Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  Blind Ali looked at the crowd with his single eye and there was a strange expression on his face, it was as if he was pleased these people had gathered and wasn’t really aware of what was happening. As the gendarmes dragged him along he suddenly saw the gallows, that ominous noose, the trestle beneath it, and the gypsy executioner waiting for him, he stopped in his tracks; that palsied and crippled body resisted so strongly that the two strong gendarmes could no longer drag him; when the gendarme captain barked an order, a few soldiers with rifles on their backs rushed forward, holding their rifle butts with one hand to keep them from hitting their backs, and grabbed the prisoner’s arms. Blind Ali’s feet swung in the air as they brought him up to the gallows like an old sack.

  It had taken six gendarmes to bring him up to the gallows, but the gypsy, licking his lips as if he was about to have a good meal, seized him by the shoulders and had no trouble lifting him onto the trestle beneath the noose, the madman no longer had the strength to resist, he seemed to shrink and wrinkle and in the end was nothing more than a trembling wretch. He said something, but no one could make out what it was, they heard nothing but a strange bubbling sound.

  The executioner placed the thick noose around Blind Ali’s neck.

  A terrifyingly complete and deathly silence reigned in the square, the only sound was the predatory shrieking of the hungry birds who took flight from the Golden Horn.

  They asked whether he had a final wish.

  Blind Ali tried to say something, but no intelligible words emerged from his mouth.

  When the signal was given for the executioner to carry out the execution, Blind Ali shouted loudly enough for everyone in the square to hear him.

  “There have been revelations!”

  The executioner kicked away the trestle. For a moment Blind Ali remained suspended in the air, he seemed to grow taller, as if he was being stretched, his feet kicked a few times, his entire body was wracked by spasms, then suddenly he relaxed and fell still. His motionless body started swaying at the end of the rope.

  The crowd dispersed in silent fear.

  The death that had been waiting at the gates had entered the city.

  7

  Later Ragıp Bey told Osman, “It was a strange feeling, it was years before I could put a name to it.”

  Ragıp Bey was living the most unsettled period of his life; every day in a different way his soul was pressed by alien and uncertain emotions that left him helpless, and the life he thought he knew so well was constantly presenting him with secrets he couldn’t unravel.

  He escaped his wife’s flesh, which smelled of prayer and incense and seemed alien to human flesh, by telling her that he had to remain at the barracks, then went to Dilara Hanım’s mansion, leaving his mother and his wife, two rigid and uncompromising women, alone together to fester in their hostility to each other.

  Dilara Hanım welcomed him gracefully every time, served drinks, had the servants prepare the most delicious food, she never asked why he hadn’t come sooner, how long he would stay, or when he would come again, she conversed softly with him as if she wanted him to hear the softness of her voice even more, she talked about places she’d seen, people she’d met, books she’d read, and she played the oud and sang. She created a warm, pleasantly scented, and secluded world for Ragıp Bey that always reminded him of candles, the yellowish-red of the burning logs, she made him feel he was master of this world, then she made love to him with a selfish appetite that at times made him feel ashamed and at times annoyed him, but that always made him feel he could never find greater pleasure.

  The next morning a fire would be lit for his bath, he would put on clean underwear from a drawer that had been set aside for him in one of the walnut closets and his uniform, though he was never certain when it had been ironed or who had ironed it, at the breakfast table he sat across from Dilara Hanım, who did not seem worn out from the previous night, her red hair tied up in a bun, wearing a polite smile, and exercising her silent authority by commanding the servants with her eyes rather than with words, he ate his breakfast to the smell of the tea wafting from the samovar that purred like a well-behaved cat and Dilara Hanım’s perfume, which permeated the entire house, then he would leave the reddish light of this peaceful and happy world and be greeted respectfully by the elderly driver as he climbed into the carriage that was waiting ready at the door.

  This peaceful happiness lasted until they reached the street, the pleasant-smelling warmth of the house would be replaced by the cold of the snowy city and he doubted the reality of what he’d experienced the night before, of what he’d done and of their lovemaking; he wanted to return at once, look at Dilara’s face, and believe again that he had touched her naked body.

  This sudden break from the dream world destroyed everything he’d experienced there, it did not allow what had been experienced to accumulate, did not allow one experience to connect to another smoothly, it created a thrilling void between that moment and the previous night and caused him to feel as if he was leaving that void; that void pushed the images of the previous night far away, made them unreachable, and caused him to worry deeply that he might never experience these images again.

  According to Ragıp Bey, the strange and nameless feeling he’d mentioned to Osman was this jarring break he experienced almost every time and the worry that ensued.

  After the carriage left the street he felt something was missing, thought that a sentence that had been uttered hadn’t been uttered, he felt as if Dilara Hanım hadn’t uttered the last sentence and had stopped talking at the end of the conversation.

  Ragıp Bey didn’t know if there’d been a sentence like this, or what it had been if there had been, but the feeling of that unspoken last sentence covered his soul, it erased every sentence he’d heard, it emptied his memory and rendered everything that had been said meaningless.

  Every time he went to the mansion it was to hear that missing sentence, and every time he left without hearing that sentence he felt a void, felt that something was missing.

  The strangest thing was that what connected him to Dilara Hanım wasn’t all of the sentences that had actually been uttered but the unspoken missing sentence about which he knew nothing; one day if he heard the sentence or he thought he heard the sentence, if he didn’t leave the house with that void, that break, that missing thing, it was as if he would not come back to the mansion, or if he did, he would not embrace Dilara Hanım with the same desire, with the lust of someone who wanted to be sure that the body he touched was real.

  During a significant period of his life, Ragıp Bey was the prisoner and pursuer of a sentence that did not exist, of something that was missing, of a void, and he ached with the anxiety of knowing that he was attached to a void.

  The perfect unhappiness of his marriage and the nameless missing thing in his relationship with Dilara Hanım led Ragıp Bey to seek consolation in his work and pay more attention to military discipline and obedience.

  While other officers spent their time discussing politics and enjoying the entertainments Beyoğlu had to offer, he drilled his unit to make it perfect, he didn’t tolerate even the smallest mistake in his command, a slightly untidy bed in the dormitory, an unpolished boot, a loose button on a uniform, the slightest impertinence, he was hard on the junior officers and sergeants, but the efforts of a single officer didn’t mean anything.

  It pained Ragıp Bey to see that the army was on the verge of losing all discipline, the privates had no respect for or trust in the officers, they saw that officers with differing political views hated each other, the soldiers in Istanbul, and particularly the units from Salonica, took advantage of the lack of discipline and began adopting a rebellious attitude.

  There were robed and turbaned mullahs at the headquarters gates, and even within them, most of them never left the Taşkışla barracks where the troops from Salonica were quartered, they took advantage of the off
icers’ indifference and whispered and prayed with the sergeants who were now in control of the soldiers. Young officers and mullahs looked at each other with hatred when they encountered each other at the headquarters gates, but they said nothing; neither side could predict which side the privates would take when a conflict arose. As is usually the case when political will vanishes, the officers who believed they were the secret masters of the empire were facing off against the hodjas.

  Despite how tough he was, even Ragıp Bey couldn’t prevent the mullahs from wandering around within his unit, he was afraid there might be unpleasantness, but he was aware that trouble was coming.

  Once when he was having a heart-to-heart talk with Ibrahim Izzet Bey, one of the officers he trusted, he brought up the subject of the mullahs.

  “What’s going on, there are men with turbans everywhere, this looks more like a religious institution than a military headquarters.”

  İbrahim İzzet Bey sighed deeply.

  “If I trusted the soldiers I would drive those reactionaries out at bayonet point, but to tell the truth, brother, I don’t trust the soldiers, as long as these men are wandering around here holding Korans I doubt they would listen to us. Not long ago a friend told one of these mullahs off, but the sergeants defended him so fiercely he had to back down and walk away, when I say he walked away, he actually ran away, but I don’t even want to say this. He’s not a coward, we fought off a lot of Bulgarians together in Macedonia, quite a few times I saw him go into the bandits’ caves alone. He’s not afraid of death, thank God none of us are like that, he was afraid of being beaten up by his own soldiers, that would be a disgrace worse than death.”

  Ragıp Bey made a face.

  “When the army starts tolerating this kind of disgraceful behavior, there’s no telling where it will lead; I hear things that make me hate the people I hear them from; soldiers are reciting the Koran with mullahs in one room, in another room young officers are being entertained by a belly dancer, on top of that soldiers are pulling guns on each other because of the struggle between the Committee and the Sultan . . . We’ve lost the soldiers’ respect and it will be difficult to win it back. I’m afraid this won’t end without bloodshed, in the end we’re going to have to shoot our own soldiers.”

  Less than a week after this conversation, what Ragıp Bey had feared came to pass. One morning as he was writing out the drill schedule he heard a commotion outside, there was shouting and swearing and a general tumult unusual for a military headquarters; he tightened his bandolier and threw his greatcoat over his shoulders.

  Two groups of soldiers were facing each other with pointed guns, one group was led by young officers and the other by three burly sergeants.

  The senior sergeant was shouting like a hoodlum in a street fight.

  “You want to send us off to Arabia while you stay here and fool around with cotton-soft women. We fought in the mountains of Macedonia, a lot of us were killed there. We’re not going anywhere, enough is enough, let someone else go. No one is strong enough to get us out of Istanbul. We’ll go above your heads to the Caliph, to our father the Sultan.”

  An irritated young officer tried to control his anger.

  “Sergeant, this is the army, we all obey orders here, don’t turn this place into a madhouse. You’ve received your reassignment orders, get ready, then get going, otherwise this isn’t going to end well.”

  The sergeant had no intention of backing down, he seemed sure that no one could touch him.

  “If we were scared of cowards we’d be cowards, mister officer, no one here is afraid of trouble. From now on the only way we leave here is on a stretcher, we’ve made up our minds, we won’t take even a single step. Let them cancel the reassignment.”

  “Sergeant, you’re inciting the soldiers to mutiny, this is a very serious charge, I’m warning you for the last time, get your soldiers in line, obey your orders.”

  “It’s not going to be that easy, mister officer, we want to see our father the Sultan. We’re not going into the deserts of Arabia on the orders of some Masonic officer . . . Let’s see if you can make us go.”

  It was snowing, snow had accumulated on the two cannon in the corner and their dark mouths had become blacker, the snow on the rooves of the headquarters buildings took on a leaden color as they reflected the grey of the sky; soldiers in grey coats squinted against the snowflakes, pointing rifles at each other and waiting anxiously to see what would happen.

  There was a brief silence, the young officers felt they were approaching the point of no return; after a few anxious moments of hesitating between the obligation to maintain discipline and their anger at this insubordination and having to take responsibility for shedding blood, one of the young officers shouted,“Sergeant get your soldiers in line and obey your orders at once. Now leave headquarters immediately and form ranks in front of the gate!”

  “We’re not going anywhere . . . We want to see our father the Sultan . . . ”

  The officer turned to his soldiers and commanded them in a stern and decisive tone,“Load and aim!”

  The barracks suddenly filled with the unnerving sound of gun mechanisms, a few birds took flight from the rooftops in fear.

  As Ragıp Bey was stepping in to intervene, one of the sergeants shouted, “God is great!” and at the same moment the young officer shouted, “Fire!”

  Two of the sergeants fell on their faces and the third fell on his back as if they’d been cut down by a scythe, they fell without moving, five of the soldiers behind them fell in a twisted heap, the others threw down their rifles and raised their hands.

  Ragıp Bey rubbed his forehead for a moment then rushed over to the young officers.

  “Arrest the soldiers who surrendered, get the wounded to the infirmary immediately.”

  Meanwhile more officers came running from every corner of the barracks; Ragıp Bey saw that a young lieutenant had ordered the feet of the three dead sergeants to be bound.

  “What’s going on, Lieutenant, why are their feet being tied?”

  “I’m going to hang them in front of the gate, Major. As an example for anyone else considering mutiny.”

  Ragıp Bey made an angry face.

  “Are you crazy, Lieutenant, these are your own men.”

  “You saw what they did, Major, they mutinied against the army.”

  The other young officers gathered around the lieutenant, they supported their colleague, it was clear they wanted the sergeants to be strung up in front of the gate, they seemed prepared to disobey superior officers as the sergeants had just done; Ragıp Bey put his hand on his pistol just in case.

  “This isn’t some rowdy fairground, this is the army. We have rules about life and death here, Lieutenant!”

  Without waiting for the lieutenant’s answer he turned to a nearby captain.

  “Send news to the Army Commander Muhtar Pasha at once, bring the bodies inside, post sentries to guard them. Don’t let anyone in without my express order. Tell the guards that anyone approaching the bodies without my orders is to be shot.”

  The major realized that the young lieutenants’ inexperience would inflame the soldiers even more and that if they dragged this out, things would get worse, he ordered the soldiers to carry the bodies inside at once and for the wounded to be brought to the infirmary.

  Ragıp Bey shouted at the top of his voice.

  “Disperse . . . Everyone go back to their own units, no one is to leave headquarters. The Pashas will arrive soon to conduct an inquiry.”

  Only then did the officers realize the enormity of what had happened, they dispersed wearily, concealing their anger and disquiet.

  That night Ragıp Bey left headquarters to go to Cağaloğlu to see his brother Cevat Bey, who’d come to Istanbul with other leading Committee members who’d been especially chosen for this assignment.

  The two brothers
hadn’t seen each other for some time and embraced affectionately, and felt glad of the security of having a brother they could embrace freely and lovingly during this struggle they’d become involved in.

  “How are you, Ragıp?”

  Ragıp Bey looked at his brother and saw that his gaze was sterner, that there were more lines on his forehead, and that an authority resembling old age had settled in his young face.

  “Thanks, brother, I’m fine . . . You seem well too.”

  “How is Mother? I haven’t been able to see her for a while, I’ve been so caught up in this turmoil that I forgot to even go visit my mother.”

  “Mother is well too, I can’t go see her very often either, most of the time I’m at headquarters.”

  Cevat Bey looked at his brother’s face as if he was trying to find something concealed there.

  “How’s the wife?”

  “She’s fine too brother, she sends her regards.”

  Ragıp Bey cut the niceties short and got straight to the point.

  “Did you hear about what happened today, brother?”

  Cevat Bey made a face.

  “I heard . . . Disgraceful . . . The sergeants died, didn’t they?”

  “Yes they did. What’s going on, where’s all this heading? There’s no discipline left in the army, we can’t get the young officers away from the women.”

  Ragıp Bey fell silent, even as he was saying this he remembered Dilara Hanım’s face and blushed, but he hadn’t been neglecting his duties so he continued.

  “Headquarters is being run by the hodjas, the sergeants and privates listen to them, they hate Committee members more than they hate Bulgarians. Three sergeants died today, more will die tomorrow, don’t you people see what’s going on?”

  Cevat Bey sighed and smiled.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Ragıp Bey realized he was very hungry, and also that his brother was smiling because he remembered their mother’s question.