Empire of Lies

by Raymond Khoury

  The next hall was even worse.

  It was an entire wing dedicated to the Anschluss and the rise of the Nazis.

  * * *

  It wasn’t the displays of weapons that shocked him, not the huge siege howitzers or the tanks from different nations displayed in the Panzergarten outside the museum. It was the unending collection of dizzying films and photographs displayed on flat screens.

  Kamal felt as if he’d been pummeled.

  He left the museum in a daze and walked around, unsure about what to do. All he knew was that he needed to know more.

  Once he did, he regretted it.

  He managed to find an internet café and began catching up on what had happened in the intervening centuries—no easy task, since he discovered that the Turkish language was no longer written using the Turko-Persian script he had always used. It was now written in Latin script. But once he found the right website, the information was debilitating.

  There had been many, many wars in the years since Vienna had been saved. Wars that hadn’t happened in his world, after the Ottoman conquest of Europe.

  There had been countless conflicts pitting one European nation against another. There had been bloody revolutions in many countries, notably in France, America, and, most disastrously, Russia. The subsequent rise of communism had brought on a whole new onslaught of death and suffering. In Ukraine alone, four million people had died in the early 1930s as a result of Stalin’s campaign to crush its people’s nationalist aspirations. Deaths under communism were even higher in China and Cambodia.

  The Great Terror and the purges. Two world wars. The Holocaust. The Armenian genocide. Vietnam. Nuclear bombs—he had to look up what they were—in Japan.

  He felt numb as the number of deaths just kept rising. How many had died since he buried Nisreen? Fifty million? A hundred million? More?

  It was staggering, and it left Kamal almost unable to breathe.

  He reeled with regret and a hollowness that wanted to suck him into it and wipe him off the face of the earth.

  One question battered him repeatedly: Had he made a gargantuan and unspeakably tragic mistake?

  He knew the Ottoman campaign to conquer Europe hadn’t been without bloodshed. Many had died as the sultan’s army had swept across the continent. The war with Russia decades later had also been bloody, and everyone knew that a war with the Americans, especially given the sparring over energy, was certainly a possibility. But it didn’t lessen the sense of horror Kamal felt at what had befallen the planet in this timeline, after the Ottomans had failed to take Vienna.

  And it was all his fault.

  78

  He spent the night wandering the city aimlessly, unable to sleep, stopping occasionally to rest before moving on, not really registering anything, just lost inside his own thoughts, haunted by a crushing sense of guilt.

  At one point, as if guided by some cruel, twisted hand, he found himself waiting to cross the street at a corner, and his tired eyes latched onto a word on a street sign affixed onto the side of a building: KOLSCHITZKYGASSE.

  Kolschitzky Street.

  He stood there, foggy-brained, as the word sunk in. Then his eyes floated upward to find something else: a large statue, at first-floor level, mounted on a plinth that projected from the corner of the building.

  It was Kolschitzky. He was dressed in Ottoman garb and held a coffeepot in one hand and a tray in the other. The pose depicted him standing tall while pouring coffee into a small cup with an assortment of swords, battle-axes, and shields by his feet, presumably in commemoration of his heroic role in saving the city.

  The sight only served to deepen his anguish.

  As he drifted through the city, he began to wonder whether he should fix his mistake by going back and trying to undo what he did. His thoughts accelerated, running through different scenarios, desperately playing out the ramifications of each.

  He could go back, of course. But to what date? He couldn’t go back to any time that he and Nisreen had already gone to. Would he go back to the early days of the siege? To when Taymoor had arrived, perhaps even get there before him? Or go to Istanbul even earlier and find Rasheed there? What would he do there? Warn him? Tell him that he and Nisreen were coming for him in the future? Could he even think of doing that, of betraying her that way? Or would it change everything if he did? Would Rasheed alter his plans in some way and change the future timeline so that Kamal and Nisreen never met or even never existed?

  It was all too mind-boggling to think about, and, in his exhausted state, it sent him deeper and deeper into despair. He found it impossible to escape the dark thoughts he was drowning in.

  Thoughts of suicide even crept into his mind.

  * * *

  It was many hours before he found himself in familiar territory again.

  The Naschmarkt was busy, but the crowd was thinning in tandem with the sun’s imminent curtain call. There were a couple of customers at the kebab stall, but as soon as Orhan saw him, his jovial expression faded and turned to concern. He still managed a warm smile and waved him over.

  Orhan offered Kamal another meal and joined him at a small table while the stall enjoyed a lull before the evening rush. Alternating sips from a cup of coffee with pulls from a cigarette, he watched Kamal curiously as his new friend picked at the food.

  “What’s wrong, brother?” he asked him. “You look like the sky’s fallen on top of you.”

  Kamal shrugged. “It feels that way.”

  Orhan looked at him pensively. “It’ll get better; you’ll see. Life is good here. Much better than back home. You’ll be glad you came here.”

  Kamal appreciated the sentiment, but he knew that Orhan obviously had no idea what was really going through his mind. “I thought I would,” he said, his voice feeble. “I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe my world, for all its faults, was … better.”

  “No,” Orhan said. “It wasn’t. Believe me.”

  Kamal looked away, taking in the expansive rows of stalls spreading out in all directions, but didn’t reply.

  Orhan leaned in and pressed on. “Listen to me, Kamal. Our world … it’s still got a long way to go. And that’s if it ever gets there.”

  “Gets where?”

  “Here.” He indicated the world around him with his arms. “To everything you see around you.”

  He took a deep drag off his cigarette, then squashed it into a tin ashtray. “This part of the world,” he told Kamal, “they’ve had their wars. They’ve had their revolutions. They’ve fought to abolish monarchy and slavery, to separate government from religion. They’ve fought for their freedom. And they’ve paid heavily for it. Millions have died fighting for freedom. Which is why they know its value. Life here has a value.” His tone was insistent. “A person has rights. We have rights. All of us. Me, him, her,” he said, pointing at random people wandering through the market. “We’re all equal. Rich or poor—it doesn’t matter. Whether your great-grandfather was born here or you’re fresh off the boat like me … everyone’s freedom and dignity is respected—and defended. Maybe not always. Maybe not by everyone. It’s not perfect … but it’s much better than anything we have. That’s why I’m here. Where we come from … our part of the world … they’re still way behind. They’re still going through their wars and their revolutions, and right now life there is worthless. A soldier can drag you out of your bed and make you disappear, and no one can do anything about it. A thousand people can be gassed to death in a village, and no one can stop it. And who knows? Maybe they’ll never get there. Maybe they’ll stick to their tribal ways forever. Either way, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be long gone by then.” He chuckled. His eyes took on a faraway look. “I had a good business in Istanbul, you know. I had a restaurant and a small shop. We were doing okay. But the country was changing. So I left. But even with nothing but this little stall, it’s still a much better life here. You’ll see.”

  “How was it changing?” Kamal asked.

&n
bsp; “Years ago, we were different from our Arab neighbors. Right? We were. We were a democracy. A real one. We had a free press. Religion and government were kept well apart. We were the modern, civilized bridge between the West and the Middle East; we were on our way to joining the European Union. Then we elected a za’eem,” he said, using the Turkish word for strongman, “who had other ideas and locked up anyone who dared to disagree. That’s when I left. When it got ugly.”

  Rasheed’s dismissive tirade in the tent outside Vienna reverberated inside him. “He was elected?” Kamal caught himself halfway through the question and adjusted his tone so that it didn’t sound as much a question as it did a statement.

  Orhan snorted. “Of course. It was just a means to an end. Have you forgotten that famous speech of his, many years ago? ‘Democracy is like a train. You get off once you’ve reached your destination.’ But no one paid attention. People never do until it’s too late.” He sighed. “Elections aren’t perfect. Far from it. And as we see more and more—even in America, right?—elections can be manipulated. Even before social media. That monster in Russia, he’s been elected—‘elected’”—he clarified, using air quotes—“president how many times now? In Syria, the president officially wins elections with ninety-seven percent of the vote. They actually announce that on their local news. Not an ounce of shame…” He shook his head. “But real elections—fair, open elections, with many parties and real opposition and a real exchange of ideas, a real debate about how to live … what could possibly be better?”

  “But the cost of this freedom … all those wars,” Kamal said, gauging his words carefully, Rasheed’s mocking words still echoing in his ears. “What if they could have been avoided somehow?”

  “How?”

  “What if one empire had conquered—I don’t know, all of Europe—centuries ago. The Ottomans even. Imagine if they had been able to.”

  “They came close,” Orhan mused. “They almost took this city.”

  “Well, imagine they had,” Kamal countered. “Imagine they’d gone on and conquered all of Europe. Maybe if they had, there wouldn’t have been all those revolutions and world wars. Maybe it would have been better.”

  Orhan laughed. “What have you been putting in your shisha, brother?” He waved it off dismissively. “Better? Not a chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who knows how history would have evolved. But listen to me, brother. Living under a dictator—because the sultan was a dictator; make no mistake about that—it can never be better than living in a free society. Never. And I can assure you of two things. A dictator—a sultan, a ‘fake’ president; it doesn’t matter—a za’eem will never give up power on his own. Never. Which means that sooner or later, no matter how strongly a dictator controls his people … sooner or later, they will rise up. They will be fed up with corruption, they will want freedom, they will want to be heard, and they will inevitably have to die for it. It’s human nature. It’s happened all around the world. It would happen in your glorious Ottoman Empire too—you can be sure of it.”

  Kamal nodded somberly. It all seemed like a hopeless, endless cycle of pain and suffering. Orhan’s words had resuscitated all the turmoil of his life in Paris and brought it rushing back into his mind with frightening clarity. All the upheavals, all the arguments and debates he’d had over his last few years there with Ramazan and Nisreen. All the hurt.

  Orhan was right. The fuse had undoubtedly been lit. A big war had been brewing. And when it happened, when the people rose up for freedom, there was no telling how bloody it would have been, or how it would have ended.

  Or how it would have affected Nisreen, Ramazan, and the children, or him.

  Kamal thought back to Nisreen, to the passion that had been driving her, and to the freedom she had always championed. It was an ongoing struggle, he realized. And, he was starting to understand, he was now in a time and a place where a lot of that struggle had already played itself out.

  In that moment, he wondered how Nisreen would feel if she had been there with him, sitting next to him outside Orhan’s stall, and couldn’t help but feel that she would be profoundly pleased with what she saw.

  The thought brought a bittersweet warmth to his face.

  “Someone—I think it was Winston Churchill,” Orhan continued, “once said, ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.’ Which I totally agree with. But the people in our part of the world, and in many others … they’re not there yet. They love living under their tyrants. A lot of them believe it brings stability. Like in Iraq and Syria and Libya, before the mess. Maybe it did. But that’s backward thinking. It was never going to last. People can now see how other nations live, and want it for themselves,” he said as he indicated the city around him, “while others still don’t want to live this way. And until they all get there, there will be bloodshed. Which is why I’m here. I know what life I want.” He spread his hands out at the city around him. “Isn’t that also why you left?”

  “I suppose so,” Kamal said.

  “You’ll see,” Orhan told him, a comforting smile suffusing his face. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. You’ll have to work hard. And some of it will be a struggle. There are dark forces at play. Racism is rising. Xenophobes are gaining power. But, for now at least, life here is still better. Because despite everything that’s happening, your dignity and your rights as a human being will be more respected than back home. And believe me, once you taste that, you won’t be able to believe you ever lived without it.”

  Kamal smiled back at his host.

  Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Nisreen had been right all long.

  This was a better world.

  And right then, right at that moment, a stunning realization breezed through him, a spectacular, unexpected thought that lit up every cell in his body.

  It was a better world, yes.

  But perhaps he could make it even better.

  EPILOGUE

  PALMYRA

  November, AD 2010

  Kamal had an open book when it came to deciding when to make his visit to the ancient city.

  As with everything he did, he chose to go back to a time as reasonably close to the relevant event as possible, to minimize any unintended disruptions that his jump might create.

  In this case, he knew the uprising’s first stirs were the protests that began in early 2011. The day that was considered the beginning of the Syrian civil war was March 15, the “Day of Rage.” It had followed the torture and murder of a thirteen-year-old boy who had scribbled some antigovernment graffiti on a wall. Furious protesters in Damascus had thronged the streets, demanding political reforms and the release of thousands of political prisoners. The fuse had been lit.

  Before then, however, Syria was a relatively safe place—provided one didn’t anger its tyrant president or his gang of crony-thugs. And when Kamal landed at the Damascus airport, the government was in the thick of a major PR campaign promoting Syria across the world as a charming tourist destination. One of their core messages was about how it was the cradle of Christianity, how welcoming it was, how visitors could actually follow in the footsteps of Paul and walk the fabled road to Damascus.

  Kamal had already had his epiphany.

  He was more interested in the road to Palmyra.

  He’d only be spending one night in the capital. He had already booked a car to drive him to Palmyra early the next morning. It would be a long drive—three hours, he’d been told, as the road was narrow, a single lane in each direction.

  Which it turned out to be.

  The desert soon bowed to man’s ingenuity, pushed back by olive and palm tree orchards and cotton and grain plantations. Then the glorious ruins of the ancient city appeared in the distance. And by the time his chauffeured Mercedes pulled up outside the city’s museum of antiquities, Kamal could see that the government’s message was working.

  Palmyra was throbbing with visitors. All around him, tour buses w
ere disgorging groups of excited visitors who’d made the journey from around the world, with good reason. The “Bride of the Desert” was breathtakingly epic. Famous for its majestic architecture, colonnaded streets, and distinctive tower tombs, it had been inhabited for over four millennia. Romans, Greeks, Parthians, and Sassanids all had their day in shaping it, building temples and palaces, the ruins of which still stood at the time Kamal was visiting. Palmyra was now a World Heritage site, its history as a melting pot of Western and Eastern cultures as important a symbol of historical harmony as it was of Syrian diversity.

  If only they knew what was coming, Kamal thought as he stepped out of the car. The ancient city would soon become more of a testament to the fragility—and savagery—of civilization.

  He’d booked an appointment with the museum’s director of antiquities, claiming to represent a wealthy German patron who wished to help fund the ongoing archaeological work.

  The director, Kamal discovered, had been looking after the city and its heritage for more than fifty years. Now in his early seventies, he was a one-man powerhouse, managing the museum, presiding over excavations and restorations, raising funds, and assisting scholars who journeyed there from around the world. He was more than the preeminent expert on the ancient metropolis’s rich history. He was its protector.

  And he would soon be dead, Kamal knew. Shot in the face by an ISIS commander of Iraqi origin called Ayman Rasheed.

  But not if he could help it.

  He was received graciously by the director, who offered him freshly made mint lemonade before giving him a tour of the museum. The man had an amiable, gentle air about him, a scholar who worshipped at the altar of knowledge and history and adored his city.

  Which meant that what Kamal was about to tell him would be even more painful to hear.

  They were a couple of hours into their encounter and walking around the remains of the Temple of Nabo when Kamal decided that it was time to say what he traveled across time to say.