by Suat Dervis
Suat herself was never incarcerated, unless we count a short spell she spent under house arrest. The authorities had other ways to punish her. By the early 1940s, the newspapers had been purged of leftists. Those who replaced them were mindful of the ruling party’s pro-Nazi and anti-Communist views, and when Suat, never to be daunted, went to them for work, they laughed her out of the office. For a time, though, she was still able to eke out a living by doing translations, writing under pseudonyms, and turning out another string of novels. If she was able to publish these under her own name, it was presumably because no one of importance (in other words, no man) would ever read them.
When asked to choose between her two careers, the first as a novelist, the second as a journalist, Suat Derviş would insist that they were of equal importance. To journalism she brought her flair for a good story, while journalism, she said, nourished her fiction. It might be more accurate to say that her journalism, and the political education that came with it, transformed her very understanding of fiction and the ways in which she might use it. During the middle years of her career, she put aside her old gothic ways for a bold if also rather racy mode of social realism.
In most of these later books, her characters occupy the margins of society—oppressed but endowed with chains they can learn to lose. They take as their inspiration the hardy souls Suat Derviş came to know through her work as a journalist and activist, and through her own ordeals as a political target. The book in your hand is the exception. It takes Suat Derviş back to her beginnings—to the old yalıs slowly sinking into the Bosphorus with the last remnants of the discarded ruling class, and to the brash modern city of the newly rich.
The heroine is a young woman raised in decaying splendor by her grandmother—a so-called “palace lady.” Born a Circassian slave, like Suat’s own grandmother, and raised in the sultan’s harem before being married off to a pasha, she is Ottoman refinement personified. It is from her that the young Celile learns never to complain, show emotion, express an opinion, or question the judgment of the men who are fated, without her ever lifting a finger, to cherish and protect her.
To the new rich of modern Istanbul, Celile is as rare a bird as they have ever seen. She remains courteously indifferent to the men who wish to possess her, until one day desire comes to visit, and she takes it for love. The more she transgresses—blithely, and forever blind to the rules of the new order—the more deeply the two men fighting over her sink into gothic suspicion. They want her, but they mistrust her. They prize her, but only as an asset. They value her for her Ottoman refinements, but only to the extent that she can enhance their good names. She can be loved, but from the moment she dares to live by her own lights, she must be kept secluded. The Ottoman Empire is no longer, but in the shiny new republic, where women can vote, attend university, even pursue careers, the old conventions, long since officially discarded, continue to rule their lives.
This novel’s depiction of patriarchy at work anticipates The Second Sex. Or rather, it is following a parallel path, in disguise. In the garb of a gothic novel, with all its secrets, shocks, and forbidden desires, and all its whispered promises of sex in purple prose, it takes its readers into the backrooms and boardrooms of the new republic to see who really runs women’s lives, and how and why.
It is one of two novels that Suat Derviş rewrote and republished in French after going into voluntary exile in 1953. It may or may not have been her old friend Nâzım Hikmet, by now a world-famous poet residing in Moscow, who opened doors for her. For she wrote to him from Paris, confessing to near starvation and begging for his help. There is no record of her hearing back from him. Suat may again have been left to find her own way. All we know is that once the leaders of the French Communist Party had been alerted to her plight, they did everything in their power to help her. They did not just introduce her to a publisher. They also made sure that—for the first time in her life, and the last—she was feted. Both novels were highly praised by the leading critics of the day, who marveled at the elegance of the prose—knowing as they did that Suat Derviş had translated the books herself, with a bit of help from her sister. (There is more to this story, to be found in the translator’s note.)
In 1963, when her husband was at last out of prison, Suat returned to Istanbul. If he was glad to see her, his acolytes were not. They thought her selfish and disloyal to have gone abroad. She sat at her own kitchen table on sufferance. Behind her back, the acolytes exchanged spiteful stories about how badly she had cared for her husband, whose years in prison had left him in poor health. She carried on regardless, despite her own failing health. She had long suffered from diabetes, only recently diagnosed. It had affected her eyesight and her heart.
But now, at last, she was enjoying a revival of sorts in Turkey, where novels that had only ever appeared as newspaper serials began to appear as proper books. One of these was Fosforlu Cevriye (Cevriye the Firebrand). This tale of a flamboyant, brave, and goodhearted prostitute went on to become her greatest and most enduring success. In 1969 it was made into a much-loved film, then adapted in 1972 into a play, and in 2008 it was revived as a musical.
She remained active in politics. In 1970, when the Turkish Left was again on the rise, and under assault, and when she herself had only two years to live, she helped found the Socialist Women’s Association. But even now she had to fight to be heard. Introduced at a meeting as the wife of the general secretary of the Turkish Communist Party, she rose to her feet and cried, “No! I am Suat Derviş, the writer!”
Today, almost half a century later, she is known in Turkey as the writer who was erased from the record. But now, at last, her books have been reissued. Symposia have been held, and a fine biography written. She remains a puzzle—the Marxist who wrote steamy romances. The Ottoman daughter who was given the name of the son she was meant to be. The fearless activist who loved a good laugh and a good party. The dissident who spent decades on the poverty line, but who never gave up on the city’s best patisseries. Until her last, she would happily pass up on supper just to share an overpriced éclair with a friend. She never stopped fighting, writing, or hoping. In her life, as in her work, she offers a shining example of what is possible, even at the worst of times, if you set out to make the most of things, just by following your own lights.
Maureen Freely
A NOTE ABOUT TURKISH HONORIFICS
Before the founding of the republic in 1923, Turks did not have surnames. Those addressing men of a certain standing would append the word Bey—gentleman—to their first names. For woman worthy of respect, be she married or unmarried, they would append the word Hanım, or lady.
If they wished to make it clear that they held a man in the highest esteem, they would use a longer word, Beyefendi, which might be translated as “honorable gentleman.” In the case of an esteemed woman, they would use the term, Hanımefendi, “honorable lady.”
When wishing to be courteous to a servant, employee, or retainer, they might choose to append the word Efendi to their given name. A maidservant’s name might be followed by Kalfa. A servant of former or current high status, such as a head cook, might merit the honorific Agha, “master.”
These were the Ottoman conventions. Not long after the founding of the republic, Turks were quite suddenly informed that they were to invent surnames for themselves. Once all had obeyed, a new pair of honorifics, Bay and Bayan, came into use. Like our own Mr. and Mrs., these terms precede the surname. They remain in formal use to this day, though in everyday intercourse, the Ottoman conventions live on. Certainly, I would be surprised and troubled if, on arriving at my favorite Istanbul patisserie, the waiter chose not to greet me as Hanımefendi.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Celile Çeşmiahu’s granddaughter and Ahmet’s wife
Ahmet Celile’s husband
Muhsin Celile’s lover
Nuri M
uhsin’s old school friend
Müjde Nuri’s wife
Çeşmiahu Celile’s grandmother
Veliddin Pasha Celile’s grandfather
Fazıl Celile’s father
Mardirosyan Veliddin Pasha’s old moneychanger
Seyfullah Veliddin Pasha’s old butler
Nazikter Celile’s nurse and maidservant
Nurser Çeşmiahu’s maidservant
Osman Çeşmiahu’s cook
Şükran Celile’s cousin
ONE
Why are you so sad tonight?”
“Because I’m so close to you, my lovely, and yet so far away.”
The young woman was not expecting this sort of answer. Above all, she was thrown by the endearment.
Her pale face reddened, right up to the roots of her hair. Had Muhsin not spoken with such sincerity, had she not seen that strange fire in his eyes, she might have judged him impertinent.
How had he disarmed her? With his eyes, perhaps. His voice, and its ardent intimations. Perhaps she had genuinely wished to put him in his place, and had faltered because she could not bring herself to believe her ears. How could this be? That she had wished to protest, and then failed: it made no sense.
It made no sense, but it had happened. This stranger she hardly knew was taking liberties, addressing her as if they were intimates already, and confessing sadness at the distance between them.
Such disrespect!
Celile made to raise her eyebrows, to let him know that his impudence dismayed her, only to find herself unable to dismiss his brazen attempt at a compliment. For Muhsin’s whispered words had penetrated her with the force of the south wind, breathing fire on her ears and her neck, setting her entire body alight. Her heart was racing, her temples pounding. Her ears rang with his words.
“I must be drunk!” she told herself. Certainly she’d overindulged this evening—she couldn’t even name most of the drinks she’d downed. And now she felt weightless. Freed of flesh, blood, and bones, beyond the grip of the material world, and afloat in a heavenly peace.
She had felt this way before, when she was tiny. This much she knew. But the details still eluded her.
All she could remember was a little pink bedstead. At her side as she lay there was a woman whose face she could not recall. But she carried the scent of lilacs. She was wearing a dress with a lace collar and lace sleeves. Nestled in her hair was a star made of sparkling stones. She was stroking Celile’s forehead, with a hand as warm and soft as a petal. She was, Celile knew, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the most fantastical. Perhaps she was not a woman at all, but an angel. Her angel mother. Hadn’t they all called her that, afterwards? Her mother had been an angel. And then one day she had flown back up to heaven to join the others.
Sewn into the pink netting that hung over her bed was a flock of tiny blue birds. Celile had watched them rise and fall while that silken petal of a hand stroked her forehead, drawing her into the spell of sated sleep and oblivion.
But now it had returned to her—that heavenly peace, that same sublime happiness. Oh, to make it hers! To open her eyes, open them wide, and prolong this bliss! But she could not will it. She was a child again, a happy child drifting off into sleep’s velvet embrace, sinking through a night lit up by tiny stars. Now they sparkled gold and silver, now there were flashes of blue and red. And now there were no colors at all. There was only that hand on her forehead, as warm and soft as a petal, and the scent of lilacs. Happily she surrendered to it. She drank it in.
At their table this evening, there had been a bouquet of lilacs. All night she had felt its fragrance brushing against her temples, her forehead, her ears, her cheeks. Soft as a hand’s caress, balmy as a spring breeze. Each gust of scent bringing with it this promise, this dream of another world, where all was peaceful, all was bliss.
A silence reigned there. It was as still as moonlit night. Not so much as a rustling leaf. Voicelessly it had called to her, breaching her defenses and reeling her in.
He was looking at her. She might have looked away—smiled even, as if to imply that he could not have been serious. She chose instead to return his gaze, nakedly, guilelessly, no more able to disguise her feelings than a child.
It was as if they were alone on that terrace—had this nightclub entirely to themselves. She looked into his eyes as if there were no other eyes upon her, as if she detected in his eyes a secret, a message no one else could see or read.
It was late, very late. Sprinkled across the velvet night as if by a gentle hand, the lights on the opposite shore cast their reflections across the sea. Each a golden path, beckoning.
The music was still playing and the dance floor still full of whirling couples.
Celile was among them. In her pink tulle dress she resembled a bouquet of fully bloomed roses.
The black sleeve of Muhsin’s tuxedo resembled the ribbon wrapped around the dress.
Celile had the slim and agile body of a woman who had never borne a child. She was tall, but even so—this man made her feel so small. She reached up only as far as his chest. She could feel his heart beating.
They were playing a soulful old tango now. It calmed her nerves, even as it took her captive.
Its strange lament filled her with a longing for life, but also, at the same time, for death. The melody was simple, but impossible to resist.
Muhsin tightened his grip around her waist, and then he made it tighter still.
“Celile,” he murmured. “Celile, do you understand?”
He was calling her by her name, and yes, Celile did understand, perfectly.
Could it be true?
A stranger—a man she hardly knew!
A man she’d met on only four previous occasions—five at most…While she…
This thing she understood perfectly—she saw no need to shy away. It did not frighten her in the least. Even though it was happening for the first time—not once since her wedding day had she looked into the eyes of a strange man and felt herself succumbing.
No…No, this could not be true. And yet it was.
“I haven’t offended you, have I?” What a thought!
What a lovely spring night this was, what a lovely tango, and how happy she was to be alive!
She felt such joy at this moment, this beautiful dream come true. So much joy that she wanted to die.
But here she was, fully alive and giving herself over to the tango’s dark pleasures.
As if possessed. “I definitely had too much to drink tonight,” she told herself. And then: “What possessed me to drink so very much?”
Never in her life had she been beset by such mad and overwhelming desire. Until tonight, her heart had been her own, and safely guarded. How then to explain this sudden capitulation? How very sudden it had been, too. Could this really be her? Who was this woman who had surrendered herself so rashly to a passion she could not name?
Passion. Until this moment she had only ever seen what it did to others. Never had it occurred to her that it might feel like this. And now, for the first time, she was discovering the dark recesses of her own heart, and the torments and agonies it harbored. “If I ever drink this much again…”
“Celile!”
“Celile. I love you.”
“Celile, I’m sick with love for you. Mad with love.”
She struggled now to raise her eyebrows, to adopt a tone that was neither too serious nor too light, to ask “Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Instead, she chided herself: the right thing would have been to shame him, to refuse to take him seriously, to imply that if she did choose to take him seriously it would be to censure him. Was anything less to be expected from a woman of her standing?
Th
is was what she would say to him. What she wished to say to him. But no. She could not bring herself to hurt him with a single harsh word. She couldn’t find a single word to say to him. And so, taking courage from her silence and her acquiescent gaze, he again tightened his grip, pressing her hard against his chest, as forcefully as if he wished to snap her slender waist in two.
And she, who had always held her head high, whose dignity had never failed her, melded her body to his with the ease of a prostitute, letting her head fall until it rested on his chest and his fast-beating heart.
Yes, she was leaning on his heart. Weighed down and spent, and oh so happy. Their two hands pressed into each other, first softly and then harder, and harder still, until Celile’s long, slender fingers curled to send her sharp pink nails into Muhsin’s skin.
Neither spoke. Silently they danced to the tango, swirling inside their private dream.
Not a word did they share. What need was there for words? What would have been the point? Her body had spoken for her. With her every gesture, she had not just accepted his love. She had declared herself ready to return it.
No, not once during her ten years of marriage, or, for that matter, her entire life, had she ever, ever, opened herself to such an advance, or allowed a man to treat her so outrageously.
Even inside the guarded privacy of marriage, Celile had kept her distance and her reserve.
But here she was, doing what she had never done before in her thirty-five years on this earth: allowing herself to be swept away by a soulful tango, abandoning her body to the man who held her in his arms, and with that body promising him everything, holding nothing back.
Shamelessly…
As shamelessly as a bar girl who did this for a living.
Casting modesty to the wind. Without a thought for what people might think.
