‘So all right. Do you want to fail your military service at this late date, and have to start all over?’
‘Who’d want that? Of course I don’t.’
‘Then don’t pay any attention to what the devil said!’
Ziya went back to his place. Leaning against the side of the truck, he turned his head to look far, far away.
When they returned exhausted to Telhamut, the commander stepped down and gave Mensur a good once-over, and then he had him tied up to the column again. He ordered Resul and Ziya to guard him. Waving his forefinger, making circles in the air, he said, ‘And don’t let him out of your sight. If he escapes, there’ll be hell to pay!’
And that was when Ziya could bear it no longer. Standing at attention, he said, ‘This man has had nothing to eat or drink since yesterday, sir. Can we give him some food?’
Stunned, the commander gave Ziya a good long look. Then he said, ‘Just listen to this scoundrel. Just listen to this scoundrel.’ Without another word, the commander pounced on Ziya. First a right hook, then a left. When he heard those punches ringing in the air, Mensur raised up his head. But he paid no attention to Ziya as he lost his balance, instead fixing his glittering eyes on the commander.
‘The last commander told me quite a few things about you, but I didn’t believe him. But now I see that he knew what he was talking about. There’s no brain in that head of yours. There really isn’t!’
Ziya said nothing.
The commander turned to Resul. ‘You look at me, canteen man. You’re free to go. Go to the dormitory and get some sleep. This prick here will be solely responsible for this man tonight!’
‘Yes, sir!’ said Resul.
When the commander had left in his jeep for Ceylanpınar, Ziya collapsed on to a step three paces away from Mensur, and for a time he just sat there in silence.
Resul was still standing in front of the building. ‘You shouldn’t hang around here,’ said Ziya. ‘Go fetch me a bottle of poison, why don’t you, and then go to bed.’
Resul ran off to the canteen, returning with a bottle from his secret cache.
‘Let’s guard him together,’ said Resul. ‘How’s the commander ever going to find out?’
‘No,’ said Ziya. ‘We’re in enough trouble as it is. And anyway, as you know, the last commander toughened me up. I can take it.’
Resul gave up and went off to the dormitory.
And then it was just the two of them. Mensur at the base of the column, and Ziya, sitting across from him. And once again, the night took hold of the mud-brick houses across the tracks and pulled them in. And now the handle of the well had vanished, too, and all he could hear was a child here and there, calling through the night. And then these sounds vanished, too, as a silence seeped in to press down on them. And that was when Ziya turned his head to give Mensur a good, long look. His head had fallen to his chest. There was nothing left to him but his hulking shadow.
‘Mensur,’ Ziya called.
Mensur raised his head.
‘I know,’ Ziya said, ‘you can’t understand a word I say. But never mind. I’m still saying it. I’m going to get you some food. OK?’
He bunched up his fingers and made as if to eat. Then he pointed at Mensur.
‘So now,’ he said, ‘I’m going. OK? To get you some food.’
Mensur smiled faintly.
‘But you have to keep quiet,’ Ziya said. ‘Sit just the way you are until I get back. Whatever you do, don’t untie those ropes and run away.’
This time Mensur looked at him blankly.
So Ziya made as if to untie the imaginary ropes around his wrists. Then he waved both his hands, looked into Mensur’s eyes, and in a gentle voice he said, ‘No untying these ropes.’ And then, enunciating each word clearly, he said, ‘Stay here. Keep quiet. Wait. I’ll be back.’
Then he stood up and raced off to the kitchen. He put two bowls of bulgur pilaf on to a tray, and a few slices of bread, and hurried back.
Squatting next to Mansur, he said, ‘Hey, how are you going to eat this now?’
They stared at each other through the darkness.
‘No,’ said Ziya, still flummoxed. ‘No, I’m not untying you. You’d try to escape, and I could never hold you back, you’re too big. And I don’t want to shoot at you. So this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to feed you.’
He filled a spoon with bulgur pilaf and put it into Mensur’s mouth.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s all I could find in the kitchen.’
He gave him another big spoonful.
‘I couldn’t let you go hungry,’ he said, as he pulled back the spoon. ‘You’ve come here from another country. You count as a guest. Don’t you think? Whether they know you or not, everyone in this country can count you as a guest.’
He gave him another spoonful.
‘And it’s not just the people. Every animal in this country can count you as a guest, as well. And every plant. Every fruit tree, and poplar, and every worm and every bird, and every insect. .’
Suddenly Mensur stopped eating. He nodded, and smiled.
‘Or do you actually speak Turkish?’ Ziya asked.
Mensur looked at him blankly.
Ziya went back to feeding him pilaf.
‘Try to eat faster,’ Ziya said. ‘I don’t want the commander catching me.’
And Mansur began to eat faster, almost as if he understood. He began to chew faster, and then he started swallowing the pilaf without chewing. And Ziya watched him eat, offering him a bite of bread now and again. Then Ziya took the tray back to the guardhouse kitchen and returned with a pitcher of water. As he gulped down the water, Mensur gave Ziya the warmest of smiles, and then he nodded, vigorously. And Ziya nodded, too. Just a little. Then he got up and took the pitcher to his office, so that no one could see it. After that he sat down on the step three paces away from Mensur and began drinking his poison.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ziya. ‘But this I cannot share.’
Mensur smiled gently.
‘So let me say it now,’ said Ziya. ‘If that commander comes back, I’m going to toss this bottle into the night, on to those tracks over there. If I do that, don’t get frightened.’
‘Mensur,’ said Mensur.
Ziya, who had raised the bottle to his lips, looked at him through the glass.
‘Mensur,’ said Mensur once again.
Putting the bottle back on the step, Ziya said, ‘Oh, I see. I understand. You want to know my name, don’t you?’
Mensur smiled.
‘Ziya,’ said Ziya. ‘My name is Ziya.’
‘Ziya,’ Mensur repeated and he smiled.
Then the two fell silent. They sat in darkness, breathing in and breathing out. Now and again, a whoop would rise up from one of the trenches nearby. But it sounded as if it was coming from the bottom of a well. And as it soared through the night, it brought with it the scent of grass.
Later on in the night, when he went out on patrol, the commander stopped by to check on them three times. He would slip out of the night, shiny as a fox, and slip back in. In the morning, he released Mensur from the base of the column and, without tying him up again, took him to Ceylanpınar to hand him over to the Syrian officials who had come to fetch him from Ras al-Ayn. From then on, whenever he looked at the base of that column outside their building, Ziya saw an empty space as wide as Mensur’s shoulders. As he came or went, he could not stop himself from looking.
On the day he was discharged, he looked one last time into that empty space. Then he walked quickly past the flagpole and into the station. Many years earlier, two soldiers boarding a minibus in Ceylanpınar had been shot by the relatives of smugglers who died in a skirmish, and since that day, they’d sent all soldiers away by train when they were discharged. They’d stop the train that always slowed down when coming into the station, never blowing its whistle, and after they’d piled the soldiers in, the train would move on, stealthy as a snake, towards Gaziantep.