From Childhood Memories
Every morning we would pass by the dilapidated gendarme stables behind the Market Mosque, chirping like a flock of sparrows. The school was a bit further ahead… It was in the middle of a fairly wide courtyard with low walls. It was one story; the deep, intermingled shadows of the tall chestnut trees rising around it covered its entire roof. Before we even entered the courtyard gate, we would look and know whether Hoca Efendi was there or not:
“Has Abdurrahman Çelebi arrived, hey?”
“He has, he has…”
Abdurrahman Çelebi was Hoca Efendi’s elderly donkey. A black, ill-tempered, stubborn animal… Every morning, like us, he would come to school early and stay until evening; he would slowly eat the armfuls of grass we brought from our homes in turns, under the trees in summer, and in winter under the ablution shed on the left side. Giving him water, grooming him was a privilege at school. Whoever pleased Hoca Efendi would earn this reward. The school entrance had a narrow stone staircase. And when you went inside, you would directly face Hoca Efendi’s lectern. In front of the lectern, like a cannonball, a terrible and strange rifle, the heavy bastinado with black straps hung there. We were forty children in all. They had separated the girls from us a few months ago and moved them elsewhere. There was no class division or anything. We would read the Elifba, the Amme, everything in unison, count numbers in unison, sing hymns in unison. All our lessons were the lyrics of a monotonous and common tune whose meanings we never understood. Hoca Efendi was a white-bearded, tall, shouting old man. Summer and winter, always without his robe, with his sleeves and trouser legs bare and rolled up as if prepared for ablution, he would sit in his place. The assistant who went to sweep the Market Mosque in the afternoon and never returned was younger. He also served as muezzin. He would sell us candy, chickpeas, carob, jujube, oleaster, and so on.
I had been attending this school since the day we came from Gönen. But I had no idea about lessons or anything. When we started reading in unison, whatever it was, I would join in and start shouting. My greatest pleasure was holding the bastinado… But one day Hakim Efendi came with someone wearing satin trousers and an unsmiling face.
“Kaymakam Bey, Kaymakam Bey!” they said. A clean-shaven, dark, tall, grumpy man. As soon as he entered the door, upon Hoca Efendi’s signal, we all stood up. He waved his hand and head as if calling someone and made us sit down. He reviewed each of us one by one. He wanted to make a few of us read. But we couldn’t read individually and out of tune. He frowned. He looked at the ground and shook his head. Then he fixed his eyes on the bastinado hanging above Hoca Efendi’s head: He looked. He looked. He looked carefully as if seeing a bastinado for the first time in his life. He turned, and while leaving without greeting, he said, “Could you come outside for a bit, Hoca Efendi?”
Hoca Efendi, trembling, walked with his arms crossed in front of him as if standing in court. He went out to the garden after Hakim Efendi and the Kaymakam. We didn’t know what they talked about outside. But the next day the bastinado was not in its place.
“The bastinado has been banned…” they were saying. “Supposedly Kaymakam Bey banned it!”
Once the fear of beating was lifted, we, forty children, became so wild, so rabid… We didn’t know what we were doing, we no longer listened to the teacher at all, threw chickpeas in his face, put pins on his cushion, hid his shoes and made him search for hours, made him beg. Finally, Hoca Efendi, realizing he couldn’t teach us without beatings, one day brought out the bastinado again. But he didn’t hang it at his bedside. He hid it behind the cushion where he sat. But now, whoever did something wrong, he beat them worse than before.
I remember well; we, all forty children, were united. No informer emerged from among us, we acted as one body against Hoca Efendi. One day we agreed in the garden. Inside, we all started yawning at once. Hoca Efendi also started yawning. The poor old man fell asleep. Then we got up. We took the snuff box on the lectern, we all took some. Such sneezing went through the whole school. When Hoca Efendi woke up from the noise, he understood what happened. He asked who stole his snuff. In unison and in harmony we said, “We don’t know, we don’t know.”
“I will put you all on the bastinado.”
“We don’t know, we don’t know.”
“Won’t anyone tell?”
“We don’t know, we don’t know…”
“You don’t know, very well, Necip, go call the assistant from the mosque, quick.”
Five minutes later the assistant came. A terrible scene began. One would let go of the stick and another would take it. We held the bastinado in turns. They gave us all a beating in order. From that day on, Hoca Efendi considered yawning and sneezing the greatest offense. Especially sneezing… The one who sneezed by accident, by themselves…
“Are you making fun of me?” he would say, throw them to the ground, and beat them until they fainted. And as if out of spite, I kept feeling like yawning, wanting to sneeze. I got beaten several times for this. When Hoca Efendi finished the beating, he would hit his lectern with all his strength and shout, “I swear that if anyone sneezes, I will beat them to death.”
“I swear, whoever sneezes…”
“I swear!” What kind of oath was this? I asked my mother at home. She shook her head. She opened her eyes. “A very big oath!” she said.
“Is someone who takes this oath in vain struck down?”
“No.”
“Then what happens?”
“Worse.”
“How?”
“His wife is divorced.”
I didn’t quite understand. But I told the children at school about the terror of this oath in detail. Now, like married men, true or false, we too started using the oath “I swear!” “Vallahi, billahi!” was forgotten. Every morning as Hoca Efendi crouched over his lectern, he never forgot to repeat, “Whoever sneezes, I swear, I’ll kill them.”
One day after the noon break we went inside. As usual, a deep murmur… I looked, Hoca Efendi had dozed off, he was sleeping! I immediately stood up. I gave the children the sign to “Be quiet!” by putting my index finger to my lips. All sound and noise ceased. They were all watching what I would do. My eye caught a snuff box as big as a tray, lying open on the lectern. I walked. I approached stepping on my toes. I took the box. I emptied the snuff inside into the pages of my primer. I left the box open in its place. The children gathered around me to take some.
“No, we won’t take any,” I said, “then we’ll sneeze. He’ll wake up…”
“Then what will you do?”
“You’ll see…”
“What will you do, what will you do?”
“I said I won’t tell, we’ll laugh a lot.”
I had devised such mischief that I was laughing and doubled over even before doing it. The children were also laughing looking at me. Hoca Efendi woke up at the laughter noise. He immediately looked at the box. There’s no snuff inside… He got angry: “Whoever took it, speak up, I swear, I’ll make you die.”
All in unison and in harmony we said, “We swear, we have no idea!”
“Who took it. Tell me.”
“We don’t know, we don’t know.”
“Very well, I’ll show you. Now when someone sneezes, the one who took it will be revealed. I swear, I’ll throw them on the bastinado. I’ll beat them to death.”
We were all terrified that we would sneeze by accident.
“I swear… Ah, if one of you sneezes today… I swear, I’ll kill them…”
“Ah, I swear, if one of you sneezes…”
Hoca Efendi’s anger wouldn’t subside at all. I was rolling two pages I had torn from my primer under the lectern like a tube, filling them with snuff.
Evening approached. Hoca Efendi folded his arms. He put on his socks, his slippers. He took his robe on his shoulder. All in unison, after the chanting of the multiplication table, we began the hymn. Near the end, I got up nudging the child next to me. He got up too. We raised our hands. Hoca Efendi shouted: “What is it?”
“Shall we prepare Abdurrahman Çelebi?”
“Go ahead, very well, quick.”
We went out the door. Every evening, with Hoca Efendi’s permission, two children would go out first and put the donkey’s halter and saddle on. We ran down the stone stairs. Abdurrahman Çelebi was lying on the grass he couldn’t eat. We kicked him up. We put on his halter and saddle. Now the hymn voices had stopped. I took out the paper tubes filled with snuff from my pouch. I bent down slowly. Abdurrahman Çelebi still didn’t understand anything. I blew one of these tubes into his nose with all my strength.
He reared up as if a pistol had been fired into his throat. I couldn’t blow the second tube. I grabbed him by the halter. I brought him hopping toward the stone stairs. The other child was coming beside me, holding his mouth with his hand to keep from laughing. Hoca Efendi, having put on his robe, was descending the stairs slowly, with dignity. All the children were descending behind him in a crane line. The donkey was rearing up.
“What happened to this animal?”
“I don’t know, sir, he was sleeping…”
“You put the bit on wrong.”
“No.”
“Let me see.”
All the children were also watching. I brought the donkey near the stone trough. Just at that moment, Abdurrahman Çelebi shook his head saying “Pshh, pshh…” like a person who caught a cold. All the children started laughing. Hoca Efendi was confused. Abdurrahman Çelebi, starting to feel the effect of the snuff, was sneezing constantly. I said, as if I knew nothing about anything, “He’s making fun of you, sir.”
“You’ve messed it up…”
I became even more impudent: “You should put him on the bastinado too.”
“That animal, that…”
The children, joining in the laughter, were shouting, “Bastinado, bastinado…” I gained courage from them. I said: “Hoca Efendi, today at school you said, ‘Whoever sneezes, I swear, I’ll put them on the bastinado.’ If you pardon Abdurrahman Çelebi, your wife will be divorced.”
The children were shouting in unison and in harmony like a lesson, “Your wife will be divorced, your wife will be divorced.” Hoca Efendi was confused for a moment. He looked with horror at the donkey he affectionately petted saying “Oh my Abdurrahman Çelebi, oh my Abdurrahman Çelebi” when riding. A child had run forward from the door and brought out the bastinado and stick. Abdurrahman Çelebicik was sneezing at irregular intervals, wanting to drag his nose on the ground.
The bastinado and stick came hand to hand all the way to Hoca Efendi. The children were doubled over with laughter, repeating in harmony, “Your wife will be divorced! Your wife will be divorced!”
Hoca Efendi, not knowing whether he was angry at the children, the donkey, or what, involuntarily gave the order, “Lay him down!” Perhaps twenty children swarmed over Abdurrahman Çelebi’s head. After a long struggle, we laid him on the ground. We fitted his back legs into the bastinado. Hoca Efendi took the stick in his hand. Like horseshoes, he started hitting “tak tak.” The donkey was struggling, the children were shouting, laughing, cheering. Terrible noise…
Suddenly a child shouted from behind, “Kaymakam Bey!” We all fell silent. We turned our faces to the courtyard gate; a man in black satin trousers, red fez, sour face… On his right and left, a gendarme each, standing upright.
“What’s going on, Hoca Efendi?” he called out.
Hoca Efendi was terribly flustered. He looked ahead. The stick fell from his hand. Those holding the bastinado let go. The freed frightened donkey, kicking with both hind legs, was running under the chestnut trees, and braying at the top of its voice. The Kaymakam entered the courtyard. He walked slowly. He approached the front of the school. His brows were furrowed. He asked again with anger: “What were you doing?”
“Something, sir…”
Hoca Efendi was stuttering.
“What?”
“I had sworn.”
“What do you mean?”
“For whoever sneezes…”
“What sneezer?”
“The donkey sneezed.”
“The donkey sneezed?…”
The children were both sneezing and laughing. The Kaymakam was angered by this impudence that touched his dignity. Showing his teeth as if to bite, he said, “Get out of there, you ill-mannered brats!” We got scared and immediately fell silent. Then he turned to Hoca Efendi, who was confused and disheveled, looking at the ground: “Come with me.”
And the Kaymakam in front, the gendarmes and Hoca Efendi behind, they left.
After that, at school we saw neither the bastinado, nor… Hoca Efendi!
Now whenever I see someone sneezing, I remember this strange mischief I did when I was very young. I smile. An indistinct pain aches in my heart. The pitiful image of this white-bearded, poor old man who was dismissed from teaching, who probably went hungry, because of me, stands before me. I feel a pang of conscience that, instead of lightening as time passes, weighs heavier.
But…
But, like this, isn’t there an invisible tragedy beneath every ridiculous thing in life?
