“Don’t look so surprised, doctor, as children we were all taught French as well as Arabic and Persian. My French isn’t as fluent as my elder brother Murad’s was, but I know the language. If I had any French books here I could show you. Meanwhile, let me tell you that I’m not allowed to have any books or newspapers here. They won’t even allow a sheet of paper. I wonder if there’s anything you can do about this, doctor, I can’t live without reading. At the very least they can give me some French detective novels.

  “What was I saying? Later I found another nonsensical mistake that Ponson made: D’une main il leva son poignard, et de l’autre il lui dit…I remember because I couldn’t believe a famous French novelist could make such a mistake and I read it over and over again. Do you know French, doctor? Good, then you understand. I asked myself why I should waste my time reading a man who could make such basic errors, and I never picked up another of his books. Then I discovered Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. I had it all translated. These stories were more cleverly written. In fact Conan Doyle came to Istanbul and wanted to meet me, but it was during the month of Ramadan and I didn’t have time. I awarded him the Order of the Mecidiye, and I awarded his wife a Medal of Compassion.

  “I’ve suffered from insomnia since I was a child. When I listened to these novels I forgot the troubles of daily life, I put myself in the detective’s place. I tried to solve the mysteries. And sometimes I did.

  “Forgive me, I imagine I’m giving you a headache. Let’s leave all that aside for the moment. There’s a question I want to ask you, doctor. Please answer me, don’t disappoint me. My request is sincere. I know that my brother Reşad Efendi is now sultan. May God give him long life. But who’s running the government, who’s the grand vizier? Suddenly, I no longer know anything at all. Who’s the grand vizier, who are the other members of the cabinet, how are things going in the Balkans, please tell me. I’m just a nobody who does little but pray. What harm could I do anyone. Please.”

  Melancholy—A Caucasian bride’s unfortunate prince—Cows in the mansion garden

  HIS MISERY GREW DAY by day, night by night, until it was like a stubborn snake wrapped around his neck. He forced himself to focus on something else, he tried to bring more pleasant memories to mind, he thought of the activities he’d been so fond of in his youth—hunting, horseback riding, archery, swimming, running—to plant the seeds of some kind of hope for the future. He remembered that he’d once been able to run for miles, that he used to swim in the Bosphorus all the time, but now his body was in ruins, and he was amazed by the state he’d allowed it to fall into. Terell, the American ambassador, had given him wonderful saddles made in Texas. This gift of saddles and guns that had been specially made at the Colt factory had been reported in the American press.

  “Ah, those were the days,” he said. He had paid a high price for all those long years of intrigue, treachery, complications, and fear of assassination at the palace. The rebels from Thessaloniki had struck an unexpected blow, and there could be no recovery from this wound. He asked himself how this had happened to him, and, oddly enough, he put it down to not having exerted enough pressure. How could he not have seen the way that nefarious organization called the Committee for Union and Progress would grow and gain power? Had his secret service in Thessaloniki betrayed him? There was no longer any point in thinking about these things, what was done was done and the throne was now well beyond his reach. The despair and melancholy that had haunted him all his life had reached new levels during his first five days in exile, just as a bullet wound hurts more when the heat has faded. He would never forget how, when he was a child, his mother kept her distance from him out of fear of infecting him. He remembered how she’d looked at him lovingly, he remembered her sad, thin, delicate face, flushed with the fever of the tuberculosis that was raging within her.

  He would never forget the look in her eyes. As he sat with her in a room in the cold and unpleasant Beylerbeyi Palace, he felt that she wanted to embrace him, that she was trying to close the distance between them with her eyes. They had to speak loudly, and their voices echoed. In her last days, the young woman told stories about her family, recited nursery rhymes from her childhood, and recalled legends about Mount Qaf, and these remained vivid in his memory for the rest of his life.

  She wasted away before his eyes in that cold, sinister Beylerbeyi Palace, and after her death he felt out of place with the other princes, who were living happily with their healthy mothers. He spent most of his time in empty rooms, in closets, and under beds, wishing that his own death would come soon.

  As he sat hunched in the armchair, smoking one cigarette after another until the room was thick with smoke, the former sultan thought that none of this would have happened if his mother hadn’t died. Not even this last rebellion. Being motherless is the hardest thing to bear in this world.

  He was seventy years old, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t rid himself of the image of that little prince with his sad, drooping, drowsy eyes, watching from behind the door as the other children enjoyed themselves. Everyone talked about his half brother Murad; how cheerful he was, what a good horseback rider he was, his skill at the piano, the waltzes he composed, his masterful swordsmanship, how handsome he was. Murad was the star of the dynasty. He had never been able to compete with Murad, had never been able to get ahead of him. Murad was first in line for the throne, he was the heir apparent. At the time no one would have imagined he would lose his mind, that he would be deposed within three months and that Abdülhamid would be placed on the throne. When he was catapulted to the throne at the moment he least expected it, he experienced the intoxication of absolute power, he was lifted to the sky, for the first time he had surpassed everyone in the family and it gave him a singular joy. The orphaned son of an unfortunate Caucasian girl known as Tir-I Müjgan was now the head of the dynasty, he had surpassed all his rivals. If his mother in heaven had lived, she would be the sultan mother.

  He’d seen the way Murad had been destroyed by drink. When they were both princes, Murad would suggest having a drink, Hamid would say, “Fine, but just one,” but despite his promise Murad would have a second, a third, a fourth, and then lose count. When Hamid complained that he’d broken his promise, Murad would laugh and say, “I promised I’d have one glass of cognac, and I kept that promise. My second drink was chartreuse, brother, and the third was Armagnac.” He himself would only have one drink, he didn’t drink much. Once when he wanted to find out why Murad was so fond of drink, they went to the lodge in Maslak and drank like madmen, and at first he liked the feeling of light-headedness, the cheerfulness his melancholy soul was unaccustomed to, and the sense of rising up to the sky. The following day he was punished for this escape with vomiting and cramps, and from then on his wary nature guided him to be more moderate. A single glass of cognac or rum was enough to relax him.

  The former sultan emerged from his reverie and looked around. If they weren’t going to kill him, he had to find a way to get out of this mansion. He thought deeply about this, he looked at it from every angle, but the only conclusion he reached was that as a prisoner there was nothing he could do. The commander and the doctor were the only people he spoke to, there was no way he could get a message to the outside world. Help could only come from outside. The Muslim population of Anatolia was devoted to him; if they saw even the slightest opportunity they would put their caliph back on the throne. His closest friend among the foreign leaders was Kaiser Wilhelm. The kaiser had visited him in Istanbul twice, and they got along well. He’d given his own most valued property in Tarabya to the kaiser so he could build a summer embassy. The kaiser had built a wonderful fountain for him in Istanbul. Later on the kaiser had visited Jerusalem, and had gained admiration for dismounting from his horse and entering the city on foot. Abdülhamid had given his friend a valuable plot of land in Jerusalem on which to build a church, causing envy among the other European leaders. Perhaps the kaiser was already exerting pressure on the government to keep them from killing his old friend. He hoped this was the case; he’d put aside his dreams of regaining power, and all his hopes of remaining alive rested on the kaiser. He wouldn’t have forgotten his old friend, the Germans were a trustworthy people.

  Even though he was a prince, and perhaps because he’d lost his mother, he’d always worried about having enough money, and now this anxiety had returned. The amount of property and wealth he had, he owned land the size of a country, was incalculable. He had to be one of the wealthiest men on earth. However, he presumed it had all been seized by the new government. In these circumstances, he could only rely on the wealth he had in foreign countries. The gold and stocks he held in Deutsche Bank and Credit Lyonnaise must have amounted to quite a fortune.

  His daughters’ fiancés had remained in Istanbul. As a father, he should be arranging weddings for them and building the mansions where they would live. After that it would be his sons’ turn. In addition, he had to support a family of nearly forty people at the Alatini mansion. Fortunately, with his usual prudence, he’d sent some of his wealth to foreign banks and had not kept it all in the empire. He knew that no matter how much he implored his brother, the man wouldn’t give him anything. And perhaps the man was right. Because for thirty-three years he’d kept his younger brother Reşad under house arrest, he hadn’t even allowed him to step foot outside. Now his time had come, and their positions had been reversed. After his older brother Murad had been deposed he was imprisoned for many years at Çirağan Palace, the poor man drew his last breath there. In the old days they would have been killed, they should have been grateful for being allowed to live. But of course the same thing could have been said for him. If it wasn’t for his brother’s compassion and the new customs, he would have long been dead and buried. Indeed they would have killed his sons as well.

  Just as sunlight began to appear through the closed shutters, he heard the call to prayer. The sound spreading out in waves from the mosques of Thessaloniki brought peace to his soul. Now he would perform his ablutions and morning prayers. Praying calmed him even more. But something strange happened, just as he had finished his prayers and was folding his prayer rug, he was surprised to hear cows lowing outside. How had cows gotten past so many soldiers? Someone was calling to the animals and trying to calm them. The strange thing was that the voice sounded like that of Mehmet Efendi, chief of the dairy at the palace. He squinted through the shutters but couldn’t see anything but shadows. Could these be the cows’ shadows? Just then the cows lowed again, then he heard the dairyman’s voice and the squeaking of a wheel. Now he was certain, however they’d got there, there were cows on the grounds of the Alatini mansion. The sultan was accustomed to having animals around him, and he felt a deep sense of peace. Indeed he could smell the horses and the cows.

  The doctor’s revolutionary anger—The miracle of heroin—The bombs on the ship—The doctor joins a secret society

  WITH EVERY PASSING DAY, the doctor felt more anger toward the man he referred to as the “dishonorable dog”; that day, when he left the Alatini mansion burning with revolutionary anger, he muttered to himself that the man thought he was still the sultan. I know French, I know this, I know that. What he’d studied, what he’d learned. Which emperors he’d been friends with…Boorish dog! As the military car made its way through the empty streets he puffed angrily on a cigarette, then stopped and laughed at himself. He’d referred to a member of a dynasty that had ruled for six centuries, to a descendant of Mehmet the Conqueror, as boorish, but then when he thought about it, he realized that the man was in fact boorish. He’s not like his illustrious ancestors.

  The man was a braggart, his ego had been stoked for years, and now the doctor was the only person left to whom he could brag. He’d come close to implying that he knew more about medicine; in fact he actually had implied this. He didn’t approve of the medication he’d been prescribed for his cold; in addition to resorting to frightful, idiotic practices such as cauterization, he did not hesitate to say that a folk remedy he’d learned from the Circassians was the best medicine in the world. You crushed willow bark, mixed it with yogurt, and spread it all over your body. Though when the doctor remembered that willow bark contains salicylic acid he felt a bit embarrassed. Just a few years ago the Bayer company had introduced a new wonder drug called aspirin. It had been invented by a German chemist named Felix Hoffmann, and the main ingredient was the acid in willow bark. But the doctor thought Bayer’s real wonder drug was heroin. It eased people’s pain, especially the wracking pain of the rheumatism that was so common in this climate. Doctors were prescribing it left and right, the pharmacies had trouble maintaining their stocks, he used it himself on occasion. If the sultan or any of his family were in serious pain he would prescribe it to them, but for the man to come out and ask him if he knew French was downright rude. Did he not know that he was talking to a physician who had studied at the Imperial School of Medicine, which the man’s grandfather had founded and where instruction was in French? Had his grandfather Sultan Mahmud not said at the opening ceremony that education would be in French because that was the only way to learn medicine? Had he not proclaimed that medicine in the East had fallen behind? Had the fanatics not dubbed him the “Unbelieving Sultan” for this? This wasn’t the only reason, but it was one of the most significant.

  He surprised the driver by saying, “Oui Sa Majesté Impériale, oui ta! In your eyes I’m just a lowly doctor. Well, do you know what Le Sultan Rouge means?”

  Then he laughed at himself. There was no need to take the man so seriously, no need to get so worked up, he was just a pitiful old prisoner. If he was a pitiful doctor, and he wasn’t, the man was a miserable old prisoner. But the doctor had other matters to concern himself with. He shook his head, said “Quel malheur,” and left the mansion. Ottoman soldiers who had been wounded in clashes with Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, and Montenegrins were waiting for him at the hospital. He would be able to heal some of their wounds, but he was also going to have to amputate some arms and legs.

  Even though Abdülhamid’s brother was now on the throne, the doctor knew that the sultanate was finished, that the Committee for Union and Progress had seized the nation’s destiny.

  It was springtime, and the trees of Thessaloniki were bursting with colorful blossoms as if to celebrate the sultan’s overthrow. Their scent was intoxicating and nourished the doctor’s hopes. Life is good, he thought, it truly is. Even though he’d been born, raised, and educated in Istanbul, he now felt like a native of Thessaloniki. If he wasn’t transferred elsewhere, he would be content to spend the rest of his life in this beautiful city. If he could be united with his beloved, he would bring her here. In any event, the shadow of the sultanate had darkened Istanbul, and the domes, minarets, and palaces served as reminders of painful events from which it would take years to recover. Thessaloniki, on the other hand, was a city of cheer, youth, drink, music, and rebellion.

  On account of this man, half of Istanbul had been spying on the other half, and people’s faces had been darkened by the shadow of betrayal. Family members spied on each other, they ruined the lives of innocent people with unfounded lies in order to get the medals and bags of gold that were distributed left and right. Thousands of denunciations arrived at the palace every day, which were examined and taken seriously, and punishments were meted out without any regard to their veracity. The surest way to punish those with subversive ideas was to cast a wide net and sacrifice the innocent. This was the only way to ensure complete security.

  A pasha’s horse-drawn carriage collided with another carriage, and the passenger in the other carriage was identified as once having met Prince Reşad Efendi. Even though the accident was the fault of the carriage drivers, both passengers were exiled to Fezzan in the Libyan desert.

  Once a report came that there were infectious microbes in the wind blowing from the Asian side of the Bosphorus, so the sultan closed all the doors and windows, had cotton stuffed in the keyholes, and didn’t leave his room for days. One of the strangest denunciations concerned a ship that was sailing to Istanbul from the port of Marseilles. The denunciation, which had been sent from France, claimed that enemies of the sultanate had produced walnut-size bombs in a factory with the aim of assassinating His Imperial Majesty, that these bombs had been packed into crates and loaded on a ship called the Niger, of the Messagerie Maritimes Company, that they would attempt to unload the crates in Istanbul, and if this failed they would be delivered to the Black Sea port of Samsun. This denunciation caused quite a commotion at the palace, and His Imperial Majesty was beside himself. To prevent this treacherous attack, he set up a commission under the direction of a pasha, the Niger‘s every move was tracked from the moment it left Marseilles, every port of call was reported, strict instructions were telegraphed to every Ottoman port in the Mediterranean that the ship was to be observed and that even the smallest item that came off it was to be checked. When the Niger arrived in the port of Istanbul, it was immediately surrounded by spies, officials, and riflemen. According to the rules of the capitulations, they could not board the ship and search it, but everything that came off the ship was examined in detail. In spite of this rigorous scrutiny, nothing resembling a crate of bombs was found. The commission was certain the bombs would be unloaded in Samsun, so they immediately boarded a ship and sailed there. The second part of the denunciation claimed that these bombs, which were small enough to carry in a vest pocket, would be brought to Istanbul on fishing boats, and then—God forbid—the assassination would be carried out. In the end the commission sent a coded telegram to the palace saying that the explosives had been seized. A container being sent to a merchant in Samsun had been labeled in the manifest as carbonic acid. The merchant was immediately arrested and sent to Istanbul, and the container was loaded onto another ship, which was sent to the waters north of the Bosphorus. After waiting there for a time, it was ordered to enter the Bosphorus and anchor off Leander’s Tower. The bombs were then examined at a factory in Zeytinburnu. The report stated that the “bombs” were in fact carbonic acid capsules used in the manufacture of carbonated beverages, but they were nevertheless dumped into the sea and the sultan heaved a sigh of relief.