Without a Country

by Kulin, Ayse

  “Once you’ve dropped off those plates, go to your room and start practicing,” Gerhard called. “I’ll come in a bit and listen to you play.” When Hanna emerged from the kitchen, he said, “Don’t forget to pick up Suzi in an hour. She needs to be in bed by nine. She’s got school tomorrow.” Gerhard avoided her eyes as he spoke.

  The door to Peter’s room clicked shut. Hanna went to the table and stood in front of Gerhard. Clearing her throat, she said, “Herr Schliemann, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “I’m listening. Make it short. I have some papers to correct.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  For the first time in a long time, Gerhard raised his head and looked directly into Hanna’s pale-blue eyes. When he finally spoke, he didn’t recognize his own voice. “How does that concern me?”

  “You’re the father.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I’ve done some calculations. I’m sure of it.”

  “This soon, after just one time. I don’t believe it.”

  “It couldn’t be anyone but you.”

  “You’re forgetting your husband.”

  “He’s infertile.”

  “Hanna, what do you want? Surely, you can’t imagine that I’d divorce my wife for you. I was drunk. I mean, I take responsibility for what happened. But you are not blameless, either. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past you to have a lover somewhere. What is it you want? Money?”

  “The baby is yours.”

  “If you are pregnant—and I have my doubts—I can arrange a doctor. I’ll cover the costs. Then I’ll have to ask you to leave my house forever. I’ll pay your travel expenses to wherever it is you wish to go. All I ask is that I never see you again.”

  “I’m going to have this baby, Herr Schliemann.”

  A thousand thoughts passed through Gerhard’s mind. Should he poison her, push her down the stairs, throw her out the window? If only there was a way to make her disappear. Elsa would be home soon. What could he do? He was guilty, he was cornered, and he felt utterly helpless. He slowly turned his head and gazed out at the lights of Istanbul. The fairytale land beyond the window had turned into a living hell. One muddled moment of passion might lead to the loss of his wife, his children, his career, and his reputation. If he still retained a shred of honor, he should take his own life.

  “Whether the child is mine or not, Hanna, I want you to know that I will not be able to help you bring it up. You’re on your own.”

  “You misunderstand me. I don’t want to marry you. And I don’t need your help.”

  His eyes still on the minarets rising from the sea, Gerhard repeated his earlier question. “Hanna, what do you want?”

  “I want my husband back. I was blamed for not giving him a child, even though I know it’s not my fault. Now I have proven everyone wrong. He’ll be overjoyed when I give him the good news.”

  “You want to go back to your husband?”

  “Yes, and I want you to help me do it. I’ve counted the days since—since it happened. But I need the advice of a doctor. Is there anything that could make Moiz suspicious? A blood test, for instance?”

  Gerhard got up and walked over to the liquor cabinet. He found a bottle of his strongest brandy and filled a glass. What was he feeling? Not relief. Were he to go along with Hanna, he would become complicit in the deception of a husband and an unborn child. Were he to refuse her, he might lose his wife and the will to live. Why was he faced with such a terrible choice? In a moment of weakness, too inebriated to fully understand what he was doing, he had made a terrible mistake. This punishment was all out of proportion to the crime.

  “Hanna, please don’t carry this baby to term,” Gerhard said. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll take you to your husband’s house and talk to him myself. You didn’t have a dowry. Perhaps it would help if I gave you one now. I know you don’t have a family here to help you make peace with your husband and his family. I’ll act as your guardian and help you stand up to your in-laws. All I ask is that you end this pregnancy. It’s still very early. It would be swift and painless.”

  “No. The only way Moiz will take me back is if I’m pregnant.”

  She planned this, Gerhard realized in a flash. She wanted to get pregnant. If he hadn’t screwed up so badly, she might even have seduced Peter, a boy. How could he get this monster away from his family? Gerhard slammed his fist down on the table and bellowed like a wounded animal.

  Peter came running into the room. “What happened?”

  “Your father hurt his hand,” Hanna said.

  “Hurt his hand? How?”

  Gripping his right hand with his left, Gerhard went to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. He’d leave it to Hanna to invent a lie. As he held his hand under the cold water, he watched in the mirror as tears of frustration and regret streamed down his face.

  “That’s twice now that drinking has gotten me into trouble,” he said to his reflection. “Perhaps there’s something to be said for Islam’s rules against it.”

  Surprises

  Gerhard waved to Elsa as she came down the gangplank. He ran up and pulled her into a tight embrace, released her, and embraced her again. When they were settled in the back of a cab, he took her hand, squeezed it, and didn’t let go.

  Elsa launched into an account of her return trip to Istanbul, her arrival in Zurich, the bedside vigils in the hospital, the difficulties of caring for her father after he was discharged, the horror of finding him dead, the tears shed at his funeral, and the anguish of being stranded so far from her family as war was declared across Europe. Then she took a deep breath and asked Gerhard how he and the children had been during her long absence.

  “Elsa, I have a few surprises,” he said. “I’ve written to you about some of them, but I suspect my letters never arrived.”

  “Surprises? What surprises?”

  “Where do I start? Let’s begin with Hanna. She’s not staying with us anymore.”

  “Oh? Who scared her away, Suzi or Fatma?”

  “Hanna and her husband have reconciled. She’s going back to him, and just in the nick of time, I might add. Peter was developing a terrible crush on her.”

  “Nonsense, Gerhard. He’s just a boy.”

  “He’s going on fifteen and is turning into a young man.”

  “Who’s looking after the children now? Who clears up after dinner and does the ironing? Has Fatma agreed to live in?”

  “Well, Peter has dinner at school.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Brace yourself. I enrolled Peter at Robert College. He’s been boarding there since the winter semester.”

  “Gerhard! What have you done?”

  “Wait—I’ve saved the best for last. Darling, this is something you’ve wanted for years. I rented an apartment in Bebek. We move in at the end of the month. Once we’re living near Peter’s college, we can decide whether he’ll board or become a day student.”

  “But what about Peter’s stomach? He can’t stay in a dormitory!”

  “Do you think I wouldn’t take care of that? The school was very understanding. Apparently, he’s not the only boy with dietary requirements.”

  “How did you get Peter to agree?”

  “He was dead-set against it at first. One look at the campus was enough to change his mind, though. Those hilltop views of the Bosphorus, the grounds, the gymnasium, the activities, the conservatory . . . ah, and let’s not forget the socials organized jointly with the girls’ school in Arnavutköy. What more could a boy want?”

  “But to have done all this so suddenly, and while I was away!”

  “Listen, it was only by chance that I heard about the place in Bebek. I decided to take a look, liked what I saw, and signed the contract immediately. You know how difficult it is to find housing along the Bosphorus. That same day, I had a meeting with the admission officer at Robert College. We agreed that if Peter’s courses proved too challengin
g, he could simply repeat a year. He’s younger than his classmates, after all. Once I had registered Peter, I went home and had a talk with Hanna. She was already planning to move back in with her husband when you got home, and Pera is apparently the only neighborhood in the city she’d deign to live in. What I’m trying to say is, I didn’t set out to make all these decisions without you. Somehow, one thing followed another.”

  “What about Suzi? How have you managed?”

  “Fatma is there during the day, and Madame has come back from the island. Suzi and I leave at the same time in the morning, and Fatma waits for me to get home. Plus, Suzi has turned into the building’s stray cat, with a bowl of food waiting for her everywhere she turns. I find her meowing at Madame’s, at the Ellimans’, and, most often, at the Atalays’. Once she starts school in Bebek, she’ll settle down and have more of a routine.”

  “Wasn’t she upset when Peter went off to boarding school?”

  “Those two have been fighting nonstop. Now they’ll see how much they miss each other.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Gerhard. It’s true I’ve wanted to move to Bebek. But this is all so sudden.”

  “Elsa, this is what’s best for the family, especially Peter. Once he finishes high school, he’ll be able to study engineering at the same college. Hasn’t he always said he wants to be an engineer?”

  A new home in a new neighborhood, and a new school for Peter. Elsa knew she should be pleased. But these were major life changes, the sorts of things a husband and wife should discuss at length and decide together. That’s what they had always done until that day they left Frankfurt. Now Gerhard had moved the family to Bebek and changed Peter’s school without having so much as informed her. Couldn’t he have waited for her return? Didn’t she have the right to see their new home before the contract was signed? There had been a time when the final decision was always hers. She almost felt like she had returned to an unfamiliar marriage and a new Gerhard.

  Elsa sighed and patted Gerhard’s hand. Whatever he had done, he had done for her and their family. The only thing keeping them in Pera had been the children’s schools. He’d sorted that out and found a home in the neighborhood where she’d long wanted to live. He’d wanted to surprise her. What was wrong with that? She was fortunate to be married to a modern, progressive man whose views on marriage were not informed by religious dogma. But to have arrived home after a tiring journey, eager to relax and spend time with her family, only to learn—while still in the cab, no less—that they were moving at the end of the month . . .

  “I wish you’d held off on sending Hanna away. She could have helped with the packing. How am I supposed to manage everything with only Fatma there to help?”

  Gerhard hesitated. This was the perfect opening. Should he tell her?

  “Hanna wouldn’t have been of much help to you. She’s pregnant. Or so she claims.”

  “Oh! That’s wonderful news. Why didn’t you tell me? I’m so happy for her. Now I understand why she decided to forgive her brute of a husband. I’ll call and congratulate her as soon as we get home.”

  “Don’t, Elsa! Don’t have anything to do with her. I think she lied just to leave us in the lurch again. She made herself disagreeable to Fatma, to Suzi, to everyone in the house—except Peter. And I saw the way she swished her tail at him. Please, let’s keep our distance from that deceitful woman.”

  “Well, if you say so. But how am I going to pack all on my own?”

  “I’ll arrange something. If we move over the weekend, I can get a couple of office boys from the university to help.” Gerhard squeezed Elsa’s hand. “The children are growing up, Elsa. We’ll all enjoy the peace and quiet in Bebek.”

  Gerhard was no fool. He knew that his life would never be the same. The secret would be a heavy and constant burden. Perhaps, someday, he would confess to his wife if he felt certain that she would forgive him. But he couldn’t risk it now, not so soon. Without Elsa, his life would be over.

  Suzi’s Life in the New House

  Ten days after Elsa’s return to Istanbul, the Şiliman family moved to their new home in Bebek, a spacious apartment with views of the Bosphorus from the front rooms and views of a forest from the back bedrooms. Suzi and Peter would have their own rooms, and they’d get to live just down the street from their German friends. But none of that mattered to Suzi. The apartment in Pera had been her home as long as she could remember, and she was heartbroken to leave it behind.

  She refused to attend the new school in Bebek, so her parents agreed to let her stay at her old school with her old friends until the summer holidays. Every morning, she would travel by tram with her father to Karaköy and then take the funicular up the hill to Pera. After school, she would wait at Madame’s for her father, and they would go home together.

  It was inconvenient, but how else could Suzi keep seeing Demir every day?

  The following year, despite all her protests, Suzi was taken out of St. George’s Primary. Her parents presented her with two options: she could attend either the Turkish primary school in Bebek or the private American school opened for children of the faculty members at the American College for Girls.

  Elsa wanted Suzi to learn English, which would allow her to skip the year of language prep normally required before middle school.

  “But I’m Turkish,” Suzi said, waving her identity card.

  “I hope that Turkish ID does you some good one day,” Elsa said.

  Certain that Demir would approve of her choice, Suzi decided on the Turkish school. Given the language shift, her father insisted she start in the grade below, and she finished her first year as the top student in her class. Gerhard had been right. Once Suzi tasted success, she wanted more. Elsa was proud of both her daughter for making the honor roll and of her husband for his foresight. Would Gerhard ever be proven wrong?

  In June of that year, 1941, Ankara and Berlin signed a nonaggression pact. The decision to remain neutral in the war sweeping across Europe was greeted with a sigh of relief by both the citizens and the émigré communities of Turkey. But would the Nazis honor the pact?

  Germany had invaded Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Much closer to home, Yugoslavia and Greece were under Axis control, and neighboring Bulgaria had just joined the Axis powers.

  Fearing the worst, the Turks began preparing for war.

  Men under the age of forty had already been reconscripted, and Turkish troops were massed on the Bulgarian border as a precaution. To maintain this army, a special capital tax was levied, one that weighed particularly heavy on the business community in which non-Muslims thrived. Flour, bread, and sugar were rationed. The Turkish government held its breath and waited, trigger finger at the ready.

  The German refugees looked on anxiously. A Nazi invasion would spell disaster, deportation, imprisonment, and maybe worse, but the Soviet Union’s friendly overtures to the Turkish government were also alarming. Jews had been subjected to centuries of ruthless persecution by the Russians, and after a brief respite in the wake of the revolution, they were finding themselves increasingly in Stalin’s crosshairs.

  News was beginning to reach them, whispers of just how bad the situation in Germany had become for Jews, leftists, and other “undesirables.” Suzi and Peter sometimes eavesdropped on their parents through closed doors, making out words like “extermination” and “camp,” and holding hands when their mother cried. They knew that Gerhard hadn’t gotten word from his mother and sister in years, and he longed to go look for them. But when the children asked questions later, their parents refused to answer.

  Life had become a daily struggle for everyone, whether Aryan or non-Aryan, German or Turk. Inflation was soaring. Food and clothing were in short supply. The impoverished people of Turkey were surrounded by a sea of fire that could engulf their young republic at any moment.

  While waiting in line for flour one day, Suzi gleefully pointed to the surname “Şiliman” on her mother’s ration car
d and said, “See! It’s good we’re Turks now. It means we’ll get enough flour for you to make me my favorite cake.”

  Now that Suzi was going to school in Bebek, she was only able to see “the Pera Gang” on the weekend. She would invite them to Bebek, but her former neighbors, who had watched Suzi grow up, delighted in her visits, and it was much easier to see everyone if she just went to Pera. Madame and all the other “aunties” and “uncles” always complimented Suzi on her perfect Turkish and spoilt her terribly. In the sitting rooms on Grenadier Street, the two subjects on everyone’s lips were the shortages in Turkey and the war that had spread all the way from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, where Japan and America were bombing each other. Sometimes they cast worried glances at Suzi and lowered their voices. But Suzi didn’t care what the grown-ups were talking about. She always felt safe and loved in this building.

  When Elsa complained about Suzi’s attachment to the old neighborhood, Gerhard defended her. “Bebek’s a little boring for them. Children don’t care about fresh air and peace and quiet.”

  It was true. At that time, Bebek was a tiny community of a few eccentric Turks and a handful of foreigners. Any activity along that stretch of the Bosphorus was due to Robert College.

  One day, in June of 1944, the Şilimans invited all their old neighbors over to celebrate Suzi’s graduation from primary school.

  The grown-ups sat at the dining room table with the radio on, as always. The children were eating at the kitchen table when cheers, shouts, and clapping erupted in the other room.

  “What happened? Why’s everyone yelling?” Demir said.

  “The Americans and British have landed in Normandy. They’re opening a second front against the Germans. Hitler’s days are numbered,” Demir’s father said. “The war will be over soon.”

  “They won’t get rid of that devil so easily,” Madame said. “He’ll find a way yet to come out on top.”

  Two months later, the people of Turkey woke up on the morning of August 2, 1944, to learn that their republic had severed all diplomatic relations and commercial ties with Germany. The approximately six hundred German citizens living in Turkey were to be immediately interned in camps in the rural provinces of Kırşehir, Yozgat, and Çorum.