Serenade for Nadia

by Zülfü Livaneli

  At one point during a lull in the conversation—we’d been talking about the looting of the city by Crusaders in the twelfth century—he turned and asked, “Did you study history?”

  “No, I studied literature. But I’ve always been interested in history, particularly the history of my city. But there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge of history.”

  I didn’t tell him that I’d only learned about the history of Istanbul so I could seem knowledgeable to the visiting professors I had to show around.

  “Such as?”

  “Well, modern history in general, and your period in particular.”

  “My period?”

  “The period during the war when brilliant scholars came to Turkey.”

  “Brilliant scholars?”

  “Yes. Reuter, Neumark, Hirsch, Auerbach, Spitzer, you…”

  “I knew all of them. Those are the people I used to meet for drinks at the Pera Palas.”

  “I spent the past few days reading about them in the university archives.”

  “In the archives? Is there a file there on everyone?”

  “Yes, there is, and they’re full of information, but I have to confess that the slimmest file is yours, professor.”

  “Why?”

  “The intelligence service seized all your papers. There are only two documents left in the file.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The document stating that you were deported, and the one stating that Scurla was making inquiries about you.”

  “Scurla?”

  “Yes.”

  The professor was silent for a while, then stood up, and took a last look around.

  “Come on, let’s get back to the car and drive to the hotel. I have a lot to tell you. It’s going to be a long night.”

  CHAPTER 13

  As soon as we’d settled into the car I handed him the violin case.

  “I found your violin.”

  He frowned at the case.

  “But this isn’t my violin!”

  “Don’t worry, it’s a different case but it’s your violin.”

  He opened the case and when he took out the violin he smiled and looked at it lovingly. I explained that the case had been lost in the confusion and that we’d probably left it on the beach. I didn’t bother to tell him that Süleyman had hidden the violin.

  He placed the violin carefully on his lap.

  “I can’t remember exactly what happened.”

  “Professor, can you tell me about Nadia?”

  “I’ll tell you on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stop calling me, professor. Call me Maximilian, or Max for short.”

  “I have something to tell you, too, Max.”

  When we arrived at Pera Palas I told Ilyas not to wait. I would probably be there for some time, Max and I were going to have dinner together, and I could call him to come get me when I was ready to leave.

  Max went up to his room for a moment, and I waited for him at a small round table in the bar. I ordered a white port and asked the waiter to reserve a quiet table for us in the restaurant. Now, finally, after all the mystery, I was going to find out who Max and Nadia were, why we’d gone to Şile, what that odd ceremony had been about, why all these spies were interested in him, and why he’d been deported.

  I finished my wine and ordered another, and passed the time imagining the people who’d sat in this bar. Mata Hari. Kim Philby. The British ambassador to Bulgaria who’d narrowly missed being killed by a bomb because he’d come in here for a drink instead of going straight to his car. All the intrigues, all the stories we’d never know. By the time the professor arrived I was feeling a bit tipsy. He looked so dapper and so healthy that it was hard to believe he had only six months to live. I asked him if he’d like a drink, but he said he’d rather not, so we moved to our relatively secluded table in the dining room.

  That evening there were Ottoman dishes on the menu. We chose artichokes in olive oil and lamb’s shank in tomato with an aubergine sauce. We ordered the same wine we’d drunk the last time, a robust and fruity Anatolian Shiraz.

  I could see that Max was ill at ease. He looked troubled, and I guessed that it was going to be difficult for him to tell me what he had to tell.

  “This time last week I knew nothing about you and your friends,” I said.

  “Of course you were more relaxed then. I’ve caused you a lot of trouble.”

  “No, I’m very glad. You’ve opened new horizons for me.”

  He nodded, raised his eyebrows a little and bent his head slightly to one side.

  “The other day I read something about a student from your time expressing gratitude to Hitler.”

  He looked at me in astonishment.

  “Why?”

  “He said that if it hadn’t been for Hitler it would have been impossible to bring teachers of this caliber to Turkey. He was one of Erich Auerbach’s students.”

  “Then he was very lucky. Auerbach was a truly remarkable scholar. You must have read his Mimesis, which he wrote while he was here.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t professor, sorry, I mean Max.”

  “But you studied literature at the same university. How could you have missed this masterpiece?”

  “I’ve heard of it, of course, but unfortunately it hasn’t been translated into Turkish. Which, considering what I’ve read in the past few days, seems odd.”

  “I think it’s one of the most outstanding books on literary criticism. I’ll send you the English translation as soon as I get back to Boston. Then you’ll have a mission.”

  “What kind of mission?”

  “To translate Mimesis into Turkish and bring the book back to the country where it was written.”

  I found the idea exciting.

  “Yes,” I said. “That would great.”

  “When you’ve read the book you’ll realize how important it is, and what a service you’ll be doing for Turkish readers and students. Will you promise to do this?”

  “OK, I promise. But what makes this book so important?”

  “There’s no way I could give a brief explanation.”

  “So give me a detailed explanation then.”

  He smiled.

  “That’s hardly dinner table conversation.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, as briefly as possible Erich Auerbach and his colleague Leo Spitzer tried to methodize the notion of Weltliteratur or world literature. This was something Goethe had talked about, the notion of understanding literature as a product of human culture in general rather than of a specific culture. He learned Persian at an advanced age so he could read the great Persian poets Hafez and Saadi, as well as your common heritage Mevlana Rumi. This was the basis for his West-Östlicher Diwan.”

  “What do you mean when you call Mevlana our common heritage?”

  “I mean that even though he lived in Turkey he wrote in Persian. If he’d written in Turkish the world would have known very little about him. The great Turkish poets Yunus Emre and Şeyh Galip are practically unknown elsewhere but Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Hafez, and Rumi are widely read. This is of course largely due to the spread of Persian culture and to Goethe.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  “Anyway, Leo and Erich tried to methodize the concept of Weltliteratur. Mimesis was a broad study starting with the Old Testament and Homer—in other words two main sources of Western literature—and extending as far as Proust and Virginia Woolf. But in fact it focuses mainly on Western literature. After all its full title is: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.”

  “Wait a minute, I’m confused. This book was supposed to be about world literature, it was written in Istanbul, but it doesn’t examine Eastern literature?”

  “
Yes, it really only deals with Western literature. Erich was always complaining that he couldn’t find the material he needed in Istanbul.”

  “That reminds me of an old story. Do you know of Imam Ghazali?”

  “Of course!”

  “After he’d finished his studies in Baghdad, Ghazali was on his way back to Tus when the caravan he was traveling with was waylaid by bandits, who stole everything the passengers were carrying, including the single small bag Ghazali had with him. Ghazali immediately set out to track down the bandits and get his bag back. It took him months, but he finally found the cave the bandits used as their headquarters. He tried to force his way in, and the guards were about to kill him when the leader heard the commotion and asked what was going on. Ghazali explained that he’d come to retrieve his bag. The bandit asked what was in the bag that was so valuable he risked his life to get it back. Ghazali explained that it contained notes he’d been given by his teacher in Baghdad. The bandit gave him back his bag and said, ‘Remember, knowledge that can be stolen from you was never yours to begin with.’ ”

  Max laughed.

  We talked for some time about Auerbach’s ideas, as well as about the difficulties the translation might pose. Wagner suggested some resources that might be helpful to me, and said he could help me get the letters Auerbach had written while he was in Istanbul. Then, during a lull, I tried to bring the conversation around to what we were supposed to be talking about.

  “Was that student right when he said that Turkey owed a debt of gratitude to Hitler.”

  “I suppose in a sense he is. Turkey was very foreign to us and we knew almost nothing about it. All we knew was that the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, and that in its place there was a Republic that was attempting to make westernizing reforms. And we were quite a distinguished group, the cream of German academia. Except for me, of course. At the time there was only one medical school in Turkey, and its curriculum was very outdated. Atatürk wanted to westernize the university system quickly. The German professors undertook to do this, and their efforts still form the foundation of higher education here. For example, the conservatories still use the curriculum established by the composer Paul Hindemith.”

  “What was Turkey like when you first came here?”

  “Well, it was still a relatively poor, agricultural society with a very small elite. The total population was only 17 million. What is it now?

  “Over 70 million. There’s one thing I’m curious about, Max. You came much later than the other German professors. All the Jewish and actively anti-fascist academics came in 1933, but you didn’t arrive until six years later.”

  “Well, I was neither a Jew nor a Communist. I come from a Catholic bourgeois family.”

  “Well, then why did you leave Germany in 1939?”

  “That’s what I’m going to tell you. But I don’t know where to start.”

  “Please start as far back as possible. From your childhood, your youth.”

  “Very well. But prepare yourself for a long story.”

  “I’m ready,” I said. “There’s just one thing I’d like to ask. Can I record what you say?”

  He frowned slightly. I saw him hesitate a little.

  “I have no particular reason,” I explained. “It’s just that I feel there’ll be a huge vacuum after you’ve gone. I’ll be able to fill that void only by listening to your voice and reading books from that period.” I added laughing, “And of course translating Mimesis.”

  He laughed, too, and said, “All right. Go ahead and record it.”

  I took out my small digital recorder and pushed it to him across the white tablecloth. The flashing red light seemed to emphasize the importance of what I was about to hear.

  That Saturday evening the restaurant was quite crowded. Veteran waiters in black darted swiftly among the tables, and there was a hum of conversation punctuated by the clinking of glasses and the occasional burst of laughter.

  Professor Maximilian Wagner began to tell his story:

  “As I said, I was born to a wealthy family with pretensions to nobility. I received a very good education. My father was a well-known judge and my mother had a modest career as a pianist. I spent my childhood and youth learning Latin, Classical Greek, philosophy, literature, history, and music. I became an assistant at the university when I was still quite young. I could say that I was happy and carefree. I got along well with my professors, my colleagues, and my students, and I spent much of my free time working with an amateur string quartet. I had no sense whatsoever about what was to come. Yes, from time to time I heard about the right wing groups and a former sergeant called Adolf, but no one took this seriously and neither did I.

  “Then I got to know a history student named Nadia. I liked her at once, but it took me some time to realize how attracted I was to her. I just became aware slowly that I was thinking about her more and more. I’d think about her as soon as I woke up in the morning, and getting dressed and making my way to the university became charged with sweet anticipation because I knew I would see her. She had no idea how I felt, of course, but at a certain point I had no doubt left that I was madly in love with her. This was 1934, a year after Hitler had come to power and passed that terrible law.”

  “The law about public office,” I interrupted.

  “Yes. This was a terrible, unexpected blow. My Jewish university professors were forced to leave their jobs. Meanwhile pressure had begun on Jewish students too. It became impossible for them to study. Nazi students at the universities terrorized them. Nadia insisted on continuing to come to the university. Then one day I saw some Nazis roughing her up in the garden and I went to rescue her.”

  For what seemed a long time he stared at the tablecloth in front of him. Then slowly, almost in a monotone, he continued telling his story. The little red light kept flashing, and waiters came and went, filling our glasses and clearing our plates. Sometimes he kept talking in spite of them, and sometimes he waited for them to finish, taking a sip of wine and looking off into the distance.

  It was a difficult story to listen to, but I listened as attentively as I could, without interrupting and without making any movements that would distract him. At one point, though, I felt I couldn’t take it anymore. I just stood up abruptly and went to the ladies’ room without saying a word.

  When I returned the table was empty. I was worried he might have been offended by my leaving like that. The recorder was still sitting there, its red light flashing.

  He returned within a few minutes, though, looking somewhat refreshed. He was even smiling, and I thought that perhaps telling the story was a kind of catharsis for him.

  “I’m sorry, Max,” I said. “I interrupted your story.”

  “That’s OK. I needed a break too.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping our wine. I asked the waiter to bring us some fruit. Then, after he’d brought it, the professor continued his story in the same monotone, staring at the same spot on the tablecloth.

  Meanwhile, the restaurant was slowly emptying, and as it grew quieter the professor’s voice grew more audible. The waiters stood around near the kitchen door, looking bored, and as if they were eager to clean up and go home.

  I gently put my hand on his. He continued without taking the slightest bit of notice. When he came to the end of a passage in the story he stopped and looked up at me.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think it’s time for us to leave,” I whispered. “We’re the only ones left.”

  He glanced around. “Of course, of course.”

  He signaled for the bill. The headwaiter had the bill ready, and brought it to the table. Max wrote his room number on it and signed. I left a tip and we made our way to the lobby.

  “I must hear the end of the story, Max,” I said. “The bar is going to close soon. Would you like to go to another bar nearby?”

&
nbsp; “No,” he said. “Let’s not go out at this hour, but, please, come to my room. There’s a mini-bar.”

  This seemed the most logical solution. Kerem was staying with his father, so I didn’t have to rush home. There was no harm in sitting in his room for an hour or two, but then it would be too late to call Ilyas. I’d have to take a taxi.

  So we went to his room, we settled down in the comfortable armchairs, and Max got some brandy from the mini-bar.

  After he’d poured us brandy he said, “There’s a lot I could tell you about what Istanbul and the university were like then, but this doesn’t seem the right time.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I want to hear about Nadia. Were you able to find her?”

  He nodded.

  “I see.”

  We waited for a while in silence. Then we began to drink.

  The story had reached the end of the 1930s.

  The professor seemed to be gathering his strength to continue. When we’d finished our brandy, he called room service and asked them to send up a bottle of Martel. Then we sat in increasingly uncomfortable silence until it arrived. Then, after he’d poured us each a stiff drink, he picked up where he’d left off, and continued in the same monotone as before.

  I immediately pressed the button of the recorder on the coffee table. The small red light began to flash.

  At first I listened as I had before, without moving, but later I got up and paced around the room. He didn’t even seem to notice, and kept staring at the floor as he talked. After some time, his voice began to crack, and when I looked at him I saw that he was exhausted.

  “It sounds like you’re close to the end. Once you’re finished I’ll leave and let you get some rest.”