Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul (Turkish Literature) (3 page)

She rushed up the stairs to avoid encountering any of the other family members. The patient should drink his milk while it was still piping hot. As she entered the room, the stench left by a long night of fever, sweat, and anguish struck her in the face again. She set the tray down on a table and approached the sickbed. Kemal was sound asleep, his thin yellow neck like a reed on the pillow, his hair plastered over his forehead. His mournful eyes usually made him look at least a decade older than he was—but they were closed now. Asleep like this, sighing and mumbling, he made you think of a child. Mehpare didn’t wake him. She set the milk on the windowsill and was just leaving the room when Re
ş
at Bey entered. Mehpare lowered her head and stepped aside to let him pass.

“He was awake all night, is that right?” Re
ş
at Bey asked, closing his eyes to the nightdress peeking out from beneath Mehpare’s long shawl.

“He was running a fever, sir.”

“Nightmares?”

“No, the nightmares have stopped, praise God. The syrup the doctor gave us has done him good. He’d been doing so well lately . . . But . . .”

“But what?”

“He met with a visitor last week, down in the
selamlık
. It’s a cold room, so I lit a fire in the large brazier and took it in to them. But it wasn’t enough to keep back the damp. He must have caught a chill.”

“Who was this visitor? Why wasn’t I informed?”

Mehpare bowed her head. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Mehpare, listen. No one is allowed in when I’m not here.”

“But they went to the
selamlık
, not here . . .”

“You’re not to admit visitors to the
selamlık
either. No one.”

“The housekeeper said he was an army friend of Kemal Bey’s . . . He gets bored here all alone, and his grandmother gave her consent.”

“With the exception of Leman’s French and history tutors, no one is permitted to enter this house, even if he claims to be the son of the Sultan himself. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now go to your room and get dressed. We’re well into the morning.”

Mehpare slowly backed out of the room, knees trembling, mortified at having been caught in her night dress. Then she ran all the way to her room.

The housekeeper, Gülfidan, was producing her usual clatter in the kitchen as she prepared breakfast. Whenever Mehpare made the slightest sound, even the clink of a spoon on a tea glass, she was roundly scolded. But Saraylıhanım would countenance no criticism of the housekeeper she’d brought to Istanbul from the Caucasus. Mehpare herself was Circassian, but she had been born in the city. For that reason, and even though she was a distant relative, she would never attain the standing of the housekeeper in Saraylıhanım’s eyes. Saraylıhanım had filled the house with native-born Circassians. She wanted no Christian servants—she countenanced only Aret Efendi, who tended the garden three times a week in the summer and once or twice a month in the winter, and Katina, who was responsible for Behice’s ironing and needlework. And Saraylıhanım wouldn’t even greet Katina. Upon being sent into service before age twelve, Mehpare had been warned that “palace types” were a bit odd. She’d been told they split hairs, became fixated on the tiniest things, were cantankerous. And it was all true. Saraylıhanım’s continual grousing also exasperated Behice Hanım, whom Mehpare had overheard on multiple occasions wailing: “If she were my mother-in-law, maybe it wouldn’t be so unbearable. But she isn’t even Re
ş
at’s mother.”

Mehpare stepped into her room and spread her prayer rug on the floor. Then, a towel draped over her arm, she headed for the ground floor hamam to perform her ritual ablutions.

Ahmet Re
ş
at sat at the foot of Kemal’s bed and laid the back of his hand on his nephew’s neck, his forehead. Kemal’s fever had broken. His forehead and upper lip were beaded with sweat.

It had been thirty years since Ahmet Re
ş
at had first caressed those pink cheeks with his fingertips, terrified he would wake the sleeping baby. Kemal’s late mother had brought him into this world, then traveled on to the next well before the customary forty days of confinement following childbirth had ended. It was a fate repeatedly visited upon Ottoman Turk families: the women died of massive blood loss or infection; the men died on the battlefield: the infants were surrendered to the care of aunts and uncles. Kemal’s father had been martyred in the Greco-Turkish War before he’d had the chance to see his newborn son. Re
ş
at, himself an orphan, had still been a young man when he took full responsibility for his nephew. He’d considered Kemal his son, and arranged that the boy be looked after by his great aunt, Saraylıhanım, and educated by the most reputable tutors in Istanbul. He had done his best to raise Kemal but had utterly failed to exert any influence on him.

At the touch of the hand now resting on his forehead, Kemal’s eyes fluttered open.

“Uncle,” he murmured.

“How are you feeling? They tell me you couldn’t sleep last night.”

“I was feverish. But I vaguely recall Mehpare trying to lower my temperature with cold compresses.”

“Should I call a doctor?”

“I don’t want you to. I’m fine now, uncle.”

Re
ş
at Bey reached for the glass of milk and honey resting on the window sill. “Try to take a sip or two; it’ll soothe your chest.”

“Later, Uncle. Don’t worry, Mehpare will definitely make me drink it.”

“That poor girl’s been an attentive nurse. Your aunt brought her up so well.”

“Eh. When I became too much for her, she found someone else to enslave, that’s all,” said Kemal, with a weak chuckle.

“You’ve been too much for me too. Kemal. Look at the condition you’re in. Why didn’t you listen to us?”

“My condition is nothing compared to what’s happened to the motherland. I still have nightmares about that damned General d’Esperey, trotting to the French Embassy on horseback, triumphant, like a commander of the Roman Legion. And on a white horse, no less! The insolence of it! Alluding to Mehmet the Conqueror’s entrance into Constantinople! As if to say, you took this city on a white horse, and on a white horse I’m taking it back . . .”

“Come on. Try to think of happier things. You’ll give yourself nightmares.”

“Better to have died in Sarıkamı
ş
than to witness that terrible day.”

Ahmet Re
ş
at squirmed in exasperation.

“Just be grateful you’re still alive,” he managed.

“They say Mara
ş
has taken up arms against the French. Is it true?”

“Yes. We’ve received reports.”

“That’s wonderful, Uncle!”

“Kemal! Even after the armistice was signed, some of the pashas refused to surrender their arms, and the commander in Mecca fought on for another two months. And to what end? None! On the contrary, the more we oppose them the tighter they clamp down.”

“This time might be different. Anatolia has begun organizing. If resistance builds in the hinterlands, Istanbul will spring into action too.”

“And then? I fear what the English will do to us.”

“So you’ve started to think like the Sultan too? Disappointing.”

“What you need to understand is that the Sultan is no worse than most of his predecessors. Ill-starred, that’s all. This invasion came to pass during his reign. He’s doing all he can to protect a throne that has endured for six hundred years.”

“And what about us? Is he protecting his subjects?”

“That throne represents us all. If it falls, we go down with it.”

“Well let’s say it does fall. What do you plan to do? What are your thoughts?”

“I’m a civil servant, a treasury official, authorized to act only by proxy. I’m not even a member of parliament. My thoughts don’t matter.”

“They matter to me.”

“Kemal, you already know what I think. We’ve been at war for years: Russia, the Balkans, Tripoli . . . And on and on. As for the Great War, it destroyed us. Nobody wants to wage another now. Our weapons, our ammunition—it’s all gone. Seized. Under these conditions, I naturally support the Sultan, I believe that the occupation will have to be resolved through diplomatic channels.”

“You support the Sultan even if you admit he is at fault, don’t you?”

“For generations my family has served, and been served by, the Palace. Don’t expect me to betray or defy my
Padishah
. And I have to advise you, my nephew, not to betray him either. It would be most unbecoming.”

Kemal was silent. He was too frail to argue further, but hoped his uncle would remain here for a while, chatting, giving him news of the outside world. He’d been surrounded by women ever since his confinement to this room. He’d begun to find them unbearable.

Re
ş
at Bey rose to his feet. “I woke you up. I’ll go now and let you sleep.”

Kemal stretched his hand towards his uncle. “Don’t go yet. Stay with me. Let’s talk a little longer.”

Re
ş
at Bey took a seat again at the foot of the bed. The two men held each other’s gaze for a moment. In his nephew’s exhausted eyes, Re
ş
at nearly caught a glimpse of his late mother.

“Kemal, who visited you last week?” he asked in a soft voice.

“When?”

“You had a visitor last week. Who was it?”

“Uncle, you’d think Abdülhamit had entrusted his secret agents to you as he was being deposed. How on earth did you hear about that?”

“I have my ways.”

“Do you really have spies in the house?”

“Don’t upset me, Kemal. I want to know who it was.”

“An old friend from the army.”

“Your army friends froze to death.”

“This one was captured; and now he’s back.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cemil Fuat. A distant relative of Fevzi Pasha.”

“Is he a member of the Committee for Union and Progress?”

“Are there any left? Almost all of them who went to Sarıkamı
ş
froze, and the few survivors repented. Those who remained behind were strung up, here, by the occupiers and Damat Ferit.”

Re
ş
at Bey ignored his nephew’s bluntness. “What does he want?”

“He came to see me. Must he want something?”

“Every time you receive visitors something abominable happens.”

“Look, uncle: am I in any state to involve myself in something dangerous? You know perfectly well that the only thing to emerge from this room will be my corpse.”

“Heaven forbid! You’re still young. With enough rest and nourishment—if you keep your nose out of danger—you’ll be burying me one day, God willing. As things stand, there won’t be anyone else left to do it. War has claimed all the men of this family.”

“Don’t fret about your corpse, dear Uncle. Your daughters are pretty enough that before long your house will be bursting with husbands. Who knows—maybe this time the boy you’ve always hoped for will come into the world, and push me off my throne.”

“That’s enough of your prattling. Just promise that you won’t invite anyone else to the house.”

“Well I certainly won’t invite anyone who might put you in danger.”

“I’ve heard that before. But I haven’t forgotten the night our house was surrounded by the police.”

Kemal had opened his mouth to speak but he was wracked by a fit of coughing. When it had passed, Re
ş
at Bey held the glass of milk out to his nephew. After several gulps, Kemal was able to speak again. “Uncle, I’ve heard that the Sultan’s son-in-law,
İ
smail Hakkı Bey, has sided with the Nationalists, that he’s been trying to make their case at the Palace. Is it true?”

“How do you hear these things in this garret of yours? Or have you been sneaking outside?”

“My visitor told me.”

“His account was less than accurate. Adventurers like you and
İ
smail Hakkı will be the end of us. The streets have filled with Greeks and Armenians in British uniforms gathering information for the English. They have eyes everywhere. All this nonsense about French sympathies and Nationalists assembling in Anatolia is just that: nonsense. It’s over, Kemal. We’re finished. Parts of Anatolia, too, are under occupation. We’ll be lucky to save Istanbul and the Caliphate. The Sultan has consented to British administration, but only temporarily. It’s better than being dismembered and destroyed. And that’s why we’re simply going to have to get along with the English.”

“Can’t the Sultan remain on friendly terms with the English even as he supports the resistance in Anatolia? Don’t underestimate that movement, Uncle. They say that some have already left Istanbul to join them.”

“What difference would it make if all Istanbul were to decamp to Anatolia? We have no boots for our feet, no control over our own armories.”

“Our hopes rest with God.”

“Exactly. The treasuries are absolutely bare, our civil servants unpaid. We were able to pay the wages of the clerks and cleaners this month, but only after ransacking our own buildings, selling off bags of sand, axes, shovels, leather, scrap-iron, anything else we could get our hands on.”

Kemal’s head fell back onto the pillow.

“You need rest. It’s early, and I’ve worn you out,” Re
ş
at said. “I’ll have a quick bite and get back to work. If you’re still not feeling well, send word and I’ll have Doctor Mahir stop by in the evening.”

Kemal didn’t respond. The cries of the street hawkers and milk-men had begun to penetrate the room. Istanbul was stirring; her populace waking to yet another day of occupation, shame, dejection. The carpet grew brighter and brighter under the bands of light seeping through the shutters.

Re
ş
at Bey stood up and crept out of the room, careful not to disturb his nephew, who, no longer eager for conversation, was feigning sleep. As he descended to his room on the floor below he braced himself for the complaints of his wife. He was painfully aware that he’d been arriving home at dawn for nearly a month, no explanations offered; that Behice was wondering what could possibly keep a treasury official busy at all hours of the night.