Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul (Turkish Literature)

by Kulin, Ayse

  Each night, long after she’d slipped away, even after he’d fallen fast asleep, Mehpare’s scent lingered. Mehpare. He remembered Mahir mentioning in conversation that consumption was known to increase a man’s sexual appetite. That was one of the reasons that he was convinced he had consumption. How else to explain the desire that he felt for this girl? Yes, it must be consumption. At first he’d held back, afraid to contaminate her. He no longer cared. It was shameless, craven, he had to have Mehpare every chance he could. He’d be dead soon enough. How could he deny himself one of the only pleasures left! As he sat lost in thought, Kemal became conscious of the cold damp wall pressing against his back, and leaned forward. He rummaged through his pockets for his cigarette case, but failed to find it. Mehpare and Saraylıhanım had been pilfering his tobacco ever since the doctor had ordered him to decrease his smoking. As he sat up straight a solider appeared at the end of the street. He sprang to his feet and began walking quickly in the opposite direction; then he broke into a run. Behind him came the sounds of pounding boots, shouts of: “Stop!”. He fell to the ground in front of the secret entranceway and crawled in; piling several large rocks into the opening, he advanced a short way into the darkness and pressed himself to the ground. He could hear men talking outside. Speaking in a Greek accent, someone said, “He can’t have vanished into thin air. He must have gone into that red house. Or the next house over.”

  “He must have escaped through one of the back gardens,” a different voice said.

  “Cut off the street. Search every house.”

  Kemal stretched out on the ground. Were they to find the opening and look inside, at least he wouldn’t be immediately visible. He’d have to remain prone for a time on the cold earth.

  He’d shiver and fever would follow and if he already had consumption he’d die and if he didn’t have consumption he’d get it. Better to die of consumption than fall into enemy hands. Actually both scenarios would mean certain death. If he was lucky enough to make it home he’d take his grandfather’s pistol out of the second drawer of the buffet and die a man’s death. A bullet to the head—after he’d made love to Mehpare one last time.

  Stripping off his çarşaf he rolled it up into a ball and placed it between his chest and the damp earth. A rat scurried along just past his head. It was too early for ants—he was lucky, at least he wasn’t being swarmed by insects. He closed his eyes to avoid the shadowy sight of rats and tried to focus his mind on other things, but now it was tormented by dark thoughts: lying face down anywhere but in bed could only mean trouble. Like being prone in the trenches, thrusting your head above ground to shoot at the enemy; and then, if you yourself weren’t shot in the process, assuming a prone position yet again, and again. Enemy fire or not, at least you could lift your head. If he straightened up now, he’d crack his skull against the stone ceiling. He was overcome with a sense of suffocation—as a boy the passage had seemed capacious, but now he was squeezed in a coffin, his heart constricted. He was desperate to emerge from this prison, to go home: he lost track of time, there was no sound but the scurrying rats, nothing but the walls pressing in. His only escape was sleep. If he could only sleep, sleep. Eternal sleep. Oh, to be like a white butterfly, driven by wind above the seven skies, a snowflake flying, wind-whipped—to be a snowflake, to be white and infinite. To be eternity.

  – 6 –

  White Death

  In Sarıkamış, sleep meant death. Kemal could remember the rows of soldiers stretched out side by side on their bellies—the way they’d prod each other, babbling to stay awake, to stay alive, because death under a white shroud of snow was the best you could hope for, if you fell asleep. To those who succumbed in their sleep, death was a white cat come to claim their souls; but to those who resisted, it came like a woman, a bride—a beckoning hand, a glimpse of dark eyes behind lace, a skirt lifted to show white thighs, a pair of naked breasts. And they ran, those young men, they ran by the scores, by the thousands, to embrace her. Staying awake was an act of defiance, of resistance, but it was only the first step. When the white bride approached them, few could resist.

  And how strange that Kemal had managed to withstand the lure of the white bride, but had yielded so completely to Mehpare. Though he’d defied death, he’d been undone by lust. Or was lust the fiercer of the two? Defying death means clinging to life, jealously guarding from the claims of Azrail the life temporarily granted by Allah. It means taking another breath; it means another exhalation, another circuit of blood pumping through the veins, another moment, another second, another heartbeat, here, on the face of a miserable world of maddening cold.

  It was peculiar, this defiance of death. He’d tried to explain one night, to Mehpare. It was one of those nights, those restless nightmarish hours of darkness. He’d finally nodded off, only to wake after several hours.

  “I’m cold, cover me. Cover me up. I’m freezing.”

  She’d piled blankets and quilts on top of him. “Do your wounds hurt, are your toes stinging? Let me rub your feet. If you’re in pain, I can get you some of the drops Mahir gave me.”

  “It isn’t my wounds, Mehpare, it’s my heart. You wouldn’t understand. You can’t know what it’s like. It’s beyond your imagination.”

  “Tell me about it then. Let me feel what you feel. Share your memories with me, let them be mine, not yours. I’ll shiver instead.”

  “There are no words to describe what I felt, what I’m feeling, the sense of revulsion, the sense of rebellion that grips me. Ever since my fellow soldiers froze to death, ever since they were abandoned to the wolves and bands of Armenian irregulars, I’ve been wracked with pain. Had we frozen to death for our country, I wouldn’t grieve. But do you know why we scaled those mountains? For the Germans. We Ottomans were pressured to open an Eastern Front in order to act as a decoy for the Russian troops. And without a second thought, that madman Enver sent 90,000 young men up into the mountains. Some of them were being deployed directly from the Arabian deserts and wore uniforms of thin cotton; as for us, we tramped through the snow for days in our leather boots. The winds transformed our greatcoats into icy shells; we couldn’t move our arms. It was as though we’d been sealed into coffins of ice. Our fingers went from cold to stinging to numb. And we froze one by one, without firing a bullet. Enver killed us.”

  “Please don’t cry. Don’t. It was their fate. It was written on their foreheads by Allah. Forget those days, those nights. Forget them.”

  “At first, the snowflakes drifted down on us like white butterflies, settling onto our heads, darting into our coats. Then the winds rose. I’ll never forget that night, the night our greatcoats froze solid. If I put it out of my mind it enters my dreams and if it leaves my dreams it’s still there, stuck fast in my mind, rooted down. The cold piercing my flesh, my soul. If I still have a soul. If there’s some shadow of a soul left in this sheath of skin, it’s a soul that trembles and shakes and shudders. Ever since that night I always sit right beside the stove, as close as possible, with a cigarette in hand, summer and winter. And when that family hid me in their shed, in Palandöken, I kept the brazier lit even when spring came, Mehpare. Not just to keep warm, but because it seemed the red glow of the flames would keep the white death at bay. I kept the fire going all summer long. The memory of that whiteness will never leave me. I’ll never be free of it, Mehpare.”

  “Try not to remember. Look, you’re home now. Warm, in your room. Close your eyes, try to drowse if you can. I’ll sit here, I’ll keep the fire alive. You won’t get cold. Now try to sleep.”

  “Listen to me, Mehpare. I can’t bear it anymore, not alone . . .”

  “I’m listening. You have my ear, my heart, my mind. I’m listening. Tell me.”

  “Snow lifted and driven by the wind, filling our mouths, our noses, our eyes. We hugged each other for warmth, we leaned into each other and onto each other, a single body of men, marching through the night. We were hungry, ill, infested with lice, doubled over with typhus. Yet w
e plowed along, falling to our knees, struggling to our feet, advancing through the snow. Our commander thought it best to return to headquarters, but the Pasha in Istanbul wouldn’t listen to him. The order came from on high. We were to continue. There’d be no regrouping, no rest. We were to circle behind the Russians, ambush them. We walked in boots worn to shreds and wrapped in rags and we couldn’t feel our feet. Some of us went mad from the cold. Some of us dashed into the forest, and when we had the strength we brought them back so they wouldn’t be executed as traitors or devoured by wolves. Our tears froze to our cheeks. And as we scaled the mountainside some of us fell to our knees, too weak to continue, intending to draw breath, gather strength. And the moment they did so they fell asleep. We pulled them to their feet, slapped their frozen faces with our frozen hands, hoisted them up by their arms and dragged them through the snow. Sometimes we were too weak to do anything but struggle up and on, leaving them behind, and almost immediately they were blanketed in white, those men kneeling in the snow, sleeping. Death taunted us. You know how they say Azrail comes in many guises to claim your soul. Well, on that December night, on Mount Allahüekber, death appeared to us in the form of a bride all in white. A malevolent, unblushing bride. Greedy. Grasping. Hungry for us all. And only a handful escaped. There was Sergeant Musa of Dimyat, İsmail, Hadji Hasso and me. I don’t know why she didn’t take us too. Hasso never used his frozen feet again, they cut both his legs off just below the knee. Sergeant Musa lost his mind. I’ve had no news of İsmail. That night, I lost two toes, damaged my kidneys, caught a chill in my lungs—and developed a strange affinity for hot stoves. That’s all. They said I was lucky. That I got off easy. I suppose they’re right, I got off easy enough, except for having to relive that terrible night every night since. And now, as I shiver and my kidneys ache and my nights are filled with terrors and I manage without two toes, I continue to draw breath and patiently wait for the day of reckoning. And on that day, I’m going to seize General Enver by the collar with my own two hands and demand he account for the 90,000 soldiers who froze to death in the mountains of Sarıkamış. That day is coming. Soon. Very soon. And when my soul, too, is a white butterfly flown up to join my comrades in arms . . .”

  “Don’t. I’m begging you, don’t talk like that. Don’t talk about death. Try to sleep. Sleep for a while longer.”

  And he did sleep for a few hours; soothed by Mehpare’s whispering, his head in her lap, her hands stroking his hair. He slept. And he had another nightmare. And trembled and cried out. Until, finally, morning broke, and the sun filtered in through a gap in the curtains, and a small patch of carpet glowed hot. It was morning. The sun was out and he would live another day. Another night had passed, and he was still alive.

  When Kemal opened his eyes he was overjoyed to see a beam of light trickling through the rocks he’d heaped up in the entrance to the crawlspace. The ground below him wasn’t soft and inviting, like snow. Something was poking into his stomach, just below his heart and his back ached; but there was light, and where there was light, there was hope. Reassured, he closed his eyes and surrendered himself to a deep sleep.

  “Sir . . . sir . . . Kemal Bey! Wake up . . . Wake up . . . God, why doesn’t he open his eyes? Hey! Kemal Bey, Kemal Bey!

  He was being slapped repeatedly on both cheeks. He opened his eyes.

  “Thank God! You scared me to death!”

  “Mehpare!”

  “It’s me, it’s me. I know you’ve been waiting. Try to sit up. You’ve caught a chill. You must be numb. Let me help you sit up.”

  Kemal tried to move his limbs. His entire body was stiff and sore. Even in the semi-darkness of the passageway, the light hurt his eyes.

  “I must have passed out. I had terrible dreams. Nightmares . . . about Sarıkamış . . .”

  “Sarıkamış is long gone. Those days are over. Come on, sit up a little.”

  Kemal got up on his knees and leaned back against the wall. “How long have I been here? What’s going on outside?”

  “It’s havoc out there. The occupying soldiers are everywhere. It’s a bloodbath. They’ve searched all the houses in the area. They even raided the Red Crescent. They’re looking for Nationalists. And for CUP supporters, too. I made it as far as the midwife’s house and waited there. So many people are hurt. They came and took the midwife away.”

  “Who took her away? The foreigners?”

  “No. Our people took her away. To tend to the wounded, probably.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Late afternoon prayers ended some time ago. You’ve been here for a while now. When things seemed to settle down I came to get you.”

  “Did they search our house?”

  “Last I saw there were still soldiers at the top of our street. Let’s go back to Ziya Pasha’s house. They won’t go there again. We can wait there, and when it’s dark we’ll go home.”

  “I’m sending you home now. Unless it’s too dangerous, Hüsnü Efendi can come and get me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you. I’m supposed to look after you. We’re going together and we’ll stay together.”

  “God, Mehpare! Am I a child?”

  “That’s not what I meant, sir. Come on, let’s go together. Come on, try to get up.”

  Kemal massaged his unfeeling legs a bit and rose to a crouching position. Bent nearly double, he followed Mehpare towards the garden where they had first entered the passage. The entrance had been concealed with rocks and weeds, so it took them some time to find it. Finally, they were outside in the garden. Kemal raised his arms over his head and stood there like that for a moment. He shook out his legs, one after the other. How wonderful to stretch your limbs, to raise your head high, to take up as much space as you wish! He imagined confinement in a tiny cell, and shuddered.

  “Stay behind that tree over there, sir, and wait for me. I’ll go and take a look at the house. If the coast is clear, I’ll come back for you,” Mehpare said.

  Kemal had grown accustomed to taking orders from Mehpare. He said nothing. As he squatted at the base of a giant plane tree, she ran for the house.

  Uncertain whether to run away or to stay where he was, Kemal tensed at the sight of a shadowy figure approaching in the darkness.

  “Kemal Bey, are you here? I can’t make you out in the dark,” came the voice of the old servant, Hakkı Efendi. Kemal got up and walked over to him.

  “Follow me, sir,” said the servant.

  “I hope those foreign soldiers haven’t harassed you,” Kemal said.

  “Azra Hanım gave them a good dressing down. They searched the house and left.”

  “Well good for her.”

  “Don’t concern yourself, sir, they won’t be back.”

  Azra and Mehpare were waiting for Kemal at the gate to the house.

  “I’m so sorry, Kemal,” Azra said. “Mehpare told me what happened. It must have been dreadful shut up in that hole all afternoon. But better that than getting caught. You must be chilled to the marrow; I’ve had some soup prepared. Shall we go straight to the dining room?”

  “Has your mother returned?” Kemal asked.

  “No. I didn’t expect her back until Friday in any case. I’d been planning to take the ferryboat to Kadıköy tomorrow to see her, but I understand they’ve been cancelled.”

  “As far as I know neither the tramways nor the ferryboats have been running on schedule for some days now.”

  “For a housebound invalid you’re most knowledgeable, Kemal.”

  “I may be confined to the house, but the members of my family are free to go where they will.”

  They entered a dining room in which the table had been freshly laid. Dining rooms had come into fashion, replacing the traditional common dining areas upon which rooms opened. Families favoring an à la française lifestyle no longer supped off large round trays, and were slowly growing accustomed to sitting at a table. Azra sat Kemal at the head of the table, took a seat to his right and showed Mehpar
e to the chair on his left. Doing her best to conceal her tension, Mehpare sat down, racking her brain to remember what she’d read in Behice’s women’s magazines—advice on table manners. “Sit fully erect throughout the meal. Do not lean your elbows on the table. Do not smack your lips. In fact, do not speak while there is food in your mouth,” she’d read in The Gazette for Women. She tensed her back, sitting ramrod straight, and slowly removed her elbows from the table.

  Kemal and Azra spent most of the meal talking about a secret organization. When Azra wanted to keep something secret from Mehpare, she’d speak French. It was maddening. As the meal drew to an end, Mehpare could take no more.

  “They’ll be worried about us, shall we go as soon as we’ve finished dining?” she remarked to Kemal.

  “If you’d like, I could send Hakkı Efendi first, to check the streets,” Azra offered.

  “Is there any need?”

  “Caution is always advisable,” Azra insisted. “Hakkı Efendi will be back before we’ve finished our coffee. Would you like to go with him, Mehpare? You’re looking a little peaky.”