from THE BALLAD OF ALİ OF KESHAN (drama)

Author: Haldun Taner Wikipedia
Translator: Nüvit Özdoğru

SCENE 4

ALİ OF KESHAN, CHIEF OF THE SHANTYTOWN
OR IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH

Temel: Let's be quiet, friends! Our new headman Ali of Keshan will deliver his first inaugural address.

Drunken Rasih: When did he write it?

Nuri: He wrote it last night with help from Uncle Dervish, the public letter-writer.

Sipsi: I didn't know he was that eager.

Ali: Quiet everybody!

First Citizen: We've got democracy here, haven't we? Can't I express my opinions?

Temel: Shut your big mouth. Stop twaddling!

Nuri: Democracy was for the campaign period.

Ali: If I wanted, I wouldn't consult you at all. I'd do what I pleased. I counted you as human and decided to read it to you.

Lütfiye: Read it, son, read it. Don't mind them.

Ali: (starts to read the draft that he wrote on a roll of toilet paper): Article one: A regime of peace and order has been established at Fly Mountain. Anyone who acts contrary and tries to disturb that peace will be made good and sorry and his seven generations before him will be damned and cursed. His house will be made one with the ground with the argument that the building is in dangerous condition and all his estate – real or unreal – will be confiscated.

Voices: Good! Wonderful!

First Citizen: You said there would be an end to bullying.

Chorus: Well, you can't have everything.

Ali: I've appointed Mr. Thirty Percent Temel as my financial advisor and the Letter-Writer Dervish as my legal advisor.

Voices: Congratulations! (TEMEL and DERVISH are congratulated.)

Ali: In all games played in all coffee houses I shall have my cut. If anyone fails to pay up, I'll make him wear the coast of a porcupine. I want no killjoy around here.

Drunken Rasih: You said there would be no more such things.TEMEL takes a bottle of raki and puts it before DRUNKEN RASİH.Chorus: Well, you can't have everything.

Ali: I've set up in my coffeehouse an organization of servants and taxi-starters. From now on, no one will make business deals with the city without first consulting my office. Anyone wishing to go for washing, housecleaning, wet nurse or labor in the tobacco company must register with Hafize right now.

Second Citizen: He's filling all the jobs with his relatives.

TEMEL places a bottle of raki before the SECOND CITIZEN.

Chorus: Well, you can't have everything.

Ali: The first month's salaries of the servants registered here will go to me – that is, the aid fund. In return, all their legal rights and privileges will be guarded by Dervish the Letter-Writer. We'll get them good salaries, conditions, and in the case of matrons who are pretty well off, compensation and retirement benefits.

Temel: The man has thought of everything.

Ali: Five: The taxi-starters will be appointed by me and myself. Any self-appointed starters will be sent to the mummy house. There's a lot of money in this business. Whoever pays my cut, gets the job.

First Citizen: Tribute is dead; long live tribute! Nothing has changed.

Chorus: Well, you can't have everything.

Temel: In the old days three men collected the tribute. Now it is centralized in one hand.

Nuri: In the old days it was a tribute of the bashi-bazouk variety. Now it is organized. (He makes a gesture meaning, "they have no brains.")

Ali: Six: I'll pay for the bench and board of anyone coming from his native city. But after they are placed in jobs their first salaries will go to me – that is, the aid fund. There will be no getting around it.

Hafize: You said it.

Niyazi: Of course. Indubitably.

Temel: You're right.

Nuri: It's your birthright.

İHYA ONARAN enters. He walks to the accompaniment of music.

İhya: I'm like a cat. I always fall on my four feet. My name is İhya Onaran.

Temel: The man who built the great dam?

İhya: Yes, ma'am! I need two hundred more laborers. Since you've set up an organization here, I don't have to go from coffeehouse to coffeehouse looking for men who're fit.

Hafize: You said it.

Niyazi: Indubitably.

Temel: You're right.

Nuri: It’s your birthright.

Ali: Niyazi, you take the gentleman to my office! I'll be right over.

NİYAZİ takes İHYA to the coffeehouse.

Dervish: You see how Ali has brought us good luck? No sooner than he started work two hundred hungry folks began to smile again.

Chorus: True! True! He's brought us good luck.

Ali: Unity has begun to pay off… Article 8: There will be no interference with any and all tradesmen and artisans and street hawkers. That is to say, we're for free enterprise. No one will force any tribute on them.

Chorus: Bravo! Long live!

Ali: Except myself.

First Citizen: Now, isn’t that nice!

Chorus: Well, you can't have everything.

Ali: But even here justice and fairness will be our motor. Tributes will be determined according to each man's financial portrait.

A Voice: What kind of program is this?

Ali: Well, friends, you've heard it all. I trust that you'll help me make this program a reality. To the outside we have to look like a homo – a homogenerous bunch. So, I will now appeal to the popular vote. All those who give unqualified support to this program raise their right hands!

(Almost everyone raises his hand except a few in the back row.) Maybe you didn't hear me very well. (He fires a shot into the air.) All those who say aye! (Everybody raises his hand.) Those who say nay! (He fires a shot. Nobody raises his hand.) Unanimously approved. Thank you very much, my friends.

The screen folds to denote end of scene. NURİ brings DRUNKEN RASİH before the screen. RASİH feels embarrassed when he sees the audience.

Nuri: Friends, our partner is going to sing you a song now.

RASİH is embarrassed and wants to run away, but NURİ pushes him forward.

RASİH whispers into NURİ’s ear and then lurches downstage.

Rasih:

ITS NOT ALL FREE – THIS WINE AND BEER
Drunken Rasih they all call me.
I'm the very spit of father.
I have no fling for politics
Though it means I can't go farther.
We all have our likes and dislikes.
When we're little we're all for bikes.
When we grow up we're all for tales
Be we bursars or boobs or fakes.
We itch for fame, for food, for vice.
Come on, have a drink, forget the price!

A Voice: Let's drink to Ali! Eat and drink and love all beauty – if you re in your right mind, that is.

Rasih:
They sit and talk, cuss and smoke;
They dream and hope: the leper's den.
On sofas hard, with trousers torn
They dream of harem-keeper's hen.
Some wish they'd rather not been born
Than work for dollar-heaper's men.
Sure it was not in a mill
That I got all this white beard.
So, hear me when I say this, dear Will
That it's not all free – this wine and beer.
If they get us all gently stewed
We won't then know if they've sat or stood.
I'll now take my leave and green hat
I'll make the rounds in navy bars.
I'll now go and find a street cat
If all the cats are not behind bars.

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