The Stone Woman

TWENTY-ONE

Selim is so impressed by the Paris journals of Iskander Pasha that he reads them twice; the Baron explains why the Parisian crowd was different from Istanbul; the troubled life of General Halil Pasha

SELIM HAD REFUSED TO be distracted. For over an hour he had been reading and re-reading the journal that the French woman had returned to Iskander Pasha. My father had placed the journal in the library. I had lifted it up immediately and brought it to our room so we could read it together when we were in bed. Selim had betrayed me. He had started reading the entries while I was putting the children to bed and was halfway through his second reading, refusing to share it with me. When he had finished I snatched the notebook away from him, but he was in a daze.

“Don’t sulk with me, princess. I was in a trance because Hasan Baba was also in Paris at the same time and talked of those months a great deal. Do you know when your father wrote these?”

I shook my head.

“In 1871. Paris was under siege by the Prussians. The self-proclaimed French Emperor, Napoleon the Third, fell and the crown slipped off his head. A republic was proclaimed and then something truly amazing happened: there was an uprising by the poor of the city, who realised that there was nothing to choose between the rich inside Paris and the Prussians at the gates. Hasan Baba always claimed that he had helped to build one of the barricades of the poor. I never really believed him. I thought it was a fantasy. He would have liked to, but could not. Your father’s journal confirms the story. I’m really proud of Hasan Baba, Nilofer. Read it for yourself. Please.”

To his great annoyance, I refused to read the journal that night. Instead, I fell asleep. The next morning I was woken by the noise of the birds. The sea was stormy and the seagulls were flying inland. I dressed and went down for breakfast with the journal. A strong wind was gathering pace outside and the curtains were flying everywhere. Inside, the servants were busy making sure the windows were firmly shut and the doors were bolted.

I was alone. None of the others had yet come down. I was not very hungry and poured myself a bowl of coffee and hot milk. I read the journal sitting at the table. It was a strange sensation. A storm was developing at sea and I was sitting comfortably reading about another storm of which I know nothing:

3 September 1870

I never thought the routines and the life I lead as an ambassador would permit me any space to write a diary, but these are amazing times. Today this pathetic and vainglorious figure that styled itself the “Emperor of France” was captured and his general defeated by the Prussians. Another triumph for Bismarck Pasha!

I went out for a stroll to gauge the mood of the people. Everyone looked depressed and the newspaper sellers were almost assaulted, so great was the urge to read about the day’s events. I heard many people denouncing their own side much more vigorously than the Prussians. A few shopkeepers had banners outside their shops, which read “Vive Trochu”. Trochu is the military governor of Paris and the man on whom a great deal now depends. In the afternoon a very large crowd marched through the streets demanding the creation of a republic. The French will never give up on their republics. We could learn something from them in this regard.

I am totally cut off from Istanbul as a result of the siege and I must admit it feels rather nice.

4 September 1870

Yesterday they demanded a republic and today it was proclaimed outside the Chamber, where a very large crowd had expectantly assembled. I was not present but Hasan, my barber, returned and gave me a complete account. This Sufi mystic is rapidly becoming a revolutionary. Since the embassy is paying his salary at the moment, I wonder whether his growing involvement might create a diplomatic scandal at a later stage. He tells me that there was applause all along the Place de la Concorde at the news. People began to tear the blue and white away from the tricolour, leaving the red intact. Hasan claims that the gilt N’s on the railings of the Tuileries were being painted over and covered with crowns of flowers, supplies of which, unlike the food in this city, were never depleted. Hasan joined the mob as it invaded the palace and saw the establishment of a “Citizens’ Guard”. He says they were so impressed by his solidarity that they wanted to elect him to the Guard, but he declined, fearful of damaging my status here.

Excited by these reports I ventured out incognito into the streets, dressed in modest French clothes. It was a very hot and humid Paris today. Outside the Hotel de Ville there was a very large assembly. Spontaneously they began to sing the Marseillaise. This is how it must have been in 1789. Strange how these people feel their history instinctively; it is in their bones. The flower-sellers have joined this revolution. They are only selling red button-holes today and the Prussians are only four days’ marching distance from the city. Only the French could topple their king in these circumstances. How I envy them this capacity.

Later I attended a dinner at the Montmorencys. Yvette is as well endowed as ever and the wine flowed as usual, but the mood here was very different from that on the streets. I controlled myself with some difficulty. The others were desolate. An elderly French gentleman spoke of the Germans with respect, saying that “only Bismarck can save us from this rabble”. Yvette, feeling the need to speak, suggested that it might be better if the French generals dealt with the mob themselves; that if Thiers, who is an old family friend, were given his instructions there might be some blood on the streets but it would be cleansing. Then “we would all be ready to go and fight the Prussians”. I suggested that the Prussian might be able to resist the French army, but Yvette might well conquer them. Apart from her nobody else smiled at my remark. My host, the Vicomte Montmorency, said that the noisy mob will only create havoc.

He declares himself for the republic, but only if it has Gambetta at its head and isolates the hotheads of the extreme left. Another guest, whose name I cannot remember, collapsed at the table, exclaiming that he had seen the most terrifying vision imaginable. Everyone stopped talking in order to listen to him. He spoke of the large amount of oil outside the gates of Paris, and his fears that the Prussians will throw it into the Seine and set it alight, burning the banks on both sides, just as the Ottoman Admiral Barbarossa threatened to do to Venice. Everyone looked at me for confirmation. I smiled.

I began to feel suffocated by the evening and took my leave. Montmorency said to me: “Don’t treat us too badly in the despatches you send to Istanbul. It is all the fault of the Emperor.” I smiled and said nothing.

23 September 1870

There is a terrible shortage of food in the city. As the Prussian artillery fire hits Paris, people complain of the lack of fresh vegetables and meat. Some restaurants are closing down. Others are beginning to serve horseflesh, while pretending it is beef fillet. Yesterday I was told that there were no more oysters available. There has got to be a revolution.

21 October 1870

A stranger delivered a very large parcel to the embassy. Petrossian was nervous, but brought it to my office with the attached letter. I cannot believe that he managed to do this. The letter is in the familiar hand of the Baron. He’s remembered my birthday and the parcel contains the following: 2 bottles of champagne, a dozen oysters, a bottle of claret, a large piece of beef fillet, mushrooms, truffles, potatoes and, unbelievably, fresh lettuce. The cook, not knowing the Baron, was even more amazed than I am. I shared the feast with the others, though Hasan insisted that the wine he drank when he invaded the palace with the crowd was much better — as was the company. I toasted the Baron and wonder whether he is with the Prussian Army outside Paris.

31 October 1870

Everywhere I hear cries of “Vive la Commune”. I walked with Petrossian (who has armed himself to defend us in case of attack) and Hasan Baba to the Hotel de Ville, where the embattled government realises its isolation. I fear that France is on the verge of a civil war. Paris is for the Commune, but it is isolated and will be crushed. I do not wish this to happen, but it seems inevitable.

7 November 1870

The Prussians have rejected the French call for an Armistice. Bismarck’s Memorandum shows the iron will of the German leader. He has no equivalent in France. This Government, which has done so little to defend itself against a foreign enemy, is preparing seriously to take the offensive against its own citizens. A fresh egg, our cook now informs me, costs 25 sous.

“What are you reading, child?”

The Baron had arrived for breakfast and I put the journal away.

“Iskander Pasha’s diaries of 1870 in Paris. You’re mentioned.”

He laughed. “The food parcel on his birthday?”

I nodded. “How did you do that? Were you actually there on the other side?”

“Yes, of course. Surely you agree that Bismarck was more progressive than that coxcomb Napoleon the 103rd or whatever he called himself. Utter scoundrel. Disgraced the name of his great forebear. Memed was very tickled that I had managed to get that parcel in on Iskander’s birthday.”

“Yes, I was,” said Uncle Memed, yawning as he joined us at the table. He wanted to know why we were discussing the parcel. When I told him, he immediately took the journal from me.

“Hmm. I will read this later. Did you know that your Selim’s grandfather played a heroic role in that ill-fated encounter?”

“Yes, but I hadn’t reached that bit and…”

“When he first came back from Paris, Hasan was determined to organise a Commune in Istanbul. I think the Baron pointed out to him that it was foolish to mimic a defeat. Do you remember how angry he became, Baron?”

“Yes, yes. I remember. The problem was not so much copying a defeat, but the fact that the Istanbul crowd was still fiercely attached to the bloody mosques. The Parisians, thanks to 1789, had been cured of that disease. They were ferociously anti-clerical.”

“You’re right, Baron,” said my father as he inspected the state of the table and noticed the absence of eggs, without which his day was incomplete. “Petrossian! I’m here. My eggs, please. Why are we discussing France, Baron?”

I explained for the third time that morning.

“As a matter of fact, it was the shortage of eggs during that siege, Baron, which made me pledge that once it was over I would never be without eggs ever again. It’s all your fault.”

Memed tittered softly. The Baron was pleased to be the centre of attention.

“Father,” I asked him, “was Hasan Baba really affected by it all?”

“Yes, we all were. Petrossian became very excited as well, but the execution of the Communards by Thiers and his soldiers changed him around again. I think he saw the power of the state and it frightened him. Thiers was a bloodthirsty butcher. But Hasan was unshakeable. I agree with the Baron on Istanbul. We never had our 1789, let alone 1793. If that had happened here everything could have been different.”

My father’s scrambled eggs had arrived, complete with a sprinkling of fresh coriander and black pepper. As he busied himself with his breakfast, the Baron resumed the conversation.

“Yes, Iskander, but the whole point is that it could not happen here. In France there was an aristocracy that sucked the blood of its peasantry. Here, the Ottoman state was everything: Mosque, Sultan, Owner of the Land and Controller of the Army. That was its strength, as Machiavelli pointed out, but also its weakness. Your family was given fiefs by the Sultan in return for your services, but Yusuf Pasha of blessed memory had no power or land on which to raise his own army. In England and France the nobles were like miniature kings. Not here.”

“Baron,” pleaded Memed. “Please! Not while we’re eating breakfast. You know how fragile I feel at this time of the day.”

I could have kissed my uncle. I knew exactly how he felt.

“Does anyone in the house know where Halil has been for the last two days? Nilofer? You’re part of the conspiracy, aren’t you?”

I chose to ignore the provocation. Iskander Pasha was not convinced by the Committee and had been shaken by the affair of the eunuch-general. He had told Halil to be very careful and not to think that the eunuch was either the first or the last person to spy and report on them. It was a father’s concern for his son’s safety, but I felt there was something else as well. His Paris journals had revealed a side of him that had previously escaped my notice. The thought had not occurred to me before, but given the two sides of his emotional character, might there not be a similar dichotomy in the rest of his life?

There was the urbane Iskander Pasha in Istanbul who, dressed in formal clothes, called on the Vizier once a week and floated through the evening effortlessly while banalities were exchanged on the state of the Empire and the health of the Sultan. His face remained expressionless when he was entertaining visiting dignitaries at our house in Istanbul. But the charming smiles and the display of surface calm was a pure deception. This was the same man whose fists were often clenched in pain and anger. The journals were the strongest indication of this, even though he had been a young man at the time.

He was obviously worried that Halil might end up in prison or worse, but he was also irritated at being excluded from the affairs of the Committee, especially as he knew that I was involved. My interest in politics had been limited till the arrival of Selim in our house. The storms of passion he aroused had shaken the very core of my life. I had to rethink many things, both in my inner life and the world outside. These were things I had always taken for granted, such as the conviction that I and no other person would ever be in control of my emotions, and the idea of the Empire as something eternal. Iskander Pasha was looking at me impatiently.

“I’m really not sure, Father. He told Petrossian he might be away for a week or ten days in Istanbul.”

“Politics or pleasure?”

“Neither,” I replied. “Family.”

He laughed. “Are the boys and their mother back from Damascus?”

They were and Halil, who had not seen his twins for several months, had been looking forward to seeing them again. I had always been much closer to Salman emotionally and this was still the case. On a human level and since I was a child, Salman and I had discovered we could discuss anything in the world without any sense of shyness or embarrassment. This feeling had remained, despite his long absence, and had delighted both of us this summer. Some relationships are so deep they can survive anything. I felt ours was one of these.

My relationship with Halil, while affectionate, had always been slightly formal. Ever since they were children, Zeynep and he had been close. This had nothing to do with their having a mother in common. They had always exchanged confidences and there was a temperamental affinity as well. Both of them were much more introvert than Salman and myself. Halil, in particular, could also be very secretive. Take his marriage, for example.

He met Catherine almost twenty years ago at a tea party in Istanbul. The Countess Galfalvy was an old family friend, then in her eighties. She was from an old Greek family and had run away in her youth with an impoverished Hungarian count. She spent her life on his family estate, where they had three rooms to themselves. The meals were shared with the family. Her late husband, Gyorgy, had been a painter. He must have painted over a hundred portraits of her during their life together and in every imaginable pose.

In her youth she had been renowned as one of Istanbul’s great beauties and there had been rumours that the Sultan, too, had expressed an interest. Perhaps that was one reason for her unexpected flight with the Count Galfalvy. They had no children and when the count died, she found the three rooms unbearable and returned to Istanbul with all his paintings. To her amazement, a dealer, who had heard of them from a common friend asked, one day, to see the paintings. He spent several hours inspecting each one separately. He must have been honest, for he offered her a great deal of money for all of them. She kept a few she really liked and accepted his offer.

I remember going to see her with my mother on a few occasions. She lived in a large house which was fifteen minutes away from where we lived. Even in the pleasing winter sun the drapes were always drawn in her house. Perhaps she wanted to recreate the closed atmosphere of the rooms where she had spent fifty years with her count. But she was lonely. She missed the smell of oil on canvas. She began to visit the conservatory and would often invite young art students to have tea with her. If they were from poor families, she helped them financially and if they were from other parts of the Empire, she invited them to stay with her. Catherine Alhadeff was an art student from Cairo. She had been staying with some rather unpleasant friends of her father when she met the old lady at the school. Within a week, Catherine was installed in a very large room on the top floor of the house. There were no drapes and the light was perfect. The sun streamed in most of the year. Catherine was thrilled.

Halil saw her one afternoon when he and his mother went to take tea with the Countess Galfalvy. He was greatly impressed by her and probably her name was entered in his notebook later that day as one of the possible brides for him. Salman had once caught sight of the notebook and swore to me that such a list did exist, but when we teased Halil, he blushed and insisted it was a joke. I’m not so sure. I think the list, whether written or not, was always present in his mind. Catherine glided to the top of the list without even trying.

Halil was the type of person who avoided taking risks, but he was not a good judge of character. He once told me that he never trusted his own instincts because they always let him down. When I questioned him further it emerged that three young officers who he thought were loyal to him had let him down badly.

Zeynep was the first to be told about Catherine. Halil felt she would be the perfect wife for him. He did not want to live with a woman who did nothing the whole day. It would drive him mad. He told his mother, who expressed irritation that he wanted to marry a Christian. This really angered Halil. He informed his mother that if he wished, he would marry a monkey.

Then, to our great disappointment, we discovered that Catherine belonged to an orthodox Shia family. Her name was simply the result of her father’s fondness for a sixteenth-century portrait of Catherine de Medici, which he had bought many years ago from a dealer in Istanbul. The painting was unsigned and Catherine’s father had bought it for a very reasonable price. It was when he showed it to a visiting Venetian merchant that the trouble began. The Venetian was convinced it was a Titian and he was so sure of this that he offered to buy it for a fairly large sum of money. Catherine’s father refused to part with the painting. The knowledge that it might be a Titian served only to strengthen his attachment. He grew more and more obsessed with it and when, after four sons, fortune blessed him with a daughter, he named her Catherine, despite the angry protestations of his wife.

The Countess Galfalvy favoured Halil’s suit and recommended it strongly to Catherine’s parents. Catherine herself appeared to be indifferent. She is supposed to have asked Halil whether he would stop her painting and after he had replied that it was one of the reasons why he wished to marry her, she accepted. She never asked him for other reasons. The owner of the Renaissance painting and his family duly arrived in Istanbul as guests of the Countess. The wedding itself was a modest affair. Only the two families and their close friends had been invited.

Catherine was a very striking woman, tall and slender with a dark complexion and shoulder-length dark brown hair. Her back arched delicately underneath her dress. She had thin lips and narrow eyes and the combination gave her a girlish quality. When I saw her for the first time I remember thinking, enviously, that this woman would never really look old.

A year and a half later, Catherine gave birth to a pair of healthy twin boys. There had never been any twins in either our family or hers, which raised a few questions, but as the boys grew all the doubts disappeared. They looked just like Halil and we grew to adore them. They were often at our house and every summer they would come here for a few weeks. Catherine loved this house and she painted it from every angle. Then she would take her canvas and paints to the cliffs and paint the sea. One such painting, in which the seagulls resemble hailstones suspended over the dark green ocean, still hangs in the library. I spoke to her often, but she was usually cold and reserved. It was the same with everyone else. Since Halil was away with the army for extended periods of time, everyone tried to be friendly with her, but, with the single exception of my mother, were politely rebuffed. For some reason Catherine liked my mother. She painted two very fine portraits of her, one of which I have in my old room in the Istanbul house.

It was a few years ago, after the twins had celebrated their fifteenth birthdays, that we realised something was seriously wrong. My source on the subject was, as usual, Zeynep.

“It’s really awful, Nilo, just awful for poor Halil. Awful for poor Halil. I swore I would never tell anyone, but what she is doing is too cruel. Too cruel!”

Whenever she had important news to impart, Zeynep had developed a habit of repeating a sentence or a phrase, imagining that this would somehow double its impact. Its effect on me was the exact opposite. I would get so irritated by her manner of speaking that I could not concentrate on the content. I told her this many times, but she couldn’t really help herself. The story she told me was upsetting.

Some months after the twins were born, Catherine had informed Halil that she did not want any more children. He was upset, but accepted her choice. He never pushed or pressured her in that direction. Soon afterwards she refused to share his bed and rejected his advances. She informed him that she had been very shaken by giving birth to twins and now the very thought of the reproductive process filled her with nausea. She advised him to find another wife or concubine or whatever he wished. She would accept anything provided they left each other alone. At this point I had interrupted Zeynep.

“Tell me,” I asked her, “did he not open his notebook and consult the list?”

Zeynep remained serious. “No. Please. Don’t try to be funny. Don’t try to be funny. It’s very bad.”

What had made it bad was Catherine’s decision to move to Cairo and take the children with her. Halil had wanted the boys to stay with him. He felt that their education at the lycée was being disrupted, but Catherine would not listen to reason. She disapproved of formal education and felt the twins would learn much more through travel. She had taken them back to Cairo and they had been there for a year, but the boys wanted to return to their father and their friends. She had promised they would be returned to Istanbul in the summer and could stay with their father, but their arrival was delayed, which angered Halil. He had rushed to Istanbul the minute he heard they were back. He had got his children back.

There was something else as well. Zeynep had prepared a list for him and she wanted him to view the first three names on it so that he could have a woman again.