Tariq Ali - The Stone Woman

Iskander Pasha laughed. “This young man will go far if he learns to control his tongue and doesn’t expect the moon to fall into his lap immediately. I am truly pleased. Hasan Baba is almost a member of the family and, as you know, I have been very close to him for many years. The news has made him weep with joy. Nilofer, you must please go downstairs. Your brothers are questioning Selim, and the Baron and Memed are already celebrating with another bottle and are waiting to congratulate you. I need to speak with your mother alone.”

A full-scale discussion was in progress when I reached the library, but my entrance froze them. The Baron rose and proposed a toast to Selim and me. Hasan Baba came and kissed my head. Halil put his arms around me and whispered.

“At least we’ll all be present this time.”

Salman waved from the corner. Selim appeared to be embarrassed and averted his eyes from mine. His over-confident demeanour had momentarily disappeared. I had surprised him. He never really believed I would go this far so soon. Now he was confronted with a decision I had made. It was the Baron who was the first to speak.

“My dear Nilofer, we have been discussing when you two should get married. There is a great difference of opinion on this subject and a fierce argument was raging when you appeared on the scene like a Greek goddess. Memed was for October, which he says, and here I agree with him, is a beautiful month in Istanbul. Salman is indifferent. Halil prefers September since he is on military manoeuvres later in October and naturally assumes that his new Adjutant Selim will be at his side. Have you a preference?”

I assumed there might be many difficulties to negotiate before the ceremony and for that reason I had not thought of an actual date. I decided to surprise them all, including myself.

“Why not tomorrow afternoon in this very room? I will tell the children in the morning.”

The Baron roared. “The girl has courage. Let us agree!”

Uncle Memed smiled. “Fine. Then, at least, I will not be disturbed at an unearthly hour every night as some young blade tries to tiptoe his way up to your bedroom. Let tonight be a night of rest and tomorrow we will dance and sing.”

I felt myself blushing and looked in the large mirror to confirm that this was indeed the case. The Baron and Memed had known all along. No matter how large the house, it could not hold any secrets. Selim was standing near the window. As I joined him we looked at each other and began to laugh. Uncle Memed’s voice interrupted our tiny moment of privacy.

“Have you ever read Stendhal on love, Baron?”

“No,” said the Baron. “And I do not intend to do so. I’m amazed that you have wasted your time on Stendhal. He wrote too much and at too great a speed. His books were not in our house in Berlin. The only French novelists permitted in our library are Balzac and Flaubert and of the two, Flaubert is the true genius.”

“What about Rimbaud and Verlaine, Baron?” inquired Salman. “Are they permitted in your library?”

“I was speaking of novelists, Salman Pasha.” The Baron’s tone indicated that he was not in a mood to be trifled with today. “Of course the poets you mention are present, but I find Verlaine too luscious for my taste. The English romantics, Shelley and Keats, have produced much better verse. Forgive an old man his prejudices, Salman, but we Germans are terribly spoilt. After Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin and Heine it is difficult for us to take the French versifiers too seriously. There is Pushkin, of course, and he is a totally different matter, though I do sometimes wonder how much of the music in his verse is inherited from his African forebear and how much has been inspired by that cursed primeval darkness they call Russia.”

Before we could discuss Stendhal’s exclusion from the Baron’s library in Berlin, Iskander Pasha entered the room to ask if we had decided on a date for the wedding. He was greatly amused by the suggestion that the event was planned for the following day. When he realised we were serious he remained unruffled and turned to Hasan Baba.

“Do we need a beard to officiate or can you manage on your own, Hasan? I doubt whether anyone else present knows the words of the prayer for the occasion.”

Hasan Baba’s face was wreathed in smiles. “You know as well as I that our religion was not made for priests and monks. In fact they could be married without the prayer that was instituted much later. These things were invented so we could compete with the Christians. If they had priests, we needed our own. In our faith there is no divide between the spiritual and the temporal.”

“That has been a big problem,” said Halil.

“I do not want a debate on theology tonight,” Iskander Pasha intervened rapidly to guillotine the discussion. “All I want to know is who will perform the marriage ceremony. It’s a practical question. If a beard is needed we shall have to send a messenger tonight.”

“I will marry these children,” said Hasan Baba. “Provided we have two reliable witnesses I don’t need anything else. I would suggest Iskander Pasha and General Halil Pasha as the witnesses. That will suffice.”

I ran to tell Sara that we had agreed on a day and time, but she was already fast asleep and snoring gently. I went to my room in a slightly uneasy mood. I was sure of Selim, but something still bothered me. Why? I should be jubilant, singing tunes of infinite rapture, just like the celebrated birds in Sufi poetry. Everything was being done so that it accorded with my needs. I was puzzled as to why none of them had objected to Selim’s pedigree. Ten years ago edicts would have been issued. Disdainful eyes would have looked at me across the breakfast table accusingly for polluting our family by marrying a barber whose family had cut our hair for centuries. What had changed them all? Was it their own life experiences and the passage of time that had mellowed them — or was it something much greater than any individual? Was it the impending collapse of the Empire and the Ottoman civilisation of which we had been a part for a very long time and without which we would be sucked into a vortex of uncertainties?

I now realised that it was the ease with which my family had agreed to the match that made me uneasy. Whatever the reason, I was pleased and my mood changed. I was looking out of the window in a slight daze when I felt two gentle hands cupping my breasts. I screamed and the hands covered my mouth.

“Selim!”

“Did you think that I would be so overpowered by sentimentality that I would really stay away tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you were wrong. Are you glad you were wrong?”

“Yes. But before you take your clothes off I want to know why you agreed to join the army.”

“To make it easier for everyone. They can say that Nilofer is married to a young officer under Halil. It sounds better than saying: ‘Nilofer is marrying our barber’s grandson. Yes, he’s a barber too and it will be so convenient for us because, from now on, we won’t need an outsider for the circumcisions.’”

I couldn’t help laughing, because he was mimicking my mother’s voice perfectly, but I knew instinctively that the joke was designed to conceal the truth. He would never have agreed to join the army to help preserve our family’s pride. On the contrary, he would have used the very words he put in my mother’s mouth himself whenever we had company simply in order to shock their sensibilities.

“I don’t believe you, Selim. I want the truth.”

“The officers are planning to get rid of the Sultan, his court, the clergy, their privileges, and who knows what else will fall when we push him off his throne? There is no political party in our country like the German Social Democratic Party or the French Socialist Party. Perhaps there never will be such a party, but till one comes into existence the army is a good place for me.