Stone and Shadow by Burhan Sönmez

Author:Burhan Sönmez [Sönmez, Burhan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Haymana Plain, 1965

TODAY, NOON

Mikail Agha’s funeral was more crowded than his wedding of six years ago. On the plains the sowing season had just begun when everyone dropped what they were doing and left behind mounds of wheat seeds to be harvested and the newborn calves to their mothers in their pens. All the tribes of the plain set out for the village of Konak Görmez on horse and carriage, tractor, automobile, and some even came on foot. The death of Mikail Agha was like a dark veil. Elders talked of how the roots of this great family were drying up while women feverishly whispered to each other at the fountain. Mikail’s father passed and then his two brothers were killed, and when his wife finally fled to Istanbul years later, he committed murder to protect his family honor. On the steppes, tradition meant fate. Mikail Agha had blood on his hands, living the life of a fugitive in Ankara until he was caught one cold autumn night by the cold hand of executioners. That night he was in a club with his friends and members of the same political party, and, after drinking copious amounts of his beloved rakı, he stepped outside at the late hour. He was alone on a deserted street taking some fresh air when the two men approached and fired on him and he fell to the ground. No one knew who they were, maybe strangers he had fought with in the club, maybe relatives of his wife. Elif’s famous sister in Istanbul came to mind. No one ever thought of her mother or father, they were an old couple that had lost contact with the world as they waited for the angel of death to come knocking on their door. As for the family of Mikail Agha, there was no one left behind to wait for death at the door. Neither he nor his brothers left any children before saying goodbye to this world and so all of their wealth had gone to an uncle and two boys who lived in a southern village on the plain. The boys swore to avenge Mikail Agha as he was lowered into the grave, and while laments were sung at home they vowed again before everyone there that they would have their revenge. Their anger and pain burned like the sun high above the steppes. Now they only needed a name for their enemy. Which would come sooner or later.

TODAY, EVENING

Two families in the village did not come to the funeral or join the procession at the cemetery: Elif’s mother and father, and the former head shepherd Heyran and his wife. Heyran no longer worked for anyone, over the years he had accumulated a flock of fifty sheep and that was all he needed. During the day he would go to pasture with his flock and after he had put his sheep back in the pen in the evening he would spend time with his wife, Mihrinaz, and their six-year-old boy, İsmet.

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