of the others would, without fail, need to go to the toilet urgently, and they would stand there, four or five paces away, shouting, ‘Hurry up, man, or we’ll shit our pants.’ Hearing them shout like that, and seeing them through the blackened planks, he’d have to jump back into his clothes and come out, of course. Once he’d taken a little too long to pull himself together and get out of there. Hayati of Acıpayam was one of those standing outside, writhing in his white jockey shorts; now and again he would snap their elastic, and every time he did that, his eyes would bulge as he glared furiously at the door and ground his teeth. When he saw Ziya coming out, the anger went to his voice, and without meaning to, he cried, ‘Why does it have to be every other day, every other day? What are you scrubbing in there, a cunt?’
Ziya apologised but Hayati was in too much of a rush to hear him, and even when he was inside, doing his business, he kept ranting. ‘You can’t clean things every day in conditions like this, my dear friend. There’s such a thing as common sense. Here we are, living in these jerry-built huts without bathrooms, without toilets, and what am I supposed to say to these half-witted bastards who are condemned to shaving in front of that mirror we’ve hung from the almond tree? Which of us deserves this miserable life we’re living? And anyway, I’ve been here now for thirteen months, and I’ve done time in every station in the company, and I’ve met each and every one of the men working in them, but I haven’t seen a single rich boy, or a single man who’s ever picked up a book. And if there is a single slave of God who can tell me otherwise, let him speak. Every night, we lay our lives on the line, guarding that border, and if there’s fog in the morning, we wait there until it’s cleared, and then, when they drag us back,well. . just look at this food they give us, you’d need a thousand witnesses to find just one man who’d call it food! And then there’s our drinking water, or rather, the stale green water we have to pull from the well every day, that we share with the snakes and the frogs and the bloodsuckers and the bugs. And then there’s this place where we have to wash. Let’s face it. Not even a dog would want to wash in there! Soldiers who aren’t posted to the border — they do guard duty two hours a week, tops. And all of them, all of them, get to wash themselves in sparkling tiled bathrooms. And you can be sure they don’t have to pour water over their heads from tin cans, like we do. And what about those letters we spend so much time writing? After pouring all our dreams into them and all our desperate longing, and signing them with our secret tears, who do we give them to? The drivers! And then what do they do? Well, they grab them away from us and toss them into the glove compartment or the pocket in the door, with all that white lead dust. When it comes time for them to post them, well only God knows what happens then! Osman! Just tell me, my fine young man! How many months has it been since you ate roasted meat? And OK, how long since you enjoyed a plate of stewed fruit? How long has it been since you had a chance to walk down a lane, or an avenue? Tell me now, so that these clouds can hear you! Go on, tell me, so that those two lost souls in those graves can hear you, too! Who would spend a day in this godforsaken place, if they had any money at all? Tell me, my fine young blade. Osman, are you still there?’
‘I’m still here,’ said Osman of Selçuk, as he swung from side to side, ‘but you’d better hurry up, my friend! If you don’t stop wagging your tongue like that and get down to business, I’m going to shit my pants!’
‘I’m right, though, aren’t I?’ cried Hayati, like a voice from beyond. ‘If I’m not right, you just go ahead and tell me, right to my face! But let me tell you, your tongue would burn if you did, and God would strike you down, turn you into a crooked old man!
‘I’m that already, you idiot!’ Osman of Selçuk craned his neck as far as it would go. ‘Come on now. Time to get out.’
And then he couldn’t stop himself. Turning towards Syria, and forgetting all the men trying to sleep in the dormitory, Osman raised his fist and bellowed, ‘Fuck off, you fucking village! Fuck off!’
And when Hayati emerged from the outhouse, Osman managed to get himself in there before anyone else.
It was a calm and beaming Hayati who came to Ziya’s side then, and instead of asking him if he had caused him offence, he just looked into his eyes and apologised. And Ziya apologised to him again, and then the two of them stood there together for a time, exchanging wry smiles. They smiled as if they had somehow managed to discuss everything that needed to be discussed without either saying a word, and come to an understanding. After that they went to bed, but Ziya couldn’t get to sleep; he kept rearranging his pillow, and rolling over. And as he was lying there with his eyes closed, he kept thinking about those shadows he had shot at on his nineteenth day on the border, and wondering if any of them had taken his bullets. And then, even after so much time had passed, he could hear that gunfire, echoing in his ears, as loud as it had done that night, and after that, there was no going to sleep. And that was why he was so very tired when he went off on guard duty that night; he was paired up with Serdar of Velimeşe in Çorlu, at D-4, which was the furthest east of Seyrantepe’s stations.
A few hours later, they began to hear those cries ringing through the black night, echoing from station to station. Whoooop! Whooooop! Then he and Serdar got up to go on patrol. Pulling down their caps and slinging the rifles over their shoulders, they went off in their opposite directions. That night it seemed darker than ever before, and heavier, and with that extra dark and extra weight came a silence that even those whoops couldn’t budge. Back in the trench, Ziya was just about to take his piece of bread from his pocket when that silence slowly began to alter in texture. When the wind first swept in from the other edge of night, it brought with it a hissing, swishing sound that might have come from the empty spaces it was seeping through, or from the flatness of the grass it swept across. It travelled out in waves, and the wider it spread, the fainter it became, and soon it was lost. And then it returned, but this time there was no swish or hiss: it sounded like a whisper, an old, cracked, crumbling, half-forgotten whisper.