FEAST OF THE DEAD*

Cevdet Kudret**

JANUARY CHANGED THE color of the air. Under the ash-colored sky, the world seemed grimmer. People went out only for work. The streets, especially the back streets, often stretched bare and empty. There was nobody under the oak trees, in the courtyards of the mosques, at the fountains – the spots of coolness and gathering places for the children of the street in the summer. The fountains were never completely deserted. Almost every day there would be someone to go there to fetch the day’s water.

A boy who had been to the fountain for water that noon ran back to his street panting, and told the first man he saw:

“Dursun Agha is dead!”

Dursun Agha was a familiar figure of the street. He was about fifty; a sturdy man with a round black beard. He was the water carrier, who barely made both ends meet, with a wife and two children in his small, two-story house. His entire capital consisted of two water cans and a pole, with a chain dangling from either end. Mounting the pole on his shoulder every morning, hooking the cans by their handles to the chains, he set out with his first call, in his own street:

“Water. Anybody need water?”

His low, resonant voice could carry as far as the last house in the street. Those who needed water would call back, “Dursun Agha, one trip,” or “Two trips,” or “Three trips.” “One trip” meant two cans of water. Then Dursun Agha would climb up to the fountain and to the houses all day long. He got three kurush for each trip; this way of earning the day’s bread was like digging a well with a needle, earning it drop by drop. If they had to rely only on his earnings, it would have been impossible to feed four mouths; but thank God, his wife Gulnaz was called upon three or four times a week, as a charwoman. Within the limited opportunities of her work, she tried to help her husband earn just a little bit more, cheating in small ways that were pathetic, harmless, and even innocent – using up a little extra water, just a can or two so that her husband could earn a few more three kurush.

Now all this had ended suddenly. The cause of Dursun Agha’s death was soon discovered. After he had hooked the brimful cans to the pole, he had slipped while trying to stand up on the ice that had hardened during the night before, ice polished slippery as glass with water continuously dripping over it. He could not get his balance again because of the load of full water cans, and he had hit his head on the stone bowl under the tap. Who could ever have expected him to die so suddenly? Looking at Dursun Agha, one could sooner imagine a stone being fragile and getting hurt. But he? Who would have thought that he could smash his skull? However, even if a man looked tough and durable, he could die, just like that, all of a sudden.

When Gulnaz heard the news, she froze. Could this be the punishment for her little tricks, for her cheating? No, oh no, God could not be that cruel. This could not be anything but an accident. There were witnesses: he slipped, fell down, and died. Anybody could fall this way and die.

Perhaps they could, but at least they would have left something behind them to support their family. All the estate that Dursun Agha had left was his two cans and a pole.

What was Gulnaz going to do now? She thought but could make no decision. It was not easy to be left alone with two children, one nine years old, the other six. How could she feed these two mouths by washing clothes only twice or three times a week? She remembered all the water she had used up so freely. She might just as well not think of the water anymore. In an instant all had changed. Now there was no difference between using much water or using little. If she could only find a way out and give up being a charwoman altogether. The water she had loved so long had suddenly become a thing to hate-there was treachery in its glitter, enmity in its flow. She no more wanted to see or hear it.

When death occurs in a house, no one thinks of cooking. The first thing the household forgets is food. This goes on for thirty-six or maybe forty-eight hours at the most, but as soon as a gnawing is felt in the stomachs, or a listlessness in the climbs, someone in the house says, “Come, we must have food,” and thus, with eating, starts the return to the usual course of living.

It is a Moslem tradition for the neighbors to send food, for aday or two, to the bereaved household. The first meal came to Gulnaz and her children from the white house at the corner. Raif Efendi, the businessman, lived there. One could see from a mile off that this was the home of a wealthy man. At noon on the day after Dursun Agha died, the maid from the white house appeared with a large tray in her hands at Gulnaz’ house and rang the bell. On the tray were dishes of noodles cooked in chicken broth, some meat with a good rich sauce, cheese rolls, and sweets.

To tell the truth, no one had thought of eating that day; but as soon as the cover was lifted from the tray there was a giving in, a relaxation of feelings. Silently they all gathered around the table. Maybe it was because they had never had such good food before, or maybe because pain had sharpened their senses, but they all found the food exceptionally delicious. Having eaten once, they found it natural to sit around the table at suppertime and satisfy their hunger with the left-over of their lunch.

Another neighbor took care of the food for the next day. This went for three or four days. Of course, none of the later meals was as tasty or as generous as the trayful from the white house, but they were all a great deal better than any that was ever cooked in Gulnaz’ pot. If this had only continued, Gulnaz and her children could easily have borne their sorrow to the end of their lives, but when the trays stopped coming in and the coal which they were buying pound by pound from the store on the main street could not be bought any more, they began to realize that their sorrow was unbearable.

The first day food stopped coming in, they kept their hopes up till noontime, running to the door with the sound of each footstep in the street outside, hoping to see a big tray with a white cloth cover over it. But instead they saw people simply going about their daily lives merely passing by, their empty hands hanging at the ends of their arms. At suppertime, they realized that no one was going to bring food, so they had to cook at home as they had done before. They had got used to quite another type of food during the past few days and found it difficult to readjust to the meager dish of potatoes. Gulnaz had cooked with hardly a trace of butter. They had no choice but to get used to it again. They were not really hungry for about three or four days, until their staples were all used up. But then they ran out of butter, flour, and potatoes. For the next few days they ate whatever they found here and there in the house: two onions, one clove of garlic, a handful of dry lime beans found in the corner of the cupboard. Finally, there came a day when all the pots, baskets, bottles, and boxes in the house were empty. That day, for the first time, they went to bed on empty stomachs.

The next day was the same. In the later afternoon, the little boy started crying, “Mother, it hurts inside!” His mother said, “Be patient, children, be patient just a little! Something must happen!” They all felt that their stomachs had shrunk to the siie of a baby’s fist. They all felt dizzy when standing up – it was best to lie flat on the back; then you felt as if you were dreaming. They all saw green-and-red forms fluttering in front of their eyes; there was also a hollow, echoing sound in their ears. They noticed their voices were gradually getting softer.

The day after, Gulnaz had a dream: maybe there was someone in the street who needed a charwoman. You could never tell. Maybe she would receive a message one morning: “Tell Gulnaz to come for laundry today.” Yes, Gulnaz who had vowed never to look at a pail of water again, now was longing for this call. But the people of the street thought it would be inconsiderate to call her for work. “Poor woman,” they all said, “sorrow must be gnawing at her heart now. She is in no shape to do laundry, poor thing.”

That morning no one in the household thought of getting up. They all had visions of food. The little boy talked occasionally. “l can see bread. Look, look, Mother (putting out his hand as if to grab it), bread – how fluffy it is – so soft – so nicely baked…”

The older boy saw sweets instead. How stupid he had been, how very stupid not to have savored them when they came on the trays-how stupid to have eaten all his share at once, when they were given to him. If only he had them once more he knew what he would do; he would eat them very slowly, savoring each mouthful; one by one.

Gulnaz lay in her bed, listening to the murmurs of her children, biting her lips in order not to cry out, tears flowing down her temples from under her closed lids. Life outside went on as before. She could follow all that happened by just listening–all of life in this street where she had lived for many years.

A door closed. The little boy next door, Cevet, is going to school; he always bangs the door. If it had been the older boy, Suleyman, he would close the door gently; the two brothers are so different in nature. Now a rheumatic old lady shuffling her feet slowly. That is the mother of Salih, who works on a ship as cabin boy. She is going out for shopping. More footsteps. This time it is Tahsin Efendi, the barber, who lives in the red house atthe end of the street. He always walks by at this time of the morning to open up his shop on the main street. The next one is Hasan Bey, the grandson of Idris Agha, the jobber; he is a clerk in the electric company. He will move away from this street as soon as he finds an educated girl and marries her. This one is the school teacher, Nuriye Hanim. Then there is Feyzullah Efendi, who makes slippers. Then Cemil Bey, the tax collector. And there is the bread man, who always stops at Rifky Bey’s house. He comes every day, at exactly this same hour. The big baskets tied to both sides of the horse are full of bread. The creaking of the baskets can be heard from far away.

It was the older boy who first heard the creaking of the baskets and looked toward his brother. The younger boy heard it next. He, too, turned his head to his brother; their eyes met. The younger one murmured, “Bread!”

The sound was coming closer. Gulnaz got up slowly in the chill room and put a wrap around her to go out. She had decided to ask for two loaves of bread on credit. She could pay when she got money for laundering. Her hand on the latch; she paused inside the door. Her whole attention was concentrated on listening. The approaching sound of hoofs crushed her courage – crushed and crushed; finally, when the sounds were only a few steps away, they forced her to throw open the door. Gulnaz, with eyes growing larger, stared at this food, this grace, passing by. The square baskets on the white horse were so wide that they covered the entire side of the animal, and so deep that they almost touched the ground. Both baskets were full to the brim. The bread was made of pure white flour. The loaves seemed so fresh and spongy, it must be such a joy to touch them, why, one’s fingers would simply sink into their soft texture. A beautiful smell went up through one’s nose, down the throat. Gulnaz swallowed. Just as she was about to open her mouth and say something to the bread man, he shouted in a high-pitched voice, “Giddy-yap.” She lost her courage, could not say a word, just stood there frozen, staring at the baskets brushing against the woodwork of the house. The food, the grace of God, was passing by her house, but she could no stretch out her hand to take it. The horse walked slowly on, waving his long white tail like a handkerchief, “Goodbye, Gulnaz! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

Banging the door, she returned to the room. She dared not look into the fevered eyes of the boys who had been waiting hopefully. She could not find a place to hide her empty hands. Suddenly it was as if she were ashamed of having hands at all. Not a word was said in the room; the boys simply turned the other way; the older boy closed his eyes in order not to see the emptiness of his mother’s hands; his brother did the same. Gulnaz went to a cushion on the floor and dropped herself onto it with the softness and the lightness of a shadow, her feet under her skirts, her arms covered by the shabby wrap on her shoulders; she hid in her corner as if she wanted to dissolve into nothingness. She looked like a bundle of old rags. The atmosphere in the room became tenser; silence increased. No one made the slightest movement for half an hour or more. Finally, it was again the younger boy who broke the silence. He called out from his bed:

“Mother! Mother!”

“Yes, son?”

“l can’t stand it anymore. Something is happening in my insides.”

“Oh, my sweet boy, my little boy.”

“Here in my tummy. Something is moving.”

“It’s from hunger. I feel it too. Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Your intestines are moving.”

“I’m dying. I’m dying.”

The older boy opened his eyes and looked at his brother. Gulnaz looked at both of them. The little boy was silent. His eyes looked darker; his lips dry, parched, and white; his cheeks hollow; his bloodless skin faded and shallow. Finally, Gulnaz beckoned to the older boy. He got up and both left the room. In the hallway between the two rooms, she whispered as if afraid of being overhead, “We must go to Bodos, the grocer. We must! Ask for some rice, flour, and potatoes. Tell him we’ll pay him in a few days.”

The boy’s shabby coat was not heavy enough to keep out the cold of the street. He had no strength in his legs. He had to steady himself against the walls as he walked. Finally, he reached the store on the hill to Cerrahpasha and went through the door into the warmth of the store, heated by a large fire pot. He let others take his turn, hoping to be able to talk to the grocer in privacy and to enjoy the warmth a little longer. After everyone had gone, he left his place by the fireside, ordered a pound of rice, a pound of flour, and a pound of potatoes, put his hand in his pocket as if reaching for his money, and then pretending to have left it at home, looking annoyed, he said, “Oh, I left the money home. How do you like that! I’d hate to have to go all the way home in this cold and come back again. Write it down, won’t you, and I’ll bring it when I come tomorrow.”

Bodos knew the tricks of the game only too well. Looking over his glasses, he said : “You’ve become so thin. Someone who has money at home doesn’t get so thin.”

He put the boy’s order to one side. “First bring the money and then you take this,” he said. “All right,” the boy said, embarrassed to see his lie found out. “I’ll bring it.” He hurried out.

After the boy had left, Bodos Agha turned to his wife, who helped him in the store. “Poor souls,” he said, “l feel so sorry for them. What on earth will they live on from now on, I wonder?”

His wife nodded. “Yes, I feel sorry for them, too. Poor souls.”

The boy was finding the iciness of the street more unbearable than he had before he entered the store. At the corner smoke was coming out of the chimney of the white house. How happy were the people who lived in it! It did not occur to him to be jealous; he had only admiration for these people who had fed him the best meal of his life.

The boy walked toward his own house as quickly as he could, his teeth chattering. Entering the room, he said nothing to his mother and brother. His empty hands spoke for him.

Before their questioning eyes, he took off his clothes and went to his bed, which had not yet lost all its warmth; but when he spoke, he said, “l am cold. I am cold.” The blanket rose and fell on his trembling body.

Gulnaz piled on him whatever they could find and looked with fearful eyes at the bundle rising and falling on the boy’s trembling body. The trembling lasted for an hour and a half or more. Then came the fever and exhaustion. The boy lay flat on his back, stretched out, motionless, his eyes staring vacantly. Gulnaz lifted the covers and tried to cool his burning head with her cold hands.

The woman paced through the house till evening, desperate, She kept on going into the room and out again, looking with empty, glazed eyes at the walls, the ceilings, the furniture. Suddenly she noticed that she was no longer hungry. It was like the numbness from excessive heat or cold. The edges and tips of the nerves must be blunted by hunger.

The sun had just gone down. The covers, taken off the fevered boy’s bed and piled on the floor, were a bundle of darkness. Looking at the small pile, she had a sudden rational thought: wouldn’t there be anybody to give some money for all that? She remembered the neighbor’s having talked of a junk store in the Grand Bazaar where they bought used things – but it must be closed. Now she had to wait till the morning.

With the peace of mind she had from having found a solution, she gave up her walking from room to room and sat by the bedside of her son.

The boy’s fever went up. The woman sat motionless, staring. The younger boy could not sleep from hunger. He, too, was watching, his eyes open. The sick boy moaned slowly, tossed and turned in his fever, finding no comfort. His cheeks were burning. He talked in delirium, his eyes fixed on a spot on the ceiling – looking, looking, not seeing. Large, fixed, glassy eyes. The younger boy was watching him closely from his bed. When the sick boy started talking again with the fever, the younger boy sat up in his bed and said, in a loud, soft voice audible only to his mother, “Mother, will my brother die?”

The woman shivered as if touched by a cold wind on her skin. She looked at her son with frightened eyes. “Why do you ask that?’

The boy paused for a minute under his mother’s gaze; then he leaned close to her ear and said softly, trying hard to keep his voice from his brother:

“Because, then food will come from the white house.”

————–ooOoo—————

* From Gems (2) in Afro-Asian Literature, by Jovita O. Calixihan and Lucesa Y.Diano (with Dr. Lilia R. Cortez as consultant), National Book Store, 1989, pp. 215-220.

** Cevdet Krudet (Feb. 7, 1907 – 10 July 1992) was a Turkish writer and literary scholar. He lost his father in the Battle of Mosul when he was nine years old. She studied with her mother’s efforts. Upon graduating from the law school of the University of Istanbul in 1933, he practiced law. From 1934 to 1945 he taught literature in Turkish higher educational institutions. He began to publish in the 1930’s. In his collection of poems The First Act (1929), his play The Wolves (1933), and his novel Class Comrades (1943), he treated contemporary social problems. He is the author of a number of studies on Turkish literature and art, including The Short Story and Novel in Turkish Literature (1965–67) and Karagöz (1968–70). He was awarded the Turkish Language Association Science Award and the Sedat Simavi Foundation Literature Award (1991). In addition, he was deemed worthy of the Language Association Turkish Language Honor Award (1989) and the Letters Association Honorary Award (1992).