He had read some twenty pages when the telephone rang. He answered like an Arab sheik. He didn’t care it was four in the morning.
“Dad!”
Then Steven hung up in his son’s ear. He didn’t care if it was the first time in four years he’d heard his voice. Then the phone rang again. Three times, right in a row, like it was coming from close by. Steven turned a page and silently looked at the phone long and hard, as if from far away.
When Derda passed through the cemetery gates the sun was about to set. He stopped in front of the guard’s house.
“Brother Yasin!”
“Why are you yelling, boy?”
He stopped in place. Yasin was behind him. He handed him the bağlama he was carrying. Inside its black case.
“The man fixed it. They did just what you said.”
Yasin asked as he took the bağlama, “Was it enough money?”
“Yeah, was enough.”
“Any change?”
“You said keep whatever’s left. I was out all day for you. I already …”
“Fine, boy, fine,” said Yasin.
Then he walked inside his guard’s house. He shut the door and sat on the divan. He unzipped the case and slipped it off the bağlama. Two days before he’d fallen against the wall during a bout of heavy drinking. He was holding the instrument by its round body, and the handle had snapped when he’d slammed against the wall.
“If anything had happened to the body, they’d be no saving it,” the master had said to Derda. Then he’d put on a new handle. The handle that was now cradled in Yasin’s palm. He was about to touch the strings but he stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said in a small voice. The bağlama forgave Yasin and the sound of a türkü emanated from the guard’s house. It was a türkü Derda knew: “I Did it Myself, I Found it Myself.” There hadn’t been anyone else for Yasin to blame. Ever. But there was someone Derda was angry at. Yasin.
“He sent me off at the crack of dawn!” Derda said. Then he wondered if anyone had come. He wondered if anyone had come and gone to the tomb he’d watched from the base of the tree, never letting it out of his sight for a whole week until this morning. There was only one way to find out. And that was to go and see.
He came to the row of tombs closest to the wall and stopped to think. He looked at the tomb where the first envelope had been buried. Then at the one to the right. Where the second had been buried. Then he turned to look at the tomb to the right of that one. “Do they go from left to right?” he asked himself. “I mean, are they using the tombs in a row? Yes,” he said. They had to be. They must have to constantly move their hiding place so there’s no risk of someone discovering their system, he thought. But they’re going down the row. Left to right.
He was so sure of his theory, he stepped right up to the tomb, stopped in front of the tombstone, and stuck his fingers into the soil in the grave bed. He loosened the soil, searching, until he felt something hard. But this was no envelope. He sank his hand in even deeper until he could grab onto what seemed to be some sort of box. He pulled it out. A white box emerged from the earth. It would have been impossible to find a kid more ecstatic than Derda was just then anywhere on the face of the planet. Who knew what sort of treasure was inside the box? Maybe more money than could fit inside an envelope!
He took a quick look around him, then opened the box. But as soon as he opened it he wanted it shut, and fast. But he couldn’t get the lid to fit back on. He lost his grip jostling the pieces of box and lid, and everything tumbled to the ground. Derda practically fell himself. The box, lid, and his mother’s left hand dropped into the dirt. Well, whatever was left from his mother’s hand. A bit of flesh, and lots of bone. Derda knew it was her left hand because he’d buried it at the base of that tomb. He swallowed to keep from vomiting, he took deep breaths to keep his heart from stopping in its tracks, and, holding it gingerly with the edge of his T-shirt, he put the hand back in the box and set the lid on top. Then he took four steps to the other side of the tombstone and, dropping to his knees, looked for the hole he’d dug before. But there was no need to look far. It was there, gaping open between his knees.
Someone had found his mother’s left hand, put it in a white box, and buried it in the earth in the grave bed. But who? Derda didn’t know Tayyar’s name. “He saw!” was all he could say. “That man must have seen. That morning he saw what I did. That’s why he said to be more careful. Be more careful or you’ll get caught!”
He was right. Steven’s directive had been: “Write a list of the documents inside the envelope, and put that into the envelope, too. That way I’ll be able to confirm what is supposed to be inside.”
Steven, taking advantage of this
