Love in the Days of Rebellion

by Ahmet Altan

  The following morning he wanted to speak with Sheikh Efendi at once to tell him what he’d seen and also to wash away the effects of the previous night, but because Sheikh Efendi had guests, he spent the morning strolling alone along the Golden Horn, thought about what he’d experienced in Anatolia, and decided that a state that had forgotten its religion was bound to collapse.

  In the afternoon, when the heat of the summer day made its presence felt and everyone withdrew inside, he managed to get into the cool, dark room where Sheikh Efendi sat, he greeted his Sheikh and began telling him about what he’d seen.

  “Anatolia is finished, my Sheikh,” he began, “Anatolia is a cesspool. There is no religion or faith. There’s corruption, extortion, and fraud everywhere . . . ”

  He talked about a district governor in the vicinity of Yozgat, the man sat in the garden outside his office in his night shirt, ignoring the people who came and went and drinking from morning to night; another district governor had lined bottles up on the garden wall and shot at them with a rifle from his office window, he did nothing but shoot at bottles.

  “May God strike me blind if I’m lying, Sheikh, I saw an official who was a hundred and four years old, he rides a donkey, two men hold on to him so he doesn’t fall off, that’s how he goes to the government building, he’s half demented, his mind comes and goes, but the man hadn’t done anything wrong, as he himself said to me, ‘I told the Shaykh-al Islam, if you’re appointing me to this position, you would have appointed Noah if you could have found him, but he didn’t mind, he just said we’ll see what happens.’ May God lead you to believe that Anatolia is off the rails. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there is no government, the people live in misery, you can’t get a single document signed without paying a bribe. Along the way we saw many funerals, we saw sickness, epidemics, starvation . . . As I always say, if there’s no religion, there’s nothing left, sharia is no longer obeyed, I crossed the vastness of Anatolia without seeing any divine light anywhere.”

  Sheikh Efendi listened in silence, these were all things he knew, everyone who came from Anatolia told him the same thing.

  He asked, “Did you see the monk in Sinop I told you about?”

  Hasan Efendi smiled.

  “I saw him, Your Excellency, he was all alone in a monastery in the middle of nowhere, on top of a mountain. May God grant that this infidel die in the correct religion, the man’s an infidel but he’s shrewder than any Muslim . . . But I think he has a screw loose. He dug a grave in the monastery garden, it’s his grave, he lives next to his grave. While I was there, the governor came with his retinue, he was very fond of the infidel . . . The monk was very pleased by the Pasha’s visit. When the Pasha was leaving he showed him the grave he’d dug, I remember what he said word for word . . . ”

  Hasan Efendi stopped, recalled the monk’s exact words, and repeated them to his sheikh.

  “He said to the Pasha, ‘I’m one of the happiest creatures in the world, because I will spend this life that God has given me in the quietude granted to those who have conviction in a heavenly place, in forested mountains. When I die, I will be buried in a grave that I have become accustomed to seeing every day as if it was a bed. Because you are a great governor, a pasha, you will spend your short life, regardless of how long it is, in turmoil, you won’t know where you’ll die or where you’ll be buried. To whom did the Lord who made you governor of a province and me a monk in a monastery grant the greatest blessing, think about it.’ This is what he said to the governor pasha.”

  The Sheikh nodded.

  “He’s a good Christian. Did he send me anything?”

  “He wrote a letter and gave it to me.”

  Sheikh Efendi took the letter and put it aside to read later.

  Hasan Efendi was contemplating whether to tell him about the meeting between Mehpare Hanım and Hikmet Bey, which he’d heard about as soon as he arrived and which bothered him, when both of them looked at the door in silence, they sensed that someone was coming.

  Sheikh Efendi stirred restlessly because he sensed who was coming.

  When he saw Rukiye come in and open her abiya, Hasan Efendi rushed to stand up, asked to be excused, and left.

  “Welcome, please sit over here.”

  Rukiye sat on the cushion next to Sheikh Efendi.

  She waited for a time in silence, looking straight ahead, and then, as was her wont, she took a deep breath, loaded the burden she was carrying into her father’s mind, and briefly said what she had to say with a sharpness that freed her.

  “I’m getting married.”

  In the way this short sentence was delivered, it was clear that she was not seeking her father’s permission, that she was simply informing him.

  Sheikh Efendi acted as if he didn’t notice the tension in his daughter’s voice.

  “I wish you happiness. He’s a good young man.”

  At first Rukiye couldn’t grasp who the good young man was, then when she realized this was Tevfik Bey, she gave a smile that resembled Mihrişah Sultan’s smile.

  “Oh yes . . . I forgot that you hear about everything, that you know everything.”

  Sheikh Efendi looked at his daughter as if to shame her, but he didn’t answer, he just asked a question that surprised her.

  “Are you going to find peace in this marriage?”

  Rukiye could guess that the question that was usually asked in these circumstances was,“Are you happy?” but her father had asked her if she was at peace.

  “Why do you ask this?”

  “I think you need peace, you have a restless, impatient nature. My daughter, everyone finds happiness in different things, there are people who find happiness in anger, in fighting, there are people who find happiness in excitement, and some find happiness in love . . . I think that you will find happiness in peace, in order for you to be happy, you first need peace. If you had faith you could find this peace in belief, in worship, but I know your faith is weak, destiny has been cruel enough to find it appropriate for you to find peace not in the Lord but in his slaves, in unfortunate humans. For you happiness is concealed behind peace . . . I will always beseech the Lord in my prayers to give you peace.”

  Rukiye was more impressed by the touching compassion in her father’s voice than by his words, she bowed her head. Sheikh Efendi continued.

  “This is very difficult to confess, but I think I may be one of the reasons for your restlessness. Rukiye, there’s a price for every misdeed in life, but sometimes someone other than the person who committed it ends up paying for it. I made the mistake, and you paid for it.”

  Sheikh Efendi smiled sadly.

  “Of course this price naturally brings me my own share of suffering, but you were the intermediary. The child of a mother and father who were unable to find happiness also has difficulty finding happiness. Parents show a child the way to happiness, if we were unable to do that, how and where would you be able to find it? Then you might even think that there’s no such thing as happiness, but this would also be a mistake. If you find peace, you’ll also find happiness.”

  With difficulty, Rukiye said, “I’m not looking for anything.”

  “We’re all looking for something, my daughter, some of us find it and some of us don’t. Only those who’ve lost hope say they’re not looking for anything. You shouldn’t say this on the eve of a marriage, my child, you are looking for something, and with God’s help you’ll find it.”

  More out of tactless closeness than out of disrespect, Rukiye asked:

  “What are you looking for?”

  No one but his daughter could have asked Sheikh Efendi this question, and no one but his daughter would have received an answer.

  “I’m looking for peace.”

  “You have the faith that you told me could help me, how is it that this faith didn’t give you peace?”

 
; Without realizing it, the Sheikh started to count his beads a bit faster.

  “Why hasn’t my faith given me peace? If I didn’t have the faith, I wouldn’t have found the strength to seek peace . . . The Lord showed me peace and light, but a time came when I was curious about darkness, I wanted to see what was hidden there. If you’re walking in the light and you turn to look at the darkness, if you commit this sin, the darkness casts a shadow on your light and peace. All your life you try to get rid of that shadow, to find light and peace again, and this is more difficult than you can imagine.”

  It was only when she heard this that Rukiye was able to understand how much her father had suffered. She felt he wouldn’t have told this to anyone but her, she felt that an incredible privilege had been granted her. When she felt this, it was as if the last knots within her had been untied, it truly gave her peace to be Sheikh Efendi’s daughter and to know that he loved her. She asked in a soft, meek voice:

  “Do you think this marriage is fitting, do you give your permission?”

  Sheikh Efendi looked at his daughter.

  “May God grant you happiness, my prayers are with you.”

  When Rukiye put her hand in front of her in order to stand up and asked to be excused, she suddenly started to cry; she sobbed, she wept breathlessly in a way she hadn’t done since childhood; she tried to control herself but she couldn’t, it was as if the knots within her, tied by all the things she’d experienced and hadn’t been able to cry about, had been loosened, now, even though there was no apparent reason to cry she was crying about everything that had happened in her life. As she wept she murmured, “Forgive me, forgive me.” From his seat Sheikh Efendi silently stroked his daughter’s hair and allowed her to weep as much as she wanted.

  She wept for quite some time, neither of them knew how long, then she wiped her eyes; she asked with a sarcasm that didn’t match her swollen eyes and flushed face:

  “Do you think I’m finding peace this way?”

  “Are you?”

  Rukiye became serious.

  “I think I am.”

  Then she smiled again.

  “But if I find peace like this a few more times I won’t have the strength to experience that peace.”

  Sheikh Efendi smiled as well.

  “You will, my daughter, you will.”

  “If you’ll allow it, I want to come here with my fiancé before the wedding, so that he can kiss your hand.”

  “Of course, my daughter, I would be pleased.”

  Rukiye left that place with a feeling she’d never known, with a great trust in herself, her life, and her future, without all the nameless irritations and unaccountable tensions she’d suffered throughout her childhood, with the quietude her father called peace. It was as if a hoarder’s room, full of junk, full of things whose purpose no one knew, no one could guess why they’d been saved, had been cleaned out, all of the unnecessary clutter had been thrown away; even Rukiye herself was surprised at the sense of rejuvenation she felt after this catharsis.

  Sheikh Efendi, for his part, felt as if he’d been reunited with his favorite child, though she was his favorite for reasons he either didn’t know or couldn’t confess to himself, that his daughter had forgiven him and accepted him as her father, he was proud of her intelligence, her frankness, her honesty, and her rebellious soul, though all of these were considered disrespectful in the world of the tekke, he prayed softly for her peace and happiness.

  After Rukiye left he called Hasan Efendi and, with a joy in his voice that surprised even him, gave him orders; a waterfront mansion on the Bosphorus would be rented for her, she would be given an income, all of Istanbul, and particularly the groom’s family and Mihrişah Sultan, would know that this young girl, whose mother was remembered with curses, was not all alone, and that she was not indigent.

  As the Sheikh was preparing for one daughter’s wedding, he didn’t know that another daughter was preparing to get divorced. It was as if destiny had determined that this man would not experience any joy fully.

  The night Ahmed Samim Bey was shot, there was an angry debate between two brothers in the garden of the mansion in Göztepe.

  Ragıp Bey was very angry.

  He almost shouted, “What is this, brother?” his voice reached the women sitting on the mansion’s veranda.

  “I didn’t object to men being killed for freedom, for the good of the empire, I myself killed people, I haven’t doubted for a single day that what I did was right, but the men we shot in the streets provided guns and money to the Bulgarian guerillas, they were enemies of the empire. Why did you shoot this man? Why do you send this dog, Abdülkadir, after our people? Did this man sell guns to the Bulgarians, did he give money to the Greeks? Why did we fight for freedom if we’re just going to kill our own people? A day will come when the entire population of this nation will be our enemy, can’t you see this? This isn’t soldiering, this is playing at being guerillas in our own capital, against who, against our own people.”

  Cevat Bey listened patiently to what his brother had to say.

  “Ragıp, you’re getting angry for no reason. You didn’t read what he wrote, you don’t know what he wrote, there’s nothing he didn’t stoop to saying about the organization, he wrote such garbage even a dog wouldn’t eat it. Think about what it means to criticize the Committee. This man was buttering the fanatics’ bread, as he attacked us, the religious fanatics jumped for joy. What will it lead to if everyone starts to criticize the organization like this, the fanatics will be revitalized, do you want us to go back to the old days, do you want the tyranny to begin again, do you want the religious fanatics to turn this land into a hell?”

  “I saw what he wrote about the former Sultan, he had no connection to the religious fanatics. We have our own writers, why didn’t you let them answer? I didn’t become a soldier for this, I didn’t become a soldier to kill my own people in my capital, they trained us to fight for our nation on the front lines, now everyone sees us as murderers with bloody hands. Yes, I am a murderer too, I’ve shot men, but I didn’t kill anyone because they wrote articles, and I won’t, I won’t pull a gun on someone who has no interest in guns, when you start killing people who don’t have guns you kill the army too, you’re not giving any thought to the army’s honor.”

  Despite his patience, Cevat Bey was beginning to become irritated.

  “Ragıp, you’re talking without thinking things through. You’re expressing ideas about things you don’t understand, do you think it’s easy to govern a nation, is the enemy only at the front lines, don’t you see that so many insidious enemies have infiltrated us, looking for ways to destroy us? What would happen if the Committee left the scene, tell me, who else but us can prevent the former Caliph from returning to Istanbul, who else but us can stop a return of those terrible days, Ragıp, you don’t sound like the Ragıp I know.”

  Ragıp Bey sat up slightly.

  “What do you mean, brother? Are you calling me a traitor as well?”

  “No, that didn’t even occur to me.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “Istanbul has made you softer.”

  Ragıp Bey flushed deeply, he felt his brain numbed by anger, he understood what his brother meant, but he couldn’t come up with an answer.

  He clenched his teeth and could only say, “Is that so?”

  Cevat Bet said, “Yes, that’s so. Pull yourself together, the life you’re living is preventing you from thinking as clearly as you need to be thinking.”

  If they continued talking even a little more, the relationship between the two brothers would be damaged for good, more frightening things might have happened right then and there in the fruit-scented garden, but just then they heard their mother’s dry voice, it was clear she’d been listening to her sons from the beginning.

  “Cevat, go to bed, you’ll wake the chi
ld with all your noise. Ragıp, you go to bed too, you have to get up early in the morning.”

  The two brothers stood and walked inside like children. When Ragıp Bey strode in angrily and took off his jacket, he saw his wife sitting by the window; it was clear that she’d listened to the entire conversation. “Haven’t you gone to bed?” asked Ragıp Bey.

  “No, I was waiting for you, we need to talk.”

  “We can talk tomorrow, why not talk in the daytime, why do we need to talk so late at night?”

  His wife’s voice was cold, almost hostile.

  “We have to talk now.”

  “What is it that’s so important.”

  “I want to go back to my father’s house.”

  “Fine, I’ll take you back the day after tomorrow.”

  “No, you don’t understand, I want to go back to my father’s house permanently, I want to divorce you and never see you again.”

  Ragıp Bey had to get a grip on himself in order not to throw his jacket onto the floor, he sat in an armchair.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “From nowhere, I don’t want to live with you anymore.”

  “Are you crazy, how could I do that to Sheikh Efendi, how can I leave His Excellency’s daughter?”

  “First of all, you’re not leaving me, I’m leaving you, second, this has nothing to do with Sheikh Efendi, we’re talking about our life.”

  “Hatice Hanım, how can we do this, what will people say, what will Sheikh Efendi think?”

  “He’ll think what he thought when you killed men, when you slept with other women, when you sank up to your neck in sin.”

  “You don’t hear what you’re saying, we’re talking about your father.”

  “I know very well who I’m talking about, I hear what I’m saying.”

  Ragıp Bey sighed.

  “As you wish. But with your permission, I’d like to speak to Sheikh Efendi first.”

  “You can talk to Sheikh Efendi when you take me to the tekke. I want to go tomorrow morning. If you don’t, I’ll take the child with me and go alone.”