Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  That night he woke shouting.

  His wife woke as well, she looked at Sheikh Efendi, who was sitting up, covered in sweat, and asked what the matter was. Sheikh Efendi was evasive.

  “Nothing, I was having a nightmare but I don’t remember it.”

  Then he put on his cloak, went down to the zikr room, which was illuminated by a single candle, and began to recite the Koran aloud. The only thing that calmed his soul a bit was reciting the Koran, to listen to God’s voice and feel its existence, then his own existence became smaller and less significant in the face of divine power, and so his pain and his sins diminished slightly.

  Without realizing it, he always recited verses that talked about hell; in fact his suffering, shame, and fear of sin had nothing to do with the fear of going to hell, if he believed that he would pay for the sins he carried in his soul by burning in hell, he would be relieved by the thought of having paid for his sins even if God were to appear suddenly in that dark hall illuminated by a single candle, open hell in front of the Sheikh and throw him into the flames.

  Like everyone who truly believes, Sheikh Efendi did not fear God’s anger and wrath, what he really feared was to make the Creator ashamed of what he’d created, to fall from his grace and believe he did not deserve God’s love and compassion anymore. He was in love with God, and his sinful desire for a woman, moreover a woman who was forbidden to him, was so shameful and scorching because he saw it as a betrayal of his true love.

  He didn’t tell anyone about the dream he had that night, he didn’t even allude to it, it was only one day years later that he told Osman about the dream he’d never forgotten.

  “I saw Jesus Christ in my dream, he was climbing the hill with his cross on his back, I was watching him from one side, there were two women with me, I don’t remember their faces, they mocked Jesus Christ. Then, because it was a dream, I became the one who was carrying the cross, I was both the person watching and the person carrying the cross, then I felt myself being pulled by the arms and nailed to the cross, I felt that pain, when I woke I looked at my palms, as sleepy as I was, I saw blood, I remembered that dream for years and always thought that perhaps there really was blood on my palms when I woke.”

  For his part, Osman didn’t remember the pain experienced by his great grandfather, who was so frightened of sin, but he did remember the lie he’d told, he was sure that his great grandfather remembered the faces of the two women in the dream, but the sheikh hadn’t wanted to admit this even after he was dead.

  That same night, Osman’s other grandfather Reşit Pasha also woke up in a sweat, but he knew what he’d seen and didn’t try to conceal this from himself. As usual he saw Mihrişah Sultan completely naked and was consumed by the terrible longing that occasionally comes to and unsettles people who carry a love that has diminished but that will never burn out.

  He put his Damascene sweater on over his nightshirt, went to the selamlik, and sat on a sofa next to the window in the hall overlooking the sea. He was accustomed to these sudden longings, the sudden combustion of a love; he knew it would pass, but until it did it would be harrowing. Each time they appeared, these longings left behind a wearier and sadder man.

  Just as Sheikh Efendi reached for the Koran to alleviate his desperation, he too reached for his book, Naima’s History, which was always left open next to that sofa; just as God’s voice made Sheikh Efendi aware that his pain was insignificant and that he was powerless and inadequate, Reşit Pasha saw his transience and insignificance when he listened to the voice of history.

  To see that so many of the people flowing through the pages of this history book, this terrifying multitude of dead people, whatever the things or events they’d found important, whatever loves or hates they’d experienced, were now lost in eternal darkness with whatever feelings they’d had, whispered to Reşit Pasha that he was a very insignificant part of this great current and that one day he too would vanish into eternity.

  Listening to the sound of the unceasing and bitter late winter wind that whipped up the waves that crashed against the waterfront mansion, he felt smaller and less significant with each line and each page he read. At that moment, the only consolation he could find for the pain he suffered on that lonely, blustery night, the only remedy, was to see the void waiting for each person and to realize that life and indeed he himself were temporary.

  In order to recover from their dreams about Mihrişah Sultan, to calm their longing and desire for this beautiful woman and at least slightly ease their suffering, each man sheltered either in God or in history according to his own temperament. Like seriously ill patients, they struggled to decrease the value and the weight of the pain, they waited for morning with the same burning anguish, completely unaware of each other.

  When morning seeped into the darkness, it found both of these men weary, wounded, and pale. With the help of God and history, they’d been able to quiet themselves, gather the sorrow that had overflowed from their souls, and hide it deep within themselves. No one saw how much they’d suffered the previous night, only those who saw the pallor of their skin and the dark rings under their eyes might have guessed that Sheikh Efendi and Reşit Pasha had had a bad night, and those who saw this weariness saw something holy in it; they thought the Sheikh had spent a sleepless night in prayer and the doctor had been up tending to a patient. They would have been correct in this assumption. The Sheikh had indeed spent the night in prayer and the doctor had spent the night tending to a patient, but the reason for the prayer and the identity of the patient were other than what they’d thought; as is often the case, the reality that people saw contained a lie as great as the reality despite all of its reality. As Reşit Pasha said later, “No reality is real enough.”

  Mihrişah Sultan, however, was not even aware of the sinful storms she’d caused in the souls of these two men. She didn’t care about Reşit Pasha’s suffering, she felt for him the selfish anger and contempt that women feel for men they don’t love but who insist on loving them, and she couldn’t believe that Sheikh Efendi would suffer in this manner. Despite her confidence in her own beauty, the strange untouchability that Sheikh Efendi wrapped himself in when he met another mortal, the power that reflected the strength of his faith, made it impossible for her to even imagine that Sheikh Efendi could suffer over a woman.

  She would go visit him as soon as possible, Yusuf Efendi, with his black cloak, white forelock, almost transparent pale skin, and symmetrical face, was the most unreachable man she’d ever met; there was an impossibility emanating from the Sheikh’s being that attracted every woman who saw him. Most women retreated in the face of this impossibility, frightened of committing the sin of tempting a man of religion, but women like Mehpare Hanım and Mihrişah Sultan, whose being centered almost completely on their own beauty, could not resist the temptation of trying to penetrate the Sheikh’s soul.

  For Mihrişah Sultan, Sheikh Efendi’s presence in the city had become part of its charm, and just as she’d made the whole city look at her even in these complicated times, she wanted to make the Sheikh look at her and to shake him up just as she’d shaken up the city.

  After she’d settled into the waterfront mansion in Kanlıca, where life was quiet and uneventful, with a splendor that made the young women and maids in the neighboring mansions gather by their windows and provided new material for coffee-house gossip for days, she sent a message to her son, calling him to come see her.

  As Hikmet Bey had guessed that his mother’s arrival would be ostentatious, that she would have planned a show to take revenge on the Sultan for having exiled her from the city, demonstrating that he no longer had any power over her or over the city, he hadn’t gone to the harbor to greet her. Hikmet Bey had neither the power nor the desire she had to use crowds as a mirror to reflect her own beauty and power.

  Therefore he waited to see her until she’d moved into her waterfront mansion.

  Th
e first meeting between mother and son since that awful incident took place amidst the running butlers, panicked servants, rushing housekeepers, French handmaids who looked at everything in surprise and gasped frequently, unpacked chests, and furniture being moved, was not at all as they’d expected. Mihrişah Sultan looked her son over carefully and said, “You look well,” then kissed him softly on the cheek. In this unaccustomed manner, her habit of not allowing any incident to outshine her own being, her anger at her son for having attempted suicide on account of another woman, and the slight distaste she had for men she found weak also played a part; she couldn’t overcome these feelings even in the case of her own son.

  For her part, Rukiye embraced her stepfather with all her strength and pressed him into her chest. She embraced that man who had become accustomed to not being loved with a submission that gradually made him sadder and sadder, like a small child.

  Rukiye truly loved Hikmet Bey, and everything required for a perfect love was contained in her love: she appreciated his knowledge, his kindness, his unexaggerated politeness, the courage he had in both politics and love and that no one noticed, his honesty, and the way he kept his pain to himself. She’d observed him for years, and with her natural instincts and the understanding that had been deepened by her conversations with Professor Koncharov and the novels she’d read, she decided that Hikmet Bey deserved every kind of admiration. When this admiration was enhanced by the compassion she felt for people who’d received blows they didn’t deserve, the guilt she felt for her mother’s sake, and her own strong and determined nature, it turned into an almost motherly love. She saw her stepfather almost as a son and wanted to protect and console him. During that brief but powerful embrace, both of them felt that love and accepted their new relationship, and this acceptance increased and strengthened their love even more.

  Mihrişah Sultan, who had never been fond of displays of affection, practically dragged Hikmet Bey from Rukiye’s arms and said, “Come, there are people I’d like to introduce you to.”

  Nearby, the French ladies in waiting, who responded to this magical city, whose colors, smells, people, mosques, and sea views had transported them at first sight into an oriental fairy tale, watched with delighted surprise as the Sultan and Hikmet Bey approached them. They were all very beautiful, and even though Mihrişah Sultan had never once spoken about what he’d gone through, they knew all about it. Family secrets that were never spoken of explicitly wandered through houses like ghosts without being seen or even heard with a persistence no one could understand, people learned of them without even knowing where or from whom they heard about them, and Hikmet Bey’s story was one of these silently disseminated family secrets.

  Like the nuns in Salonika, the French ladies in waiting were also impressed by the adventure and pain of this pale, handsome man who’d shot himself because of a woman. As they laughed among themselves with the giddiness seen in many who find themselves in a new life in a new city, they suddenly, when they saw Mihrişah Sultan and Hikmet Bey approaching, with amazing rapidity that anyone who didn’t witness it would find difficult to believe, stopped being frivolously childish and became solemn ladies; they wore mature smiles on faces flushed with youthful merriment and a mysterious gaze that could be described as melancholy replaced the mischievous look in their eyes as they tidied the unruly forelocks that had escaped their buns and fell over their shiny foreheads, they stopped waving their arms in circles silently as they excitedly pointed out to one another everything they saw, clasped their crumpled handkerchiefs in their hands, curtseyed slightly, and greeted those who were approaching them with a small nod; Mihrişah Sultan introduced her son to each of the young girls, who were all from the leading aristocratic families of Paris.

  Suddenly encountering again the strange and impressive combination of politeness, innocence, and mischievous coquettishness that he’d seen in his youth in the aristocratic young ladies he’d met in Paris, Hüseyin Hikmet Bey felt two contradictory and indeed almost opposite feelings. While his soul, traumatized by betrayal, suffering, and sorrow was refreshed and rejuvenated by these girls’ very existence, by their laughter and clever witticisms, the overwhelming desperation and weariness brought about by comparing his current condition to their youth made him feel old. For the first time he thought about old age; for a moment he was shaken by the repugnance and enormity of what he felt and stumbled slightly.

  What saved him was his mother’s mocking voice.

  “Hikmet, you’re not going to pay these ladies a compliment they’ll never forget by fainting, are you?”

  When Hüseyin Hikmet Bey looked at his mother’s face and saw her stunning beauty and seemingly eternal youth, he realized how strange his anxiety about old age was and pulled himself together.

  Mihrişah Sultan went over next to the window and turned to Hikmet Bey.

  “Can we see that old fool’s palace from here?”

  Hikmet Bey, who had pulled himself together, smiled malevolently.

  “Are you asking about His Majesty the Caliph’s palace, Mother?”

  “Is there any other old fool who has a palace in this city, or at least a palace as big as his?”

  “On a clear day you can see it from here, but you can’t see it today.”

  These meaningless exchanges that are only encountered at family reunions, small clashes that no one cared about, teasing, secret concerns that were unspoken but felt, a deep, established, and well-rooted love felt in the emphasis on a word, the encouraging jokes of French ladies in waiting, all of this softened the sorrow that had come to dominate his personality, his existence, and his very fabric, and, even if only briefly, allowed room for merriment, and as soon as this merriment emerged, a Parisian lothario, a witty gentleman, a spoilt child, and an arrogant son of a pasha appeared, sometimes in order and sometimes individually, and trotted out amusing utterances in French that, like an unforgettable childhood memory, never got rusty and always remained light and fresh, and, unlike his adult and sober Ottoman, reflected the flirtatiousness of a carefree young man.

  This banter pleased Mihrişah Sultan because it indicated that her son could “forget that woman” and recover and it amused the hot-blooded French ladies in waiting, but Rukiye, who loved his pain more than anything else and who always wanted to see the mature sorrow in Hikmet Bey, was saddened by it.

  When dinner was announced, Hikmet Bey was speaking with the French ladies in waiting about Paris, learning from them about developments in the city he’d fallen in love with, mocking their ignorance as he answered their questions about Istanbul, telling sardonic anecdotes about old pashas that made them burst into laughter, occasionally telling them about a mysterious murder, ghosts wandering the city streets at night, and legends about how the Prophet flew over the city when Mehmet the Conquerer took it, smiling at their wide-eyed response.

  Despite how much everyone moved around during the course of the conversation, Mademoiselle de Lorenz, one of the most attractive of the girls, managed to stand next to Hikmet Bey or to sit in the armchair next to his, and all the while he smelled her jasmine perfume, which made him feel as if the warmth of her body was touching his, causing him to experience an unnamable excitement.

  The dinner was a full Ottoman feast, with different flavors refined from Armenian, Greek, Arabian, Kurdish, and Turkish cuisines in a variety of consistencies and colors, a true adventure had been prepared for the French palate; Circassian chicken, pilaf with cream, the cold dishes that were brought to the table glittering like gold, lamb stew that smelled of thyme and melted in the mouth, sherbets and pastries with pistachios and walnuts were brought to the table to the surprised gasps of the French girls. The wine served with these dishes lent a French atmosphere to these Ottoman flavors. Everyone spoke only in French, this harmonious language reminded Hikmet Bey of his youth, and also of how much Mehpare Hanım had loved it.

  At one point Hikmet Bey turned to his mot
her.

  “Do you know, anything that reminds me of Paris makes me excited and happy, makes me forget all my troubles.”

  Rukiye interrupted with a long face, as if the merriment at the table bothered her.

  “But you never come to Paris.”

  Mihrişah Sultan smiled with her usual mocking coldness.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t want to forget his pain.”

  Mademoiselle de Lorenz, who had managed to sit next to Hikmet Bey at dinner as well, leaned toward him and whispered in a tone that no one else could hear, as if this was a sign of an intimacy between them that set them apart from everyone else at the table, asking, “Are you really so fond of your pain?”

  Hikmet Bey nodded, embarrassed by this public display of intimacy and troubled by this embarrassment.

  “Be assured, mademoiselle, that I’m not fond of my pain, I know it too well to be fond of it. Don’t pay attention to what my mother says, she likes to mock me, or rather she likes to mock all men, and besides, I’m no longer devoted to my pain.”

  The girl was truly surprised by this.

  “You were once devoted to your pain?”

  “Sometimes pain seems as if it’s part of the person who caused it, detaching yourself from the pain feels like detaching yourself from that person. Anyway, to speak of pain with a young lady such as yourself would be to risk being boring, and this is a risk I dare not take. Let’s drop the subject, what do you think of the food, do you like it?”

  Mademoiselle de Lorenz looked into his eyes just long enough to let him know she’d understood, smiled, and nodded as if she wanted to change the subject.