According to the story, a young Bulgarian girl from Avrethisar fell in love with a Turkish lieutenant, converted to Islam, and began wearing an abaya. The girl’s family didn’t accept this, and insisted that her conversion had been forced. The lovers traveled to Thessaloniki (apparently accompanied by the man’s mother, an imam, and a Black servant) to make their marriage official. A group of a hundred and fifty Orthodox had gathered at the Thessaloniki train station, and when they saw the girl they caused a commotion, ripped off her abaya, and, despite her shouts of “Let me go, I’m Muslim!,” abducted her and brought her to the American consul’s house. Crowds of angry Muslims, believing the girl had chosen the right path by converting and determined to bring their new bride back to the community, took to the streets, swinging their long prayer beads and shouting Allahu Akbar as they made their way to the Saatlı Mosque. The French and German consuls decided to attempt to calm the crowd and made the fatal mistake of entering the mosque courtyard. The French consul Mulen and the German consul Abot were lynched by the crowd.

  After the murder of these representative of two great powers, things slipped out of control. The incident was on the front pages of European newspapers. Le Journal de Deba, which I found in the library archives, had the following to say: “The lesson to be learned from the bloody incident in Thessaloniki is this: The misrule of the Ottoman state has reached a catastrophic level.”

  Three prime ministers met in Berlin and issued the following statement: “The Thessaloniki incident has made it clear that foreign nationals and Christians are not safe in the Ottoman Empire. The great powers may send naval forces to dangerous areas to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.”

  Warships from the five great powers entered the harbor of Thessaloniki and aimed their cannons at the city. In the end, six Turks who were alleged to have killed the consuls were hanged in Eleftheria Square, and their bodies were left to swing gently in the sea breeze for days. Many others were tried and convicted. This incident also led to an uprising of students of the Enderun School, which had deposed Sultan Abdülaziz.

  Thus a Bulgarian girl and her Muslim lover unwittingly changed the fate of Abdülhamid, who had envisioned a life in commerce. The city of Thessaloniki, which he’d never seen, played an important role in his life. As a result of this incident his uncle was overthrown and his brother Murad ascended to the throne, but when he in turn was overthrown three months later, the Ottoman Empire was left to Hamid, who had never expected to come to power.

  How strange history is, thought the doctor. This time an army that had set off from Thessaloniki deposed him, and he’s been sent into exile in this city. The city named after the unfortunate, motherless queen. Perhaps this was Thessaly’s vengeance.

  There was another aspect of this story that caught the doctor’s attention. Two thousand four hundred years after Helen of Troy, the beauty of another Helen caused, if not a war, the overthrow of an emperor.

  After he’d finished writing and put away his notebook, Atıf Hüseyin Bey lay on his bed and lit a cigarette, feeling the excitement and anxiety of witnessing history. As he watched the cigarette smoke rise to the ceiling, he thought of Melahat Hanım. Had his mind been playing tricks on him that spring evening when he fell madly in love with a graceful girl in a pink veil? Had he fallen in love with an illusion? But in the Islamic world, wasn’t love always like this? There was no chance he would ever see or meet Melahat. He could only see her from afar. And sometimes this was enough.

  A child’s fear—Romaine lettuce

  BOTH THE SULTAN AND his young son had become ill, and their dry coughs echoed through the empty mansion. The little boy’s tonsils had become infected, and he had a fever. The sultan had a fever as well, but he was more concerned about his son than about himself. He prayed as he paced up and down the large hall, begging God to forgive him. He was also deeply concerned about his six-year-old daughter’s fever.

  The worn-out mattresses that Ali Fethi Bey had procured from the hotels were placed on battered box springs that had been left upstairs, and the monarch no longer had to sleep on the armchairs. However, he put his son in that bed, and spent his time either pacing in the hall or reciting prayers by his son’s bedside and blowing on his red face to ease the fever. Meanwhile he was watching the front door. When he saw that no one was coming, he called the eunuch and said, “Tell the commander that I require a spoon.” This reasonable request was quickly granted. What could be more natural than for a sultan to want to eat with a spoon? But the monarch’s intentions were different, he couldn’t think about food when his son was in this condition. When food was brought at noon, all he took was some of the romaine lettuce he’d noticed. He wrapped the head of the spoon with a handkerchief, then held his lighter under the handle until it was bright red. When it was glowing he started to bring it toward his son’s neck, but the boy started howling. The boy screamed and struggled, but the sultan kept trying his hardest to bring the handle of the spoon to his throat. There were tears in his eyes now. The family watched in horror from the doorway, but no one, not even the boy’s mother, said anything. After what seemed a long time but what was in fact only seconds, the monarch pulled the spoon away; the boy was sobbing in fear, tears were pouring from his eyes, his little hand pointed to his father in reproach. The sultan took out the lettuce leaf and pressed it firmly onto the boy’s neck, which was quite warm from having the hot metal held so close to it. The boy began to wail even more. The monarch tried to console the boy by saying, “My, son, light of my eye, you are an Ottoman, grit your teeth, hang on. This will heal you.” Then he gestured to the boy’s mother to come hold the lettuce against his neck. The tearful young woman did as he wanted. She tore off a piece of her dress, placed the lettuce in it and wrapped it around the boy’s neck.

  The sultan said, “Actually, you should use aloe, it takes the pain away immediately, it moisturizes and heals, but unfortunately we don’t have any. This is better than nothing.” Then he made the handle of the spoon red hot again. “Look, my lion, your father is going to do the same thing to himself, and I won’t just hold it close the way I did to you, it’s going to touch my skin.” He placed the glowing metal against his throat, his hand didn’t even tremble. After holding it there for some time, he pressed a lettuce leaf against his throat and smiled. “My lion,” he said, “does it make you feel better to see me suffer the same pain? Now, God willing, we’ll both get better.”

  His family was accustomed to the sultan cauterizing various parts of his body, but this was the first time they’d seen him do this to a child, even if only partially, and they were terrified for the little prince.

  The doctor’s heart palpitations—A test—The first visit to the mansion

  AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, drifting in and out of sleep, wondering obsessively if the tyrant had really been deposed and experiencing heart palpitations, the doctor set out early, passing through Eleftheria Square, where six Turks had been hanged thirty-three years earlier, to get to the hospital, where he hoped to learn more details about the fate of the sultan. This was a momentous event that affected the lives of everyone in the empire, whether they were Turks, Jews, Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks, or Serbians; no one could stay calm and go about their business as usual.

  Early in the morning, the streets of Thessaloniki began to fill with groups of excited people who whispered and read aloud from newspapers. This could only mean that the tyrant who had oppressed and suffocated everyone for so many years had been overthrown. And he had been overthrown by the young officers of the Third Army, who they’d seen so often on the streets of Thessaloniki. It was difficult to believe. The greatest celebration Thessaloniki had seen was on the day Abdülhamid proclaimed constitutional monarchy after coming to power. As in every city in the empire, there were official parades, and people of all nationalities, religions, and sexes poured into the streets throwing flowers and shouting, “Long live freedom!”

  Now, in spite of everything, the Thessaloniki newspapers announced the sultan’s overthrow in a timid and cautious manner. It was not going to be easy for people to become accustomed to this new period.

  As he passed through the square the doctor mumbled, “The bastard! He destroyed our lives,” then continued on toward the hospital as he did every morning. The Third Army Hospital was full of soldiers and officers who had been severely wounded in clashes with Balkan guerillas. He was so busy that the nurses wiped the sweat from his brow as he performed surgery. He would have to treat dozens of patients that day, this was the price of being a senior military doctor. He pushed his way through the anxious crowd of relatives waiting outside the hospital door. He’d just put on his white jacket and hung his stethoscope around his neck when he was given word that the chief doctor wanted to see him. He wondered why he was being called in so early in the morning. The chief doctor didn’t like him much because he was too close to the dissident officers. In any event, the doctor never concealed this. He fully supported those who wanted to overthrow Abdülhamid and bring freedom to the nation. He was in the habit of reciting Namık Kemal’s nationalist poetry in a deep, full voice.

  The chief doctor greeted him with an odd, almost devious smile. “Good morning, doctor,” he said. “You have a new assignment.” Then he handed him a telegram from the Ministry of War in Istanbul, announcing that Captain Atıf Hüseyin Bey would now serve as doctor for the deposed sultan and his family, who were under house arrest in Thessaloniki.

  The composure he had gained from his training and experience as a doctor prevented him from fainting on the spot, but his head spun and his hands trembled. His heart was beating in his throat like a hunted bird. As he returned to his own office he kept wondering how this had happened.

  He was dazed, but he had no choice but to take off his white jacket and put on his uniform jacket. He read the telegram again several times. There was no mistake, the telegram said that Captain Atıf Hüseyin Bey was responsible for the health of the deposed monarch and his family, who were being held at the Alatini mansion. His greatest enemy’s health had been entrusted to him. He put his stethoscope in his bag and left the hospital.

  The doctor liked walking the streets of Thessaloniki, he usually walked everywhere, but now, as he was on official duty, he got into the military car that was waiting for him at the front door. The roof of the car was open and it was a bright spring day, but he was so dazed that he barely saw where he was going. He did notice that they passed Hamidiye Avenue and Hamidiye Fountain. The dictator’s name was everywhere, wherever you turned you were faced with his heavy, sinister shadow; presumably this would change now that he’d been overthrown. These avenues, fountains, and neighborhoods—yes there was a Hamidiye neighborhood in Thessaloniki—would later be renamed Reşadiye after the new sultan.

  As they approached the mansion, he saw that soldiers had blocked the streets and weren’t allowing anyone to pass. The doctor was only allowed to pass after the driver showed the guards his official pass. The area had been closed to all civilians. This three-story, red-brick mansion with its large garden full of century-old trees was one of the most beautiful buildings in Thessaloniki, and one of the Italian architect Poselli’s masterpieces. There were also sentries at the garden gate. He noticed soldiers with rifles every twenty paces, and officers wandering here and there smoking cigarettes. In the flower bed in the middle of the garden was a sign that read Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. It had probably been put there by officers excited by the overthrow of a dictator. The doctor spoke with the commander, gave him his assignment papers, then sighed as he looked toward the front door. “This is a test,” he said to himself as he climbed the front steps. “God is testing me.”

  The sultan and the doctor meet—The New Ottomans—Armenians—Assassination attempt—National poet Namık Kemal

  WHEN THE DEPOSED SULTAN saw the officer, who the eunuch had announced, he raised his eyebrows in surprise, then his suspicious nature led him to feel uneasy. He looked at the captain, a sandy-haired man of medium height who had a fashionable handlebar mustache that made him look like a French doctor, and wondered what he was doing there. Had he been appointed to replace Ali Fethi Bey? Or was he here to harm him and his family? When the captain explained that he had been appointed as doctor to the imperial family, the sultan’s suspicions were not allayed. He shook the man’s hand and gestured for him to sit, but dozens of possible scenarios raced through his mind. Was this doctor, who had appeared so suddenly, a government spy who’d been sent to murder them discreetly?

  Despite his misgivings, Abdülhamid greeted the doctor not just politely but with the dignity of a ruler. He answered detailed questions about his own health and that of his family. The doctor took out a small notebook with a Bayer logo and wrote down the details of the sultan’s constipation, bronchitis, indigestion, insomnia, neuralgia, and hemorrhoids, and the medical status of his wives and children. Later, when the sultan insisted, the captain took a cigarette from a case inlaid with diamonds and precious stones, then sat and listened to the old man in defensive silence.

  “From outside, everything seems easy, doesn’t it, doctor? Especially being a head of state…You can take care of everything with a single command, hang or behead whomever you want. The public might think this, but that isn’t the case. In fact the monarch is a prisoner and slave to the throne, he can’t do everything he wants. There are a lot of people running the state, and they play all sorts of games behind his back. Among them are traitors in the pay of other nations, viziers who want to put another member of the dynasty on the throne or even take it for themselves, all of them making devious plans to overthrow the ruler. Oh how I wish I could have lifted this nation up with a single command. I visited France and England when I was twenty-four, and I was amazed by the scientific progress they’d made. I was with my uncle and my brother, we saw with our own eyes that they were so far ahead of us we could never catch up. Those factories, those trains rushing past, lamps that turn night into day, clean, well-illuminated cities where men and women live and work together.”

  The doctor couldn’t contain himself and said, “This is exactly what we were trying to say. All we wanted was for the Ottoman Empire to be like Europe, to experience development based on science. But instead of following this path you had your spies watch us and imprisoned and persecuted anyone who spoke up.”

  “That’s why I said it looks easy from outside. There was nothing I could do! Such a huge empire, so many millions of citizens. Everyone has their own ideas. The ulema says one thing, and admirers of Europe say another.”

  “If you hadn’t silenced the intellectuals, they could have enlightened the people.”

  “No, no,” said the former sultan, “it wouldn’t have worked. Look, let me tell you something. A university professor put a pigeon in a box to see how long it could live without air. Then, using religion as an excuse, some of the conservative officers attacked him. We were barely able to save him. Faith and science are incompatible.”

  In helplessness he held out his hands, shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. “What could I have done? Things had been going badly since the time of my grandfather Murad. The Russian tsar, the French and British Empires were trying to carve us up like a hunted animal and take the tastiest pieces. And what did I do? I acted as if I didn’t know what was going on and set them against each other. And I drew the German emperor to my side. The people you call the New Ottomans aren’t aware of this; they talk about freedom but not about anything else. But I know that this word will make our lands miserable and tear apart the state. I kept this state afloat for thirty-three years but no one appreciates me. They ignore all of my achievements. That’s my destiny, what can I do? The will of God…”

  There was a long silence. There was no sound but the cheerful chirping of the birds in the garden. The doctor thought he should report what the man had been saying, these were significant statements. But he noticed that the man had said nothing about the new regime or the new sultan they’d put on the throne.

  The doctor asked, “And now?”

  The old man immediately grasped the situation, and he dropped the tone of grievance he’d been using. “You can be sure that my brother and your new government will do everything in the best possible way. I’m nothing more than an old man who prays for their health and wishes the best for the nation. I swear I have no intention of trying to return to power. In fact I wanted to retire from office but the people around me wouldn’t let me. My only desire is to live a calm, quiet life in this corner of the empire. May God protect my brother the sultan and may all go well for him.”

  You liar, thought the doctor. This man is terrified. The fear is driving him mad. All the greatest monsters are like that.

  The sultan was perceptive enough to know what the doctor was thinking.

  “You’ve misunderstood me,” he said. “Or rather, both you and the Europeans misunderstood me. They depicted me as a bloodthirsty tyrant. They had to do that in order to carve up the empire. I’m the world’s most compassionate man, believe me when I say this, I’m being sincere. Contrary to my family’s custom I didn’t kill my brothers or any other relatives who were contenders for the throne. In thirty-three years I approved only four or five executions; those weren’t for political reasons either, they were monsters who had slaughtered their parents or their children. At the palace I had only one person executed, a eunuch who committed an act of astonishing impudence. Our history has not seen a period of such benevolence. But what did they do, they depicted me as an executioner covered in blood.”

  The doctor was so annoyed at how this man was trying to portray himself as an angel that without intending to he interrupted the sultan. “Oh, come on,” he said. “You sent all the intellectuals into exile. You had Grand Vizier Midhat Pasha killed in Yemen. The European newspapers depicted you covered in Armenian blood. You massacred thousands of our Armenian citizens. Are these lies?”