Chapter 24: The Young Turk Revolution

Chapter 24: Chapter 24: The Young Turk Revolution

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 12 June 1908

The news of Reval reached the lane on a Friday, three days late and half wrong.

The King of England and the Tsar of Russia had met in the harbor of that Baltic port, and the coffee houses had decided that they divided Macedonia between them over dinner.

Ayaan listened to this from the doorway of the shop, and he did not correct it.

He was eighteen now, and taller than his father. Seventeen months had passed since he wrote the number in the blue book, and the number had been reduced to a single month.

Mustafa Efendi named this age.

He had not gone to the importer’s house, and he did not intend to go yet. A young man who asked for a daughter in a year of revolutions would be asking for the right thing at the wrong time.

In the shop, Isak Benveniste was bent over the ledgers at the back table, as he was on every Friday. The reserves stood at four months of costs, divided among the strongbox, the chest, and the bank, and Zeynep held a key to each.

The memorandum had been read, and it had accomplished a part of what it asked. In February, the Third Army had received three months of its arrears from the customs of Salonica, and Cevdet had mentioned it without comment.

It was one remedy of three, and it was incomplete.

Tahir Sermet’s letters had come every month, and they were made of figures.

The last, in May, had been a single page of numbers, and beneath them one line.

The patience of the Third Army is a quantity that I can no longer calculate.

Zeynep came in from the lane with a bundle of exercise books and set them on the counter.

"The schools are repeating the Reval story," she said. "The schoolmasters believe that Macedonia is already partitioned."

"It is not."

"It does not need to be, if the officers in Salonica believe that it is." She looked at him. "How long, Ayaan?"

"I believe that it begins in July." He chose the words with care. "I do not know whether it will be as I expect. A great deal has changed since I first began to count."

"You mean that the world has noticed you."

"I mean that a stationer is not a great power, and that I should not like to be surprised."

"Then we shall prepare to be surprised," said Zeynep, and she began to untie the string.

II

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 3 July 1908

The rumor arrived in the lane in the afternoon, and by evening it had been told in forty versions.

A major of the Third Army had taken to the hills near Resne, it was said, with two hundred men and the rifles of his garrison. In one version he had been shot, and in another he had been made a pasha, and in a third he had gone over to the Bulgarians.

Ayaan knew which of the three was nearest the truth, and he said nothing about it.

Resneli Niyazi, 3 July, as I remember it.

It has not changed.

Cevdet came in at closing, and he did not buy paper.

"A major has gone into the hills of Resne," he said, without preamble. "The Palace has not decided how to describe it. The word deserter is under discussion, and so is the word bandit."

"What will the Palace do?"

"It will send a marshal to Monastir, and it will send telegrams, and it will find that the telegrams are answered by officers who have stopped reading them." He turned his hat once in his hands. "I shall be occupied for some weeks, and I wished to say so, in case you wondered at my absence."

"I am grateful, Efendi."

"You are prepared, I think."

"I have tried to be."

"Then I will ask the question that I asked you on the ferry." The dark eyes did not move from his face. "What will you do, when it comes?"

"I will keep the lane fed, Efendi."

"That is not the answer of a conspirator."

"No. It is the answer of a merchant who wishes to have a city to trade in on the day after." Ayaan met the look steadily. "I will do nothing that I could not describe to a magistrate, and I will do everything that I can to see that the bread does not stop."

Cevdet was silent for a moment.

"I find that I have no objection to that answer," he said. "I should be glad if more men gave it."

III

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 10 July 1908

The letter from Monastir came by the hand of a wool merchant, who delivered it in person and refused tea.

Ayaan opened it in the storeroom, with Zeynep beside him, and the date at the head was the seventh.

Hassan Efendi: The marshal is dead. He was shot in the street at midday, in front of his own escort, and the man who fired did not run.

I was forty paces away. I did not fire, and I did not stop it, and I have asked myself since which of the two is the greater fault.

The escort did not pursue. They stood and looked at one another, and then they lowered their rifles.

That is the arithmetic that I send you.

The Third Army will not fire upon its own, and whatever the Palace sends will not be obeyed. T.S.

Zeynep read the letter over his shoulder, and when she had finished she stepped back.

"He writes that he saw a man killed," she said.

"Yes."

"And he writes it as a figure."

"It is how he is able to write it." Ayaan folded the page. "He has been trained to report what he sees, and he has learned that if he reports it plainly, he may sleep afterward."

She was silent for a time.

"Will you answer him?"

"I will answer with what I can." He drew a clean sheet toward him. "I will tell him that the Palace will find the troops in the capital to be paid, and that the first question the Empire asks, on the day after, will be where the money is. He should know that the officers are expected to have an answer."

"And you will not tell him what you think of the man who fired?"

"No. I think that he already knows."

Zeynep took the pen from the stand and held it out to him.

"Write it plainly," she said. "He will read it twice."

IV

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 13 July 1908

Isak Benveniste laid the sheet on the counter before Ayaan and Zeynep, and he cleared his throat before he spoke.

"I have costed the paper that you intend to put before the eight houses," he said. "If flour rises by a fifth in the capital, as it did at the news from Midilli, then holding the price for thirty days will cost the houses together a little over nine hundred liras."

"And the credit to the bakers?"

"Four hundred more, tied up for the month, and recoverable at the end of it if the bakers survive." He turned the sheet. "Your father’s house would bear a fifth of the whole, in proportion to its trade. That is two hundred and sixty liras."

Zeynep read the figure over his shoulder.

"From the reserves," she said.

"From the reserves." Ayaan did not look away. "It is what they are for."

"We sell paper, Ayaan. This is bread."

"The lane does not buy paper when it is hungry."

She considered this, and he saw that she was not objecting but weighing, as she weighed every sum that left the box.

"Then I will set a limit," she said. "Not above a quarter of what is held in gold, whatever happens. And it is to be recorded as a loan to the lane, to be repaid by the end of September, and not as a gift."

"A loan."

"A gift is a thing that people resent. A loan is a thing that people repay, and then they are your equals again." She took the pen from the stand and wrote the terms at the foot of the sheet. "My father will understand it. The others will understand it when they sign."

Isak coughed politely, and returned to his ledger.

V

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 16 July 1908

Mustafa Efendi called the meeting himself, in the back room of his warehouse, and he opened it without ceremony.

Eight men sat on crates and sacks among the lamps and glass. Hovsep Agopian sat beside Stavros Kalfas, and Salih Efendi, who now bought his tea from Mehmet and had begun to call Ayaan young Hassan without irony, had taken the place nearest the door.

Mehmet sat at the back, and he did not speak.

"The lane is frightened," said Mustafa. "I do not need to tell you why. If the army in Macedonia mutinies, there will be a day when the Palace is uncertain, and on that day the prices will rise, and the poor will blame the shopkeeper."

"The poor will be correct to do so," said Stavros dryly. "I have heard three importers say that they will double the price of flour at the first rumor of a disturbance."

"Which is the reason that I called you here." Mustafa nodded to Ayaan. "My neighbor’s son has written something. I wish you to hear it, and then to say what you will."

Ayaan rose, and he did not look at his father.

"It is a short paper, Efendi. It asks eight houses to agree to three things." He read it from the page. "To hold the price of flour, oil, and charcoal at the level of the first of July for thirty days, whatever the disturbance. To extend a month’s credit to the bakers and charcoal sellers of the district, so that no oven in the lane goes cold. And to sign it, each in his own name."

A silence followed.

"I do not trust the Committee," said Stavros Kalfas, who had not signed yet. "I have heard its men say Ottoman in a manner that I did not like."

"Nor do I," said Hovsep quietly. "That is a reason to feed the lane, not to refuse to."

"Hold the price," said Salih. "At a loss, if the cost rises."

"At a smaller profit, if the cost rises, Efendi. Not at a loss, for the cost will not rise as far as the fear suggests." He turned a page. "If the lane eats, the lane remains calm. If the lane remains calm, the shops remain open, and the merchants are paid at the end of the thirty days, with the accounts of the district intact."

"And if the disturbance is greater than you suppose?"

"Then we shall have been the eight houses that did not make it worse." Ayaan looked at them one by one. "I do not ask you to love the Committee, Efendi, or the Palace. I ask you to feed the people who live here."

Hovsep Agopian was the first to speak.

"I will sign," he said. "I have a quantity of flour in the warehouse in Sirkeci that I had intended to sell to Galata at a dearer price. I think that I will sell it here."

"I will sign," said Stavros Kalfas.

Salih Efendi rubbed his beard slowly.

"I called him a boy who tells us to hoard," he said, to the room. "He is the only man in the lane who has been correct three times. I will sign it, and I will be the third."

Mustafa took the pen first, and he signed above the line. The others followed in the order of their seniority, and Ayaan’s father signed last, with his usual small, careful hand.

"Your name is not on it," said Mustafa quietly, as the sheet was passed back.

"The names that the lane trusts are older than mine, Efendi." Ayaan folded the paper. "If my name were at the head, it would be a boy’s proposal, and it would be forgotten by Friday. With yours, it is an agreement between houses."

"You have thought that out."

"I thought it out the night that I wrote it," said Ayaan.

Mustafa looked at him for a long moment, and he made a small sound that was not quite a laugh.

"Eighteen years old," he said. "I begin to feel that I have been outwitted by a young man who does not wish to win."

VI

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 21 July 1908

On Tuesday morning, a well-dressed wholesaler from Unkapan? walked into Hovsep Agopian’s warehouse and offered to buy every sack of flour in it.

His name was Rafet Bey, and he brought a clerk and a bag of gold. He offered double the price of the first of July.

"I am sorry, Bey Efendi," said Hovsep. "The flour is promised."

"Triple, then."

"It is promised to the bakers of the district, at the price that is written on the paper." Hovsep glanced toward the door. "I have signed it, and I am not at liberty to sell."

Rafet Bey smiled. He had a smooth, patient face, and he had tried the same offer at three other warehouses before this one.

"A paper," he said. "A paper signed by a few shopkeepers, in a week when no one knows who governs the Empire."

Ayaan, who had come down the lane with the bakers’ credit book under his arm, arrived in the doorway at that moment.

"The paper is not the only thing that is written, Bey Efendi," he said.

The wholesaler turned, and the smile took in the young man’s age and the plainness of his coat.

"And who are you?"

"Ayaan Hassan, of the house of Mehmet Hassan. I keep the accounts for the eight houses." He laid the credit book on a crate and opened it. "Last Thursday, each of them signed a contract with the bakers of the district, for the whole of its flour, at the price of the first of July, for thirty days. Here are the contracts, and here are the bakers’ marks."

Rafet Bey read the first page, and his smile became thinner.

"Contracts," he said.

"They are witnessed, and they are registered with the quarter’s magistrate, as a matter of precaution. Hovsep Efendi cannot sell you his flour, because he has already sold it, in law." Ayaan closed the book. "It would be an offense to the bakers, and a breach for him, and it would be known in every oven in the lane by tonight."

"You are very careful for a boy."

"I was taught by someone who does not trust goodwill, Bey Efendi." "I have noticed that a promise lasts only as long as the fear that surrounds it. A contract lasts as long as the court."

The wholesaler picked up his bag and handed it to his clerk. He did not hurry.

"You are making enemies, young man."

"I have noted it, Efendi."

"I do not think that you have." Rafet Bey paused at the door. "A great many men intend to profit from the next month. Not all of them are as patient as I am."

He went out into the lane, and the clerk followed him.

Hovsep let out a long breath.

"I would have been tempted," he said. "Triple the price, in gold, in a week of uncertainty. I would have been tempted, Ayaan, and I would have sold."

"That is why there is a contract, Efendi. It is not for the men who would refuse. It is for the ones who might waver."

Hovsep looked at him, and then he laughed, shortly, and shook his head.

"I think that you have made me honest by law," he said. "It is more than my father ever managed by prayer."

VII

Constantinople, Galata Bridge — 23 July 1908

By evening, the bridge was crowded from end to end, and no one on it was moving.

The word had come from Salonica in the afternoon. The Third Army had sent a telegram to the Palace, and it had said, in plain words, that the Constitution of 1876 must be restored, and that if it were not, the army would march.

Ayaan stood with Zeynep at the rail on the Galata side, and the lamps were being lit along the water.

"Everyone is waiting," she said.

"They are waiting for a telegram from a man in a palace on a hill."

"Will it come?"

"Yes." He said it quietly. "I believe that it will come tonight."

"You believe it, or you remember it?"

It was the nearest she had come to the question, and he did not pretend not to hear it.

I do remember. I have remembered it for eighteen years, and I have told no one.

"I believe it, and I have reasons that I could write in a column," he said. "The army will not fight its own officers. The Palace knows that it has no other army. And the Sultan does not refuse what he cannot afford to refuse."

"That is a fine sentence."

"It is one that I have thought about for a long time."

Zeynep did not press him, and he was grateful.

A hand touched Ayaan’s sleeve, and he turned to find Cevdet beside him, without a hat, with the dust of a long day on his coat.

"I have a little time," said the scarred man. "I wished to tell you, before you hear it from the crowd, that the decision has been made."

"Tonight?"

"The decree will be read in the morning. The Sultan has agreed that the Constitution shall be restored and that Parliament shall be summoned." The scar creased. "He did not agree easily. He did agree soon enough."

"And the Sultan remains."

"He remains. No one has asked him to go." Cevdet looked out at the water. "I have a particular reason for relief, young Hassan, and it is not that I love the Committee."

"I understand, Efendi."

"I believe that you do." He turned to go. "Look after your lane tomorrow. I think that it will be a long day."

He was gone in the crowd before Ayaan could answer.

Zeynep took his arm, and Ayaan found that his hands were not quite steady.

He had known this night for as long as he had known anything. It was strange to stand in it and discover that knowing had not made it lighter.

She looked at the lamps on the water, and for the first time in a long while she did not say anything at all.

VIII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 24 July 1908

The guns began at dawn, and they did not stop for an hour.

By eight, the decree had been read at every corner of the city. By nine, the lane was full of people who had left their shops open and their work unfinished and had come out simply to stand in the street.

No window had been broken in Emin?nü. At the bakeries, the ovens were hot, the price of bread had not risen by a para, and a paper with eight signatures was pinned to the door of Mustafa Efendi’s warehouse.

Ayaan stood on the step of the shop and watched the crowd.

He saw a cloth merchant from Galata embrace a porter whom he did not know. He saw a Greek priest and an imam shake hands in the middle of the lane, and a boy in a school uniform shouting a word in Turkish and again in Armenian.

Liberty, equality, fraternity, justice.

The words were chalked on a wall across from the shop, in a child’s careful hand.

Hovsep Agopian came up the lane with Mustafa Efendi on one arm and Stavros Kalfas on the other. The Armenian’s face was wet, and he was not ashamed of it.

"My father would not have believed it," he said, when he reached the step. "I stood in Sirkeci this morning and a policeman saluted me."

"I am glad, Efendi."

"I am afraid to be glad." Hovsep laughed unsteadily. "But I will be afraid tomorrow. Today I will be glad."

Salih Efendi had climbed on a barrel at the end of the lane and was making a speech that no one heard. He did not appear to mind.

Zeynep came out of the shop with her hair loose from its pins, and she stood beside Ayaan on the step.

"Look at them," she said.

"I am looking."

"You are not smiling."

"I am smiling." He did, and she saw that it was real. "I am also counting."

"Of course you are." She leaned her shoulder against his, briefly. "What are you counting?"

"The days between this morning and the first day that the treasury is asked to pay for it." He said it softly, so that only she could hear. "A constitution is a promise. The promise is easy to make on the first day."

In my first life, he did this, and he was deposed in April 1909.

Nine months. They begin this morning.

He did not say it, and Zeynep did not ask. Across the lane, the crowd took up a cry that rose and rolled into the next street, and it was a name, and the name was the Sultan’s.

Padi?ah?m ?ok ya?a.

Ayaan found that he had said it aloud, with the rest, and that he meant it more than he had expected.

At noon, a boy from the telegraph office came running up the lane with a slip of paper for the shop. It had been sent from Monastir, and it was one word long.

Hürriyet. T.S.

IX

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 26 July 1908

Mustafa Efendi’s servant came on Sunday morning with a message that Ayaan was to come that evening, alone, in his good coat.

He wore the coat, and it was a little short in the sleeve.

The importer received him in the small study with the lamp, as he had two years earlier, and he did not ask him to sit.

"You are eighteen," said Mustafa.

"Since January, Efendi."

"I have counted the months myself." The grave face did not alter. "I told you once that you might speak to me again when you were eighteen, and that I would not wish you to speak sooner."

"I remember, Efendi."

"I have been watching for two years." Mustafa laid his hands flat on the desk. "I have seen a boy keep his promises to my daughter when keeping them was inconvenient. I have seen him write a paper that eight houses signed, and I have seen him decline to put his name at the head of it."

Ayaan said nothing. He did not trust his voice.

"I do not know what the next years will bring. No one does, though you appear to know more than you say." The merchant’s eyes were steady. "You may speak, Ayaan Hassan. I am prepared to listen."

It was the beginning of a conversation that would take most of the evening, and when it ended, the lamp had burned low and Emine Han?m had twice brought tea.

He did not ask for Zeynep’s hand, and he said so.

"I will not ask for her, Efendi. I will ask your permission to ask her, because the answer is hers to give, and not yours or mine."

Mustafa’s expression was grave, and in it there was something close to pride.

"She decided two years ago, and she has told me so. But you are correct that it should be asked." He nodded once. "You have my permission. Ask her yourself."

He walked back through the quiet lane in the dark, and he did not remember the walk.

On the step of the shop, a folded paper had been pushed under the door. It was in a hand that he knew, and it was not Tahir’s.

A reader has asked who wrote the Reckoning, and I have told him.

He said nothing for some time, and then he said that I should bring the author to him when the noise has ended.

I do not know how long that will be. C.

Ayaan read it twice by the light of the lane’s single lamp.

Then he went inside and lit the candle, and he took the blue book from beneath the counter, and he opened it to a clean page.

He did not write a number. For the first time since the January of 1906, there was nothing left to count toward.

The noise has begun, he wrote instead. Now it must be made to end in something.