Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul (Turkish Literature)

by Kulin, Ayse

  “He was awake all night, is that right?” Reşat Bey asked, closing his eyes to the nightdress peeking out from beneath Mehpare’s long shawl.

  “He was running a fever, sir.”

  “Nightmares?”

  “No, the nightmares have stopped, praise God. The syrup the doctor gave us has done him good. He’d been doing so well lately . . . But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “He met with a visitor last week, down in the selamlık. It’s a cold room, so I lit a fire in the large brazier and took it in to them. But it wasn’t enough to keep back the damp. He must have caught a chill.”

  “Who was this visitor? Why wasn’t I informed?”

  Mehpare bowed her head. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Mehpare, listen. No one is allowed in when I’m not here.”

  “But they went to the selamlık, not here . . .”

  “You’re not to admit visitors to the selamlık either. No one.”

  “The housekeeper said he was an army friend of Kemal Bey’s . . . He gets bored here all alone, and his grandmother gave her consent.”

  “With the exception of Leman’s French and history tutors, no one is permitted to enter this house, even if he claims to be the son of the Sultan himself. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now go to your room and get dressed. We’re well into the morning.”

  Mehpare slowly backed out of the room, knees trembling, mortified at having been caught in her night dress. Then she ran all the way to her room.

  The housekeeper, Gülfidan, was producing her usual clatter in the kitchen as she prepared breakfast. Whenever Mehpare made the slightest sound, even the clink of a spoon on a tea glass, she was roundly scolded. But Saraylıhanım would countenance no criticism of the housekeeper she’d brought to Istanbul from the Caucasus. Mehpare herself was Circassian, but she had been born in the city. For that reason, and even though she was a distant relative, she would never attain the standing of the housekeeper in Saraylıhanım’s eyes. Saraylıhanım had filled the house with native-born Circassians. She wanted no Christian servants—she countenanced only Aret Efendi, who tended the garden three times a week in the summer and once or twice a month in the winter, and Katina, who was responsible for Behice’s ironing and needlework. And Saraylıhanım wouldn’t even greet Katina. Upon being sent into service before age twelve, Mehpare had been warned that “palace types” were a bit odd. She’d been told they split hairs, became fixated on the tiniest things, were cantankerous. And it was all true. Saraylıhanım’s continual grousing also exasperated Behice Hanım, whom Mehpare had overheard on multiple occasions wailing: “If she were my mother-in-law, maybe it wouldn’t be so unbearable. But she isn’t even Reşat’s mother.”

  Mehpare stepped into her room and spread her prayer rug on the floor. Then, a towel draped over her arm, she headed for the ground floor hamam to perform her ritual ablutions.

  Ahmet Reşat sat at the foot of Kemal’s bed and laid the back of his hand on his nephew’s neck, his forehead. Kemal’s fever had broken. His forehead and upper lip were beaded with sweat.

  It had been thirty years since Ahmet Reşat had first caressed those pink cheeks with his fingertips, terrified he would wake the sleeping baby. Kemal’s late mother had brought him into this world, then traveled on to the next well before the customary forty days of confinement following childbirth had ended. It was a fate repeatedly visited upon Ottoman Turk families: the women died of massive blood loss or infection; the men died on the battlefield: the infants were surrendered to the care of aunts and uncles. Kemal’s father had been martyred in the Greco-Turkish War before he’d had the chance to see his newborn son. Reşat, himself an orphan, had still been a young man when he took full responsibility for his nephew. He’d considered Kemal his son, and arranged that the boy be looked after by his great aunt, Saraylıhanım, and educated by the most reputable tutors in Istanbul. He had done his best to raise Kemal but had utterly failed to exert any influence on him.

  At the touch of the hand now resting on his forehead, Kemal’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Uncle,” he murmured.

  “How are you feeling? They tell me you couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “I was feverish. But I vaguely recall Mehpare trying to lower my temperature with cold compresses.”

  “Should I call a doctor?”

  “I don’t want you to. I’m fine now, uncle.”

  Reşat Bey reached for the glass of milk and honey resting on the window sill. “Try to take a sip or two; it’ll soothe your chest.”

  “Later, Uncle. Don’t worry, Mehpare will definitely make me drink it.”

  “That poor girl’s been an attentive nurse. Your aunt brought her up so well.”

  “Eh. When I became too much for her, she found someone else to enslave, that’s all,” said Kemal, with a weak chuckle.

  “You’ve been too much for me too. Kemal. Look at the condition you’re in. Why didn’t you listen to us?”

  “My condition is nothing compared to what’s happened to the motherland. I still have nightmares about that damned General d’Esperey, trotting to the French Embassy on horseback, triumphant, like a commander of the Roman Legion. And on a white horse, no less! The insolence of it! Alluding to Mehmet the Conqueror’s entrance into Constantinople! As if to say, you took this city on a white horse, and on a white horse I’m taking it back . . .”

  “Come on. Try to think of happier things. You’ll give yourself nightmares.”

  “Better to have died in Sarıkamış than to witness that terrible day.”

  Ahmet Reşat squirmed in exasperation.

  “Just be grateful you’re still alive,” he managed.

  “They say Maraş has taken up arms against the French. Is it true?”

  “Yes. We’ve received reports.”

  “That’s wonderful, Uncle!”

  “Kemal! Even after the armistice was signed, some of the pashas refused to surrender their arms, and the commander in Mecca fought on for another two months. And to what end? None! On the contrary, the more we oppose them the tighter they clamp down.”

  “This time might be different. Anatolia has begun organizing. If resistance builds in the hinterlands, Istanbul will spring into action too.”

  “And then? I fear what the English will do to us.”

  “So you’ve started to think like the Sultan too? Disappointing.”

  “What you need to understand is that the Sultan is no worse than most of his predecessors. Ill-starred, that’s all. This invasion came to pass during his reign. He’s doing all he can to protect a throne that has endured for six hundred years.”

  “And what about us? Is he protecting his subjects?”

  “That throne represents us all. If it falls, we go down with it.”

  “Well let’s say it does fall. What do you plan to do? What are your thoughts?”

  “I’m a civil servant, a treasury official, authorized to act only by proxy. I’m not even a member of parliament. My thoughts don’t matter.”

  “They matter to me.”

  “Kemal, you already know what I think. We’ve been at war for years: Russia, the Balkans, Tripoli . . . And on and on. As for the Great War, it destroyed us. Nobody wants to wage another now. Our weapons, our ammunition—it’s all gone. Seized. Under these conditions, I naturally support the Sultan, I believe that the occupation will have to be resolved through diplomatic channels.”

  “You support the Sultan even if you admit he is at fault, don’t you?”

  “For generations my family has served, and been served by, the Palace. Don’t expect me to betray or defy my Padishah. And I have to advise you, my nephew, not to betray him either. It would be most unbecoming.”

  Kemal was silent. He was too frail to argue further, but hoped his uncle would remain here for a while, chatting, giving him news of the outside world. He’d been surrounded by women ever since his confinement to this room. He’d
begun to find them unbearable.

  Reşat Bey rose to his feet. “I woke you up. I’ll go now and let you sleep.”

  Kemal stretched his hand towards his uncle. “Don’t go yet. Stay with me. Let’s talk a little longer.”

  Reşat Bey took a seat again at the foot of the bed. The two men held each other’s gaze for a moment. In his nephew’s exhausted eyes, Reşat nearly caught a glimpse of his late mother.

  “Kemal, who visited you last week?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “When?”

  “You had a visitor last week. Who was it?”

  “Uncle, you’d think Abdülhamit had entrusted his secret agents to you as he was being deposed. How on earth did you hear about that?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “Do you really have spies in the house?”

  “Don’t upset me, Kemal. I want to know who it was.”

  “An old friend from the army.”

  “Your army friends froze to death.”

  “This one was captured; and now he’s back.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Cemil Fuat. A distant relative of Fevzi Pasha.”

  “Is he a member of the Committee for Union and Progress?”

  “Are there any left? Almost all of them who went to Sarıkamış froze, and the few survivors repented. Those who remained behind were strung up, here, by the occupiers and Damat Ferit.”

  Reşat Bey ignored his nephew’s bluntness. “What does he want?”

  “He came to see me. Must he want something?”

  “Every time you receive visitors something abominable happens.”

  “Look, uncle: am I in any state to involve myself in something dangerous? You know perfectly well that the only thing to emerge from this room will be my corpse.”

  “Heaven forbid! You’re still young. With enough rest and nourishment—if you keep your nose out of danger—you’ll be burying me one day, God willing. As things stand, there won’t be anyone else left to do it. War has claimed all the men of this family.”

  “Don’t fret about your corpse, dear Uncle. Your daughters are pretty enough that before long your house will be bursting with husbands. Who knows—maybe this time the boy you’ve always hoped for will come into the world, and push me off my throne.”

  “That’s enough of your prattling. Just promise that you won’t invite anyone else to the house.”

  “Well I certainly won’t invite anyone who might put you in danger.”

  “I’ve heard that before. But I haven’t forgotten the night our house was surrounded by the police.”

  Kemal had opened his mouth to speak but he was wracked by a fit of coughing. When it had passed, Reşat Bey held the glass of milk out to his nephew. After several gulps, Kemal was able to speak again. “Uncle, I’ve heard that the Sultan’s son-in-law, İsmail Hakkı Bey, has sided with the Nationalists, that he’s been trying to make their case at the Palace. Is it true?”

  “How do you hear these things in this garret of yours? Or have you been sneaking outside?”

  “My visitor told me.”

  “His account was less than accurate. Adventurers like you and İsmail Hakkı will be the end of us. The streets have filled with Greeks and Armenians in British uniforms gathering information for the English. They have eyes everywhere. All this nonsense about French sympathies and Nationalists assembling in Anatolia is just that: nonsense. It’s over, Kemal. We’re finished. Parts of Anatolia, too, are under occupation. We’ll be lucky to save Istanbul and the Caliphate. The Sultan has consented to British administration, but only temporarily. It’s better than being dismembered and destroyed. And that’s why we’re simply going to have to get along with the English.”

  “Can’t the Sultan remain on friendly terms with the English even as he supports the resistance in Anatolia? Don’t underestimate that movement, Uncle. They say that some have already left Istanbul to join them.”

  “What difference would it make if all Istanbul were to decamp to Anatolia? We have no boots for our feet, no control over our own armories.”

  “Our hopes rest with God.”

  “Exactly. The treasuries are absolutely bare, our civil servants unpaid. We were able to pay the wages of the clerks and cleaners this month, but only after ransacking our own buildings, selling off bags of sand, axes, shovels, leather, scrap-iron, anything else we could get our hands on.”

  Kemal’s head fell back onto the pillow.

  “You need rest. It’s early, and I’ve worn you out,” Reşat said. “I’ll have a quick bite and get back to work. If you’re still not feeling well, send word and I’ll have Doctor Mahir stop by in the evening.”

  Kemal didn’t respond. The cries of the street hawkers and milk-men had begun to penetrate the room. Istanbul was stirring; her populace waking to yet another day of occupation, shame, dejection. The carpet grew brighter and brighter under the bands of light seeping through the shutters.

  Reşat Bey stood up and crept out of the room, careful not to disturb his nephew, who, no longer eager for conversation, was feigning sleep. As he descended to his room on the floor below he braced himself for the complaints of his wife. He was painfully aware that he’d been arriving home at dawn for nearly a month, no explanations offered; that Behice was wondering what could possibly keep a treasury official busy at all hours of the night.

  But Ahmet Reşat was in no position to enlighten his wife on his clandestine activities. Moreover, his own feelings concerning his work were ambiguous. Mahir was the only person to know that the Grand Vizier had entrusted him with a special task; and only because the doctor himself had been charged with similar secret duties. A number of prominent bureaucrats, all of whom spoke excellent French, had been encouraged to cultivate friendships with high-ranking French officials. To that end, they were expected to attend dinners and to engage their new friends in games of bridge and chess. Ahmet Reşat had tried, and failed, to reassure himself that his duties were not, in fact, those of a spy. And it wasn’t as if he was expected to rummage through safes and chests of drawers for secret documents and the keys to the Allied Forces’ ciphers. It had merely been observed that relations between the British and French had grown increasingly strained, and there was curiosity as to the cause. When Reşat Bey had been informed by the first aide-de-camp that his presence was requested by Grand Vizier Ali Rıza Pasha, he’d armed himself with a stack of documents and arrived at the appointed hour prepared to discuss the empire’s finances. But the Pasha made no mention of receipts and expenditures. The exchange of pleasantries over coffee completed, the Pasha came straight to the point. In two days, Reşat and Mahir were to attend a dinner at the mansion of Count Ostrorog, on the shores of the Bosphorus. Among those dining with them would be the French High Commissioner, and Reşat Bey was asked to keep his ears open throughout the evening.

  Ahmet Reşat had a deep aversion to subterfuge of any description, even in service of the motherland. He was a straightforward man, well-bred, guileless. However great his reluctance to attend the function, he was somewhat comforted by the sight of Mahir, and absolutely overjoyed to encounter, in Ostrorog’s salon, his old friend, Count Caprini.

  “Caprini Efendi! How fortuitous! It’s been so long. You’re in good health, I hope?”

  “My dear friend,” said the Count, “the sight of you has improved my health no end. Now why don’t you join me in a corner and we’ll catch up.”

  Count Caprini reputedly held an administrative position at the Italian Commissariat, but had in fact been deployed to Istanbul to command the Italian Military Police and to prevent them from clashing with the Turks. He was known to be a friend to the Ottoman Muslims. As fate would have it, he had been serving at a gendarmerie in Crete during the massacre of the Muslims there and was subsequently rewarded for his humanitarianism by Sultan Abdülhamit II, who presented him with a medal and the title “Count Caprini Efendi.”

  The friendship between Ahmet Reşat and Count Caprini went back even
further. Ahmet Reşat had held a government position in Thessalonica at the same time Count Caprini was employed there to help organize the Ottoman Gendarmerie. The two young men met and became fast friends. Together they enjoyed the diversions of the bustling port city, attended chess parties, and went riding. Many years later their paths had crossed on several occasions in occupied Istanbul. But, aggrieved by the treatment of his city, Ahmet Reşat had chosen to avoid his old companion. Now fate had united them once more, and they found time to exchange a few words before they were seated for dinner.

  “If an emergency should ever arise, please come to me, Reşat Beyefendi,” the Count said.

  May Allah save me from having to depend on any of you, was what Ahmet Reşat thought to himself, but merely smiled and said, “How kind of you, Caprini Efendi.”

  After dinner, the men broke up into groups for bridge and chess. That first evening, no information of any kind was divulged. Still, the Grand Vizier thought it best for Reşat to cultivate any acquaintances made that day. A useful social connection might still emerge. Who knew?

  Over the next few days, they spent a great deal of time with the French, one day attending a dance performance in Pera, followed by a trip to a bar. And it wasn’t long before an apparently indifferent Ahmet Reşat heard lips loosened by drink convey some interesting information. His eyes fixed on the stage, his ears focused on the chattering Frenchmen, he had learned that even though the French were members of the Allied Forces they objected to being under British command, for which reason they were bedeviling General Wilson.

  Ahmet Reşat’s stomach churned as he began writing up his report the following day. What if the document fell into the wrong hands? He, Ahmet Reşat, was no spy! He was a finance officer. He tore the report to bits and went to the office of Ali Rıza Pasha, where he presented an oral account of what he’d overheard.