Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  “How are you, Hatice Hanım?”

  “I’m well, praise God.”

  Her tone had the cold and suffocating resentment of a woman who’s been betrayed, who felt completely alone because in her eyes it was not just her man who’d betrayed her but everyone, and indeed even life itself, and which combined a pleading for some hope of emerging from this desperation with hatred for having been dragged into this desperation in the first place.

  For her this betrayal was like a ring of fire around a scorpion, it set her apart from anyone who had not experienced betrayal and left her alienated. This was a desolate solitude that no other living creature could enter, that no one could know except those who had been betrayed. The jealousy she felt toward the other woman didn’t suffice to fill the volume of the desolation in which she lived her life, she nourished a jealousy toward anyone who hadn’t been betrayed, they all possessed the same wickedness and treachery, and this made her selfish and malevolent. Because she felt that she wanted to beg to be rid of this desolation and enmity that wrapped her body and soul like gigantic strips of seaweed that did not allow her to surface and breathe, she had to remain cold and distant to avoid doing so.

  Ragıp Bey saw that his wife wasn’t even going to ask how he was, she was denying him even a simple greeting, she remained motionless as if she wanted him to leave right away; fate had brought them together in such a way that for one of them to be happy, the other definitely had to be unhappy.

  When these two people whose emotions, wants, and loves were very reasonable and right came together, they turned into two murderers who met in a misty darkness, the one who wanted to keep his happiness alive had to kill the other’s happiness.

  “I’m going to Salonika, I’ll be leaving soon, I came to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  For those who betray, betrayal itself is not enough, they become selfish enough to ask the person they betrayed not to be upset about this, not to suffer, not to allow their pain to cast a shadow on the pleasure they’re experiencing with someone else they love. They want the person they’ve betrayed to clean up the mournful shadow that betrayal created and that has seeped into the lives of both the betrayed and the betrayer, that they spare the betrayer from guilt and pangs of conscience, the shame of unjustly having upset someone; they consider it permissible to debase themselves before the person they betrayed, to make this person pity them, to try to get a kiss by being laughably frivolous, but the person they betrayed will never give them this gift; the person who was betrayed never voluntarily surrenders this last weapon to the person who betrayed them. When Ragıp Bey set out on a journey into the unknown on the night the city was shaken by the mutiny, he tried to make her pity him to get the gift he wanted without realizing he was doing so; if he had realized what he was doing he would never have done it, but at that moment he was so in need of a smile from this woman who had grown cold in her own sorrow, wanted so much for his conscience to be eased by this woman who read the Koran alone in a cold room, that he could not contain himself.

  “Fighting seems inevitable, I might never come back, give me your blessing.”

  He never forgot Hatice Hanım’s answer.

  “I have no claim to you.”

  Ragıp Bey looked at his wife’s belly, but he realized it would be inappropriate to say anything about the baby that was about to be born.

  “I won’t disturb you any further, goodbye.”

  Hatice Hanım had already picked up her Koran and begun reading again, she didn’t find it necessary to raise her head.

  “Good luck.”

  When he left the tekke, the mutineers’ celebratory gunfire flashed like deadly fireflies with a ceaseless booming over the city that had turned its lights out, and thousands of bullets left red lines streaking behind them. The soldiers could find no other way to celebrate their temporary victory than to create an alarming cacophony, to frighten those who didn’t share their enthusiasm.

  He walked along the shore of the Golden Horn as it murmured and gurgled occasionally as if it was telling a fairy tale thousands of years old that no one was listening to; as he passed the darkened houses on his way to Edirnekapı, the image of Hatice Hanım reciting the Koran in her deep and bitter voice in that dim room made him want to go to her, throw himself at her feet, and beg for forgiveness. He sensed this was a temporary feeling, that there was another image beneath the deaths he’d seen all day, beneath the sense of having been defeated by the mutineers and all the sadness that encircled his neck like a noose as he walked those pitch-dark streets, and that this image made everything feel more bitter than it actually was; if that morning when he’d looked out the carriage to wave for the last time he’d seen Dilara Hanım instead of empty steps, he would still have been upset about what he’d experienced, but he would not have felt so lost, disappointed, and alone.

  When he arrived at the stable in Edirnekapı he was perspiring despite the coolness of the night; in the stable, where saddles, stirrups, and crops hung from the wall, there was a heavy warmth that smelled of animals and dung; the wet sounds the horses made as they crunched the straw in front of them was mixed from time to time with the sound of horses rubbing themselves against wooden posts and the brief, irritable neighing of a stallion.

  Şükrü Bey was leaning against the wall of the ostlers’ room near the entrance, smoking a cigarette and waiting for Ragıp Bey, when he saw him coming he tossed his cigarette impatiently on the ground and crushed it with the toe of his boot.

  “You’re late.”

  “I had to walk, are the horses ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Şükrü Bey called into the ostlers’ room.

  “İsmail. My friend is here, bring the horses.”

  A short man with a heavily wrinkled face emerged from the ostlers’ room, glanced at Ragıp Bey as if to decide whether he deserved a horse, walked into the darkness in the back of the stable, returned a while later with two horses, and held the horses’ heads tightly so they could mount.

  After they mounted their horses, Şükrü Bey gave something to İsmail.

  “Thanks, İsmail, take care.”

  “Good luck, sir.”

  Without saying anything to each other as they left the stable, they both galloped their horses, they wanted to be part of an army, to receive orders, to command soldiers who would immediately obey their orders and to overcome the shame of this defeat. As they moved away from the walls of the city, Ragıp Bey thought he’d left Dilara Hanım all alone in this chaotic city without even being able to tell her he was leaving.

  The gunfire continued all night in the city, and thousands of bullets rained down on the rooftops, rattling like dead birds, these were the cartridges of the soldiers who were frightened by their victory and who fired to encourage themselves and celebrate the pleasure of freedom, but all night Dilara Hanım heard the sound of death in those gunshots; she thought that Ragıp Bey was in the middle of this conflict, that he was in danger, and she was worried.

  She was unaccustomed to worrying about men, and these ambiguous feelings that wandered through her like seabirds without ever landing, with quick jabs like those of a sharp trowel making a statue out of a sand dune, turned into a deep longing and a love she believed she must hold on to; the places in her soul that his presence could not fill were filled more powerfully by his absence.

  She remembered with deep longing all of the things about Ragıp Bey that she liked, his honesty, his boldness, the silence that did not seek a response to his feelings, the kindness this silence expressed and that asked no questions, his body, which knew when to be brutal and when to be tender in bed, and remembered with compassion the things about him she didn’t like, his deep ignorance about literature, his terse, harsh manner of speaking that made it seem he was afraid to use big words, the lack of flexibility seen in those raised with strict discipline. In life, when time
was divided into slices and each slice had a different light, Ragıp Bey was flawless in some slices of time and lacking in others, but now she saw him by the unquenchable light of death and saw only a brave, honorable person. This eternal light shone on his admirable traits, his faults turned into lovable transgressions that deserved to be forgiven, that even gave him a naivete, an innocence, that enhanced his charm.

  At another time, she would have realized where she would be carried by the marvelous combination of longing and compassion for a man, she would either have distanced herself from it because it would inevitably have led her to fall in love or she would have taken the time to examine whether these feelings were as real as they seemed, but that night, when the city was as frightened as a child, she arduously abandoned herself to these feelings. She allowed her feelings to mingle and grow, she nourished them like a mother’s womb; perhaps she missed having feelings for a man, perhaps she felt it would be a mean betrayal to quench the growing love she felt for someone she worried might die; she would never know.

  She woke the next morning to screams and coarse shouting. She rushed out of bed, ran to the window, and saw that three marines from the marine unit stationed at the shipyards had cornered the Greek servant, they’d pushed her against the iron bars of the fence and were trying to lift her skirts. She put her abiya on over her nightgown, rushed outside barefoot, her anger gave her the strength to push open the heavy iron gate by herself, and she shouted at the top of her lungs, “Leave that girl alone!”

  The three inebriated marines had been drinking all night, when they were confronted by a Muslim woman shouting at them they stopped for a moment, they couldn’t decide whether to withdraw or to carry on with this despicable act. The seven-hundred-strong unit of marines from the shipyards were notorious for their depravity and hooliganism; they smoked hashish, were entertained by belly dancers and slept with boys in their barracks, frightened the tradesmen and collected protection money. None of the other soldiers taking part in the mutiny molested any women, it was only these marines from the shipyards, who drank wine laced with opium as they walked the streets shouting, “We want sharia,” who harassed women who hadn’t covered their heads. Now they were being confronted by a Muslim woman, and harassing a Muslim woman, especially during a mutiny that was calling for “sharia,” could be problematic.

  Dilara Hanım saw that the marines were indecisive and continued to shout at them, as she shouted she expected people in the vicinity to hear her and come to her aid.

  “Get the hell out of here, is it sharia to attack women?”

  Dilara Hanım’s gardener and servants came rushing out, and the angry faces of servants appeared in the doorways of neighboring mansions.

  Hikmet Bey heard the commotion and went to the window, and when he saw the three mutineers, the shouting woman in her abiya, and the crying Greek servant, he flew into a rage as if his own family was being attacked.

  The silent anger that had lain dormant under his meekness and his settled tranquility rose from within him, unthinkingly he took his gun, which he had not used for a long time, from the drawer, put it in his belt, and, shouting, “Come with me,” rushed downstairs and out to the neighboring mansion’s gate; his servants and workers followed him, sharing his anger.

  “What’s going on here, are these men harassing you, madam?”

  The marines gripped their rifles tightly, and, their eyes red from sleeplessness and drink, they looked around at the crowd gathering around them, the elegantly dressed Hikmet Bey, Dilara Hanım in her stylish abiya, and tried to decide what to do. They felt that if they beat one person in the crowd, the rest would flee, but there was a Muslim woman in an abiya present, if word spread that the marines from the shipyard harassed a Muslim woman they might be in a world of trouble, in these days when officers were being hunted like birds, the entire city had become a hunting ground, they could be killed for nothing, no one was going to care about three hooligans.

  Hikmet Bey turned suddenly and scolded the marines.

  “How dare you disturb one of the Caliph’s slaves in his own capital, do you know the penalty for harassing a Muslim woman?”

  When the marines heard precisely what they’d feared hearing, one of them objected half-heartedly.

  “We didn’t say anything to the Muslim woman, we were just covering the head of the other woman who wasn’t wearing a scarf.”

  “The woman without a scarf, the Greek servant, is also His Majesty the Caliph’s slave, get out of here and don’t come back, this is a respectable and honorable neighborhood, there’s no place for hooligans here.”

  When the marines realized that the fun was over and things were starting to get ugly, they grumbled that the woman shouldn’t have gone out with her head uncovered, swaggered to the end of the street, raised their rifles and fired a few bullets into the air, and disappeared from view shouting, “We want sharia.”

  When they heard the gunfire, the servants retreated to the mansions and closed the doors.

  Dilara Hanım turned to Hikmet Bey.

  “Thank you, sir, thanks to you we escaped being harmed by these hooligans.”

  “Don’t mention it, ma’am, I did nothing, they would have left in any event, they wouldn’t have dared to harass a Muslim woman. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. You must be Reşit Pasha’s son Hikmet Bey, I’d heard you moved in but haven’t had the opportunity to meet you. Would you like some coffee?”

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “Please, it’s no imposition at all.”

  Dilara Hanım sent her servants back inside and scolded the Greek servant girl.

  “Why did you go out with your head uncovered?”

  “When the cook said we were out of salt, I ran to the grocery store on the corner . . . ”

  “Until I say otherwise, none of the women are to leave the house, the men can do anything that needs to be done outside the house.”

  When they went into the living room together, both of them were pale from what had just happened and took occasional deep breaths. Now that it was over, they could better see how dire the situation had been, only now could they think about what would have happened if one of the marines had pointed a gun at them; while it was happening, they’d experienced everything at a fast pace without noticing the details, as if they were looking out a train window. Their emotions had flowed chaotically like a changing landscape, fear and agitation had not taken on a distinct form, but now they paused and looked more carefully at what had just happened.

  “Our girl’s thoughtlessness placed you in danger. You put yourself at risk for us.”

  “Not at all, they were frightened when they saw you and realized what they were doing. You could have handled the situation without me, but when I saw them at your gate with their guns I couldn’t hold myself back. I have to admit that your presence encouraged me, to tell the truth, if I hadn’t seen you there I might have hesitated to go out, but I felt you were more intimidating to them than I was.”

  Dilara Hanım involuntarily compared Ragıp Bey when he’d rescued her from those two hoodlums and Hikmet Bey’s behavior when he’d defended her against the marines. Once Hikmet Bey said to Osman, “They always compare, women always compare men to each other.” Of course she appreciated the kindness of what he said, how he’d played down his role and his courage and how he’d stressed that her own response in the face of grave danger was equal to his, but she’d been more impressed by Ragıp Bey’s wildness, the way he was prepared to test his courage and manhood at any moment and the way he’d challenged not only the hoodlums he’d beaten up but the woman he’d rescued, she liked the man’s wildness.

  The servants tried to overcome the effects of the incident, struggled to keep their hands from trembling as they brought the coffee. Dilara Hanım uncovered her head and combed her unruly hair back with her fingers.

&n
bsp; “Excuse the state I’m in, I don’t know how I went out like that, with my hair a mess, when I heard the screams . . . ”

  “Please, ma’am, I shouldn’t have imposed on you like this, I was just going to stay a moment.”

  “Please, drink your coffee.”

  Dilara Hanım rose to her feet as she spoke, glanced surreptitiously in the gilded mirror, and tidied her hair without letting Hikmet Bey notice.

  “With your permission, I’ll go change, I’ll be right back, please feel at home.”

  When Dilara Hanım left, Hikmet Bey picked up his cup, went to the large window, and looked out at the garden as he drank his coffee, it seemed so quiet, as if nothing had just happened there. When he heard the door open he turned and said, “What a lovely garden you have,” but it was not Dilara Hanım standing in the doorway.

  From time to time when Hikmet Bey looked at someone or something, he didn’t see the whole but only a part and, strangely, formed a bond more quickly when he saw a part rather than the whole; now he saw a pair of hands holding a book; the ends of the index fingers curled slightly toward the middle fingers, the knuckles bulged slightly, they were long and white, and the most innocent hands he’d ever seen. He raised his eyes from the hands to the face to the long, curly brown hair draped over one shoulder and falling over her chest, her chin was slightly pointed, she had an oval face with a large forehead, thick eyebrows that reached her temples, crystal clear, black eyes with a direct gaze: a young girl’s face. Standing in the doorway was young girl with the boldness and purity of those who don’t have a relationship with life, whose strong upbringing led her to conceal her arrogance and whose indifference and untouchability were more impressive than her beauty.