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Emin visited Remzi everyday, and they talked a long time. He coddled Remzi so he would co-sign for Emin's debt at the hardware store. Today they were going to the hardware store. Munir was the only one in the grocery and was reading a book, as always. The boy was different from any other student Emin had ever met.

"Hey there, Munir!"

The grocer's son closed his book. "Hi, Uncle Emin."

"Is your father around?"

"He's at home. Want me to call him?"

"Please."

Munir yelled through the little window behind him. "Uncle Emin is waiting for you, Father."

"I hope he isn't busy," said Emin.

"No, no. He just went home for lunch."

Emin lit a cigarette and offered one to Munir.

"Thank you, Uncle. I don't smoke."

"It's amazing you sell cigarettes but don't smoke. Bravo! We are all proud of you, Munir."

"Come on, Uncle. I'm not good for much."

"Being a good role model for the children is enough. You will be good for everyone once you graduate. We are all blind, Munir. Without help, we can't even get our business with the government done."

Remzi came in, chewing a mouthful of lunch.

"Hello, my guardian angel," Emin said. Remzi's full mouth made a funny grin.

"Do you want to go to the hardware store today?" Emin asked.

"Sure," Remzi replied and they left.

"They will ask for a down payment today. Do you have any cash on you?" Remzi asked.

"Yes."

"Did you make a list?"

"I did, brother."

They were walking down a slope. Shacks covered both sides of the road like patches.

Remzi was quiet and Emin wondered if he regretted agreeing to co-sign. To break the silence Emin said, "How in the world did they build all these houses on such a steep hill?"

"This place was completely empty when we moved here. There wasn't a single house. Nobody would have thought about building a shack on this slope. I wish I'd bought some land here. People like Ilyas have gotten rich by selling municipal land illegally. They just bribe a few officers," Remzi said and took the cigarette Emin offered. Emin pointed to the endless slum area. It looked like Ankara was going to finally extend to the distant villages, the way the slum area was expanding.

Remzi continued, "I sometimes reminisce about this neighborhood. There weren't many people around a long time ago. Houses were seldom built and there was no power, water or bus service. I used to walk so far to work, I regretted moving here. I had no neighbors and people need others to live. But then the rush started from the villages to the cities. It was impossible to stop people from migrating. The area was filled with shacks in a few months. The neighborhood changed so much that the streets we took to work in the morning were blocked by new shacks that had sprung up at night. We had a hard time finding our houses. The sound of construction was continuous. Every resident has had his struggle to get settled here. We prayed to God for neighbors at the beginning, but then we started to pray to God to stop the migration. People started to inform the authorities on each other and got the other shacks demolished."

Emin's fear surfaced with the word "inform."

"I fear those people from Yozgat, Remzi. My efforts will go down the tube if they backstab me by informing the authorities. Have you heard any gossip about what they have in mind? What do they say about my building? Do they say anything that seems like they may complain and have it demolished?"

"I haven't heard anything. Kamile is good friends with my wife, and I haven't heard anything. But informing isn't done openly, brother. So nobody will say anything."

"Perhaps they'll talk if they get angry."

"I don't think so."

"Remzi, get Fadime to listen to what's being said."

"All right. Let me get her to learn anything she can."

Emin said, "Fadime is the only one who can persuade them not to bother us. We tried to explain our situation, but they didn't want to hear it. Yet Fadime is very persuasive."

"You are absolutely right. It's not your fault that Ayten's marriage with Mahmut didn't work out. It just didn't work."

Emin sighed. "I'm scared of that bastard, Esref, most of all."

"You're right. You never can tell what he'll do, but sometimes someone you never suspect can stab you in the back. Because they know you'll suspect your enemies, someone you don't expect might be the guilty person. Slum life is dirty. No one wants a house too close to his. My house was knocked down twice. I heard someone complained to the authorities, but they never said who. I suspected everyone. The bottom line is living in the slums is hard."

Remzi looked tired, though they were walking down a slope. He had asthma, and the sound of his breathing was loud enough to scare anyone.

"Sometimes the demolition crew lies about the informer to protect him from the people in the neighborhood. Is it true?" asked Emin.

"That is true."

Remzi stopped and took a deep breath.

"I am so tired, brother. My life has been hard and I've lost my health, Emin. I am much better now that I have opened the grocery shop, but there's no getting back lost health. I can't breathe enough air, and I don't enjoy living anymore."

Emin thought about his life in the village. In those days many people left their farms and started businesses. Some sold eggs, some chickens and some sold silverware. But everybody was in trade. The land couldn't feed the people anymore. The land, which had fed their forefathers for centuries, was crying out, "I can't feed you anymore." So the villagers left the land. What else could they do? The land couldn't bear their burden anymore. They returned empty-handed from harvests, after waiting a whole growing season. Every villager was disappointed.

They were separated from the land, and it was impossible to live together anymore. Emin's father's house was overcrowded, so he'd moved out. His mother, his father's second wife and all the children were in the same house. So many people . . .

He was sorry to be away from his father, but he was scared he might have to go back one day, too. Emin was a man of honor. He didn't want to go back and be scolded. Emin was a straightforward man who didn't manage arguments well. He was as straight as a arrow. He seemed harsh, but was realistic and never sneaky.

His brother and Remzi had helped him to buy two donkeys so he could work as a vendor in the village.

Emin remembered those hard days as he looked at Remzi's face with his long whiskers. Emin wasn't very comfortable in his new life, but he was better off than his father and brothers back home. He would be very comfortable if he ever finished his shack.

"Do you remember once we almost froze to death in Karansenir?"

"Once? So many times! I almost froze there four times," said Remzi.

Remzi's whiskers on his wrinkled face were almost white and looked like snowflakes. Emin relived the stormy, snowy day as he looked at Remzi's face. It had snowed so heavily that day. The world was completely white. The snow stuck on their bodies like chewing gum and penetrated their skin. They couldn't even see the donkeys walking a few steps ahead of them. They couldn't hear each other and just wanted to sleep. They wanted to lie down and sleep in the midst of the snowstorm.

"We wouldn't be alive if those villagers hadn't come," said Emin.

Remzi said, "They took our clothes off and gave us theirs. We snuggled next to the fire. That cold ruined my lungs. I lost my health because of that adventure."

The men remembered the roots of their longstanding friendship as they talked.

"Remzi, let me tell you something. The hardest rocks can't bear the burden and pain that men have to withstand. There is no pain that can't be born by a human being. A man must stand strong when he loses friends, parents or his own children. A man stands strong when he is wounded or when he is terminally sick or when he is handicapped. A man stands strong when he loses his job or love. God created man very strong."

Their hearts were filled with a melancholy sadness as they remembered their early days in the village. No one had believed they could leave in search of a new life. How could a man leave his home? It was as hard as converting to a different religion.

Despite the hardship, they migrated. First Remzi went to the city, then Emin's brother Yakup followed. Afterwards, many people migrated. Leaving the village was like severing your roots. The villagers left behind cried for the migrants. Emin's relatives tried to change his mind until the day before he left.

"Do you remember, all hell broke loose when we left the village? Everyone cried as if we had died. Nowadays migration isn't such a big deal," Emin said.

He continued, "Nowadays, I cry for those back in the village. Unless you have a lot of land, there is nothing to stay there for. Here we can at least educate our children. This is the greatest advantage of the city. Migration is perfectly normal these days and people should move anywhere as long as it will make a better life for them.

"I didn't actually have a father. Perhaps if I had, I wouldn't have come to the city. I only had my older brother, Yakup, and he died too young. God doesn't let good people hang around here for long. My relatives haven't helped me one-tenth as much as you have. You know my father. May God save anyone from having such a father. My friend, Cerit, used to call himself his father's 'outcast.' Actually, we are all cast off by our own fathers."

Remzi said, "I believe we would have come to the city even if we had had better fathers, Emin. There are so many people who have good fathers and supportive families and they still migrate. For some reason, people don't like the village anymore. Some migrated to Germany and some to the cities. The land plots were too small, and it had become barren.

"I believe we are not outcasts of our fathers, but outcasts of the land. The land couldn't feed us any more, so it disowned us: abandoned us. We shouldn't blame anyone else. People always want to blame somebody else when things go wrong in their lives. We always blame our mothers, fathers, or relatives for the problems. Or we complain about neighbors and became hostile toward them. Our vision is so limited.

"We don't know that the source of our problems is ignorance. My son Munir reads a lot. Even after the exams, he keeps reading. First, I thought he was reading schoolbooks. But nowadays you know that students find fault with the government, which arrests them because of the illegal books they read. So, I am terrified something will happen to my son, too. We have many enemies. If some informant says something to the police, they can take my son.

"One day I asked him, 'Son, school is over and I believe these aren't school books. What are they about?' He answered 'Listen to me, Father. When I was a child you used to promise me things and couldn't keep your promises. These books have showed me why you couldn't, so I have never blamed you.' He says the true source of our problems is poverty. There is no need to blame our families for that."

Emin helped Remzi pass through a ditch.

The hardware store was on a large lot filled with bricks and plywood. Truck drivers loitered in the yard and brickmakers were forming square bricks out of coal dust. The owner of the store was sitting with a few of his men as Emin and Remzi approached, greeting them.

"Welcome, Remzi," said Ilyas.

"Ilyas, you know Emin is like a relative to me. He needs to buy supplies for building a shack, and I'm going to co-sign for him."

Emin was nervous, like a child out shopping with his father. He felt small and insignificant next to Remzi.

"Of course, brother! Do you have a down payment?" Ilyas asked.

Remzi replied, "Yes, we do."

Ilyas acted as if he was granting them some tremendous favor. He pointed to the store and said, "Then take anything you want, Remzi."

It was getting dark, and the city buses whizzed by the hardware store.

Emin and Remzi went to the bricks.

"Thank you, brother! May God never leave me without you," Emin said.

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