CHAPTER 28
It was a sumptuous prison with wide-open doors: a palace of wood and marble on the hill of Yildiz, near the residence of the grand vizir; hot meals were delivered straight from the Sultan’s kitchens; visitors came one after another, crossing through a metal gate and walking down an alley before leaving their shoes outside the door. The Master’s voice boomed from above with its grating syllables and closed vowels, he could be heard castigating Persia and the Shah and announcing the evils which would come to pass.
I tried to make myself unobtrusive, being the foreigner — an American with a small foreign hat, small foreign footsteps and my foreign concerns who made the trip from Paris to Constantinople, a trip of seventy hours by train across three empires, in order to ask after a manuscript, an old poetry book, a pathetic bundle of papers in a tumultuous Orient.
A servant came up to me. He made an Ottoman bow, spoke a few words of greeting in French but asked not the slight question. Everyone came here for the same reason, to meet the Master, to hear the Master or to spy on the Master. I was invited to wait in the huge sitting room.
As I entered, I notice the silhouette of a woman. This induced me to lower my eyes; I had been told too much about the country’s customs to walk forward beaming and cheery with my hand outstretched. I simply mumbled a few words and touched my hat. I had already repaired to the other side of the room from where she was sitting to settle myself into an English-style armchair. I looked along the carpet and my glance came up against the visitors shoes, then travelled up her blue and gold dress to her knees, her bust, her neck and her veil. Strangely however, it was not the barrier of a veil that I came across but that of an unveiled face, of eyes which met mine, and a smile. I looked quickly down at the ground, over the carpet again, swept over the edge of the tiling and then went over inexorably towards her again, like a cork coming up to the surface of the water. Over her hair she wore a fine silk kerchief which could be pulled down over her face should a stranger appear. However, the stranger was there and her veil was still drawn back.
This time she was looking into the distance, offering me her profile to contemplate and her skin of such pure complexion. If sweetness had a colour, it would be hers. My temples were throbbing with happiness. My cheeks were damp and my hands cold. God, she was beautiful — my first image of the Orient — a woman such as only the desert poet knew how to praise: her face was the sun, they would have said, her hair the protecting shadow, her eyes fountains of cool water, her body the most slender of palm-trees and her smile a mirage.
Could I speak to her? In what way? Could I cup my hands to my mouth so that she would hear me on the other side of the room? Should I stand up and walk over to her? Sit down in an armchair which was closer to her and risk seeing her smile evaporate and her veil drop like a blade? Our eyes met again, and then parted as if in jest when the servant came and interrupted us — which he did a first time to offer me tea and cigarettes. A moment later he bowed to the ground to speak to her in Turkish. I watched her stand up, veil herself and give him a small leather bag to carry. He went quickly towards the exit and she followed him.
However, as she reached the door of the sitting room she slowed down leaving the man to distance himself from her. Then she turned towards me and stated, in a loud voice and in a French purer than mine:
‘You never know, our paths might meet!’
Whether it was said in politeness or as a promise, her words were accompanied by a mischievous smile which I saw as much as defiance as sweet reproach. Then, as I was getting up out of my seat with the utmost awkwardness, and while I was stumbling about trying to regain both my balance and my composure, she remained immobile, her look enveloping me with amused benevolence. I could not manage to utter a single word. She disappeared.
I was still standing by the window, trying to make out amongst the trees the coach carrying her off when a voice brought me back to reality.
‘Forgive me for having kept you waiting.’
It was Jamaladin. His left hand held an extinguished cigar; he held out his right hand and shook mine with warmth and friendship.
‘My name is Benjamin Lesage. I have come on the recommendation of Henri Rochefort.’
I handed him my letter of introduction, but he slipped it into his pocket without looking at it. He opened his arms, gave me a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
‘Rochefort’s friends are my friends. I speak to them with an open heart.’
Putting his arm around my shoulder, he escorted me towards a wooden staircase which led upstairs.
‘I hope that my friend Henri is keeping well. I heard that his return from exile was a real triumph. With all those Parisians lining the streets and shouting his name, he must have felt great happiness! I read the account in l’Intransigeant. He sends it to me regularly although it reaches me late. Reading it brings back to my ears the sounds of Paris.’
Jamaladin spoke laboured but correct French. Sometimes I prompted the word he seemed to be looking for. When I was right, he thanked me and if not, he continued to rack his brains, contorting his lips and chin slightly. He carried on:
‘I lived in Paris in a room which was dark but which opened up on to a vast world. It was a hundred times smaller than this house but I was less cramped there. I was thousands of kilometres from my people but I worked for their advancement more efficiently than I can do here or in Persia. My voice was heard from Algiers to Kabul. Today only those who honour me with their visits can hear me. Of course they are always welcome, particularly if they come from Paris.’
‘I do not actually live in Paris. My mother is French and my name sounds French, but I am an American. I live in Maryland.’
This seemed to amuse him.
‘When I was expelled from India in 1882 I stopped off in the United States. Can you imagine that I even envisaged asking for American citizenship. You are smiling! Many of my fellow Muslims would be scandalised. The Sayyid Jamaladin, apostle of the Islamic renaissance, descendant of the Prophet, taking the citizenship of a Christian country? However, I was not ashamed of it and moreover I have told this story to my friend Wilfrid Blunt and authorized him to quote it in his memoirs. My justification is quite simple: there is no single corner of the whole of the Muslim world where I can live free from tyranny. In Persia I tried to take refuge in a sanctuary which traditionally benefits from full immunity, but the monarch’s soldiers came in and dragged me away from the hundreds of visitors who were listening to me, and with one unfortunate exception, almost no one moved or dared to protest. There is no religious site, university or shed where one can be protected from the reign of the arbitrary!‘
He feverishly stroked a painted wooden globe which rested on a low table before adding:
‘It is worse in Turkey. Am I not an official guest of Abdul-Hamid, the Sultan and Caliph? Did he not send me letter after letter, reproaching me, as the Shah did, for spending my life amongst infidels? I should have just replied: if you had not transformed our beautiful countries into prisons, we would have no need to find refuge with the Europeans! But I weakened and let myself be tricked. I came to Constantinople and you can see the result. In spite of the rules of hospitality, that half-mad man holds me prisoner. Lately I sent a message to him, saying “If I am your guest, give me permission to depart! If I am your prisoner, put shackles on my feet and throw me into a dungeon!” However, he did not deign to respond. If I had the citizenship of the United States, France or Austria-Hungary, never-mind that of Russia or England, my consul would have marched straight into the grand vizir’s office without knocking and he would have obtained my freedom within a half-hour. I tell you, we, the Muslims of this century, are orphans.’