Children of War

by Ahmet Yorulmaz

  “It’s in my blood,” she would say. “It’s part of who I am.”

  Then, as if to verify her answer, she would immediately start again, leaving no space for further discussion.

  She saw me two or three times a week. It was essential for me to be there at exactly the time she stated, down to the minute. I guessed that she had worked out the times according to the movements of her neighbours and anyone else that might be around. Her maid, Hatice, was never there when I went. It was as if the ground had opened and swallowed her up every time. The only sounds that broke the silence of the house were Hüsnüye’s screams. The noises and gasps she made as her pleasure peaked were like the sounds of someone being strangled. I remember on many occasions worrying that the neighbours would hear, and trying to muffle her screams with the palms of my hands. As well as giving me great pleasure, my relationship with Hüsnüye also educated me about women, standing me in good stead for my later life. After Hüsnüye, my experience in that area attracted four more women, just one of whom was Greek. That’s not including the woman I married after I was forced to come to Ayvalık in Turkey in 1923.

  Having a job that allowed me to earn a good living, passing time with the friends I made at the tavernas, enjoying a close friendship with my boss and my continuing relationship with Hüsnüye to some degree shielded me from the latest vile acts of those Greeks who wanted to terrorise us into leaving the island. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the atmosphere of panic that followed these incidents had less of an effect on me, in spite of the fact that there were seemingly no limits to what they would do: snatching off a Turk’s fez in the street and ripping it to shreds, shouting the most obscene curses and insults against Islam and all things Turkish and calling out to animals like donkeys, dogs and cats using Turkish names. It became commonplace for stones to be thrown at the muezzin when he was reading the call to prayer, and they created a climate of terror by thundering on the doors of Muslims. The remorseless intimidation in its numerous forms was intensifying as they took out their frustrations and injustices on us, vandalising our olive groves and fields, forcing wine down people’s throats during Ramadan or making them cross themselves like Christians. Our old people, with their white hair and crooked backs, who no longer had the strength to defend themselves, were attacked in the streets. Local Turks working in government offices were sacked. Our people were murdered and the murderers never found, or if they were found, they were more often than not acquitted; and of those who were convicted, most were out of prison after a few months. Countless, relentless, inhuman acts that wore us down and dragged us towards rebellion.

  One evening when I had the chance to drop in at Voleonitis’s tavern in Palea Agora, I brought the topic up with my friends Badoyan Mustafa and Grand Mehmed. I wished I hadn’t! They became hysterical with despair, throwing down one glass of wine after the other. The workers at the print house constantly fed me with news, some because they liked me and some, like Vomvolakis, because they hated me. But there was bad news from every side. The callousness of two-faced politicians, driven purely by their own interests, was proved to me by a story I heard from Kemalettin, the Turkish officer who had been brought to the prisoner of war camp from Anatolia. Venizelos, the latest ringleader of the bloody uprising intended to throw us from our homeland, had a close accomplice called Mihalis Matrakis, who was combing every inch of the Aegean spreading propaganda: “We’ve lived under your oppression for hundreds of years, but now the fight is over, and we are the winners. From now on we’ll live together under equal conditions. Don’t be alarmed. Don’t try to resist because the great powers are on our side.”

  Do you know the most hurtful thing about this? It was the fact that this propaganda was directed at us, the Turks who had been fleeing the oppression and massacres of the island Greeks for so many years. Badoyan Mustafa, who as a caretaker at Darmar Ibrahim’s farm in Varusi had, just a week ago, witnessed the full horror of a violent attack on it, was incredulous. “That must be about as low and shameless as you can get,” he muttered. “They’ve been hacking people up and crushing them until they squeal for twenty-five or thirty years now! When did we Turks ever do that to them?”

  Grand Mehmed was a bee keeper and now had the miserable task of working out where to hide his beehives from Greek brigands. “They’re nearly all the same, all crooks,” he said. “They wind up the other Christians to set them against the Turks.”

  I remembered something Kemalettin had told me and shared it with them.

  “Kemalettin said they’re making all these speeches to the Turks on the Anatolian coast to deter them from banding together to form a resistance. They know they couldn’t stand up to a determined force of united Turks.”

  The taverna owner, Voleonitis, was a smart man and one of the compassionate Greeks. He was like my boss in many ways. His taverna was a place where we could comfortably discuss any of our concerns and it seemed to attract other mature, like-minded people. There was nowhere I felt happier. Thanks to Voleonitis and the other relaxed customers like him, I felt as comfortable in the tavern as I did at the Saturday night gatherings at the home of Vladimiros. On our island, with its unknown future, Voleonitis’s tavern was one of the few places where you could sit and enjoy a few drinks in safety.

  There were a few other places our group of friends was able to meet. There was Pavli’s taverna, Nuri’s taverna in the district called Algiers Point, and our most luxurious haunt, the Renieri. Amongst ourselves, we called the taverna in Algiers Point Nuri’s Taverna, although its real name was “Children of War”. It was a fitting name for our generation, who were being alienated from our homes and our homeland. The civil war had driven us all the way to the edges of the sea and left us there. Our families had been decimated in one way or another. What struggles lay ahead of us? We had no way of knowing. So it was quite natural that on some nights, as we sat together at Nuri’s place, facing into the darkness of our futures, we would raise our glasses and loudly toast, “To us, to the children of war!”

  It was only the information I received from Kiri Vladimiros and my teacher, Kemalettin Bey, that stopped me panicking at all the miserable news and ominous developments. Being able to interpret events for myself in some way helped me to maintain a level of contentment in life. I had my compassionate employer on one side and a teacher from my motherland on the other: one a rare benevolent soul despite being a Christian, and the other a victim of war like me. Kemalettin Bey and I had both experienced the atrocities committed by Greeks and both of our futures were dim. Vladimiros thought he would make me feel better by repeating that it was all being orchestrated by those at the top, that the killing and expulsion of ordinary people from their homeland, leaving them destitute and starving, was all a necessary part of their expansion games.

  “This battle for territory started with my ancestors,” he used to say. “When your Turks arrived from the East, we scarpered and shrank. Now my people have got the foreign powers behind them and are starting to chase yours back. Where it’s all going to end, I don’t know. Of course, there’ll come a time when there’s a backlash against their games, and next time, it will be your side chasing and mine fleeing. Whether it’s Turks or Greeks, the ones who suffer, the ones who are crushed, are always the people, just the ordinary folk. If it wasn’t for the people in power constantly devising these diversions to feather their own nests, all of us, the ordinary people, we’d get along just fine – either living side by side or all jumbled up together. But they won’t leave us alone, my lad, they’ll never stop setting us against each other. You need to remember that well. You won’t be able to stay with me for ever. Who knows – maybe they’ll send you all to Anatolia…”

  His last words sent me into a panic. I couldn’t imagine leaving my Chania, my Crete, the place where I was born and bred. Despite all the pain we had gone through, I was just starting to make something of life. Anatolia might have been my spiritual homeland, but it was an unknown place to me. My re
al homeland was Crete.

  “Don’t say that, boss, you’re scaring me!”

  “I don’t want to scare you. I’m just saying what’s happened so far, and what might happen in the future. You’re like family to us, why would we want you to go? But it’s a possibility – quite a strong possibility. Don’t you think I’d want you to stay here in Crete, in Chania, even if you didn’t work for me?”

  “Right now, when I’m able to enjoy a comfortable life for the first time, I can’t imagine leaving our island. When it comes to leaving you, that wouldn’t even cross my mind unless there was a better-paid job where I was more my own boss. But even if a job like that came up, I still wouldn’t leave without talking to you about it. There’s no way I would go unless you agreed to it.”

  __________

  * In the mid-nineteenth century Kumkapı, on the eastern edge of Chania was a Bedouin village home to 2000-3000 North African slaves and immigrants that mainly worked in the port.

  13

  It had been about a month since the brief but emotional conversation with Vladimiros that had upset both of us. One Saturday evening, I genially declined the usual evening invitation and, with the old couple’s blessing, went off to Pavli’s taverna. The husband and wife were sympathetic to my reasons for occasionally missing their Saturday evening gatherings. Kiriya Evthimiya said, “You’re young. Your mother’s old and we’re old too. You can’t be expected to hang around with old people all the time. At your age, of course you have all kinds of friends to pass time with.”

  When she said “all kinds of friends”, she actually meant Hüsnüye, who they had an inkling I was seeing. However, they were far too polite to say any more than that on the subject. In fact, even as she obliquely referred to it, Kiriya Evthimiya flushed as red as a pomegranate and chuckled.

  On a few occasions, as I passed Alyot’s café in Splantzia Square, I had noticed the curtains in the house above it moving slightly apart and seen a woman’s face looking at me. When I caught her eye, the curtains snapped closed again. Curiosity about the identity of the woman eventually got the better of me, and after a few inquiries, I found out she was a quite well-to-do woman called Maria who bought and sold houses, shops, orchards, fields and other types of real estate. I was intrigued that a woman could be in that line of business and able to act as a broker at the time, in the 1920s. Working as a street salesman, dealing with the print house external affairs and acting as an intermediary for Hüsnüye had suited me well enough to make me realise that a sedentary job wouldn’t suit me. All these experiences had infused me with an ambition to get into the kind of business that I had learned was called brokering. It began to occupy my thoughts nearly all the time, but how could I get off the ground with it?

  That evening, I took the long way round to Pavli’s taverna, taking me past Alyot’s café. This time when I looked up, the woman I had become accustomed to seeing there opened the curtains wide and beckoned with her hand for me to come up. The entrance to the house on the top floor of the café was on a side street. I walked briskly round the corner and knocked on the door. It opened immediately. I heard a woman’s voice coming from the top of a steep stairway behind the door. There was no one there who could have opened it. I looked carefully and in the dull light of the gas lamp on the top landing, I could make out a cord running along the wall all the way down to the door. So that’s how it had been opened! A woman’s voice called down; I presumed it was the woman at the window: “Kiri Hassanaki. Can you come to the office of Varuchakis the lawyer tomorrow after lunch? I want to talk to you about some business.”

  I was both astonished and excited. A woman I had never met, and about whom I knew nothing apart from the sketchy information about her business affairs, wanted to talk to me about business.

  “With great pleasure, Madam,” I replied, and bidding her good night, I left. I was so distracted by my thoughts that I don’t remember if I even closed the door. I continued on my way to Pavli’s taverna, my head still whirring with excitement.

  That evening, Ahmet Agha, who was an assistant to the Italian consul, had joined our group of friends. He was a tall, wiry character, fond of good food and white wine. When I say he had a fondness for white wine – it was so much so that he even broke the rules to drink it with meals that were supposed to be accompanied by red wine. There were rumours that he was sleeping with the consul’s wife and, naturally, from time to time the subject came up in our banter. “It looks like the Senora’s looking after you well. But surely when you’re with her you don’t drink white wine with pasta?”

  He never gave anything away and simply smiled. Everyone had their own interpretation of his smile; some saw it as a yes and some as conclusive evidence that he was having us on. It was from Ahmet Agha that we got much of our information about what was happening on the island and with the British, Greek, Italian and French occupations of the motherland. It was more than enough for him to just keep his ear to the ground at the consulate, and two or three days later, the news was delivered to us in either Pavli’s tavern or Nuri’s. Ahmet Agha told us that someone called Kemal Pasha* was organising an army in Anatolia and that the occupying powers were getting worried about it.

  As far as we could work out, the foreign consulates in Chania thought that this Pasha’s actions in ignoring the Istanbul government and making his name in Anatolia would be a huge obstacle to them handing the Greeks the fertile band of Anatolia along the Aegean coast. That was their main concern. According to the consulates, this Mustafa Kemal was undefeated in any of the battles he had commanded. And if he was successful this time, the Greeks would be in dire straits.

  Badoyan Mustafa and Grand Mehmed were rural people, whereas Ahmet Agha was used to the city due to his job. They had different experiences and viewpoints, but they were all honest people; the kind of Turks who were always looking out for you and were sincere in their offers of help. They were the truest friends I had known since Daggerlad. But Daggerlad was someone who met harshness with harshness and could kill a man without batting an eyelid, while Badoyan and Grand were the complete opposite, always seeking a middle road with talk and debate. Their opinions were always based on compassion and they completely opposed the bloodletting and destruction of life. When it came to humanity, they were the Turkish counterparts of Kiri Vladimiros.

  Our group was normally eight people, but that evening I was with just three of my close friends, making it easier to bring up the subject of the Greek woman. Badoyan Mustafa spoke with the typical caution of rural people. “Don’t make any rash decisions. Does she want you as a partner or a labourer? And what are the conditions, we don’t know anything yet!”

  Grand Mehmed the beekeeper wasn’t short of cautionary advice either. “Whatever she proposes, drive a hard bargain and make sure it’s set in stone. If it turns out to be a bad deal, just think how sorry you’ll be to lose the nice job you’ve got now. Don’t forget that.”

  Ahmet Agha had the most positive take on the possible outcomes of this surprise development: “Don’t listen to these two,” he began. “You need to take a leap of faith. You’ve got family responsibilities. You need to help out your sister’s family and get married yourself. If you accept whatever this madame offers, then make sure you part ways with Kiri Vladimiros on good terms, without offending him, and don’t neglect him and Kiriya Evthimiya afterwards. Make them happy by dropping in on them now and again. It’s not just a wage that he gives you, he gives you lessons in life as well. He treats you like a son and opens his door to you every week. Not just that, but he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to politics and war. His words are priceless. The great Italian consul isn’t half as clever as him, I swear. He’s a real human being. You’d struggle to find another like him on this huge island. You’re really lucky to have a boss like him, Hassan. Never forget it.”

  Ahmet Agha’s hazel eyes were impassioned, and his long arms gesticulated as if to reinforce the meaning of his words. Badoyan and Grand, on the oth
er hand, spoke with the calm born of a life in the countryside. The taverna owner, Pavli, had been watching from the counter and his curiosity had been piqued, particularly by Ahmet’s animated hands and arms.

  “Hey, boys, what’s up with the consul’s man?”

  “Nothing, nothing. It’s something personal. It’s not important.”

  Badoyan, in his typical slow manner, delivered a final pragmatic comment. “Anyway, we’re all talking hot air at the moment. We’ve had a whole discussion without knowing what the woman’s going to say or why she wants to see you. You’ll find out tomorrow when you see her and then we can talk more. Let’s change the subject and enjoy ourselves.”

  We ordered some of Pavli’s delicious fried liver and our evening moved on. Many years later, in the months following the great migration that robbed us of our homeland, we would come across this same fried liver in our Ayvalık, our place of exile; what else could Ahmet Agha do when he got to Ayvalık? There was no Italian consulate he could call on, introducing himself as the man from the consulate in Crete looking for a new job. Instead he brought to Ayvalık the drinking and meze culture of Chania that he had keenly pursued as a customer, but this time pursuing it from the other side of the counter, as a taverna keeper in the Dereboyu district of the town.

  The following day after lunch, I took my leave of the print house for an hour and dashed to the office of the lawyer, Varuchakis. Arriving at the door, I dusted myself down and straightened my fez before knocking and entering. At the head of a broad table was a strapping, swarthy man whose huge moustache twirled upwards at the ends, like the German Emperor’s. The collar of his shirt bristled skywards like his moustache and he wore a necktie. Sitting across the table from him was a woman dressed in black and wearing a hat. Her left arm rested on the table and her face was turned towards me. I searched for similarities to the face I had glimpsed in the window – was it her or not? Yes, it was her; it must be. The man motioned towards a wicker chair, saying, “Welcome, please sit down.” Looking at the woman, he continued, “Should I explain, or would you like to?”