Birds Without Wings

by Louis de Bernières

  “Mitsos,” says Alexander, “is my car ready?”

  “It’s always ready, Your Majesty,” replies Mitsos with a certain professional pride in his voice, which implies that, were the circumstances otherwise, he would have been wounded at the suggestion that he was not always perfectly prepared.

  “Mitsos, are the lights working properly?”

  Mitsos looks at Aspasia in puzzlement, and she indicates that he should say that the lights are fine.

  “Mitsos, prepare the car for a long journey. You drive. I’m exhausted.”

  At three thirty the young King says, “Bika,” and dies. He is buried next to the tomb of his grandfather, King George, who has so recently appeared in his dreams in order to summon him to the other side of the Styx.

  Thus the headstrong German shepherd dog, Fritz, and Moritz, the Barbary ape, innocently and gallantly defending his mate, plunge Greece into a political void. The country is at war, the King is dead and new elections are due. Some people wonder whether Venizelos is going to proclaim a republic.

  Instead, he asks Prince Paul if he would be King, but Paul is still very young and has an older brother and a father with better claim than he, and he refuses. Venizelos summons parliament, and Admiral Koundouriotis is appointed temporary viceroy.

  Venizelos waits confidently for the elections of November, and is astounded when he loses heavily. Perhaps the Greeks are weary after so much war, or perhaps they are simply capricious. Certainly they have suddenly forgotten their relief when King Constantine was disgraced and deposed after obstinately and unpopularly supporting the losers in the Great War. The presence of the venerable Queen Olga reminds them suddenly that they loved the old set-up all along. The equally venerable new Prime Minister goes to the Tatoi Palace to beg the old Queen to accept the regency. He weeps with joy as he kneels before her, and when he refuses to rise, she kneels with him so that they can weep together, and then they struggle to rise with mutual aid.

  King Constantine is asked to return to the throne, but sour experience has left him suspicious, and he asks for a plebiscite, which he wins overwhelmingly.

  The return of the royal family is accomplished amid scenes of some chaos. Princes Andrew and Christopher arrive with Princess Mary, and they are deposited near the Corinth Canal by an Italian ship from Brindisi. They are awakened at dawn by a startling volley of gunfire, and emerge on deck to find a torpedo boat coming to fetch them. It is commanded by Admiral Ioannides and a crew of sailors who are lachrymose with joy. Princess Mary and the admiral eye each other with discreet interest, and are married some time later.

  The Corinthians turn out with flowers and flags, waving pictures of King Constantine that they must previously have kept hidden in drawers. The royals are pelted with flowers by people running alongside the banks of the canal. The harbour of Piraeus is filled with boats of all descriptions, crammed to the gunwhales with enthusiastic plebeians who are shouting themselves hoarse whilst factory sirens wail and church bells ring. Queen Olga appears in the royal launch, then, when they all get ashore, it takes them three-quarters of an hour to reach their car, which is a mere forty metres away. Their hands are shaken until they are bruised, they are kissed on the cheeks, and there is a hyperbolical babble of laughing, crying and shouting. Queen Olga has to be surrounded by bodyguards to prevent her from being crushed. The crowd tears the running boards and the mudguards from the royal car, and somehow the clutch is disenabled. A rescue car is sent in by the army.

  The car inches its way towards Athens, but there the people throw themselves to the ground before it, calling on the occupants to get out. Prince Christopher turns to Prince Andrew and says, “I think we’re going to have to make the sacrifice.”

  Each of them is carried the four miles to the palace on the shoulders of the populace. Their royal flesh, unaccustomed to public adoration and the rough treatment that it entails, is so bruised that none of them can walk for a week afterwards. Prince Christopher finds one of his legs being pulled in one direction by a woman in a mauve suit, and the other being pulled in another direction by a mechanic clad in his work overalls. He has a fanatical hairstyle. “Bring my legs back!” cries Prince Christopher. Prince Andrew struggles valiantly to prevent his garters being purloined by his souvenir-seeking admirers, and fails.

  It is very like riding all day on a camel. Prince Christopher is set down at the palace by his bearers, but the titanic and fanatic mechanic will not release him, and picks him up again to carry him indoors on his back, despite the struggles and howls of his cargo. The mechanic tries to carry the Prince upstairs, but the ancient Prime Minister intervenes, thrashing the mechanic with his walking stick, and crying, “Let His Royal Highness down at once!” The mechanic fanatic drops the Prince and hurls the Prime Minister into a corner, enabling two soldiers to frogmarch the Prince away whilst the mechanic is distracted.

  Unable to go out because of the crowds, the remainder of the royal party wait until dark and then steal out like spies, in order to go to the Tatoi Palace. They drive through villages festooned with flags, flowers and pictures of the King. The entourage has gifts of vegetables and game heaped upon it. In their cars rabbits and aubergines pile up around their feet. The bells peal, and the people shout, “Erxetai! Erxetai!”

  When the King does arrive at last, the scenes are even wilder. Of the one million who voted in the referendum, only ten thousand have voted against his return. Venizelos has fled the country, and the new old King is welcomed at the railway station by ecstatic crowds who clamber all over the carriages. He is carried straight to the cathedral, where the archbishop offers up prayers of thanksgiving.

  Fritz bit Moritz and Moritz bit the King and the King died, and so there is a new king, who happens to be a previously deposed one who is detested vehemently by all the Allies. The loss of Allied support means the loss of the war.

  Moritz, the Barbary ape, and Fritz, the German shepherd dog, will have successfully altered the entire course of Greek and Turkish history, but they themselves will retire modestly into oblivion and obscurity. They will leave neither simian nor canine memoirs explaining their side of the story. No one will know what happened to either of them in the end, or what would have happened if Moritz had not bitten the King.

  CHAPTER 82

  Mustafa Kemal (20)

  The Allies are disgusted by the re-enthronement of the old King. There had been a national schism in Greece because of his determination to keep Greece out of the Great War. He is Kaiser Wilhelm’s brother-in-law, and he is universally thought to be Germanophile. France and Italy withdraw all support for Greece. These days they are both selling arms to Mustafa Kemal, effectively having changed sides. Even Britain notifies Greece that there will be no further financial assistance. In Greece, the war is already creating desperate economic problems.

  Prime Minister Venizelos has flown into exile, and the war was, after all, Venizelos’s pet project. This is an ideal opportunity to take Greece out of the war with dignity. King Constantine simply takes it over, however, and royalist officers are appointed to replace the Venizelist ones. The new general, Papoulas, scores a victory at Inönü, but retreats because he thinks the Turks are more numerous than they really are. Colonel Ismet, who will later take the surname “Inönü” when Mustafa Kemal takes that of “Atatirk,” is mightily surprised by the Greek withdrawal, and reoccupies his old positions. He is promoted to brigadier general and is entitled to be addressed as “Pasha.”

  Mustafa Kemal sends a delegation to the London Conference, in tandem with one from the Istanbul government. The Italians considerately provide a warship for transport. The conference is relatively pointless, however, because the Turks are demanding Greek withdrawal from Thrace and Anatolia, whereas the Greeks still think they can win. The Turks make agreements on the side with the French and the Italians, and only Lloyd George holds out for a Greek presence in Anatolia. From now on, however, the Allies have made it known that they will be neutral in any conflict between
Greece and Turkey. At the other end of Europe, the Bolshevik Russians agree to supply Kemal with a stupendous quantity of arms in return for leaving them to occupy Georgia.

  General Papoulas attacks again at Inönü, and again the Turks retreat, only to return victoriously after some desperate moments. Ismet Pasha adds new lustre to his star. In the south the Greeks are forced out of Afyon Karahisar, but now the Greek line is a straight and much more invulnerable one. The French and the British send unofficial officials to Ankara to negotiate their future terms of reference.

  Mustafa Kemal sets up his own political party, which means that epiphenomenally he has created his own opposition in parliament. He will always be a dictator who has a democratic future for his country in mind, and this is not the only time that he will set up his own opposition.

  The Sultan’s grandson arrives to join the nationalist cause, but Kemal politely sends him back to Istanbul.

  King Constantine arrives in Smyrna, symbolically landing in the place once used by crusaders, rather than in the port. The reference is not lost on local Muslims. Massive Greek reinforcements arrive, and a new offensive takes place, with considerable Greek success. They win decisively at Kütahya, partly because of chaotic Turkish organisation. Only five divisions are actually fighting, whilst thirteen are marching about with no definite plan. Mustafa Kemal hurries to the front and consults with Ismet Pasha.

  The Turks counterattack, but fail. More chaos ensues. The Turks lose Eskişehir, and some 48,000 Turkish soldiers desert, fleeing along the railway line with the civilian refugees.

  Mustafa Kemal orders a retreat to the Sakarya River, and this causes a crisis in parliament and among the civilian population. Sakarya is rather close to Ankara, and evacuation to Kayseri is planned. Parliament demands the resignation of the military commanders responsible for the disaster, and the Prime Minister, Fevzi Bey, responds boldly that solely he is responsible. Mustafa Kemal gives all his money to the wife of a colleague so that she can flee with her children. A rapid recruitment drive is inaugurated, and new troops are dispatched to Sakarya. The assembly persuades Mustafa Kemal to take command of the armed forces personally. He is suspicious that this is really because his political opponents want someone to blame in the event of failure, and he worries about being away from the centre of power. He agrees to take command for three months.

  The Russians send new supplies of weapons and ammunition, and much of this is driven to the front by peasant women in ox-carts. They are the heroines of the Turkish War of Independence, and without them it probably would not have been won.

  Mustafa Kemal requisitions from every household one pair of boots and one set of underwear, and forty per cent of all stocks of candles, soap, flour, leather and cloth. All vehicle owners have to provide one hundred kilometres’ worth of free transport every month. All civilians must disarm and send their weapons to the army. All horse-drawn vehicles are to be given up. The massive resentment that this causes among civilians can only possibly be assuaged by victory.

  Kemal’s command is delayed for five days when he falls off a horse and breaks a rib, but he is at the front in time for the new Greek offensive. In his headquarters he is joined by Halide Edip, the first truly notable Turkish feminist. She has been made a corporal, and she is impressed to see Kemal at work, although she does not enjoy the rough conditions. Kemal has periods of despair in between his times of superhuman determination.

  The Greeks are superior in numbers, and better armed, and at once they succeed in capturing Mount Mangal and several other hills, but the Turks nearly capture General Papoulas and the King’s brother, Prince Andrew—he who once bragged that he had paved his courtyard with Muslim tombstones. The Greek success has the effect of shortening the Turkish line, making it both stronger and easier to control. The Greeks finally capture Mount Çal, which everybody considers to be the most crucial objective. It looks as if the Turks have lost.

  The Greek troops, however, are utterly exhausted by the heat, the lack of food and the losses. They have few supplies because the Turks have large numbers of cavalry who are moving about and constantly raiding behind their lines.

  Mustafa Kemal endures more despair, and it is a curious irony that both the Greeks and the Turks are contemplating withdrawal. General Papoulas is the first to lose his nerve, and the Turks, heartened by his withdrawal, immediately go into attack. They regain Mount Çal and the banks of the Sakarya River, but they are too exhausted to go on, and in any case they have no motorised transport. Only the cavalry can pursue the Greeks, and during one raid they succeed in capturing General Papoulas’s medals. Mustafa Kemal breaks the terms of the armistice and orders a general mobilisation. He becomes a marshal, and is awarded the honorific “Ghazi.”

  He is now Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, Saviour of the Nation.

  Back in Eskibahçe, Rustem Bey has become the saviour of the town. His campaigns against the brigands have made it almost impossible for them to operate in the locality, and they are seeking their fortunes elsewhere. It has become common for people to say: “Thank God we have Rustem Bey as aga, and not one of the usual bastards.”

  In Rustem Bey’s house, Philothei grows more pale and listless as she waits for the return of Ibrahim, and Leyla whiles away the time playing the oud and working out ways to cook what little there is. Pamuk lazes under the orange tree in the courtyard.

  In his unkempt house Daskalos Leonidas writes through the night in exultant celebration of the imminent restoration of Byzantium, whilst not far off Father Kristoforos sleeps beside Lydia, dreaming of the saints in Heaven playing backgammon, gambling with their robes and golden crowns. Some of them have been reduced to nakedness, but Kristoforos is unable to identify them. He thinks they must be the Catholic ones. In the brothel Tamara gazes into a mirror, and contemplates its story of infection, hunger, misuse and decay. She has achieved the sad detachment of an anchoress who expects nothing, and is therefore never disappointed by it. The bulbuls and nightingales sing through the night as if there were no catastrophes.

  One day Mehmet the Tinsmith arrives on his quarterly mission to tin everybody’s pans, and he is bearing a message for Iskander the Potter from Georgio P. Theodorou in Smyrna. Iskander has to take it to Leonidas to be read, and it transpires that Theodorou would like five hundred more clay birdwhistles for export to Italy. He is offering a good price, but Iskander is appalled by the prospect of all that repetition, and resolves to make twenty a day, so that he will also have time to make more interesting things.

  Ayse is amazed one morning when she is standing outside her house and a pigeon flies straight past her head and crashes into the wall. She takes the dying bird in her hands and feels the softness and stiffness of the feathers. It has blood dripping out of its mouth. It is a gift from Heaven, and later, when she is cooking it on a skewer, she is still incredulous, exhilarated by the tiny miracle. She leaves one leg, and later covers it with honey, and takes it to Polyxeni as a little treat.

  CHAPTER 83

  Lieutenant Granitola Takes His Leave

  “These have been three very enjoyable years,” said Granitola. It was early evening, and he was sitting on cushions facing Rustem Bey. Between them was a small beaten brass table on to which had been engraved allegorical animals, and pieties from the Koran in Arabic. Upon the table there was a large waterpipe which the two men were sharing, and the room was heavy with cool and aromatic smoke. On the walls around them Rustem Bey’s formidable collection of clocks ticked synchronously.

  “I am very sorry you are leaving,” said Rustem Bey. “You have become one of us. I was fully expecting to have to find you a wife and a little bit of land. I had in mind a pleasant meadow and orchard down by the river.”

  “A very pretty dream indeed,” said Granitola.

  “I hope you will return,” said Rustem Bey. Granitola looked a little surprised and concerned, but then his face opened up into a wide smile and he said, “It hadn’t actually occurred to me, but now that you suggest it
, I will certainly do so. I have been an occupier and I hadn’t thought that I might simply return as a guest.”

  “I think you can easily get a boat from Rhodes,” said Rustem Bey, “and within a short time there will be motor vehicles here. I fully intend to get one myself. I have seen them in Smyrna, and I find them very impressive. I think they will become the thing of the future.”

  “I doubt if they will ever replace the horse,” said Granitola, sagely. “Horses can go anywhere more or less, and motor vehicles require not only petrol and expert knowledge, but reasonably wide and level surfaces.”

  “Well, you might be right. In any case, I shall look forward with pleasure to your return. May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, my friend, of course.”

  “Why do you think that your occupation has been so peaceful around here, when the French had nothing but disaster in Cilicia?”

  “Well, we didn’t bring Armenian troops in to cause havoc and wreak revenge … and we have always treated Mustafa Kemal with sensible respect, and we were good to all the Muslim refugees from the Greek sector. And we allowed the Turkish chettas to operate from our territory.”

  “Why? Surely the Greeks were Allies?”

  “Allies don’t stick together after victories. It was a thing between us and the Greeks. It’s a question of who dominates in the eastern Mediterranean. The French don’t like the Greeks either, especially with the old King back on the throne, and now the British have the big embarrassment of being the only people left who are reluctantly supporting them.”

  “Does anyone know why the French left?”

  Granitola laughed. “I understand that they decided to be the first to break ranks because they came up with an excellent commercial deal with Mustafa Kemal.”