Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  The two of them looked at each other with the same surprise, neither of them had expected to meet anyone in that living room.

  “Are you waiting for my mother?”

  “Yes. ma’am. You must be Dilara Hanım’s daughter?”

  “Yes . . .”

  Dilevser didn’t ask, “You?” but the sentence she didn’t complete asked this question.

  “I’m your neighbor, Hüseyin Hikmet, your mother asked me to wait here.”

  “Does my mother know you’re here?”

  Dilevser asked this question in such a way that it implied, “Isn’t this a peculiar hour to pay a visit?” Hikmet Bey smiled.

  “I’m aware that this is not a proper hour to call, ma’am, it happened this way because we had a somewhat extraordinary morning. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Please, I was just surprised. There’s usually no one here in the morning . . . ”

  Hikmet Bey looked at the book she was holding and tried to read the title, but he couldn’t because her fingers were obscuring it. He was curious about what she was reading but was hesitant to ask.

  “You start reading early.”

  Dilevser looked at the book as if she’d forgotten she was holding it.

  “Habit, I don’t go anywhere without a book, I always want to have a book within reach, my mother says I read morbidly.”

  “What kinds of books do you most like to read?”

  “In fact my mother is right, I’m morbidly greedy about reading. I read almost everything, but I like novels and poetry best.”

  For a moment he forgot the mutiny in the city, what had happened a short while ago, even almost forgot Dilara Hanım. For a man like Hikmet Bey, it was a great boon to encounter a woman in the Ottoman capital who could talk about literature.

  “If you don’t consider it too forward of me, might I ask who your favorite writer is?”

  “There are many writers I like, but I suppose lately I’ve been taken by a Russian writer named Tolstoy, I read a book of his called Anna Karenina.”

  “I loved that book too.”

  Dilevser looked at Hikmet Bey carefully for the first time, and with slight surprise.

  “Have you read it?”

  “Yes, recently, a friend of mine gave it to me, I like all Tolstoy’s books, when I think of Tolstoy, the image of two palms comes to mind, two hands between which all of life flows, it’s as if the man carries every aspect of life in his hands.”

  “I’ve never thought about it like that. I think I was moved by the pain she suffered. How selfishly men behave toward women . . . How distant they are from the world in which women live.”

  “Do you really think the world in which women live is so foreign to us?”

  When Dilara Hanım came in they both fell silent, as if they’d been caught telling each other secrets; this sudden silence was not the cold, tedious silence of two strangers, on the contrary, it was the living, breathing silence of two people who knew each other well and tried to conceal their connection, it spoke almost in its own language, attracting more attention than words would have, a silence written by partners in crime.

  Dilara Hanım broke this strange and unaccountable silence.

  “So, you’ve met Dilevser.”

  Hikmet Bey smiled as he answered.

  “We talked a little about books, but I can’t really say we’ve met, I’ve only just learned that this lady’s name is Dilevser, I think I surprised and unsettled her by being here at this hour.”

  With the sensitivity that enables young girls to find meanings that others miss in every word, when she heard herself referred to as a lady rather than as a young lady in that living room for the first time, she felt an excitement that no other word could have given her and the joy of opening a door to the world of adults that had always been closed to her.

  Dilara Hanım felt the need to explain to Dilevser why there was a strange man in their living room.

  “If not for Hikmet Bey something terrible could have happened to us this morning.”

  “What kind of terrible thing, mother?”

  “Oh, Dilevser, it’s time to take your head out of your books and look around. Didn’t you hear what happened this morning?”

  She related what happened, how Hikmet Bey had arrived in the nick of time, how he’d rescued them from the marines, heaping praise that embarrassed him. Hikmet Bey felt obliged to stop her.

  “Your mother is being polite and giving me too much credit, even if I hadn’t been there . . . ”

  He was unable to finish his sentence, there was a terrific commotion accompanied by gunfire coming from the vicinity of Yıldız Palace, reminding them of another reality that was not theirs but that besieged their lives, that they were defenseless in an ungoverned city in the hands of mutineers, and that their fragile lives were under yet another threat of being torn apart.

  As Dilara Hanım walked to the window as if she would have been able to see anything, she asked with an excitement she tried to suppress:

  “I wonder what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know,” said Hikmet Bey, “I’ll send one of my footmen to the palace at once to find out. My father went to the palace this morning, I hope it’s nothing bad. But you can’t remain here alone, the marines who were here this morning found a mansion with no man present, there’s no telling what they might do, please stay in our mansion for a time, until things calm down. We have a separate apartment for guests, you can bring your servants if you wish, I don’t know if we can provide you with the same comfort you have at home, but we’ll do our best.”

  Dilara Hanım declined, thinking there might be gossip if a mother and her daughter stayed in a single man’s house, and also because Ragıp Bey wouldn’t like it.

  “Thank you, but we don’t want to impose, besides, I don’t think they’re going to start attacking houses.”

  Hikmet Bey immediately understood the reason for Dilara Hanım’s hesitation.

  “Dilara Hanım, at any other time I would never dream of suggesting such a thing, but these are extraordinary times, now your safety, your life, comes before any other concerns, you won’t even see me if you don’t want to while you’re in our mansion, you’ll have your own apartment . . . We don’t know what’s going to happen, but if your servants join mine we could set up a force to protect the house.”

  When she declined for the last time, making it clear she was in fact accepting rather than declining, she was thinking more of Dilevser than herself, of what could happen to her if there was an attack.

  “But we’ll be a great imposition . . .”

  “Please, ma’am. It’s no imposition, indeed it’s an honor. With your permission I’ll go make all the arrangements, meanwhile I’ll send someone to Yıldız to find out what’s happening there.”

  Before leaving, Hikmet Bey turned to Dilevser.

  “Don’t worry about your books, I think my humble library will satisfy your desire to read during your stay.”

  As he walked quickly through the mansion garden, worried about his father, he felt an agitated cheerfulness that reminded him of his youth, something that was easily moved, that leapt from mood to mood depending on what he saw, that was contained within a small cocoon that vibrated with feelings that were completely cut off from the effects of the world and which emerged from the bottom of his heart in the very depths of the irresistible and unsheltered human soul. There was no clear, obvious reason for it, it was rooted in a vague satisfaction created by a vague intuition, in an image whose existence was doubtful, like a star seen faintly through a telescope. Hikmet Bey believed suddenly that destiny would once again grant him the chance to dream. Being able to dream . . . This was the gift he’d longed for most in recent years, and he’d grown bitter toward life because he’d been deprived of it.

  As soon as he entered the m
ansion, and under Hediye’s watchful gaze, he ordered the servants to make the necessary preparations for the guests and sent one of his footmen to the palace for news about his father and another to Mihrişah Sultan with a letter inviting her and Rukiye to stay with him for a while.

  When the footman he’d sent to the palace arrived at the gates of Yıldız, he saw that thousands of soldiers, with the marines from the shipyard in the lead, had gathered there, they were shouting, “We want sharia,” as they attacked a carriage that had been approaching the palace. They’d climbed onto the carriage steps and were leaning through the windows to beat the passengers.

  The driver realized he couldn’t approach the main gate so he executed a deft maneuver to avoid the crowd and made his way toward a smaller side gate that was used by the palace janitors, the footman made his way toward the gate that had been opened for the carriage, and the guards recognized him and let him in.

  Two pashas with blood-covered faces emerged from the carriage, their epaulettes had been torn and hung from their shoulders like gaudy ornaments, their disheveled and bloody beards making them look as if they’d just come from a battle.

  The footman made it known that he wanted to see Reit Pasha, that his son was worried and had sent him to learn what was happening, a short while later a guard came back and said, “His Excellency the Pasha is with the Sultan at the moment, he can’t see you now but he’s fine, he says that his son need not worry.”

  Reşit Pasha was sitting with the Sultan in the middle hall of the large chamber, waiting for a reply from Tevfik Pasha, to whom a man had been sent to offer him the position of Grand Vizier, the Sultan smoked in distress, from time to time glancing in the direction of the roaring crowd outside.

  “Look. There’s still no reply, I’ve appointed him Foreign Minister before, I’ve appointed him Grand Vizier before, he couldn’t decide then either, now he’s asking all manner of questions, thinking all manner of things as he tries to decide. To tell the truth his indecisiveness is the reason I’m appointing him Grand Vizier . . . What a strange world this is, a man is going to climb to the highest position a slave can reach simply because he can’t decide. If you ask why, at the moment we need a man who won’t make decisions, who won’t move, a man who’ll wait and see how events unfold. Because no one knows what will happen if someone makes the wrong decision.”

  Just then the sound of the crowd grew louder.

  “What’s going on, doctor, something’s happening . . . ”

  When they looked carefully into the crowd, they saw that soldiers had surrounded a marine officer and were beating him. The Sultan stood hurriedly.

  “They’re going to kill that officer, doctor, we must stop this at once.”

  Just as the Sultan was opening his mouth to call his aide, a clerk walked in.

  “The Chief Clerk Ali Cevat Bey has returned, Your Majesty, he requests an audience with you.”

  When he heard that the man he’d sent to Tevfik Pasha had returned, the Sultan glanced at the crowd for a moment, then turned back toward the door.

  “Send him in at once.”

  The chief clerk was struggling to catch his breath as he entered.

  “What happened, Ali Cevat Bey, what did Tevfik Pasha say?”

  “He accepts, Your Majesty.”

  The Sultan let all the air out of his lungs with a single breath and sat in his armchair.

  “Good . . . ”

  The commotion outside grew louder, when he turned to the window again he saw that the officer’s face was stained red, sometimes the soldiers threw him to the ground and kicked him and at other times they lifted him to his feet to punch him.

  The officer shouted at the top of his lungs to be heard in the palace, from which he guessed the Sultan was watching the crowd.

  “I am an honorable officer who has performed his duty. If I am at fault let His Majesty punish me, I am prepared to pay the penalty!”

  The chief clerk recognized the marine officer surrounded by soldiers.

  “That’s Lieutenant Ali Kabuli Bey, he’s a good captain, I know him personally too, sir, he has a very good reputation in the navy.”

  The Sultan suddenly stamped his foot.

  “Where is Şakir Pasha, they’re killing a man in front of our gates and the chamberlain is nowhere to be found, is there no one in our palace, not a single officer or pasha, who can prevent a murder, Ali Cevat Bey? Go find Şakir Pasha at once, tell him to put an end to this, he needs to get that officer away from those soldiers.”

  Ali Cevat Bey, with an agility not to be expected from someone his age, almost ran out of the room, he forgot to knock on the door as he rushed into Şakir Pasha’s office and he caught Şakir Pasha hiding behind the curtains as he watched what was happening outside.

  “Pasha . . . Pasha . . . Don’t you see what’s going on, an innocent person is being killed before the Sultan’s eyes. I am relaying His Majesty the Sultan’s command, you are to go out at once as chamberlain and rescue this innocent officer from the crowd.”

  Şakir Pasha hurried past Ali Cevat Bey, descended the stairs, and went to the front of the palace; his stentorian voice could be heard in the Sultan’s hall as well.

  “My sons, calm down. This is the Sultan’s decree. If this officer is guilty he will be punished, he will be tried at once. Surrender that officer to me, to your commander!”

  The crowd seemed to pause for a moment, but one of the marines from the shipyard shouted angrily.

  “Do you know what he did to us, Pasha?”

  Another marine piped up, “Do you have any idea how much the officers beat us, Pasha Efendi?”

  Rather than calming down, the crowd seemed to become more agitated, as if they realized they had an illustrious audience, the power that governed the empire was watching them, and they wanted to put on a show befitting their audience.

  Ashen-faced, looking like a statue made of wet ash, the Sultan watched thousands of soldiers tear the officer apart with their bare hands, they tore his head from his body, dragged his headless body on the ground, and raised his head aloft so their audience could see it.

  “What did I do to deserve this, what sin did I commit, doctor? They tear my officers apart before my eyes. May God punish those who dragged this nation to this point. They’ve always complained about me, but in the more than thirty years of my reign there’s never been a disgrace like this, then the others came and look what’s happening.”

  It was as if Reşit Pasha had collapsed in his seat, he didn’t hear what the Sultan was saying, he saw nothing. The constant roaring of the crowd filled his ears, and before his eyes was the disembodied head, with its bloody eyelids open and severed veins hanging from it like purple threads.

  He’d learned an unforgettable lesson about what an uprising was.

  13

  When Constantine held her finely curved chin tightly in his left hand and turned her face and brushed the hair that had fallen over her temple with his right hand and began to run his tongue over her, Mehpare Hanım realized what was going to happen, and excitement and fear spread from her loins throughout her body, dazzling her.

  She held the man’s left hand and brought it to her lips and licked his palm like a cat with her little, pink tongue; this was a special code between them that they never spoke of openly, Constantine showed her what he wanted to do by licking her cheek, and she touched his palm with her tongue for him to sense that she was ready; now she waited for the slap that would land on her face, for the burning on her cheek that would send a fire spreading throughout her bloodstream, but the slap didn’t come.

  Mehpare Hanım waited, her fear increasing by the moment; a tense fear that spread to a larger area like a thick, rough, black broadcloth rubbing against the folds of her brain and brought her to the verge of a peculiar unconsciousness. As this black cloth spread over her and pulled her into the darkness
, sharp and pointed flashes of pleasure like knife tips sparked on and off, making her brain tingle.

  Constantine had taught her to derive pleasure from fear, to use fear to sharpen and nourish the lust that touched every part of her body with its claws like a black tiger. When he moved his hand to her cheek Mehpare Hanım kept her fear at the right level, the fear was never enough to make her panic and recoil from desire, but it never lessened to the point where she could submit herself to pleasure comfortably.

  She waited for the slap to land with a fear that touched her skin like a razor’s edge, but what she was expecting didn’t happen every time, she didn’t know when it would happen either, in any event what made their lovemaking so unforgettable was an unknown large enough to accommodate every feeling. Mehpare Hanım could never sense what was going to happen, as she waited in this uncertainty she created what would and wouldn’t happen in her imagination, it was so real she could feel it.

  Constantine moved his hips back a bit, they continued touching each other lightly, these light touches were a sign that a big blow was coming; Mehpare Hanım waited for it, every touch heightened her anticipation and desire, she begged, shouted, swore in Greek, but the maddening light touches continued, sometimes he drew circles with his fingers, sometimes lines, then at the most unexpected moment Constantine pushed his entire body against her and their genitals were pressed together; then Mehpare Hanım screamed as if she’d been thrown into a chasm from the top of a mountain, the blows came one after the other, she started to rise to the sky, but just when she thought she was going to touch the clouds Constantine suddenly pulled back, began touching her lightly again and licked her cheek, and the sound of the sudden slap echoed throughout the universe, with this sound a red fire rose from Mehpare Hanım’s loins to her brain. As he did all these things, Constantine whispered in her ear, telling her what he was doing in both Turkish and Greek.

  First he asked slowly:

  “What am I doing?”