A weird fear makes me to go out of the room. Karisan is standing near the black man’s bed and examines him. The face of the black man seems to me a rather familiar. I guess he is the same man whom Karisan was applying an ointment on his skin upstairs. The pulmotor is connected to him. His upper body is limp and his breast goes up and down fast and irregular. Rakovan is looking at that man while his breast goes up and down as well.
Finally, Yatilan breaks the silence and says:
What happened? Those drugs had no effect?
Karisan stops examining and, while ponders, says:
I can’t find any remedy. He becomes worse momentarily. We’d better be ready.
But its signs haven’t appeared yet, only his breathing has become more quickly. It may work. Be patient.
Rakovan shakes his head hopelessly and says:
No, he’s the fifth one who is struck by this. All of them had the same symptoms. He also shows the same signs. It went wrong again.
Karisan lifts his eyebrow to give Yatilan a sign to perform his order.
Come in and close the door.
I enter and stand near the door. Then he turns toward Yatilan and says:
Do a favor and take Nina out of here. I don’t want she becomes worse than this.
I see Nina that appears in front of the door when she hears Karisan’s words. Yatilan lifts her in his bosom and goes out. He seems he is afraid of the scene which is going to occur. Time passes in silence for a while since they went, and I can read the instability through both Karisan’s and Rakovan’s eyes. Although the chaos can be seen clearly in their faces, yet hope glimmers once in a while in their eyes. I can see the sweat on their faces which comes down to their chins, yet they don’t move even their heads.
A horrible silence, in which just the sound of their breathings can be heard, fills the room. All of a sudden, while all expect good result and success, a weak tremble and then violent convulsion, shake the black man.
They take and hold his hands and feet immediately, and I help them. I push on his legs but a force from his weak and feeble body, which is unexpected, shake us a little. Then he calms for a while. All of the people in the room are shocked by this scene and anxiety shimmers on their faces. Then, the breathing of the black man becomes more quickly but we hold him, just in case.
Again, time passes in silence for a while. I see hope returns to their faces, but anxiety ruptures their hopeful faces. Yet they try to hide it by pressing their lips and frowning.
After a while, again at the peak point of expectation his breathing becomes slow, insomuch that he seems not to breathe. Rakovan, as if he already prepared himself for this event, takes the electro shocker, but Karisan stops him and begins to give artificial breathing to the black man. Yet, no change can be seen. Then, when he sees his efforts are ineffective, he calls Rakovan.
Rakovan charges the shocker for the first time but it is ineffectual. The second time is the same. Rakovan gulps his saliva and charges the shocker for the last time. Again it has no effect, just the sound of shaking body of the black man echoes through the room.
They lower their head as if they have reached the end of the world. They breathe a deep sigh and dip in the sea of sorrow. The black man’s eyes stared at the ceiling, as though he wants to follow his soul to the heaven. Karisan, while is sorry for the black man’s death and for being unsuccessful in his work, sits on the ground and puts his head between his hands. Rakovan gazed at the black man while the electro shocker is in his hands.
Adding the third element, that is, the death of the black man, to the darkness and disappointment, the atmosphere of the room becomes so sad insomuch that it drags me down. I lean to the wall while I sit on my feet. The sound of a beat on the table makes my look to move from an unknown point toward the sound. I see Karisan that pounds with his fist on the table:
Damn! Everything fucked up.
Rakovan, in an encouraging tone, says:
No, things aren’t as bad as you say.
Karisan insists on his words and shows this with another beat on the table:
It is so! Didn’t you see he didn’t change even a little bit? He died like others.
You’re wrong. It’s true that the death, through all other events, repeated like the rest death, but there was five minutes interval between the convulsion and his death. The rest of patients went into convulsions soon after taking the pills and immediately died, without any pause.
It was just because of his resistance. Our pills weren’t effective at all. We can count it as physical resistance of a person, and it may be an exception.
Think a little. The one who could show the maximum resistance just resisted two minutes and he also died after the convulsion. He couldn’t stand up to it even for a second. But this one could stay alive after taking the pill and convulsion.
Karisan becomes quiet and calms down like a volcano after its eruption. After a while, looks at the dead man and says:
Maybe his body was resistant to the disease more than the rest, this is why he could tolerate this much. But there was no difference altogether.
Then he sits on his chair and puts his head between his hands on the table.
We should try it on someone else to be assured of the result. It seems unlikely to me that someone else can tolerate this much. I’ve never met such a patient. My opinion still is this.
Take and bury him. Zairas, you come with me.
Rakovan confirms Karisan’s words by shaking his head and stares at the black man. Karisan goes out of the room while his hand is on his brow. I follow him.
What was his malady?
Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now. Did you know Wildi?
Not too much, we were just fellow travelers.
Do you know anything about him?
He wanted to join the rescue teams. How then?
I was about to see someone. I guess he was Wildi. Have you seen something strange in him?
He talked about an appointment too.
I was waiting for him to bring me some news.
When I reached him, he was captured. After that they beat him, they attacked him with the knife and then threw him into the well.
Karisan ponders and struggles with himself. We continue walking in silence. Karisan’s opinion is really efficient. Coming out of that atmosphere and being in the outdoor, fades the death of the black man away. It is like coming out of the marshy air.
We stop near the well which I checked last night. I bend over and look inside the well. The day light couldn’t infiltrate into it yet; like someone who looks at the surface of the sea from bottom and can see the light beams which their radiations become high and low by the waves and just can light the small part of the sea, so the depth of the sea lives in darkness.
I say:
It was exactly here.
Then I point at the blood around the well:
They stabbed him there. You can see his blood.
Karisan transposes the gravels carefully along the track of the blood as if he looks for something.
What are you looking for?
Maybe something helps us.
All of his outfits were in his knapsack.
I’m not looking for a certain thing. You informed me late. The footprints are disappeared.
No one was here except us.
He comes back to me.
I should go down. Do you have a rope?
Karisan coughs and says:
You should find him anyhow.
I’ll do my best.
He push the gravels and the soil aside with his foot and then a rope appears from under the ground. One end of the rope is tied to a spike which is nailed into the ground. He throws the other end of the rope into the well. I take the rope and go down into the well slowly and carefully with the help of its inner wall, which collapses with each contact of my feet. I have no fear to the border of darkness and light, but when I reach the darkness, I feel the weakness of my body.
Karisan bends over the mouth of the w
ell and calms me with his face. I feel a cold air in the bottom of the well. I put my feet on the ground and release the rope. Then I lean on the wall of the well and wait for my eyes adaption to the darkness.
No one is inside the well!!! I grabble everywhere but no one is here! It is impossible. I myself saw that he was thrown into the well. Maybe there is another well around the shelter. But before I enter the well I saw the blood stains on the sands. It is impossible. Maybe there is a tunnel or subway inside the well through which Wildi has reached under the shelter.
I grabble from top of the wall so that if there is a hole I could find it. I go on grabbling until I feel the edge of a hole on the wall near the bottom of the well, with my fingers. I dip my hand into the hole. Its size is enough to creep into it. Suddenly I face with a mass of soil. I check the hole but it seems it has collapsed. Maybe this is not a tunnel and it is just appeared because of that collapse.
The other reason that confirms the wrongness of my assumption is the 45 degree direction between the tunnel and the shelter, which rejects my assumption thoroughly. The origin of the wind flow is in the other place.
The height of the wall now is changing. This is the sign of gravels rush. The well will fill within unknown time. I can’t believe. Everything is strange. It is impossible that Wildi could survive, let alone he went out of here without help. Maybe this hole collapsed newly.
Karisan, I can’t see Wildi here.
Are you sure this is the same well.
Yea, I’m sure. There is a hole, do you know anything about it?
Not at all. Yatilan with some people dug here to supply water for the farm. Maybe Yatilan knows something. He wasn’t able to come out of the well alone. Maybe some other people helped him to come out of the well.
If they did that, why ever didn’t they bring him to the shelter?
I survey inside the well for the last time, then climb the rope. Karisan looks at the sky thoughtfully:
This is a suspicious case. Wildi’s body isn’t in the well. They left you alive and yet you’re not on a bed in the clinic with a knife in your leg.
I don’t know. This is ambiguous also for me.
Is there anything that you haven’t told me?
I shake my head:
No! I told you everything.
By the way, is there any blood stain inside the well?
There was too dark and I couldn’t see. The gravels which collapsed into the well newly, destroyed everything.
Karisan ponders.
If anything is stolen so there wasn’t any case of rubbery as well. So forget this.
I’m sure about what I saw.
Don’t trust even in your eyes! Sometimes the illusion is clearer than the reality.
I touch the sore on my face involuntary. It is coarse and painful. Maybe the events of last night were illusions, but the sore on my face is not an illusion. Karisan taps on my shoulder a few times and shakes his head:
Have you made your decision?
I bring my eyebrows close together to make an interrogative gesture.
Are you still determined to find Mansidan?
I can’t do anything else.
The corner of his lips goes up:
Come with me.
Chapter 9
The mission