The Lamppost Diary

by Agop J. Hacikyan

  Like his classmates, Tomas had been taught that abolishing the fez and sticking a fedora on every male head was an important step in Europeanizing the population. Similarly, conversion to the Gregorian calendar ushered the nation from its medieval past into modern times.

  The question of monogamy was another matter entirely. Tomas was unable to figure it out for quite some time. Married men who had been sanctioned by the Prophet to share their masculinity with four wives and enjoy four pairs of breasts were now suddenly limited to a single vagina. The women were delighted as their orgasms increased and the population of the young republic multiplied at breakneck speed. The conversion to the Latin alphabet from the unwieldy Arabic script created unthinkable difficulties, especially for the ancient elite, who were used to reading from right to left and from the end of a book to the beginning. The change was drastic; some of the literate became illiterate, and an impressive number of illiterates, who were incapable of deciphering the Arabic characters, were born again as pundits.

  The teaching of history began in grade three. Students discovered that Central Asia was the cradle of civilization and that the majority of nations on that vast continent were of Turkic origin: Tajiks, Tartars, Turkmans, Cossacks, Uzbeks, Chechens, Mongols and, according to some, even the Chinese! Every Saturday afternoon, before dismissal, come hail or rain, the students went out to the playground and lined up according to their grades before a tall flagpole planted in cement to hoist the Star and Crescent. They first sang the national anthem, followed by the march of the Republic: ‘We emerged victoriously from ten battles in ten years ...’ before being dismissed for the weekend.

  Every week the principal designated two students to raise the flag. Those chosen were always from the graduating class. Tomas was not yet qualified to enjoy this privilege. Every time he complained to his father about it though, his father assured him emphatically that it should be the least of his worries. But Tomas so desperately wanted to be one of the big boys.

  And every morning in the classrooms, before classes began, the pupils stood to attention like the honourary guard in front of the Palace of Dolmabahçe, reciting the national pledge, ‘I am a Turk, just and diligent. I love the young and respect all who are old,’ and at the end they all vowed in unison to dedicate their lives to perpetuating the nation.

  *

  It was the second Monday in January 1943. The sky had been washed clean by a long day of rain. The national taxation building in Istanbul swarmed with angry Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Nestorians, Syriacs and other religious and ethnic minorities. They were assembled to protest at the varlιk vergisi, the infamous Wealth or Prosperity Tax that the government had imposed on the non-Muslim residents of Turkey. A commission, formed entirely of Muslim Turkish businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians was authorized to determine who would pay what. The only factors used to assess a taxpayer’s wealth were his religion, language and origin.

  With the war going on, the government was desperate for cash and taxes were the only answer. Over a million young men had been sent to protect the country’s borders. The taxes the prime minister came up with weren’t simply to restore the treasury’s depleted resources: they were to encourage the Turkification of the nation. Questions of Turkification and pan-Turkic emotions had been, to some extent, stimulated by the Germans, especially since the beginning of their attacks on the Soviet Union. The minorities got wind of the differential tax that was being planned, went to the government and offered to collect money from their communities themselves to contribute to the economy and the war. The prime minister rejected the offer. A voluntary payment might have accomplished the financial goal of the tax, but it would not have accomplished the principal objective: to return the Turkish market to the Turks.

  People were surging in and out through the main gate of the taxation building despite the guards’ best efforts to block access. The pandemonium reached its peak when the riot squad arrived to break up the frenzied crowd.

  *

  Tomas’s father emerged from Commissioner Vehbi’s third-floor office. Vehbi Bey was in charge of the Tax Directorate. Big-bellied Vehbi, a pouch of hypocrisy hanging under each eye, had a heart condition, though you wouldn’t know to look at him. He was wearing the usual dark suit fashionable among high-ranking government officials. He was the kind of person one could easily trust, depending on the value of the envelope slipped into his pocket. Today he had a rose in his buttonhole, as if to offer a blither appearance to his distressed visitors.

  He was delighted to see Anton, his old college mate, with whom he had transacted many interesting business deals in the past. They discussed amicably, but in a rather downcast mood, the question of the Wealth Tax. In the end, following an appealing offer from Anton, Vehbi promised to do his best.

  ‘Ah well,’ he said with a smile, ‘maybe I can save your cabs from the vultures, Anton.’

  And Anton was grateful.

  Outside the office, many of his school friends, business cronies and drinking buddies were lined up to see the great director and stuff his pockets with envelopes.

  *

  Anton paused for a moment in the middle of the hallway, buttoned his coat, lit a cigarette and dragged on it before taking the staircase to the ground floor. He thought of how he had pleaded for Vehbi’s help and smirked scornfully. He had compiled a hasty mental inventory of all his past dealings with the man before entering his office. The assurance Vehbi Bey had given him minutes ago had already evaporated. The anxiety he had been able to keep at bay before entering the commissioner’s office began closing in.

  He reached the main hall. What if his friend didn’t keep his promise? If the designated amount of Wealth Tax wasn’t reduced for him, he, like hundreds of others, would end up in a labour camp in Aşkale, near the Soviet border.

  The taxes were frequently as much as ten times the taxpayer’s salary or many times more than the businessman’s assets, and the Council of Ministers had decreed that people who couldn’t manage to pay their taxes within the allotted fifteen days would be given a penalty and a two-week extension, after which time they’d be packed off to the forced labour camps. ‘Fuck it!’ Anton said under his breath. He said it loud enough, however, to attract the doorman’s attention. Ears had grown used to such parlance since the proclamation of this bankruptcy scheme. It was scary to think how much was out of one’s control.

  The sun had disappeared. A cold rain was falling outside.

  *

  Anton opened the apartment door and stepped in. It was unusual for him to be home so early in the afternoon. Mama and Noni were having coffee in the sitting room. Mama could tell as soon as she saw Papa that something was wrong.

  ‘You’re back so early, Anton, are you sick?’ Mama asked.

  ‘I’m all right.’ His face, however, divulged that he was not.

  ‘What’s wrong, Anton?’ Noni asked.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  His curt reply troubled them more.

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ Mama insisted.

  ‘Leave me alone, for God’s sake!’

  The bell rang. Noni went to answer it. It was her brother, Raffi. He had the sullen face of a pallbearer.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ he asked, before stepping inside.

  ‘We’ll hear it when somebody decides to tell us,’ Noni replied.

  Anton couldn’t stand Raffi, the harbinger of doom.

  ‘People who can’t pay the varlιk are being sent to Aşkale ... to labour camps.’

  For Mama and Noni Aşkale was the Turkish Siberia: somewhere inaccessible, in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia. A chill went through their bodies.

  Anton was ready to leave the room before Raffi finished his tragic account, which could have put Aeschylus to shame.

  ‘Anyone who goes to these camps might never come back.’

  Mama’s and Noni’s faces drained of colour.

  ‘Anton, me, my brother, our friends, we’re all doomed!’ Raffi nervo
usly paced the room.

  ‘Oh Lord, why are we always the ones to suffer?’ Mama cried, clenching her fists.

  ‘Because we’re just sheep to the slaughter.’ Noni held her head in both hands. ‘No ... no. It’s just been our bad luck to be born in this cursed place.’

  It was as if the pain were devouring her from inside.

  Anton turned white with rage. He blared in a voice that they had never heard before – a wild, shaking voice, ‘Damn it, Raffi. Just keep your big mouth shut. Stop puking up your poisonous bile before these women.’

  Raffi reciprocated even louder, ‘I know what I’m talking about; you seem to have forgotten when the country’s minorities were called up and sent to military camps to build roads ... hard labour, in Afyon, in Aksaray.... How come you don’t remember?’

  If the two had been alone, Raffi might easily have resorted to violence to make Anton recall those horrible days. ‘We were all panic-stricken. We were sure we’d be wiped out ... Have you forgotten?’

  Of course Anton hadn’t forgotten. Nor had he forgotten that those poor people, exhausted by long hours of ferocious digging, had become susceptible to the most terrible illnesses. There had been criticism in the foreign press, and some European governments made open demands, urging the immediate return home of the so-called ‘draftees’. But circumstances delayed their discharge.

  Anton and Raffi observed each other quietly. Their faces flashed the recent past, which still tormented them. Anton knew that anything he said would be spurious. So, staring into Raffi’s green eyes, he told him without words that yes, he recalled everything, every damned detail of it. He was aware that their lives kept rolling along like calamities on wheels. He approached the ceramic stove and placed his cold hands on its flat top.

  ‘This cold will last for some time,’ he muttered.

  ‘Who cares?’ Raffi said.

  Noni got up and left. She could no longer bear either the news or the clash between her brother and Anton. Mama followed her. At that moment only a miracle could cure their grief. Their ties with God had been severed long ago, on a sunny day in 1915. Jambaz the cat also left with a graceful leap and went to curl up behind an armchair in the living room.

  In May 1941 only non-Muslims had been officially called up to the reserve forces. The Western powers criticized Turkey for its treatment of minorities and consequently, in November 1942, Turkey began releasing its non-Muslim internees. The parallel between these events and what was currently taking place in Germany was frightening.

  The internees were between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. Anton had escaped the labour camps because he was a couple of years over the age limit. He went to Afyon, however, to visit his brother Zenon, Raffi, friends, and Anya’s father who had been sent earlier than the rest. He wanted to bring uncensored news to their families. He hadn’t been to his hometown since 1915. It was a painful experience to relive. He felt the survivor’s guilt ... and shame. He was privileged to escape the misery that his loved ones were going through. The internees were living on a bowl of soup and half a loaf of bread a day. Epidemics had broken out and a large number of internees were on the verge of dying. At one point they and their clothes had to be washed with lime, which created panic, particularly among the Jews, who had heard that their compatriots were being gassed to death in Europe.

  Tomas also recalled these rueful events, especially one particular afternoon. He had just returned from school when the police arrived to arrest his Uncle Zenon who was hiding in the attic. They handcuffed him and dragged him to the station, without even giving him a chance to get dressed. Two days later his uncle was shipped to a labour camp near the Iranian border. He still recalled it vividly; strange that it reminded him of Gulliver’s Travels. He thought of Gulliver in Brobdingnag, the land of giants. Tomas wanted to cheer up Anya with fake news that his uncle and her father could visit each other on weekends and that they would be on their way back soon. Anya, however, refused to talk about it. He even tried making up stories.

  ‘I heard that the officer in charge of the camp has been murdered and that the soldiers have run away. Before you know it, your father and my uncle will be home,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘Shut up,’ Anya replied.

  Tomas said he was sorry.

  ‘Thanks, but don’t ever lie to me again,’

  He didn’t speak of them again until they returned. How he would like to regale his children one day with tales of an idyllic childhood, without lies, without gloom!

  *

  A red-hot salamander stove: burning anthracite. Greyish reflections of smoke rose from ashtrays ... portraits of ancestors on the wall listened to Mama and Papa. They were seated around the dinner table with Fifina and her husband, Leonidas, their Greek neighbours. The apartment smelled of garlic. They were eating sheep-hoof soup – a popular national dish, affordable to the poor and a favourite of the rich. They had already thrashed out the tax legislation that plagued the minorities so savagely. The war was next on the agenda. Tomas was lying on the velvet-covered couch in the sitting room memorizing an Armenian poem. Their conversation got louder; it turned into a squabble, distracting Tomas. He kept repeating his lines:

  I have treasures without measure.

  I have wealth that has no bound.7

  Tomas heard strange names come from the dining room.

  Many graces are fired on me.

  Opulence you can ... you can ...

  He got mixed up. He tried again.

  Many graces are showered on me

  Many Dachaus, Birkenaus, ghettos. Oh no!

  Many graces are graced on me. Opulence you cannot count ...

  He began once more:

  I have treasures without measures ... deadly showers ...

  Beautiful is my trove of treasures ...

  The Armenian Question ... Patton ... Eichmann ... Goring ... Aşkale ...

  I’m dauntless, I’m fearless ... labour camps ... work battalions ... a wall of secrecy ... Tomas’s family ... his uncle ...

  There’s no limit. There’s no boundary.

  The poem was ruined. Words clashed. He wanted to yell. The poet’s words were on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t spit them out. Instead he emitted a piercing shriek. Everybody rocketed into the sitting room. Tomas jumped off the couch.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Papa asked.

  Tomas glared at him as if in condemnation. Mama passed her hand gently over his forehead to see if he was feverish. ‘Where does it hurt?’

  ‘Leave me alone. I’m okay.’

  ‘He must have been listening to our conversation,’ Fifina said.

  ‘I don’t have to listen. I know what’s going on. I know Uncle Zenon will go to Aşkale.’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ Papa assured him.

  ‘He’s already paid his taxes,’ Mama lied to him.

  He would go there and die.

  Kristallnacht – Uncle-Zenon-nacht – these were not simply words; they were facts. He was not a child any more. He was sick and tired of hearing such weird names, tired of such ghastly discussions. Everything was pitch-dark around him ... within him, especially when he was home; instead of songs and laughter there were only threatening shadows and ominous voices.

  ‘Come and sit with us, Tomas,’ Leonidas said.

  Tomas didn’t hear him.

  Leonidas repeated, ‘Come to the dining room.’

  Tomas loved Leonidas, Papa’s long-time lawyer and a wonderful storyteller. He was a member of the Corinthian Players, a Greek amateur theatre group. They often performed at the Greek community center in Tatavla. When Tomas was six or seven years old he had wished Papa’s lawyer were also his father and he had felt guilty. Two mothers and two fathers – much better than having two mothers and one father. Whenever he and his wife came to visit they brought Tomas a box of Nestlé chocolates. Tomas was offended. Chocolate was for children. He was an adolescent now, testified to and warranted by Aunt Elise’s enticing nakedness. He didn’t need
chocolate. He needed Anya’s chocolate voice in Greek, in Turkish and in Russian.

  Tomas made an effort to smile. As a final solution, he decided to join them in the dining room.

  I’m dauntless; I’m fearless

  Of temptation and of thieves;

  I shower back on the envious

  Only what I have received.

  I’ve been wealthy. I was lucky

  since the bright day of my birth

  knowing the path I travel

  is a one-way road on earth ...

  I have treasures without measure ...

  11

  The Wealth Tax escalated the frequency of visits, meetings and wrangles among the Armenians, Jews and Greeks. Armenian Christmas passed almost unnoticed, without carols and without banquets. The minorities of Turkey had lost faith in their God. Their prayers were smothered under the weight of absurd fiscal figures – cursed numbers – like gibbets with suspended, snuffed-out bodies displayed for public disdain. The population was addled and disgusted. Bailiffs went from house to house, handing out official summonses and were sent on their way with a blasphemous siktir, fuck off.

  There were still four days before the deadline for paying the tax. People were busy emptying their bank accounts, selling their businesses and properties and auctioning off everything they owned. The majority couldn’t raise the money they needed and were consequently shipped off to labour camps.

  Despite the cold, the snow and the bleak atmosphere that enveloped the city, the month of January didn’t deter the rich Turkish merchants of Anatolia from travelling to Istanbul. They came looking for bargains. For many it was their first visit to the great metropolis. They looted the riches of the giaours and semi-giaours such as Yakoub Pektürk and his family. Yakoub Bey, formerly Hagop Bekian, a prominent Armenian entrepreneur and presently a Turk, had converted to Islam. In spite of his audacious ploy, he wasn’t spared the inescapable Wealth Tax. To qualify as a God-fearing Muslim he had studied the Qur’an under the tutelage of a learned imam; memorized the first sura, al-fâtiha (the beginning); proudly accepted circumcision without anaesthesia, followed by a long infection; and, despite his persistent lumbago, performed his salah, kneeling and snaking up and down five times a day, beginning at first light and ending after sunset ... but he was still treated like a half-Turk. He was on great terms with the Prophet but, alas, not with the taxation bureau.