Return
to the Minister’s Residence for Questioning
The warden had returned to visit me, so I
told him about how I battled
his rats and fleas until an hour before dawn. He ordered some coffee for
me and Mehmed
Çavuş brought it to me. We lit
cigarettes and had a
smoke together.
Then, telling me that a cart was waiting, I washed up,
got dressed and
went with him back to the Minister’s residence, which
was even more beautiful
in the daylight. Entering the residence,
the
same eunuch from the night before ushered me into a room on the left
side
of the staircase. There, the Minister
gave me an especially warm
and respectful welcome. I had
been acquainted with him since
childhood because our fathers were friends, so
this was somewhat of a
reunion of old chums.
Yet, we had only seen each other once before as
adults, when he was the
subdivision governor of Beyoğlu and I was the
head of the School of Industry,
when we chatted for half an hour at a
house in Vefa.
I gauged that there were two reasons for
his graciousness toward me, the
first being our long acquaintance and the other
being the seriousness of
the charges that prompted my arrest. I discounted the second one,
because I knew I
hadn’t done anything wrong. I felt so at
ease in this
regard, that it was I who began the conversation, saying that I
never
thought I would be visiting him under circumstances like these and that
I
was certain he felt the same way.
Nevertheless, I said that I felt lucky
to have the chance to see him
after so long a time.
I told him I was famished, not having
eaten anything since the day before.
In
response, he said he had held off on eating until I arrived, so we made
our way
to the dining room on the ground floor, with a lovely view of the
garden, which
had a German-style design. The
combination of the
handsome dining room, the garden and the food spread on the
table was
more than one could expect of the residence of the Minister of Public
Security. The European-style food, along
with some national dishes, all
prepared by a Turkish cook, made for a delightful
meal. It was quite
evident that the
standards of a Minister’s residence, so dependent on the
occupant, were being
held high by this one. While on the road
the
Minister makes due with cold foods so he makes up for it when at his
residence.
After our meal we had coffee together and
he was quite gracious toward
me. I took
the opportunity to ask him why I had been arrested and, in
reply, he insisted
that I was a guest, not a prisoner.
Countering, I said:
“well, why am I a guest?” The Minister sidestepped an answer, saying
that once we looked at my papers the reason would become clear.
Realizing that he was unwilling to go any
further, I decided not to insist.
I
noted, though, that it would take at least three days to go through my
papers
because they were an accumulation of work since my youth.
In any event, the Minister said “let’s get
started” and ordered the head
policeman and his entourage to assemble in a
nearby room. The Minister
and I entered
the room and were met by the head policeman, a man
named Muharrem Bey, fortyish
and corpulent, with a light brown beard,
and Fuad Bey, a young secretary in the
Ministry, who wore the long
beard as a requirement of his position.
One of the sacks with my papers was opened
and mostly contained
“prospectus” about nature.
The Minister began to personally
examine
these, which, of course, had no relation whatsover to the reason I was
there. Since most of the papers had
German language written on them
and the Minister did not know German, the only
thing he could do
was marvel at the beauty of them. He was quite taken with the
documents and
handled them with great care, which increased my
respect and admiration for
him.
Finally, after having been examined, these
documents were put into
cartons and removed, while the other fellows began to
look at other
documents, separating them into “important” and “ordinary”
piles. The
“important” ones were put on
the couch, while the “ordinary” ones
were flung onto the floor. The “important” pile was quite a bit larger
than the other, prompting me to say to myself how unaware I was of the
importance of my papers. Muharrem Bey
and Fuad Bey considered just
about everything to be “important”, in much the
same way that the night
before Hüseyin Hüsnü Efendi and Hüseyin Daim Bey had
been fixated
on the candle-holder at my house in Aya Stefanos. For example, now
they were quite interested
in papers I had finished writing and others
that remained unfinished, like “The
Manners of Dress” and “A
Slanderer’s Fate”, concluding that these were somehow very
significant.
Hüseyin Efendi, in
particular, being someone who seeks out a prize, felt
that finding letters
written to me would be a great success for him.
After
the Minister finished looking at the nature “prospectus”, he began
to look at
my wallet, which I had turned over to the head policeman
while on the train the
night before. In the wallet, there were
two
photographs belonging to my son Ziya
that he sent from “Falkin
İştayen” ((?)), a copy of a picture of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau in an
Armenian outfit when he fled to Switzerland, a picture of Şenasi
and a
photograph of two women face-to-face.
In particular, the examiners
focused on one of Ziya’s photographs
related to “Falkin İştayen”
because
someone in the photo was wearing a “beret”.
In fact, the head
policeman made sure to bring this particular photo to
the Minister’s
attention, but, even more than I, the Minister seemed to
consider this
trivial. Nevertheless,
since the Minister made no comment, the head
policeman took this to mean that he
needed to increase his efforts to get
the Minister to focus on this photo,
which the head policeman felt was
very important. Finally, after some hesistation and hemming
and
hawing, the head policeman said to the Minister: “isn’t the thing worn
on
the head in this picture strange?”, in
order to emphasize his
concern about it.
At this point, I watched the Minister’s
face carefully. He wasn’t
someone who
suffers fools easily, being quite careful about his
comments and confident in
his own sagacity. Nevertheless, however
much a person is self-possessed he can provoked into losing his patience.
Hüseyin Hüsnü Efendi was assisting the head
policeman on this matter
and, whereas I had known Hüseyin Hüsnü Efendi for just
24 hours, the
Minister had been exposed to his ignorance for five years. So I have a
feeling that if I had not been
there, the Minister would have said to him
“how stupid can you be?!” to put an end to the matter.
perhaps on orders from the head policeman. However, his demeanor
changed to one of rage and hatred in some relation to Ziya’s
photo with
the “beret”, wondering how a father could allow a son to be involved
in
such libidinousness. Consequently, I
felt the need to offer an
explanation to calm their concerns but the Minister
intervened to scold
them all about the time being wasted on looking at the
photographs.
At this point, three bearers entered the
room carrying sacks and Hüseyin
Daim Bey and the Central Police Chief Hüseyin,
who I had seen the night
before, focused on these sacks. The bearers had come from the Sirkeci
train
station so I wondered why these two fellows were so interested in
the
sacks. As the Minister and the head
policeman came into the room,
they whispered something in their ears. The Minister’s face registered
surprise,
whereas the head policeman’s reflected a wry smile. Finally,
the Minister said to me: “they have brought
your papers and drawings.
There’s
probably no need, but since they are here let’s look them over.
We’ll send the
ones in French, German and Engish to those who know
those languages.”
In response, I said: “I don’t
understand. One of the fellows who came
with us last night, Williams, is English and he certainly knows his own
language and probably has a familiarity with German and French, too.
These papers are this year’s picture and I
planned to publish them in a
series.
They saw them in my home last night and could have brought
the books
already bound from previous years, rather than bringing these
loose
papers. Every day such pictures are
brought on the train and
distributed freely by post, so is it just because
these were found in my
home thaat they’re so important? If there was anything mischievous
about them I
would have kept them secretly somewhere.
Only my son
and I are aware of the contents but they are no different
than those seen
by thousands of people in casinos, restaurants and beer joints. So why
are they not gathered up for
investigation, while those in my house are?
Of course, if this is the wish of the government, I submit to these
wishes
voluntarily because I cannot do otherwise.”
//END of PART TWO, section six//
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