Serenade for Nadia

by Zülfü Livaneli

  “There’s a call for you from the Russian consulate. I’m putting it through.”

  I was greeted by a male voice speaking Turkish with a heavy Slavic accent.

  “Maya Duran, I wish you good day.”

  “Good day.”

  “I am your humble servant, Arkadi Vasiliyevich, the cultural attaché to the Russian embassy.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “If it is convenient, I should like to visit you.”

  “What is this visit about?”

  “I should like to meet you in connection with your university.”

  “Would your visit have anything to do with Professor Maximilian Wagner?”

  He paused, clearly taken aback, then continued in a mixture of Russian and Turkish, “Er…pajalusta…more to do with the university. If you would allow me, let me explain the reason for my visit when I arrive, tête-à-tête.”

  “Is Monday afternoon at three convenient?”

  “Yes, madam, I shall impose upon you.”

  We hung up. What an important person I’d suddenly become. An hour later I went down to wait for the car. I waited twenty minutes for them, and it was ten past five by the time we got to Çapa Hospital.

  The professor was looking much better. His color had returned and his face had more life in it. He gave me a big smile when he saw me.

  “I’ve brought you a visitor,” I said, and brought Kerem in.

  The professor straightened up a little in his bed and shook hands with Kerem.

  “Is this your son? What a nice surprise. Does he speak English?” And then he asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Kerem.”

  He was clearly shy about speaking English. He actually got high grades in English and he had a good teacher, but he’d never spoken English outside the classroom.

  The professor asked if he took English at school.

  “Yes.”

  They were both struggling to find something to say.

  “How are you feeling today?” I asked.

  “I’m feeling great, even better than before. In fact they’re letting me out tomorrow.”

  “I’ll come get you tomorrow and bring you back to the hotel. What day are you thinking of flying back?”

  “I’d like to go Sunday if it’s possible.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, and he smiled. I turned to Kerem.

  “Well, say goodbye to the professor, we’re leaving now.”

  Kerem shook hands with the professor, and almost in a whisper said, “Bye, bye.”

  He held on to the professor’s hand for a moment, looked him in the eye and asked him in Turkish, “Are you a spy?”

  I was so embarrassed I blushed.

  “Professor, Kerem is saying goodbye to you.”

  Wagner chuckled, “I understood that word,” he said, “Don’t worry, he has the right to ask.”

  He turned to Kerem and said in Turkish, “Hayır! No!” rolling the r at the end of the word. Then he turned to me.

  “Did you find my violin?” Wagner asked. I’d completely forgotten.

  “I’ll look into it right away, don’t worry,” I said. On the way back I explained the situation to Ilyas.

  “Do you have Süleyman’s telephone number?” I asked him.

  “Yes, I do,” he said.

  “The professor left his violin in the Mercedes. Could you pick it up tomorrow?”

  “Certainly.”

  When I got home I took some food out of the fridge, heated it up, and set the table.

  We ate without talking and then withdrew to our rooms.

  I turned on my laptop, and when it was warmed up I started looking up Scurla. I hadn’t expected to find anything so quickly, but on the first page of results I found a Herbert Scurla who’d lived in Istanbul from 1937 to 1939. He had been minister of education of the Reich in 1934, and was in Istanbul as a representative of the German Office of University Exchanges. Interestingly, he later became a leading member of the Communist Party in East Germany and also had a successful career as a writer.

  A Turkish site had a piece about Scurla’s mission having been to try to persuade the Turkish Minister of Education to deport the refugee professors back to Germany in exchange for their replacement by another group of professors approved by the German government. The Turkish government declined this proposition, and the refugee professors were allowed to continue in their posts. The report that Scurla presented to Hitler on his return was discovered in a Nazi archive in 1987.

  When Hitler began the Second World War, he was not pleased that scholars fleeing Nazi terror in Germany and Austria took refuge in Turkey and were allowed to work there. Herbert Scurla, Undersecretary for the German Foreign Ministry, came to Turkey in 1939, met with the Minister of Education, Hasan-Ali Yücel, and conveys the message, “Send these scholars back to us and we’ll send you Germany’s most brilliant brains.”

  However Turkey declined Hitler’s proposition and the professors continue their work. The report Scurla presented to Hitler on his return was found in 1987 in Nazi archives.

  This meant that his conclusions about Maximilian would be included in this report. With a little effort I learned that the archive in which the report had been found was in Bad Arolsen, near Kassel, and that it had been filed under ITS, for International Tracing Service.

  So, how was I going to get a look at this report?

  I turned off my laptop and took the family photograph album out of the walnut chest I kept at the foot of my bed. The album, bound in embossed leather, with fading pictures protected by tissue, had always held a deep fascination for me.

  I stared at the photographs of my maternal grandparents. My grandmother had a broad face, clear skin, prominent cheekbones, and slightly slanted black eyes. My mother had inherited her features, and to a lesser extent I had as well. My grandfather Ali was a thin man with sunken cheeks and a rather large nose. Now, looking at their faces after so many years, I felt a deep sadness at never having really known them, never having known their story. And also at the realization that there was so much more I would never know. All I had was the outline of a story, and I would never know the details. I would never know anything about either of my grandmothers’ families, their parents and grandparents and siblings. Like so many people in this country, I would never be allowed to know my family history beyond two generations.

  I tried to picture them as they were when they were young, my grandmother as a prisoner fleeing from a train and jumping into an icy lake, and my grandfather, the young soldier who’d fallen in love with her, jumping in to save her without a second thought. If he had hesitated, none of us, my brother and me, my brother’s children, and Kerem, would ever have existed.

  How many people in this country had felt it necessary to hide their true identities as both of my grandmothers had done? How many people, like my brother, were terrified that their history of “tainted blood” might be discovered? How much better it might have been if we’d all been allowed to be who we are, if we’d been free to build a multiethnic, multicultural society. We’d been so imprisoned by the nationalist myth promulgated by those who felt that in order to create a nation they had to create a national identity. Yet the myth was so fragile that those who felt their existence depended on it had to resort to violence and intimidation to protect it. What strange logic they used as well. “If you call me a murderer I’ll kill you.” What a disaster it would be if it was discovered that the president of the Republic had Armenian ancestors!

  Maximilian knew nothing about my mother’s mother, yet had it not been for him, I might never have learned her story. Tomorrow I’d pick him up from the hospital and bring him to the hotel. Then I’d get him to tell me his story. He’d told me I had the right to know, and I felt I did. After all I’d bee
n through because of him, he had to tell me.

  It was only nine o’clock, so I decided to spend some time on the internet reading about what Germany had been like in Maximilian Wagner’s youth. I started with the political and economic crises of the early twenties, when Germany experienced a period of hyperinflation and the German mark lost so much value that it was being traded at 4.2 million to the dollar.

  At the moment, Turkey is struggling with high inflation and the worst economic crisis in recent times, and though it isn’t comparable to the situation that had existed in Germany after World War I, it is still serious. The day Professor Wagner had arrived in Istanbul, the prime minister had a strong disagreement with the president, and as he left the Presidential Palace he told the crowd of reporters outside that the greatest crisis in the history of the Republic had commenced. As soon as he spoke those words the crisis began in earnest. Overnight, the Turkish lira lost a third of its value and began trading at 1.7 million to the dollar. Banks failed, thousands of businesses—both large and small—went bankrupt, and everyone who still had money did everything they could to get it out of the country. Foreign investment and loans dried up. The stock market crashed, businessmen were arrested, or committed suicide, or fled to countries that did not have extradition treaties with Turkey. New Zealand became a very popular destination, and the people of Tanzania were surprised by a sudden influx of wealthy Turks.

  The situation was quickly moving toward what Germany had experienced in the twenties. I’d given all my savings to Tarık to trade on the stock market, and even though he insisted my money was safe, I was sure I no longer had anything to fall back on. This was causing me considerable anxiety, because Ahmet never paid the child support or alimony he was supposed to. Every time we met he had another excuse, so I was left carrying the burden of feeding and clothing Kerem and sending him to school.

  In Germany, anger at the loss of savings, jobs, and security had led people to begin listening to Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers Party. The Nazis were skilled at manipulating the people’s anxiety, and no one could foresee what the party’s growing power would lead to. Even after Hitler came to power in 1933, people were still blind to the true nature of his “movement.”

  One of Hitler’s first acts after forming a government was to pass the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.” The aim of this law was to purge government agencies of Jews and replace them with Aryans, and particularly with those Aryans who were loyal to the party. Jewish professors, judges, notaries, and civil servants were suddenly dismissed from their positions.

  The sense of insecurity in Germany led to increased support for the Nazi party, just as the sense of insecurity here has led to increased support for the Islamist party. In Germany, those who were disappointed in the old regime and those who felt their country had been unjustly punished by the victors of World War I began to flock to the party, and there were many others who sympathized without becoming active members. Even those who had previously supported other parties began to wear Nazi lapel pins, to the astonishment of their friends.

  Adolf Hitler moved step-by-step, according to the rules of the system, and even the most influential individuals and institutions supported him wholeheartedly. Looking back, it’s hard to understand how an entire nation could be so blind and acquiescent, but, then again, it’s easy to imagine the same thing happening here. No one listens to the few lone voices who point out how the Islamists are taking over the judiciary, the upper levels of the police, the schools, and, indeed, the entire government bureaucracy—how they’re already pushing ahead their agenda in the major cities whose administrations they control. On 23 March 1933, before he had been in power for two months, Hitler managed to get the Enabling Act passed in parliament, giving his government unlimited power. How long will it be before something similar happens here?

  CHAPTER 11

  I dreamt I was swimming in a clear, blue sea. The sun was bright and sparkling on the water. High mountains rose behind me, and there was an island not too far in the distance. The water caressed my skin like silk, and when I looked down I could see the sandy bottom. I felt so light, so full of life, I felt as if I could swim forever.

  Then, suddenly, the sky clouded over and the water grew dark and murky. I could no longer even see my own legs. Just as I thought this, something grabbed my leg. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was a hand. A thin, bony hand, but strong. No matter how hard I tried to kick myself free it wouldn’t loosen its grip, but dragged me down into the water. Then another hand took my arm, and I could see that it was my grandmother pulling me down. Not my grandmother as I’d known her, her face was white and gaunt and her hair was spread out around and above her head, swaying and dancing like a creature with a life of its own.

  I woke with a start and looked at the clock. It was almost nine. It was Saturday, and I stretched, luxuriating in the knowledge that I didn’t have to rush out of bed. I had the whole day in front of me. First a nice shower and a good breakfast, then to the mall to take advantage of the last of the winter sales. I’d have a leisurely lunch there, then go to the hospital, fetch Wagner, and bring him to the hotel. I was glad I didn’t have to go to the university.

  When I pulled open the curtains I was delighted to see that it was bright and sunny out. It happened like that in Istanbul sometimes. After weeks of rain and snow and wind without even a glimpse of the sun, there would suddenly be a balmy, spring-like day. And when it did happen, and especially if it happened on a weekend, hundreds of thousands of people who’d been cooped up would pour out into the streets. They would stroll along the shore of the Bosporus or the Marmara Sea, or in the Belgrade forest. Cheerful groups would crowd onto ferries and have picnics on the islands. In the evening, the smell of fried mussels and grilled fish would waft from seaside restaurants, and the people of Istanbul would sip ice-cold rakı as they watched the sun set behind the mosques of the old city.

  An hour later Kerem and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast with sunlight streaming in through the window. The moment was perfect, one of those rare moments when I was utterly content to be where and who I was. And just then the doorbell rang.

  It was Ahmet; he was taking Kerem for the weekend. In fact he was supposed to take Kerem every weekend, that was our arrangement, but he usually didn’t. He usually didn’t even bother to call and cancel either.

  He just stood in the corridor with a wary expression on his face. I looked at him, and it struck me how much he’d aged. His hair was thinning, and his face had taken on that look of disappointment and resignation that men often get in middle age.

  “Well, what are you doing these days?”

  “Nothing,” I said, “I’m trying to earn money to pay for my son’s school and to keep this house.”

  Then I called out, “Kerem, come on, get ready, your father is going to wait for you downstairs in the car.”

  Just as I was closing the door, I saw Ahmet lean forward. At the last moment he lifted his eyebrows as if he were going to say something, but it was too late; whatever it was he could say it to the front door.

  Kerem was ready. I put a twenty in his pocket as he went out. “Don’t show it to your father, ask him for whatever you want, let him buy it. Don’t you dare buy anything. You can spend the money next week.”

  He left without a word. No thank you, no goodbye.

  That’s how it was in our family.

  I cleaned up the house a bit and then went to the mall. I had a coffee, bought some clothes that were on sale, and then went to the bookshop to ask if they had any books on the German professors who’d come to Turkey in the 1930s. The clerk looked on her computer, said yes, and led me to the history section.

  “Yes. This is it.”

  She slipped a book into my hands. A thick book with a pink cover. It was titled: My Memories—the Kaiser—Weimar Republic—Atatürk’s Nation, Ernst. E.
Hirsch. It had been translated by Fatma Suphi and published by the Turkish Institute for Scientific and Technical Research. I recognized Hirsch’s name from the archives, and felt very pleased to have found the book.

  I paid for the book and then sat in the bookstore café, ordered a coffee and a sandwich, and looked at the book’s back cover.

  Professor Hirsch left Germany in 1933 and worked as guest lecturer at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Law from 1933 to 1943, and at Ankara University’s Faculty of Law from 1943 to 1952. The views and observations relating to the declining years of the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s rise to power, the attitude of the law makers, and the first thirty years of Atatürk’s Turkey that appear in My Memories, will intrigue everyone who is interested in recent history and political and social life. This book also presents a picture of how our university system has evolved.

  At the beginning of the book was a full-page photo of the professor. He was not looking at the camera but had his head turned to one side as if he were trying to remember something, an elderly man with spectacles and slightly thinning gray hair, in dark clothes and a tie. The caption read, “A life beyond the boundaries of time.” Hirsch was born in 1902 and died in 1985. So he was quite a bit older than Wagner. I immediately flicked through the index to see if Maximilian Wagner’s name appeared. It didn’t.

  Hirsch quoted Goethe at the beginning of the book.

  Vergänglich sind der Erde schönste Gaben.

  Nur was wir, außer dem Bereich der Zeit,

  gewirkt als Geister auf die Geister haben,

  das ist und bleibt in alle Ewigkeit.

  Even the greatest blessings on earth

  Pass with our thoughts that go beyond the boundaries of time.

  Only He thinks

  About the impression we make,

  He endures to eternity.

  The first chapter was titled, “Never Forget Where You Came From” and was about Hirsch’s childhood. I skipped this and flipped ahead to the Hitler years. At this point my coffee and sandwich arrived. Everything he said fit with what I’d read over the last few days. What had happened when Hitler attained unlimited power after the Enabling Act was passed, and how deeply this had wounded Professor Hirsch. This is how he put it: