Young Turk

by Moris Farhi

  But then certain conservative elements, noting that such Muslim minorities as Albanians, Bosnians, Circassians, Kurds and Lazes continued to preserve their own languages and cultures, decided that these diversities were a threat to Turkish nationalism. (Some traditionalists even claimed that equality for minorities contravened the principles of Islamic law.) Consequently, they expediently restructured Gökalp’s definition by adding Islam as a further essential component for Turkishness. These Muslim minorities were told that they were, in reality, Turks who, over the centuries, had forgotten their Turkishness; now that they were back in the fold, they would remember their true identity and embrace it. (This would be funny if it weren’t so insulting.)

  Inevitably, this revised definition left the non-Muslims as outsiders, as ‘non-Turks’ or ‘half-Turks’. At best, as ‘guests in the country’, at worst, as dangerous ‘others’. In the hands of reactionaries, fascists, xenophobes, Nazi-lovers, it superseded the liberal, all-embracing national identity and came to be known as Kemalism. (What an insult to Atatürk’s name!) And since Atatürk’s death it has supported the discrimination against Jews, Armenians and Greeks – all bona fide Turks. (Atatürk must be weeping in his cloud.)

  Where the future lay, Ahmet Bey could not say. But he hoped that when Germany was defeated and Turkey moved into the Allies’ camp, there would be a return to the multi-ethnic national identity, the only identity that truly defined the Turk.

  I wanted to ask him: we know history repeats itself. But does it ever repeat good events? Or only the disasters?

  I desisted. Why should I feed my despair?

  Love.

  12 June 1943

  Our benefactors gathered at Üstat Vedat’s last night to review the situation. I never realized how difficult it is – and has been – to keep us alive. Like a child, I just took the food and hardly worried about the sacrifices that had put it in my mouth. The fact is, our neighbours and benefactors are suffering as much as we are. As if that’s not bad enough, they also have the vultures to deal with. These criminals, many of them local, are constantly hovering about. They’re always trying to steal the food parcels. On occasions, they succeed. Though not when Rιfat’s around. They’re scared of Rιfat. They went for him once and ended up with bloody noses. Even more disgustingly, they threaten our benefactors or try to blackmail them for ‘aiding enemies’. Have you heard of anything more sinister? Aiding enemies! If anything, these attacks and thefts increase our friends’ resolve. But what will happen to us when they run out of resources – as they soon will?

  Both Üstat Vedat and Ahmet Bey urged them – and us – to tighten our belts and somehow hold on. Apparently some of the Allies have condemned the Varlιk as discriminatory. There are rumours that American journalists are coming to investigate and that some people in the government are having second thoughts. Whether that includes Prime Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu is another matter. By all accounts, it was he who ordered the huge increases in the assessments.

  These days, it’s difficult to imagine that only three years ago, around this time, the whole community was out in the park making rose-petal jam. Gypsies bringing in the petals they’d gathered in Thrace. Children unloading the carts. Husbands distributing the sugar – yes, sugar was available then – while grannies and grandpas stirred the cauldrons and wives filled the jars. Will those times ever return?

  Which reminds me, the Gypsy children you boys used to play with bring us food, too, when they can. Often it’s crusts, but considering how poor they are that’s like giving us whole lambs. And they love Rιfat. A few years back, at the fair – actually Gül was with him – he wrestled with a bear. They’ve never forgotten that.

  Next week, Handan will be playing in another concert. Rιfat and I are invited. (Handan and I have become very close. I think I’ve taken Gül’s place.)

  Love.

  25 June 1943

  Amazing news! We, daughters, sons and wives of deportees, have become anglers and shrimpers. You can see us casting our lines or sifting sand all along the shore. And we’re not doing badly. We catch quite a few fish, mostly mackerel, and gather buckets of shrimps. (Shrimps aren’t kosher, as you know, so that’s for the non-observants like us.)

  The idea came from Rιfat. He trains with Hacι Turgut – the famous wrestler, now retired – and he never stops talking about how wise this man is, how easily he solves life’s problem. One day, Hacι Turgut told him that people who live by the sea will never go hungry because they can always fish and shrimp. So Rιfat came to us and said why don’t we have a go, that anything we caught would most certainly make life easier for everybody.

  That’s what we’re doing. And it’s easing the burden on our benefactors. We even have the pleasure of treating them to fresh fish.

  So, from now on, I don’t have to suck pips or olive stones to fight off hunger. (I never told you this, but that’s what Mother and I do when we run out of food.)

  (Nor did I tell you about my recurring nightmare in which lines of people – including my father – burn at the stake while people eating pumpkin seeds drive past in tram-loads and spit the husks at them.)

  Do you think I’m seeing things like Gül? Do you think the Turks will turn into Nazis? Do you think my father will die? Or is dead already?

  Don’t answer. Reality might be worse than nightmares.

  Love.

  6 July 1943

  Yesterday was my birthday. I am now seventeen! A woman, Mother says. I certainly feel I am that. Ready and more than willing to be kissed. But where are you?

  Mother gave me one of her old brassieres as my birthday present. I’m quite buxom, if you can still remember, and have developed more since you left, so it’s just what I need.

  Handan’s present was a bracelet. Absolutely beautiful: filigree silver with blue and red stones.

  Üstat Vedat gave me a kaval. And it’s an authentic one – a real shepherd’s pipe. He hopes, he said, that it will lead me to taking up the ney. So forlorn, the kaval sounds. Rιfat tells me there’s a shepherdess in Polonezköy, the Polish village near the Black Sea, who plays it so beautifully that even the happy mimosas weep.

  Ahmet Bey wanted to give me a book by Nâzιm Hikmet. Instead, he made me memorize some of his verses. As you know, Hikmet’s in prison for being a communist and Ahmet Bey thought that in this time of the Varlιk it wouldn’t be safe to have anything by him in the house. Apparently, your father’s a Hikmet fan, too.

  Rιfat has given me a ring he made out of grass. And a kiss – reciprocating the one I gave him on his birthday.

  Be well.

  30 August 1943

  Forgive me for the very long silence.

  Today we commemorate victory in the War of Independence. But we have an even greater reason to celebrate. We’ve just heard that several hundred inmates from Aşkale have been transferred to a camp in Eskişehir. That’s almost around the corner. My father is among them. Üstat Vedat is investigating whether we can visit him. (Alas, your father is still in Aşkale.)

  Rumour is, this transfer is aimed at appeasing the Allies. They’ve been highly critical of the Varlιk. And since it looks like they’ll win the war – they’ve already captured Sicily – Ahmet Bey thinks this is the beginning of the end of the Varlιk; sooner or later all the deportees will be released.

  Pray that he’s right!

  I was going to write about Rιfat’s kiss. But maybe in my next letter.

  Be well.

  6 September 1943

  Today is the anniversary of your departure for Greece. You’ve been away a whole year. Not a sign of life during all that time.

  I must stop loving you.

  20 September 1943

  Great news!

  Ahmet Bey told us that a journalist from the New York Times has published a series of articles denouncing the Varlιk as a policy devised to marginalize the non-Muslims from Turkey’s business life. (That’s exactly what my father said, if you remember.)

  The
government is greatly embarrassed. The other day, the ministry of finance announced that it would pardon all those who couldn’t pay their taxes in full.

  That means my father should be coming home soon!

  Joy! Joy! Joy!

  8 October 1943

  I’ve been procrastinating for months. I wanted to tell you about Rιfat. I just couldn’t. But since I promised I’d tell you everything, I must.

  Let me confess straightaway. Rιfat and I are in love.

  It started with his kiss on my birthday. But, of course, we’d warmed up to each other long before that. Thanks to the food deliveries, he’s been a permanent fixture in my life. Naturally, we got talking about our feelings and fears, our hopes and expectations, tragedies like Gül’s death, your disappearance, the Varlιk, etc.

  I suppose it was inevitable. You being away – probably dead. He, fat-boy-turned-wrestler, growing in stature daily as he looked after our community, especially Mother and me. And I, much of the time paralysed by fear, wondering what calamities tomorrow would bring, needing solace, needing to be shielded by a man, not just any man, but a manly man, because Father was in Aşkale and we didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. (There had been rumours that some deportees had died out there.)

  What I mean is, I had to save myself. I had to find a way to keep my anguish locked up in my nightmares instead of having it torment my daily dreams. And love was the way. The only way. The best way. And, mercifully, it was within reach. The distance from my lips to Rιfat’s.

  I must also admit – this is difficult to say because it makes me sound wanton – I have strong desires. I get aroused quickly. Often intensely. And – dare I say this? – I play with myself like you boys do. A lot, actually. It’s very exciting. And almost unbearably exciting when Rιfat does it to me. I love doing it to him, too. I spend much of the day longing to be with him.

  Do I shock you? I shocked myself – until I had the courage to talk to Mother. She was very understanding. She told me such desires were natural. Biologically speaking, girls mature early; they’re capable of bearing children when they start menstruating, therefore, already women. (My periods started when I was twelve.)

  In fact, Mother went on and on. I’m like her, apparently. An early developer. What I mustn’t do is rush things. It’s fine flirting with boys. But best not to go the whole way. And when it’s time to get married, I must find a man who’s sexually my equal – like Father is to her. That way I’ll be happier than most women. (I didn’t like her talking about Father and herself. So embarrassing.)

  Anyway, that’s me – sexual. That’s what you’d have had by your side if you hadn’t gone and got yourself killed.

  Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. You’re not dead.

  Still, it’s too late for us. I’m Rιfat’s girl now. As you’d expect, I’ll remain faithful to him.

  Rιfat is also highly sexual. We’re passionate about each other’s bodies. We kiss a lot. When we can be alone, we lie naked and make each other come. We never feel we’ve had enough. But we’re not having intercourse. We don’t want me to get pregnant. Besides, he respects my virginity, wants me to be intact when we get married. (I can see you asking: would I marry him? The answer is: yes.)

  Maybe I shouldn’t have written all this. When you get back – if you get back – I’ll tear off these pages to spare you reading them.

  Incidentally, Rιfat knows I write to you. He doesn’t mind. Isn’t he wonderful?

  Be well.

  14 November 1943

  Prejudice is not exclusive to nationalists. It exists among Jews, too. The other day, I had an argument with Rιfat’s grandparents – they who pretend to be Dönme, but remain secret Jews. They’re scared that Rιfat and I will marry. They don’t want a Jewess putrefying – putrefying! – ‘a sweet-smelling Dönme’. (A true convert to Islam smells of rose-water, like the Prophet – did you know that?) ‘It would be criminal to think of marriage,’ said Rιfat’s grandpa. ‘You should go out with Jewish boys,’ said Rιfat’s grandma. ‘My grandson is Muslim, not Jewish,’ said Rιfat’s grandpa. ‘Find one of your own kind,’ said Rιfat’s grandma.

  I could have argued that, Dönme or not, Rιfat was born with Jewish blood, that even if he proved to be the purest Muslim of his generation, he’d still be classified as a Jew in Nazi Germany and dealt with accordingly. But I didn’t.

  Instead I unleashed Ahmet Bey’s views. (When you get back, I’ll introduce you to Ahmet Bey. Who knows, you might end up as one of his students. He’s a great man. And listen to this: apparently he has a nickname: şιk Ahmet! Coined by his students! ‘Amorous Ahmet’! It is said he’s a great romantic, that he loves women and women adore him – I’m not surprised; he’s a very attractive man. Had I been older, I would have fallen for him, too.)

  Anyway, back to my argument with Rιfat’s grandparents. ‘The only quality that should be considered in judging a person’, I said – I think I even sounded like Ahmet Bey – ‘is whether he’s good or bad, whether he obeys the directives of his soul, which are the distillations of nature’s wisdom, or prefers to endorse the commands of godless power-hungry men who invent paranoid divisions like class, race, religion, nationality. Put another way,’ I said, ‘whether he chooses to be Nâzιm Hikmet or the architect of the Varlιk, Şükrü Saracoğlu.’

  (Incidentally, Ahmet Bey suggested that we learn all of Hikmet’s poetry by heart so that if one day they burn his books, we can stand up and recite his verses. You may think this is melodramatic, but as Heinrich Heine – another of Ahmet Bey’s heroes – said, where they burn books, they will also burn people. And we Jews know how true that is.)

  ‘Moreover’, I said, ‘if I marry Rιfat – and I hope I will – I’ll want him to be Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, atheist; black, white, yellow, red; Turkish, French, English, Chinese, even German.’ Then I said, ‘The Varlιk and Turkification policies have shown all too clearly that the creation of a social order with separatist decrees is like inbreeding; it causes the nation to degenerate.’

  Finally I said, ‘Rιfat and I have decided to reject all the “nesses” and “isms”. We renounce single cultures, single flags, single countries, single gods. We embrace every culture, every flag, every country, every god. We rejoice in the plurality – the infinity – of the world. In effect, we are citizens of the world.’

  (Do you know, when Ahmet Bey pronounced these views at one of our gatherings, dour Üstat Vedat thanked him. ‘You have given us a glimpse of the Godhead,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s what Turkishness really means, what Turkification should seek to achieve: to be one and everybody.’)

  Trump that!

  11 December 1943

  Father is home! What more can I say? My lovely, wonderful, beautiful father is alive and home! He arrived this afternoon from Eskişehir. He’s lost a lot of weight, but is in good health.

  The Varlιk nightmare is over. We washed it away when he took his first bath in 299 days, 18 hours, 12 minutes.

  1 January 1944

  It’s a year since I started writing to you. I’m not sure I should continue.

  Father is back at work. At his old shop, believe it or not. But as an employee. He’s been hired by the person who bought it from him. Having almost bankrupted the business, the man needs Father’s expertise to save it. Father believes he can, and thinks in a year or so he might be offered a partnership. Whether he would accept it is another matter.

  Guess what he bought me with his first pay? A ney. Üstat Vedat and Handan had told him I should study it.

  I’ll start lessons soon. Someone in Üstat Vedat’s ensemble will teach me. This way I’ll also see more of Handan. The last few months she was either rehearsing or playing or I was always meeting Rιfat.

  Rιfat, too, will be busy this year. Recently, he became champion of his weight at a youth wrestling tournament and Hacι Turgut was very pleased with him. If Rιfat trains diligently, he says, he will stand a chance of making our Olympic team –
if and when the Olympics resume, of course. Rιfat is in sixth heaven. I should be jealous, but I’m not. I give Rιfat a better heaven, the seventh heaven: my bosom.

  Take care.

  15 February 1944

  Another anniversary. It’s exactly a year since my father was taken. We commemorated that awful day with a small party. Üstat Vedat and Ahmet Bey found some sugar and we made cakes. Most of the neighbourhood came. Almost all the men are back from Aşkale. Sadly, not your father – not yet. But everyone thinks he will soon.

  The Russians have broken the siege at Leningrad. No one now doubts the Allies will win. The air is full of hope. Advocate Vitali Behar, Zeki’s father – the eminent lawyer, if you remember – urged us youngsters to forget the Varlιk and carry on as before, as Atatürk’s children. To this effect, he spent his first earnings on buying Zeki the ten-volume Life Encyclopaedia.

  Looking at the future: I’m getting on with the ney. It’s early days, but I intend to make myself a name – a Jewish name – in classical Turkish music.

  Be well.

  21 March 1944

  The Varlιk is officially over. Last week, on the 15th, it was rescinded by law. All those still affected were amnestied and their debts written off.

  Your father is back from Aşkale. I saw him in the street the other day. He looked all right. He hasn’t lost any of his charm or gentleness.