The Stone Woman

by Tariq Ali

  Each of us had our own favourite place on this rock, but this was the first time we had all come here together. The surface of the rock was dented, but completely level. Nature had played little part in this process. Petrossian insisted that it was here that Yusuf Pasha sat to compose his more lyrical verses with the sea stretching out before him. Several stonemasons had worked hard to flatten the rock and smooth its surface.

  We sat down in silence and stared at the sea, till the sight had soothed the turbulent waves tormenting our hearts. We remained there for a long time, waiting for the sun to set. Halil had been the first to speak. He had repeated those selfsame words concerning Uncle Memed that had caused the offence. Then Zeynep repeated them, but when it was my turn, Salman put his hand on my mouth to stop me.

  “Little princess, you should never speak of what you still do not understand.”

  And we had all begun to laugh again, to exorcise the memory of what had happened that day. Salman, touched by our response, had confessed that he wanted to leave home for ever. He would never visit this house again or return to Istanbul. He would travel to Aleppo or Cairo or perhaps even further away, to lands where there were no Ottomans. Only then would he feel really free.

  We were heartbroken. At least get married first, Zeynep had pleaded. Why not join the army, Halil had suggested. They talked of their hopes for themselves and their children, who were yet to be born. They became engrossed in their own lives. All this was new to me. I was still too young to join in or even understand much of what they were saying, but the emotional intensity was such that the day remains vivid in my memory. I had never seen them like this before. Their faces wore animated expressions and they sounded happy and I remember how that had made me happy. It was almost as if the tragedy of that afternoon had become a turning point in their lives and filled them with hope for the future. Even Zeynep, whose placid temperament was a joke in our family, was angry and excited that day. None of us wanted to re-enter the house that evening. We were in full revolt against Iskander Pasha and his whole world. When Petrossian, who always knew where we were, arrived and informed us it was time for the evening meal, we ignored him completely. Then he sat down next to us and with honeyed words of conciliation, he gently cajoled us to return. Salman provided the lead and the rest of us reluctantly followed him back.

  I’m not sure exactly when Salman left our home. I think it could not have been too long after being struck by Iskander Pasha. All I remember is the panic that gripped the whole family when Salman announced at breakfast one day that he had decided to leave his job and see the world for the next few years. Since he worked in Uncle Kemal’s shipping company there would be no real problem in returning whenever he wished.

  Zeynep and Halil’s mother had looked after Salman soon after he was born, since his own mother had died during childbirth. She was a distant cousin and had always showered me with affection. Her marriage to Iskander Pasha had been arranged in a hurry. He was desolate at the time, but had bowed to family pressure and married her to provide Salman with a mother. She looked after him, tended to all his needs and did become his mother. She loved him as if he were her own son and always defended him fiercely, even after the birth of her own children, Halil and Zeynep.

  She rarely stayed in the summer house and had not been present to witness Salman’s humiliation, but the news had been relayed to her in Istanbul and my mother was sure that Iskander Pasha would have felt the whiplash of her tongue. Perhaps she tried to persuade Salman not to go. If so, she failed. He had arrived at a decision and nothing would dissuade him. He told us he would travel for some time and let us know when he decided to settle in a particular town.

  A penitent father offered him money for his travels, but Salman refused. He had saved enough from his salary over the last four years. He embraced us all and left. We did not hear from him for many months. Then letters began to arrive, but irregularly. A year after he left a message was received from Uncle Kemal, who had just returned from Alexandria. He informed us that he had stayed with Salman, who was successfully trading in diamonds and married to a local woman. He had sent a letter for Zeynep’s mother. Its contents were never divulged to any of us. Zeynep searched every hiding place in her mother’s room but failed to uncover the letter. One day, in a state of total despair, we asked Petrossian if he knew what had been said in the letter. He shook his head sadly.

  “If too many stones are thrown at a person, he stops being frightened of them.”

  To this day I am not sure what Petrossian meant by that remark. Zeynep and I had nodded our heads sagely and burst out laughing when he left the room.

  It was strange that they had all arrived here on the same day. What memories would float through Iskander Pasha, when he saw Salman, Uncle Memed and the Baron walking into his room together? Halil later reported to me that Father had wept on seeing Salman, embraced him gently and kissed his cheeks. Salman was touched, but his eyes remained dry. The gesture had come too late. The pride exhibited by grown men is something I have noticed for a long time, but never really understood. It is something that was not completely absent in but firmly suppressed by my husband Dmitri.

  As the days passed I had occasion to observe Salman. My brother who, in his youth, had been the most lively and ambitious of us all, was now afflicted by a melancholy that made him bitter. I think it was his inability to accomplish more in his life that caused him great anxiety. It was almost as if his success as a diamond merchant lay at the root of his unhappiness. He was never satisfied. He had married an Egyptian woman in Alexandria, “a beautiful Copt” in Uncle Kemal’s words, but had kept her from meeting his family. Even now as his father lay disabled by a stroke, Salman had not brought his sons to see their grandfather at least once. Halil alone had been invited to Egypt and accorded the privilege of meeting Salman’s wife and children. On one occasion when I persisted in questioning Halil about Salman’s indifference I received a sharp and surprising reply.

  “Salman is very depressed by the fact that the Empire has been irreparably decadent for three hundred years. I’m aware of this fact as well, but Salman takes it personally.”

  My instincts rejected such reasoning. I recognised Salman’s impatience with the rituals of Istanbul life. He was deeply frustrated and wanted change, but, at best, this could only be a partial reason. I could not believe that my brother, once so mischievous and full of fun, had become so deeply affected by a sense of hopelessness in relation to history. Our family had always made history. How could we now let it crush us? There had to be another reason for Salman’s sadness and I was determined to discover its roots.

  THREE

  The Baron reads an extract from the Qabus Nama on “Romantic Passion”; the unfinished story of Enver the Albanian; Sabiha and the Circassian maid who thought the only way of escape was to fly

  “YOUR OTTOMAN EMPIRE IS like a drunken prostitute, lying with her legs wide open, neither knowing nor caring who will take her next. Do I exaggerate, Memed?”

  The Baron and Uncle Memed were on their second bottle of champagne.

  “As usual Baron, you express lofty thoughts with great clarity,” replied Memed, “but I do wonder sometimes whether the great master Hegel might have been a bit disappointed in you. According to your contemporaries, you showed great promise as a student in Berlin ...”

  The Baron’s interruption took the form of laughter, which resembled the staccato burst of gun-fire: ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha and a final ha. This was not the sort of laughter which starts as a smile and develops at a slow rhythm. His laughter was part of his verbal armoury, deployed to humiliate, crush, interrupt or divert any opposition.

  “Whenever I visit this family, I’m lost to the real world, Memed. The real world, as I’ve often told you, is the world of ants. The only way human beings can survive in this world is to become like ants. It is our future. It beckons us, but you resist. You pretend that your home is the real world and in this fashion you keep the monsters at
bay, but for how long, Memed? For how long? Your Empire is so bankrupt that you can no longer even afford to buy time as you have done for nearly three hundred years.”

  My uncle remained silent for a while. He replied in a soft voice. “What your philosophers call progress, my dear Baron, has created an inner drought in human beings. They show a callow disregard for each other. Look at France, a country we both love, not to mention England. There is no solidarity between human beings. No belief in common except to survive and get rich, no matter what the cost. Perhaps this is the way of the world. This is where we will all end up one day. Not you and me, of course. We will have died long before that day, and who can say we will not have died happy? Why shouldn’t we seek pleasure in each other’s company. Why shouldn’t I enjoy my life, this house, my family...”

  The Baron roared with laughter, but this time it was real.

  “Why do you laugh?”

  “I just recalled the Qabus Nama. When I was translating it into German I found it incredibly dull and commonplace, not worthy of even the slightest attention. I remember thinking: if this is the moral code for the Sultan and his princes, it is hardly surprising that they degenerated so rapidly. Even feeble heads filled with imperial vapours could safely ignore this nonsense. There was, however, one arresting passage. It was headed ‘Romantic Passion’ and I recited it so often to my wayward uncles and cousins that I never forgot the words. I was reminded of it when you spoke of those who are interested only in getting rich. Listen now, old Memed, to the wisdom of the Qabus Nama: ‘For your part resist falling in love and guard against becoming a lover, for a lover’s life is beset with unhappiness, particularly when he is without means. The penniless lover can never achieve his aim, more particularly when he is elderly; the goal cannot be reached except with the aid of money, and a lover not possessed of it will succeed only in tormenting his soul.’”

  It was Memed’s turn to smile. “To be elderly and penniless is bad enough without being tormented by irrational emotions. There is a lot of truth in that, I suppose. It is true we are getting old, my dear Baron, but I don’t think that the passage you have memorised so ably could affect us in any way. I think even if we were penniless, we would find pleasure in each other’s company. Perhaps we should open another bottle to mark the uselessness of the Qabus Nama.”

  Father’s sitting-room, organised and decorated on the model of a French salon, was full today. Prior to his illness, Ottoman women had been barred from entering this sanctuary. French females, we had noticed, were permitted entry, but only if accompanied by their husbands or fathers. As a rule, this, the most beautiful and spacious room in the house, was reserved exclusively for male friends and visitors.

  Once when Father was in Paris, Zeynep and I and our two mothers had come into this room, ordered mint tea and rose-water and then had settled down to play cards. I loved watching the changing moods of the sea from the three large balcony windows that lit the room during the day. We had used the space every single day, to the great amusement of the maids. They, too, had enjoyed being here in the absence of Petrossian.

  Everything was different now. This is where we met after dinner every evening to exchange information and listen to a story, before retiring for the evening. Father had frowned at the exchange between Uncle Memed and the Baron. The reference to prostitutes in the presence of his wife and daughters must have irritated him. Orhan was fast asleep on a chaise-longue near a window and had not heard the remark.

  Iskander Pasha lifted the stick that never left his side and banged it hard on the floor. This was the signal to end all the whispered conversations in different corners of the room and for the story-teller to begin. Uncle Memed cleared his throat. Salman smiled. Halil played nervously with his moustache. My mother, Sara, tightened the shawl around her. Zeynep and I looked at each other, trying hard to restrain our mirth. If Uncle Memed was going to speak, anything was possible.

  Father, looking slightly nervous, summoned Petrossian and pointed in the direction of Orhan. The gesture was understood. My sleeping Orhan was lifted gently and taken away. I now wished I had brought my little daughter Emineh here as well. I wanted her to be part of our family. Uncle Memed assumed a look of fake humility and began to speak.

  ‘I will now tell you the story of our great Albanian ancestor Enver, as it was transcribed on the dictation of his son. The document itself used to be read once every five years on the occasion of our Prophet’s birthday, when the whole family assembled to celebrate the feast. The ritual was considered necessary so that we never forgot our humble origins. Unfortunately, it was lost about fifty or sixty years ago. Some say that our grandfather Mahmut Pasha destroyed the slim bound volume because he was in the process of reinventing the history of our family and the truth, even though it was four centuries old, disconcerted him. Mahmut Pasha did manage to produce an alternative book which still sits in the library unread and unloved, though the calligraphy is exquisite.

  Those of us who have attempted to read it have given up after the second set of lies, according to which the founder of our family was of pure Arab blood and descended from the tribe of the Prophet rather than an Albanian whose first job was to clear the mounds of horse-dung that had accumulated on the edges of an Ottoman military encampment in that region. He cleared the dung with such efficiency that his prowess was noted and appreciated. He was brought back to Istanbul by the Aga in command of the encampment and later became responsible for cleanliness and hygiene inside the palace.

  Mahmut Pasha manufactured untruths because he intended to marry a niece of the Sultan and thought it prudent to improve his pedigree. I think the falsehood was unnecessary. The Sultan probably knew the truth in any case and was unconcerned. Though I wish he had objected to the suit on other grounds and spared our family an unnecessary tragedy.

  The Ertogruls have always preferred their ministers and courtiers to acknowledge their modest backgrounds. The Sultan creates and destroys Viziers. It is easier to maintain this style in the absence of a nobility. The knowledge that they are the only true hereditary ruling family gives our Sultans a feeling of stability and self-confidence, based on a belief that the Ertogruls are the only genuine hereditary ruling family in the history of our great Empire. Alas, this is true. And, incidentally, it is one reason why this Empire is rotting before our eyes. The colourful description of the Baron is close to the truth. Sultan Abdul Hamid II knows this. When I accompanied him to Berlin last year, he asked me: “Do you think I will be the last Caliph of Islam?” I smiled, without replying.

  My grandfather Mahmut was a vain and conceited peacock, but he was not a complete imbecile. He must have been aware of Ertogrul sensitivities. The Sultan traces his descent from Osman, who founded the dynasty. Why did our idiot grandfather claim descent from the Prophet? Why did he feel the need to embellish the truth? Why create an imaginary world from which our family supposedly emerged? Grandfather made a complete fool of himself. His book was foolish and vainglorious, divided evenly between fantasy and fact.

  Our family, of course, knew the truth, but though they laughed at Mahmut and found his conduct to be an embarrassment, none of them had the courage to confront him. If a delegation of stern-visaged family elders had called on him and insisted he stop lying, it might have had a temporary effect. Who knows? Perhaps it didn’t really matter. After all, despite Mahmut Pasha’s well-known habit of embroidering the truth, he was permitted to marry a niece of the Sultan and she, in due course, gave birth to our father and his three sisters. Not that this stopped the Sultan and his courtiers from laughing at Mahmut.

  My aunt once told me that whenever Mahmut Pasha visited the court to pay his respects, the Sultan would question him about his book, forcing him to repeat some of his more absurd inventions before the assembled courtiers. The Sultan, of course, maintained his poise during the reading, while encouraging the sycophants to release their mirth at regular intervals, and so it came about that Mahmut Pasha’s recitations were alway
s punctuated by the noise of suppressed laughter.

  What did he think while all this was going on? How could his greatly vaunted pride survive this ritual humiliation? When he came home from the palace, he would tell his wife how her uncle had honoured him once again and how the Vizier had congratulated him on the composition of a very important and top secret aide-mémoire which he, Mahmut, had drafted on the Russian Question and which had been despatched, without a single alteration, to the Chancellery in Berlin.

  Did our beautiful grandmother, Sabiha, whose portrait welcomes visitors as they enter the house in Istanbul, believe any of this nonsense? I think not. She had married him not because he was good-looking or wealthy or a habitual liar, but simply because her father had decided that Mahmut Pasha would make a kind and good husband. I note that the mother of Orhan is smiling. She is asking herself, could our great-grandmother have been that stupid? And the answer, my lovely Nilofer, is a simple yes.

  Your great-grandmother Sabiha was undoubtedly very pretty. The drawing is accurate enough in this regard but Bragadini, who painted her, was not, alas, a very gifted artist. He painted only what he saw. He lacked both intelligence and a real interest which might have pushed him to peer underneath and locate her real character. He failed abysmally to uncover her interior. She had a fair skin, luscious lips, a broad forehead, dark flowing tresses, blue eyes and it was claimed by him who knew that underneath her robes she possessed a body that was an “embarrassment of riches”. For myself I hate this phrase, but Grandfather Mahmut used it often when in his cups, as a boast and an explanation to old friends who wondered aloud how he could possibly tolerate her mindless obsession with all things trivial.