by Ahmet Altan
He had the impression that in this game he always enjoyed playing with women there was a secret plan he couldn’t see, and he thought Mehpare Hanım was concealing this, even though it was he who created the doubt and uncertainty in their relationship, he fell into doubt because she didn’t complain about her doubt, when he left Mehpare Hanım at the mansion and went into the city, he couldn’t take his mind off the woman who was waiting for him, and, when he returned, even though this was something he’d never done before, he questioned the footmen carefully, trying to learn whatever he didn’t know, he tried to discover whether she’d had any visitors or if she’d gone out, and when he learned that she never left the mansion he began glancing rancorously at the handsome footmen and the well-built, pretty-faced Albanian gardeners.
For Mehpare Hanım to have submitted unconditionally did not comfort the man who had subjugated her, indeed it disquieted him considerably; if she had protested, complained, reproached him, asked him not to go into the city he would have felt better, but she did none of these things. She enjoyed her suffering, and it was impossible for Constantine to understand this; like all men who think they understand women very well, he was surprised to encounter behavior he’d never seen before in a woman and it shook his confidence.
Mehpare Hanım had managed to captivate a man even as she was submitting to him.
These two people, who until then had enjoyed their power and dominance in love games, one admiring her own beauty and the other admiring his own attractiveness, noticed their own blind sides and weaknesses and experienced the unique taste and excitement of living as slaves to each other, and from time to time they went out among other people to catch their breath and refresh themselves, but because in the Muslim quarter, particularly among the Salonica Committee members, Mehpare Hanım was seen as “a whore who’d run off with an infidel,” they had to socialize with foreign dignitaries and wealthy local Greeks.
As usual, Mehpare Hanım stirred waves of admiration in these circles as well, she was always surrounded by men, they listened to the accented French that swept them up in preposterous fantasies and breathed in the mysterious air of her Ottoman levelheadedness which did not allow her to forget her upbringing even when she was in a crowd despite having left her husband. They all secretly wondered, as they always did when they met a woman who’d left her husband, whether she might do the same thing with them the next time, they were surreptitiously making advances toward her, and this wounded Constantine with a jealousy he could not confess to.
At these gatherings, at some point in the evening the men usually discussed politics and occasionally the women became absorbed in their own gossip; then the men and women would gravitate together and return to their accustomed topics, literature, concerts, rising sopranos, the mansion someone had bought recently, stories about travels.
Mehpare Hanım had no interest in politics, and when men began discussing these matters she walked away with an air of disdain, but the victorious tone of their discussions lately, their joy about Greece annexing Crete, the way men and women celebrated together, the way they mocked the Ottomans, the Sultan, and the Committee disturbed her for the first time and made her feel that she was in a foreign milieu. Until then she had divided people into male and female, rich and poor, but the anger she felt when she listened to these discussions led her to realize that there were many more divisions among people.
One night as they were returning from one of these parties, an inevitable argument occurred. Mehpare Hanım rebuked Constantine in an irritable tone.
“What is all this about Crete? . . . aren’t you a bit too overjoyed that the Greek government took over an island, don’t you find these discussions a bit strange, I don’t know, a bit frivolous?”
“What does this have to do with frivolity, why should it be frivolous to feel joy when people are freed from slavery?”
“Why should it concern you that the Greeks have taken over an island, aren’t you an Ottoman subject?”
“I’m an Ottoman subject, but I’m Greek, Greek blood runs in my veins.”
Constantine usually chose to speak only about light topics with women, and she was infuriated when she heard this.
“Why are you talking about blood now, I used to think you were fonder of wine than blood, did you just discover this blood in your veins, you’ve never talked like this before.”
Constantine wanted to pull her to his side in a friendly manner rather than argue with her.
“Mehpare, the Ottoman Empire has oppressed us so much . . . ”
Mehpare Hanım replied fiercely to his friendly tone.
“You don’t seem so oppressed, you have your vineyards, your garden, your winery, your wealth . . . Don’t you think you’re being a bit ungrateful?”
“Wealth isn’t always enough, have you ever been humiliated when they call you infidel or Greek palikari, have you ever been despised, have you ever felt like a questionable infidel? Have you ever felt that, no matter how rich you are, the poorest Muslim or the most immoral Turk is valued more than you are, is considered more trustworthy than you are?”
Mehpare Hanım shook her head.
“I’ve never seen anyone treat you badly, I think you’re exaggerating a bit.”
“You couldn’t understand, you’ve never been looked at that way, you’ve never been despised or intimidated.”
“What do you mean? I go through that at every party we go to.”
“What are you talking about, everyone treats you as if you’re one of us, they flock around you.”
“Isn’t this an insult? I’m not one of you, and I feel that if I say this you’ll all reject me.”
“Now you’re exaggerating,” he said, caressing her hair tenderly. “Let’s drop the subject, politics is not our concern, at least there’s no room for politics between us.”
That night the conversation ended there, they changed the subject, but both of them sadly realized there was a division between them that they’d previously been unaware of.
They took particular care not to bring the subject up again; only once, when mustachioed men in black suits began visiting the mansion more frequently at night and she saw the hostility with which they looked at her and how impatient they were for her to leave the room, did Mehpare Hanım warn the man she loved.
“Constantine, I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but don’t even think about being heroic, that’s not your thing.”
Constantine laughed.
“That means you know all about heroics too.”
Mehpare Hanım nodded in an adult manner.
“I was married to a hero who received that kind of guest at night.”
Constantine didn’t like the subject of Hikmet Bey being brought up, but he pretended not to care.
“So? What happened?”
“He shot himself.”
Constantine laughed again.
“He didn’t shoot himself because of these visitors, his heroic act was to be with you, and he paid the price.”
She sensed something derogatory in these words, so she looked at him and waited for him to continue. Constantine realized he’d crossed a line.
“My heroism is of the same kind, Mehpare, I too am with you and I’ll pay for this with my life, I assure you that you’re the only danger in my life.”
Mehpare Hanım didn’t answer, she never brought the subject up again, even though it occasionally worried her she never said so, she just realized that there was an estranging element between them and realized in surprise that there could be more in a relationship between a man and woman than love and lovemaking.
Even though she didn’t really care about any of these things, after realizing she’d been so angered by the Christians’ joy and that religions, states, and borders could find a place for themselves in even the most private human relationships, she stopped going to parties and s
hut herself up in the mansion. When Constantine didn’t go to the city she carried on her former life with him, and when he did go she either walked in the garden or sat by the fireplace to write letters to her son and daughter, who were with her former mother-in-law.
Nizam, her son from Hikmet Bey, was quick to forgive his mother, especially after his father recovered from his wound, and replied to her with very warm and amusing letters in which, even though they were never more than a page long, he talked of his life with Hanım Sultan and his life in Paris, which he was clearly happy about, in a way that made his mother smile. Nizam, who was able to adapt right away to any new environment, adapted to social life in Paris, became the favorite of the girls at school, and was soon even able to steal kisses from them during the breaks. He was always respectful to his grandmother, he always managed to ingratiate himself with people, and moreover he didn’t do this out of lowly opportunism or as a sycophant with a hidden agenda because in fact no one was that important to him and he didn’t take anyone seriously enough to upset them, including himself. For Nizam, life was fun and anything that spoiled this fun seemed silly and meaningless. His fellow students were the children of wealthy bourgeoisie and aristocratic families, and he made friends with the more sexually adventurous of them, going to cafes with them after school to drink a glass of red wine and talk about girls and women; having a very wealthy and famous princess for a grandmother, being handsome, witty, and quick, and having the ability to act as if the weight of life was easy to carry soon made him a favorite at school.
Rukiye, however, wasn’t as quick as Nizam to accept what had happened to her stepfather and the way her mother had left him; her replies to her mother always had a note of distance and resentment. Just as Nizam’s letters amused her, Rukiye’s letters saddened her. Her rare letters made Mehpare Hanım feel the unstated blame and she realized her daughter hadn’t forgiven her.
She hadn’t made many friends at school, her standoffishness kept her friends at a distance, and her response to anything she didn’t like made her attitude clear; despite her honesty and openness, indeed perhaps because of them, she attracted everyone’s attention as a mysterious and pampered oriental princess, but she kept everyone at a distance.
The only relationship she established, and she didn’t know whether it was friendship or love, was with Boris, the self-contained son of the Russian philosophy professor Koncharov, who had sorrow in his plum-colored eyes and who brushed the pitch-black bangs from his right eyebrow with a patient movement of his hand.
For the first time she experienced the delicious and slightly acrid taste, like that of wild berries, of feeling an interest in another person without talking about feelings, just strolling through this vague and nameless place between friendship and romance.
Like all rebellious children who occasionally act out impudently, she went to the Koncharov house to satisfy her desire to be sheltered, she couldn’t find this satisfaction in the father she’d never forgiven for abandoning her, in the mother she’d never forgiven for abandoning her stepfather, or in her step-grandmother, who never showed emotion no matter how much she loved. Almost every day she and Boris walked through the streets, even in rain and snow, and then, numb with cold, went to his house and ate the ham sandwiches Madame Koncharov prepared as she waited impatiently for Professor Koncharov to leave his study and come join them.
Professor Koncharov, who was six feet tall with broad shoulders and long, wavy white hair, resembled a steppe lion; when he talked to the children about philosophy, life, the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Paris Commune, social classes, philosophers, and the small weakness that emerged in their daily lives and stood in such contrast to the extraordinary books they’d written, he spoke in a sonorous voice that was difficult to tame, pleased by their intelligence and interest.
Rukiye impatiently asked every question that came to mind, even those that might seem childish or even stupid, as if she wanted to learn everything she could possibly learn from Professor Koncharov, and he always answered her immediately. As her admiration for and attachment to Professor Koncharov grew, so did her attachment to Boris.
One afternoon as they were drinking cocoa, which Professor Koncharov laced with cognac when Madame Koncharov wasn’t looking, she asked one of her usual difficult questions, “What is philosophy, Professor Koncharov?” and this made him laugh out loud. It was clear that she’d expected a short, clear, and open answer. Koncharov, who was accustomed to such questions from young people who believed life was in fact very simple and easy but that older people overcomplicated things, lit one of the strong, tasteless Russian cigarettes he had such difficulty finding and said, “Now look, Rukovna . . . ”
Like many professors who are in fact undercover actors, Professor Koncharov was fond of the sound of his own voice as he launched into a tirade, explaining that philosophy sought the answer to a very simple and ordinary question such as “what is life?” which because it was so ordinary pointed out the ironic meaninglessness in which human fate was imprisoned and which mesmerized with the splendid despair of the knowledge that the answer could never be found, but that even as it pursued unanswerable questions it asked other answerable questions and opened the way for science, which contrary to philosophy always found what it sought, he uttered a sentence Rukiye would never forget, and that changed the course of her life.
“Philosophy is religion’s restless brother.”
Rukiye, who had been listening to the professor in silence so as not to miss a single sentence, suddenly interrupted.
“Professor, do you hold philosophy to be equal to religion?”
Rukiye, who had always distanced herself from religion because of her anger at her father the Sheikh and who as she belittled religion also belittled her father in an attempt to free herself from the legendary fascination in which he was swathed, was surprised to hear religion mentioned in the same breath as philosophy.
The professor knew that Rukiye’s father was a sheikh and also understood her reaction to religion and pursed his lips as he always did when he was thinking.
“My child, when you lie on the grass on a summer night and look up at the stars, if it’s not simply a romantic summer activity like songs or dances that make the night more enjoyable, if you really look at the stars and actually see them, then the gates of the sky open to two destinations, religion and philosophy . . . Religion connects the creation of this splendid universe to God and finds peace, this is why religion offers peace and security, because it has found the answer to the question mankind is most curious about; but philosophy, as I just said, is religion’s restless brother, it is not satisfied with any answer it finds, and each answer leads to a new question.”
Professor Koncharov sensed the pain underlying her rejection of religion and that by rejecting her religion she was rejecting her father, and continued talking to ease the disquiet that comes from rejecting one’s father.
“My dear Rukovna, one should avoid simplistic judgments; we don’t have to be religious, we don’t have to believe in God, but we do have to ask why religion exists. If we’re trying to understand life we have to understand all of its aspects. I would like for God to exist, if there was a power everywhere to which we could submit our destinies with peaceful hearts, then life would be easier, and it’s true that religious people believe that there is an authority that will quietly judge their lives.”
He smiled the smile that suited him so well.
“You can see that this is a kind of drug, you can see the peace it gives people, but men of religion seem to me to give peace to others, I learned a lot from them in my youth. To tell the truth, even though I’m not a believer I’m not very opposed to the idea of religion; if we live a life we don’t understand we can expect to be granted peace by a being about whose nature we have no idea. If we’re skeptical about God’s existence we must also be skeptical about God’s nonexistence. We don’t know if there is a
God but at the same time we don’t know that there isn’t, so belittle belief in God’s existence as much as you belittle the belief that God doesn’t exist. Because just as you don’t need to believe in anything, you don’t need to be frightened of believing in something.”
That night Rukiye didn’t say a single word until they reached Mihrişah’s mansion, which was surrounded by a fence of yellow-gilded iron bars that looked like spears, and Boris shared this silence with her. They parted in front of the house with a brief farewell.
Like all young people who enrich their intelligence with knowledge, Rukiye had, in order to protect a personality that had not yet completed its development, long since made the choice between keen faith and keen disbelief. She’d chosen unbelief, the only weapon she had, to take revenge on her father, and with the fire of youth had taken this to the point of belittling men of religion and indeed even insulting them.
Now after hearing Professor Koncharov, who she admired and held in high esteem, and with whom she’d replaced the faith she’d torn from her soul, her confidence in her own ideas was shaken.
Sheikh Efendi, who she’d erased from her mind, suddenly came back to life with his entire legend, power, the admiring lights that surrounded him, and she felt small, oppressed, and powerless before the sudden appearance of this glorified person who she’d considered an enemy.
When she belittled the father she’d never once seen, she also belittled her loss, but if this father was someone important this loss would be greater. After her conversation with Koncharov, she had to belittle the professor as well in order to belittle her father, and if she did this she would truly become an orphan; because the professor was like a sweet-smelling and magical liquid that filled all the empty spaces in her life, at that time to give up on him would be too dry, too rotten with both loneliness and insecurity.
