“Not that I noticed. Did he stop long?”
“A minute or two. After that he did not go so fast. But this little…”
He broke off and picked up a microphone as a fresh lot of squawks came over the radio.
“ Evet, effendi, evet,” he answered, then put the microphone back. “But this little machine can show those big ones a thing or two. On a narrow hill with corners I can leave them standing.”
He had turned onto the Avenue and we were running parallel to the shore.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I am not permitted to answer questions.”
We were passing the state entrance to the Dolmabahce Palace now.
It was built in the last century when the sultans gave up wearing robes and turbans and took to black frock coats and the fez. From the sea it looks like a lakeside grand hotel imported from Switzerland; but from the road, because of the very high stone wall enclosing the grounds, it looks like a prison. There is about half a mile of this wall running along the right-hand side of the road, and just to look up at it gave me an uncomfortable feeling. It reminded me of the yard at Maidstone.
Then I saw a light high up on the wall ahead, and the driver began to slow down.
“What are we stopping here for?” I asked.
He did not answer.
The light came from a reflector flood and the beam of it shone down vertically onto an armed sentry. Behind him was a pair of huge iron-bound wooden gates. One of them was half open.
The car stopped just short of the gates and the driver opened his door.
“We get out,” he said.
I joined him on the roadway and he led the way up to the gates. He said something to the sentry, who motioned us on. We went through the gap between the gates and turned left. There was a light burning in what I assumed was the guard room. He led the way up a low flight of steps to the door. Inside was a bare room with a table and chair. A young lieutenant-I suppose he was orderly officer of the day-sat on the table talking to the sergeant of the guard, who was standing. As we came in, the officer stood up, too, and said something to the driver.
He turned to me. “You have a guide’s license,” he said. “You are to show it to this officer.”
I did so. He handed it back to me, picked up a flashlight, and said in French: “Follow me, please.”
The driver stayed behind with the sergeant of the guard. I followed the lieutenant down the steps again and across some uneven cobblestones to a narrow roadway running along the side of a building which seemed to be a barracks. The windows showed lights and I could hear the sound of voices and a radio playing caz. There were light posts at intervals, and, although the surface of the road was broken in places, it was just possible to see where one was walking. Then we went through a high archway out of the barracks area into some sort of garden. Here it was very dark. There was some moonlight and I could see parts of the white bulk of the palace looming to the left of us, but trees shadowed the ground. The lieutenant switched on his flashlight and told me to be careful where I walked. It was necessary advice. Restoration work seemed to be in progress. There were loose flagstones and masonry rubble everywhere. Finally, however, we came to a solidly paved walk. Ahead was a doorway and, beside it, a lighted window.
The lieutenant opened the door and went in. The light came from a janitor’s room just inside, and, as the lieutenant entered, a man in a drab blue uniform came out. He had some keys in his hand. The lieutenant said something to him. The janitor answered briefly, and then, with a curious glance at me, led the way across a hall and up a staircase, switching on lights as he went. At the landing he turned off down a long corridor with a lot of closed doors along one side and grilled, uncurtained windows on the other. There was carpet on the floor with a narrow drugget along the middle to save wear.
From the proportions of the staircase and the height of the ceilings it was obvious that we were in a large building; but there was nothing noticeably palatial about that part of it. We might have been in a provincial town hall. The walls were covered with dingy oil paintings. There seemed to be hundreds of them, mostly landscapes with cattle or battle scenes, and all with the same yellowy-brown varnish color. I don’t know anything about paintings. I suppose they must have been valuable or they would not have been in a palace; but I found them depressing, like the smell of mothballs.
There was a pair of heavy metal doors at the end of that corridor, and beyond it more corridors and more paintings.
“We are in what used to be the palace harem now,” the lieutenant said impressively. “The steel doors guarded it. Each woman had her own suite of rooms. Now certain important government departments have their offices here.”
I was about to say: “Ah, taken over by the eunuchs, you mean,” but thought better of it. He did not look as if he cared for jokes. Besides, I had had a long day and was feeling tired. We went on through another lot of steel doors. I was resigned to more corridors, when the janitor stopped and unlocked the door of one of the rooms. The lieutenant turned on the lights and motioned me in.
It was not much larger than my room at the Park, but probably the height of the ceiling and the heavy red-and-gold curtains over the window made it seem smaller. The walls were hung with patterned red silk and several large paintings. There was a parquet floor and a white marble fireplace. A dozen gilt armchairs stood around the walls, as if the room had just been cleared for dancing. The office desk and chairs standing in the center looked like a party of badly dressed gate crashers.
“You may sit down and you may smoke,” the lieutenant said; “but please be careful if you smoke to put out your cigarettes in the fireplace.”
The janitor left, shutting the door behind him. The lieutenant sat down at the desk and began to use the telephone.
The paintings in the room were, with one exception, of the kind I had seen in the corridors, only bigger. On one wall was a Dutch fishing boat in a storm; facing it, alongside a most un-Turkish group of nymphs bathing in a woodland stream, was a Russian cavalry charge. The painting over the fireplace, however, was undoubtedly Turkish. It showed a bearded man in a frock coat and fez facing three other bearded men who were looking at him as if he had B.O. or had said something disgusting. Two of the group wore glittering uniforms.
When the lieutenant had finished telephoning, I asked him what the painting was about.
“That is the leaders of the nation demanding the abdication of Sultan Abdul Hamid the Second.”
“Isn’t that rather a strange picture to have in a Sultan’s palace?”
“Not in this palace. A greater man than any of the Sultans died here, greater even than Suleiman.” He gave me a hard, challenging look, daring me to deny it.
I agreed hastily. He went into a long rambling account of the iniquities of the Bayar-Menderes government and of the reasons why it had been necessary for the army to clean out that rats’ nest and form the Committee of National Union. Over the need to shoot down without mercy all who were trying to wreck the Committee’s work, especially those members of the Democratic party who had escaped justice at the army’s hands, he became so vehement that he was still haranguing me when Major Tufan walked into the room.
I felt almost sorry for the lieutenant. He snapped to attention, mumbling apologies like a litany. Tufan had been impressive enough in civilian clothes; in uniform and with a pistol on his belt he looked as if he were on his way to take charge of a firing squad-and looking forward keenly to the job. He listened to the lieutenant for about five seconds, then dismissed him with a flick of a hand.
As the door closed on the lieutenant, Tufan appeared to notice me. “Do you know that President Kemal Ataturk died in this palace?” he asked.
“I gathered so from the lieutenant.”