down and its workers sent to the front. Some of them, too old, were allowed to perform their regular duties for almost no compensation, just to preservethe feeling of everyday lives going on uninterrupted. Thus, Mustafa’s grandfather patrolled the empty facilities, checked building after building for nonexistent crooks, and locked and unlocked the rusting fences like it was 1989.
In the winter of 1994, the year of the worst shortages, Mustafa’s grandfather spotted a figure in the packaging department dismantling one of the conveyor belts for sellable parts at three in the morning. He sneaked up behind the figure, took out his gun, and yelled for the man to freeze and turn around.
It was Salko.
Mustafa’s grandfather’s face wilted. He backed out of the building in silence. He wandered over to his booth and sat motionless until his family’s savior walked by with a wheelbarrow full of parts. He watched him get smaller and smaller, dark against the snow.
He sat there a while, staring first at the chips of paint flaking off the radiator like dandruff, then at an abandoned, dusty spiderweb between the desk and the wall, and finally at the seam of his son’s busted hiking boot on his left foot, still a little wet from the snow. He was looking for what was right.
When he found it he wrote it down under the OUT rubric of his notebook, took off his heavy jacket, folded it into a bundle, and shot himself through it. Since what he wrote didn’t make any sense to anyone (it was not a classic suicide note), the police considered his death to be a murder. Their thinking implied that suicides don’t shoot themselves in the abdomen to die in prolonged agony.
“By the code,” the note read.
* * *
Going through elementary school Mustafa heard all about the code. It was usually shoved down his throat by his mother to illustrate how good he had it.
Once, he’d lied to her about his grades; when she found out the truth at a parent-teacher conference, she sat him down in the kitchen and told him about an ancestor who happened to be at a market where another farmer had a gigantic pumpkin on display. The farmer claimed that his was the biggest one that year, and when Mustafa’s forefather said he had a bigger one in his shed, the farmer accused him of lying. So he went home, loaded his pumpkin onto a coach, took it back to the market, and had it measured in front of witnesses. When it was discovered that his pumpkin was indeed larger than the farmer’s, he stabbed the man to death for calling him a liar.
The moral of the story ricocheted off of Mustafa’s ill humor, but he said he was sorry and that it would never happen again. She sent him to his room to study, and he sneaked one of his ninja novels inside his history book. Ninjas were his favorite because they were well-trained assassins who could use any means to eliminate their enemies and had no code. They were not bound by Bushido like samurai. They didn’t have to fight fair.
Excerpts from Ismet Prci’s Diary
from July 1999
I don’t recognize my hometown, mati . I’m standing right in front of my graffiti-covered high school and I miss Moorpark College. And Moorpark backward is Kraproom.
I look at Father. Who the fuck is this guy?
I look at Mehmed and he has an Adam’s apple now, his voice like from the bottom of a barrel. A grown-up, full of rage. That’s the only part of him I understand. He blames me for everything, I know.
I look at your face, mati, your tired, angry, pious, broken, miserable, warm, beautiful face, and I’m dying for Melissa.
You’re still fighting with him, still claiming he’s having an affair. He still keeps telling everyone you’re insane, and you keep trying to kill yourself instead of him. You should cut his throat when he’s sleeping. Mehmed is on his side. You should cut his throat, too. I have no choice but to be on your side, mati . Please, cut my throat.
* * *
I wish I were Izzy, mati . I wish I were mad and hungry
In the winter of 1994, the year of the worst shortages, Mustafa’s grandfather spotted a figure in the packaging department dismantling one of the conveyor belts for sellable parts at three in the morning. He sneaked up behind the figure, took out his gun, and yelled for the man to freeze and turn around.
It was Salko.
Mustafa’s grandfather’s face wilted. He backed out of the building in silence. He wandered over to his booth and sat motionless until his family’s savior walked by with a wheelbarrow full of parts. He watched him get smaller and smaller, dark against the snow.
He sat there a while, staring first at the chips of paint flaking off the radiator like dandruff, then at an abandoned, dusty spiderweb between the desk and the wall, and finally at the seam of his son’s busted hiking boot on his left foot, still a little wet from the snow. He was looking for what was right.
When he found it he wrote it down under the OUT rubric of his notebook, took off his heavy jacket, folded it into a bundle, and shot himself through it. Since what he wrote didn’t make any sense to anyone (it was not a classic suicide note), the police considered his death to be a murder. Their thinking implied that suicides don’t shoot themselves in the abdomen to die in prolonged agony.
“By the code,” the note read.
* * *
Going through elementary school Mustafa heard all about the code. It was usually shoved down his throat by his mother to illustrate how good he had it.
Once, he’d lied to her about his grades; when she found out the truth at a parent-teacher conference, she sat him down in the kitchen and told him about an ancestor who happened to be at a market where another farmer had a gigantic pumpkin on display. The farmer claimed that his was the biggest one that year, and when Mustafa’s forefather said he had a bigger one in his shed, the farmer accused him of lying. So he went home, loaded his pumpkin onto a coach, took it back to the market, and had it measured in front of witnesses. When it was discovered that his pumpkin was indeed larger than the farmer’s, he stabbed the man to death for calling him a liar.
The moral of the story ricocheted off of Mustafa’s ill humor, but he said he was sorry and that it would never happen again. She sent him to his room to study, and he sneaked one of his ninja novels inside his history book. Ninjas were his favorite because they were well-trained assassins who could use any means to eliminate their enemies and had no code. They were not bound by Bushido like samurai. They didn’t have to fight fair.
Excerpts from Ismet Prci’s Diary
from July 1999
I don’t recognize my hometown, mati . I’m standing right in front of my graffiti-covered high school and I miss Moorpark College. And Moorpark backward is Kraproom.
I look at Father. Who the fuck is this guy?
I look at Mehmed and he has an Adam’s apple now, his voice like from the bottom of a barrel. A grown-up, full of rage. That’s the only part of him I understand. He blames me for everything, I know.
I look at your face, mati, your tired, angry, pious, broken, miserable, warm, beautiful face, and I’m dying for Melissa.
You’re still fighting with him, still claiming he’s having an affair. He still keeps telling everyone you’re insane, and you keep trying to kill yourself instead of him. You should cut his throat when he’s sleeping. Mehmed is on his side. You should cut his throat, too. I have no choice but to be on your side, mati . Please, cut my throat.
* * *
I wish I were Izzy, mati . I wish I were mad and hungry
Similar Books
