Read Online Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernières - Free Book Online
Authors: Louis De Bernières
Ads: Link
at Salonika railway station with his poetic friend Ömer. There is more war fever, and troops are being entrained. There is a party of dervishes in their long pointed hats and voluminous robes, overblowing on their shawms and neys, crashing their cymbals and thrashing their drums, salivating, screaming, rolling their eyes. All around them the ordinary folk are falling into the contagious hysteria, crying out, swooning, in an ebullition of fanaticism.
Mustafa Kemal sees this and feels a bitter shame and embarrassment on behalf of his people. The blood rises to his cheeks, and anger to his throat. He divines clearly the advanced symptoms of spiritual and philosophical immaturity, he smells a repellent backwardness, a radical irrationality and credulity which is only just beneath the surface, and he is increasingly convinced that it is Islam that is holding his people back, locking them behind the door that separates the medieval from the modern age. He will never understand why it is that so many of them actually like to be there, locked behind that door, enwombed within their tiny horizon, perpetually consoled and reassured by their tendentious but unchanging certainties.
CHAPTER 10
How Karatavuk and Mehmetçik Came to Be Called Karatavuk and Mehmetçik
“I bet that my father is stronger than yours,” said Mehmetçik, who at that time was known to everyone by his real name, which was Nicos.
“Oh do you?” replied Karatavuk, whose real name was Abdul. “My father is stronger than your father and all your uncles put together. In fact, when there was an earthquake he stood in the doorway of the house and held it up all by himself, for two whole days.”
Mehmetçik frowned sceptically. “What earthquake?”
“Before we were born, stupid.”
“Don’t call me stupid, stupid.”
“Why not, stupid, if you are stupid?”
“My sisters are stupid,” confided Mehmetçik, “all they do is whisper together, and then when anyone else comes into the haremlik they pretend to be busy.”
“Everyone says that your sister Philothei is very beautiful,” said Karatavuk, “but I haven’t noticed myself.”
“She’s the most beautiful in the world,” replied his friend, “and when she’s grown up she’s going to marry the Sultan Padishah himself, and she’s going to send us money and sweets from Constantinopoli.”
“Ibrahim won’t like that,” giggled Karatavuk. It was a shared joke among everybody that little Ibrahim was besotted with Philothei even though they were less than ten years old. Philothei ignored him, as though he were a stray dog hoping for a pat on the head, but she had become used to his silent and respectful adoration, feeling uncomfortable without it, should she pass from one house to another and fail to glimpse him trailing in the distance, as often as not pretending to be poking in corners with a stick, affecting to have no interest in her whatsoever.
“Let’s go and look at the Dog,” suggested Mehmetçik. “If we take him a present he might smile.”
Karatavuk shuddered.
“Come on,” persisted Mehmetçik, “let’s.”
The children were no different from everyone else in their continued and insatiable fascination for the Dog. If the Dog had taken up residence in the Lycian tombs with the intention of living as an anchorite, then those intentions had definitely been confounded. Apart from anything else, the tombs were considered to be haunted, and even the bravest regarded them with superstitious dread. It was true that the Lycian inscriptions were said to speak of the whereabouts of hidden treasure, but only half of the alphabet was Greek, and the other letters had fallen out of use so long ago that not even Abdulhamid Hodja had any idea what their sounds were. Those who pored over the epitaphs and the other messages to posterity that were engraved on the stones came away frustrated, having been unable to concentrate in any case, on account of the fear of ghosts.
The Dog,
Mustafa Kemal sees this and feels a bitter shame and embarrassment on behalf of his people. The blood rises to his cheeks, and anger to his throat. He divines clearly the advanced symptoms of spiritual and philosophical immaturity, he smells a repellent backwardness, a radical irrationality and credulity which is only just beneath the surface, and he is increasingly convinced that it is Islam that is holding his people back, locking them behind the door that separates the medieval from the modern age. He will never understand why it is that so many of them actually like to be there, locked behind that door, enwombed within their tiny horizon, perpetually consoled and reassured by their tendentious but unchanging certainties.
CHAPTER 10
How Karatavuk and Mehmetçik Came to Be Called Karatavuk and Mehmetçik
“I bet that my father is stronger than yours,” said Mehmetçik, who at that time was known to everyone by his real name, which was Nicos.
“Oh do you?” replied Karatavuk, whose real name was Abdul. “My father is stronger than your father and all your uncles put together. In fact, when there was an earthquake he stood in the doorway of the house and held it up all by himself, for two whole days.”
Mehmetçik frowned sceptically. “What earthquake?”
“Before we were born, stupid.”
“Don’t call me stupid, stupid.”
“Why not, stupid, if you are stupid?”
“My sisters are stupid,” confided Mehmetçik, “all they do is whisper together, and then when anyone else comes into the haremlik they pretend to be busy.”
“Everyone says that your sister Philothei is very beautiful,” said Karatavuk, “but I haven’t noticed myself.”
“She’s the most beautiful in the world,” replied his friend, “and when she’s grown up she’s going to marry the Sultan Padishah himself, and she’s going to send us money and sweets from Constantinopoli.”
“Ibrahim won’t like that,” giggled Karatavuk. It was a shared joke among everybody that little Ibrahim was besotted with Philothei even though they were less than ten years old. Philothei ignored him, as though he were a stray dog hoping for a pat on the head, but she had become used to his silent and respectful adoration, feeling uncomfortable without it, should she pass from one house to another and fail to glimpse him trailing in the distance, as often as not pretending to be poking in corners with a stick, affecting to have no interest in her whatsoever.
“Let’s go and look at the Dog,” suggested Mehmetçik. “If we take him a present he might smile.”
Karatavuk shuddered.
“Come on,” persisted Mehmetçik, “let’s.”
The children were no different from everyone else in their continued and insatiable fascination for the Dog. If the Dog had taken up residence in the Lycian tombs with the intention of living as an anchorite, then those intentions had definitely been confounded. Apart from anything else, the tombs were considered to be haunted, and even the bravest regarded them with superstitious dread. It was true that the Lycian inscriptions were said to speak of the whereabouts of hidden treasure, but only half of the alphabet was Greek, and the other letters had fallen out of use so long ago that not even Abdulhamid Hodja had any idea what their sounds were. Those who pored over the epitaphs and the other messages to posterity that were engraved on the stones came away frustrated, having been unable to concentrate in any case, on account of the fear of ghosts.
The Dog,
Similar Books
