October 20, 2019. It had been a month since Tarık had come here. His green eyes glistened as he tore off the calendar page and tucked it between the pages of his planner. He used to throw them in the trash. He glanced at himself in the mirror one last time before leaving. For the first time in days, he had dressed properly. Black pants and a black shirt. His dark skin seemed even darker against the dark clothing. Even the green in his eyes seemed darker.
"Like my soul," he thought.
With quiet, sorrowful steps, he opened the door. Before leaving, he looked back inside. In this short time, he had experienced so much pain. When he lost his family, he pitied himself. Now, he didn’t pity himself anymore. Thinking of what Samet, Enes, and the other children had gone through, he even felt lucky at times. But the vice gripping his heart never loosened and never would.
He pulled the door closed, placed the key in the lock, turned it, and locked it. He put the key in his pocket and headed down the steps. He saw the landlord, Hasan, arguing with a blonde, plump, and very attractive woman. He paused.
"If you hadn’t cheated on your wife, darling, I never told you to leave her; no, I didn’t," the woman said. Tarık had learned about Hasan's situation from Adnan. A lawsuit was pending, and the summons had ended up in Hasan’s wife’s hands. Upon discovering her husband’s infidelity, she had thrown him out.
"But I love you," Hasan's feeble voice was lost in Mehtap’s shrill retort. "Oh, you’ve dragged this out long enough. This is it for me, my prince; I can’t swim in dangerous waters," she said, spinning on her heels and walking out the door. Tarık started to speak but closed his mouth again. "He who falls on his own shouldn't cry," he muttered and kept walking.
Stepping outside, the cool autumn air licked his body. His eyes welled up. He squeezed his hand as if holding Buğra’s sweaty hand. Would this pain ever pass, would he ever heal? He walked, feeling like he could walk forever, never ending his steps. He looked up at the gloomy sky, as if the sun hadn’t risen. "It’s going to rain," he thought.
Despite the sorrow swirling in his mind, his feet found their destination. A crowd of people came into view. He paused. The years between life and death, they seemed so long when living, but did they feel like never having lived at the moment of death? At twenty years old, Tarık felt as if he had lived for hundreds of years. "Is death a blessing or a curse?" he couldn’t help but wonder.
Entering the earth, the eyes that would close forever, the heart that fought to live every second, freezing... Perhaps most importantly, disappearing forever. From everyone, everything, and maybe even from oneself. "If I die, will my pain end, and will I forget?" This thought lingered in his mind as he saw his uncle. Ayhan appeared right after. Without seeing Tarık, they entered the cemetery. Tarık swallowed hard; he didn’t want to call out to them. Silently, he walked in the direction they had gone.
The day they buried his parents was still fresh in his mind. It hurt. Walking among the gravestones, he thought. The names and dates showed when the apocalypse had struck for those lying there. Everyone’s apocalypse was their own death, wasn’t it? What had all these people experienced, how had their lives passed, had they cried, laughed, been happy, suffered? Now, everything was over; it was over.
He saw Süleyman and Ayhan join the others. They were talking among themselves. Ömer, Ali İhsan, and Commissioner Adnan were waiting at the mound of earth that hadn’t yet embraced its owner. Süleyman and Ayhan had joined them now, and the only one missing was Tarık.
He wiped his damp eyes. "It won’t be long before I join you; after all, every day brings me a step closer to you." He walked and took his place in line like the others. The imam was waiting to begin the prayer. The coffins lined up side by side reminded him that life was shorter than a breath.
Samet and Enes would be freed from their twenty-year captivity and reach eternity. Everyone’s face held a different expression. Like sorrow, like grief, but mostly like regret. If only things hadn’t turned out this way, if only those children had been able to run and play.
The prayer was performed, and the remaining bones were laid into the earth with care. Mother Earth embraced them with mercy. Prayers were said for the peace of their little souls. Tarık wondered if they would come back again but knew they wouldn’t. They had reached their eternity.
Süleyman leaned into Tarık’s ear. "I’m going to the post office, my nephew. See you at home," he said, walking away. Tarık didn’t have the strength to speak; he nodded slightly in agreement. Ayhan put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. "Aren’t you coming to school?"
"No, brother, I won’t be going for a few more days. I’ll use up all my absentee days first."
"Alright, brother, I’m off then. I’m late for class," Ayhan said and walked away. Tarık, unable to do much himself, watched as the others tried to resume their normal lives.
As everyone completed their duties and slowly left the cemetery, Tarık knelt at the foot of the graves. Where would he go? Why should he leave? Buğra had been searched for everywhere in the city but remained missing. The lake was searched daily by divers. There were no traces, and Tarık had started to believe he had reached eternity. He was alone, forever. The most painful face of death was losing a loved one. What the deceased felt was a mystery until one died themselves. Tarık couldn’t stop thinking about it. What had Buğra felt? Had he cried? Had he called out for his brother? Had the guard taken him like Samet and Enes? Had he hurt him? If not for the image of Ozan, maybe he could convince himself that Buğra hadn’t suffered, but...
His eyes caught sight of a man sitting by a distant pine tree, sobbing uncontrollably. He recognized the man from a distance. What was he doing here? And why was he crying? For a moment, they locked eyes. Tarık could almost hear the man swallow hard. When he saw Tarık, he stood and stared for a moment before walking towards him. As he got closer, Tarık could see his wet face. He watched in curiosity as the man approached.
"Forgive me," the man said.
Tarık furrowed his brow, not understanding.
"What?"
"Forgive me," the man repeated.
"What did you do that I should forgive?" Tarık asked. The man grabbed his arm and pulled.
"Come!" he said, almost dragging him.
Tarık, not understanding, followed the man. Unable to keep up with his pace, the man kept pulling Tarık along as they walked.
"You found my brothers and brought them out. I didn’t have the courage. Forgive me!"
"Who are your brothers?" Tarık asked, though some pieces were starting to fall into place in his mind.
"Samet and Enes. They were my brothers. The guard killed and buried them."
"Who are you?" Tarık asked.
The man fell silent. They were at the entrance of a run-down place. Barking dogs could be heard from inside. The man opened the door to the single-story, abandoned house and pulled Tarık inside.
"Come!"
They walked through the large cages placed in the rooms. Dozens of puppies of different breeds barked excitedly and wagged their tails at the sight of the man. Tarık was puzzled, wondering what these animals were doing here.
"Why are these dogs here?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"I feed them. Big dogs and people harm them. I release them when they grow up."
"So you protect them," Tarık said.
The man stopped, turned around, and looked at Tarık for a few seconds. "I try to protect them, like I tried to protect the yellow fish," he said.
"The yellow fish?" Tarık asked, freezing at the sound he heard.
"Brother!"
It was Buğra’s voice, the voice of his brother whom he hadn’t heard in weeks, the brother he thought he would never find.
"My Buğra, my brother!"
He tried to run toward Buğra, who was running toward him from the other end of the room, his blonde hair dirty and brown. But something was wrong with his knees. They trembled, buckled, and wouldn’t allow him to walk. While he couldn’t find the strength to walk, he tightly hugged Buğra, who threw himself into his arms.
As their tears flowed, faster than the heaviest rain, neither of them could speak. They just cried. The man watching their reunion also sobbed uncontrollably.
That cursed day had clung to him for a lifetime, never allowing him a peaceful sleep or a clear mind. He wasn’t mad, but he had lost his sanity. The screams of the children he considered his family echoed in his ears every night, and the guilt of their deaths consumed him.
All he had wanted was to escape at that moment. He hadn’t known the price he would pay for what he did would weigh on him for a lifetime. He remembered striking
the match and the flames engulfing his body as if it were yesterday. He thought he would die, his only solace being that the guard would die with him. But things didn’t go as expected. Caught in the flames, Hüsrev had managed to open the tap, fill a pot with water, and douse himself, then Fahri. After a brief moment of relief, he had broken the windows with a chair and thrown Fahri, who was paralyzed with fear, out through the broken glass.
As the fire grew, Fahri had run into the woods and disappeared. The last thing Fahri remembered was Cenk seeing them. He didn’t recall anything after that. His memory was stuck in the past, and the events of the future were just a blur until that day. Seeing the man in the yellow taxi outside the apartment, he had forgotten or pretended to forget. Muhsin had taken care of him for years. The only thing he never wanted to forget was the guard. He didn’t want to forget him because he blamed him for all his pain. What he couldn’t understand was why the guard had saved him. Why hadn’t he left him in the flames? He never had the chance to ask him. Seeing him had brought all the past rushing back. Fear; yes, what he felt was fear. A fear that had never let him forget the guard, a fear that had consumed his soul for years. He had understood that even without the leather shoes he wore to remember every step, he could never forget.
He didn’t have to think long to understand what the guard was looking for. The blonde boy who had recently moved into the apartment resembled Enes, and the guard must have seen him. Panic and fear had welled up in him, making him sweat. That day, he had done what he should have done years ago. He had rushed up the stairs to find Muhsin.
They quickly made a plan. The man would take Buğra and hide him, and Muhsin would finish his long-standing reckoning. The time for settling scores had come. The man who had caused the deaths of his wife and hundreds of children had to pay. When Muhsin had left the apartment and gotten into the back seat of the yellow taxi, the man had knocked on Buğra’s door.
Expecting Ayhan, Buğra had opened the door. Seeing the man, he had recoiled, taking a few steps back. His eyes had widened with fear.
"I need to hide you. The guard will take you," the man had said, looking at him with tearful eyes.
"Who’s the guard?" Buğra had asked, his voice trembling and scared.
"He’s a bad person, he kills people."
Tears had streamed down Buğra’s cheeks.
"Is he the one who killed my mom and dad?"
The man had paused, thinking, then said, "Yes, he is." He had to convince and save the boy. "Where is my brother?" Buğra had asked, his lips trembling as he tried not to cry.
"He’ll come for you once he catches the bad guy. Come on, we have to go quickly, or he’ll come."
Nodding, Buğra had quickly changed and taken the man’s hand.
"How did you get here, why did you come? I thought I had lost you, Buğra," Tarık said, tears streaming down his face.
"I brought him, forgive me," the man said.
“Why?” asked Tarık. He compared the ragged state of the man now to the wild grin he had seen the first time. There was almost no resemblance. He had thought this man was crazy.
“The guard, he was going to take him. I saw it, so I hid him.”
“Was he following Buğra?”
“He came to the apartment in a taxi, always watching you. I went to Muhsin Baba. He told me to take him and hide him.”
Tarık understood. This man, whom he had thought was crazy, had saved his brother’s life.
“Thank you,” he said. “Without you, he might have taken Buğra too, and like Ozan...” His throat tightened, unable to finish the sentence.
“You found and brought peace to my brothers. You owe me nothing,” the man said, standing up. He took a few steps before stopping and turning back to Tarık.
“He’s dead, right?”
“He’s dead. Gone forever.”
“And Muhsin Baba?”
Tarık nodded slowly, “Yes.”
The man started to walk away again, but Tarık called out.
“Who are you?”
After a few moments of silence and a rumble of thunder, the man spoke.
“Fahri, my name is Fahri.”
Tarık’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Holding Buğra, he stood up.
There was much to say, many pains to share. But they just looked at each other. Both Fahri and Tarık knew how to understand without words because their pains were the same.
“Thank you, brother,” Tarık said.
“Thank you, brother,” Fahri replied.
Tarık held Buğra tightly. Fahri led the way. As they stepped out of the derelict house, it began to rain. Fahri turned his face to the sky. The rain washing over his face would be a cure, and he would forget. The guard was dead; he could forget now. He looked back down to the ground, his gaze finding his feet. He smiled. He took off his leather shoes and left them there, walking barefoot on the wet cobblestones. He couldn’t contain the joy filling his heart. The guard was dead. He shouted.
“The guard is dead, he’s dead. Did you hear? The guard is dead. Everyone, hear this! The guard is dead.” Under the wet gaze of Tarık and Buğra, he shouted and then melted into the crowd, disappearing, vanishing...
THE END