Black Sky, Black Sea

by Izzet Celasin, Charlotte Barslund

Genres: Literary Fiction; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

1977. Poised between the secular values of socialism and the conservatism of a tenuously balanced government, Istanbul is a fractured city haunted by demons of its own making. Along with thousands of other left-wing activists, Oak's interest in politics leads him to join the annual May Day rallies. There he encounters Zuhal, a fearless girl with a gun. As battles rage between nationalists and socialists, Oak witnesses the violent suppression of dissident minorities by his fellow citizens. The bewitching Zuhal begins to shape his ideals, bringing him face to face with disillusionment, and death.

Release date: October 25, 2012

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Print pages: 290

Sample

The Byzantine aqueduct stretched from the outskirts of the residential neighbourhood near the central fire station, across the main boulevard, and arched down towards the back of the municipal theatre. Traffic flowed in four lanes through its still-sturdy arcades. Saraçhane Square lay surrounded by the park of the same name, the historical ruins of the aqueduct, the Şehzade Mosque and the City Hall. This was a busy and bustling area with thundering traffic, public offices, theatres and cinemas. However, the most striking thing about that day was not the absence of cars on the road, but the endless stream of people pouring into the square from all sides. Here, as in many other places, stanbul was preparing to celebrate May Day.

I had sneaked out of school at ten in the morning with a group of friends from sixth form, all eighteen years old, all with butterflies in our stomachs. None of us had ever taken part in a May Day parade before. Rumour had it that the police would seal off streets in the city and arrest anyone they happened to find there. The prospect of being arrested sparked excitement as well as tension, so we laughed and hollered as we ran all the way down to Saraçhane Square. This place was the meeting point for marchers from our neighbourhood, and from there the crowds would descend on Taksim Square, where five or six parades from other parts of the city were also headed. Trade unions and various other organizations had declared today’s to be the biggest May Day parade in living memory, while editorials in the bourgeois press had branded it a “trial revolution” and clamoured for the police to prevent stanbul from being overrun by the Reds. When we reached Saraçhane Square the mood was already festive, with music, dancing, a sea of banners and red flags, speeches that only a few could hear over the constant hubbub, like a swarm of bees taking off from amongst the crowds.

Everything was new to us. We wandered from one group to another speaking to complete strangers. It was a unique sensation, sharing something so important with so many of my fellow citizens. Apart from at school, I had never seen so many women gathered in one place, and several of them were debating loudly, handing out fliers, selling newspapers, collecting money for something or other, or wearing armbands that suggested they were responsible for security. After a while we headed for the park, where the student union had gathered beneath their own banners. A fierce discussion about when the parade should start was in progress. It was coming up for midday and parades from other neighbourhoods had already set off according to plan. People were growing restless, rumours ran like wildfire, and the crowd was receiving chaotic and contradictory messages every other minute, but no-one really knew what exactly was keeping us. Every time a well-known student leader appeared, the buzz among the masses would soar only to fizzle out in disappointment. We were just as impatient as everyone else, but entertained ourselves by making snide remarks about the leaders who, in fact, looked just as lost as we did, including one man in particular who had clearly not been near an educational establishment since the early ’70s. Despite the fine spring weather, he had slung a long black coat over his shoulders and was proudly strutting about, flanked by two bodyguards.

The bush telegraph eventually announced that it was a dispute between the Soviet-friendly organizations and the Maoists that was holding us up. We ran towards the aqueduct. There, in the middle of the street, representatives of all the political factions were engaged in a fierce debate, surrounded by their various supporters, who were enjoying the spectacle enormously. The mood was tense, obscenities rained down wrapped in political jargon. I failed to understand why they were so outraged at words such as “revisionist”, “opportunist” and even “adventurer”. My interest in political literature meant that I was not entirely unfamiliar with these terms, but they did not sound insulting to my ears. The representatives, however, were clearly of an entirely different mind and seemed offended by the political name-calling. I grew irritated at the parties’ ill will and contempt towards each other, and I was not the only one. Here and there people started shouting “Stop it!” and “March United!” But the agitators and their supporters were in the majority. The Soviet sympathizers did not want the Maoists to be there and the Maoists in turn threatened to use all available means to monopolize words that belonged to the “proletariat”. Impartial demonstrators – those who supported neither China nor the Soviet Union – tried in vain to broker an understanding, but the factions showed no signs of tempering their demands; to do so would be to desert the battlefield and betray the working class. The workers, for their part, were not sure who represented them best. One of them, a man in overalls, called out, “Toss a coin!” We laughed. Time passed and we were alternately entertained, bored and irritated. And while all this was going on, no-one saw any reason to point out how few police officers were stationed around the square.

When the procession finally set off, it was at a snail’s pace. The student union found themselves acting as a buffer between the opposing parties, second last from the back. Behind us, the Maoists marched with their banners, megaphones and slogans. It was a war of words. From the front, the evils of the Maoist Nationalists were impressed on us, while the marchers to the rear condemned the “Soviet Socialist Fascists”. The independent demonstrators tried to enter into the spirit of the day, but were drowned out, sandwiched as they were between two extremes. I did not take part in the verbal sparring; I preferred singing to shouting slogans.

I gasped as we passed through the arches of the aqueduct, where the street began to slope steeply downwards: before me was a sea of people. The dull waiting was instantly forgotten, as were the tedious arguments, the thirst, hunger and heat. The masses that stretched out before my eyes filled me with pride. A giant had been roused and had stirred: you could almost hear his thundering footsteps. To be a single cell of this giant’s body was enough to feel invincible. It would be a pleasure to confirm the worst fears of the bourgeoisie and claim Istanbul for our own, not from helpless Byzantines this time, but from a cruel, rotten and corrupt power. Sultan Mehmet would have had no objections. His proud army, which might well have camped right here in May 1453, would resemble a village outing compared to our band. It was tempting to fantasize and briefly forget that behind the city walls a much stronger enemy now lay in wait, one who would not surrender without a fight – and that our giant lacked Sultan Mehmet’s cannons. However, the giant did not come with a declaration of war, but with a promise: “Look, we are here, and nothing will ever be the same again.”

When we had crossed Unkapanı Bridge over the Golden Horn, the sea of people poured into the narrower arteries of the Old City and filled them. It was another long and demanding ascent towards Taksim Square. Time passed, and I despaired at the thought that everything might be over before we reached the square, before we experienced the highlight of the day. I leaned despondently against the railing and looked out at the dinghies moored at the quay, bobbing lazily in the brown water. At Galata Bridge a little further down and, beyond, a stretch of the Bosporus glinting in the afternoon sun.

Only a couple of my friends were still with me. They smoked and chatted, and looked just as pensive as I did. I wondered what had happened to the others; we had lost them in the crowds. Someone suggested that we might as well go back to school: this waiting was pointless and the teacher on duty might get suspicious if we failed to be back on time. We might easily have done so had the message not arrived that the delay was caused by a huge influx of people into the square and the effort required to organize and position them. Moments later the parade started to move once more. My optimism returned and I decided to stay on and experience as much as I could. My joy rose with every step, I felt happy to be on this earth. The good mood was infectious, every face around me wore a smile from ear to ear.

The bottleneck had eased and we jogged up Şişhane. Our progress was undeniably comic, everyone laughed and joked, and slowcoaches were mocked and encouraged to keep going. The sense of anticipation was not limited to the demonstrators: men, women and children along the pavements cheered and clapped, and a few threw flowers.

Once we had passed through Tepebaşi, the pace dropped again. The parade seemed to move with reluctance. Something up ahead was resisting the pressure exerted by the massed ranks of the crowd. The tension between the two forces caused our human river to divide at Galatasaray and pour into the side streets that led to the square. I stayed with the student union, but my friends were nowhere to be seen. And then, in a narrow alley just a few hundred metres from the square, we realized that we could go no further. Trying to push ahead was pointless; we were told that security guards were blocking the entrances to the square due to the huge number of people trying to push through. I was so close and yet so far away. My dream of being received by jubilant crowds, of climbing the Republic Monument and surveying the people who were the true owners of the city, was shattered. I sat down on the pavement, though there was hardly room even to stand. People were crowding around and constantly stumbling over me. But I was completely exhausted and I did not care.

Soon those standing closest to me sat down too, and I was provided with some breathing space. I listened to the conversations of my asphalt comrades. They were older than me, mostly university students. If the rumours were to be believed, the streets leading to the square were blocked because the Soviet-friendly trade unions wanted to keep the Maoists out. The students were angry with both sides. One of them said that he was glad that this was no Winter Palace moment: the minute the revolution started these idiots would be at each other’s throats, and we would find ourselves in the midst of a fratricidal feud. The students could not imagine how anyone could think of celebrating May Day without their organizations being represented. They had their own concerns; I was mainly preoccupied by how deep and severe the rift actually was. Only this morning I had been optimistic, convinced of the unity of the working class. Perhaps I was just naïve, sitting in my ivory tower surrounded and protected by the school walls. Democracy could not be achieved without differences of opinion. There should be room for a range of ideas, I was just not sure how.

A cry of joy roused me from my musings. I instinctively looked at my watch. It was past 6.00 p.m. A young woman came running towards where we were sitting and told us, panting heavily, that the student union would be allowed into the square after all, but we had to hurry up because the streets would be sealed off again as soon as we had passed through. While we got to out feet and brushed the dust from our trousers, she ran on to spread the word. I was afraid that something might happen at the last moment to halt our progress, so I elbowed my way forwards and felt relief when the parade started stirring again. I stretched as tall as I could in the hope of seeing what was going on at the head of the column, my view obscured by a forest of flags and banners. The young people next to me knew no more than I did, but we marched all the same, and that was what counted. Soon I could hear the buzz that always rises from vast crowds of people gathered in one place; deafening waves of slogans rang out, louder and louder. At last I reached the end of the street and entered the square.

On either side were gathered dozens of full-grown, serious-looking men, supervising our parade. They were wearing tabards with the insignia of the Revolutionary Workers’ Union. If they were looking for Maoists, they would not find any among us. Several students waved to them, but got no response. Not everyone was having fun today, some were still working. We quickly walked past them and took our first steps out onto Taksim Square, to great applause from the students. This was precisely as I had imagined. The demonstrators were on the pavements, on the roofs of the bus station shelters, they covered the grass of Taksim Park like a rug, clinging to trees and anything else you could hang from. I could forget all about the Republic Monument, it was no longer possible even to make out its original shape. The monument at the centre of the square was now decorated with countless people. A gigantic banner that read “Long Live May Day” had been hung above the entrance to the Culture House. It was clearly visible from all sides and displayed an image of a worker breaking his chains. Once in the square we flowed to the right, guided to the spot we had been allocated, which, according to my calculations, would be either by the Culture House or in the park. The columns moved very slowly. We walked past the Waterworks, past the commercial building where I had worked as a runner for a photographer in the summer of ’73, and approached the Intercontinental hotel. It was a high-rise building that blighted its surroundings, but not even its hideous facade could diminish this moment. I felt happy as never before.

*

The first shots sounded like a hydraulic drill operating close by, but a lightning reflex alerted my brain that my senses were being deceived. Something similar must have occurred in the same instant to thousands of people across the square. At first everything went quiet, but when the shooting resumed, there was desperate shouting and panicked flight in every direction: the herd was now stampeding.

“They’re shooting!” someone called out.

Several automatic weapons were fired simultaneously. I was thrown forwards by a powerful push to my back. It was then that I began to feel genuine fear. I thought I had been hit. It turned out not to have been a bullet, but the people behind me trying to get past. I was caught up in the momentum and carried away. It was impossible to stand on my feet. I was a helpless victim of the pressure from behind, and I pushed those ahead of me in turn, unable to think of what else I could do. Suddenly a tall young man stopped in front of me, waving his arms in the air and shouting, “Don’t panic, don’t run!” but he was instantly swallowed up by the stampede. I spotted through a tiny gap that we were close to Kazancılar, which slopes down towards Kabataş Quay. The hill was covered with fallen bodies piled on top of each other. I stumbled over a lifeless figure on the cobblestones, fell on all fours and hurt my knees. The pain shot through me, and together with the threat of the human wave behind me, triggered my survival instinct. I knew I had to do something or I would shortly be trampled to death. I crawled forwards as quickly as possible. When I finally stood up, the other demonstrators had lain down in an attempt to shelter from the bullets. They made up an enormous blanket across the square and were a clear target for anyone shooting from above. With my last strength I reached a safe place by the Republic Monument and threw myself to the ground as the next barrage of shots rang out.

“Be a man! Get up!” a calm but rather impatient voice commanded me. I scrambled to my feet and the first thing I noticed were her eyes. They were dark and angry.

“Can you use one of these?” she said, showing me an automatic pistol and a revolver. I shook my head.

“Oh shit,” she sighed. “Just hold on to this and try not to lose it.” She lifted up a canvas shoulder bag, tossed it in my direction and looked around. A man came running towards us. He was tall, young and handsome.

“I’m so glad I found you,” he said to her.

She said nothing, just handed him the revolver. He automatically checked the weapon.

“Where are they?” he asked, a little out of breath.

“I’m not quite sure. On the roof of the Waterworks, I think,” she replied.

The firing of automatic weapons had stopped. All we could hear was the sporadic reports of smaller pistols.

“Look!” the man shouted and pointed at the Waterworks.

I followed his direction. There was movement on the roof, or at least I thought I saw something move, and a moment later the man began to shoot. So did the woman. I was standing next to her and I watched how she supported her right hand with her left before squeezing the trigger. Bullet cases spattered everywhere. One hit me on the cheek, burning hot. The pain enraged me. This was idiotic and pointless. The distance was too great – that much I did know about handguns.

“Give me the bag,” she said when she had stopped shooting.

“No, I can manage,” I sulked. Clearly she was not in the mood for a discussion.

“Alright, but give me a magazine and some rounds.”

It did not take me long to find them; there was nothing but two spare magazines and some loose rounds in the bag.

“Who’s the boy?” said the young man as he loaded his revolver. She shrugged because she did not know who I was, but she turned towards me, perhaps asking herself the same question as if she had just then remembered something.

“Stick to me like glue until I tell you otherwise,” she told me. I did not like her tone, but did not want to say so. I was terrified and out of my depth.

Fresh cries of fear grabbed my attention. A police armoured vehicle with giant wheels had arrived on the square from Dolmabahçe by the Culture House. It drove mercilessly into the crowd, unleashing even more panic. Most managed to react in time and throw themselves out of the way to safety, but one woman stumbled and fell to the cobbles. The huge wheels rolled over her, one side of the vehicle lifting as it passed. The vehicle went on its way without stopping, now heading straight towards us. The young woman with the pistol and I jumped to the left. The young man ran to the right towards the Intercontinental Hotel entrance. The vehicle roared past. I saw him run after it. The crowd closed behind them and he vanished.

After these moments of distraction my terror was renewed. All I wanted to do was give the bag to the woman and get away from this place, but I just did not know how to, or where to go. In another time and another place I would have gone to help the woman who had been run over, but right now the only person I cared about was myself. My companion looked puzzled.

“Where are your shoes?” she asked. I looked down at my feet.

“Wait here and don’t move,” she said and disappeared back where we had come from. I was calm again. Time had lost all meaning, so I had no idea how long I waited, or what was happening around me. But I knew deep down she would come back.

If it had not been for the pistol in one hand and the shoes in the other, I would not have recognized her when at last she came running towards me. An odd pair. I just about managed not to point that out. She had done her best, given the circumstances. When I tried them on, they were obviously too big, so I tightened the laces as hard as I could. She was almost smiling, and as I got up she took my hand and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

We walked towards the Culture House, but the road to Dolmabahçe was blocked by militia who were holding their ground for the time being, no doubt waiting for orders. I found my voice and reminded her about the side street we had taken to reach the square and how I had not seen any police officers there. She turned without saying a word. Going this way was a risk, for all we knew it might be crawling with police and soldiers by now. For the first time since she took me under her wing, I became properly aware of my surroundings. People were still taking cover behind the Republic Monument, cowering behind bus stops or in the park. Banners, flags, abandoned shoes and clothing lay strewn around the hill. A fine mist of smoke and sporadic gunfire made it seem like a battlefield. The people we were passing now seemed not to be injured, but there was fear and confusion etched on every face. I was hoping that everyone would be alright, including those I had left lying on Kazancılar and the woman who had been crushed by the armoured car.

“Is it safe now?” someone said. The woman hurried on without replying, hunched down and with me in tow. I copied her though I could not see how crouching would save us from being hit. But no-one shot at us – in fact, it had now been a while since we had last heard machine-gun fire. When we reached the corner of the street we saw a small group of security guards wearing the tabards of the Revolutionary Workers’ Union. They were patrolling the junction with pistols in their hands and waved us down to the ground. We did not stop walking until we had reached them.

“Who’s doing the shooting? The police?” the woman demanded in an authoritative tone. One of the men looked her up and down from head to foot.

“No, it’s the bloody Maoists.” he said, spitting on the tarmac. “They started shooting at us and we returned fire.”

Or the other way round, I thought. There were plenty of bullet cases on the ground.

“What did they have? Machine-guns? Pistols?” she asked.

The man gave her an impatient look. “Pistols, obviously, like the one you’re holding. Anyway, they’ve gone, we’ve driven them out.” He was childishly pleased with his little exchange of fire, the imbecile, and clearly had no idea what had happened elsewhere. I was starting to get irritated with their banter and was about to say something when the woman tightened her grip on my hand and said: “Come.”

We were an odd couple, running along the now-deserted streets, she with her pistol and me with my lady’s shoulder bag. I did not look up once, but I could feel that people behind their curtains were staring down at us with terror in their eyes. Just before we reached the main road we slowed to walking pace. I did not protest when she took the bag and put the pistol in it. We waited while two police cars drove past, crossed the road and went into Tepebaşı Park, which slopes down towards Kasımpaşa.

“We’ll take the bus from Kasımpaşa,” she said.

For a while we walked in silence and for the first time I was able to observe her with eyes that could actually take something in. She was an adult, different from the immature girls I knew. Her face was framed by long, dark, tangled hair, she wore no make-up and was pleasant to look at. I could detect the white lace on her bra through a casually buttoned checked shirt. She had long, athletic legs, and was wearing pale jeans and suede shoes.

“What are you staring at?” she snapped when she realized that I was studying her. She must have decided it was her shirt, because she immediately buttoned it up to her neck.

“By the way, you look a sight,” she said.

My hair was cut short, so there could not be much wrong with that. My face, however, I was less sure of. My polo-neck jumper was filthy, there was a big tear in one knee of my jeans, and as for my shoes, well, they were not mine.

“Likewise.” Sparring.

She smiled, ran her fingers through her dishevelled hair, found a band and with nimble fingers gathered it up into a severe ponytail.

“Better now?” She looked older and more serious. I wanted to know how old.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one. And you?”

Being eighteen was nothing to be ashamed of. “Twenty,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You look much younger.”

It was embarrassing, ridiculous. She had seen right through me. I shifted tack. “Are you a Maoist?”

She pretended to be hurt. “Do I look as if I have a thing for peasants?”

“So do you think it was the Maoists?” I really wanted to know.

“No,” she said firmly. “They weren’t even in the square. The others kept an eye on them the whole time, and yes, they do have pistols, but it’s highly unlikely that they would have automatic weapons. What do you think? Do you think it was them?”

“No,” I replied just as firmly. She had convinced me. Listening to her, everything seemed so obvious. She seemed so resolute and rewarded me with encouraging smiles. I, on the other hand, could barely hold it together and my hands were trembling a little. I carried my fear with me like an unwanted burden.

She was angry, she said, because no-one had managed to protect the crowd. Even though an attack had been predicted, more or less announced in the newspapers, it had ended in chaos. The group she belonged to never really had a chance. In this way she gave me an answer to the question I was too frightened to ask: why was she carrying a weapon? She looked an ordinary young woman. If I had passed her in the street, I would not for a minute have suspected her of keeping a pistol and spare magazines in her bag. We had left the park and arrived at the bus stop. Here people were strolling around the streets apparently ignorant of what had happened a few kilometres away. We waited in silence for the bus. For once it was on time. This surprised me because I had imagined that the whole city would have come to a standstill. On the bus she stayed standing, though there were seats, keeping a firm grip on her bag. There was something vulnerable about her as she stood there. Perhaps she was as tired and scared as I was. I wondered what she would do if the bus was stopped and searched at a roadblock. Would she let herself be taken alive, or resist and risk both her own life and the lives of innocent passengers?

Someone had gone on a hunting expedition today, someone who was ready to kill without hesitation, without even needing an excuse. Perhaps she was contemplating the same possibility. And when the bus stopped just short of the aqueduct, she got off without warning. I did not have a chance to say anything to her.

Through the rear window I saw her scan the traffic before crossing swiftly to the other side. The bus drove off, and my last glimpse was of her disappearing between the shops on the far side of the road. By ignoring me she might have been trying to protect me. That I could understand, even though it made me feel like a helpless child who needed to be looked after. What upset me most was that I had forgotten to ask her name and where she lived. But perhaps it was better this way: at least I had avoided the humiliation of being turned down.

Back at school a full range of emotions was on display, but by far the most visible were grief and anger. Most of my friends had turned back without having reached the square. A few of them had ended up in the park and had managed to escape unharmed. But when I failed to show up they feared the worst: according to the radio and television many had been killed or wounded. Precisely how many, no-one knew as yet. I told them an edited version of my story: I had been at Kazancılar when the shooting began, then I had run down the hill, away from the chaos, and finally ended up at Kabataş Quay. There I had sat for a long time composing my thoughts before taking the bus to school. Later, when I thought about it, this version seemed like the real one and anything else a figment of my imagination. Everyone agreed that I had been lucky, as many people on Kazancılar had been wounded or killed. They soon lost interest in my story and the conversation moved on to their own experiences.

I managed to sneak out and up to the dormitory, as dinner had already been served and devoured. Not that I was hungry anyway: all I wanted was to lie down in my bed. My body could take no more and I fell quickly into a deep, dark sleep.

Nothing would ever be the same again. The age of innocence was over for my generation. Perhaps it was the fault of the school; it had protected us too well from the outside world. I was eleven the first time I walked through its dark-green archway, which had admitted countless hopeful students for more than a hundred years. Once you passed through, you belonged to the community within its tall walls. It was no good crying for your mother or father, all the care and knowledge you needed would have to be found inside.

A century of integrity, authority and tradition. When you are eleven all this seems terrifying: the colossal buildings, the reading rooms, dining halls, dormitories and, not least, the teachers and your fellow students. But in time both the buildings and the people resume their actual proportions. You learn to fit in. Those who do not have no place here. You only get this one chance. In time, you understand that you are no longe. . .