2

Having tailed Cemal from the beginning of one night to the conclusion of the next, and skimmed the fluff of Anatolia’s parched, barren wastes, the north-easterly spent the midday hours heaping heat over Andalıç. The lifeless soil, all memory of springtime rains gone, turned into dust, sneaking unseen through open windows and doors left ajar, to darken dusters and numb housewives’ minds with the tedium of routine.

Invisible motes of dust settled on Cemal’s eyelashes too, as he enjoyed a half hour’s nap on the sofa at the rear whilst Halil minded the shop, whilst the wind slipped into Cemal’s ears to uplift his sleep…

… And he finds himself in an ancient coach. Juddering and rattling interminably. Hens, legs lashed together, cluck clucking. Bags, sacks, bundles, packs falling on his head at every bend in the road, and on his shoulders if he ducks. Ancient women, hennaed dark, scrawny hands covering their mouths with muslin scarves. Yellowing, tiny old black moist eyes sunk into skins like cracked earth. Ten old women with black cloaks flung over baggy floral flannel trousers. Scraggy hennaed braids hanging over bellies and dangling over trousers. The relentless steppe in the background, always the same part of the steppe, and always that one single tree…

They’re all staring at Cemal, those women. Ten antique women, all juddering in the same way, at the same time, and straightening cloaks slipping over their heads all at the same time with the hands not covering their mouths, again, all at the same time. Never taking their eyes off him, not even for a moment…

That single tree ever present, near or far on the stony horizon, as the coach rattle rattles on…

Impossible to tell when it draws to a halt, rattling increasingly louder, the relentlessly ageing coach rattles into a station. A deserted station of steppe-coloured, steppe-soil bricks, its boundaries gradually melting into the ground with each rain. All at once the coach halts, bang in the centre of the adobe walls, hollows and crevices. Cemal has to run the gauntlet of the ritualistic swaying of the old women, who are oblivious to the fact that the coach has stopped…

Another coach slowly pulls out of the station behind the women still swaying by the window panes that no longer rattle. Backing out, revealing every passenger as a passport photo, one by one. Like a life-size photo album. And then the last photo in the album, right behind the driver, is his father. Face intent. Set off on this trip just to stare at Cemal just like this, just then, just when he was about to set off, just when he was about to slip through his fingers…

Cemal scrambles to get off the coach, to catch up with him, leaping over the tripping evil stares of every single crone. An obstacle race. Never taking his eyes off his father’s stare that has lassoed him by the throat. Trying to keep his feet off those evil stares. But it’s too late when he reaches the rear door at long last. By the time he’s down, there’s no sign of the coach, or of his father…

The only coach travelling in that direction is the one he’s in. Complete with the women, bundles, and hens. The stop over, the road again, the steppe again, the same tree again, yet another station identical to the previous one. Tormented between the obstacles of the women and his father’s lasso again. And once again, from the top… until he wakes up with a start.

Cemal was waiting in the deep shadow of the gigantic eponymous tree in the Walnut Tree Mosque courtyard, unable to answer a single one of the endless questions of the curious crowd, who had all heard the announcement. He had just finished telling Halil about his dream when the ezan rang out. The congregation went inside. The two cousins remained by the coffin. Hands clasped in front, like footballers lined up for a free kick. Looking guilty. Hands are really tricky when you face a dead body: you can’t cross them or press them to your sides. The quick are all guilty bef