Birds Without Wings (76 page)

You know what annoyed me most about this song? It was the line about the fez disappearing. I watched a jaunty company of evzones marching up the rue Franque, and they were singing their hearts out, and it was this very song they were singing, and I thought to myself, “And what exactly
are those evzones wearing on their heads? Ladies and gentlemen, the headgear of an evzone is unmistakably a fez.” Of course the result of all this jubilant and thoroughly public crusading imperialism was that every self-respecting Turk hid his money, got his gun out of the cupboard and disappeared. The wind got sown, and here we all are, grimly reaping the whirlwind.

When Stergiadis turned up, that was all very well, and it was good to have Smyrna at peace again. But I am a merchant; I had to travel a great deal throughout the vilayet of Aidin and the sanjak of Smyrna. Things got desperate for me almost immediately. We had bandits coming over from Mytilene, whole villages wiped out in reprisal for the murder of one gendarme, a massacre at Menemem, where the rayahs painted white crosses on their doors so that the troops would know which households to exterminate, officials going round forcing Turks to sign documents stating their delight about being occupied, soldiers taking away hunting rifles that were held under legitimate licence, the whole population of Karatepe getting locked into the mosque and burned to ash, soldiers parading about with fezzes and kalpaks on their bayonets, stealing everything, including the dirty handkerchiefs of Turks, gathering menfolk into mosques on the pretext of delivering a proclamation, whilst their valiant comrades raided their homes and molested the women, setting fire to houses to burn out snipers, imposing frequent roll-calls that made agriculture impossible, setting fire to the Turkish quarter at Aidin and putting machine guns in the minarets so that they could get anyone who preferred not to burn, the 8th Cretan Regiment embellishing daily its reputation for hooliganism, a tidy massacre at Ahmetli, rayah civilians being armed with weapons taken from Turkish barracks, Turks being charged fifteen piastres for the privilege of being compelled to buy rosettes and shout “Zito Venizelos!,” looting the office of the Italian Major Carrossi, who happened to be the Allied inspector of the gendarmerie, the usual impromptu Caesarean operations upon pregnant women, the usual amputation of body parts, the breaking of teeth, the ransoming of horses, the use of villagers as draught animals, the usual violation and defenestration of girls, the entertaining of idle troops by letting them take potshots at muezzins calling the azan from the balconies of minarets, the beating up of Turks who failed to go into mourning on the solemn occasion of King Alexander’s death from a monkey bite, the shooting of tradesmen who insisted upon piastres instead of drachmas, the knocking down of a man and the putting of a foot in his crotch in order to expedite the removal of his boots, the burning of every
town and village on the army’s precipitate and humiliating retreat … Oh, indeed, an infinity of errors great and small, constituting the bitter reality of the glittering redemption of Constantinople and the Asia Minor Greeks from the cruel and barbarous infidel Turk.

And then the triumphant and vengeful troops of Mustafa Kemal turn up, hordes of chettas mixed up with smart regulars, and they crucify priests or garrotte them with knotted cord, and they violate and defenestrate even the sweetest virgins, and they pour petrol on to those trying to flee in boats, and they seal off the Armenian quarter in the interests of their own entertainment, and then the city goes up in flames, and the identical catalogue of atrocity happens all over again, but now it’s Turkey for the Turks, and it’s let’s redeem Asia Minor from the cruel and barbarous infidel Greek. Well, what can I do, except doff my hat, make my salaams, and say, “Gentlemen, fuck you all!”? I am at the bottom of the harbour, my house and warehouses and Rosa’s whorehouse have all burned down, my money is in Alexandria, and there is a wall of flame two miles long and a throng of desperate humanity on the waterfront, waiting for the Allies to bring their ships in and rescue them, which they gallantly show no sign of doing.

I will tell you the one cruelty that offended me the most, since time is short, even though time seems to stretch to infinity when one is drowning, and I am indeed scarcely aware of my body now that I am bumping gently up and down on the seabed.

I had a client in Yeniçiftlik. His name was Kara Osman Zade Halid Pasha. He was a very important man, a man with dignity, and, if this means anything to you at all, the very best kind of Turk. It was a long journey, but I had to go out to see him on account of a shipment of figs. I found him dead at his house, with thirty-seven bayonet wounds, and without his nose, lips, eyes and ears. These items were removed from his head, which was in turn removed from his body. I had known Kara Osman for a very long time, but even I had trouble recognising him. I was only sure it was him when I saw that he was wearing his favourite silk shirt.

I looked down on his remains for some time, and I couldn’t help the tears coming to my eyes, even though I did manage to conquer the urge to be sick. I did in fact owe him some money, but despite this I felt no relief about his death whatsoever. I was stunned by it, and I didn’t understand it. I went to an officer nearby, and I could hardly speak, but I said to him, “You’ve killed Kara Osman Pasha.”

This officer had a cutesy military moustache to which I took an instant
and unconquerable dislike. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow, and in response to my observation replied coolly, “So?”

I felt rage coming over me, and I couldn’t restrain myself. I said, “You’re a cunt.” And then I turned and walked away, back to my horse, and I didn’t see his reaction at all. I was expecting to get a bullet in my back, but nothing happened, and now, when I think of it, I realise it was the bravest thing I ever did.

I wish I’d had the sense to scamper off to Eskibahçe. I could have had a little holiday in the Italian sector. I could have built a neoclassical archway to go with the pump house. I could have repaved the meydan. I could have paid for a clapquack to look after the girls in the cathouse. But it’s all dreaming now. My sight is fading, but it’s dark anyway. I didn’t know there were crayfish here in the harbour. I prefer the Atlantic lobster, really. I have become unaware of my body. I am already too dead to be worried about dying.

Georgio P. Theodorou, merchant and philanthropist, wishes you all a watery farewell. I would give you a wave but I don’t know where my hand is, and more than likely you’re not even there, whoever you are or aren’t. Farewell Smyrna, farewell Rosa’s, farewell my friends, farewell Lloyd George and Venizelos and all the other fuckwits, farewell my worldly goods, farewell even to myself. I just wish I didn’t have to die with that stupid song about the fez going round and round in my head.

CHAPTER 86

Mustafa Kemal (22)

It takes only a month for Mustafa Kemal to outwit and outface the British. He knows that the French and the Italians are happy to give him what he wants, which is the withdrawal of foreign troops from Thrace and Istanbul, and he himself is happy to guarantee passage for all ships bound through the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. His troops are now marching on the Dardanelles and on Istanbul. In Smyrna, which soon will become known as Izmir, Mustafa Kemal meets the woman he will ultimately marry, but unfortunately for both of them, her character will turn out to be just as strong as his.

Lloyd George announces in Cabinet that he will stand up to Mustafa Kemal, and Winston Churchill, ever warlike, wants to send an expeditionary force. New Zealand is the only Ally that feels like helping, however. Mustafa Kemal succeeds in convincing the French High Commissioner that he will be unable to restrain the victorious march of his troops on Istanbul, afterwards confessing to a journalist that he has no idea where his troops actually are. The French and Italians withdraw ships sent to help the British, and Lord Curzon goes poste-haste to Paris, where he has a bitter row with Poincaré that leaves him weeping. Turkish cavalry forces the British behind their defences at Çanakkale, but no shots are fired. It is during this time that Turkish officers come and borrow barbed wire from the British, on the gentlemanly understanding that they will return it when the crisis is over.

The French agree a plan with Kemal that gives him everything he wants, but the British are unaware of it. They decide to present him with an ultimatum, but General Harrington decides that it is better not to deliver it. He knows that he cannot defeat Mustafa Kemal when he has only a few thousand men. Poincaré is most relieved, and Lloyd George is furious, but in the end everything is smoothed over when armistice discussions
are put in place. Ismet Pasha is a leading negotiator, and, since he is partly deaf, he simply pretends not to hear anything uncongenial or awkward.

In Greece, the fickle people turn against King Constantine, whom they had welcomed back with such excess of joy only a short time before. They suddenly remember how much they used to hate him, and now they blame him for losing the war started by his greatest enemy, Eleftherios Venizelos. Constantine abdicates in favour of his eldest son, and will die in exile in Sicily within four months, a broken and heartbroken man. He has learned the bitter lesson of all Greek royalty, which is that it is better to mourn in exile than to reign at home, because the Greek people will only ever treat a king as if he is a president.

General Hazianestis and five ministers are put on trial and condemned to be stripped of their rank and shot. Rather than be degraded by anyone else, General Hazianestis strips his own insignia from his uniform before boldly stepping out to face the firing squad. His legs are firm beneath him, and do not, after all, turn out to have been made of glass or sugar. His execution and those of his comrades provoke outrage in the rest of the world, because it is obvious that they have been made scapegoats. Venizelos reappears, inexplicably disculpated, and the new military junta in Greece announces its intention to retain Thrace. Only Lloyd George has any patience with this vain ambition.

Kemal continues to threaten the Allies with war, and finally he gets his way. Eastern Thrace is to be Turkish after all. Its large Greek population leaves amid the usual heart-rending and pathetic scenes, the usual deaths on the roadsides, and it will be many years before it is replaced by Turkish refugees from Bulgaria and Greece, who will also have endured long and desperate treks from their homelands.

History begins again. The disastrous Lloyd George falls from power, and Winston Churchill loses office. Mustafa Kemal commences the construction of an entirely new country. He abolishes the sultanate, and then the caliphate. He sets up a secular constitution. He changes the alphabet from Arabic to Roman, thereby inadvertently ensuring that almost no future historians will really be able to understand the disordered archives left over from Ottoman times. He establishes equal rights for women, and outlaws both the veil and the fez. He sets up entire industries. He puts in motion events that are planned to lead to a Western-style liberal democracy just as soon as he dies, in which event he considers that he will automatically lose interest in holding on to personal power.

Mustafa Kemal also signs up to the Treaty of Lausanne, one of whose provisions is that almost all Turkish Christians, regardless of which language they speak, will be removed to Greece. Another provision is that almost all Greek Muslims, whether of Greek or Turkish origin, and regardless of which language they speak, will be removed from Greece and sent to Turkey. The criteria are explicitly religious rather than ethnic, and in the interests of preventing future strife it looks like a good idea, until one takes into account the innocent people concerned.

One day in Turkey they will call it “The Demographic Catastrophe,” because it is the Christians who know how to get everything done. Turks are soldiers and peasants and landowners, but Christians are merchants and craftsmen. Their loss will delay economic recovery for decades.

In Greece they call it “The Asia Minor Catastrophe.” Those who leave will forever feel that they have been arbitrarily thrown out of paradise. One and a half million of them arrive in Greece, causing the utmost difficulty for a government trying to accommodate and incorporate them. They bring with them their education, their sophistication, their talents, their nostalgia, and a music that will turn out to be rembetika. They also bring with them their absolute destitution and sense of injustice, and this will contribute perhaps more than anything else to the rise of communism in Greece, which will in turn lead to the Greek civil war.

In Turkey, committees are sent out to all the places where there are Christian communities. Their job is to assess the value of property so that it can be sent ahead, or its value reimbursed to the refugees on arrival. There is no transport provided, however, simply because Turkey has nothing left after the decade of war, and the goods will not arrive. For many of the refugees it turns out to be yet another death march.