A  VIRTUOSO  OF  FICTION

(click to read in Turkish)

by Prof. Talat S. Halman

In a 2005 TV interview, the Turkish virtuoso of fiction Osman Şahin mentioned that Stefan Zweig, Elias Canetti, Rainer Maria Rilke and Yashar Kemal stand out among his bedside authors. His affinities with these seemingly disparate literary figures are evident although he does not necessarily owe a huge debt of gratitude to any of them. Like Zweig he unfurls a compelling human drama. He probes deep into our psyche and social predicaments – like Canetti. His lyric power and poetic intuitions are, in many ways, reminiscent of Rilke.

In a review I published (World Literature Today, 1984) of his 1983 collection of short stories entitled Acı Duman, (Bitter Smoke), I observed that “the intensity and the rhythmic structure of his storytelling are truly overwhelming. Few other major figures of Turkish fiction are capable of packing so much concentrated emotion into a few pages of description.” My observation has held true for the evolution of Şahin’s narrative art during the succeeding decades as well. The thirteen short stories in this volume bear testimony to that fact. Each one, while revealing an authentic Turkish reality, delivers a powerful universal truth to the reader.

Osman Şahin, born in 1940 (although his birth registry records the year as 1938), was raised in a village in southern Turkey. He had his primary schooling at his village. Proving himself a bright youngster, he was enrolled at an Institute for Village Teachers, one of the numerous progressive schools closed by the government in the late 1940s for leftist leanings. Later he graduated from a Physical Education Institute in Ankara and spent many years as a PhysEd teacher in different parts of Turkey (Malatya, Siverek, İzmit, Karamürsel, Istanbul, Trabzon). He was summarily retired from this last position. Since 1982 he has been a freelance writer.

Şahin made his literary debut in 1971 with a short story entitled “Kırmızı Yel” (A Red Wind) published in the culture-and-arts supplement of the socialist daily “Cumhuriyet”. His stature grew with his short stories that came out in numerous magazines and newspapers. So far Şahin has collected them in twelve volumes. 1992 and 1995 saw the publication of his two novels. Şahin has also brought about two volumes of reportage (one of them about Yashar Kemal), a youth novel, a children’s book, a collection of Anatolian folk riddles, and two documentary novels.

His childhood and early youth were spent in two of Turkey ’s most stunningly beautiful, yet poverty-stricken regions, Euphrates and Taurus. One finds in his fiction the indelible impressions of both aspects in loggerheads – nature’s spellbinding gifts and human deprivations. In a poignant statement, Şahin asserted: “I had many reasons for relating what I have witnessed and lived through. In the Euphrates region, I encountered bitter human realities every day: Trees had lost their trunks and branches, and lives barely survived with their wizened roots…”

In his stories, Şahin achieves impressive success in depicting the plight of good, simple, destitute human beings who struggle not only with nature’s cruelties and a ruthless economy but also with the relentlessness of religious conservatism. They lack land, roads, creature comforts, hope. Some of Şahin’s stories, (especially those in Kolları Bağlı Doğan (Born with hands tied) relate his experiences in prison.

Basically Osman Şahin stands in the mainstream of the genre known as “Village Fiction”, a dominant force in Turkish literature from the 1940s onwards. In the main, his stories feature the suffering, sometimes stoic, sometimes rebellious people in the rural areas. A genre now defunct, Village Fiction can hardly be characterized as an Osman Şahin hallmark. Thanks to his mastery of psychological exploration, he surpassed most of his colleagues whose work was notably deficient in this respect.

The scenes and characters that Osman Şahin delineates are so dramatically vivid that he has left his mark as a natural scenarist. His technique is akin to cinéma vérité, but he also gives his readers an in-depth gaze into the inner landscapes of peasants or the proletariat in general. Often with a few deft strokes, he captures the drama of abject poverty in the countryside and evokes the dignity of men and women who eke out their existence there.

Significantly Şahin is also one of Turkey’s leading scenarists. He has so far written scripts for thirty films, twenty-two of which have been produced. These films have won a total of at least 35 awards in Turkey and abroad. Two of these were awarded to the film versions of “The Logs” and “The Djinns of the Euphrates” which appear in the present volume. Şahin has personally earned the lifetime achievement awards of the Ankara International Film Festival and the Antalya Film Festival.

His literary awards include some of Turkey ’s most prestigious - the Sait Faik Abasıyanık, Ömer Seyfettin, Yunus Nadi (twice) prizes and several others.

Osman Şahin’s work has attracted attention outside his native country as well. Translations of his short stories have appeared in

Tales from the Taurus contains thirteen of Şahin’s most powerful short stories selected by the author himself and Mrs. Jean Carpenter Efe, who has served as the Editor. The translations, by as many as eight different hands, are accurate, meticulous, and faithful while they show remarkable strength in their use of idiomatic English. Mrs. Efe’s work as the book’s Editor is laudable.

This baker’s dozen is one of the handful of collections of Turkish short stories ever published in English. It represents the pinnacle of Osman Şahin’s virtuosity and one the best achievements of Turkish fiction.

Talat S. Halman

March. 2006

Traditional Themes in the Novels of

Yasar KEMAL
written for Light Millennium
by Osman SAHIN

In world literature, he is one of the very few great writers whose childhood and adult life is lived in such a poverty as he shares in his novels. We can feel the sweat  in the unbearable humid of the Cukurova cotton fields and the brutal cold of the snowy Taurus mountains where he wandered in its endless woods guarding the water canals surrendered with a cloud of mosquitoes. All these extreme difficulties  of his childhood  are hidden in each of his novel that sometimes explore the intricate psychology behind the transformation of fascination into violence.

Yasar Kemal’s novels progress like the life of a walnut tree. Developing slowly, but growing into many sub-stories like the arms of a walnut tree turning into a grand epical monumental of writing-art.  There are many reasons why it is difficult writing about this great author and his works. Firstly, due to his world-renowned reputation. Secondly, there are internationally numerous valuable critiques, biographical books, write-ups and media releases on his works. Therefore, it is quite understandable the difficulty on writing for Yasar Kemal who received such honorable global media attention. Kemal’s story-telling in his novels  are like the layers of Cukurova’s soil, rooted deeply and nurturing. 

That’s the reason why we can feel such richness on each layer of his books. An ordinary reader may sense only the lives and adventures on the surface and simply enjoy that. But, as we go into deeper layers of his stories it is inevitable to discover hidden elements of history, nature, folklore, legendary themes and traditional lyricism. Adding his poetic story-telling talent into all these layers; there is a phenomenal reality of human psychology. I also have to admit how lucky and privileged I am comparing to those who wrote on him... Because, Yasar  Kemal  is the writer of my native Cukurova & Taurus region where I was born; my very first motherland feeding his stories.  He contributes remarkably to the recreation of local nomad Turkish worldwide as a literary language which was spoken by my ancestors, my parents’ and my own villagers. That is why I find many similarities and a relativeness in his words, portraits, his perspective of the nature and mostly in his ballads which take me back to the nostalgia of my childhood’s epic stories, ballads in its own local nomad dialect I grew up listening.. His words constantly paddle through uncharted territory of my childhood. .

He makes the readers secretly discovering  the color of Anatolian cultures with such intellectual level of novelism... As a cultural mosaic, the cultures of Anatolia have been a source of modern cultures that is because the soil of Anatolia is so rich in culture. This world is a graveyard of wrecked languages and cultures as stated by him..  

We can compare his writing style to a running horse which always runs toward his poor peasant villagers, yet with such dignifying innocence.  His pen always runs in the direction of his people of honor under such oppression. Yasar Kemal is a storyteller of worlds in the oldest tradition, spokesman for a people who had no other voice. With the brilliance of his epic, adventurous, passionate, poetic books, Kemal stands for and successfully hugs not only the humanitarian elements of our people & culture, but also all the world cultures and that is why each of his books have the freshness and vigor of a writer who, one suspects, is the exultant discoverer of such virgin territory, the Cukurova.

In an interview I had back in ‘80s with the villagers of Saribahce in Cukurova, the responses to questions about YASAR KEMAL and Ince Memed, most claimed they had heard stories about the legendary folk hero, Ince Memed, in early childhood. They have since come to know YASAR KEMALas a writer, but also identify with him as a native of Cukurova.

Some of the richest soil in Turkey is in Cukurova, to the north of the Ceyhan-Iskenderun highway, extending all the way to Anavarza. Yet some of the poorest peasants, that is, peasants who own the smallest amount of land are inhibited in the vicinity of Adana and Ceyhan. Saribahce is a typical village of the Anavarza region that YASAR KEMALdescribes in his novels. Situated amid gigantic farms on fertile soil, it consists of small houses covered with weeds, hay, reeds, cane and tin. A lowland village of 800, it lies to the east of the Adana-Kozan road between  Anavarza and Ceyhan.

Ince Memed – Memed, My Hawk -  has been by far, the most successful novel of postwar Turkish literature.. Certainly, Turkish critics have tended to view Kemal’s novels from a rather narrow vantage point of social criticism. The grip which social-realist writing generally held on Turkish readers at the time may help explain this paradoxical situation. The narrative roots of Ince Memed are planted deep in the soil of traditional Turkish storytelling…

Okkes Memet.Education:primary school. Owns no land. Sharecropper.
“YASAR KEMAL is a remarkable man. Think of it, he was an irrigation guard in the fields of Kadirli.  Come down from a vale in the Taurus mountains, cut through thistles and tread a path of rocks with blistered feet and then go on to become a great writer of stories. Anyhow, son, they hounded him saying “Blind Man”, “Commie Kemal.” The aghas had stones thrown at him. Then he left and went to Istanbul. But see what a good person he is: instead of writing petitions in Kadirli, he petitions the whole world by telling about the troubles of the country. Do I know Ince Memed?  I know about him since my childhood. My grandfather used to tell me he was a very brave & bold man.

Memedo. No Education. Owns no land. Sharecropper:
I can’t read or write, son. I never learned how to handle a pen. But I know YASAR KEMAL. Well, once upon a time INCE MEMED rose against the aghas of Cukurova and became a bandit. I respect such people.

Zeynel Bakir. Education:primary school. Farmer, a former candidate for village headmanship:
YASAR KEMAL is a great revolutionary writer of our region. He is one of us. He knows our language, dialect, conditions. Because of this, we are happy reading his novels. In them, we see our own lives as if looking into a mirror and we cannot resist saying, “indeed it was like this”.  In my opinion, Ince Memed is a hero created by poor sharecroppers, villagers like us against the cruelty of the aghas.  Whenever friends and I go up to Anavarza Castle for a stroll, whenever I step on those rocks, I can’t help but think INCE MEMED must have trodden here, INCE MEMED must have a lit a fire in that cave, he must have lain in ambush here… I admire Ince Memed.

Ismail Kasaboglu. Education:primary school. Avid reader and poet:
YASAR KEMAL presents facts without complicating them. That is to say, in embellishing reality, he doesn’t add artificial things. He has such a way of telling a story: It’s as if there is a gentle humming in his novels. One reason he narrates so well is the fact, there is conflict, struggle, injustice, oppression for people living in Cukurova.  Bitterness, sadness, joy and pain all figure together in Cukurova. Laughter and dirges are together. We can say that INCE MEMED did what YASAR KEMAL wrote and YASAR KEMAL wrote what INCE MEMED was capable of doing. 

 Translated by Buket Sahin

TWO authors of ONE mountain!..

by Sunay AKIN

Published on Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet Newspaper, dated 19.11.2006

Translated by Buket Sahin

Emerald color feathered Anka Bird of East is a legendary bird about worshipping the Sun. So is the Quetzal Bird of West. This legendary bird has a long history, as it was the spiritual protector of the Mayan chiefs. When Mayan Chief was killed by Spaniards, the sacred Quetzal fell silent and plummeted to earth, covering the body of the regal Mayan with its long and soft green plumes. After keeping a deathwatch through the night, the bird that rose from the chief’s lifeless body was transformed. It was no longer the pure green of jade. Its breast had soaked up the blood of the fallen warrior, and so, too, became crimson, the shade of Mayan blood, as it has remained to this day…

Voice of the writer at age of “Seven”

Naturally, there are many similarities between Anatolian and Latin American tales & storytellers. Pain is pain; struggle is struggle; mountain is mountain, in both geographies. I sensed the same similarities between two short fiction Maestros :  

Fabian Dobles & Osman Sahin

  

In his book “Su gibi akan Yillar - Years Like Brief Days ” translated into Turkish by Dilek Sendil, his remembering and recounting of the past, the first-person narrator of Dobles's tale takes the position of analytic observer, watching himself as a youth. The memories of the main character -a fictional persona for Dobles himself - are clearly drawn from Dobles's life and experience, although he contemplates them from the point of view of the "other. Dobles's story begins with an old man's compulsion to revisit a landmark of his youth, an actual place in Costa Rica

The distance between Central America and Turkey’s

Like Dobles, who wrote his stories based on personal observations of abused serfs and peasants of his mountainous village in Arslankoy, who had a deep-seated hatred of injustice and tyranny, Sahin also details the grim life of the Turkish underclass while evincing a similar loathing for inequity.

Comparing Dobles with Sahin is unavoidable. Both fell afoul of the powers that be for very similar reasons (railing against injustice) and both use the effective literary method developed by the Realists who wrote as impartial observers to the world around them.

World renowned writer, photographer Sergio Ortiz explains Sahin’s selected stories published in English as: “After a reading of Tales from the Taurus, one can only bemoan the fact that more skilled linguists did not translate them. Sahin’s stories are timeless and although they were written in modern day, one can say of his work what Gertrude Stein once said about the short stories of a young Ernest Hemingway: “He is a modernist, but smells like a museum.”

I would recommend to read Dobles & Sahin’s universal stories to those mistaken Turks' roots come from passing the Bering Strait and ancestors of American Indians. The common ground of world humanity is sharing the same cultural dream, symbols and feelings.

Ballads, tapestries, symbols on textiles, rituals all reflect same.

Because human nature & nature itself is same everywhere!  Therefore; the longing to childhood will be also the same.

The counting method of Mesoamerican indigenous was like this: One, Two and Many!.. Let me share a memory of Osman Sahin: He calls excitingly his nomad mother in her village to share the good news after winning a prestigious literature award with his very first book back in 1971: “…Mama, I received an award, I am on first place..!”

His mother keeps silent first, then follows.: “…Don’t saddened my dear son.. hopefully you’ll became one day Second, and Many!...” 

REVIEWS

"...I thought I knew a lot about Turkey, but then I read your father's
book. The stories are of an eternal humanity wandering, fighting,
loving forever in these vividly rendered rocks and forests. The people
in the stories are myths made human, living dreams that make me want
to go to the mountains myself and wander among them. Thank you for
this experience..."

Trici Venola - Writer, LA/ Istanbul

Tales from the Taurus is a collection of 13 short stories by Turkish short story virtuoso Osman Sahin. It is the first of his works to be translated into English. As a result, the first-time reader of these tantalizing tales from the region of the Euphrates valley and the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, a majestic but poverty-stricken region of Turkey, will be swept into a turbulent and disturbing world little known to American readers.

These are superb tales, as imposing as the range of mountains from where they borrow their name, and they reach deep into the Turkish soil. Osman proves himself a dazzling storyteller with a firm understanding of his subjects and a sensitive eye focused like a laser on the Turkish soul.

Although some of the stories telegraph the ending and the translation is often faulty due to the fact that university students translated some of the tales, their universal subject remains vivid. The poor translation cannot take away the sweeping themes of unrequited love (Teeth), greed (The Logs), etc. found throughout the collection.

Although Sahin says in the preface of the book that his literary influence can be traced to Rainer Maria Rilke, Elias Canetti, Stefan Zweig and others, a most appropriate parallel can be drawn between his short stories and those of Ivan Turgenev’s in the Russian master’s A Sportsman’s Sketches.

Like Turgenev, who wrote his stories based on personal observations of abused serfs and peasants living in his mother’s estate at Spasskoye and who had a deep-seated hatred of injustice and tyranny, Sahin details the grim life of the Turkish underclass while evincing a similar loathing for inequity.

Comparing Sahin with Turgenev is easy. Both fell afoul of the powers that be for very similar reasons (railing against injustice) and both use the effective literary method developed by the Realists who wrote as impartial observers to the world around them.

After a reading of Tales from the Taurus, one can only bemoan the fact that more skilled linguists did not translate them. Sahin’s stories are timeless and although they were written in modern day, one can say of his work what Gertrude Stein once said about the short stories of a young Ernest Hemingway: “He is a modernist, but smells like a museum.”

Sergio Ortiz - Writer / Photographer

USTAHMET STEEL

 A   S T O R Y by Osman Sahin

from Book, 'TALES from the TAURUS'

"...A single-seater F-84 type reconnaissance plane took off from Incirlik Airbase and swooped low over the hills towards the upper Taurus range. It slipped westward through the Gülek pass and appeared over Silifke. The aircraft’s surface was here and there a flat light green, here and there dirty brown—like the spit of a grasshopper. Resembling a giant goby whale, it flew with its frightening dark mouth wide open, sucking in the air. Veering upward over Silifke and climbing northwards, it swung around a remote jagged mountain peak. It then took wing eastward over another mountain covered in virgin snow and plunged into a blue gap among pure white clusters of cloud. Vanishing as a tiny speck, it reappeared farther to the north, emerging over another mountain peak and growing ever larger. It relinquished itself to the wild gusts of the wind. The sound of the engines rose to an invisible roar, reverberating again and again against the mountainsides. At a speed reducing time and distance to naught, it slid into the depths of a darkened vale. Past mountains densely carpeted with forests it flew. Sharp, craggy mountains and rocky pinnacles forced it about in swerving curves. Then leaving the mountains behind, the aircraft swept toward the plain. It was now over the forests of Tarsus.

The deep green foliage of orange groves and countless huge clusters of eucalyptus passed beneath—no different from a greenish haze of smoke. As swift as shadows the vague and fading colors of the distant earth slipped away below the aircraft with each passing second.

     Gliding southward, the plane could soon be seen over the shimmering sea sparkling in the winter sun. From there to the west and from westward to northward, it curved across mountain ridges covered with myrtle. Passing from one season to another, it swept the sharp jagged peaks of the mountains. Only minutes ago it had been flying over the blues of the sea and the greens of the coast, and now it was over the snow-clad Bolkars. It looked down upon naked peaks buried deep in snow with patches of glaciers upon them, barren of trees. Like white lava, the snow had cascaded down the slopes into the depths below. The higher the mountains, the more defiantly the plane revved its engines. Coughing out black balls of smoke, it climbed ever skyward. From the highest point it could reach, it plunged straight downward. It dove into seemingly bottomless ravines. It looked no different from a falcon gliding on folded wings. Suddenly swerving its nose upward at the very last minute, it would rise straight back up with deafening blasts. There was a warbling at the tips of the steel wings as they split and slit the air, whistling in a storm of speed. Now and then it would startle the sky—as if the very heavens were trembling. As if it were in a dalliance with the sky. Explosive bursts from the rear of the plane mingled with each and every sound issuing from the surface of the earth. The plane dipped and rose as if yearning to spy and capture every minute detail of the mountains and the gorges. It was caught up in a childish exhilaration of emoting moans and groans from the timeless mountains of the Taurus, now washed free of clouds and gleaming crystal clear under the winter sun. Despite the exhilaration experienced in the plane, down below a dull and monotonous existence continued. In the midst of the forests that were disappearing slowly—bite by bite—nestled the poor, one-story domiciles of the peasants, neglected as if deserted, each its own poor and bitter outcry. Paths between the fields and gardens wound pokily down to the bank of a brook, ending in the bosom of a gorge shaded by forest. The trees were like a blanket concealing the never-ending poverty of the peasants’ houses. At the skirts of a snow-white mountain ahead, the gradually thawing and darkening fields displayed a flock of sheep and plowing farmers in silent solitude. What remained a mystery for the plane now was not what lay above, but what lay below.

     The plane glided towards two mountains which stood further north, so close that they were almost touching one another. Between the two mountains was only a narrow gap. And their profiles formed cliffs plunging steeply downward to unseen depths. At the speed of an arrow the plane headed towards that gap. Turning its nose upward at the very last moment, it gunned its powerful engines full speed ahead. Burdened by nothing other than its own weight, the wingtips of the plane trembled violently in the ascent. It wasn’t long then before the left wing struck the rock and the plane spun into a rapid descent. And from behind the forked fingers of those two mountains there echoed a massive explosion. Jet black plumes of smoke rose from behind the rock walls. The rock and the mountains trembled with the explosion. Shivering, the trees cast down their burdens of snow. The sound echoed from mountain to mountain, through gorge after gorge. Then silence enveloped all. Everything was wrapped in that silence of nature known from genesis onward.

The villagers were the first to reach the scene of the crash. Rushing out of their homes, they gazed in the direction of the crash, towards the crest of Kalegediği, where black plumes of smoke were rising. Then donning their snowshoes, they quickly set out towards Kalegediği. The high mountains there were nearly inaccessible. It was hard enough to climb up even in summer, let alone in the snows of winter. Those confident in their strong healthy feet and legs walked on. Those who lacked self-confidence turned back. The sky may have been clear and sunny, but there was a chilling frost. Despite a thousand and one hindrances, they somehow arrived at Kalegediği. They were dressed in dark, heavy, full-gathered breeches. They appeared short and stocky, with beards or stubble. There were some nine or ten of them.

     Not long afterwards a helicopter appeared in the distance. It came from behind the mountains. It approached with a great racket, beating the air with its long wide blades. Circling a while over Kalegediği, it descended towards a clearing free of shrub, about the size of a circular threshing floor. Its blades flashing in the air, it touched down gently, slowly swirling and whirling the snow from its landing site. The door opened. Five people emerged. Immediately they raised the furry collars of their coats. Because it was biting cold.

The one with a darker complexion—like sun-dried wheat—was the interpreter. The other four were Americans. They were dressed in grass-green and wearing furry parkas, with melon-colored caps on their heads and flying goggles with tiny square black lenses that hid their eyes. The commander was a doctor.

The villagers, in the meantime having kindled a fire in a hollow to warm themselves, now rushed towards the helicopter. They looked quite shriveled and shrunken by the piercing mountain cold—as if they were the survivors to be rescued.

First of all, the interpreter asked the villagers about the pilot of the crashed plane. Was the pilot dead, or alive, or was he injured? If injured, where was he? The villagers' answers were all short and negative, for they had seen nothing even resembling a pilot or a human being. The interpreter briefly related the situation to the Americans. There was no sign of sorrow on the faces of the Americans. They shed no tears nor seemed to grieve at the loss of their comrade and the plane. They were large men, with big feet. Four of them, moreover, were wearing huge climbing boots with raised heels, and spikes on the soles. They had brought with them all the tools and equipment necessary for a climber: raincoats, oilcloth, cable for climbing and lifting, hammers, hooks, spikes, wire, picks and shovels, a compass, devices for audio-video recording and binoculars.

They saw the burnt, jet black wreckage of the aircraft as soon as they passed over a crest scattered with age-old pines. Kalegediği towered just over their heads. With a history dating way back to Byzantine times—to the era of Emperor Justinian—the fortress was a historical monument. It had been built of massive dressed masonry, each stone at least one and a half or two meters in length and breadth. With the technology of nearly two millennia ago, who could say how they had carried those stones to that rocky mountain summit and built that castle? A castle that for hundreds and hundreds of years had withstood every kind of cold, of snow and the burning sun of the Taurus, a giant castle of stone in which wild grasses now grew. Over the long years it had stood idle, though, it seems it had not forgotten its duty to defend and protect and had therefore brought down this foreign plane. The plane, outfitted with the subtlest state-of-the-art devices, had miscalculated by a millimeter, struck the cliff, and was now nothing more than debris at the foot of the castle, hundreds and thousands of fragments scattered across the rocks.

The left and right landing gear of the plane had been thrown to opposite sides. The tubby round black wheels pointed skyward. Those wheels looked like dark swollen growths on the spotlessly gleaming crystalline snow. Other parts of the plane were scattered about over hundreds of meters, some fallen down the cliffs and others marked by deep hollows in the snow. The sturdy aluminum-alloy fuselage of the plane, the victim of its own incredible speed, had been kneaded like dough when it struck the rocks, its steel armor—dirty brown like the spit of a grasshopper—torn off as if it had been cloth. It was now just a scrap heap of metal, haphazardly discarded at the foot of Kalegediği.

The Americans, accustomed to such crashes and their documentation, expertly examined the wreckage for a while in a most matter-of-fact manner. They filmed it. Then they started to work in earnest, each with a task of his own. While a pilot and the officer in charge of pre-flight inspection busied themselves with individual examinations of the wreckage, the lieutenant colonel began to describe the landscape and dictate his impressions to a recording device in his hand.

Villagers brought in one of the pilot’s black flight-boots—the kind that zipped from the inside—that one of them had found. A half-burnt foot of the pilot remained inside. Pulling on his plastic gloves, the doctor began to examine the foot. Shouting out what sounded to the villagers like “Çörm, çörm!” (“Germs, germs!”), he immediately motioned back the curious crowd gathering round him. One of the pilot’s eyes was found by another villager examining the debris. Not burnt and still full of its water, it was spherical, as round as round could be. The doctor immediately separated it for examination as well. He disinfected it. Then he put it into a special self-sealing bag of various synthetic fibers including nylon and firmly closed the mouth. The black box recording the communications between the pilot and the airbase during flight was not to be found anywhere. Who knows what mountain crevice it might have fallen into and disappeared?

For a while the Americans also discussed the parachute that hadn’t opened. The unopened parachute seemed very important to them.

Ready to leave, they handed over all the raincoats, oilcloth, cables, wire, nylon sheeting, picks, shovels and hammers they’d brought with them to the villagers. They shook hands with the villagers one by one. Then they walked back down to the helicopter.

The remains of their comrade, the pilot who’d been whisking the tons of this spy plane from mountain to mountain, from one climate to another, were now small enough to fit into a tiny nylon bag. The “coffin” of the pilot, containing one half-burnt foot and a single eye, was now the tiny bag in the commander’s hand.

The helicopter that had landed at Kalegediği with five people soon took off with six.

For months the debris of the plane remained at Kalegediği. Storms blew over it; the snows buried it. Then came the threatening black clouds of April. For days the heavens poured rain down upon the Taurus. The snows melted. The waters mingled. Water flowed everywhere.  The tiniest streams gave off rumbling tumbling roars.

Among the villagers who ran to help when the crash occurred was Ustahmet, Ahmet the Master Craftsman, an excellent blacksmith—a true usta. His mastery of ironworking was pronounced before his name, Usta Ahmet; his ironwork was that of the old traditional forges. Around the black wooden trough in which he slaked the iron, white mushrooms would sometimes sprout. Everyone in the neighborhood knew him. To indicate the soundness of any commodity, the villagers would say, “Like the work of Ustahmet!” They’d say, “Rather than choosing a friend from among the peddlers or the sellers of cheap perfumes, choose one the likes of Ustahmet!” Because being the friend of a smithy like Ustahmet meant being luckier than a merchant with ten camels and eight loads.

Ustahmet was a short, green-eyed, bald-headed man. Wielding the hammer since an early age had left him stunted. There was not a hair on his head. Standing summer and winter in that coal dust and sweat, face to face with the roaring fire and the red-hot iron, who could keep from balding?

Apprentices work with Ahmet. He has no need to recruit them himself; the villagers voluntarily bring in their sons to hand over to him. If Ahmet takes on their son as an apprentice, they’re just as pleased as if they’d found the ideal husband as a match for their daughter. For with Ustahmet, their sons will wear leather aprons, make friends with the anvil and the hammer, and learn to understand the language of the coal, the roaring fire and the red-hot iron. They’ll learn how to fan the fire with the bellows. Not everybody can use the bellows. You have to fan as if you were blowing with your own breath; you must never frighten the fire. You must pump sometimes gently, sometimes hard, to bring the iron to the proper heat. Ustahmet uses bellows with a double body and double nozzles. You have to start with the second pleated body before the breath of the first dies down; mastery of the bellows is understood by the flame on the hearth and your control over the glow of the embers. Thus after working with Ustahmet for thirteen or fourteen years their sons would be known as master craftsmen, too. After that it’s easy. What else does a blacksmith have to do besides work and earn his livelihood? His calling will not die. Ironworking is as old as shepherding. Its beginning harks clear back to the Prophet David. He served as the mastermind for all the smithies in the world. Using one of his hands as his tongs, his fist as the hammer, his knees as the anvil and his breath as the bellows… One day when David had placed the incandescent iron on his knee and was beating it with his fist, his wife spoke up. “Ey Davut, is this a miracle of my doing or of yours?"

"What a question! Of course it’s mine," David replied.

His wife insisted, "No, it’s mine!" Tripped up by this not yours, but mine, his wife suddenly declared, “You’ll see, Ey Davut!” and rolling her sleeves up to her elbows, approached the forge. As soon as she grasped the incandescent iron, however, it seared her hand. She shrieked. David felt very sorry for his wife. He wanted her to forge, too, if that was what she wanted. He thought long and hard. Later, inspired by the front paws of his dog crossed upon the floor before the forge where it lay fast asleep, he created tongs—and looking at his knees, he created the anvil, and looking at his fist, the hammer; these he presented to his wife.

"Take these,” he offered. “Since this is your wish, may it be granted. From now on, you may shape the iron, too!"

Ustahmet never treads upon a piece of coal. He lifts the coal from the floor, kisses it and touches it to his forehead as if it were a piece of bread. “That’s my dinner table!” he objects if anyone attempts to sit upon his anvil. In his workshop he never raises his voice—nor lets anyone else do so. He allows no one to swear in his atelier. He protects his coal with the sensitivity of the farmer to his wheat, of the shepherd to his herd. Before approaching the forge, he wipes his anvil with his hand and kisses it; then taking his hammer in his hand, he begins his work, declaring "Ya Allah! Ya Davud!"

Once spring came and the roads were cleared of snow, Ustahmet set off for Kalegediği with his apprentices. In their hands were tongs, hammers and sledgehammers, picks and shovels. First they gathered all the scraps of metal scattered around that seemed to be of use. Those pieces that were strong but light in contrast to the ordinary iron they knew. Cling, cling! Ustahmet checked out the fuselage, knocking on it with his hammer. “We’ll need a great deal of fire!" he declared, "a great deal!"

Kalegediği was famous for its resinous pine. The apprentices gathered all the resinous logs, wood and roots they could find. They piled them one on the top of the other over the wreckage. Then they kindled a raging bonfire. The sturdy resinous logs blazed brightly. They burnt for a whole day and a whole night. Over the red-hot russet embers, parts of the plane melted, dripping to the ground. Cables and wires appeared one by one. Nuts and bolts were shed like leaves. The fuselage and the engine refused to cooperate, however. They turned to jet black coal and sooty scrap.

Ustahmet and his apprentices separated as much as they could with the iron tongs, hammers and chisels at hand. They cut. They sorted. They gathered. Then on the backs of asses and mules they carried this scrap metal down to their village. That took two or three days. Just as raindrops slowly, slowly collect and flow from one place to another—or as ants bite by bite, mouthful by mouthful, remove all the flesh from the skin of a dead snake and carry it off.

Then Ustahmet kissed his anvil and took his hammer in hand. He kindled his fire.

“Ya Allah! Ya Davud!”

With his double-bodied bellows he pumped air onto the fire. He heaped up the coal. The hotter the flames burned, the more coal they devoured. Day and night the fire raged; the chimney puffed out smoke. Day and night the sound of the flaring bellows whined throughout the village. Each scrap from the plane was carried from forge to anvil, from anvil to forge, as a red ember in the mouths of the simple and practical black iron tongs. Turned over and over again, each was beaten into shape upon the anvil.

With a tik-taka, tik-taka of his small hammer, Ustahmet would show his apprentices where to target their blows. A true usta would not speak much while forging. The hammer in his hand served as his mouth and tongue. Whatever he had to say, he’d tell his apprentices with his hammer, showing them just where to strike.

The village resounded with the lively tempo of the low and high-pitched blows of hammers on the anvil. It was no easy task to free this aluminum alloy from the molds that gigantic presses had given it, to reshape it by striking and striking again and again. It was a challenge of challenges. At each blow the piece in the mouth of the tongs would sing out with a pure and clear “Cling!” Taking a very fine marble powder they call “rock salt,” pinch by pinch Ustahmet sprinkled it over the glowing iron. Each sprinkling formed a layer on the exterior of the metal piece. While feeding the fire, that layer also protected and nourished the metal. For the metal heated without rock salt would melt away completely. Finally, the metal became malleable. Pieces that were short would become longer, and those that were thick become thinner. With enough blows of the hammer, they’d stretch flat as a sheet. Turned over and over again on the anvil, becoming lither and lither, little by little they’d take on a shape. They became plowshares, became adzes and sickles. Scythes, saws for trimming trees, axes, meat cleavers... Some even became lighters to kindle the tinder. “Real Ustahmet çelik!” said those seeing the lighter. “This steel of his ignites the tinder with one single click.”

Hammering some pieces over and over again, Ustahmet beat them paper-thin, then bent and rolled them into a belly-shape, and inserted a rivet at the top. Then fastened a tongue inside the belly… Thus there were bells even. Large and small camel’s bells, sheep’s bells, goat’s and kid’s bells... Those bells wrought sound, brought sound to the necks of the tribes’ flocks, singing ding-a-ling. Those rings would mingle in the clear pure air of the Taurus. They still do.

And that long, endless journey of the iron that began in the mines, stretching onward from there to the huge iron and steel mills, and from there flying high into the sky, finally reached a completely new rebirth in the hands of Ustahmet. And this without the need of a hundred or a thousand years of technology. A few months were more than enough. That pirate-faced mass of a steel plane that years before had helped bomb Vietnam and some seven or eight months ago had been shaking the blue skies of the Taurus with its resounding moaning and groaning drone had returned to the simple sedentary era at the hands of Ustahmet.

As the blade of the poor Taurus villager’s primitive plow, pulled along by a pair of oxen, it broke the ground. It assured the sprouting of the seeds strewn by the handful in the plowed and undulating earth...