The Dark Valley (9 page)

“Was I able to do it? No. His eyes were full of rage…”

One more spring came, and with that spring a land surveyor came from the city to determine the borders of the two villages. The land surveyor had not yet set foot in the villages, but the villagers had already gathered so much information about him that it was as if the man had lived with them for years. In both villages people talked about him until his arrival.

“They say he’s got a good conscience.”

“He wouldn’t say no to a drink…”

“When he gets angry, there’s no end. He’ll destroy his work…”

“And one of his eyes wanders slightly…”

The villagers talked even more after the land surveyor arrived. No sooner had he made his way to Mir than horsemen from the above village came to take him to their village. And because he did not “mind a drink,” he went to the above village of which he had heard in the city. He gave Mrots the first victory as he poured water on Mir’s head. The villagers considered half of the fate of the Apricot Field determined.

The land surveyor stayed more than a week. He ate eggs and honey in both villages, slept in clean beds, and listened to the tale of the Khan and the bride many times and to what the influential people in Mrots had to say about the blueprint of the Apricot Field.

The land surveyor returned to the city. On his way back, someone held the bridle of his horse. If the holder was from Mrots, he implored the land surveyor for the Apricot Field to be theirs. And if the holder was from Mir, he did the same for Mir.

And both villages gave more or less the same amount of blessings to the land surveyor’s children, to his house, to dead and alive relatives, as they worked to find out something, anything from what he had said that would illuminate the darkness of their doubts until news arrived from the city.

But the land surveyor merely said:

“It’s going to be all right. I have measured such a border that…”

And that “all right” turned out to be in favor of Mir…

An announcement was sent from the city to both Mir and Mrots, written in the same way, on the same paper: “Giving the Apricot Field in its entirety to the village of Mir, which is poor and deprived of land.”

Even though that sheet of paper was small and quite common, it produced more noise in Mrots than the biggest bomb in the world would have. They came, looked at the paper and touched it. Even though many were illiterate, they passed on the paper to the next person as if it were a piece of hot tin that had burned the fingers of the one who had touched it.

That same evening, the villagers of Mir talked and expressed doubt. True, the paper did not burn them, but it also did not give them confidence. What pen would end the story of the Apricot Field on that piece of paper?

“So, is there something here?”

“No, it couldn’t happen this fast…”

The next day, three people from Mir went to the city and approached a youth who was in charge of land matters. They put Mir’s report on the table. There was something surprising in the report: the youth read it, grinned, and looked at the villagers.

“Give us half of the Apricot Field,” they said.

It was autumn, a bright autumn…

The air was crisp and clear like a teardrop. The bluish mountains seemed so close and so distinct that, from a distance, the streams on its clean slopes resembled the reddish leaves of a rosebush.

It was autumn with falling leaves, with the sun’s low temperature, and with bitter winds that plucked the yellowed leaves from tree branches, drove them in groups and carried them to distant valleys. Even the thick-trunked oak tree on the steep precipice bowed to the wind. A marked sadness had descended on the reddish-yellow forest and the harvested fields in the desolate valleys. The first breath of snow was palpable in the chilly coldness of the air.

In the gardens the young cherry was cold and rustled in the wind. The tall corn leaves rubbed against each other whishing like sabers. It was as if knights were jousting and the corn leaves served as crashing swords, bending with the wind.

The last sunflower was smiling and swaying its yellow head in the sun.

Uncle Dilan was sitting on the dry bough of a walnut tree under the wall that encircled the winepress. He had a habit of entering the garden for the last time in late autumn, lock the door and fence, and close the winepress so that wolves and other beasts would not find shelter there in the cold winter.

He bundled dry twigs and stalks and put them next to him. He rested from exhaustion with his eye fixed on the distant mountains. He sat and thought, listening to the rustling of the corn leaves.

The autumn sun warmed him up. The peace in the valley was pleasant. The vines that twisted around the trees rocked in the wind, and Uncle Dilan’s mind swayed like the dry leaves that the wind had devoured. The small worn-out door of the winepress softly creaked in the wind and timidly sang an old song.

If the sun did not set, he could sit in that position forever and be satisfied with the fruits he had plucked from the already yellowed rustling trees. Soon winter would come and who knew whether his hand would be the one to open the door of the garden again in the spring, or whether it would be someone else’s.

In the peaceful autumn days he found pleasure in the rustling of the corn leaves, the rocking of the vine, and the song that the little door of the winepress sang.

Many years ago the door of the garden had creaked like that once. It had also been a sunny day and the black grapes in the wicker basket had glistened in the shade.

Inside Uncle Dilan was crushing grapes with his legs bare up to his knees in a stone trough, and the blood-colored must was dripping from the stone trough into clay jugs.

It was hot in the winepress. He crushed the grapes, humming a cheerful song to himself as drops of sweat rolled down and fell into the must. He was young in those days, and the blood in his veins fermented like strong wine. Dilan turned his head toward the sound of the door. There was no one in the garden. But, suddenly, when a bluish brocade on a head appeared in the cornfield, he hid behind the door.

It was as though a bird had hidden itself in the darkness at the heart of a forest. Then it cocked its neck like a partridge does when it hears rustling in the dry fields, and a young woman came out of the dense cornfield. She came out, shook her thin body and, like a reed, glided toward the winepress with the light steps of a partridge.

It was Sona: a new bride with a brocade for a kerchief—a girl with bright teeth whose voice rang when she laughed as she dangled her white shins in the narrow brooklet, while Dilan, the boy sitting next to her, sprayed his curly hair, which resembled a bunch of grapes, with water.

The bride neared the winepress with steps as light as those of a roe on snow. The silver coins on Sona’s woolen blouse tinkled by the door, and she entered in the same way a naïve bird does when its cage door has been opened.

Suddenly she saw him. She started and jumped back to the door, but a passionately hot hand closed the door of the winepress.

“Someone will come, Dilan,” she implored, trembling.

And he didn’t know whether it was the wine or the heat in the winepress. Uncle Dilan simply didn’t know. He whispered in Sona’s ear:

“Wait, shameless…”

He whispered and put his arms tightly around her. The starch and the scent of her sky-blue clothes were so pleasant and the winepress so warm.

Sona writhed like a snake, trying to free herself from the powerful grip that confined her. She pleaded with longing and promises. Her young body rocked like a reed and her back bent over… Tired of the useless struggle, the bride, with pounding heart, gave her body to him as a chaste sacrifice. And he greedily kissed the brides tight red lips and was infinitely delighted with her golden tresses that waved and glistened in the suns rays.

And then, like a bird with a broken wing, Sona flew out of the winepress, ashamed. She shone once more in the dewy grass of the garden and left the scent of her sky-blue blouse inside.

And the tinkling coins clanked like crashing waves.

* * *

They had been childhood friends, and the love they felt for each other had grown as unnoticeably as a violet that blooms in the dark of the night. On the banks of the brook, in the gardens, in the fields while stacking hay, by the haystack in the summer moonlight—everywhere their love chirped like a swallow until they both grew up and Sona walked past the neighbor’s house one day with a bride’s veil covering her face and, underneath the veil, bloodshed eyes, as bright as a lake in the mountains, from crying.

Four months after the wedding they ran into each other on the path to the gardens. Dilan stopped her and asked her how she was. Sona shrugged her shoulders sadly and walked away hastily.

The encounter had irked him, but the desire to be close to her, like a graceful soaring bird high in the sky, never descended on his threshold.

Then, suddenly, that bird flew right on his shoulders…

Why did she come to the garden? Had Sona missed the water from the brook of her childhood? Or did she approach the little door of the winepress by chance, thinking that it was deserted inside, just like it was in the garden? Dilan never figured it out.

He approached her a few times, wanting to talk to her, but Sona gave him the cold shoulder.

“Leave it, Dilan. Go your own way…”

And they never saw each other again.

* * *

Uncle Dilan only went home in the evening. He roamed the valley all day, went to the neighboring gardens and brook, stood on the corner of the street, but did not see Sona anywhere.

It was a moonlit night and the sky was cloudless. The night breeze was blowing. Uncle Dilan lay down on the haystack, which had been newly mowed, but was unable to sleep.

Thousands of dry flowers had given off their fragrance in the hay, and in the moonlit night it seemed to him as if Sona was lying on the same haystack and had left the scent of her sky-blue blouse in the hay.

At the crack of dawn the stars melted away and the dark blue of the night turned light. When the flowers woke from their night slumber and the dew left glistening droplets on the orange rocks, the partridge awoke with the first rays of sun in the dry fields opposite the village.

“Kerrr-ick, kerrr-ick…”

The partridge was singing its deep song. Higher up, from the depths of the forest, the pheasant was calling.

Uncle Dilan got up, threw his rifle on his shoulder and turned his head toward the forest on the slopes of the mountain from which the pheasant was calling.

He felt too sick at the thought of going down to the garden and seeing the winepress.

Uncle Dilan walked through the dewy grass, trampling the harvested fields and golden wheat as he walked to the forest with his head bowed down on tortuous paths overgrown with shrubs.

There was an old rosehip bush at the edge of the road and, next to it, a flat stone that shepherds nowadays sprinkle salt on for sheep… They used to carry bunches together—he and Sona. The sun used to scorch the girl’s face and the tips of her golden tresses, and there would be strands of yellow wheat stuck in her hair.

They would take the horses out of the stables, get to that flat stone and stop. He would lift Sona onto one of the horses, then straddle his own horse, and they would go to the fields to pick bunches.

One time Sona asked for them to sit together on one horse. So they pulled one horse behind them. Sona had sat at the front of the horse, and he at the back. He had held the reins with one hand, and with the other he had held her thin body. The girl’s tresses had brushed against his face.

The next morning, they had come to that stone and he had proposed for them to ride the same horse again, but Sona said that her mother had scolded her and had strictly ordered her to sit on her own horse…

“Why?”

“It’s indecent,” the girl had said with a fair smile.

Uncle Dilan walked over to a bale of hay, dug his hand in it, and felt its warmth. The hay had warmed up and the grains had softened in the night’s humidity.

When he reached the familiar field, he leaned on his rifle and thought. One summer Sona was weeding right there, bending over the wheat as splinters found their way into her fingers. Sona brought food for the harvesters, and she sweated in the sun, and the sweat made her shirt cling to her body on the mountain slope.

If only… if only he could be a harvester mowing the field so that Sona would bring him the food as she sweated under her shirt and sat next to him.

Uncle Dilan looked back at the road he had come from. There was no one. The autumn meadows were bare. Only the rosehip bush and its red fruits glistened among the yellowing leaves.

Suddenly he heard the call of a partridge from behind the bush.

“Kerrr-ick, kerrr-ick…”

With light, careful steps, Uncle Dilan approached the bush and stooped. Partridges were roaming the mowed fields looking for fallen grains and pecking at the chaffs. It wasn’t just one partridge; there were many of them. They hopped around, swinging their fat bodies. In the spring two birds would often lock beaks over one grain.

Uncle Dilan kneeled and caught one of them. One fat partridge cocked its neck and looked all around itself. The rest quieted down and hid in the bush.

The wind rustled the bush, just like Sona had done with the tall corn leaves… Whether the rustle reached the ears of the partridges or not, they promptly circled into the air and descended on the sunny fields farther away.

He moved on. The farther he walked, the more abundant the bushes became. In the fields one could see sporadic oak trees bent, bowed, and charred by lightning. It was as though sentinels were guarding the borders of the forest and fields.

The path was narrowing. He was trampling the last fields. A breeze blew in his face from the forest, and his nostrils greedily sucked in the forest’s humid but fresh air.

* * *

He knew the forest well. He knew where in the depth of the forest the pheasant, with its golden feathers, built its nest and called from.