A fair-haired, dark and simple-faced man—swaying on his white horse like a bewildered bride and looking ahead, followed by new recruits in fours, also looking ahead like their commander and repeating the piece played by the band:
Our army has sworn an oath, Truth and earth trembled…
They were passing by. After them, a young and excessively blond gentleman in gold-embroidered Turkish clothes, swelling up as if returning from a great victory, followed the military with a crowd of young friends. Behind them, another crowd composed of gypsies and wretches… Then a large red flag appeared. On it were some writings with vowel marks that I couldn’t read. Around the flag, many turbaned heads were waving like large and strange giant daisies, behind them middle school children in khaki clothes, paired up, were shouting and swarming. They were crying out the refrain they kept repeating:
Forward, forward! Let’s take back the old places from the enemy…
They shouted it with such heart and soul that as they passed in front of me, I could see the thin veins swelling in all their weak necks, red sweat flowing from under their fezzes.
This demonstration flow perhaps lasted more than half an hour.
I had drifted off like a dervish who had taken too much opium. I was thinking about my homeland, Turkiye, this sick man believed to surely die, and with a bitter feeling very much resembling despair, I felt all my mentality shrinking, becoming inoperative. The room door opened. The Greek hotelier said the horses were ready.
I was going to Razlık. So I would see tonight’s national celebration there… I immediately got dressed. While dressing, I drank the milk coffee the hotkeeper brought in one gulp.
And I fell into that strange and sad reverie again!
An hour later, I was climbing the steep hill leading to Papazbayırı. I had dismounted from my horse. The weather was very beautiful. There wasn’t even a small cloud in the sky. The white border towers on the ridges were shining, and whenever a light wind blew, it seemed to increase the heat of the sun. I was walking inside a stream ravine. Stones large and small were hurting my feet, preventing the horses from walking. There were no roads here at all. Not even a goat path… I was looking around; the places I saw didn’t resemble at all that famous orange-like earth we used to imagine with such importance when reading geography books as children. It was as if I was on a corner of a sphere where no humans or animals lived, for example, on a corner of the moon said to be dead and frozen. Stones, stones, stones… Yellow and barren lands, weak and skinny trees, bushes, shrubs, more shrubs. Only the telegraph poles rose like large and orphaned exclamation marks erected on the vague traces of the civilization phantom that had once mistakenly passed through these climates, lined up one after another toward the forested horizons where it had fled.
And the travelers all walked along the base of these dead poles that had turned pitch black under the sun, cold, wind, blizzard, and snow. After sweating thoroughly and losing my breath, I reached the top. I was going to stop to rest. A little ahead I saw a horseman. From his clothes and the glint of his sword, I understood he was an officer. He too had dismounted, was resting and rolling a cigarette from his tobacco pouch. I went to him. Among Turks, there’s no need for “introduction and formality.” I love this informality of ours very much and find it very sincere. I approached. I greeted him. I asked where he was going. He answered with a smile:
“To Razlık, sir, and you?”
“Me too.”
“Then we’ll go together.”
This was a handsome, brownish, medium-height lieutenant. The large and upright head on his broad and full shoulders, the melancholy stillness of captive tigers whose morals have been corrupted by whips in circuses, was recalled by his large and black eyes. We started talking. Like all Turkish officers, he gave great importance to his own knowledge and logic, his own convictions, and was looking for an opportunity to argue. We sat on a stone there. We lit our cigarettes. From here and there… We opened the subject from politics. I said that July 10th was appreciated even in these parts.
The lieutenant, as if his soul was troubled by my surprise, said, “Ah, what are you saying? To appreciate July 10th…” he said, “is this even a question? This is our greatest, most glorious, most sublime day, our most sacred national holiday. I wish it were three days… Because one day and one night is too little…”
“So you give such importance to July 10th?” I smiled, and since I liked to anger nervous debaters by saying the opposite of their claims, I added: “And how is this a national holiday? Which nation’s holiday?”
“The Ottoman nation’s…”
“By saying Ottoman nation, do you mean Turks?”
“No, absolutely not… All Ottomans…”
In the young lieutenant’s dark black eyes, it was as if a fanatical fire blazed. He was looking like an old-time Muslim whose religion had been blasphemed. I suddenly decided to confuse his emotional logic with questions without starting an argument: “Who are all Ottomans?”
“Strange question! Arabs, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Vlachs, Jews, Armenians, Turks… In short, all of them…”
“So these are all one nation?”
“Without doubt…”
I laughed again:
“But I have doubts.”
“Why?”
“Tell me, aren’t the Armenians a nation?”
He paused a bit. He answered with hesitation.
“Yes, they are a nation.”
“Are Albanians also a nation?”
“Albanians too.”
“Well, Bulgarians?”
“Bulgarians too…”
“Serbs?”
“Of course Serbs too.”
Laughing and shaking my head, “Then you have no faith in mathematical and positive truths,” I said. He didn’t understand what I meant. He looked at my face. I continued.
“Let’s forget geometry, algebra, triangulation. In fact, you don’t know arithmetic. You don’t know the ‘addition’ rule of arithmetic. Or you know it but you don’t believe that these are correct and fundamental things.”
The lieutenant’s gaze completely changed. He thought I was making fun of him. Before giving him a chance to get angry, I continued.
“Don’t misunderstand. Just answer me. Can you remember the ‘addition’ rule in arithmetic?”
“!!!”
“Let me tell you. Of course you can’t deny it. Things of the same kind can be added. For example, ten chestnuts, eight chestnuts, nine chestnuts! They all make twenty-seven chestnuts, right?”
“Yes…”
“Things that are not of the same kind cannot be added. For example, ten chestnuts, eight pears, nine apples… How will you add them? This is not possible. And just as this impossibility is a mathematical and unbreakable rule, it is equally impossible to add together nations whose histories, traditions, inclinations, institutions, languages, and ideals are different from each other and make one nation from all of them. If you add these nations together and call them ‘Ottoman,’ you would be mistaken.”
The lieutenant had forgotten his cigarette. He was looking at my face as if astonished, and to turn his astonishment at this simple and ordinary truth that he undoubtedly heard for the first time into stupefaction, I continued my explanation more detailed and heated. I brought many examples, saying that the word “Ottomanism” was nothing more than a political term, that the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, all those awakened nations today who are our former slaves, could have no more natural, more reasonable, more logical, more rightful ideal than to take revenge on the Turks and unite with their own true brothers, with the Balkan governments.
But I understood very well from his eyes, from his sudden confusion, that the lieutenant didn’t understand. Our cigarettes had finished. Finally, “I cannot argue with you,” he said, “because our ideas are completely opposite…”
And he stood up. I stood up too. Taking our horses by the bridle, we started walking along the edge of a sharp and rocky ridge. I was looking at his face sideways without showing it. He was very distressed, always looking at the ground. As if wanting to say something, he would sometimes stop, then as if giving up, would continue walking quickly again. Again I broke the silence: “Indeed our ideas are opposite, but my dear, you can’t deny, mine are correct, aren’t they?”
“No, absolutely not correct,” he said. From the hill we were climbing, the lower areas were now visible, the white gendarmerie station above Karaali Inns, the pebbly stream flowing toward Simith was shining, in the distance, in the disproportionate and empty spaces of sparse and dense forests, small villages like piles of burnt wood were visible. Wiping my sweat that started flowing again as soon as I stood up with my wet handkerchief, I insisted again.
“But why, my dear, why isn’t it correct?…”
The lieutenant was irritated. “Excuse me but…” he started. And he overflowed: if my claim were true, wouldn’t so many great men accept it? He called all old and new government officials “great men.” Especially, if the idea of “Ottomanism” were as empty, artificial, and illusory as I said, would all political parties, favorable and opposing, make this the basis of their programs? Was there no one left in Turkiye? Was everyone mistaken?
As he spoke, he considered himself right in his defense and logic, and the more he thought himself right, the more he overflowed, and somewhat mockingly said, “So everyone in great Turkiye is ignorant and only you are learned. Everyone is mistaken, everyone is deceived, and only you understand the truth, I congratulate you, I congratulate you then…” The road suddenly turned. We had to cross a deep stream ravine. We stopped. If we walked straight, the horses’ feet would be injured. Perhaps they would fall. We were looking around.
The lieutenant, rejoicing and laughing, shouted, “Ah look, my dear…” he cried, “look, there’s the witness of Ottomanism!”
With his finger, he was pointing to a small Bulgarian village on the edge of a precipitous ravine about a thousand meters ahead. In this ruin standing like sweepings among a few black and tilled little fields, there were also a few trees. I was looking with inattentive eyes.
The lieutenant, rubbing his hands as if clapping them, said, “Ah, don’t you see,” he said, “don’t you see? Don’t you see those red, red freedom flags waving in that little village? Don’t you see those red flags celebrating today, this great and sacred day when Ottomans showed the world that they are each other’s most sincere and true brothers, July 10th?”
I was paying attention, looking carefully. Red flags were hanging on a building in the middle of the village!
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“I wonder if these are freedom flags?” I said. The lieutenant overflowed. He didn’t overflow, he almost gushed.
“You’re blind, my dear, stone blind. Don’t bother looking in vain. You don’t have the aptitude to see truths. Are you still doubting? Yes, these are freedom flags. That Ottoman-Bulgarian village lost on the mountaintop is sanctifying July 10th. Don’t you believe it? Aren’t they Ottomans? Tomorrow when enemies attack the Ottoman homeland, they will run before you, they will shed blood in the name of Ottomanism, they will save Ottomanism with their blood…”
I couldn’t contain myself:
“These Bulgarians?…”
“Yes, these Bulgarians! These are the most loyal Ottomans. They have no relationship with the Comitadjis at all. They hate the Comitadjis. They consider July 10th the most sacred day. But you are fanatical. You don’t believe. You still say like our foolish and ignorant fathers, ‘No coat from pig leather, no friend from infidels…’ and mock the ideas of civilization, humanity, brotherhood, equality that the great twentieth century has produced. You cannot accept that all Ottomans are brothers. Look here. This tiny village is celebrating this day with red flags. Who knows how they’ll have fun tonight, how they’ll drink and shout ‘Long live Ottomanism, down with discord!’ in honor of this great day…”
I was silent and listening. The lieutenant was overflowing, describing the dream of Ottomanism that waved with the illusions and mirages of the Tanzimat talisman, its sweet deliriums, saying that no one could defeat the great Ottoman nation anymore. We were still standing across from the Bulgarian village, on whose hilltop red flags could be seen in the distance. Suddenly he took my hand.
“Would you like us to go there,” he said, “you’ll see with your own eyes how strong and pure the Ottomanism you can’t believe in is. Don’t be lazy. Let’s go, let’s congratulate these honorable Ottomans, these loyal peasant Ottomans. Let’s embrace for this great day…”
He was pleading more. Indeed, the village was only about a thousand meters away. But the stream in between was very steep. It would take at least an hour to get there. We would lose about an hour and a half from our route. I didn’t want to. I said we’d be late to Razlık. The lieutenant was pleading and insisting, he absolutely wanted to show me these poor people’s sincerity and loyalty. The more I told him to give up, that I accepted his ideas, that I was of the same opinion with him, that my previous words were nothing but a joke, the more he insisted. Finally, I couldn’t resist. “Let’s go then,” I said.
He in front, I behind, we descended as if rolling into a deep precipice. The stream was bone dry. The sun had heated the surrounding stones and sandy earth piles, turning them into an oven. Our horses, as if astonished by this inappropriate journey, would sometimes stop, didn’t want to come. At the bottom of the stream, we found the road going up to the village. We would climb as much as we had descended. Our breaths were stopping, every twenty steps we were resting, climbing again holding stones and bush roots. Earth pieces were rolling from under our feet, lizards were running away, hiding among the hazelnuts. The narrow road became very steep. And we were now taking the hill. One effort, one more effort… We climbed onto a slight plateau. This was in front of the village. At the edges of newly opened fields, large manure piles stood. There were only twenty or thirty steps to the house with the red freedom flags. We stopped. A weak, yellow-haired and large dog that suddenly saw us started barking and jumping on us. Pigs of various sizes stirring manure with their noses were looking with tiny eyes, with curiosity and interest, as if saying “Who are these?” But a little further away, at the end of the field, the Bulgarian working with a hoe, as if not hearing the dog’s barking, wasn’t looking at us at all, wasn’t even curious who we were.
I looked at the flags hung to celebrate the July 10th holiday. These were strings of red peppers hung in the sun to air… A yellow-brown woman with rolled-up sleeves, dirty, visible from the low door, was watching us with treacherous and blue eyes like a heated wild animal, purposely not calling the dog that was barking, jumping, and going mad around us. The lieutenant, now seeing what he thought were freedom flags really were, was biting his lips, turning pale yellow. In a bewildered voice, he said to the Bulgarian in the field, “May your work be easy, gospodin!”
The Bulgarian still wasn’t leaving his work, wasn’t turning his head to look at us. Still without turning his face, in a harsh accent as ugly as a curse, he shouted, “Neznam Turkish, bre…”
I and the lieutenant had frozen in place. We stood like that. As if we’d been shot. The tableau wasn’t changing. The woman was looking at us with the same treacherous eyes, the dog that growled more as it thrashed around us continued barking, the pigs, as if understanding we were very ordinary and unimportant creatures, imitating their owners, were giving up looking at us and starting to search for their eternal food in the manure. The Ottoman-Bulgarian citizen working in the field wasn’t turning to look even once, was busy with his hoe. I pulled the lieutenant by the arm.
“Come on, let’s go now,” I said. He didn’t answer. He followed me. His smoky eyes were on the ground. There was no longer any strength or joy in him or in me to argue. Like innocent animals left in the deserted precipices of a hell, uncomprehending and distracted, we entered the precipice again. We started sliding down the roads we had climbed.
When we reached the hilltop, the goat path going to Karaali Inns, I turned back. I looked at the village remaining on the other side of the stream. Indeed, these red pepper strings, bitter as poison, from afar were shining very attractively like red freedom flags, giving one the desire to applaud something no matter what, to shout “Long live! Long live!”
Ömer Seyfettin
