Young Turk

by Moris Farhi

  You don’t really know about Leylâ and me, my child. Nobody does. Discretion became such a set pattern in our lives that we kept everything about our relationship secret. These days, I keep thinking maybe we were too evasive, maybe we should have told our story. Maybe, for once, life should contradict Shakespeare’s Antony and not inter a person’s goodness with her bones.

  So here goes ...

  I am from peasant stock. Born with the twentieth century. In Amasya. The family had some land and an apple orchard. Big family. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, the lot. Which meant we just about scraped a living.

  Like most boys, I went to the medrese. Unlike most boys, I got to love learning. So the hoca recommended me to the local ağa. The latter, unlike most of the rich, was a charitable man and agreed to pay for my schooling. I was sent to Sιvas. I left home just as a widower uncle brought his new wife, Zeynep, all the way from Yozgat. She was hunchbacked. ‘A hard worker’, he boasted, to make it clear that he wasn’t interested in her otherwise. I hated him thereafter.

  I did well at school. I had an inspirational teacher, Vartabed Uncuyan, an Armenian. He opened my heart to poetry. I loved him.

  Then the First World War came. And with it, the Armenian Passion. Sιvas, with its considerable Armenian population, suffered the worst. My wonderful teacher, Vartabed Uncuyan – and his family – were among the first to be killed; and his school was smashed up.

  Somehow evading troops, brigands, deserters, refugees and the killings, I made my way back home. I was as near mad as a boy of fifteen who has seen unspeakable horrors can be. Mercifully, little had changed in our backwoods. A few deaths from age or illness – including the uncle who had married Zeynep.

  The family had allowed Zeynep to stay. For she truly was a phenomenal worker. Worth three men at least. And a gentle, caring person to boot. She transformed our home into a haven. And with so much love pouring out of her, she looked beautiful. Despite her deformity. Beautiful in non-specific ways just as a day remains beautiful no matter how hard man tries to despoil it.

  I witnessed this beauty in all its aspects. I looked into her soul. Something about me, perhaps the fact that I still mourned my Armenian teacher, made her regard me as a kindred spirit. So she kept an eye on me. Helped me in the orchards, saved me extra portions of food, filched cigarettes from the men. Always very discreetly, needless to say. After all, she was still a young woman – barely thirty years old – and I was fast moving to a marriageable age and you know how we all think that if a man and a woman are within arm’s reach they are bound to throw themselves at each other.

  As it happened, we did throw ourselves at each other. But not in the usual way.

  One morning, when I was at the well drawing water for the animals, I saw her at her window. She had just risen and was washing herself. She was stark naked. I watched her and was rooted to the spot, as if she were a houri visiting earth. She saw me but did not cover up or withdraw.

  Thereafter, every morning – except when she had her monthly flow – we trysted like that. I at the well; she at her window. I think she took pleasure in showing herself to me because I was the only person in the world who looked at her not as a hunchback or a hard worker but as a beautiful woman.

  This went on for months. By then I was deeply in love with her and was thinking that in a year or so, when it would be my turn to seek a wife, I would marry her.

  Then calamity struck ...

  Death has finished her tea. And she has stopped stroking my feet. Here I am talking about Leylâ – I haven’t even got to her yet – when I should have been rattling away like Polonius, giving you some home truths ...

  What if I offered Death another cup? Do you think she might ...? Yes, she says, she’d like one. And she’d like another cigarette, too ... Good, I’ve got a bit more time.

  All right. Home truth one: Turkishness. The real meaning. It’s galaxies apart from the so-called Turkification that the so-called Kemalists are advocating. (Atatürk must rage in his grave every time he hears his name so misused and debased.) Let me tell you what Kemalism really means. It means building a nation on solid foundations like social justice, freedom of worship and equality for all, not least for women. It means the provision of health, education, wealth and happiness for all our citizens, whatever their race or creed! It does not mean separatism or elitism! It does not mean robbing Jews, Armenians and Greeks with outrageous taxes as we did in 1943! It does not mean persecuting Kurds, Lazes and our other minorities because they have different cultures and different languages! It does not mean embracing demented notions like this new pan-Turkism craze that seeks to ingather the Central Asian Turkic peoples and create an ethnically pure, ultra-nationalist, ultra-Islamist empire! True Turkishness means rejoicing in the infinite plurality of people as we rejoice in the infinite multiplicity of nature! It means rejecting all the ‘isms’ and ‘nesses’ – including Turkishness. It means renouncing single cultures, single flags, single countries, single gods and embracing – and preserving – every culture, every race, every faith, every flag, every country, every god for its difference and uniqueness. It means being both a Turk and a citizen of the world, both an individual and everybody!

  You might say idealism has gone to my head. That the Ottomans had similar notions but failed. That so did Alexander the Great – and he also failed. You might be right. But what if you’re not? What if I am right? What if, as you and I feel it in our bones, the potential for pluralism exists? Can we let it die just because we have doubts?

  Death is smiling at me. So inviting, with her legs parted. I think I have to go now ...

  No, wait. She has poured herself another cup. And lit another cigarette. She says enough pedagogics. She says tell the child about Leylâ.

  All right. Where was I? Oh, yes. When calamity struck ...

  It was a market day. We joined in the usual bustle: buying, selling, loading, unloading. Then, when it was time to go, no Zeynep. Eventually, we found her. In a field. Rolled up like a hedgehog. Badly beaten. And raped.

  My father immediately guessed the identity of the rapist: the commander of the local garrison. It was common knowledge that he assaulted women. But we had no proof. Zeynep, insisting that her assailant had knocked her unconscious, refused to name the commander. That’s another example of her thoughtfulness. If we had gone after the commander – and we would have done – we would all have been killed. Garrison commanders in those last years of the Ottoman empire were a law unto themselves.

  Zeynep became pregnant.

  Understandably, the rape had broken her. She never again showed herself to me. But because we could no longer entertain erotic thoughts, we became closer and attended to each other at every opportunity. However – and I should have realized this – she was marking time, waiting for her delivery. Often she would get me to promise that if she died, I would look after her daughter and cherish her – somehow she knew the baby would be a girl. Her daughter would be the proof that every calamity brings with it a blessing.

  And so Leylâ was born.

  And true to her word, Zeynep died immediately after the birth. If you ask me, she just stopped living.

  And true to my word, I cherished Leylâ as a blessing.

  Then it was 1919. Atatürk landed in Samsun and summoned us to liberate our country. We fought one of the bitterest wars known to man. We died in our hundreds of thousands. Somehow I survived.

  When I returned home, Leylâ, despite the near-famine that had prevailed, had grown into a beautiful child.

  Again, I looked after her as the only person in my life that mattered to me.

  Then I had to be off again. This time to higher education. Atatürk wanted me as one of his pioneer teachers. To introduce the Roman alphabet. To nurture the Turkish spirit. To revive the literary genius that we have always had. I undertook the task zealously. It was, I felt, the best I could do both in memory of my first teacher, Vartabed Uncuyan, and for the new generation, for Leylâ. I went here and ther
e, even to Europe. Then I met my mentor, our beloved poet, Nâzιm Hikmet. He took me in hand. And he shaped me.

  Then when I finally settled in Istanbul, I sent for Leylâ. But my family refused to let her go. By then she was eighteen. I was over thirty. They wouldn’t trust me with her.

  So I went to fetch her. I found her forcibly married to some farmer who treated her like a slave. I returned to Istanbul a broken man. I wanted to kill myself. But though I had failed to protect Leylâ from marrying her brute of a husband, my promise to Zeynep still stood. I had to keep alive to look after Leylâ.

  Within the year, Leylâ gave birth to a son. Having done her duty to her husband, she refused to have any more children. The husband, Rasim, threatened to kill her. My mother warned me. I rushed over to Amasya.

  And this time, I abducted Leylâ and her son.

  Rasim pursued us. But providence – Leylâ thought it was Zeynep’s spirit – came to our aid. Rasim died of a heart attack as he was about to board the train we had taken.

  Rasim’s family swore vengeance. They would punish Leylâ; have her stoned like a common adulteress. I confronted them. I threatened to kill every one of them if they touched a strand of her hair. That scared them. Given that as a veteran of the War of Independence, a republican and one of Atatürk’s most zealous reformers, I was a man of considerable influence, they thought I could do anything with impunity. So they offered to negotiate. They accepted some compensation for Rasim’s death. But on the question of the custody of Leylâ’s son, Abdullah, they would not budge. Sharia law, they claimed, gave custody of the boy to the father’s family. And much as we pointed out that the sharia law no longer had any jurisdiction in the Turkish republic, they insisted on going to court. Turkey, they argued, was still a Muslim country, still a realm where the father’s rights outweighed the mother’s. However, Leylâ refused to go to court – despite my assurances that she would win her case. A drawn-out trial, she pleaded, would have an adverse effect on her son. Finally, through intermediaries, we reached a compromise. Leylâ would have custody of Abdullah, but she would never remarry – at least not until he came of age.

  Thereafter, Leylâ and her son settled in Istanbul.

  Inevitably, loving each other so much, we came to desire each other. But since she was Zeynep’s daughter, I kept my distance. This angered Leylâ. One day she confronted me and asked me why I was spurning her. I tried to lie and said I was much older than she was. She laughed at that. I invented other excuses like too much work, infirmities due to war wounds and so on. She laughed at those, too.

  Finally, I told her about Zeynep, about the platonic yet erotic relationship we had had. That shocked her. She avoided me for days.

  Then, one evening when her son was staying with a friend, she came over to my house. No sooner had she walked in than she undressed. ‘Do I have my mother’s body?’ she asked. I managed to nod. (Indeed, except for the hump, she did have Zeynep’s body. Same roseate flesh, same luminosity of good soil.) Then she held my hand. ‘When she showed herself to you, she was showing me. Showing you how I would look. And telling you to wait. You don’t have to wait any more.’

  And so we became lovers.

  And when her son came of age, we married.

  A word about her son, Abdullah. He’s a good boy. Very much like you. A gifted artist. Keeps to himself. Abhors politics. But his canvases speak volumes against injustice. To this day, he thinks his natural father was a paragon. I mention that to show you how honourable a person Leylâ was.

  Death stirs again, my child. Her portal is glistening with dew. What a glorious sight! Any minute now this âşιk, this lover, will witness the Godhead.

  She’s letting me have one final cigarette. Time for last words.

  Home truth two: Don’t be fooled when people tell you their cultures and civilizations are superior to yours. Such paranoia afflicts much of Europe and the US. Just remember every culture, every civilization, every literature has its own splendour.

  Home truth three: Remember you can neither change your roots nor transplant them. So be proud of them. Relish them.

  Home truth four: Be a Loving Man. Always. And to everybody.

  Home truth five: You went like water. Now come back like water.

  The cigarette is finished. She is wrapping her legs around me ...

  Farewell, my child, my dear, dear child ...

  References

  1. Veli, Orhan: Bütün Şiirleri (Complete Poems) – Varlιk Yayιnlarι, 1953)

  2. Nâzιm Hikmet: Taranta Babu’ya Mektuplar (Letters to Taranta Babu) – Adam Yayιnlarι, vol.2, 1987)

  3. Nâzιm Hikmet: Kuvâyi Milliye (Nationalist Forces) – Adam Yayιnlarι, vol.3, 1987)

  4. Nâzιm Hikmet – Piraye İçin Yazιlmιş Şiirler (Poems written for Piraye – Adam Yayιnlarι, vol.3, 1987)

  I have been greatly inspired by Saime Göksu Timms’ masterpiece, The Romantic Communist. This biography is not only a superb account of Nâzιm Hikmet’s passionate and dolorous life, but also a most insightful study of his work.