“Son, what have you done all these years?” the woman asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just stood and waited.”
“Well, what are you going to do now?”
“I got tired of standing around. I’ll do something, that’s all.”
“Fine, but what?”
“Mama, I just got here, don’t make a man regret coming home.”
But Yasin continued doing nothing but just standing around. Up until the day he died. He stayed there for a while, underground. It was like he’d never come, like he’d been different from all the other people on the face of the earth. Because all the others had done something, were doing something, and would do something. Even after they’d died. Some of them would go to heaven, some would become a part of nature, some would be reincarnated. No one could risk going and disappearing completely like Yasin. No one would have the courage to be lost without leaving a trace. Someone has to witness another’s passing over this earth. To grace the presence of their existence. Everyone but Yasin has a pyramid buried inside them. In some way, everyone has a plan for immortality. But Yasin had seen too much death, like he’d lived all his life on a battlefield. Like he’d seen death up to the very last person left living on the face of the planet. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t afraid of going. Because he was scared enough of existing at all.
Derda ran around the perimeter of the newly erected cemetery walls, past the front door to his house, and continued in a walk. He walked around the corner, fighting his way through the tree branches. Just as he’d suspected, the hole in the wall had been filled in. Now it was closed up, but that very morning he’d passed through that same hole twice. Once out, and once back in. But now, the wall in front of his home was fully intact. They had poured concrete between him and Oğuz Atay. He turned around and walked toward the trees. He held his book tightly against him, protecting it from the branches, and he wondered what he’d do in the morning. Apparently, the new height of the walls wasn’t enough to secure the cemetery. They’d also laced the top of the walls with barbed wire. Now there was no way he could jump over.
“I’ll just break open a new hole,” he said, pulling his key out of his pocket. “If I have to, I’ll put a hole in the side of the house.”
He opened the door to find a man wearing nothing but long underwear on top of the floor mattress. A thin man with white hair, a wrinkled nape, and naked except for white long underwear. A man with his toes and palms pressing against the floor, rising and falling, like he was doing push-ups. On both sides of the man Derda saw thin, scrawny legs. And tiny little feet. The heels were raised off the ground. Both people were yelling. One from pain, the other from pleasure. Neither of them could have heard the door open. But when Derda screamed a glass-shattering scream, they flew apart like two pieces of wood flung by the wind. One covered himself with his hand, the other covered herself with the sheet.
“What the hell are you doing here, you fuck?” said Derda.
“Derda, I’m your father!” the man said.
“Man, why are you yelling?” said the small girl.
“Süreyya?” said Derda.
He watched in silence as his father counted money into Süreyya’s outstretched palm. He was sitting on the only chair in the house, his elbows leaning on the only table. He looked at the Oğuz Atay books stacked near where his elbows were leaning. He was embarrassed. Of Oğuz Atay. Of them and for them. He couldn’t bear to watch any longer. Once Süreyya saw the agreed upon amount in her palm she closed her hand tight. He watched her mouth, opening like a spoiled child.
“Good work barging in like that, like some ox.”
Derda didn’t answer, and the girl left. The white-haired man, zipping up the pants he’d slipped over his long underwear, but without bothering to button them, walked straight to his son with his arms wide open. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“My son! My lion!”
Derda shoved the approaching man back with his two strong hands. His father took a step back. His face twisted bitterly and he shouted.
“You ass, you animal, so many years and this is the way you greet your father? What, so we tossed a woman around in the house. I mean, it’s only too clear you’re familiar with the girl yourself.”
At once he felt abashed and he laughed.
“You ass, what, is that it? She your bitch? Hmm? Come on, tell the truth, out with it. Is that why you got so angry? Ok, man, we won’t touch her again. Get up, come on. Come here, let me hug you.”
He took Derda by the elbows and pulled him toward him. He cried “son!” and threw his arms around Derda. But the son’s hands hung down at his sides like he was a corpse. Then the man righted himself and held his son by the shoulders.
“Stop, let me take a look at you. You’ve grown into a big man now, eh? Man, you’re strong as a donkey now. Good for you, man, you look great.”
At the same time, he threw soft punches into his son’s cheek. Trembling lightly at every blow, Derda finally spoke.
“Mom died.”
The man’s fist hovered in midair.
“She died? I thought she went back to the village. That’s what the girl told me.”
“That’s what I told everyone,” said Derda. “I said she went back to the village. But she died. Five years ago. Then I cut her up.”
The man let his hands drop off his son’s shoulder as he took a step back.
“Cut what?”
“My mother. Then I buried
