More: A Novel (18 page)

But Rastin had miscalculated. Because that reservoir had had no room for any guilt except his. If there had been, they wouldn’t have kept their peace back when Rastin and his friends were going to prison and dying for them. Even if they were unable to make anything resembling a sound, they could have at least opened their mouths and puked on the streets that a handcuffed Rastin was being dragged over! At the very least they could have done that. But I couldn’t recall any news of collective puking in Afghanistan. Therefore the dead voice of the weakling would follow only Rastin. Because it had nowhere else to go. In the end, ghosts knew it all. They knew who was a wall of flesh and who was human. Some they passed through, and into some ears, they whispered everything they knew.

1
   Turkish for “help,” also a boy’s name.

2
   A play on Gaza’s name, which in Turkish means “crusader.”

3
   The Turkish national anthem, based on the poem by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, a poet, academic, and champion of the Turkish War of Liberty.

The Power of Power [1st draft]

Crisis as a Source of Power [Crisis: A Political Socket?? Fuck that! Not scientific at all!]

INTRODUCTION

There are two types of information in the world: information you seek to find and information that finds you. If information seeks to find one, it has without doubt been produced for marketing something. Either a political lie is being hustled [not scientific! Find another word!] as truth or a new cell phone needs selling. Furthermore, information that finds one is soiled from all the slithering it has done and stinks of shit [take that out not scientific!]. Consequently, the only information of value is the information that is sought to be found. This is what should be trusted.

The information gathered from the experiment in the reservoir may, by exactly this reasoning, be accepted for fact. Because the Researcher has invested extraordinary [don’t flatter yourself! Flatter yourself with scientific terms!] effort in gathering said information. Fluctuating information [you said there were two kinds of information? Say this is a subtype!] is information of which the truth and validity constantly varies with time. For example, information pertaining to humanity is fluctuating information. [A person is fluctuating information for another!] Especially information pertaining to close relations. Meaning friends, relatives, etc…. [redundant, cut this bit!] Therefore, the Researcher has taken the route of considering fluctuating bits of information on a different level and comparing them with information from other sources to test their validity. The other sources are the tools of mass communication.

Among the sources for this research, besides the tools of mass communication, is the newspaper called
From Kandalı to the World
. In addition are hundreds [don’t be lazy, list them all!] of websites and TV channels. Lastly, the Researcher, believing that a scientific study must be imbursed by personal observations, has done his part and has had no reservations about reflecting his thoughts on the paper.

[Pile of shit! Rewrite the whole foreword!]

ARTICLE

Bulleted for scientificness. [Take this out!]

1.   A leader who in ordinary times is in communication with his public, retreats into himself in times of crisis and begins withholding information from the people he leads for the sake of avoiding scrutiny later. Another reason for this behavior is to prevent panic and uphold social order, and by extension his authority.

2.   Due to his withdrawal and the strain of crisis, the leader who in ordinary times believes himself to be part of a corporate effort, begins regarding leadership as a personal responsibility. As a result, he begins to consider the time and effort he has extended for his people as a sacrifice. As the crisis is prolonged, the sacrificial feeling brewing inside the leader begins turning into an inflamed indignation against the people. Due to this, the smallest disharmony he experiences with the people he would once “give up a kidney for” causes the inflammation to leap into his realm of thought. This in turn results in the exacting of spontaneous revenges on his “thankless” public.

3.   However, since crisis is still in effect, the public overlooks the leader’s rising authoritarianism and reactions verging on the vengeful, due to its viewing him as its sole savior.

4.   Hence the crisis takes the form of a psychotherapy session where the public suffers the consequences of the leader’s whining, yelling, and defamations.

5.   During the crisis, the dealings with his people are based in self-satisfaction and sexuality. The people’s regard of the leader, on the other hand, is centered on the father figure, bearing a familial aspect. Hence in times of crisis, the leader-public relationship is incestuous. By nature, it is a scandal.

6.   In legitimizing the over-authoritarianism of the leader, the crisis becomes an alternative source of power. It’s imperative that the leader stabilizes his country on the level of “sustainable crisis” so he can profit from this source to the maximum. For this, it’s essential to devise small inner conflicts. The fine line between civil war and inner conflict is the boundary of the crisis’s sustainability. The leader that engenders hundreds of inner conflicts without ever setting off a civil war holds extraordinary power as long as he is able to keep his country walking that fine line.

7.   A leader’s power is measurable by the number of airports, universities, stadiums, squares, boulevards, dams, bridges, and newborns that are named after him while he is still alive.

8.   The leader’s fear of death, which is the meaning of his life, is balanced out by his assurance that his legacy will outlive him, and the psychotherapy session ends on a positive note.

Appendix 1:

As can be derived from the aforementioned, the principal task of the people is to treat every leader that reigns over it and enable him to die a peaceful death. This is called the People’s Hospital. In return the leader erects Public Hospitals in service of the people. The branding of those that don’t fulfill the task of treating the leader as traitors may be presented as a new topic for inner conflict put to use in prolonging crisis.

Appendix 2:

A country’s entire defense mechanism is formed around the objective that in the case of mass deaths, its only remaining citizen in the world be the leader. According to this, the human race is to be perpetuated by the mating of said world leaders. [??? No observation no experimentation not scientific! Don’t be presumptuous!] Therefore leaders do not say, “It’s either me or him!” They say, “Either you all or me!”

Sources:

From Kandalı to the World

Hundreds of websites [list them! don’t forget the municipality webpage]

Tens of TV channels

The reservoir

Thirty-three Afghanistan citizens

Fifteen-year-old Gaza [you don’t get to be both researcher and source!]

[Spiral scheme of leadership]

[The weakling or the child]

[COMMAND ←

DEMAND → ]

I sat in the arbor, lost in thought. I stared at the spot where I had buried the weakling and asked myself if he might have had a family. Inasmuch I knew the answer! Because he had come from such a place that he must have had at least nine siblings, six children, three grandchildren, and forty-six nephews and nieces. So it didn’t do much good to assume that his parents were no longer alive. He had grown up in a land where people were born in heaps and died by the dozen. And all that he had wished for was to go to a land where people were born alone and died alone. But his journey had ended in Kandalı. And in Kandalı, people were buried as soon as they were born. At least people like me were … then some were stillborn. Such as the weakling … out of the womb of the reservoir he had been delivered stillborn, to be buried and eradicated the same second.

“Gaza!”

I turned my head to see my father step into the arbor.

“Did you talk to them, Dad?”

“We’re good, it’s all right. We pay up and the deal is done.”

What was I supposed to say? I should thank him obviously! Obviously!

“Thanks, Dad.”

“That’s all right and all but … that makes two, son! What’s your beef with the Afghanis?” he said, laughing.

I hadn’t misheard. That was exactly what he had said: with Cuma, that makes two! He didn’t know what he was talking about. Son of a bitch! All I had to do was lean over and grab the shovel under my feet. Then in a single move, bash in his face! There was nothing and no one to stop me! A humming began in my ears as I reached for the shovel.

Don’t, Gaza! Leave it … don’t.

Cuma?

Don’t!

I could have killed my father then, in that garden, in that arbor, with the shovel still bearing traces of dead earth. But I didn’t. Instead I just stared at him. The way I had looked at the images transmitted all the way from the cameras in the reservoir to my monitor. Without feeling anything. Because Ahad was there too. With all that was under the earth, there. Among all the corpse-eating insects. Among all the Afghanis who had lynched the weakling. With Rastin, even! With all those that had exhibited their women to me, all of them! I stared him in the face. So he might understand how deep down he was in the earth! But there was no possibility of that, of course. He just kept grinning. For whatever reason his fury had left him. Maybe he’d received some good news from Aruz. But what good news could Aruz possibly have? Could the Grim Reaper come bearing glad tidings?

“We’re going to Derç tomorrow, in the morning. To pick up goods. Two hundred heads! Well, aren’t you in luck! No need to cut your pay now. Man, if this isn’t turning out to be one bountiful winter!”

So it was! Two hundred heads had cleared up the whole mess. Neither the weakling nor his corpse in the garden were the wiser. Two hundred heads of sawdust would suffice to cover ourselves in. We should be glad, shouldn’t we?

“Stop sulking already! What’s done is done! Fuck it!” He was about to leave but stopped. “Tell you what! This bunch is leaving tonight.”

To elaborate on
this bunch,
he had gestured at the spot I had buried the weakling in and continued.

“We’re heading out. Get them all in the trailer by eleven p.m. We’ll set off around midnight.”

“Okay, Dad,” I said. Then I turned my head away. So I wouldn’t have to look at the spot he was pointing at any longer …

So apparently the time had come for Rastin’s bunch to head out … Fine, but how? Surely they had seen my father’s face on the way off the eighteen-wheeler into the truck or from the back of the truck to the reservoir. They would see it again tonight when they got off the truck and onboard the boats and were sure to remember. There was nothing I could do about that. More importantly, though, what would they do when they saw me? Once I opened the lid and they filed past me one by one and climbed into the cab … could they possibly walk past the crazy boy that had made their lives hell for the past few days as if nothing had happened? What about Rastin? Would he want to depart on a journey that ended with him giving up his kidney? Maybe this was just the time to run away from home! The time to leave everything as it was and get the fuck out! But predictably I didn’t … Instead I went to the shed and turned on the monitor and the microphone. For a while I just watched reservoirland. I watched the reservoir people sit and debate among themselves as usual while their utterly indifferent leader leafed through his book.

“Rastin! You leave tonight!”

Although he had been waiting for more than two weeks for this news, it didn’t seem to affect him at all. All he did was to close his book and stare into the camera across from where he was sitting.

“Rastin, you’re leaving! I’m going to open the lid at ten p.m. Then you’ll get on the truck and set off around midnight.”

By way of reflex, Rastin turned his head to look at the clock on the wall.

“Don’t look at that, it’s broken.”

“I knows!”

“Excuse me?”

“Clock is too slow! Broken!”

So he had that figured out … Whatever, it didn’t matter.

“You are lie!”

“What are you talking about, Rastin?”

“You real crazy!”

“Knock it off, Rastin, I said you’re leaving. What are we going to do about it? They’ll see my father. They’ll see that he’s not dead!”

“You were say, clock is right. But is wrong. You are lie!”

What was it with him and the clock? Yes, I might have confiscated the watches of all the reservoir dwellers and left them alone with that clock, but who cared?

“All right, fine, I lied! I admit it! The clock is broken! Are you happy? Now tell me what we’re going to do!”

“Come night. Open lid.”

“What are you going to tell
them
?”

“Kidney!”

“What?”

“I say I not give kidney. Is all. Because you are liar.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I thinks … men want kidney, want organs. Man die here, no one comes. You not send news! So no one want kidney. No one want two thousand dollar. You are liar! Why? Why, Gaza? Do not tell, forget it … because I am also liar, Gaza. I, worse than you. Because I want that man should die. I want that these people kill him. You take his kidney. I keep kidney … but no one comes … understanding? But let this be secret. You, me, secret between! Do not tell to anyone. I do not tell you either.”

And I burst into tears. All at once! The reservoir dwellers exchanged looks and then looked around at the cameras as if they might see me. My sobs must have been bouncing off the walls. A reservoir filled with my weeping! It had all started like an attack. Like a heart attack! But as I cried, it wore off. I even began to observe myself from a distance. Gaza observing weeping Gaza! So maybe I could have calmed down if I wanted to. But if I stopped crying, I would have had to speak, and now that knowledge made me unable to stop. I had to answer to Rastin, but I had no idea where to find the answer. I was completely empty inside. I didn’t have the answers to anything. Anything! If had I tried, I might have been able to rattle off technical excuses such as not knowing about the weakling’s death until it was too late to take his kidney. And in the medical sense, I would have been justified. But I was tired of justifying myself through lies! I didn’t have a single lie left to tell. I didn’t have the strength to explain, either. But it looked like Rastin was stronger than me. Strong enough to admit that he had let the weakling die and so weak that he could let another die to save his own kidney … There was nothing left to say. Both Rastin and I were done for! The reservoir had been the death of us.