Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  She didn’t tell Ragıp Bey that, that unlike many Ottoman women who were widowed at a young age, she didn’t forget her womanhood, but had casual affairs with handsome men who were not from her circle so as to avoid gossip.

  During a moment of silence she watched the snow falling into the garden.

  “Snow reminds me of my childhood, I can’t decide whether or not I like it.”

  “Snow reminds everyone of their childhood.”

  The crackling of the fireplace and the light of the lamps reflected in the mirrors stood in contrast to the shadowy white darkness outside, the atmosphere caressed Ragıp Bey softly, and he kept putting off the idea of leaving that had remained in a corner of his mind.

  Dilara Hanım rang the silver bell, and when the servant appeared asked calmly:

  “Is dinner ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dilara Hanım turned to Ragıp Bey.

  “I’ve had dinner prepared, the carriage will take you after we eat.”

  Ragıp Bey tried to decline, but even he realized that he did it weakly.

  “I don’t want to impose, let me be on my way before it gets too late . . . And there’s no need for your carriage, I’ll hail a cab.”

  As she stood, Dilara Hanım spoke in an authoritative and mocking tone that he’d never heard in a woman before.

  “Major, your attitude is bordering on rudeness, your insistence on leaving is close to insulting, don’t throw it in my face that I’m so boring, dear.”

  He muttered, “By no means . . .” then stood and followed her, but inwardly he was angry at the way she pressured him; he couldn’t stand up to this odd woman, and, what was worse, he himself was having difficulty deciding whether to stay or go.

  They entered a large, well-lit room, in the center was a large table covered with a white tablecloth, the table had been set for three, and there were silver candelabras. Ragıp Bey glanced around for the third person, it was just the two of them, he gave her a questioning glance and she smiled.

  “My daughter will be joining us.”

  As soon as she said this, the door on the side opened and a girl of about seventeen or eighteen came in; because of her upbringing she tried to conceal her displeasure at having a male guest at the table and, showing the politeness she’d been taught to show even to unimportant people, said, “Welcome” reluctantly, then sat and waited for her food without looking up. Dilara Hanım didn’t pay attention to her daughter’s manners, to the way she responded negatively to the presence of a male guest, she accepted her daughter’s near rudeness with nonchalance. It was only Ragıp Bey who was disquieted by this behavior, he felt like a piece of furniture that had been placed in the house by mistake.

  For a time they ate their soup in silence. That he managed to sit in silence with two women without trying to win their hearts, that he adopted such a cold and even angry attitude, caused both women to feel he was challenging their authority and the secret sovereignty that women were supposed to have at the table.

  Dilara Hanım responded to this defiant silence with her own silence, but in spite of her indifference the young Dilevser didn’t have the patience to remain silent. He was different from all the men who’d been there before, he didn’t have the unstated but importunate conceitedness of a man who’d been invited by a woman, and she found his long face and nonchalant stance interesting.

  “Are you a colonel?” she asked suddenly.

  Her emphasis made it more than clear that she disdained any military rank, whether it be high or low.

  “No,” he said.

  As she was bringing her silver spoon to her mouth, Dilara Hanım paused suddenly and, without raising her head, glanced at Ragıp Bey and her daughter before continuing with her soup.

  “What are you, then?

  “I’m a major.”

  “Did I unwittingly say something offensive?”

  “Not at all, why would you say anything offensive to me?”

  “You speak as if you’re angry.”

  Dilara Hanım listened to their exchange without interrupting, she was curious about how Ragıp Bey would handle her daughter’s tactlessness.

  “No, I’m not angry, I’m just not accustomed to this type of conversation.”

  Dilara Hanım decided to interrupt because the conversation had lost its focus and might go in the wrong direction, so she gave Ragıp Bey an attractive smile, though it was difficult to tell whether it was tender or mocking.

  “What type of conversation are you accustomed to?”

  “The type of conversation officers have among themselves.”

  “And what are they like?”

  “Just what you’d expect, we talk about the nation’s problems and about military matters.”

  As she reached for the salt, Dilara Hanım quipped, “That is, matters that women don’t understand.”

  “Please, I didn’t say that, though I do imagine ladies wouldn’t relish that kind of conversation.”

  “Does this nation belong to gentlemen alone, Ragıp Bey? Why wouldn’t ladies relish talking about these matters? You yourself saw it just a little while ago, when the nation starts going down the drain, men reach for our veils first; if men understood the nation’s problems as well as they say they do we wouldn’t be in this situation, our finances wouldn’t be in the hands of thieves and our streets wouldn’t be controlled by thugs.”

  Thus time Ragıp Bey was genuinely surprised and was unable to conceal it; it was so unexpected for him to hear a woman talk about finances that he opened his eyes wide in near horror.

  Dilara Hanım continued in a serious tone:

  “Why are you so surprised? You don’t even realize that your surprise itself is a kind of insult; all men are like that, I know; this isn’t about you, but to tell the truth I’d like to meet a man who thought differently . . . Look, when Dilevser’s father died I went to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of War to have the Pasha’s pension transferred to her, I saw for myself what a mess things were there and I wasn’t able to get a penny out of them, in the end I said, ‘To hell with it,’ and let it go; if we didn’t have any income we would have been dependent on strangers, we would have had to open our arms for men in exchange for money like the poor women on the streets.”

  Ragıp Bey blushed deeply and simply murmured, “Please.”

  “Why are you embarrassed, Ragıp Bey, isn’t this the reality of life, don’t you see the women I see, you might not visit them yourself, but your fellow officers who came to save the capital certainly visit them, I know they do, and they never think about how these women ended up in that position . . . I’ve travelled all over Europe, you’ve been there too, you’ve seen it, I have firsthand experience of what developed nations are like; I’m not blind, I saw, I’m not deaf, I heard, I’m not stupid, I think, I argued with people who understand these things, I read books, the Pasha, God bless him, was a very open-minded person, he wanted me to see and learn. If you ask me what I learned, all developed nations have set their women free, there, men and women stand shoulder to shoulder, a nation that keeps its women imprisoned at home can’t and won’t develop.”

  Dilara Hanım put down her spoon and continued, “Without women, Ragıp Bey, there is no nation, look at this nation’s streets, there’s no need to think deeply about it, you can see it right away, a nation where there are no women in the streets is a poor nation in every sense, like ours. Poor women, all of them are prisoners in their own homes today, you may be free, but at best yours is the impoverished freedom of a guard who wastes his life in prison.”

  This time Dilevser, feeling sorry for Ragıp Bey, interrupted.

  “Mother, if you keep talking like that, we’ll end up sending Ragıp Bey away hungry, he hasn’t eaten a bite since you started in on him.”

  Her mother looked at her and then smiled.


  “Excuse me, Ragıp Bey, I’m not giving you a chance to eat, perhaps this is why you don’t allow us to talk, because we talk so much when we do.”

  Ragıp Bey had never met a woman who talked like this, even in Germany he never met a woman who compared men and women and blamed men.

  “Please, you speak well, I learned something from what you said.”

  “Now I’ll allow you to eat in peace, we can discuss these matters another time.”

  Once again Dilara Hanım had implied that they would see each other again, that she’d simply decided this, she wasn’t the least bit shy about her inviting manner. As Ragıp Bey said to Osman later, “The most impressive thing about her was that she wasn’t ashamed of the things other people are ashamed of.”

  Dilevser served Ragıp Bey some more food.

  “My mother never stops talking about this, she’s very sensitive about equality between men and women.”

  “Equality between men and women?”

  “That’s impossible, isn’t it, Ragıp Bey, equality is impossible.”

  In spite of himself, Ragıp Bey reacted without thinking.

  “But men go to war, we fight and die.”

  “Who are you fighting for, Ragıp Bey, who are you dying for? Is fighting and dying the only way to prove your manhood, is war a manhood contest among men, or do you fight for those who’ve been left behind, that is, for women?”

  Ragıp Bey fell silent, and Dilara Hanım kept after him.

  “Why don’t you answer?”

  “When you’re under siege, Dilara Hanım, you have to think carefully before making a sortie, if you don’t, as I just didn’t, it ends in disaster, so if you don’t mind, I need a chance to think.”

  “You’re not under siege, you’re among friends.”

  “I’m accustomed to enemies, Dilara Hanım, it will take some time to become accustomed to friends.”

  Dilara Hanım knew how far she could go in provoking men, she knew instinctively when to stop, knew when she was discomfiting them and how to ease this discomfiture with a smile. She realized that if she kept it up, Ragıp Bey would become genuinely frightened of her, he wouldn’t be able to bear this fear and he’d flee.

  If she was going to frighten a man like this she would do it after he was so attached he couldn’t leave and not on the first day they met; moreover this officer was one of the few men who could respond to her naturalness, which could be considered terrifying, with the same kind of naturalness, who didn’t try to appear to be more than he actually was, he wasn’t ridiculous like those officers who’d spent their lives in the mountains and tried to pretend they were sophisticated, even when the conversation was getting the better of him. Even though he’d lost the argument, the way he accepted his defeat earned him both women’s admiration, and it was always important to Dilara Hanım to feel that her daughter admired a man.

  Ragıp Bey didn’t say a word about himself, about what he’d experienced in Macedonia, the skirmishes he’d been in, his heroic past, his house, his wife, his father-in-law, who was one of the most famous sheikhs in the empire.

  When, after having a last cognac with his coffee, Ragıp Bey climbed into the carriage that had been readied for him and left the mansion, he was even more of a mystery than he’d been when he arrived. Both women sensed the manly confidence concealed beneath this officer’s silence and realized he wasn’t like the men who’d come to the mansion before him. By saying nothing, Ragıp Bey had told these women much more about himself than he’d intended, they were much better than men at understanding these kinds of things; it was to this that he owed being invited to dinner two days later.

  On the deserted, snow-covered streets, where the gas lamps augmented rather than alleviated the loneliness and silence, he sat in the carriage listening to the wheels roll through the snow and the deep sound of the horses’ hooves, he felt as surprised, awed, and frightened as a shepherd who’d met a mythical creature who changed her appearance every time her reflection appeared on the river that flowed through the forest, now as a water fairy, now as a mermaid and now as a dragon.

  In his world, courage, determination, and prowess were valued over cleverness, bright ideas, and precise observations, he’d always earned the admiration of both men and women without any effort, as if it was his natural right. He earned admiration without even trying to, and women desired him. He’d seen the same look in Dilara Hanım’s glances that night, but instead of pleasing him, this desire felt more like an insult. He knew enough about woman to realize that Dilara Hanım wanted him not as a man, but as a plaything, that she didn’t care at all about his feelings and desires, that her desire contained no admiration or passion. Dilara Hanım had chosen Ragıp Bey the way a pampered woman showed the shop assistant the dress she liked in the window, she’d pick him up like a trollop she found in the street, take him into her bed, and then send him packing when she tired of him.

  It excited Ragıp Bey to experience two contradictory feelings that usually aren’t experienced together in love games, being desired and being defeated, he wanted to get closer to this woman, but he also wanted to mistreat her.

  A feminine fragility was added to the famous, manly anger that terrified and intimidated everyone who met him for the first time, he wanted to take Dilara Hanım in his arms and show her the pleasure of womanhood and the aggressiveness of manhood, but he also wanted her to caress him lovingly, a miracle occurred on that snowy night, the feminine fragility that conceals itself in the deepest, darkest corners of every man woke with all its weakness, powerlessness, helplessness, wanting to be loved; tender, impatient, and full of lustful expectation, Ragıp Bey was dragged into the mystical landscape called love, which no man could survive without the guidance of a woman, where there were no maps and where people forgot everything they saw as soon as they passed it.

  Like every woman who knows how to impress men and subjugate them, Dilara Hanım had quickly awakened Ragıp Bey’s feminine side, the feminine side that men who have never even sensed its existence must wake before they can fall in love, and this triggered his desire to be loved.

  In just a few hours his destiny and his life had changed, an unhappy but peaceful man had become a restless man who dreamt of happiness.

  4

  One morning as Hüseyin Hikmet Bey found himself arriving in Istanbul, which from a distance looked like a large, soft, scalloped lace with all its domes, minarets, towers, hills, and woods spreading over snow-covered hills, he saw seabirds scooping struggling fish that gleamed with phosphorescence from water that had paled with the falling snow, white doves fluttering noisily from mosque courtyards, shadows with red fezzes that looked like drops of blood that had fallen onto white wool when a coy woman pricked herself as she was crocheting, and the long, black caiques that moved through all that whiteness like some kind of black magic, inhaled the fragrance of Persian tobacco from the coffeehouses that lined the shore and the mixed scent of tar, human sweat, daffodils, and chrysanthemums from the flower fields on the hills, and shivered.

  He felt that this city, which until then had been an entertaining place to stop as he migrated to another land, had become his home, that no matter what happened he would never be able to move away, that wherever he went he would end up returning, and though the adventurer in him was saddened to realize that the days of eager travelling of his youth were over, he felt the peace of knowing he had a homeland.

  As he made his way down to the quay through the women from first class, with their silk abiyas, soft clouds of scent hanging in the air, and soft furs, he saw something he’d never hoped for: His father was standing beside the carriage waiting for him. Reşit Pasha had come to meet his son. He felt more sadness than joy to see his father waiting for him; then at that moment he realized it would take either great joy or great sorrow for traditions to change suddenly.

  Reşit Pasha wore the tired and understanding
expression seen on the faces of those who had lost the wealth, power, fame, or a personal trait that had set them apart and made them superior to others. His face had not become more lined, but it was as if the lines had deepened, and the slowness of his movements and the darkness in his eyes suggested that while he had resigned himself to his fate it had cost him the sacrifice of a good part of his power and of his faith in himself.

  As father and son looked at each other as men with opposing world views and from opposing camps, and who hadn’t quite adapted to the camps they’d joined, they each felt an odd sorrow; each knew the other was suffering, and each was more saddened by the other’s distress than he was by his own.

  Hikmet Bey bowed and kissed his father’s hand with a more genuine respect than usual; Reşit Pasha did something he’d never done before, he hugged his son, hugged him as if he was a small child.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m well, thank you, how are you, you’re looking well.”

  Reşit Pasha found it unnecessary to mention his worries about the future and even his fear that his life might be in danger.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  After a brief pause, he asked in a hesitant tone:

  “And how are you?”

  Hikmet Bey realized his father was asking about his wound but didn’t want to talk openly about what had happened. He sensed that if he glossed over it now in such a hesitant tone it would remain between them like a ghost they never mentioned, so he answered openly:

  “My wound is completely healed, it aches a little when it’s cold but other than that there’s no problem.”

  “Good, come, let’s get into the carriage, we can talk on the way.”

  They climbed into the carriage, the driver loaded Hikmet Bey’s luggage into the back, and they set off. On account of the snow the usual noisy crowds were absent and the streets seemed deserted. Hikmet Bey wiped the condensation off the window with his buckskin gloves, but all he could see outside was whiteness.