Young Turk Read Free Page A

much so, in fact, that I thought I might be asked to join Naim’s gang. I wasn’t. Prejudices die hard. Moreover, because of my association with Gül, I was seen as a girl’s man.
    Another year on, I finally defeated Gül. After that, I never lost to her again.
    Looking back, I should confess I felt I had triumphed far too soon and too easily. With hindsight, I attribute this to the fact that, getting more and more enmeshed in her deathsayer’s world, Gül was losing interest in ours.
    I should also confess that, somewhere in my soul, I was aware of this dislocation. But I chose to think her detachment simply meant she no longer needed to worry about my health. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I also ignored Mahmut the Simurg’s cautionary tales about such oracles as Pythia and Cassandra, the Sibyl and the Sphinx. These seers, the teller of truths explained, succumbed sooner or later to a condition known as ‘
Pîr
’s palsy’, which is a darkening of the mind that afflicts the
Pîr
after too many sightings of Death. Gül, whom I had introduced to him, was an exceptional
Pîr,
he warned me, and might yield to this palsy sooner than most.
    Even more unforgivably, I didn’t perceive the depth of Gül’s anguish when she first confided her fears to me.
    It was a national holiday, 19 May, the day celebrating Atatürk’s arrival in Samsun in 1919 to launch the War of Independence. We had gone to the park where the fairground had set up shop. Though on that occasion we could have joined the gang – Naim was in bed with jaundice and Bilâl, his deputy, quite obviously had as soft a spot for Gül as she had for him – we didn’t. This time Gül, stuck even deeper in her inner world, insisted that we should be on our own.
    So we went round the shooting galleries, chairoplanes, carousels, acrobats, jugglers and the rest. My efforts to brighten her mood failed dismally.
    But when we reached the Gypsies, she became animated. Leading me by the hand, she started surveying the booths. Then she stopped in front of one and stared at its placard. Beneath a painting of herbs and crystal balls, the legend read:
    * FATMA * HEALER * MEDIUM *
    ‘I need to go in there, Rιfat.’
    I dragged her away. ‘Later.’
    My attention had been drawn to the enclave of a bear-leader who was challenging the onlookers for a ‘brave heart’ who would have the mettle to wrestle with his mammoth bear called Yavru, ‘nursling’. Ten
kuruş
only – refundable if the challenger stayed on his feet for a minute.
    I nudged Gül. ‘Shall I?’
    ‘Waste of money.’
    ‘What’s ten
kuruş
?’
    ‘It’s a tenth of a lira. And with a lira we can both go to the cinema.’
    ‘But this is a challenge ...’
    ‘Oh, all right. As long as I get to see Fatma, the medium, later.’
    ‘Sure.’
    She grimaced. ‘The bear stinks!’
    ‘So? Shall I? I’m very tempted ...’
    ‘Go on, then – do it!’
    I took off my shirt and paid my ten
kuruş
.
    As soon as I moved into the circle, Yavru rose on his hind legs. He looked twice his huge size.
    The bear-leader shook Yavru’s chain.
    The bear growled.
    I stood transfixed, suddenly terrified.
    The bear launched himself. He moved so fast that I could neither back away nor run. Seconds later, I was on the ground with his front paws triumphantly pressing on my chest.
    The bear-leader whistled.
    Yavru sauntered away.
    I hauled myself off the ground, ashamed at having failed so pathetically.
    The bear-leader shook my hand. ‘At least you’ve got balls.’ He pointed at the crowd. ‘They’re all chicken-hearted!’
    Gül kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’m proud of you!’ Then she took out her handkerchief and dabbed my chest. ‘He scratched you!’
    I shouted in frustration. ‘He could have killed me.’
    ‘I would have been forewarned.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Had you been in danger, I’d have seen it.’
    ‘Oh, sure ...’
    ‘I see such things ... I told you once ... Don’t you remember?’
    I nodded