Last Train to Istanbul

by Ayşe Kulin

  Carrying Fazıl had really tired Selva by the time she got to the consulate. There was the usual crowd gathered in front of the wooden building, so she decided to avoid it and walk straight to the gate and ring the bell. The same kavass, the consulate porter, answered the door, recognizing Selva and smiling at her son.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Kender,” she said.

  “I presume you have an appointment.”

  “Would I come without one?”

  “Please go upstairs to his secretary.”

  “Yes, I know the way. Thank you,” said Selva, putting Fazıl down. Mother and son walked up the stairs hand in hand. The secretary was surprised to see Selva.

  “What’s the matter, madame? There isn’t anything wrong with your papers, is there?” she asked.

  “No, our papers are in perfect order. I’ve come to see Mr. Kender on a personal matter. I wonder if he has a few minutes to spare.”

  The secretary opened the diary in front of her and checked it. “I might be able to squeeze you in for ten minutes between two appointments, but you must be brief, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, of course, very brief. I promise.”

  “This must be your son. Isn’t he sweet? What’s your name, young man?”

  “Fafa…Fafa…Fa,” gurgled Fazıl.

  “Fazıl. We’ve named him after my father.”

  With Fazıl on her lap, Selva sat on the chair next to the secretary’s desk, as she had done on her previous visits. She had no idea how long she’d waited, because she was still working out in her mind what she would say, when suddenly she saw Nazım Kender standing, tall as he was, right in front of her. She leaped up. The consul appeared rather confused.

  “Well, I never, Selva Hanım! I didn’t know you had an appointment.”

  “Actually, I didn’t…I was hoping you might be able to see me if you could spare a little time.”

  “I see you’re here with your little son! Is something wrong?”

  “Yes, there is.”

  Nazım Kender asked the secretary what time his next appointment was and turned to Selva.

  “Luckily, the Italian consul is always late. Please come in, Selva Hanım, but I hope you understand that when my next guest arrives—”

  “I will leave immediately,” Selva interrupted. Turning to her son, she said, “Please wait here for Mummy, my little one.” She ignored her son’s grumbling. Nazım held his office door open for her, walked to his desk, and sat down, but Selva remained standing.

  “I realize that we have very little time, so I’ll get straight to the point: I want to help the children of a neighbor of mine. They are thirteen and fifteen years old. They’re not Turkish—their parents are from Lebanon—but I believe that they have just as much right to live as my own son. Can you possibly provide them with papers too?”

  “Selva Hanım! Do you realize that what you’re asking me to do is illegal?”

  “I do, but I am not asking you to do something inhumane. What’s left in this world that’s legal anymore? Even our right to live is at the mercy of the Gestapo.”

  Selva opened her bag, took out Camilla Afnaim’s photograph, and put it on his desk.

  “These are the children I’m asking you to save. I came here and risked being thrown out because I strongly believe they should live. Thank you, Mr. Kender, for not showing me out.”

  There was a knock on the door and the secretary looked in. “Your visitor is here, sir.”

  Selva put two identity cards with the names Sami Naim and Peri Naim beside the photograph on the desk.

  “I’ll call your secretary on Monday and come and collect them if you can’t help. I promise I won’t bother you again, Mr. Kender.”

  “Selva Hanım, you realize, don’t you, that if anyone finds out during their transportation that these children aren’t Turkish, they won’t be the only ones to suffer the consequences. I’ll be in very serious trouble indeed.”

  “No one will find out, I’m sure. I’ll start teaching them Turkish today. They’ll be able to learn enough to speak among themselves, I promise.”

  “I can’t promise you anything at all.”

  Selva left the room. Fazıl was on the floor playing with pieces of paper he had emptied out of the wastebasket. She knelt down beside him, replaced all the paper, and thanked the secretary. Hand in hand, she and her son walked down the steps with great dignity.

  Leaving the consulate, Selva could barely bring herself to look at the poor souls waiting hopefully outside.

  My God, she thought, where on earth can I go to save my son from such suffering? Is there any corner of the vast world where people live without tormenting each other?

  PARIS

  Tarık felt rather pleased with himself as he was tying his new tie. Until he caught sight of himself in the mirror with pursed lips, he wasn’t even aware that he was whistling—“Lili Marlene.” He felt embarrassed and stopped, wondering what he was so happy about.

  The woman was Hungarian, blonde with green eyes, just his type. Her French wasn’t very good and she spoke with an accent, which pleased Tarık because although his French was improving, he was far from fluent and he liked to have the upper hand. What agitated Tarık most was the possibility of not finding enough to talk with Margot about during their time together. To this very day, the only woman outside his immediate family that he’d had the opportunity to be alone with or talk to for any length of time was Sabiha. He’d had no problems conversing with her, because she did most of the talking while he just listened and answered from time to time. Ever since he had invited Margot out for dinner, he’d wondered if this was why he was obsessed with Sabiha—because he never had a problem being alone or talking to her.

  Muhlis had introduced him to Margot; she was a friend of his girlfriend, and they worked together in a pharmaceutical factory. They had been out as a foursome to the cinema and the theater a few times and once for dinner.

  About a week ago, Muhlis had asked him if he fancied Margot, and he had replied that he did.

  “In that case, why don’t you ask her out for dinner one evening?” asked Muhlis.

  “Do you think she’d accept?”

  “You won’t know if you don’t ask her.”

  So Tarık did ask, and she accepted. Muhlis chose the restaurant and made the reservation for him. Tarık wasn’t too sure about this, but gradually he came to like the idea.

  “How on earth do you speak all evening with someone you hardly know?” he asked Muhlis.

  “Come on now, what do you mean you hardly know her? Haven’t we all been out together a few times?”

  “That was different, we weren’t alone.”

  “Tell her about your homeland. Ask about her family. Tell her how beautiful she is. Don’t tread on her toes if you dance together and kiss her before dropping her off at home.”

  “What!”

  “Kiss her, my dear friend, kiss her. Women like to be kissed.”

  “You mean on the lips?”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in being cautious; try kissing her on the cheek first, then you can take it from there. I want to hear all about it when you get home.”

  “Never!”

  “My God! Aren’t we the gentleman? I wish I had a sister to introduce you to. I’d never have to worry if she went out with someone like you.”

  At that point they were interrupted by a secretary coming into the room with a memo, which she gave to Tarık. Tarık handed it to Muhlis, abruptly changing the subject.

  “Never mind all that; back to work. This is a coded message from our embassy. Will you decode it, please?”

  Muhlis left the room and returned a few minutes later with the decoded message.

  “Tarık, here are some instructions that will please you: ‘According to the report dated December fifteen, 1942, Turkish Jews whose papers are in order cannot be held in forced labor camps. If such a situation should arise, we will obviously give them our protection. The police authorities should
be reminded of this instruction and a detailed report of any such case must be held under the auspices of our competent authorities.’ These instructions come from our ambassador.”

  Tarık heaved a sigh of relief. “Even though I didn’t think it possible, there were still doubts in my mind that they might tell us not to interfere,” he said. “Now I can relax.”

  “Well, I suppose you have something to celebrate this evening,” Muhlis said, winking at Tarık.

  Tarık pretended not to have noticed. He didn’t believe in over-familiarity in the office.

  When they sat at one of the white cloth–covered tables at the Brasserie Lipp, Tarık ordered a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the wine strongly recommended by Muhlis.

  “Your friend said you like red wine,” he said to Margot. “To tell the truth, I prefer red too.” He didn’t know that at the end of the evening he’d be cursing Muhlis for suggesting such an expensive wine.

  Tarık needn’t have worried; Margot was a talkative girl. They were both homesick, so their countries were the main topic of conversation. They tried to draw parallels between the Hungarians and the Turks. At one point Margot said, “Turkey is the only country in Europe trying to help the Jews. Does this stem from your love of humanity or some tie of love with them?”

  “Our offers go back to the fifteenth century, so I suppose you could call it traditional. In 1492, when the Spanish King Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain and stripped them of everything they had, the Ottoman sultan offered them refuge in his country, giving them freedom of religion, language, and commerce. He even allocated whole districts to them.”

  “Really! Why?”

  “Probably he was a sultan with an eye to the future. Because of this, the Jews have been the most loyal of Ottoman subjects. They made no attempts to stab their hosts in the back like the other minorities.”

  “I didn’t realize your relationship with the Jews went back that far.”

  “Way, way back. In fact a few years ago, I was investigating something and I came across a firman—an old imperial edict—issued by Constantinople’s conqueror, Fatih. According to that edict—it was soon after the conquest in 1453—he invited all Jews living within the borders of his country to settle in what is now Istanbul.”

  “I wonder why. Could it be because they are an intelligent race and good at commerce?”

  “It could well be, Margot. I don’t remember who it was that said Jews are like seeds scattered by the wind, cultivating the ground they fall upon. It’s possible that Fatih may have had similar thoughts. And there’s something else European Christians don’t seem to understand. We’ve never been bothered about different races and religions living among us. We’ve never felt uncomfortable with that, unlike the Germans who claim to be pure Aryans. For centuries Anatolia has been a mosaic of different colors and creeds. Our Urfa, for instance, which was called Edessa in the olden days, was a city where both Christianity and Islam flourished!”

  “Why do you say flourished, in the past tense?”

  “Since the declaration of the republic, we’ve all become more nationalistic. Consequently that mosaic has crumbled in favor of the Turkish Muslims. Like you, we too have had to put our race and religion first.”

  “I suppose patriotism isn’t a bad thing.”

  “Of course not, but when it flares up, you end up with the sort of problems we have today. Thank God our tolerance of other religions stayed with us even when we became nationalists.”

  “Do you know, Monsieur Tarık, I’ve had contact with Turkey before?”

  “Really. Is that so?”

  “Yes, the company I worked for back home exported pharmaceuticals to Turkey, especially sulfonamide.”

  Tarık didn’t know a lot about this, but he vaguely remembered that when the British stopped exporting many things, including pharmaceuticals, Turkey turned to Hungary for supplies, particularly Atabrin, which was used against malaria.

  “You see,” said Tarık, “obviously our countries were cooperating long before us.”

  By now Tarık’s anxieties about the evening had gone out the window. When their main courses arrived, Margot couldn’t help looking at Tarık’s plate condescendingly. Her steak was almost raw, while his was very well done.

  “Don’t you like rare meat?” asked Margot.

  “I’m not a lion,” Tarık replied.

  That led them to talk about the various food habits in their countries before Tarık admitted that he’d found it very difficult to get used to eating snails. Vegetables in garlic were his favorite food in France, but he still hankered after the dolmas cooked in olive oil back home. Margot complained that she hadn’t yet found a restaurant in Paris serving proper goulash, her favorite Hungarian dish.

  Toward the end of the evening, Margot leaned forward across the table.

  “So what methods are you using to save Jews? Have you managed to smuggle any of them out of France?” she asked.

  They had finished the wine some time ago. Tarık hadn’t ordered another bottle because he was afraid he wouldn’t have enough money to pay for it. Margot posed her question, and he suddenly became upset. It was just as well that he hadn’t ordered a second bottle. Who was this woman sitting across the table? Could she be a spy, trying to worm information out of him?

  “What are you saying?” said Tarık harshly. “What on earth made you ask that, Margot? We’re only issuing passports to those who can prove they are Turkish nationals, that’s all! Whether they stay or leave or obtain visas for somewhere else after that is no concern of ours.”

  “But how is it that some of them ended up without passports, then?”

  That’s it, thought Tarık to himself. She’s been pumping me about the same subject since we’ve been here. This woman is either from the police or she’s a spy!

  “There are Turkish Jews who have come and settled here in France. It seems that they haven’t bothered to keep their Turkish passports up-to-date. All we do when they apply is extend its validity. That’s all!”

  “So why do you think they hadn’t done it before?”

  “Maybe they didn’t want to travel abroad. Isn’t that possible? Take my family, for example; they’ve never been abroad, so they didn’t need passports.”

  “How long does it take to get a passport?”

  Tarık’s mood had changed completely. He waved at the waiter for his bill without even asking his guest if she’d like coffee.

  “Every case is different. We have to make inquiries back home, so it depends on how long it takes to get a reply.”

  He paid the bill and they left the restaurant and got into a taxi. Tarık gave the driver Margot’s address. They hardly spoke on the way there and heaviness came over him. When the taxi pulled up at the address, Tarık got out and escorted her to the door.

  “Would you like to come in for a coffee?” asked Margot.

  “It’s rather late, thank you; some other time,” Tarık replied as he shook her hand before returning to the taxi.

  After she’d gone in, he paid the fare to the driver and started to walk in the cool of the night. He tried to remember every topic they had covered that evening. Damned Muhlis! he thought. He was the one who saddled me with this woman!

  Tarık was a bit late waking. When he went into the kitchen, Muhlis was already having breakfast.

  “Well, well, how’s His Lordship this morning? You appear to have burned the midnight oil last night. I’ve never seen you wake up this late. Methinks you took my advice.”

  “What advice?”

  “About kissing a girl before saying good-bye.”

  “If I were in the mood for a fight, I’d punch you right on the nose.”

  “My, my, aren’t we touchy? Have you already started to feel protective toward this Hungarian girl?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I only asked you if you kissed the girl and you suddenly took offense.”

  “Tell me something. How well do you know this girl you sa
ddled me with?”

  “I’ve never couché d’avec her, I swear. I never even kissed her, Tarık.”

  “Don’t try to be funny with me!”

  “Frankly, I really don’t know her. She’s Jeanne’s friend; they work together. One day when I was meeting Jeanne at that café in Montparnasse, they arrived together and I telephoned you to join us. Do you remember? I’ve only known her as long as you have. So now will you tell me what happened?”

  “I didn’t like the questions she kept asking me.”

  “About what?”

  “Things like, are we smuggling Jews out of the country? How do we issue passports? How do we decide who qualifies for them? Loads of questions. I must say I felt most uncomfortable. I didn’t like it at all.”

  “Well, in that case you shouldn’t have answered them.”

  “That’s not the point. I’m wondering if she is some sort of spy.”

  “What!”

  “Or a police agent.”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “If you think about it, we have saved so many people from the police and the camps. Would it surprise you if they are keeping tabs on us, possibly having us followed?”

  “But we’re not the only ones involved, are we? There’s also Hikmet, then there’s Selahattin in Rhodes and Nazım in Marseilles…”

  “So what? They’re probably under surveillance too.”

  “In other words, last evening you dined with Mata Hari, is that it?”

  “I’m not sure, but if that’s the case, I hold you responsible for involving me.”

  “Come on!”

  “And that’s not all. Do you know how much I had to pay for that wine you recommended so highly? Don’t expect me to contribute even a bottle of beer to this apartment before the end of the month.”

  “Every good thing in this world has a high price.”

  “For those who can afford it.”

  “Look who’s talking. Starting next month, you’ve been promoted to vice-consul; isn’t that enough? As for the girl, leave it to me. I’ll try and wheedle some information out of Jeanne when I see her.”