The Hikmet Tariqat differed from other religious sects in the region because their sheik was homeless. Hikmet Tariqat members did not have a particular medrese, nor did they frequent any dervish lodge. Homeless Sheik Gazi was born a refugee to the world and he would die one, too. He didn’t own a home and he wasn’t an officially registered resident of anywhere. He moved from one disciple’s home to another every three months, living on whatever was offered him. Homelessness was the founding principle of the Hikmet Tariqat. In their eyes, borders between states were fictitious. They didn’t believe in nation states. There were only believers and non-believers. Their members were scattered all over the world. Homeless. Although being homeless didn’t mean one couldn’t own property; there were not a few title deeds in Hıdır Arif’s name. Hıdır Arif lived in Istanbul but also spent time in London, waiting for his father to die. Most of the year he was in Istanbul, in a neighborhood called Çemendağ. He owned 221 of the 226 buildings in the neighborhood. The remaining five had been built illegally without municipal permission. His plan was to apply pressure on the municipality to have those five buildings demolished as soon as possible. There was also a mosque in Çemendağ. But Hıdır Arif did his best to ensure that the mosque couldn’t reach the Hikmet Tariqat members.
But more than anything else Hıdır Arif was a businessman. A businessman who owned a supermarket chain in London and livestock somewhere near Hamburg, and who managed construction projects in Istanbul. He was busy. And it made him angry when he had to leave everything at the drop of a hat to parade his father through villages like a circus animal. But the believers couldn’t rest easy until they’d seen their flag. When they were restless they called Hıdır Arif to complain: “We paid the last installment, but our houses still aren’t finished.” They complained all the time. Endless complaints. Men like Ebcet, now kneeling before him, never stopped bothering him. What did the fool want from him now?
“I have a girl, my niece. She’s eleven. An appropriate …”
“You have a photograph?” asked Hıdır Arif.
Lost in his own troubles, Ebcet wasn’t listening and didn’t understand.
“What?”
Hıdır Arif sighed and repeated his question; a businessman needed patience.
“Take her photograph and send it to me. We’ll look into it.”
“May God bless you, may God grant …”
“Alright then,” said Hıdır Arif and he cast his eyes about the room. He noticed the wrinkles on Gido Agha’s face, like knife wounds, and then the saliva dribbling from his father’s lips. He watched the men genuflecting before him, whispering into each other’s ears. Hıdır Arif was forty-four. He had three wives and eight children. He’d graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics. He left for the United States sixteen years ago, swearing never to return to Turkey. Why would he? To sit beside a good-for-nothing like Gido Agha in a cesspool of a town like Girinti? This wasn’t for him—villages and villagers. I’ll transfer everything to London, and I’ll never come back, he thought. Then he thought of the view of the Thames from his office in London and he smiled. Gido noticed it and gave Hıdır Arif a tough but friendly tap on the knee.
Squatting on the ground with her face in her hands, Fehime bit her lips as she watched Derdâ being photographed. She was tired of feeling jealous. She’d have to get used to watching; she was condemned to do it all her life. She’d watch until she lost her mind, her insanity rising until she died. Like all the other village girls, Fehime was nothing but a pair of eyes, eyes that opened at birth and closed at death. Her mouth, her voice, served no purpose at all.
Checking that no one else was around, Ebcet said, “Uncover your head.” Derdâ undid her black headscarf and left it around her neck. A long black braid of hair slid down her back like an exotic snake. Ebcet had bought his camera from the only white goods shop in town and they had warned him: “There has to be enough light—it won’t work without light.” Now under a dull sky, Ebcet did his best to position Derdâ’s face toward the light. At the same time, he thought of how her buyer would reimburse him for the camera. Not only would he pay him for the machine, but he’d have to be the one to shoulder the sin of making an eleven-year-old girl uncover her head. And of course that would mean more money.
It was the first time Derdâ had had her picture taken and she didn’t know if she should smile or not. But she wanted to so in the end she couldn’t help it and smiled. Ebcet couldn’t help himself and slapped her.
“You’ll make me a sinner! Now go inside!” Fehime couldn’t help but laugh and he barked, “You, too!”
The girls quickly disappeared behind the door. Ebcet mumbled to himself as he turned the camera over in his hands: “How do you turn this damn thing off?”
The time when taking a picture was considered sinful was long gone.
A month had passed since the pictures were taken. It was spring. The snow was melting, and patches of the earth were emerging over the countryside.
“Don’t cry anymore. Don’t you see that I’m sick, too? But you don’t even care. Here, have some soup. Come on now,” Saniye said.
Saniye set the bowl down beside Derdâ and left the room.
