The Sultan's seal

23

Some days after Papa and I fought over Amin Efendi’s marriage proposal, he invited his political friends to a soiree at our house. Aunt Hüsnü and I were to appear in Western dress and greet the guests, entertain them at dinner, and then withdraw, leaving them to discuss politics. I had listened to them before. On the evenings when Papa had guests, I moved quietly through the dark corridors and took up a position in a chair in the next room where I could hear their discussions. Servants are invisible even in the light, so Violet found reason to hover in the halls and warned me if anyone approached my hiding place. This rarely happened, though, since the men did not feel free to move through my father’s house, lest they trespass into the private realm in which women dwelled. We were only appropriate when on display. Otherwise, we were dangerous and forbidden fruit.

The men arrived, along with their wives. The women, stiff and uncomfortable in their unaccustomed corsets, adjusted the pearlseeded and embroidered veils that framed their open faces. They were dressed in the latest Paris fashion. The women’s eyes were lowered, whether from modesty or embarrassment was hard to gauge. They flocked toward Aunt Hüsnü and me, away from the men, and greeted us effusively, as if we had rescued them from a shipwreck.

Amin Efendi politely greeted all the women together, but his eyes locked onto mine. I was embarrassed and looked away, hoping no one had noticed. I could not imagine him as my husband. I could not imagine a husband in any case. I thought of my cousin Hamza. I thought of Papa’s exasperated voice behind closed doors. That was all I knew of men and husbands.

We walked in two flocks, men and women, to the parlor. The women clustered together on one side of the room. The men broke into twos and threes and thus took up more space, but did not move beyond the sofas, an unacknowledged boundary.

I heard the doors to the room creak on their hinges, and I heard the men’s voices in the room falter, then increase in volume. I turned to see Hamza standing inside the door. At first I didn’t recognize him. It had been seven years since the day he gave me the sea glass and went away, leaving me alone at Chamyeri. I had heard he was in Europe. His features were sharper, as if drawn by a knife. The thick curls I remembered were slicked back against the sides of his head. Permanent lines creased the space between his eyebrows, giving him a seriousness that I found intimidating. He looked leaner and more vital, like a spirited horse whose every small movement is a barely contained shorthand of great power.

He was looking at me, then turned his face to greet my father, who had walked up to him. Hamza leaned down to kiss Papa’s hand in the traditional manner of honoring one’s elders, but Papa pulled his hand away and reached it out to be shaken. I assumed Papa did not allow Hamza to kiss his hand because he had accepted him as an equal. But I caught sight of Papa’s face as he snatched his hand away, and afterward I was not so sure. There are many reasons not to allow someone to honor you.

Papa pulled him briskly to the men’s side of the room. Hamza shook hands all around, although I noticed a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the men’s brief nods of acknowledgment. Then Hamza turned and strode behind the couches and extended his arms to me. We leaned toward one another and kissed on both cheeks. We were, after all, cousins and childhood friends. His touch sent my pulse racing. The room was entirely still.

“How are you, Jaanan Hanoum?”

I was flustered by all the attention and curtsied as I had been taught. Aunt Hüsnü moved between us and directed Hamza toward the men waiting on the other side of the room. Heads began to move toward one another, a flutter of sound like birds taking wing. Defeating my effort to focus elsewhere, my eyes fled again and again to his face across the room.

PAPA WAS A modernist, but he was also a loyalist and the men expended great heat excoriating the Young Ottomans that they believed were undermining the empire with their talk of a parliament.

“The empire is being threatened and all men should speak with one voice. Otherwise our enemies will perceive our division as weakness and take advantage of it.”

The men clustered near the French doors open to the twilight garden. I could hear their conversation clearly through the chime and tinkle of women’s voices around me. Hamza sat nearest the garden, his face in darkness.

“It’s one thing to be modern,” my father expounded, “but it’s quite another to be a traitor to your sultan.” Several men cast pointed looks at Hamza.

“These journals spread vicious propaganda. All this talk of liberty and democracy promotes the separatist movements in the provinces and plays into the hands of the Europeans. The journals must be closed down and the radicals arrested.”

There was a general mutter of assent. Several men shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

A distinguished, gray-bearded man turned toward my father. His broad chest was spanned by loops of gold braid and a sash gleaming with medals. Although he spoke slowly, weighting each phrase with the gravity of silence, no one interrupted.

“I agree. It’s quite possible to be civilized without aping the Europeans in everything they do. We don’t need a parliament. We have mechanisms that have worked perfectly well for five hundred years. Our experienced officials can do a much better job of running the government than a group of hotheaded young men uneducated in the principles of just rule. Who is to ensure that they promote the interests of the government and don’t misuse their power to support this group or that, undermining the unity of our glorious empire? Do we not already have an enlightened system that allows everyone in the empire, whether Muslim or minority, to thrive?” He extended his hand expansively. “Look around you. The sultan’s banker is an Armenian and his advisor on foreign affairs is a Greek. His physician is a Jew. Indeed, there is almost no work for us poor Muslims except in the army and behind a desk!”

This occasioned laughter among the men and even some titters from the women.

“Anyway, there is no such thing as a European civilization.” My father picked up the thread. “Europe is nothing more than a region, home to a lot of squabbling nations that can’t even agree among themselves. European civilization is a myth foisted upon us by those seeking to destroy our way of life and undermine our government. These radicals are working at the behest of the European powers, who would like nothing more than to divide us among ourselves and see the empire carved up into pieces that they can easily swallow.”

Hamza spoke up. “The empire is weak because we’ve allowed the Europeans to buy us. We’re in debt and whatever taxes we can flay from the backs of our poor peasants goes only to pay the interest. It’s not ideas that threaten the empire. Only ideas can save it.”

“There’s nothing civilized about your ideas,” a man countered heatedly. “They’re a threat to public morality.”

“Yes, that is so.” A murmur of approval rose from the company.

“You are absolutely correct.”

Amin Efendi added, with a sly glance at Hamza, “The other day, a woman of my extended family attended, if you can believe it, a political lecture.”

There was a ripple of laughter.

“A lecture by a man,” he added.

The men turned to each other in consternation. Several women stopped speaking. Without turning their heads, they continued to smile politely at their neighbors, but their ears clearly were on the debate across the room.

“I put a stop to that, of course.” A few of the men nodded appreciatively. “It is unbecoming for a man to lecture before women. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, or even whether it’s a lecture for women only. It’s immoral.”

Another man chimed in from an armchair across the room. His voice seemed too loud and more women stopped to listen.

“A woman’s calling in life is to marry and be a mother, to be a support to her husband, and to run the household. She doesn’t need to learn about science or politics. We don’t need women technicians or, Allah forbid, women politicians. A woman should learn the things she needs to know to run her home and be satisfied with that.”

The man with medals across his chest disagreed. “But you must admit, Fehmi Bey, that an educated woman makes a better mother.”

“No doubt, but after she marries and becomes a mother, all her energies should be focused on her duty, guarding the well-being of her family. These modern women are selfish and egotistical. They think only about themselves. If we all thought like that, it would lead to the destruction of our society. We need mothers and wives, women who can train the next generation.”

My voice, once launched, carried across the room like a bell chiming in an empty chamber. “The rights a modern society gives women are no different from the rights women enjoyed in the earliest periods of Islam. The rules laid down by the Prophet, peace be upon him, protect the rights of women. But over time, these rules have been diverted from their true purpose. By giving women rights and freedoms, we’re not aping Europe. We’re reaffirming our own tradition of respecting women. After all, Europe is far from being such an enviable paragon. It has long restricted the rights of its own women. Women have an important place in a modern, civilized Muslim society. They have a duty to society, as well as a duty to their families.”

I found I had risen from my chair. There was a hush, a heartbeat of silence, before Papa coughed and turned to speak to the man at his side.

“Proper women have always fulfilled their duty to society by being good mothers and wives,” he said. “There’s no need to change the family just to be modern. The traditional family is wide open to modern ideals, whether that family is in Europe or here. There’s no difference. What some consider Eastern manners are nothing more than the manners of the civilized world everywhere-solidarity, attachment to family, respect for elders, and concern for those who are weaker and dependent on you. The modern European family doesn’t reject these traditional values; there’s no contradiction there at all. Modern etiquette is an indicator of civilization everywhere. We must be open to this. I see no reason to fear the disintegration of society. Our family system is resilient, like a tree.”

Taking Papa’s cue, the men continued to converse, although the rumble of their voices had risen in intensity, as though their words had been driven to greater speed by embarrassment.

The women had begun whispering, the direction of their eyes indicating the destination of their tongues. I sat heavily, my entire body throbbing in time to my heart.

I could not see Hamza’s face, once I dared turn my eyes to him. His posture was guarded. I simply assumed he agreed and approved. I could think no other way. When I looked next, he was gone.