by Tariq Ali
The Baron cleared his throat and the room became silent again.
“Iskander has posed your officers an important question, Halil. After the Sultan, what and where? I fear you will lose everything. Ultimately you might be left with Istanbul and Anatolia. Do you agree? Are you prepared to accept a truncated but compact country?”
“No!” said Halil. “We will not lose the Hijaz or Syria. Egypt has already gone. Our Albanian viceroy, Mohammed Ali, saw to that and his Beys control the cities, but the British navy controls the sea and he who controls trade determines how new countries are made. We must keep Damascus at all costs.”
“History does not believe in ‘musts’, my dear man,” replied the Baron. “A lot will depend on the British. I think they want it all. The whole region is a route to their most prized possession, India. There, too, the wretched Mughal Emperors failed to lay stable foundations. The story is not as dissimilar to the situation here as one might think. This weakness in statecraft lies at the heart of your religion. We shall see whether or not you retain the Hijaz and Damascus. The tribes will go with whoever offers them more money and less trouble. Your real problem lies in Istanbul, the heart of what is left of the Empire. If no history happens where you are, you forget what history is. You lose all sense of direction. Look at Italy and Germany in the long period before they were unified. That is the fate I foresee for the Ottoman Empire unless you act.”
“The only way to save something is through progress and order,” said Halil. “That is why the writings of Comte are of interest to us. He advocated a rationalist society without religion playing any role in the functions of the state.”
“True enough,” said Uncle Memed, “but if I remember well he wanted to create a secular religion, which for me is a contradiction. True, he called it a religion of humanity, but he wanted a Church with rituals and a priesthood of scientists. Hasan Baba’s Karmatian forebears were more advanced in some ways, despite their attachment to our religion. Comte did have some good ideas, but he was also a tiny bit deranged.”
The Baron chuckled in agreement. “Comte’s three favourite secular saints for his new Church were Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc and Dante: the first a tyrant, the second a deluded peasant woman who wanted to be a soldier and the third a great poet. I’m glad Comte appreciated the Commedia, but surely we cannot be expected to take this fellow seriously. Like all talented charlatans he attracted many followers, but much of what he wrote was well-intentioned gibberish.”
“He also said that one day society would be ruled by banks and the whole of Europe united into a western republic ruled by bankers,” Memed added contemptuously. “What could he have been thinking of when he wrote all this rubbish?”
“The pair of you are far too dismissive,” said Iskander Pasha. “When I was in Paris, Hasan and I used to disguise ourselves and attend radical gatherings. Comte was very much the fashion. He was seen as a true follower of the Enlightenment. Many people come up with ideas for providing an alternative to religion. Robespierre tried something, did he not? The Mughal King Akbar attempted a new religion in India, of all places. Long before him, in the fourteenth century, our own Sultan Bayezid the First wanted to achieve a union of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. His sons were named Musa, Isa and Memed. When he tried to win over Pope Nicholas to this idea they tried to convert him to Christianity. He then realised his dream was impossible and gave up altogether.”
“Yes,” said the Baron, “and wasn’t it Sultan Bayezid the First who claimed descent from King Priam of Troy?”
“Baron,” laughed Iskander Pasha, “before we go any further in discussing the whims of men who ruled us for many centuries, let me ask you two questions. If we act and build a new republic, will Prussia be an ally or an enemy?”
“You mean Germany and, yes, it would be an ally, if only to stop you becoming a bridgehead for our ever-ambitious English friends, who strive hard to deny us our share of trade. They believe the world belongs to them, which is a fatal illusion as all Empires discover sooner or later. There is something else in your favour. Our young Kaiser Wilhelm the Second is a neurotic mystic. For that reason alone he might have been inclined towards Istanbul, but he is also a great enthusiast for the religious and warlike mania exhibited in the operas of a dreadful man named Wagner, who writes bad music and dresses equally badly in a ridiculous beret and a velvet jacket. Our young Emperor has a feverish brain, which gives him too many sleepless nights. He dreams of himself as Parsifal. I think he will wage war against someone. The choice of enemies is not limitless. Will he strike his Russian cousin first or his British cousin? When this war is waged, he will need allies. Does that answer your question? Good.”
Memed began to chuckle. “I do not share the Baron’s dislike for the music of Wagner. Its structure appeals to me, though I accept it is far more demanding than the simple tunes of these well-meaning but not highly intelligent Italians. Puccini, Verdi and dear Donizetti Pasha are pleasing enough, but the structure of Wagner’s music makes you think. If the Baron were serious he would—”
The Baron looked at his friend with total contempt and raised his hand to silence him. “Some other time, Memed. Now, what is the nature of your second inquiry, Iskander Pasha?”
“You have been mocking our fondness for Comte and I greatly appreciate your scepticism. We all have our weaknesses, my dear Baron. What appeals to us in Comte is not his list of secular saints, but his unyielding rationalism. It is the clergy that provided our Sultans with the moral power to impede progress for so long. It is pointless decapitating a single head, when the beast we confront is double-headed. Halil, you see, has a real problem. Some of his subordinates are very hot-headed. The situation demands that they are taught the art of patience. But in order to calm them, one must have a master-plan with some chance of success. He has come to us for help because next week he will be visited here by six of these young firebrands. Our choices have moved beyond the luxury of a relaxed intellectual debate within the confines of this library. The lives of others depend on what advice we offer my son. He was very happy when he became a general, but he never realised that one day his men might call on him to wage a war against the enemy at home, including the very people who had made him a general. My father would have advised him either to turn in the traitors or resign his post and rest for a few months in Alexandria. Some years ago, in my role as a responsible father and a pillar of the state I, too, might have said something similar, but those times have gone, Baron. Now do you understand what is at stake?”
The Baron became pensive. He had realised that this had not been intended as an evening of clever talk where his rapier intelligence could outwit all of us. Halil stressed the urgency of what his father had just said.
“If not Comte, then who? Hegel?”
“No, no. Definitely not Hegel.” His tone had changed. He was no longer trying to impress, but had become reflective. “I think the man of the hour for your officers is someone they will never even have heard of, let alone read. I am thinking of an Italian by the name of Niccolo Machiavelli. He is the great thinker of politics and statecraft. You need him badly at this moment.”
“How ridiculous you are, Baron,” said Memed. “Of course we’ve heard of Machiavelli. There was a vigorous exchange between the Ottomans and Renaissance Italy. Did you know that the Sultan had asked Leonardo and Michelangelo to design a bridge across the Bosporus?”
“This is a serious discussion, Memed.” The Baron’s tone was frosty. “Let us leave diversions, however pleasant, for another day. If nothing changes here soon you might even lose your beloved Bosporus. Many people may well have heard of Machiavelli, but how many have read him, how many have understood what he was really writing about all those years ago? Anyone here excepting me? No, I thought not, and I’m not surprised. I would have been one of you had I not been a pupil of Hegel’s successors. I only read Machiavelli because Hegel wrote of him with such respect in his celebrated 1802 text ‘On the German Constitution’.
It was that essay by Hegel that made me want to read the object of such unstinting admiration.”
“We will study closely whatever books have to be read, Baron,” said Halil with impatience. “What you need is to explain: why this Italian and why now?”
“This evening has become too heavy for me,” said Memed. “I’m not sure I can stay awake for the lecture on Machiavelli that the Baron is preparing to deliver. Haiti’s men are preparing a revolution and all we offer them is ideas.”
The Baron glared at him. “Perhaps you should retire to bed in your crimson silk pyjamas and dream of Michelangelo hovering over the Bosporus, Memed, while I stay here with Halil to help save your country. Without a goal based on ideas, all radical action is meaningless.”
Nobody left the room. I exchanged glances with Selim, who had been completely engrossed by the discussion this evening.
“I’m sure I forced Memed and Iskander to read Hegel’s essay when I was a young tutor in their Istanbul house all those centuries ago. Can either of you remember the opening sentence?”
Memed looked away in disgust. Iskander Pasha raised his hand as if he were in class.
“Good,” said the Baron. “Iskander?”
“Deutschland ist kein Staat mehr.”
“Excellent,” said the Baron, imagining he was a tutor once again. “That’s correct. Deutschland ist kein Staat mehr. Germany is a state no longer. The Ottoman Empire is a state no longer. Italy was a state no longer. A new state was necessary to move forward. Machiavelli’s prince is the state. This great and original Italian philosopher of politics observes the reality of Italy as it is and not as some imagine it. What he sees is a split and divided country, permanently vulnerable to attack by foreign powers. Not exactly the same, but not so different from the split and divided Empire, confronting an assault by foreign states. Machiavelli’s greatness lies in this fact: he does not resort to the past, to antiquity, to plan a new future. He sees it all in the present and understands that something new is required...”
And the Baron continued in this vein for a whole hour.
When the discussion ended it was close to midnight. Everyone had been transfixed, except Hasan Baba, who had fallen asleep, and me. I knew I had to stay awake because this was a moment of some importance. History was being made in my presence. But there was also another restraint on my natural inclinations. If I shut my eyes I would no longer be able to see Selim.
This house, isolated and beautiful, had suddenly, unexpectedly, become part of a larger world. We could no longer hide ourselves from the ugliness of the reality that confronted us outside. One phrase that the Baron had continually used from Machiavelli—“it is an evil not to call evil an evil”—had reverberated in my head the whole evening. Sometimes when the Baron moved on to a more abstract level, this little phrase kept returning to me. It could apply to anything, not simply the world of politics.
Later that night I was in a light sleep when I heard the door open. Uncertain whether or not I was dreaming, I saw a familiar figure undress and slip into my bed. At first I thought it was still a dream, but the hard object that gently prodded me below the stomach was only too real. Selim had entered me, turning some inconsequential dream into an existence that was pure bliss.
THIRTEEN
Salman meditates on love and talks of the tragedy that blemished his life; his cruel betrayal by Mariam, the daughter of the Copt diamond merchant Hamid Bey in Alexandria
‘AM I REALLY THE first man to appear before you, Stone Woman? When I told my sister Zeynep that I needed to speak with you she became openly hostile and contemptuous: “Why are you desecrating what has been a sanctuary for the women of this house?”
I had to remind her firmly that, as children, it was not the girls alone who hid behind the rocks to eavesdrop on our guilt-stricken mothers and aunts and servants. Halil and I were always here as well. On hearing this she smiled and relented a little and, as a result, I come to you, after almost twenty-five years, with the reluctant permission of my sister.
If you thought that this light-hearted return to your side indicated that I was once again the carefree boy of my youth, you would be wrong. I am tormented, Stone Woman. Over the last five years my soul has experienced far too many dark nights.
Hasan Baba always taught us that without the experience of darkness one can never properly appreciate the light, but there is another side to this profundity. What if the darkness never goes and light becomes a distant memory? I have heard that in parts of the world where the sun almost disappears during the winter, there are many people who find it unbearable and take their own lives. The same is true of the inner darkness that can sometimes smother the soul.
Since you have never heard my story, I suppose I should begin at the beginning. I will not dwell too long on my mother, who died bringing me into this world. Others must have mentioned her to you and told of how her death transformed my father completely. To avoid thinking of her, he became a person who could never have thought of her or been attracted by someone like her. Each of us has an instinct for masquerade and self-transformation. It gives some pleasure to know we are capable of it and it helps to deceive prying eyes. My father, unfortunately, took the self-deception so far that he almost began to believe in his new identity. I was the one who suffered the most. For Iskander Pasha, I must have become a dual reminder of her and the unwitting cause of her death. What my brother and sisters don’t know is that often when he saw me alone as a child, he would lift me off the ground and kiss my cheeks with great feeling. I always knew he loved me, but another side of him wished to punish me and as I grew older, so did my acts of defiance against the petty tyrannies of his household, and our relations deteriorated. From the age of fourteen onwards I wanted to run away from this family. I envied my mother, who had been brought up without a family, and grew up as a freer spirit than any of us.
The moment I was presented with an opportunity, I left Istanbul and after travelling for a year, I ended up in Alexandria. I had spent many months in Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo, but none of them appealed as a residence. Jerusalem was too religious and the other cities, despite their charms, were far too noisy and too remote from the sea. I was bemoaning the loss of the sea one day, when an arrogant young Bey said to me: “If our delicate little flower from Istanbul wilts without a sea breeze why does he not go and live in Iskanderiya? Personally, I can’t bear it for more than two weeks each summer, but there’s no accounting for Ottoman tastes. Go and live in our house as long as you like, Salman Pasha, and if you like the city then find yourself a place to live.”
That was how I happened to settle down in a city that bore my father’s name. Is it possible to fall in love with a place, Stone Woman? It is. I did. I used to walk for hours each day, till I came to know every corner of Alexandria. To escape the noise of the morning, I would walk away from the city and find refuge near the sea. I had seen a tiny cove on one of my walks and this became my very own and special retreat. I would come here for the early part of the day, before the sun made it impossible to look up at the sky. My only friend in those days was a copy of Verlaine. I would gaze at the sea, dream of happiness, think about my life and sometimes find amusement in writing bad poetry. One of the easiest things in the world, Stone Woman, is to write bad poetry. Has anyone ever told you that before?
The important thing was that I found what I had craved for all these years. I was on my own. Solitude, I discovered, is essential for the mind to gauge its own strength. It is true that a solitary existence has its drawbacks. The satisfaction we feel at not being injured by contact with others is sometimes negated by the sadness that can overcome us because we have only ourselves. This is again very different from the solitude that was forced on me some years later. The sense of loss I suffered made my life a continuous agony of loneliness. Even in the company of my friends, to say nothing of strangers, I felt completely alone.
My money supply was beginning to contract. As always, my Uncle Kemal responded
generously. Before I left he had made me promise that if I was in financial difficulty, I was always to approach him and not worry my father. This suited me perfectly. I sent Uncle Kemal a telegram, thanking our stars that the Empire had agreed to install the telegraph system. A few weeks later one of his ships touched port at Alexandria. The captain called on me with a small, sealed packet. I thanked him, offered him some coffee and asked if he knew my uncle’s plans. To my amazement he informed me that Uncle Kemal was preparing to visit Japan and set up an office in Tokyo.
The minute he left, I quickly undid the packet and found, to my delight, a medium-sized, uncut stone nestling in cotton wool. I did wonder then why Uncle Kemal was so fond of me. I had never attempted to cultivate his affection. He had three daughters, each uglier and more stupid than the other, so perhaps I was a surrogate son. There had been other hints, but I had made it very clear to his wife, my aunt, that I was not in the least interested in any of her daughters as a possible wife. My uncle had laughed on being told this.
There was also a letter of credit to my uncle’s bankers in Cairo and a note for me which recommended that I should use the diamond as surety and not, under any circumstances, sell it without first consulting him. He had sent me the name of “a small, but very reliable” diamond merchant in Alexandria, with whom he had often “done business. He is a Copt, very trustworthy and an old family friend. Go to him if ever you’re in trouble”. He had told me of this person before I left Istanbul, but since I had no plans at that time to visit Alexandria, I had not shown any interest. When I finally did reach here I remembered my uncle’s friend, but I had forgotten his name and felt that if I sent for his address from my old office, it might burden me with tiresome social responsibilities. I remained aloof. I could let nothing breach my solitude. Nothing except the shortage of funds.
