by Ahmet Altan
During those tumultuous days, Sheikh Yusuf Efendi did not know his voice was going to be killed, he still closed his eyes in apprehension as he listened to news that came from every direction, he withdrew into the reddish shade of the candlelit hall and prayed that “the believers not be slaughtered.” Hasan Efendi, who wandered through the city all day and chatted with the rebellious sergeants, soldiers, and the officers who’d risen through the ranks and bore a grudge against the officers from the academy, brought the most accurate news every evening.
As the Movement Army approached the city, he asked Hasan Efendi:
“Will the mutineers fight the Movement Army or will they lay down their arms at the last minute?”
“They’re determined to fight, my Sheikh, yesterday units who support the mutiny moved from Çatalca to Istanbul.”
“The Caliph doesn’t support this mutiny, I know the ulema opposes it, the people don’t seem to have any great appreciation for them, the army that’s coming is powerful, then who do the mutineers trust?”
Hasan Efendi answered quickly because he hadn’t ever thought about this.
“They trust in their faith and in God.”
“The army that’s coming has faith and God as well, Hasan Efendi, and this is war, not worship, weapons are as important as faith.”
The next morning Hasan Efendi set out with these questions in mind, and when, in front of the Taşkışla barracks, he met a sergeant from Yozgat who he’d befriended a few days earlier and began chatting with him, he asked the question Sheikh Efendi had asked him.
The sergeant put his hand in his uniform and scratched his chest, then explained as if he was a general.
“Look, my dear Hasan Efendi, you shouldn’t be deceived by appearances, if you do you’ll be finished, why isn’t His Excellency the Caliph saying anything, so he can catch the infidel Committee napping, we received the news from a solid source, when the Movement Army arrives at the gates of the city, His Majesty the Sultan will come out and say to the soldiers of the Movement Army, my sons, come and gather under the flag of sharia, join those who are fighting for God’s will. Now tell me, will these Muslims listen to the infidel Committee or to the Caliph? When those soldiers join us, we’ll cut the infidels’ throats with a dull saw as if we were sacrificing sheep at the foot of the walls. Those Committee officers are coming to their own deaths, but they don’t know this . . . ”
Unlike the Sheikh, Hasan Efendi wanted with all his heart for the mutineers to win, he wished that the corrupt, the whores, and the lechers would tremble beneath the sword of sharia, that they too would be imprisoned in a world without sin; it was as if this was his revenge on life, but because he didn’t know that he had this anger and desire for revenge in him, he thought it was because of his love for his religion.
He had difficulty explaining the Sheikh’s opposition to the mutiny. In the rare moments when he thought to himself, he decided that “the Sheikh is sometimes blinded by his love for that whore,” it was strange that he thought the Sheikh had a weakness like this, but even though this battered his admiration somewhat, it increased his love.
He persisted in order to make sure that what the sergeant said was true.
“What if the Caliph doesn’t say anything like this?”
“Don’t be a child, Hasan Efendi, is that possible, if it was your throne they were after, if they were rebelling against your caliphate, wouldn’t that be what you said?”
“I suppose I would . . . The soldiers will listen to him, there won’t be any opposing voices, will there?”
“Is it possible that he wouldn’t listen to the Caliph but to an officer who beats him three times a day . . . You’ll see, the officers’ blood will flow like water, they won’t have time to profess their faith before they die, they’ll go to the next world without being purified.”
“Do the soldiers have brave hearts, that is, when they see the huge army before the city, the pashas with big beards, the cannon . . . ”
The sergeants moved back and tensed.
“What are you saying, Hasan Efendi, these are the Prophet’s soldiers, their hearts don’t quail in the slightest, what is a pasha next to the great Caliph? Don’t worry about us, the soldiers also know that they’re fighting for the Caliph, that this is jihad in the name of God.”
Hasan Efendi left the sergeant, he’d found the answer to the Sheikh’s question, which had been nagging at him. He understood why the soldiers weren’t tense and panicked by the army that was on its way. It was possible that the officers of the Movement Army would fall into a deadly and bloody trap outside the city walls, everything depended on the Sultan uttering two words, the Sultan would decide who was to die in the coming battle.
On that spring day, which was warmed by a pale blue light, Hasan Efendi left Taşkışla feeling pleased about several things. What pleased him more than anything was that he would be able to bring Sheikh Efendi an answer to the question he’d asked. The feeling of animallike loyalty that he nourished within himself determined who he was more than his ideas, beliefs, and emotions, it was as if God had created him to be faithful to someone and had chosen Sheikh Efendi as a focus for his loyalty.
Hasan Efendi’s thoughts played among themselves like children playing in a courtyard surrounded by thick walls, but they never climbed over the high walls of loyalty, they didn’t even allow it to cross their minds. He satisfied the desire to betray that lay in the depths of a feeling of intense loyalty that was almost unbearable in small ways by bringing information the Sheikh couldn’t find on his own, thereby inwardly allowing himself to feel he was superior to and more talented than the Sheikh; even his desire to betray was of more service to the person to whom he was loyal.
When he got to the avenue in Beyoğlu, which seemed buried in the infinite shadow of centuries of intrigues, loves, and murders, he saw that all the embassies in Pera were flying their flags as protection against attack; flags of various colors with eagles, crosses, and stars were waving coyly in the breeze, the sacred color red was in each of them as a line, a star, or a cross. This red was there so that people would believe that people who had died in wars throughout history only to be forgotten by the next generation had not shed their blood in vain and strangely, this bright red on pieces of cloth that surrendered to the wind at the end of long poles was enough to convince people of the necessity and sanctity of having their blood shed, as Hikmet Bey said, “Even this was enough to raise suspicion of the pathetic nature of mankind to give their lives without questioning.”
When he went into the back streets, Hasan Efendi encountered a group of drunken marines, he followed the men, who were shouting, “We want sharia, long live the Sultan,” in voices slurred by drink; in the empty streets, a few vagabonds walked along with them and watched them with a mixture of fear and curiosity, as if they were watching animals that had escaped from the circus.
The marines stopped in front of a butcher whose shutter was half closed and started bargaining; three of them exchanged their rifles for a whole, skinned lamb, they shouldered the lamb and sang as they continued on their way. It was clear they had no aim, they had no place to go, they were just trying to scrounge food for their dinner. They frightened a Greek grocer and filled a basket with the wine they took from him.
The marines didn’t look like the soldiers the sergeant had been describing, and this made Hasan Efendi angry, because it destroyed his hopes and expectations about the future of the mutiny.
He forgot how many of them there were and that they were armed, and grabbed the arm of the man in the lead.
“Brother, look at the state you’re in, have you no shame or fear of God, you call for sharia with your drunken mouth, you pollute our Caliph’s name with your stinking breath!”
The leader of the marines replied in a blatantly threatening manner as he tried to figure out if there was anyone else nearby.
“W
hat’s the matter, mullah, why are you angry, we’re risking our lives for sharia . . . ”
“Save you stinking life for yourself, get off these streets, has Islam become so debased that it falls to you to protect it?”
House windows began to open, more and more people were becoming curious about the commotion, many of the residents of the neighborhood were not Muslim, but like everyone in Istanbul they were fed up with the marines and were waiting for someone to shut them up.
“What’s it to you, mullah, just because you have a robe you think you’re the Shaykh-al Islam?”
Hasan Efendi had already decided what he was going to do even if the marines didn’t say anything, but the man’s arrogance made him even angrier; when he brought his strong fist, which was as big as a rock, down on the marine’s head, the marine fell with blood streaming from his mouth and nose. Some of the marines, frightened by Hasan Efendi’s size and strength, tried to point their rifles at him, but they couldn’t, they were so drunk they couldn’t point the rifles they were dragging along by their barrels; Hasan Efendi, who used this to his advantage, suddenly forgot he was a mullah and suddenly became “Hasan the Marine” of old.
He hit those he could reach over the head with his large fist and knocked them out, shouting, “Get out of here, you cuckolds, or I’ll knock all of you out.” In the blink of an eye, four of them fell next to the lamb they’d dropped, their noses broken, their cheekbones caved in, and their temples burst; when those who were still standing grabbed their rifles and started to flee, the sound of applause came from the windows; half-naked Greek women, most of whom worked in the brothels of Beyoğlu, shouted, “Long live the mullah,” gestured for him to come to their houses, and laughed.
The street, which had been temporarily liberated from the terrifying crisis that had besieged the city, came to life with the women’s cheerful cries and salacious jokes, then the windows were closed again and the street was once again as silent and deserted as all the others.
Hasan Efendi straightened his conical felt hat and continued on his way, but when he realized that the image of the plump, white bodies he’d glanced at the windows had become stuck in his mind, he feared he would be tempted into sin and recited three verses of the Koran and swore to God that he repented, he tried to forget what he’d seen, but the complicated and pleasure-filled dreams about which he could speak to no one would remind him for years of what he’d briefly glimpsed in those windows.
Even though he’d been on his way to the ministry of war in Beyazıt, he gave up that idea and headed toward the tekke to tell his Sheikh as soon as possible about what he’d seen and talked about, in the end, the only person who could save him from the dark fires of his secret sins was Sheikh Efendi, who always waited in the same place.
15
Friendships and loves grow and develop quickly under severe pressure, just like the strange and magical plants that grow when they’re stepped on; in times of great and widespread threats, dangers, and fears, these terrifying events surround people like a warm greenhouse they can’t leave, they create a climate in which the feelings that wrap around other people grow quickly like vines; in those anxious days, as the city waited for a bloody battle whose outcome was uncertain, the emotional relationship between Hikmet Bey, Dilara Hanım, and Dilevser developed at an unexpected pace.
Hikmet Bey’s educated politeness was such that when necessary, his presence was not felt; this politeness created a large, safe place in which both of his guests could move comfortably; that he never insisted, invited or made a show of being a good host, the sense of trust provided by manners that had been distilled in a centuries-old still, allowed Dilara Hanım and Dilevser to approach him without hesitation, and anxieties they might have felt in a situation like this disappeared within a few hours.
In this neighbor with whom she’d just become acquainted, Dilara Hanım found something that was rarely encountered in life, the kind of male friend she’d thought didn’t exist, from the first moment they’d both sensed that there would be no emotional connections between them that could shelter lust, love, or small flirtations. Dilara Hanım liked rough, lower-class men who tended toward wildness and bullying; what excited her was an animallike violence in a male body, she derived pleasure from training and taming this violence with her own body, she got tired of those she was able to tame and was smitten by those she wasn’t, but Hikmet Bey didn’t have that kind of roughness or violence.
The spoiled son of a very beautiful woman, Hikmet Bey wanted extraordinary beauty in the women with whom he’d fall in love; he was also attracted to purity and innocence. The only thing he had in common with Dilara Hanım was that he too liked being with lower-class women when he wasn’t in love, women who surrendered to their bodies’ desires unquestioningly, and this carnal desire for the lower classes was like a distinguishing characteristic of the nobility.
On the first day, mother and daughter ate lunch in their apartment; at dinnertime, when a servant asked whether they would prefer to eat in the apartment or in the dining room, Dilara Hanım realized they were being invited to dinner, she said they would eat in the dining room, and they dressed and joined Hikmet Bey.
After Hikmet Bey asked them if they were content with their apartment and if they needed anything, they talked about the mutiny, what had happened that morning and what might happen in the future.
As they talked about what the entire city was talking about, it was as if they whispered the codes which helped those who’d left the main roads of accepted rules and morality and took their own paths to explore other aspects of life to recognize each other very quickly; this was a secret language, it was less in the sentences than in the choice of words, emphasis, pauses, smiles, and glances. It was a special language that those who lived their lives bound to the masses could never speak, and those who had distanced themselves from them adopted it without realizing, those who spoke this language soon got along with each other regardless of what they thought.
When the subject of the marines who’d attacked the maid came up, Dilara Hanım made a face and said:
“This is a weakness particular to men, and like all male weakness it comes out as roughness and aggression, women never attack men like this.”
Then she added with a mocking smile.
“At least not in the street.”
Hikmet Bey realized that she’d uttered this last sentence because she trusted him and that Dilara Hanım didn’t speak with all men like this, and he was pleased by this privilege that had been granted him.
He leaned back in his chair and asked with an emphasis that made the joking in his tone clearer:
“I think you’re disparaging all men rather than just those marines.”
“I don’t know,” said Dilara Hanım.
Then she continued as if she was talking to herself.
“Was I being disparaging? I didn’t think so, but even if I was, I can’t say that men don’t deserve it.”
“Why do you say that?”
Dilara Hanım thought for a moment.
“I think they’re unable to show their feelings, more accurately they’re unable to show their feelings at the right moment; it’s as if they’re afraid women might realize they’re human too. No woman is frightened of having human weaknesses, but men are. Don’t you disparage someone who talks about courage all the time and who you see is a coward?”
Hikmet Bey turned to Dilevser, who was toying with the crystal glass in front of her.
“Do you disparage men the way your mother does?”
“I don’t know enough men to be able to make a generalization, but what I’ve read about in novels demonstrates that my mother is right.”
“Don’t you find it odd that the male writers who wrote those novels disparage their own gender like that?”
“It never occurred to me to categorize writers as men or women.”
Dilara Hanım jumped in:
“When writers seek truths about women they of course discover truths about men as well.”
Hikmet Bey asked in a somewhat melancholy tone:
“Is there a truth about women, Dilara Hanım?”
“There are so many.”
“I would like to learn them.”
“What you would do if you did learn, if I told you all the truths and you learned them, what would happen, in time you would get bored. I would pity any man I saw who knew all the truths about women. It would be like a cat unravelling a ball of yarn, once it’s unraveled there’s nothing left to play with.”
“Do you think we have no other amusement except women?”
Dilara Hanım said, “As if,” in her derogatory manner.
“Politics, war, money . . . Will you amuse yourself with those, will you be content with those? Napoleon won all his battles, he knew politics, he had a lot of money too, the empire’s treasury was his, was he happy? Maybe this is the difference between men and women. A man can’t be happy with any of these things. You absolutely have to have a woman in order to be happy, but a woman, yes, if a woman got involved in politics, war, intrigues, money, any one of these things would be enough to make her happy.”
“Then why aren’t you involved in them?”
“There are women who are involved, but men have worked hard to keep us out of these areas, because even if you don’t know, you sense that if we took over in these areas we could have so much fun without men, that we could even be happy; I think men are afraid of this, they took all the amusements for themselves and they can’t enjoy them. You can’t find happiness without women, I think that a man without a woman is a lost man.”
With the melancholy smile that women couldn’t resist when they saw it, Hikmet Bey replied as if he was mocking himself as well.
“There are men with women who are lost as well, I’ve heard a lot about men who have become lost because of a woman.”