Türkçe Nupel | Français | English

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Ger­many, so far away from the shared court­yard in which they lived. A yel­low lantern-like gleam shined from the win­dow of an apart­ment. This was moment when everyone’s breath stopped. “Stop! Don’t do that, stop!” said Eren…Eren was Emre’s lit­tle broth­er, Emre then stand­ing in front of him with a pis­tol in his hand. They had been like the two halves of an apple. Could Emre kill Eren?

Again he said “No, don’t do that…” Eren’s eyes, lost. Eren’s eyes with a look as bot­tom­less as that of a des­o­late well…

Then, time belonged to the voice of a bird tear­ing through the night. Eren, dis­fig­ured, lay in his blood on the ground. Noth­ing was left of his last look, of his deep aston­ish­ment. Eren, a young man of 16. Eren, Emre’s oth­er half. Emre had blood­ied the snow-cov­ered roads of Ger­many, he had killed his broth­er who would nev­er see spring­time again…Germany is far away, Ger­many is as painful as a mother’s cry…

I killed him”, Emre said to the voice on the phone. “I killed him”. Eren was dead. Cain and Abel’s con­fronta­tion had returned…

*

A beat­en earth house on two storeys with its face turned toward the sun, you climb the stairs up to the ter­race cov­ered in mosa­ic where there  a gen­tle bustling occurs in the shade of the vines of black grapes Prepa­ra­tions for İsmail’s mar­riage. Drums will be beat­en for three days and three nights, all the vil­lagers will dance the Halay, young men and women will weave dreams of love for the future, will pray the god to be grant­ed such hap­pi­ness and promis­es as to Şirin and İsm­ail. In order to hon­or the Three, the Five, the Sev­en 1a suf­fi­cient num­ber of ani­mals will be slaugh­tered so that none from the vil­lage will be for­got­ten, drum and zur­na 2 to the fore, chil­dren fol­low­ing behind, invi­ta­tions and red apples will be dis­trib­uted to everyone…

İsmail’s love sto­ry had reached all the way to dis­tant lands, all he had said was “It will be Şirin or the black earth”. Sey­dali, his father, had pre­sent­ed him­self three times at Şirin’s door and the two fam­i­lies could not stand against this love. In the end, Şirin was engaged to İsm­ail. Şirin, a town girl. Şirin, Ismael’s school friend.

Sev­en sheep were slaugh­tered, sev­en ket­tles set up. In this vil­lage which, at har­vest time is a land of abun­dance, every­one received their share. Şirin was such a beau­ty, like a fresh sip of water. As if the god had set aside every oth­er occu­pa­tion in order to sit down and embroi­der Şirin. Was İsm­ail any less dash­ing than she? İsm­ail was as hand­some as Joseph in the well…

Sey­dali was a respect­ed man in the vil­lage where he had been good to every­one. He owned a large earth­en house. He was the father of five chil­dren, four boys and one girl. He mar­ried off two sons before it was İsmail’s turn. The rooms all opened out on a large court­yard con­nect­ed to a vast kitchen and all the souls in the house­hold met around a big table set low on the ground. Every pen­ny earned was turned over to the father and moth­er. Every child   born there, grew up in this court­yard, blend­ed into the fam­i­ly, they were very close, if one of them struck his foot on a stone, the oth­er felt the pain. They sowed and har­vest­ed as a fam­i­ly, togeth­er they pro­duced every­thing found under this large roof and ate at the table of broth­er­hood, inter­min­gled. Seydali’s home was peace­ful. He val­ued the women, glo­ri­fied them, even. In this affec­tion­ate cli­mate his com­pan­ion was everyone’s lode­stone, she showed the way, the direction…

With Şirin, the mood in this house became even more pleas­ant. Şirin adopt­ed the tra­di­tion root­ed in the house­hold. As for İsm­ail, he was the hap­pi­est man in the world. Hap­py to such an extent he would have flown off, had he had wings. All win­ter, they kept to their room. He could not keep him­self from talk­ing with Şirin, from tak­ing her in his arms, kiss­ing every strand of hair, one by one, tak­ing in their fra­grance. In this court­yard, all were blessed as if the two of them had har­vest­ed all of life’s energies…

With spring­time, their hap­pines increased, now their love includ­ed three peo­ple, Şirin was preg­nant, a new life would be added to the court­yard. Were not İsm­ail and Şirin the god’s favorite ser­vants? Sac­ri­fices galore were to be offered on the altars! Might every­one, includ­ing the ants on the ground, share in this joy. In this court­yard on which all the doors open, anoth­er one would be added, a new per­son in this fra­ter­nal world that weld­ed the chil­dren togeth­er, bound them the one to the oth­er. It would be beau­ti­ful, so beautiful…

All was mov­ing as ordained by Nature. How love always man­aged to over­come every­thing so mag­nif­i­cent­ly. Yet, some­thing was wrong. Şirin’s preg­nan­cy was not pro­gress­ing nor­mal­ly. Start­ing with the third months, she start­ed dou­bling over in unbear­able pain. Moans, and some­times screams, replaced her laugh Out­side, renew­al was at work, the cro­cus were in bloom, spring­time filled the air with its finest aro­mas. But of what good were they? Şirin no longer left the bed, like a can­dle, she was melt­ing away dai­ly.  In the court­yard an air of mourn­ing took over, dark clouds gath­ered, as heavy as death, a fog­gy des­o­late time descended…

This is not a good omen” they said. Sey­dali and his wife wor­ried. Final­ly, İsm­ail took Şirin in his arms, like a bird, and car­ried her to the doc­tor. And that is where İsmail’s riv­er of life start­ed run­ning back­wards. On that day the chain of cat­a­stro­phes began, the worst ones that could hap­pen to any­one. On that day, Life revealed its disgrace.

Some­thing in inside Şirin’s uterus was grow­ing faster than the fetus, and it was incur­able. A tumor! Born in her womb, like ivy, it had invad­ed Şirin’s del­i­cate body. “She will die” said Şirin’s doc­tors. “Why don’t you take her home so that she can die in her bed, at least…”

How benev­o­lent spring was toward the earth, how gen­er­ous with the water, the apri­cot trees were in bloom, insects, birds, ani­mals were build­ing their nests. How busy liv­ing beings were, how the sun embraced every­thing in its warm and yel­low arms. Only Şirin and İsm­ail were exclud­ed from its embrace, only they were not rein­vig­o­rat­ed by this yel­low warmth. Only those two could not be hap­py dur­ing that spring. Hap­pi­ness had aban­doned them. The sin­is­ter news fell in the mid­dle of the court­yard, like a stroke of light­ning, it burned the hearts, mor­ti­fied every­thing. Şirin was going to die!

Some­times, time moves so quick­ly… So many things can be lived with­in one month. As if Şirin had been a guest come on a vis­it from the town for a brief stay, and was leav­ing again, so quick­ly did the time pass.

Night had col­lapsed on the court­yard, the soli­tude of death was every­where. Şirin no longer moaned. Her screams no longer ren­dered the walls of the court­yard. İsm­ail, a bit of cot­ton wool in his hand, squeezed drops of water on Şirin’s mouth, he bathed her body in salty tears. In that night black­er than soot, all liv­ing beings on earth and in the sky were silent, all had hid­den in a cor­ner of the breast of night. İsm­ail did not want any­one in their room. He said “every pass­ing minute is mine, all the time is for me…” What could the court­yard do about it? One does not con­tra­dict suf­fer­ing, nor love. Then… A cry fell on Seydali’s big court­yard, ren­der­ing the night. İsmail’s cry car­ried over the walls, woke up the whole vil­lage. “Oyyy, Şirin is dead!”

Şirin, the unlucky one, Şirin with the evil fate, died. İsm­ail embraced her cold body, cried until morn­ing. A bride of six months with a three-month old baby in her bel­ly and a tumor big­ger than the head of a child, were buried in the village’s mod­est ceme­tery. “May the black earth be good to her” said the court­yard inhab­i­tants. “The black earth”

Worse than a dead man, like a ghost, İsm­ail no longer left his room, no longer spoke to any­one. He turned his back on the world, said he would kill him­self, that he no longer wished to live. Sullen every­where, close-lipped…Was İsm­ail still alive or was he a walk­ing dead? He now fol­lowed a small trail in the vil­lage all the time, it led him to Şirin’s tomb… Same thing, for four sea­sons… No one can con­tain suf­fer­ing. “Let him live through his pain”, they said, “leave him alone to live it though.”

maison cour femme paysanne

Türkan Şoray 1960. From the film “Köyde Bir Kız Sevdim” (I loved a girl in the vil­lage).

Months and months lat­er, İsm­ail went into town for the first time. He put a nail into the white­washed wall and hung a blowup of a pho­to of Şirin who looked like a fairy on it. From that moment onward this pho­to would hang on the wall no mat­ter where İsm­ail went, through­out his whole life, this life­less pho­to would be his only con­fi­dante. A dead friend, a lost life… She would be the wit­ness of each pain, this, İsmail’s sacred image, she would look down on every­thing from the wall where she stood, a paper life, unmoving.

Har­vest sea­son returned… The peas­ants were wash­ing the wheat in the foun­tain, İsmail’s fam­i­ly was doing the same thing at that same spot. Prepar­ing for win­ter by boil­ing cere­al, ket­tles filled to the brim. His moth­er and Şirin’s sis­ters had come from town. İsm­ail was on his way back from the ceme­tery. He had strewn Şirin’s tomb with ros­es. Right there, near the foun­tain where the wheat was being washed, a pair of large eyes filled with warmth and affec­tion like Şirin’s, with brown hair, stretch­ing like a tall and slim branch, as charm­ing as she had been. Şengül, still a child only yes­ter­day, was now tall, in full bloom…

Imme­di­ate­ly, right there at the foun­tain, he want­ed to take hold of those white hands wash­ing the wheat, and kiss them. İsm­ail burned for Şengül as if he had found Şirin again. He recon­nect­ed with hope­ful dreams. He thought “the gold pieces that hung around Şirin’s neck, the dress­es that cov­ered her slim body, the ring on her fin­ger, the shoes on her feet, every­thing she owned would fit her, myself included…”

İsm­ail took the road into town as one goes to the well to draw water. This dai­ly atten­tive­ness, this incred­i­ble affec­tion drew Şengül to its rim.

One win­ter day, news came to the court­yard, “İsm­ail has kid­napped Şengül!…”

Like in the retelling of an ancient sto­ry, drum and zur­na played once again, this time for İsm­ail and Şengül. İsm­ail had found his wings agains, again he was fly­ing, the open skies were for him, so were all the rivers, the end­less green val­leys, nature, laugh­ter, fine days, all for İsm­ail, so hap­py was he…

Seydali’s court­yard, full of chil­dren. The rooms of four daugh­ters-in-law giv­ing out on the court­yard. This is where Şengül bore her first fruit. She gave birth to a lit­tle girl. She was giv­en the name Şirin…

The fam­i­ly was a large one, with min­i­mal rev­enues and many expens­es. Many bun­dled their life under one arm and threw them­selves on the roads to Europe.

At first, İsm­ail was not keen for far-away places. He did not want to leave his beloved. Alas, he was the only one who had stud­ied, the only one who could save the fam­i­ly, bring fer­til­i­ty back to the courtyard.

Oh my beau­ti­ful coun­try, does it suit you to make the song­birds fly away, to cut their wings, to destroy their nests?”3 

A day came when İsm­ail also sang “oh my nest”, and he spread his wings toward Germany…

Tak­ing with him, care­ful­ly wrapped in news­pa­per, Şirin’s photo…

Next part…

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Translation from French by Renée Lucie Bourges

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Suna Arev
Autrice
Née en 1972 à Uzun­tar­la (Elazığ).Dans une famille de huits enfants, elle est immergée dès son plus jeune âge, par­mi les tra­vailleurs agri­coles à la tâche. Tel un miroir qui date de son enfance, la péri­ode du coup d’Etat mil­i­taire du 12 sep­tem­bre 1980 a for­mé sa vie poli­tique. Diplômée de l’École pro­fes­sion­nelle de com­merce d’Elazığ, elle a vécu, en grandeur nature les com­porte­ments fas­cistes et racistes dans sa ville. Mère de qua­tre enfants, depuis 1997, elle habite en Alle­magne, pour des raisons politiques.
Suna Arev was born in 1972 in the vil­lage of Uzun­tar­la, Elazığ dis­trict. From a fam­i­ly of eight chil­dren she became one of the agri­cul­tur­al work­ers at an ear­ly age. The mil­i­tary coup d’état of Sep­tem­ber 12 1980 served as a mir­ror in shap­ing her polit­i­cal out­look. After obtain­ing a diplo­ma from the Elazığ Pro­fes­sion­al Busi­ness School, she expe­ri­enced the full force of fas­cist and racist behav­iours in her town. She has lived in Ger­many since 1997, for polit­i­cal rea­sons. She is the moth­er of four children.