That evening the doctor smoked one cigarette after another; he even brought out his bottle of tsipouro and took an occasional sip, something he rarely did.

  The interrogation of a monarch

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, THE old wolf didn’t fail to notice that the doctor had arrived earlier than usual, and that he was talkative and full of questions. As usual, he listed what he’d eaten and what herbal medications he was taking, then he said, “Curiosity is good, but if it’s unsatisfied it can make you sick.” Then, as the doctor looked at him in surprise, he continued, “For several days I’ve noticed you have some questions for me but you hesitate to ask. Please ask!”

  “Everything?” asked the doctor.

  “Yes,” said the sultan. “I’m prepared to tell you everything.”

  Thus the doctor and the former sultan entered an unspoken agreement. His memories would become history. The sultan cheerfully ordered three coffees, two for himself and one for his new privy secretary.

  Then he began the conversation with the following question: “What does delusion mean?”

  When the doctor answered, “Imagining something that’s not real, suspicion, fear,” he realized why the sultan had asked this question.

  “Something that’s not real, you say. So if a suspicion or fear is grounded in reality, it cannot be considered a delusion.” Then he inhaled deeply from his cigarette and said, “There are various periods in history, my boy. It’s impossible to live outside the period in which you find yourself. I was given the throne at a time when all empires were falling apart and emperors were being killed. I’ve known so many monarchs who were killed.” He took another deep drag from his cigarette, then exhaled slowly through his nose. “Some were assassinated, some were killed in battle, and some were executed. I’ll never forget the horrible death of Shah Naser al-Din of the Qajar dynasty. I knew most of them, they were decent people. Unfortunately they were killed. Monarchs are probably still being killed today, but as you know, I receive no news of the world. They cut my uncle Abdülaziz’s wrists and held him down while he bled to death. They tried to pretend it was suicide, but there were witnesses. Besides, how could someone cut both wrists with a pair of nail scissors? I tried the perpetrators, I set up a court in the palace gardens. All of them, including Mithat Pasha, were sentenced to death, but I commuted these sentences and sent them to Yemen.”

  The doctor’s pulse began to quicken, they were touching on an important point in recent history. “Would you allow me to ask a question? Mithat Pasha was strangled in Taif prison. How did this happen?”

  “I swear I had nothing to do with that. If I’d wanted him dead I wouldn’t have commuted his sentence, I would have ordered he be executed. No one could have stopped me.”

  At this point the doctor decided to try an experiment to set the tone for future conversations. Would the sultan allow him to object, would he be willing to argue about the matter? Otherwise these notes would be nothing more than dreary self-justification.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “May I ask some questions that occurred to me while you were speaking? Do you have any objection?”

  The sultan gestured for him to go ahead.

  “Could the warden of Taif prison kill an illustrious former grand vizier without orders from you?”

  “It seems that he did.”

  “How could he dare to kill someone so important?”

  “I keep wondering the same thing. How could they carry out this execution without me being aware? Who could have given this order?”

  The doctor smiled. “His Majesty the sultan is omnipotent. No one else could have given that order. You know this yourself.”

  When the sultan didn’t answer, the doctor asked another question. “So was the warden punished for these murders?”

  “I don’t remember,” said the sultan. It was clear from his expression that he didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking.

  “Don’t bother, we know the answer,” said the doctor. “He received no punishment whatsoever. Wasn’t it Mithat Pasha who put you on the throne, wasn’t it he who paved the way for you to take power?”

  “Yes,” murmured the sultan.

  “On the condition that you accept constitutional monarchy and open the parliament?”

  “I did open the parliament.”

  “Yes, but you closed it within a year and began exercising absolute authority,” said the doctor in an accusatory tone.

  “Yes, but I had my reasons,” said the sultan. “I was obliged to do this.” Then he began telling the story slowly. “As soon I ascended to the throne, I found the Russo-Ottoman war in my lap. I hate war. Whether you win or lose, it breaks the nation’s back. That’s why I try to solve everything through negotiations. But this war had already started. Throughout history, we’ve fought the Russians more than we’ve fought anyone else. And we weren’t in such a good position. The empire no longer had enough resources. I had some ideas in mind about how to bring the war to an end. But there was no way I could implement these plans with that disaster of a parliament.”

  “Why?” asked the doctor. “After all it was your parliament.”

  The sultan laughed bitterly, stroked his beard, and seemed to be struggling to find a way to explain something so complicated.

  “Look,” he said, “let me tell you about this ensemble they called the Ottoman parliament: The deputies were Greek, Armenian, Turkish, Arab, Kurdish, Laz, Wallachian, Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, and Jewish. Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Egypt, and Tunisia also sent deputies. The majority of the deputies were from minorities who wanted to break away from the empire. They were working to bring down the Ottoman state. What government can survive a situation like that? Especially in wartime…Can you imagine a national parliament in which Turks are a minority? That’s why I had no choice but to close it. Excuse me, but this is a reality that the Young Ottomans have somehow failed to understand. They go to Europe, fall under the influence of their ideas and wonder why we can’t do that too. Every race and religion there is exists within our borders. Now they come and clamor about liberty. Let’s see what comes of this.”

  The doctor stopped and thought. The Balkan War was eating away at Ottoman territory. Entire districts and regions had been lost, and now the enemy forces were marching on Thessaloniki. The poor old man had never even imagined a situation like this, and if he heard about it he would probably have a heart attack.

  That evening, the doctor once again wrote excitedly in his little notebook, smoking cigarettes and swigging tsipouro as he did so. He was now certain that he and the former sultan had reached a new agreement. It was as if he was the judge and the sultan was the defendant. One was interrogating, and the other was being interrogated. The doctor laughed aloud at the sense of power he felt, then began coughing from the cigarette smoke he’d just inhaled. After he got his coughing under control, he thought to himself, Having power is a wonderful thing.

  The doctor took a sheet of decorative letter paper and began writing carefully.

  Light of my eye, joy of my heart, you conquered me with a single glance.

  I’ve been longing for you for years, and each day I spend without you is torment. I don’t know where you are, or whether you’ve returned to Istanbul. I hope that your father’s exile came to an end when Hamid was overthrown. After all, it would be easier for me to see you in Istanbul, and to visit your father in order to make a proposal.

  I no longer have much to do except visit the mansion every day to treat the former sultan and his family. I feel as if my life in Thessaloniki is suddenly going to change, that a miracle will occur and my longing will come to an end. I wish you could hear the things the former sultan told me, and see how polite and ingratiating he is to me. It’s not just him, his entire retinue is like that. Sometimes I wonder if we were misinformed about these people, if we were misled by false rumors, but then I immediately remember all of their cruelty. I think that people behave one way when they have power and another way when they don’t. He might seem like an innocent old man who has retreated into a corner, but there are many who have deep grievances against him. Sometimes when he’s sitting there with his eyes half closed, looking tired and worn out, I wonder to myself, could this really be the descendant of Mehmet the Conqueror, Selim the Grim, and Süleyman the Magnificent? This is a sultan who never led a campaign, who never stepped foot on a battlefield, he’s not like his ancestors.

  He loves to talk, he’s always talking about his memories, and I don’t know why but he seems to try to ingratiate himself and gain my trust. Perhaps it’s because he’s worried about his and his family’s health, perhaps it’s because he wants me to speak well of him, to show him in a good light. I have to confess that this sultan I used to see as a tyrant with no conscience now seems to me like a melancholy patient who suffers pain and loves his family, a delusional, fearful old man.

  When the doctor read the letter again, he didn’t like the last paragraph. He hadn’t been able to express this complicated matter the way he’d wanted. If anyone got hold of this letter it could land him in a lot of trouble. He tore the letter into small pieces and threw them in the stove.

  The following day began in the usual manner. The sultan sat three yards away from him, complained that he hadn’t slept because of the pain of his hemorrhoids, he’d made the mistake of eating three meatballs at dinner and this had upset his stomach and given him gas, and he’d rubbed camphor on his belly; Zülfet, the chief housekeeper, was in a lot of pain so he’d given her some syrup; he’d started giving brewer’s yeast to Abid Efendi; he mentioned that their sheets and clothing had been burned in a corner of the garden and asked about the cholera epidemic. “These epidemics always hit poor people the hardest,” he said. “I imagine that’s the case in Thessaloniki as well.”

  The doctor put him at ease by telling him the cholera was under control and the number of deaths was decreasing every day. Then he asked, “Shall we continue our conversation?”

  “Yes,” said the sultan. “Let me order coffee.”

  The doctor asked a question that had been bothering him all night. “There’s been a lot of discussion about why you gave Cyprus to the English,” he said. “Why did you give away such a large island you’d inherited from your ancestors?”

  The sultan laughed bitterly. “Doctor, if you’d been on the throne instead of me you would have done the same thing. I had no other choice. Our archenemies the Russians had come down through the Balkans and were practically at the gates of Istanbul. They set up their headquarters in Yeşilköy. There was nothing we could do to keep the city from falling. We had to sign a harsh and unfavorable agreement with the Russians. It was humiliating for me, as sultan of the great Ottoman Empire, to negotiate with Archduke Nicholas, commander of the Russian army. In that difficult period, I thought about playing the great powers off against each other. I knew that the English were unhappy about this agreement. English warships sailed into the Marmara. I said that I would grant them the administration of Cyprus for a hundred years in order to establish a balance against the Russians. I didn’t give them the territory, I allowed them to administrate it. It still belonged to us, but oh, those English. Once they get hold of something they never let go.”

  What am I going to do with this man, thought the doctor in distress. He has an answer for everything. He turns everything around to make it seem as if the opposition was at fault. But that’s the man’s profession. He’s conducted so many negotiations over the years. He’s used to it.

  He decided to change the subject a bit. “You’ve had so many interesting experiences,” he said. “You’ve met all the kings and emperors in the world. Would you like to tell me a little about them?”

  The sultan was pleased by this suggestion, a smile spread across his face, he always enjoyed talking about world leaders and his relationships with them.

  “Tomorrow I’ll start telling you about my trip to Europe,” he said. “Perhaps the strangest experience of my life occurred during that trip.”

  A young prince

  A HAPPY PRINCE WHO experienced the pleasures of life to the fullest, whose every breath made him feel alive. A young man who enjoyed fishing for bluefish on the silvery waters of the Bosphorus, hunting in the forests of Strandzha, swimming every day summer and winter, running, riding horses, playing the piano…

  The doctor didn’t quite believe what he was hearing, but the apprehensive, imperious wreck of a man kept going on about this, trying to convince him that this was what he had been like as a youth. The doctor could not reconcile these conflicting images. Sultan Abdülhamid bore no resemblance to the youth he was describing, but despite this he insisted: This was what I was like, as God is my witness that’s the kind of young man I was.

  His happiest year was 1867. The other princes had expectations of ascending to the throne, but nothing could have been farther from his mind. It was clear that his brother Murad, who was two years older than him, took the idea very seriously. At that time he was making investments according to Zarifi the money changer’s advice, and he was making a great deal of money. So much so that when he ascended to the throne, he possessed a large fortune. He was able to pay his expenses out of his own pocket, without being a burden to the state.

  His uncle Sultan Abdülaziz was on the throne. He was a large, gray-eyed man, quick to anger, fond of wrestling, but he had a good heart. He treated his nephews well and didn’t lock them up in remote palaces, but left them to their own devices as long as they didn’t get up to any mischief. He was not as handsome and elegant as his late father, but he had a strong presence. When he frowned and rolled his eyes, his staff would be terrified. He often called in wrestlers to wrestle with him in the palace gardens. He was fond of hunting and throwing the javelin, he was a born sportsman, but he was also an unexpectedly graceful musician, and composed enchanting barcaroles for the piano and lute. His late father, on the other hand, had been an elegant man who was quite fond of women and seldom left his harem. He had nearly forty children he acknowledged, and more he didn’t. But he didn’t come close to the record set by his ancestor Murad III, who had a hundred and thirty-five children.

  At this point the doctor had to keep from laughing. Because he couldn’t explain everything that came to mind. When the rakish Abdülmecid fell ill, they brought a doctor from Europe. Through the chief interpreter, the doctor asked the sultan to undress. At one point he looked at the sultan’s private parts and said something. The sultan asked what he’d said. The interpreter replied, “He said everything seems to be fine in this department, Your Majesty.” The sultan roared, “Tell this infidel he should have said magnificent, tell him to say magnificent!” He couldn’t tell the old man this story that had been going around for years, so instead of laughing he pretended to cough. The sultan thought the doctor was sick and grew alarmed and started to leave the room. The doctor assured him he was fine, and the sultan sat back down.

  “My father started building a palace in Dolmabahçe. Previously, sultans had lived in more modest places, but my father wanted to build a palace that would match the splendor of European palaces. My uncle spent even more money, and built another palace on top of it. I couldn’t digest this. Because I understand what money is. The state treasury was depleted. So they just kept printing money. My uncle closed himself up in this enormous palace with his six thousand servants and his harem. Everyone was aware that he was spending enormous amounts of money on the palace and that the people were getting poorer. The people began to resent my uncle. Fortunately he was blessed by the presence of the last two great statesmen: Ali Pasha and Fuad Pasha. They were excellent men. They tried to make up for the sultan’s shortcomings and to correct his mistakes. After all, the state is not run by the sultan but by statesmen. If they’re good, they call you good; if they’re bad, they call you bad.

  “My father embraced the European style, but my uncle was exactly the opposite. So when I heard he planned to go to Europe I didn’t believe it. For centuries, no Ottoman sultan had stepped foot outside the empire. They only ever went west to conquer it with enormous armies. When my brother Murad, who’d been raised in a Western manner, told me about this he laughed and said, ‘How would you like to go to Paris and sit cross-legged on the floor and eat with your hands.’ He didn’t like my uncle’s Oriental manners.”

  When the doctor left the mansion that day, he struggled to believe that this old man had been so different when he was young. Why did he insist so much, why did he speak so passionately about the distant past, why did he defend that young prince with so much enthusiasm? What need was there for this? Also, what he said couldn’t possibly be true.

  However, the sultan’s efforts made him curious, and when he left the mansion that day he went straight to the library. He started browsing through old newspapers and books. Until 1909 the Istanbul press had been full of praise for him and referred to him as “God’s shadow on earth, our gracious lord, and His Imperial Majesty,” but after that they changed their tune and began to refer to the former sultan as “cursed devil and dishonorable demon.” The doctor decided he couldn’t learn anything from this kind of newspaper, so he started looking at books. A lot of books had been written about Sultan Hamid. There were two books that caught his attention, so he took them home and began reading them. He read straight through till morning. The doctor was surprised to encounter a man so different from the former sultan he knew. Some of the foreign commentaries were enough to make him wonder if they were talking about the same man. The American ambassador had described him to The New York Times as “the most intellectual man I encountered in Europe,” and the Russian tsar described him as “completely Western.”