Without a Country Page 16

  “I did what you said you wanted.”

  “I only ever wanted you, Demir. Ever since we were kids.”

  “Then why did you act like you wanted to get rid of me?”

  “I wanted you to react, to protest, to ask how I could say such a thing.”

  “I thought you were letting me know I didn’t stand a chance.”

  “How could you think that?”

  “You’re the daughter of a German professor. I’m the son of a guy who sells fabric in the back streets of Pera.”

  “Don’t even try it, Demir. Your father owns tons of land in his home province. That’s what your mother told my mother.”

  “I’m comparing their educations, not their incomes.”

  “What difference does it make? It sounds to me like you were looking for an excuse.”

  “I have something to say, Suzi. Let’s get engaged right away, before we can have another misunderstanding.”

  “Demir, that’s what I wanted you to say that day.”

  “In front of all those people?”

  “We grew up with them.”

  “Some things should be done in private.”

  Demir leaned over and kissed her again.

  “We need to figure out how to get home,” he said.

  They got up and went to the door. Demir slid the bolt and pushed the door open a crack. Then he quickly shut it and locked it again.

  “It’s as bad as before,” he said. “We’ll have to stay here a while longer.”

  “Demir, I want to see Madame.”

  “We’ll never find a cab. The buses and trams won’t be running, either. I still don’t understand what’s going on out there.”

  “How much longer do you think we’ll have to wait?”

  “As long as it takes. Until things calm down.”

  “We know every back alley in this neighborhood. Don’t you think we could get as far as Grenadier Street?”

  “We could try,” Demir said, unlocking the door again. “Wait here. You can’t go anywhere without shoes.” A moment later, he was back with a pair of sandals.

  “Winter’s coming soon. They wouldn’t have found a buyer, anyway.”

  “How did you know my size?” she asked as she slipped them on.

  “I know everything about you, Suzi. Come on, let’s go.”

  The sidewalks were strewn with cloth, shoes, hats, underwear . . . Two women filed past with a wooden pole of some kind hoisted between them. Over it, they had draped dresses, suits, and sweaters. Others were on their knees, picking through the piles of plunder to find bracelets and rings. The reprimands and cluckings of a few ordinary citizens were ignored by the scavengers. There was still no sign of law enforcement.

  “Don’t let go of my hand,” Demir said. “If we get separated somehow, meet me at the apartment building.”

  Hand in hand, with their free arms held up to shield their heads, Demir and Suzi dashed down the main avenue, past buildings displaying Turkish flags, dodging the broken glass and trying not to trip on bolts of cloth and tangled heaps of garments. They plunged into the first alley. Suzi was limping badly, but they didn’t slow down until they had navigated the maze of narrow streets and reached the building on Grenadier. The front door was locked and covered by the national flag. Demir was reaching into his pocket for his key when he noticed something.

  “Look! Somebody broke Madame’s window.”

  “Thank goodness she wasn’t here. She’d have died of fright.”

  “And thank goodness my parents are staying at the hot springs in Yalova.”

  Demir opened the door. Pushing aside the flag, Suzi stepped inside. She got as far as the stairs before she sat down.

  “I can’t walk another step. It’s too painful.”

  “I’ll carry you.”

  Demir scooped Suzi up into his arms and started climbing the stairs. When they reached the Ellimans’ floor, she said, “Let’s check on Selin and Simon.” Demir gently set her down and rang the doorbell. There was no response. He pressed the button again.

  “Simon! Selin!” Suzi called out.

  A timid voice asked, “Suzi, is that you, dear?”

  “Yes, Auntie Sevim, it’s me. You can open the door.”

  They heard the click of a key, and Sevim Elliman peered out, her face pale, her eyes wide with fright. “Selin and Simon went to the tennis club. I keep calling, but there’s no answer.” She covered her face with trembling hands and started crying.

  “We’ll go find them. Don’t cry, Auntie Sevim,” Suzi said, forgetting all about her foot.

  Demir intervened. “Don’t be ridiculous, Suzi. How can we get there?”

  “The back streets.”

  “No!” Sevim said. “It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you. Rafael called and warned me not to leave the apartment. They looted his shop, too. At least he and his workers made it to the London Hotel. He’s safe. It’s Simon and Selin I’m worried about. If anything happened to them—”

  “They’ll be safe at the tennis club. The management must have locked the doors,” Demir said.

  “What is going on? Why are they doing this?”

  “I don’t know what to say, Auntie Selim. I heard something about Atatürk’s house in Thessaloniki being bombed. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What’s Thessaloniki got to do with my family? We’re Jewish, not Greek. And what difference would it make if we were? Aren’t we all Turkish? Do you know what the building superintendent did? He hung a huge flag—I have no idea where he found it—over the front door and told the pack of criminals trying to break Madame’s window that only Turkish Muslim families lived here. He swore it on the Koran and said a few prayers. Only then did they back off.”

  “Good for Raif Efendi!”

  “I don’t know. Then he grabbed a stick they’d left behind and went over to the corner kiosk—you know, the newspaper place. The next thing I knew, Raif Efendi was smashing their windows. I saw it with my own eyes from my window.”

  “Our Raif Efendi did this?”

  “When he came back, I asked him why. To protect us, he said. He claimed it made him seem more credible.”

  “Has everyone lost their minds?” Demir said. “Ask us in, Auntie Sevim, and we’ll listen to the news together.”

  The radio was already on, but Sevim turned up the volume, and the three of them huddled in front of it. The reporter claimed that students had been protesting the unfortunate incident in Thessaloniki when certain malevolent elements infiltrated their demonstration in order to cause chaos.

  “What do they mean, ‘malevolent elements’?” Sevim asked.

  “It’s probably code for ‘Communists.’ It’s fashionable these days to blame everything on them. Especially now that America has—”

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Sevim interrupted. Her wandering eye had landed on Suzi’s foot. “Surely you know better than to go out in sandals.”

  “I ran out of the house so fast when I heard about Madame.”

  “Ah! Madame!” Sevim cried. “I completely forgot. How is she? How did the operation go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Demir. We need to get going,” Suzi said.

  “Go where, child? Wherever it is, it can wait until tomorrow. Now come along to the bathroom and let me have a look at that foot.”

  “I can have it checked at the hospital,” Suzi said. “We have to go see Madame. I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.”

  It was only after they said good-bye to Sevim Elliman and were in the stairwell that Demir objected.

  “We can’t go anywhere right now, Suzi. Let’s go to my place.”

  “We can try, at least. I have to try.”

  They got only as far as the corner before racing back into the building. If anything, the riot was even worse than before. Suzi took off her sandals and climbed the stairs behind Demir, leaning heavily on the banister and keeping her weight mainly on her toes.

  When they got insi
de his apartment, the curtains were drawn and the shutters closed, just as Demir had left them.

  “My mom and dad couldn’t have chosen a better time to do something about her rheumatism. And it means you and I have the place to ourselves. I’d better call and tell them I’m okay. I’ll try the hospital, too.”

  While Demir was making his calls, Suzi wandered into his bedroom. She pulled back the curtain and looked out at the distant minarets and the Sea of Marmara. As a child, she’d spent many hours playing in this room. Now, she studied it with new interest. She scanned the books on the shelves, the guitar mounted on the wall, the white cotton coverlet on the bed, the jumble of papers on the desk, and the framed collage of childhood photos. In every single one, there Suzi was, right at Demir’s side.

  “Like a slave girl devoted to her master,” she murmured with a smile.

  “Esclave de l’esclave,” Demir said as he walked into the room. “I am the ‘slave of that slave,’ if I can be forgiven for quoting Baudelaire completely out of context. Anyway, your obedient slave and humble servant has just assured his parents that he is well and has learned that Madame’s operation has been postponed until she’s a bit stronger. They gave her painkillers, and she’s sleeping comfortably. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Let’s go and visit her first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “You command. I serve.”

  “Then help me sit down. My foot hurts.”

  “The only comfortable place to sit down in this room is the bed,” Demir said.

  Suzi perched on the end. Demir went to the bathroom and came back with hydrogen peroxide, iodine, tweezers, and some gauze. He sat cross-legged on the floor, her foot in his hand, and removed the last slivers of glass, wiped away the dust and grime with peroxide, and dabbed on disinfectant. When she yelped in pain, he blew on the wounds. Suzi smiled, remembering Demir blowing on her skinned knee when they were little. He once kissed a bee sting on her arm, too.

  “Now that you’ve taken care of me, Madame’s house is next,” Suzi said. “We need to sweep up the broken glass and replace that window. We can’t let her come home to that. Do you have a spare key?”

  “No, but I’m sure Raif Efendi does. I’ll handle it. There are thousands of broken windows in our neighborhood. It’ll take some time, but Madame won’t be home for a few days, at least.”

  “Demir, how am I going to get home?”

  “I don’t know. If things calm down by the evening, I’ll take you. Or you could call your mom and tell her you’re staying here.”

  “She wasn’t there when I left. She’s probably worried sick.”

  Suzi hobbled to the entry hall, patiently waited for a line, and dialed.

  To the torrent of questions from Elsa, she kept replying, in German, “I’m fine, Mutti. I’m fine.” When her mother had calmed down enough to listen, Suzi told her about Madame’s fall and how she left home to meet Demir.

  “Mutti, I’m at the Atalays’ right now,” Suzi said. “We came here when we realized we couldn’t make it to the hospital. I don’t understand why you’re still so panicked. I’m perfectly safe. And Dad will be there soon. Imagine how Auntie Sevim feels. She still hasn’t heard from Simon or Selin. Please stop worrying.”

  Elsa made Suzi promise not to leave the building and told her to spend the night at the Ellimans’ or the Atalays’. Then she asked to speak to Demir.

  “Demir! My mom wants to talk to you.”

  Demir ran into the hall and took the phone. “Auntie Frau, don’t worry. I’ll look after her. She’s not going anywhere. Yes, I promise. She can stay here tomorrow night, too, if things haven’t settled down. Yes, we’ll come and get you before we go visit Madame. No, I don’t understand why this is happening, either. All I know is what I’ve heard on the radio.”

  Demir was four when the Schliemanns moved in. When Elsa was introduced as Frau Schliemann, he’d assumed Frau was her first name and started addressing her in the Turkish style as Auntie Frau. The grown-ups had found it adorable, and the name had stuck.

  “Okay, Auntie Frau. Don’t worry. Suzi’s fine. Yes, you can entrust her to me.”

  He hung up.

  “You call this ‘fine’?” Suzi teased. “My hip’s still throbbing from when you dropped me on the floor, never mind my poor feet.”

  Demir picked up his sacred trust, carried her to the bedroom, and set her gently on the bed. When she pulled him down and buried her face in his neck, he said, “I promised your mom I’d take care of you. We’d better behave ourselves.”

  “Aren’t we engaged now?”

  “Yes. But I’d hate to take advantage of your mother’s trust.”

  “Fine. We’ll be good. Just come and lay down next to me.”

  They lay together in the narrow bed, heads resting on the same pillow, talking all afternoon. They fell asleep in each other’s arms as the sun went down.

  A little while later, when Suzi opened her eyes, the streetlight was glowing and the room was dark. Demir was asleep. Suzi listened to his breathing and gazed at the beloved face resting on the pillow, inches away. She softly kissed the corner of his mouth. Then the other corner. Without opening his eyes, Demir kissed her full on the lips, pulled her close, clasped her tight. Forgetting everything else, they surrendered to the urgency of their love.

  Later, when Demir reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, Suzi said, “Don’t! Turn it off!”

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen you naked before.”

  “You have not!”

  “I remember being in the bathtub with you and Peter when we were still babies. And your mother dunking you in the sea, completely nude, when you were about three or four.”

  “Demir, I’m staying under these covers until you either leave the room or turn off the light,” Suzi said.

  “I’ll get dressed and wait for you in the sitting room. Be quick about it, though. I’m starving. Let’s go down and see if Simon and Selin are back yet.”

  “What if they ask what we’ve been doing?”

  “We’ll say we fell asleep. Why are you looking at me like that? It’s true. We fell asleep and had the best dream of our lives.”

  When they knocked at the Ellimans’, Simon answered the door. The rest of the family was sitting around the dinner table, their food untouched, their faces grim. Rafael Elliman was telling them about the moment his shop window was shattered, how he and a few employees had saved what they could and had run to hide in a nearby hotel.

  Suzi had been a guest at this table so many times, had shared Passover seder meals, had giggled with Selin and kicked Simon under the table, and had fidgeted as she waited for the Haggadah reading to end. The gathering this evening was more like a funeral, a scene of pain and confusion. The radio was still on, and they listened in silence, hoping for an explanation. But nothing made sense.

  After she helped Sevim and Selin clear the table, Suzi called home again and learned her father had arrived safely. Demir had gone home to use his family’s phone. He got back a short time later.

  “Were you able to get through to your parents?” Rafael Elliman asked.

  “I left a message warning them to stay in Yalova until things have settled down. I was able to talk to a friend from the university as well.”

  “What did he say? Does he know anything?”

  “He blames the government. We all expected so much from the Democrat Party, but they have a lot to answer for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some of my friends at the Students Association were involved in planning the demonstrations. They were encouraged to march through the Greek neighborhoods, just to intimidate them, nothing more. But things got out of hand. There have even been attacks on churches and temples and schools. Greek, Armenian—and Jewish. All across the city.”

  “It’s always the minorities who get targeted when nationalism boils over,” Rafael Elliman said. “Don’t forget, President İnönü imposed the wealth tax, a
nd that was back during one-party rule. But minorities suffered the most then, too. Politicians are all the same, whatever party they belong to.”

  “It’s the system,” Demir said. “We’ve come so far, but there’s still a long way to go.”

  Sevim got up to call Elsa. Suzi and Demir pricked up their ears.

  “No, of course it won’t be any trouble for her to stay here, Elsa. Suzi can stay in Selin’s room. Our girls have shared a bed before. I’ll call you again in the morning. Bye for now.”

  Demir caught Suzi’s eye. She shrugged helplessly.

  “Come and have breakfast with us tomorrow morning,” Sevim said to Demir. “Then we can all visit Madame together.”

  However, it would be four days before anyone was able to travel to the hospital. Martial law had been declared. Thousands of rioters were in jail. The streets were swept clean of debris. Reparations were being discussed. And tens of thousands of Greek Turks would soon begin fleeing their city and their homeland for a new life in Greece, a country most of them had never seen.

  Madame lay in one of the hospital room’s three beds. There was an oxygen tube in her nostril and an IV in her right arm. Another tube led to a bottle on the floor. Her face was drained of color, and her eyes were closed.

  “Madame? How are you feeling?”

  Madame blinked at Suzi and managed a weak smile.

  “Demir’s here, too. Along with Auntie Sevim, Selin, Simon, and my mother—they’re waiting in the corridor. We’re all praying for you to get well soon. I’m going to light a candle in church and pray until it burns out.”

  Suzi gently stroked Madame’s hand, which was curled on top of the blanket, its veins visible through tissue-thin skin.

  “I wanted to talk to you alone first,” Suzi said. “I have some news that will make you happy. Demir and I—made up. Not that we exactly had a falling-out. You know what happened. You always said time was precious, and we should never be afraid to show our feelings, that there’s no place for pride in love. Well, you were so right. Demir and I are together now. We love each other.”

  Madame squeezed Suzi’s finger.

  “You know how much you’ve always meant to me,” Suzi said. “I wanted you to know how happy I am. After your operation, when you’re all better, I want you to come with Atalay’s parents to ask my father for my hand. But first, Demir is going to ask you for my hand. You’re part of my family. Demir and I spent so much time in your apartment together. Do you remember how he used to find the chocolate eggs and give them to me? I’ve been in love with him ever since. I haven’t even had a chance to tell my mom, but I’m glad you’re the first to know. I consider you my grandmother.”