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Mithatpaþa was a neighborhood set besides the line which linked the railway of Ankara-Istanbul to Adapazarý. A neighborhood located between Çark Suyu and the railway, sheltering small houses in gardens. It was very small. And the distance between Adapazarý and here was only four or five kilometers. And even less. The neighborhood was perhaps small, but there was a rather big railway station there. The station was not made especially for the local people. And it existed even before this small neighborhood had not been established yet. It provided the transportation of the workers of the great wagon plant right behind. As the fathers of all children of the neighborhood, mine worked in this plant too. Mithatpaþa was a nice place giving impression to be drawn by a ruler with the houses on a line both sides of the regular streets. Almost all of these houses had a balcony in their facade seemed to be lost between trees. If there were no wooden railings surrounding the gardens of the houses, no one could understand that there was a house there. And also the colorful geraniums in the large and small tins lined up in front of front-doors were worth seeing. We sometimes met sellers of LPG cylinder who shouted the brand of gas which they sold in a truck behind. But streets were empty in general. As they say, there was not any living soul in there. There is an expression for to explain the absolute desert: “The sprites play ball.” In effect, it was not the sprites nor the fairies who played the ball, it was us the children. Streets surrounded with wooden railings painted a strange color whether dark garnet or brown which I can not decide even today were rather broad and abandoned. For that reason, we were using the streets as sports area. And as houses were withdrawn in their gardens, there was no risk of to break window panes. Therefore nobody objected to our games. At most, a person having a patient at home, coming by the window and would say: “Do not make noise! The uncle sleeps. Play your football elsewhere … “So, we would move right away and continue our games a little farther. Even the most angry ones threatened us by pulling our ears. And it remained only as a threat and never had been practiced of course. Because neither we the children gave them a reason, nor the angry neighbors stressed on this subject. We had naturalized the silence so much that, when we saw a car passing by the street which happened very seldom, a big astonishment took us and we started to look with a disapproving expression as if to say “What is this tactless doing in here?”… Of course, our only enjoyment was not playing football in the streets. But also diving into the cold waters of Çark Suyu… Picking up the flowers of bullrush that we named as satan’s candle at the edge of the stream… These were sticks seemed as if a real candle is put on. Afterwards, we used to light them as torches and had a kind of fun. What I have just mentioned lasted until the boy named Nevres had lit one of these and nearly would burn both himself and the neighborhood while trying to frighten us. After this incident, none of our parents let us play with these reeds and even they could not stand hearing their name. This boy, Nevres, was very naughty. No one but he could think any kind naughtiness. And than applied without hesitating. I must add he seldomly used to do harmless and childish things too. He had given us harm with his nastiness very often of course. But we could not dare to say anything to his face. We were that much afraid of him. We could try to stay away from him mostly. And this was all we could do. However this didn’t mattered much. The important thing was he kept away from us. We could not guess where and how he would show up. His parents were the same as Nevres; or I must say he was just the same as his parents. Therefore our parents rather prefered to stay away from them, too. Although they cultivated most kinds of vegetables in their garden -and we could buy our greengrocery from them- very near ot our houses, the people in the neighborhood preferred to go to the down town once or twice a week. Instead it would be easier for them to buy vegetables and fruits from that garden and not carry heavy nets from the down town in the heat of summer. All of the neighbors avoided to contact with that family. Therefore when we complained about him to our parents, instead of warning his mother or father they suggested: “Stay away from him and do not make us deal with these rude people!” Of course we could not dare to get close and prefered to be far from him. Whoever would touch the ablaze stove with bare hands? We didn’t want trouble but how could this be mentioned to Nevres? Even if we had sat away and just were watching him and his friends play, it should be just a matter of time finding a little lizard crawling down through our backs; or something like that. He would already have disappeared by the time when we regained our conscious and could get rid of the lizard. And you should see them going to the down town bazaar, the mother and the son! The mother was as tall as a poplar tree and she always wore a long black overcoat whose color fainted to dark grey which she surely had been wearing even before emigrated from Albania. When she was seen caring those heavy bags filled with fresh mint, dill and arugula walking to the train, you should have prefered to get on the next one. Because she always used to put these bags on the seat as if they were human. She would get very very angry and shout out loudly if one had entered into the compartment. And you surely would get out in a second as soon as you had seen the rage in her eyes. By moving to an other compartment, you could have gotten rid of this woman, Asiye, but not from her son! Not only sitting in an other compartment but also an other wagon wouldn’t stop this malicious boy giving us trouble. He was just a calamity. He was always ready for making some trouble even on the way, in the train. He would sneak into the compartment without being recognized and grabbed our apple candy, toy watch or whatever we had with us. And when one of us could have dared to object him, he would claim those things belonged to himself. What's more, he sometimes used to tell the conductor what we had in our hands or pockets were his toys or candies and we had grasped them by threatening him. So the conductor would blame us for taking his belongings and give them to Nevres in order to justify the owner! Sometimes you could see Nevres with lots of spots on his face drawn by red pencil entering a crowded compartment and threaded the passengers so that they would immediately get away. Here is something more I can’t pass without emphasizing: There were times when he met a mother wandering around her baby in a pushchair in the neighborhood. He would catch the moment when the mother was distracted from her baby and put some mud, insects or something else into the baby’s mouth. When the mother would see what had happened, she would cry in anger while taking that matter from her baby’s mouth. By the time she looked around to show her anger that malicious would already had run towards the fields surrounded by the reeds and hidden in there. One day that boy named Nevres had gathered a bag full of snails. While emptying the bag to the ground next to his feet, he was also giving us orders. We should walk around and gather more snails for him. He had something to do with them! What could we do other than he had just said? We quickly moved in the manner as ordered. We picked up the ones on the wooden railings and flowers one by one. We even found the ones hidden in the grass left viscid trail. I must emphasis we did it not because we thought it would be fun, but because fear of what Nevres could do to us if we hadn’t obeyed him. We gathered even twice as he ordered us to do, that was surely because what he suggested for our hard work. I remember very well even today he had promised to not to bother the one who would have brought the most snail. We were almost sure that he wouldn’t keep this promise. But anyway did with the hope it could be real. He put the snails that we had gathered in a line front of the nearest gate. Oh, why did I just said he put, I mean we did. He made us to do. He would never do any kind of act by himself. He forced someone to do. He commanded us to place the snails in rows of 25 per each. Then he ordered us to move the bigger ones to the front, and the little ones to the back. What we were doing was what we were told. But on the other hand we were really curious: What would he do with these snails put in rows? This was not only a question we had in our minds. Nevres was asking this one to all of us after finishing our job. Most of us shaked our shoulders and didn’t tend to answer. He was staring us with sneaky eyes in a disdaining manner. There was a boy named Gürcan. He said: “You will race them!” And then pointed out that he and his friends had made that kind of competitions in his former neighborhood. Nevres looked at him with the same expression. * Even today when I remember Nevres’ looks at that time, I feel the same rage towards that calamity. We had done what he wanted from us without any objection. Actually he should have thanked, but he shouted at us because of giving wrong answers to his questions. I suppose no one could have done a worse humiliation towards this kind of goodwill. By the time I was feeling that much anger mixed with sorrow then I saw what! That devilish boy did the thing which put all of us in a deep grief: He stepped on the poor snails been put in an order one by one and mash their shells so that we could hear the crackling! Meanwhile, our cries had filled all the skies like a thunder and Nevres, who apparently had guessed what our reaction was going be, got away from our eyesight. After that incident, we didn’t see him for days. Even his mother, that women named Asia, hadn’t been seen on the way walking to the train with bags of greengrocery for selling in the bazaar in the down town, either. fter a few days, we heard the good news: Municipality was going to expropriate the extensive area, on where this vulgar family lived and grew greengrocery; in order to build a botanical garden and the father had taken his wife and son and left without saying goodbye to anyone. * The crackling voice while creature named Nevres had been mashing the shells of the snails under his feet… And our screams… These are all still in my mind. Is it possible that the passing years could be able to erase that rage and sorrow from my mind anyway? And those same passing years couldn’t be able to erase my excitement of joy when I had found a few snails remained after Nevres’ wrath and put them back to a quiet part of the garden, either. One of the boys’ going home immediately to bring glue after Nevres had just run away due to our screams… alerted attempts in order to stick their shells and save the poor snails… and all these sincere efforts full of hope are also in my mind as have happened yesterday. And most of all, the ceremonies we organized for the lost… The ceremonies we had arranged in springs as a kind of annually tradition until my father’s, whom I lost a short time ago, nomination to Eskiþehir and so our leaving Mithatpaþa… I don’t know for sure if they continued this ritual afterwards. But I have a feeling that, one day if the railway takes me to Mithatpaþa on a 6th of May, and then I will see the boys of the neighborhood performing the traditional snail ceremony. Who knows?! |
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THE CEREMONIES OF SNAILS |
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Translated by Ceren BALEL |
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MUSTAFA BALEL |
