The Dog by Sabahattin Ali
The first translation of this classic Turkish story into English
It was a very hot summer day. Although it was late in the afternoon and the sun had already dropped to the side a little, there wasn’t the slightest movement in the yellow grasses covering the steppes. There was also no sign of the wind that usually began to blow at this time of day from the direction of Koçhisar Lake, covering the endless plain with patches of dust clouds.
The angora goats lying on their sides, spreading their curly hair on plants that could been thistle or weed, kept their sleepy eyes half closed and, through their pale eyelashes, watched the few languid white clouds, barely the size of a palm, waiting on the eastern horizon.
Further away, two large spotted shepherd dogs had lain down, positioning themselves on a peak with a good view of the flock. Although they appeared to be sleeping, once in a while, their ears twitched and perked up as if struck by electricity; their small eyes instantly surveyed the entire flock and closed again, their tired stares slowly returning to their feet extending out before them.
The shepherd was seated on a higher mound, sleepily leaning on his stick, his eyes tracking the side-by-side, half meter deep imprints made by car wheels on the Ankara-Konya Road that passed some two or three hundred feet away.
There were about ten pairs of these imprints and, when their middle parts got so deep that the bottom of the passing cars touched them, they were abandoned, handing their duty over to new grooves that suddenly appeared right next to them.
The young shepherd wandered how quickly over time these tracks that stretched out, curving next to one another, could multiply and he imagined that, one day, these trenches full of fine, powdery soil that, when the wind blew, instantly sent streaks of dust clouds into the horizon would completely cover the entire plain.
He speculated that, “at that point, the Agha will probably sell his goats.” Even now, the animals wandered for hours, digesting whatever meager grass they could find before returning to the village. The sparse green grasses that grew a few inches tall in the spring were quickly gone, and the goats were left nibbling thistles that sporadically sprouted here and there, drying fast and turning yellow even before coming out. But the goats didn’t seem to mind. Despite the thinning grasses, the goats’ mohair grew long and silky and the only expressions in their eyes were contentment and laxity.
The shepherd was concerned about one other thing as he thought about the possibility of the entire field being covered with dusty car roads: “If the Agha sells his goats and lets me go, will he pay my wages for the full year?” He was paid twelve liras a year, and the Agha provided his food as well.
But for two years now, he had not received a single penny. The Agha kept saying, “What are you going to do with money? I will keep and save it for you.” And if his clothes became too worn, the Agha gave him a pair of used trousers and a shirt before brushing him off.
The shepherd thought, “It would be good to receive two years’ wages all at once, but….” He shook his head with doubt.
He was barely eighteen. He had light brown skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. With his snaggleteeth and eyebrows too close to his eyes, he was not handsome, but there was something appealing in the way he held himself and in his serious, dignified manner.
He thought, “If it wasn’t for my old mom, I could go to the city and earn a little money there.” But this possibility did not appeal to him. He remembered a few others from his village who had gone to the city only to return a few years later, more miserable, weary, and hopeless.
They talked about how they could only find work as porters and laborers, how when they made 20 or 30 cents a day they considered themselves rich, and how spending their nights on the city sidewalks made them dearly miss the warm haylofts of their village.
“What to do?” the shepherd asked himself.
Ever since his mother had become unable to work in the fields, the young shepherd had frequently contemplated this issue. But as he watched the failure of others who had similar ideas and had tried before him, he started losing hope. For example, a few years ago, one of his relatives had gone to Izmir to work in a factory.
At first, he sent word that he was doing well; but one day he returned to the village with a single leg. He had lost his leg to a machine at the factory and was kicked out after receiving just fifty liras as compensation. He then went to Konya as a beggar. But there, too, the municipality did not leave him alone. The poor thing was in really bad shape.
Amounting to something — anything — by staying in the village was also impossible. He needed to work at least ten years to purchase a little land that would produce decent crops and another fifteen years to purchase a pair of oxen for farming; even after that, it was doubtful that he would have a better life. The state of those who had a little farm and a pair of oxen was not much different than his own life.
Whenever the drought hit, they too had to climb the mountains, just like the rest of the villagers, to search and find plants and berries to eat. On top of that, they had to witness the death of their oxen from hunger or their sale for almost nothing. Compared to them, he was better off, because even during the drought years the Agha provided his food. And perhaps one day, he would even pay his back wages. Who knew?
He surveyed the goats. Then he called one of the dogs lying on the peak to the right. “Karabaş!”
The dog immediately straightened his head, looked in the direction of the voice, stretched his legs, and approached the shepherd. The other dog straightened in its place as well and turned its head toward the shepherd. It was not in a rush, as it had not been called, and it carefully shook and cleaned the dust and weeds that had stuck to its fur.
Karabaş stopped a few feet from the shepherd’s feet. He was slowly wagging his long-haired tail and looked with anticipation at the shepherd. The shepherd grabbed Karabaş’s front leg and pulled the dog closer. The dog skipped on three legs before putting its head on the young man’s lap to lay down. Its large body was shaking with joy as its tail swept from side-to-side, scattering small pebbles along the ground.
The shepherd and the dog looked into each other’s eyes without making any sound. It was clear that they got along really well. They understood each other perfectly, and they were tied to one another through some deeply rooted primordial bond. The easy breath that came through the shepherd’s snaggleteeth spread over the dog’s face, and the dog’s pink tongue quivered, as if sucking in that same breath.
The other dog still standing on the peak to the right had immediately sensed that it alone was now responsible for the entire flock. It suddenly jumped and ran down the hill, barking. The shepherd and Karabaş turned their heads in unison to watch the other dog’s progress.
From a distance, a rolling dust cloud was approaching along the Ankara Road. When it got closer, it turned out to be a car. Karabaş jumped from the shepherd’s lap, descended from the mound, and reached the road or roads. Both dogs extended their necks as they barked loudly, waiting for the enemy approaching with great speed.
As the distance between them shrank, they ran toward the car. Meanwhile, the goats maintained their surprising calm as their long, multi-pronged horns shone under the sun’s light which by now was passing very low.
The car stopped before the dogs got too close. It was a large car, the light blue paint was visible even under the heavy white dust covering it. The dogs’ barking waned. The shepherd called them from where he was. Both dogs slowly returned toward him, turning once in a while to look back at the intruder.
The front door of the car opened, and a young, dark-haired, thin-mustached man jumped out, making a sign to the shepherd to come closer.
This young man was an engineer who had been educated first at a local college and then in the United States of America. He had returned two years ago. Thanks to his relatives in important positions, in a very short time, he was appointed chief of an unrelated section of a bank, about which he had no complaints.
In his office, on one side of his crystal inlaid desk, there were a few books that were never touched, full of mathematical equations, maintaining their presence as if they were the eternal witnesses to his scientific education. Every day, he finished his stationary-related work, which he didn’t know much about, without any errors in a few hours; he then killed time reading magazines in English, sometimes over and over.
About six months ago, after getting engaged to the daughter of an important man in the banking sector, he realized that he could spend his extra time even more productively. He bought a car, one of its kind in Ankara at the time, and went on daily drives with his fiancée. Everyone passing by turned around and looked — at least once — at how his car appeared quietly from one corner and after shining sweetly with its large body disappeared around another corner or the way it glided as if flying along a straight boulevard.
Today, he was on his way to visit a friend in Konya who, just like him, had studied in the United States. His fiancée and her mother, who thought it wasn’t appropriate to send the couple alone, were in the car with him. His fiancée was happy about the trip and constantly smiled whereas her mother, disturbed by the continuous shaking and all the dust, was not so happy.
The engineer jumped out of the car and, after beckoning the shepherd to come near him, paced around a bit, trying to get rid of the numbness in his legs. He was dressed in a gray sports suit made of special Scottish material and a cap in matching colors. Under his golf pants, he wore socks that were made of at least 25 square patches, all in different colors, and a pair of shoes made of heavy furred leather with rounded toes. Just like everyone else who owned a private car, his shoes were stained with motor oil and gas, and the bottom of his right shoe was worn off from pushing the gas pedal.
After walking a little ways, first in one direction and then in another, he stopped near the car and leaned on his arms against the open door to ask his fiancée, “How did you come up with the idea to talk to the shepherd?”
Moving her shoulders, arms, and eyes simultaneously, the young woman responded, “I am just curious. I never saw a villager before!”
Next to her, her mother intervened without turning her head, saying, “Far from it! Haven’t you seen them at the bazaar in Ankara or on the streets?”
“Hmm, those are not villagers; they are laborers. I want to see a shepherd like this one. I will also pet the baby goats.”
The engineer responded, “There are no baby goats here. They are all grown up.”
The young girl, whose multiple body parts moved — whether on purpose or due to neurosis — each time she spoke or even looked around, making her look like a ridiculous toy, shook her head with indignation and protested in a high-pitched voice. “Good heavens, what’s wrong if I asked to stop? I felt like it. I just liked the way the goats are lying on the ground.”
By then, the shepherd had approached them while the two dogs had returned to their previous positions, assuming full responsibility for the flock. The engineer turned to the shepherd, who stood aloof, waiting, and said, “Come closer! Where are you from?”
The shepherd pointed to a village in the north. “From there.”
“Are these goats yours?”
“No, they are the Agha’s.”
“Do you bring them here every day?”
For a moment, the shepherd gazed at the engineer as if trying to understand the reason for such a question. Shrugging, he whispered, “Not necessarily. We go to many places.”
The shepherd had to answer many more similar questions, and because he could not say, “What is it to you? Why don’t you go on your way?” he was getting a little agitated. Every now and then, he turned to look at the flock. A few times he glanced inside the car.
Meanwhile, the others opened the car’s door. The fiancée, in her white linen suit and low-heeled shoes, jumped out. Her mother followed slowly, holding on to both sides for support. The old woman had a long face and was quietly fretting, “Why are we spending time here? How thoughtless are these kids?”
The young woman moved closer to her fiancée and placed her hands, clamped to one another, on his shoulder. Then, extending her neck forward, she asked, “Look at me shepherd! Do you have a sweetheart?”
The shepherd had read that word in several tales a few years ago and knew what it meant. Full of surprise, he asked, “What’s that?”
The young woman looked at her fiancé, who explained, “A fiancée, a red-cheeked beauty. Like this…” He squeezed his fiancée’s cheek as she rested her chin on his shoulder.
With a sour expression, the shepherd responded, “Far from it, mister! We are barely feeding ourselves.”
“Find a rich girl… The daughter of an agha or something…”
The shepherd did not respond. He was gazing at the mother-in-law in astonishment. Suddenly, this woman caught his attention. She wore long, dangling earrings under her fake blonde, curly hair. Her face was painted — purple under her eyes and maroon on her cheeks — and her neck dominated by multiple chins. She wore a dress made of printed material with branch motifs. He kept looking and couldn’t take his eyes from her.
The engineer, whose questions went mostly unanswered, was slowly filled with a desire to have contact with villagers — more specifically, he was getting annoyed with the self-confident manner of the shepherd.
He developed a desire to interrogate the shepherd. In a tone clearly full of reproach but trying to sound as if he was struggling to remain patient, he asked, “Why aren’t you answering me? Look how interested in you we are. You are our villager brother. We are all the same.”
The shepherd asked with interest, “From which family are you?”
At first, the engineer didn’t understand. Then he said, “No, not like that. Just like you, we are also villagers. Our roots are from the villages. I mean we are all the same.”
After studying the faces of the three for a while, and with a strange hesitation, the shepherd said, “I couldn’t tell, mister.” He continued to look at the mother-in-law.
The engineer, clearly offended, asked, “What are you looking at?”
The mother-in-law responded, “What do you think? He is staring at me as if he will eat me. Is he a savage or what?”
The shepherd’s eyes enlarged further. When the old woman opened her mouth, the teeth in her mouth — some porcelain, some rubber, and several in shiny gold — became visible. The engineer laughed.
The shepherd turned and looked at him, clearly tired of this conversation. Then the engineer, remembering that it was his obligation to talk to the shepherd and teach him what was right, began to talk:
“Listen to me, shepherd brother. You are really far behind. Look, we left our homes and came all this way to talk to you, to understand what your problems are. But instead of listening very carefully and trying to benefit from it, you keep looking around. What are your needs? What are your problems? I want to find out. You must open your heart to me completely. I am your brother, am I not?”
The shepherd turned crimson. He didn’t understand any of those words but felt sad because he clearly sensed that he had offended the man before him.
The engineer continued, “I am an engineer. I work for you. And you are a villager. You work for me. If we don’t understand each other, how can that be?”
He wanted to say a few more things and explain at great length. He was deeply offended and wanted — needed — to understand, to be understood. But he couldn’t tell what type of a language he was supposed to use because the shepherd’s vocabulary was limited, causing him to stop mid-sentence.
The shepherd made a short sign with his hand, several times, trying to say no. “I didn’t say anything, mister… Did I do anything wrong, mister?”
The engineer’s fiancée didn’t understand anything from this conversation, which had suddenly veered off course, and was beginning to get bored. “Let’s go, dear.”
The engineer tried to say a few more things, but couldn’t find the words. He got in his car and started the engine. The car jumped forward with great speed, spewing up dust. Meanwhile, the shepherd — filled with a despair deeper than he’d ever felt before — was totally confused. He was wondering if, without knowing and without intending to do so, he had been unfair to the engineer. “Was I too hostile?”
The engineer, on the other hand, suddenly turned furious. His self-esteem had been deeply hurt because it appeared as if he had been begging a worthless shepherd. Contrary to the idea he had been pushing earlier, that he and the shepherd were brothers, he realized that there were clearly major differences between them. He murmured to himself, “These nitwits will never amount to anything!”
Suddenly, his fiancée screamed and he noticed that the two dogs were jumping and barking right next to the car. His hand immediately went to his back pocket. Then he stopped and thought for a few seconds. He was convinced that what he was instinctively tempted to do just moments ago was necessary and absolutely the right thing to do.
If he didn’t have any other thoughts, he could have even used his gun against the shepherd. He pointed a small, bolted gun, left to him by his father, out of the small car window and fired toward the spotted speckled dog’s open mouth. He then jammed the gas pedal to the floor and was buried in a dust cloud with his car.
Karabaş, with its long fur, rolled to the side of the road and stopped moving. The other dog stood next to Karabaş, waiting, stretching its legs put before it, as if trying to stop itself from going further. The shepherd came running. He kneeled and stroked the fur of his beloved friend.
His earlier grief was now replaced with a more intense, deeper sorrow. In tears, he caressed his dead dog with the clear knowledge that he had absolutely nothing in common with those who had just left after stealing his beloved friend from him.
The other dog lowered its head to smell Karabaş’s face. The white, long-haired angora goats, all standing up by now, kept looking with amazement, their innocent eyes watching the rolling dust cloud quickly disappearing at the horizon. They slowly gathered around the dead dog, the sun’s red rays shining on their backs.
Sabahattin Ali (1907–1948) was a prominent Turkish novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, and teacher. He was probably the most powerful and effective of the twentieth century short story writers in Turkey who addressed social themes. Although he died in 1948 at the age of forty-one, his writing remains very popular. Ali’s short novel, “Madonna in A Fur Coat” (1943), is considered one of the best novellas in Turkish literature. With this novel, Sabahattin Ali became one of the two Turkish novelists whose works are published by Penguin Classics.
This story first appeared in TriQuarterly in July 2024. It has been reprinted with permission.
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