The Few

into the place where it had risen from years before with a slow deliberation, slow enough to give the two elderly men and the hundreds waiting in the corridor chance enough to escape. People waiting in the corridor had time to pour out of the black hole of a door and save themselves and the meaning of their lives. But the two elderly men were content to stay in the room, looking at each other with a smile. As it was, their work had reached its end, and the time had finally come for them to rest in death. The respite of death. They both understood. That knew that the last heart they’d torn out was Derda’s: Derda, whose name they had heard years before. There was only one thing they didn’t understand. And the Indian asked: “What was that book?”

The Philippine smiled. Then he spoke.

“I don’t know, but it must be such a book …” He swallowed and continued. “Such a book that, on account of it, millions of people found their life’s meaning in it.”

“Did he ever write anything else?”

“Yeah, probably. We don’t have anything else, but they’d be at a bookstore,” said Saruhan.

Then he told him how to get to a bookstore near the overpass. Derda set off running. He had to be back before Abdullah came. It was the very first time he’d gone in a bookstore. A woman popped out in front of him.

“Yes?”

“I’m looking for Oğuz Atay’s—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the woman turned around, and with Derda following in her wake, she walked deep into the store. They stopped in front of a shelf and she pulled out Tutunamayanlar.

“I have that one,” said Derda. How could the woman have known that he meant he had it inside him?

“Alright, then,” said the woman, handing him Waiting for Fear and his published journals.

“That’s all we have.”

Taking his crinkled, crumpled money out of his pocket and practically tossing it at the cashier, he paid for his books and left. Running, he just made it in time to catch Abdullah’s van pulling up to the sidewalk. Abdullah gave Derda such a look at every red light all the way to the depot that Derda learned how much Abdullah hated having a reader at his side. You can’t talk to someone who’s reading.

That night, Derda finished Waiting for Fear by the light of the only light bulb in the house. That night, Derda finally heard the voice of the stone he’d spoken to for three years. The last sentence in the last story in the book, “Railway Servicemen—A Dream,” was this: “I am here, dear reader, where are you?”

“I’m here!” cried Derda.

Then he left his house and slipped through the hole in the wall and ran through the darkness straight to Oğuz Atay’s grave. He dropped next to the tombstone, whispering, “I’m here.”

“Look, here I am. I’m here. Next to you. I was always here by your side. Always. Look, now I’m here …”

Derda was crying. He didn’t know why he was crying, but he was crying. Maybe because he’d been alone for so many years. Maybe because the man himself had looked at people, saying, I am here, where are you? Maybe because he could only cry when he was alone. Maybe because he could only cry when he was at Oğuz Atay’s side. Derda was crying. And at the same time, he caressed the violets growing around Oğuz Atay’s tomb. He cried even more, because he didn’t know why he was crying.

Between his sobs he whispered, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here …”

He couldn’t have been able to explain what the stories in Waiting for Fear were about, even if he’d wanted to. He couldn’t have listed the names or the themes. He didn’t have enough words at his command, or sufficient capacity of thought in his intellect that those words could carry. But, just as he said, he’d be there until death. Or maybe even beyond death. There. Forever. In the sky or on some other invisible stratum, side by side, in secret, set in stone in a peacefulness beyond goodness and beyond names. In a place reached by feeling, on the other side of not-knowing. A place where musical instruments whose names he couldn’t know played classical music he was hearing for the first time, and the light fragmented the sprinkling drops raining from his eyes into a prism of seven colors. In a place that neither ignorance nor knowledge would be able to explain. Wherever Oğuz Atay is, it’s there. When he couldn’t hold on any longer and fell, it’s there he fell. Maybe he didn’t fall, maybe just that moment was exempted from gravitational pull. Not a place you grab hold of to get to, but a place you fly to.

That night, Derda slept between two graves, caressing the violets.

Derda was reading Oğuz Atay’s Journal.

“These days I feel a hopelessness …”

Derda felt miserable.

“It doesn’t matter what happens, all I want is to be shown a little respect …”

And he felt frustrated. “Of course!” said Derda. “Of course he has to be shown respect.”

“Progressive, regressive, every sort of movement holds a monopoly over a small half-enlightened gang, so that over the years they don’t feel the need to renew their reality for today, to not lose their place, now they play games like a greedy merchant trying to stay in business …”

Derda didn’t understand who he was talking about, but he got even angrier.

“They are like rotting gums, like a tooth that’s fallen out …”

“Yes!” said Derda to himself.

“The world is contrived …”

And again Derda yelled, “Yes!”

“If only there were a tomb or two on this street, if only every day on our way to work we could greet death …”

He laughed. He felt he had an understanding with Oğuz Atay; he believed there was an invisible bond between them.

“Why don’t they understand my writing, why isn’t there anyone around me …”

He was angry again. “I don’t understand either. But look, I’m