Melih continued:
“It was a cold and snowy winter night. A few of us had just left the dormitory and went to our secret smoking area.”
He took one more drag, keeping his eyes on me:
“You know, smoking was forbidden for high school students. Actually, I wish it was forbidden for all, so we could get rid of it. Anyway, our secret place was a section of the central heating unit of the school campus. It was hot and secluded. While we were going there, it was snowing a bit. But as we neared it, the flakes intensified. We were children, so the snow just gave us joy. You get this joy unless you’re a poor parent. And we were just hoping that the provincial education directorate would cancel classes the following day and we could hang out longer. Then, I left my friends to pee. They urged me to hurry up – the storm was getting worse. And to quell their concerns, I ordered them to go ahead. I would catch up. After I’d relieved myself, I rushed after them. But the snowfall had turned into a blizzard. I could not even see a meter in front of me. I could not hear them. I was trying to follow their footprints, but they had vanished! I could only roughly make out the dormitory building as a dark shadow a hundred meters ahead. At least I knew I was walking in the direction of the building. But things got worse.
I heard a group of dogs barking. The sounds of the barking got closer over time. Eventually, I saw them. They were now bounding after me. Maybe five or six, or even ten. There were too many. I was sure they had been hungry for days and regarded me as prey. If it hadn’t been snowing, I could have at least found a stone or something to throw at them. But there was nothing to defend me. I could not even walk in the accumulation. How could I run faster than them? They had four feet, my friend. It would take a miracle to escape. But then, just a few meters away, there was a smallish concrete shaft-like structure. It was constructed as a shaft for the pipelines carrying hot water to the school’s premises. I started to run there. Well, I fell and stood, stumbled and lurched, over and over again, then ran, jumped…. I was panting, and the air coming from my lungs vanished in the blizzard. My glasses were already wet, and I could barely, barely see the walls of the shaft. Yet I made it. I reached it. As I was on the shaft’s wall so were the dogs. But there was not much space on it. Two or three of them jumped up. They were barking and snarling at me. I could even smell the breath of the wild dogs. It was horrible. Then I looked down the shaft. I grasped an iron bar of the ladder, kicking pointlessly at the dogs to gain a few seconds. I tried to hold the bar and get down, but a dog attacked me. I could not keep my grip on the ladder and fell to the bottom of the shaft.”
Melih then stopped. I realized that he was truly feeling again what he had experienced on that evening. I did not even question whether he had made up this story. He realized that he hadn’t drunk his tea, so he ordered the waiter in a loud voice to bring him another glass. Meanwhile, he lit another cigarette.
“So?” I asked, “what happened?”
He smiled and continued:
“Well, nothing. It was apparently just a few meters deep. I fell on the ground, and hit my head on an iron pipe. I remember the “thud.” Then I fainted for a few minutes. When I came to myself, I could still hear the dogs barking. So I couldn’t climb out. I also felt a dull pain in my head, and some parts of my legs and arms were injured. My glasses had been flung off my face when I hit the ground, and I started to search for them by feeling around. But I failed.”
He stopped and took a deep drag of his cigarette. His eyes made the impression that he was staring into the void. He continued:
“The place was warm and safe from the dogs. I drifted off again on the ground for an hour or so. When I awoke, the dogs had stopped barking. I only heard the sound of wind from outside. Then…” he stopped, looked directly into my eyes, and said:
“I saw him!”
“Him? Who?” I asked, confused.
“Him!” he replied, “just ahead of me.”
“Who?” I repeated.
He looked me directly in the eye and said:
“The devil. He was just sitting there at the bottom of the shaft right in front of me. I could see his seductive posture and penetrating gaze.”
“Gaze?” I replied in bewilderment.
“Yes, it was the reddish flare of the gaze depicted everywhere. And more importantly, I got the sense that it was evil. Maybe that was his special way of letting me know who he was. As soon as I realized it was there, I scooted back and pushed up against the inside wall. He continuously watched me without saying anything. I was so afraid; and then, to not be harmed, I made a promise to him. And I promised to be a bad guy from then onwards.”
“You gave a promise to him to be a bad guy?” I replied.
“Of course, if you sit in front of the devil and fear him, you do what he asks. If god had been in that shaft instead, believe me, I would have acted in the same way. But it was the devil, he sets the rules. And I’m grateful to the devil – he didn’t touch me. While I again searched for my glasses, I found a broken iron stick instead. Then I started climbing up the stairs, holding the stick.”
As Melih told this story, I started to feel anxious and glanced around. Apart from the two young girls, three more tables were occupied. Two young guys were sitting at one close to them, and two others were near the door. An older guy all alone was somewhat far from us. Nobody was entering the terrace of the cafeteria. When I looked at the terrace’s door, I saw the OPEN sign on it. As I anxiously checked around, my old friend interrupted the silence:
“You may think this is awful. It truly was. But listen, the story actually started as I climbed back to the top of the shaft and stood on the wall. The blizzard had given way to flurries, but a blanket of fog was covering the land. There was a vast landscape ahead of me, and I was staring at the school facilities barely visible from the fog. And the lights of the faraway villages could be seen indistinctly. Then I started to hear things.”
He looked over at me and continued:
“Things… First, I heard some sounds coming from the dormitory. Doors slamming, shouts, uproar, and the raucous commotion of students… I heard them. It was as if they were right next to me. Not a few hundred meters away. Just a stone’s throw! Dogs started barking again, but I knew they weren’t close. Maybe half a kilometer away… I could hear them easily, however, and I could even distinguish the barks of different dogs all around without confusion. They were perfectly arranged in my mind. Standing on that wall, I tried to hear the sounds in the village, maybe a kilometer away. Oh my goodness, there were the sounds of restless cows, the door of the gate slamming under the wind, a rooster’s crowing, and the noise of an old car’s malfunctioning engine. They were all there. I was hearing nothing around me. The touches of snowflakes, the snoring of the bell master on duty, and the sounds of the TV the guard was watching. At that second, I realized that this was a gift the devil had given me so I could serve him well. I gazed around, little-by-little engulfed by the fog, stick in hand.”
He adopted a more theatrical voice and continued:
“I was the wanderer above the sea of fog!”
As Melih continued, I was still looking around for relief. I did not feel good, yet I had the comfort of knowing that it was a public space. Melih could have lost his mind; but there were people around me. That was why I kept looking at the terrace door. It was strange that, despite the OPEN sign on it, nobody was coming out. At that moment, I realized that nobody had come out on the terrace after me, and nobody outside had left, apart from the waiter.
“Listen!” Melih said, “That was not a coincidence. Just a few weeks later, our geography teacher gave me a box and asked me to give it to a friend of his in the city while he was going on vacation for the weekend. That was an arranged meeting. The person I contacted hosted me in his office. And after some small talk, he asked me if I would serve my country. If I would inform on my mates in school. In turn, he would ask a charity to give me a scholarship. That was the grand deal that started it all. I recorded every detail about my friends and reported them to him. Almost every weekend… You know, our high school was a privileged one. Students would become prominent figures in the future. So, a collection of information would be priceless when the time was right. I gathered everything you can imagine. Who loves whom? Who has a fiduciary weakness? Who believes in god, and who does not? Who is gay? Even the soccer teams they are a fan of. I didn’t pay attention to the nature of the information. Just kept giving it to them. And it didn’t stop. On the university exam, I got a score much better than I expected.”
While saying this, he smiled ironically and continued:
“You know, for the first two years I studied at Istanbul University, then transferred to Ankara where I studied the last two years. The reason for this was that you can hardly cheat people, especially clever ones for four years. And, more importantly, my country needed me in two of the schools. You can’t imagine how I mastered serving my country, and I was awarded a reputable job afterward.”
He repeated the “serving” again in a sarcastic manner and extracted his glasses from the inside pocket of his jacket. As he put on the red-frame glasses, he turned to me and asked:
“Would you not like to serve yourself, Cengiz?”
That second, I saw my reflection in his lenses, my pained face. I didn’t reply.
He proceeded:
“I’m not going to lie about asking you to serve your country. F–k it. I care only about myself, and caring about myself is an asset for my country. Those guys who praise the nation or the country are all liars; truly they are. So far, I have been more honest to you than necessary. We have a common past. So would you not like to serve yourself?”
(…to be continued…)
Transadaptation Volume 4 – Material Dissent
January: A Blinding Light and Then, All Darkness – Jonay Quintero Hernández (Spain)
February: The Opportunist – Lauren Voaden (United Kingdom)
March: A Stranger in my City – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
April: A South African Soundtrack – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)
May: Full Circle – Ina Maria Vogel (Germany)
June: La Lluvia en Bogotá – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
July: Freedom – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
August: A Bus Ride – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
September: Transcendence – Armine Asryan (Nane Sevunts) (Armenia)
October: Motherhood – Marilin Guerrero Casas (Cuba)
November: Nine Days – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)
December: Open – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
1. Left column (top to bottom): Ankara, Turkey – Kizilay – Ozges Temur (Shutterstock), Ankara, Turkey – The historical quarter – Sun_Shine (Shutterstock), 2. Middle column (top to bottom): Ankara, Turkey – From the 50th Year Park – Çağlar Oskay (Unsplash), Ankara, Turkey – Art meets architecture – Merve Selcuk Simsek (unsplash), Ankara, Turkey – Kizilaz neighborhood – Fabrizio (Shutterstock), 3. Right column (top to bottom): Ankara, Turkey – Kizilay square – Fatir (Shutterstock), Ankara, Turkey – Hamamönü neighborhood – Fabrizio (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed