Here is a quote from Ferit Edgü. Wounded times and oriental talesEdgü is a Turkish author of poetry, novels and essays. He has won both the prestigious Sait Faiq Literary Prize and the Sedat Simavi Literary Prize.
The village chief was already married to his fourth wife, with whom he had seven children: Mansur, Yakup, Hajer, Qasim, Gulhan, Sheriff, and Mukades. In total, the mayor had 27 children. I mean, if he didn’t count the dead, he didn’t.
Four of his children (Yakup, Murad, Bedirhan and Abbas) were married. His sons had 12 children from their first marriage. There were two of him in Yakub, four of him in Murad, three of him in Bedirhan, and three of him in Abbas. His three of Murad’s children, two of Bedirhan’s and one of Abbas’ children died. None of Jakup’s children died. No one knows why, but he stopped at two o’clock. His wife has not given birth in the last three years. Jakup began contemplating his second marriage at the age of 24.
The mayor began to think that he was an old man and that he would soon leave this world. The rows of adobe houses were like a maze, and I sometimes got lost. In his dream he saw a huge house like a palace. stone. 2 levels. Maybe even three. why not?
But there was no stonemason around those parts who could build the house of their dreams. The architects and masons who built those big buildings in the city came from other cities and left when they had finished their work. The mayor had heard about the beauty of Mardin’s homes, Mardin’s masonry, their great skill and knowledge. One day he could not stand it and explained his dream to his eldest son Jakup and asked him to bring Master Mason from Mardin. Yakup had never been to Mardin. However, he was his father’s darling and needed his father’s help to marry another wife.
*
huge house. like a palace. It is also made of stone. Jakub also lost himself in this dream.
Kitchen with 5 burners. A furnace big enough to bake bread for an entire village. The room is bright and warm. . . Yakup went to Mardin. He saw the city filled with stone houses that fulfilled his father’s (and, to a lesser extent, his own) dreams.
*
When asked by a local who was sipping tea at the inn where he was staying, what he was looking for, he replied that he needed a mason. They gave him at least ten names. The next day Yakup found these skilled masons.
(Mardin was bigger than his village, but still small enough that everyone knew each other.)
Some people were listening with a smile. Some asked how much Yakup would pay. (The payment issue never occurred to him, nor did his father mention it.)
Only one of them (who was called Mirza) said, “I’ve heard a lot about your part, but I’ve never been there, so you should go and see it first.” I was.
they left together.
*
Entering the village, Mirza showed no surprise. The Mayor was not very enthusiastic about this stocky Mardin man, but decided to entertain him for the night, and after dinner described his dream home to Master Mirza.
The more he explained, the more his enthusiasm grew. The Mardin man listened quietly.
“What do you think?” asked the mayor. “Can you build me a house like this?”
“I am a mason,” answered Mirza. His voice was like a whisper. You mean he could or he couldn’t?
No, he could build it. “But are there stone holes around these parts?” he asked.
The mayor looked troubled. For the first time he heard “stone” and “pit” uttered side by side.
“We have stones and we have holes,” he said. “But what is a stone pit?”
I could not see the mountains covered with stones. The Mardin man smiled. “You cannot build the house you want with those stones.”
The mayor was still confused.
“To build the walls of a house, you need special stones dug out of stone holes. These stones here are suitable for garden walls.”
(The mayor wasn’t listening either.)
The mayor felt as if he had fallen off his horse.
Where did Jakup find such a strange fellow!
He couldn’t even speak their language well. The mayor wasn’t sure he understood most of what he was saying.
Caught in the mayor’s indignant gaze, the Mardin man said, “You can build a big high-rise house with adobe, but you can’t do it with the soil around here.”
“So what’s wrong with the soil?”
The Mardin man smiled. “I’ll tell you that tomorrow.” He pulled out a silver cigarette case, rolled a cigarette, handed it to the mayor, and then rolled it for himself.
They lit a cigarette, smoked in silence, and just stared at each other.
That night, the mayor and his son Jakub, a Mardin man, were sleeping in the same room.
Their guests were strolling through the village when they awoke at dawn. While Mirza examined the walls of the house, the Mayor performed the ablutions. He surveyed the slopes of the mountain. At the village fountain, he rinsed his mouth and drank a few palmfuls.
Returning home, I found that the mayor had been waiting to sit down for morning prayer.
“I have already prayed,” he said.
That day he explained to the mayor and his son how to mix adobe bricks for a large house, how many armspans the foundation would need, how thick the walls would be…
“I can’t keep all this in my head,” said the mayor, calling the teacher and asking him to write down everything the Mardin man specified.
The teacher wrote everything down. window dimensions. ceiling height. floor beams. The type of wood used. Once all the specifications were finalized, Mirza received a pencil from her teacher and sketched out her plan. Then he called the mayor out. Pointing to the south slope, he said, “If you’re going to build a house, build it there. If you follow my instructions, your house will last a long time on adobe.”
“Will it happen?” asked the mayor. “Will a large adobe house outlast me, even a very large house with two or three stories?”
“If you want, you can build a castle out of the right kind of mud bricks.”
Chateau?
The mayor had never heard the term either.
For lunch I had rabbit stew (just shot this morning), pilaf and yogurt. Then they had tea.
His job was done, and Mardin’s man was ready to depart.
The mayor felt obliged to pay him for his work (come here from Mardin, stay for three days, give directions, draw sketches, show where to put the house, etc.) He didn’t do much except that). But the mayor had no money. He was unwilling to part with one of the fourteen gold coins he kept in his belt to pay this man called Mirza, a mason from Mardin.
“Is it okay for you to worry about one ewe and three one year olds?” he asked.
“No problem,” replied the Mardin man. “One ewe and three one-year-olds, too many. prepared a bag of food for him.
As he was leaving, the Mardin man said, Might as well take a look at it while I’m here. ”
It was the first time the mayor heard the word. Mirza explained what Roundaround is: Labyrinths, stone-walled structures, trails designed to confuse visitors who get lost and sometimes can’t find their way out.
The mayor and villagers knew what he was looking for.
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from Wounded times and oriental tales Written by Ferit Edgü, translated by Aron Aji. Used with permission of the publisher NYRB. Translated copyright © 2023 by Aron Aji.
