Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  At the same time, his thoughts were on Enver Bey. He and all of his friends knew that the princess, the emperor’s niece, had taken a liking to Enver and had made advances toward him, but that Enver Bey could not respond because of his strict moral code, and he was curious about what was happening upstairs.

  He didn’t have to wait long, Enver Bey returned ten minutes later with a confused expression on his face. He was frowning and blushing.

  Cevat Bey didn’t dare ask him anything, both because of how angry Enver Bey looked and because he’d been brought up to not ask people about their private lives. As they made their way toward the door, their other friends gathered together in various parts of the hall and approached them, there was whispering as they briefly greeted those around them. They went out the door and into a large corridor paved with marble, and not far from them they saw a beautiful woman in a low-cut dress standing on the flight of broad stairs, shouting and pointing Enver Bey out to Necdet Bey, an official from the Ottoman Embassy in Berlin.

  “That man is not human, he’s just a puppet, a puppet!”

  They all nodded in unison to the princess, whose voice was echoing through the corridors, they walked as if they were in a military parade. It was a long time before they learned what had made the princess so angry, but eventually whispers about what had happened began to spread.

  After failing to impress Enver Bey in the crowd as she’d wanted to, she decided to handle the matter alone with him in her own quarters. She greeted Enver Bey in her quarters lying on a sofa in a nightgown that revealed much of her legs and breasts.

  Enver Bey stood before the woman in silence and waited for her to speak.

  When she realized that this Turkish officer wasn’t going to say anything, she was obliged to speak. “I’m quite taken by you, Enver Bey.”

  When he heard this, Enver Bey suddenly stood at attention, greeted the woman with a click of his heels, then turned his back to her and left the room, driving the princess mad with rage. The Ottoman Embassy in Berlin had to work hard to avoid any coldness between the two nations, emphasizing that this behavior had arisen from Ottoman traditions rather than disrespect for the German imperial family.

  When they reached the palace gates they encountered Hulusi Bey, one of Enver Bey’s aides-de-camp, who was out of breath. The young lieutenant gave them the news.

  “Sir, today Hasan Fehmi Bey, the lead journalist of the Serbesti newspaper, was shot on the bridge.”

  Enver Bey said nothing, but one of their colleagues, Cevat Bey couldn’t figure out which one, said in a dry voice:

  “He had it coming.”

  At that moment none of them could have guessed where this incident would lead. Some were openly pleased and others secretly pleased by the death of this young writer who had criticized the Committee so scathingly, and Enver Bey, for his part, was not at all surprised by the assasination, as if he’d known it would occur.

  When they left the palace they went to the apartment that had been made available for Major Enver Bey, who was shown more respect by both the Germans and the staff at the Ottoman Embassy than was usually shown to an ordinary military attache. Cevat Bey, who had come to Berlin to convince Enver Bey to return, once again began to explain the situation to the other officers as clearly as he could.

  “It’s clear we’ve made a serious mistake, we sent our most valuable colleagues out of the country, when we sent Enver Bey here, Fethi Bey to Paris, Hafız İsmail Hakkı Bey to Vienna, and Ali Fuat Bey to Rome we thought that we’d solved everything and that we didn’t need these people at home, now we’re paying the price for this. The reactionaries are gaining strength in the capital, a crank called Derviş Vahdeti has established the Mohammadan Union Society, and even though the military is banned from engaging in politics by a special order, the entire fifth regiment in Istanbul declared that they were joining it. The religious fanatics are objecting to the ministry of war’s decision that they have to pass an exam in order to be exempted from military service, saying that this is an insult to religion and trying to provoke the military.”

  Naci Bey interrupted, acting as if Cevat Bey was defending the religious fanatics.

  “Forget about these knaves, Cevat Bey, they’re clowns, not men of God, these reprobates don’t even know how to read and write, how can an illiterate scoundrel who can’t even read the Koran lead the community? They’re drifters who took shelter in the madrassas to avoid military service.”

  Even though Cevat Bey got angry for a moment, he didn’t let it show.

  “I know this as well as you do, Naci Bey, I was on the committee that demanded a decision be made about this, this isn’t what I’m saying, I’m just explaining the situation to you, I’m telling you that the madrassas are in ferment and that religious fanatics are provoking the military. The officers who didn’t graduate from the military academy but who rose up through the ranks joined those fanatics as well. As the rumor that they are going to be discharged from the army goes around, they’re secretly stirring up trouble in the army, pitting the soldiers against the academy graduates, who they’re portraying as infidel freemasons.”

  Enver Bey, who generally seldom spoke, interrupted in his staccato manner.

  “Are there any officers in the German army who rose up through the ranks without studying at the academy?”

  “No, Enver Bey, and I’m not saying there should be any in our army, but more than a third of our officers rose up through the ranks without studying at the academy, if they rebel it won’t be easy to keep it under control, and what’s worse, our younger officers have lost their authority over the soldiers. Most of them began to neglect their duties after constitutional monarchy was proclaimed, particularly those in Istanbul who abandoned themselves to the pleasures of Beyoğlu, most of them don’t even show up for duty. The soldiers are almost under the complete supervision of the officers who didn’t attend the academy and ignorant sergeants, while the senior officers are sitting on the fence, ready to change sides if it suits them. That is, my fellow officers, the army seems to have been left in the cold, the capital is seething, this is why Enver Bey and the others need to return home at once and take control of the situation, otherwise it will be too late.”

  As usually happens when someone says it will be too late, it was indeed already too late, but, as Cevat Bey later confessed to Osman slowly in a whisper, they seemed content with this. This tardiness would lead to the deaths of a great number of people and leave an indelible and bloody stain on the nation, but it would also allow the Committee to seize the power they’d been seeking so long, and the young officer the German princess had shouted was a puppet would burn himself up like a shooting star that blazed across the night sky.

  After Cevat Bey asked for assurance that Enver Bey would return at once if things became more complicated and Enver Bey said, “Fine, fine,” with a sardonic smile that reflected his sense of his own superiority as it spread across his handsome face, Cevat Bey sensed, as one always does in these strange moments, that what had been a friendship had turned into something else, into a bond in which one party was arrogant and the other submissive, and swallowed the slight sense of hurt and the anger he didn’t allow to show and left Berlin two days later, as Istanbul was preparing for a big demonstration, a funeral, and the beginning of a time when all hell broke loose.

  The rancorous reaction to the killing of a journalist by a nation accustomed and indifferent to death, killing, and murder was in itself a sign that the pain and the rancor were about something more than this assasination. It would take countless murders, deaths, and funerals to calm the city that had risen to its feet over this death and restore its peace, for such a great reaction to a single death to be shown in a nation indifferent to death meant that it would be followed by a great deal of bloodshed.

  On the day the funeral was held, Sultanahmet Square was like a monster with a hundred thousand heads, t
he body that carried those heads was invisible, but the muscles that trembled with rancor and itched for revenge were in every corner of the city, in the soil, in the air, even in the waters that surrounded the city. The rumbling that spread throughout the city from Sultanahmet Square, that strange convulsion that shuddered with irritation, seemed not to come from the people but was more like an earthquake that was preparing to ascend to the surface from the very depths of the earth, seeking to destroy everything and rake the city with its claws, an ogre that shook off the fires of the center of the earth as it emerged.

  On that late March day, when the promise of the fragrance of spring was felt beneath a fragile winter cold, steam composed of human flesh, warmth, and sweat rose from the crowd in Sultanahmet Square; a cloud composed of the smell of raw leather, greasy linen, and dirty clothes hung over the crowd.

  The coffin, draped in green and passing over the hands of a crowd that was rippling with shouts of “God is great,” was like an ill-omened box carrying the entire city’s soul; when they put it into the ground and covered it with dirt, they would not be burying a person, a critical journalist, but the city’s soul, its humanity, and all that remained would be a beastly anger, a savage mass of muscle pulsing with the will to destroy. In a number of different places, a number of different people thought they were the head and soul of this crowd that was preparing to lose its soul and its head, thought they could use their will to influence this body, but they were wrong.

  Despite the angry rumbling that filled the entire city, there was no rage in the eyes of those who followed the mullahs whose black robes had taken on a greasy sheen and who wore scimitars in their belts, the crowd who were so thin their bones seemed sharp enough to pierce their yellowed faces, the unemployed, unshaven, with patched clothing and holes in their shoes, there was only the kind of fear and indecisiveness seen in the eyes of those who were hungry, helpless, and didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. They could start to flee at any moment, or they could attack suddenly; with an indecisive cowardice that didn’t have the power to fly into a rage, there was an uncertainty that made those who saw them want to hide and that was more frightening than the mullahs whose eyes shone with arrogance and confidence as they marched at the head of the funeral procession in their thick robes, those watching the funeral procession felt that the undecided crowd was more dangerous than the determined crowd.

  Even in the funeral call from the mosque that day there was no beseeching God for a blessing for a mortal whose soul was being entrusted to him, there was a plea for help for the desperation and misguided anger of the crowd.

  After the youthful corpse was taken out of the coffin in its snow-white shroud and placed in the grave and after dirt was shovelled onto it to shouts of “God is great,” the crowd dispersed into the streets; they carried their anger, pain, and fear on their backs, diminishing in number on every street as they disappeared into the city. The crowd that had so recently filled the square in such a threatening manner was gone, as if it had died and been buried to be ressurected a few days later; everyone in the crowd was still present in the city, but the crowd was no longer there.

  Hasan Efendi also broke away from the crowd he’d been part of, heading for the tekke to tell his Sheikh what had happened, and more importantly what was going to happen. The Sheikh knew that Hasan Efendi would bring him all the news and tell him everything he’d learned from his mysterious sources and his intuition; Hasan Efendi also knew that Sheikh Efendi had already learned everything he was going to tell him, but that he would not say this, each was curious about where the other obtained this knowledge and were a bit frightened by this mysterious power, but also felt the security of being close to this power.

  They were accustomed to these emotions. They’d been tied up in these emotions for so many years they almost didn’t feel them. It was as if one of them had to be lost or incapacitated in order for them to remember this feeling again.

  Hasan Efendi found the Sheikh on the shore of the Golden Horn, looking out at the water with a fur draped over his shoulders.

  After describing the crowd at the funeral, the way Derviş Vahdeti and Said-i Kurdi wore daggers in their cummerbunds, how angry and agonized the crowd was, and how many sergeants, as well as officers who had risen through the ranks, had attended the funeral in civilian clothes, he passed on the most important information.

  “In a few days there will be a mutiny at the military headquarters, the units that came from Salonika won’t allow sharia to be lost, they’re determined.”

  Hasan Efendi said this in a tone that seemed to beseech the Sheikh to say something in support of this act. Sheikh Efendi sensed this tone and what was being asked of him, but he waited in silence for Hasan Efendi to continue.

  “They will take up their weapons and depart on the path of God.”

  Sheikh Efendi spoke in a flat, emotionless voice, as if he wasn’t objecting to anything, and asked about something that had made him curious.

  “Since when have we set out on the path of God with guns?”

  Sheikh Efendi looked out over the choppy waters that reflected the purple of the evening sky as if he was waiting for a sign to emerge from them. In spite of himself, Hasan Efendi looked at the water, but there was nothing there except the Golden Horn he always saw.

  When he realized that Sheikh Efendi was angry, he continued as if he didn’t agree with what he was relating but only passing on what he’d heard.

  “They’re going to declare jihad.”

  “Against whom?”

  Suddenly Hasan Efendi became excited.

  “Against the freemason, infidel officers, against the Committee members. These officers hang pictures of naked women on the walls, in Beyoğlu Muslim women are going around uncovered, adultery is rampant, no one listens to the decrees issued by His Majesty the Sultan, His Excellency the Caliph, against all of this unbelief . . . ”

  Sheikh Efendi placed his long fingers together, rested them on his chin, and bowed his head; the evening was growing cooler.

  “Why did God make us, so many people, such weak and miserable slaves, why did he create and put these miserable, shiftless wretches on this earth, why are we created with all our defects and faults, with a conscience that suffers from our own misdeeds, stumbling over our sins as we try to perform good deeds?”

  When Sheikh Efendi fell silent, Hasan Efendi worried that he expected him to answer, he tried to think of an answer, but his mind was so full of the prospect of a mutiny in the military that he couldn’t come up with one; in any event Sheikh Efendi continued.

  “Is it or is it not a sin to ask why God does anything, no, it isn’t, if God didn’t want us to ask questions he wouldn’t have given us our minds, he would have created us to be like insects and set us free. No, our Lord created us to ask questions, he wanted to populate the world he created with people who wondered about this great creation, and if you ask why he created us with such defects . . . Yes, he could have made us perfect if he wanted, and since he didn’t, there must be a reason. Of course there’s a reason, why wouldn’t there be one, nothing created perfectly is perfect enough for God. Do you know what’s perfect . . . ? It is the progress toward perfection, through acceptance of the inevitable, through patience and suffering, of those created with defects. The progress made through questioning and searching of the defective slaves he created as his people reveals the power of our Lord. Every step we take toward progress, every idea we have to overcome procrastination, is proof of our Lord’s power.”

  As usual, Hasan Efendi was captivated by the Sheikh’s voice, at first he struggled and flapped about like a bee fallen in water, then he surrendered and flowed with the gurgling; he’d forgotten all the feelings he’d had when he came to see the Sheikh, nothing was left of his rage, of his desire to ask for help to support the mutiny, of the violent joy at the prospect of teaching the infidels a lesson.

  It
was getting dark, the beams of light disappeared in the air before they could arrive on the earth, the lilac-colored dust dispersed as figures turned into shadows; the Sheikh’s hands and face stood out with a fiery whiteness.

  “We don’t need guns, mutiny, and violence, all we need is to think about and work on being better than we are.”

  When Sheikh Efendi turned slowly, sighed, and started making his way back to the tekke, Hasan Efendi trailed behind him, they walked in silence as far as the tekke door; at the door, Sheikh Efendi turned to his son-in-law and spoke in an imperious tone that suited him and the fur he was wearing, the humble tone in which he had spoken a while ago was gone.

  “None of us should involve ourselves in this business, guns are not for us, you need to keep an eye on everyone too, make sure they don’t seduce anyone, particularly the younger members.”

  The penetrating sound of a ney drifted into the cypress-darkening loneliness of the falling, purple-gilded night, the slow, unhurried sorrow of the sacred music that beseeched God pierced the souls of those who heard it, reminded them of their weakness and desolation, and showed the path to God.

  Hasan Efendi leaned against the wall and began listening to the sound that played all by itself as if it was passing through the darkness of the night and rising to another realm that was illuminated by celestial light and where night never fell, freeing himself in the falling darkness from the night, the world, his anger, his bitterness and even his own self.