|
www.mustafabalel.com |
|
How crowded the streets were at the sundown! When it was about 5.30 or 6 pm, you could look around and see dozens of children were everywhere around. Like the seeds of a sunflower... And one of those seeds was I. Can you guess why all the children were in the streets whether it was cold or hot, and even not minding the mud or the rain? Let me hear you! No, we weren’t coming back from ours school. Besides we would not only have already returned from the school, but also would have finished our homework and gone out for playing by then. As our mothers’ saying “for dropping our worms.” Did I hear you say a brass band was passing by the street? Oh no, that was surely not possible! Not to mention a clown would never come to that street. And also don’t even think of a movie making in that street. A movie making had been realized in that narrow street once and a second isn’t possible. I still remember the director had gathered all the children in the street and made run us after the tourists as a sequence of the film. Maybe this much wouldn’t be so disturbing for our parents, but what about begging money from the tourists? How angry our parents had gotten! I suppose most of us couldn’t have forgotten the shouting of our parents owing to “the tourist following incident” in order to earn money just enough for a handful of roasted sunflower seed. Let’s turn to our issue: What was this for? What could we be doing in the streets? Not waiting for the baked chickpeas seller. And he would never pass from our street. He has sold all his chickpeas in front of the school and then gets disappeared. Nor the crazy of the neighborhood would be passing. He would have already passed by then. He used to pass from our street by noon waggling like a wall pendulum. While his two hands seemed as if glued to his two sides and yelling to those who was staring to his ridiculous manners. Also not the Ramadan drummer, he would only wander in the street nearly dawn in order to wake the people for having their midnight meal. The time was too early for the drummer to come. All right, it’s hard to guess. I’m telling. The cheering was for Uncle Çepçep! Yes, this old man was the reason made us get out to the streets at sundowns when all the people were coming back to home from their works. Especially, the balloons, pinwheels and the violet fragranced candies… Sometimes he used to give us roasted chickpeas owing to not having time to go to the candy store or maybe couldn’t resist the smell of the roasted chickpeas and buy instead. Frankly, waiting for Uncle Çepçep in the Ramadan days was the most enjoyable thing for us. Thanks to his kindness, we would have the joy of be given the little animal statues made of candy put on a thin stick. The candy statuettes of little roosters, rabbits, two or tree humped camels… in red, blue, green, yellow, orange and so… Our mothers wouldn’t bother to stand up and yell from their usual sitting place in the balconies surrounded by flowerbeds with any colors of geranium for making us get back to home. Knowing nothing would make us turn home whether they had yelled us to come home and wash our hands and sit to the dinner table. So, they never intended to dress up their coats and come to the street for pushing from our arms and force us to come home. Anyone knew as soon as we have heard Uncle Çepçep turning the corner of the street crawling his feet we would alert each other by whistling and gather in front of our usual meeting place, the gate of the yellow house. Why we had choosen that place, I don’t know. After kissing the slim hand of this old man, no one of us would fool around in the street anymore. For we would have gotten our daily little gift and warned to go home for not to make our parents get angry. He wouldn’t let us stay in the street after giving our gifts. Then we had a kind of ceremony of going home. Having distributed our gifts, likeable old sent us in our houses, as to shoo hens. Everyone in the neighborhood knew this. Besides if there were anyone not knowing this, she or he would learn in a short time. For example Kemal’s mother, the fat woman who had moved to the neighborhood recently. Once she had forced her son to go back home by nearly crawling, yet what had she had? Nothing but nothing! Soon after, realizing there was not any other thing to do, she had to accept this ceremony just like the other mothers of the neighborhood. Who was this Uncle Çepçep? Why was he called like that? We didn’t know. We hadn’t even thought about these, either. Why he was dubbed as Çepçep hadn’t interest us at all. The important thing was not to learn the identity of this old man working in the museum situated in a corner of the madrasah that remained from the Seljukians., but being granted with the candies, balloons or the pinwheels…And also the words he honored us with. “Young man” he called us, or “my young friend”. Who wouldn’t like to be called like that, especially in our ages? Being a “young man” wasn’t a saying that anyone can shut down his ears to especially if he was only twelve. I believe it isn’t, still. * It was a sundown again. Since all happened because of a rooster candy, it must have been a day in Ramadan month when the old man honored us with those lovely things. We had brought together all our balls and pellets and put them into our hidden place. All of us were alerted for Uncle Çepçep to come while roaming around. No matter how original excuses we had made, it was obvious that we were waiting for Uncle Çepçep. What a catastrophic day it was! An awful downpour had stopped a while ago. Because of the rain, it had become a cold day; I mean a summer day could only be as cold as this. You wouldn’t even believe it was a summer day. It was just like a day in winter. Cold and devastating… runny mud everywhere… All of these had taken our joy away. Hence I can’t tell exactly how long we had waited. But I remember we felt to have waited too long and started to grow impatient. I could hear the muttering. The same sad look in our eyes… our faces were depressed. After waiting for a long time, I was feeling nearly to cry when I was on the way back to home. I was thinking of eating something and go to sleep. Unfortunately I couldn’t. As I rang the doorbell, my sister got out from the window, I forgot what had happened in the street. Because of the uproar at home I forgot Uncle Çepçep and so. I realized the source of the uproar: We had guests at home. A friend of my father had brought his mother from town to city center, Sivas, for her treatment. Since they had no relative in the city, they were going to stay with us. The son was very short, but on contrary the mother was very tall. Can you imagine them hand in hand walking around at home! That had become as a kind of joy for us, the house people. Especially for my sister Ahsen. They would go to the hospital like that. More over, the hospital trips would take a number of days. A number of days enriched with this! That was a real source of joy for all of us. None of us had minded my mother’s warning with her eyes and eyebrow mimics in order the old women seeing us and feeling sorry for our sarcastic attitude. Neither her shaking forefinger to threaten us. At the end she was fed up and gathered us all in the kitchen. She wanted us to stop making joke of these poor people. Ahsen agreed. She promised not to make fun of them. But she couldn’t keep herself of laughing as soon as she saw the old woman’s cheeks meaninglessly swelling and reducing in a proper circulation. In addition to this view, there was a sound being heard like fizzing during this funny view. She couldn’t help laughing out. That night passed in jocular. The desperation I felt on the way to home was totally out of my mind. In the morning I was going to school when I met friends. But the thing I heard from them was not funny like my sister Ahsen’s jokes or the meaningless sayings of the old woman. What I heard from the boys made me fall in to the same desperation I had felt in the last evening. Even the numbest of us were saddened by this news. Weakling -for whom we had gotten curious about- was sick. I mean Kemal, the boy recently moved to our neighborhood, by saying sallow. The boy of the woman who had once tried to take her son to home pulling his arm, but couldn’t have as I mentioned in here. We dubbed him like that because he was often sick. Don’t worry; he wasn’t hurt in a car accident or so. He was poisoned! Than his parents took him to the hospital and his stomach had been washed, that was all. At the moment, he was resting at home. And Sumru, the daughter of the barber, swore that Weakling had made long nose through her face! This much was unbelievable. There was nothing to worry for him much. What devastated us was Uncle Çepçep be taken to the police station due to the family’s complain about Kemal’s getting poisoned. They had claimed their son was poisoned because of the little candy statues Uncle Çepçep gave us. The ones in the shape of rooster, rabbit, camel or else… We were deeply shocked. There was no sign of joy left in our faces, only a state of desperation. Of course we weren’t sorry for deprivation of the balloons and candies he gave us. After all our fathers would buy rooster candies for us. Besides we could have any candy, balloon, pinwheel or bonbon with violet essence if we had gone to a store and pay for what we had wanted to have. However, we were not happy. Owing to being aware of these wouldn’t take the place of Uncle Çepçep’s gifts. They couldn’t give the same joy and even they wouldn’t taste the same. * There was nothing to enjoy us in the street then. Especially, in the evenings. After coming back from school, we played for a little time, and then took the way to home. No one was patient and ask about the time, since we weren’t waiting for the old man to come. And no one would bet on what he was going to deliver us in the sundown. In fact, Uncle Çepçep had been kept in custody for a little time until the truth had been understood. Soon it was revealed what poisoned Weakling wasn’t the rooster candy that Uncle Çepçep had granted in a big pleasure, but the pesticided plum he had stolen from the trees of their neighbor. But it was too late… for that old man must have been sulky. We were lost in thoughts. We wouldn’t be seeing his face for a long time by then. After that incident, he would be like invisible. I suppose he wouldn’t get out of his house much. From home to work, from work to home… Hence, we wouldn’t see him in the street and kiss his hand in order to show our respect. He would neither ask for we had been and chat with us nor grant us with his gifts. We wouldn’t have to get excited about who he would start delivering these. And the boy Adnan, wouldn’t pose of being a shy, poor boy and make all of us laugh. Because Uncle Çepçep used to deliver his gifts to the poor boys firstly, and deliver the remaining to the rest of us. As being canny, Adnan was trying to get his little gift at once. Therefore he made a fool of himself that was really funny to watch. What we constantly thought about for the next a few weeks after his disappearance was these. We supposed maybe he had moved to close relative. Or maybe he had gone to a rest home because of feeling too lonely. While mentioning these thoughts to each other, our anger against Weakling was growing and growing. He was poisoned because of the newly pesticised plum and because he had to explain how he was poisoned he had blamed the old man! He had told his mother that he hadn’t eaten anything other than the rooster candies the old man granted us with. A big remorse gnawed at the child! After what he had done, he couldn’t have the courage to look at any of our faces. Besides they moved from the neighborhood after a short time. However telling we didn’t feel his absence would be lie. After all he was our friend and although his unjust incident, he had some kind of good manners, too. In the end we felt upset when they left. It didn’t take long us to forget about him. But how about Uncle Çepçep’s absence! Of course we couldn’t take this good hearted, generous man out of our minds. Guess what happened someday! Like a kind of miracle… One day on a sundown, I had returned home from the street playing with friends and was to wash my hands. Then I heard the cheering outside. Getting curious I ran to look what was happening from the window. There, there was an old man having a series of balloons colorful in one of his hands and a cane in other one. Uncle Çepçep! A moment later I remember being on the stairs running down through the street. |
|
THE CANDY STATUETTES |
|
Translated by Ceren BALEL |
|
MUSTAFA BALEL |
