//Ed. note: After a search of Ebüzziya Tevfik's home,
not without comic relief, he is brought back to Istanbul
for a night in jail and interrogations.//
This
Russian map focuses on San Stefano (Aya Stefanos), where the
agreement ending
the Russian-Turkish “War of ’93” (1877-78) was
signed. The map serves to show almost all the venues
of Ebüzziya
Tevfik’s narrative. His Aya
Stefanos is at left on the shore of the Sea
of Marmara and Makriköy (now Bakirköy)
is a bit up the coast to
the right, toward the historic Istanbul peninsula,
where the Central
Prison and the residence of the Minister of Public Security
were
located. Across the Golden
Horn is the Galata-Beyoğlu section of
the city, the site of Ebüzziya Tevfik’s
print shop and his initial arrest.
His
discussion with the European ambassador occurred at Tarabya,
off the map
but further up the Bosphorus, upper
right, toward the
Black Sea.
In response, I said “let them take
them. They shouldn’t have come here
in
the first place but now that they turned my 25-year old valuables –
which I
wouldn’t even let you touch – into a travesty just let them do
whatever they
want.”
Next, they searched the shelf cabinets
above the desk, which I opened
for them.
There were three copies of an old
‘tefsir-i şerif’ ((Koranic
interpretation)) in one cabinet and there were a
couple of boxes with
old currency notes and stocks, long out of
circulation. In addition, there
two
revolvers but they didn’t touch either of them.
Opening another
cabinet, they found three boxes of ‘Havana’ cigars and
five or six other
types of cigars and cigarette plates, along with a few other
items and a
‘veyuzfar’, a candle-holder.
Both of the Hüseyin’s and Henry were
quite lacking in discernment of any
kind and either startled or
befuddled by whatever they saw, considering
anything and everything
suspicious for no good reason. For them, anything they could not
identify
with familiarity must be a vehicle for mischief.
In this same vein, they weren’t the least
bit interested in the revolvers
because they were very familiar with guns. As for the candle-holder,
though, that they
found suspicious because it did not resemble the
candle-holders in their home,
the little ones in prison cells or the tin
lamps in the police barracks. For them this candle-holder was certainly
like
a bomb that anachists use – just look at its round shape, the finger-
thin lens
in its box. There was no doubt, as far
as they were concerned,
that this was something to be used to light a fire with
sunlight, a
smaller version of the ‘Ayine-i İskender’ ((the mirror of Alexander
the Great)).
Hüseyin Hüsnü Efendi, somewhat amazed and
confused, said to me:
“Sir, what is this?”
In response, I told him the word “veyuzfar” is
French and that it could
be found in a “bonmarşe” ((department store)).
Meanwhile, Ziya was having a good laugh and he said to me in French:
“Too
bad about our police force! They’ve assigned such dolts to do this
important
work!” He was lamenting the fact that
the state’s most
important business had been left in their hands. Then, in Turkish Ziya
said: “these guys don’t
know anything. They shouldn’t have been
given
this job.” I hadn’t even been able
to get across the meanings of
“veyuzfar” and “bonmarşe” to them. Consequently, the job of searcher
was beyond
their ken and this was especially true for Hüseyin Hüsnü
Efendi.
In any case, they filled some blankets
that the housekeep brought with
the documents they had taken out of the
desk. The time was approaching
10
o’clock and the head policeman said to me: “what time does the train
leave?” Responding, I told him that the last
passenger train had left for
Istanbul an hour and a half ago but that there was
a “marşandiz”
((freight)) train at ten that, given his police status, he and
his team would
be able to board. It was now a quarter to ten.
Because time was so short, they left the
room in a tumultuous state and
sealed the door and had our poor cook carry the
blankets filled with
documents whether he wanted to or not. They treated him no better than
a dog. As for me, I was even more eager than them to
go and find out
what had prompted their search.
When they had come they brought with them a
Gendarmerie captain
and he now remained at the house. The reason, which they explicitly
and
impertinently announced, was that this was
a precaution against my son purloining any
incriminating documents
from the crates that we weren’t able to open because
the women of the
house were away, or from my wardrobe. Hearing this, my son and I
just chuckled,
kissed each other and parted ways.
Since Ziya was well aware of the law, he
gave the Gendarmerie officer
food and a blanket, spoke to the housekeeper and
the cook and then
retired to his room.
Our household helpers were quite cross with the
searchers, who had
treated them disrespectfully. Subsequently, the cook
gave a complaint
statement about Hüseyin Hüsnü Efendi,
who he said
has struck him, in violation of the law, at some point in the past
over a
pass dispute of some sort, when Hüseyin Hüsnü was in charge of an
investigation . In any event, they
locked the kitchen and went to their
rooms. Until morning, this Gendarmerie captain spent his time
half-
asleep roaming between my room’s door and the front door, according
to
what Ziya gleefully told me the next day at the residence of the
Minister of
Public Security.
The train came at ten o’clock and the
police team asked to be allowed
to board based on their official status. Permission was given but being
a ‘furgon’ ((freight
train)), there were no accommodations for passengers
and consequently no place
to sit, so I got a chair from the station
coffeehouse for myself to sit
on. The policemen showed their passes
but I insisted on buying a ticket for documentation’s sake. And although
the station chief said that he
would make a note about the matter in his
journal and that I did not need a
ticket, I wouldn’t budge. Finally, they
sold me a third-class ticket, which I kept for my records.
The freight train moved slowly, stopping
at Makriköy ((Bakırköy)),
Yedikale, Yenikapı and Kumkapı to either leave
frieght cars or pick
them up. As a
result, the one-hour trip to Istanbul became a two-hour
trip. At the Kumkapı station, the train stopped for
a longer while
because the head policeman insisted on chatting with the
station’s police
chief, rather than the underling who came. The head policeman was told
that the station
police chief was asleep in the guard shack since the last
passenger train had
come two hours before. Enraged, the head
policeman declared that “both of you are obliged to be here when a train
comes!
Is this the way you perform your duty?!”
Not the least bit
intimidated, the underling explained that “our duty
ends with the
passenger trains. Since
the freight trains carry no passengers, there’s no
one for us to be on the
lookout for. You can go to any station
at this
hour and you’ll find that the police are all sleeping.”
Nevertheless, the head policeman was
adamant and said “look, you see
that we have gotten off this train as
passengers!” But the underling was
equally insistant, declaring that “No sir! Policemen are not considered
passengers. If we get an order in the
evening about something, then of
course we’ll be on the job till morning.”
When this discourse about duty was finally
concluded, we got back on
the freight train.
I took the opportunity to say to the head policeman:
“That fellow was in
the right. In fact, he was so proud that
he was doing
his duty properly that he refused to be intimidated by you,
leaving none
of your criticisms unanswered.
If I were you, I would be giving such
employees commendations and even more
important work to do.” In
response, the
head policman swallowed both my harangue and the
underling’s rebellious
attitude, admitting somewhat sheepishly that “he
was in the right, but they
ought to have hosted us since we’re on the
road like this.”
Soon afterwards, at about midnight, we
reached Sirkeci train station but
we didn’t stop where the passenger trains
park. Instead, we parked in
the rear
section of the old station on the sea side in front of the customs
depot. Since it was the middle of the night, there
were no bearers or
carts so Hüseyin Hüsnü and Hüseyin Daim had to lug the sacks
of
documents to the police barracks at the new station. At the same time,
I was continually
admonishing them with fake politeness to carry the
sacks high to make sure that
the documents did not get rumpled. When
we got to the station, the chief was just coming off duty and ready to
sleep
but when his men saw their bosses carrying the heavy sacks they
rushed to
relieve them of them.
A cart was summoned from the bridgehead
and I boarded, with the
sacks of documents next to me. Hüseyin Hüsnü sat in the
back and
Hüseyin Daim on the side of the cart. Then the driver was ordered to
“head for the Minister of Public Security’s guesthouse at Hoca Hanı!”
Along the way there were no people on the
street, with gas lamps
burning here and there.
Even the dogs that usually chase carts were
missing.
We
headed toward Bab-ı Ali ((seat of the Ottoman Government)) and
the Düyun-ı
Umumiye ((Public Debt)) building, a symbol of the
inexorable catastrophe that
had befallen the Ottoman State. As we
passed the Arakel Kitabhanesi ((Arakel bookstore)), there were some
gas lamps
burning in print shops along ‘tarik-i matbaası’ ((road full of
print shops)). There was a good possibility that the censor
was hard at
work ‘rectifying’ someone’s article. I thought about my own shop here
21 years
ago when I was putting out the ‘Sirac’
newspaper. Then, on the
6th of April, a Sunday evening, an inspector named Akif
came to take
me to the Central Prison and three days later I said farewell to
Istanbul
for three and a half years in exile ((Rhodes)). At that time, I had been
implicated in
something. Now I wondered whose target I
had become
for slander. I had not seen
this coming and ought to be home relaxing
with my family.
//END of PART TWO, section three//
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