Without a Country

by Kulin, Ayse

  It was so hot the following morning that Suzi left the house early to sit by the water and wait for her friends. Freddy and his sister, Gerta, were nowhere to be seen. Hans and his brother didn’t come to play, either. Where was everybody? She ran over to Freddy’s house. A servant opened the door. Inside, others were wrapping things in paper and putting them into cardboard boxes.

  Suzi didn’t understand what the tearful servants were trying to explain. This time, she ran home. Her mother said that Gerta and Hans and all the other children had gone on vacation to a town in Anatolia. Suzi wasn’t buying it. She ran to the corner grocery and called Demir. He always told her the truth.

  That afternoon, Suzi went to Bebek Park with Demir, Simon, and his sister, Selin. Suzi couldn’t believe her ears. Internment? Freddy, Gerta, and the other kids were friends, not enemies!

  “But they’re not Turkish,” Demir said.

  “They were born in Germany, like me. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You have a Turkish ID card. They don’t.”

  “Why don’t they?”

  “They didn’t want to become Turkish. They probably thought they could go back to Germany one day after Hitler was gone.”

  “Who wouldn’t want to be Turkish?”

  “People don’t always want the same things, Suzi!” Simon said. “It’s time you grew up. Being Turkish isn’t always like the songs they teach you in school.”

  “Demir! Did you hear what Simon said?”

  “He’s saying that Gerta didn’t choose to go on vacation. She had to. They made her.”

  “Who made her?”

  “Turkey. The government.”

  “Why would the government make people go on vacation?” Suzi said.

  But even Demir couldn’t satisfy her questions this time. It was a dejected Suzi who came home that evening and sat down with her father.

  What her father said didn’t make much sense either.

  “Turkey tried to stay out of the war, but then decided not to have any relations with Germany. Your friends are German, so they were sent somewhere—where they could be safe, let’s say. This kind of thing happens in wartime. The Americans are doing it, too, with the Japanese people who live there. Nobody’s perfect, and no country is perfect, either.”

  Now eleven years old, Suzi had more questions than ever, and none of them seemed to have any good answers.

  When Gerta and the others were allowed to come home two months later, they had so much to tell her. They’d been living in an empty school in Çorum with a lot of other Germans. This was the first time Suzi learned about the realities of provincial life far from cosmopolitan Istanbul, and it was a German girl who first taught her about Anatolia.

  For some months, Suzi had been taking piano lessons from Uncle Hirsch’s mother-in-law, who lived with him and his wife, Holde. Uncle Hirsch had traveled all over Turkey and even stayed for a couple of months in a town somewhere in Anatolia. Suzi decided to ask him about what Gerta had said.

  Suzi learned that there were still villages and even towns with no toilets, no running water, and no electricity. She couldn’t imagine what that was like. Many of the grown-ups couldn’t read and write. Children didn’t go to school. Girls were draped from head to foot in black. Why would anyone dress like that?

  But Uncle Hirsch also told her that Turkish villagers showed their guests a kind of love and respect found nowhere else in the world. The Turkish phrase for “unexpected guest,” he explained, is “guest of God.” Suzi sat down on the piano stool prouder than ever to be a Turk.

  When the lesson was over and she walked down the hallway to the bathroom, she was surprised to see boxes filled with books and shoes.

  “Are you moving?” she asked Auntie Holde’s mother.

  “Holde and I are staying here. Your Uncle Hirsch is leaving. He has a new job at the law school in Ankara.”

  Suzi ran into the dining room, where Hirsch was organizing piles of paper on a table in the corner. “Is it true you’re going to Ankara?”

  “Yes, Suzi.”

  “But what’ll you do all alone in Ankara? You’ll get lonely.”

  “I won’t be on my own, Suzi. I’m friends with a couple there. Dr. Praetorius and his wife teach at the conservatory. I’m going to stay in their spare room, and we’ll play chamber music every weekend. I’ll by surrounded by music. What could be better than that?”

  “But your wife’s here!” Suzi said.

  “Of course I’ll miss Holde and my home, but I must go to Ankara,” Hirsch lied. He couldn’t tell a child that he had applied for a position in Ankara to get away from his wife.

  When Suzi returned to her apartment building that day, Peter was passing through the garden on his way home. They teased and jostled each other as Peter unlocked the door. When they heard shouting in their parents’ bedroom, they tiptoed over and listened.

  “Didn’t I tell you never to let her in our house?” Gerhard was shouting.

  “Gerhard! Don’t be ridiculous. She came by with her little girl. How could I chase her away? And her daughter’s just adorable.”

  “Why would she suddenly show up at our door? What did she want? Money?”

  “Well, actually, this wasn’t the first time she’s visited. It’s happened a few times before, but I didn’t want to mention it. I still don’t understand why you’re so angry with her. And after all these years. Just let it go.”

  “Elsa! You mean you lied to me?”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you.”

  “How many times has she been here?”

  “The first time was right after her baby was born. And there were a few times after that. Why does it matter? Why are you so upset? She makes sure to come when you’re not home. She’s all alone in Istanbul. She hasn’t got any relatives, any of her own people—”

  “What do you mean? Isn’t her husband Jewish?”

  “Sure, but she’s from Germany, the same as us.”

  “Didn’t I tell you how she tried to seduce Peter? Do I have to spell it out? She’s an unprincipled and loose woman, Elsa!”

  Peter leaned over and whispered into Suzi’s ear. “Dad’s exaggerating.”

  “No, he’s not!” Suzi said. “She kept bending over when she was serving dinner. I saw you looking inside her blouse. Dad’s right. She was doing it on purpose.”

  “She was not. She’s pretty, so of course I looked at her.”

  “She did it to Dad, too. She’d always come out of the bathroom half naked. Wake up!”

  “You were just a little kid then. What would you know?”

  “Shut up! I know a lot more than you think.”

  They both pressed their ears to the door again.

  “How can you be so vindictive, Gerhard?”

  “Elsa, I don’t want that woman in my house! And that’s final.”

  When the door swung open, Peter and Suzi scampered away.

  “Peter! Suzi! Were you listening to us?”

  “We just got home, Dad,” Peter said. “We were going to our rooms.”

  Gerhard stomped out, slamming the front door behind him. Elsa came out of the bedroom.

  “Did your father go outside?”

  “The older he gets, the weirder he gets,” Suzi said.

  “Suzi must take after Dad. That’s why she’s so weird,” Peter said. “I’ve told her a thousand times, but she still thinks she’s Turkish, not German.”

  “Mind your own business, Peter! You’re the weirdo. We had to leave Germany, and you still think you’re German.”

  The armistice of May 1945 ushered in the promise of a world where national identity would no longer matter. Hitler’s war had killed over sixty million people of all different nationalities. Peter and Suzi were just two of the many children who had been uprooted from their homelands. Little did the children of Europe know that, for the next half century, they would find themselves living in either the Western world or the Soviet bloc.

  As the Years Flow
By

  In August of 1945, Gerhard finally learned the fate of his mother and his sister. They had been killed in a concentration camp. He was sitting at the breakfast table with his children one day, deep in mourning, beating himself up for not having done more to get them out of Germany in time, when the phone rang.

  Elsa answered.

  “Holde’s gone into labor,” Elsa yelled as she rushed out of the kitchen. “I’ve got to hurry.” The front door slammed shut behind her.

  “Hirsch is going to have a baby!” Peter shouted. “I hope it’s a boy.”

  “Why?” asked Suzi.

  “Because girls are impossible.”

  “She’s going to be a girl. They’re going to name her Suzi like me, and she’s going to marry you one day,” Suzi said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be much too old for her.”

  “Nobody else will want you because you’re a know-it-all. And if she takes after her mother, nobody will want to marry her, either. You’ll be perfect for each other.”

  “You and your nonsense,” Peter said as he left the kitchen.

  The Hirsch baby was a boy.

  Hirsch, who had been back in Istanbul during the summer break, was overjoyed. Now as fluent in Turkish as any Turk, and with an impressive command of Ottoman as well, the professor, after careful deliberation, had chosen the name Enver Tandoğan. “Enver” was Ottoman for “enlightened” and “tandoğan” meant “born at dawn” in modern Turkish. His son’s name connected the imperial past to the republican present and pointed to a bright future. “Enver Tandoğan Hirsch” was duly recorded in the birth registry in Kadıköy.

  Hirsch spent the next two months living with his wife and infant in Istanbul. But then, in October, he returned to Ankara University Law School and the Praetoriuses’ spare room as if nothing had changed. Gerhard concluded that Hirsch was still unwilling to devote less time to work and more time to his family, despite the baby. Holde may well have concluded the same.

  Worried about the new mother, Elsa began visiting Holde during Suzi’s weekly piano lessons. The Schliemanns also invited Holde over for dinner at least once a month. In time, Enver Tandoğan would grow into boyhood and, like so many children born to Germans in Turkey, eventually would start attending the nearest Turkish primary school.

  Time marched on. One morning, the following year, two letters arrived in the Schliemanns’ mailbox. Peter snatched the one addressed to him and ran to his bedroom. Recognizing the handwriting on the other one, Elsa tore it open and started reading aloud to Gerhard at the breakfast table.

  Elsa and Gerhard, dearest friends,

  I am writing this letter with a sense of sorrow I have not experienced since my arrival in Turkey. My colleague, compatriot, fellow musician, bridge partner, and kindred spirit died yesterday morning. It is my sad duty to inform you that, after four days of excruciating abdominal pain, Dr. Ernst Praetorius, the founder of the Ankara University State Conservatory and conductor of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra, passed away in the hospital the morning after an operation. His body was discovered on the floor next to his bed.

  Elsa wiped away a tear. Gerhard reached over, picked up the letter, and began reading where his wife had left off.

  We have buried our dear friend Ernst in Ankara’s Cebeci Cemetery, the final resting place for people of different faiths. As the wind howled and the snow fell, the frozen earth seemed as reluctant to claim him as we were to relinquish him forever. Kate is utterly distraught. She lost her mother only last month. Now, having lost her life partner as well, she wonders how she will go on. I comfort her as best I can. Were my relations with Holde more cordial, I would send Kate to Istanbul to stay in our home for a time. As things stand, however, that would not be possible. You can’t imagine how helpless I feel in the face of Kate’s suffering.

  Gerhard glanced over at Suzi’s furrowed brow and decided not to continue reading aloud.

  “Dad, did we know Ernst Praetorius?” she asked.

  “You and Peter didn’t. He went directly to Ankara from Germany and has lived there ever since. He was a wonderful person. I wish you’d met him.”

  “The poor man suffered so,” Elsa said.

  “You all did,” said Suzi.

  “It was worse for him, sweetie. We were fortunate enough to get a warning, and we got out just in time. Ernst was a Christian, the musical director at the National Theater. Then, one day in 1933, just because his wife was Jewish, he was fired. He applied for work at every single opera house and theater in Germany. He was driving a cab in Berlin when—”

  Suzi gasped. “A cab? He couldn’t even work with music?”

  “No. He and his wife even tried to divorce, but it didn’t work. Everyone was still too terrified of the Nazis to hire him. He was unable to feed his family and was on the verge of suicide when Hindemith, a composer well known in Turkey, recommended that Ernst be invited here. They had to sneak Kate out. And that’s how he ended up in Ankara.”

  Gerhard picked up the letter again and continued reading, silently this time.

  “Can you imagine, Suzi?” Elsa said. “He arrived in Turkey just two days before the Republic Day celebrations and was expected to direct the orchestra without having rehearsed even once. And he did it! They were so impressed, they extended his contract. Everything was finally going well again for him and Kate—and now this!”

  “I feel bad for Hirsch, too,” Gerhard said. “He lost his closest friend, and he’s still staying in their house.”

  Gerhard was interrupted by Peter, who came back to the kitchen waving a letter.

  “I have some great news!” he said. “This is a letter from the University of California, Berkeley! On the condition that I do well on my finals, I’ve been accepted!”

  “Of course you’ll do well,” Suzi said. “You’re going to America!”

  “Oh, son,” Elsa said, getting up to hug Peter.

  Praetorius’ death and his grieving widow were forgotten for a moment as the Schliemanns basked in the good news. Elsa knew she would miss her son, but his stomach had never been good since that childhood trip to the hospital, and she consoled herself with the idea of the healthier diet that would be available to him in America.

  After finishing primary school, Suzi had attended the American College for Girls in Arnavutköy. She liked everything about the prep school, a coeducational institution affiliated with what soon would be Peter’s alma mater, Robert College. There was just one drawback. All the parties, concerts, theater performances, and other social events were closed to everyone but the Robert College boys. She still saw Demir on the weekends, though. They would go see movies together in Pera and would attend house parties, where they drank tea, ate cake, and listened to the latest songs on a gramophone. Suzi would also visit Madame, who was getting a bit frail, and rather than going home late, she would sleep at Madame’s and have breakfast the following morning with her old friends. The Pera Gang had always loved to gather at Madame’s, which had the best pastries, but by the end of the ’40s, they spent more time at the Ellimans’ apartment, the first family in the building to own a record player that didn’t need to be wound up with a handle!

  When the Democrat Party won the general election in 1950, Suzi and a few other guests were celebrating Madame’s birthday in her apartment. The only person paying attention to the radio was Madame, who startled everyone with a whoop of delight. Exchanging bewildered glances, they followed their hostess upstairs to the Ellimans’ apartment.

  As the news spread through the building, the neighbors emerged to congratulate each other. There were hugs and kisses and tears of joy. Mr. Elliman even did a little jig on his doormat. For the first time in twenty-seven years, and just four years after the first multiparty elections, the Republican People’s Party was not in power. Turkey had become a democracy at last!

  Suzi and her peers had grown up at a time when fascism and war were tightening their grip on Europe. They weren’t quite sure what to expect o
f democracy, or what it even was, but they were happy to join in the revelry.

  “We should throw a party,” Demir’s father said.

  “I’m already having one,” Madame said. “It’s my birthday today. Come and join us, and if you’ve got any liqueur on hand, bring it.”

  “Come on, kids,” Simon’s mother said. “Help us carry refreshments.”

  The teenagers fanned out. Apartment doors opened and closed.

  “Careful! Don’t break that bottle!” someone shouted.

  “Does this really mean everything is going to get better?” Suzi asked Madame when they were back in her apartment. The ruling party hadn’t yet conceded, and the counting of ballots would continue for a few more days, but the gap between the two parties was huge and growing. Madame confidently opened the door of her china cabinet and started getting out her best crystal.

  “Suzi, this is wonderful news. You’ll see.”

  On a September day five years later, it was Madame who would see just how wrong she had been. This was Turkey, after all, the land of shipwrecked hopes.

  Suzi’s Choice

  The year Suzi turned eighteen, she had to decide between being German or Turkish. Germany was restoring the rights of everyone stripped of their citizenship on political, racial, or religious grounds. All she had to do was apply. But if she did, she would lose her Turkish citizenship.

  Elsa urged her children to reclaim their citizenship, but Gerhard didn’t say anything. His mother and sister had died in a German camp. He would let his children decide for themselves. Peter opted for German citizenship, then applied for American citizenship after he graduated from Berkeley. But Suzi’s heart told her she was Turkish. Whenever anyone asked why she had chosen Turkish citizenship, she liked to joke, “It would be such a pain to write out ‘Susy Esther Miriam Schliemann’ on official forms. From now on, I’m just plain ‘Suzi Şiliman.’”