“Do you know what people forget when they talk about me? They forget that I too am human. I’m a father, I laugh, I cry, I get sick, I have moments of cheer. They didn’t see the person, they only saw the power. I’m at ease being in exile in Thessaloniki. At first I feared for my life, but in time I realized my brother has no intention of killing me. I’m more comfortable, I’m calmer. Of course even now, if, God forbid, there should be some conspiracy to kidnap me and put me back on the throne, the government would get rid of me immediately. Indeed even a rumor about anything like that could result in a death sentence for me. God forbid that anyone put my life at risk by committing such a mad, foolish act. Yes, we were talking about power and death.

  “It’s no different in other countries. For instance, when I went to Paris all of the royal families were in mourning. Two days before we arrived they’d received news of the execution of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. He was Franz Joseph’s brother. Napoleon III also lost wars, was deposed and taken prisoner, and died in misery in London. I received a report that after giving him an heir, Eugénie had no further contact with him. The man had a great many mistresses, but I received intelligence that he lost his manhood at forty due to prostate inflammation and kidney stones. What instructive stories. All emperors know about each other’s health and private lives. How? By giving their doctors plenty of gold. I’m certain that my doctors were reporting to someone about me.

  “You’re different, of course. You give your reports directly to the government. God bless you, doctor.”

  The doctor had considerable trouble writing these last paragraphs. It was difficult to remember the sultan’s exact words and also to keep his writing so small. But it was worth it. He was learning some very interesting things. “To become acquainted with a person is to become acquainted with an empire,” he murmured. He thought of the strange fate of this former sultan who received no news from the outside world. He thought that the empire had remained as it was when he left it. He didn’t know that the last Ottoman territories in Africa had been lost, or that, with Russian support, Balkan countries were declaring independence one after the other. The Arab provinces were in turmoil, and the Kurdish and Armenian insurrections were escalating. Everyone knew that after six centuries, the empire was on the point of collapse. The only person who didn’t know was the former monarch. He had become fully accustomed to his life in exile; he spent his days making furniture, praying, and telling the doctor the details of his trip to Europe and the most enjoyable period of his life. He was like the captain of a sinking ship who was unaware of the rising waters because he had been confined to his cabin.

  Strauss’s waltz

  AS THE DOCTOR ENTERED the mansion he heard a pleasant waltz. It was from a gramophone that had been allowed into the mansion. The sultan was sitting in his usual seat, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, listening to the music reverently. When the doctor coughed slightly to announce his presence, he put his finger to his lips and gestured for him to sit. The doctor and the sultan sat in complete silence, almost without breathing, until the record finished. When the piece was finished he said, “Doctor, did you know that this piece was composed for me? A Viennese composer named Johann dedicated it to me. He was a very famous man. The piece was performed at the opera in Vienna. When I heard about this I gave him a medal and an amount of gold. Now this record has taken me back to those days.”

  Of course the doctor knew Johann Strauss, but he didn’t know he had composed a piece for the sultan. How strange, he thought, you never hear anything positive about this man. It was all concealed behind a dark curtain of fear and hatred. It was also strange that a piece had been composed for him in Vienna, which his ancestors had besieged twice.

  He knew that the sultan valued music and carpentry, but he seemed to have no interest in the many wonderful historical artifacts in the territories he ruled. He hadn’t hesitated to give ancient Bergama and other ruins to the Germans. Foreigners wishing to excavate were told to hand over any gold or jewelry they found but that they could take the stones, and cartloads of artifacts were sent to Europe. Statues were looted from the temples of the ancient cities of Pergamon, Troy, and Aphrodisias. He was aware of the increasing importance of the oil fields of Mosul and Kirkuk. Therefore he was not content to allow the oil fields to remain the property of his own state but made them his personal property. However, he did not regard the masterpieces of Rome, Ionia, Caria, Phrygia, and a host of other civilizations as wealth. His ancestor Mehmet the Conqueror had read Homer and had gone to Troy to try to find the tombs of Hector and Achilles, but few of his descendants had taken any interest in history.

  “Welcome, doctor. I didn’t sleep well last night. There was a burning in my throat, it’s still there, perhaps I’ve caught cold. I don’t know if it’s because of the cold baths I take, but I’ve been doing that all my life. Is there a draft in this mansion that’s making me sick? It’s not just me, my wives and some of the servants are sick. I think that I need sulfate, but you prescribe whatever medications you think are necessary. It’s not just the sore throat and the cough that keep me awake at night. After our talk yesterday, I had so many vivid memories that I almost felt I was twenty-four again. I could even smell the particular smell Paris has. I can never forget it. I remember as if it were yesterday. After our lunch at the Tuileries, we went to the Élysée, where we would be staying. Oh, I almost forgot, at lunch at the palace there were thin, reddish, jewellike glasses on the table. They were engraved with stars and crescents. We were amazed by their elegance. We were surprised when we were told that these glasses had been made especially for the sultan’s visit to Paris. They were made by the famous Baccarat company. The silverware had also been made especially for the visit by the Christofle company. We were immediately impressed by how delicate the French were. My uncle maintained his proud demeanor, but we could see from his face that he was beginning to appreciate this magnificent welcome. I don’t know how to describe Élysée Palace. Gilded halls and rooms, jewellike chandeliers, our magnificent bedrooms, knowledgeable, well-dressed, polite servants. This was where the Empress Josephine had lived with her husband, Napoleon. Amid all of this, what I admired most was a dark hall hung with black cloth. This was where Napoleon had signed his abdication as emperor. Here he experienced the bitter ending that awaits so many monarchs.

  “Speaking of Josephine, there’s another interesting thing I have to tell you: In the following days, Napoleon III gave my uncle a book. It was by a French writer named Ubicini, and it had been printed in France in 1855. As Napoleon was presenting the book, he said, ‘We are relatives. Because your grandmother was a French countess from our family.’

  “My uncle found this claim so interesting that he ordered the short book to be translated in a single night. Fuad Pasha and his men stayed up all night to translate it, and the following day we were able to read it. According to the story, Josephine’s relative Aimée de Rivéry was captured by pirates on her return to France from Martinique. The pirates either gave or sold this beautiful young noblewoman to the Ottoman palace. The next part is still a bit confusing. My ancestor Abdülhamid I made her one of his wives, changed her name to Nakşıdıl Sultan, and she bore his children. One of these children became Sultan Mahmud. Consequently, Napoleon’s family was related to the Ottoman dynasty. My uncle ordered Fuad Pasha to research the matter, and it turned out that his grandmother’s relatives lived in the city of Orléans. Indeed the emperor offered to present the family to my uncle, but he declined because time was so short. Later, when I ascended to the throne, I had our ambassador in Paris secretly investigate the matter. The ambassador met our grandmother’s relative Baron de Gonse and learned some more details from him. While she was alive, Nakşıdıl Sultan remained in contact with her relatives and sent them gifts. Indeed my uncle sent the family a miniature of Nakşıdıl Sultan. They were excited to see that in middle age, Aimée looked exactly as she had when she was young, but they were saddened that a French countess had converted to Islam and entered the sultan’s harem. As you know, it was rare for a Turkish woman to give birth to a sultan. Even as far back as 1300, our dynasty’s founder Osman’s son Orhan married the Byzantine emperor’s daughter. Ever since then, the women of the harem have come from a variety of backgrounds. There were Russians, French, Italians, Jews, Serbs, Hungarians, and a host of other nationalities. My mother was Circassian, and so are most of my wives.

  “Anyway, let’s get back to the Paris visit. Our retinue included several Italian and Greek valets. They dressed us with care and struggled to make sure we were presentable to the French. There was also Ömer Faiz Efendi, the mayor of Istanbul, who was a superb conversationalist and always spoke his mind. I enjoyed talking to him, and often asked him for his impressions of the trip and about what the rest of the delegation was up to. Despite his advanced age, Ömer Faiz Efendi liked to enjoy life, he loved Paris and said he found French women more intoxicating than champagne.

  “I think that this was the thing that amazed us most. Women weren’t covered up or kept in cages, and they went wherever men went. This reminded me of what Sultan Mahmud’s brother-in-law Admiral Halil Pasha said about Russia. The sultan had sent his brother-in- law to Russia to find out how they had advanced so quickly and left us behind. In the report that Halil Pasha presented to the sultan on his return, he said clearly that the greatest difference was the position of women. ‘In Russia, as in Europe, women are valued and are involved in all aspects of life. They formed the nation together with men. Our women, on the other hand, are kept in cages. That is, we only have half of our population. This is the most important issue we have to address.’

  “Of course the pasha was right, we saw this with our own eyes on our trip to Europe, but now you’re going to ask me why, after ruling the empire for thirty-three years, women have still not been set free. You’re right, but in this country it’s not easy to get past sharia. The shaykh-al Islams, hodjas, religious scholars, sects, and sheikhs are so powerful that the sultan can’t do what he wants. Please remember that they stabbed my ancestor Selim to death over the issue of Europeanization, my ancestor Mahmud barely survived, they called him the Infidel Sultan. Tell me what you would have been able to do if you were in that position. It’s not true that a sultan can do whatever he wants. It just seems that way. If you don’t keep the right balance, they either kill you or send you into exile. You yourself have seen what a sincere Muslim I am, but didn’t they label me an enemy of Islam when they deposed me?

  “My uncle and my brother and I weren’t blind. We saw with our own eyes how much Europe had advanced, and how far behind we’d fallen. And don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this was enough to make us weep. They brought Louis IV’s carriage out of a museum to take my uncle to the International Exposition in Paris. The rest of us rode in six-horse carriages. By God, what an exposition it was, I can’t begin to describe it. What machines they’d invented, what innovations they’d created. Everything we saw seemed unbelievable, we couldn’t fathom it all. There were twenty thousand people there. My uncle sat with the emperor and gave out some awards. When a thousand-piece orchestra played the Ottoman anthem, our hearts swelled with pride. They were doing everything they could to please us, but there was no way they could understand the sadness in our hearts. It was painfully clear to us that it would be impossible for us to catch up to them, that we’d missed the scientific age. At the Ottoman pavilion there were carpets, candlesticks, silks, embroidery, weapons, and prayer rugs, and they’d set up an Ottoman coffeehouse where young Turkish men in national costumes invited passersby to have coffee. People drank coffee and smoked pipes. We had no machines, inventions, or techniques, all we had to offer were the pleasures of the Orient.”

  As the doctor waited while the sultan lit a cigarette, he thought to himself, Ah, our sluggish, mystical Oriental realm, bearing the weariness of the ages, ignorant of the rest of the world and fond of pleasure. These were precisely the reasons that the revolt that had begun in Thessaloniki had overthrown the man he was talking to, but the strange thing was that he was complaining about the same thing. They’d overthrown the sultan they thought was defending the old order and had replaced him with his idiot brother, they’d thought the movement to Westernize would gain momentum, but in fact things were now much worse. That meant that the sultan had been powerless to do what he wanted. He’d been aware of the distance between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, indeed he’d been more aware than anyone. Ever since Selim the dynasty had been struggling to Westernize, and had even given lives for this. Sultan Hamid had been aware that these efforts could cost him his life, he’d had no choice but to dress Westernizing reforms as Islamist and had modernized schools, encouraged the translation of foreign books, opened schools for girls, and built railroads. So then why did this revolt occur? These Young Turks had been speaking against the sultanate in Paris for years, they’d managed to gain Western support. Why had they changed as soon as they came to power? The doctor was unable to bring himself to say this, but everything was worse now and the empire was disintegrating rapidly. At first the Young Turks had accused the sultan of massacring Armenians and had proclaimed a desire to unite all of the religious and ethnic minorities, but now they were oppressing these people.

  “May I ask you something?” said the doctor.

  The sultan seemed pleased and said, “Of course. These are interesting matters.”

  “As you know,” said the doctor, “there was a movement opposed to your uncle, and most of these intellectuals had gathered in Paris. Indeed they even printed newspapers there. What happened during your visit to Paris, was there any contact?”

  The sultan drew on his strong cigarette and blew out smoke rings. “No,” he said. “We knew those people. They were all decent, worthy people. Our ambassador in Paris reported that dissidents, including Namık Kemal Bey, Şinasi Bey, and Ali Suavi Efendi, had gone to the Paris police chief and said, ‘We have reached the conclusion that it is not appropriate for us to be present in this city during our sultan’s visit. We want to go to London.’ The police chief replied, ‘We were going to ask you to do this. We thank you for your sensitivity.’ So we had no contact with these gentlemen of the opposition. But I know them. Namık Kemal Bey in particular, we worked together. He was a worthy individual, but he got caught up in these strange ideas about liberty. And he’s the one who got my brother Murad to start drinking.”

  The doctor was moved by the gentle manner of this man who had smothered dissent with his thousands of spies. I wonder if they always misrepresented this man. He was so convincing when he spoke, and his manner was so polite, it was difficult to believe that this man and that tyrant were the same person. He decided to talk this over with his friends.

  The sultan continued to talk about Paris. It was clear that the level of civilization they’d seen there had a tremendous impact on them, and indeed left them a bit confused. When they saw the Palais de la Cité, the first building in the world to be illuminated at night, they were amazed that these people had managed to turn night into day. But the trip was not without difficulties. The Ottoman sultan had never known any rules, he’d never had to be anywhere on time, it was incredibly difficult to wake him, dress him, and get him to his appointments with the emperor. At the palace his word was law, it was difficult to remind him of his obligations because this made him angry. This led to situations in which Fuad Pasha nearly had a heart attack. Indeed after this trip, the pasha went to Nice to treat his heart condition and ended up dying there.

  One day the emperor came to Élysée Palace for a visit, but no one had had the courage to wake Sultan Aziz. The man paced irritably in the hall muttering, “These barbarians are a constant headache. They don’t keep track of time, they don’t understand appointments.” Then he noticed Fuad Pasha waiting by the door and said, “Please pretend you didn’t hear that, don’t pass it on to your sultan.” The pasha responded, “Don’t worry, Your Majesty. I don’t tell you what he says about you and I won’t tell him what you say about him.”

  The doctor enjoyed listening to these stories, they were like adventure tales set in a distant land, but he was also becoming increasingly confused. After being bombarded with stories about emperors, world politics, and recent history, he would go home and write what he’d heard, then he’d sit and think, sometimes staying up till morning. He was neglecting his love letters and rarely went out with his friends in the evening. But he’d promised to meet them that evening. His friends wanted to know what was going on in the mansion, what the “demon” was telling him, and was he about to “drop dead.” Mehmet Akif, the Islamist, a nationalist conservative poet who had dubbed the sultan a “demon,” said that once he’d seen him pass in his horse carriage and had been unable to resist the urge to vomit. The hatred ran deep. The doctor’s mind had been full of questions for the past few days, and he was pensive as he walked slowly toward the Olympos. What a strange fate it was that led a monarch who lived like a shadow behind his high palace walls and pulled strings all over the world to have daily conversations with a young man who was born in Kumkapı as the son of Hüseyin Efendi and who had struggled to make it through Military Medical School. Had Abdülhamid and the other sultans really thought about these issues as much as he said they had, had they really tried to find solutions and develop the empire? Because only a Young Turk intellectual would make the kind of comparisons between East and West that he had been making over the past few days.