Just a few short days earlier Derda had thought that every single person who crossed the face of the earth was bad to the core, and now, if even for a split second, he believed in the possibility that everyone could be good. He fantasized that all people and all of mankind could love Oğuz Atay. Because Derda believed that Oğuz Atay was everything good. Everything that touched goodness originated in him. The photographs at the end of his Journal passed before his eyes, especially the very last one. The one where Oğuz Atay looked straight into Derda’s eyes. Maybe it was only his own voice ringing in his own ears: I am not alone.
Meanwhile, he wasn’t listening to anything Abdullah was telling him. But the guy must’ve been talking nonstop for the last half hour they’d been stuck in traffic. He talked about all the phlegm he was coughing up at night ever since he was forced to stop smoking, and he just kept talking. Derda was paying so little attention to Abdullah that he took the packet out of his pocket, took out a cigarette, and offered it to Abdullah. And even with great joy. As if to celebrate his not being alone. Like it was his birthday. As if because there weren’t candles to blow out, he wanted to light a cigarette instead.
“Light another one.”
Abdullah looked at the cigarette, then at Derda’s smiling face.
“You’re right, boy,” he said, taking the cigarette. “If we’re going to die, may as well die doing this.”
Maybe life is beautiful when it’s misunderstood. But only when it’s misunderstood.
Then there came to pass three more nights of signatures. The windows of newspaper stands, bookstores, bus stops, whenever he found himself alone with a wall before him, he tagged it with Oğuz Atay’s signature. For three nights, Derda put Oğuz Atay’s seal on whatever place he could. And he passed his daytimes looking for more places he could tag, always on the lookout from the windows of Abdullah’s van. He saw four more symbols that weren’t his. He had four more dreams. I wonder who did them? It was like he was suddenly part of a secret underground organization. So secret that even the members of the organization didn’t know each other. He wondered about the name of the organization. What could it be? he thought. Then, all of a sudden, he remembered the name of one of the children’s books Saruhan had had him read. It was called The Oğuz Turks. Derda smiled. Why not? he thought. And he thought about that for a while. Then he forgot about it totally and didn’t think about it anymore. Anyway, he said, the most important thing was that he was not alone. Because up until that day, the most important thing had been that he was alone.
On the fourth day, there was no work. Israfil had said, “There’s no going out to work today, everything’s too mixed up out there.”
Later, when he’d asked Süleyman, he’d said, “Look, son, you think we’re the only ones out there doing this kind of work? There’s a ton of rabid vagabond hounds frothing at the mouths out there.”
There was a whole day ahead of him waiting to be filled. Then Derda remembered his old friend Isa who he hadn’t seen in a long time. Not that he really wanted to go anywhere near the cemetery neighborhood. But not because he was afraid of his dad. He’d entirely erased him from his mind. Or that’s what Derda thought anyway. His mind had pushed it as far as it could into his skin. And maybe on top of that, he’d stomped on it. In the end, he’d forgotten. There was another reason he didn’t want to get anywhere near the cemetery. He was embarrassed. Because of Oğuz Atay. Who knew for how many days now his tomb hadn’t been cleaned? Who knew how much the dust of death had wrapped around it from all sides? And what about the violets? Who knew what had happened to them. Were any still standing? Had they all wilted?
And so, changing buses twice and walking clear across three main avenues, he made it to the marble cutter’s shop and found Isa inside a cloud of marble dust. He looks like a baker, he thought, with his face all white.
“Derda! Where have you been, man? I said to myself, I said did that bastard die or is he still around?”
They hugged each other. The marble dust got all over Derda.
“Sorry about that,” said Isa. He started brushing the dust off his bare arms hanging out of his T-shirt. As he brushed the dust away the color of his skin took on darker shades. His left arm especially seemed dark. As the whiteness dispersed, tattoos on his arm came into focus. Tattoos made by his own sleight of hand. With sewing needles.
“What’s that?” said Derda. He grabbed Isa’s left arm and looked at it. With difficulty, he read it: “‘I have no power over the dawning day, nor can anyone understand it.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Fuck it,” said Isa, looking at his tattoos. “I was out of my head, I just wrote it, that’s all.”
Then at once he looked up.
“You can read?”
“Yes,” said Derda.
“Good for you, man. Now you can get your primary school diploma.”
“Nah,” said Derda. “What am I going to do with that? Anyway, I’m still holding out for university.”
They laughed. Then Derda took Isa’s arm again and looked at his
