第 52 页

“That I can believe. But I wonder how they have been evading the warships?”

“Some people are saying that Sheikh Hamdullah will not participate in the assembly at the State Hall on Friday, Pasha …”

“Why would that be?”

“Everyone knows the rumor that the sheikh has plague, and they’ve heard that the Prince Consort came from the State Hall to visit him.”

“Let them hear it …”

“There’s another rumor too. After the Prince Consort had come all that way to see him, it seems Sheikh Hamdullah imperiously told him ‘The plague could never touch me.’ This story is especially popular with children, but everyone else secretly believes it too. Children also love the Telegraph Raid and the Major.”

“Do you know why all these rumors come about, Marika? Because the Greeks don’t know the Muslims, and the Muslims don’t know the Greeks. They don’t even know what they do inside their churches and mosques. If we are to be one people, these rumors must end.”

“There is also the question of the Prince Consort’s visits to the herbalists. They are all scared of him. They’re worried that he’ll hand them over to the Chief Scrutineer, that they’ll have their feet whipped in the dungeons like the cook’s helpers and be taken to court for selling poison.”

Sami Pasha quickly realized that of all the rumors he had just heard, the only one that had lodged itself in his mind and soul was Sheikh Hamdullah saying, “The plague could never touch me.” He had first heard the claim that the sheikh was ill with plague from Consul George, and he had believed it immediately. Now he wondered if he had been caught in a trap. He thought dispiritedly that Doctor Nuri must have tricked him too, and thus been instrumental in this conspiracy. If he could somehow get back at Sheikh Hamdullah and Consul George for this plot, perhaps the decision to have him dismissed from his post would be reversed!

“I would like to think happier thoughts today, Marika. Let us stop talking about the plague now.”

“As you wish, my lord, but that is all everyone talks about.”

“One day this damnable plague will pass. When it is gone, I will plant trees all over our beautiful Mingheria, particularly palm trees, Bosphorus pines, and acacias. I shall begin making arrangements for a proper wharf to be built where passenger ferries can dock, even if we do not receive any grant from Istanbul. We must be sure to raise the requisite funds not just from the Greeks but from the Muslims too. If we manage to secure the support of the Theodoropouloses and the Mavroyenis, then the Kumaşçızades from Smyrna and Tevfik Pasha’s descendants will be sure to offer donations too.”

“No one loves this island more than you do, my darling Pasha,” said Marika. “How sad it is that they blame you for everything.”

What a wonderful person this Marika was! The Pasha couldn’t imagine life without her. Her loving, compassionate expression was the perfect mirror to her soul; there was not even a single drop of insincerity in this clever woman, and that was another reason why he loved her so much. Sometimes the Pasha would daydream that she was Muslim, and teasingly share his fantasies with her, to which she would playfully respond by pretending she was a harem concubine, arousing and amusing the Pasha with her seductive figure and enormous breasts.

Sami Pasha was beginning to feel restless now with the knowledge that only making love to Marika would rid him of the aching despair and loneliness he was feeling. Of all his traits, his impatience to make love was the one Marika most disliked. But the Pasha did not think he had the strength that evening to entertain Marika with his half-peeved, half-ironic accounts of the municipal government’s latest misadventures.

Eventually, after a long silence, Marika realized this too, so she smiled and moved toward the bed. The Pasha could not have been more grateful. As they made love, his feelings alternated between thankfulness and wonderment. But at the same time he was letting the animal inside of him do as it pleased. Though he hadn’t drunk anything, he felt intoxicated. He had always been particularly engrossed by Marika’s right breast, and now his mouth latched onto its nipple. Tenderly, she stroked his head and his thinning hair, and the Pasha was reminded of his mother and of his childhood. He loved it too when Marika’s soft breasts rubbed against his thick beard. They made love for a long time; the Pasha sweated profusely, and did not notice the mosquito that had landed on his back until the end.

“Something has happened to you today, but I will not ask what,” said Marika later on. “In fact there is something I must tell you about.”

“Please do.”

“They found a bloodied rat corpse in our back garden today,” said Marika. “Last night the fiendish creatures were scuttling around beneath my bed.”

“God damn them!” the Pasha replied.

The Pasha stayed up until dawn to guard Marika’s room. Whether he was dozing on the edge of the armchair, or getting into bed, he managed to stop the rats from attacking Marika. When he got back to the State Hall the next morning, he called upon the municipality for assistance and dispatched two clerks to set up mousetraps and pour rat poison in Marika’s house. The thought that Marika—and indeed he himself—should be made to quarantine, or at least be examined by a doctor, did not even cross his mind.

CHAPTER 47

An average of twenty to twenty-five deaths were being recorded every day during this period, though the bleak consensus was that the true figure must be even higher. Some families were hiding their dead to avoid a visit from the Quarantine Regiment. When there was no prominent bubo on the victim’s neck, people would tell themselves that the patient hadn’t died of the plague at all, but of something else altogether. These same people would go on to spread the disease to others in their neighborhood—at least until there was a second or third death at home.

The morning after the sleepless but happy night he had spent guarding Marika’s home from rats, Sami Pasha learned that the Sühandan had stopped in Smyrna to load medicine and tents and was now on its way to the island. A telegram addressed to the Quarantine Master explained that the ship was bringing supplies, soldiers, and volunteers, their exact numbers listed with the Ottoman registrars’ customary care and precision. At the end of the telegram, Sami Pasha saw another piece of information which destroyed whatever hopes he might have had left: a new governor had now been assigned to Mingheria, and he too was on the Sühandan. This was Ibrahim Hakkı Pasha, a man Sami Pasha had briefly befriended, and whom he considered to be both mediocre and simpleminded. Ibrahim Hakkı Pasha used to work as a clerk in the translation department, which was how Sami Pasha had met him. He would do nothing all day but flatter Abdurrahman Fevzi Pasha, who supervised the clerks. His rank was probably equivalent to that of a major general. So how was he supposed to give orders to the new commander who would come to take over the garrison? Evidently there must be no one left at the palace or in the Sublime Porte with the wherewithal to give these intricate matters of status and rank the thought they deserved. Or maybe they were doing all of this just to spite him!

When reason prevailed over anger and agitation, and he realized that the news of his dismissal must have spread by now and that the decision would not be revoked, Sami Pasha came up with a new plan.

Later that morning, after they had put their green dots on the map in the Epidemiology Room to mark the dead as they did every day, Sami Pasha announced: “Gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you that a handful of palace clerks who believe our quarantine is not succeeding have decided to transfer me to Aleppo.” (In truth, as everyone knew, governors were always appointed directly by Abdul Hamid himself.) “This decision will be reversed. But even if it is not reversed, I shall continue to fulfill my duties with the usual dedication until the new governor is formally installed, and I shall deliver my speech in the State Hall Square on Friday. Let us not forget that those aboard the relief ship must quarantine for five days before they can alight on Mingheria.”

“Travelers coming from ports to the north and west are not subject to quarantine,” said Doctor Nikos.

Was this an innocent remark, or was Doctor Nikos implying that he would no longer follow the Pasha’s orders? The Quarantine Master had seemed to react rather coolly to the news of Sami Pasha’s dismissal.

“These new doctors and this new governor who have no idea what’s going on and don’t know the people of our island will brush our quarantine efforts aside and introduce all sorts of new methods and restrictions,” said Sami Pasha. “More time will be wasted, and of course none of these new measures will work either. Many more people, hundreds more, will die for nothing.”

“Whereas a five-day quarantine would give us the opportunity to prepare for the new measures His Highness the Sultan requests!” said Doctor Nuri.

There is widespread agreement among historians that in that moment, by expressing his support for Sami Pasha’s suggestion to quarantine all passengers on the Sühandan, Doctor Nuri effectively altered the island’s destiny. Some have suggested that he must have been influenced by Princess Pakize’s “suspicions” about Abdul Hamid’s relief ship and by her hostility toward her uncle. Those with a special interest in the history of medicine will note that as far as the integrity of quarantine was concerned, the Doctor and Prince Consort was right.

Ever since quarantine had been introduced, and regardless of whether they were running a fever, all passengers on ships flying the yellow flag and coming to Mingheria from infected ports were being made to isolate for five days in the Maiden’s Tower on the rocky islet near the Arkaz docks. But ships coming from Alexandria and other southern ports were few and far between now. Most of the people in the Maiden’s Tower were quarantining so that they could board a ship leaving Mingheria. Every morning and evening, a little boat would set off from the docks to the isolation facility on this islet, ferrying guards, doctors, and the quarantine officials responsible for the plague suspects who were confined there.

Having decided that the Maiden’s Tower would be the ideal place to keep the passengers of the relief ship Sühandan away from Arkaz and under observation, Sami Pasha summoned the boat foreman Seyit—who had already been tasked with collecting those same passengers—and gave him long and detailed instructions on what he was supposed to do.

The Sühandan was six hours late. Some particularly suspicious historians have been known to imply and at times even openly suggest that this delay was the result of some kind of international conspiracy. In reality the aging ship had been caught in a storm near Rhodes, and one of its weary engines had given out. As soon as the ship was first sighted from hilltop neighborhoods like Upper Turunçlar and Kofunya, people began flocking to the docks to await its arrival. Within an hour, a curious, hopeful crowd had gathered all along the harbor, and especially around the Hamidiye Bridge, the Hotel Majestic, and the Customhouse. A few old men who had come down from Vavla and Turunçlar were pleased that the Sultan had finally sent help from Istanbul. But these were people of that particularly impressionable sort who would shout “Long live the Sultan!” no matter what they endured. Everything that had happened on the island so far was a product of the authorities’ indifference, incompetence, and lack of concern for the public, so most people’s expectations of the relief ship—as indeed of quarantine measures—were low. Some particularly incensed citizens had gone to the docks not because they thought there might be help for them too, or at least a glimmer of hope against the plague, but only to stir up trouble and shout, “What took you so long!” Sami Pasha had sent every single one of his gendarmes to the port. On the Major’s orders, sixteen Quarantine Regiment soldiers under Hamdi Baba’s command had also been stationed at the jetty where the rowboats moored.

When the relief ship Sühandan reached the waters off the Arab Lighthouse, it tooted its horn just as scheduled passenger ferries used to do in the good old days, and the high, plaintive sound echoed twice between the jagged mountains around the capital. Foreman Seyit, who had been waiting near the Customhouse for this signal, and had been told what to do by the Governor, now began rowing out to the ship. His rowboat—whose undulating progress toward the Sühandan was keenly observed by the crowds gathered at the port—carried Quarantine Master Nikos, the young doctor Philippos, four soldiers of the Quarantine Regiment, and a spray-pump crew with tanks full of Lysol on their backs.

Although the Sühandan had sailed from the safe ports of Istanbul and Smyrna, and was not flying the yellow flag, its Italian captain Leonardo raised no objections when he saw who was on the rowboat. He was aware of the terrifying proportions the outbreak had reached upon the island, and that twenty or more people were dying every day. He let the doctors and the Lysol sprayers board his ship.

But Ibrahim Hakkı Pasha was perturbed. “Far be it from us to complain when even Kaiser Wilhelm can be quarantined!” he said when Quarantine Master Nikos came to see him in his cabin, though it should be noted, he continued, that His Supreme Highness did not wish to see these quarantine procedures cause any delay in the new governor taking up his position. (It was customary for the Sultan to meet with every governor and ambassador he appointed before they traveled to their destinations.) It wasn’t long before the group who had just boarded the ship realized that their new governor had arrived with it. The most appropriate response would have been to acknowledge that all jurisdiction now rested with the new governor—even if he did have to quarantine in the Maiden’s Tower—and act accordingly, but that is not what happened.

As the passengers on Seyit’s rowboat climbed onto the relief ship, the crowds watching them from the docks began to sense that there was some kind of disturbance happening on the Sühandan. The new governor Ibrahim Hakkı would not leave his cabin, and was understandably refusing to be put in quarantine. When he had been given his latest orders in Istanbul, he had been told of a fault at the island’s Telegraph Office and of the old governor’s ineptitude, but he had not anticipated that there might be—in the words of conspiracy-minded historians—“a more sinister plot at work.” In the meantime the team with their Lysol pumps had already begun disinfecting the ship. The deck was open and breezy, but there were many other spots shut away behind closed doors that now needed to be sprayed with disinfectant.

It was during this operation that Quarantine Master Nikos noticed signs of illness in one of the volunteers aboard the Sühandan. As would later become apparent, the young man—Yannis Hadjipetros, a first-year student at the Imperial School of Medicine who had volunteered for the mission because his grandfather was Mingherian—actually had diphtheria. But just as some plague patients with buboes on their bodies could still recover from the plague without so much as a raised temperature, others who had no buboes in either their groin area or their armpits had been known to develop sudden fevers and be dead within a couple of days. Yannis Hadjipetros’s fever was thus interpreted as a symptom of plague, and his “diagnosis” served as an additional excuse to quarantine the Sühandan’s passengers for five days before they were allowed to land on the island.