by Ahmet Altan
When Mehpare Hanım was late to answer, Constantine shouted at her with a startling impatience.
“Say it!”
Mehpare Hanım narrated what he was doing, her voice struck the walls violently like a wrecking ball at the end of a chain, the walls collapsed one after the other with a painful pleasure, she was liberated from all colors and images by an endless white brightness that embraced her.
Constantine suddenly went slack and calmed like an evening sea, their genitals melted into each other, Mehpare Hanım felt as if she was being filled, as if she had found a missing body part and become whole; they remained like this, Constantine took parts of her lips between his, the corner, the middle, sucked on them as if they were grapes and then released them, Mehpare Hanım wanted to move but he held her fast in his arms and said, “Don’t move now, just think about what we’re doing, think without moving.” Mehpare Hanım thought about what they were doing, thinking about her awareness of everything they were doing enhanced her body’s pleasure, which was already on the point of losing control.
As a trembling began in her heels and rose through her body as small contractions, Constantine pulled away, they felt the warmth of each other’s genitals, when only this small sensation of touch remained it was like hanging over a void by a thread.
Mehpare Hanım shouted almost angrily.
“No!”
Constantine’s face was strained with pleasure, and an animalistic smile appeared that Mehpare Hanım only saw when they were making love.
“Yes, stay like that.”
“You’re an animal!”
“Stay like that, don’t rush, feel, just feel.”
As Mehpare Hanım’s body was wracked by contractions, she wrapped her hands around Constantine’s waist and pulled him toward her, but Constantine didn’t move. Mehpare Hanım was on the verge of the greatest pleasure human flesh can experience; the desire rose violently, but because it somehow didn’t end it included pain. She felt as if her body would explode and shatter into pieces with a horrific pain that her body couldn’t endure, but she couldn’t give up.
Constantine suddenly pulled her toward him and pressed their genitals together, a blinding bolt of lightning struck within her, her brain felt numbed, the numbness spread from her arms to her hands, to her fingers, she thought she was going to faint; now two bodies were slamming against each other without stopping, the pace never slacking.
The screams rose intermittently at first, then flowed freely like wild water tumbling over a waterfall, then after continuing for a time they slowed and finally stopped.
They both fell still, their bodies covered in perspiration and they felt the evaporating warmth of each other’s wetness on their bodies; Constantine kissed her softly on the cheek, caressed her hair, which was wet at the ends, stroked her face with his fingers, tenderly following the lines of her face as if he wanted to get to know her.
This tenderness, these soft touches, made the fear, violence, and pain she’d felt while making love, and would feel again the next time, almost sacred.
They were different in many respects from other couples in the world, one of these differences was that after making love like this, Constantine was the one who surrendered his body, which still bore the pain of the recent lovemaking, to an unhurried lethargy, to a sleeplike reverie among the disordered bedsheets that still carried the warmth of what they’d just experienced there. Like a man, Mehpare Hanım was always the first to get out of bed.
She kissed Constantine softly on the cheek, got up, went to the adjoining bathroom, and got into the white porcelain clawfoot bathtub that Constantine had brought from Austria. She washed her body with a large-holed Aegean sea sponge that still retained the magical form of a sea creature; each time she scrubbed her entire body with the sponge, as if she wanted to expunge the traces not just of the most recent love-making but of all the lovemaking she’d ever experienced in order to become a virgin again to begin making love afresh.
She returned to the bedroom wrapped in thick towels, since she’d started living with Constantine she’d adopted a new style because this style was more comfortable for her; she was no longer ashamed to be naked in her man’s presence, this aroused her because she saw it as an exciting sign of intimacy. She lowered her head in front of the mirrored console, let her wet hair fall forward, and began to dry it with a towel; Constantine, like a woman who was hurt because she felt that a man leaving the bed too soon showed a lack of sensitivity, tenderness, and love, had always been disturbed by the way Mehpare Hanım abruptly got out of bed like this, but he never said anything.
He sat up in bed, propped himself up on his elbow, and watched Mehpare Hanım dry her hair.
“Do you know, I think you have some man in you.”
Mehpare Hanım tossed her head back to fling her hair out of her face.
“You see me that way because there’s a woman in you too.”
Constantine smiled the roguish smile that suited him so well.
“Fine, so when we’re in bed does your man make love to my woman or does my man make love to your woman?”
Mehpare Hanım didn’t turn her head, she just gave him a seductive glance from the corner of her eyes.
“All of them at the same time . . . We have so much fun because there are so many of us.”
Even though Constantine said nothing, she sensed he was hurt because she’d left the bed too soon, she sensed this every time, she went over to him and kissed him on the cheek.
“But I’m very pleased with your man . . . He’s wonderful.”
She dressed quickly, tied her wet hair in a scarf, told Constantine to sleep for a while, and went downstairs to the kitchen to have tea; she liked having tea while she chatted with the cook and watched her prepare the food.
Sula was the only servant she’d ever liked, who she enjoyed talking to, and who she saw almost as an equal. She was the most famous cook in Salonika, all the rich families tried to entice her and offered her large salaries, but they couldn’t get her to leave Constantine.
At first Mehpare Hanım was cold and distant as she was with other servants, she concealed her hatred toward and fear of the poor behind this distance. But this tall, fat woman, who was a composition of incredible curved lines, was so indifferent to life, looked down on the rules and values that people accepted without question like the monks who wandered alone at night in Ancient Egypt, she was very pleased with the work she did, she governed her kitchen with a powerful authority as if she was governing an empire, she slid about like a dancing seal with an agility that was surprising for someone with such a large body, singing songs as she did so, people wanted to be friends with her, indeed wanted to be servile to her. She didn’t accept anyone’s friendship, not even Constantine’s, she was caustic and scornful to anyone who entered the kitchen, or else scolded them and threw them out. She never talked about herself, and because of this people made up more stories about her every day; some said this old woman had been a pasha’s mistress when she was young, some said she’d once had a passionate love affair with a pirate, some said she’d worked at a very expensive brothel, some said she’d been Constantine’s father’s mistress, and once there was even a story that she’d been in the imperial harem.
Mehpare Hanım soon noticed her aura of untouchability and the provocative indifference that disturbed wealthy masters when it appeared in poor people, she wanted to put this woman, who was able to get people to love her without being nice to them, in her place. Mehpare Hanım started going into the kitchen more often. Sula, who was caustic with others, didn’t say anything to Mehpare Hanım for some time, she acted as if she wasn’t aware she’d entered the kitchen. One day when Mehpare Hanım was prowling around the kitchen her hip knocked a pot full of food off the counter.
Sula turned, glanced in the direction of the sound, then went back to what she’d been doing and said calmly:
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“You’re a beautiful woman, but you walk like an elephant.”
Mehpare Hanım froze when she heard this. She couldn’t believe a servant could talk to her like this, she couldn’t comprehend it, she would have been just as surprised if Constantine’s splendidly beautiful horse spoke to her one morning in the stable. She was too amazed to come up with an answer, and just as she was about to explode in fury she noticed that the woman who’d told her she walked like an elephant had large hips under her dress that gyrated like millstones and she laughed in a way that surprised even herself and left the kitchen without saying anything.
Over time, though she couldn’t quite grasp how, they became friends. Sula accepted life without any expectations or complaints and behaved so naturally that Mehpare Hanım too fell under her spell. It was not Sula but Mehpare Hanım who benefitted from this, she was secretly proud to have become friends with a woman who didn’t make friends with anyone. They often had the sherbets of various colors, lemonade with grated lemon peel in it, tea and the nice-smelling coffee that Sula made in the kitchen, and talked about men; the old woman’s ideas about men made Mehpare Hanım think, but also made her laugh, once she said something that stayed in her mind for a long time.
“You have to leave the bed without satisfying a man completely, you should leave him a little hungry so he comes back quickly and enthusiastically.”
That day, after the morning lovemaking, the need for silence rose in her soul and she took refuge with Sula in the kitchen.
Some feelings follow you like a shadow, but you can’t grasp them, and every move you make to catch them drives them further away; Mehpare Hanım sensed that there was an elusive feeling like this behind what she experienced with Constantine.
In fact it wasn’t a single feeling, it was a complex of feelings, and their lovemaking made these feelings more apparent, more visible. At times she became disquieted and irritable because of the shadows of these feelings, the weariness of betrayal that penetrated her soul the way damp penetrates wood, the suspicion that the perfect harmony and the splendid flashes of lust during their lovemaking were nourished by a lack of love, the occasional longing for a simpler, more tranquil love that was more real and believable, and the conflict of knowing that in fact she didn’t want a life free of doubt that would allow her to find a safe love.
Perhaps it was because this twilight of complex feelings gripped her more forcefully after making love that she got out of bed quickly and fled, and Sula’s naturalness, which tamed all feelings and made them seem insignificant, and her indifference to winds other than her own, like a forest living by itself, soothed Mehpare Hanım with a glass of tea.
When Sula saw her wet hair and flushed face she understood what had happened, she poured tea with a smile that she confined to the corner of her lips, and gave it to Mehpare Hanım, then continued plucking the pheasant that the hunters had brought for lunch; the counter was covered with shiny golden, red, purple, and dark blue feathers.
Before she could say anything one of the Greek servants came in, he was about to say something but stopped when he saw Mehpare Hanım, he just stood there with a look of excitement frozen on his face and Sula asked him in her usual reproachful tone what he wanted:
“What happened, did you catch your ugly sister with your father, why is your face like that?”
The man looked at Mehpare Hanım and didn’t say anything.
“Talk, son, did you forget what you wanted to say, you’re enough of an idiot to forget . . . ”
The man finally spoke.
“They say there’s a great uprising in Istanbul, there’s blood in the streets, the mullahs are cutting everyone down, the whole city is shaken by the news.”
“There’s an uprising in Istanbul?”
Mehpare Hanım jumped up from her stool but then she felt dizzy and leaned on the table, she glazed over, her hands felt cold, she was about to faint, the word “uprising” evoked horrible and bloody images. Sula almost embraced her, sat her back in her stool, and brought her a glass of water. After she sat down, Mehpare Hanım tried to calm herself by taking deep breaths; her body, which had reacted to the news before her feelings, was losing its strength and was on the point of collapse. She rocked back and forth in her seat, feeling almost nothing, her face was pale and a lock of wet hair fell across her forehead. For the first time, the pallor of old age appeared on her young and sultry face.
It was as if the air around her had been sucked away, as if she’d been wrapped in a sheath that kept out all sounds and feelings; she sensed there was a great anguish waiting for her just outside the void that surrounded her, she was so afraid she wouldn’t be able to withstand this approaching anguish that she was exhausted before she even felt it.
“Get the carriage ready,” she said with difficulty.
Sula gestured for the servant to get the carriage ready and asked Mehpare Hanım tenderly:
“Where are you going?”
“To the post office.”
“Let me tell Constantine, don’t go alone in this condition.”
Mehpare Hanım shook her head.
“No, don’t wake him, tell him after I’m gone, I have to send a telegram at once.”
Sula was going to offer to accompany her but realized Mehpare Hanım didn’t want anyone from the household with her, she couldn’t bear seeing anyone who reminded her of the life she was living.
She escorted Mehpare Hanım to the carriage and helped her climb in. Mehpare Hanım went to the city in fear that the strange void surrounding her would be torn away, that the sheath in which she was wrapped would be pierced, and praying that nothing would happen to Rukiye. The streets were crowded, people were rushing from place to place, when she saw the crowds she lost her faint hope that the news the servant had brought wasn’t true. As the carriage approached the city center, she saw that the band on the café terrace by the White Tower was playing the Marseillaise, she remembered that the same band had played the Marseillaise in the same place when constitutional monarchy had been proclaimed, it was as if they’d been playing the same song in the same place for a year.
When she got out of the carriage in front of the post office she saw a large crowd trying to get in, the doors were cracked and the windows were broken, an old woman fell and was unable to get up, men were punching and cursing each other.
When she couldn’t get into the telegraph office she started walking toward the harbor. It was as if she couldn’t decide what to do and someone was telling her; the nape of her neck was numb, her eyes were throbbing as if they were about to jump out of their sockets. Soldiers were marching past constantly, the sound of their boots echoed in her brain, people gathered in groups and talked excitedly, there was a sense of anger in the air and people were demanding revenge.
Mehpare Hanım watched everything as if through frosted glass; she saw and heard everything, but the great commotion around her wasn’t enough to evoke a sense of reality. It was as if life had lost its authenticity.
The harbor was very crowded as always, the Istanbul ferry lay at anchor off the shore, but that day the caiques that brought the passengers out were empty. Mehpare Hanım made her way through the crowd and started to look for someone who was bound for Istanbul, just at that moment she caught sight of an aging dervish. She went over to him at once.
“Are you going to Istanbul?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know Sheikh Yusuf Efendi in Unkapanı?”
“I do.”
“For the love of God, will you take a message to him?”
“Certainly.”
“Can you say that Mehpare Hanım is concerned about Rukiye’s well-being, she’s waiting for news.”
“I will, of course.”
“Will you be able to remember the names?”
The dervish smiled.
“Don’t worry, I still have
enough of my wits about me.”
The dervish gathered his robes and got into a caique, and she watched it move out toward the ferry, leaving a wake behind it. Frightening possibilities wandered through her mind, which had been shaken by this terrifying news. Her only connection to the daughter she worried might have died was the man in the caique on its way to the ferry, and she didn’t even know him. The route the dervish was taking would bring her either good news or news of death, and the dervish in the caique didn’t look like someone who would receive news that would determine a woman’s entire future.
She left the harbor and started walking. When she looked up she realized she’d reached the city’s outer neighborhoods. She leaned against a tree just beyond the Alatinis’ large, three-story mansion; she found herself absorbed in a frightening and morbid dream and she didn’t know how it had begun. She was dreaming about her daughter Rukiye’s funeral. The mutineers had raped and killed her. Sheikh Efendi, his face white and transparent, recited the Koran, Hikmet Bey was weeping quietly, she shaped the minutest details of the funeral in her imagination, how they placed Rukiye in a coffin, how they placed a green cloth over the coffin and tied a white scarf to its head, how she was carried on the shoulders of the mourners, how they dug a hole in the ground, how the coffin was lowered into the grave . . . She experienced the pain she would have experienced if the funeral was real, she sobbed as if her dream was true; one part of her wanted to end this dream, she wanted to be free of these images and this pain, but another part of her couldn’t give up this dream; with an almost pathological passion, she wanted to cling to this fantasy and suck all of the pain out of it until her soul bled and nothing was left, like an animal sucking milk out of a teat until in bled, she stood by the shore and watched the daughter who had not died being buried.
The poison that had accumulated with her betrayal of her husband and her abandonment of her children and that she’d kept in the hidden compartments of the soul where people hide their treasures and their poisons had emerged suddenly, at a moment when her body was defenseless in the numbness after lovemaking, when she’d heard the news that there was an uprising in Istanbul, the side of her that didn’t approve of most of the things she did was getting revenge on the side of her that was content with what she did. She suddenly began to believe that Rukiye had been killed when she was making love to Constantine and that this was a punishment for her betrayal; at that moment she was disgusted by her own body, by Constantine’s body, and by their lovemaking. She wanted to leave Salonika, to leave Constantine, to go far away, to be alone.