Authors: Tariq Ali
“Thank you, madame, but I really have no idea who you are or why you are here, but whatever the reason, welcome to our house.”
Her laughter was genuine. “My name is Yvette de Montmorency. My husband, or should I say my second husband, is Vicomte Paul-Henri de Montmorency. He is the new French ambassador to Istanbul. We both knew your father well when he was Ambassador of His Most Exalted Majesty in Paris. I heard you were in your summer residence and I thought I would come here and surprise you.”
I smiled politely. I took an instinctive dislike to her. She was wearing a crimson dress and the layers of make-up on her face did not succeed in concealing her age. She must have been approaching her sixtieth birthday. Her corset was tied very tight because the lift of her breasts was too pronounced and, as a result, unconvincing. How could she bear the discomfort? She was of medium height and, I must admit, well preserved for her age. The rolls of fat on her neck were still under control, though the tiny hairs that had sprouted on her upper lip had been removed a bit too effectively; the resulting smoothness was false.
“Well, you certainly have surprised me, madame. My father, who is out with his grandchildren, has never mentioned you or the Vicomte. The only Comte ever mentioned in this house is Auguste Comte. Are you by any chance familiar with his works?”
She shook her head in horror. “He was not a real Comte! You know that, of course. He was a dangerous radical and the Vicomte’s uncle, the late Bishop of Chartres, had to denounce his teachings in church in very strong fashion. Oh no!”
To my utter delight, something that I had been secretly wishing for was granted the moment the thought crossed my mind. The Baron and Uncle Memed walked into the room and gave us both an exaggerated, but very comical bow. I made the introductions using the Baron’s full name and stressing his title. Yvette began to simper with delight. I noticed the slight rise in the Baron’s temperature and left the room on the pretext of organising some refreshments.
My serenity disappeared the minute I stepped outside the door. I was assailed by a wave of giggles, which I could not control. I slumped on the stairs and tried to stop my laughter, but without success. Hasan Baba came and sat next to me on a stair. I hugged him and carried on laughing. He smiled.
“Why does she make you laugh so much?”
“Who is she, Hasan Baba? Who is she?”
He looked around to see if we were completely alone.
“Now, I am not telling you this and you never heard it from me! Blame Petrossian if you have to name anyone. Please blame him. He is so discreet. It would be good to destroy his reputation. Who is she? Let me tell you. Many years ago in Paris, for a few weeks only, she became your father’s wife.”
The information sobered me instantaneously. “What? I can’t believe this!”
“It was nothing serious. She came to a reception at our embassy and was entranced by the Ottoman experience. Iskander Pasha did those things in great style. Once I remember he told us all to dress like
dervishes
and sing Sufi songs in the presence of the British ambassador just to avoid discussing anything serious. He said it was a special day when we could do nothing but listen to devotional songs and once a guest entered he could not leave till the singing was over. If the
dervishes
observed any person leaving the room they could rush after him and stab him with a devotional dagger. The Englishman was allowed to leave after an hour.”
“That is funny, Hasan Baba, but what about this woman?”
The old man started laughing at the memory. “She refused to share his bed unless he married her. He summoned Petrossian and me to the bedroom and told me, with a wink, to marry them. Petrossian signed a piece of paper witnessing the event. I muttered some nonsense and put their hands together. Iskander Pasha told her they were now married and he asked us to leave the room, making sure I took the signed paper with me. After being pleasured for three or four weeks, he tired of her. She was divorced in our presence in the same room, but they parted on good terms. I think she realised the ceremony wasn’t serious, though if we had wanted it could have been a formal marriage. A few months later he was invited to attend her wedding to some aristocrat. She had been engaged to him all the time.”
“Did the lustful Turk attend?”
“Of course. He is very proper on these questions. He went dressed in full Ottoman regalia, including a ceremonial sword, with Petrossian accompanying him in the uniform of a janissary, even though the janissaries had been abolished by then.”
“Why do you think she’s here?”
The old man shrugged his shoulders as Orhan and Emineh burst into the house with shells of different colours, their faces rosy with exertion. My father and Selim followed a few minutes later.
“A guest awaits you in the reception room, Father.”
“Why the reception room?”
“Petrossian thought it was appropriate and I agreed.”
He took off his hat and I followed him into the reception room.
She squealed with delight when she saw him. “Eeeskandeh,” she purred, “you are as handsome as ever, you devil. Surprised?”
I was amazed at the calm displayed by Iskander Pasha as he walked up to her and kissed the proffered hand. Was it my imagination or had his movements become slightly Parisian? The Baron, Memed and I looked at each other and turned away, fearful we might lose our poise and disintegrate completely before we left the room.
“Welcome to my house, Yvette. I hope my brother and Nilofer have made you welcome. I’m not very surprised that you are here because I read of the Vicomte’s appointment as the French ambassador. Has he presented his credentials at the palace?”
She smiled. “Oh yes, and it was wonderful. As you know, I always love ambassadors and how they have to dress. The ceremony was out of the
Nuits Arabiennes.
It was like magic. I felt like a princess.”
The Baron interrupted the exchange. “Just before you arrived, Iskander, Madame de Montmorency was telling us that what we really need at the moment is a few quick wars in Europe. I did not fully grasp the meaning of what you were saying, madame, but if I understand correctly you thought this might improve the genes of those who survived. Could I have misunderstood you? Would you kindly retrace the underlying philosophical argument for us?”
The Baron’s irony was completely lost on her.
“Of course I can, Monsieur le Baron, and this time you must be a good boy and listen carefully. It is my judgement that if we do not have any more wars we will be faced with very serious problems. There will be too little work for too many men. They will become criminals and begin to do dangerous things. They will be encouraged by those socialist agitators always trying to stir up trouble, like that mulatto man from Cuba. I think his name is Lafargue. If there are too many people without work it is dangerous. People in our position will no longer be safe. In these conditions it is good, is it not, if young men from the poor classes join the army and kill each other? Those who survive will be the best and will work well after the experience. Anything is better than being killed. So they will not fight against those who are giving them work and in this way we will revive all our countries. In the old days the doctors used leeches to suck the blood out of their patients. War will do it much better. It will, in general, be a good thing. A few shells in the rue Fontaine will not alarm me unduly. It is simple, is it not?”
Three of us nodded our heads vigorously.
“Exactly, madame,” said Memed. “Very simple. And now if you will excuse us, the Baron, Nilofer and I have to discuss the arrangements for a children’s picnic tomorrow.”
We sat in silence on a bench in the garden. I revealed what Hasan Baba had told me, which made the Baron snort.
“I thought he had better taste than that. I mean, a tart from Montmartre would have provided better value!”
“Iskander was always a bit susceptible to large bosoms,” said Uncle Memed, trying to excuse his younger brother’s follies. “But I agree with both of you. This woman has absolutely nothing to recommend her. Our Committee of Public Safety should act quickly and despatch her!”
We laughed. I offered the two friends a better reason for Iskander Pasha’s blindness. “I don’t suppose they talked much when they were together.”
The Baron could not be outdone. “No,” he agreed with me, “I don’t think Iskander Pasha encouraged any intellectual exertions on her part.”
We laughed and laughed again. Our frustration at having to suffer the French ambassador’s wife had found a natural release. The two men thought that she had come here simply to make an impression, but I was not sure. I felt there was something else and hoped it was nothing that would upset Iskander Pasha. He had recovered fully from his stroke, but the physicians had all agreed he must rest for a year. They had told us to keep bad news from him unless it was essential. My instincts warned me against this woman. She was bad news.
Mercifully, she did not stay long. Before an hour had elapsed her coachmen were alerted and she left. We all stood on the steps of the terrace and waved our farewells. Iskander Pasha appeared to be in perfectly good spirits. He was clutching a notebook and some old letters held together with a ribbon.
“Well,” said Memed, “what did she want?”
“Nothing,” replied Father. “Nothing at all. She returned some letters and a diary I had kept for a few months when I was in Paris.”
“Is that all?” I asked him.
“There is one other thing she mentioned, though it is without significance. She showed me a photograph of her oldest son. I’m afraid the next Vicomte de Montmorency will have an Ottoman complexion.”
I knew she had not come here without a reason. I could hardly wait to inform Salman and Halil that they had a French half-brother.
“Is the boy here?” inquired Memed.
“No,” replied his brother. “He is at the military academy in St Cyr.”
“She has other children?” asked the Baron.
“Yes, two daughters, who appear to be replicas of their mother.”
“Heaven help them,” said Memed.
“Are your letters to her and the diary she returned for public viewing?” I teased him. “Will they be placed in the library as documents of historic importance?”
“Juvenilia of this sort should always be destroyed,” he replied. “The diary, if my memory serves me, is not personal in the least. Wait a minute, Nilofer. I will read it again to decide whether or not it can be put on a shelf in my library.”
I was slightly perturbed by his unruffled reaction to Yvette’s revelations. Was he really as indifferent as he appeared to be? I pressed him further. “Father, do you not have the slightest curiosity about this boy? Wouldn’t you like to meet him just once?”
“No, my dear child. No.” He hugged me and kissed my forehead. “Have you forgotten what I told you a few weeks ago? Blood relations do not matter to me in the least.” He dragged me away from Memed and the Baron, and we walked in silence to the very edge of the garden.
“Tell me something, Nilofer. Are you sometimes curious about your real father? Would you like to see him in the flesh, just once? Be honest with me.”
“Yes,” I heard myself say. “Yes, I would, but not for myself. I would like to see what it was that appealed so much to my mother in her youth.”
“If you like, my child,” said Iskander Pasha, “we can easily arrange for you to visit New York. My brother Kemal has ships that sail there regularly. A passage could be organised for all of you without any difficulty.”
I embraced him very hard at this point. “Listen. I have no desire to travel for two months to see the face of this man. You are my father. All I meant was that if he happened to be in Istanbul one day, I would be curious to see him. Not even to speak with him, but just see him. A woman’s curiosity, nothing more.”
He smiled and then began to laugh. I wanted to know why, but he shook his head and his hand gestures implied that it was a trivial matter. I insisted and was relieved we had moved away from the subject of real fathers and real sons.
“When you said ‘a woman’s curiosity’ I recalled an incident from my youth. I was sixteen or seventeen at the time and had become infatuated with a married woman, who often visited our house with her husband. They were family friends. She was very beautiful, or so I thought at the time. It was a truly Byzantine face. I think she was from one of the older families of the city. I began to stare at her quite rudely and was reprimanded by my mother in private. I would follow her when she visited the shops. A few school friends would watch her house, which was not far from our own. She complained to my mother and my father warned me that unless I stopped he would be compelled to punish me severely. The threats had no impact.
“One day my best friend came to see me with important information. He had discovered that she visited the women’s baths each Thursday. This information excited me greatly, and my imagination became inflamed. I was possessed by a desire to see her without any clothes, to which end I bribed the bath attendants. You look shocked, but this was quite normal at the time. Not boys of my age, of course, but young men wanting to see whether or not the body of their future wife was blemished often paid the attendants so that they could spy on the woman who interested them. They say that some women did the same thing in the men’s baths, but it was less common. All these baths have their little secrets. Anyway I had my way, and it was a beautiful sight. I will spare us both the embarrassments by not describing her details. But from then onwards, Thursday became my holy day, a day of pure bliss, and the afternoons were sacrosanct. Life was proceeding well till someone told my mother—to this day I am not sure who. It was probably one of the servants. One afternoon after having watched two women massage each corner of her soft and delicate body with loving care, I walked home in a complete trance. I would have run away with her to Albania if she had so desired. As I reached our house and went in through the front door, I found my father in the hall where he had been waiting for me to return. His face was filled with anger and disgust. That was the first shock.