I was overcome with anguish by my inability to do anything in the face of these taunts, of being unable to protect the girl beside me, but what could I have done, given that the men were armed!

  After laughing some more, the President regained his composure and became serious. “I’ve seen a lot of these ‘peace notice’ tricks,” he said. “All the subversives, terrorists, and anarchists who want to upset the social order hide behind these kinds of notices. My life has been spent putting them in their place. So now on this island too, these types have crossed my path, have they? Don’t worry; everything’s going to go just as it did in the past. Besides, no one buys these ‘compassionate intellectual’ pretensions anymore. Just look at this amateurish poem. Even an elementary school child wouldn’t write a poem this bad. Leave it up to me and I’ll write you fifty poems a day just like it. Hell, I could write a hundred of them!”

  “It was written by Alexander Pushkin!” Lara said.

  “There you go,” said the President. “It’s all starting to make more sense now. You’ve just admitted in your own words that you’re part of a communist plot.”

  The President was slowly starting to forget that he was on the island; before we knew it he’d be giving his men orders to arrest the “subversive” before him.

  “Alexander Pushkin,” said Lara, “died years before the dawn of communism.”

  “Be that as it may,” countered the President, “the Russians have always had a communist soul.”

  Then he suddenly turned to leave without so much as giving us another glance, and the others followed behind him. “Shame on you!” I whispered to Number 1 as he walked by me. “What you’re doing is reprehensible!”

  He hesitated for an instant, then turned without looking back, walking behind the President. This encounter was upsetting, but it actually shed light on a significant dimension of the situation that served to turn this defeat into a feeling of victory.

  Then we realized we were alone. Despite the notices we held in our hands as we waited for those folks coming this way from the wooded road, no one was showing up. The place was silent. After waiting a while longer, the relief in us grew all the more, because still no one had come. Except for the President, his men, and two islanders. That was all!

  We were filled with a sense of hope when we figured the islanders would not be taking part in this massacre. In the end, they had only assented to taking part in it because they felt they had no other choice, and probably came to their senses after thinking it over. The readiness in our hearts to believe in our islanders led us to see this silence as an act of popular resistance. We were proud of our neighbors. The one thing we couldn’t explain was the ease with which Number 1 had fallen into the trap and become bedfellows with the President. Clearly enough, he was relishing the feeling of being the sole owner of the island and had begun to see himself as being above us. But at the rate things were going, we began to think we could win him back in the end.

  We had just begun to savor the moment when we heard the first gunshot. We scrambled to the top of the adjacent hilltop from which the seagulls’ cove could be seen. The sound of gunfire was intensifying.

  We were met with a horrifying view once we arrived at the top. The President and his men were standing on the shore shooting at the seagulls, hitting great numbers of them, thanks to the expert professional marksmen among them. The seagulls were shrieking as they flew, leaving their eggs behind as they circled in the sky. We saw one or two of them hit the surface of the ocean, their bodies soaked with blood. They were falling from the sky just like the birds in my dream. The guns were going off one after the other. How frightening it was to have to watch this terrifying massacre. There was no stopping the tears flowing from Lara’s eyes as she choked on her sobs and murmured, over and over again, “The filthy murderers! The filthy murderers!”

  Though the gunshots must have been audible throughout the island, no one was around. Everyone must have gone home. I wondered what the Writer was doing, figuring that he, too, must have been watching the massacre from some other hilltop, or was sitting at home, blocking his ears, unable to bear witnessing the unfolding events.

  The massacre lasted a few more hours, but there were so many seagulls that it would have been impossible to destroy them with a mere handful of shotguns. Though they could have escaped from the shore, they would return after flying off a short distance, entering the line of fire out of an instinct to protect their eggs.

  After killing fifty or sixty seagulls, the men either had had enough, had grown tired, or were changing tactics. We saw them prepare to turn back.

  Still shaking from shock when we got home, we heard the seagulls shriek ceaselessly in the sky. Some among them would no longer be able to return to the shore, or to their eggs that had once held their chicks.

  IN THAT AGITATED STATE, we went out looking for our Writer friend. There was no longer any need for us to feel ashamed in his company, as we’d scored a victory, no matter how small. Some seagulls had died, but the matter had ended, for the most part, in a fiasco for the President and his men. We assumed that, in light of the islanders’ attitude, they probably could not keep up with something like this for long.

  The Writer, however, whom we found sitting and musing to himself on Purple Water, was of another mind. He read the notice that Lara had prepared, shook his head, and said that he liked it, but he saw no reason to be so optimistic.

  He posited that the President wasn’t someone to give up after a mere attempt or two. As far as he was concerned, whatever had taken place on the mainland, a smaller-scale version of the same was taking place here. Now that he was retired, the President had found himself a new, miniature-size country, and he was going to play with it to his heart’s content. He would make use of the full extent of his experience and apply every last one of his dirty tricks.

  “But the people…” I interjected into the Writer’s assessment.

  “What you call ‘the people’ is a fickle thing,” the Writer retorted. “Today they act one way, tomorrow they act another. Depending on the threats and encouragements they’re subjected to…”

  Suddenly I had an idea that felt like the right thing to do.

  “Look,” I said, “let’s go ahead with the pine nut harvest tomorrow. All the islanders can make a day of it. Let’s have all our annual festivities as usual. Have dinner together after filling the sacks with nuts, just as we’ve always done; let’s have our friends play folk dance music on guitars and flutes, and let’s dance, just as before. Let’s go back to our old lives, in other words. With all that excitement going on, the President will be all but forgotten, along with his damned mobilization for war. It’s not as though he’s going to come and say, ‘Hey, let’s go kill the seagulls!’ while everyone’s up in the pine-tree tops!”

  I laughed then, particularly pleased with my words, but my suggestions fell by the wayside. The Writer and Lara did not appear to share my enthusiasm; in fact, they looked worried.

  “I don’t know…I have a terrible gut feeling about it, but let’s go ahead and try it,” Lara said.

  The Writer agreed: “No way are we giving up the fight!” he said. “Of course we’ll give it a try. But don’t forget that it isn’t going to be at all easy.”

  These were words I gave a lot of thought to later on. Sacrificing oneself when you knew the consequences full well must have been something on par with submitting to your fate. I had once read a sentence by Plato about wisdom: that when a wise man warns the people of impending rain but the people don’t heed his warning, he isn’t obliged to get wet along with the rest of the idiots, but has the right to retreat inside his home where he’ll be dry and comfortable.

  In the afternoon, we visited as many houses as we could, inviting our neighbors to come and take part in the nut harvest the next day. Maybe it was a week or two early, but the nuts had ripened and there was no reason not to pick them.

  No word was heard from the President and his men the whole day. There was no trace of them. It was as if the island had gone back to its former days of tranquillity, preparing to harvest the pine nuts just as in years past.

  That evening, the grocer’s son distributed a notice to each of our houses. We knew something was wrong as soon as we saw the slip of paper. The notice was newly emphasizing the matter of who owned the island’s property, stating that the pine nut trees were a part of that property and therefore that even a single nut picked from the pine trees would qualify as an act of theft. A photocopy of the deed to the island was also attached to the notice.

  “A notice for a notice!” I remember thinking. “A title deed in answer to Pushkin!”

  We were in the middle of dinner at the time, and the Writer was with us. Once we got past the initial shock, we thought about what to do. The Writer suggested that we not change our plans and that we go nut-picking the next morning at the agreed-upon time.

  So, early the next morning with ropes and sacks in our hands, we took off for the nooks and crannies of that beautiful forest, its pine nut trees stretching up to the skies. There were about twenty of us. That meant that not all the islanders were joining us, but twenty was enough. To encourage the ones who were with us and attract the ones who weren’t, we asked our island’s guitar players and flute players to play music instead of gathering nuts. We’d gather the nuts for them too: it was our belief that the sight of us gathering nuts in high spirits would serve our cause. Grabbing their instruments, our friends joined us and began to play one lighthearted melody after another. On hearing the trilling of the flute, even the forest birds twittered along. As for the seagulls, they were nowhere to be seen; they weren’t even flying, and we noticed the odd silence of their absence.

  We went about gathering the pine cones and stuffing them into our sacks. We would later leave them to dry in the sun, breaking the pine cones to remove the tasty nuts within them after some time had passed, and ultimately package them. This was a practice we’d carried out for years. So it went, up until noon; we would manage to gather a good amount of pine cones, stopping for a break when the sun was directly overhead, then begin to eat the sandwiches we’d brought with us.

  Just then, we saw the President’s men make their appearance in the pine nut forest. They walked up and stood right in front of us and announced: “You’re picking nuts on property that doesn’t belong to you. This is a violation of the laws. Break it up now!” Though their sunglasses were hiding their stern gazes, their voices resonated with menace.

  “We’ve been doing this for years. This place belongs to us all!” we said.

  “That’s not what the deed says, though,” they said. “Break it up now!”

  “We won’t go without the say-so of the island’s owner.”

  “It’s on instruction from the island’s owner that we’re here.”

  “You don’t have that authority!”

  “We do. We’re an attachment of the state security units, and this island is a part of our country. It is our responsibility to see to the execution of the law here. Break it up now, or else…”

  “Or else what?”

  At this point the men pulled out their shotguns and said:

  “We have orders to arrest anyone who opposes this order.”

  The Writer laughed bitterly: “This island doesn’t even have a jail!”

  “You just try to resist. Then you’ll see whether there’s a jail or not,” was their answer.

  Things had gone too far. We had no choice but to stop our nut gathering.

  With no other alternative, we took off, leaving behind the nuts we’d gathered. No one spoke on the way back. We all simply went home. The President had won. No one would be receiving their share of the island’s sole source of income brought in by the nuts, and even worse, the men were so caught up in what they were doing that we could lose our houses.

  On the one hand was the fear of destitution and losing our homes; on the other, the dream of great riches could now come only from the island’s potential as a touristic paradise. An oppressive silence had settled over the island. Lara was too distressed to talk. Her belief that evil prevailed everywhere and that it inevitably defeated good had been confirmed all over again.

  The notary gentleman and some of our friends had apparently tried as a last resort to visit Number 1. Placing their faith in the friendship they had once had with him, they went to ask him not to hurt his friends on the island, which he would do if he were to go along with the President. We didn’t find out about this until later.

  From what they said, Number 1 welcomed seeing them, beating around the bush at first, but then when they pushed the matter said, “Believe me, there’s nothing I can do about this, either! It seems there are some legal conflicts in the deed to the island, and unless I go along with what the President says, it could be taken away from me. The island’s inheritance and real estate taxes haven’t been paid on time, resulting in an enormous amount that includes the interest that’s been accumulating all these years. To make a long story short, the instant I protest, everyone including myself will have to leave the island. It’ll go to the state. I’m sorry, my friends. We have no choice but to go along with what he says.”

  And then he began to defend the President: “Besides,” he said, “he is the President, after all! It goes without saying that he knows better than we do how these things work. So hey, how about it—let’s not get on the wrong side of the President just because of those bestial seagulls. If we all obey his instructions, we’ll all steer clear of getting our noses bloodied and we’ll all be comfortably well off. There’s a lot of money to be had in the end too, no doubt about it!”

  Our friends returned home, crestfallen and spiritless. As they told us of their meeting, with heavy defeat in their voices they said, “We aren’t strong enough to fight the President! Best we simply follow his orders.” We were filled with a sense of rebellion, tears streaming again from Lara’s eyes, the Writer kicking at the stones, yet that was the bitter truth: there was nothing else for us to do.

  That evening, another notice arrived at our houses. We were all being summoned to gather on the public square at eight in the morning in preparation to fight the seagulls. We had never imagined that we would one day receive orders to mobilize for war on this peaceful island of ours, yet that was exactly what we were facing at this moment.

  The notice also stated that shotguns would be handed out to us, along with instructions for the men and women alike to be sure to wear pants and shoes. Since we wouldn’t be returning home for some time, we could bring along water and, on the condition that it not be an excessive amount, a parcel of food. Wearing hats and sunglasses was also suggested.

  At night in bed, Lara cried silently, her tears once again dampening my cheeks. Then, in a voice of utter hopelessness, she suggested we leave the island. “Let’s get out of here!” she said. “This isn’t an island. It’s a concentration camp!”

  “But where can we go?” I said. “It’s a concentration camp everywhere. Besides, while it’s the seagulls that are being killed here, it’s people that are being killed over there. Do you actually think that the conditions in the city we came from are any better than here?”

  Lara didn’t answer, her shoulders continuing to shake. My heart was breaking, but there was nothing I could do.

  HOW STRANGE! Though it had been with the seagulls that the conflict had begun, it was as if things were growing more personal and turning into a fight among us humans. Yet as bitter as it may be, this much I must admit: this fight had brought a certain liveliness to the island. Perhaps the excitement of the fight was something our convoluted souls had long been wishing for. I could see as much in Lara’s face as it reddened with exasperation, her cheekbones turning bright pink, and at times in the festering hatred in my writer friend’s eyes.

  How were the seagulls faring while all this was going on among the humans? What were they doing? How were they tending to their wounds? There was no way for us to know, not only because we had had no time to watch them, but also because their blank and dignified expressions made it all but impossible to tell.

  Before the unfolding of these events, I had sometimes wished I could have put myself in the seagulls’ position and watched the island from their point of view. While we humans went on walking, talking, and eating as they looked down on us from the sky, how did they see us, I wondered? What did they think about us?

  We humans think about the universe and arrive at various conclusions, but we never wonder what the universe thinks about us.

  But none of these thoughts were of any use to us now. It was morning; the sun had begun to bathe the island in its glow, its light reflected like a mirror across the surface of the sea. The leaves looked even more vibrantly green with the dew that had fallen overnight. As the morning fog faded away, we made our way toward the pier in a state of suspense. The first to appear were the President’s men who lived in the boat, followed by Number 1. Then, one by one, a few of our neighbors arrived on the scene. The President wasn’t there yet. They were probably waiting for the crowd to assemble before calling him. That’s the way it had to be done, as per the laws of the state, for all we knew!

  We counted the number of islanders to show up: eighteen. None followed later, and even the ones who had shown up were nervously looking around, as if on the alert for the first chance to escape.

  The President then made his appearance. We watched him give them a long speech. His men gave out shotguns to everyone. Then they began to walk, the men in dark sunglasses out in front of them, and the President just behind them. The islanders watched them like a terror-stricken army detachment. We began to follow them from a distance.

  Just as I was looking up at two seagulls flying overhead, I heard the Writer’s voice. He had planted himself before the detachment on the road running beneath the clean-shaven treetops and was shouting at the top of his lungs: “Stop! Stop! I won’t allow you to take a step beyond this point!” The President, shocked to be confronted with such inconceivable audacity, asked, “Who the hell are you?”