“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.