The Stone Woman

by Tariq Ali

  “I arrived a few weeks ago in Europe from New York. I have a packet to deliver to Madame Sara, the wife of Iskander Pasha, but I am under very strict instructions to deliver it only into her hands.”

  Petrossian had appeared out of nowhere, annoyed that a stranger had breached our privacy. I told him to organise some refreshments for our visitor. I decided to put on my most sophisticated French accent.

  “I will inform my mother of your arrival and see if she can receive you presently. What is your name, monsieur?”

  “Er, Joseph Solomon, but Jo will do. Everyone calls me Jo.”

  “Petrossian, please show Monsieur Jo to the reception room.”

  As they walked away, Memed guffawed. “I’m glad you’re making him sweat in the punishment room.”

  The name the Baron had given the ballroom after Yvette’s visit had become a long-running joke in the household.

  “Did you notice,” my uncle continued, “how ugly he was? I mean really ugly. A perfect match for one of Kemal’s daughters. Come on, Nilofer, let us matchmake a little mischief. We shall tell Kemal’s wife that a new Sultan, a Sultan of money, has arrived from New York by the name of Jo the Ugly.”

  I laughed. Memed was cruel, but accurate. It was not simply that Jo Solomon was ill at ease with himself. The suit he wore was far too tight and the armpits of the jacket were soaked. That in itself was unforgivable. What made it worse was that he was large and fat, with a plump, placid and pockmarked face dominated by a bulbous nose, reminding me of the diseased cucumbers discharged by our vegetable gardener into the sea. Was Jo the Ugly in need of a dowry? That was the question of the moment. If the answer was an affirmative, we might send him back to New York with a bride.

  At first I took him to be a jeweller bringing a gift for my mother from Uncle Kemal, who was always sending us presents. But I realised that he was too badly dressed to be a messenger. And then I knew. He must be the son of Suleman.

  What did that packet contain? I threw my dignity into the sea and ran towards the house, just in time to join my mother who was sedately descending the stairway. Before I could warn her that the visitor might be my half-brother, Petrossian threw open the door of the punishment room and amazed me by announcing in a grand voice and very good French accent: “Madame Iskander Pasha et Madame Nilofer Selim Pasha.”

  We giggled at his audacity, but entered into the spirit of the comedy and, taking each other by the arm, swept grandly into the ballroom. Jo Solomon was impressed. Petrossian had understood his mentality very quickly. Jo the Ugly bowed to my mother.

  “I am delighted you could receive me, madame. This is a very fantastical room. What a great palace you have here! I am Joseph Solomon, madame, and I have a packet which I was instructed by my late father to hand to you and you alone.”

  Sara paled considerably. “Your late father?”

  “Yes, madame. Suleman of Damascus, as you once knew him. He never ceased to speak of your family’s generosity.”

  My mother sat down on the sofa and demanded some water. She looked at Jo the Ugly carefully. It was obvious that his presence angered her.

  “I am sorry to hear that Suleman has passed away. You look nothing like him.”

  Jo the Ugly handed the packet to my mother.

  “He never stopped reminding me of that, madame.”

  She moved to the seat near the window as I gave Jo the sickliest smile I could manage. He smiled back and at that moment I really felt ill. His mouth was maggot-infested. All his front teeth were stained a strange brownish-yellow and every single one had decayed at the edges. This was inhuman. I was relieved when Salman walked in, on Uncle Memed’s recommendation, to see this person for himself, as he later told me. I excused myself and went and sat with my mother at the other end of the room.

  She had her back to Jo the Ugly and Salman and was weeping in silence. I put my arms around her. Silently, she handed me the letter she had just finished reading.

  My dearest Sara,

  Our capacity for self-deception is infinite and I have suffered all my life as a result. This is a letter of explanation, Sara. I will write the truth. It is futile for a dying man to do otherwise.

  For the last six months I have been slowly dying. The doctors have no cure because they have no idea what beast is devouring my insides. It’s too late to regret that I became a painter rather than a physician. Who knows? I might have cured myself. Perhaps what is eating me is my own remorse, which has never left me since that fateful morning I boarded a ship destined for Liverpool and New York.

  By the time you receive this letter I will be dead and buried. It is now over thirty years since I left Istanbul. Do you remember what you said to me that morning when I told you how desolate I felt? You gave me a cold, deadly smile and said: “You leave me with a broken heart, but a heavy purse, Suleman. I am sure one will take care of the other.” I never forgot those words. How could you be so vicious, Sara? And so accurate.

  Your father was generous. You were angry. I knew you wanted me to say that if there was a danger of our children being born with an ailment then we would not have any, but I was frightened that you might grow to resent me later and become bitter because I had prevented you from becoming a mother. This last sentence occurred to me only now, Sara. It’s not the truth. Once you acquire the habit of speaking untruths, it is difficult to do otherwise, even for a dying man, but I am determined to break the habit here and now.

  After all these years I still find it difficult to accept that I was so easily swayed by your father’s generosity. You accused me of cowardice and treachery for betraying the love you had so freely given me. You were not wrong.

  I do not believe your parents invented the story of the disease to stop our marriage. My own father confirmed that it was a serious problem, though my mother was equally insistent that there was nothing definite and that many marriages had resulted in children who were fine. She accepted, however, that it was a risk.

  It is no consolation to either of us now, but I want you to know that all my life I have regretted leaving Istanbul. I wish I had taken the risk, Sara. I wish. I wish. Your Uncle Sifrah tells me you have a beautiful daughter. That makes me especially happy. I have not had the same luck. I know what you’re thinking. Ugliness produces ugliness, in character as well as features. As you will have noticed, the bearer of this letter may have some qualities, but he is certainly not pleasing to the eye. He takes after his mother’s brothers who are shysters and rogues, growing rich by robbing their own people.

  In Damascus and Istanbul we tended to help each other. Not in this hell. When I first arrived here with “a broken heart, but a heavy purse”, I was recommended to stay with a family of Polish Jews who had escaped here ten years ago from the pogroms against their people. I took the kindness I was shown by this family at face value. They were very nice to me as they attempted to relieve me of the heavy purse and soothe my wounded heart. They pressured me into marrying their oldest daughter, Tamara, and once I had succumbed (it was convenience, desperation and loneliness, Sara, nothing more; it never affected my love for you) I found that my purse was getting lighter by the day. I hired a studio and started painting portraits. Slowly my fame spread and when Mr Rockefeller asked me to paint him, I realised I would be comfortable for the rest of my life. But what good is material comfort, Sara, when one’s emotional and spiritual cupboard is bare?

  All the time I was suffering at the thought of having lost you, I wished you nothing but happiness. My own pleasures were casual, usually in my studio with some of the women who liked to pose for me. I found the lure of young flesh irresistible.

  I had to find a different venue when my wife and her brothers burst in one day and surprised me with a woman. They did not harm me, but they marked the poor girl for life by carving her left cheek with a knife. I remember thinking of you after that incident and wondering what you would think if you could see how low I had sunk.

  I write you all this so you know tha
t life has punished me enough for the mistake I made thirty years ago. In this packet you will find the sketches I did of you in Istanbul and which I always treasured and used to inspect in secret to ease the misery and remember our time together. It was short, but it was the happiest period of my life. Remember that day in your father’s library when you found the story of the Prophet Bilan and the Moabites and we laughed and laughed? That is another thing that disappeared from my life. Laughter.

  I am also sending you a tiny oil portrait I painted of you from memory. Your child or grandchildren might like it as a memento. They are my last gifts to you, Sara. I hope you will forgive me.

  Suleman

  I looked at the sketches and the oil portrait of my mother. The sketches were very lively, with a lot of movement and one of them showed a bare breast. The miniature portrait was painted on a deep crimson background and my mother’s eyes were very sad. It must have been the last time he saw her and the memory stayed with him.

  “Leave them with me, child. You can have them after I’ve gone. Poor Suleman! Trapped for eternity. I do feel sorry for him and sad, but he wrecked his own life and mine.”

  “You had me, Mother Sara. Me! Was that nothing?”

  She clung to me in an emotional embrace. “You have been everything, child. Everything. Without you I, too, might have been dead by now. We must never tell these people that you are his daughter. The thought of your being related to that fat boy makes me feel ill.”

  “He might still end up in our family. Memed, Salman and, I now see, the Baron are going to do their best to marry him off to one of Uncle Kemal’s daughters!”

  My mother’s laughter was uncontrolled. She could not contain herself. I gave her some water and we joined the other group.

  “Monsieur Jo, I thank you for bringing me such an important packet all the way from New York. Have you a photograph of your mother and the rest of your family?”

  Jo shook his head. “I travel light, madame, especially in the summer.”

  Each note of the Baron’s laugh was false. “Very sensible. I was saying to young Jo that, on his return from Damascus, he must stop and meet Kemal Pasha in Istanbul. Jo is a lawyer, you know, Sara, and could be very helpful if Kemal is starting up a steamship company.”

  Jo nodded vigorously. “I specialise in business and commerce. I can help a great deal, especially at the New York end. It will be a pleasure to meet Kemal Pasha when I return. I have no real desire to visit Damascus. They tell me it’s very dusty and unpleasant in the summer, but my father’s family is still there and I must pay my respects to them.”

  “Oh yes,” said Salman. “And they’ll be very happy to see you. It will come as a real surprise to them, especially since you look nothing like your father.”

  “Why don’t you stay for dinner?” asked Memed.

  This was going much too far and we all glared at him, but mercifully Jo had other plans and the coachman needed to return to the city tonight.

  After he had left we all burst out laughing. My mother was a bit shaken, but not as much as I had imagined. She looked at her brother-in-law.

  “Will you succeed, Memed?”

  “If all of you help me, I think it can be done. The fat fool is not religious at all, which is good. He could be bribed and flattered to convert to our faith. We can pay a eunuch to dress as the Sultan and as the Caliph of our faith, and he can personally convert Jo the Ugly into Ibrahim the Worthy. Are we all agreed? Good. Iskander must be won over tonight. Kemal should be pleased with our plan. Jo the Ugly will return to Istanbul in January. Let us mark the next century with his wedding. Who knows but that the next hundred years might well be the years of people like Jo the Ugly. I’m so glad we’re agreed. This has been such a productive day for me, Baron.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it, Memed. I do worry sometimes that your intellect is not receiving sufficient stimulation.”

  When I entered mother’s room later that day she was sitting on the floor looking at the oil portrait.

  “Would you rather be alone?”

  “No, my dearest Nilofer. I would rather be with you.”

  She talked of the dream that had sent her running to the Stone Woman. “How can things like this happen, Nilofer? I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in the mumbo-jumbo of the astrologers, but it does make me wonder. Can we have such strong intuitions about someone we were or are still close to? I suppose that is the only explanation. The strange thing is that I had not thought of Suleman for a very long time when that dream disturbed my sleep.”

  I held her hands and kissed them. “Did the news of his death upset you very much?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I knew he was dying when I had that dream, and because I was prepared for his death I could control my emotions. It was the letter that upset me. I never thought he would admit the truth. He knew me so well, that boy. He knew I would still be wondering about the real reasons behind his decision to leave me. It was thoughtful of him to write, even though it was awful to read that my father had bought him off with money. What a fool!”

  “Is the torment over now, Mother? Is it all finished?”

  “Yes, my daughter. I am at peace with myself. If he had seen you and known you were his daughter I would have been even happier. Poor Suleman. He was a great lover of beautiful people and beautiful objects. It must have been a torture for him to see Jo the Ugly every day. No, Nilofer, don’t frown. The problem is that the boy’s character is no different from his features. All of us knew that instinctively. So did his father.”

  “What was that story about Bilan that made you laugh so much?”

  Sara smiled and walked briskly to the small cupboard in her dressing room and returned with a copy of the Talmud.

  “In our religion, Nilofer, the rabbis never gave an opponent any quarter. This was true in olden times just as it is now. And if they believed that a person had betrayed the Jews, in other words the Elders, then no mercy was to be shown. The character of the victim had to be assassinated in as many ways as possible and his name blackened in the eyes of the congregation. Bilan was one such person. They accused him of performing sorcery on his own organ. Now read the story.”

  I took the book from her and read the page she had marked:

  Bilan’s conversation with the Moabites

  When they asked him why he wasn’t riding a horse, he said to them:

  “Usually I ride a horse. However today I am riding a donkey.”

  Thereupon the she-donkey said to Bilan in front of the Moabites:

  “Am I not your she-donkey?”

  “Merely for carrying burdens,” Bilan said, trying to cut her off before she could contradict him further.

  “That you could have ridden on,” the donkey continued, contradicting Bilan’s contention that she was merely a beast of burden.

  “Only occasionally,” Bilan said, implying that ordinarily he did not ride her.

  “All your life until this day,” the donkey went on contradicting Bilan’s contention that he had never ridden her except on rare occasions.

  “And not only that,” she continued, “but at night I perform marital acts with you.”

  Thus the donkey got the best of Bilan in their verbal sparring. How, then, could Bilan claim to “know the mind of the Supreme One,” that is, to know and manipulate the mind of God to allow him to curse the Jews, when it is evident that he was unable to know and manipulate even the mind of an animal?

  My laughter had punctuated the reading and now it was Sara’s turn, but her amusement was tempered by the memory of a wonderful day a long time ago.

  “It’s so childish, Mother. Don’t you agree?”

  “There is a childish side to every religion, Nilofer.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The century prepares to enter its grave; Selim and Halil discuss the future; Dante and Verlaine; Orhan asks a question of Iskander Pasha

  “THE CENTURY IS ABOUT to die.” I heard the agitated notes of Selim
’s voice. “The Sultans and the Empire will go to the grave with it because their time has come. But when will our time come, Brother Halil? When will our time come? Should we die as well? I am not pleased with your news.”

  The two men were sitting in the library on their own when I entered. They looked up and smiled.

  “Has something happened?”

  Neither of them replied.

  “Is it a military secret?”

  Halil sighed. “No. The Committee has decided after several meetings with the palace...”

  “And even more with the German ambassador...,” interjected Selim.

  “They have decided,” Halil continued calmly, “to postpone indefinitely our plan to seize power.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Nilofer, we have been promised reforms of such magnitude that our action is unnecessary. It would be criminal to spill blood unnecessarily. Moreover, the Vizier accepted that next year leading members of the Committee would be appointed to the Government so that they can supervise the reforms themselves.”

  “Allah! That is amazing news. We have won without a single shot being fired.”

  “Yes,” said Halil, “but they knew very well that if they did not move, shots would be fired—and not just shots. They know full well what happened to the eunuch-general. His disappearance was just accepted. No one asked us any questions. This inaction reveals a great deal about their state of mind.”

  Selim was looking very unhappy. “Both of you seem to have a surprising degree of confidence in the Vizier’s capacity to deliver all that he has promised. He might think: appoint the ringleaders to positions of power and corrupt them in the process. Let some reforms through but resist any attempt to abolish the Sultan or diminish the powers of the clergy.”

  “Selim,” said Halil, “if that happens, shots will be fired. Our young friends in Salonika share your doubts and your impatience. I am not as radical as you or them, but I know one thing for sure. If we fail to modernise over the next few years, we are finished. I don’t mean ‘we’ as an Empire. I mean ‘we’ as a new, modern state. That is why people like me—soft, moderate, cautious—will side with the hotheads from Salonika to ensure that the reforms do not fail. We have waited two hundred years. A few more months or even a whole year will not make too much difference.”