Tariq Ali - The Stone Woman

Last week my sister’s house was set on fire in the middle of the night. As her sons and their wives rushed out to escape the fire they were ambushed and killed. The same thing happened to all the other Armenians in the village. I told Halil Pasha last night. He sat at the table with his head in his hands and moaned. “The Empire is crumbling, Petrossian, and everyone is trying to get something for himself before a new order is restored. I am truly sorry, but there is nothing I can do at the moment.” When Halil Pasha, who is a general, says he can do nothing to stop the killing of my people, what hope is there for us? I am an old man and will die soon, but my sons and grandsons want to make a new life.

Everyone is beginning to make stupid politics. Now my own sons want to engage in politics. They say it is the only way. What good has that ever done? My oldest boy has joined a group newly formed to fight for the creation of our own country. He says Armenians all over the world will support us. His older brother has already fled across the border to Russia.

My son-in-law says we must fight but stay within the Ottoman lands, fighting for our own vilayets in Anatolia to be given the status of a self-governing province with our own governor. He says a complete separation between the Ottoman lands and Armenia is impossible. Our people and lands are mixed everywhere.

He wants us to become Dashnaks. We must join the Dashnakzouthion, which is in favour of working with the Committee to defeat the Sultan. In Russia, he tells me, the Dashnaks are on the side of the Social-Democrats, whoever they may be, and against the Tsar. I have never heard talk of this sort before. If my own family is in politics something must have changed.

What is going to happen, Stone Woman? The whole world is falling apart.

All my life I have lived in this house. I have been treated well. My sons refused to stay here. They asked me many times to leave the house and come and live with them. They said that the world had changed and they had earned enough money for me to live in peace for the rest of my days. I told them I felt safe in this house. If I had been in that village with my sister I, too, would have died. Now my sons want me to leave Istanbul. One of them sells carpets in Cairo. He wants me to go and live with his family, but I don’t know his family, Stone Woman. This family in this house is the only family I really know. I do not wish to leave Iskander Pasha. Am I wrong?’

Selim is so impressed by the Paris journals of Iskander Pasha that he reads them twice; the Baron explains why the Parisian crowd was different from Istanbul; the troubled life of General Halil Pasha

SELIM HAD REFUSED TO be distracted. For over an hour he had been reading and re-reading the journal that the French woman had returned to Iskander Pasha. My father had placed the journal in the library. I had lifted it up immediately and brought it to our room so we could read it together when we were in bed. Selim had betrayed me. He had started reading the entries while I was putting the children to bed and was halfway through his second reading, refusing to share it with me. When he had finished I snatched the notebook away from him, but he was in a daze.

“Don’t sulk with me, princess. I was in a trance because Hasan Baba was also in Paris at the same time and talked of those months a great deal. Do you know when your father wrote these?”

I shook my head.

“In 1871. Paris was under siege by the Prussians. The self-proclaimed French Emperor, Napoleon the Third, fell and the crown slipped off his head. A republic was proclaimed and then something truly amazing happened: there was an uprising by the poor of the city, who realised that there was nothing to choose between the rich inside Paris and the Prussians at the gates. Hasan Baba always claimed that he had helped to build one of the barricades of the poor. I never really believed him. I thought it was a fantasy. He would have liked to, but could not. Your father’s journal confirms the story. I’m really proud of Hasan Baba, Nilofer. Read it for yourself. Please.”

To his great annoyance, I refused to read the journal that night. Instead, I fell asleep. The next morning I was woken by the noise of the birds. The sea was stormy and the seagulls were flying inland. I dressed and went down for breakfast with the journal. A strong wind was gathering pace outside and the curtains were flying everywhere. Inside, the servants were busy making sure the windows were firmly shut and the doors were bolted.

I was alone. None of the others had yet come down. I was not very hungry and poured myself a bowl of coffee and hot milk. I read the journal sitting at the table. It was a strange sensation. A storm was developing at sea and I was sitting comfortably reading about another storm of which I know nothing:

3 September 1870

I never thought the routines and the life I lead as an ambassador would permit me any space to write a diary, but these are amazing times. Today this pathetic and vainglorious figure that styled itself the “Emperor of France” was captured and his general defeated by the Prussians. Another triumph for Bismarck Pasha!

I went out for a stroll to gauge the mood of the people. Everyone looked depressed and the newspaper sellers were almost assaulted, so great was the urge to read about the day’s events. I heard many people denouncing their own side much more vigorously than the Prussians. A few shopkeepers had banners outside their shops, which read “Vive Trochu”. Trochu is the military governor of Paris and the man on whom a great deal now depends. In the afternoon a very large crowd marched through the streets demanding the creation of a republic. The French will never give up on their republics. We could learn something from them in this regard.

I am totally cut off from Istanbul as a result of the siege and I must admit it feels rather nice.

4 September 1870

Yesterday they demanded a republic and today it was proclaimed outside the Chamber, where a very large crowd had expectantly assembled. I was not present but Hasan, my barber, returned and gave me a complete account. This Sufi mystic is rapidly becoming a revolutionary. Since the embassy is paying his salary at the moment, I wonder whether his growing involvement might create a diplomatic scandal at a later stage. He tells me that there was applause all along the Place de la Concorde at the news. People began to tear the blue and white away from the tricolour, leaving the red intact. Hasan claims that the gilt N’s on the railings of the Tuileries were being painted over and covered with crowns of flowers, supplies of which, unlike the food in this city, were never depleted. Hasan joined the mob as it invaded the palace and saw the establishment of a “Citizens’ Guard”. He says they were so impressed by his solidarity that they wanted to elect him to the Guard, but he declined, fearful of damaging my status here.

Excited by these reports I ventured out incognito into the streets, dressed in modest French clothes. It was a very hot and humid Paris today. Outside the Hotel de Ville there was a very large assembly. Spontaneously they began to sing the Marseillaise. This is how it must have been in 1789. Strange how these people feel their history instinctively; it is in their bones. The flower-sellers have joined this revolution. They are only selling red button-holes today and the Prussians are only four days’ marching distance from the city. Only the French could topple their king in these circumstances. How I envy them this capacity.

Later I attended a dinner at the Montmorencys. Yvette is as well endowed as ever and the wine flowed as usual, but the mood here was very different from that on the streets. I controlled myself with some difficulty. The others were desolate. An elderly French gentleman spoke of the Germans with respect, saying that “only Bismarck can save us from this rabble”. Yvette, feeling the need to speak, suggested that it might be better if the French generals dealt with the mob themselves; that if Thiers, who is an old family friend, were given his instructions there might be some blood on the streets but it would be cleansing. Then “we would all be ready to go and fight the Prussians”. I suggested that the Prussian might be able to resist the French army, but Yvette might well conquer them. Apart from her nobody else smiled at my remark. My host, the Vicomte Montmorency, said that the noisy mob will only create havoc.