Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  When Sheikh Efendi looked up he saw Hasan Efendi waiting by the door in his unpretentious manner to catch his attention, he took off his cloak and put on something that was part coat and part jacket, of the kind that villagers wear, and that was too tight for him; his biceps, shoulders, and belly bulged out of it, making him look like a gigantic Jerusalem artichoke; no one dared to wear cloaks because the soldiers arrested all the hodjas with cloaks and brought them to the police station. During the first days the hodjas went out into the streets wearing their green cloaks, believing this would give them more immunity, but they couldn’t escape being pushed around and insulted by cadets, and all men of religion who were seen on the streets were treated almost like traitors.

  Everyone in the city was afraid, and an irritable mood predominated, hodjas either fled or disguised themselves, women didn’t even look out the window, some of the aristocrats retreated to their summer homes; all of the non-Muslims went to milleneries and bought top hats; because they believed that if they dressed like this they could move about without being bothered, Pera, in particular, was filled with Greeks who walked around in tall, crow-black hats like gigantic crows on their way to a funeral.

  Hasan Efendi put his Sheikh at ease.

  “I assigned a man to follow Rukiye Hanım’s carriage, they’ll see her safely home.”

  Then he told him the important news,

  “They’re going to send the Caliph into exile.”

  “When?”

  “Either this evening or tomorrow.”

  Sheikh Efendi expressed neither sadness nor joy. All he said was, “Let’s hope it’s for the best.” Hasan Efendi left the tekke and headed for Yıldız Palace to keep a close watch on what was happening. He couldn’t believe that the soldiers would overthrow the Caliph. He could forgive them for detaining, insulting, or even pushing and beating men of religion on the street, but he couldn’t countenance them touching the Caliph, they were breaking the pillar of Islam, that was ingratitude. How could a mortal touch the Caliph, how could they step on the shadow of God on earth? None of the intelligence he’d gathered so far had turned out to be false, he’d heard about what was happening in the four corners of the vast Ottoman Empire, he’d transmitted all of it to his Sheikh, but he prayed that what he’d heard that day was wrong.

  He knew that His Excellency the sheikh had never forgiven the Sultan for putting a spy in his tekke, that he’d always been suspicious of him, that he’d helped the Committee because he loved Ragıp Bey, but it saddened Hasan Efendi that he was so silent about the Caliph’s circumstances. Still, his only shelter was in fact the Sheikh’s silence, his indifference; he accepted his Sheikh as his guide, whatever happened he wouldn’t consider being disloyal even for a moment. Now Sheikh Efendi’s calm and unruffled stance was a consolation for his helplessness, he thought this might not be as great a disaster as he’d imagined. He would have liked the Sheikh to be angry, to be opposed, but still this silence was more bracing for him, more comforting, than the Sheikh’s anger.

  In any event, this was the advantage of being attached to one person, to accept without question that his wisdom and his feelings were right, when you saw that he didn’t suffer when you did, that what hurt you didn’t hurt him, you didn’t doubt his feelings, you doubted your own suffering, your own pain, and secretly believed that it wasn’t something to be so upset about; occasionally when he realized they didn’t share the same thoughts and feelings, a part of him was always content with this disagreement even though he was inwardly hurt and offended, because as long as the Sheikh didn’t share his pain, his own pain always seemed imperfect and meaningless, Hasan Efendi was freed from the poison of his own feelings by Sheikh Efendi’s heavenly silence.

  As he approached Yıldız Palace the streets became emptier and quieter, and he realized that the houses that had been bestowed upon the Sultan’s relatives had long been abandoned by their owners. The servants leaned out the windows and bantered with each other, eunuchs wandered on the grass in the garden without caring that they were stepping on the flowers, a few soldiers walked mercilessly through the large flower beds.

  Occasionally carriages laden with furniture and carrying well-dressed ladies and men in bowler hats rushed past toward Ortaköy, non-Muslims and wealthy Turks in disguise were escaping toward the Black Sea with everything they could carry.

  When he neared the palace he realized that it too was abandoned. There were no guards at the gate, a group of civilians who were palace servants were talking among themselves, occasionally a man in tattered clothes carrying a small bundle went out the palace gate, a few eunuchs in expensive clothes paced back and forth in front of the palace, in the shooting range next to the palace an officer rode a horse as a his stable hand ran beside him; a squad of soldiers from the Movement Army sat on chairs in the garden of a mansion further uphill, there was a melancholy air of an abandoned fairground at a summer resort.

  As the flags were lowered at sunset, he heard a few people shout, “Long live the Sultan,” according to custom, but there was no other sign that a sultan lived there.

  It was growing dark, but the lights in the palace had not been lit, the electricity and the water had been cut off as well.

  Not long afterwards he heard the sound of the first units of soldiers coming to besiege the palace with cannon batteries; the commander of the palace guards had summoned the soldiers to protect the Sultan; they were supposedly there to protect him but everyone knew that from now on the Sultan was nothing more than a prisoner.

  In the twilight, the Sultan sat in his hall, where a few oil lamps had been lit, looking out the window at the arrival of the soldiers, there was an unusual, tense calm about him, contrary to his usual mood. In the next room, hafizes were reciting the Koran, the Sultan couldn’t bear the darkness and had ordered that the Koran be recited constantly.

  “They’re here, doctor,” he said.

  Reşit Pasha didn’t understand.

  “Who’s here, Your Majesty?”

  “Mahmut Şevket Pasha’s men.”

  The Sultan stroked his beard as he watched the soldiers surround the palace.

  “The others will be here soon.”

  Once again the Pasha didn’t understand.

  “Which others, Your Majesty?”

  The water and the electricity had been cut, the stoves hadn’t been lit, and the palace was cold and dark. The Sultan was wearing an overcoat that came down to his ankles, his pockets were bulging, and it was clear that he was carrying guns.

  “The people who’ll announce what they’ve decided, of course, since they’ve captured our capital they’ll make a decision about us as well.”

  “No slave has the right to make decisions about his Caliph.”

  The Sultan must have thought the doctor’s attempt to console him made his humiliating circumstances even more difficult to bear because he didn’t answer. Instead, he complained about how the servants were running away.

  “There’s no one around except for a few of our loyal men, and we can’t even get them a bowl of soup, the ladies in the harem are shivering with cold; can you believe it, I can’t go to the harem for fear that they’ll ask what’s going on.”

  Reşit Pasha was shivering from the cold as well, and trembling because of the uncertainty of the situation.

  The Sultan said, “How dark it is, this is the first time in thirty-three years that there have been no lights on in my house, doctor, in your opinion, what else is this darkness if not a sign of what the future holds?”

  He sensed that despite his gloomy talk, the Sultan still had hope; he’d been governing the empire for thirty-three years, he’d managed to survive many difficult situations, he’d been the nation’s only master, and even though his mind told him it was over he still expected good news.

  “Doctor, you’ve placed yourself in danger by coming here.”

  “
I’ve been coming here for years, Your Majesty.”

  “But throughout the years you’ve been coming here the lights were always on, the stoves were burning, they’re not today, it’s dark and cold . . . ”

  The Sultan suddenly smiled irritably.

  “I’ve never liked darkness or cold, now it’s as if destiny is revealing my future to me . . . ”

  The Sultan paused for a while and then continued.

  “I’ve grown old, doctor, when someone faces the fears he had in his youth, he asks himself why he was so frightened then. Like everyone else, I owe God a life, I’m not hesitant about paying that debt, but I don’t want my children and my family to be made to suffer.”

  Just as the Sultan was saying this, a clerk from the chamber came in and whispered something into the Sultan’s ear.

  When the doctor saw the Sultan, who had just told him he was no longer frightened, stand abruptly and go pale, he realized that the “others” had arrived. The Sultan put his slightly trembling hands in the pockets of his overcoat and stood in the middle of the hall with his feet apart. The doctor realized that the Sultan had forgotten about him, he shrank further into his armchair and became almost invisible in the darkness.

  “Show them in,” said the Sultan.

  The Sultan, who had decided the destinies of others throughout his life, would now have his destiny decided by others and would experience the terrifying humiliation of having his destiny dictated by someone else; this old man whose commands had determined the life of the entire empire was preparing to learn how the slaves whose lives he’d changed with his orders had felt.

  The doors of the hall opened, and by the shadowy light of the oil lamps they saw four people standing in the waiting room. Both the doctor and the Sultan tried to figure out who it was that had come and looked at the faces that seemed like wax masks in the play of the dim light.

  The doctor recognized Arif Hikmet Pasha and the Albanian Esat Pasha, then when he looked a bit more carefully he saw the Armenian Member of Parliament Aram Efendi and the Jewish Member of Parliament from Salonika Emmanuel Karasu Efendi. At that moment he understood what verdict they had arrived at. Later he told Osman, “I could never decide whether the Committee’s decision to send two non-Muslims to dethrone the Caliph was rooted in their sense of humor or in the severity of their desire for revenge, but I never believed that they could send a delegation like this to represent all of the peoples of the empire.”

  The door to the waiting room was opened all the way, the Sultan stood in the hall looking at them, and the delegation stood in the waiting room looking at him. The delegation didn’t come in, the dark expression on the Sultan’s face and the way he chewed at his moustache made it clear that he was becoming impatient and excited, but the delegation didn’t move.

  He’d probably told others the same thing he’d told the doctor many times, “If I go I’ll take a few of them with me,” these words must have reached the Committee’s ears. They didn’t come in because they feared that the Sultan, who they knew always carried a gun in his pocket, would pull the gun on them.

  Once the Sultan took his hands out of his pockets and let his arms hang free, they came in and lined up in front of him. Esat Pasha, who had once been one of the Sultan’s most loyal slaves, announced the decision with a degrading anger, as if he wanted to erase his own past.

  “According to the fatwa that has been issued, the people discharge you.”

  As the doctor was preparing to stand because he feared the Sultan might faint because his face had gone ashen and he was tensing as he stood, the Sultan corrected Esat Pasha, who had just told him he was being fired as if he was an ordinary civil servant.

  “I think you meant to say dethroned.”

  By saying this, the Sultan wanted to remind the man standing in front of him that a sultan couldn’t be fired, he could only be dethroned.

  Then he asked the main question he had on his mind.

  “Have any other decisions been made about us?”

  He wanted to know if he was going to be executed. He’d lived his entire life in fear of a day like this, what he’d feared all his life was happening, but the Sultan asked calmly as if he was inquiring about someone else’s future, as if his soul, which could not countenance this humiliation and this fear, had departed, leaving his body behind like a toy without emotions.

  “There is no other decision.”

  “Where will we reside?”

  “You will be informed later.”

  “We feel Çırağan Palace is appropriate. We allowed our brother to reside there.”

  “You will be informed later.”

  The delegation left without saying anything more.

  After the men had gone the Sultan didn’t move. The doctor thought he would light a cigarette, but the Sultan didn’t move, he just stood there ashen-faced in his long overcoat, looking at the door that had just closed, his eyes sunken in their sockets, there was no telling what he was thinking.

  The doctor heard the Sultan speak in a murmur.

  “The ladies have grown accustomed to this place, it will be difficult for them to move to Çırağan now, what will they allow us to take, I don’t know, will the dampness there make my rheumatism worse?”

  The doctor looked at the Sultan carefully, he accepted the situation, he was worried about moving as if he was a director of land registry who had been assigned to another city, he was worried about what he would take with him and how his new residence would impact his health. Much later, the doctor realized that people took refuge in small problems when they were faced with great pain.

  Before the Sultan moved, the clerk returned and the doors were once again opened.

  This time it was soldiers who’d come. The officers were sterner and more distant than the delegation that had arrived earlier.

  “Parliament has found it suitable for you to live in Salonika. You and your family will get under way this evening.”

  The doctor saw the Sultan press his hand against his stomach and that he seemed on the point of falling down. This verdict was worse than being dethroned. Dethroning him removed him from politics but being sent into exile meant he was being expelled from life, all his hopes were destroyed.

  “I told the delegation that we could live in Çırağan Palace.”

  The soldiers told him in an almost hostile tone that this was not negotiable.

  “The decision has been made, we have no authority to discuss this matter further, start preparing at once, you’re to set out this evening.”

  “How can we set out this evening, at least give us time to get prepared.”

  “These are the orders, you will set out tonight.”

  The Sultan realized that if he kept talking, they’d send him by force.

  The doctor saw him go out the door toward the harem like an old man whose shoulders had collapsed and hunched. An hour later his two wives, his children, and the few things he was allowed to take with him were put into carriages, which had been difficult to find, and he was sent to Salonika, where he’d once exiled officers who opposed him. Those who had once been powerless were now showing the Sultan what it was like to be powerless.

  That night, toward midnight, a man Hikmet Bey didn’t know knocked on his door and gave him a message his father had written.

  In the library, in front of the fireplace, he opened and read the letter his father had written hastily in illegible handwriting.

  “Hikmet,

  His Majesty the Sultan is going into exile in Salonika this evening. I have decided to accompany him. I know you will think my decision strange, but I made it for two reasons. Everything I’ve ever had in my life was given to me by the Sultan, I can’t escape the thought that if I leave him on such a difficult day my life will have turned out to be a fraud.

  Second, and perhaps you will think this even strange
r, but this man is the only true friend I’ve ever had. Even though His Majesty the Sultan would be right to see it as arrogant that I speak of him as my friend I still dare to be disrespectful and see him as the only friend I’ve ever had. I don’t claim that he’s a good man who no one understands or that they think he’s bad because they don’t know him, I know this is not the case, I’ve been with him long enough to have seen his bad sides, but I think that friendship is like love, sometimes you can love someone without having a good reason to do so.

  I will be leaving the city with him this evening. I leave the mansion and the management of my estate to you. When needed, you can send the amount I need to the address I will give you later.

  There are ups and downs in life, I’m almost an old man now, this is why I’ve decided to tell you something I would have preferred to tell you face to face. I am proud of everything you’ve done so far, even though I was opposed to it at the time, just as it seems right to me to depart with the Sultan today, it seems right to me that you opposed him. You behaved like an honest and honorable man in all of the circumstances you encountered. Perhaps one day we will also have the opportunity to talk face to face.

  I entrust your mother to you, even though she sees herself as strong enough not to have to be entrusted to anyone, she is a child, she was always a child and always will be, and she’s also getting older.

  I will write you a longer letter once I’m settled in Salonika.

  I kiss your eyes.

  May God help us.

  Your father,

  Reşit.”

  18

  The following morning Hikmet Bey left early to go to the palace even though he knew his father was no longer there, just like someone who has lost someone close in an accident and wants to see the place where the accident occurred, to see the last place the person he loved had been, a curiosity that was difficult to account for drew him to the palace.

  Soldiers were patrolling the streets, the streets were quiet, the city was in an introverted mood. Just after the mutiny was put down, the soldiers closed the Kurdish porters up in their rooms, they bastinadoed the volunteer firemen who swaggered around with their fezzes perched on their foreheads, they punished anyone who might be capable of causing trouble before they had a chance to do anything. Perhaps law and order was being enforced more fully than it ever had been in Istanbul, but the way it was being enforced was more frightening and oppressive for the people than the disorder itself had been.