Enlightenment

by Maureen Freely

  He assured his ex-wife that ‘things’ were happening behind the scenes: the military was losing its patience and preparing to step in. The clincher would be the CENTO summit, scheduled to take place in Ankara at the end of March. There was, he said, no way the authorities were going to expose the US Secretary of State and twenty-odd other leading Western statesmen to any risks. He was right: two weeks before the summit, on March 12th 1971, the commanders of the Turkish army issued an ultimatum and Demirel stepped down.

  But still the violence continued, and on the night of the 14th of March, there were four bomb attacks against US interests in Istanbul – a Turkish-American trade bank, two newspapers, and the US Consulate. The following morning, two students shot and wounded the American manager of an English language bookshop. Later that same day, Northampton called, in tears this time, demanding Jeannie’s immediate return.

  Knowing that his ex-wife was genuinely distraught, but determined not to let her have her way, William Wakefield went on the offensive. He told her she was to stop drawing wild conclusions from what she read in a ‘paper that doesn’t even bother to have a bureau here.’ Yes, the universities in downtown Istanbul were war zones, ‘and no one can claim I’ve tried to hide this from you. But Jeannie never goes near those places, nor would she want to. And there are, I assure you, no gunbattles at Robert College.’ Technically this was true, but there had been several small bombs, a long string of noisy boycotts, and a fierce campaign to nationalise the university. At least half of the student body belonged to Revolutionary Youth. There was no need to go into this: it had not been mentioned in the New York Times.

  So once again, Jeannie was off the hook. But freedom came at a price – as her father, still nursing a grievance, was only too happy to remind her. She would only be able to stay in Turkey for as long as she let him lie for her.

  17

  March 15th 1971

  ‘Dear Mother,

  I hope you don’t mind me calling you that. It just feels more grown up. And I hope you’re feeling better after your conversation with Dad this morning. I’m fine – I really am. More than fine! I’m sure that’s hard to believe, when you’ve been reading such distressing things in the New York Times. But if you were here with me right now, you’d have a hard time believing any of it.

  As I write these words I am sitting with my friends in Nazmi’s, a beautiful garden café just outside Bebek, on the shores of the Bosphorus. It’s four in the afternoon and the light…’

  How to describe the light pouring over them? How to capture the truth in words before it changed? The frost glowing in each little pane of glass, the flashes of gold at the edges, the fierce patches of blue beyond, the heat pumping out of the stove behind her, the scraping chairs and happy murmurs, the aroma of böreks…

  She looked down the table. Occupying the middle section was a group of students she had only just met. At the far end were Haluk and Chloe, holding hands across the table. Between them, at the head of the table, sat Suna, peering peevishly into an open textbook. Suna was helping Haluk with his homework; he was having a hard time understanding, and an even harder time being seen to struggle. Chloe, meanwhile, was struggling but not quite managing to look as if she was above all this. Lüset had captured the trio perfectly in a surreptitious sketch on a napkin: Haluk’s hunched shoulders, Chloe’s pout, and the fire in Suna’s eyes as she tapped the textbook with her pencil for didactic effect.

  ‘We come here often after school. The food is delicious and you can stay for as long as you like even if all you’ve ordered is a drink and a light snack. We bring our homework with us…’

  News flash! Chloe had turned to the boy to her right. The boy with the large green eyes and the indolent laugh. Haluk was not happy about it. Slamming his book shut, he glared at his rival. This prompted a lecture on jealousy.

  ‘But it’s human,’ Haluk said in English.

  ‘Your job is not to be human, but to be enlightened,’ Suna replied.

  He put his hands over his eyes. This provoked a second tirade, but it soon fizzled out, because now the green-eyed boy was telling a long, involved joke.

  ‘It’s a really nice group of kids I’m here with today, and everyone’s in a happy mood, in spite of all the bad news in the papers – which are biased by the way – the government is being really paranoid, and overreacting like crazy, because all the students really want is the freedom to express themselves and read the books of their own choice…’

  The windowpanes had steamed up so much by now that they were losing their golden edges. The waiters had just brought them a new platter of böreks but hers were still too hot to eat. ‘Did you burn your mouth?’ asked Sinan. Not too badly, she replied. He brushed a strand of hair from her face and, draping his arm around her, turned back to hear the green-eyed boy. Though Jeannie could pick out a fair number of words, the sentences were long, and the suffixes confusing, and they all spoke so fast. Did the girl next to Haluk have a secret crush on him? When she caught Jeannie watching, she fixed her with a glare.

  She interrupted the conversation to ask who Jeannie was. Sinan answered sharply – his girlfriend. After a tense silence, the conversation resumed. When Jeannie lost the thread, she turned her attention to the other customers.

  At the next table there was a couple that had not spoken for going on an hour. The man looked to be in his forties; the woman half that.

  To her right was the man from the Soviet Consulate who often dropped by Nazmi’s on an afternoon, and who, according to Chloe, was given to turning up uninvited at her parents’ parties, bringing with him Russian vodka and copies of And Quietly Flows the Don. Sinan seemed to know him, too, though he wouldn’t explain how – only that this man was not to be trusted or acknowledged. Seeing her eyes travel towards this man’s table, Sinan pressed down on her foot.

  This same man was standing at the door, adjusting his Astrakhan hat, when Jeannie’s father walked in. ‘Sergei! Just the man I was looking for!’

  For a few moments, they conversed. And Jeannie prayed. Please Dad, don’t come in here. Please Dad, walk right out with your friend.

  When William Wakefield looked over his shoulder and saw his daughter, he feigned surprise.

  ‘Well, hi there. Busy studying, as usual?’ He smiled as he eyed each of them in turn. No one smiled back. Feigning equanimity, he turned to Jeannie.

  ‘Listen. When can I expect you home?’

  ‘About eight?’ she said in the thinnest voice.

  ‘Eight at the latest.’ Spoken like a general. As he headed for the door, the girl with the secret crush on Haluk asked Sinan another question. The boy with the green eyes answered for him. ‘Casus,’ he said. Casus meant spy. The green-eyed boy looked straight at Jeannie as he said it. But she was used to this game now. How to make your face go blank. How to read your enemy’s intentions even when his face was blank, too. How to imply contempt while committing yourself to nothing. How to make an insinuation – an elegant insinuation – while smiling sweetly. How to sit on your feelings, press them so thin you could put your finger through them… But that’s so wrong, Jeannie! No good can come of it! Whatever happened to the First Amendment? Did Tom Paine speak in vain? Where are you when I need you, John Henry? Give me liberty or give me death! Give me back my mind!

  What on earth could they be talking about? First their voices rose and then they fell. Every so often the girl with the secret crush on Haluk sat back to say, ‘Ah!’ as if it really meant something. At long last Suna turned to Jeannie and said, ‘Do not worry, my little innocent. We have defended you. We have also explained that you are in the process of being educated.’

  ‘Educated for what?’ Jeannie asked.

  ‘Ah…’ said Suna. ‘Now it is my turn to say “Ah!”’ Everyone at the table laughed – with her? At her? The conversation drifted away. Jeannie returned to her letter. But it was lies, all lies. A fresh page then. Take in a deep breath.

  ‘Dear Mother,

  First l
et me apologise for my long silence. I hope I can make up for lost time! I thought I’d begin by…’

  But she had no idea how to begin any more. She had no idea what she thought. No, that wasn’t quite right. She had forgotten how to think aloud. She knew now how dangerous it could be, how a word uttered was a word lost. But not to panic. They’d be leaving any minute now. All she had to do was stay patient. Look patient. Stay blank. Leave it all to Sinan. Wasn’t that how he’d put it?

  Gazing out through the frosted window, she watched the sun leave the garden for the Bosphorus. An elegant figure sailed down the dark path. The door swang open and in came their Modern Novel teacher, the saintly Miss Broome.

  The room fell silent. The waiters, unaccustomed to seeing a beautiful young woman alone in public, were too stunned to move. It was as if a great light was shining down on them. They feasted gratefully at her large, soft, painfully earnest brown eyes and the long brown tresses that she’d draped over her left shoulder. She was wearing a long purple velvet coat and a velvet skullcap ringed with silver coins. She removed them prettily to reveal a long black dress. What was it made of? Was it felt? No, it was too soft. It must be cashmere. Could there be anything softer than a long black cashmere dress?

  Catching sight of her favourite students, Miss Broome gave them a breezy wave. After the breathless waiters had settled her at a table, she reached into her black velvet handbag and brought out a fountain pen and a marbled notebook. After gazing at length through the frosted windows, as if in search of inspiration, she leaned forward to rub one of the windowpanes clean.

  Now why hadn’t she thought of that? Jeannie leaned forward, to see what Miss Broome saw. But now the door had opened again. This time it was two young men wearing embroidered sheepskin coats and jeans. One had shaggy brown hair and granny glasses and the sort of gaunt cheekbones that spoke of long years in the serious section of the library. The second had short but ruffled blond hair and it wasn’t until his eyebrows shot up, seemingly of their own accord, that Jeannie placed him. No Name, the shorn sheep, the young American at her father’s desk that morning last June.

  They headed straight to Miss Broome’s table. The aesthete with the granny glasses leaned over to whisper in her ear. Without lifting her eyes from her marbled notebook, she smiled. What must it be like, to be free like Miss Broome? To be yourself no matter where you were? No matter how people were treating you, or what they said?

  A pat on the shoulder. This was the signal: Haluk had passed Sinan the key. The key was to Haluk’s new apartment in Rumeli Hisar. His ‘garçonniere’. Suna didn’t know about it yet; hence the subterfuge. Except…

  It was six o’clock already. Jeannie had to be home by eight. But when he rose from the table, Sinan acted as if he had all the time in the world. When they passed Miss Broome’s table, he stopped, somewhat stiffly to greet the man in the granny glasses. ‘Dutch, meet Jeannie Wakefield. Jeannie, meet Dutch Harding.’

  ‘Oh!’ Jeannie cried. But Dutch said nothing. His gaze was frank, thoughtful, detached. She could be a display in a natural history museum.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you’re not what I expected,’ Dutch replied. He leaned forward. ‘And that’s good. Because I hate to be bored. Don’t you?’

  ‘Honestly, Dutch. What’s got into you? Can’t you see you’re unnerving her?’ Miss Broome put a proprietary hand on Dutch’s arm. ‘Don’t pay these boys any attention, Jeannie. They’re just nervous because you’re so pretty.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Billie!’ said the shorn sheep. Leaning forward, offering Jeannie his hand, he said, ‘You remember me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Jeannie said. Without thinking, she smiled. Sinan’s fingers pressed into her hand. ‘So anyway,’ she said, turning back to Miss Broome.

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Broome said. ‘You look like you’re in a hurry. Until tomorrow, then? Same time, same place? Oh, and Jeannie,’ she added, ‘I almost forgot.’ She reached into her velvet handbag. ‘I brought you another book.’

  Which one was it that day? The Tragedy of American Diplomacy by William Appleman Williams, or The Politics of War by Gabriel Kolko? She was reading as fast as she could by now, but still lagging behind the others – and rudderless, utterly rudderless – though she knew what she was looking for, and searched for it more desperately each day.

  Miss Broome tried so hard to be tactful, to remember where Jeannie ‘was coming from.’ But there was a point in every discussion when she’d take in a sharp breath and clasp her hands to stare into the middle distance like a bird in search of a worm. ‘How much do you know about our foreign adventures during the 19th century?’ she’d ask. And Jeannie would say, ‘Not a whole lot.’ To which Miss Broome would reply, ‘Well, to be fair. Not many Americans do. And that’s a shame, because what we’re seeing now comes to them as a direct result, I’d say, of the Open Door Policy.’ ‘The Open Door Policy?’ Jeannie would ask. And Miss Broome would sigh and stand up and go into her study and come back a few minutes later carrying a book. ‘I think you’d better read this.’

  She didn’t always accept what she read and to be fair, Miss Broome didn’t expect her to. But little by little, some of it was seeping in. It wasn’t that she’d lost her illusions, or stopped loving her country. But she had questions. About who had the power, and what these people did in their name. The more she found out, the more she wanted to know. The more she knew, the more she had to ask herself what ‘we the people’ really stood for. And why, if we the people stood for democracy, we knew so little about the people we voted into office. Little by little, her questions became more loaded. Once in a while, she’d say something to her father that would make him say, ‘Christ! Where do you get that from?’

  Repressive tolerance. That was one new concept. Comprador bourgeoisie. That was another. Polymorphous perversity. Commodity fetishism. ‘I defy you to define that,’ he’d say. And when she did, he’d ask, ‘Is this the work of Miss Broome again?’

  ‘Really, it’s a collective thing,’ she’d say.

  ‘Collective. As in Animal Farm?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she’d say. ‘Miss Broome believes in democratic debate.’

  ‘You could fool me,’ he’d say.

  And she’d say, ‘No honestly. She wants us to think for ourselves. But she also wants us to know when the papers are lying to us, when they leave things out. Or skew the lessons of history.’

  ‘Now why would any right-thinking person want to do that?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’ Jeannie would ask.

  ‘Pull up a chair. Tell me more about that book in your hand.’

  And she would. And more often than not, he’d have read it, too. He’d tell Jeannie what he thought about it, because wasn’t that part of the deal? He had no right to know where she was every minute of the day, but ideas were something else. She wasn’t going to pretend she agreed with him when she didn’t. The only way she was ever going to hold her own with this man was to speak her mind. So she’d tell him what Miss Broome had said about it, and what Suna had taken issue with, and what Sinan had said about it later, and what great new insight Dutch had allegedly uttered in response, and what she had said when Sinan repeated it to her afterwards. And then their free exchange of ideas would get freer still. For he’d turned a new leaf. He talked to her now as an equal. He had to! Gone were the days when he could peek into her journal. She kept it well hidden now. Her true thoughts likewise. Whatever she committed to the treacherous page, it had nothing to do with what she truly thought. Far better, she thought, to argue about books.

  But when they’d gotten to the bottom of whatever it was, and he asked Jeannie what she made of it all, she’d forget sometimes that he had no right to ask. She’d tell him how lost, how lonely she felt now that her ideal picture of herself and her country had been destroyed. She’d tell him what she was searching for in all these books: how to make amends for all this, where to begin.
There was an ache in her, she said. It wouldn’t go away until she found a new way to be American. A good American. Did he understand?

  She’d talk and talk, and he’d sit there, frowning, nodding, pondering her every word. But every once in a while, he’d wander out to the porch, pick up his binoculars, and train them on the village beneath them.

  18

  A brief history of the garçonniere: as I mentioned earlier, it was in Rumeli Hisar, almost directly below the Pasha’s Library, on the third floor of a concrete apartment house owned by Haluk’s father. When Talat Bey first acquired it – this would be during the mid-60s, when he was a married man in need of occasional privacy – he had kept it mostly for himself, though it is possible that various colleagues also used it from time to time. It is unlikely that the family maid was ever invited in to clean the place, which was, I think, in pretty poor condition when the key passed on to Haluk in the early months of 1971.

  At the outset, Haluk used it in much the same way as his father had done, though he, too, passed the key to a handful of trusted friends. Later that spring, when the crackdown on the student left began in earnest, he passed it to a handful of trusted classmates from a banned student association of uncertain allegiance. Some say they called themselves White Enlightenment. Others said they belonged to the faction that called itself Green Enlightenment. Some say it was Maoist; others say it was a wolf in Maoist clothing. Until the ‘Trunk Murder’ no one in this group had been directly linked with violent action.

  The garçonniere stayed in Haluk’s family’s possession after said murder – make of that what you will. Sometime during the 1990s, Talat Bey passed the title to his son. Now it’s Haluk’s son who lives there. His roommate is Chloe’s stepson. Both boys are studying engineering at the university.