‘Could I have some tea?’ Ziya asked.
Resul reached under the table and took out a bottle, poured some of its cloudy white liquid into a glass and pushed it slowly across the table. ‘Go on, give it a try.’
Ziya raised it to his lips without giving it much thought, but as soon as he tasted it, his face changed. Smacking his lips, he took another sip.
‘It’s my own creation,’ said Resul, smiling faintly. ‘Cologne, lemon powder, and water. What do you think?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Ziya, and he took another sip.
‘If you don’t like it, there’s a bar just over there, down that street,’ said Resul. ‘You can go there and find any drink you want.’
Ziya pretended not to have heard Resul’s teasing words. He carried on drinking, as he looked out at the mud-brick houses.
‘These commanders are all the same,’ Resul said then. ‘There’s a commander in the next company over, for example. He loves watching soldiers’ caps fly off! That’s his nickname, even. Capflyer. He knows all about it, and he loves it. He hasn’t been past here for some time, so you can expect him any time. He’s sure to be coming by soon, no question about it, you’ll see. If you hear a roaring laugh suddenly, and a gun going off, be warned. Capflyer is back. He never travels solo. He always has his clerk sitting up front with him in his jeep, and following close behind is always one of those little trucks. And in the back, he’ll have his detail of bodyguards, huge grinning dimwits with lolling tongues, and they all have their fingers on the trigger. If you want to live, my advice is to hide the moment you see him coming. Because if anyone’s so foolish as to walk past him, and it happens to take his fancy, he’ll immediately pick up his gun, and order that man to stop fifteen metres away from him, and order him to raise the visor on his cap. And then, as you may have guessed by now, he’ll pick up his gun and with a single shot, he’ll send that cap flying, right up into the air. . and then, to top it all off, he has to celebrate, he has to split his sides laughing that maddening laugh of his. If that was all he did, then fine! But no, he also has to start swinging his gun around, and shooting off in all directions, without even looking through the barrel. He’s not much to look at — he’s stocky, and he has a fat ass and a head like a basket, but in spite of all that, he’s surprisingly quick off the mark, this Capflyer. Fast as a flea, you might say! I said this already, but just make sure you don’t catch his eye. Just hide as fast as you can. That’s what everyone does, anyway, along the seventy- or eighty-mile stretch between his headquarters and Ceylanpınar. Most especially the guards in the watchtower — they won’t even poke up their heads. Because they’re already seven or eight metres high, and that means they don’t even need to raise their visors: if the fancy takes him, Capflyer pulls his gun from its holster and sends their caps flying from the top of a moving jeep! A few months ago, they took two heads at Seyrantepe. You heard about that, didn’t you?’
‘Heads? What heads?’ said Ziya.
‘You know, those two smugglers they killed. Didn’t you hear this?’
Ziya gaped at him.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ said Resul. ‘Here on the border, whenever they kill any smugglers, that’s what they call it. Taking heads. And whenever they take any heads, a few commanders will get together to celebrate with a bit of rakı. I’m not sure if it’s a tradition, but it’s what they do every time. And it’s the commander who can claim the head who hosts the party, of course. When they got together to celebrate the two heads from Seyrantepe, Capflyer came, too.’
‘Did they really celebrate that here?’ Ziya asked.
‘Why are you so surprised?’ Resul asked. ‘The man claimed two heads, so of course he would.’
Ziya’s head began to spin. There was a roar in his ears as he looked at Resul as if seeing him for the first time.
‘The drink’s gone to your head, I think,’ said Resul. ‘I can see it on your face.’
Ziya looked down and swallowed.
‘Give me some more of this poison,’ he said, pushing his glass across the table. ‘For God’s sake, give me more!’
Resul filled the glass.
‘Capflyer came that night, too,’ he said, picking up where he’d left off. ‘They’d set up a table right over there, under the flagpole. The soldiers had all gone out to their stations, of course. The only other ones here were Yusuf the cook, and the night watchman, and me. I knew what was going to happen, so I made myself scarce. Yusuf the cook was waiting on the table, so no such luck for him, of course. The poor man spent the night shuttling back and forth between the flagpole and the kitchen. And that was why he was doomed to capture our friend Capflyer’s attention, after he’d knocked down enough drinks to relax. His head swimming with rakı, he took his gun out of his holster, and said, Come over here and stand in front of me, and then he ordered him to raise his visor. Yusuf had no choice but to do as he was told. He backed up until he was a good distance away, but Capflyer wasn’t able to fire. What I mean is, he kept raising his gun and closing one eye as if he was going to fire, but he never followed through. Sometimes he even sucked in his breath, and when he was ready to pull the trigger, he cried out, “Bammm!” And there was Yusuf standing there, dying and coming back to life again, dying and coming back to life, and in the end he shat himself. The men at the table slapped each other on the backs and fell about laughing, just to see him like that. So that’s what kind of man he is, this Capflyer. It’s always the same joke, and one day, I fear, he’ll take aim to send someone’s cap flying, and shoot some poor bugger in the temple. You have to be on guard at all times, if you ask me. You downed that second glass pretty fast, didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ said Ziya, in a little yellow voice that stank of cologne.
After which Ziya got up without saying goodbye and when he reached the corridor, he took the internal stairs up to the top of the building. There was no one left by the well at the back of the mud-brick houses; there was only the shadow of the well’s wooden crank, and it was as smooth as a new puddle. After Ziya had stared for a long time at that shadow and the houses’ darkened doors, he went to the edge of the roof and gently sat himself down on the nobbled black concrete. And then for a time he thought about Hayati of Acıpayam, killed in that skirmish at Seyrantepe Station. And he even thought of the two men in black shalwar trousers, lying near his friend’s lifeless body, on the other side of the barbed-wire fence, surrounded by empty shells, and suddenly he could not hold himself back any longer. He began to cry. Then Resul came over and took him by the arm and led him to his office downstairs. He asked him why he was crying, but Ziya had no time to give an answer. Because just then, the jeep that had gone shooting off to Ceylanpınar came limping back. The commander went hurrying into the building, and as he opened his door, he called sternly out to Ziya, ordering him to come at once.
Wiping away his tears, Ziya hurried down.
When he had entered the room and saluted, he saw that the commander was seated at the front desk, looking at the pile of letters before him. He looked as if he was struggling to hold in some sort of anger or grievance, something he had clung to, long after he should have let it die away. There was a hardness in his face. Something was eating him. Then he picked up one of the letters and swung it back and forth. ‘Who’s this Midhat Çınar?’ he asked Ziya.
‘Ali Çınar’s son, sir,’ Ziya replied.
‘Ali the Snowman’s son?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Screwing up his face, he threw the letter across the desk as if it were dirtying his fingers. And then he said, ‘Take it.’ In a mocking voice, he added, ‘This Midhat Efendi has written you a letter.’